September 2003 Journal

Mom got the time difference screwed up and called at 4:30 or so in the morning. I didn't know the time, of course, I barely managed to figure out it was the phone, where I was sleeping, where the door was, how to get out the door, how to get to the phone and to answer. She must have let it ring a lot, though, cause I am sure I wasn't very fast! It was a strange conversation, I was freezing cause I had sweat soaked into my t-shirt (Karjam had been curled up with me and he's like a heater blanket) and no pants on, and no glasses on, which makes it hard for me to think. I'm still not sure if I did more than just answer her questions. Did I ask her how she's been? I hope so! So, yes, mom was my first international call. Yay for moms! They rock the world and mine is the best, anywhere.

Too sad. Karjam left for Beijing... I knew he was leaving the moment I woke up and I got most of my crying done still in bed while holding him (and he sang to me, which he always does... it's like traveling with your own personal concert). Ten days together... we really got used to being together. I had fitted him out with two sentence structures and lots of examples (explaining how things change between verb and noun and question and statement) and several lists of words during the time we were together, and sent him on the train with a fresh list- all words I could use in sappy love sentences. (Hug, Touch, Dream, Kiss etc.). We ate yesterday's leftovers for breakfast, with some fruit and tea. My head was no longer splittingly painful, and though I am coughing a little, I seem to be past most of whatever had hold of me. Fortunate, since in the morning I was bleeding like a stuck pig, seriously I went through two super plus tampons, completely, all the way to bloody underwear in less than an hour and a half! (Cringe, men, cringe!) We took photos together, of course, before he left.

At twelve we left for the train station, stopping to buy him some "off the cart pre-prepared standard oily Chinese dishes" with rice, and some hwa-juan. At the train station I luckily remembered to find a schedule. It only shows trains that come through Lanzhou, but probably that's all I need, right? We sat head to head and talked. He offered for us to have a small wedding. He asked how many of my friends and family would come. I think he was surprised when I said 10-15. I mean, it's the middle of nowhere in China, what does he expect? I'd be doing good to get three of my family members, and I know darn well that my best friends La (planning arrival of second child while her husband pays off the mortgage) and Kimberly (starting grad school in a few months in Australia) are not going to have the kind of funds that allow anyone to be winging off to rural China. So that leaves who? Perhaps I could get some photographer friends to come because of the photographic opportunities and already being within cheap travel distance (lots of Internet photo friends in SE and East Asia). I'd also get some of my co-workers and soon-to-be Lanzhou friends. Anyone else that came would be a bonus! So, anyway, he offered. But I know in his heart he'd feel more married if he did it the "usual" way. I pointed out we have to get married twice anyway (embassy wedding and invitational wedding). So he may go with embassy wedding sooner (on a false birth certificate that has him as either one or two years and a couple months and some odd days older than he is)(it was based on Jabu's birth certificate, as he doesn't have one, and it shows Jabu's birthday, just like his ID does). (I found out funnily enough that he has a good reason to call Jabu his older brother. Jabu is the son of his aunt on his father's side and his uncle on his mother's side. So those two families married twice! That's so neat! His new favorite plan is for us to work really hard in another country for six months, then chill out in Maqu and Ahwencang for six months (every year). So he wants me to come up with where would be the best for both of us. I keep saying China, but he doesn't want to be in China all the time. So I finally admitted probably Canada, West Coast. Close to home for me, but in an immigrant friendly country with Asian Vancouver right there. Still no idea what he could do for work, though. Tibetan traditional singers and dancers are not in high-demand across the globe!

Once on the platform he put his stuff at his seat and came back out and we talked a bit more. I leaned over and whispered "I love you" in Amdowan and he was all like, hey they don't know, say it aloud! And so we said it even a bit loudly several times for the freedom of it. It's silly they don't know considering this is freaking the border of Amdo, though. I like to know how to say "I love you" in many languages! He had tried to make me promise I wouldn't cry, and I wouldn't promise, but in fact all I did was tear up (and turned away and said "basketball, bounce, boxes of bread" like ten times, until I was under control). I was much better than one girl next to me, she was crying so bad her face was red and splotchy! Besides, when I teared up he was already inside and looking out through the sealed windows (AC car) so maybe he didn't know (I doubt it). I smiled really hard and was all like touch my heart and blow-kiss and that. And we waved a lot when he was receding and I watched till the train rounded the corner. I walked away kind of happy. Happy for him to be on his way, and for us to be so much in love.

I walked all the way to campus and went to Mina's old office (now she's in Yuzhong) to ask her old co-worker (in charge of exchange students) whether they needed my passport yet to make my work visa. So she directed me to Deputy Director Liu who thanked me for thinking ahead, and I handed it over and went back and demonstrated to Ms. Exchange that I can speak some Chinese and we talked about which countries the exchange students were coming from and how many Koreans and then two Koreans showed up, so I chatted with them. While I was chatting Ms. Yoo came in and a little later Mina. Who mentioned not having had lunch. Neither had I, so I asked her out. She was full of complaints about Yuzhong food and the water, even. We talked about Karjam and I told her I thought that she'd had so many no-show teachers because of the recruiter, "Nancy" they'd used. I dealt with Mina and Dep. Dir. Liu the whole time, but everyone else it seems went through Nancy and they all complained that she was flaky and didn't answer questions. So I think teachers who have experience and know Chinese jobs sometimes are bad didn't show up because of "Nancy's" shady behaviour. Mina seemed really stressed. Then just after our food had arrived, she started getting phone calls after phone call and making some, too. Eventually Geraldine called. Geraldine in the only foreign teacher I haven't met. She's Australian, and I've seen her cover letter. She came to study Chinese, a short time later started teaching, and has been doing so for a year and a half. She was in Beijing. There must be a reason why Lanzhou for her, because she arrived a month ago and hung out with Chinese friends the whole time, moved to Yuzhong campus earlier than the other teachers and etc. I'll bet she's got a Lanzhou Man. Anyway, her voice came over Mina's cell so loud I could hear the tone quite well. It was not friendly or reasonable. She was berating Mina. Who was all "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll call around and get back to you soon." for a good ten minutes before Geraldine let her off the phone. Apparently Geraldine took off for the weekend (to Lanzhou) leaving her key with Mina's co-worker, asking the door to her room to be fixed. It was, but Mina didn't know Geraldine would be back today (or that boss was summoning her to the Main Campus) so the key was locked in Mina's room. Maybe Geraldine told the co-worker when she'd be back. Who knows. Anyway, it was 3:50 p.m...., the poor woman still hasn't had her lunch and she's making and taking fifteen phone calls to get the key to this woman. Now I understand why Geraldine was upset, but surely she could have been nice about it! What's the big deal to have to wait another thirty minutes when there has been this easily understood mix-up? Mina confessed that she felt Geraldine was a bit hard to deal with and mumbled something about checking references next time, at least when they are in China. I could tell Mina was really overwhelmed in general, so I grabbed her hand and told her to try to enjoy her job and remember everyone doesn't remember that she's juggling so many balls and she totally started crying! I told her she can call me when she's having a hard time understanding someone's behaviour and I can help her understand the cultural differences and I also reminded her that I was now ready to cook her a great dinner, just to call ahead and let me know she'd be coming and I'd make her as good a meal as I can with only one burner. I also reminded her that in a couple of weeks all these initial problems will be ironed out. At Yuzhong they have Geraldine and Robert F. (Canadian) teaching the English majors, and Gavin and Rob R. (long hair) are teaching sophomores. Tom, Melody, Dave and Sarra are teaching the freshmen (so they haven't started yet). I think they should've stuck experienced Melody on the English majors, or at least the sophomores. They'll soon know their error if they observe classes though, it's obvious Melody is a proud ESL professional, serious about teaching and not shy in front of her class.

After I left Mina I walked (using the map Marie gave me cause her friend wrote "Wushu" on it to mark the martial arts places) towards the Wushu place that sounded more promising. I had my dictionary with me, and was planning a stop at the photo places, too. Finally I came to "Sun Rain Photo Studio" which obviously is not a developing place, but they looked good, so I went in and asked where they got their developing done. They are so profesh they have a make-up and props person! She, Bing-ru, talked with me. The studio is inside of a (photo decorated) expensive drinking place. So Bing-ru walked me to where they get their developing done, which was not a place I'd been before, and had six people on computers upstairs PShopping photos- obviously doing the digital thing. They showed me one roll of slides which was processed with scratched and splotches. No thanks! But Bing-ru picked up some TCN work for her place, and that looked clean. So I'll take them my TCN. Then we tried another place Bing-ru knew, but they had no E-6 and she got a call from her boss who told her there was no E-6 at all in Lanzhou and it had to be mailed to Beijing, but the second place told us to try this other place around the corner, and we went there, and they said yes, two day service for slides. No, sorry, no examples around. But I was happy enough and said good-be to Bing-ru and went looking for the Wushu place. First I saw some low-angle light on a corn seller (selling it out of a plastic lined basket on the back of his bike in front of a white washed brick wall) and he was Hui so he had a skull cap and was handsome and clear-skinned, too. So I flirted with him across an alley until I got him to relax and took a few photos, and then bought some corn which was the worst corn I have ever eaten, bar none. It was like twenty days overripe and ten days off the stalk. Ugh! Oh well, twelve cents down the drain! So then I was out of film, so I started asking for the Wushu place, but no one understood Wushuguan when I said it. They all heard Tushuguan (library). So I wrote it down. But seriously all but one person I asked (total around ten) couldn't understand me! However, people generally knew where to point me. While asking my way down the second street (I did a big C of a route) I asked two people outside a restaurant with a kid. I asked and then the kid runs over to me- I mean her belly was touching my knee! (I was squatting).. Small little girl, maybe three and a half, but small. Mom says "say hello!" and I say "Ni hao" and she says "Ni hao" and then dad comes back with directions and she says "What's that?" and I answer "It's a map." but mom corrected my pronunciation immediately. (Didn't want her child to learn wrong!) So we looked at it together but she told me it wasn't interesting. She was so cute! I loved her. I wanted to pick her up and squeeze her. I guess I miss kid time. I did get a lot, especially at Taekkyon. I said "bye-bye" and the little girl actually said "good-bye" so I guess she's been learning some English!

Eventually I found the place, but it was closed up. It took some explaining but finally I understood it's reopening on the 6th and there will be class everyday after that. It looked right, anyway. So I have a couple days and maybe I'll find another place to check out during that time. So, then I went to take my roll of film to that place. But when I came back they said they can't do it! They don't have any Fuji chemicals and I shoot Fuji almost all the time. "Yes, I know you were here a couple hours ago, I know we said we could, but we can't. Send it to Beijing." No offer to teach me an address in Beijing, though. I will have to find out from photographers on the Internet.

I took a bus back to Landa, the 82. It's easy to take buses back because I can say "Do you or don't you go to Landa?" and fortunately Landa is something everyone understands, and I can recognize when it's time to get off. I wouldn't know how to say do you go anywhere else, though. Except the bus station, train station and the river bank.

I started crying twice walking across campus in the dark by myself, buying fruit by myself, knowing I'd be walking into an empty room by myself and with no one to chat with in English except Marie who has tons of friends and I don't want to make her think I am psycho by calling all the time. I stopped to chat with Liu Wu, since now Karjam's not here she and Misa are my only friends to talk to in this building. Of course she asked when he was coming back and of course I had to admit, I don't know! Now I've been typing for a couple hours while drinking hawthorn nectar (it tastes better than when I was in Beijing trying not to be mistaken for a SARS sufferer)(in other words I was so congested I couldn't taste much).

I woke up on time, but I was cramping really bad so I decided to lay back down a bit, and that led to more sleep, but I had no reason (no one waiting for me, and no one to meet) not to go exercise later- so I did 50 minutes starting at 9 a.m. instead of 7:00. When I did wake up, I didn't go right out, I washed these green grapes I had bought (Korea doesn't have green grapes) and chowed down on them. I couldn't stop until they were gone! It was absurd! On the way back from exercising I met Karen, who has been here a year already studying Chinese but talks her ability down. She's fully grey and taller than me, and probably retired (perhaps a bit early). She reminded me of Corinne in a way. She's from Oregon and she was an English teacher. I hope I meet her again, she seemed like my kind of person.

In the morning I wasted tons of time on the Internet. Last night it would hardly cooperate, so today I got a lot done- but I spent four hours doing it cause the damn thing is so slowwwwwwwwwww. Drives me up the wall. I have to have something like to edit (like this) in order to fill the time while I wait for the next page to load every time I switch from one email to the next or one site to another or what have you. Not that I have been editing this that much. Just enough that there aren't going to be too many spelling errors. After all this is my favorite comfy keyboard, I have no excuse for excessive typos. I started working together some of my old visit to China info, pasting it into one page, but it had tons of typos so I was running spell check (and the spell check in this Web Editor program sucks). So I had a lot of times where I had written I with a lower case letter. So I instructed it to "change all" and it changed all the i's even in the middle of words! And then words like 'sit' are coming up as misspelled, because it was sIt. I was about ready to pull out my hair, I swear. I finally found a way to switch back the ones which were in the middle of words, but it didn't switch back the original problem lower case 'i's and it didn't catch 'i'm' or anything else with an apostrophe or right next to a ( . I am typing in the Web Editor program because in the beginning I typed in MSWord but when I pasted into the editor program and uploaded, well, look at August, and see all those weird symbols!

I went to the Graduate School of Foreign Languages and managed to pick up my schedule (no classes on Wednesday, only 8-10 on Friday and every other day is 8-12). Not bad. I could still get buses to some locations in Gannan without difficulty if I could get to the bus station by 10:30 (figuring class ends at 9:45 or so and maybe taking a taxi). Of course I'd probably have the middle of the freaking aisle seats- but whatever. Beggars can't be choosers (so I say before my butt gets pounded black and blue). I bought some TP and dried fruit and tried to find things I wanted at Home World, but I couldn't. Then I went out the sneak gate and walked all the way to the other end of the road from where Karjam and I had gone. Low and behold, it let out right by that big electronics market I walked to three times taking obviously the longest possible route! Everything is on that road. It's totally what I had been looking for and didn't realize was so close by. You can buy live chickens, chains, pulleys, pans, chainsaws, rope, dishes, chili powder, shoes, get a shoeshine, fruit, all kinds of cart sold food, wheels for rolling carts and stuff, wheelbarrows, brooms, hoses, tape, VCDs, oil, cuts of meat (with complimentary flies), plastic tubs, faucets, burners... everything! It's great. The only thing they don't have is OB tampons (which incidentally, I was mistaken, it was a box of 16- whoever heard of things being sold in units of 16?). I bought a small sauce pan and steel wool and cumin and chili smeared grilled chunk of tofu and slices of potato. Then I came back and ate on the lawn of the building as it was so pleasant outside. After that I put my pan away and went and bought hwa-juan and more grapes. Which I ate for dinner. So I have had not much today.

Karjam called and I cried and tried very hard for him not to know I was crying. He called probably about two hours after he arrived. I told him about Mina crying and about finding the Wushuguan even if it's not open yet. I didn't tell him I am planning to go to Xining because his phone card was about to run out after only a few seconds more than ten minutes. He will call again when he has a phone number to give me, so I can call him sometimes. Of course, I still haven't made a phone call. I tried to call Gompa yesterday. The phone booth just wouldn't cooperate.

In the evening when the Internet wouldn't turn on I called Vahid and he came up and we drank a lot of tea and talked. He's very interesting, very knowledgeable. His special field of focus is Optics. He was in Qingdao when he was in Shandong Province. He did research in Hawaii and was being eaten alive by the bloodsuckers above him, so he got out while he still had some will left and came to China... a fate thing. He loves it here, though. It was good to talk with him. He's taught English from time to time and may have some resources to lend me, which could be very useful.

Woke up late, which is becoming a bad habit. I went out to exercise, and I was doing Hapkido, and after a bit all I could do was cough. The sun was full out, but the day was almost dark because of the air pollution. It was sick! (By the end of the day my eyes were stinging!). I gave up and came inside. After all, exercise is supposed to help your health, not hurt it.

So mostly I messed around with the Internet for hours, a stock photo agency has contacted me and asked me to join. I like them, the owner called me in the evening and we talked (as I crossed my legs in a fortunately successful effort to keep from peeing my pants). The agency is small, based out of Asia and covers only Asian images. Standard agency takes 50% of the fee for the image type of deal. Non-exclusive, so I can keep doing my own thing as I want. I am going to do it, but submitting is an issue right now, since I am here, my slides mostly in Korea and he wants larger scans than I have on disk already.

Finally I got hungry enough (even though I had dwenjangchigae for breakfast) to wander to the back gate, and buy greasy fried with a bun type thing, so I came back and ate something like a hot chili spiced greasy tofu and mushroom and potato burger looking thing. At the same time I mailed back my jury summons "Sorry, can't make it, I live in China." I think they'll excuse me. That gave me a chance to send a postcard to my mom and my sister's oldest boy who I make it a habit to treat special. I know what it's like to be the oldest. I identify with him more than his brother.

