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kaycee13-blog · 8 years
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Morphine? What’s That?
       I write to you from this land in the West.  The sky has been dark now for I don't know how long.  I lost count.  The construction outside my window though, day 103.  It began earlier today than normal.  To my despair, I am wide awake.  So here I am, sipping hot water, looking out.  The streets are stained with symbolism.  Grease and rubbish litter the pavement all day. In the early hours when the sun rises small women and men in straw hats and wooden brooms come to sweep.  Although we nourish ourselves with bright fruits from the south, this is a world I can only imagine for it is such a stretch from the reality in front of me.  I long for the day I return to you, but remember that I am here by my own doing and must keep out my sentence.  December, 2016 will come soon enough. For now, the sounds of gunfire fill the sky.  They startle us during mealtime, walks to seek vegetables, and especially mid conversation while the devil stares back at us and we fantasize of sandy beaches and blue sky.  Tell me, is the water still a turquoise blue?  Has the snowfall stopped?  Will the lake levels still rise to the porches this spring?  I hope you stay just as you are, but also worry that you have.  
       Just kidding, Canada.  My mental state is much more positive than I make it out to be.  The sky isn't black either, grey, but not black.  After the long Spring Festival here in China there was this other miniature one called The Lantern Festival which I was unaware of.  I had just got back from Vietnam and was still trying to figure out what day of the week it was.  To my roommate's amusement I was startled more than once.  There were fireworks going off constantly.  Like, much much more than usual. China doesn't give any fucks about the time, location or even the fact that it's daylight out.  DAY.  LIGHT.  Let me tell you what fireworks look like in the day.  Smoke.  Daylight fireworks are just a bunch of smoke at street level and a whole lot of noise while you are in your bathroom patiently trying to get your liquid eyeliner to match the other eye.  The first eye, you made the mistake of completely nailing so now you've set the bar way to high for the second eye.  Now one eye looks like shit and you have to rub out the original one to make it look like matching shit.  It's also a hazard, the fireworks I mean.  I felt like I was in a war zone, hence the introduction.
       I could ease your minds with all the positive things about my life in China, but it would be sappy and mostly about how the small humans are making me all too aware of my uterus. Not to mention, boring.  I can save those fuzzy feeling stories for when I'm home in Canada, two bottles of vino deep on one of my many married friend's couches (everyone decided to get engaged before I left.  You bitches*).  Besides, humour and pain are just too closely related.  Let's begin with the most significant thing that happened during my first week in Suzhou.  This fateful day changed my China experience immediately and it didn't even happen to me.  My life just became a product of the action.  I've also not talked about it too much in respect of my roommate, but I have high hopes that she's going to become internet famous one day soon (vaporizer videos, not porn).  So I don't think she'll mind. So, let's talk about how my soon to be roommate and co-worker broke her leg in China, abandoning me and leaving me to fend for myself, that selfish bitch.  
       I was fresh off the boat, happy to be out of Beijing and done with training.  I had managed to not get sick yet, was almost out of money, and finally done with my jet lag.  I was ready to get to Suzhou and begin work right away.  Typically the company I work with is over employed with foreign teachers before they're under employed.  Which means training in your actual city is nice and slow.  We get eased into having classes as more kids sign up.  I only had two days of work before there happened to be a week long holiday.  So I met the only other foreign teacher, an Australian called, Rimmi.  I was very disappointed that she did not have that strong slurry country sounding Australian accent.  Oh well.  We were also informed that in the near future we would be roommates.  I followed her around for a couple days to her classes before we were free for the holiday.  We became buds fast but, it wasn't quite solidified yet.  We're super white.  We needed alcohol induced conversations across a kitchen table, obviously.  Rimmi invited her Chinese friend over and we got drinking.  At one point in this night Rimmi drew a quick sketch of a horse.  That fucking horse, man.  If I remember correctly this sketch is the entire reason why we got in the predicament that we did.  We got talking about horses and decided we should probably get on some.
