So, it's been an incredibly long time since I posted. I could state the reason for not writing was that I had nothing to write about, but that would be a lie. I had many good stories, but none of which I was able to write down well enough to put in a post. Apparently, the cure for shitty story telling is to be laying in bed with strep throat, because at this point I'm on so much medication that I can't tell my writing is terrible. So, instead of promising to write more, I'll promise to get strep throat more. I'm terribly lazy, and it's much easier to promise plague then anything else.

My time in China over the last couple of months has been interesting, to say the least. My company is a very interesting place, in that half the time I have no idea what's going on and in the other half I'm wrong. Case in point, it took them over 3 months after we got there for them to show us the actual hierarchy of the company. The good news: I know who my bosses are. The bad news: Really? Her?

I'm in charge of the Science and Virtual P.E. curriculum, which for those of you that know me should be laughing. If there was one subject in particular that I've always been terrible at, it was science. Obviously, my Political Science degree has the word "science" in it, and therefore I know enough to plan to teach kindergarten kids. So, now I get to come up with games and experiments for little kids to teach them about such exciting ideas as colors, medicine, water buoyancy, and my personal favorite: breathing.

That's right. I need to fill a 50 minute class with games about breathing. Now, this might sound like an open invitation to get kids to hold their breath until they pass out or use balloons to show how you can breath in, but as I was told balloons are unsafe(Jury is still out on the first idea). Prior to coming here, I had thought Gettysburg College had some weird thoughts about safety. However, my school has taught me that not only do children break easily(wadded up pieces of paper will give all the kids paper cuts), but the periodic table of elements is wrong. When planning for two parties for the kids, we were told we couldn't use helium balloons because they might "spontaneously combust". With that statement, I think I can understand why they put me in charge of science. I can at least remember from early high school that helium doesn't explode that easily. Then again, this is China and nothing here would really surprise me anymore.

I think my "surreal" sensor is off. Everyone has this sensor, when they look at something, and just go "What the fuck". China has warped this sense for me beyond all belief. Around a month ago, I was taking the bus somewhere, and on the same ride I saw a man holding 18 USB cables, and a giant map of Korea just walking down the street. This was immediately followed by two city workers shoveling snow. One city worker was shoveling the snow from the base of a tree onto the street, while the other was shoveling from the street onto the base of the tree. Prior to coming here, I would have found that to be incredibly surreal, but I've reached the point of being able to rationalize this quite clearly. The best way to recover from an economic downturn is to create jobs. The Chinese Government made it snow(using rockets and aluminum!), and then hired two poor unemployed guys to shovel that particular corner. In fact, it's a genius solution to the snow problem, because eventually the snow will melt mid-air! Now, it might turn into ice, but that's the problem of another ministry. See, it's easy! The only thing to recently confuse me was seeing a man over 70 years old driving a motorized razor scooter with his wife, who also was over 70 on the back. The surrealness wasn't so much the old people being active, as all old people walk around like Splinter from the Ninja Turtles, but the fact that they make MOTORIZED razor scooters. Now, all I can imagine is that 70 year old man cranking the giant engine, and going down a half pipe to do mad tricks before zooming off into the distance to fight other old men.

Coming back to the States eventually is going to be very interesting. I've developed an extreme aversion to being around white people that I don't know here. Part of this is due to the fact that, as one of my friends put it, all other white people here are incredibly ugly mutants. Another part is the fact that I feel kinda unique. Aside from my flatmates, there are days when I see no other white people. Seeing someone else in "my area" evokes an almost animal response of territorialism. Some of it stems from the fact that a lot of the people here are terrible ambassadors of Whitey everywhere, and are mainly the reason that Americans are hated abroad. The rest usually stems from the fact that they are buying the last piece of whatever food I need.

At this point, this is turning into a giant medicated ramble, so I'm going to cut it short. I have more ramblings to post, which actually might get done tomorrow as I won't be allowed to work. All in all, I've been really lucky here so far, you know with the exception of that whole Strep throat thing.

Linguistics and Linguini

Ok, I promise to start updating more. I’ve just been busy. I’ll try to crank out a couple of posts soon. Anyway, this is a post about “linguistics”, or if I’m really hungry by the end, possibly “linguini”. Mainly, this post is going to relate to how people here are terrible at English, and how funny it can be. To be fair, I’m so bad at mandarin I’m surprised I haven’t accidently told someone to kill themselves when I was trying to say hello. To be fair, it’s entirely possible that’s why I was getting screamed at in that supermarket, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s start off first with T-shirts.