A little later I took a walk out the sneak gate and out towards the airport. It was pretty boring though, so I decided to take a bus back. As soon as I got on an enthusiastic English major at Lanzhou Technical College sat next to me and talked my ear off. I would say one little thing "Lanzhou is good, except the air pollution." and she'd just start talking for fifteen minutes about "Oh but when I was a kid, and how it's changed and blah blah blah." I liked her enthusiasm, and I am sure she must be a great student. Her pronunciation wasn't bad, and she sure had good grammar and a large vocabulary! The bus I got on went right by Landa but I didn't get off, I stayed on and let her talk, and hoped the bus would go someplace else interesting. Finally the bus passed a lamp store! Now I have seen some desk lamps, like studying ones, but nothing like a table lamp (except the ones already in use) and definitely nothing like a standing floor lamp! But this store had both, the standing ones were too expensive for my budget, so I chose a nice simple table top variety and the lady told me it was 75 kuai and went off to find a clean one. But the clean one was totally not the same model. Not the base or the shade. Finally I got to choose between a selection of the plainest shades and bases (none the same as the one I'd already paid for) but I found a combo that works for me and right now as I type it shines brightly making this sitting room a much nicer environment. I will try to take it with me, or have Karjam take it somewhere when I leave Landa. If I am going to continue living in China, it's a darn nice little lamp! Then I took a bus back to Landa, and after a brief talk with a Czech student and a German student (Claudia) I came back to my room.

I was watching a bit of TV (it had subtitles in English) when the aforementioned call came in. So I didn't see the end of the program, but that's okay, because TV is the Idiot Box. So I must avoid it as much as possible. I had dwenjangchigae and rice for supper and I brewed up my first ever batch of sujunggwa which is a Korean traditional drink made from cinnamon (bark) and ginger (root) stewed together with sugar. The house smells great, but I haven't tried it yet. I am not sure I used enough sugar. Oh well, I guess I can always add more. I used the Internet for another hour this evening, but I think I need to make myself a promise not to go on a photo sites until I have answered all my emails. Loyal friends like Kimberly do my favors (call Jin-hoeng and Sung-mi and tell them to switch to any acct. but hanmail.net which keeps bouncing back at me and ask Sung-mi if she's told Gwun I sent her money for him to use to pay my last bit of bills that are in his name (cause I couldn't email her to ask)) but I didn't even email her back and say "Thanks, I love you!" Must remember to say it first thing in the morning when I use the Internet again. Anyway, the good thing is that I am starting to make some real headway with PShop resizing all my shots to be posted on my net-marketing site (can't say the names of sites anyone could find me on, since this is supposed to be an anonymous web journal, and strangers could surf in...). Usually it bores me to bits, but I have nothing else to do now.

I did email someone at the US Consulate today and got the low-down from her on marrying a Chinese citizen. First of all we need all these health forms. And I need to show my divorce papers. Which are in Korea. He needs both of his parents to sign and fingerprint stamp a paper giving permission for him to marry a foreigner. We don't have to go to Beijing or anything to get married though. We can either do it in Hezuo or in Maqu, I am not sure which. If Hezuo we may still be able to convince his parents to let us do the paperwork first and the rest later. If Maqu, probably there is no way to not do both at the same time. Cause everyone would know. No need to go to the US Embassy at all! That's odd! We need certificates of marriageability. It's weird. There is a lot of paperwork. And they say very clearly that wearing a suit and tie and stuff makes it all go a lot faster. None of the info said anything about letting a guy married to a US Citizen just visit the US without too big a hassle. They all talked about Immigrant visas. I have no interest in Karjam immigrating to the US. At the end of the evening I went to Misa's room and talked with Misa and her new Slovakian roommate about going to Xining and Ta'ersi on Friday.

I woke up earlier than yesterday and worked out for a full hour. Taekkyon. It's gentler movements and therefore makes me cough less. Dwenjangchigae and pickled garlic and kim and rice and kimchi for breakfast, the right way to start the day I tell you! If only Chang-geun would answer my email so I could be sure he was bringing back supplies...

One scary thing about China- crossing the street. First of all, let me point out that there are green little "walk" signals. The problem is that they mean nothing. Even when there is a green walk signal, there may be a green turn signal for cars that tells them they have the right to go through the crosswalk. This contradiction bothers no one, though, because cars ignore the traffic lights and pedestrians ignore the walk signals. When crossing a major street (which usually means four lanes, plus a sort of bicycle, taxi, occasional bus, locally stopping vehicle lane on each side) it is by far easiest to cross in the middle of the block, because then you only have to watch traffic coming from two directions. There is no traffic light, but, really, it's easier. If you cross at the intersection, there is turning vehicle traffic from all directions, including U-turns, plus the traffic which is going straight ahead. At the intersection there is only one way to cross- to stand in the middle of a group of Chinese and shuffle along as they do. Let them be on the outside to provide a buffer between you and the traffic. No matter where you cross a major street you are unlikely to walk across without varying your pace at all. The usual practice is to cross one lane, then wait with cars going on both sides of you, cross another lane or two, wait again, and so on, until you get to the other side. This gets really uncomfortable when you have buses on both sides of you. This isn't just a Western China thing, I experienced the same in Beijing and Qingdao. No two ways about it, crossing the street in China is scary.

Another odd thing. I've seen maybe one red car since I came to town, and one taxi company uses a sort of kelly green on the top half of their cars, but otherwise all cars are grey, black, white, and shades in between. Maybe some blue tones.

Using the Internet is so frustrating. By the time you've finished loading the page, you've forgotten what was worth waiting five minutes to see on that page! When I add stuff to this page, I have to save it about five times, because the first four times the connection will be sleeping, so it'll time out, so I have to hit the back browser and try again, until the timing works out right. Also, I've never seen this page. Can't open it. But my friends who respond to emails fast like Teressa can, so I assume everything works the way it is supposed to.

Well something occurred to make today a more interesting day than the last few for you the reader. On my way home after taking the bus off to drop off some film, buying two Tibetan music CDs (actually 4 cause each is a double disc set) and bussing back, I decided to buy some spicy tofu for my dinner protein. I took out my wallet which was in my little bag which was in my backpack, took out the money I needed and put everything else back and put it back on my back. I felt a little tug and looked around at a tall man in a t-shirt. Then I saw my bag was open, and unbelievably, my wallet was gone, I looked back up and that guy was gone, no where to be seen. I wandered up and down the street, the store across the way said "he went that way" but refused to come and help me look. Finally I went back and bought my tofu since it was all grilled now, and sat down to cry. A big crowd gathered, and then a Canadian-Chinese guy pushed through and asked what was the matter. So he called the police for me. But then the police came and asked me to leave with them, despite the fact that several people said they could identify members of the gang (apparently four guys who work together). So we went up the road and around a corner and the police called some police woman who can speak English, who of course couldn't really, which was frustrating as all hell, but then a Landa professor walked by and he helped out with translating. I had to make a statement and all that. I lost a few odds and ends of IDs like my US Driver's License and my Hapkido 3rd Dan card and my brand new never been used 20 yuan telephone card, and my Kongkwondo 1 Dan card and my Taekkyon card, and my Mastercard and this ring that Gwun gave me that I had stored in the back secret spot of the wallet (it was 14k gold and nice, I just don't like Gwun). I lost all the photos I carry around with me in my wallet, which if you know me, you can imagine is a lot. I have dad and mom and Irene and Raven and practically everyone, plus photos of me and Zeeshan, me and Sujin, etc. etc. Also I had my eyeglasses prescription (though it is written down at the optometrist in Anacortes and at my glasses place in Daegu) and So-yeun's phone numbers (my stuff is mostly at So-yeun's house) and a lot of business cards I hadn't put in my business card holder yet, and receipts that include the addresses for Hyung-joon's scanning place and for Reco and for Samsung Color. So, even though three days ago before I took out my visa card, my Daegu Bank card, my Foreign Exchange Bank Card, my Daegu bus card, etc. I still lost a lot, and a lot of it was stuff I really never wanted to lose. Worst of all, was that when I was taking out that 1.5 yuan I decided my wallet wasn't working without all the cards in it, and I should just give up and just carry a little money purse and that's all.

After the police were done, I went back and got Misa and we combed up and down the back street until after dark, and emptied out lots of garbage cans and stirred around a lot of garbage looking for my wallet. He must have dumped it after taking the money. But we couldn't find it, we just got mistaken for crazy people, stirring garbage with a stick and talking in shitty Chinese. (Misa has great Chinese, but I don't, and I was so upset, I don't know how much sense I was making). I am still really upset. I only lost a little money- I suspect less than 100 total, but the hassle is huge. I don't even know how to make a phone call and get AT and T so I can cancel my credit card. Now I don't have a single piece of ID except my passport, which is still in Landa's hands, and would have been too big to fit into my wallet regardless.

So here is the funny thing... I think I am getting over all of this, I go downstairs to talk with Liu Wu and give Mina a phone call (she's in Lanzhou, so we can meet on Friday morning) and the cops call the front desk, because I am not in my room and they are looking for me. So, Liu Wu tells them I am around and I go find the Korean student with the best Chinese to help smooth things, and at 11:15 p.m. I end up in my apartment with Misa, the Korean student, and two cops. So we talk through the whole thing again, they are detectives, not beat cops and they ask lots of good questions and tell me they are taking this very seriously. But, just as they are finishing three -more- cops show up at the door, and they have to ask all the same questions, and get all the same answers and write down all the same things. Then all three of us have to fingerprint stamp the statement and the cops finally leave a little before12:45. Surreal, I tell you! All these cops and not a single motion to go look on the street for these guys or call the rubbish collectors and ask them to look out for my stuff.

Misa and I are on a train carrying us further into China's West than I've been before. We'll disembark at Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province, one of China's large and underpopulated western provinces. Xining is the only city in Qinghai, though there are some towns (like Golmud on the overland route to the TAR). Not only does it slide off the tongue (Shin-ning) but it means "Western Peace" which I think is a wonderful name for a city. It is the ancient capital of Amdo, the now administrationless Tibetan state divided up into Qinghai, Gansu and Northern parts of Sichuan Province.

Our train is a type I've never ridden before, it's a double decker! Unfortunately Misa and I are on the bottom deck, so we are gliding along at the level of fences, walls and bushes, but most of the time we have a fine view.

The land we are clickety-clacking through is dry and desert-like, cultivated only in patches. The dried brown earth is cut by gullies, I can imagine flash floods crashing down and carving new routes through the fields of bok choy, mustard and lettuce planted near the tame for the moment meandering streams. In the distance bluffs rise, severe and squared off, showing huge bald spots where roots couldn't overcome erosion.

I wrote several poems, and I'll share these two: (keep in mind I am not a poet and I don't normally write poetry)

Maybe now you are glad I don't normally inflict my poetry on you! If you want a real poet, go to Kim H, she's the real poet! I am just a poor imitator that is inspired by big landscapes and by love.

So what could Karjam do, other than singing, if we were to spend part of every year abroad? He's strong, smart and fairly young, but he doesn't have any special skills. Sure we wouldn't need to earn much money to live in the Maqu area a few months a year. Aside from the travel expenses, it's actually a way to save money. I just keep coming back, over and over, to it being my responsibility to earn the money. If that's so, well, I'd rather live in Korea! Why couldn't he do some performing with some Korean musicians, travel part of the time to perform and have me able to live my Korean life? Because he wouldn't be happy without some form of Tibetan community. I could devote myself full time to promoting Karjam, he is really talented, but that's risky and I don't know anything about music promotion. Working a little, doing photography and martial arts and writing- that's how I want to live. My life would be hard for me in Canada or America. Where would I go for photos or stories? Too expensive from there to anywhere. What would I do for work? Karjam doesn't have it in him to do mindless money-earning work. His whole idea of working part of the year comes from the model of the English-Tibetan couple in Maqu, and they work in broadcasting. It's hardly the same.

After we arrived in Xining we checked into the Post Office Hotel. Our concrete floored room on the 6th floor (no elevator) with shared toilet is 18 each a nights. Not bad except for the climb. After checking in (which I did by myself) Misa called Marie's Xining friend Tian-yuan. We took a bus to meet her. She was really sweet- big smile, round cheeks, sparkly eyes, clothes only three years out of style (in other words on the cutting edge for these parts). She even had a nice butt (we were following her). I liked her from the start, even though she talked a mile a minute, making it hard to understand. We went to a big night-time street market, which was nothing but food stalls. I finally said "I can eat noodles with no meat." So we sat down in a noodle shop, they served me a big bowl with cooked veggies on top of noodles. Slivers of carrot, red bell pepper, potato, eggplant, etc. I sprinkled chopped garlic, green onion and chili powder on top with some soy sauce. It only found about six pieces of meat in it (I gave them to Misa). It was delicious (though I gave up near the bottom when it started to look like an oil lake with some food floating in it). Tian-yuan also ordered us some wonton (or whatever you call them fried stuffed things), mine were veggie and egg. After eating I walked down the street flashing like crazy. I shot crab soup, noodle makers, flaming skewers of meat, piles of boiled entrails, hot-pot stews, etc. I think some will be good shots. After that we walked through another market. It wasn't going too heavy cause of the rain earlier in the evening. I bought some thick disks of fried potatoes sprinkled with chili powder. Tasted like gigantic spicy french fries. Then Tian-yuan took Misa to her favorite meat-on-a-stick place so they had a bunch of kebabs in a tent. I took a lot of photos there, too. It doesn't hurt that Tian-yuan is the perfect smiling Chinese model.

What little I've seen, I love Xining! It kicks Lanzhou's butt. It's so much less Han and so much more Hui and Tibetan. There are huge mosques allover and Tibetans on the street in tradish clothes and monks and the streets aren't crowded, the air is better, the trees are nice, the city has a lot of character, I love it!

We woke up late at 7, but got out of our room by 7:20. Misa and I, despite communicating in Chinese which is not so strong on my end, get along very well, we seem to have similar travel philosophies. We got a bus, then found a car heading to Ta'er'si (four passengers, 5 yuan each). Ta'er'si is one of the six major Yellow Hat Sect Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage sites. It had a lot of tour groups, but not many individual tourists, so a lot of the time it was just us, the monks, the locals and the pilgrims. Huge groups of pilgrims and little groups of pilgrims. Dressed up pilgrims and wearing their only outfit pilgrims. It was very colorful, very happening, and very Tibetan. Misa and I had been looking around for maybe 45 minutes when we stopped to talk with some monks. It turned out they were taking tickets at the biggest spot one gave tickets. After talking for a while they told us to just go on in (without tickets). Eventually (not seeming over-eager) we did.

People always think Misa is Chinese, even when talking with her. Her Chinese is terrific and there are so many dialects and accents that even if she doesn't sound the same as her listener, it doesn't mean they think she speaks poorly, just that she's not from the same region as them. They love talking with her when they find out she's foreign. It's so interesting to have a real conversation with someone from another country (as I always experienced from Misa's end in Korea, when they talked my ear off).

In the first hall we entered there were well over 100 monks chanting and sitting in the center- dusky darkness lit by flickering yak butter lamps and the light from the doorways, a mass with colorful hangings and lined by shelves of silk wrapped books, statues of various buddhas and places where the pilgrims had left donations of butter or money. We walked around the outside, I hope less obtrusively than the tour groups. We strolled through courtyards and poked around temple buildings all day. And turned a lot of prayer wheels. We found one place we really liked and ate some of our cookies (our only food was my cookies and her cookies and two half consumed bottles of water). Later we were in the courtyard of the Tantric college, and we could hear them chanting but didn't even stick our heads in. None of the tour groups were coming so far deep into the temple, and listening to the peaceful chants we drifted off, then got cold and moved to the sunny side of the courtyard to fall asleep again. Misa and I both got a bit of color in our cheeks, mostly from that. We visited the former Qinghai hall of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. Photos of the Dalai Lama are never visible, but the Panchen Lama is all over. I wonder why the line is drawn like that.

In the afternoon we followed our ears up some back stairs and came upon six chanting monks with a group of about 10 Buddhists shuffling prayer beads and nodding along. Of the six monks, one, the leader sat and chanted while holding a staff the head of which was wrapped with many silk scarves, well worn. Three were playing cymbals- one of a slightly different type than the other two. Both types of cymbals were large, larger than dinner plates, more like big round platters, deeply dished in two cases. The remaining two were holding large poles, propped next to their legs, atop the poles were barrel drums, approximately 10% larger than the average Korean buuk drum. They didn't play these with sticks, but rather with something that appeared to be springy wood, curved, with a hard tip. They struck the head of the drums with the tip of their beater, not the side. The sound was big and full, except when the several of them who were following the chant by reading had to turn the page.

At the end of the day we met back up with our first monk friends who'd let us in the inner complex for free. I'd already promised to send photos, and took a few more as we hung out. We finally got too hungry and walked back to the place where our car/taxi had dropped us off. It didn't take much work to fill up a car since it was by then getting close to six p.m.

The car dropped us off somewhat close to the night market, so we walked there and first had the same noodles and wontons, then ducked in another place for potatoes, and then had squid on a stick in a third tent. Obviously it's a little worrisome to have seafood so far from the sea. I personally think the Xining-ites just like to eat anything on a stick. We checked email before coming back to our hotel at a terrible smokey hole.

noodles 3.5, squid sticks 2 potatoes 1 two drinks 5 donation 20, entry fee 5, trans to and from temple 10, town bus 2 Internet 1

In the morning first thing we went to buy our tickets. But that was no simple five minute walk because it was Sunday and people were doing their special Sunday things. A bunch of people were in the parking lot of the train station painting with water on the pavement. Misa said it was calligraphy practice. But it must have meant something, as well. Most used stylized characters, but one woman was doing the really ornate old school pre-reform characters. You'd look a couple feet away and it'd already be illegible. It was so cool! I took a bunch of shots. There were old ladies doing a sort of aerobic dance with little red pompoms and by the time I shot them a group of (mainly men) doing a routine with red fans- gracefully moving and flipping open and closing their fans had started up. One guy had a big sword and was doing a martial arts routine, but he was grinning so broadly it didn't work for me, as an image. Besides, he just wasn't as cute as thirty old ladies. So finally after all the distractions we bought tickets for seven p.m. This time we are on the top of the double tiered seating area. Yay! We left one bag in the storage room at the Post Hotel and took off to explore Xining.

