Mirror, Mirror

Several months ago, I had the good fortune of being found by the person I like to, somewhat narcissistically, consider my namesake.  Here's the story.  Jennica's Aunt Brenda is a good friend of my mom.  Mrs. Brenda's oldest child is only a year younger than I am.  The Fincher kids and my sister and I grew up together, jumping hay bales and playing "capture the flag" in the woods.  As Jennica's mom was looking for a name for her daughter, she asked her sister (Mrs. Brenda).  Mrs. Brenda mentioned that she had a friend (my mom) who named her daughter (me) Jenica.  And so, Jennica got my name.  Lucky her.  As far as I can tell, if your name is Jennica, you're probably going to have a certain sense of adventure.  You'll definitely want to travel the world, yet you'll keep a few places as the countries you love the most.  You will be passionate about the things you value, look younger than your actual age, and teach English, at least for now.  From what I've surmised reading the blog, Jennica is waaay cooler than I am, but that just makes me even happier to share a name with her.  Read her blog. It's great.

Keep the Empirical

Nobody bothers you as you walk down the street.  No one shouts "hen piaoliang" as you pass by.  Some people wave or nod and say "heey" with that long-drawn out vowel that reminds you of where you are.  Grocery store aisles are wider, and streets are far more clean.  Most drivers follow the basic rules of the road such as driving with traffic and not into it.  You find clothes that fit your size and people who understand your normal pace of speech.  Air conditioners don't smell like mold, and the "firm" mattress feels like a pillow.

Yet something is missing.  There's an ongoing search, and no amount of comparison of here and there will really answer the questions.  Perhaps some of us were not meant to be part of a place.  Perhaps I am one of those.  

Travel Log - Hong Kong, the First

On the way back from New Year's travels, I stopped over in Hong Kong.  I had planned to spend at least two or three days there to experience the excitement of real city life.  I was definitely craving it after being in Shantou for so long.  I was looking forward to the promise of cereal, sauces, Mexican food, and shopping.  Sadly, choosing the cheapest available lodging possible backfired in so many ways.

As soon as I got off the city bus from the airport, several really pushy men approached me, each trying to sell a room at their hostels.  I had wisely booked beforehand, so I tried to ignore them, politely.  They wouldn't be ignored and insisted on knowing which lucky hostel I had already booked.  One attempted to show me around the massively confusing Mirador Mansions.  Or was it Chungking?  I can't remember now.  Either way, he ended up leading me around in a really obnoxious way - constantly attempting to tell me the place was no longer booked, and I wouldn't be able to find anywhere to stay except his hostel.  Eventually I tired of his "help" and, in no uncertain terms, told him to leave me alone, this time not so politely.  I somehow managed to find my way around the labyrinth to my perfectly cheap room.  It was after midnight, and I was far too tired to care about anything.  Had I not craved sleep so desperately, I could have spared myself the coming annoyances.  I met the hostel manager, saw the room quickly, and went back out into the world to withdraw some money to pay for this hostel.  Having almost zero sense of direction, I naturally spent far more time than necessary looking for a Bank of China ATM.  I finally found one, got the money, returned to Mirador (or Chungking), and made it back to my hostel through a connection of elevators and back-alley plank stairwells where the locals hung their laundry.  

As soon as I got inside the room, I realized the enormity of my economical mistake.  Before, when I was tired, I didn't really examine the room.  After spending more than two minutes in it, I saw what I had missed the first time.  The room was incredibly small, but that's to be expected in any budget lodging in HK.  What I missed the first time were all the black spots dotting the bed.  The other mattress in the room was turned on its side and covered in mold spots.  The room smelled terrible.  I couldn't figure out what the spots on my bed were at first, but then I noticed that they were flying out of the air conditioner, which had been turned on before I got there.  The black spots were large chunks of mold that would spew intermittently from the machine after blocking the air flow for a minutes.