First, you have the older T-shirts that I haven’t seen since Middle school. For example, “Make 7, Up Yours”. That shirt was at least popular at one point, even if that point was 10 years ago. Next, we move into the shirts I agree with. You see a lot of girls walking around with the shirt that “Boys need Yoga too.” Now, I’m not going to disagree with this. It’s just common sense. I mean, I don’t need to practice Yoga, but if my girlfriend knew it, I wouldn’t complain.

Finally, we move onto the outright bizarre. For example, “Only Safaris get me off.” Now, this shirt can mean a couple things.
1. She has no idea what her shirt says.
2. She has a weird fetish where she can only get turned on when being charged by a lion.
3. She has a weird fetish where not only can she only get turned on by a lion, but she has another one where she has to proclaim it to the world.

I’m personally hoping for number 3.

Now, we’ll move onto spoken English.

First, I have a work story that happened to Cory. There was a discussion in the office about spicy food. Cory pipes in stating that he can’t eat spicy food. This is immediately followed by our boss stating, “I’m a Spicy Girl!” Cory immediately looks at her and goes, “I don’t think that means what you think that means.” This is followed by Cory having to explain why it’s never a good idea to tell your co-workers that you are a spicy girl. Personally, I like thinking that Cory relayed the story wrong and that he admitted to being a spicy girl. It would make the past couple of years make so much more sense.

Finally, we’re going to move onto outright cursing. The Chinese have a fascination with the word “Fuck.” It never gets old hearing a very cute Chinese girl just outright scream “FUCK” at random points in time. However, the best time is when it’s used improperly. This has led to having to explain that the phrase “Fuck me!” can only be used in two ways, as an expletive or a request. This explanation also led to another explanation, in that of telling two Chinese girls why that’s also a request. Now, you’d think that would be the more obvious of the two, but I’m going to blame the Chinese educational system. Most things are learned by memorization, and I’m just going to assume they were taught that phrase in Kindergarten, and have no idea what it actually means. If so, I can’t wait till I get to teach that class.

Rather than turning this into a really long paragraph, I’m just going to end this with a list of names of Chinese people I have met and/or heard of from co-workers, and let you fill in the blanks about their grasp of the English language.

Echo, Rain, Camera, Any, Rainbow, Watermelon, Hamburger, Armpit.

Finally, I’m just going to end this with my new favorite curse, and why I officially love China.

Go Fuck Myself.

Pictures of China

With that nice little photo out of the way, here's a post I've been meaning to do for a while. China, by far, has the best signage out of any country I've ever been to. Some of them are delightfully informative, others are well...not nearly as delightfully informative for lack of a better phrase. As such, we shall go through them from most informative to least.


So lets start with this brilliant gem:



So, we do know that you shouldn't drink and drive from this picture. However, the reasoning why probably isn't the best. I'm pretty certain isn't so much to prevent drunk driving as it is to prevent latent psychic powers from becoming active. Three things in this picture seem to point to this conclusion. The first two are recognizable by anyone: the flying bottle and glass, and the ninja stars from out of nowhere that also happen to be flying. The final clue only occurs to someone that is here. No normal Chinese person would have hair like that. The only style that seems to be in fashion here are bangs in front of your eyes. I don't have the heart to tell them that style has been out for...well...I wasn't alive when it was.

Now, we move to another gem:



This one was very easy to figure out when it's before every bridge you see. However, if you take that little fact out we can only conclude that this means 10 trillion TIE fighters ahead. This also allows for only one conclusion. China is the Death Star. Furthermore, they really love purchasing their fighters in bulk. I blame Costco, but when I get home I'm going to inquire into making my own purchase.

The next two are easily my favorite signs, but I think I'm required to go in order of confusion. I actually know what the first one means. The second one...not so much.



My first thought was, "Man, China sure hates the English Horn." My second thought was to figure out why. After a deep look at recent Chinese history, I discovered the cause! The Rogue Marching Band protests in 1989****CENSORED****! Now, I have also learned that I am not allowed to bring up ****CENSORED**** in conversation in China, and that by mentioning it here, I am tempting fate! Either way, I call upon the Gettysburg College Marching Band to help rescue me in case of issues! I'll provide the beer and Jungle Juice. You bring the Sousas.


