Frustrated, Busy, and Excited!

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted on here! I don't really bother much with blogging any more, because of my shift towards video blogging.

So.......what's going on?

Well, tomorrow is the first day of my second year of teaching at Lanzhou Jiaotong University. I'm excited - things will be a little different this year! I am teaching a writing class this semester, and I have complete freedom to do whatever I want in that class. My co-teacher and I are the first ones to teach writing to non-English majors at Lanzhou Jiaotong University, so we are both excited and nervous about it. We've chatted a lot and shared our ideas, and I believe that it will be a good thing for me. I have no experience in creating any kind of real curriculum, so I am excited about what this could do for me in the future.

 There's only a few other things going on worth mentioning. One is my video blogging, which most of you are familiar with, and that is simultaneously the most frustrating and difficult and satisfying thing that I have been doing in these past few months. I have a whole queue of videos already finished and queued at the moment, but the one that I've been working on at the moment is about the One Child Policy.


The One Child Policy video is driving me crazy at the moment - it's such a charged topic, emotionally and politically, and there are a lot of ugly things that have arisen out its implementation. The hard part is presenting it objectively, without too much bias, talking about the major points of it, and also trying to do it under 10 minutes. That's pretty tough. I filmed one, edited it, thought it was good......but after I slept on it, I researched further and found out that a few things I said were just totally wrong and naive. Oh, well, at least I didn't put it up.

Well, what else? Not much, really.......just Ultimate Frisbee games on Sundays, which is always a great part of my week! There's been a lot of fun had, and a lot of great friends and memories have been made because of Ultimate Frisbee. It's surprisingly popular here - once students get started on it, they seem to just latch on!

It's a shame that I don't utilize this site more. I suppose I could use it to promote videos or something. I logged back on today and said, "Wow, this is a great page! How did I do that?" Haha

Well, I suppose that's about it. I think I WILL start posting on here more. Writing this was fun and it felt good to be doing it again. I don't need to put in as much time as I do for a video!

Anyway, I'll talk to you guys later - much love!

Austin

Click here to go to my YouTube Channel!

What's Up? (Videos and More)

So, as you might have noticed, I've been away from my keyboard lately --- I've been given an extra assignment by my boss which has kept me pretty busy these days.

She wants to demonstrate her "co-teaching" system to the Gansu Province Ministry of Education, so she's making me prepare a couple of special classes that she'll film and send to the Ministry. Basically, there's me and a Chinese teacher who teach a combined speaking/listening class. We take turns teaching, and we help each other out during the 2-hour class. I talk some, they talk some. It's a pretty neat system, and as far as I'm concerned, it's great!

Because this is China, they want to endlessly prepare and make everything as perfect and artificial and fake as it could possibly be. That way it'll look good. It doesn't matter if it's the real thing or not. If it looks good, it sells, you know? I'm fighting against that, and I made my boss a little unhappy with how I did things today.

We just had the first one today --- it went pretty well. She had a couple of suggestions, but I'm debating on whether I actually care or not about what she says.

My students love my class (80-90%, anyway), and my co-teachers love me, and that's enough for me to keep my job. My boss doesn't have to like me  hahahaha

I'll try to get a copy of one, and I'll make my own little video with splices of teaching in it. I hope you guys will enjoy that -- you'll get to see what I actually do for a living.

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Okay, now for a shock. I've started running, exercising, and "eating right" in a general effort to be healthy.
WHAT???? GREAT ODIN'S RAVEN, WHO HAVE YOU BECOME, AUSTIN GUIDRY???? 

I know.....it's a shock. I've been that person who always made fun of healthy people, but now I'm starting to possibly, maybe, sort of......be one.

I'm not gonna be vegetarian or vegan --- no freaking way, but I've had some recent health episodes that I don't want to talk about, and it's kind of scared me straight in the past couple of months, and I really just want to treat my body well. I'm only gonna have one life, so I should try to make it good and worth living.

...........Plus, it'd be nice if I could play Ultimate Frisbee or football (soccer) for more than 5 minutes without stopping for air.

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In my next post, there'll be a couple of videos, and I'll be talking about teaching and cultural differences! I've got a lot to talk about. I'll be traveling soon, and I've got some great news I'll be sharing sometime before my  birthday (January 31st).

Anyway, until next time!

Austin

New Videos and Thank You!

