Picture & Videos Coming Soon

My dedicated followers:

As you probably know I am back from China now. Now that I am back in a country with freedom of speech and more importantly freedom of uploading pictures and videos to my blog I will be uploading some awesome pictures and videos from my time in China. A few items to look forwards to: "Waka Waka video," Jumping photos, and TV interview.

Please enjoy!

You are cool! Do you think we are cool?

My internship is in full swing now. Even though at first I didn’t want to teach English, now I am glad I did. I have only taught three classes, but each one has been amazing and it appears that the teachers are actually learning from me. Somewhere deep inside I have good teaching skills – who knew! (One teacher liked that I had the student make sample sentence of the vocabulary words instead of memorizing the definitions).

Anyway, along with teaching English comes a little devil they like to call English corner. English corner can be awful most of the time because you immediately become a caged guinea pig. First, you go into the auditorium or classroom where English corner is taking place. Second you are surrounded by over 50 Chinese students. Third, these 50 student all start to ask you questions about EVERYTHING, and I mean everything from you personal life, to politics, to why the sky is blue. Below are some examples of questions I have gotten:

Q: What is your opinion on U.S. gun control?
A: I’m not a politician and it can vary from state to state, but they are still talking about it. (At this point another student cuts me off and says, “Carols (it’s too hard to say Carlos in China so Carols is much easier) is our friend and I think we should talk about happy subjects.”) Moving on…

Q: Do you like music? What kinds? Do you know Michael Jackson?
A: Yes, and Yes, and Yes I like Michael Jackson. (After my reply their start to name off some other their favorite music such as: Linkin Park, Avril, Backstreet Boys, and other weird music we listened to in the 90’s.)

Q: Are you single? Do you like the Chinese girls? Do you think we are cool?
A: This question started off with a huge laugh from me, then I decided to answer while keeping a straight face. Yes, I am single (follow-up questions: Why don’t you have a girlfriend, do many college students have girlfriends?). Dang gurl, could you be more obvious that you are in love with me!

There were also other types of comments and questions that I thought were a little inappropriate, but I tried my best to answer then all. They students also love to comment on every article of clothing you are wearing, what you look like, and also like to make comparisons. For example, my students said that I look like Amaury Nolasco (Google it – bahahah!) from the show Prison Break because “he is Mexican.” One, I couldn’t believe they watched Prison Break and two he is from Puerto Rico.

Probably the best thing about English corner was that the second English corner of the school semester was TWILIGHT THEMED! Yes, they split us up into CLANS and we got to discuss different questions asked by a member of the Volturi who was sitting at the front reading under candlelight. We discussed questions like: Do you believe in vampires? Do vampires have humanity? Would you accept a vampire in your family? If you could choose to die tomorrow or become a blood-sucking vampire which would you choose? AH! They were all great questions, but most of the discussions were about how awesome the Twilight series is and what their favorite Twilight characters were. There doesn’t seem to be a separation between the Edwards-lovers and the Jacob-lovers here in China thought, they just all seem to love Bella (I don’t know why, but they think she is beautiful!). Of course I confessed my love for vampires the whole time and all of my answers were biased toward Eddie, but oh well!

Taking Candy From Strangers.

Halloween is by far one of the most amazing and coolest American holidays. What is there not to like about eating candy, dressing up in costumes, bobbing for apples, and bumping in the night? At first, I was rather sad because I would be missing Halloween, but instead of being sad I decided to bring Halloween to China.

… And boy was that a good idea! Lucy (Kiwi Girl) or Luc (pronounced ‘Luce’) was my partner in crime for the Halloween planning. We have actually started to refer to each other as Luc and Los cause we make a really good team. We can even have conversations in Chinese! Anyway, the first challenge was finding a legitimate pumpkin to carve. Our search started at the supermarket, but they only had some really long, off brown pumpkins, which they called ‘south melons.’ You can image my panic when I couldn’t find jack-o-lantern quality pumpkins for my Halloween party. I was devastated and decided to substitute watermelons for pumpkins – as soon as I made this decision the Halloween goblins were watching over me cause Luc and Los went to another supermarket and found the most amazing ORANGE, REAL pumpkins! Although, they were a little too small, they would satisfy my pumpkin dreams.

