Surviving my frist earthquake....

For the record, I am South African. I know what to do in dangerous situations...Don't stop at traffic lights after dark in JHB, don't walk around alone in CT,.don't learn to surf in case you encounter a shark, if you going to drink and drive, don't live near the hospital in Knysna because there are road blocks there and when you come home at 3am and find two idiots in your house stealing your crap...it is probably best not to let the double brandy's you had been drinking convince you its okay to try and outrun them when they make a dash for it...I consider myself street smart...But dudes if you had asked me before I googled it, lord know what you do during an earthquake!!!

Sitting in my room, trying to get onto skype, minding my own business when my bed starts to move. I won't lie, I was a little confused but thought it must be a flash back from those dodgy chocolate brownies I ate at that party that time... or the result of all the Chinese flu meds I have been taking and have no idea whats in them...but then the computer started to shake, and the window and somewhere in my brain I remembered China...Earthquakes...and decided to check on flatmate...Mari was in bed watching her picture move on her wall, thinking to herself "My... the wind is strong today"...considering our apartment was now shaking like James Bond's martini ( you get it, shaken not stirred...anyway) that is kind of funny... The two of us stood in the door frames of our rooms because in a Country, SA, that has had one earthquake in like 19-footsack we were taught at school to stand in door frames. At this point Mari, in her Pj's said "Do you think I should put some pants and a bra on?" We road it out and then were like "That was it?"...we have seen those Hollywood blockbusters where the earth cracks down the middle of the city and Bruce Willis narrowly escapes by jumping into an abandoned jeep and speeds off to safety, rescuing a hot chick and some kittens on the way... I wanted to go and smoke on the balcony to celebrate the end of it until I realised everyone was evacuating the apartment buildings and considering this was our first earthquake we figured, we should probably do the same.

But you learn a lot about yourself when you are evacuating a building during potential danger...I had time to find my lighter and cigs and grab my phone and would have sat down to facebook a little but the Internet was down...Mari was standing in front of the mirror doing her hair...I mean if you going to get trapped in a 22 story building, one needs to do it in style...with coffee, smokes and a cellphone to take pictures... Also I have totally inappropriate emotions and inappropriate times...I cry when I am angry, laugh at funerals and it seems I found the whole thing rather exciting.

We went downstairs and sat outside the entrance of the apartment block with all the Chinese folk...trying to google earthquakes and aftershocks so we knew how long we had to sit there and when we could go back upstairs like normal people and drink coffee before class...A lot of people were in Pj's with high heels and their Louis Berton bags..but mostly people used the evacuation time to drink tea on the grass, grab some noodles for breakfast or do their veggie shopping...We did see a few families come out with plastic shopping bags of clothes and that did seem a little concerning... One of the mothers from Mari's students stopped to say Hi and in broken English told us that we should have taken a bottle of water in our bags and then said, wanna come for breakfast. Actually she said "Go breakfast. Lets go" but same difference.

Anyway, 30 minutes, no collapsed building we figured we would go upstairs although I shat myself in that elevator ride 17 floors, I can not lie. I felt aftershocks Saturday and Sunday...Mari didn't..So we assumed it was in my head but I googled it (Got to love that google) and there has been 1336 aftershocks up until Sunday evening so turns out I don't have post traumatic stress disorder after all! I have since googled what to do during a earthquake...One of the sites first points was to own a fire extinguisher...which we don't so we screwed...And then to get onto all fours, hide under a sturdy table (Nothing made in China is sturdy) and cover your neck and back with your arm apparently, ( I mean so technically they want you to be on all three's not all Four's and protect your back, neck and head with one hand...I am sure they just made that shit up)... lets hope we never have to test it out...

My bucket list of travels did not include natural disasters...But I am glad it happened now and not in Thailand because Tsunami surfing, not the kind of adventure holiday I am looking for.

Anyway, jokes aside, 8 people died in our city from that earthquake, 186 in the area surrounding the quake in total. 24 people still missing and over 900 people injured. In 2008, Earthquake in the same place, killed 90 000 people... I remember seeing it on the news, worst Earthquake in China's history...I am thankful that I was not here then...nothing comical about that. But given that they were five years apart, I will be long gone by the time Chengdu rumbles again.