First we went to the "Big Mosque" (though from the bus another looks just as big). On the outside it wasn't very interesting, just a big modern looking mosque. But inside it was really lovely, and the men were very nice to us, too. We couldn't go in one super cool building, but I took photos through the doors. It was very Asian/Chinese in flavour. It was exposed multiple beam roofs, arched and orange, with the end pieces brilliantly painted with other colors. The roof was ornamented with special golden post/spires made by the monks at Labrang Monestary as a present. The walls on the short ends of the building were covered with carved stone panels in an Asian motif. Aside from the prayer rugs and the Arabic painted on a few spots on the beams, you'd never have guessed it was a mosque. Outside again we looked at some prayer rugs from Pakistan and Misa bought a (man's) skullcap (to wear in Japan). I also fingered a lot of the material older Hui women prefer for their head scarves. It's that kind of velvet with the patterns cut out, where a lot of the material is somewhat translucent.

We took a bus to the biggest market in town, Shuijin Shiang Market. Judging from that market anyway, Han Chinese as well as Tibetans are enamoured with Tibetan music. Since everyone prefers VCDs we could see at a glance every time that it wasn't our imagination, we really were hearing the exact same tune by the same Tibetan woman over and over. Interestingly a lot (most) of the recordings are in Mandarin Chinese. At first I suspected a gov't ruling or something about "not being able to hide subversive lyrics" but now I am 98% sure it's economics. There are more Chinese speaking people than people who speak Lhasa, Amdo, or Kham. The tunes have Tibetan rhythms, instruments, styles and themes, but the music is more accessible, and judging from Xining, quite hip. I've also heard Tibetan music often in Lanzhou and bought CDs there as well. (Tibetans rarely work in sales, or own stores, these aren't Tibetan music shops). Today I bought three more CDs. They had a bigger selection than I'd seen before. Though still most were VCDs. That one video I saw over and over (I did buy the CD) was a real produced video... you know, nice images, good lighting, attractive to the eye. But most of the VCDs are hopeless amateur tilty fade-in, face-out and divide the screen too often shots of any old Tibetan thing accompanied by the music of the artist in question. Karjam appears to be right, traditional is not what's popular. New traditions are being made in Tibetan music and that's no joke. Only one of the now 5 CDs (three of which are double CDs) have songs in Tibetan! And I ask for the most traditional stuff, and still get something that has a lot of keyboard on it a lot of the time. Karjam simply must get some original songs and start rehearsing them. He's not going to be able to record a CD without quite a few, though almost all the CDs available are multiple artists (usually the same faces over and over). None of the recordings are of Amdowans. All Lhasans. Maybe a Khama, I didn't ask. That's interesting. I mean, Xining would have an Amdowans CD if there was one. I mean, we asked, over and over. They had Hui singers from Qinghai but no Tibetans.

We stopped for market food- skewers of veggies and tofu dropped in a steaming broth, then unskewered over a bowl of flat noodles (with a chili, garlic and oil sauce). It was actually quite good. I had mushrooms, brocolli, and tofu cubes. After looking through as much market as we could handle we took a bus to go to Beishansi, (Beishan Taoist Temple) but I saw something like a festival, and we got off and saw the end of it- two dances, and six songs by three different singers, two of which were Tibetans. Then we got back on the bus and continued to the temple.

The temple was set into the rocks of the mountain's cliff. Each progressive building was more of a climb. At one point there were 204 uninterrupted stairs in a row. Towards the top they must have realized they were out of room, and suddenly each step was awfully tall. The temple had a great quiet atmosphere, and since my feet were killing me and we had time to spare I took a snooze near the top most building imitating a large orange tomcat too wrapped up in sleeping to want a new friend or two. The temple was brilliantly painted, with a lot of red pillars and green figured strongly in the designs. We saw both a painter and four carpenters carving on new lattices. The Taoists don't have priests or monks, but believers do come and live at the temple and assist those who come to pray. They wore blue smocks over regular clothes.

We took a bus back to the big market and spent a bit more time there, eating some deep fried skewered chili and oil smeared veggies and drinking tea. We bought some nut loaf, too. Then we returned to the hotel, grabbed our bag and boarded the train. At the moment Misa is busy watching lighting across the bare desert hills. It's pretty cool looking!

three CDs 48, bus 6, mosque entry 5, Taoist temple entry 2, food 11 ticket back to Lanzhou 33

When I got home Dave was in the building and he came over for a chat. He says everything is okay at Yuzhong, except Gavin and Tom dislike each other pretty actively. Who knows how it started, but Gavin is always harping at Tom about "The Bloody English". So whether Tom being English is an excuse to rank on him, or whether it's a deep-seated dislike of English people in general... who knows. Geraldine apparently goes by Jan and Dave described her as short, fat and a forceful personality. He likes her, though. The Yuzhong-ites can stay here for 20 yuan a night, which is pretty nice for them if they want a break from the countryside.

I woke up at six to wake up Dave, but fell back asleep. Then in the morning I typed in my journal and answered emails, and went to meet Mr. Liu who is convinced I can find teachers and pressuring me hard to do so. I never said I could, I only mentioned that my friend Mark might be able to come if they were still unable to find someone- Mark being temporarily in limbo until a gig starts in the New Year. There response to my casual mention of Mark was like drooling desperation. So, anyway, I went to tell Mr. Liu that no one I knew could for sure come, except Jim who could maybe come at the beginning of October. After that I came back and made some potatoes and puttered about doing laundry and such until the afternoon.

I headed out to pick up my film I'd dropped off on Friday (they asked for a 10 Yuan deposit per roll). But I decided on a whim to get on the bus without checking the number. It was bus 16, and of course I had no idea where it was going. The odds were good it'd go closer to where I wanted to go than I was.. but it didn't! I ended up in the edge of town with nothing but newly built apartments and construction sites. So I crossed the street and took the 140 bus, which got me marginally closer to where I was going, than where I'd caught the 16. So I poked along, walking on at least a side of the street I hadn't walked on before. Eventually I saw a big traditional place, so I went in, and it turned out to be the Lanzhou Museum. It actually wasn't amazingly interesting, but now I can say I saw it! The best part were some reproductions of old photos taken in Lanzhou. Eventually I made it to the Kodak photo place. I was planning on dropping off one roll to test there (of TMAX 100) and two rolls at the place I'd dropped film before (the place Sun Rain Studio uses). But then I saw the Kodak place they were winding up some negatives (in a long strip, not in sleeves) and the woman was fingerprinting down the middle of the negative strip!!!!!!!!!!! I was so outraged, I couldn't even summon up enough Chinese to say "Look at her!" or "You guys are crazy!" I just started mumbling in Korean and stalked out.

I was really hungry, since I had only eaten once and some fruit and snacking all day, so I walked into a market and found a new bready thing. It was dusted with sesame seeds and peanut chunks. By the time I finished eating it, I arrived at the other photo place. My self-timer (nudes) were great. Made me feel really good about my body, actually, and also made me want to do more work with nudes. I guess I need models! There were also a couple cute shots of Karjam and I together. I walked from there to the martial arts place, the neighbors told me he has class around 7. It was five, and no sense waiting for two hours, so I headed to the bus, stopping to sit with the buskers in the underground street crossing place and listen to them play and sing. I took the good old 82 back to Landa and stopped at Home World for rice, tofu, and some different stuff to drink. After dropping it at my place I headed out the sneak gate despite bad memories and bought some veggies.

I had a quiet dinner and then invited the five Daegu students (of Yeungnam University) to come up for tea. They were especially thrilled to have Korean Internet access and took turns emailing. They are Yeong-moke, Yeong-yoon, Jinhee, Jung-gyung (the one that translated for me with the cops) and Hyun-sook. We all had a great time talking. My stinky kimchee refrigerator smell was heaven to them. I really feel like they accept me as one of them, our little "Daegu Club" in Lanzhou. So, that's a good feeling. And I like to be called Eunni and Noona.

Karjam called twice today, first thing in the morning, and in the evening around 7:30. He is really thinking of coming back to Lanzhou, there isn't work singing in Beijing for him now, and I keep telling him that I can teach him better than he'll learn in Beijing, anyway. I figure to ask Shao-xie whether anyone would bust on me for him staying here, like living here, tomorrow. She'll tell me the straight up. And if it could be a problem, rent him the cheapest corner of a room we can find, and have him stay at my place six nights a week. Why not? If all he's doing in Beijing is studying, he should be studying here, where I know he'll learn! He was thinking of enrolling in a Landa class but after talking with Mina is thinking maybe his Alma Mater Northwestern Minority University is better.

Before sleeping I combed the Internet jobs wanted for people who might consider coming here and sent out a dozen emails.

I had a date with the Koreans (except Jung-gyung) to exercise at 6:30 which motivated me out of bed. It was the first time for the girls and Yeong-moke, and the girls only managed one lap before they took my offer to come do Taekkyon. They only exercised for twenty minutes, and found my Taekkyon beginning exercises strenuous. But, it was fun to do it with someone else, and maybe we'll make a habit of it. After fifty minutes I came in. My feet were really cold. I need to buy something very foot fitting to do my exercises in, cause it's only going to get colder. Incidentally, due to China's one time-zone (Beijing time) I thought I should mention, it's not even dawn till 6:30, and the sun started to rise over a two story building at about 7:15.

I keep forgetting to mention, but when Karjam and I sat down and had this big long talk about marriage, of course both of us had some things we wanted to make sure were going to work for each other. Of course I was like, look, I can compromise on a lot of things, but I am not having a baby. I think that works for him. I am surprised about that. But, I guess he realizes how important it is to me, and I know he respects my desire to help a baby without a family. I think if I wasn't open to adoption it wouldn't work, but I think adoption is fine for him. Now, guess what he was asking me? He was asking me about donating large sums of money to lamas or monasteries. Even after he died, he wanted to make sure I'd donate. Now I guess that is a question of religion... though at first it seemed to me a question of generosity. But, actually, no, it's a question of having similar feelings about religion (and an aspect of his religion that could be a problem for some people). Of course it's not a problem for me. I donate to temples and to monks that I feel are right on already. (Not in the sums he was talking about, but, well, I already have the feeling that it's good to donate).

I spent more than three hours in the morning on the Internet searching for a teacher, messing around on some photo site and answering emails. Because the Internet is so slow, I can manipulate photos in Photoshop at the same time. So I open a bunch of photos, and switch back and forth from one window to the next, waiting for the Internet to load the next page. It's still annoying, but it's not a complete waste of my time. I really hope to find the school a teacher- I know, it's not my responsibility, and they are the ones who should have handled things differently- but it's a language and cultural barrier for one thing- knowing how to attract Western teachers, so I can understand their mistake. Also, if I find a teacher (or two) I am directly helping Mina, and I really think Mina is -great-. So, I want to help her.

At 11:30 I finally went to Mina's old office looking for a scanner so I can scan my nudes, but that woman didn't have the key to the room. I decided to take a bus to Northwestern Minority University. On the bus the two next to me were two young men, and they were not speaking any language I ever heard before. I asked them to let me know when to get off the bus, and they were students who were walking to Northwestern U also, so they showed me the way and we talked. They are Uighurs from near Turpan in Xinjiang Province, which is the largest in China, and the gateway to Kazakstan, Krygyzstan, Tajikstan, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Mongolia.(though not all of those borders are open even when weather permits travel in the high passes). Anyway, they were really nice, and even spoke a bit of English (less than my Chinese, though). I wish I'd given them my phone number now, they are new students who've just arrived. At the time I decided not to give my phone number as they are young men and I don't need to complicate my life, but the idea of learning more about the Uighur seems very interesting to me, now, so I wish I could meet them again. The campus was crowded with buildings, and seemed to have a heck of a lot of students. All the students are minorities and some actually looked like Caucasians (I assume they must have been Kyrgyz or something). Others had really kinky hair, and some looked very South Asian, like Pakistanis, stocky and with pronounced beard growing ability. The male population seemed to highly favor long hair, perhaps even 20% had long hair. There were a few Tibetans, but not as many as I expected to see. I couldn't find anything about martial arts there, and I didn't want to insult my guides by telling them I wanted to find an enthusiastic Tibetan student of English to trade for Tibetan lessons. So, I wandered around and took the bus back to Landa.

I bought myself a deep fried sandwich and ate it at home, then studied some Chinese before I went to scan. Figuring out how to scan took a bit of doing, since I couldn't ask for help when scanning a nude self-portrait. But, I did it. The file sizes are really small- like 40-60K per shot, so I can't mess around with them much, but it's good enough for the use I have for them, which is primarily to send some photog friends and post on a photo site.

I came back and was using the computer a bit when Karjam called, he is out of money, so tomorrow I have to wire him 1,000 Yuan. Actually I will wire the money to some friend of his. That leaves me only 300 Yuan until he comes back with some money, or I get paid. That is possible. I hope, I think. If not, I have a couple travelers checks I can cash at Bank of China. The good news is he said he's coming back about the 15th. I can hardly wait. That is wonderful! The bad part is that Landa technically doesn't want him living with me, and it's hard for me to avoid having them know. We may have to rent him a cheap room where he can stay a night or two a week for appearances sake.

At six I headed to the area with the photo places and the Wushuguan. First I went to pick up my Ta'er'si black and white. Well, that was a disaster. They processed my roll of TMAX and two of TRIX with color chemicals, the morons!!!!!!!!!!! I told them like 15 times this is really black and white (it's hand rolled and the canisters are color canisters). The girl understood, the technician didn't get the message, despite the note on the envelope. FUCK! I am mighty displeased about this, let me tell you! I gave them a piece of my mind as well as I could when I had to look up "mistake" in the dictionary. (In other words, it wasn't a very fluent piece of my mind). They ended up giving me two rolls of Provia (100) and my deposit money was returned, and the dupes I'd ordered of me and Karjam were free. And they promised next time not to be such morons. I will give them one more chance, as they did a good job on my T400CN and it will be too hard to live without seeing my photos for months after taking them.

Then I headed to the martial arts place. I got there about 7:25 and the kids were still stretching. The instructor was -really- young. (Turned out to be 17). The kids were younger, the oldest appeared to be about 5th grade. But I liked what I saw. A rectangular room, many layers of carpet on the floor, very disciplined (the kids hardly goofed around at all, and never when they were supposed to be doing something). The stretching was intense and he spent a long time on it. I mean, you know when you lift your arms up as far as you can behind you? Well, he took some kids (sitting legs straight out on the floor) and pushed their hands until they were only 3-4 inches from their feet. That is some serious rotation of the shoulder cuff! And some of the kids when stretching could touch their forehead to their toes on one foot! Hello, what happened to touching your head to your knee being an accomplishment? What I saw was a lot of stretching, then a lot of kicking, then kicking with arm movements, some form type routine and then some heavy exercise at the end (like hopping races). It was two hours if they started at seven. Mostly I talked with the instructor's dad. Now the dad says he is not the instructor, but the son sure looked to dad to okay this and that, and I think that I understood the father telling some parent that he was injured so his son was taking over. The son was fairly impressive in his routines. The funniest thing was that both father and son asked me twice to check if I really wouldn't rather learn Tai'chi. What is that, an age thing, or a girl thing, or what? This thing they are doing is obviously a sort of Kung-fu (Kong-u). So, the kids pay 185 for three months. We didn't set a price for me, but I will study the same time as the kids. That doesn't bother me. Afterwards, starting at 9 is far too late for me, when I have 8 a.m. classes four days a week.

I took the number 1 bus back home, and strangely the ticket taker had good English. Not the sort of job you expect to find good English in. The exchange students were having some beers so I talked with Marie and Misa and a couple others for a few minutes after I gobbled a late dinner.

So, today I should be starting martial arts... pretty exciting! I woke up with my alarm, then drifted back to sleep, came out of it at 6:29, and managed to put on clothes, pee, grab my water and be downstairs before the Koreans left for the track. Today only Yeung-moke and Yeung-yoon, the girls didn't make it out. They ran around the track a bit, then came over next to me and tried to remember the Taekwondo they learned in the military. After twenty minutes of exercise they left, again. I came in after a full work out (cold feet, cold feet!) and ran a bath and read my textbook (the one I'll be using) in the bathtub until my feet felt the same temperature as the rest of my body. I didn't have a bathtub since early 1996... I am really excited to have one!

I ate this breakfast my mom used to make for dinner, I think when she was tired and didn't have anything else ready. Apples with peanut butter and popcorn. My popcorn was bought on the street, so it didn't have brewer's yeast on it, but it still reminded me of my childhood. It was pretty delicious!

Next door there is an elementary school. The students are children of the faculty and staff. It's only about 35 meters away, and so I can hear the students when I am home and they are at school. They practice a lot of songs, lately they've been practicing the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I think the words they are using are Chinese, it's hard to tell though, since I don't know the words in German, either. Sometimes they all get out in the playground with drums and brass instruments and cymbals and make an unholy racket. A lot of the time I just hear them repeating after the teacher, in unison. The come to school before 8, and they leave for lunch, but return in the afternoon and don't go home until maybe six o'clock. The students are well behaved, when I walk by they sometimes call out "Hello!" but always in a nice tone of voice. (Korean students sometimes sound like they might as well be cussing you out when they scream or squawk "Hell-oe-oo" at you).

