China for beginners

You may be wondering, what is China like? well the answer is, i don't know- it depends. There are at least 50 provinces and many languages and accents, all living inside what we call the great country of china! I lived in city of several million people that no one has ever heard of. I traveled through the countryside where crops have been grown for 1000's of years. I hiked mountains where people have gone to listen to the sound of their own breath and come closer to their God. I climbed an apartment building 8 floors up to a small, but clean flat built for three people. I rode a train for over 30 hours standing up with 100 other people in a car the size of two of my living rooms. I ate cold, thick, glossy noodles with chop sticks, slurped my soup and drank tea when it was put in front of me.
But does this describe the beautiful awe inspiring and overwhelming feeling of being in a country with so much history, life and magic? Does my mere two weeks of living with a Chinese person, traveling around the country and doing things she does on a daily basis make me an expert in what China is really like? No, but I still experienced it and loved it and hope to go back and experience it again someday. My experience is not complete. I cannot accurately paint the picture... but then again i did bring a camera :D
So, soon after leaving the airport we were speeding down the road through fields and old buildings, each with the curved roof and animal protectors perched on them. Buildings were decorated with Red and gold banners with the caligraphy displaying representations of former ideas, whose entire meanings are lost and untranslatable to english.
There were corn fields, fruit trees and mountains in the distance. I found out later we travelled out from Shenyang to Benxi, a smaller city, you know, like only 1.5 million people, higher in the mountains and less dnagerous, dirty and definitely more friendly than the rest of China as Sister Gao said. I loved that, everywhere we went, sister Gao commented about how rude people were, who were not from her province. i couldn't tell the difference, because I had no idea what they were saying, and I can't hear the tones, let alone know when someone was upset or friendly.
We arrived about an hour later at this block of buildings and sister gao turned to me ans said you are hungry. I said, sure, so we hopped the curb and parked under this giant blimpie tunnel thing. It was red and large and filled with hot air to keep it in the air, kind of like a cloth gate that was the entrance to a restaurant. We sat at a table and were invited to a back room filled with plates of food wrapped in saran wrap of different entrees. thre were a few pictures on the wall. most of the things I looked at I had no idea what they were, and was too afraid to ask. I knew a few things. yes there is an actual food called general tso's and another that is kung pao chicken, although we have the accents wrong and some of the consonents too. ut I got the picture what it was and was very excited that i could eat it. We also ordered fried sweet potatoes and as with all meals potstickers. We had this final dish of what looked like giant see through slugs dredged in a teriyaki and peanut sauce and topped wth grated cucumber. i don't know what it actually was, but i ate it and it tasted good.
The whole time I was eating I noticed people were staring at me and watching me eat, yes I was using chopsticks and no, I don't think I ever truly got the hang of it. Seriously I must have been a sight- a white girl almost 6 ft tall, with twisted hair, tanned skin hanging out with two chinese girls speaking english. yeah I fit in really well there.
We finished eating and went to drop off my stuff, luckily I only brought one small suitcase,but it was filled with church supplies and american foods that Sister Gao missed. I think I brought a total of two outfits, including a pair of jeans and a sweater. I found out even northern china is hot and humid sometimes.
i decided I was going to try to get on the chinese time schedule as quick as possible, so i forsook the nap I desperately wanted and travelled to sister gao's parent's buisness and home. I can't describe whether it was more downtown or east or west of where she lived, but in the taxi it took less than 3 minutes to get there. My face did a little stretched out by the wind when we arrived.
I was surprised by the amount of English sister gao spoke and how much she had improved in her skills from the time I worked with her a year and a half previously. Unfortunately, her mother and step father did not speak english, so I never got to thank them properly.
We arrived and had dinner prepared- potstickers and all sorts of other delicious foods that I have no idea what they were. we had two other guests at the meal besides me- a cousin and friend of Sister gao's stepfather. They had all been actors and comedians back in the day and were really funny. One of the men spoke a small amount of english, but knew different songs and jokes in english. We were rolling on the floor. It especially became more funny as they got more drunk they became louder and more flamboyant. The only problem was that I couldn't keep my eyes open. I learned so many things that first day- the chinese have a great sense of humor and they also have very hard beds. I think it was a box with a futon like thing on top. it didn't matter though- I slept well.

