Last Beijing Post

This is  going to be a short and sweet one.  We're on our last week, hoorah!  and have 5 more days in Beijing.  We arrive in Seattle on the 1st, and are looking forward to resting, eating good food and being with people we love!  Our time this summer will be split between mainly between Seattle, Portland, and short stints in CA and OH, with a departure for Taiwan around August 10th.  

We have a Google number you can reach us as: 206.745.2924 (calls and texts), which works almost exactly like a 206 number and it's free! 

We are grading finals and wrapping up our last week with much anticipation for the future.  We are grateful we've had this experience, but are more than ready to move on.  Thank you for reading this past year, and stay posted for Taiwan adventures.

Please contact us if you want to see us this summer!   

Weekend trip to Xi'an

Check out our latest adventure!  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohheychina/
We went to Xi'an, one the few walled cities in China and home to Terracotta warriors (see pictures, I'm sure you've seen them on TV).  We had our first experience on overnight trains in China; let's just say that if you get the cheap tickets, you will be packed in like sardines.  People were sleeping in the middle aisle, on the bathroom sink, under the bathroom sink, cell phones going off all night, vegetable sellers going through the train at all hours, I mean, it was a whole new world.  I would recommend it for the experience of it (and they're the cheapest seats), but be prepared to be super uncomfortable!  We were able to get sleeper bunks on the way home.
In Xi'an, spent the night with friends of friends and had a great time talking about their ministry learning about their hearts for China.  We so enjoyed hearing about their lives here and their future plans.
Xi'an is also quite a lot smaller than Beijing, which made getting around a bit easier and it is a city that has kept its old world feel very well.  Some parts of it, mostly the Muslim quarter, made you feel like you were transported back in time.  Really neat.
Alright, I will leave you to the pictures.  Enjoy!

Change of Plans

Well, it's official, we are no longer staying in China next year.  You're probably wondering, "what?!  You just decided you were staying!"  Yes, it's true, we have the tendency to be fickle.  However, since making our decision to stay, we have been constantly sick -- which means at least one new illness a week between the two of us.  We've also had a few things come up at our school which were pushing us in the direction of wanting to leave.  So we began seriously talking about it, and once we allowed ourselves (mostly me, Grace) to be okay with not coming back, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of us!  We hadn't realized how dried up we were: there's no where in Beijing that we have found where we can feel refreshed, whereas in Washington, we'd go on a weekend hike after a long week at work.  Here, it's pretty much concrete and more concrete.  Beijing is just a tough city, in a hard culture and you always feel like an outsider.

While we have no idea what we're doing in the fall,  it is such a relief to do what is best for us.  We know it could be easier the second year, we know that maybe the illnesses might eventually go away, we know that we could actually teach the positions we wanted next year (after they told us we couldn't), but as I told Chris, this is our time.  We are refusing to live where we are unhappy, and there has been so much freedom in that decision!

In the meantime, I'm looking and applying at a job in Taiwan, Chris is looking for jobs in the States, we are going to Xi'an this weekend (14-hour train ride one-way, woot!) we are planning for the summer, and guess what?!  We have an electric bike.  Oh yeah, we're hip.  The old Chinese men that sit on the side of the road always do a double take when they see us ride by... it's hilarious.  I told Chris I want to ship the bike back to the States, it's that awesome.  Probably won't happen, and now that we're leaving, we have to figure out if there's a return policy on that thing!

If you think of us, please pray for direction for the fall, we'd appreciate it!  Thanks so much for reading, the adventures continue!

7 day work weeks, fires in your belly and other news

Let me (Grace) go on a short rampage about 7 day work weeks.  We're working the weekend in order to get a 3 day holiday, Mon-Wed (Qing Tomb holiday, when people decorate tombs of ancestors).  The result = exhausted teachers, cranky kids, and the 7th day ends up being movie day, which is a basically a lost day but as a teacher I have no energy left to think of one more creative way to teach adjective phrases.  --Btw, if anybody out there knows of any great teacher websites, please let me know!! --  All in all, we're working for such a short reward that in the end, it cancels itself out.  Why do they do this in China?  Because the government told them to, and no one asks questions.

People have learned to just accept things the way they are and though there is some complaining, it is the foreigners that ask "why?"  But, whether or not they ask questions, we've been learning the Chinese like to give opinions.  I've been hearing this line a lot this week: "wear more in the spring and less in the fall."  It's a Chinese saying, meaning that because there are so many germs going around in the spring, you should wear more clothes to keep from being sick (not sure what the fall part means).  I followed my TA's advice, but I'm still sick :(  Which means I've been hearing this line a lot as well: "drink hot water."  Apparently, the Chinese believe that cold water is bad for you, and you should only drink hot water to keep from extinguishing the "fire in your belly."  There is also a drink here that Petra swears is to cool the fire in your belly.  I haven't quite figured out what the fire signifies, other than it can be bad for you if it's too strong.  There is also the belief that you can get wind in your joints, which is like joint pain/rheumatism, from my understanding.  But whether you have fire or wind, the Chinese like giving advice, and everybody says the same thing!  It's quite interesting.

And yes, I'm sick.  I think it's to be assumed that any time we post, one of us is sick.  It's getting to be a bit trying, but Chris hasn't been sick in 3 weeks, which is a record, and I went a good 2 months without getting anything major.  We talked with some other expats, and they told us the first year was the hardest health wise, after that, it's fine.  Good to know there's an end in sight.