Now, we move onto the final signage picture. I have no idea what this actually means.




So, we started taking communal guesses. Most of them reasoned out to "No cars on fire." If so, it's very effective because I have yet to see a car on fire. My personal favorite interpretation is "No Car Bombs!" Basically, I have the mental image of a bunch of terrorists driving up in a car, seeing the sign, and going "Dammit, EVERY TIME!", and just driving off to wherever they came from to come up with a new plan that China inevitably has a sign for. With that said, I'm going to steal a couple of these signs, and ship them to Israel to test my hypothesis.


Finally, we have a couple non-sign related pictures. Don't skip to the bottom. I want to showcase China's natural beauty! Here are pictures of a massive waterfall, complete with pictures of stairs to showcase size, and pictures of the view from less then halfway up.












Finally, the view from the top!






And that's China's pristine natural beauty! I need to go into hiding now. I think the government heard about me mentioning ****censored****.

Album with all the pictures taken so far

This isn't Vietnam, there are rules here!

Warning: This is a catchup post, and is very long and not as funny as most things will be. This is an attempt to get people up to date on my life, and the stories will start when I can actually upload a lot of pictures.

Well, here we go. The first of many entries from China. The one following this will have lots of pictures, because China has the most awesome signage ever. However, I’m getting way ahead of myself. The journey starts a couple of days ago, and at this point I’ve completely lost track of time. I think today is Sunday, but at this point everything is a bit of a blur. So lets go back to the beginning. I start off at a security checkpoint in Fort Lauderdale. I, being the mighty Jew warrior I am, must look like an EXTREME terrorist, as they fully unpacked both of my carryons, and left me there to repack them. Either that, or I am by far the worst drug smuggler ever, as a number of items in my carryon looked a hell of a lot like weed and coke. Either way, I get through security and onto the plane. I make it into Providence for the couple of hour layover at Cory’s. We repack a bit, and head back out to Boston Logan.

Here is where the fun begins. It’s a bit after 3:30 AM, and our greatest fear almost came true! We gave ourselves a seven hour layover in Toronto just in case Boston disappeared, and we had to drive there. We arrive, and Air Canada staff isn’t there, and the rest of their “alliance” partners were completely useless. I heard such rumors as “Air Canada doesn’t arrive until 6 AM. Oh, your flight is at 6:10? That sucks.” to “Would you like Bacon or Sausage on your Bagel?” Finally, they arrived, and we moved to the next thing. The dreaded Airport Security. That also hadn’t arrived yet. Now, usually you might think, “Well, if security isn’t here, I think I can go straight through!” Well, it turns out this is wrong, and it requires a key card and airport security isn’t amused by looking through their window to watch them eat breakfast. So, yet again, they unpack my bags, and ask me if I’m carrying cocaine or bombs. I answer both of these questions no, and get through.

We board a smaller plane, and I run into the fear of smaller bag areas. Mainly because my carryon weighs around the weight limit for checked luggage, and I’m pretty certain airlines don’t like that. The only eventful thing on the flight was learning how to say “Beautiful woman”, which is apparently all I need to get by in China. So far my attempts to use it at the convenience store and a truck driver that attempted to get me to hitch a ride with him to a deserted resort have failed miserably. I’m assuming that this is only because of my terrible pronunciation, and will continue my quest to survive using only that phrase.

We get into Toronto, and go through the politest air port security check ever. “May we please check your bag?” the guard asked, and I almost wanted to say no to see if they’d let me through anyway. I assumed a Canadian prison would be better than a Chinese one, but decided that I didn’t want to risk getting trapped in the mountains with a bear, a canadian mounty and a moose. After getting through security again, we sit down and wait for everyone else in our group to arrive. A number of hours later, there are 6 of us gathered around the one person with identifiable clothes, a pair of yellow pants. My sign of “I’m the dude with a green Duffel Bag” went to waste.

The flight goes really well, and we get into China, and go through immigration and quarantine. Now, Cory is an idiot and writes down he actually had symptoms of Swine Flu, and he gets taken for a while. We get through immigration, and I have a new greatest fear! A piece of dust got into my nose, and I had to try incredibly hard not to sneeze in front of immigration, so I’m standing there twitching waiting for her to check my passport. I figure a couple moments of twitching is better than three months in a Chinese hospital. We get through, and Cory gets separated from us while waiting on the airport tram. At this point, I make my first cultural faux pass, a 16th century history joke. As Cory gets off the tram, I go to get his attention by screaming “Marco!” “I probably shouldn’t have yelled that here.” “Polo”. Needless to say, Cory finds us, and we get our bags and go into the strictest customs I have ever seen. There are numerous sniffer machines, and a bunch of X-ray machines. We use none of them, and walk straight through.

