Fit To Strip, And Other Things I Love Right Now

Those of you who read here before I left for China know it used to be called “Stuff I Love.” In memory of times gone by, here are a few things I love right now:

1. Fit To Strip, the workout DVD by Carmen Electra. I know, I know, it sounds lame, but disc 2 is a calisthenics routine that has nothing to do with stripping and everything to do with building strength in your core, legs and upper body. I used this DVD before I ran a half marathon a few years ago and was the most toned I’ve ever been. I let myself get chubby after my dad died, so I’m back on a strength training/toning regime, and this DVD is part of my new routine (along with running, weights and yoga). It kicks your butt in a really good way.

Amazon.com, $12.99

2. Community, the tv show on NBC. One of my friends in the U.S. prodded me to watch this show, and it takes the place in my heart that used to be occupied by The Office until The Office turned kinda lame. (Sorry, but you know it’s true.) Abed and Troy crack me up; long live their Donde Esta La Biblioteca rap! Also, Joel McHale naked is so much yummier than I never imagined. Thanks, ratings ploy! It totally worked.

Community recaps, nymag.com

3. My new panda wrist rest, advertised on the packaging as glow in the dark, but it’s only those little floaty thingies that glow and they’re hard to see inside the plastic. So, glow fail, but panda win! Sorry, I don’t know where to buy this outside of China. But if you’re in China, I got it at Sanfu.




4. WeiEast face cream. Katie at Scattered Starlight introduced this product to me, and it’s a new favorite. I’ve mentioned before how serious the Chinese take their skincare*, and I’ve gotten compliments from Chinese girls on how good my skin looks after using this. As an added bonus, it’s not actually made in China, so it’s free of skin whiteners and other ingredients you don’t want to know about.

WeiEast.com

5. Tostitos Queso. This is junk food, and I love it. Judge me if you must, but a bowl of warm cheese and warmed tortilla chips is a little bit of heaven in my mouth. I brought some back with me to China in my suitcase.

I think you can buy this at pretty much any grocery store in America, you lucky dogs!

6. Undergear.com. Warning, this website is not suitable for the faint of heart, or maybe those at work. It’s men’s underwear and pajamas and workout gear, and my friend sent this link to me, and I sent it to a few friends here, and we all spent a good hour on gchat, sending each other links from the site and cracking up and drooling. I never knew there were male equivalents to push-up bras, but now I do! This guy’s pretty handsome. I’m not recommending the shorts, just the guy.

Undergear.com. I recommend the sleepwear, swimwear and underwear links. Oh, and can’t forget this. It's kinda strangely hot!







7. And while we’re at it, I love gchat. I stopped using msn because of all the spam, and because Vista didn’t seem to like it and kicked me off every few minutes. Skype is great but not everyone uses it, and it takes a lot of bandwidth to run. Yahoo Messenger seems sorta 1998. But gchat? So convenient! No need to add anyone, and if you miss a chat, they email it to your inbox. I think on MSN, you had to log back in again before you got offline chats. Gmail isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty great. I deleted my Facebook account, so happy I did that, but you can pry my gchat from my cold, dead hands.

Ok, that’s it for this edition. Next time, I’ll be back with more China stories.

*Recently a Chinese friend was asking me if I knew another teacher on campus,and she said, "She's in her early 30's and sometimes has bad skin." I've never heard skin used as a major descriptor before I came to China. They aren't kidding around about their skin.

So What Do Peace Corps Volunteers in China Do, Anyway?

I know from this blog it seems like all I do is fight with taxi drivers and hang out with my friends, but I do Peace Corps stuff too. For those of you wondering what Peace Corps does in China, this is your lucky day!

-Peace Corps has different job categories in different countries, such as teaching, business development, agriculture, social services, and healthcare. In China, all we do is teaching. The Chinese government forbids us being involved with any other type of work while we are here.

-This program started in the early 90’s on a trial basis. A few years later, a contract was signed. As part of the contract, the Chinese Ministry of Education decides where to place volunteers. This is unique; in most countries, the Peace Corps decides where to place volunteers.

-Our first priority is to teach English courses at universities in three provinces (Gansu, Sichuan and Guizhou) and one municipality (Chongqing, where I am). These are traditionally some of the poorest parts of China. I teach Oral English, Intercultural Communication, Listening, Tourism English, Research Writing, and American Culture. We create our own syllabus and course materials.

-We also do projects on the side, such as English conversation nights on campus, English movie night, Prom/Dances (these don’t exist in China for students) and other types of activities. Some volunteers tutor at elementary schools or community places.

-We are encouraged to find side projects, and here are some of mine: I tutor business faculty in business English, I do English movie night, I have office hours for students to come talk to me informally, and I help the Howard Johnson hotel in my city with English translation. (That last one I am doing as a favor to a former English student at my university who now does the marketing for HoJo in my city.) And the odd pageant hosting job, tree planting, whatever our school asks us to be involved in.

