Gǎ Mèi

As I've already mentioned everyone here calls me Aga and my new friend, (and student) Lily, gave me a Chinese name. The one that is the title of this blog post. The first part comes from Aga (ā gǎ), and the second from "mèi mei" which means little sister. I like that name because it's pretty personal. Anyway, I first wanted to mention my blogs. Someone suggested that I make them shorter, but...actually this blog is as much for me as it is for the people that read it. It is like my diary and something I want to look back upon and remember China. So I will not be making the posts shorter. Sorry.

Something weird that I have noticed recently is how "normal" everything has become to me. If I were to look at myself from my eyes two months ago, I would be shocked at the things I see and some things that I do, but now everything is just normal. I guess it means I'm adjusting, but I liked when everything still shocked me. I get irritated by certain things here, but not as much surprised anymore. This getting used to China is making it harder and harder for me to tell good stories and explain my experiences. What some of my friends in the US might think is crazy and cool might just be NORMAL to me by now. Somethings that still surprise me a little will be mentioned later on in this blog, but here is a short summary of what is in this post.

Chinese children (their clothes, potty training)
The Guangzhou subway
My health
Zoo/Safari this past weekend

I need to mention, once again how much I love Chinese babies. My friends keep teasing me about how I should just adopt one now. They're all so fat and round! I love them! Once babies become toddlers, parents start potty training. Not with diapers though, but with pants with a hole in the butt. A hole?! YES a hole in the butt of the pants. I guess what they do is ever since the child is young, the parents make a pee-ing sound (shhhhhhhhh) and the baby recognizes it and pees when the sound is made in their ear. I don't know the exact details of this method, but I know diapers aren't really used. Looking back at all the kids I see here, only 1 or 2 have ever worn diapers. That means when the kid has to poop, it just squats, and pants don't get in the way... If you think about it, if every child in China wore diapers for a year, that would be a LOT OF diapers!!! (I also learned that in China 3 million cigarettes are smoked every minute) I have seen a few little kids squatting on the street ... I still think it's different when there is a baby who is wearing pants and it turns around and you see it's ass. Moving on to another interesting aspect of kids. I have seen plenty of kids here and most of them wear little sandals. Not regular sandals but squeaky sandals, so when the child walks around all you hear is squeak squeak squeak. I think this is so the parents don't lose their children, but who knows...

I need to mention the subway again. The more I ride it, the more frustrating it is. No one gets up for older people (today a girl my age was sitting down and an old lady had to SQUEEZE in and sit on the edge of her seat because no one would get up for her), everyone is out for themselves and when they enter the train, they don't let the people who need to get out, out! Sometimes I just give people dirty looks on the subway, but they probably think I'm just being some weird American.

My health

For the most part I have been healthy here with the exception of an occasional sore throat and cough. Those who know me know that I love Cheetos and chips, and prefer salt to sugar! In China I have been eating very spicy and flavorful food, because I hate bland cuisine. Relating to that, for the second time in two weeks I went to get a massage. The people massage your shoulders first, then your feet for 30 minutes, but your feet soak in VERY hot water and herbs while your back is massaged. The cool thing is that they have a theory that says that every part of your internal system is connected to your feet, so if your little toe hurts in a specific way, it might be connected to your lungs for example. I wanted to find out if there was anything wrong with me, and my masseuse said I had a problem with my digestive system, but I am overall healthy. They told everyone that they had a problem with digestion, but it makes sense, we're all eating food that we are not used to, so of course your insides aren't going to be working perfectly. Even in the US I thought I had digestion problems, but that's because I don't eat healthy food that often (and mostly eat spicy Cheetos). Nevertheless, they suggested I do not eat such spicy and flavorful food filled with salt, but instead eat more plain dishes. Hmm...am I going to eat this amazing tasting food all the time OR am I going to live off of plain rice and noodles while in China? Take a guess.