We get on a bus, and get ready for our first day in Beijing. As we leave the airport, we’re all heavily excited to be in Beijing proper! At this point, we have our first example of disappointment as after a 20 minute ride, we end up back at another terminal in the airport. Eventually we leave, and watch as our bus is eventually passed by mopeds, a station wagon, and a man on a rickshaw. Now, my first impression of China’s roads involved a bike parked in the center of the street, and cars honking as they go around it. We arrive at the hotel, and do what every large group does is the middle of nowhere. Drink! After we start drinking, they inform us we can’t drink because of a medical exam. This fails miserably, and they cancel the medical exam. The next day, we have a short meeting to learn our “teams”, and then get the rest of the day off. A bunch of us wander away, and find the nicest retirement home possible, complete with Chinese police security. After getting the Chinese security officer to pose with a football in the Heisman pose, we eventually wander the other direction passed three fish refineries, four dogs, a toilet, a man driving on the sidewalk, an internet café, the same man later sleeping on the sidewalk, and finally arrive at a convenience store. At some point, I will attempt to eat the Blueberry Lays, or the random “duck in a bag” they had. I’m also pretty certain I drank baby formula, but it was delicious.

We get back and the copious amounts of socializing(drinking) begins. There ends up being another group at the hotel, and they separate us from them for a bit. Eventually, the Chinese men in that group take down the barricade, and we end up doing karaoke and dancing with a bunch of Chinese. Now, one of these men was by far the ballsiest man I have ever met. He’s the equivalent of a guy in a club that gets turned down, doesn’t bother moving and turns to the person next to the last girl and starts going. He doesn’t even just grab woman. Any limb near him is fair game, and he does a fair bit of apologizing every time he grabs a dude. He asks every female for their number, and the second they say “I have no cell phone”, he immediately turns to the next one. However, I should mention the hotel has a grand total of four songs from the real artist, and a lot of early pop from the 90’s sung by knockoff artists. This makes for an amazing dance party! You always know what’s coming, and it’s usually not very good. After hearing “I’m a genie in a bottle” sung by what might have been a 50 year old man for the thirtieth time, I retired for the night. The next day begins, and we go through a lot of meetings. I have my first interview, so hopefully I’ll know exactly where I’m placed soon. Yet again, we do copious amounts of socializing, and eventually pass out.

In regards to non-specific experiences, the people here are completely and utterly awesome. It takes a certain kind of person to come out to China, and it’s great being in a group of almost entirely outgoing people. It’s really easy to go from table to table talking to people. I’m really enjoying my time so far. Anyway, breakfast time.

Hello!

I'm alive. There should be a blog post by next week. It'll all depend if I can keep access/get pictures uploaded. Therefore, at the latest when I get into my apartment.

The start of the journey.

For the record, this blog will be the chronicling of how I ended up in a turkish prison moved to china for a year and still ended up in a turkish prison taught kindergarten children.

Now, I wish I could start off with an amusing anecdote about getting my visa but the Chinese didn't realize that Houston is nowhere near South Florida, and this means I have to use a visa service. Rather then have any amusing pictures, my visa story is me going down the street, and dropping my application off in the mail. In fact, the only amusing anecdote I have so far involved having a conversation entirely in Spanish with someone born and living in China. Hint: My Spanish sucks.

Now onto how the story really began. As many of you know, I can be impulsive as all hell. In this case, my parents realized it when I went from "Hey, I'm going to visit Cory before he moves to China" to "Hey, I'm moving to China!" within the period of a day. I had my resume professionally made, submitted it, and got the contract the next night. Since then, my life has been a whirlwind of hot woman, fast cars, and visa applications. As of this point, my decisions about China can be summed up in 1 sentance. Cory and I are spending Sunday mornings at the bar.

I promise future posts will be funnier, but to be honest, not much has happened yet. When I was taking blog names, some people came up with blog titles, which means I need to get myself into situations that allow for them. Because of this, I now officially open the betting pool on "What date does Adler get kicked out of China?"

P.S. The amount of TV shows currently being downloaded to bring with me: 118.7gigs(not including what Cory is bringing)