Followers and subscribers are slowly trickling into the site and my YouTube, so I want to say "Thank You!" to everyone! I have people coming here from the US, Iraq, Fiji, South Africa, Australia, China, Ecuador, Indonesia, Thailand, Canada, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Italy.......the list goes on. 

I'm so humbled that so many people have come by -- It's amazing, and I absolutely love getting comments and emails from you guys. I've even been recognized in Lanzhou a couple of times by other foreigners --- that's insanity!

My numbers may be low to some, but I'm catering to a small market -- people interested in China, Lanzhou in particular. So, low numbers are okay! I'm just happy when people leave comments. It makes it all worth it!

So, I just want to say THANK YOU!

Well, the next order of business is my new videos! I have been on a vlogging streak lately, and I've made a lot of videos lately -- it's been great!

This first video is about me going to a local park on the north side of the Yellow River. It's called the "Idiom Park" by some because it has different sculptures which come from cultural stories throughout the little park. These cultural stories have lessons and morals, and have evolved into idioms that are used by the Chinese to this day! Check it out! If YouTube is blocked in your country, click here to watch the first video! 

So, let's talk about it!

I've forgotten how much I like to walk and vlog --- it's really great! That way, I can say whatever comes to my mind, and then edit out the stupid stuff or whatever doesn't fit within the "storyline" of the video. It's also a good way for you guys to get a sense of what's around me (or at least behind me).

I love living here for many reasons, but one reason is the depth of culture and tradition that this country has. And one result of that is this little cultural park with statues dedicated to idioms. People going around with their children can (and do, actually) stop and tell their children these stories while they're walking in the park. I actually got to listen to a bit of one, so that was great! It's just something that America doesn't have....or at least not in that same depth.

I said in the video that one of the most important things you have to do in a new culture is just to GET OUTSIDE and LOOK AROUND! It doesn't really matter if you completely understand it or not -- you just have to get out there.

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Now, the second video is about my encounter with prostitution in Xi'an.......some of you guys might know that story --- it's my most-commented post, and also one of the most popular. You can find it here.

Now, this second video might be hard to watch on Youku because of the censoring that happens in China. It's already been taken down once, so I don't know if it'll stay up. If it doesn't work, leave a comment, and I'll put it up again! Anyway, click here if YouTube is blocked in your country. 



 So, yeah --- if that was your first time to hear/read that story, then great! Now you've learned a valuable lesson in preparing for China! If you want to come here, then it's best to be aware of this. Technically, it's illegal, but it's tolerated. Kind of like weed in Jamaica.

I don't really want to say much more on that subject haha I think the video and the former blog post are more than enough!

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In other news, I've made some changes to my YouTube Channel - namely in the form of a couple of playlists, and they'll be updated every now and then.

As time goes on, I keep finding little ways to tweak and update my pages, and it's great! They're subtle changes, but I think they'll make a difference.

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As always, feel free to leave comments and subscribe to the blog or to my YouTube! I'm always interested in what you guys have to say!

Until next time,

Austin Guidry

Snow, Shoes, and the Solstice

Okay, great - a new video! The title is above! If you'd like, you can subscribe to my YouTube or my Youku account - it's no hassle, and you'll get updated whenever I post a new video! You'll also get to see it before anyone else; videos always go up on YouTube/Youku a few days before I share them in a post.

Anyway, that's one shameless plug for today. On to the video!

 

Yes, I'd like very much not to turn into an ear-less monster, so I will be eating dumplings on that day :)

Not much else is going on - I have another video in the pipe that I've gotta edit. I went to a park along the Yellow River that has statues from traditional Chinese stories, and I talk a little bit about those stories and about the walk. I hope you like that video!

I'll also be continuing my "Preparing for China" series in a few videos regarding Culture Shock and a few crazy stories I have about it. It's been getting really cold here, and I'm even less willing to go outside now than I was before hahaha

I hope you guys are doing well! Feel free to comment and subscribe or whatever! I'm always happy to get feedback, no matter the place!

Twitter: @LetChinaSleep
Weibo: @懒惰老外

New Video Series and Other Stuff

Well, I've been trying to find the balance between my video blogging and my blogging-blogging. I still don't know what I should do.

I think I'm gonna continue putting my videos up on my blog, but it feels weird that when I have made a video and have nothing to say, I just put videos up on the blog and post it. I dunno, it feels incomplete.

Anyway, here's some recent videos that I've made - the first few in a series. I have some more stuff to say below, so keep reading.




