It's been awhile...

and there is A LOT to update on (because, as my cheesy blog title suggests, every day in China really is an adventure).

I am feeling too lazy to update with pictures (because it takes me a surprisingly long time to upload pictures onto blogger). First I have to choose which pictures to upload, since I take so many stupid pictures. Then i need to wait for them to load onto photobucket first. Afterwards, I need to copy and paste the html link onto blogger and wait for those to load. Then I need to arrange them, and give each of them captions, and blah blah blah. So yeah, no photos tonight. Maybe later this week, when I want to procrastinate even further with grading.

Let's see what I've been up to lately.

I went to the summer palace last weekend (on Oct. 20). It was absolutely gorgeous. It was my third time at the summer palace and I have to say, this was probably the best time. It was so relaxing, to sit at the edge of Kunming Lake and just watch the late afternoon sun glistening on the surface of the water. Sitting in the sun, on rocks, under trees. I miss that so much. I wish I could go to the summer palace every weekend to sit in the sun.

Also, before I went on my trip to Inner Mongolia, I got free tickets to go to a Chinese folk music concert at the Forbidden City concert hall. The performance was a special national holiday performance for foreigners working in Beijing. It was really great. All the performers were youth studying in a local music school. There were singers, er'hu players, and other cool musical instruments that I don't know the names of. There's this one instrument that is plucked, that I guess kinda sounds like birds chirping; but the first time I heard it, I swear I thought it was the choir clicking their tongues. And there were these other instruments that I've seen in old school Chinese paintings. And this is going to sound really ignorant of me, but whenever I saw this instrument in the old paintings, I kinda just always assumed it was some imaginary musical instrument, since I had never actually seen one in real life. Durh eurocentric American Wendy.

So freaky bizarre story of the day. Earlier tonight, another teacher and I were having dinner in one of the dining halls on campus. We both had the wonton soup noodles (I swear we have these delicious wonton soup noodles at least once a week, if not more). Anyhow, it started off like any other uneventful meal. But at one point, we see this one guy running down the aisle of the cafeteria tables, right past us, and towards the exit. Two other guys dressed all in black were chasing after him. And I mean sprinting after the guy.

About 5 feet before the original guy (the guy being chased) gets to the exit, the other two guys catch up to him, and start beating the crap out of him. I mean really really kicking the crap out of him. One guy is holding him, while the other guy is punching him in the face, and kneeing him in the chest. And I mean over and over and over. Not letting up at all.

Meanwhile, everyone else in the cafeteria is sitting silently staring at the fight. No one did anything. No one was screaming for it to stop. No one approached the men to try to break it up. No one got out their cell phones to call security. Literally, everyone was captivated, deer in headlights, staring at the fight.

I was really scared because I didn't know when it was going to end, since no one was interfering. I mean, in the States, someone would have interfered by now to pull the people away from each other. But not here. It got to a point where I was even considering jumping in the middle of it, to freak them out and get them to stop hitting the guy. Obviously that was a ridiculously stupid idea, so I didn't actually do it.

And by then, the two guys had pinned the other guy on the floor on his back. They continued to pound and pound on him, one guy struggling to wrestle something from original man's grip. He finally snatches it away and holds up the bag and screams into the cafeteria, "Whose bag is this?!?! Whose bag is this?!!?" Absolute. dead. silence. No one said a word. He keeps shouting, "Whose bag is this?! Whose bag is this?!?!" Again, no one responded.

I was really freaked out at this point since I was scared that maybe they had made a huge mistake by beating up a completely innocent random guy, that it might actually be the beaten up guy's own bag, and not a stolen bag. But then the beater-upper-guy, with the bag in his hand, pulls out a walkie talkie from his jacket and starts talking into it. Then literally, no joke, everyone in the cafeteria breaks into applause.

Meanwhile, the "bag snatcher" is still getting beaten up and pounded on by walkie-talkie man's sidekick. A moment later, a woman walks up and claims the bag. Then a giant giant crowd forms near the entrance around the bag snatcher, who is literally pinned to the ground. And I swear it looks like the two guys (who I guess are security guards?) are trying to break his arm off or dislocate his shoulder. I couldn't really see what happened next, since the giant crowd was blocking my view. But they took the guy away somewhere.

But seriously, even if those guys were school security guards, they were being wayy wayy too violent. It was bizarre and scary, and a little traumatizing. Probably the scariest part was that absolutely no one did anything to intervene. I mean, one of the guys could've taken out a knife and stabbed and killed someone in front of everyone in the cafeteria, and no one would've done a damned thing. Granted, that's a bit extreme, but I'm pretty sure people would've still just sat and stared. It's times like this when I really feel the culture difference.