       There is a reason why when people drink and come up with plans that they don't come to fruition.  It's because booze blocks that part of your brain that deals with reasoning and logic and when the booze wears away you realize that you indeed are stupid, your ideas are stupid and it would cost too much stupid money.  But, this night we had already come up with the idea to go to Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and some hot springs in one or all of these countries, I can't remember.  So in comparison, horse back riding was no biggie.
       So, a few days later, after a long taxi ride to get out of the city (sorta) we end up at a small Ma and Pa run horse business.  After our Chinese friend, Iris,  arrived we got hitched onto some sketchy looking horses with their ribs showing. We did not feel good about this. My horse kept stopping and whipping his head around to bite my feet. Our friend is actually afraid of animals which makes sense now because she was not looking comfortable and then Rimmi, having some  previous experience on horses is having a great ol' time trotting in the distance.  My horse also kept stopping to eat.  I figured “Hey, let this scrawny little buddy eat some grass.  Better the grass than my feet”.  Our guide, horse guy, did not agree with this and kept yelling at me.  Well, more like yelling at Iris to yell at me.  
       After crossing a road, dodging some traffic and scooters we get to an open field and are given the okay to run on the horses.  What the fuck? My horse finally stopped trying to eat me and now I can run?  I stick to a trot.  Rimmi is away in the front slowly gaining speed with her horse.  I'm at the back with Iris trying to figure out how to get a good selfie with the lake in the background. Horse guy is doing circles around us for some weird reason.  I later figured out it's because he took Iris's phone and was snapping some pics.  I was very confused but I blame in on my fantastic intuition which was wondering what that Aussie was up to.    
       Then I see Rimmi fall off her horse. Horse guy saw too and took off.  We get to her and she can't move her leg.  It hurts too much.  We think the horse stepped on her.  Horse dude gets on his radio to get a car out to the field so we can get to the hospital.  I was impressed that he had a radio.  There was a fence so the car can't get to us.  Some guys on a scooter come out. Now, not so impressed.  She still can't move her leg off the ground. Getting on the scooter sounds like torture.  Horse dude ended up piggy backing Rimmi all the way to the car.  It wasn't a short walk. It did not look fun.  We finally get her into the car.  We are now with horse lady.  This poor lady, little did she know she was about to have a long and unwanted relationship with us.
       Horse lady suggest that we go get burgers before going to the hospital because it may be a long wait. This lady has a car full of three dirty girls, two which are white, one is fighting tears because her leg is literally hanging off and the other one is riding shotgun working as translator.  Rimmi is holding her leg in such a position so that the bumps in the road will affect her less.  We all genuinely agree that burgers would be a great idea.  We were hungry.  A few minutes later we're going through the drive thru. We got chicken burgers when we were expecting beef. It was a serious let down.  To this day we still talk about how disappointing this was.  Fast food is expensive here .  We rarely indulge.  So, we set off with our cokes and disappointing burgers to the hospital.  Then shit got real.  Chinese hospitals: not cool, man.  
       In Canada a doctor would come examine the patient.  Doctors look at you with that sympathetic yet serious gaze as they go back and forth from looking you in the eye to ask to questions then back to their hands while they check for any non obvious damage.  Everyone stays quiet while the doctor thinks.  Yeah that didn't happen.  We were taken to a room to get her leg X-rayed. It was dusty and there was left over building material piled in a corner. Iris, myself and horse lady acted as nurses while we had to physically lift her onto the table.  Her leg was also bleeding. Blood dripped onto the table.  We were then informed that we had to force her leg straight to get a proper X-ray.  There were tears.  We waited for the results.  When we saw the X-ray we were staring at a leg that was no longer attached.  Both bones on her lower leg had been completely broken.  The leg was indeed hanging.  This was stressful. I ate my burger.