IF YOUTUBE IS BLOCKED IN YOUR COUNTRY, CLICK here  TO SEE IT ON YOUKU



IF YOUTUBE IS BLOCKED IN YOUR COUNTRY, CLICK here TO SEE IT ON YOUKU




IF YOUTUBE IS BLOCKED IN YOUR COUNTRY, CLICK here TO SEE IT ON YOUKU

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All right, so there are my recent videos!

I wanted to start a series called "Preparing for China" that deals with how to prepare yourself physically and mentally for coming to China - for travel, study, or work.

I'll be talking about different culture shock stories, cultural differences in many different areas of life, and just all kinds of cultural-related stuff that you'll want to know.

It'll be really interesting! I think the next video I shoot (I've got one in the pipe that will go up first) will be a re-telling of that classic story of my incident with Chinese prostitution. Go to my Favorite Posts/Stories page to read that one.

Later!

Wuquan Mountain and National Day Video

All right! I finally put together my Wuquan (5 Springs) Mountain video! I have just been lazy, so I hadn't done it till a couple of days ago.....but here it is! Sorry for the nearly two week-long delay!


If you're having problems with the embedded video, click here to go to the original video page. There shouldn't be a problem on that page

Unfortunately, I've lost my USB Drive, so I can't transfer any more pictures of the place to this computer yet....so, sorry about that. I hope I can upload them soon!

The video will just have to do for now. But, luckily, this is in HD - I took the pictures and the raw footage with my iPhone, which, although is a little unsteady, does a pretty decent job in the HD department!

Anyway, yeah, Wuquan was a fun way to spend a morning, as well as Lan Mountain. What, mountains AND hotpot???!!! Fantastic!!! That's a recipe for win.

Bai Ta Shan and Guo Xue Guan Videos!

(Before I start this post, I just want to apologize...I've been the perfect combination of busy and lazy these past couple of weeks, so I haven't done anything. My bad. I'll try to catch up on my posts and updates.)

October 1st was the Chinese National Day - the day China celebrates its being a country. As I'm writing this post right now, I'm surprised that there really hasn't been much celebration.....this is supposed to be a really important holiday, right? How come there's no fireworks, no celebration, and all that? In America, we go nuts during that holiday. I don't want to speculate about China's population's feelings towards their government, but it might have something to do with it.

As you (might) know, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Lanzhou's Bai Ta Shan (White Tower Pagoda) for an afternoon. Here is the video for that afternoon. I'll also add it to my post, which you can read here.



A couple of days ago, I went to another place in Lanzhou called 九州台山 (Jiu Zhou Tai Mountain), which is located in the northern part of the city. On the mountain, there's a Confucian-style temple called the 国学馆 (Guo Xue Guan). Here's the video for that one:

Well, this was a very interesting place - distinctly Chinese, which is what I like. There are lots of different places on the top of this mountain, but the place I was headed to was the "Guo Xue Guan," a Confucian-style temple dedicated to thinkers and writers of Chinese history.

It's in a classic place for a temple - on top of a mountain!

Like I've said in the videos, I like going to mountains for a number of reasons. My hometown doesn't have any mountains, so it's still a new experience to live in a place full of them.

I also love getting above the noise and craziness of the city and see just how big the city is. I'm not Chinese, so I think this is a big city....they keep insisting this city of 4 million people is a small town. Crazy Chinese people.

Going to temples is a serious thing for me - it's a place to pay respect to those who have gone before me and to learn about what they did during their lifetime and how they contributed to this place that I'm living in.

These places are always very interesting for me - it just highlights the differences between America and China. America just doesn't have this kind of history and culture. It's not America's fault or anything - it just hasn't been around for long enough.

I don't really get into the offering of incense and ritual worship and stuff like that, but I definitely understand the respect that's behind it. The temple centers around Confucius, who you see right here. In front of him, you can see where they light the incense and make donations to the temple.

While I understand the respect being paid to Confucius, I have to say, I am always pretty confused about the offering of incense to him. He always said that he was just a teacher and just a man. When did he become somebody to be worshiped?  I get confused about that with Buddha too.....but anyway, the place is still very interesting!

(This is the Dao de Jing by Lao Zi written out in its entirety. The whole other side of the stone is filled up as well.)

As you can see, getting to this place is no easy task. The stairs are really steep, and this is a real mountain....not just a hill.

Me and my friends Nick and Xia Fei took a cab to the top of the mountain to see everything on top of the mountains, but we climbed down on our way back home.

