Hey Xanga friends! I here are some of the emails that I sent out to the people on my list, the remote posting feature isn’t working.

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October 21^st, 2006

And the other people that read this! You do too!

I didn’t really know who was all getting these awesomely awesome emails that I have been writing (still don’t), but my audience is a little larger than I expected. So I guess I am going to have to check my spelling a little better and explain more of my inside jokes and my off-the-wall humor.

So I was writing an email to my good friend, and I thought it was getting too long. She can’t have all my creative juices, and I used a lot on her. Since I am trying to “trim the fat” out of my budget at home, I have become a little more thrifty. Which has spread to other parts of my life, and Miriam will soon attest, emails included. 

Chinese Chinese food. Mexican Mexican food. The Chinese at home is different than here. The restaurants are just so different, there are different eating customs.

So a place setting consists of a small plate (the small plates that you might be served a piece of cake on) a tea cup, a small bowl, chopsticks and spoon and one of those really cool holders for them. Well the plate is actually for garbage. That is where you place the bones or shells that you don’t eat. You eat out of the bowl. To put food in the bowl you use the chopsticks, you just grab what you want and place it in the bowl. Then you eat, and use the same chopsticks to grab more food. You just kind of push that thought out of your mind… You normally don’t get rice or noodles. I haven’t had any chow mien here, and I am kind of sad.

And serving is different here, once the food is on the table (family style, if you didn’t catch that before) the oldest or the most honored takes food first. So if I was out with my family, my dad would be first. He isn’t the oldest in the family, but he is the head of the house. Now if my dad wasn’t there, Cindi would be the one to take food first. Now if I wanted to show my dad how I thought he was a really good dad, I would put food into his bowl. It would be kind of expected for him to say that I am a really great son by putting food in my bowl.

In restaurants, you can get a table or a room. The rooms are great, cause you avoid the stares as you try to eat shrimp in the shell using chopsticks. (Tip: They are split in the back, you kind of eat all the flesh you can reach with your teeth and throw away the rest of it. Something rather hard for a mountain boy who loves seafood to do. Such waste). When you have your own room you usually have your own server girl, waitress person. They will come and take off all the pretty folded napkins off the plates and the covers off the chopsticks. Oh, yeah, some places charge you for napkins. Rather strange, but this is halfway around the world. So the girl pours the drink that you bought (you buy a big bottle for the table and share it, there is no “I’ll have this, and she will have this” thing going on). They get embarrassed if you pour your own drink. I really wonder how much of this is due to not knowing what they heck anyone is saying. There is much more, but I don’t really want to talk about it now…

Chinese is a hard language to learn. It is so tonal. I am pretty good at repeating things I hear, when people try to teach me, but I can’t remember any of it. And understanding writing is even harder. I have learned something like 8 characters, thought I was doing pretty well. Then someone mentioned that there are over 3000… Yeah, I was saddened.

Well, good night all you people!

-Andrew!

PS. Remember to stay away from any Vegemite, and slap the Aussie that says it is good. So gross…

October 20, 2006

I bought a bike today. It is a nice one. Cheap too. I bought it without a translator, that was different. I don’t know enough Chinese to eat or to find a restroom, but I can point. And xie-xie is a good phrase to know. I can also tell the taxi driver “fagua jia” (french street), which will get me to the diner. But I am not going to need that anymore.

But back to the bike, it is pretty. It is a lot like the bikes I rode at OOR over the summer two summers ago. So far people either think I am rich to drop almost 800 on a bike for 8 more days, or that I am going to end up staying here. I, myself, am not even sure. Since I have a plane ticket back already, I think I am going to end up giving the bike to the diner. The owners have to provide housing for the employees, and the boys house is about a half an hour walk away from the diner. So they really could use the bike after I have had my fun.

Now about my subject (if it the there), does generosity breed generosity? And am I really being generous? The money for the bike was given to me, so giving it away isn’t really costing me anything besides money that was never really mine. I could say that the bike came out of the money I paid myself for the trip. But once all my loving friends, family, and others gave me the money for the trip, it became mine. I could have spend the money that, say, my dad gave me and then thrown in the same amount of money I worked for. But that really isn’t the point here… I don’t know what the point is.

I guess what I am saying is that I could have used that 800 RMB to buy souvenirs, or saved it for the next trip I am going to go on, but I decided to use it to bless the people here…

What do you think, did I misuse funds entrusted to me? Or should I just buy it with my personal money as a really big souvenir? It is pretty nice…

PS. Or I could just stay here for a few more years…

October 19^th, 2006

I want emails, people. There is nothing like getting an email in the morning. So send me an email. 

So yesterday was a crazy day. We didn’t stay the whole time; we couldn’t stay the whole time. It has been so long since I have pulled kitchen hours. It wiped me out. I am such a wimp. Today was just “grace, grace” for us.  I feel like I did nothing. I am still tired though. I am such a wimp.

So I am sitting here in my bed typing this email into Word, listening to Showbread (Currently Listening: Age of Reptiles – Sing Me to Sleep), and going to go to bed soon. All while some of you early birds are getting up. Then the email goes off to you some time tomorrow. Kind of like a time capsule. 

I don’t miss home yet. Which is suprising to me. I am right at the longest I have been away from home, nine days. A Mexico trip is nine days long, an event is five days, my longest stint house sitting was seven days. I am not alone here, I have people that I know, I have new people. I miss my friends though, I am sad that I am not around, I am not in the loop. I don’t know what Stef’s day was like, or when Josh gets off work, or if Steven works tomorrow.  Tomorrow… 

Tomorrow is a new day,
     and I am in China.

I will be here tomorrow, I will give my all. To be more than a flashbang. More than just a loud noise and a bright flash. I am going to leave pieces of myself all over this lovely country. 

-Andrew!

PS. Send me emails at rtalavara7@yahoo.com while I am on this trip.

October 17, 2006

Like I was bit by a tiny vampire. But all it shows is that I am perfectly health. I am sitting here in the lobby of the extended stay hotel, listening to some sad love song in Chinese; smelling cigarette smoke. It is quite a bit different than back home. (Luke says hi, by the way).

But back to the holes, the first time was before I left and let my stepmom stick a needle in my arm and draw my blood. And the second time was here in China. Since we came here to help work in a diner, we need to get health cards. Everyone here who works in a place that deals with food needs to get one, to make sure that they don’t have any serious diseases. Kind of an interesting thought.

But I am healthy, and I passed. And when I get home I will finally find out what blood type I have.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Tomorrow is the day that the diner opens. But also the first day that they are going to be open for lunch to the public. And it is the day that 70 some odd lunches need to be made for a school. It is just going to be one long day. I will write another email when it is all over. Good night.