all ok

Never mind about the adapter! I got it figured out. :)

6/27/07

It's definitely starting to get warm here in Chengdu! It's probably hotter in Chapel Hill or Atlanta, but we get the added pleasure of walking everywhere. ;) I really actually enjoy the walking, though, because we can see everything- things you might miss if you were speeding by in a car. It also offers me the opportunity to go in many shoe stores. Have I mentioned how amazingly well the girls/women here in Chengdu dress? Their clothes are beautiful. Janell and I are the "typical Americans" walking down the street in our shorts and tennis shoes while they are wearing dresses and high heels. Seriously, sometimes it looks like they're wearing cocktail dresses during the day. I must take pictures of this phenomenon. It seems that they really love adornments, too...almost all of the compliments I have gotten are about jewelry that I am wearing. There are sparkly hair accessories, lots of jewelry, decorated toenails, etc. Anyway, they are quite fashionable and I spend at least a couple minutes a day being jealous of their outfits! It is actually quite inexpensive for us to get clothes here, but I get really, really tired of going in stores because the salespeople follow behind you really closely and it's quite nerve-wracking. I've only managed to get one dress and one shirt so far. Oh, and the shoes- they have shoes in every color and style imaginable. They are shoe stores everywhere! I got a teal colored pair of sandals today for about $10...now I can fit in in China, haha. The women/girls wear high heels everywhere! They also use "whitening cream" to try to bleach their skin...they think we're crazy because they walk under umbrellas when the sun is out so they won't get tan but Janell and I are trying to catch every ray we can!

I had the first Sichuan food that I've really, really liked tonight. Our friend Julie wrote out some names of different foods for us in Chinese so we can just so them to the waitress/waiter and one of them is "fried noodles". They don't often have them close to campus but we were farther down Renmin ("the people") street today and I was able to get them. Delicious. I literally think it's the first time I've almost finished my plate of Chinese food since I've been here. The family and workers at the restaurant were so cute!!! We were having a conversation with them where no one understood what the other said. We were speaking in English or just saying "I don't understand" in Chinese, but everyone just kept on talking. For some reason they thought we were German? They were so sweet and we're definitely going back- 10 yuan for both of our dinners? Nice. I'll try and post of picture of Janell and the owner of the store above. Speaking of pictures, today was the first time that I've had random people want to take a picture with me!!! It was so funny...Janell and I were sitting on a bench and this group of 3 people walked over to us and said something while they were handing out a camera. I thought they just wanted me to take a picture of them, so in an effort to be helpful I jumped up and said "Sure"! Nope, they wanted a picture with me, the waiguoren (foreigner). Janell was just laughing (quietly!) the whole time...

Speaking of helpful (I have SO much I want to say and can't get it all out) the Chinese people are incredibly helpful. I've been asking a lot of young people to help us, since they typically speak a little more English, and they go out of their way to help. Some people even stop us on the street if we look confused and ask us if we need anything.Last night, I asked a young girl to order movie tickets for us for "Pirates of the Caribbean". She came back with my money and kept saying, "Talk, talk, talk!" Trying to remember the English words, she finally said, "Only talk Chinese!" So there was no English version of the movie, and we were disappointed, haha. It's so encouraging that they really want to help us, though. THEN- we were really missing popcorn so we decided to just get some from the theater without seeing a movie. We were so excited until we tasted it and it was sweet!!! We found it hilarious that we were sitting on a bench in a movie theater eating popcorn we hated and not even seeing a movie. ;) Then we had adventures with getting lost and not being able to find a cab...it's always funny and a little anxiety-provoking when you're lost in a city where you can't speak the language. We've managed to get back every time, though! We can't figure out what our grad student friends think we do during the day while they're in class...several times we've mentioned going somewhere and they've been shocked that we were able to get around. :)

