I love this country.

Apologies for the lack of meaningful update recently. My brain has primarily been working in Chinese these days and so it takes a lot of effort to craft interesting English prose for you. The Chinese however is coming along nicely. I'm having less and less trouble expressing myself and I am quite confident talking to strangers now. I still make lots of mistakes but I don't worry about it as much as when I first got here. My pronunciation has gotten better and my Chinese friends have less trouble understanding me. My speed has picked up too and it sounds a lot more natural.

I've also been working on getting my Japanese back in shape. I realized that my speaking has basically died--the similarity between Chinese and Japanese sounds and the completely opposite grammar structure leaves me hopelessly mixing the two, rendering me pretty much unintelligible to Japanese people who don't speak Chinese. I met one of the Japanese teachers on the bus a couple of days ago and he invited me to come sit in on his classes to get my speaking and listening back. It's great! I sat in on his advanced lit class on Wednesday and was surprised at how much I could still understand. I love this immersion business. I was hanging out with some Korean friends recently and when they spoke in Korean, it was obviously unintelligible, but when they spoke in Chinese, it was as if they were speaking English. It's amusing to me that before with Japanese and now with Chinese, these once very foreign languages now sound so familiar and comfortable.

Life continues to be busy socially. My grad students have taken to inviting me over for food and fun. Now they come in fours...four roommates, invite me over for English conversation and food. Unfortunately, their English is pretty limited so it ends up being really good practice for my Chinese. Do I feel bad about this? A little, but hey, we're communicating right?

Today I went to one student's apartment where she and her friends and I made dumplings (jiaozi), pigs feet, several salads and soup. It was quite the feast. Oh yeah, did I mention pig's feet? I did, that's right, not a misprint. Yeah so evidently there's skin and a little bit of meat on the feet of pigs. I'm not sure what they do to prepare them before you buy them in the store, some kind of cooking or marinating process I guess, but then you bring them home and steam them and eat them. They look absolutely horrific but not all that bad. Apparently the oils are good for your skin. Wanna know something else I ate today? Chicken head. Yes. A roasted head of chicken. Beak, brain, eyes. It was all there. You suck out the brain and eat around the jaw and beak. I'll try anything once but I think I'll stick to my standby of roasted chicken hearts in the future. The Chinese cook/use/eat all parts of the animal. In addition to today's selections, I've had goat stomach lining soup, cow tongue, fish head, cow tendons, chicken elbows, blackened marinated stewed "100 year old" egg and of course, dog. Next up, I think I want to try cow heart and chicken feet. Oh such a silly waiguoren. While downing a plate of "chicken elbows" (I think it's the cartilage between the bones, I'm not exactly certain, the waitress just pointed to her elbow and assured me that they were quite tasty) Hans asked me if I don't eat normally, being that I'm so willing to eat ANYTHING. I don't explain it, I'm just easy to please I guess.

Enough about food. So Dabo rhymes with Cabo and I went out tonight. We walked around town for a good 2 hours just talking and then had dinner at a local shishkabob place. He's studying to be a trainer but is concerned about his prospects for the future. He really wants to learn English so that he can market himself to the ever increasing foreign population. I've agreed to take him on as a pupil. He, like every other Chinese born in the last two decades, has studied English for a number of years but has never had the opportunity to learn to speak. So we're starting from the beginning. I'm determined to get him to speak like a Westerner. Tonight we learned basic greetings. What's up, How's it going, Would you like some..., What do you think of... He's really serious about this and it's fun because he's basically this blank slate that I kind of get to shape. Not to mention the fact that he's pretty cute, he makes me laugh and it's great practice for my Chinese. We've got time, there's no rush and if nothing else, we'll end up as good friends. Apparently I'm the first foreigner he's had a chance to talk to but unlike some Chinese who want to learn English, he's laidback and really easy to talk to so I'm excited about the prospects of our friendship.

Oh, some of you will like this: the Chinese word for shishkabob is chuan (串）which, if you look closely, kind of resembles a shishkabob, no? Want another couple? ok, convex (tu 凸) and concave (ao 凹). This is such a fun language.

I really miss having a pet to cuddle. Seeing as I'm rarely home and I'm technically not allowed to keep pets in my apt, I'm having to get a little creative. I'd love a cat, but I don't want the mess. So Stephen took me to a pet market this morning where I planned to buy a chinchilla. Think about it, they don't smell, they're cute and cuddly, their fur is super soft, easy to maintain and they're very entertaining to watch. Unfortunately they were all out. :-( Next time...I'm determined. I almost bought a chameleon, but decided you can't cuddle with those. Iguanas, turtles and snakes were eliminated from contention for similar reasons, however I did see a very large spikey shelled turtle (that actually looked a lot like Bowser from super mario, minus of course the whole breathing fire and wrangling a flimsy princess shtick). The floppy eared bunny is on the short list, particularly after meeting a former professor's rabbit who had been trained to use a litter box and behave much like a floppy eared cat, sitting at the feet of its owners and being quite shy and indignant to strangers. Will keep you posted on any new developments.