Beyond the elementary school and to the right a bit is an area of construction. There are large bangs and crashes and most annoyingly of all they are using a huge crane that goes "beep, beeeeeep, beeeeeeeeep" when it's hooky end is down near the ground (to tell the workers to watch out). It sounds like an impatient motorist leaning on their horn waiting for someone to move a car parked in the middle of the street. It's SO annoying and sometimes they use it until as late as ten p.m. (probably expensive to have the crane here, it's got to be more than 75 feet long, so they are probably trying to get done using it as fast as possible).

Across the street from the construction and mercifully a bit distant from my room is a loudspeaker. It broadcasts some music and some news and some probably pure propaganda. Usually I can't hear it, but if the breeze is right, I can get a bit of it. It's not on all the time, mostly between wake-up and first class, during lunch break and in the early evening.

This big four-story hollow-centered building is pretty quiet. In the center of the building (which is more than four stories tall, lit by skylights and lined by walkways to the 23 rooms on each floor) on the ground floor there are tables and sofas and students get tutored there, or just hang out. Mostly you just see the exchange students there, none of the Chinese guests or staff. In the lobby there is usually at least two of the women receptionists, four of them seem to alternate with one other hanging around somewhere close by. The building swallows sounds from the lobby and sitting area, so usually all I hear is the occasional hum of the vacuum when they are cleaning nearby me, and I can hear if anyone is out on the balcony or down below the balcony talking.

Karjam called in the morning to confirm the operation for transferring money and I went off and found the correct bank and transferred money with no problem. I felt very proud of myself, even though it meant I was left with only a little more than 300 Yuan until whenever. Whenever came much sooner than I expected. On my way back from the bank I stopped by Mina's old office and Mina was there. She paid me for the 25th to the end of September (that's odd, being paid before I work!). So I now have another 3,600 so I am not in any dire straits. I picked up my Moon Cakes (a gift from the school for Moon Cake Day) and then showed Mina the potential progress I am making on finding another teacher or two. I spent some time on Sperling looking at the Jobs Wanted Ads and answered five of them. Then I wrote down a lot of facts about Gansu and Lanzhou out of some pamphlets and small books (unfortunately they wouldn't give them to me). I'll tell you more about those facts later. I was starting to worry that Karjam would be calling me to find out if I transferred money or not, and I wouldn't be there, so I headed back to my house, but met the Yeungnam U students in the lobby and they invited me to go to lunch with them. I am glad I did, they introduced me to a cheap way to eat and a good restaurant. The conversation was interesting and very comfortable, even if the food took too long to appear. Then when we arrived back at our building they invited me for fruit, so we ate fruit and my Moon Cakes. (Which I was glad to share... not really to my liking, filled with weird sort of nutty paste).

At last time came to head to my martial arts class. On the bus I met a nice Chinese woman close to my age, who is also an English teacher. When I got off the bus I realized I'd be way early, so I poked into a department store food section and found a lot of imports including Shin Ramyun. But they didn't have tuna fish. I just can't believe how there is no tuna fish here. Who ever heard of that? They had imported sardines and canned mackerel and stuff... all very expensive, but NO tuna! Who needs 7-up and Schweppes when I can't have tuna fish? I need it for making lots of nummy Korean soups and also for the protein!

The martial arts folks were very happy to see me arrive, maybe they didn't know if I would or not. They had prepared (someone had written for them) a beautiful cursive note that said "Welcome to China. Your class is free, as long as you want." Of course I said that wasn't okay, we'll see what happens over time. Class started promptly. First we did cartwheels, I kid you not, for twenty minutes. Worse, I had to do them leading with my left, and I always lead with my right, and he was asking me to try to do 'buchae' (handless cartwheel) which I can't even do leading with the right. Finally cartwheels were over and we got to start stretching. First we had one foot up (mine was on the windowsill) and he told me to touch my head to my foot. I laughed. Heck, I can touch my head to my shin about 1/3 between my knee and my foot, but, let's face it... I have a 32 inch inseam, how in the world he thinks I can touch my head to my foot is beyond me. I think that it's not a question of flexibility. So we did that in two different ways on both legs. Then I had to lean forward with my hands up on the windowsill and my elbows straight, so that my head was far below my hands, looking at the floor. Then I had to turn around, put my hands on the windowsill, and sit down on the floor with my arms bent up behind me (rotating the shoulder cuff in a different way). Next we did forward looking splits and splits to the left and the right. Then we had to do backbends (lean over backwards, put your hands on the floor so your body is in an arch... except my classmates today (not the same kids as yesterday) mostly had to lay down on the floor and push up to accomplish this exercise. After backbends we got to do some kicking, which was very different from the kicking in Taekkyon and Hapkido. After kicking there was a short break and during the break he- Heo Zhoong-xu- my teacher- taught me the beginning of a form. Then after break we practiced the form, I followed along where he'd left off, and it repeated using the opposite hands and feet pointing the opposite direction. After that we practiced another form, but I just concentrated on imitating the exercises, not filling my head with two new forms on one day. When that was done the students did stuff that would have made my knees ache for a week, so I practiced a bit on the form I'd learned (kind of). After class ended Zhoong-xu worked with me more and before I left I could do all the moves in the form without prompting beginning to end. I was very proud of myself. Incidentally, the parents all stand around and watch the entire class. But I felt like they were mostly watching their own kids. Today's kids were 6, 7, 8 years old. Zhoong-xu's little brother was one of them.

I took the bus home, stopped to check on the Yeungnam U kids and then made Shin Ramyun and invited Misa for Shin Ramyun and rice and kimchi. She was happy to share and we talked for an hour or so during and after eating. It's now after 11 and I am very tired. But I want to update this, as the Internet quit on me twice today when I tried to upload the latest, and I want to see if there are any prospective teacher's emails to answer.

I woke up early and headed out to exercise, none of the Koreans showed up. I ate some nice oatmeal for breakfast and then was putting the kimchi together (the chili paste and the now prepared Chinese cabbage leaves) and realized that my feeling sad not to be in Korean on Chusok was nothing compared to how the Yeungnam students must feel. So I went down and invited them to lunch at noon. They had to go to the hospital to get checked up today, so they all figured they could be back by twelve. So I started cooking... but then there was NO WATER on the third floor! Have you ever tried to prepare a feast with one burner and no water???? I told the staff and went to the street market (thief street) and bought some stuff I needed, still no water, I prepared as much as I could and went to Home World for some other things, still no water! Finally at 11:30 I had water again but by that time I had already had to take all my veggies and fruit down to the first floor public bathroom to clean it, and half my peanuts (after cleaning and let me tell you peanuts ARE a root... man were they dirty) fell onto the floor... FUCK! I was so pissed off! Anyway I prepared dwenjangchigae, egg-breaded fried veggies with dipping sauce, pickled garlic, two kinds of kimchi, two pre-made dishes from the supermarket (obviously those were Chinese), two big plates of fruit (green grapes, cherry tomatoes, sliced melon and jujube), boiled peanuts, an onion and eggplant dish, and I bought three take-out containers of white rice at the back gate. After they arrived it was immediately obvious we didn't have enough rice. We ate up our rice, then Yeong-yoon went to buy more, and I made more egg-breaded veggies as they'd eaten them up with relish. So we had more veggies and the Chinese dishes were ignored and the garlic pickles, kimchi, veggies, eggplant and especially the dwenjangchigae were eaten up entirely. The silence except for the "Pass me some batter-fried tofu" was amazing. Everyone concentrated very hard on eating! Then we had fruit and things got more conversational. When the meal was done, there was no water, again. Very frustrating. So, I get to do all the dishes by myself.

Yeong-moke used the Internet before he left, and then I used it a bit myself before going to meet Marie. Marie and Yuki (another exchange student) and I went to buy IP phone cards. I can use them in my room! And make long-distance calls! Yay! I bought three of 100 yuan value. I paid only 95 for them (total)! That's really great. So, now I can call mom as soon as it's the morning of her birthday, and I don't even have to go someplace else to do it! Of course, I have to stay awake until after midnight... Zhoong-xu has said that I should come on Friday, so I could have gone to martial arts today, but I started worrying maybe he'd be pissed, or maybe today there wasn't any class, or whatever. So after getting back from my trip with Marie and having a chat with Misa I took a nap! Sinful, I know! In Korea, after the beginning I never took naps, I mean never! Anyway, I felt like it and so that's a good enough reason, right?

In the evening I wasted too much time on the Internet still striving to find a teacher for these guys, and also some photo stuff. I finally called mom, but I had the time wrong. Instead of having to call one hour later than Korea (at midnight instead of eleven to catch her at seven a.m.) I could have called one hour earlier (at ten). So by the time I called her it was nine and she had friends over eating breakfast together to celebrate her birthday (she was taking the morning off work).

I woke up after a very restless night of sleep and Yeong-yoon and I exercised. He gave up on running today and learned some Taekkyon. He's very quick at picking it up, so no skin off my back. Well co-ordinated. And he only works out for twenty minutes, so I had lots of time to work on my own practice. I think he has a crush on me, though. I need another man like I need another hole in the head. He's sweet, but, well, Karjam is the best! Probably more than you need to know, but I didn't eat any Chinese food yesterday, and today things are coming out normally whereas usually all that oil... messes up my system. Speaking of coming out... it's one thing when I see turds scattered here and there in the morning (even around campus) and imagine someone in desperate straights during the night hours. It's even not too shocking to see a mom helping her child balance over the edge of the hole around a tree to take a crap (in Korea you see that with pee) but the other day in broad daylight I saw a full grown (maybe fifty year old) man taking a poo without batting an eye right on the sidewalk, and he pulled up his pants without wiping! Ugh!

I spent the morning on the computer... running two windows of Internet, and Photoshopping images all at the same time. I managed to upload a lot of shots to my marketing site, which is great. Pretty hard to sell them if no one knows they exist! The third floor girls came in and helped me change the sheets and pillowcases and comforter cover and towels and cleaned the bathroom a bit. They do that once a week, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about the cleaning and helping me make the bed part, so we did it together. Now I've broken my hot water thermos- I can't find them to tell them, either. Oh, and the water went off again this morning at some point after I did the dishes. This is driving me nuts! The third floor has the only public kitchen and the washing machines. If the water goes off, there is no place for me to wash anything at all, not even a handful of grapes, except the first floor bathroom. The good thing of the morning was that my Internet photo friend told me my nude made me look too skinny! Ha ha ha! That's just a good pose and good use of light, but it made me happy. Been a long time since I was called too skinny!

Around lunch time I played badminton with Yeong-yoon. In the afternoon I studied Chinese rather more diligently than normal, and Karjam called as I was getting ready to go to the Wushuguan. He is arriving on Sunday! I am so excited! Now I will have to figure out how to meet him at the station. I took the 82 to the Wushuguan area, but I was too early, so I went to buy a treat that Misa likes that she can't find around campus. It's just 1 Yuan, and it makes her happy. Besides, Misa is always helping me- she's close by, competent, smart, good at Chinese and very friendly. I also bought a potato patty. My mom used to make them- grated potatoes pressed into a sort of pancake and fried. These tasted just the same. I love potato patties!

At the Wushuguan it was yet another group of students- so now I have seen three distinct groups. These were the more advanced students, and a lot of them were bigger, maybe middle school, though one girl could be in high school. And some of the boys might still be 5th grade of elementary- but the best of the elementary kids. Anyway, so warm-ups were self-administered. But Zhoong-xu still came by several times and 'corrected' me to "Do what the others are doing." Which was basically a lot of that "I'm a pretzel" sort of stretching. Zhoong-xu periodically went and tortured some of the kids (in other words, he bent them extra) but today's kids were serious, and no one cried like that first group I watched. I can't even describe what this one boy did. Okay, imagine you did the splits, sideways, not straight, and then while you are holding onto your foot (forward foot) with your hand, and your whole body pressed against your leg, you fall over on your side. No, I just can't describe it- you can't understand. Anyway, then when we started (at 7:30) we started directly with kicking, and the kicks were major. Fast, some of them seven or eight distinct moves... including 'hadan hwaejunchagi' and other difficult moves. I looked good- but slow, of course. Then things got really really complicated and I just practiced that first routine I learned. Then they started playing with swords! I stopped my solo practice and imitated the motion without a sword and he came and gave me one! I used it to do two motions- spinning it around my body and stuff- (slowly slowly compared to the others), but when they were doing sword forms, then I just put the darn thing down before I took someone's eye out! I still followed along though. That's so cool! Totally "Wow, I'm in China!" Then they practiced yet other advanced things while I went back to my form... which is getting pretty smooth by the way! At the end of the evening I walked with Zhoong-xu and his dad to their turn-off, then took the bus back to Landa.

In the lobby this one -very- hot guy was studying (he does that there, a lot). So I sat down to talk with him. His Chinese is horrible, worse than mine (well he probably is better at reading and writing), but he has okay English. Well, good enough to talk slowly. He is from Kyrgyzstan- definitely the first Kyrgyz I ever met! His name is Adlet, and he actually looks a lot like this one Korean movie star (we all think so). We talked for a little while and also chatted with these two Uighr students that keep stopping by here. The one wants to go to Japan as an exchange student, apparently. Yeong-yoon stopped by to tell me that they all want to practice Taekkyon at 7 a.m. even though it's Saturday! Also they found a place that sells halfway decent kimchee. That's cool! Other than that, just working on the computer here, sending another 15 emails "please work at my uni!" Fuck!

Yeong-yoon and Jinhee made it up to go exercise, but after only about ten minutes Jinhee had to go to the bathroom (her stomach hurt) and she never came back. We did a full fifty minutes, then came back in and I ate oatmeal for breakfast and did my laundry. Doing laundry is annoying cause I am not in the habit of having to attend to my washing every ten minutes or so (manually fill with water, manually drain, refill, set the timer and start it agitating again... and when it's time for the spinner... well the spinner is very temperamental and it usually takes like -one sock- at a time, it doesn't like to spin many items, at all. Fortunately the new washing machine's spinner is a little better.

My mom relayed to me a postcard from Bill P. It was so sweet! I can't believe he took the time to send me a postcard to tell me he's a fan of my photos! I must email him today! I should remember to send more cards and stuff myself. These days a card means even more than it did back before email. I don't know, it just shows so much more time and thought, I guess.

I used the Internet, ate a quick lunch, went to the post office and took a nap before going to the Wushuguan. Today was yet another group of kids! I can't believe it! Not only that but I was there from 5-9 and it was TWO new groups I hadn't seen before. The most advanced group of all had three very advanced girls. The youngest is 11. The oldest in that group (today anyway) was 16. Zhoong-xu is 17, but has been doing whatever art we are doing for eleven years. He's amazingly good- I know martial arts, I can tell. The kid has been teaching for four years, if I understood correctly! He's in second grade of high school, which means one more left to go. Unless they do the Western four year high school thing. I should ask someone. Anyway, he said today "we can be friends". Chinese people sure don't have the friends and age hang up of Koreans (thanks be!). The first class I did was younger kids, and we spent (not exaggerating) the first 45 minutes on cartwheels. I am starting to hate cartwheels. That class is made up of students who've practiced for one month. So, they don't know how to do much more than I do. I followed along no problem. The second class had the older kids. Yesterday's group was 3-4 years of practice, today's was I believe more than four. We stretched on our own, did a lot of complicated kicking and they practiced routines I am no where near ready for. Zhoong-xu is talking about taking me to competition already. At first I thought I was going to just play down that whole "I have martial arts experience" thing, just let it be natural, but it was totally unavoidable for them to tell I do. I mean, one demonstration and I can do things that probably these students didn't do for a year after starting or more. That means they are impressed now, but I wonder if they will still be impressed later on, cause there isn't much room for improvement with me- it's like start good, get a little better, whereas if you start as a total novice, you can become something amazing... I taught a couple hoshinsule today.

After class when I went to cross under the street again my usual busker was there. I stopped and listened more than I had before. He's very good, he is I think learning by ear... he knows tons of English songs, but he has no idea what the words are, so when the original song sounds a bit muddled, well, his singing comes out as a muddle. The tune is right, but just think... trying to learn Kurt Cobain's lyrics by listening and repeating only... could you do it if you didn't know what a grammatical sentence should sound like? Or even what potential words might come after another word? While I was there he managed to attract a good crowd and one man even dropped 10 Yuan on his case... and then he decides we are friends too, and he's only 17, too. So today is my 17 year old boys who want to be friends day. But I like him, he has guts, and he has good finger work on the guitar and a nice voice and he must be smart to remember so many lyrics... He tried to refuse me giving him a couple Yuan today. Next time I will let him refuse, maybe. But not today.

I was starving when coming back, so I bought a fried sandwich and after eating didn't want to sleep right away, so I went to find the Yeungnam kids, who were watching the DVD of Jopokemanura 2 (My Wife is a Gangster, 2). Don't waste your time seeing it. The first one rocked, though. Hollywood bought the rights to remake it, though how the story would work outside the Korean context I do not know. Now I just have to dutifully send of another round of unanswered letters to potential teachers before I sleep.

I managed to prop my eyelids open long enough to make breakfast and get out the door, of course right next to the bus stop they were selling one of my favorite Chinese foods, like a crepe you choose your own fillings for (like eggplant or shredded carrot). Next time I won't stumble around trying to cook. I arrived at the Wushuguan a couple minutes late, and it was the first group I had seen when I watched class. We worked out and they were just about right for me, they know very little I haven't learned by now, and then the next group was another NEW group! Now I have figured out though that each group meets twice a week, once on Saturday or Sunday, and one other evening. Still not sure how that works out logistically- I mean, I count six groups- am I wrong? Maybe it is five! Or maybe that one most advanced group only meets on Saturday, or perhaps Saturday and Sunday. If it's six classes on the weekends, that works out (which makes sense for starting at 8 a.m. and taking one hour off somewhere to have lunch).

