Twin sisters

I'll be honest, I like her sister Wendy's burgers a lot better...

Personal pan?

I went to Pizza Hut yesterday by myself for lunch. Not feeling ambitions enough to eat a whole pizza alone, I decided to revisit the days of my youth and order a personal pan pizza - the thing childhood dreams were made of.

What happened next can only be described by this picture. [Note: no digital enhancements were made to the size of the pizza...]

 I was forced to rectify the problem with a simple solution: (commonly referred to as the "sounds nice, make it twice" solution...)

What Gary Chapman would say....

If all the people of China could sit down with Gary Chapman for a little one on 1.4 billion conversation, I think Gary would quickly observe that their two main love languages are gifts and physical touch.

If you have ever lived here, or have read someone else's blog who lives here you probably at some point have noticed that gifts are bound to be mentioned. The Chinese give gifts for every major holiday (Dragon Boat festival is June 6th, so my teacher gave me sticky rice - which is the gift that you give for this holiday). They also give gifts for birthdays, when you visit someone's house, and other special occasions (like when I left the country last time, I received a lot of gifts). Sometimes you'll receive a gift randomly, like Aaron did this week.

Both Aaron and I received gifts this week - Asian Kate gave me that shirt for my birthday.....and Aaron's teacher gave him a recorder. We're really not sure about that one. It was out of the blue. And it's a recorder. This gift led to an impromptu jam session and playing the game "name that song."

There is an etiquette to gift giving here - like you should give a gift back when someone gives you one on a holiday. You should also probably refuse the gift a few times (although recognizing you're foreign, they'll show you grace if you don't) and expect any gift you give to be denied a few times before being accepted.

sending you a sexy recorder gram

The other thing that is pretty common here is holding hands, hugging, leaning on each other, close physical contact between people of the same sex. It is completely normal to see two girls walking down the street holding hands, or to see two guys walking with their arms on each others shoulders.....I have seen a couple holding hands, while the girl also held hands with one of her friends.

As an American, it can be hard to get used to - when your friend trying to protect you, links arms with you and pulls you close, under her umbrella (protecting you from sun, not rain).

I think probably another love language of theirs that Gary missed is giving unsolicited advice.....but we can talk about that another day, like eventually when I have kids - because that apparently is when you get the most advice.

mini update on the lack of our blog presence in May

After looking at our budget for the past month, I've realized that every two weeks since the last week of April we've had visitors. That's right - ZM, Tan Jovi, Jelly, and Juice Springsteen all came for a visit. It's been a lot of fun to hang out and so what we needed.  Plus there was an added bonus of going to a lot of the best restaurants in town and with one restaurant in particular being visited 6 times in the last month.

Jarred and Shelley came a couple of days ago, on their way back home for the summer so we went out for my birthday while they were here. We tried out this French restaurant that I had been hearing a lot about, and it was as good as I hoped.

Next weekend Aaron and I are going to Hong Kong, then the weekend after that Aaron's mom comes!

That was the mini update -but, I'll be honest. The only reason I posted at all is because while I wanted to show everyone the cupping marks left on my back (in the previous post), I also don't want to get so wrapped up in things we've planned for the next few weeks that I don't blog and that picture of my back stays on the front page of our blog all month long....

from one new experience to another.

So, my head is always tilted to the left. You've probably noticed it. In America you probably saw a CR-V and knew it was me when you saw the silhouette of the driver's head tilted to the left as though lost in thought, or swooning over some romantic event.

I tilt my head because of a weak eye muscle - my head tilts to make it so I can see straight - or so the doctors told me long ago. I bet you feel bad now for laughing at my tilted head.

Well riding a horse for 3 hours (during the modeling trip) while you're head is tilted to the left is pretty hard on the neck. So, since Monday I have been having a lot of neck pain and stiff muscles. As soon as we got back home I decided to go to the Spa around the corner and get a massage to help relax my neck and shoulder muscles. Good idea. Then the lady at the spa recommended I pay just 20 kuai more for a massage that would be better focused on my neck and shoulders. Another good idea.

Mistake.

This is what happened:

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the ancient Chinese medicine treatment of cupping or 拔罐子 (ba guan zi) but it is a treatment where they put cups all over your back, suck the air out of them, sucking your skin into these cups.  They leave the cups on for about 15 minutes, then release them.  This supposedly pulls toxins from within your body and organs to the surface where they can be more easily released.  I had 13 cups put on my back.