I'm very lucky to be an American. No. I am EXTREMELY blessed and fortunate to be an American. To have been given the opportunity to adopt such a broad perspective on life and the world and an ability to think about such a wide variety of topics and ideas, to have been given the chance to develop my sense of creativity and establish my independence as an individual...I am a multi-faceted person and a large part of that is due to the country in which I grew up and the rights and opportunities I was afforded as a citizen of that country. There are so many people in China and with so many people, it's not uncommon for folks to get lost in the shuffle. I sometimes argue that the education system here sells its people short by not forcing them to develop their creativity--it's expected that students memorize and recite established ideas, rather than compile and create new ideas. Knowledge is measured by one's test scores, by how much one knows, as opposed to how well one can think. You'd think that the most interesting people to talk to would be the students who attend the best schools. Unfortunately, it's these people who I have the hardest time getting to see or think past their textbooks. In fact, I sometimes find some students here to be kind of boring, very one-dimensional, mainly because they've never really had to think about their own ideas for themselves. Every once and awhile I'll come across a dreamer who will just blow me away, but more often, students tend to be pretty simple.

I went to lunch with one of my freshmen students recently who told me she and her classmates are in awe of me. Apparently to a lot of Chinese, a beautiful 22 year old woman who can speak two foreign languages who's just graduated from college and is working as a university professor in a foreign country is something pretty rare and a lot of people are impressed, even a little envious of the fact that I'm so young, yet have comparatively more life experience. For most Chinese, it is prohibitively expensive and complicated to leave the country and although many dream of traveling and living and working abroad, unfortunately for the vast majority it can never be anything more than a dream. At times when I hear some of my Chinese friends talk about their situations and their futures in this overpopulated country, I feel a little shameful or guilty about my good fortune and blessings. At the same time though, I am proud of who I am and what I represent and I am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to exchange ideas with some of these people, to be an "unofficial" ambassador for my country. I guess it's similar to my experience with Rotary a few years back, but my guise as a teacher makes it far less assuming, maybe even more real/pure.

In spending time watching how Stephen interacts with Chinese people, I noticed my style of talking and relating to people is very different. Stephen commands attention and respect. His whole character, his demeanor basically just draws people to look to him as the boss. When I hang out with him, it's kind of like being around the Godfather. He's been in this city for a long time, he speaks like a Chinese person, he was one of the first foreigners in Shenyang. He's earned his position as a godfather of sorts. He's confident and he recognizes his power. He kind of bowls through situations, tells people what to do and gets what he wants. It's fascinating to watch him interact with people. No one dares talk down or ignore him. They all kind of have the same awed impression. I even find myself this way sometimes when I'm around him.

What I'm discovering though, is that my style is very different. Whereas Stephen comes off as a well paid mob boss, I come off as being infinitely kind and patient. People sense my independence, honesty and strong personality/sense of self-respect as well as my good nature and humor. I have a disarming demeanor and I find that people, especially other women, are drawn to me. When I'm with Stephen's crowd, it's a little uncomfortable--like I said I tend to be the only woman and just the atmosphere is more charged, tense, with most everyone deferring to "the don". When Stephen's in my corner, where his rough personality isn't as welcome, I sense he is a little uncomfortable. I'm still working on trying to find my style and my place and how to get along here and today especially was a growing day for me in understanding that even though I may not command the same type of personality/deference that Stephen does, I can still get by and do just fine using my own style. Again, it's one of sticking to my guns and being confident. There are 1.3 billion people here and despite sometimes feeling a little lost or overwhelmed, there is no shortage of people who have faith or trust in who I am and how I come across and it's that trust that I'm starting to latch onto.

A story today that made me recoil: Stephen was telling me that one of Weige's "boys" recently got out of jail. Apparently, this friend had been driving drunk and hit and killed someone with his car. China has been cracking down on drunk driving and such an incident would normally land the driver at least several years in prison, hefty fines and a loss of license, if not, something even more severe. This friend, however, was made to spend only 19 days in jail. 19 DAYS! I asked Stephen how this could possibly be and he said the evidence got stolen. Yep. That's China, you kill a guy with your car, you know people, you make some calls, your buddies help you out and you walk after spending less than three weeks in jail. Sick.

I told Stephen that sometimes I think I'm far too honest for this country. For some parts, yes, I know I am. There are some really dirty and abyssmal things that go on here. I'm still working on understanding how much one needs to be involved in these dirty dealings in order to still be successful, to have an adequate relationship network. As I'm getting more comfortable with my own style, I'm thinking it's less and less necessary to be so involved with "the dark side". Needless to say though, everyday is an adventure. (I just looked at the beginning of this post; the fact that I'm ending on this note is quite interesting to me, and goes to further my implicit point that this country is full of paradoxes and contrasts.)

As I told a friend recently, 每天冒险开始 （meitian maoxian kaishi: everyday adventure begins)