It's insanity - all we did was climb down, and we still all had shaking and sore legs by the time we got the street at the bottom. Man, it was crazy.

But again, the location adds to the mystique and mystery of the place - mountaintops are classic places to put temples in China. It seems like almost every mountain here in China has a temple dedicated to someone.

All in all, it was a good day with some friends - I got to learn about some traditional Chinese culture and history, see the city, and hang out with some people I hadn't seen in a long time.

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A few days after that, I went with some other friends to climb a couple of mountains. I have lots of pictures and a few videos from that day, so I'm gonna be posting that when I can. This week is a bit crazy because it's the first week back from vacation, so I can't promise anything, but I will really try to do another post in the next 7 days.

Until next time,

Austin Guidry

The Cave Homes of Gansu Videos!

Hey, guys!

I finally finished putting together my second video about visiting rural Gansu (赵台，in the country) and staying in a cave home with my friend's relatives. It was a rare opportunity, and I'm really happy that I got to experience it. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back soon!

For those of you who don't know, I visited an area in rural Gansu Province with two of my friends to visit some of their relatives. They live in some of the most beautiful (and remote) countryside I have ever seen. I was blown away by the difference in our lives, and I think about it every day. Please watch these videos. There are embeds from both YouTube and Youku.






This was my original video about going there - I'm sure some of you have already seen it, but I thought I'd put it up again anyway so you guys could watch them in order. As always, it's on Youku and YouTube! Thanks for watching! I'll have more to say on the second video! Scroll down!

 


The second of the two videos is the one that deals with the underlying reality and what I was (and am still) thinking about in regards to the experience. I hope it'll give you something to think about! Please watch them and enjoy them - it's not a huge investment of your time.

Feel free to comment or to subscribe to my blog - it's totally free and no sign-up and I would love to hear from you!

Movie and a Little Insight

This is a movie that me and my friends made. Actually, they made it and I just played a little part because I was really busy at the time. The movie is about 4 students and their struggle in pursuing their dreams. It is definitely an amateur movie, but I believe it reveals an underlying truth about the part of the cultural mindset of the youth in China.

*Note - this is an English-subbed Chinese language movie 90% of the duration. There is a 3 or 4 minute section where it is not subbed, but you can just watch and try to figure it out :) and when "Cat" AKA Janson starts singing at the end, keep watching :)



Three of these guys are my best friends. I do not know the "scientist", Jiang Feng pronounced (Jee-ah-ng Fung), the one with the glasses, very well. However, from long talks with all of my friends throughout my time in Lanzhou and other places, the sentiments expressed in this movie are echoed all throughout China's collegiate population.

The theme is this movie is the difficulty and feeling of impossibility in attaining one's dream. It's manifested most obviously in the song 老男孩，The Old Boy, which plays after each of the four guys encounters their difficulty or distraction. It begins at 8:49. Lyrics such as

"Look at the sky and scattered flowers

They withered in their most beautiful moment

Who will remember that they ever came into the world?"

Lyrics like this are so sad and are a real reflection of the feelings of the Chinese students, which is why this song is incredibly popular among China's students and young people. Chinese students have such huge dreams, to go to Qinghua University or Beijing University (China's Harvard and Yale) along with dreams that vary from person to person, such as "Cat"'s dream to become a master guitarist. He really is very good, but there is no outlet in China for him to really make a living from that, which leaves him in the dust. He told me that the times when he is happiest is on stage singing and playing guitar, but the times he can do it are too few as a college student and will only become less after college.

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Pay attention to that, THAT is the underlying mindset. People have these amazing talents and dreams, but they have it in their head that no matter what they do, their dream will never be realized, so they do not even try. They don't try. Some of my friends wish to go to America for graduate school, but they feel the competition will be too hard in the English exam, so they are not going to try it because they, in their minds, know they cannot do it!! But their English is wonderful - they have the ability, but something about society has just crushed their initiative and self-confidence. It might also have something to do with the Chinese idea of modesty. They don't want to try because if they get the chance to go overseas, some people might think they are showing off their abilities and are egotistical, which is NOT a label you want to have in China.

This mindset is all over the place and is it one of the saddest things about China. It just breaks my heart to see people like these not go anywhere in life because of something society's drilled into them.

Near the end, there is a screen with Chinese that comes up. It basically says: "No matter how small the seed, because you don't give up, that seed can one day grow into a big and great tree....you can realize your dream in no time, but in order to realize our dreams, we expended great efforts!"