       Mid bite I became fully aware of how much we stood out.  Two white women in a Chinese hospital.  One in a wheelchair.  We are all a bit dirty.  Our feet are covered in a rich brown mud and a similar look of stress was stretched across each of our faces.  Rimmi, hurtin.  My arms are full of fast food paraphernalia.  Iris has an arm full of  things like jackets and bags.  Rimmi is holding her leg.  Horse lady is praying to god that we are enjoying our burgers.  The elderly had no quibbles for staring.  An older couple passed by.  They dropped their jaws, slowed down and made eye contact.  Our damaged friend was not yet a human in this hospital.  She was an unidentified object with weird coloured hair who had got a hold of a wheelchair somehow.  She was a spectacle to be watched and talked about.  Not talked to.  
       Iris is a lawyer.  So after she did some laywering all over that hospital our crippled friend went for surgery.  A crowd of people watched and followed as we wheeled her towards her surgery.  Horse lady, who also got a taste of Iris's lawyering, went home to her kid.  An employee from work showed up with her friend to make sure Rimmi was okay.  Her and her friend, myself and Iris sat for about 5 hours in a dimly lit waiting room with no one else around.  It was cold and grey.  There was construction going on outside of the hospital.  The inside was wearing away.  The seat cushions were splitting, the floor was cracked and the walls had water stains.
       How did this happen? How did we get here? I remembered the horse sketch.  How did I get here? I was hanging in a waiting room in China with three basic strangers while my soon to be roommate who I had also just met was in surgery getting her bones screwed back together. 
       I looked over to Iris.  She was wearing a brand new riding vest and pants with a collared white blouse.  She had matching black boots.  This outfit was bought specifically for our adventure.  Her hair was and still is the shiniest smoothest work of art I have ever seen.  She sat poised while reaching into her black leather purse to grab a package of napkins.  With two fingers she lifted one out and began to wipe the mud off of her boots.  She turned to me and smiled.  After the sparkle of her teeth temporarily blinded me she asks if I would like a napkin.  I look down at my worn black boots and back to her stiff shiny ones.  I politely decline.  This would be the first of many instances that this angel of a woman would offer me a napkin.
       In the end surgery went well.  This was the beginning of something else though.  To summarize, the hospital would not give her any pain killers.  None.  The poor girl had to suffer the pain of having her leg just split open in numerous locations and then left to heal.  Not only was she not given any but, we couldn't get a straight answer as to why.  Everyone was so vague. Rimmi was told repeatedly that the IV was giving her the drugs she needed.  Then why was she in constant pain?  Keep in mind there is a language barrier but, we had our bad ass little Chinese lawyer friend, Iris, by our side to translate.  So why couldn't we get her something to deal with the pain? After asking around a bit we were able to connect it back to that opium thing back in the day.  China's still pretty sensitive with the whole drug topic.  We were eventually told that she would not be given pain killers in case she had an addiction to them.  Right on.  The most popular answer was that she was being given what she needed from the IV.   To quote Rimmi here, “Lies, China, Lies!”
          I felt like we were in some movie. Where the point of view is from the main character who has begun to lose their mind.  Or at least we think they are losing their mind. Or maybe they aren't losing their mind but they are beginning to think so because the nurses and doctors around them are there to convince them that yes, in fact, they are losing their mind. Being the crazy one,  frustration begins to set in as all these people start to patronize you, cause ya know, you're crazy and all. Everyone is behind on some big secret except you.  You begin to crack under the sheer frustration that no one around you seems to be listening.  I  knew China wasn't real. When I fell asleep on the plane ride over here I knew something was up.  I had no idea that my lumpy chicken and rice sedated me into what I mistook as a normal plane nap.  Idiot.  Now here I am, living in a fake country.  Iris could totally be a robot.  Rimmi's shitty Australian accent was beginning to make a lot more sense too.
