quote of the day

"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow." Scarlett O'Hara, Gone With the Wind

That pretty much sums up my life here in China.

oh, internet

Oh dang. I love when people post things on the internet, then regret it and try to take it back. THERE'S NO TAKING IT BACK ONCE IT'S FLOATING AROUND CYBER SPACE.

Shortly after I posted about Holly taking it to her Myspace re: getting the boot (or is it slipper?) from Hef, she deleted her post. Well, lucky me for knowing how to CTRL + C and CTRL + V.

For those interested, this is what Holly had to say last night, I'm assuming it was written in a sugar high stupor post Ben&Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie overload (everything seems like a good idea after you've eaten a pint of ice cream):

"What’s Going on . . . .
Current mood: :( lonely

Hef and I will always be friends . . . I do have my own place, but I am still at the Mansion, too, right now . . . I'm too busy to move! hahaha . . . Bridget, Kendra and I are all still best friends and plan on doing several projects together in the future . . . even though Bridget is in Europe right now and I am sad and lonely without her . . .

You will see how it all happens in Season 5 . . . Sunday nights on E! . . . How lame, I just turned that into the most shameless plug ever . . . lol!

Love-Holly"

I'm diggin' the ellipses, Holly. And ya right, everyone hates Kendra.

man, even bunnies get dissed

IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD SACRED???

Of course, I'd heard the rumors. But I didn't want to believe. I guess there's no denying it now.

The "girls next door" broke up with Hef. So lame.

Good thing I'm friends with Holly on Myspace, or I would have been totally out of the loop.

new chinese name

My Chinese friend Philips spent so long coming up with a bunch of options for me for my Chinese name, and all his hard work means nothing now because I've adopted a new name. LiKou (beautiful red), the name Philips thought suited me best, just wasn't doing it for me. NiKe (pretty stone of jade), the name my Chinese professor gave me, was missing something. I felt like I needed a name that truly embodied my personality. I was thinking about the Chinese word for "Strawberry", but that seemed sort of lame.

Then. It hit me.

You ready for it?

Meow Meow.

That's right, my Chinese name is "Meow Meow". "Lin Meow Meow" if you want to be official about it. I can't wait to get business cards made. Oh schnap.

I'm glad "meow" sounds the same in Mandarin as it does in English. Interesting fact revealed to me by my high school student crush (don't worry, I'm keeping it professional, yo. He's not even my student): in Korea cats say "ya-oung, ya-oung" instead of "meow meow". Good thing I'm not in Korea because "ya-oung" wouldn't cut it for me.

This is sort of what my name looks like in Chinese characters:
I say "sort of" because they look more like cave drawings than Chinese there, but I can barely write Chinese characters with a pen and paper, much less with a mouse on Microsoft Paint.

I feel like you have to be pretty hard up to go out on a Monday night, but I'm tempted to throw caution to the wind and just do it so I can introduce myself to people. Hi, my name is Meow Meow. "Your name is what?" Meow Meow. "Meow Meow?" Yeah, y'know, like a cat says. "That's your name?" Uh huh.

I haven't been this excited about anything in a while.

hopefully people bought them as pets

A friend of mine took this picture later the same day in front of Ikea where I had seen the box o' puppies:

Several are missing from when I was there, I hope they went to good homes. There are a surprising number of pet owners here in Shanghai, so it's not totally doubtful.

One of the favorite dog breeds here in China? No, not the pug...the pomeranian! Isn't that adorable? There's a Chinese man who lives around here who always walks his Tater Tot look alike in Thumb Plaza sans leash. I usually just follow him around and snicker to myself while fantasizing about petting the dog, but finally on Friday night I mustered up the courage and asked the guy to pet it.

And by "asked" I mean I smiled really big and then pointed to the dog and made a petting motion with my hand. The guy seemed cool with me petting it, I'm hoping maybe I can form some kind of friendship with him so I can play with his dog all the time.

example of why i hate most surveys

If your lover betrayed you with someone of their own sex, what would your reaction be?
"I totally knew it."

What would you do with a billion dollars?
Two chicks at the same time. Er, wait.

Will you fall in love with your best friend?
My best friend is a girl, so no. But, I am a firm believer that men and women can have platonic relationships, even if When Harry Met Sally insists otherwise.

Which is more exciting while already in a relationship: coveting someone else or being coveted by someone?
It's always exciting to get compliments.

How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?
5 minutes.

If the person you secretly like is gay, what will you do?
Gay boyfriend, gay boyfriend, I don't really mind that you are queer. Gay boyfriend, gay boyfriend, I never feel lonely when you are near.

If you could root for one useless cause, what would it be?
For Delta Gamma to adopt a fraternity animal, and for that animal to be the pomeranian.

What takes you down the fastest?
Champagne.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Interesting question. Hopefully I'm on my way to becoming the next Martha Stewart by then.

