Hospitals

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. This week has been a bit crazy. One of our fellow Focers had surgery. He broke his foot in Thailand during Spring Festival and needed surgery to put in some pins to help it grow back together. So, with the school semester starting, studies starting, and visiting him in the hospital, I've been keeping busy. Chinese hospitals are quite different. Here are somethings I have learned from my friend's experience.

1. The nurses are there mostly to make sure your alive and they give you IVs.
2. Family does the rest for you- get you food, water, anything you need. Empty your bedpan, basically anything that isn't directly connected with your reason for being in the hospital... so...
3. If your family can't be with you all the time, you hire someone. Our friend has his only little "maid" that he pays $3.25 a day to do all the things he can't do on his own. This includes, but is not limited to heating up his food (he has to pay for the microwave too), emptying the bedpan, getting him hot water, and... really anything that he needs help with.
4. Visiting hours are... well, always. You can go anytime and stay as long as you wish!
5. Showers are not required. He hasn't taken a shower in a while.. why? because the bathrooms are really sanitary and he would need help. I don't blame him for not showering, I wouldn't either.
6. Bathrooms- you provide your own TP and soap.
7. Nurses wear the "typical" nurse hat that we all think of when we think of nurses.
8. You have 2 roommates.- unless you pay for a VIP room.
9. Hospital food is not provided and seldom eaten.
10. Pain medicine is not provided quite like America- no Vicodin here!
11. They keep you for a long time! He had his surgery a week ago and he's still there for a few more days.
12.  Although it's quite different, they still make sure you are taken care of and provide the best care they can give.

Shopping

Today I taught my students about shopping. We had some vocabulary in the beginning. Some of our words were: for sale, on sale, pharmacy, window shopping, shopping spree, debt, barcode, and compulsive shopping.
To review the words I asked some questions and they had to tell me which vocabulary word is connected to it. The last one I said was "what if I have no money?" Some of the students yelled out "debt" I laughed and said, "no, what should I do?" "Use your credit card." Me: "ha! Why don't you try using a vocabulary word." Finally I got someone to say "window shopping!"

Picture: Leona's birthday!!

Lateran festival

The past two weeks China has been celebrating Spring Festival. It starts and ends with a boom (literally... Fireworks all over). Today is the last day of the festival. So, of course, we hear a lot of booms outside :)

I'm assuming these booms symbolize similar things as the first booms. Superstitions about chasing the old spirits away. Tonight we were having our "meeting" and during our first song as we were lifting our voices to praise Him, we heard booms all over outside. Here we are, a small group in this land of the lost. I'm sure there are more people tonight making noise to scare away bad spirits than making noise to praise their creator. Our work never ends. :) Thanks for your continual thoughts!

The pictures are of my friend's house. Her aunt is cooking and this is their kitchen table.

Family in China

Most of you probably know about the one child policy in China. Because of the growing population, families are only allowed to have one child. However, there are some exceptions. 1) If you are a minority- not Han Chinese 2) If you live in the country-side 3) If you are rich enough to pay for a second child 4) If you hide your second child from the government-not the best way, but it's better than aborting the child.

Because of this, most Chinese my age don't have many cousins. They probably have a few aunts and uncles, but each one probably only has one child. They are shocked to hear that I have 18 cousins and flabbergasted when I tell them my mom has 100! They also don't have many or any siblings, but for some reason they always talk about their brother and/or sister. Hmm... how does that work?

It's their cousins! Family here is very close. Everyone lives in the same town, probably in the same area, maybe even the same house. (Although as always, there are many exceptions). Being in Bella's hometown, I got to see first hand how close family is here. We went to so many relatives homes and by the end of the three days I felt like her cousins were my cousins. We were in the country, but the homes were still right next to each other. Children walk easily from home to home. Your cousin lives 4 minutes away walking. At one place we were at the grandparents lived in one part of the house, the uncle and his family lived in the other part (I'll show a picture).

I think it's amazing how close Chinese are to their family. They help each other with no question, they work together, they have each others' back. Most can't fathom the idea of nursing homes. You just don't do that.

Sorry, these pictures aren't in a very good order, hard to organize sometimes.

Hallway outside

This is their bathroom. A bit different than yours, huh?

Bella's brother with two of their cousins

I realize that I already uploaded this one, but I like it so here it is again. :)

apparently I like this one too.. second time for this one as well

Doesn't matter how simple the kitchen is, it can still produce amazing food!

Bella's Grandma's super simple kitchen.