Anyway, I worked out with the second group, too. By the end of that, I was about to fall over. My leg muscles are killing me. All that stretching is insane! I am not going tomorrow (which is my first day of classes anyway) and the rest will be good for my muscles. I was disappointed that my busker wasn't hard at work yet in his usual spot, but it was only just after noon when I passed by. Besides, I will certainly see him another day.

When I returned home I asked Misa (what a wonderful wealth of information and a kind soul!) how to meet a specific train (rather than just waiting outside the station) and she explained perfectly, even writing down "platform ticket" in Chinese and Pinyin (English phonetic writing for Chinese). Her Slovakian roommate can't speak much Chinese, and Misa can't speak any Slovakian, Czech or English... I do wonder how they communicate. There are no Slovakian dictionaries for Chinese, so she uses a Czech one, and apparently it is full of errors. I suggested she become a dictionary author. She declined.

I copied down some song lyrics for my busker friend and then walked to the train station to meet Karjam. I thought his train arrived at 5:20 and I was cutting it close, but when I bought the platform ticket and went to walk in to meet him, it said 5:45. Oh I wish it had been 5:45! They first told me 7, then at 7 said 7:30, and at 7:30 said 8:10 (this is when I could walk home and back in just about thirty minutes if I had only known the time to wait earlier). He did arrive at last, I wonder if it ever occurred to him I might not wait. I must have considered giving up and going home like ten times! So, I was starving but he was just beat. I had bought him one of his favorite Pineapple "Beers" (they don't have any alcohol). So he sat and drank that naked, and then I finally convinced him to get in the tub (ripe, really ripe!). I had already managed to start his dirty clothes in the wash. He came back with another suitcase and a bag more than when he left. So, he's moved back, I guess.

Well, it finally happened, I taught class! I woke up at 6:20, did Taekkyon for 35 minutes, splashed, ate oatmeal, dressed up really well and found my classroom. It had students, so I figured that yes, class was starting. Then Ms. Song arrived and confirmed for me that it was indeed time for class. My first class was full of Ecology Majors! How's that for a coincidence! They were pretty sharp, I enjoyed teaching them quite a lot. Ms. Song had led me to believe the students would be terrible at English, but many of them were capable of quite complex sentences. The second group I had today (each class was two hours long) was a mix of Chemistry and Chinese Literature. They were a much more mixed group, with some really sharp students and some that couldn't make much of a sentence when put on the spot. The first class was a little over 40, the second about 55 students. The worst part of the day was that by the second class Ms. Song had had someone type me a Pinyin roll book... and it was the most embarrassing thing to start class by massacring 80% of the students names (they didn't complain, but I was bright red and gave a mini-lecture about how we have to try even when it's difficult, so I was trying to say their names and they should always try to speak in English, even when they were afraid they would make a mistake).

After class ended I came home and Karjam and I went out for noodles for lunch. He made it back with about 70 of the 1,000 I had sent him, and apparently he doesn't get any scholarship money for studying here... so does that mean I am totally supporting both of us on my 3,000 a month salary? I don't know. I will talk with him more and fill you in later.

At least there is a good prospect of a teacher lined up... the guy seems serious about coming. Canadian. I just hope it works out, because I am TOO TIRED of sending out emails to people too money-hungry to considering this position. This is a great position in every respect except the pay, and considering how cheap it is to be in this area, the pay is only unmanageable if you have outstanding debts that you are paying off.

In the afternoon Karjam made me engage in serious deep conversation for far longer than my Chinese ability makes it comfortable for me to do. After about two hours, I started saying "We have lots of time, let's talk about this another day, my head hurts." But he just kept going. It was -not- all pretty. I mean, he went back on that adoption thing, "If you love me, you'll have a child for me. I can wait until you are ready, three years, five years." And he started in on "After we are married, you can't run around with other guys you know (he meant as in you can't really have male friends) because Tibetan culture... blah blah blah." I was all like, "Don't worry, you can meet all my male friends and we can hang out together, I want to spend my time with you and share my life with you". But then I realized he was partially on the sex thing cause he started mentioning Samkuchet who is a friend of ours, who ran around on her husband something awful in Beijing and finally let him find out about it in a really nasty way- she came home to Hezuo, where he was living with their daughter, and didn't come to their house... just ran around with friends drinking and stuff for a few days while he waited. So I said "If you run around with your friends and leave me bored and wondering where you are, if you are ignoring me and putting anyone besides your parents before our relationship then watch out! But if I can believe you love me, and you don't ignore me, then you don't have anything to worry about." Cause I know damn well that left to my own devices I'll start flirting with some stupid guy to get the attention I am lacking, especially if I don't have my own social life to hitch into... Actually, I know damn well that I am a damn sexual person and any man who wants a monogamous relationship with me better keep me satisfied, entertained, content, and completely sure that I can't get what I have with him somewhere else. So that uncomfortable conversation segued into "Have you slept with anyone else since you left me in Ahwencang last summer." And he had already made me promise not to lie. So, I got out of telling the full truth by explaining my incredibly odd relationship with Suyun. (Who incidentally has sent me two chatty emails since I left, we really are friends, even if in Korea that supposedly could never happen.). So he didn't ask "Has there been anyone else?" Which was, of course, quite fortunate. Nothing like a tangent at the right time! But then he went back on that damn after marriage sleeping around thing... and mentions, "Oh, in Tibetan culture it's fine for the man, and my oldest brother has another woman and they have not one but two kids." and blah blah blah. So I told him that if he expected me to not have sex with anyone else he better be damn careful I don't think he is doing so, or he'd be in real trouble. And that eventually led to me (joking around) lying on him (we were having this conversation on the bed) and doing a double leg lock on him. I know damn well exactly how much it hurt, and that it didn't hurt even one minute after I let of the pressure, but he got angry, stalked off the bathroom saying "You're big and I'm small and I don't do martial arts." Oh c'mon, give me a freaking break! The guy probably wears a 46 wide jacket. I mean, he's got huge shoulders, big arms, a barrel chest, and muscular legs. He's definitely heavier than I am by perhaps 8-10 kilos, maybe more, even if I am taller. So I laughed. Which I think made him more angry and he left ignoring me asking "Where are you going?"

So I went downstairs and had a couple slices of pear with the Yeungnam students and watched him come back, a few minutes later I went upstairs, but I must not have seen him leave again. So I came back downstairs and Shao-shie the receptionist whose husband is and English Professor asked me back to her house when she got off work at eight, so I went with her. While waiting I did flirt with Adlet a bit. My lord the man is like bottled sex appeal. Shao-shie's house was nice, her husband's English was fantastic, and when her daughter came home the daughter was cute and played me two songs on the piano. They live very middle class, with a very nice place. Leather sofas (matching set) and all that jazz. I took the bus back, flirted with Adlet again (he studies in the lobby) and then came up here. Karjam is here, but he hasn't said a word to me, yet. Oh well! Freaking men!

Well, he still hadn't said a word when I went to bed (he was pretending to sleep). I tried to curl up but he cold shouldered me. So I started talking anyway, saying we shouldn't go to bed angry. It was a huge blow up. Ugh. I had to promise to have a child, or he would have walked out! Then today I felt like I'd thrown out my ideals, and let me tell you, I have NO FUCKING CURIOSITY about going through that whole pregnancy and child birth thing, and I've wanted to adopt my whole life. I firmly believe that having kids in this world with so many other people on the planet already is morally shaky, and having kids when someone else gave up theirs is silly, when I don't even want to go through the whole pregnancy thing, and don't care if a single strand of my kid's genetic make-up matches my own. So today all morning, when doing Taekkyon (amazing I made it up, I only had like 3 hours of sleep with all this middle of the night drama!) and teaching class I felt like I had betrayed myself.

Class.. (totally uneventful, what can I tell you about teaching English? Boring! Okay- this is my first lesson: I tell them my name and that they can call me Professor (family name) or just Professor. Then I tell them I am going to ask them questions in English to evaluate their listening and I want to hear answers in English only. So I go around to all my students (today both classes around 50 students) and I ask one question, or a follow up if I want- Is Lanzhou your hometown (so far not one yes!), What's your job (most of the older students are professors at one of the other schools or Landa, because only Landa has a PhD program), Do you have kids (one is the norm, but the one child thing is not really enforced much anymore, and never was much in Western China, where the minorities are all allowed to have as many kids as they want), What's your favorite movie (Titanic), What's your major (today I had a huge range, Anthropology, Law, Physics, and International Relations). I do not repeat the same question even once, which gets hard towards the end. Then I tell them this is their only chance to ask me some personal questions, but they are aware of Western thinking about asking about this and that, and seldom ask any rude questions (except I got the religion one in 3 out of 4 classes). They do however ask me what I think of that dick head in the US White House, and the Iraqi war and Lanzhou and beef noodles (famous food around here) and where I have been in China. Then I make them write their self introduction (it's a writing course, this is my chance to evaluate their writing ability) and remind them that this is the least focused and easiest thing they will write all term. After that we play Jeopardy (testing their listening more). I used the categories of Clothes, Sports, Capital Cities and for the Ecology students I used Ecology but for the other students I have used Name 3 (three Spanish speaking countries, three trees, three famous soccer players... etc.). They are much better than my Korean students, and much better informed and much more interesting. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, I am teaching either students in their 7th year of post-high school study or professors for the most part. Those should be some smart students! But on the other hand, they can't name a single Korean city in any language aside from Chinese, and they don't know the capital of Laos (except one student), and Spanish speaking countries was very hard for them, and ice-hockey was a strike out twice. (What sport uses a puck, sticks, goals and skates?)

So when I got home, I felt really depressed about Karjam and all that, I mean, so he didn't leave me- but, I gave up my ideals and have basically promised to be a good Tibetan wife, wear Tibetan clothes, milk the yaks, raise the babies and any other conventional traditional thing you can think of. And he was still being weird, we started talking he was all like "I don't want to change you, so we have to separate even though I love you" and finally things ironed out, somehow. I sort of gave him a lecture about money not meaning much, and a pretty car being a waste of money when you can have the same point A to point B from a car that costs 1/4 as much. Not wanting to build a house larger than needed, and etc. Then suddenly he's all crying and like "You are so good, and I am so greedy." and stuff, and apologizing and all that. So, we had make-up sex (twice) and sort of all that lovey-dovey stuff... and then went to eat at like 3:30 (I was so starving, I ate an apple for breakfast with the oatmeal I didn't finish eating yesterday reheated). We had noodles and a tofu dish... the best tofu I've had so far in China. Great!

Mom sent me a care-package, maybe her best care-package ever. I had so much fun opening it with Karjam. First of all, it had some stuff I wanted... she sent me a new all-natural chapstick and organic peppermint tea and EmergenC vitamin drink mixes, and dad's most recent business catalog, so Karjam could finally really understand what my dad does for a living. She also sent recent photos of Juniper and Zack and Irene V. Two books I wanted to read (by CJ Cherryh), Burt's Bees hand-salve, some heal crack special oil stuff for dry feet, and a pair of earrings made from the antique Vietnamese coins I sent her and two beads. Very nice! It was the highlight of my day, for sure. Mom's the best and most amazing and wonderful creatures on the planet.

That Canadian Michael is definitely coming, probably on Sunday, and I talked to Director Liu about it. So, I am feeling good, even though they need two, and that guy is only one person. It's not like they are paying me to do this! In the late afternoon I went to the Wushuguan with Karjam. We arrived in the area early, so we went to see my busker. He wasn't playing, two of his friends were. However, he was there, hanging out. So I loaned him three CDs - Red Hot Chili Peppers (cause I know he'd like them), Van Morrison (because I think that's easy for him to learn to play) and Iris DeMent (to widen his musical horizons, and show him a different style). I told him to give them back on Thursday or Friday and that I'd kill him if he wasn't careful with them. Karjam liked listening to his friends, too. So that was a successful stop. We had to continue on to the Wushuguan before seven. Karjam liked Zhoong-xu and his father, too. I don't think I did so good, though, because I was really tired. However, it was only my fifth day so Karjam was suitably impressed. Best of all, I get to learn a new form tomorrow. Of course it's one I've sort of followed along with, but now I will be taught it properly. Zhoong-xu asked me to teach him English (which gets me off the hook with paying him for class, I am more than willing to trade). And I finally learned the name of the art I am practicing- GuoBiao- which is a traditional art, apparently. Who knows, I may learn a lot more and realize that's not the 'name' I meant when I asked for the name of the art. On the way home I introduced him to the Yeungnam crew. Koreans are so innocent. One of them kept exclaiming, you mean Tibet is part of China?!!

No classes today, yay! I do have to read a huge stack of self introductions, though. I made a good breakfast and helped Karjam set up a program to study English. I allowed him time to watch TV in his schedule, too. He wrote a song this morning, about his feeling about me not wanting kids, but him wanting kids. Not that I'd have any idea what it said if he didn't tell me, he wrote it in Tibetan. It's his first ever song he wrote, though. I am proud of him. He taped himself singing it on my suggestion, so he doesn't forget. Also, in this morning's conversation guess what I found out? 1. He wasn't a virgin with me, only I was his first foreign woman. Huh? 2. He has had sex with at least one other person when I was in Korea, cause he said he knew I was and he likes sex, too. So! That was a surprise. He said "I am very popular with women, you know." Well, I know he should be. But, I swear he has told me both that he was a virgin and that I was the only woman he'd ever had sex with. I even asked him if he'd had sex with another woman while I was in Korea- and he said no! So, yes, my language skills are improving everyday, but, what's with that! I am sure he lied, not that merely we didn't understand each other. Anyway, he's been with four other women. Not that that holds a candle to me, but he doesn't need to know how the disparity is. His pronouncement of the morning is that we should only have sex once a week. Which I responded to with "Then we can't get married." I mean, what the ****? That's ridiculous! He says he loses all his energy, and it's true yesterday evening after (the third time) we had sex (for the day) he was bleeding from his nose so bad that it really freaked me out (he also got a smaller nose bleed after the second time). Anyway, I don't think he could hold to only once a week, anyway. He initiates sex every time we have it, or almost every time. (If it wasn't often enough, of course I'd initiate).

I answered emails, especially two from Michael, and one from Jim M. (who still might be able to come here and work with me again, if he doesn't find another good job!) I really selfishly hope Jim comes, as he's interesting to talk with, fun to hang around with, and good friend and a totally competent English instructor- I'd never have to worry about if he was doing well in class, which I will have to worry about with Michael. Besides, it'd be interesting to see what he's like when he's totally sober, as he's been since he left Daegu.

How am I feeling about this whole child (children) thing? Not good. I feel strongly as though I've been made to give up what I believe in, and that Karjam is getting all the benefits, and I am making every concession. I can't imagine being pregnant, and I don't want to. I know that probably after a nine month pregnancy I would love my kid (or at least love it being -out- of me) but, at this moment I am not sure I could love my own biological child, not sure I wouldn't regard the child as an eternal emblem of not being able to hold to my principles, or as an alien parasite, or whatever. I just am NOT mentally equipped to want this whole pregnancy birth thing, and I always favored the idea of adopting a child when they were older (cause it's harder for those children to find homes) even as old as five would work for me. Also, frankly, I am not mentally prepared to adopt, much less to get pregnant. As I've gotten older I've more and more realized that maybe child-rearing of any child is not for me. (Even though, in an ideal world, I'd still like to provide a good loving home for a child without one). I don't think Karjam realizes that I am feeling resentful, trapped, and in some way 'dirty' because of this whole thing.

It is 10:43 p.m. and Karjam is haltingly recording himself another new song, or working on the same one- but I think it's a new one. He just came home, later than I did. He had gone to meet a friend, a Tibetan who dances with a Han dance troupe here in Lanzhou- someone who might know of some work Karjam could do. Anyway, he went to see a performance. I wish I'd gone! Especially since my legs and particularly my butt muscles, the back of my thigh muscles and my hip and knee joints are in quite a lot of pain at the moment.

Karjam and I had lunch in the same restaurant we've gone to now the last three days. I made a comment yesterday that the owner was so nice, and Karjam said "I don't think so." So I asked why not, and he said "I don't like Han." I mean, I understand that the Tibetans have been screwed over by the Han, but... this restaurant owner had nothing to do with it. I asked him in the future to please say "I particularly like Tibetans." Instead of saying something so negative. Anyway, that restaurant has really good food, especially noodles, which Karjam loves. I get a noodle soup, made with egg and tomatoes and a bit of mustard greens. The noodles in my soup are flat and thin and you could fit a couple on a tea spoon. They also give this strange drink made with egg and rice that is cold and slightly sweet and has the faintest resemblance to makkulri. Karjam likes it more than yet another glass of green tea.

Since we had lunch really late, we just talked at home for a bit before heading out, Karjam to meet his friend and I to the Wushuguan. Today I learned a new form, but the last two motions I am still getting a bit screwed up on. Anyway, it was fun to learn a new one. Zhoong-xu only wants to study English on the weekends, even though I tried to scold him into "a little every day is the best way". I really would rather not promise I can teach him every weekend! Even if I go to martial arts then, too. Now I am alternating writing this, correcting students papers and checking the Internet.