What’s your fear?
Falling down stairs.

If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
Dave Matthews.

Would you give all in a relationship?
Define "all".

Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
There's pros and cons to both. But if I'm in love with someone, I'd prefer to be in a relationship. As Chris Rock says, "married and bored, single and lonely".

an exercise in vanity

I've always really like those blogs of people who take one picture of themselves every day and show their progression through the seasons and temperatures and fashion styles.

I'm thinking about doing that here on Strawberry Says, but I want your opinion. Should I go the traditional mug-shot route of most personal photographers, or should I have a picture of China not me? Or is this idea too stupid to even do at all? Vote until next week!

captain obvious to the rescue!

I do appreciate my friends and family back home being concerned for my safety here in China. I do. Really.

But.

Well, this New York Times article has sparked a noticeable flux in my inbox and Facebook wall posts. Apparently the Chinese government monitors Skype conversations for politically sensitive words.

Is this really news to anyone?

Wouldn't this kind of be like some "investigators" in the United States writing an expose on airlines using racial profiling during security searches. Isn't that just common knowledge? I wouldn't call this Skype article anything mindblowing, except in the sense that it is mindblowingly obvious.

And anyway, I hate politics so I'm not at risk for any hardcore Chinese snooping.

whisk me away

There's a chocolate cafe here in Shanghai called Whisk. I've never been there, but some friends brought me and Romy some chocolate chip cookies from there a few weeks ago and they were seriously the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. Even better than my grammy's chocolate chip cookies (though I will deny ever saying this if anyone ever tells her).

Today was just one of those days. Y'know, those days when you just need a damn chocolate chip cookie.

So I decided to take a little solo adventure through Shanghai in search of Whisk and it's to die for pastries.

I should have written down the address, or maybe even looked it up. But instead, I relied on my memory of a vague conversation Romy had with a mutual friend discussing where it was. How difficult could it be to find? I thought to myself as I exited the subway in the middle of nowhere.

After several texts to my friends who had been there before and a frantic call to Romy, I still had no clue where I was or where Whisk could be so I decided just to walk around and look for it. For an hour.

Long story short, I couldn't find it. Actually, that's the entire story. So I guess it's not really as long as it is stupid.

When Steven Speilberg's film ET came out in 1982 my father was living in Alaska working on the pipeline in Prudhoe Bay while my mother stayed back in California. He really wanted to see the movie and asked my mom to wait for him to visit until she saw it so they could see it together for the first time. I guess my mom didn't think he really cared that much, so she saw it with some friends anyway and when he found out he told her he would never see ET ever. He was that mad about it.

The movie was re-released in 2002 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and having been told this story by my mother I asked my dad if he would go see it with me (he was unaware that I knew his history with the movie). I'll never see that movie, he curtly replied. And he hasn't.

In much the same way, I'll never go to Whisk. My friends absolutely love it and I know they will try to get me to go some time in the next year that I'm going to be here, but nope, it's not going to happen. I tried too hard to find it and was left hungry, empty handed, and with 15RMB less in my wallet from the cost of transportation.

And to think, I was actually going to risk my health and buy a carton of milk to go with the friggin' cookies.

forget beating around the bush

I should create some sort of running list of "Things I Was Told About China Before Moving Here That Are Not True". Included on this list would be: 1. you can find anything in China (you cannot find berries of any kind, sunscreen without bleach, halloween costumes, sliced lunch meat, authentic anything, or tampons) 2. practically everyone knows English (negative on that one) and 3. the Chinese are a very indirect people (a vendor grabbing me by the arm and saying "lady, that's crazy price!" seems pretty direct to me).

My favorite thing so far that has proved all those advice-givers wrong are the beggars on the street. I understand that if someone is a beggar, they probably aren't following the same set of social rules that other Chinese follow, but I have still been pretty surprised by the directness of people on the street. Yesterday in front of Carrefour a beggar woman approached me and Romy and demanded, "Give me money." We didn't, but I sorta admired her for getting straight to the point.

puppies can be surprisingly not cute

Today is National Day in China. The PRC was founded on October 1st in 1949, so every year the Chinese people get a whole week off (at least us teachers do) to celebrate the glory that is Communism.

Celebrations for me usually include eating cake and spending money. Cake is hard to find here (good cake, at least), so I just settled for spending money and went shopping in the fabric district. I bought a few scarves and ordered some custom-tailored clothes and then headed over to Ikea to look around and relax.

Well, turns out it's impossible to relax when everyone else in Shanghai also decides to go to Ikea at the same time. I'm not sure if it was the feeling of being crammed in a relatively small space with a ton of people or something I ate earlier in the day, but my stomach started killing me so I made a bee-line for the metro to head back to my apartment.