The pumpkins were done and the invitations had been sent. After an early morning panic call to Whitney (party-planner extraordinaire from America), I decided that we would also bob for apples, play ‘pin the wart on the witch,” have a costume contest, and dance all night. All the invitations were beautiful and indicated that COSTUMES WERE REQUIRED! I was actually quite surprise by the effort and the awesome costumes the delegates put together. We had pirates, vampires, fairies, pandas, women (yes, at least two boys decided that they would be girls for Halloween – typical!), trolls, skeletons, and many other scary creatures. There was a tiny Halloween shop we found at one of the market with over priced Halloween items. I negotiated with the lady and told her that they face paint she was trying to see me for 30 Yuan (about 5 dollars) was worth about 1 dollar in the USA and that she was ridiculous. After some haggling and more conversation I got the face paint for about 15 Yuan (2 dollars). Yes, I know that five dollars doesn’t seem like much, but you can always get things cheaper in China – you just have to be really good at the art of negotiations (Which I am!).

Originally the party was going to be hosted in my dorm room (Highly illegal), but then Julia (Foreign Affairs Office) got involved and a room at the International Legend Hotel was booked for the party. Luc and Los arrived at the party to find Julia with her daughter and niece running wild and yelling in the microphones. We decorated the room with pumpkins, flags, balloons, and candy (I found some Snickers!). The guest started to arrive and everyone brought food, drinks, candy, and more drinks. The party was off to a great start with the pumpkin carving and the Chinese guest really enjoyed it. After the music started playing everyone forgot about all the other activities that I had planned and ‘cut the rug’ (There has been some debate about what the proper idiom is for this, but I don’t really know). After some Waka Waka, Party in the USA, and Dynamite the party ended and we were off to GAYA (Refer to my previous post for information on Gaya). Got home around 2 am and it was one of the best nights in L.Jo by far!

PS: My costume was a panda! I had bought an awesome Panda hat in Beijing so I just added to the already awesome accessory. I wore a black sweater and then cut a shirt to make it look like a panda belly. I stuffed the shirt and looked extra GIANT, but I still didn’t have black pants. I was going to buy some, but then Theres said she had a pair I could borrow. Yes, Theres is a woman and I borrowed her black Nike sweatpants. Let’s just say that my booty looked extra juicy at the party, but still panda like!

PSS: I had so much candy left that I started to and it out to strangers. I just went down the halls of our dorm building and many people took the candy. Some how in China they were not told to not take candy from strangers. Although, who wouldn’t except candy from me?

My big fat ankle

Yes, I managed to sprain my ankle in China. It was a horrible experience and I am still suffering the consequences today. It all started with the combination of three curses put on my by three different Chinese tourist attractions because I pissed them off by taking illegal pictures of them.

Confucius – we visited his temple in Wuwei City and were allowed to take pictures in the temple grounds and most of the temples except one. This temple belonged to Confucius and was the most awesome temple of all. There he was, Confucius, in all his glory and we were not allowed to capture his mightiness. Well, of course I thought that was a bunch of bull so I snuck a few pictures. Consequence: cursed by Confucius.

Sleeping Buddha – we visited the Dafo Temple of Zhangye which houses the largest reclining Buddha in the world measuring 34.5m in length and 7.5m in shoulder width. I know, that for the common American you probably have no idea about how BIG that actually is, well it is BIG. In order to prove to my friends and family the magnitude of this sleeping Buddha, I again had to sneak some pictures for proof. This of course again was highly illegal; there was even an attendant watching for picture takers like myself, but Lucy (New Zealand gal) helped me to cover the camera and get some good shots. Consequence: curse #2 by Buddha.

Rewi Ally – at some point in Time a New Zealander named Rewi Ally came to China, joined the Communist party, was loved by all, and set-up a school in Shandan county (located in Gansu, near L.Jo). Well, we visited his museum and tomb because the Chinese love him. Well, Lucy being our token New Zealander, decided she wanted a picture near his tomb. I took a normal one for her, but seeing that she was wearing an awesome Grim Reaper gray coat I decided for her to pose in front of the tomb in another picture in which she resembled the Grim. It was all in fun and hilarious, but the consequence: curse #3.

After having built up three curses I knew it was a matter of time before something happened to me. In total Carlos fashion I began taking lots of jumping pictures with great success in various tourist attractions throughout Gansu. The curses finally had an effect during a jumping picture at the Great Wall of China in Gansu. I jumped and made an awesome pose, but landed on an uneven stone tile (Who knew that the Chinese tiles would morph after 5000 years or so!). I twisted my ankle so bad that is immediately swelled up to the size of a pumpkin and I could barely walk. So the delegates took action – Markus (Swiss man) used his Swiss army knife to cut the sleeves off his shirt to make a bandage for my leg. Helena (Swedish gal) tied the bandage to my foot. Lucy served as my personal assistant and carried my things. Tim (Aussie guy) helped Markus to carry me to the police golf cart that drove me back to the bus.