This morning I had to wash my hair in cold water. We have hot water twice a day, but now there is a notice up "No more hot water" until when, we do not know. Anyway, my hair was starting to look a little skanky so I had to wash it before my very first class with these students- got to give a good impression! I wore my black knee length skirt and jacket suit, with nylons and a tailored light blue shirt. It looked very sharp, yet again I was the best dressed in the teacher's room. The Chinese just aren't like the Koreans- professors and older students dress just about the same, since many of the older students will be working in the afternoon after class. Some professors wear jeans (blue) and I have yet to see either a tie, a dry clean only item of clothing or anything that looked uncomfortable. Including shoes. So my dad would probably say that means the Chinese have their priorities straight. I've been conditioned by Korea... I wouldn't feel right, at least not yet, going to teach wearing less than a very smart looking conservative outfit. The second class I scared the students by not allowing three students who were more than 15 minutes late back from the break after their first class into the room.

After class when I came home Karjam was composing again. I had mentioned he brought his Tibetan banjo back from Beijing, right? I checked email and had two- from mom and from Kimberly. Kimberly's email made me cry and I resolved to call her in the evening. I miss her so much. I miss having someone to talk to in fluent English, not to mention someone who understands me as well as she does. Mom said I should have already gotten my tubes tied. I know that. But I have heard some stuff about the hormones in your body changing and that some women get fat... so that made me nervous about it. I should have done some research. Maybe I should get those shots you can get that will prevent you from ovulating for years. At the least it could give me time to think without him knowing I was preventing pregnancy. Everyone has always told me I'd change my mind when I got older. I don't see any signs of that, yet. Biological clock doesn't tick in me.

Karjam and I ate lunch again at the same place, I think Han or not Karjam is starting to like the owner. He didn't finish his meat, so we took it to go and bought some hwa-juan so his dinner was mostly hwa-juan and leftovers. I guess that's when I am happy I have a microwave. Today I didn't go to the Wushuguan, so I helped Karjam with his English, taught him how to use the Internet somewhat and we went to Home World. We bought a bit of cleaning supplies, drinks, cookies, dried fruit... Mom had said that I am not Karjam's mother- this whole supporting him and all- and I agree, I am not. But I think that if he uses his time effectively to compose songs, practice his singing and learn English that I am not being his mother, I am just giving him a gift of time. That time could be important for my future, too. His level of English will make a difference in my future, as will whether or not he becomes a famous singer. If you heard him, you'd know. He has what he needs, in terms of his voice and ability. He is doing this traditional thing- that's a bit of a liability, and he sings almost all in Tibetan, which makes him less likely to get recorded by any Chinese or Taiwanese company. I made a good dinner and called Kimberly... we laughed like fools about our men and talked seriously about the future. I miss her so much.

"My name is Ma Li. I am thirty-three. I have a happy family and I love my husband and son very much. My husbands is an editor and art. He is good at oil painting. My son is nearly six-year old. He is lovely. I am proud of them.

I am a doctor. I'm very busy. Evey day I go to hospital. I can come across many sick-all patients. I spent much time to treat them. So I have little time to attend my husband and son but they support me selfishlessly. I am impressed very much. In order to improve my study I study hard and enter the Lanzhou university. My family give me a hand. I appreciate them.

I can study and work harder than before for my family. I hope my efforts take my family more pleasure and happiness.

My major is cell biology. I like it. I can study and grasp it. Because I want to be an eminent doctor, I will work hard."

I woke up to go do Taekkyon at 6:20- it's not light yet at 6:20, just a hint of dawn- and Karjam said "If you go, I must go." and came and went jogging in his completely innapropriate shoes and stretched while I did Taekkyon. We ate oatmeal and he went to class with me, for my last of my first classes. It went fine. He said he understood very little, but any class after this he'd understand even less.

At noon after stopping by Mr. Liu's office we met Karjam's cousin (not such a close cousin) Tserang Gunma. She is studying at another university- maybe just a two year program- in Lanzhou. We are going to trade English for Amdowan lessons. Obviously I get the lesser end of the bargain, as I am a busy professional and she probably can't teach worth beans- I'm sure she's never thought about how to do it before. But I'd fight with Karjam if he taught me and then give up on learning, and I'd rather help a woman to accomplish some higher level than she could without my help than to help a man. Besides, I have a hard time learning from men, except physical stuff like martial arts. We ate lunch together, the three of us, and the two of them just chatted in Amdowan- every time I said something to her in Chinese she turned to Karjam- really made me frustrated. Karjam said she had said she was really afraid of me. First time she'd ever met a foreigner and all that.

Then Karjam and I fixed my watch band and came back home where I guiltily ignored my stacks of papers to look at and read in one of the books mom had sent me. On the way to the bus I stopped at Mr. Liu's office again. Everything is set with Michael arriving. That's wonderful.

At the Wushuguan I practiced with one of the advanced classes again. It was fun. They did staff practice (last week was swords) after the break, and I reviewed the form I learned two days ago. Did I tell you Zhoong-xu doesn't get time to go home after school? He goes directly from school to the Wushuguan. I really like it there, but you may hate to hear this but Karjam actually expressed displeasure with me practicing martial arts today! What does he want, my mind, my body, my money and every thing else? What else is there? I've been quite accommodating and let me tell you, I made it very clear I didn't want to hear one more word about it. I think I will reinforce that later.

I bought a fried sandwich on my way home, ate it and am trying to do a few things on the computer before I drop of exhaustion. I'm trying not to lose my patience listening to Karjam practice his English outloud. After all, I told him so many times he has to speak it, not just look at it. His ear for music is so good, I just don't understand how I can have to correct about (not abooot) fifty times in the same hour! We got a reply from a Tibetan man in Seattle. The community there is about 200 strong, with long timers and new arrivals mixed. Some are from Amdo, and they are very tight knit so would attempt to help him find a job. So that's good. Because I couldn't possibly consider living in America other than the Northwest or Northeast corner of the country, or Alaska. But Alaska probably wouldn't work as Karjam would want to be in Ahwencang or Maqu in the summer, and that's the best time in Alaska.

Karjam woke up and started doing jumping jacks and stuff in the bedroom, so I went back to reading my book- soon I will have exhausted all my reading material except my Economist subscription, which has finally started arriving here. I finally stirred myself to do more than eat handfuls of dried fruit (figs and dates) and sauteed some veggies to eat with hwa-juan.

Karjam and I went out, eventually, to eat at the same restaurant (we can't find a better) and then to walk around until we found him one of those neck clamp things for a guitar or banjo and one of those things you blow in to tune your instrument perfectly. Don't know what that's called. On the way back we ran into John the Christian. The first time I met him I asked "So, why did you pick Lanzhou?" and he told me "God told us to come here." He is married, and they have two children. Both of the parents are enrolled as students here. The kids are 5 and maybe a little less than one. Americans.

After getting back to our room I left for the Wushuguan where I was surprised to find Zhoong-xu's teacher directing lessons. And guess what! The teacher is a woman!!!! I didn't get to see anything of her moves, but she must be a serious bad-ass. Two older (later high school) girls came to the class I attended and helped instruct also. They had great athletes bodies and were super pretty, and they could do things like 'buchae' (handless cartwheel). I was very impressed. However, we had stretching at the end of the lesson and the stretching was so intense I wanted to cry. So I didn't feel up to doing two lessons today. On my way home I stopped at Home World, and then saw that Charlie's Angels 2 (Full Throttle) was playing in the "theatre" so I dropped off the groceries and since Karjam wasn't around went back to watch. But when I got there it was the final scene... and the Chinese movie that followed had no subtitles and seemed to be dark suspense movie- probably something I wasn't going to be able to follow well, so I gave up. When I went outside some students were playing something like hacky-sack but with long feathers on it, and I tried. My timing was off, it was embarrassing.

I tried to email twice today. I wrote Timothea a long letter, and lost my connection, then the same halfway through a reply to Mom this evening. The best part of the evening was that Chang-geun came back, and says he has black pepper at his house to give me later. Yay! I don't exactly have a big accumulation of friends here... and Chang-geun is probably the closest friend I have outside of Misa and Karjam. Closer than Misa, I suppose, just cause we can speak fluently. He has this six year girlfriend, she'd broken up with him (over him committing to two more years in China) but when he went home they made up and she's moving here in November. That's cool! I am happy for him.

I woke up, had some black sesame seed soupy drink mix thingie and a pear and went to the Wushuguan. Practice today was ordinary, except Zhoong-xu was telling me not to overdo the stretching, probably the (older) woman instructor yesterday pointed out that older people don't recover from muscle strains as well or as fast. Today I practiced repeatedly my second form, and I think it's starting to look good- I can do it pretty fast by now. Hopefully I'll get another new one before the end of the week.

My busker was not in evidence -again- I wonder if he decided to quit that spot in order to keep my CDs? Oh well, worse things can happen and it's his karma. I'll only really truly miss the Iris DeMent. I'd heard that Red Hots CD so many times I was sick of it. I went straight home, reading my book on the bus and while walking. I almost ran into the Yeungnam students, who told me they'd installed a wire in my room to hang my laundry on to dry. Then I almost ran into Dave, who was on his way to meet Mina. He seems pretty tight with her. She's about 5 feet tall, and he's like 6'4", so I find the idea that they might hook up very amusing to picture in my mind. Not sure if that's what is going on, though. He is younger than her, and not as handsome (in my opinion) as Rob (long hair) or Gavin. How handsome Rob F. is being unimportant, since he's here with Sarra, and Tom being... I don't know... he's cute, in a hyperactive way. Anyway, he's a nice guy. Yesterday when I met him on the street he said he'd spent 700 yuan already that day! He buys a lot of DVDs and also he said he spent a ridiculous amount at Home World on all the things he can't get in Yuzhong.

When I got home the Internet was actually only as slow as thick oil, so I was able to answer a whole heck of a lot of email. Randy sent me a photo of myself as a NASA astronaut. The dictionary did not help Karjam know what that was, I had to explain "travel to other worlds person". Randy is concerned I am not studying the most authentic martial arts in town. But I am studying at the only place with a regular class I could find! I searched for quite a while! And I like what I am studying, it's fun, and it looks cool, and I already know Hapkido for self defense. The art I am learning is very "Chinese"- it's the sort of thing you see when you see a Chinese art other than Tai'chi. So I think that it will work for me.

I had made one Shin Ramyun for the two of us to share, and was figuring that'd hold us an hour or so, but two hours later and Karjam said I should cook instead, so I started cooking this stuff we bought- they have lots of varieties in the dry goods section of rice mixed with other things you cook it all together. This was black rice, small dried tuber things, rosehips and jujubes. When that was almost done I made an eggplant dish, but Karjam was fast asleep and didn't want to wake up to eat. The rice wasn't bad... just ate it plain from the cooker. Or plain as it can be when it has all those extras in it. Michael is supposed to arrive this evening. Karjam did some exercises this morning, too. It made his nose bleed. What's up with that? Why would someone get so many nosebleeds?

When Michael finally arrived, he was quite late. I had started to get quite worried, it turned out with good reason. They tried to have him living in another building, but I wouldn't let them do that without objecting, as they tried the same to Vahid and he said the other apartments in that building were really substandard. I mean, Michael being here is my responsibility, I don't want him to think I tricked him in some way. So I told the office guy who kind of helps Mina on this campus to deal with the problem and we'd go take Michael to dinner. Karjam actually spoke some English to him, successfully. I was proud of him. Michael is a good partner for Karjam to practice speaking with, as Michael can't speak any Chinese at all yet. We finally sent him off to sleep.

I woke up, did Taekkyon (I can tell it will soon be too cold to do that in the morning) and when I was coming back to the building, Michael was coming out, so I invited him for oatmeal. He had oatmeal and then I took him with me over to the classes building and he met all the appropriate people on the teaching staff before my classes started. This new lesson plan is pretty good. They write for about 35-40 minutes (out of a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes of class, two 50 minute halves) but I break it up with listening to me reading from the book and explaining it (use topic sentences, make focused paragraphs, etc.), going over common errors on the last assignment, scolding them about writing over and over on their first assignment "I am poor at English" (that attitude will come true if you don't replace it with "My English is improving every day.") and a speaking assignment (asking neighbors questions with can and abilities) and a game (Killer, which they totally didn't get the idea of, I must try harder to explain it tomorrow). I also told them (not all of them did it) at a certain point to start over, try again, and write more clearly and in a more logical order. (I explained that even though I am American, I still have to revise anything I write before it's really good). The assignment for the first class was "My Favorite Elementary School Teacher" and for the second group "The Most Influential Book I Ever Read". That'll make it slightly more interesting for me to look over the papers.

After class I met Michael and Karjam and we went to lunch. I lost track of time and it was already 1:00 when I started running towards the front gate to meet Tserang Dunma. She and I came back to this building and studied in the central 1st floor study area (Karjam doesn't want people in Maqu to know he's living with me yet, and she's not a close friend he can trust not to blab that exciting gossip around town). First we studied English. She claimed to never have had an English class, but she can write down when I spell things more accurately than Karjam can. Even though she knows no vocabulary to speak of, she has better pronunciation than he does. I taught her some words and a couple sentence structures. After we practiced that, she taught me the Tibetan Alphabet. It's crazy! The names of the letters sometimes correspond to the sounds they make in words, but not often. For example, the letters "Ah" and "Kka" combined with this thing called a "Nahroe" make the sound "Dro" (the verb to go). There are four things that are something like tonal indications, three of them are tacked on top of the letter they effect and one below. These change or merge the sounds together in some way I can't understand yet. Both Tserang Dunma and Karjam's name have these compounds in them that are utterly impossible for me to understand or guess at how to sound out at this point. But the "ma" in Dunma is exactly that in the alphabet. So... I am still quite in the dark, but I will try to practice before we have class tomorrow. Eventually I am going to figure it out, I guess.

After class I took Michael to Mr. Liu's office and then to the office of the Graduate School of Foreign Studies. On the way back here we stopped at the library. It was my first time in there. They have lots of outdated periodicals, including a tabloid! Okay, they have Harper's, too. Then on the fourth floor we found a lot of books. Many of them are completely outdated stuff the Lopez Library would have had in the bargain box under the table at the annual book-sale (and they would have found the books in the basement, not in the stacks). Some of them are quite acceptable classics. I don't know if we can check out, or how good the selection really is, because a guy came and said time to close up, they'd reopen at 8 (that's pm, I hope).

I gave Karjam an English test. I made him define the words, then checked his pronunciation, and he had to write a sentence for each. Just five words: aunt, white, color, easy, photo. His definitions were fine. His pronunciation missed "white". His sentences were atrocious. The closest sentence being "I has is one aunt." (Of course he has many, but I was looking for English, not truth.)

My good friend Aimee, who I met many years ago in Laos, sent me an email and I answered her in such depth I am just going to paste it in here:

Anyway, reading about you and Karjam -- it does seem that he demands that you be exactly how a Tibetan wife should or nothing at all. He even says he would leave instead.

I am starting to wonder about this "leave me" thing. Like it's a tactic he's using to get his way. He did it again today, started saying "tomorrow I am going to go and find my own place to live". Why? Oh... well, first I was in this happy lovey mood, so i asked him to come lay down on the bed after we'd eaten and I am all telling him that I care more about being held and having him show me he loves me by wanting to hold me and look in my eyes than sex (isn't that usually the case for us women, even though we all like sex, too, isn't it the feeling of really being loved we are after)? Isn't that the reason why we hate it if they leap out of bed after sex (especially the first time) or if they fall asleep as soon as they get off? I mean, this was a totally non-sexual situation, but for him just to be on the bed (fully dressed on top of the covers, but on the bed) sort of cast sexual overtones on it. If sex was the most important thing to me, I wouldn't be with a guy who has a dick that goes soft, and it's none too big to start with and he actually said that the idea of going down on me made him want to VOMIT when I suggested that that would be nice... I mean, he's inexperienced even if I now know I am not the only woman he's been with. It sounds to me like most of them were ONE time encounters, and if I wasn't in love with him I wouldn't have gone back for seconds, either.

So, back on track and off the tangent- genius boy responds to my lovey-dovey, "I am so happy just to lie here and look at you, gorgeous man." By telling me that in 2000 when we first met one of the people translating for his troupe said "She's just someone like a prostitute but who doesn't take money, she just loves sex." Which didn't make me too happy, because I remember that woman quite well, and she was nice to my face and even gave me her address and phone number to look her up if I came to China. So I said, "That was a long time ago, but it still doesn't make me happy to hear that, so why did you say it?" and he's all like "I know you slept with that guy from the Senegal troupe." (Okay, so that's true). But I said "How do you know that? He and I were friends."(True, we even exchanged letters as recently as a year ago). And Karjam says "I can read you, the way your eyes look, your body language."

Then he goes off on this tangent about how "when we're living in Ahwencang." and he's going to have to worry about my behaviour all the time, cause we're not going to be in some isolated situation like we are now, without any outside pressure. So I put the positive spin on that, too, and tell him that we're laying a strong foundation in our relationship now, and if we lay it really strong, we'll understand each other so well that when we get to Ahwencang there won't be any real problems, cause he'll know in advance what may be difficult for me, and I'll know he loves and supports me, and since everything will be good between the two of us, I won't feel as much stress as I would moving to Ahwencang and dealing with so many new things at once.

So then I've beaten him on that issue, so he redirects, "I can't even invite my friends over here, cause I don't know what you'll do." So I said, "so invite them when I go to the Wushuguan." And on and on.

Finally he gets me to where I am crying, cause no matter what he's determined to find a problem I can't smile my way out of and brush off. So I decide to go to the store and buy some oatmeal before it closes, and ask him "When I come back can you please say something positive, not all this negative." (I had to look up pos. and neg. in the dictionary) and it turns out "speak positively" is some sort of loaded thing to say, or at least it was to him at -that moment- and he gets all pissed off and says he's going to move out! Fortunately I figured out he was reacting to the word positive, and I explained, look, I just looked up "positive" in the dictionary, I don't know what it means to you, but it means to speak about happy and good things to me, and I love you and want to buy oatmeal, see you later.