As I was hurrying across the street, trying to navigate the sea of bikes, cars, and people, an old Chinese man threw a box right in front of me. The top popped off from the force of the fall and revealed two dozen small puppies crawling on top of each other.

Normally, there isn't anything I'd rather have thrown in front of me than a little puppy. In this case, though, the sight was absolutely horrifying. Even assuming that the old man was selling them as pets, it was so sad to see a bunch of puppies stuffed together in a tiny box. Who knows how long they had been like that or were going to have to stay in the box together.

I guess I shouldn't expect much in terms of animal rights from a country that doesn't even believe in human rights.

life lesson #2

If someone asks you, "Not to put you on the spot or anything, but what did you think of my art?" they are both putting you on the spot and expect your answer to include one of the following words: "impressive", "life-changing", "amazing", or "awe-inspiring."

The people that ask this question, however, never produce art of that caliber.

working my magic

My La Lohan peace sign flashin' tactics worked! I totally won over the ladies at the Korean market with my Celeb-like "I don't need your bullshit...but make sure you check out my gorgeous hair as I walk away in a huff" attitude the other night.

Last night Romy and I made the short trip (1/2 a block) to the Korean market to buy some beverages. Sure, they might have burned me with the phone card thing, but I'm not a girl to hold grudges and we also really wanted to drink, so we went there.

Well, talk about celebrity treatment! We were there with our friend Fox, who is also American and teaches at the same high school as we do, and the three of us bought 2 drinks each. Before we took our drinks from the counter, though, the women insisted on giving me and Romy some Sunchips for free!

Fox didn't get anything. Boo hoo.

Free chips? I mean, come on, how legit is that? They tasted more like Top Ramen than Sunchips, but I am all about getting free stuff even if it's not 100% delicious. After they opened our bottles for us, they also gave Romy their bottle opener that has the Korean market logo on it and stuff. They're going to be our new BFFs, just wait.

ya, i'm cool off that, thanks

I went to my usual Korean market yesterday to purchase an international phone card. They cost 30RMB and I can usually get at least an hour of conversation time from each one, so it's a pretty decent price.

Or "best friend price" as Romy and I like to say to the vendors at the clothing market.

Well, for some reason they were completely out, but instead of just saying that, they tried to pawn some partially used one off on me. It was out of its wrapping, the security code was all worn away, I'm sure it didn't even have any minutes on it.

So what's a girl to do? I flashed the Lindsay Lohan signature peace sign, said "Later", flipped my hair and left.

a chinese monthiversary

WOW. I've been here a whole month! I can't believe it.

To celebrate, we all went out to Cefiore which is an American fro yo place HERE in Shanghai. Mmmmm. It was the most perfect way to celebrate a monthiversary ever.

Here's to many more monthiversarys to come! *raises her waffle covered in original tart fro yo, chocolate chips, granola, and chocolate sauce* Here, here! To life, to love, to eating fro yo around the world!

paradise on earth, or something

There's an old Chinese proverb that goes "Up in heaven is paradise, down on earth is Hangzhou". I'm not sure I agree with that. For one, I read that on a postcard that I bought in Hangzhou, so it might be a little biased. Secondly, I also read that about ANOTHER city in China called Suzhou, which is also near Shanghai. Third, it was so humid and hot that it felt more like the opposite of paradise. Especially since we inadvertently went on a 3 hour vertical hike up the largest mountain in the city with only 1 bottle of water. Oops.

That being said, my trip to Hangzhou was a lot of fun. Hangzhou is about an hour and a half outside of Shanghai, and the difference in landscape is extraordinary. Shanghai is often described as a concrete jungle; Hangzhou is straight up just a jungle.

I went to Hangzhou last weekend with Romy and our mutual friend Penny. Penny is in our graduate program, too, and a blonde, so we got a ton of attention. It's funny because Chinese people kept coming up to us and asking "Oh, didn't I just meet you at so-and-so a place an hour ago?" We'd tell them no, and they'd explain how the people they met looked just like us. I bet to the Chinese all us American girls start looking the same after a while.

We stayed at a hostel called "4 eyes backpackers" which was pretty nice. Actually, it wasn't really, but they had a cat that had recently had kittens so it seemed a lot nicer than it was, simply from the kitten presence. Here's me and momma kitteh, and yes, I came all the way to China to take pictures with cats.


I was surprised the hostel had the number 4 in their name because I have always heard that the Chinese consider it unlucky, but I also ate a dish that was described as "the fry Chinese make egg on chive" at the restaurant down the street (Penny had "the eggplant explodes in sauce"), so it could have just been some sort of translation error. Maybe they meant glasses?

dreaming of christmas time

Yesterday I had chestnuts (yes, roasting over an open fire) for the first time. In the middle of a busy intersection in Shanghai, no less.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. But neither does 85% of the stuff that happens to me in this country. I've just learned to go with the flow. Or to at least pretend to be going with the flow.