Dreams are something you have to work for - they don't just happen. They are totally right.

However, "Cat" and "Boss" have let go of that to a certain extent, because now they are both in Chicago's NEIU and will be there for 2 semesters! That's such a great thing! They have pursued their dreams!

                                       

                                       

Been Busy!

Sorry I haven't done posts the past two days - I got a job offer at the International High School of New Orleans teaching Chinese and have spent the past day and a half traveling, interviewing, and teaching a class as a trial run. The teaching part was fun, no problems, but I was surprised at the unevenness of the kids' learning, given that the current teacher is Chinese.

New Orleans is a great city and I'd love nothing more than to be able to work and live there in the emerging Chinese community, but the school was not upfront with me on certain matters, and I will probably decline the job.

I will be back to normal posts tomorrow, promise!

For now - I'm going to do a shameless plug for my YouTube account: youtube.com/austinguidry2

My two favorites are these - Beijing: Take 2


I like the video because it represents a fun and not fun time in China. I got a little dose of American things and I got to see a different side of Beijing. It wasn't the shiny and new Beijing I had seen before. I lived in an average residential complex with a non-English-speaking Chinese guy. I spoke Chinese all the time and really got into the everyday grind of writing, reading, going out to enjoy the tourist sites and make friends. It was a good time for me, although I got pretty sick in the course of it. You can tell at the beginning. My voice is a little funky.

白塔山 - Bai Ta Shan



I love this video because it was an unexpectedly good time. My friend Benjamin Xi had recently returned to Lanzhou from my university in Texas, so we were both excited to hang out together with Stan. Ben was so excited once we got off campus, and that excitement and fun rubbed off on me and Stan. Check out Ben's little thing at 1:10-1:12....great time. Bai Ta Shan's surrounding area is a really neat place, especially around the Western peak where the mosque is. Lots of good restaurants and good people live and work there.

Sichuan, Air Pollution, and More!

Hey everyone! I'm in the middle of a promoting wave, so I'm trying to figure out how to best utilize my resources and make the blog better for you and everyone else! If you're got any suggestions, let me know!

I'm gonna be doing a combination of video and picture blogs almost every week day from now on. The internet changes and updates every day, so I should too!



About Sichuan - I haven't actually been there, but I've got quite a few friends from there - it's home to red-hot cuisine, and, apparently red-hot women. The weather is really hot (it's the Texas of China), but the countryside is beautiful: these two pictures are from Jiuzhaigou, a very famous national park/reserve

Sichuan is also home to Le Shan, the giant Buddha mountain - the largest stone Buddha in the world, I believe:

About China's pollution problem - it's a stark contrast to the natural beauty of Sichuan Province. Most Chinese cities are covered by a layer of smog and pollution all hours of the day:

It looks like simple morning mist, but it hangs around all day. In the afternoon, it lightens up a little bit, but not a lot. Some cities are worse than other - Beijing is pretty bad, Jinchang is terrible, because of its factories located within the cities, Lanzhou can have its really bad days, but every city has different officials and treats the environmental problem in a different way.

Every place I went in China, there was at least a little bit of the smog and industrial haze. It was sad, really, and I think that the Chinese government is realizing that as well as being good for new businesses, green technology is good for its citizens.

Mummies, My Time in Beijing, and Home Schools

So - chronological order! Mummies!

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/05/content_13620103.htm  

- apparently a villager in Jiangxi Province was digging and stumbled across a tomb dating back from the Ming Dynasty! There were 3 coffins and one of them contained a well-preserved body with hair, skin, fingernails and everything! Cool!



I have mixed feelings about my time in Beijing, at least the second time around. I stayed in 永泰小区, which is in the northern part of the city and has no English speakers and only 1 Western restaurant, McDonald's, which was about 3 miles away from where I stayed. The great thing about being in a non-English speaking place is that your language skills get so much better because if you don't speak Chinese - you don't eat. You can't do anything without speaking Chinese.

I did, however, get to go to all of the major tourist destinations! That was pretty cool, but had its downsides as well. Overall, I think I enjoyed my time.

So I went to a lot of the same places and established friendships with some of the waiters and stuff and met some cool people. It was okay, but I really began to miss speaking English. I called my friends Benjamin and Linda a couple of times because I really wanted to speak English. I called my dad a few times too. It was also lonely, because I didn't know anybody in Beijing - I just knew Guang Lin, who was the guy I was staying with in Linda's apartment (long story). He was cool, but he didn't speak English, so I had nobody to fall back on to speak my 'native' language.