Janell and I were a little dejected 2 nights ago. We had a GREAT workshop- only 2 students came compared to the 20 or so that came last week, though. Turns out they're all studying for finals now and even those two (who have been to every one so far) said that they wouldn't be able to come again. The students are everywhere studying, and finals don't even start until July 3! So our workshops are canceled indefinitely. It was quite sad as we felt like that was one contribution that we were able to make and we don't really have set plans for many things in the upcoming weeks. I was definitely better by the next morning and I feel like I'm learning so much just by BEING here that it's all worth it. And I think they're learning a lot about the American health care system, culture, etc. I definitely think if we're just patient we'll get a lot of opportunities. We went to a meeting yesterday at the CDC (they have local CDCs that I think are kind of like our health departments). The entire meeting was in Chinese, of course, so it was really funny (and a little frustrating, of course) watching and having no idea what anyone was saying. Connie explained a lot of it to Janell during the meeting, though, and Janell wrote it down so I'd know what was going on. Jackie, Dr. Zhang and some other students are starting a peer education program for the "waitresses" (sex workers) at some "bars" (these may actually be masquerading as something else, like a hair salon where no one knows how to cut hair). I really, really wished we could have heard what was going on, though, because after the meeting I learned that the women sitting across from us were the administrators/bosses in these "bars". Anyway, they are going to choose some women from their bar to be peer educators for the other "waitresses". It's really for AIDS prevention, but AIDS is a sensitive subject so they're not going to call it that/tell them that. Instead, it will be focused on their allover health but will discuss safer sex practices, etc. I reaaaaaaaaaally hope we get to go to one of these bars but no one has mentioned this as a possibility yet.

Oh, at the workshop the other night, the students started discussing politics. We definitely do not bring these things up! It was so interesting, though, because the 2 undergraduate students there were being very critical of the government while Connie (grad student friend) was being very defensive about it. The students (rightfully so, I think- but then, I'm American) were saying that they really have no choice in elections. There ARE other parties besides the Communist party, but they are really small and never win. So basically the Party appoints people to run (from what I could understand), then they have an "election" where that person almost always (always?) wins. They were saying that a lot of people don't vote or even care about politics because they don't feel there is nothing they can do to change anything. Connie, on the other hand, said that the most qualified people are in the Communist party, so why does anything need to change? She said that the Communists are the ones with the most experience dealing with other governments so they should be in charge. I asked her how other people were supposed to get experience when they couldn't get elected in the first place, and she laughed and said that was a problem. She also said that because of the history of China, a non-communist candidate would not win. This was DEFINITELY interesting to Janell and I as Janell pointed out that the Communist Party has only been in China since 1949...very little time in their centuries-old existence. It seems that most of the grad students that we hang out with (I'm not speaking for all students) have very little interest in the history of China and instead, are looking more to the future- perhaps because China is changing so quickly? I hear that things are really different in the rural areas, though, and I think we're going to go on 2 site visits where we might get to see conditions there.

We have a bit of the same problem in America with only 2 problems, but when we started talking about it I realized what a HUGE difference it is. We have the opportunity to express our approval or disapproval (as a country) for parties or individual candidates through elections, so I think it makes them much more accountable to us and makes them more eager to please us (this is over-simplified, but it really is a major difference). They have to worry about getting elected or re-elected. However, the Chinese have very little leverage in this way because the Communist appointee is most likely going to win anyway. It was so interesting to me to hear their differing opinions on the subject. They also said that (for most of the same reasons listed above) corruption is rampant in the government and the leader of their nation's version of the FDA was recently sentenced to death for corruption. Also (so much I want to remember!) they discussed the poor health care of peasants in China, and how the Chinese people pretty much go to the hospital for everything because (one of the student's words) they "are not developed enough to have doctors offices, etc. yet". Peasants often have to travel to big cities in order to get "good" health care and the city hospitals tend to charge much more. Explaining the American health care system to them was SO hard because we have such a complicated system! There are government agencies under DHHS, private companies, physician practice groups, local health departments, charities, etc. We could have had a summer long discussion just about that, I think.

One more difference between China and America: According to the students, the nicest ("most beautiful") buildings in China are government buildings, while private industry buildings are not that nice. In my opinion, it's often the other way around in America. Most of the public health students want to work for the CDC, except for one guy I met yesterday who said that is "boring" and that he wants to work for an international firm.

