Keep on rolling...

Yeah, so, earthquake. I was trying to figure out how to do this last night, but failed dismally -- I guess I just needed "sunshine" to do it.

I've got sort of a weird perspective of what happened at the moment. When the earthquake began, I had just sat down to coffee with a couple of other teachers from my school in Yulin. Schwanky place. I was arguing with the waiter about the health of drinking cold water with hot tea. It started shaking, but the place had wood floors -- we thought somebody was running or dancing or something. Not so much.

The teachers grabbed my Midwestern butt and drug me outside before I had a real notion of what was happening. I'm from Michigan, we don't get earthquakes. It's something we watch on TV when California's having problems. We stood outside across the street, watching in awe as the buildings shook. One of the teachers pulled her car up, and I blinked, then realized that my wallet and phone were conveniently located on the table on the second floor of the coffee shop. Yes, m'dears, I am the idiot who ran back INSIDE the building during an earthquake.

Wallet recovered, we jumped in the car and drove off before anyone had really processed what had happened. Everybody had just poured out of the buildings and was just starting to congregate outside. We saw the uniformed employees of one place marching 2x2 down the street, arm in arm. A little dog was standing in an intersection looking for mummy or daddy, and waiting for the cars while he crossed. We were trying to call our families and friends, but the phones wouldn't even register our calls. The teachers turned their phones off, and then on again, and then told me they were on emergency only. There weren't a lot of people on the road yet, luckily, as the teachers dropped me off at my university.

I had these visions of Dan in this old apartment with the ceiling having caved in on him, and I was close to panicked -- I wanted to make sure he was still in one piece. I retrieved my bike, and the shifu didn't even look twice at me. Usually we have some sort of strained, badly pronounced conversation.

And then I proceeded to try to ride my bike from Xinan Minzu to Sichuan University. It's basically from the west side of the south section to the east side of the south section, so a considerable distance, but it usually takes me about 20 minutes. Think of it this way: it's a 10 kuai cab ride.

That was a nightmare. Everyone had rushed out of the buildings and was milling around in the middle of the road. Middle, meaning center; they were hanging out on the bushes and the center dividers, and when they ran out of space, they spilled onto the road. Cars were stopped or inching along in that way that makes people think they'll actually get somewhere if they're a jerk about it. And there's a single line of bikes weaving through traffic, sometimes two wide, mostly just one, because people were crowded in the bike lanes and the sidewalks. I never really realized how many people were in Chengdu until then.

My normally 20 minute ride took me an hour and a half. I arrived at the apartment and ran up to the bike lady, hoping she'd understand my putonghua/sichuanhua mix and said,"Have you seen my boyfriend today?" "Yeah, he's downstairs, he's okay."

He was not downstairs, the dork. I saw the windows opened and yelled up to them, and he poked his head out of the 7th floor apartment.

From then on, I've been hanging out with him as he's achieved international fame. As I was trying to weave my way across the city to make sure he wasn't dead or dying, he'd been sitting online blogging, the only blogger out of Chengdu who was posting in English.

Either way. Peng Laoshi was trying to get ahold of me that night, and kept calling but wouldn't get off her phone so I could call her back. So at 11 oclock at night, dressed in a long skirt, I grabbed my bike and rode down to Peace Corps HQ. I was expecting to only tell the guard that I was okay and tell him to tell her, but to my surprise, most of the staff was camped out in their cars right outside the building. Everybody was relieved to see me, and I ended up talking with Peng Laoshi for a while before meandering back home.

Almost nobody was staying at home. Apartments were dark. But there were thousands of people wandering around on Sichuan University's campus that night, camping out in tents, stretched out on the ground in blankets, waiting in interminable lines for the bathrooms.

I finally got ahold of my students last night. They're safe, but camping out just like everybody else, poor guys. They said,"We're very lucky we have someplace to stay tonight. We're staying on the playground." O.O In the pouring rain. Ugh. If I could put 120 people up in my apartment, I would. Classes were canceled yesterday and today. They said maybe tomorrow too.

