I WILL HELP YOU WIN A PRIZE IN THIS INCREDIBLY INFORMATIVE POST

DO U NO A PRETTY LADY? SHE  WITH NOW? OF COURSE SHE IS, YOU'RE VERY ATTRACTIVE AND HAVE A GREAT PERSONALITY. 

IF U SEE TILES... YOU PAY A KOREAN MAN, TO BREAK TILES. NO, IT OK; THEY NOT REAL TILES, THEY BREAK IN HALF, IT OK DON'T BE SCARE.

THERE STACK OF 5, STACK OF 15, STACK OF 25. DON'T BREAK THE 5, IT TOO EASY, SHE WON'T BE IMPRESS. THAT PRIZE TOO SMALL FOR PRETTY LADY, TRUST ME. DON'T TRY 25, 25 TOO HARD, U FAIL. U FAIL BAD AND PRETTY LADY WILL SEE. SO DO 15, 15 GOOD NUMBER.

THEY GIVE YOU GLOVE. YOU PUT ON GLOVE. GO, 'Hnnnnnnngg!' AND SMASH TILES LIKE ANGRY GOD. 'Hnnnnnnng!'

THERE YOU GO, NOW U GET PRIZE. BUT YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT TO PRETTY LADY, SORRY ABOUT THAT, I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT CATCH. GOOD LUCK!

'My Family'

When we learn about family member vocab, I like to get the students to make a family tree and present it to the class. It's pretty easy and fun; what kindergartener doesn't like talking about her family?

However....

"My god," the English teacher said under her breath. "I hope that's hair and not a headwound..."

Fan Death

Picture from the instruction manual of a fan I bought a few months ago.

It's a widely held belief in South Korea that sleeping with a fan on could kill you, but this has generally been debunked: http://www.snopes.com/medical/freakish/fandeath.asp

It's a belief also held in Japan and I have young friends in Asia who believe in it. The long and short of it is, in this Junior Scientist's opinion from reading about fan death and sleeping with her fan on many a night, it's not true. Unless! You have a plain ol' fan in a room that doesn't have any windows open and it is excruciatingly hot that night. Because there's no breeze, you can cook yourself. Maybe. Possibly. If you have the worst luck in the universe. 

More and more, younger Koreans don't really believe in fan death, but I do, on occasion, meet someone who will defend the theory. Whether or not they really believe it or they're just defending a cultural aspect is another thing. Korea has a lot of national pride that can extend into many, many other aspects of life (sports, art, testing, etc) including urban legends! 

Typically if someone believes in fan death I just kind of shrug and change the subject. It's so often an ingrained belief from childhood that they're not going to change their mind any time soon. And, frankly, you can come off as quite the douche who is trying to 'educate' the poor, misguided Korean, adding further insult.

Besides, every culture has these little quirks. As far as I know, I never went cross-eyed from sitting too close to the TV or caught a cold from going out in the winter with damp hair..!

live crab vending machine (Originally posted April 01, 2011)

There is a vending machine that sells live crabs.

Yes, you read that correctly.



The man who installed the machine in the Xinjeiko subway station had a simple dream, a dream that every man, woman and child in China—or those that at least passed by the machine—would be able to get an affordable crab to cook and eat or maybe name and keep as a pet. Whatever strikes their fancies.

I am sort of only making up half of that.

Anyway. The crabs are kept at a certain temperature so they go into hibernation until they're bought and woken up before they're killed and eaten. Sort of like Walt Disney.

...that's what they did to Walt Disney, right?

Maybe I'm thinking of someone else.

Also included in the machine are a few sauces and you receive the complementary stares of passersby if you actually purchase one. And if it's weird to Chinese people, then you know it's really odd.



I think I saw one of the big ones on the top rack trying to escape. He blinked at me.

At least he doesn't know where I live.

heads up (Originally posted Sep. 15, 2010)

It finally happened. It took nine years, but it finally happened.

When I entered high school--specifically, the cafeteria with it’s misspelled entrees and flaccid salad bar--I had an epiphany. I turned to the person beside me and made a bold prophecy; “One of these days, I’m going to find a severed chicken head in a school lunch.”

In my alma mater’s defense, their chicken nuggets were actually pretty tasty.

And to be fair, it was Kyle who found it. “Ew.” And we were in China.

“What?”

“Look.”

And look I did. “Is… is that a…”

“Yeah.” Kyle was, actually, an expert on chickens, having raised them back in the US. “It’s a deep-fried chicken head.”

Even a non-expert like me could deduce that. There’s really no mistaking a chicken head, deep fried or not. “Wow,” was all I could say. (‘You gonna eat that?’ was a little too much to handle at that point.)

Kyle picked up the chicken head, turned it towards me, and made the beak move to match his up-beat, Dick Clark-esque voice: “‘Welcome to China!’”

We all laughed. Then grew silent. A feeling of acceptance passed through the foreign teachers’ lunch table; this chicken head welcoming us was basically summing up our entire experience in China thus far.

Someone tentatively suggested making an orientation video for future teachers, with Chicken Head as the official spokesperson. To be completely, one hundred percent honest, it just made sense, and for a few minutes we genuinely thought about what kind of production values we could afford on our salaries.

It would probably be the most honest, straightforward orientation video ever made in the history of ever. Imagine, sitting in a little classroom a week before school begins. A dusty reel track plays--for nostalgia’s sake--off the LCD projector, and suddenly, Chicken Head pops up with Kyle’s upbeat voice: “So you’ve decided to come to China! Congratulations, you have just begun the weirdest year of your life!” With a chicken head declaring it, you can’t help but believe that it is going to be a strange year.


~~~


There was a teacher from New Zealand who missed our actual orientation due to his ‘asthma,’ for about two or three days. And then one of the Chinese teachers on a plane to Hong Kong just happened to see him--on the same plane, heading to Hong Kong to catch a flight back to New Zealand/the hell outta China. There’s also the story of the woman who flew back to South Africa in the middle of the school year without telling anyone. Some people land in China, step off the plane, and basically come to the conclusion that they have made the worst choice in their life by coming here. And this is before they even get a deep fried chicken head in their lunch.

I truly, in my professional opinion, think that if they showed Chicken Head’s orientation video before hiring teachers, there would be a lot less westerners freaking out once they got to China. After all, if you can get through Chicken Head Welcomes You to China Part Deux, you probably have the moxy to survive it here.