From Chongqing with Love

Dear friends,

I have safely arrived in Chongqing where originally planned to teach. I'm here now to get my visa switched to a work visa and then I'm off to Weifang. My living situation in Chongqing is quite interesting. It is a true Chinese apartment with a squaty-potty and everything. I can deal with that though but it's the lack of a real mattress that's really starting to get to me, oh and the bugs. The bed itself is quite big-queen sized in fact-but it is only a thin mattress pad on top of wooden planks. I don't think I've slept longer than three hours without waking up with excruciating pains shooting down my neck and shoulders. I think I may switch to the couch tonight...

My room also doesn't have interent so don't fret if you don't hear from me in awhile. I'm as safe as anyone can be in a shoebox of a Chinese apartment. While in Chongqing I've experienced my first Chinese holiday and home cooking. The foreign teachers manager here invited me to their house to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival is one of the most important holidays in China and families and friends gather to gaze at the mid-autumn harvest moon and eat moon cakes. The manager's girlfriend is Chinese and she made a huge delicious feast which included rabbit. Although in America I would have done anything to avoid eating a cute and innocent rabbit I decided to suck it up and indulge in little peter cotton tail. It actually tasted quite good, like duck. This doesn't mean, however, that I'll try dog if presented with the opportunity.

I’ve already experienced so much during the past few days in Beijing and Chongqing but one thing is always consistent: taking a Chinese taxi is taking a risk with your life. I hate to generalize against an entire population but the stereotype is 99.9% accurate; the Chinese are awful drivers…okay maybe that’s a little harsh but their standards are definitely different than what we are used to in America. I’m pretty sure almost no one uses their rear-view and side-view mirrors because people are constantly merging into each other. Even more disturbing is the fact that I have rarely ridden in a cab where the driver stays in within a single lane. If a road has two lanes, drivers almost always drive straight down the middle hovering over the white dashed lines that certainly have a purpose.

Additionally, pedestrians NEVER have the right away in China. I'm almost positive that they speed up when they see you trying to cross to scare the shit out of you. There is almost never enough time to cross an entire street, especially if that street, like most in Beijing, has four lanes or more. Half the time you get stuck in the middle between traffic and if a car is going around a curve you better believe that they aren’t paying any attention to you. Cars will practically get less than a foot away from you. The best way to describe this is human frogger.

On Saturday, Louise and I celebrated my birthday a week early. This consisted of Korean BBQ, a three hour midday nap because jet-lag finally caught up with me, a blind man full body massage (ohhh yeah), an assortment of interesting dumplings and way too much Belgian beer. Blind man massages are te se (unique) to China. The masseuse is often blind in either one or two eyes and they know their stuff. Although a little nervous at first to allow a 60 year old blind Chinese man put his hands all over my thankfully clothed body, I gave in to the experience and found it slightly painful but mostly enjoyable. I don’t know how else to describe their abilities besides mystical powers or maybe just a sixth sense but they tell what areas of you body need to be worked.

The jiaozi guan (dumpling restaurant) had a wide variety of flavors including herbed donkey meat, dog, pumpkin and shrimp, which ended up being my favorite, along with many other strange and exotic fillings. This restaurant must be pretty famous because President Bush and the First Lady were pictured in the menu as former patrons.

After dinner we went to Sanlitanr which is a big bar street similar to Adams Morgan in DC that is always swarming with expats and foreigners in Beijing. It just so happened that the Israeli bronze medalist in wheel chair tennis celebrated his win at the same Belgian bar we happened to be in. Yay for encounters with paraolympians.

Oh, I almost forgot. Today I had to get a medical exam at a Chinese hospital and I received my first ultrasound to see if I was pregnant...I'm not. Apparently that was required.... Anyway, that's it for now. I'm going to go play with a dirty little puppy that followed me into the school.

Until next time,
Bonnie