Sheng Dan Kuai Le!

Hello friends and family!
For those who don't know already "Sheng Dan Kuai Le" is Merry Christmas in Chinese. It literally translates to "Holy Birth Happy!" which sounds mildly neanderthal but so do most literal translations of chinese words into english. "Ni Hao" (Hello) for example translates into "You, Good."

Other hilarities of the chinese language which i find amusing is the word they use for thinking. When we talk we usually throw the word umm, uhhh or likeeee and hold it a bit while we think of whatever we're going to say next. The Chinese have a word they use for that too, its "ne ge." That might look perfectly normal to you english folk but in chinese it is pronounced "nigga." Which, as you can imagine, caused some concern for me the first time i heard it. One day a student wanted to get my attention and proceeded to call out "nigga.. teacha!" and my eyes widened in shock. Now some of the teachers have already been complaining that my students come up to them and props them and say "whats up homie" (so glad i taught them that!) so I thought maybe one kid did his research and took it to the next level. But then I started hearing it everywhere. On the bus, at restaurants and in shops. I had a Chinese teacher explain to me what it meant, but still, nothing compares to a 6 year old kid dropping N-Bombs all up in here.

Another funny moment that happened last week had to do with a funny translation one of the students made. Nemo has started a new thing where, before each class starts, a different student must do a short 2 minute power point presentation about something to do with western culture. The problem is that they decide to use translators for them. One girl was doing her presentation on western dessert food and included a roughly translated recipe for making a cake. As she was reading out the ingredients I noticed one of them said 1 cup of breast milk. Standing in the back of the class I burst out into laughter and tried to contain myself. No one seemed to understand why i was laughing. After the presentation was over I asked Nemo or the class if they knew why I was laughing and why breast milk was so funny. Apparently not even Nemo knew what that meant.
Well this will be fun to explain I thought.
I cupped my hands at my chest and said "you know, milk from woman"
The whole class went nuts.
By the way the Chinese word for womens breasts is "nai nai." a word I enjoy saying out loud for some reason. Something about how it rolls off the tongue.

Anyways, It's been quite awhile now since I wrote a blog. I sincerely apologize to anyone following it as I've been either too busy or too lazy. This month has been strange and interesting so far. On monday I woke up and was informed by Nemo that I would be saying the sentence of the week on the morning announcements. Once a week a different english teacher makes a new sentence and teaches it to the school while a Chinese teacher translates for them. I had not gone yet so this week was my turn. To add to the excitement, I was told It would be a special one this week because it was christmas. I would be teaching Merry Christmas but also translating for myself as well as wishing all the students and teachers a merry christmas in chinese. Also, announcements would be held outside in the field and I would be on a podium in front of the whole school again. Memories from fuzzy panda kill robot good day started to creep in as I woke up after only a few hours of sleep the night before and made my way downstairs.
Nemo sat me down and said "must practice, have 5 minutes."
Thinking still that I was just going to have to say Merry Christmas In english and Chinese, I told him it was no problem.
But then he explained the rest I was going to say.
"Wo zhu xiao peng you men he lao shi men sheng dan kuai le" meaning "I wish students and teachers a merry christmas"
was what Nemo said I would have to say. I was barely awake, yet let alone ready to be memorizing crazy chinese phrases to say in front of the entire school.
I repeated it a few times then made my way outside to where the entire school was waiting. Oh boy. This was going to be interesting.
Then, by some Christmas miracle, I got up on that stage and spoke perfect Chinese and was applauded by everyone. I guess being around the Chinese language for the last 5 months has paid off and i'm becoming more comfortable speaking it. All day my students were high-fiving me and saying "Corey! I see you morning! you Chinese very good!" I ignored the grammatical errors and thanked them. I worked the rest of the day and took a much needed nap. The night before had been equally interesting.

On sunday night, me, Chris and Shane were invited by the owner of the Wuhan Prison to play at some festival in Hangyang. We practiced up 4 crappy cover songs and headed there not knowing what to expect. We had no idea how big or what kind of festival this was, but we were totally unprepared for what would ensue.
We were met by the guy who set it all up and taken through the festival, which was in a big dark park. There were the craziest, brightest lights i've ever seen seperated by long patches of dark forest. It was very strange. We walked through the first forest part in the dark and first walked by a man on stilts, a small clown, a man dressed as a sheep, snow white and the most terrifying attempt at a batman costume i've ever seen. Now the lights, dark forest, strange costumed people and overall situation made us start believe we had been slipped some sort of hallucinogen. When we finally got to the stage we were equally confused and slightly scared. The stage was off from the festival surrounded by forest, with many bright flashing lights and a small patch in front of the stage with giant animals dancing with eachother. Not like halloween costumes, i mean mascot-sized costumes.
Picture a bunch of mascots dancing in the middle of a dark chinese forest with strange flashing lights and you get the general idea. We waited on the side of the stage and watched the show in confusion for a bit and prepared our things to go on and play.
As the band that was playing winded down all the mascots/costumed people left, along with all the people that were there with them. So now there was a lone chinese band playing to no one and we were supposed to be on next. You could literally hear crickets. Well in China its actually dogs being slaughtered off in the distance but same idea.
They pulled the guy who booked us off to the side of the stage and shortly after we were informed that the show was cancelled because no one was there anymore. We were then given 100kuai each and sent packing. Stepping out of the festival, we all walked on and wondered exactly what the hell just happened.
once again, China is a strange place.

Besides all the strangeness that has been happening this month two amazing things have happened:
1. I booked my trip to Thailand for Chinese New Year/Spring Festival
2. I found a Subway in Wuhan

I had heard only rumours of the first subway restaurant opening up in Wuhan recently and after doing research I decided to head over there one day after a class I was teaching near the area. Its about a 45 minute cab ride away from where I live but worth every Chinese RMB stashed in my nightstand. I ate it in ecstasy and bought 2 more to take home with me. I'm probably going to make a trip there once a week for sanity purposes. Rice is really starting to drive me mental.
From January 20th-February 5th I will be travelling in Thailand. I have alot to prepare for the trip including learning some basic Thai, which is even more ridiculous than chinese. But i've looked up itineraries and I will be visiting massive old buddhist temples,hiking through jungles, staying in small mountain villages, riding elephants, exploring caves and lying on some of the nicest beaches in the world. You have no idea how excited I am to have an opportunity to do something like this in my life. I want to thank my Dad again for helping me to book my flight there, which was only $386 US for the return trip.
I have a lot to look forward to in the next little while it seems. Christmas will be hard without family and friends but know that I am thinking about you all and miss you very much.
The teachers here are all going out for a nice big dinner again and exchanging presents on saturday and we also get 4 days off work. Happy times.
I will try update my blog more often and I also hope to buy a new camera soon to take more pictures, especially for my trip next month.
But until then Merry Christmas everyone!
Corey