The chestnut vendors are all over the place and they all have scales where they weigh out your nuts and then point to the price for you to pay. I only wanted one chestnut, really, but the vendor insisted on filling my little bag even though I kept say no and pantomiming that I wanted him to put some back. I'm sure if I actually knew enough Chinese to tell him "I only want a little" it wouldn't have made much of a difference. For all I know there could be a minimum order or something.

Everything in China is a big production. I can understand why a lot of the other teachers here never leave their rooms. Shanghai is a scary place sometimes. Like at 6PM when the subway is over-packed with sweaty men wearing their shirts up over their bellies who rub against you as they exit.

China is definitely not a place to expect personal space. Ever.

What I mean by "big production", though, is that the smallest task takes forever and sometimes never even happens. I was without a cell phone (quelle horreur!) for four days because I couldn't figure out how to convey that I just needed a sim card for a phone I already owned (even when I brought the phone in they didn't get it).

But I don't expect the Chinese to "get" me. I don't expect them to bend over backwards for a silly, redheaded American who always says "xie xie" (thank you) after bumping into them with her cart in the grocery store when what she means to say is "duibuqi" (sorry). I don't even expect them to be patient with me when I try to speak to them in horribly pronounced Chinese (they always are, though).

I do expect, however, to not have to come up with a game plan every time I want to eat dinner. Or buy fruit at the market. Or mail some postcards at the post office. "Where do you want to eat?" brings shivers up my spine. "Do you want to take the bus?" is nauseating. "Which air freshener do you think will smell best?" gives me a headache.

These are all questions I ask myself, mind you. I'm not even trying to speak Chinese and they stress me out.

I think it's just a side effect of traveling. Everything seems more important and more stressful than it really is. Because, honestly, who really cares if I get the citrus or lavender Glade Plug-In?

I got the citrus, by the way.

the fox says..."boooooo"

I just signed into iGoogle and saw this:


I've had my little Asian fox theme for months now, but have never seen ghosts before! How cute that they're all going to eat Mr. Fox's steamed bun ancestral offering.

tmi at its finest

The Chinese are an interesting bunch.

Sit next to American on a 5 hour flight from Sacramento to Kansas City, and by the end of it you'll know their families financial situation, where their children attend college and what they are studying, and all about how the death of their grandmother when they were 14 years old deeply impacted their life and has made it difficult for them to truly love anyone.

Sit next to a Chinese person, and if they happen to know English, they might tell you about a great movie they saw recently or a funny anecdote about a vacation they took three years ago, but they're not going to open up like Americans do.

I've never been one to become BFFs with people on planes (I prefer to sleep, thank you), but in the words of Fight Club's Tyler Durden, the United States is a nation of people that love single serving anything: sugar, cream, butter, ketchup, floss, or a friend. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends. It's like having a real relationship, only with none of the commitment of ever having to see the person again.

And yet, ask an American how their day is going or how their weekend was, and you will undoubtedly get a generic "Fine" from pretty much everyone. A response of "Oh, it was fun but I didn't get much sleep" is considered an in-depth answer.

In China, do not ever ask "How was your weekend?" unless you REALLY want to know how that person's weekend was. I'm not just talking a simple "Oh, it was actually pretty crappy" description, I'm talking full on details that you, an American, would no more share with an acquittance than you would your toothbrush. In other words, it would never happen.

During the ten minute break between my ESL class I went to meet Romy, and while walking through the hall I caught her speaking to one of the Chinese teachers. On her way to meet me (she was about 10 feet away from me at this point) she casually ask the teacher how her weekend was. The conversation went something like this:

Romy: Oh, hi, how was your weekend? (starts to turn and walk away at this point, expecting a one word answer like "Okay")
Teacher: It was really bad, my mom got really sick and I had to take care of her.
Romy: (Turns to face the teacher again, caught off guard from the actual response to her question) Oh, no! But she's feeling better now, isn't she?
Teacher: Yeah, I think so. She had really bad diarrhea and I had to take her to the hospital and they had to put an IV in her arm and everything.
Romy: Blah blah blah.
Teacher: Blah blah blah gross detail blah another gross detail blah blah diarrhea blah vomit.
Romy: Blah blah.

At that point I stopped listening because I was so shocked that the word "diarrhea" was actually being uttered in real life, outside of a doctor's office, between two people that have never even spoken to each other before that I couldn't even pay attention to anything following the "rhea".

I guess it's not that shocking when you consider that Chinese people regularly hawk loogeys in public and potty train their children on the street.

say it ain't so

Since most of you haven't been in the wilderness of China for the past two days like me, I'm assuming that most of you know about Travis Barker and DJ AM's horrible, horrible plane crash.

I feel so bad for Travis and his family. He was so amazingly nice to me when I met him back in July (or June, whenever that was). I really hope he pulls through and makes a full recovery.