Tuk tuk and dancing shoes

Over the past 7 months, I have struggled to settle into a culture that is so far from my own...or so it seemed. The more time I spend here, the more I realise (spitting and peeing in the street aside) how despite differences, basic human nature is the same. My 14 year old girl students still giggle about the boys they like, Grandparents still dote on grand children and starbucks is always full, even in the tea capital of the world. Some things are just universal and I have discovered that tequila and dancing, is one of them! And the discovery couldn't have come at a better time when home sickness brought on by the festive season was at its peak!


My flat mate and I, gave ourselves a good talking to a couple of weeks ago. We said we can not keep staying in this apartment. If we want a life we have to find the nearest forgein bar and make an effort to drink once a week no matter how much it costs and just get ourselves our there. I am glad to report back that if the universe was giving prizes for the most enthusiastic, we would have it. We have certainly been making a dedicated go of it. In the last three weeks we have drunken called Shanghai from our Club Balcony (Which is now what we call the balcony because it looks like a shebeen every morning after), sang Justin Timberlake's Sexy back and danced on a Tuesday night till 3am, taken a tuk tuk from one club to another, met a German, Spaniard, American, Irishman, Englishman and a very friendly drunk Chinese girl who sloppy kissed us and gave us tequila. I have a sneaky feeling all these new friends we are meeting are less to do with my hot J-Lo drunken dancing at 4am that have been rekindled in full force, and more to do with the fact that Flatmate is tall, blonde, hot and chatty. But hey, I am just going with it here. And as long as it gets me fun and free beer, I am not complaining.

On the last excursion we met some people, they took us to a Authentic Chinese dance club. Cheese and rice! It was pumping with Chinese ass. Not J-Lo and P-diddy hot but they were giving it a good go I must tell you. When we squeezed onto the dance floor I felt like a bit of a celebrity I cannot lie and I was actually flattered that some fat (and I mean American fat not Chinese fat) Chinese bloke tried to hump and grind dance me from behind...who knew my elbow was still such a powerful weapon. The English bloke with us kept talking in an Indian accent, the Irish guy had a Sargent Pepper (you know The Beatles) moustache and I kept thinking of Danial Day Louis in Gangs of New York. and the American girl was pole dancing with some Chinitos like she was Britney Spears drunk at the prom. Classic classic night that I won't soon forget. This is what I have been doing wrong, travelling is not about museums and eating weird god awful food (well not all the time)...no! travelling is about humping, I mean dancing, with the locals and catching a 30 minute taxi drive at 5am and trying not to pass out on the way home in case you wake up sold to some Gangster from Nepal as a sex slave for Arabs...Dudes, I have seen Taken...you can't be too careful.

China has really shown us her fun promiscuous side this last month and we like it! Add some more sunshine days and my visa and I think I could get used to this. And although I thought I was to old to moon walk across a dance floor at 3am, it turns out I am not...although my liver may disagree...and the person who I stood on last Wednesday...but they are just being party poopers. 

The Hugging Revolution

Ahhoy from China 

You know what I have noticed…Chinese people (gross generalization but true to the area I am in and from what I have seen) don’t hug..or kiss or do annoying romantic couply (I know there is no such word but go with me here) things…well not in public anyway. I guess there must be some form of couple activity at home as they do have one child each – well more if they rich.  (Yes, just as in the western world, the more money you have, the more um action you can get)…And no matter how your parents tried to convince you otherwise, babies are not brought by singing bees and dancing birds. But in the streets, at restaurants, on the bus…nothing.  Most of us back home hug and kiss friends hello, and we have no qualms in general about PDA (public displays of affection) with our friends, with our kids, with our boyfriends, girlfriends, friend’s wife…  Hell, I am sure there are couples having activities in buses all around the world. But in Chengdu china…nothing. (Ok I am glad no one is doing the nasty in buses, I have enough bodily function mishaps, with the peeing and spitting in the street, to worry about.  