We really thought when were coming here that you really weren't supposed to talk about religion or politics, but apparently that's not true! We still let them initiate those conversations, though. And I think this younger generation of Chinese are very different from their elders (understandable since they are growing up in such a different time). They are more comfortable with foreigners and outside influences, ideas, etc. The older people often just stare and stare and stare at us like they've never seen Americans before! This very nice older woman that let me play with her dog today, though. :) I was trying to ask her if her dog was a boy or a girl but I think I accidentally asked her if her dog was a boy or a man!!!!!!!! I tried to tell her that I missed my dog but I couldn't find the words so I just pointed at myself then said the word for "dog"! That was definitely not effective.

We are in the process of visiting the departments of the school, and I think tomorrow night we MAY (some things get lost in translation) be going to a bar for some kind of public health service thing? I really don't know what's going on but I'm excited whenever they take us along for the ride and anyway, it has something to do with a study they're doing. We're also going with Crystal in the afternoon to get our nails done. :)

Connie wants to play "truth or dare" with us (although they spin a bottle like you would in our traditional "spin the bottle" game) sometime so she can ask us "personal questions". I can't WAIT for this because I have no idea what kinds of questions they would even ask! It's going to be so interesting. And of course we'll get to ask them questions, too, but I don't think we'll even have a clue where to start unless they go first.

I blew the fuse, or something, on my only adapter that works with the types of electric things where one prong is bigger than the other (hairdryer, etc.). :( It is quite sad. If someone will mail me one, I'll be your best friend. And THAT is exciting, I know.

Ocean's 13 and a bottle of water

I haven’t been so good about updating this lately. Usually I’m with people all day long so when I have time to myself I want to spend it doing something relaxing- like watching one of the 7432019874 DVDs I have purchased here in China. The most recent one I’m watching is “Criminal Minds”, a TV show. I can’t say that it’s great but it’s good for entertainment.

Last night Janell and I had Connie and Julie over to our dorm to watch “Ocean’s 13” and eat pizza. The movie was such bad quality, though, that we had to switch to “Ocean’s 11”. Like, really bad quality…Connie said someone had probably just recorded it inside a movie theater. Julie and Connie brought their own food because they don’t like pizza…they didn’t even want to try it! It’s funny because based on recent experiences, we are VERY understanding when they don’t want to try things, but they were just shocked that we didn’t want any of their food (since we had pizza). I passed on the 100 year egg this time.

I had an interesting conversation with Julie yesterday. She's really easy to talk to, and somehow we got into a discussion about the government (or more accurately, the recent changes in China). I asked her how she felt about banned websites- she said that she wasn't sure because she didn't know what they were. I told her some of the subjects that were banned and she knew all about them, but she said that they're banned so that the next generation isn't influenced by them. She said that she really didn't mind as long as they were banning stuff about history only. I told her that I would be outraged if the US government did that, because our culture is all about freedom of speech and individual rights, but that maybe China had a good thing going since it's now possible to learn how to bomb a school or whatever on the internet! I was so interested in this conversation because I think it really highlighted some of the differences between us based on our backgrounds. She also said that the one child policy was really sad for her because she would love to have brothers and sisters, but obviously she understands why it's a policy. I didn't know that Chairman Mao had encouraged them all to have a lot of babies because the power is in the people. I don't think that idea turned out like he planned! Julie said that her parents really liked Chairman Mao at first but as they got older and he was in power longer, they thought he made a few mistakes and didn't like him as much. I wish I could remember all the details of the conversation because it was SO interesting, but I can't right now. I'm just glad that we've made friends who are willing to talk to us about things like this.

In China, they are not allowed to pick their own major. They rank order their preferred list of majors, then they take a college entrance exam. Your major is then based on your scores from that exam and is assigned to you. It's also really difficult to change your major. Some of the grad students explained it to me by saying that someone had to do the various jobs and everyone couldn't be, for example, a doctor. At first, that made a lot of sense to me because there are so many people here, but then I thought about it further. In the US, a lot of people begin school as a pre-med major. They are then able to try it out and if they find it is too hard for them or they don't like it, they are able to switch to another major. In this way, I think natural selection takes care of this problem. Apparently, a lot of university-educated students are now looking for jobs outside their field because they're stuck in a major that they are not interested in. I think a lot of people who didn't score high enough to be doctors ended up majoring in public health. Also, when they are writing their thesis or dissertation, they are not able to choose their own topic. They are assigned a topic by their "tutor" (advisor?). We learned this when we visited the Health Education department and met a professor who had studied at Tokyo University, which apparently has a system much like the US one.