That evening I visited the Chinese emergency room, where I had an x-ray and discovered that my foot wasn’t broken and that I needed some ice. Then I was in crutches for three days after which we returned to Lanzhou. Now I am just limping around the city with a swollen foot, but each day it gets better. I even danced some Zumba in front of 200 hundred students in it. Nothing can stop me!

Carlos’ Guide to Chinese Hotels

Being the fancy dude I am, I would never stay at a hotel if it weren’t four or five stars! Well, my dreams came true in China, for our weeklong trip around Gansu Province was full of fancy dinner, hotels, people (me in particular), and visits! Below you will find a personal scale of different aspects and qualities to judge a Chinese hotel by:

1. Can the Hotel spell ’extinguisher’ correctly?
Through out my journey I have learned many different spellings for the word(s) fire extinguisher. Usually the Chinese seem to think that ‘extinguisher’ is actually two or sometimes three words. Example: Fire Extin Guisher. This is an easy mistake to make, but when the simplest words are misspelled such as ‘water’ (often spelled Watel – I doubt any of you would drink cold watel), then that is bad news bears.

2. Ice availability.
Ice is such a luxury good in China. For some reason the Chinese are weird about eating, drinking, or creating anything that is cold (Maybe because they aren’t as ‘cool’ as the US). Something about ice being bad for the body or carrying germs (Who knows why, really?). Ice in the hotel you are staying at has ice then you have really found a good one. Don’t be fooled though, many of the hotels will have ice containers, but it may just be a trick to make you think they have ice. Example: When I sprained my ankle on the trip the doctor recommended that I put ice on my foot. I called the reception desk and asked for ice, to which I was told that they didn’t have ice just cold water.

3. Bedside weather report.
Whenever you visit a city don’t you always want to know what the next day’s weather report is going to be? Well, in China only the god hotels give you a little note card on your bedside table with a detailed weather report. It should include temperature highs and lows, sun forecast, wind speed, and rain chance. The catch to whether your hotel is five star of not is whether you see the attendant slip the note card into your room. If you do, then that is bad, but if it seems to magically appear in your room without you noticing then that is five-star-service.

4. Internet access.
There are four types of hotels when it comes to Internet access and I stayed at all four. One, no Internet, two, Internet that you must pay for, three, Internet access that is free, and four, Internet access and a full on computer in your room! You can probably decide for yourself, which is the five-star hotel!

5. Fifth and final - amenities.
Is there a pool, a bar, gym, spa, massage room, ping pong room and VIP massage room. The catch is to look for what is free cause most of the three star (or below) hotels will charge for all of these things. We thought we had hit the jackpot in JiuQuan City because there was a pool (and then the Foreign Affairs Office convinced then to keep it open late for us), but little did we know that there was a catch. One, we had to wear a swim cap (which meant that we had to buy it from them, 30 yuan), two, you have to pay to swim! Yes, 68 yuan per person for an hour of swimming. Ridiculous!

So there you go, next time you travel to China and are looking for a hotel make sure to check this list to ensure your stay is five star!

Updates on L.Jo.

Nothing too exciting (besides the fact that I am living in China) has happened in my life here in Lanzhou since my last blog post, but I thought I would update you on a few interesting happenings.

1. Singing and Zumba! So, there is going to be an international student festival where we are suppose to perform something. The University has decided that we learn a song to perform – little did they know that everyone in the program has no singing skills at all. Also, as class leader I was instructed to come up with another performance because as Iris (Chinese teacher) said “one song just isn’t enough.” Then, my hips spoke to me and said, “You should teach some Zumba!” So I did, a total of six delegates are learning a zumba routine to Shakira’s waka waka and it’s amazing.

2. Halloween! I’m going to miss Halloween, but I decided to make up for it by throwing a Halloween party here. Costumed required! I can’t wait to see what everyone will wear because I set some rules on costumes already. (1) No dressing up as a person from your country, such as, “I’m a Romanian.” (2) If you don’t wear a costume then I get to paint your face however I want and dress you however I want. (3) Don’t be lame cause I will be so upset.

3. THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE IN OKLAHOMA AND I WASN”T THERE!

4. We are going on a weeklong trip next week to explore the Silk Road and other parts of the Chinese desert (desert, not dessert as much of the other delegates refer to it) area.

5. It is so hilarious to hear everyone speak English. I am constantly correcting people because it’s so funny. Here are a few examples of common mistakes:
-- The pronunciation difference between ‘corpse’ and ‘crops.’ You can image my surprise when Theres informed me that the villagers keep their ‘corpse’ on the roof of their house.
-- The Amazon verses Amazon. There is a restaurant named Amazon that we go to when we are tired of Chinese food cause they have Italian food. Well, many of the delegates refer to it as ‘The Amazon.” “Do you want to go to The Amazon tonight?” “No, I hear that jungle is dangerous these days.”
-- Persons and people. Do persons really use the word ‘persons’ ever? Thanks to Whitney for the clarification on this subject.
-- Have you ever been to the “obstetrician” to get your eyes checked? Last time I checked that was the “optometrist.”

