Welcome to Rong Jai Won!

On the 20th, Melissa and I were swept off to Rong Jai Won by Rock Long, our Chinese liaison, and Erin Chen, the daughter of a teacher at Yueyang County No. 1 Middle School (which is where we now work). Rock (she said that she wanted a name that is strong, and a rock is indeed strong) is exceptionally helpful and fun. Sidetrack: Chinese English speakers make up their 'first' names, and most of the time, they don't even choose actual names. The other day we met an English teacher who we thought was named 'Chris'. We later had dinner with him and he had to openly correct me. It turns out that his name is 'Praise'.

Back on course: Erin (far right) will be leaving for university soon, so she has been marginally helping us. So, the burden of being our guide rests on Rock's (middle) sturdy shoulders, but she is getting some help from her boyfriend, William Long (not related to Rock). More about them later (I have no pictures to support my rantings!). Our first day in Rong Jai Won (RJW) consisted of Melissa and me cleaning the apartment and settling in a little bit. On the second day, Rock and Erin took us into town to show us some of the shops.

We shopped around the various lighting stores (successfully haggled!) and the bedding stores (too expensive! - tai gue le!). Then they took us to the Open Market, which is like a cross between a farm stand and a flea market. The Open Market resides in the center of RJW, and provides a lot of interesting sights.

The above shot is of the various vegetables on sale at just one of the many stands in the market. Notice the various hot peppers in the foreground. Believe me when I say that hot peppers are everywhere in Hunan and they are used in almost every dish. Hunanese food is not for the mild palatted. There were other sights that I dared not take pictures of, mostly out of courtesy. These sights were tubs of eels and fish (both alive and dead), full nets of large, jumping frogs, and cages of live rabbits and ducks. Melissa and I feel sad to see these animals on death row. Then again, I think of the various animals we have eaten (I've eaten frogs, eels and ducks, and Melissa has eaten all the above including pig intestines), and I realize that we are consumers of this sadness. That's deep, for reals.

Anyhoot, we grabbed a bunch of ingredients and brought them back for our first home-cooked meal! Yahooooooo! Actually, it was Rock and William who did all of the cooking, and I observed them from afar (and ate Oreos, which are nearing extinction in China thanks to me and Melissa).

Now, the Chinese love their MSG, and I must admit that it tastes absolutely delicious. However, our apartment is a No-MSG Zone. We don't want it, so don't bring it. The stuff being poured into the wok is good old salt and lots of it! Actually, that dish being prepared by Rock is hot peppers with pork. Notice I didn't say pork with hot peppers. One thing I learned about cooking hot peppers is that you should stand back or the hot pepper fumes will make you.

Pictured above is our authentic Hunanese meal, as prepared by Rock and William in our very own kitchen! It was pretty derrrn good, and I have been cooking with their techniques since.

Cullen

Zai Jian, Changsha!

So, our last full day in Changsha (and our last day of orientation) was Tuesday, the 19th. By the way, we are twelve hours ahead of you folks on the East Coast of the US. If you think about it after spinning around really fast and getting dizzy, we're in the future. Scary, huh? If your mind doesn't hurt too much, the above is a class photo of our absolute beginner Mandarin class.

The whole group got all gussied up and walked over to the finest Hunanese restaurant we could afford for our good-bye banquet.

We ate and drank much and thanked the Department of Education and our fearless orientation leaders for all of their hard work!

This little lady greeted us outside of our hotel every single day, and it was hard for us to say good-bye to her! OK, it was hard for Melissa. I think I said 'later, gator' or something like that.

Bye bye, Changsha!!

Cullen

Changsha No. 1 Middle School - A Virtual Tour

First off, sorry about not posting on this blog for a while! We moved to site (Rong Jai Won) and didn't have good enough internet access to update Zwischel - The Blog, but all is well (enough) now.

I thought since Melissa and I spent so much time at Changsha No. 1 Middle School (Changsha Yi Zhong) I would give you all a sort of virtual tour through the campus. Try not to be too bored!

Speaking of bored, this first shot is of the campus library, which, like most other buildings on campus, is built in an open-air layout. This is the main lobby of the building, and provides access to all four (or five?) floors. You can actually see a gardener tending to one of the top trellises in the photo if you look hard enough. We always stuck to the first floor media room, so we didn't get a chance to see all of it, but I'm sure we didn't miss much.