We ate hotpot. That's all I'm going to say about that. ;) If you want to know what it is, you can see it on Google. Professor Zhang took us after we met with him on Friday, and it was so nice and considerate of him. He had a lot of interesting things to say about AIDS in China (skip this paragraph. Apparently, the first epidemic was in the mid-90s and happened through blood donation/acceptance. People would donate their plasma, then the rest of the blood was mixed together with other people's blood. Then, the mixed blood would be given back to them and many people acquired AIDS. The blood is pretty safe now, though. The second wave was in IV drug users. China neighbors the "Golden Triangle" - or at least I THINK that's what it's called. I think the 3 countries are Laos, Burma and Thailand, but I'd have to check my notes to be sure. Anyway, there is a lot of opium grown here so heroin made it's way into China and caused the 2nd epidemic. Also, there is the "Golden Crescent"- some countries in the middle east?- that also border China. I'll have to look in to that one more before I try to explain it. I asked about sexual transmission and he said that it does happen but it is a smaller percentage of the transmission. Hmm...much to learn and hear about. He did say that we were going to visit some rural field sites so that is VERY exciting! We had been getting a little nervous that we were never going to do anything on our internship but meeting with Professor Zhang made us feel a lot better. He is great and I think it's going to be a very interesting summer.

We also went to JingLi street (I think that's the name?) which is where they sell a lot of traditional Chinese goods. I'll try to attach a photo of that area. We went after dinner with Connie and Crystal. Connie was very surprised to learn that we do not eat pigs ears, duck's stomach, cow intestines, chicken feet, etc. in the US! The only thing I can think of that is kind of similar are ribs. Speaking of food, Janell and I had Indian food today and it was AMAZING. I really do like other kinds of foods a lot, I promise! It's just the Chinese is my least favorite. ;) I'm eating it, though, and the fried rice is good. I can also have the following conversation in Chinese:
Hello.
One bottle of water.
How much does it cost?
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Quite proud of myself for that one, lol...hand gestures are also working quite well.

I'm going to try to attach some pictures and then watch TV and go to bed. I am so grateful to have a computer...if I didn't, I'd be watching Chinese TV all day long and not understanding a word.

All in all, things are going very well. I keep wanting to get a dog because there are so many dogs here and they're SO cute, but Janell is more practical and tells me no, which of course makes perfect sense given the fact that we live in a dorm, I'd have to get him/her back to the US, and I have my own precious doggie waiting at home for me. I swear I saw a dog crossing the street today. IN the crosswalk. I am scared to cross the street here, and that dog was walking along without a care in the world.

Interesting article

Was re-reading an article in the NY Times today (from 2006). Basically, it's about the controversy when Google started a Chinese version, and how if you look at the English version, banned sites may come up as search results but when you click on them, all you get is an error message. When you go to the Chinese version, these web sites don't show up at all.

I'm so amazed because I tried this (with the English version, obviously) and while sites show up as results, every time I clicked on one I got a message saying that the network had been reset. Most of the sites involve incidents in Chinese history that I won't mention right now, etc., and things like Wikipedia (although I think I've been able to get to some Wikipedia pages while I've been here, but now I can't get to the main page). When I tried to go to other sites, everything was totally fine.

I don't know why this is so amazing for me and I'm not going pass judgment on it either way at this point...it was just so incredible to read an article about something that seemed SO far away and removed from my life when I read it last year, and then see it actually be true in real life. Kind of like experiencing something from your history book in real life, I guess.

I should be asleep. :)

weekend

So we had quite an eventful weekend and I want to write about it before I forget. First, I want to see if I can upload a picture, though (we are in Starbucks using their wireless connection right now).