In other news, we decided we're staying another year!  Though Beijing is not the greatest city in the world to live in - there is currently a thin layer of dust covering EVERYthing due to spring winds - we feel like this is where we want to stay and have a sense of purpose here.  It's nice to have the stability, job wise, and we can keep getting to know people through church, etc.   We will be coming back to the States this summer, though the dates are still up in the air.  Probably early July to mid/end August.  We'll mainly be in WA and OR, and OH for a few days.  Please do let us know if you will be around this summer, we are excited to see all of you!

Hope all is well in your homes, thanks for reading :)

Snow today in Beijing. At least an inch. The most we've gotten all winter has been a dusting, due to the utter lack of precipitation in this place. Humidity has frequently been in the teens, which is unthinkable to a person who grew up in Seattle. Anyways, I'm no expert on northeastern Chinese climate, but perhaps this mornings' snow is coming at the intersection of a cold winter and a wetter spring. It makes the view from our windows less gray.

In other news, we had a feast on Friday night. A few weeks ago, a teaching couple from our school invited us over to their apartment for dinner. They really like to cook and they made us an amazing dinner with at least six different Chinese and Thai dishes. We finally got to return the favor, with Grace leading the way in the "kitchen" and all the rest of us helping (I made the tortillas, with help from our floormate, Veronica). The Western food included a dish that you could call Mexican lasagna, salsa, a cheesy pot of pasta, and bruschetta. Petra, our Chinese floormate, also made a number of Chinese dishes, including baked chicken wings and some other good things that I don't know how to describe. Our Chinese friends enjoyed our Western cooking and, even with all the other food on the table, the Mexican lasagna (with the tortillas that I made) was demolished by the end of the evening.

All this cooking got me to thinking about foods from back home, and the list of foods I miss would be quite long. I'm not starving here by any means, though, so instead of publishing a list of foods, I think I'll share a list of some larger things I miss from Seattle and Bellingham:

• fresh air
• mountains
• salt water
• fresh air
• rain
• the color green
• fresh air
• personal space on public transportation
• and of course, people

My list of food would be at least twice as long. Maybe next time. Here are some pictures from dinner the other night.

Above: This is what cooking in our "kitchen" often looks like.

L to R: Petra, Mr. Guo, Mrs. Wong, Veronica, Grace

Reasons Why We Never Get Anywhere in Beijing...

-Grace:  "Isn't north what's in front of you?"
Chris: enjoying a good laugh


-Grace: "Did you write down the street names?"
Chris: "No, it's all in my head.  I read Chinese better in my imagination than on paper."
Grace:  "?!?!?"

-The city's too big, it has too many streets

-Can't tell the cab driver for the life of us more than our three Chinese phrases.  It's amazing we make it home at all.

-We forget to do our Chinese homework, and so never learn more than 3 phrases.

- Chris thinks the maps are lying to him.  I've heard this speech more than once.

But somehow, in the end, we make it home in one piece, mostly thanks to our Chinese floormate, Petra.  So here's to being in one piece in Beijing with more funny stories by the day.  Like the one where we walked west instead of north (that's wasn't my fault either, even though I'm slightly directionally challenged.  Beijing makes everybody directionally challenged).  We've managed to find ourselves a small group and it feels so good to be in community again.  And, Chris is over his 3 week sickness and we're hoping he'll stay healthy another little bit.  Maybe that will make living here easier next year.  We've also joined an Alpha course as facilitators and brought 2 Chinese friends to it, and it was so cool to hear their questions and be able to answer them.  God was present.  Please keep August and Helen in your prayers.

Love from cold but sunny Beijing.  

A Recap of Taiwan and New Beginnings in Beijing

Hello all!  We have successfully come back from Taiwan - as opposed to unsuccessfully... not sure what that would look like!  But successful equals tans and fun adventures and amazing food and very kind people.  Also a few extras pairs of shoes (Chris wanted to buy this really cute pair of brown boots, but I told him to buy them for me instead... don't feel bad if you're not laughing because I have fun cracking myself up :).  Anyways, we had a blast.  From a 5 star hotel on the beach, to the lady that bought me bubble tea and told me that she hoped we liked Taiwan better than China!  I laughed out loud!  We went to many night markets, had lots of street food, walked around Taipei, went to the jade market, tried using my Chinese but people just responded in English.  People were also very kind and polite.  Needless to say, it was a wonderful break from Beijing and the endless shoving, spitting, yelling, nose picking.
The first few days of our return to Beijing were a bit rough, and I have to say, we were pretty discontent with being back.  I mean, who wouldn't give up Beijing for nice, warm, beautiful Taiwan?  We're at a place were we're having to decide what our move is this fall and though we're still praying about it, we have a peace that should we stay, our cups will not run dry.  This country, though the people are selfish and sometimes rude, are this way because of circumstances outside their control.  Keeping those facts in mind keep us smiling, holding open doors and being apart of life here.  Our cups continue to flow over with grace and love for ourselves and for the people here.
We've been getting more involved in a church, and we love it.  The people are from everywhere you could possibly imagine, it's incredible!  We've started going to a small group, ok, we've only gone once, but it's wonderful to be apart of a community again!  We were sort of drying up last semester and are realizing how important people
and fellowship are.  God heard us loud and clear because we have been meeting a good number of new ppl and are hoping to get involved in a few serving opportunities.
It's amazing how he never ceases to watch out over us, we feel so taken care of.  We praise Jesus for his new mercies everyday and continue to walk and grow with Him on this incredible journey.  May you be touched with His spirit today and renewed with His love.  Amen.