I'll tell you what it does do - it hurts. And it bursts the capillaries in your back leaving black bruises all over your skin for what I read on the internet is anywhere from 3-10 days.

I didn't realize I was getting into this when I decided to pay $3 more for the more focused treatment on my neck and shoulders and I wasn't sure how to stop it once it started. After researching though, I have learned that some athletes used this traditional form of medicine during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and apparently so did Gwyneth Paltrow in 2004.

I will say this, it certainly does suck.

Internationally known and locally respected

We had an entourage of about 14 people. 1 professional photographer, 1 person for the lighting, 2 wardrobe people, the boss of the outdoor clothing company we were modeling for, 2 professional mountaineers, and the rest just all along for the ride, invited by the boss man.

We modeled "summer" clothing when it was about 50 something degrees outside and raining. We modeled quick dry clothing, horse riding jackets, mountaineering gear (which we wore as we hiked up the side of a mountain at about 14,000ft), hiking boots that were WAY too small for Aaron and too large for me. I wore a Chinese ladies's size Medium, which meant I had to squish my hips into what we would consider a Child's size Large.  Worst.  We rode horses for 3 hours up and over mountains. We spent one night camping out by the mountains (best sleep of the trip) and 3 nights getting "beauty rest" at hotels. We went to a Tibetan theater show - where we danced on stage and I was awarded with white scarves for my sweet moves.

We learned that "look natural" does not mean - do what you would naturally be doing, but hold a pose and make your body strong in a strange position that is actually not natural at all.

I learned how to say "Get out of the way of my picture," "Wear the bag on your back while taking the picture," "Wear the gaiters," "I'm allergic to horses" and, "No, I'm not sick. I'm just allergic to horses" all in Chinese.  

For some reason posting pictures on this blog sometimes takes a long time, but posting a youtube video, not so much. So I threw together some of the pictures that Aaron and I took into a video. These are not the professional ones. If we get those, I'll make sure to post those too.

Local Bank Account. Global Headache.

My wife has informed me that I cannot use our blog to post negative things.

So, after removing all the negative aspects, here is the story of me acquiring a Chinese bank account:

I now have a Chinese bank account.

Blue steel? Ferrari? La Tigra?

It's official. Aaron is a male model, and I am a female model.

In three weeks we will be hiking up to 13,000 feet to have pictures taken of us in outdoor gear for an outdoor clothing company here in China.

I feel like I am taking crazy pills.

I can't wait.

It's hot here.

Last week the weather jumped from beautiful sunny, 70 degree days to North Carolina summer temperatures.

Here is how we handle the heat:

Men go shirtless. Or just roll their shirts up over their belly. I bet I'll have a similar picture of Aaron before the summer's over.....or maybe before it even begins.

TCKs

Though I don't have kids, living overseas the topic of third culture kids (TCKs) comes up frequently in conversation. TCKs are kids who move from one culture to another culture, and end up having a culture of their own because they don't really identify with either culture. They take things from both cultures and mix them together creating a new thing.

Unlike TCKs since moving to China I would say I identify even more strongly with my birth culture than when I lived there. The friends that we have met since being in this city are from Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand, the Northwest (practically a different country from the South), Canadians, Chinese, and minorities from China. In my language class, I am the only American, though there are two Canadians. The rest of my classmates are from Korea, Thailand, Mexico, Columbia, Czech Republic, Finland, and Bhutan.

Regine, me, and Megan
(Hong Kong & Australia, The South & Mexico, the Northwest)

When hanging out with friends I tend reinforce my Southern culture by bringing sausage, biscuits, and sweet tea to gatherings (the Aussies and the Kiwis call my biscuits "scones" and my cookies "biscuits". It gets confusing quick). I make wish lists of pretty aprons for hosting and listen to "Song of the South" by Alabama walking to class, which then makes me want to make sweet potato pie immediately. In class, though, I try to break every American stereotype, by reinforcing that Aaron doesn't like to watch NBA and I don't like to go shopping all the time with credit cards.

Living here I also feel the need to bring out my Mexican heritage and so will spend $5 on avocados to make half a cup of guacamole, and bring masa harina and my molcajete to China to make corn tortillas and salsas. I listen to spanish music when I run and speak Spanish in my mind constantly.

Having an Irish last name, I also have a draw to learn more about that, especially since my husband loves that he's Irish. So I make shepherd's pie and learn how to make guinness beef stew and champ.

When I come back to the states I am going to be the most Southern Proper Latina reciting limericks.