All in all, I've been very lucky. The aftershocks are still shaking a little, and I was definitely very frightened. But I'm safe, Dan's safe, my friends are all safe, and all we broke was a glass. But since it was pouring rain yesterday, relief for the people who are hurt in Wenchuan is long in coming, and I read yesterday may have to be dropped in by airplane. So please, while my experiences might have been mindblowing but relatively mild, keep those who really suffered in your hearts, and send good vibes. Donations can be made to the Red Cross.

Summer's here again. It's not just a temperature or a season here -- it's a taste in the air, green in the trees, a spicy scent that's pervasive but you just can't put your finger on. I tracked it down in the store once and found a little ...fruit? Nut? Vegetable? Herb? Brown thing. It reeked. But the smell is everywhere here, and it's something that grows on you.

It was overcast this morning, spitting rain just a little as I biked frantically to work, praying that I'd miss the downpour that never did arrive. The haze was close, too. You can tell how polluted it is every day by how far away you can see, and the distance wasn't very far this morning. Oh well.

I dunno, though. The weather is really making me nostalgic. I love Chengdu in the summer... The winter? It can go to hell as far as I'm concerned, but I really do love it here in the summertime, despite searing heat and incredible humidity. If I never feel sweat dripping down my back again, it'll be too soon. But I know I have that to look forward to in a month or so. Bleh.

Believe it or not, I've found a home here. Granted, I may spend hours on recipe websites longingly staring at recipes for food I could NEVER cook here (no oven, no microwave, can't get most ingredients), and I may wish I could stop teaching so darned much and get some time to myself, but I think I've finally found some equilibrium.

I had more to say..but it's just not coming out. To bed with me.


I'll leave you with a picture of one of my students. Kay's a sweetheart -- soft spoken, intelligent, truly a joy to have in class. Picture was taken by my boyfriend at English corner.

Explanation of the hospital visit

I am accident prone. I feel like I ought to attend a meeting or something, stand up in front of a crowd, and admit, "Hi, my name is Amanda, and I am clumsy," or something. Physically inept, anonymous. Since I've come to China, I've cut myself, burned myself, fallen all over myself, and gotten my thumb shut in a car door. Woot.

However, a couple of months ago I managed to get pushed off my bike and landed really hard on my knee. Not so happy. But, being me, I'm rather accustomed to being injured, so I shrugged it off and went on about my business. But something was rather odd about this injury...

I had a numb spot on my knee that was about 2 inches by 2 inches. And it had a bump. And it wasn't bruising -- I had crazy bruising everywhere else, but right in the middle, where the worst damage ought to be, it was white as snow. So, I did what any self respecting volunteer would do, and went to the doctor.

Doctor took one look at it, pronounced it "Injured!" and told me it would be better within a month. Cool, I thought, and went back about my business. However, five weeks later...the bruising was gone, but the numb spot and the bump? Still there. Not so much fun. And it hurt to put weight on it -- to climb the stairs and to ride my bike.

So I went back. Apparently, it was a hematoma -- a little area of internal bleeding where the body builds up a sack of blood or something like that. A few days later, they took me to the hospital to make sure I hadn't fractured anything or had any bone damage. Nope. So I got some cream and was told to slather it on twice a day until it went away, and to come back in a week.

Week later, bump is still prevalent (but apparently will be for another couple of months), and my knee still hurts. I pointed out that that it still hurt like hell, and hurting like hell generally indicates to me that there's something wrong. Finally, they take me seriously. They do the ligament and tendon tests again, which I passed with flying colors the first time I went into the office (no, I didn't rip or tear anything). However, this time the doctor pushes down on a place below my knee. OW FUCK!

Apparently the place where the tendon that holds your kneecap in place attaches to the bone is seriously inflamed. It's oddly just below the hematoma. Shocking. So I have uber anti-inflamatories and my knee is finally not hurting as much, two months after I injured it. According to the doctor, it may be months until it heals up. Agh.

Accident prone, I am.

Bargaining here is really an experience. Really. There is almost no such thing as a fixed price here, and when you run into one, it's a shocking experience. There's the invisible bargaining markup, which can be as much as 200%, and the "foreigner tax" which is usually the same amount as the bargaining markup but much, much harder to get rid of. All foreigners are rich, y'see....