       In reality, she spent a few weeks in the hospital and then moved into the apartment with me. She's real, I'm real, the leg breaking was real.  I think she's a real Australian, but that doesn't really matter.  The new roomie was basically bed ridden for three months.  This meant I was left alone at work with almost no proper training.  Poor Kira, I know.  I was slammed with all classes.  Life was less than ideal. We spent Sunday nights drinking beer around our kitchen table while simultaneously complaining about Chinese beer.  The cripple was given a gigantic boot to keep around her leg at all times. She would rest it up on one of the extra chairs.  We forgot what she looked like without it.  By 'we' I mean Sam, the other international teacher that eventually joined us at First Leap and entered into our odd little world. That all passed though.  The Aussie is walking again and back at work. Chinese beer still sucks but we've come around to it.  Mostly because it cost about two dollars for a six pack.  Quantity over quality?
          I'm still not totally convinced this is reality, but in case it is I would advise to you all not to hurt yourself here.  Unless you want to experience questionable health and law practices.  Or maybe you've been to China and didn't quite feel like you had enough eyes on you?  Not likely.  But seriously, don't do anything which may require you wanting painkillers here either. Even the coffee isn't as strong.  The remedy for just about every ailment is hot water.  I'm not joking.  Headache, sore throat, stressed, tired, stomach ache, cold, hot, hungry, your boyfriend broke up with you, you've been fired, you're poor, lost your dog, or broke a nail? Hot water.  This may sound obvious, but if you come to China, do anything you can to stay out of the hospitals.  Just drink some hot water, you'll be fine.    
  *dear almost hitched bitches, I love you, please don't uninvite me to your weddings.
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kaycee13-blog · 8 years
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Fuckin China
     The following is a message I sent on Facebook which quickly summarizes the most memorable things that have happened to be in the last 6 weeks.  It has also inspired me to finally put these things down in writing.  Cause ya know, what if I get knocked down by a small family on an electric scooter one day and never get the chance to tell the world about how I had a scavenger hunt in a children’s play land type resort which consisted of me hugging strange men and piggy backing small Chinese women. And what about the time I  witnessed and was part of my coworkers passing around a mic on a bus so that we could sing songs.  Of course this was confusing to me as everyone was sober.  All the singing was terrible and all the Chinese were truly enjoying it. Hmm? I later kayaked with some of the other  staff and made a joke about how everyone was really awful at it. No one laughed.  Anyways, here’s some more nonsense starting with the actual Facebook message: 
October 2610/26, 12:38amKarliShae Kaplanchuk-Thwaites
 Ok ki I want the top 10 craziest or weirdest things you’ve seen or experienced so far. Don’t say you ate dog or I’ll be sad! Hahahah annnd go!( remember, I’m not racist. Just culturally insensitive)
12:52amKi Zeran 
 I had some mystery meat. I don’t wanna talk about it. This guy I buy fruit from has my wexhat id and keeps sending me Chinese voice messages. A dude followed me a few blocks with his umbrella over my head. His name was Kingsway. I said cool name. He was ecstatic. I went horseback riding with my friend. She fell and broke her leg. A small Chinese man had to piggy back her to a car. The horse lady took us to the hospital but first stopped at a kfc drive through to buy us burgers. I walk by this small rabbit everyday on the sidewalk outside this shop. He’s in a very small cage. I may steal him.  I almost get hit by an electric scooter or car multiple times a day. I somehow was forced by my school to sing the happy birthday song on a mic during s presentation to all the students parents….I still don’t quite understand what happened there…I get paid to entertain children and drill English words into their brains. I’ve travelled on one of those trains that go like 300kms an hour. That was kinda cool. The dude sitting beside me very blatantly made fun of my chop stick skills. Then stopped the worker lady to point out my shitty skills. Which I actually though was not bad. So I stopped eating. That douche. All the hotels come with complimentary tea and condoms. This country has condoms everywhere.