Anyway, back to the hugging. I find it incredibly sad. That on the outside, everyone is so unaffectionate and almost robotic.  Perhaps I am just projecting because the last proper hug I gave someone was the day I flew off to China (hello Nicky) and that was six months ago. Perhaps I need to hang out at more foreign bars, although they all tend to grope rather than hug. Or I can start a hugging revolution in China. Start teaching the Chinese to rebel against social niceties and “hug” (or whatever) everywhere…in the store, in schools (I mean they do spend 90% of their time there anyway, poor guys), at grannies house, at parliamentary meetings (oh wait, they don’t have a parliament…), going up and “hugging” total strangers and telling them to pay it forward….I could sell T-shirts that's say “Mother Hugger” and “What the hug!”… I suppose if I throw in some free LCD we right back in the 60’s and Buddha knows, the 60’s haven’t happened here yet! 

But, Yesterday as I walked the damp street home from gym and passed a lady lifting a toddler off the ground so she could pee in the middle of the pavement (now we know why the streets are damp), and the Nai Nai (granny) behind me spat a big throaty one…I realised, I wouldn’t want to be hugging anyone here either and what I really desperately need is a weekend at home hugging all of you (And I mean hugging, not “hugging”) 

Wo Ai Nimen (I love all of you) 
Nix 

Travel WISH list...and growing...

Tibet
Hong Kong 
Thailand 
Bali 
Vietnam 
Cambodia 
Sydney 
Philippines
Israel
London 
Japan 
Peru
Nepal 
Chile
Brazil
Columbia 
New York City 
Cairo to Cape Town 4x4 tour 
Greece 
Paris
Burma 
India 

Buddhas, mafia monkeys and impromptu photo shoots - a good way to spend a birthday

Namaste from Chengdu China.

It was undeniably the most sober birthday I have had in some time but defiantly one of the more unique ones. Not quite topping the Knysna Pirate scavenger hunts but coming close. I started my birthday morning like any other…in need of a strong coffee… Mari and I waited at the bus stop during rush hour. Now, I am sure I have told you how full the buses can get, sorry there is no other way of saying this, but they get foking full. People are packed into that thing until some granny (the Chinese name for Grandmother is Nai-Nai…so from now on we will refer to granny as Nai Nai – laugh, its funny!). So they full the bus until some Nai-nai (hahahhahaha that doesn't get old...but nai nai does…hahahaha) is sitting on the drivers lap and people are closer together than at a Justin Beiber concert (or so I can imagine). But that morning the buses where so full that no one was getting on. I am talking arms out windows and squashed faces against the door. Dude, this princess was not going in there! So us two foreigners stood at the bus stop with our little travel bag for 20 minutes, found a not so full bus and hit the road to Starbucks!

After meeting Lin and having a delicious vanilla coffee, some weird sandwich and taking advantage of a western toilet… We marched down through town. The city centre was littered with police and army men hanging around in case some angry Chinese people tried to loot a Japanese restaurant (probably Chinese owned but apparently that doesn’t matter) or attack a Japanese made car because Japan wants to buy (not take or steal but buy) an Island. I don’t pretend to understand but it did make for exciting walking. Although I expected more drama than two army men fighting over a cig and a sleeping policeman but then this is not Africa.  We got to the bus station and in 10 minutes were on a bus heading for Emei Mountain. So easy despite the hundreds of people. They don’t mess around with transport, that is for sure. Side Note: The bus ticket there and Back was equivalent to R150 – which is cheaper than two double brandy and cokes and a bottle of water, or so I hear)

The more I travel the more I realise how beautiful South Africa is! The road there was pretty boring but with all three of us, armed with IPods and excitement, we sure made the best of it. Five years ago it would have been three of us and a bottle of vodka…this time it was no liquids at all in the fear that we would need the loo on the way and have to use Chinese toilets… Touch wood, I have avoided that until now and believe me; I will need vodka to be at peace with peeing on my shoes.  Anyway 2.5 hours later we arrived at The Teddy Bear hotel - http://www.teddybear.com.cn/. This is a strange hostel type hotel that has soft beds, en-suit bathrooms and western toilets and teddy bears (der). We didn’t get to spend much time here but note to anyone going…bring your own booze if you don’t want to drink turps. Bring your own toilet paper because they give you one square per day and don’t eat their food – rather go Chinese.

