About a month into this excursion I realized there were going to be plenty of moments where no words would capture my feelings. That’s when I discovered the phrase “Welcome to China”, mind you your arms must be thrown up into the air and your head shaken to get the full effect. This is the closest I’ve come to expressing my feelings.

Since I’ve discovered this line I have used it on numerous occasions to which all westerns have agreed. A child tinkling on the bus while the mother holds his legs spread eagle, “Welcome to China.” Afternoon planes never being less than 2hours delayed, “Welcome to China.” Class is canceled tomorrow (from your students but not a word from administration), “Welcome to China.” Shall I continue, okay you get the picture.

The truth, I’m getting sick of this phrase but it seems to be the only thing keeping me from insanity. I know common sense and culture is unique to each country and I know “West is not always Best”. I wouldn’t dream of forcing American ways on anyone but really basic human nature people? Anyone?

It is interesting to note that at lunch today Bonnie, Katie and I had a rather surprising conversation on the effect of propaganda here. After so long you just stop resisting. Scary, but true.

Wednesdays are always horrible days for me. They are my busiest. The first change I make next semester is my Children’s night class. I’m putting my foot down and refuse to do it on the night of my craziest day. A full day of classes and then a night class just about does me in.

I woke this morning in a slight depression no real reason but I just can’t seem to shake the funk. Thank goodness tomorrow is Thursday and I get to see the rest of the gang for lunch. Okay if I can just make it through the afternoon and then the evening things will brighten.

Well off to class.

So originally when I started writing this post I thought the title was accurate come to find out it just might not be true. I went to my trusty medical advisor who tore my hopes apart by explaining that a certain illness going around is not necessarily accompanied by nausea and diarrhea but is a respiratory illness with fever. Please everyone pray this is not what I have.

Saturday when RUNNING to catch the train to Qingdao my throat started to bother me. I just figured I was out of shape and my panting had aggravated the esophagus. By Saturday night I knew that was not it.Sunday morning I awoke with a budding fever! Not going to lie, panic hit when I realized I was not going to be allowed back on to campus with a fever. Luckily I was able to bum some Tylenol off the Stevens at Church and get my fever down by the time I returned to campus that evening.

Monday morning I awoke with a temperature of 38.4* or 101.1*. I am required to report in if I reach anything above 37.5* so I knew there was no getting around this number. I was a little paranoid seeing as I knew they were cracking down on cases.

3 boxes, 1-2 packets 2-3 times a day

I went to the Doctor with James and no one seemed really worried, I got a weeks supply of drink packets to take home. Good Chinese medicine I was informed. Note, I still took Tylenol along with the Chinese medicine.

Yesterday was the worst, the Doctor said the fever would still spike before it subsided. So now I’m on the up swing on this bug! I can’t return to class until the fever is gone, as of an hour ago I can return to class, now if I could just get the hacking under control. I thought I could blame the outstanding  air quality here for this little problem but Becky said maybe not. Let’s just say the air here makes the central valley’s air seem like an oxygen bar! You live in a constant haze with poor visibility.

Not exactly the cleanest my room has been.

As life goes back to normal I have to pick up where I left it, starting with cleaning!

Why would the living room be any better?

From my concerned students.

I know I have kept promising an address so here it is finally. Hopefully you will understand why it has taken me so long to get it to you. So Wendy says the best way is probably to copy and print the Chinese Characters and put that on the envelope. We don’t know how I get mail so it will be sent to her office and then she will get it to me.

You can try the English but please only send something you don’t mind getting lost or better yet that I will never miss. So bad news, vegetables, you know non essentials.

Kayte Reagan
       c\o Zhao Jing
Room 407 Teaching Bldg #4
Applied Foreign Languages Dept.
Shandong Vocational College of Economics & Business
2789 Qingnian Rd.
Weifang 261011, Shandong Prvn.

CHINA

寄：中国山东省潍坊市潍城区青年路2798号

     山东经贸职业学院 应用外语系 4号教学楼407办公室

                                       赵敬

Okay so Wendy has kindly typed this up for me. Little bit of culture: USPS goes smallest to largest but in China they go largest to smallest. So the first two characters mean China.

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to attend Church. When I had first signed up for the job I didn’t think it was even going to be an option, upon the discovery I was overwhelmed with graditude. In Argentina, Church was my backbone. To be able to go each week and recharge my batteries for the following week gave me the strength needed to get through anything thrown my way.

No matter where you go it is exactly same. The three hour block divided into Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School and Relief Society. We even start with Sacrament Meeting here like in Cali! The continuity always brings peace when settling into a new ward or branch, as is my case.

Quick background on the Branch in Qingdao. An agreement has been reached with the Chinese government that allows us to openly meet and practice our religion, but with certain conditions. We cannot under any circumstance proselyte or discuss our religion with any Chinese Nationals. If asked about religion I was told to say “I am sorry but out of respect to the agreement between our governments and this university I am not permitted to discuss this subject with you.”  We may however discuss our religion with any non nationals in other words, any  foreign passport holder. The other stipulation is that all tithing collected must remain in the country. With these rules strictly obeyed we have been fortunate enough to be allowed to practice as we may.

Our branch therefore consists of Americans and Koreans for the majority but we do have a couple from Iceland that is here studying at one of the Universities. Sacrament meeting is translated back and forth between English and Korean depending on the speaker. However Sunday School and third hour (Priesthood Meeting and Relief Society) are divided English and Korean.

Can I just ask why I never manage to miss the marriage lessons? Huh? Really come on people! So as I sat in Sunday school looking around at all the couples I realized that once again I found myself in a sea of couples with no one to catch my back on the, Single is Great motto! I didn’t discover till after that one of the women was single, I had just assumed her husband had been sick, my bad, so I guess I really can’t throw a pity party for myself after all.