       So,  I have found myself in what I’m calling a quarter life crisis.  I don’t know if that’s the truth or just some sort of excuse I’m giving people so that I don’t have to explain about how I have debt and how college sucks balls and how I couldn’t just keep serving and partying and wasting all my money on street perogies and draft beer and how if I didn’t do something I was worried I would either end up married to some knob OR keep on being single and unsuccessful and untravelled.  Then what the fuck would I do?  Going back to school and getting a degree would be the most obvious choice for someone my age but the idea of that made my brain swell.  Do I really want that degree? Or do I think I want that degree?  What things do I encounter all the time which have nothing really to do with my well being that want me to go to University?  Which are pushing me, manipulating me, and telling me that if I don’t go I won’t be able to do the things I want.  I won’t be successful or fulfilled.  Also, apparently the things I want are: money, a specific career, a spouse and children, and retirement at age 65.  What a fuckin lie.  I can think of numerous reasons why all of that could be bad and not only that but a degree does not exactly equate into that fantasy life which we are suppose to all strive for.  Is this possibly connected to the reasons why I believe I should be thinner and you know, shave my legs every fucking day?  I really hate shaving my legs everyday.  To be honest I don’t even like showering everyday.  So, maybe I am have having a quarter life crisis.  I don’t know.
     This brings me to China.  I am literally in China.  I’m teaching English to really rich kids.  I am bright and happy and play games and sing to children. Their parents have chosen English names for them such as Smile, Seven, Lion, and Apple.  It’s awesome.  My job is fantastic.  A kid gave me a kiss on the cheek the other day and I could have died.  These children are adorable and are changing the way I see things for the better.  Having said that, China is something else.  The good is everywhere, mostly in its random kindness and generosity of its people, but the country, at least what I have experience,  isn’t always so wonderful (which is also another fantastic name of one of my students).  When I decided to come teach in China Google lead me to a lot of those “Top Ten Reasons Teaching in China is the best” and “My Year in China” sites.  All these blogs were so positive and ended with a real “it’s tough, but it’s so worth it” kind of moral.  Yeah shut up, so are most things in life like exercising, childbirth, or even getting into your freezing car in the middle of the night in December cause you’re really really craving a Mars bar, but that doesn’t mean I need you sugar coating anything and trying to sell me this cleaned up version on China.  What a bunch of Fucktards.  I wanted to know about the weirdest thing that would happen to a foreigner or how common culture shock is for teachers and what kinds of shirts I should leave at home because they would probably be inappropriate.  I wanted some honesty.  Like come on! Tell me how you really feel  miss iluvtravelling82!  Those kids can’t be sweethearts all of the time.  They have bad days too you know.  They have those mornings where their favourite cereal was all gone and grandma spilled milk in their lap cause she’s 108 and forming complete thoughts are even more difficult than they used to be.  I wanted to know how life would really be.  What does it actually smell like? Do people really eat dog?  Should I dye my hair?  So, here are my actual thoughts and feelings on living in China.  These things riddle my everyday.  So, this will probably be completely useless to you all, but at the least it will be a little bit entertaining.  
1. It’s Dirty
     By this I mean not clean.  At all.  Decent streets get covered in garbage.  The public trash cans remind me of what happens at music festivals back home when they get too full and everyone has no choice but to just throw their unwanted rubbish around the bins so that it turns into this smelly large garbage mountain until some large smelly trucks come and take it all away.  This happens in China, except most cans are still almost empty.  People just don’t care enough to put the waste right in the can, so they just throw it in the general vicinity.  The streets are apparently public garages for everything.  And I mean everything.  Restaurants will do all their prep work on the sidewalk and then throw the waste on the street.  It is totally normal for kids to just whip their pants down and do their business in the streets too.  I have seen kids squatting on very public sidewalks way too many times.  Not hidden at all, just like “Oh I have to pee” *stops in tracks on busy sidewalk* *pees in middle of sidewalk* *walks away*.  Mhmm. 