This shot is of me acting like an idiot in front of a big metal mural-ish thing. There's probably a better word for that, but I don't know it. Anyways, I'm kicking the metal soccer ball. This is on the second floor of the main teaching building, which is also built in an open-air style.

This is a shot of the courtyard water feature, stocked full with golden colored fish (all alive). As you can see, the 'grass' looks like immature rice plants. I think this may be an homage to the many rice fields in the surrounding countryside.

Next, we go to some sort of garden stocked full with hearty plants, both tropical and not. The thing that struck me about the flora here in Hunan is that deciduous, coniferous and tropical plants live side by side. Weird.

This last shot is of an entrance to another teaching building. Not much to say about it, as the photo speaks for itself. Changsha Yi Zhong's campus is large and pretty neat, for a school.

If you're awake, congratulations! You've made it through my virtual tour! Yaaaaayyyy!

Cullen

Everybody Kung Fu Fought

So, the other day, our Chinese teachers wanted to give us a culturally rich reward for working so hard. They contacted their Kung Fu instructor friend and had him come to Changsha No. 1 Middle School to give us a one hour class. The instructor did a warm up consisting of high kicks and jumping splits, all of which was impressive.

He guided us through a twelve step routine, which actually made everyone break a sweat (but the 100% humidity probably had something to do with that). Above is an action shot of me doing a punch-a-ma-jig to the left.

Melissa really got into the whole Kung Fu thing, as shown from the above photo. After class, she started breaking things in half while uttering a terrifying primal scream. Somebody tried to cut in front of her in line at the supermarket and she knocked the guy out. True story.

~ Cullen

Kids will be kids. Cullen's a pro!

I had the pleasure of watching Cullen teach a lesson on parts of speech yesterday! He explained what nouns, verbs, and adjectives are, and gave an example on the board.

He then handed out slips of paper that said one of those three to each student.

He had them stand up, and as they said a sentence containing the word they came up with to fit the part of speech that they had, they were allowed to sit down.
The students found Cullen very engaging. He captivated their attention like a pro. He went on to play a game with Mad Libs, a fitting transition to putting his lesson into practice. One thing that he didn't teach them but that they took upon themselves to learn were English expletives. When he asked for "silly words", the students responded with lewd words. Aside from that, they seem to be good kids overall. Cullen has shown that he's going to be a wonderful teacher once we get to Yueyang Middle School #1!

No Cokey Monster under the bed, in the closest, in the bathtub... trust us, we've looked

One of the hardest things about coming here was leaving behind our baby, CoCo. We are missing him especially for some reason tonight. We look at photos that we brought along with us of our furry baby pretty frequently, and thought we'd repost them here to give you a peek into what our homesickness is like:
We were lying down, so no rotation required. Anyway, it's been a tough day, our family isn't the same without our baby.

We are homesick for so many things, especially our family and friends. We miss you all! It's bedtime here, so we're going to say goodnight. Sleep well!

Mandarin: We're Not Very Good

OK, so this photo shows our entire Mandarin class, which we go to every day from 10:00am to 12:00pm. It is the 'absolute beginner' class, which may even be a little advanced for us.

Our teacher, Maggie, is very nice and likes to laugh a lot. Here is a picture of her laughing at what I can only assume is our butchered attempts at pronunciation. Seriously though, Mandarin is tough. Like, if you ask for a baozi one way, you will ask for a steamed bun stuffed with meat (popular for breakfast). If you ask for a baozi another way, you will be asking for a leopard. It's all about what tone you place over the word that you say.

As Melissa said below, our days are packed with stressful activities. Mandarin is really tough, but it is being overshadowed by practicum lesson planning. Each day we must create a different lesson plan and teach it to a group of 20-25 Chinese students. So, as you can imagine, we don't get a whole lot of time to study Mandarin. The one time that we do get to practice is by going out to dinner, and the results have been delicious. We're actually getting OK at ordering food, and we get served what we order about 90% of the time. More on that later though...

~ Cullen

Deforestation: Yes, I went there.

