The everyday details that make life abroad a unique experience

I was asked by one of my younger readers to share more of the humorous stories about my time here in China. I will attempt to do that in this entry, an attempt that by trying to make it funny will likely cause this entry to be less funny than most.

Today was a picture perfect day. High temperatures in the high 60's, light wind, sunny skies...or at least as sunny as the sky gets in Beijing, plus it was pay day which is always nice. In short, today was a perfect day to wander around the city, looking for things I had not yet done in my two months here.

Like seemingly all of my funny stories, this one occurred on the bus. I got on the bus headed to the subway station, yes the right bus this time, and paid my fare. The bus has been very crowded lately and today was no exception. As more and more people boarded the bus, I began to have to move further and further to the back. It got to the point where there were so many people on the bus that I was forced up on the back portion, a raised portion of the bus. As I was moving back there was a very loud popping sound which was made when my head had an unexpected run-in with the roof of the bus. That's right...my tall white self was too tall to fit on the back part of the bus while standing up. The sound was loud and of course caught the attention of the entire bus who wanted to see what had made this noise. The sound was much louder than the pain, but being stared at by literally everyone on the bus did make the collision more memorable. I proceeded to ride the rest of the way to my stop hunched over, bent at the waist so I could fit between the floor and roof of the bus without my head making this same loud sound every time we went over a bump. Needless to say, I stuck out just a little bit more than usual on the long ride to the subway.

School has gone much better this week. I find this to be somewhat amazing given that the weather is getting nicer and they are still a ways away from a break. One of the reasons that they are able to pay attention may be the daily exercises that they do. Everyday, for about 20 minutes, the kids parade outside to the basketball courts where they proceed to conduct group calisthenics accompanied by loud western dance music. This gives the teachers a nice break every morning and makes for an interesting spectacle. All of the kids where the same black and yellow school tracksuit (everyday but that is another story) which makes for the exercises to somewhat resemble a large group of bees doing arm circles, jumping jacks and many other exercises every morning. The outdoor calisthenics are then followed by more exercises when they get back to class. More exercises you ask...why yes, there are more exercises that they do. What could the possibly do in class that would not be totally disruptive to the learning process.... Well, after all the kids get back into the building a loud, piercing, overly excited voice comes over the intercom counting (in Chinese of course yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, chi, ba, jiu, shi) over and over. It took me a while to realize what was going on during this time, but I eventually got to my class a bit early to witness just what was going on. I found a student standing in front of the class leading eye and face exercises. If any of my readers have ever taken a class from Diane through the East Rec Department you will have a good idea of what these exercises look like. The class leader helps the class to move their eyes all directions, massage their face and temples and generally move the face a variety of ways that, at least through normal social interactions, the face does not move in. I am of the strong opinion that students in the U.S. have to exercise more, I am just not sure that the Chinese way is very effective. It does, however, seem to have at least some effect on the waistline though since there are very few overweight people in the school or in the country.

I hope all is well. I hope that everyone has a good Easter weekend. I will update soon. All the best.