     Oh and then there’s when my friend had a stay in the hospital.  I saw mold, way too many times.  Luckily there wasn’t too much mold when I moved into my apartment, but there was a lot of grease.  So much so that when I first cleaned the kitchen the floor turned an even darker brown from all the grease and dirt that was dripping off the walls.  It  was so dingy looking that my roommate was legit spooked by it.  I am pretty convinced that sometimes when I wash my clothes they come out dirtier.  I had a dream the other night. I was a kid and had just come home from a long cold wintry walk from school.  My mom had done laundry.  So I walk into the laundry room and everything smells like lavender so I just take the clothes out of the dryer and lay in them for a second on the ground and warm up.  I never wanted to leave.  It was bliss.  Ah, so yes I’ve been having issues figuring out the washing machine.  There are two buttons with four different options each.  I believed I’ve figured out which combinations will fill, fill and drain, and fill and half begin to wash only to stop for some unknown reason.  So I end up playing with buttons until things are at least moving around in there.  At this point if my clothes come out smelling better its a victory.  I could go into detail about the dirt forever, but I won’t.  Except to also tell you that the air pollution is a real problem too.  Well actually, it doesn’t seem to be a problem at all.  No one seems to care.  Except me.  I blame Canada.  You see where I come from our postcards are actually very close to reality.  Those blue skies are a real thing.  But here, I’ve seen more toddlers shitting in the street that I have blue sky.     
2.  It’s Marvelously Cheap
     The short story: I make way less now than I did in Canada but can easily live off a fraction of my salary.  Saying a tenth would be pushing it.  I can live off about a seventh of my salary. I also get my apartment paid for because of the teaching contract I am on.  
A meal at a regularly priced restaurant: 5 Canadian dollars
A pile of veggies that last two of us a week or so: $3
A pile of crappy low percent beers for two of us for a night: $7
Real Beer (one single tall can of some German stuff): $1.60
Phone Plan (supposed to last about 3 months?): $22
A Decent Quilt: $40
Electric scooter (on the cheap end): $400
Daily life here is dirt cheap unless you are going out to pubs a lot which so far I have found to have almost the same prices as Canada.  Any fast food here is surprisingly expensive too.  It cost equivalent or more than what I pay back home.  
3.  Walking Can Be Difficult
     No seriously.  The actual act of moving one foot in front of each other in this China land is considerably more difficult.  I already struggle with this, but its a whole new world over here.  For starters, all sidewalks are like these different beautiful tiles and cement blocks, but they are all uneven.  There are piles of sand and dirt or building material just here and there because the sidewalks are not really sidewalks at all.  They are more like overflow for whatever business or construction may be going about beside it and  I swear to god they are always soaking wet.  Very likely because businesses will throw their washing or cooking waste out their front door on to the sidewalk and streets.  So ya gotta watch out for that as well.  A lot of pedestrians, myself included end up walking along the road which is a whole other hazard because there are electric scooters everywhere.  It’s actually kind of amazing how many of them there really is.  It’s like this passive aggressive orderly chaos in the streets.  Actually sometimes its just plain old aggressive…I think anyways.  I get confused because everyone uses there horns as a way of communication on the roads.  Just like a lil ‘beep, beep’ (Imma behind ya) and some ‘honk, hooooonk’ (don’t wanna hit cha).  I don’t quite speak that language so my Canadian ears are still  hearing ‘beep, beep’ (move bitch) and ‘honk, hooooonk’ (get the fuck outta the way).  It’s mayhem, but I’m learning.
     Not to mention I’m this white skinned, blonde haired giant of a female who for some reason has joined in on the whole traveler-I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-my-style-anymore-I-got-more-important-things-to-worry-about-like-where-the-next-adventure-is look.  By the way China, where’s the dry shampoo at yo?  So yeah, I stand out and walking aint easy.  