I knew that the branch was full of BYU teachers and had assumed they were all the young ones that I hear go all the time. Boy I really need to stop the assumptions, yes yes I know what it means to assume, thank you Ms. Neelands! I was just rather taken back as I walked into Sacrament today and saw all the Gray. Beautiful Gray don’t get me wrong, oh and the black but the sea of black hair has finally stopped being of note by now. So come to find out all of the teachers here are through the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at BYU. They are an amazing group!

The Branch President and his wife had us all over for a potluck after church. That was the best Break-the-Fast I’d ever been too. Yes mostly for the fact that I got real American food all the way down to the chocolate cake. These folks are resourceful, the cake was baked in a toaster oven! I know I have loads to learn!

Some of you were under the false impression that this trip took an unimaginable amount of guts on my part, let me just clear that up. True I was suppose to be accompanied by a friend but when that fell through I still decided to come. I took the job knowing I would not be the only American at the school and not only would there be a fellow American there would be two who already knew the ropes.   So taking guts, not necessarily it wasn’t like I signed up for a year in Inner Mongolia (wait that really doesn’t seem so foreign now that I’m this close to it) okay lets try Chad. So its not like I signed up for a year in Chad to teach at a school where I would be the only American or English speaker for miles. So on that note here are my fellow ex-pats.

Adam and Dantzelle have arrived, this is their second round in China and at this school. I had spoken with Dantzelle when I was originally looking at coming and she had nothing but praises for the country and school. When she mentioned they would be returning that was the clincher.Any school with that kind of teacher retention held up their end of the bargain in my opinion.

So quick bio with their permission of course. They are both originally from Rexburg, no comments,  they will read this. Adam attends BYUI and Dantzelle graduated from school in Idaho Falls. Members obviously. Adam speaks Chinese, which is a real relief and has plenty of Chinese material and has kindly offered to share. My language idol he speaks Hmong, Chinese and German. How awesome is that!

They know the ropes as mentioned before which makes going into town a breeze and they know all the local spots on day one! Oh and Adam reads Characters so signs, no problem! To their disappointment their favorite noodle shop has been leveled for a parking lot. They have high hopes in finding it relocated.

It has brought real peace of mind to teaching next week as they have patiently born my grilling in regards to classes and what to expect. I look forward to this coming year with experienced teachers at the helm.

Just the beginning...

So I’ve made the goal to learn Mandarin, as daunting as the task is I know there will be light at the end of the tunnel even if I won’t see it for another 10 months.

 Above are my basics, “Beginners” Dictionary, “Rough Guide to Mandarin” Phrase book, Children’s Fairy tales in Pinyin (Wendy seemed to magically produce this in the Wal*Mart book section, a little beaten up but the only copy and only book in Pinyin) and of course my mini notebook that gets toted everywhere for the quick scribbles.

Wendy has been kind enough to offer an exchange of lessons although I think we all know who is getting ripped off.  She has the patience of an angel as I slaughter her language but still she doesn’t give up. Thank you Wendy. She offers sweet encouragement and never criticizes.

With this being my second language to try and squeeze under the belt I am beginning to know my personal weaknesses when it comes to conquering a foreign language. For me it is best to start at the very beginning. So everyone pull out your kindergarten worksheets and lets start with letter pronunciation.

Spanish not so hard, okay switch around some vowels, roll your r’s wait shh your double rr’s, double ll’s and y’s and why not any r that comes at the beginning of the word. Add an o here and a iendo here and you got it, just like normal speech in good old Cali. Chinese on the other hand not so flexible. At least in Spanish you can just repeat the word a few times using  different inflection here and there and eventually they get the gist. Chinese not so lucky change the inflection you get an entirely different word.

One day I will have my Mother's handwriting wait nope that would be in my dreams.

So back to the alphabet board it is! I have a pocket chart hanging on my living room wall with my basics, tacky yes but hey it is better than draping it over the TV which is about as good as that box is to me right now. Don’t get me started on my TV withdrawals and panic attacks for missing the season openers on well EVERYTHING.

 

Re-learning my alphabet, how do kids do it?

The hardest part so far, yes I know it is only going to get harder for a while, is trying to reproduce the Chinese sounds in my horrible English phonetics.  As the white out can attest it is not so easy to assign English equivalents. The funniest part of this whole exercise is Wendy kept insisting that I use what I would call the dictionary pronunciation. Yes that is probably the better way to go but if you are like me or shall I say the average American, who can actually read that?!? So she gave up trying to suggest anything and I went back to writing my own little language.

So for now lets just be honest I don’t speak a word and I mean not a word, I still can’t even get thank you to come out correctly. I need to start a routine and things will get better. I am really beginning to look forward to school starting.

Someday this will all make sense.

My first book in Pinyin - Northern European Fairtales

Ultimate Goal be able to read this book cover to cover! Hey I didn’t say without a dictionary.

Quick explanation of the new pages along the top. Instead of writing excessive posts about cultural impressions and differences I decided to create a running record. No promises to how often these pages will be updated and like everything else on this blog, strictly my opinion.

Well the adventure begins…Starting this blog seemed like such a great idea when it was a theory but now that I must sit down and begin typing I am getting nervous. Keeping a personal journal or even sending emails home is one thing but to have public entries available for anyone and everyone makes me pause.

These first few entries will be rough but I am sure in time they will begin to flow and the wrinkles will smooth themselves out. One such wrinkle has already been smoothed, I have found the spell check, hip-hip-hooray! Yes, I know I am off to China to teach English but lets face it I will always have my Dad’s spelling genes which means I spell Dictionary…MOM.