Itinerary

Itinerary for tomorrow (and a little beyond tomorrow):

6:00 am (Eastern time): Leave home
8:36 am (Eastern time): Depart from Washington, DC (Dulles)
9:33 am (Central time): Arrive at Chicago (O'Hare)
10:34 am (Central time): Depart from Chicago (O'Hare)
1:55 pm +1 day (Shanghai time): Arrive in Shanghai (Pudong)

My dad said "14 hours to Shanghai" (the length of my flight from Chicago) sounds like it could be a movie. I said it would be a boring one.

I'll be flying nearly over the pole?

Don't let that standard map projection fool ya: it's almost as far from Shanghai to New Zealand as it is from DC to Shanghai. Just a piece of random trivia?


My apologies to those with whom I was unable to catch up before leaving. Good-bye and good luck to everyone... I'll see you when I see you.

In Pace Requiescat

I wouldn't feel appropriate continuing a commentary on the happenings in my life without providing a short tribute to my grandfather.

Upon completing my last post, I commenced packing with the expectation of a somewhat emotional day in that I was finally leaving Charlottesville. My expectations were far surpassed when my brother, who was assisting with the packing, received a phone call with the information that our maternal grandparents had been in a bad car accident and that our grandpa would probably not survive. This news was especially hard for me because the rest of my family had just been in Minnesota visiting my mom's family two weeks previous. I was unable to go because of work and my visa/shot obligations. I raced to get home, though my mom was already catching her flight to Minnesota as I was leaving. Upon arrival I was informed that my grandpa's head injuries had been too bad and the worst had happened. It was the day after his 75th birthday.

China took a back burner for a little while as we waited for information concerning the funeral and prayed for my mom and her family in this difficult time. My dad, brothers, and I flew to meet them on Wednesday night, and the funeral was yesterday. In an almost ironic way, I was afforded the opportunity to see my mom's side of the family before my departure after all, and in spite of the circumstances it was nice to be able to. The funeral went as well as could be hoped; it was in the church where my parents were married, my dad's brother drove up from Chicago to show his support, the grandchildren were given the duties of readers and gift/pallbearers during the ceremony. The weather was lovely in the cemetery where Grandpa's time in the Navy was honored with a 21-gun salute as my brother played "Taps." He was cremated, and is buried over his father-in-law, under a tree he planted at the site himself.

Mostly because of distance issues, I didn't know my grandfather as well as I would have liked. What I did know was that he valued hard work, cherished simplicity, and loved his family more than anything. We loved him in return, and he will be missed greatly.

Rest in Peace, Thomas Peter Henry
August 23, 1934-August 24, 2009





and remember everyone... drive safe.

Zai Jian!

this may come as a surprise, but i've never been too good with goodbyes.
ordeals of tears and strained embraces never really suited my taste.
so if some ends go untied, it's just a few letters off from 'united,'
and when you're using slant rhyme, a few letters off works just fine.

Since I made my last appearance I've been busy taking care of the China essentials, enjoying my last bit of time in Charlottesville, and organizing goodbyes. The China essentials included getting my shots and my visa. I was a little concerned about the visa, for a few reasons. Even though I'm going to work, I've been instructed to get a tourist visa because they get processed more quickly, and my employers will get my work visa for me once I get there. This sounded fine initially, but I started to wonder just how sketchy that was. I was also a little incredulous about how easy it seemed to get a visa to China from the United States. Leaving from Canada, Laura kept mentioning all of these things she needed in order to secure her visa such as a recent physical and flight itineraries for both the arrival and departure flights. I don't have health insurance nor a physician from whom to get a physical (there's a free health clinic in Charlottesville, I know, I know), and I obviously don't have a departure flight from China yet, so I was a little worried. However, nowhere on the embassy's list of necessities for Americans did it mention these things, so I just took a deep breath and my metro card and set out for DC. Ultimately I prevailed.

Though no physical was required for the visa, I obviously still needed shots. $106.95 later, I am now safe from Typhoid, Hepatitis A, and Polio. I'm considering getting quinine pills for malaria just in case, but I heard they're vicious and give you terrible nightmares. Strangely, I'm a little curious about these nightmares, and kind of want to see what all the talk's about.