Love you all and miss you so much! Happy Fall!

Yak butter smells weird.

This past weekend, we went on a trip to Gannan and Linxia. This was part of our cultural experiences because we had previously had a lecture about minorities – now it was time to go and see how these minorities lived. The good thing about traveling with the Gansu foreign affairs office is that we don’t have to pay for absolutely nothing.

We traveled by bus and first arrived in Linxia. Linxia is a Muslim minority city with about one mosque every 10 feet, no joke. Our first stop was the main mosque (mosque cathedral, if you will) and the girls were rather disturbed when they weren’t allowed to enter the mosque. All the men took their shoes off and entered the mosque, interesting experience for I had never been inside a mosque before. There was really nothing to interesting on the inside, but the outside structure was spectacular. Then, it was lunchtime with the mayor and other important government peeps. They took us to a hotel where we had a feast. Started off with a steak and broccoli and boy was I happy to see a knife and fork (there is really no proper way to eat steak with chop sticks). At first, I was a little confused as to why the Chinese man next to me was waiting for me to start eating and watching me so closely. Soon enough, I found out that he actually was waiting to see how I was eating my food with a fork and a knife so that we could do the same (oh, the tables have turned sucka). This activity of mimicking my eating style happened throughout the whole meal. At one point I really wanted to do something ridiculous to see if he would follow, but we were at a formal lunch, so I had to behave.

After lunch, we toured a few houses (rich man’s house first and then the ‘average’ man’s house.), visiting the library (I tried to figure out their cataloging system – I think it was some form of the Library of Congress cataloging cause they used letters at the beginning.), ate some old pears (kinda gross, but you must accept everything they offer and eat it too), and then we were off to Gannan. Gannan is a village where there is a huge monastery and home to a Tibetan minority group. At dinner, we had some wonderful Tibetan performances with a mix of traditional songs and dances. After we had some bai jiu, wine, beer, and tea the real party began. The delegates started performing songs as well and we danced the night away Tibetan style. I don’t know what it is, but when it comes to singing, dancing, or making a full of one’s self I always seem to get nominated by the group. Maybe it’s because I have no shame to look like a fool in front of strangers…

The next day we toured the monastery. We learned all about Buddhism, smelled the wonderful smells of yak butter sculptures and yak fat candles. Heard some monks pray, visited an “art museum” (all with art painted by a Tibetan monk – one piece was worth 2 million Yuan), and over all took in the country life. The village we were in reminded me so much of the Mexican pueblo my uncle is from. It was like we had traveled back to the past because there were donkey hitched wagons, wells, and free roaming sheep, goats, pigs, and cows. Overall, it was really interesting to get to see how fast China is developing, but at the same time see how much work needs to be done on the countryside.

Please excuse my torso pushing against you - May I buy you a drink sir?

I just returned from my trip to the capital city of China, Beijing! I don’t think you have really experienced the real China until you visit Beijing. Let me tell you though, everything that you have heard is true -- Thousands and thousands of people (18 million), cars everywhere (remember the 10-day traffic jam?), foreigners all over (Many of them speak French), and Chinese that I can actually understand.

Let me just warn you that I’m just going to blog about certain parts of my adventures because even though I was only there for four days, all fours days were packed with new experiences and exciting things that I can’t possible describe in writing! I visited all the important Beijing sites such as the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Beihai Park, Lama Temple, and the Olympic Stadium to name a few. But everyone already knows about those places so instead I will chronicle my adventure on Beijing’s public bus, for it is more interesting.

The group and I had just finished our visit to Beihai Park and it was time to head to dinner. Some of the group took a taxi home, but I took the bus instead with Theres, Rickisha, and Markisha (I knew Markisha & Rickisha from high school and we had a small reunion in Beijing). The bus was already crammed when it got to our stop. There we were, standing at the bus station eying the other 100 Chinese passengers that were going to compete with us for the 50 spots in the bus. The doors open and immediately everyone turns into bus monsters that will do anything for a spot on the already stuffed bus. Parents pulling there children into the bus, women yelling at each other because one was pushing the other, and others desperately pushing themselves through the crowds to avoid getting left behind. After some struggle, a few elbows to the stomach, one or two evil eyes, I finally made it onto the bus. Let me just say that I have never been touching so many people with my body ever in my life. I could feel hands and body parts touching me from all over. I’m pretty sure the man in front of me thinks I own him a drink after the amount of my body touching him and pushing against him. Of course all of the touching was unintentional (at least that is what I kept telling myself).