When I came back he was in the hallway on his way out, but when he saw me coming back (and not crying anymore) he decided to come back in and now he's studying again. Truthfully I went to the store with Yeung-yoon who 1. flirted with me and made me feel attractive and desirable and 2. carried my groceries and listened to me rattle on about nothing and didn't even drink the cold Pepsi I bought him (they don't have any cold juice or whatever).

I have to tell you I don't like the sounds of it, he sounds very inflexible.

Yes. I am wondering about that. I mean, when is he going to do something that he wouldn't have done no matter who he married? The latest thing I worried about? I bet if he and I had money, he'd want to decorate our house like- well they probably have them in Thailand where you used to live, too- those "rich people" who want to look "Western" and buy all these tacky weird display cases and china sets and freaky leather sofa sets and other stuff like that, when of course I'd prefer a nice traditional Tibetan weaving tacked to the wall and sturdy furniture made from real wood that's been neutral stained and isn't plasticy particle board.

ESPECIALLY that it is okay for husbands to have other women.

I actually don't think I have to worry about that much. He's just not the run around type.

He does seem like a really great guy, but he wants to control you too much and you are the last woman I know that could live well like that.

My parents had a very traditional marriage- father makes decision (with mother's input) and father presents "outside face" of the family and father is the law, and the leader... I am in some ways attracted to that traditional dynamic (incidentally my mother writes me "If you want to be treated like an equal you shouldn't hook up with a man from a culture that's never heard of women's lib." My mom is -not- the same woman now who was in that relationship with my father).

AND for as long as I've known you, you have said the one thing that you will not compromise on is adoption, and here you are already agreeing to it.

Wish I could take that back like the Dickens. I may break this guys heart and leave him rather than do what I already said I was going to. I tell you, my friend Timothea just got through 3 months of hellish morning sickness. Why should I be punished to carry around a baby like that? Fuck! No exercise, not able to eat, going to turn fat as hell, my breasts are going to fall after breast feeding, they'll never stick out again, I'll never get this fit again, I'll have stretch marks, I'll probably get like raw nipples and all this crap and I'll have to do a home birth in the middle of the grasslands in Tibet and then I have to deal with washing baby garments (Karjam swears he'll only wash the uppers, not the lowers) and having a baby crying all the time and heck, I can't deal with a kid, I don't have enough patience to get along with a man most of the time, and a kid needs twice as much patience. And I am not a patient person!!!!!!!!!! I am like the antithesis of patient. You want someone to work hard, to stay up all night doing the shit work, to double shift, to shoulder someone else's load, to whatever the fuck, ask me, but ask me to take care of a child that's going to want my attention 24/7 for several years, and then just MOST of the time for several more and then a little less and regardless a lifetime commitment to be a good mother and not be impatient and not make mistakes in the most crucial relationship a child is ever going to have except for the equally important relationship with it's father- if I am afraid to adopt and think I am not necessarily ready for that (missing out some of those dirty diaper sleep at the wrong time of day super small baby times that I feel I am most unequipped to deal with) then why, or how can I in good conscience consider taking on a child from CONCEPTION???

I think you would get past the child being a symbol, I"m not worried about the child suffering, but I do think you would regret it for the rest of your life, that you gave in on the most important ethical/moral statement you had for a man, and one that would not do the same for you.

Completely true. Can't blame the child for the parents mistakes, but I am afraid I'd be a damn lousy mother. My mom was very patient (maybe too patient, witness what a willful woman I am) and my dad, though a bit disturbed that I didn't turn out like a normal human being (hello, I was raised in a damn weird social matrix... kids need to spend time with other kids and all I had was Zack) still gave me a million special memories and the problems I had with him didn't really arise until I turned into a freaky teenager who wanted a white bread family so she could "fit in".

But, I dont think that it is the end of the world yet. It is still very new to be in a close relationship for you guys, and some things can get worked out with time. I just feel like you are already giving up who you are and it's too early for that. What about, I will consider it and leave it at that for awhile. I thought tubal ligation didn't mess with your hormones too much -- that you still have your periods and everything.

Well I have this entire contract to figure it out. I still have time when this contract ends to be finding a new contract- it won't be too close to the start of new jobs (since this is a 10 month gig). I don't think I'd consider staying at Landa unless 1. I enjoyed the heck out of this year and this city and 2. They upped my salary to closer to 6 or 7,000 (double or more the current). If he does leave me, I am not going to chase after him. I do think he may be more negative and more manipulative than I previously had thought. I guess that's part of getting to know someone.

On getting my tubes tied, if I thought he'd never ask me if I'd done it, I'd do it in a second- but on that one fateful day, I did say I should go to America and get "an operation to prevent pregnancy". So, he could ask. And how could I directly lie to him? Redirection, half truths, sure I can do that.. (Oh, Lat (Senegal) put his arm around me? I can't remember, anyway, he was my friend, friends do that!). I have been thinking on those shots they give you that make you sterile for several years. At least it'd give me a chance for him to feel I was "trying" and for me to see if I was mellowing out enough to be a decent mom.

Seems like this guy is blowing all his chances with me. It's like, you give in one thing and then you are expected to give in on everything forever. He's acting like a spoiled brat. I need to use some body language to convey many ideas, as my Chinese is not that advanced yet- but sometimes he refuses to look at me, or even to respond when I say his name. I think that contrary to what he told me before about only fighting with people outside his family/love relationships, I think he is actually just as likely to get angry as the next person. When we decided for real to get married (not the joking around about it in Korea, or the question I didn't answer in 2001) he was concerned about me telling anyone people.. I said don't worry- my family and friends know me. I mean, no one is holding their breath for anything to happen in my life, everyone knows I live in a state of flux. My mom isn't picking out what to wear for the wedding or anything like that. When I say I am going to get married to Karjam, I believe it, but that doesn't mean that things don't change. We learn as we gather information, and I am still gathering a lot. In so many ways I am really happy with this guy- but if he keeps blowing it with me, he'll run into that place where I start closing myself off, and once that starts I've never turned it around in my entire history of relations with men. In fact, I can only think of two relationships I have really turned around in my whole life, the one with my dad (always complicated) and the relationship with Lelania. Both got bad, and both have been repaired. So I just worry that he's going to push me too far, and right when he relaxes and thinks that things are going the way he wants, that'll be when I start actively planning how to make sure Adlet's roommate doesn't walk in while I am allowing him to "seduce" me. (Because I will have lost interest in maintaining the relationship with Karjam).

Too much about Karjam. Uh, today. I did Taekkyon, I ate breakfast, I taught four hours (today's essay topics were "What I Can Do to Help the Environment" and "One Thing I Wish Would Vanish"). I came home, I ate lunch (fried sandwich), I studied Tibetan with Tserang Dunma. I understand a lot more. I understand how vowels work now, and can read simple words with simple compounds. There are a lot of rules about compounds. When there is a compound and it's one on top of the other, the one on the bottom is important, when they are next to each other, the first one is important. But when one has a vowel attached to it (other than the automatic default 'ah') then that is important, regardless of where it is. Both ear and nose sound the same, but are written with different silent consonants. It's like figuring out a puzzle at this point- where you refer to the code sheet often. My evening class starts tomorrow. It's 70 yuan an hour- two hour class, two days a week. They offered 50, I argued. So, that's another 280 a week, which is another 1,120 bringing me tolerably close to the Yuzhong people with only a bit more work. Besides, the classes are in this building, and I can teach a conversational English class with absolutely no problem. The one problem with the classes is that on Wednesday they have tons of students, so they asked me to find two more teachers for those classes- but I can't. Michael finally agreed to teach one (only one day a week) but I can't turn up even an exchange student who needs the money and has the time.

The afternoon with Karjam was much better, moody pain in the ass seems to be feeling happier. I gave him some more money as he was low before I left for the Wushugaun (escorting Michael to the one department store where they have some imported food- he was excited to see butter, cheeses, pasta, olive oil, canned tomatoes...) and so I wasn't surprised to come home and find that he was gone. But he had only taken 100 of the 300 I gave him with him. When he returned (just past midnight) he told me he had met a singing friend and he had the lyrics and music to a new song he's going to learn for some event that's upcoming. That's good. Getting him some exposure will only lead to more work, I'm sure. The most interesting thing of the evening, was I got an email from "Susan". I had an email from her using Michael's acct. on Monday, Michael saw it and he said "Susan? Who's Susan?" Then after a few seconds. "Oh, right. Yes, I'll email her." (She was concerned to know if he'd arrived safely. I knew he'd already been emailing that day. So last night I got another email from her- using her acct. with the acct. name using the same last name as Michael and everything. She says, "I don't know if Michael told you, but I'm his wife, and I'm really worried cause he hasn't contacted me yet..." So I wrote her back and said he was here, and I didn't know if he knew how to email, he hadn't asked me about it, and I didn't think he knew how to make a phone call yet, and I was just going to pretend I didn't know about her, but anyway don't worry he's busy planning his classes and learning what's available at the store. So that was funny!

Well, today is mostly my day off, except the evening class and I still haven't found one more person to help teach, even though I went to the exchange student's class this morning and asked around. No one has time or desire of the few English speakers. I'm still trying to get in touch with ex-English teacher Karen, but she isn't answering her phone.

I simply must make a dent in the large number of papers lying around this apartment that have to be looked over, corrected, commented on... I still have half a class of Introductions left...

Oh I am almost forgot: This mornings big talk! We were talking about sex outside marriage (again) and he said that both of his brothers have two kids outside the kids with their spouses, so I asked, do you have any kids?

When I was eighteen I just wanted to study, but my family was always pressuring me to get married. There was this one woman who really liked me a lot and everyone, my friends, my big brother, everyone said "You should be with this woman." I really didn't think she was so special, but finally I started a relationship with her anyway. I wasn't really into the relationship and I was always thinking about my future and studying and leaving Maqu, and she was clingy and always demanding my time and I couldn't imagine marrying her. But I was young and stupid, and we were having sex. The sex wasn't even good, we only did it a few times cause it felt really awkward and strange. She got pregnant. But she didn't tell me. After three months, she still didn't tell me. After five months she asked me "How about we have a baby?" which of course was the same as asking me if I wanted to get married. I said I didn't want to get married or have a baby, that I was planning going to Lanzhou to Northwestern Minorities University. Then she told me she was already five months pregnant! In Buddhism you can't kill a baby that's that far along. Abortion would have been possible if she was just two or three months pregnant, but she waited intentionally, she wanted to trap me. When she said that, I knew she had a bad heart, that I could never be married to a woman who wanted to trick and trap me, and didn't care about my dreams or desires, and only thought about what she wanted. Everyone told me to marry her. My mother, my father, my family they were so angry at me. But what basis is that for a relationship? So I left Lanzhou and still when I see her I am still filled with anger. My daughter is 12 years old. I've talked to her once, when she was seven. I told her to be good and listen to her mother, and study hard. I can't even see that woman, and she's the only way for me to see my child. My daughter is okay, the family of that woman is rich and she has all the food and clothes and money for school that she needs. When she is older and needs some real help, then I'll help her.

He'd be so pissed if he knew I'd posted this on the Internet where you could read it. I think it's important though. I told him I don't care how hard it is, he has to get rid of that anger (A little piece of wood goes into your hand and it hurts and your hand gets big and there is yellow stuff, but if you take the wood out, after a short time it doesn't hurt and you forget about that wood. Your anger is like that wood stuck in your hand. It's making inside your body bad.)(That's the way I can speak Chinese... no word for splinter or fester or puss...) and he has to tell his daughter he loves her, cause a 12 year old needs to know her father doesn't hate her. But Karjam thinks of this woman as the biggest mistake of his life, of her as the worst person he knows, he's ashamed of his own actions, and angry at her all at the same time. Really ashamed. Don't think he's proud to be not supporting his child, or whatever. His whole family asked this woman to take the daughter to raise. He asked. His good friend and cousin asked. His mother asked, his older brother asked. But the mother didn't want to give up her daughter. He sends her presents through another friend a couple times a year, but that's all. I wish he had a relationship with this kid. First of all cause I think that father's (even when you fight with them like I did with my dad when I was twelve) are really important and second, cause if he did, maybe he wouldn't feel such a strong desire to make more!).

In the afternoon we went with Michael to eat, Michael sort of complained that he can't go eat by himself. Not sure if that was a hint to help him go eat more often. He doesn't seem to like Chinese food much, though. Anyway, after lunch (Karjam did make several communicative overtures, he's improving) I came back here and corrected some papers and did odds and ends until it was time to have my evening class. I was expecting that since I was teaching profs, and I have a lot of profs in my classes, that their abilities would be similar. No way! The profs I have are (with one exception) mid 40s and over, and two of the class members can barely open their mouths. That is complicated by the fact that other members are pretty good (if rusty) at spoken English. It threw my plan for a loop... I was hoping to just have a sit around free-talking class. I have ten students, total. The one 35 year old is the only one who can really speak. I finally decided to have a debate class. I gave them each teammates and topics and chose which team was for and against. It won't be easy for them, but they can't just freely talk, so preparing and "debating" seems better than just sitting around going "Uhh..."

I am a bit under the weather. The air has gotten bad again, my throat hurts and my head aches. A few days ago one of the other profs asked me if my throat got dry while teaching. I said, yes, a little, that's why I bring my tea jar (a totally normal thing that more than half the students and professors do). She said "Me, too. In fact, it's a good idea not to wash your hands too often. Especially not with soap." I guess I am not the only person around here giving major support to the moisturizer and lotion industry. Taekkyon was difficult this morning.

I had two classes this morning, I used the essay topics "If I Could Meet One Person from History I'd Meet ---" and "The Best Invention of All Time". After class I came home to Karjam. It's nice to come home to him. He is feeling headachy, too. We went to our usual restaurant for lunch, where we are getting practically chummy with the owner, and bought some veggies on our way home. Really I wanted to crash when I got here, just like he did, but I try not to sleep after I've just eaten.

"My Favorite Elementary School Teacher" (student only wrote his/her name in Chinese, mistakes from the original)

"My favorite elementary school teacher is Mr. Zhang Li who once taught me English. The deepest impression he gave me is that he paid same attention to every students. He was strict to those who was better at English while encouraged those who was bad at. After class he often played with us and wanted us to speak in English. No matter you spoke good or badly, he would praise you first and then correct your mistake. Gradually, almost everyone in our class became interested in English. I think he succeed in teaching."

Don't worry, of course I correct the mistakes and tell the students things like "needs more supporting sentences" or "concluding sentence is missing" or whatever. When looking through the essays for "Most Influential Book" I found two for "Gone with the Wind" two for "Silent Spring" and three for writing by Lu Xun.

The selection of Lu Xun's works is the most influential books I ever read. In mordern Chinese history. Lu Xun was known as a greatest thinker, soldier, and writer in mordern Chinese society. At that period, China was a very poor country that invaded by Japan and other stronger countries. Chinese people had to lvie in very terrible conditions. The government of Guomindang were getting corrupt. Lu Xun discovered the weakness and problems around the Chinese people. He criticized the weakness with his pen motionlessly. He wrote a lot of novels to discovery the importance of Changing weakenss of our nation. His articles were very sharp and deep, filled with great thoughts about Chinese political issues. Lu Xun emphsaied in his essays. As a human being, he should share his freedom firstly. He couldn't be as a salve only for the ruling class. He should struggle with the evill with his life to get the rights for human being. LuXun's masterpiece effected some young Leftist wing writer greatly. These young writer united with their art forms, with their pens, they pay attention to the usual people's living condition and the future of China. In a word, Lu Xun's ideas in his works had made a good influence in mordern China.

That one is a bit better than the average student can write. The first one is a more normal essay.

I am facing a choice. Jabu called. He's Karjam's double first cousin, that I've met many times now. Anyway, on the 1st and 2nd there is this ceremony to sort of like dedicate a new wing of the temple in Ahwencang (I don't understand completely). All the people who have jobs in Ahwencang have donated to make the temple better, and since Karjam's a student he can get out of it, or donate a small amount. If I go to the dedicated thing I have to go with Jabu, Karjam is officially in Beijing, and only Jabu, Gompa and Tsephel know he's in Lanzhou with me. And Tserang Dunma knows, but she's been asked not to tell, and she doesn't know the juicy stuff (he's living with me). If I go, I need to donate, maybe 1,000 to the temple and 1,000 to the school in town. (2/3 of one's monthly income is about normal apparently for these things) and I miss out on going to Dunhuang and other famous sites in Northern Gansu Province with all the other teachers (for only 500 total). I'm not sure that Jabu is ready to deal with me for a few days without Karjam around, and there is also the transportation problem, it does take me two days to get to Ahwencang, so... not sure it'd work out. Maybe I should just go to Dunhuang, but the photos in Ahwencang will be really special and I want to get out there before the full on winter. I came here to know his culture and family better...