As for enjoying my last bit of time in Charlottesville, there were a few final things that needed doing, namely tubing on the James. Somehow I'd made it through nearly three summers in Charlottesville without participating in this summer standard activity because it never worked out in my schedule. Last Tuesday Emilie, Christin, Chas, Nate and I suited up and made it happen. Wednesday we decorated T-shirts and created makeshift gold chains a la "1980" to commemorate a favorite party tune at our final trivia, where we won neither the halftime teamname pitcher nor the entire event, but had a good time nevertheless. On Friday "Good-bye Day" we had a girls' dinner at Mono Loco (where I added to my collection of going away present T-shirts! I got one from the Box, Boylan Heights, Mono Loco, the Virginian, and my work shirt from Three, so I will be representing appropriately in China) and had one last round of our favorite game: "Trapped in the Closet"-- R. Kelly's hip-hopera masterpiece.

with a spatula in my hand... (spatulaaaaa)

Organizing goodbyes is never a fun activity, nor did it prove easy for those involved in my surprise barbeque lunch on Saturday. I knew my old roommate Kathy was coming down from New York City Friday night, but when all flights out of JFK were canceled due to the storm, I did not understand why it was imperative for her to take a bus that night and then drive from DC (arriving in Charlottesville at 4:30 am) rather than waiting until the next morning. I needed to sell my coffee table that was in Emilie and Christin's living room, but didn't understand why Emilie appeared so stressed and agitated by my presence there. Or why there was a mysterious bowl filled with hardboiled eggs on the counter. I knew we'd made plans to go winetasting, but didn't understand why people were so insistent in spite of the rain. I knew we needed to pick up Julia, but didn't understand why we all needed to go up to her apartment to do so. Or why their little grill was set up outside the door, in the rain.

Ohhhhh! A surprise barbeque! And Tyler and Arden Spencer had come to town! And there were delicious tomatoes and deviled eggs and avocado salad and corn and broiled peaches! And Emilie gave me a whistle necklace in case things go awry in China (we call it my "kidney saving necklace.") It was a wonderful gesture on the part of my wonderful friends, who I will all miss dearly, and who were able to make it a success in spite of...

The plans I'd made on the side to go to DC for the evening to see Meghan, my roommate from Rome who was in town from San Francisco for the weekend. They had to last-minute change the party from a dinner affair to a lunch one, but it all came together beautifully. Hitched a ride with Caleb and Bonnie up to DC, and came up at the Smithsonian metro station in time to catch one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen. It was a very fitting parting glance at the capital of the country I'll be leaving for a year.

this is with no color enhancement... amazing.

Had an impromptu Cash Cab session where we got all the answers wrong and not only didn't get kicked out, but actually got a free few blocks when he stopped the meter early on the way to a Thai restaurant where we had a good but slightly rushed dinner as I had to be back on my way to Charlottesville for Christin's last night in town. Bye Christin! I'll see you for birthday dinner in Arlington on Wednesday!

Yesterday was my last full day in town. My boss, George, invited me to join he and his friends at the Sunday Opera Brunch we're now doing at Siips that was quite impressive. We were given programs that had the non-English songs translated, and the final lines from "Obeissons quand leur voix appelle" from the Massenet opera "Manon" struck me as appropriate to this time in my/our lives:

enjoy the benefits of youth.
alas, spring is very short.
love, sing, laugh without ceasing.
we will not always be twenty years old.

Said goodbye to Kathy and Christin, then Julia and I grabbed dinner at Himalayan Fusion. Met the Siips crew at 9 as they were closing down. They made me this great little farewell book and we went across the way to Zocalo then Miller's for a few farewell drinks. Thank you so much, Siips friends, for all of the great times both in and out of the workplace we've had this past year and a half. You will all be missed and probably receive postcards!