But a crammed bus full of people wasn’t enough to stop the 100 other people at stop numbers three and four from forcing themselves onto the already over populated bus. The doors open and again I found myself being squeeze closer and closer to the people all around me. The smells, the people, and bad breath got greater and greater as the space became smaller and smaller. Getting on the bus and surviving the ride was only half of the battle. The second challenge is getting off the bus at your stop because once again you must squeeze yourself through the crowd of people trying their hardest to either stay on the bus or get off the bus. The secret is to yell at the top of your lungs “Xia Che” and elbow push yourself off the bus. Once off you can breath again and you reflect on how many times you got felt up by different people.

The pubic transportation is really reliable in Beijing and you can get anywhere in the city by means of bus or subway! This is all good, but you must be ready to be face-to-face, booty-to-booty, back-to-back, and close to many people all at once. Beijing was great for four days, but I’m not sure I could do that everyday if I lived there.

…And the cow would never give milk again.

Yes, English is officially my second language, but that doesn’t mean I can’t teach it to 45 Chinese middle school students. This past week has been full of excitement and one of the highlights has been visiting the local middle school to teach English. I originally was going to help with the sports activities (because I am so athletic apparently, right????), but then after some discussion about who would be the English teachers of the day I was kind of voted to teach instead. (According to the group, singing children’s songs to try and cheer people up is a sign of a good teacher – I was just trying to not be bored)

Boy, I’m I glad I did teach! The lesson plan given to be by the director of the middle school’s English department was titled “A Night the Earth Didn’t Sleep” and it was all about EARTHQUAKES! At the beginning of class I was supposed to introduce myself and answer questions about myself. This got boring after a while (especially cause I hate talking about myself) so I decided that maybe it would be better if all 45 students learned the song ‘Oklahoma’ from the musical. It was such a magical moment hearing 45 Chinese English students sing Oklahoma at the top of their lungs – this might go down as one of the greatest moments in my life! There favorite part was at the end when you spell out Oklahoma and yell Yeeeow!

After some great entertainment it was time to actually learn the lesson. Again 45 students, in unison, read the lesson aloud (again, goosebumbs!). After that we recreated the story of an earthquake – they really loved this too cause some people got to be ‘a scared pig,’ and “a running mouse!’ I asked them questions and then explained some new concepts such as: “The water rose and fell, rose and fell” and cows that “would never give milk again” and “as if the world was at an end.”

The Chinese students were so willing to participate and really enjoyed having me as a teacher. Every time they answered a question they would stand up. They asked me questions about Obama, the war, Michael Jackson, China, and many other subjects. It was a great experience and I hope to be back soon!

Choo Choo to Xian

My first time on a passenger train was quite an experience. These past three days of vacation the group and I took a short trip to Xian (or Xi’an – don’t really know why they put in apostrophe on it sometimes). The train was quite an experience and thank god for my ipod! On the way there we discovered how to actually read our train tickets. After are adventure at the ticket office – we bought tickets, then they were the wrong date, had to get a refund, and then stand in line to get tickets again – we really didn’t care which seats we had as long as we could get to Xian. There are three types of seats and we chose the ‘hard sleeper.’ This meant that each grouping of beds consist of six beds facing each other in stacks of three. The bottom bed is the best to have cause you can actually sit upright on your bed – well, I had the middle seat.

Not only can you not sit up on your seat, but also you have five other roommates who snore, fart, laugh, and wake up early and look at you while you sleep. (The foreign factor sometimes is good, but not when you are in a train car with a lot of Chinese cause it’s hard to hide if you want.) Long story short – I didn’t sleep much. We arrived in Xian after eight hours and ran into our guide Melanie. She took us to the hotel and then we were off to tour Xian. We hit all the popular tourist spots such as the Bianpo Village, Terracotta soldiers, Hot Springs (some house the Chiang Kai-shek lived at), and the terracotta soldier factory. The terracotta soldiers were definitely the highlight of the trip! Visiting the museum has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember! Seeing the ancient soldiers in such great condition for miles and miles was truly amazing. You get to the museum and you really get a grasp for the deep culture and long history the Chinese have.

We ate lots of foreign food while in Xian – which was nice for after three weeks of Chinese, Chinese, and Chinese our stomachs were ready for some western food. Subway was the first stop, followed by Starbucks, and some McDonalds before we returned. Service is bad in Chinese though, and fast food is not fast at all.