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

I've been back in Wuhan for a few days now. I start teaching next Monday, so I've enjoyed some time to relax and get ready for the next semester. At the end of last semester a coworker who was leaving gave Nicole and me a blender and small crock pot. For some reason that has made me get into a cooking mood. I have been cooking like crazy! Here's what I've done in the past few days...

Breakfast- hard boiled eggs, healthy oatmeal muffins, strawberry-banana-oatmeal smoothie

Lunch- french toast (yeah, it's kinda breakfast, but I ate it at lunch), applesauce

Dinner- chicken breasts with cream of mushroom soup, onions, and corn served over rice

Nicole, being the lucky neighbor that she is, gets to share in this great enjoyment I've had the past few days. Recipes coming up... Sweet and sour chicken and pulled chicken sandwiches. Do you have any good recipes that use simple ingrediants and a crock pot or blender? I'd love to hear them!

I'll get more pictures/stories posted about my traveling soon. Especially my time during New Years!

A New Year in China!

Her Grandma and Grandpa's house

 I wish I could bring you all here. It's a step into the past (sort of) as a Chinese village (of about a million??maybe less, maybe more, not sure) celebrates the Chinese lunar new year. I celebrated last year with my parents and a friend's family, but this year is same same, but so very different!

Nicole and I are at a friend's (Bella)home this year in a small town called Jianli. I would compare it to a farming community in America. We took a train to the city then a taxi (we hired him as a driver, not the same as a real taxi) to Bella's hometown. All we knew coming into this was 1)11 people would be staying in the home we would be at and 2) bring warm clothes, it might snow. Boy, was the "bring warm clothes" good advice!

We arrived at her uncles home shortly after twelve. We were immediately greeted by her uncle and cousin. They showed us our room. They gave us a private room to sleep in! Then we were introduced to the "magic table". You see, it is quite cold here.. About 30(or even less) and they don't have any heat. I don't either, but I have air conditioners that blow heat. They don't even have that. So it's cold!! This magic table is a table frame with a heater under it they put a blanket over the frame. Then the top of the table over that. People can sit around the table, cover up with the blanket, and stay quite warm! You see these tables all over and people crowd around them like the watering hole.  After three days of being here, I really appreciated this "magic table".

That night we went to a wedding feast. However, it wasn't a normal wedding feast, it was sort of like the bachelor party, but not even a party, just a meal. It was just for the groom and his family and friends. We came, we ate, we left. Well; sorta. We also got our pictures taken with the groom and many others. We may have been the first foreigners that many of them have seen, so we were quite popular. There is a tradition to go to the groom and say nice things to him. If he is happy with these compliments, he will give you a red envelope. This envelope contains money. We both did it and both got 10rmb (about $1.75). Doesn't seem like much, but that can buy you two meals!

That night we came home and played mahjong with Bella and her brother. The mahjong table turns into one of those magic tables!

That's all I'll write today. I'll try to add some pictures and explain things via that. Celebrating here was probably one of my highlights (and lowlights because of the cold) of my time in China. I learned so much about the Chinese culture by being out here. I saw the differences between city life and country life in China. There is a huge difference! 

Courtyard inside of the house- I'm looking down from the second story

Walking up to the house (it snowed that night! it was so pretty- first snow of the year)

This is Nicole in the "hallway" to the right and down, that's the courtyard. Two families live here. The grandparents and one of the uncles with his two kids and wife.

Why Singapore is so Unique... To me at least

I've been in this city for almost a week now and I'm still blown away. You'll notice it's the little things that get me. Please remember where Singapore is. It's just south of Malaysia, surrounded by developing Asian countries.

1- they have English radio. But not just English... American!
2- A&W Root beer everywhere. (Planning to make a root beer float tomorrow with a Wendy's sundae)
3- every American fast food you can think of! McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Subway, Cold Stone, KFC, and more!
4- everyone speaks English!!! It's their official language!
5- you can sit on the ground and not be afraid of what you just sat in.
6- cereal lines the grocery store (not quite like America, but much more than China)
7- big shoe sizes!
8- they speak English!!! I know I already put this, but it's so amazing being able to speak to anyone anytime in English.
9- very few white people, yet I blend in. I'm nothing special here, which is kinda nice sometimes.
10- I feel like I need 10... Cars wave to you to cross the street. You don't have to avoid them, they actually stop for you.

I've also added some random pictures I've taken the last few days.

1- beach on sentosa (island of Singapore)
2- their food court- everything here is touristy
3-my cold coffee served in a beer cup
4- my most popular meal here! It's cheap and good. It's a Malaysian food. Rice, beef, sauce, cucumbers, and an egg.