So, really, Chinese became my native language and kind of already was because I practiced so much in Lanzhou (off campus). When I came back to America, I was overwhelmed with English - it was like learning my native language over again. The first couple of days were really hard and I was having trouble finding words like 'shelf' and 'overpass' in my vocabulary...it was weird.

And last (and....least...interesting?) is that home schools are on the rise in China - people just aren't putting as much faith in public education as they used to. Because China's schools are so big and impersonal, creative thinking, individualism, and innovation are nonexistent in the classroom. So, parents have started to personalize education (which I think is a great idea for Chinese kids) on their own.

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/05/content_13621268.htm

I'm going to try to integrate more daily events and stuff like that on my YouTube and tie it in with my blog - I really love doing this and I'd like to get it out there. I'd love to just do commentary on what's happening in China right now along with sharing my experience....it'd be easy and fun!

But the whole part of a salary...................yeah............oh well, a guy can dream, right?

New Video: 5 Springs Mountain and Zoo!

As promised, new video post=new blog post. Here is a video from me visiting Lanzhou's 5 Springs Mountain, also known as 五泉山.



The mountain is located in the South Central part of Lanzhou and it has a fantastic view of the city and its surrounding mountains. One thing I didn't expect to see on a trip to a mountain was a zoo! For a city like Lanzhou (equate Lanzhou to Midland/Odessa, Texas....it is a relatively remote desert industrial town), the Lanzhou had a lot of animals in their zoo! Birds and all kinds of animals from all over the world, not just Asia! Zebras, lions, red pandas, vultures, leopards, all kinds of stuff!

However....

Zoos in China are a little depressing compared to America - animals, for the most part just sleep because the majority of them are in concrete enclosures with no companions and no grass and no...toys or anything for them to kill time. So basically they just sleep and sleep and are very bored. It's actually kind of sad. Zoos in America are very natural and the animals are pretty content, I think mostly because our animal protection laws are so strict. In China, it's not so strict. Except for pandas, who get the royal treatment, the animals just seem sad. I just didn't want to take video of it. I do have this one picture of their Sika deer:

After you get through the zoo, you're pretty much 1/3 of the way up the mountain, so you can just follow a cut out pathway and climb the stairs all the way to the top. It'll take maybe an hour and it's fairly steep, so you'll be tired, but the view is definitely worth it!

Yeah, Chinese cities are much different than American cities. They're much more dense and just in general seem to be devoid of a lot of color. When I was out driving today around Tyler, I was just overwhelmed by how open everything is - you can see a lot of the sky, there are trees everywhere, it's just so different....not skyscrapers as far as you can see.

In Tyler, Texas, there are no overly clogged roads due to unexpandable roads and overly compact cities. There's no constant cloud of pollution creating that blue-ish grey haze that you see every single day.

Just different.

Now remember - I said at least 3 posts a week until I had everything put up from the trip! So keep coming back!

New Videos and the American Constitution

Strange title, yeah? Yeah, I guess it is. Tomorrow I'm going to teach a class (some of you know the professor, Shelley Mu) on the founding of America, the American Constitution, the separation of church and state, and how it ties in the the philosophies of John Locke, Descartes, Voltaire, and the other Enlightenment minds as well as how it all ties into daily life in America. Geez, that was the longest sentence ever....well, maybe not. Anyway, it should be pretty interesting. After that lecture, I'm going to sit down and talk with the students and talk about the cultural difference and the differences in daily life in America and China. I think they're all graduate students, so that means their English will probably be pretty good. Hooray!

Anyway, life is still pretty good - I've got my two latest YouTube vids on here if you're interested. (If I do say so myself, I think they're interesting). Hooray for shameless YouTube plugs!

Bye!

Hunger and a Guy Named Kitty (non-related)

Hello from Lanzhou!

You know how people say that if you eat a big Chinese meal that you'll be hungry again in a couple of hours? IT'S SO TRUE!! I always seem to be hungry and it's kind of annoying, really. I guess I'm just waiting for my stomach to shrink down or something. I eat and I'm totally full or past full, but yet, 2 hours later, guess what??

I'm hungry again. I don't really know what to do about that. I hate to be snacking all the time; it makes me feel like a fattie, so mostly I try to just wait it out. Luckily, one of my teachers brought me a bunch of fruit, so I can have bananas or apples or little baby oranges for the next week or two....she brought me a lot!