The second day in Xian was free time. We explored the city wall and did some shopping. Bought some shoes and ate some crazy Japanese style food. Walking around the city was fun because Xian is huge in comparison to Lanzhou and there is a lot to do. The city felt so alive and you could tell that people were excited to be there. We ran into lots of foreign and Chinese tourist (I followed a Spain group to hear the Chinese girl speak Spanish to them on their tour – so cool). They charge for everything though! Every place, even the parks, charged an entrance of 30 Yuan or more. Overall it was a great trip and I can’t wait to visit Beijing, for it is a LOT bigger than Xian. I bought lots of souvenirs and I can’t wait to share more details and pictures with my 13 loyal followers!

There is one mountain high enough… XingLongShan!

Holy mole!

I got my schedule for the week and noticed that Sunday indicated we were going to ‘tour’ XingLong Mountain. Okay, that sounds easy enough – maybe we would get to see some hills, walk a few trails, and breath in the fresh air. Wishful thinking… Touring the mountain actually means climbing the mountain up and down the steepest stairs/trails I have seen in my life. Our tour guide Andrew starts the talk by telling us that XingLong Mountain is 2,600 meters high – I do not understand when they talk in ‘meters’ and ‘kilometers’ and those measurements that the rest of the world uses, but 2,000 of anything sounded like a LOT!

We arrive at the mountain and start to climb. The first 100 meters are fine, but then the walking doesn’t stop. We keep climbing and climbing and climbing and CLIMBING! I look ahead and see nothing but more stairs. The good thing is that every so often we would have a rest stop at a “Temple” (Please pardon my overuse of quotes – they usually indicate a misrepresentation of the word by the Chinese). At each temple they have loud inspiration techno music to encourage you to keep climbing (I would have preferred Eye of the Tiger). You start to hear the music about 300 meters away without realizing that 300 meters is actually quite far. Also at the temple they sell food, drinks, and, chairs. At these temples you are charged for sitting, touching, looking at, breathing, singing, sweating, drinking, or eating anything – quite a business!

Needless to say, the scenery was beautiful, just like straight out of a seen of Twilight. Fresh air, tall pine trees, but no Edwards or werewolves. Finally, after about an hour and a half I made it to the top of Mount XingLong and man was I happy. You are happy for about ten seconds and then you realize – Wait! How the heck do I get down? More walking of course! That’s when the real pain started. My legs were shaking, feet aching, and toes trembling - just to describe a few of my symptoms. FINALLY, I made it back down the hill only to discover that we still had to visit a museum for another two hours! I tried my best to keep everyone is good spirits (one of my jobs as class leader) by singing “The wheels of the bus” and “Old McDonald!” It was fun for me and everyone played along for the first few seconds (then they decided that I was to hype for just having climbed a mountain). Made it home late, had some pizza, and good night Lanzhou!

Represent the big O.K.

After four years of college I think I finally have the science of presentations imprinted in my brain. Today was the day that I gave my presentation on Oklahoma. The weird thing is that I can’t say I was nervous or did I stumble at all. Representing Oklahoma is fun, and the best part is that no one can prove me wrong cause apparently I am some kind of ‘expert’ on Oklahoma. I totally over-played the Native American and Cowboy cultures though and I think that everyone in China now thinks that Oklahomans are either cowboys or Indians.

All this time I had been thinking that my presentation wasn’t going to be what they expected – but apparently there were no expectations set. I was the second one to present and it lasted for about 20 minutes of Oklahoma – who knew that our state was so cool! They were amazed that Tulsa, Oklahoma is such a diverse and global place. Also, that we teach Chinese! All the delegates and the foreign affairs office were surprise to know that I had learned Chinese in middle school and that we have a sister city and that we love China! Oh, and apparently our Census is really hard to understand when it comes to ‘race.’ A lot of folks were confused when I presented about demographics.

Other cool things going on:
1. We had a kung fu class the other day. Master Meng was great and so graceful! So watch out cause I can now bust a head open with my first, karate chop, and do a really cool serpent pose.
2. I have decided to learn Swedish. Helena and Theres are really good teachers! I can say the days of the week and introduce myself. Also, I will probably be learning the “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” song in Swedish (I will then know it six languages)!
3. I miss guacamole!

(Post comments! I love to hear what you think!)

Carlos' Underwear Wash, LLC

Do you need your underwear hand washed? If you answered yes, then I am your man.

Today, for the first day since my arrival, I needed to do some laundry. There are a few rules with the laundry man on campus: 1. He will sort you clothes and tell you how many batches you have, 2. No underwear, and 3. You dry your own clothes.