You know, I had never thought of the whole collectivist/individualist difference in this way before, until I heard a speaker in Shanghai. I mean, we learn about collectivism and individualism in introductory psychology. I always hated talking about it, because I felt like when we learned about it, it was implied that individualism was not just different from collectivism, but better (Hello, we're Americans. We're taught to be individuals from elementary school). And for the longest time I refused to believe there was actually a difference. And before coming to China this time around, I envisioned collectivists as people who were inclusive of everyone in their entire country/culture. That collectivists didn't just think of themselves and their own needs (like selfish Americans do), but that they were considerate of everyone else and put their own needs last. So I thought collectivist people would act overly nice, generous, selfless, polite, and pushovers to everyone they met; basically, all the stereotypes of Asians in the U.S.

So when I came to China, I was honestly a little put off by how "rude" people were (rude according to U.S. etiquette). I mean, people shove into you to get onto a subway train, people will steal the seat from you on a bus, people will literally grab you by the shoulders to move you to the side so that they can get past you, people will cut right in front of you in line, people will bump you while walking on the road and not apologize. And granted, it's not everyone but it's happened enough for me to notice and complain about it. And I dunno about you, but all that sounds pretty individualist to me. "Hey you, get out of my way, I want a seat on the train, so I am going to push right past you and make sure I get that seat no matter what!"

And it didn't make any sense at all to me until this speaker explained the inner circle outer circle aspect of collectivism to me. Yes, collectivist people are caring, considerate, selfless, but only to people within their inner circle (ie. family, friends, co-workers), but they don't give a crap about anyone else, cuz hey, you're not in my inner circle. That explains all the seemingly "rude" and contradictory actions I get from strangers. I am not in their inner circle, so they don't need to treat me like a friend. Collectivism is about keeping your friends close, and not really giving a damn about anyone else. In fact, everyone else can go to hell, cuz they ain't in my inner circle, so I don't care if I bump into them, shove them, cut in front of them in line. They don't mean anything to me. And that is also why people don't get involved when they see a man get absolutely beat up in public. And that is why they just stand by and stare, no questions asked. Not because they're emasculated silent cowards. But because they don't know those people, so they have no reason to know or care about what happens to those strangers. So collectivism ain't so simple after all. And individualists? For being selfish assholes, we're pretty darn polite and considerate.

This post has got its issues. It's still written in an us-them way. I don't identify as being collectivist (and to be perfectly honest, I find myself putting more value in individualist qualities than in collectivist qualities) but I'm definitely not purely individualist either. I'm definitely a little of both, which I feel justifies me in being able to generalize about both sides, when obviously I can't. But this is my blog, so I get to write whatever I want, and if you don't like it, then DEAL! (hahaha, gosh, I love using that excuse.)

Anyhow, remind me later to talk about that other traumatizing thing I witnessed last week, involving a man getting hit/almost getting hit/pretending to get hit by a taxi, that I was sitting in! Ugh, too much drama in one post.

Onto happier subjects.

This past Friday (on Oct. 26), our school had a Halloween dance for the students. We cleared out one of the classrooms, decorated it with black and orange paper pumpkins and vampires and real pumpkin jack-o-lanterns. We turned out the lights, blasted my very own music mix of jock jams meets the Middle School Music Party Series Soundtrack of every party I ever had in college, and had a full blown dance party.

And by full blown dance party, think awkward junior high dance. I knew it would happen. A giant circle formed, with absolutely no one in the center, then one by one, or two by two, people were shoved into the center. Every single person resisted of course. And then there were the boys who sat along the sides of the room most of the time, only getting up once to attempt to break dance, and failing miserably. There were the women who stayed in their clique by the snack table, swaying ever so slightly, wanting so badly to dance, but feeling just a little too self-conscious to actually do it. And then there were us, the obnoxious American teachers, who just got a little too excited when 'Everybody Dance Now' and 'Tubthumping' got played. We were such a spectacle, students were actually taking pictures of us dancing. Jeez, I didn't think I was that much of a novelty.

A lot of the students actually dressed up, which was really great. There was only one man who decided it would be funny to crossdress, who wasn't even a student at our school, but a crasher, who just ruined the mood by being way too over the top, acting like he was high on something, and flailing a fake pistol in the air (which by the way was actually a piece of metal piping). I was actually frightened. But I think he got kicked out.

I dressed up as a grape, not creative. I tied balloons all over myself, and wore a sash that said California on it (Napa Valley? California grapes? California raisins?). All the other teachers decided to be beauty pageant contestants from their own state, so they each had sashes. I had one, but you know how I am, I had to be over the top ridiculous and silly. Few of the Chinese students actually knew what I was. They just thought I tied a bunch of balloons to myself. About 20 minutes into the party, one student (the one who is in love with Arnold Schwarzenegger and who is kinda creepy and in his 20s) decided to pop one of my balloons. Then he got the other boys in his clique to start popping my balloons too. It got to a point where the boys were following me, trying to pop my balloons. It was extremely uncomfortable, since I felt like they were flirting with me and picking on me at the same time. Extremely uncomfortable.

I think that's all I want to update on now. This has turned out to be a ridiculously long post. I promise, more pictures next time!