Yesssssssssssss, I think that worked- now the only question is if anyone can see it? I'm going to try to test that, too.

Yay, I can also download to itunes on this network. Thank you, Starbucks.

According to Hesom, you can see this picture so I'm going to post more. ;)

On Saturday morning, we caught a bus at 8 AM to go to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center (or something like that). Janell, Egg (picture above, in the middle of us), Julie, Connie and I all went. The bus ride took about an hour and half. Unfortunately it was raining when we got there so it was kind of gross, but it turned out that the pandas like rain (apparently) so a lot of them were out. They were so cute! Unfortunately the little ones (under age 4ish?) couldn't go outside in the rain, but we saw them playing inside with one another. I was pretty excited because there was a sign about Zoo Atlanta there. :)

It's Tuesday now- I didn't get to finish this yesterday. So, back to this weekend. After we saw the pandas, we went to Jackie's mother's house for dumplings. It was interesting to see how Chinese people interact with their guests. They are extremely polite and welcoming- they want you to try everything first, your glass is never empty, etc. I particularly liked the mushroom dumplings, and I think everyone enjoyed watching my attempts to pick them up with chopsticks. They lived in what they call a "house", but it's really more like an apartment in a large building. I guess because there's not enough land space for all the people here? Her mother and 2 uncles were there, and long with Janell, Egg and I. One of the uncles spoke English but the other didn't at all, and the mother spoke very, very little (but was eager to try!). We interacted for a little while but mostly they spoke to each other in Chinese and occasionally told us what they were talking about. This was fine because we were tired after the pandas and Harry Potter was on TV. We were there a few hours and at the end we started talking about what places in Sichuan province we should visit. Turns out Jackie had a couple of books from the tourism place so we looked at all the pictures and the uncles told us about the experiences they'd had there...for example, at Mt. Emie, monkeys are everywhere and apparently they get angry if you don't feed them! They were very cautious about telling us where we should go and kept mentioning how things were dangerous -such as altitude problems. We have noticed that they are very cautious about us in general. For example, today is a dragon festival and we didn't find out until this afternoon because the grad students had decided that it would be too crowded and unsafe for us. ;) I think it's sweet that they care, but I find it hilarious that they really don't think we can fend for ourselves, haha.

OK, so that night we went to a restaurant with the uncles, mother, etc. I am going to post pictures of the food here....ok, apparently I don't know how to put the picture in the right place but it is the very first picture. Jackie told us to go up and pick out what we wanted and I was asking her what things were. They had duck stomach, pig's ear, pig's tail, some kind of intestines, chicken feet, etc. I don't even remember what I ended up saying I wanted...maybe some cold noodles? Anyway, they ordered a ton of food which was SO sweet because they were trying to treat us, but let's just say that I'm not quite used to this kind of food. ;) I tried so hard, though- I ate some kind of fried thing that is inside a water animal? And a hundred year egg, which I think is pretty important in China. It's some type of fermented egg in gelatin, or something, and Jackie's mother really wanted us to try it. So I did. Bad, bad, bad idea. Very bad idea. This may be something you want to pass up if you ever visit China! I felt bad because I know we were the guests and they were trying to be so good to us (our beer glasses were NEVER more than half empty...but they were shot-size glasses, which was interesting) but I just couldn't do it. I got by on peanuts and edamame, though! All in all it turned out to be a great day and I think we learned a lot (despite probably making 438210724398721 cultural mistakes!).

Sunday, Janell and I went to our "usual" breakfast (we've only been twice, haha, but we say it's a must for Sunday mornings) at Grandma's Kitchen. Yum yum yum. We walked around a lot after that...there are so many stores on the street here. So, so many. I can't even explain it. So you could never really get bored. Then we went to lunch at a vegetarian restaurant with Tom's (from Carolina Asia Center) friend Janette who works at the US Consulate and after got a 2 hour massage, compliments of Janette. How nice is that? For 68 yuan, you can get a 2 hour massage and "foot wash"...one hour of foot massage and one of body massage. All four of us got to go in one room with four beds and get them at the same time (you keep your clothes on for this!) and watched "The Holiday". Wonderful. THEN Janell and I went and had chips and dip at Peter's Tex-Mex so all was good in the world. Quite the splurge-ful day!