Yesterday, Dan and I ventured out to the overpriced shopping street known fondly as Chun Qi Lu. Part of my plan was to get him in the reggae shop and buy him a shirt for his birthday -- a shirt that now resides happily in his closet. But I wanted to do some window shopping either way. My students warned me over and over again that it would be really crowded, but I was determined. I think, maybe, they've gotten the idea that I really don't like crowds. It's not an American thing, I told them, it's an Amanda thing. I've never liked to be in the middle of a large group of people. It makes me panic something awful. But I'm stubborn, too.

Another Amanda thing is that I build these crazy, detailed pictures in my head about places I've never been but am going to be going in the near future, and when these places inevitably are drastically different, I feel a pang of bitter disappointment. So, when we went to the bike market, I was expecting a huge parking lot of rows and rows of bikes, ready to check out. On the contrary, it was an alley of fifteen or so shops with 20-30 bikes each in it, and you had to navigate the various store owners without offending one or the other to be able to find a bike that a) works, and b) isn't incredibly expensive or that we could get the foreigner markup off of.

So yesterday, we ventured down to the clothing market. Dan's been planning on taking me for forever, and I was expecting something like a warehouse with high ceilings and few crowds, even though intellectually, I know no place like this exists in China. What I got was a five-floor warehouse with low ceilings and millions of people packed into it. We ended up navigating it by basically attaching ourselves to each other -- Dan's arms around my shoulders and steering me toward invisible holes in the crowd, so we wouldn't get lost. There were that many people in it.

Examples of the foreigner markup: on floor two, there's this cute orange skirt for 45 kuai. Flat rate, no bargaining allowed. We promised to think about it. Floor three, same skirt, 180 kuai. Bargaining led to a price of 110. We bought the one from floor 2.

Now occasionally you meet somebody here in China whose bargaining is truly amusing. In the tech towers, you're bombarded by people trying to sell you DVDs..they'll walk down the escalators the wrong way to get to you, run out in front of you while you're walking, block your way, and the whole time, they're shouting, "DVD, DVD!!" at you. You get really good at shouting back. Once, a woman started walking down the escalators with DVDs in her hand, obviously heading for the foreigners... We pre-empted her and told her that she'd better not be heading for us. She grinned at us and cheekily said that she didn't want to talk to us anyway. If I'd actually wanted DVDs that day, I totally woulda bought from her. I also have a student whose method of bargaining is to just shout the price she wants at the top of her lungs incessantly until the store owner gets bored and gives it to her. I love it -- it's hilarious to watch.

However, yesterday we were in a shop and found a skirt that Dan loved. It's this beautiful jewel blue, ankle length skirt from Indonesia with a cute print. I'm kinda meh about it, but whatever. I'm meh about most skirts, but Dan's talked me into buying a couple already and I wear them around the house constantly. He knows the correct methodology to get me to wear whatever he wants me to - wake up before I take a shower and have the clothes waiting. I hate putting outfits together. So if we buy a skirt I'm kinda torn on, it's not like he has to fight to get me to wear it. But the salesgirl...my lord. We walked into the shop, just wanting to look at this skirt. Remember, walking in is actually dodging fifty people rushing at you without a care in the world for their safety - or yours. She eyes us, grabs us up, and starts talking a mile a minute so that I'm only picking up one word in three. The skirt started at 230, which was enough to turn me the hell off and get me out of there as it was. But she's still talking, and talking fast. All I'm picking up is, "Because you're my friend, because you're my friend." And she and Dan are just going at it. Dan...apparently liked it. I was willing to pay 60 for it, and any more than that was just too much for a skirt. But this girl got him on her side, and they both suddenly go quiet and store at me intently. Fuck. Dan had just gotten the price down to 100, and I wasn't that hung up on it to be willing to pay that much, so I just said no. Dan bought it. Damnit.

Yes, I am now the proud owner of four skirts, two of which are a little too small for me to wear at this point in time because I need to lose some inches off my big butt. Those of you who know me may now die of shock. What a crazy day.