That's the last time I'll be honest to foreign governments

This is my attempt at memoirs of my China trip- I did not have access to my blog or facebook while I was in China, but I wrote down my experiences. These are some excerpts and other stories.
So I have this wonderful friend in china, who gave me an open invitation to visit her anytime I felt like, so this is the story of my journey through china:D
For some reason there was a freak cold spell in Utah and California during the few days I was home between trips which threw off my body's polarity or something, so to start off my journey, I had a runny nose. The next thing that made my journey complete was a delayed flight leaving SLC which caused us to arrive in LA with only 40 minutes until my next flight left, and I didn't have tickets. Of course the terminal had to be three buildings down from the one I arrived in, and of course the ticket counter had to of closed about 10 minutes before I arrived at it. My favorite line was I am sorry, we cannot help you because we are closed, as there are five employees standing behind the counter sipping coffee. Yeah, I missed my flight, but I was not alone in that, luckily. You know there are two types of people in this world- those who like to help others and those that don't. I met some of both on this journey. There were two other people from my flight who were traveling to china on the same flight I was scheduled with. We made our way back to the united airlines ticket counter and had to beg the custodian to find an attendant to help us, because it was almost 1 AM at this time. She was slightly more helpful than the last, but did not want to take credit for the delay in flight and therefore it was not the airline's responsibility to pay for our housing, food or even flight if we couldn't find another one. At this point I was almost in tears, thinking I would never make it to see my friend, and knowing I couldn't afford a hotel and food and everything for a delayed trip. The mother and daughter I was thrown together through unhappy circumstance were incredibly giving. I asked if I could sleep on the couch in their hotel room if I payed for part of the price. She would only accept a small amount from me. I owe her so much. We were told to come back in the morning to see if there was another flight we could possibly get on sooner. I think we arrived at the hotel, after using the wrong bus and walking the three extra blocks at night, at around 3 am. We woke up, and ran off to the airport at 7:30 am and found that we had seats on a flight at the same time as previously, just a day later... so that meant we had an entire day to spend in LA. The first thought on our minds was sleep. Luckily, the woman at the front desk took pity on us and allowed us to take the room we had payed for, but they had already cleaned until 3 pm. this meant we would be well rested for the long journey ahead of us. Once we woke up at a more decent hour, we had a full day ahead of us to sight see and go shopping. We found a trolley service that would take us to the water front and to several shopping districts.
On the warf, I was approached by the strange old man who said you don't look like you are from around here. Knowing exactly what he meant by that I replied I have been living in Africa over the summer. He got all flustered at that and started spouting off rude comments about the beautiful people of Africa. He was either crazy or just plain rude. luckily, he was slow, so I ditched him pretty quick. I don't think the tales of my shopping in the foreign land of LA are quite interesting, but I can say that the idea of spending a week's worth of ghanaian grocery money on a single meal is appalling to me still.
Aboard the plane, there were no problems except for my runny nose, apparently they like dry cold environments all over the world, not just America. Oh yeah, if you ever want to fly internationally, take Korean air- seriously, they give you socks!!! And the seats go down way far too. i was so comfy :D
Passing through korean security was no problem, they had us fill out a form and then took our temperature. I marked on the form that I had a runny nose, just in case the stewardesses took note of who looked sick, but they didn't seem to mind.
Well I thought that would be the same for china- seriously, I had no other symptoms marked and noone had bothered me entering Korea. but I was wrong.
I think maybe the combination of Africa, practically having dredlocks and a runny nose might have been too much for the poor security officer who read my health claims. Its not that I wanted to cause trouble, or a scene, but I was the only white person on the entire plane, and I probably looked dirty to them. I am pretty sure the security guard almost peed his pants when I handed the paper over. he looked at me and looked down at the paper and then sprinted to the room for a bib. he motioned for me to put it on and then follow him. Seriously I felt like a freak. We went through several hallways, oh I forgot to mention he also was wearing one of the dinky masks. The whole area was blocked off, and marked with the word "Quarantine". We entered this office that looked like an army camp office, except everyone was wearing these white bubble suits with helmets and gloves. i felt like the Alien in E.T. They sat me down and tried to talk to me. there I was trying to explain it wasn't sickness and showing them I was only cold and my nose ran, but they didn't get it. I must have sat there for over an hour. they kept taking my temperature and telling me it is too high. I read what he had writen on the paper and it said 37.1 Celsius. For those of you who don't know... 37.0 is "normal" they would tell me, It is too high, ah you are nervous, we will take it again. That happened at least 3 times. Finally I told them they needed to call my friend and let her know where I was. She came within 5 minutes and helped smooth things over with them. they had 2.5 pages of questions to ask me, each time the answer was NO.
She gave her address and phone number and left with instructions to not let me out of the house for 2 days, and that I must wear the bib/mask thing and report if my temperature increases. Seriously I was almost suffocating from not being able to breath. we walked outside and to her friend's car and when we sat down she said this is stupid and tore it off. I was relieved. Anyways that's the closest call I've ever had with being detained in a foreign country for something really stupid. It was my fault, but with the circumstances it really could have gone any way.

Just an after thought

I remember the first few days after arriving in ghana how I thought "this is a strange place"... and didn't know if I could make it for three months there (of course I never told anyone that). Now I'm back in the states and I have the same feeling. Shocking, I know. Everything is different than I remember it. Even I am different than I remember- this might have come because I didn't have a mirror for three months. Meeting people is harder than it was in Ghana. I feel the real stresses of school. I have way too much stuff. My life is so much more complicated than before. I feel like everything is coming at me way too fast- classes, graduation, internship, grad school... the I-don't-know-what-is-coming. Its all just piling up waiting for me to do something and yet I don't know if I want to. I wanna go home... but where is home? Texas? Provo? ... Ghana?
I met so many wonderful people in ghana, who cared about and for me. It did seem like a home. One day I will return to visit my friends in Wiamoase, but for now, I will keep experiencing my American Culture shock.