ETERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

Before I came to China I received a church blessing from my uncle.  In the Mormon faith we can ask for and receive blessings to help comfort us when we deal with illness, trials, or just need to feel peace regarding our present circumstances and choices we are faced with. I can best define it as a special prayer given on your behalf. Because I wasn't sure what to expect from my China experience, I asked for a blessing to help me feel at peace about what lied ahead for me.  One of the statements my uncle made several times was that I was going to China to develop friendships and relationships with others that would be eternal.  I know that the people we meet in this life will continue to be a part of our lives even after death.  God would not be a loving and perfect being if he were to allow us to create such special and wonderful bonds and relationships with others, and then not allow us to continue those.  I have met some wonderful people here so far in China at work and at church.  I can definitely say that many friendships are being formed and I am so grateful that these friendships will continue.  
 I have been very happy here in China.  There have been a couple of rough spots but hardly anything to complain about at all because I've been so blessed and taken care of since my arrival.  Heavenly Father has truly looked out for me more than I can say and more than I've ever imagined and I find it hard to put it all into words even when I pray.  I feel nothing I say can truly express my gratitude. For this reason, I feel that the most important "eternal relationship" I've developed here is the one with God.  After struggling the last couple of years and dealing with a crisis of faith to an extent, coming to China has truly brought me back to a place in my mind and in my heart where I feel much more reconciled with my true self as a child of God.  I am truly grateful that my trials have brought me to a better and stronger place within myself.  Many of the people I have met here are truly AMAZING!  I am so grateful to know them and for the example and inspiration they provide for me.  I hope to write about some of the fabulous people I have met in future posts so everyone can see how many wonderful people exist in our world!

NEWSPAPER HEADLINE FAIL

This photo was on the front page of the Metro section in the China Daily newspaper.  It's disturbing on many levels.  I'll be interested in your comments.  I am seriously going to submit this to the failblog website.

VIVA ITALIA!!

Last Saturday night my new good friend Samily invited me to a restaurant opening!  I had never been to a restaurant opening before so I was a bit excited!  The restaurant was a new Italian place owned by a man who used to be co-owner of a popular Italian chain here in Beijing.  He struck out on his own and invited my friend since she is a reporter for a paper here in the city.  The food was mostly good except for the noodles were a tad undercooked.  I was waiting in line to get my food and there were three older, good looking Italian men in front of me waiting as well.  As soon as they saw me behind them, they all moved aside and started speaking to me in fabulous Italian to go ahead of them for my food.  I insisted it was no problem for me to wait my turn but these fabulous Italian men wouldn't have it!  I was forced to go ahead of them and I also met a woman who was with them from Spain.  They were all super friendly and most spoke at least 3 languages.  I am learning here that Europeans are super friendly and passionate and I love it!  So I returned to my table with my yummy Italian dishes and joined my friend and two of her reporter co-workers - one from Portugal and the other from Brazil.  They were both super nice. So as we all left the Italian place to head over to another restaurant to listen to a local band play, exiting behind us were my new Italian and Spanish friends from the buffet line.  So  we started talking again and the nice woman from Spain wanted all these photos of her with us which I thought was pretty random.  We had no idea what anyone's name was but just stood outside enjoying a brief conversation.  Well we took a couple of photos of all of us and as we said goodbye, the Italian guys gave the traditional "hug with a kiss on both cheeks" goodbye which I had no problem with whatsoever!  It was seriously the most action I had in about 7 years (subject for another future blog post). 