Classes start on Monday, which is a good thing - It'll be nice to have something to do and a teacher-student setting to learn my Chinese. I got my textbooks yesterday - 4 for 155元, which is about 20$ or something like that in US$. It's SOOO nice compared to one textbook for 100$ US....oh man, I love how cheap stuff is here.

I love the students here - the ones that come up and talk to me rather than just stare, anyway. They really are very nice and very polite and genuinely excited to be speaking English with a native speaker - I met two guys yesterday who could barely speak at first because they were so nervous/excited; it was really funny.

Anyway, I really liked them, their names were Freddy and Kitty (yes, Kitty)...he didn't have an American name yet, so he told me to call him Kitty. Hmmm...interesting. I'll have to help him with that name soon, because Kitty is awful. They said it was their first time to ever talk to a native English speaker, which kind of blew my mind, really. Wow...

Freaking Kitty.

A guy named Kitty.

I've posted up a couple more videos on YouTube if you want to check them out and leave comments or video responses or whatever:




Hope everyone is well!

First Lanzhou Post and Video

Okay, so I know that I haven't posted anything on here in a while - I've been busy trying to solidify email connections, people addresses, all kinds of junk like that....so yeah. Not an excuse, really, but anyway, I'm back now. I've been told to blog everyday, but who REALLY wants to read a blog every day?? I don't. Or at least, I haven't ever found one I'd want to read every day.

I have a journal that I've been writing in and I guess that's been my 'daily blogging'. But really, there's not much going on this week. I arrived last Saturday (the 26th) at 11pm in Lanzhou and received quite a shock from my Beijing-ed up mind. I was thinking that it wouldn't be too different from Beijing, but man was I wrong! Lanzhou seems like a great city, don't get me wrong, but it is abundantly clear that it isn't a tourist city by any stretch of the imagination. It is polluted, dirty, and smells like industry (or at least it did for the first couple of days here - I don't really notice it now).

One of the first things I could really see was this bridge here - it has constantly changing colors - red, blue, green, yellow, and all kinds of crazy stuff. At the top of the left column in the picture, there are green spotlights that make random patterns that look like tentacles. Hopefully I'll be able to get some video of those lights, because I haven't ever seen any videos of the bridge lights. There are still tons of decorations up from the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) - the highway getting into Lanzhou was packed with lights for literally about 5 miles - I've never seen that many lights. I didn't take any video or pics because it was so crazy and I was crazy tired....I'll try to go there soon and get some of that as well. It really was beautiful.

I've been settling into the daily life here on campus. I usually eat at Cafeteria Number 3 here because it's familiar and decently good - their steamed stuffed buns (包子）are amazing as well as their breakfast food - which are kind of like crepes, but cooked with green onions and some other spices and things. Good stuff.....really good.

I don't know really what to say. I know that I'm really lucky to be here and I'm making history of sorts, because I'm the first international student at this school and from ETBU, but that's really a lot to think about and I don't like to think about it. I'm still really nervous about my Chinese, but I have to get over it sometime. The students here leave me alone and don't talk to me, which is nice, but lonely at the same time. I suppose we are mutually nervous to talk to the other person. I really do garner stares - I really didn't believe people when they said that to me. But.....yeah, I do get the stares. It's disconcerting...I know people are curious, but I still have this nagging suspicion that I'm about to be robbed or something. I don't like feeling like I'm about to be robbed. (Does anyone, really?).

I'm really glad that I brought a bunch of movies over here, they've been really comforting as well as the internet itself. It's strange how something as simple as being able to read the news and get on Facebook can really make me feel like I'm at home (or at least closer). Bob Marley's "One Love" has also really helped me, for whatever reason I just can't seem to get enough of it although back home I didn't really like the song that much. Also, some of Sam Tsui's YouTube music has been nice to listen to as well as Pomplamoose's YouTube Channel - great music, everyone should check it out!

Speaking of YouTube, everyone knows I have a YouTube account and I've made a few videos - 5 total. I'm going to do more with more details of the campus...but yeah

I've been hesitant to bust out the camera, because I don't want to stick out more than I already do...but yeah, I gotta take pictures sometime. No day like today, right? I keep trying to put pictures on here from my computer, but it doesn't seem to work. It only seems to work from URLs, and Blogger doesn't seem to like Facebook URLs/Pictures.