-We don’t receive any payment for anything we do. We receive from the Peace Corps a monthly stipend for food and clothing replacement. The universities where we work give us a place to live; Peace Corps pays our rent to them directly. In some places the school provides internet and telephone services, but they don’t have to do this. We pay for our own cell phone service.

-We also spend time studying Chinese and we are encouraged to make Chinese friends and integrate into our communities. We are tested yearly on our oral Chinese proficiency. We are also tested right before we end our service, and get a certificate documenting our proficiency level for future schooling or job opportunities. 

And, of course, fight with taxi drivers and hang out with our friends and eat a lot. It’s a unique life. I’m glad I lived it for a while.

A Couple Of Pictures

Andrew took this picture of me on the back of the airport bus. I cropped out the people around me and now it’s kinda too small. But anyway, a recent-ish picture.



And my student sent this to me a few days ago. It’s from the holiday pageant I hosted. This is not Andrew, it’s a student who joined me on stage to introduce something. The lights really washed me out, but I’m wearing a trapezoid-cut neckline silver matte shirt and a fake-diamond necklace. And black shoes with my floor length skirt. And a diamond sparkle headband. (And a smirky look on my face, apparently.) Next time, I need to remember my camera. I kept the background in because I thought you might like to see it. A flaming guitar, so Christmasy!



And now Andrew is smirking...

My good friends, whose wedding I went to in NYC a few months before I came to China, are having a baby in July. I’m really excited for them, and I bought them this cute coat for their baby. My favorite part are the ears on the hood.

By The Time We Got There, It Was Dinner At Tiffany’s*.

There is a phenomenon of giving directions in China that I still don’t understand: people will only give you directions to the next block. For example, “Go straight ‘til the next intersection, then turn left.” Now, you as a Westerner might think that means that after you turn left, you’ll be there. Oh no, my friend. This is just the beginning. If you don’t see what you’re looking for after you turn left, you ask someone else, and get the next set of directions. You will keep doing this, block after block, until you arrive at your destination.

This happened to V. and I when we were in Chengdu for training. I needed to get to Tiffany & Co.* to get some jewelry cleaned, and he came with me. I didn’t know where Tiffany was exactly, but I figured it was downtown near the other big shops. Turns out it was in a new shopping plaza built a little zig-zaggy ways away from where we were. It took four sets of directions to get us there. Yup, that’s about right.

Also, be aware: you will always get some directions, even if that person has no idea where you should be going. Saying, “I don’t know” is a loss of ‘face’ in Chinese culture, so even if they have no idea, they’ll still give you directions. The next set of directions might send you in a totally different direction. It means one of those people has no idea. Have fun deciding which one!

By the by, there was a Victoria’s Secret near the Tiffany, the first one I’ve seen here. Bras were over a hundred USD, and even those cheap little $5 dollar thongs were the equivilant of $60 USD. Say wha? It’s like they’re trying to turn Victoria’s Secret over here into an Agent Provocateur or La Perla equivalent. Ridiculous.

After our luxury adventures, V. and I stopped for dinner at a “Western” style chain restaurant out of Taiwan. Here’s a picture of what our meal came out like:



Yes, that is fried chicken steak (w/ pepper sauce), spaghetti w/ peas and a fried egg, all on the same plate. So don’t feel bad when American Chinese food is nothing like what you get in China; they get it wrong, too.

*This is a brand new Tiffany & Co. store, the first in this region of China. Also, why is the name in the novella/movie possessive? I’ve never noticed before that that is weird. But it is.

Boundaries And Prairie Dogs

T. and I were talking several months ago, and he said something offhand I really liked: “One of the great things about being an adult is you get to choose who is in your life.” Such a simple phrase, but something I wasn’t always very good about implementing. My friend FloJo also gave me a talking to; she told me, "Not every person you meet gets to be in your life at all times." She said this in reaction to the 'prairie dogs', those guys that pop up out of nowhere to contact you every few months to make sure you're still on the line. You know the type. Not bad guys by any means, but, maybe I don't need to be in everyone's line? I think this is what T and FloJo were trying to teach me. But I don't always mind, this is the problem!

T. also told me that for many men, if you tell him you are unhappy with something and he keeps doing it and you still accept him in your life with no boundaries, then there’s no reason for him to stop and he probably won’t. I have no idea how universal this is for men, but it was interesting to hear his take on it.

One revelation I have had in the past year or so is realizing that some men and women, even if they are straight, just don’t seem to really *like* the opposite sex all that much. They might love having sex with them, or love having their ego validated by them*, but like them? No, I don’t think they really like them all that much. You don’t treat badly the people you like.

I think living in China and being outside of my cultural comfort zone has allowed me to have some new perspective into healthy male/female relationships. And perhaps more importantly, what is not healthy.

*I personally think this is the bigger reason.