First I gathered all my dirty clothes and walked over to the laundry man. I call him the laundry man because I think he lives in the laundry room, because the room just has some shelves, about 4 washing machines, some laundry detergent, and then a curtain. What’s behind the curtain? I don’t know (nobody knows!), but I am pretty sure that when I went to pick up the laundry the said ‘laundry man’ was sleeping behind the mysterious curtain.

Anyway, each batch only cost 6 元（the exchange rate is about 6.7 Yuan/USD)。 That is less than a dollar, A DOLLAR! So I took in two pairs of jeans (yes, I had been wearing the same two pairs off and on for two weeks – don’t judge!) and 6 t-shirts. This constituted to be two batches, so that total was 12 Yuan! It takes about an hour then you go and pick up your wet clothes. Yes, WET CLOTHES and then you have to figure out how to dry it! I borrowed some hangers from Helena (Swedish lady form Kalix!), but then decided that I would be a little craftier – so, I constructed a clothesline in my room from floss! It works great! Floss is made of really strong string – must be the extra mint flavor in it!

After that, I had to wash my underwear by hand. It took about 5 minutes and I got really good at it. Clean underwear and clean clothes – now I can wear clothes that doesn’t smell and people will want to be my friend again! So, if you are ever caught with a broken washing machine and your laundry man wont wash your underwear, give me a call, for I will be opening Carlos’ Underwear Wash, LLC upon my return.

Let's Get Loud - Gaya!

It was decided that Saturday was going to be ‘party day’ mainly because Sunday we were finally having a free day with not activities involved so there was reason to celebrate. Saturday was already tiring because we had a city tour and for some strange reason I decided I would play soccer. The tour involved a stop at the water wheel park and a beef noodle demonstration. Soccer on the other hand was brutal – although we won, today my whole body aches.

Mary, our tour guide and program director, made a big mistake on the tour by telling us where the bar street was located (Little did she know that we had already planned to party that day). Not only was there a bar street, but it is conveniently located about half a mile from campus (totally in walking distance), score! Later that night we set off on the party adventure to find a bar. We found a few and then realized that maybe 6pm was a little early for people to be partying – quickly rearranging our schedule we decided to eat at “Comeback.” After, we grilled our own food at Comeback, it was time to start the party.

First stop was a nice little pub. We had a few drinks, played some games, and listened to the Chinese version of Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair.” But bars and pubs weren’t enough for me and a few of the other delegates because we wanted to DANCE! After being lost in translation a few hours we finally came upon a Chinese women who knew what we were looking for. In old foreigner fashion we had her write down the name of the place in Chinese characters, hoped in a taxi (taxis here are ridiculously cheap) and off we were to GAYA!

Gaya was like being in the movie “Robots” because their décor was fans, pipes, and other things spray painted gold. The music was totally bumping though with techno versions of certain famous rap songs, children’s songs with a little twist (I’m pretty sure they played Old McDonald one time as a call and response song), and various other familiar English songs. The best part was that there was live music! Totally stylish looking Chinese people singing in English to crazy disco – we must import this to America immediately. I remember dancing inappropriately to “Its my life” and in old J.Lo fashion “Let’s get loud.” I didn’t know what it is, but I have a strange connection with Jennifer Lopez – her music follows me everywhere. I think it is probably because we are soul mates, but that’s just a guess. There was no dance floor in this club, but we didn’t care and neither did the Chinese. Apparently you just hang around your table, drink, and shake your bom bom all you want. And that is precisely what we did. Gaya was great to us and we will for sure be gracing it with our presence often.

I will finally survive...

Today was quite a day in LanZhou.

Now that I have advanced Chinese class at 8:30AM EVERY MORNING FOR TWO HOURS, I don't get to join the group for breakfast. Well, Lucy (New Zealand girl who is also in the advanced class) and I decided we would try breakfast on the street. We woke up early and heading to class craving the delicious street food we saw on the first two morning walks to class. Well, usually in China you eat lots of food and you don't know what it is. This was the case this morning, we stopped at the stand and told the lady we wanted 2 of whatever she had. Bread, which was great, but then she started to stuff our bread with all sorts of things we didn't recognize. There were only three things in the sandwich (I don't really know what to call it) that we recognized - carrots, potatoes, and something that looked like Chicken. The rest of the sandwich consisted of green gooey things, brown smelly things, and some other ingredients that it's better we don't know what they are. Let me just say that I will never have breakfast there AGAIN.

CLASS - We had our first Chinese writing class today and it was CRAZY. We have a total of three classes: Advanced Speaking, Advanced Listening, and Advances Writing. Speaking and listening are fine, but the writing class is way way way too hard for me. Not only does the teacher only speak Chinese, but she speaks at 10000000000000000 miles (I mean, kilometers) per hour. Not only that, but she didn't realize that it was our first time in the class and she kept calling on us to recite the homework which I didn't do! Ugh. I think it is because she studied in Russia!