Cullen and I have been completely consumed with our lesson planning as of late, as we began practicum on Monday, which means that we "team teach" with a group of other volunteers in preparation for our jobs come September. Well, as all of you know, I'm an environmental protection zealot, so it only seemed fitting that I find a way to preach to my helpless students. This was my second lesson to them not counting the activity that I co-created and executed with my teammate Allison. My first lesson was on movie-going culture in America, which went well until I ran out of things to talk about. For this lesson, I was over-prepared. Cullen snuck in (we are in different practicum groups) and took photos. Of course, I look ravishing in my sweat-drenched clothing.Here I am forcing poor Cathy to tell me the difference between deciduous forests in the summer versus the winter. It's hard to see the PowerPoint presentation in these photos, but in the classroom they are clear for the most part, and a HUGE help in bridging the language barrier. This way, instead of translating Chinese to English, they can associate photos and images directly with English words that help them to conceptualize the language more directly. After discussing deciduous forests, I went into coniferous forests, and finally rainforests. When I made them tell me one by one which was their favorite forest and why, I was shocked to find that only about 60% of the class went for the old standby, rainforest, since I knew that would be the one that was easiest for them to pronounce. Instead, I got answers like, "I like the coniferous forest the best because it is very cold there, and so the trees and animals that live there are very brave."
That tree represents the deciduous tree in the wintertime, which has enough energy to hold the snow up on its branches but not to feed it's leaves. Then I had them move their desks to the sides of the room and we played a game:
Stand, the boy on the left, was my co-logger. Here I am, taking my first tree victim, my student Sweet. The other trees are standing with their hands on their hips, and the 7 or 8 monkeys were to swing from tree to tree when the music was on ("Big Yellow Taxi", the Counting Crows version). Then I would turn off the music, like musical chairs, and the monkeys had to be on a tree or perish. Musical trees, if you will. Over all, a successful lesson plan that I could never use once we move to site, because I'll have three times the students in every class and the desks don't move. Stay tuned for a lesson plan by Cullen, I plan on taking many photos on the sly.

Do You Stinky Tofu? Hint: Don't

Today, our Chinese teacher gave us a special treat before class! It was stinky tofu! I know you're jealous!

So, a little background to this wondrous 'food item': I had passed a certain garbage can near Walking Street that has consistently smelled as if it was used as a vomit and diaper receptacle. I'm not even kidding about how terrible this smell is. It turns out that the trash can is next to a stinky tofu stand, and that smell is the waste products of that 'treat'. Everyone throws away their used wrappers and unfinished stinky tofu in that trash can. For more info, the wikipedia page for stinky tofu is here.

Anyways, I didn't want to upset the teacher, so I tried a little, and I have to say that I wish I had not been so polite. Everybody else thought it was OK, but that was because they dipped theirs in soy sauce. Mine was straight out of the bag, dripping with stink. Melissa wisely did not try the stinky tofu, but was equally grossed out by the whole experience.

~ Cullen

Happy Birthday, Melissa!

Last night, more than fifty of us volunteers came out to help celebrate the birthdays of Melissa and Charlotte in downtown Changsha. Charlotte prodded one of the Chinese teachers into booking a nice Hunanese restaurant, got her to order all of the food and everybody chipped in. It was a blast!

The restaurant is located just off of Walking Street, which is the major metropolitan section of the city. Everybody met at the first large statue at the front of Walking Street, which is behind Melissa in the first photo. We then proceeded to make our way towards the restaurant as a group after everybody grabbed the cheap beer from the street vendors (one strange things about China is that the restaurants allow you to bring in outside drinks).

The food was plentiful and spicy, as it has always been here in Changsha, and everybody got into the partying mood. Melissa came around to all the tables and thanked them for coming out to help celebrate her birthday.

Charlotte even got a nice cake for the both of them at the local Western bakery.

Here's the birthday girl cutting her piece of cake. She didn't give me any cake, so I'll let her tell you how it tastes...

Actually, I think this picture says it all!

After dinner, the whole group went to a bar called SoHo, where we danced like idiots. The Chinese were very impressed by our moves, and we were impressed by the 30 kuai beers (not really). We ended the night by walking over to Haagen Dazs for some much needed chocolate ice cream. Melissa says that this has been one of the best birthdays she's ever had!