Last night we had our first workshop with the undergraduate students. The topic was supposed to be American and Chinese culture, but it ended up that they just asked us questions the entire time. Seriously, the first 2 questions had to do with Americans' views on homosexuality and abortion. Wow. At the end, they REALLY wanted to talk about religion because there is very little religion in China. Janell and I thought you weren't supposed to talk about that here but they said it was ok. They had so many questions, many of which we couldn't really answer. They feel a lot of pressure from the American "English teachers" (missionaries?) that come here and they don't understand how they can be so sure of their beliefs. I was really amazed to hear all this...I didn't know they had so much curiosity about it. One of the grad students actually IM'd me afterwards to talk more about it. Overall, the workshop was a success and Janell and I left really excited because they were so friendly and eager to talk to us. We have another one tomorrow with grad students. I'm interested to see if that goes a lot differently than the one with the undergrads or not. The undergrads had a lot of questions about graduate school in America. Oh oh oh- and Janell asked them how they felt about foreigners coming to China to "help" them with things- if they were offended by that because it implied that they couldn't do things on their own. They overwhelmingly said no, but one girl talked about how they'll see American doctors but foreigners in Chengdu won't usually see Chinese doctors. To me, that's a familiarity thing- I don't necessarily want to go to a doctor when I'm in a foreign country when I can't speak the language! I'd have no problem going to a Chinese doctor in America just like they are okay going to American doctors here. It was really interesting! Anyway, one other girl described America as a "developed" country and China as a "developing" country. Janell was really trying to find out more about that from her because...I don't know...just hearing their opinions really gave us some insight into their culture.

Sorry this is SO long and I apologize to people who I have not responded to by email. :( We're usually so busy that in the little time I get to get on the internet, I want to write things here before I forget them. I'm working on it, though!

Edited: Nifong got disbarred?!?!?!??

Address

In case I go missing ;) *just kidding!*

Amy Reagin
Department of Health Education, School of Public Health (not sure why this part is on here but that's what Fung wrote for me)
17#, 3rd section
South RenMin Road
Chengdu, China 610041

Alive again

After two straight days of being in bed, I am finally well. :) This is quite a relief as Janell kept mentioning things like parasites and amoebas! I was really bored, but I did watch the entire first season of Prison Break (which is HUGE here in China) and now am addicted. Everyone was so sweet to me, which was wonderful since I was feeling very far from home. Mom will probably like that. ;) I told them that, at least.

So it's Janell's story to tell, but I'll tell a brief part- yesterday she met a college-age guy who wanted her to read a religious book to her (something about Boo-ha-la or something?). He then proceeded to tell her that his teacher (who is from Springfield, IL) told him that Jesus only loves Americans and that is why we are so rich and have everything we want. Also, we are supposed to be the policemen for the world. I won't tell the rest of the details (partially because I can't remember them right now) but it was one of the stranger things I've ever heard.

We are now signed up with QQ, which is basically the Chinese version of Instant Messenger. We are on a group with our friends here so we can talk to them...we just used it to ask Jackie to please order us a pizza. ;) We tried to do it ourselves but they couldn't understand us! So yum, we have pizza coming soon and I can finally eat again. Lunch today was actually pretty good...fried rice, stir-fried green beans (yuummmmm) and corn. We then took a bus to a Japanese supermarket with Crystal so that Janelle could get more cereal, and we walked around in some stores. I can BARELY fit into Chinese clothes because they are so small! I have to have a large...I've only bought one shirt so far, though, and that was mostly because I liked the necklace that came with it.

I'm still loving the dogs here. I wish Riley could be here. :( They are not usually on leashes, though- they are just running alongside their owners. I wonder how they do not get run over? I feel like I'm going to be run over every time I cross the street!

Today I got diet coke, oranges and bananas so I am quite happy. I have been trying to find self-tanner but they do not sell it anywhere here, even the western brands like Clinique, Clarins, Lancome, etc. They sell whitening cream instead! All of our friends want their skin to be lighter, not darker, and they even carry umbrellas when the sun is strong.

