Outweighed

I keep talking about the great differences between Chinese and American culture, because they continue to astound me. This past Monday my team was instructed to cancel our classes, because we needed to go to the capital city of Hebei Province to get our physicals. These are physicals that we were instructed to get in the States before we came to China, but we had to get them again. So, at 7 am on Monday all of the new teachers loaded a small bus and drove 2 1/2 hours away to get a routine physical. You know, just the basics: pee in a cup, eye check, blood sample...chest X-ray exam...EKG...and yes, an ultrasound. The latter two were the most interesting. I laughed the whole way through the ultrasound, but the smiles were gone as soon as it was EKG time. The lady giving it yanked up whatever she wanted to and clipped and clamped whatever she wanted to. Luckily the whole deal was over before I could complain. We all made it through and were able to laugh about it on the way home.

Everyday there's something that happens that I can't explain or make sense of in my mind. I often try to figure it out only to end up feeling frustrated. I'm learning that I don't always need to ask why...like, why did I have to get to an ultrasound? Or why did we need to get physicals that we already got? Trying to figure it out only takes away my focus for being here. While we were in Beijing this last weekend with the other IECS members, a few of us shared our most favorite and least favorite things about being in China. It was so amazing to hear how much everyone's favorite things far outweighed any of the not-so-good things. I shouldn't have been so surprised because the truth is that "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

While I'm talking about favorite things, I'll mention a few of them from the past week. I got to see the Bird's Nest and the Watercube in Beijing when we were looking for the finish line of Brad and Peter's marathon!! No one else was quite as excited I was...I think when I saw it, I had a "whoa, I can't believe I'm in China" moment. Those happen every once in a while and they catch me off guard. After the race, a bunch of us went to get lunch at a place called Texas Pete's. Walking into the southern homestyle atmosphere, I felt like I stepped out of China for an hour and into the U.S. We got big burgers and fries and finished it with the most amazing ice cream I've ever had. I'm pretty sure we'll visit again. I was quite thankful for this burger experience, cause later in the week I was asked by a student if I wanted to try Baoding's famous donkey burger. I've heard a lot about them, and it was inevitable that I would have to eat one sometime, so I accepted her invitation to "have a try." It actually wasn't as bad as I thought...it resembled pulled pork, only saltier. I think my tolerance for trying new and very different food is improving!

Ok, but my favorite part of this week happened tonight. All of the foreigners were invited to participate in English corner, because they were having a pumpkin carving night and wanted foreigners to show students how to do it. We walked into a room FULL of students applauding and yelling in excitement at seeing us. They had us introduce ourselves, give them a background on Halloween (which I was lucky enough to be appointed by my team to do), and teach them how to carve a pumpkin. It was so much fun!! I accidently forgot to carve in the bottom teeth on the pumpkin, and when I asked my group of students what we should name it, they said "Grandpa pumpkin." So then, they carved a second one with no bottom teeth and named it "Grandma pumkin."

A small picture of what the night looked like:




Then the students had a contest to see whose pumpkin was the best....
"Grandpa and Grandma" didn't win, but I was glad cause they said the winner had to sing a song. Not my idea of a great prize, but somehow the whole room ended up singing "My Heart Will Go On." And all I can say is, oh China...how different and how amazing you truly are! Being here far outweighs anything else I could possibly be doing right now...