~ Cullen

Well, Cullen has just given me administrative rights to the blog, which means he unwittingly gave me license to post incriminating, or just plain hilarious, photos of him in compromising situations. In this case, you see above a photo of Cullen's back, which was at the time doing a beautiful interpretive dance for a presentation he and his group gave to the rest of us about just what it's like visiting the Changsha train station, which we were told would be a chaotic mess. Apparently, there was a lot of pirouetting and sashaying at the train station that day, because as you will see below, Cullen did much of that:

It was a dance that drew gasps, adoration, and acclamation. It also won him and his group key chain type things that go on your cell phone! I must say, it was a riveting and inspiring dance, worthy not only of the key chain, but of the praise of many of our peers, myself included. He received rave reviews. I never knew what a creative and inspired artist he was until this fateful day.
I can truly say I am proud to be a Zwischel. Hats off!

Ordering Hunanese... On Our Own!

Every time that Melissa and I have eaten out, it has been with a group that has ordered food for us. Tonight, we decided to go out on our own and try out our incredible Mandarin skills by ordering dinner for ourselves.

Before we left, we took our handy cheat sheet and dictionary, and got some advice from our field director. Armed with these resources, we entered the restaurant and were promptly seated. Every Chinese meal starts out with a light tea, which is the substitute for water, as all Chinese tap water is undrinkable, unless it is purified somehow. When the water for the tea is boiled, all the bacteria and parasites die, and I think that the restaurants would rather serve tea and make it special, rather than just serving boiled water.

We ordered an eggplant dish (qie zi), a sliced beef and green pepper dish (qing jiao shou rou tiao), a bucket of rice (mi fan) and a pi jiu (Budweiser). The food so far has been heart-stoppingly oily, MSGy and all around bad for you. However, it all has been delicious. I can't think of one thing that I've eaten at a restaurant that I have not liked. In all, our dinner came to 42 kuai, which I think is something like 6 dollars. Luckily, we are receiving a meal allowance that covers most of the cost of our meals.

More on the food later...

~ Cullen

A Stroll in Martyr's Park

Every morning in Changsha so far, Melissa and I have practiced yoga as a wake up workout. However, this morning we decided to check out Martyr's Park, which is right across the street from our hotel, the Jinjiang Inn. The day before, a number of people told us about their interesting experiences in the park, and we had to check it out for ourselves.

The first photo is of us right outside of the side entrance, which opens up to a grand walkway that leads to a large tower, which is quite a sight to see [Editor's note: I look too tired in that picture, so I've replaced it with another picture]. The second photo is of the opposite view, which shows the more interesting aspect to the park. The park is literally alive with morning activities, which includes dancing of numerous types. We saw a Bollywood-style dance instructor lead his students to Indian techno music, managed to squeak past hundreds of ballroom dancers who were torn between focusing on their dance steps and staring at us Westerners and even managed to see a Latin dance group shuffle around to the sounds of Marc Antony.

In addition to the various types of dance groups, Tai Chi groups crowded the park .We must have spotted at least ten of these groups, but the thing is that a good percentage of the pedestrians were silently practicing Tai Chi or some other form of breathing exercise. Runners, joggers and badminton players (playing without nets) added to the activity of the park. Fellow strollers actually were the minority, which provided a sharp contrast to how Americans treat their parks. Perhaps this focus on group activity has something to do with the communistic upbringing of the Chinese? One can only speculate...

Guess what? There is also an amusement park in Martyr's Park, decked out with the pictured roller coaster and ferris wheel. I don't know if we'll work up the courage to ride these deathtraps, but you will be the first Westerners to know if we do.

And wouldn't you know it? Martyr's Park is also decked out with a zoo. Now, the only animals that I saw signs for were crocodiles, cobras and sea otters. Strange, I know. We'll update you when we decide to check this out.

These four photos show the water elements that we ran into, which were all very lovely.

This last photo is of me in front of a set of stairs leading to the big tower at the center of the park. At this point Melissa had strongly stated her preference of not being photographed that morning, so Melissa is not in this photo. In all, we really enjoyed our trip to the park, even though it was brief.

More posts to come...

~ Cullen