4. Zero Stranger Danger
     This country is safe.  Everyone goes to bed at a reasonable hour.  The streets become quiet.  The shops close down.  The drinkers are few and far between. Drugs don’t exist.  Oh yeah, and the government is one scary bitch.  She sits on her thrown overlooking all citizens from the 174th floor.  Everyone is wearing a shock collar and anyone who disobeys something she can see, will be electrocuted in the streets, where everyone can witness it.  No crimes happen because everyone is too afraid to disobey the law. So what? the addicts, pedophiles and sociopaths are all hiding underground somewhere? Touching, scamming, abusing each other? Or have they mastered how to hide their inner criminal and deal with themselves in quieter ways? Behind closed doors? I really wonder how much goes on between families here too.  How much shit goes down that is quickly dealt with and then swept under the rug.  I smell secrets.  So, so, many secrets.  But yeah anyways, you could get intoxicated and run around naked at 3 am and I feel not much would happen to you.  They’d be all “oh silly foreigner, what have you done with your clothes?” 
5. Contradictions, Contradictions 
     So you aren’t likely to get mugged here in Chinalala land.  However, its not like China goes around not doing things illegally.  Violent and malicious crimes apparently are almost none existent, but anything that requires just a quick look the other way is totally normal.  That queen up on the 174th floor isn’t going to waste her energy on something petty now.  She’ll just say she didn’t see it.  Its all about understanding here.  Its all about having a good relationship.  The ‘technical’ word of the law comes second.  Which really, when it comes to my contract, my visa, even banking, that all works out great for me!  
More confusions: 
Public intoxication is super frowned upon, but you can totally walk around with open liquor all over the place.
Women showing off cleavage or even shoulders is very uncommon, but wearing heels with bare legs and your ass showing, totally normal.
People stare at foreigners.  Like where you make eye contact and they still keep looking right at ya.  It blows my mind how these full grown adults are so surprised to be looking at a foreigner that they don’t realize I am looking right at them too.  The thing that throws me off is that if you start interacting and talking with these people they are so sweet and nice.  They are more than eager to try practicing their English and will ask for my phone number and WeChat ID.  Or at the very least if you say “Hi” back they get embarrassed or shy all of a sudden.  Fuckin China man. 
The Chinese are so proud to be Chinese and yet they have a ton of North American influences and goals to speak or improve their English.  
There are signs everywhere in the streets for directing traffic.  They are suggestions. 
Because families are small the children are like precious gold.  They are treated like royalty and still parents risk these children’s lives by piling the entire family onto these small electric scooters with no helmets.  Just the other day I saw two adults and two small children probably the ages of 6 and 2 all on an electric bike.  Some were siting some standing, all facing different ways.  
The Cities I have seen so far are a mix of new and old.  Like I’m not talking ‘my ‘95 is finally becoming too expensive I think I’m going to invest and get a brand new car’ kind of thing. No,no, more like one alleyway is 5000 years old and the street beside it has a McDonald’s and a chopper landing pad. The road beside that is a Heritage Site because it’s a super fucking old bridge, but right as we speak a city worker is replacing one of its lime green accent lights.  I feel as though this country is a bit confused.  Things will come together eventually, but for now, its in a very strange transitional phase of life.  Like its parents have accepted the fact that China is allowed to live its own life and break away, but G-ma and G-pa who are very much traditional are paying for its university so China has to honour their wishes, but anything that G-ma and G-pa don’t know won’t hurt em right?.  When they aren’t looking China puts on some bright sneakers and goes and parties with Taiwan (the rebellious cousin which ran away).  Except from years of not having a social life China doesn’t really know how to party so he shows up with with bags of fruit and a misspelled shirt that says “LADIE KILLER”.  I’m still figuring out the drinking culture here so when I decide what exactly China decides to do at the party I’ll let ya know….
 Fuckin China man.     
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kaycee13-blog · 8 years
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banana, banana 
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kaycee13-blog · 8 years
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Fun Fact: most Chinese can’t swim
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