DIRT MARKET

Last week I went to the "Dirt Market" with my friend Sherri.  It is a super huge outdoor market where people sell all sorts of things - Mao collectibles, antiques, fake antiques, furniture, jewelry, etc...  This place is really big and I went on a random weekday so it wasn't nearly as crowded as it usually is apparently.  Sherri said there are many more vendors on the weekends that bring all sorts of items from Mongolia and Tibet as well.  I ended up buying a book that is probably about 40 - 50 years old. It is a replica of a scroll that depicts the story of a city in China and I forgot the name so I will have to blog about specifics later.  I liked the way the book looked and several vendors had the book so I am curious as to why there are so many of them around.  I really liked looking at the different calligraphy scrolls and hangings.  There was a man painting traditional scenes on large pieces of paper and I'd like to go back and get one of those later to keep at home.  One item I found to be extremely cool and beautiful were the used calligraphy brushes.  The handles are made out of all sorts of materials - wood, porcelin,colored stones, etc...  I'd like to find some really beautiful ones for a collection.  The other thing I really, really love are the shadow puppets.  They are so beautiful and intricately made.  Most are made from leather and very pretty colored paints. I am hoping to make it back to the market on a Saturday to see more vendors. 

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HAIRCUT

I got my haircut a few weeks ago here in Beijing.  I went to the north side of the city to meet two friends of mine for a day of fun.  The salon was at a mall and all the stylists were men and I've noticed that here in Beijing, most stylists are male.  I see many more of them than I do female sylists. I'm not sure why and I suppose it doesn't matter but it's just an interesting observation.  So my friend helped translate for the stylist and I brought in 3 pictures of a cute "Charlize Theron" style that I wanted.  The stylist used this awesome foam shampoo stuff in my hair that didn't require any water and gave me a fab scalp massage.  He then cut my hair and started to make all these curls all over using  a brush, and mostly his fingers with the dryer.  It was actually really cool what he was doing to create the curls but by the time he was done I felt he had given me a cut and style more fit for a little girl rather than the hot, sex-pot, classy cut I wanted.  So much for bringing in pictures.  After the curles died down a bit and I got back home to "fix" it,  it wasn't so bad and I've gotten a few compliments on it so it didn't turn out as bad as I initially thought.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Well pretty much customer service sucks here in China.  For me to exchange money from rmb to dollars I usually have to plan about 2-3 hours.  The banks here have all this paperwork and redtape stuff they have to do for practically every transaction no matter how small it is.  And people that work in the banks really don't care about how long you have to wait.  So a few weeks ago I went to the bank at the mall to exchange and wire money to go home.  My co-worker showed up to do the same thing.  We took our numbers and the manager and we waited about 45 minutes and then the manager told us to return in 45 minutes more so we could be helped.  So we left and then came back.  I had to wait 30 minutes  more for help and then the teller guy took an hour to process my tranaction.  So my co-worker is fuming by this point because as soon as the teller helped me, he got up and left to have his lunch and no one else came to take his place.  There were two other people working at windows but because it wasn't their "assigned job" for the day to deal with exchanging money, they wouldn't help my co-worker.  Well she was really angry and told the manager so even though the communication was lacking on both sides because of the language barriers.  Anyway, she finally got helped and I think she got a free mug out of it or something.  I've attached a picture of me waiting at the bank for the guy to complete my transaction.

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JAY CHOU

So one of the biggest pop stars in China is Jay Chou.  My assistant told me about him last week and then the next thing I know I find out that he is the guy in the new Green Hornet movie.  So you have probably seen him on different entertainment programs in the USA lately because of the film.  I am soooooo not keeping up well with American pop culture right now that I didn't even know about the movie until a couple of days ago.  
Jay Chou is from Taiwan and has been a very popular musician for about 10.  He has won numerous awards for his music and has a huge fan base here in China and in other Asian countries.  
 