I tried very hard to ignore the mold.  I thought I could just lay my towel over the bed, play some music, and eventually fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.  Not so.  Around three o'clock in the morning, I finally gave up.  I packed up, left the room, called the manager, and only got half my money back.  

So, out into the early morning I went.  I was fairly certain I could find a real hotel and just eat the expense of staying there for a night.  Again, not so.  The only hotels in the vicinity had the gates pulled down and locked tight.  So I trucked myself and my two small bags with a month's worth of laundry and gifts through the streets of HK, wondering what I would do all night.  I coughed up enough bravery to pass by the special crowds that populate the areas around Nathan Road at that time of night.  And then I saw it, every stranded-in-the-middle-of-the-night-in-HK-traveler's dream, the Golden Arches.  I have a strange affection for McD's now that I've never had before.  After spending so many hours there, watching the sun rise along with the other zombies and marathon runners, I truly appreciate the service provided by endless cups of *hot water* (one can only take so much coffee, after all) offered 24/7.

Because I was getting stir crazy, I headed to the area of China Travel Services to book a ticket home as soon as the metro started running again.  After buying my ticket, I still had several hours to wait.  I walked down streets, wishing I could waste my time smelling soaps in the Body Shop.  Then I discovered another place that caters to the night crowds - online gaming.  Where there is online gaming, there is internet connection, so, of course, I went in and caught up on emails.  I have never before been to an online gaming place, and I hope never to go again.  It's a strange, strange world and makes me worry about the amount of time I do spend staring at a computer, although I'm sure it's considerably less than the regulars.  There's something amiss in this world of alter-realities, but perhaps for another time.

I left the internet spot and returned to the land of daylight to begin my wait for the bus.  You can only truly appreciate waiting for a city-to-city bus if you've lived in a country where you speak almost none of the language, and the locals speak none of yours.  Once the bus finally arrived, later than scheduled, I could only assume that I'd make it home, or I wouldn't.  If I didn't, I decided I'd just have to figure it out later.  There was a strange drop-off in an unmarked parking lot of an indecipherable store, followed by pointless attempts at communicating, and finally, me hopping in a fifteen-passenger van.  But I eventually made it to the downtown Shantou area and got a bus back to campus.  Not the ending I had hoped for, but at least I made it home.

Bones or Ash?

The ghosts of the reservoir are at it again - keeping me up with strange nightmares.  This is what you get from swimming in a man-made lake that previously served as burial grounds.

The Life and Times of

Wow!  It's been an amazingly long time since I last posted.  I'm not sure what has sparked my lack of introspection or the desire to spread my peculiar brand of wit online.  Yes, I do try.  You didn't notice?  What??  I've decided to give up on mass-emails as an attempt to keep in touch.  It's not my way, and it makes me feel like a fake.  "Come on, please care about me!"  Anyhow, I'm going to make an attempt to update this site regularly, in case there are those who are still interested.

During my blogging hiatus, I went on vacation to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  Throughout the vacation, the biggest question on my mind was whether or not to sign on for a second year here.  After much, much deliberation, many never-ending circular conversations, and the return to spring semester at STU, I decided I would spend another year of life here.  This decision, strange as it may seem, has to have been one of the hardest of my life.  The initial decision to come here was so simple.  It just made sense.  I had peace about it.  My family was thrilled I wasn't heading to the Middle East.  There seemed to be so much confirmation that this was where I needed to be for now.  

The decision to stay here is not so clear-cut.  Beyond and behind all the weighing of plusses and minuses on either side, decision-making seems infinitely more difficult with the absence of concerned others.  From the outside, I lead a charmed life - venturing off to whatever exciting place I want to go next.  And yes, I'm young and single - the perfect time to embrace life open-armed.  It's such an adventure, and I'm so lucky that I can go where I want without having to think about a family.  Or so I've been told, time and again.  The reality is, of course, somewhat more complex.  I am thankful for freedom, but I'm also sad that I am responsible to no one and no one is to me.  The deep loneliness of being the only one affected by a decision makes choosing anything an insurmountable task.  Of course, one could argue that my birth family is affected, and certainly they are more than anyone else.  But they are family units of their own without me, and I can't realistically live with them at this point in life.