We are going to see the pandas tomorrow and I'm so excited! We're leaving at 8 AM with Jackie, Julie, Egg and maybe Fung, because we wanted to get there at feeding time. Then in the afternoon we are going to Jackie's parents' house to eat dumplings. I'd send pictures but I'm finding it impossible to do so as of yet.

We set up the workshop schedule today. We are going to be doing workshops/discussion groups with undergrad and grad students twice a week, on Monday and Wednesday evenings. We are discussing things like caring for the elderly, AIDS and disrimination, the American and Chinese healthcare systems, etc.

My main goal for the weekend, however, is to find Prison Break season 2... ;)

sick

I cannot even explain how nice our friends here are. I've been sick in bed all morning (since 3 AM actually) and so we had to cancel our discussion with the undergrad class this morning and very sadly, our shopping trip this afternoon. :( Janell was really sweet and got me some gatorade and 7-up this morning, but about 5 minutes ago Jackie and Fung came by. They brought me bread and milk and took my temperature (which they decided was a little high so they gave me "anti-bacterial" pills? I am supposed to take them 3 times a day. They had some clinical classes in undergrad so they are good at taking care of people.). I was slightly embarassed since I looked terrible but they were incredibly sweet and made me feel better just by coming by. I think the milk may not be a good idea yet but the bread is actually helping a lot. :) How wonderful is that?

We had pizza tonight. And we found a store that sells peanut butter and cereal. Life is good.

Is $1.30 for one orange too expensive? We didn't buy them but the oranges here are AMAZING.

We are going to speak to another undergraduate class tomorrow morning...I don't particularly enjoy public speaking but they have been interesting so far. We also are in the process of setting up lectures- I am going to do one about mental health and Janell is going to do one about voluntary counseling and testing for HIV. We're also working on different topics for discussion groups with undergrad and grad students.

I'm attaching pictures but I probably won't attach very many as it's taking FOREVER to attach just 1. That is Connie above, in the dining hall. Rice, rice, rice everywhere.

Of other interesting news, I bought a clock yesterday and it stopped working today. :( Sad.

Okay, I tried to upload other pictures but it's taking too long and I'm tired. I'll try again tomorrow.

AIDS thoughts

This will not apply to most people who read this blog, but I need a place to remember the comments I hear about AIDS since I will have to compile them into a paper at the end of the summer:

1) Crystal told us they call AIDS "Ides" (spelling?) because it's the "love disease"
2) Jackie told me that many people in China know how you get AIDS but not how you can't get it (i.e. kissing someone with AIDS)
3) Jackie told me that there is a lot of discrimination against people with AIDS
4) I was asked a question about whether it was more important to study AIDS from a biological perspective or from a public health perspective
5) We watched a Canadian lecture about AIDS and the students had never heard of circumcision and had some interesting questions about that
6) Apparently certain provinces have more AIDS because of IV drug users
7) We heard about a village in the Aluhi(?) province that was practically wiped out from AIDS because of blood transfusions (people selling their blood)

Last night Janell and I found a coffee shop where I had the most beautiful ice cream EVER. I'd post pictures but Janell's camera cord doesn't fit mine...I must figure out something to do about that because I really want to show my photos so far!

I successfully bought shoes last night with no Chinese student help. I have been having a lot of pain in my right ankle and I think it's because we walk SOOOO much every day and I have been walking in flip flops or not very supportive shoes. Hopefully these will help some? We are trying to learn numbers and the saleswoman told Janell her Chinese was very good, hahaha...they are so incredibly nice to us!

We have American TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, kind of. The grad students took us to buy DVD's yesterday of American TV shows (I will discuss this process more upon my return ;)). I got seasons 1-6 of the Sopranos, Seasons 1-2 of Weeds, the entire last season of 24, and the first season of Prison Break for 36 yuan (less than 5 dollars?). If anyone wants any TV shows, please let me know and I'll bring them back for you (or movies). Just don't expect high quality, but they're definitely watchable.