Here is a brief interview with Jay Chou at the movie premier in L.A.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l2ouAf2lfM
 
Here is a music video of a popular song by Jay Chou.  There is another man that sings in it named Fei Yu Qing but I don't know much about him.  I think this song is cool because you can hear contemporary instruments as well as traditional Chinese ones.  The vocals are also a good mix of contemporary Chinese with Jay Chou and traditional Chinese with Fei Yu Qing.  
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTI7hWlsZO0

Joanna Wang - Bada Bada

So the other day I had the tv on the CCTV music channel and this singer came on named Joanna Wang. She was awesome! The closest thing I can compare her to is Norah Jones. She plays the guitar and has this smooth, mellow voice that I think is amazing. She also sings in English and Chinese! Here is a youtube video for you to watch! Let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWap6OJmqYk&feature=relmfu

ADVERSITY

I started attending a religious studies class while here in Beijing.  It is a program they have at my church and pretty much a small group of us get together to discuss religious and gospel topics.  Last week we discussed the topic of adversity and I wanted to share a few thoughts from the lesson.  
The first significant point was that people in general have the thought that life should be easy and not hard. Life is hard for several reasons - people exercise their free will and make choices that result in negative or unforseen consequences,  we make our own choices that result in less than desireable outcomes, our bodies and minds are not perfect, etc...  But I suppose the idea that we first need to accept that life is going to be hard is a pretty important one.  We discussed that when problems arise, we always want to ask "why is this happening?"  We talked about having a good attitude when dealing with adversity and asking instead, "What can I learn from this experience?  What can I do to make it better?"  Obviously it's easier said than done, but it's important to not let others dictate how you will react to a situation.  
The most significant point in the lesson about why we have adversity and trials is because of what it teaches us about Jesus Christ.  As Christians, we know that Christ suffered all adversity and pain.  When we suffer, we are able to better understand his life and the significance of what he did for us.  We don't want to say, "I hope I suffer a lot so I can understand Jesus better" but the point is just that when hard times occur, we are humbled and we know we can depend on him to understand and help us because of all he went through for us.  
So those are a few quick thoughts on adversity and I hope everyone has an "adversity free" day!  

DEEP IN THE HEART OF BEIJING... I MEAN TEXAS... I MEAN BEIJING...

Last Friday night, my new co-worker Ryan and I went out to dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant.  Yes folks, they have "Tex-Mex" in Beijing.  Well first of all I must say that once you go to Texas and have actual Tex-Mex, it doesn't matter where you go after that because no place will be as good or the same.  So this place looked like a typical Tex-Mex style restaurant on the outside with sombreros and lights and of course, the country music playing on the patio.  The music continued indoors and the Chinese girls that worked there all had Texas flag shirts on which I actually thought was pretty awesome.  The menu had typical Tex-Mex items but I was totally going to order my favorite, enchiladas verdes, but they weren't on the menu.  That bummed me out so I ended up ordering the chicken burrito thing.  It was decent but I wouldn't say it was great Tex-Mex.  I was slightly disappointed but so grateful to be in a place that reminded me of home that I didn't care about the food so much.  Oh, the other bummer was that they didn't bring us any chips and salsa.  You have to order everything seperately here in China but I thought for sure this place would at least provide the chips and salsa like every other Tex-Mex place on the planet.  Oh well.  At least I know there is a place I can go when I don't want to feel so far away from home :) .  
 

TOFU CONSTRUCTION

"Tofu construction" is a term my friends use to describe the process of building things here in China.  My kitchen cabinets apparantly were not installed properly and now they are falling off of the hinges.  This is an example of "tofu construction".  Another example of this would be at my work.  So I don't know who my company contracted with to build the academic center I work at, but I do know that my center and especially my classroom was not "put together properly.  For example I have pieces of carpet that weren't even laid down properly and a crack in the wall.  Also there is a big mural of an ocean on one of the walls and it is starting to fall down.  It wasn't even put up right to begin with because the genius who did the job just thought he would use scotch tape to stick it where it needed to go. I am trying to come up with a term to describe interior design here in China too.  So if you look at my previous post about my apartment you may notice the random choices of outdated wallpaper on the various walls as well as mismatched room accessories and decor.  "Tofu design" doesn't quite describe the randomness that exists when decorating a space.  I'll have to give it some more thought.