There is an awesome grocery store next to the school that I hadn't quite explored until today and God was smiling at me from above because I found OREOS! OREOS - I know now that I will survive my time in China because if all else fails I can EAT OREOS ALL DAY! THANK YOU OREO GOD!

Complete! Complete!

Last night was our first banquet of the conference (I will probably refer to the program I am attending as a conference because that is what the Chinese call it. Don't be fooled though, it is more of a study/vacation because we only have one presentation and the rest of the time we are in class or touring the city). Anyway, back to the banquet.

Walking in the banquet hall, I peer across the room to try and find some of my delegate friends to sit with - WRONG, we all had assigned seating with Chinese Officials at each table. As soon as I arrive at the table I notice two bottles in the middle. One is wine (okay, I can handle that!) and the other is something they like to call bai jiu (or as I like to call it poison/nasal passage way decongestant). I also realize that I am sitting next to the Deputy Director of the Gansu Provincial Foreign Affairs Office. We exchange business cards and he losses interest in me until his translator (whom is one of our guides) decides to tell him that I can speak Chinese. Well, the rest is history and we are now best friends. He decided to talk about the one topic that I know the most vocabulary for, FOOD! Then, Mr. Fang (yes, fang like Fang Pi) decides that I will be his English teacher for the meal and he will be my Chinese teacher for the meal. Every time they bring a new dish out he tells me what the content of the meal is. For example, FISH (he says in Chinese of course Yu), to which I repeat FISH. Then is continues on through the duck, lamb, watermelon, squid, some weird green thing that I translated as cabbage (it wasn't cabbage, but he didn't know that). Mr. Fang was a great host and constantly refilled my wine cup until I learned that is I didn't finish my wine then we couldn't pour more.

GanBei - means cheers in Chinese. This was probably the most popular word used at last night’s banquet. Every five seconds one of the officials decided to ganbei with another official at another table, which meant that everyone at the table had to GANBEI! This wasn't a problem until Mr. Pushy (the Director of the GSFAO) decided that he would come cheers are our table ten times in one hour AND we all had to COMPLETE, COMPLETE (I believe his English vocabulary consisted of ‘complete,’ ‘hello,’ and ‘thank you.’) our drinks. What he meant to say was "get drunk our of your mind and drinking the clear poison we can Bai Jiu!" Sheesh.

It was super though! All the foreign delegates decided we would start a conga line (under the influence of BaiJiu) and dance around the room as some crazy Chinese man who definitely had had too much BaiJiu as well sang a song! After the banquet we went out on the town to a bar and drank some gross Chinese beer, got caught in the rain, took a taxi home, and then went to bed!

LanZhou rhymes with J.Lo and that's why I love it!

Leaving on a Thursday evening and arriving, in a foreign country halfway around the world, on the following Saturday morning was only the start to my adventure. As soon as we got off the plane I realized the only other girl who wasn’t Chinese on the flight from BeiJing to LanZhou was also part of the delegation. Her name is Augustina and she is from Uruguay. We spoke some Spanish and got to know each other a little. (sidenote: Apparently when you introduce yourself in a foreign country you must also include where you are from. I introduce my self as Carlos Bejarano from the USA. Yes, I have to say USA because if I say US they are confused!)

After a hour drive from the airport to LanZhou University we were rushed to lunch and immediately introduced to twelve other delegates. TRAFFIC, holy Chinese frijoles, TRAFFIC is nuts here, NUTS! Just image that you are in a high speed police chase, surrounded by bicycles and pedestrians, bumper to bumper, accelerating every two seconds, then stopping, the accelerating, then almost running over a person, then hitting a bike, then HONKING! HONKING IS THE FAVORITE PAST TIME OF CHINESE DRIVERS! BEEP BEEP… I am sure that if I grew up in China my first words would have been “Beep Beep.” All in all, Augustina and I couldn’t stop commenting of the craziness of it all and how back in Uruguay or American ALL of the drivers, pedestrians, motorcyclist, and occasional baby-in-strollers would have tens of thousands of traffic violations. Well, after being in a ‘short’ traffic jam, as our greeting party described it, we made it to the lunch.

So far everything has been great. I am enjoying meeting the entire delegations of foreign people. There are people from Romania, Hungary, Kenya, Madagascar, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Cuban, Italy, France, Tanzania, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Japan, and USA. Guess how many of us speak Chinese? THREE – which means that I get to serve as translator! I can translate from Spanish to English, English to Chinese, Chinese to Spanish, and all the combinations you can think of with the three languages I speak! I have been getting some headaches… to say the least. But everything is great!