We had a big foreign staff dinner thing. I was taking a nap cause I felt so lousy and was supposed to meet Chen Shengmei and Michael at 5:30. But they came at 5:20, which was good, cause that gave me ten minutes to put on clothes and get going. At that moment the Japanese teacher (room 408) appeared. When we went downstairs Michael wasn't there, so I assumed he'd gone on without me. But at the front gate he wasn't there either, so I used Bu Mina's phone to call him. They'd been waiting in his room. I was at a table with about eight people. It was Ms. Song (head of the post-grad English education), the number one and number two for the graduate school, the head of the undergraduate English majors, Jan (Geraldine) and Rob F., Michael and Chen Shengmei and I. Jan and Rob F. teach the English majors. So, the seating was by department or whatever. Rob R. and Gavin teach second year everything, so they were at a table together with a bunch of folks, the Russian teacher Natalia and the Japanese teacher and the rest of the Chinese staff for those two languages were all together and then the fourth table was the folks who teach the freshmen. The food, Michael whispered to me, was no better than the 2.5-4 Yuan dishes at the place Karjam and I usually go for lunch. Sure, it looks great, the presentation is fabulous, everything on a big spinning center area of the table, with waitresses refilling your wine glass (I never took any refills and didn't finish my partial glass) and tea cup and all that jazz... but the taste is medium to poor. I couldn't eat a whole heck of a lot, most of the special dishes being meat. In fact, only one was really pretty good, a sort of fried radish ball. It was just oily and mostly cooled off good-looking food. I found Jan to be pretty nice, a bit overweight, but she was either on good behaviour or she only ranks on Mina. A bit superior acting, but I am positive that she probably felt the same about me, since as far as she was concerned I was a bit on the defensive. "Oh, yes, I teach the PhD students, they're wonderful, I get to see them every week... I mean, it's really education, and they pay attention, they write quite well..." After dinner we all went on a little bus trip tour of the Yellow River (Lanzhou's claim to fame is that it's the only city on both banks of the Yellow River). On the other side there is a park where there are lights in the water and fountains and it plays classical music. We saw that and we also stopped at a famous statue and Dave obliged by taking photos of us all standing in front of it with his digital camera.

I finally decided not to go to Ahwencang as the whole getting there on time thing was going to be too hard and poor Jabu would have agreed but felt quite put upon if he had to put up with me. Also, I would have stayed with Jabu's family not Karjam's (not that there is a big difference). Anyway, going to Dunhuang will be enjoyable and cheap, and it allows Karjam to give some money (well, my money in his name) but not so much (one thousand not two). This morning I didn't exercise, cause I was feeling so crappy. I could barely sleep last night, in fact, I was awake till after twelve thirty, then woke at three and was up for more than an hour (I started a batch of radish kimchi and Karjam even woke up and talked with me for awhile). I barely managed to make oatmeal and get myself out the door. Karjam didn't even stir. I taught two hours (one class) with the essay topic "The Place I Wish I Could Visit" taking care that they understood I meant a specific focused place, like their mother's house, or Buckingham Palace, not an entire country. After class I came home. We had lunch at our regular place (today was 6 for the two of us, can you imagine? Two meals for 70 cents, and one of them included meat!), then walked to Home World where I suggested Karjam look at the shoes. His feet are always hurting, his shoes are really uncomfortable. The pair we bought seem like they're okay, at the least they won't hurt him in the same way, so he can alternate the two pairs.

Second Brother and Oldest Brother in one of their tents, eating meat with knives and fingers, next to a yak chip burning stove. Is this my home of the future?

No Wushu today so the kids can have an even longer holiday. But I needed most of my evening to plan my next class and finish looking through the two classes of papers I have for tomorrow. Two more for the day after that, and since it's 9:14 as I type, I suppose I should probably start on those as well. What a drag. I made a nice salad for dinner, spent some time on the Internet in the afternoon, basically nothing much. I mean, we kiss a lot, we go farther than kissing... well, every single day... I help him with his English. I should be studying my Tibetan alphabet.

Since we have no class on the 6th and 7th I have make-up class today and tomorrow, otherwise I'd be off half a week, with my Monday and Tuesday classes behind. So today was my 6th day of teaching in a row. And since class starts at 8 a.m. I haven't exactly been able to sleep in. I could have on Wednesday- if I'd known I wasn't going to on the weekend I would have. Anyway, I didn't exercise cause Karjam pulled me back into bed when I was going to leave. So I slept another half an hour instead. Class is a new lesson plan, I am having them write paragraphs of comparison and contrast. The first class wrote "Two Chinese Provinces" and the second "Two Chinese Universities". It will be less interesting to read than the essays I am correcting now, but I need them to feel they are doing something different, not just a different subject. I am eventually going to have each class do several sort of thematic paragraphs and then ask them to piece it together.

Michael and I went out to lunch as Karjam was practicing singing with a friend. Michael still makes me a bit nervous. He's a little odd, and super sharp, so I feel a bit on my guard. I came home and wrote the letter below, as I guess they are still waiting for me to find another teacher. Maybe someone will bite. I just don't have the energy for it, though. I mean, if I was a recruiter, I'd have gotten 3,000 for placing Michael. I'm not... and I already know it's discouragingly hard to get anyone interested... at this pay level.

First of all let me say I am not a recruiter. I am someone who could be your co-worker, if you are interested in coming to work here at Lanzhou University.

Lanzhou University is located in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province in Northwestern China. Actually it’s more like Central China, but it terms of economics and population, it’s the Northwest. It’s one of the most famous universities in China, and entrance here is very difficult, therefore our students are really high quality, and try very hard.

There is one position open right now in the Graduate School. They need someone who can teach writing and spoken English (those are two separate classes) for a total of 14 hours of class per week. There are no night classes, and no weekends, and no split shifts. The other teacher in the graduate school works three days a week (MWF) and the foreign teacher (me) doing post-graduate English writing teaches four days (no Wednesdays). Your schedule would be very similar to that. You’d see each student once every two weeks. Classes are two hours long.

The apartments are quite nice, with a Western bathroom, small kitchen, sitting room and bedroom. They are carpeted and there is heat and A/C. Utilities are free, except for your phone and Internet charges. Basic health insurance is provided, round trip transportation is reimbursed on arrival, there is a 40 day holiday in January and February with a transportation bonus to help you get to warm Southern China or some other place. The salary is a low by Eastern Chinese standards 3000 RMB a month, but considering that this is Western China and my costs are below 800 a month, the salary is quite generous and comfortable for this area (restaurant meals for two people are lower than 15 RMB, generally, and if you eat noodles, much lower). The only problem with this salary is if you have things to do with your money back home- like paying student loans. The contract is from now until June 30th.

Lanzhou city is on the Silk Road, so the area is chock-a-block with famous landmarks, interesting cities, and even UNESCO World Heritage sites. It has a large Chinese Hui Muslim population, yes, there are Chinese Muslims! It’s also on the outskirts of the Tibetan state of Amdo (Tibet is much larger than what you see on a Chinese map). Some counties a short bus ride away are as much as 98% Tibetan, which compared to Lhasa (50%) is quite impressive. There are also two of the six yellow hat Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage temples within one days journey of Lanzhou. So the region is super colorful and interesting, with many things to do on your weekends.

Due to a misunderstanding with the recruiter we now have already started class and still don’t have this position filled, we need someone who can come here absolutely as soon as possible. If you are serious about teaching English in China, consider how working in a nationally respected graduate school would look on your resume. Think about how much more interesting it would be to teach adults who are dedicated to studying than playing Hangman again with the Kindergarten kids. Check out the University website (there is some English information there) at http://www.lzu.edu.cn and get in touch right away!

In the afternoon after eating with Michael, I worked slowly on the Internet and slowly on my papers.

The topic "One Thing I Wish Would Vanish" had a preponderance of answers for 'war' though we also had 'air pollution', 'noise pollution', 'mosquitos', 'illness', 'poverty', 'misunderstanding', 'money', 'tests', 'the boiler across from my apartment', 'the rule you have to get off your bicycle when you go past a guard check point', 'the Internet (or World Wide Web)', 'mice', 'hatred', 'national borders' etc. But war had to be nearly 1/3 of the class. This is the best one, written by Tang Ying.

"I hate many things in this world, such as mosquito, for she loves me so much that I have to hate her, but I never want to see mosquito extinct, although I cursed her when I was bitten. If I can choose the one thing I wish would vanish, the only one thing, It will be the war. I wish there will be a peaceful world without war. I would confess that in the world, some wars we called 'just war' and some other we believed it was 'evil war'. There are differences between the two kinds of wars. But, where there is a war, there are death, sorrow, harm, disease, disorder, poverty, starvation, etc. which all follow the war, even if it was a 'just war'. Do we heard the mother's weeping? Do we heard the orphan's crying? Do we feel the earth's weeping? Do we feel the wounded heart? I have a dream, one day, there is no war in the world and people will live happily forever. I am praying the dream will come to be true."

In general, these papers were really interesting to read, and I kept feeling, anyone of my friends could say this same thing... It's so wonderful to have students who THINK unlike what I was teaching in Korea where they sort scratch the surface of their minds with something like, "Uhh, should I drink beer or soju tonight?" and "I wonder if I can send a text message on my cell phone without the professor noticing...". (Not all Korean students, I was teaching at a college for, well, boneheads.)

As I was correcting madly through my huge stack of papers, and unfortunately after Karjam and I had already gone to eat dinner, Jung-gyung and Jinhee came to give me back the ace bandage I loaned Jung-gyung and to give me some Kimbap they'd bought at some place called T & S Korea. Wow! It was good, I picked the ham out and gobbled it right up. Fortunately Karjam is full, so he wasn't too interested.

To prevent pollution in environment, Everybody should do something. I will not use some produts which can be used only one time. for example, Using chargeable batteries instead of single-used batteries, Using my own lunch-box rather than using disposable lunch-box. Secondly I will use cleaner eanergy resource. for example. Using natural gas instead of coal. Using solar energy instead of electronic energy which are generated by a factory using coal. Beside do something myself, I can tell my friends that our earth is polluted. We must do something to prevent pollution. If they don't how to do. I will tell them what I do.

I liked that essay better than some of the really superficial ones that seemed to focus on their own home environment (cleaning the kitchen) or things like not spitting on the street and not smoking. One lady wrote about skimming the autumn leaves out of a pond. Oh well, at least they mostly have some awareness, it's not shocking to them to hear the idea that owning your own car might not be the best thing for the world. Almost all my students bike or walk to class, a very few bus. I am not sure I have more than 2 cars per 50 student class, and those cars would belong to the older more successful married with kids people- who share the car with their spouse.

Sunday... I'm in a hurry to write about Monday... so Sunday... I taught four hours of class (topics "Two Books" and "Two Chinese Cities". Came home, whatever whatever, oh right. Mom sent these pants I wanted to buy for Karjam (I keep some money with mom so she can always send me things that I need or want) and I had guessed wrong on the size... pretty far off, really, so we went to send them back to America after we ate lunch and tried to send 1,000 to Jabu to give to the folks in Ahwencang. But Jabu's number was wrong, so we couldn't electronic transfer it after all. It would have cost 253 yuan to send them to America, which would have been five US dollars more than it cost mom to send them, a paperback book and some brewer's yeast to me. So we decided not to send them. I don't know if Karjam will wear them or not. I'd rather we gave them to someone else and I just had mom buy another pair in the right size this time. Damn!

In the evening I think I mostly just read the paperback, used the Internet. Can't remember what all else.

So, I had to go to that training thing today in Chinese Rules and Regulations. But it turned out to be a lot more than that. I turned up and mostly hung out with Karen until things started an hour late. The first lecture was a long list of facts about Gansu delivered by a dry woman who had somewhat passable English, but no delivery skills in the language. I knew most of the facts, as I'd copied down so many a few weeks ago. I asked some questions though about solar energy (this province has a lot of desert, you'd think solar would be viable) and the groundwater supply and whether they expected a severe water shortage in the future. Basically they aren't thinking much about solar, mostly thinking about thermal power (but using nonrenewable resources to heat that water) and hydroelectric. As for groundwater, they don't have any in eighteen counties (out of eighty-six) and they are drawing heavily off the rivers to water their vast fields in the desert (one of my students wrote an essay about a dry lake that used to be a big source of fish around here, but the river water is all taken now before it gets there, so it is no more).

After that long lecture we had lunch, which in China is two and a half hours, and it started early... I sat at the vegetarian table (very nice of them to think of us) and next to me on one side was a bitter sarcastic guy who smoked with his cigarette practically in my face, and on the other side was a really sweet young British VSO guy who is teaching in Hezuo (the government seat of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture). There are two other foreigners there, one he hasn't met, and one a Korean. Andy was really sweet, so I asked him to come home and brought him home and introduced him to Karjam. The training is at a hotel right across from campus basically.

Back in the lecture hall we had a really hard to understand lecture by a guy from the Public Security Bureau who told us the Laws and Regulations. He was reading off the computer screen and he ran all his words together. No pauses, except odd ones or when he lost his place. Michael paraphrased him as saying "Spicified whoring public security organ" which were in fact all words he used. He could not understand the questions that were asked him, and we couldn't understand what he had to say, so even though the MC tried hard to translate, it was basically impossible for any sort of education to come out of the lecture. I honestly think I would have understood more if he'd spoken in Chinese. Anyway, I was correcting student papers through the whole day so it wasn't complete lost time. The next speaker was a Professor from Landa. The guy was asked to speak about cultural differences, but in fact he was a total idiot. I mean, the guy actually was saying things like "If you can use chopsticks your Chinese hosts will thank you for your appreciation of Chinese culture." His lecture had four parts, two of which were all things the woman in the morning had already said, and had nothing to do with cultural differences. He gave us a lecture in how to teach class, which included telling us to make outlines and lesson plans, to write our key points on the chalk board, and to speak slowly. Uhhh... are you the English teacher, or am I? The other section actually was about cultural differences, but he approached each topic for about one second and he'd say things like "In the West you wear black for a funeral but in China we wear white." and then -boom- onto the next point ("the word for four and the word for death sound the same, so avoid giving gifts in fours"). He ran over (and was asked to wrap it up multiple times but just spoke faster) so then the next guy started quite late, and I'd told Karjam I'd be home around five. So at 5:25 or so, I just stood up and left, right in the middle of the lecture.

I rushed home so I could eat dinner with Karjam before my seven p.m. class, but admittedly I came into the house a pile of nerves (I had to pee, I was late, I was stressed, I was emberassed for leaving mid-lecture) and then Karjam had opened all these things on the computer which he didn't have any reason to have opened and I had to shut it down and I was all like, quick let's go, gotta eat, and he got pissed off I was rushing and his panties in a twist cause I said "I taught you how to use the three programs you need (to get on the Internet, to listen to music and to use this typing practice program) you shouldn't have opened these others, you can make a big problem for me." and then he was saying he -wasn't- going to go eat with me, even though I had hurried home to eat with him, but he relented (maybe hungry) and we went to eat, but when I tried to talk to him he just held up two fingers like "Don't even." and so I arrived back home even more upset than when I had left, just no longer hungry. So I looked up 'supportive' in the dictionary and said "I just need you to be supportive. When I am working and I have some stress, and maybe some problem, I need you to tell me it's okay and give me a hug, not to react to my stressed energy and make a problem." Why can't he understand, it's not about him ALL the time? Sometime something needs to be about me. I am the wage earner here, I have had to wake up early everyday and do things I don't necessarily consider fun and all he has to do is what he chooses. Sing or study or watch TV it makes no difference to me. So he refused to talk to me, and I went off to teach my evening class.

The class wasn't as bad as last time. I had twelve students, but five were new. That means three from last time didn't show up. Things went pretty smoothly. The big topic was "The First Time You Met Your Wife/Husband". Everyone had to tell their story. One man was love at first sight. They kissed on the first date. One man and one woman had first met their spouse in middle school. One married her university professor. One was angry with her husband at the moment and said he was lazy and never helped with their daughter or the house. My favorite student (professor of Traditional Chinese Opera) mentioned during class that she and her husband will both lose their jobs if they have another child. I guess that's how the one-child-policy is enforced today. Fuck! That's heavy! During break time I rushed upstairs to tell Karjam I loved him, but I had to physically turn his head so that he would look at me when I spoke.

He was no sweeter when class ended. I came in and sat down "Oh, you're writing a letter. Who are you writing?" no answer. "How do you know when a word ends in Tibetan? I can tell where the sentence ends, but how do you know where each word ends?" (There is no space, kind of like in Thai). No answer. So I told him, "Look, when we have a problem you can either 1. pretend it didn't happen and be nice or 2. talk about the problem. There are no other options." and he still didn't say anything, so I took care of my own mental health and called Sarra and vented at top speed for a good twenty minutes. With frequent use of phrases such as "What the fuck?!!" Then I felt much better, but as soon as I got off the phone he went to bed. So, I guess that means either I wake him up and lose my sleep before I go to that freaking training again tomorrow, or I figure he's going to bed angry, not my problem, and try to sleep next to that weird energy of "that person in angry at me." In case you want to know, or have any doubt, Sarra said "No, no no no. Don't do this to yourself. It won't work. It's not right."

Today was a really tough day, and I am really too tired to type. Karjam left me. Packed all his bags and left. I told him two things 1. he would never find another woman to love him more than I do and 2. that he had a cold heart. I also said he could come back. He said he never would. I went to training. Trying to keep my composure. Talked to Michael and Mina a bit (not together). Came home after lunch. He was waiting for me. He loves me. He realized he's wrong and being angry and all that. Will never do it again, etc. etc. I slipped in some words about compromise and all that while I had his ear.

Dealt with work stuff. Visa. Finally. Residence card. But they overcharged me 620. Like as if I have that kind of cash.

Dinner banquet. With Andy to eat cause the banquet had nothing for us, and then we ran into Marie and other exchange students, went to Northwest Minorities University and had some Uighr food. Salad and bread. Interesting.

Came home, Karjam and I bought train ticket. I am not going to the Silk Road. Going to Qinghai. Write when I get back.