I decided that I am going to get acupuncture here at least once, along with a procedure that involves spreading oil on your back and somehow scraping it off with an animal horn (guā shā). Supposedly the second one hurts but feels amazing afterwards (the picture on Wikipedia looks horrible, but it says that a sense of relief is felt almost right after the scraping). When in China, do as the Chinese do (including practicing traditional Chinese medicine). The third procedure I know about involves glass bulbs which you put fire in and then stick to your back (they help your breathing and help with the changing weather and is also related to an ancient Islamic method having to do with releasing blood pressure:حجامة‎ Supposedly خير ما تداويتم به الحجامة), but leave marks for quite some time, so I don't know if I will get that done. That is called Cupping. Combined with oil, the cups and fire suck your skin into the glass bulbs, but the pressure is released once the cups are removed. When else would I practice traditional Chinese medicine if not when I am in China? Who knows, I might even learn something that I can take back to the US. At the massage place I saw that some older man had certain parts of his feet taped with white tape and Kenneth said that he had different herbs inside the tape. This lets your body and your feet directly absorb the medicinal herbs, and then they can help whatever you have a problem with. Something else that I need to look into is Buddhism. It would be nice to have a sense of calmness in my life.

I did go to my first temple in China on Saturday, and it was pretty amazing. Unfortunately (as with anywhere else) there were beggars in the front, so that ruined it for me a little. I am always disappointed to see this right in front of a place of worship like a Buddhist temple! I know that this is the best place for people to get money, but isn't a temple supposed to be sacred? At least they weren't inside the temple (probable because it costs money to get in. The money goes to the monks, so I was fine with paying to see the place). I took lots of pictures but by the time we got there many of the rooms where you pray to different gods were closed since it was so late. I heard the monks chanting and saw people praying...it was pretty peaceful and an amazing thing to witness. Religion has and will always interested me, no matter what the religion is. There were golden statues of big Buddhas, a statue for women to pray to and Chinese looking gods. A lot of incense was burned and there were many places to kneel to pray. This will be another topic I need to research and read about. Many things about life here are fascinating, such as Buddhism.

The zoo!

This Sunday a few of us went to the zoo, it was really cool, and the animals were much closer to people than in American zoos, but I was disgruntled about the treatment of them. We went to an elephant (Joanna I thought of you the whole time!) and a tiger show. Throughout the show, the animals looked so sedated and as if they HAD to work. I was pretty sad because elephants are so cute, and you could see they were just working. If you wanted to pay a hefty sum you could get your picture taken riding an elephant (I'll do that FOR FREE when I go somewhere in Africa where they have elephants...don't know which countries elephants live in though that you could see roaming around). You could also hold a tiger cub and get a picture taken with it, but the poor little baby tiger looked miserable. Something else I found annoying were the people who wanted to get the animals' attention, for example the Bengal Tiger's. It was behind glass but most people (children AND adults) were hitting the glass to agitate it when it was pacing around. I must admit I wanted the tiger to growl and scare the shit out of some of these idiots, but it didn't happen. That would have been funny though, because all the signs clearly say "Do not flat on glass" (I'm guessing the vocabulary in Chinese was correct, but not in English). Even in a huge zoo like this one, we were 4 out of maybe 8 foreigners...and when I say HUGE, I mean very, very big-it was like Great America! I took pictures of the tiger walking around, I touched a giraffe, I saw crazy colored birds, and most importantly, I had a great time, although it was overpriced for being in Guangzhou. I also saw pandas, koalas, zebras, etc. We took a little train for a while that was supposed to be like a safari and it kind of was. Giraffes, zebras, and other animals were freely walking around (if we had our own car we could have used it to drive around AND stop and take more pictures). There were also black bears and lions...as soon as my internet at home works again, I'll put up pictures! Next week is a holiday in China (well only 3 days: Sat, Sun and Mon, while it used to be all week) and we are planning on going to the beach around here or maybe we'll rent a cabin in the mountains north of Guangzhou, which would also be fun. Since the monsoon season has started, you never know when it will rain, so that's a little discouraging.

Lastly, I found out there are 56 ethnic groups (nationalities) in China and that more than 91% of people are Han. Lily's boyfriend is Miáo, so she said that if they get married and have kids they can have two children because his ethnic group is a minority (actually Miáo is an ethnic group in Guangxi where we went on our vacation a few weeks ago, and I took pictures of the women in the colorful clothes pestering us to buy something). I learn more and more each day about everything...so I ask a lot of questions.

On another note, I have learned that wearing a scarf can become handy here. I use it to cover up my mouth and nose when there is a truck driving by spewing fumes, or when someone sits next to me on the subway and they smell...bad. Let's leave it at that. Who knew a scarf could not only be used to keep you warm and be an accessory, but also a pollution blocker and body odor blocker?