Finally, a couple of us made out way to the corner for one last corner hurrah. Boylan to Three, until "Wagon Wheel" came on and made Julia and me cry in public and we decided it was time to call it a night. Had one last Bodo's breakfast, going to have one last Christian's lunch with my brother in an hour, and then it's au revoir to dear Charlottesville. Or, as I just learned and should be practicing:

goodbye

Perhaps more appropriately...:

see you again

And I know, I know how insanely long this has already become, but I really have to close with just one more quote, from Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, that sums up my sentiments concerning my departure quite nicely. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone here who has made an impact on my life. If any of you have even half as many amazing memories as I've accumulated in the past four years, consider yourself lucky. I know I do.

you know my dislike for saying 'Good-bye'... to say i was sorry to leave you all is to put it only one half as strongly as i feel.
-charles mckim

[quick edit:] Pictures from last night register only as "corrupted data" on my memory card for some reason :(. So just imagine the really cute roomie pic I was going to post of Perry, Kate, and myself.

Dragon Lady?

One of the questions with which I was frequently faced in the time leading up to receiving my assignment was, "Do you even speak any Chinese?" The answer, initially, was, "No, but BBC offers really great free language tutorials on its webpage and I've been trying to spend some time there every week to get a feel for just the basics." This was true through about the month of January, and then my discipline broke down and my time spent on the internet was instead dedicated to much more important outlets such as TFLN.

It's true though: if you're looking to learn just the basics of a language check out BBC's resources. I did a bit of Italian before my stint in Rome and found it useful, but when it came to Chinese I found that self-teaching is a little (read: a lot) more difficult. The whole tonal system is hard to grasp for a non-native speaker... or at least this non-native speaker, and so I only took away a few words and nonsense phrases that I found humorous, and usually in an infantile manner. The example that comes to mind is that "dragon king" in Pinyin (the anglicized manner of writing Chinese words) comes out as "long wang."


Apparently Dragon Kings are actually something of cultural significance in China as divine rulers of the four seas... and here I am making jokes. This is from the temple of Dragon King in the Summer Palace in Beijing.
In fact, "dragon" became one of my favorite words to incorporate into silly phrases as I learned new words, and when I got to the third tone section of BBC's tutorial and learned the word for "woman" it was all over. "Wo long nu" actually translates directly (and I'm speaking like an expert here... when I'm clearly not. If any Chinese speakers stumble across this and I'm making a fool of myself please call me out.) to "I dragon woman." There is probably a "to be" verb missing, and if English has two words for "woman" and "lady" I don't see why a rich and ancient language like Chinese wouldn't as well, so to translate my blog's title as "I'm dragon lady" is probably shoddy at best.

However, it became an inside joke of sorts when my friend Emilie and I got carried away one day imagining me frivilously prancing through China issuing the one phrase I knew-- wo long nu!-- and ending up with my own TV show. Then we remembered it was Japan that was notorious for ridiculous TV and found ourselves in that unfortunate state of feeling culturally insensitive, or ignorant at best.

But that's part of the humor I intended for my title: a self-awareness of the difficulties that will arise for me, and of the fact that I'll need to find humor in them in order to prevent them from affecting my enjoyment over there. Cultural faux pas will occur, and in a case where there is such a great difference in the languages many of these will be linguistic.

Just like the poor man in my parents' German class years ago learning "Es tut mir leid" was the way to say, "I'm sorry," who thought he might be able to get it through his head if someone could "Just tell me what 'estoot' means!!!" Just like my poor mother was conned by some rascal into approaching a bus driver in Germany and asking, "Wo ist die Bahnhof mit Senf?", which unfortunately means "Where is the train station with mustard?" Or in Spain, thinking she was asking if seafood (mariscos) were offered in a particular restaurant, accidentally requested maridos, which means "husbands". It didn't help that she was pregnant.

A Croatian coworker of my father's once told a story in which a giant "peat moss" went scurrying across the office floor, but he meant "centipede." Upon arriving in Italy I met some attractive boys on the metro and told them I was on my way to "livrere" on the Spanish Steps. I was trying to inform them of my plans to read, which is "leggere." I'm pretty sure there is no such word as "livrere" in Italian.

This is important for me to recognize not only for my own personal goings-on in China concerning the myriad mistakes I'm sure to make in Mandarin, but as an English teacher whose students will be making mistakes as well. Maintaining a lighter atmosphere, without allowing anyone to feel like the butt of any jokes, I think will make things easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved.