So after the worst burgers ever but still filled with excitement, we grabbed out camera’s and explored the town at the foot of the Emei mountain. Wood carvings, Buddha’s. Waterfalls, museums, trees, rivers, temples. Stunning! Three photographers on one trip – not too much is left to be discovered and there wasn’t a second without the sound of a shutter speed.  Emei mountain is said to be the second holiest place for Buddhists and the town is a buzzing holiday Mecca filled with Chinese and foreign tourists alike. I didn’t get a chance to find out a lot but I know this. From the amount of stray puppies and kittens (and I know this because Mari nearly brought all of them home) it’s safe to say that Dog and cat is not on the menu there. I do know they like their food fresh as half the restaurants and all sorts of things live that you could choose to eat. I must say the bunnies were super heartbreaking and there was talk of sneaking in the middle of the night to break all the food out.

On the first night we were treated to an awesome fireworks display, arranged by Jackie Siebrits or the tourism office – there is still some debate ;). But it was awesome. Big, bright, noisy! Pink sparkles and yellow twirly things. Some hanging low, some shooting up and half way through one display, another started on the other side of the hotel. We watched from the roof of the hotel and it felt like the whole of China was celebrating my birthday (No that's not narcissistic at all!)

On the second day, we took a bus 2.5 hours up the mountain. In the bus were two monks whose phones kept ringing…some Chinese tourist and hikers and a few worshipers. It was a winding road and I don’t mean that metaphorically, and I am sure we nearly fell off the cliff in that buss more than once but the scenery was awesome. At the top we walked up many stairs along the mountain side – food and curio stalls on one side, cute looking monkey savages on the other. I watched the one bugger steal some Nai-nai’s purse from her hand and then started unpacking it looking for food. Out came shirts and all sorts of things a monkey cannot eat. I don’t like monkeys – just saying. At the top of the stairs we took a cable car to the summit. From there you can see the four headed Buddha which is like a three story building and is coated in real gold – I kid you not. And the view from the top is over the surrounding mountains and clouds. Unfortunately we went on a misty day and didn’t get to see blue skies and enjoy the view fully but it was still fun.

I will admit, we spent most of the time taking pictures of each other but then we are HOT and who wouldn’t want to. I managed to get sunburnt through the clouds and came home with a red nose. I would take the opportunity to go into the spiritual feeling of the place and the history and all that but I have been rambling a lot and there is no humour in that. So I will take you to the bus trip down the mountain in a bus made for midgets. My knees were practically at my chest and Mari who was in the back middle seat, kept sliding off the narrow chair that she had to put on her seatbelt for fear of getting stuck in the narrow passage face down and needing the jaws of life to get her out. So super funny now. Not so funny then. After a long day, we showered, ate a good Chinese meal and watched half a movie about things in the mist with octopus tentacles – I stopped concentrating. Then a bus back to the busy city armed with iPods and chocolate chips cookies and my red nose.

There is so much more to tell but my fingers are sore and I should have poured some wine before writing this to get me through the home stretch… But have a look at my pictures, if you haven’t already. I have loaded them on Facebook.

But here are links for you:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?
set=a.10151021616230806.423600.708510805&type=3&l=25b0b154ea
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151022586330806.423812.708510805&type=1&l=abe537ef64

Is that Dog in my soup?

Today I faced my Chinese food fear head on. Today I decided that I may never eat soup in China again and that I am okay with that. It all started with a lesson on feelings. Sad, happy, embarrassed, shocked, depressed, frightened, ecstatic etc. 

It is very hard to get the kids to speak about anything other than school because that's all these poor kids do, is attend lessons. What makes you sad, getting bad grades. What makes you happy, getting good grades. When were you embarrassed, when I didn’t do well in the test. Who frightens you, my maths teacher. 
Anyway, I asked the student what makes her scared besides school work and she told me her grandmother. Take all the cliché’s and stereotypes you have heard about Chinese people and eating and animals etc and throw them all together and you have this Ouma. Ouma got mother to kill the family dog a few years ago because the meat is not only delicious but keeps you warm in the winter. Apparently in the old days, dog soup was a stable winter food like spag bol or gluwine. 