So, that leaves me here, one person making what seems like to me the hugest decision ever with very little input and few sounding boards.  And so, I chose to stay.  My rationale is not great.  I might regret it later, but I hope I won't.  At least I have bought some time until another life-altering decision has to be made.  I've always been a wanderer, wondering what was around the next curve with little need to see a clearly marked path. But I'm finding that I want to - at least for once in my life - truly belong somewhere.

These are just a few thoughts, skeletons of what's been flying through my head over the months.  I'm looking forward to posting more exciting information about idiosyncracies of life and work here.  There will be much more to come later! 

Latest Discoveries and Experiences

These would probably be better with pictures, but in no particular order:

-green tea cheese cake (surprisingly good, not so similar to cheese cake really)

-herbal jelly

-unintentional purchase of stinky tofu

-t-shirt launchers stronger than 10 men

-Mariah, Shania, and Whitney performed by some singers much braver than I am

-botched language attempts on the bus ...now really, how hard can "_______ zai nali?" be???

-wal-mart Christmas decor

-walking into the wrong restroom (unfortunately occupied) after a long 8 hours of teaching

-being the only female in the weight room on campus - my students attempted to explain all the machines to me.  I was grateful but secretly thought, "If you only knew..."

License to Smell, And the Currency of Skin

I've always felt a certain amount of self-satisfaction from keeping a low profile.  I generally like to think that if I don't know who someone is, they definitely don't know me (I do admit, this is a bit of the ostrich approach).  Nonetheless, in some kind of alter-reality world, I think I'd make a great spy.  I'm observant and usually go unnoticed.  

What does this have to do with teaching?  China?  Only this fact: the entire world has been turned inside out.  There is no more incognito.  There is no more anonymity.  I can't be the silent observer.  Before I came, I expected to encounter this.  I don't exactly blend in with the locals, and I don't think dying my hair would really help.  Most of the time, attaining some sort of celebrity status isn't so bad.  People are generally friendly and well-meaning, though the cameras and constant "hello"s do get annoying.

The interesting thing is how differently I am percieved here as opposed to in the U.S.  I walk into nice department stores or restaurants here, and no one questions whether or not I can afford to be in that place.  People are constantly trying to win me over as a customer - vendors hawking food, phone cards, rides on pedicabs - and possibly all at a jacked-up rate.  People marvel at the paleness of my skin.  ("I can't help it, honestly.  Believe me, I've tried," is my usual response.)

And so, this foreigness buys me much more than it should.  On occasion, I walk around town with other teachers all day, then go into a restaurant with my hair curly from sweat, looking quite dishevelled.  In another place across an ocean, my appearance would definitely draw stares and whispers.  I'd feel quite uncomfortable.  Yet here as a foreigner, it's no problem.   Even without the sweatiness, there are many places in the U.S. that I don't feel comfortable walking into.  I grew up in hand-me-downs and shopped primarily at goodwill in high school.  Life has changed since then, but I sometimes still need a pep-talk before walking into a place that could collocate with the words "nice," "pampered," "top tier," "four star," or the like.

When I focus out a bit, all this just reminds me how spoiled I really am.  I look around and see the farmers and the sellers and the middlepeople who work sun-up to sun-down.  They work so hard and have so much less to show for it.  I sometimes get caught up in thinking that my life is hard, that I have to scrounge and be frugal just to get by.  And it's true, my income was very close to my rent more often than not.  It's only here that I can even afford to live alone.  Yet our ideas of "scraping by" are vastly different from the reality of that experience in so much of the world.  

With all these swirling thoughts, I can only hope that I'll be a good foreigner.  That I'll smile and be friendly even when my patience is wearing thin.