So there you have it... Not only am I not really dragon lady, I can't even say it right. And I suppose there might have been something of an Anchorman reference in there as well.

Looks Like I'm Really Going to China

It should come as a surprise to nobody that I've chosen to make yet another blog in hopes of documenting and sharing my experiences in China. If and when I become too busy or lazy to maintain my posts in a reliable or intriguing fashion, I'm sure equally little surprise (or even disappointment) will follow that occasion. But here it is: the beginnings of what I can only hope will be a platform for exciting and interesting news, stories, and lots and lots of pictures. (I have high hopes of getting a nice camera at an attractive Chinese price, and noble intentions of treating it better than almost any technological device to pass through my possession previously.)

Almost immediately after having returned from my semester in Rome (oh look... I blogged about that too...) an ad popped up in my Gmail for an opportunity to teach abroad. As a History major constantly presented with the question, "So what, you'll end up teaching?" and a girl perpetually plagued by wanderlust, this seemed like a potentially ideal preliminary career path. When my good friend Laura MacKinnon from our 7th-9th grade years in the Netherlands coincidentally approached me with similar post-graduation plans and the suggestion that we take the adventure together, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

I can't speak for Laura, but in my experience such plans met a variety of reactions. Some were excited, some confused, some skeptical, some shocked. But in each case, there were many questions. Where would we be? When would we get there? For how long? What age would the students be? How much would we make? What kind of living situation would be available? And for the longest time there weren't any answers; we had to get certified, we had to graduate, and then we had to play the waiting game to hear back from recruiters after our materials were submitted. One of the reasons we chose China was because placement was guaranteed upon certification, so we weren't concerned about whether we'd get a job or not, but there was what felt like a long period of time when we were anxious to know just what that job would be.

And now I have answers! Laura and I will be teaching Young Learners in an English First school in Jiaxing, which lies in East China almost directly between Shanghai and Hangzhou.


As a small town of just 3.5 million people, Jiaxing doesn't usually show up on maps, but you can see the marker on this one courtesy of Google Maps. And yeah, you read that correctly. To quote one of my future coworkers (many of which have already contacted us with encouragement and advice, which has been comforting): "The city itself is not very large - 3.5 million give or take (big for Canada, small for China) so it really does have a small town feel to it, but with everything that you could want and need at the same time." The guy I was subletting with over the summer, who taught in China for a year, tried to get it through my head that "there is no such thing as small in China," but wow.

I'm excited about Jiaxing's proximity to Shanghai (it will make it easy to retrieve visitors!) and Hangzhou, and the town itself sounds like it is aesthetic and interesting. It has the slight historical significance of being the town in which the Communist Party of China was established in 1921, and according to Wikipedia is also credited as the birthplace of silk. These are some pictures the Director of Studies sent to give us a feel for our future home:










When applying, Laura and I initially asked to be placed in August and I planned my housing accordingly. I found a sublet (Just upstairs! With someone who had taught in China! So convenient!) through the month of July and expected to be crossing the Pacific soon after. But like I said, placement went slowly and we were told September or October were more realistic as start dates. Friends from the wine bar in which I work generously offered me a room in their home (which I have dubbed the Siips Orphanage, as another homeless coworker temporarily occupies the couch), and I had just settled in when I received the news that the departure date would be earlier than expected.

Two Young Learners teachers in Jiaxing are leaving mid-August, and Laura and I have been requested to arrive by the end of the month. After a summer of slow movement concerning the China process this feels a little sudden, especially considering I just moved for the second time in two months. All things considered though, it's mostly exciting that things are really happening.

So the plan as of now is to leave dear old Charlottesville around the 23rd, spend a week with my family in Northern Virginia, and depart for Shanghai via Canada (hopefully to meet up with Laura en route) on or around the 30th of August. It is a year-long assignment, and it sounds like our accommodations will be more than adequate so if China is on your list of places to see before you die, please come by! I've enjoyed my time in Charlottesville so much and have so many great friends (not to mention my family and friends in other parts of the country) I will be sad to leave behind, but I can't even express the excitement I have concerning this journey. Hopefully this blog can serve to make the distance seem less vast between us, and my experiences can be yours as well.