The family dog, I kid you not. Apparently this woman now walks the streets after dinner and watches all the people taking their family pets for walks and remarks to her family how delicious they all look. So of course I asked, “What about cats,”…No, tiffany said, she will eat them but she doesn’t think they are delicious! 
My student found this conversation highly amusing and I have to admit, when she was telling me how the grandmother comes home after a visit with the family to the zoo just to tell the mother which animal she would like to eat first, I laughed a bit myself, picturing this tiny old Chinese ouma with a carving knife running after a lion. 

I have decided not to meet that grandmother for fear that she might want to taste a bit of foreign meet. That is not a way I want to go…chopped up in dog soup, fed to all the sweet looking marjong playing ladies with grey hair in buns and slippers on. 

P.s – pledged to braai on national braai day so look out for pics. I am not sure if this will get us arrested but for this South African tradition, I am willing to risk it! 

Riding a full bus to Yoga and loving it!

Friends, family and random people who find themselves reading this who like to hear the rantings of an crazy person... Hello 


If you had said to me, 5 years ago, that I would be in a classroom at a private English training centre using a laminater to make Pirate themed flash cards for a class of 4 deliciously cute five year old Chinese kids.. I would have laughed and called you Feng zi (crazy). But here I sit. Surrounded by Chinese, teaching English and in awe by the adventures that have brought me here. To a place so different from where I started five years ago but yet in a lot of ways the same. 


In every community or work place, despite cultural differences, the issues and dynamics are all the same. The one person who thinks they better than everyone else and talks down to everyone.. the likable person that everyone loves as soon as as they meet them... the joker; funny one (this used to be me but I am still finding my groove) that can spin a joke out of anything....The boss who treats the people that make him money like gold and the people who do the grunt work like crap..The miserable person who always complains and hates their job, my close friends will laugh with me on this one as it used to be me. My not so close friends will also laugh and say this used to be me but behind my back. 


It is true what they say...you can not run away from your problems. If you are kleptomaniac in South Africa, moving to Poland is not going to fix that. Seeking some professional help or brandy may fix that...well until you steal the shrinks pen and the ashtray from the bar that is.  Your cat died in China (and probably got eaten in some rural village by a family of 13 kids), the cat is still dead when you go to Columbia...Although I do hear they have very good chemicals there to numb any pain...Er of course I mean the coffee! So you run away from one boss,and when you get to the new place, turns out they all the same. Then perhaps its the approach to them that needs to change? Drinking at work, baseball to the head... all things i have considered... 


We spend our lives saying when I get a better job I will be happy...when I get a man I will be happy... when I learn to pole dance like a professional and drink tequila till it turns me into a stripper...I will be happy. The trick is, to be happy now. In this moment. At this second of the day, as you read this...Just be happy. You hate your boss, you have three choices... rise above, shoot him in the head, quit...but the key is you have choices and you can choose to be happy. Every time I see someone spitting in the street, or hear the know-it-all knowing it all, miss my friends, or get elbowed by some 90 year old woman on the buss... I have two choices, to let it upset me...or to ignore it, turn my Ipod up and just enjoy where I am. You have choices to change the things you can and to ignore or medicate the things you can't (A little creative plagiary as I adapt and steal some AA logic...well not the medication part...


I can not lie. This has not been as easy as it sounds. The first four weeks impossible. Two spitting people, some communication mishaps and the discovery that I may not own another pair of pretty shoes again! But it gets easier, and easier and I have good days and bad days. I started Yoga... I know three bus routes. Enjoyed lunch some teachers. Decided to do at least on tourist thing a month and have made some great Chinese friends who for some reason think I am awesome. I take one day at a time, one moment a time and try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to be happy in that moment. I know it sounds all very Zen but I am in the east and I am tired of being unhappy in a rat race i can't figure out, working for increasing amounts of money that will never be enough...so I figure all this airy fairy thinking can' hurt can it. 


I have this incredible opportunity to travel many places that I have always wanted to go. I have amazing I-can't-believe-my-luck friends and family who have helped and supported and fed me wine every step of the way. It turns out, I am not a bad teacher, I am a pretty good writer, photography is art and one day I will master the fitness to noodle ratio. Life is good. Not perfect, but as when is it ever supposed to be perfect! It is all about how we get there right? And I am enjoying the ride and feel very blessed!