We are still getting really tired during the afternoon but today I slept until 8:30 and only woke up once in the middle of the night- that's definitely my best night so far! We have spoken to 2 undergraduate courses about the American healthcare system and that has been my favorite thing so far, especially to hear the questions they ask. We also ask them to tell us about the Chinese healthcare system, but many of them are not confident enough in their English to answer, even though we think their English is very good and are just thrilled that they know enough that we can communicate.

Not too much to say today or too much time to do so. I think I'm going to copy/paste my other emails into this so that I'll have them all in one place. Oh, and I don't know if you can leave comments on here (as I know you can on some blogs) but if you can, I won't be able to read them since I can't view my own blog.... ;)

June 11, 2007

I really can't tell if I am doing any of this correctly because all of the instructions are written in Chinese! Blogger.com is not a Chinese website, but because I'm in China they have translated it that way and there's no "English" link to click that I can find.

I'm starting this so that people who want to know what's going on can do so and those who are busy, etc., don't have to get a million emails. I just got a little worried, though, that when I send this it's going to translate it into Chinese which will not be helpful at all!

Last night was wonderful because we went to "Dave's Oasis". It's by a river in Chengdu and their clientele is probably 99% Western foreigners. We were there from about 6:30 to 10:00 and there was 1 girl from Nepal, 1 guy from Australia, 1 Dutch guy, 1 Canadian guy, and 1 American (California) guy. We had grilled cheese and french fries which was amazing, and we tried Chinese beer which was just like American beer. It was so relaxing to be able to talk without having to speak really slowly and strain to understand everything. PLUS- the guy from America told us about a Western market (kind of the equivalent to an Asian market you may see in an American city) where we can get peanut butter and cereal!! He also told us about a pool that we can go to that's kind of private and about 50% western foreigners. It's not that we don't want to be immersed in Chinese culture, because we do, but we spend 75% of our time doing that and sometimes we just need a break. Janell calls things like last night our "staying power" because if we know we have an outlet like that we can stay the whole summer. ;) I really can't explain how nice it was. Janell's dinner, my dinner and one beer each cost only 69 yuan, which is about $9. I love the exchange rate here! I think as China gets more economically stable, though, the exchange rate will be more equal and less favorable towards us, which is good for their economy of course.

It's a strange mix of modern and undeveloped things here. There are these huge hotels and these extravagant shopping centers but the apartments that the Chinese live in are extremely run-down and the average person's working conditions are not so good. I can tell that there's a big difference between those who are professionals or work for the government and those who own a small store that is basically on the sidewalk. Apparently our dorms are much nicer than the native Chinese dorms which I'm sure is partially based on the fact that we can pay more because of the exchange rate (for better or worse).

My favorite thing here is the DOGS! They are sooooooooo many of them running around (not many are on leashes but they seem to stay near their owners) and they are so cute and mostly little dogs. I've seen a lot of Pekingese and Pomeranians. Half of my pictures so far are of dogs. Yesterday this girl let us pet her tiny pomeranian puppy and it was sooooooooooo cute and sweet. It made me miss Riley even more! Oh, and by the way, Janell and I were really proud of ourselves because we had no "babysitters" yesterday and we managed to get around the city and even buy some things (yay, bread!). We also sat outside this pond on campus and did some reading and played with this man's poodle. ;) We have to do a lot of pointing and showing them words in our Chinese-English dictionary, but it's working out kind of ok so far.

Today we are meeting Crystal (all the grad students have English names- I'm thinking we need to get some Chinese names!) at 8:35 to go introduce ourselves to an undergraduate class. They are going to plan some workshops between the undergrads and ourselves so this is their time to meet us and decide if they want to participate. After that, Fung is taking us to the main undergrad campus of Sichuan University. We are at the Huaxi (Washi, kind of- means west) campus. Then, Janell and I are determined to go buy DVDs and I need a clock so she doesn't have to wake me up every day. Actually, she hasn't had to yet because I always wake up but I'm sure that will not be true as the summer continues. Today I slept until 6:40, which was really nice.

Off to get ready- hope everyone's doing well!