A Whole New Blog

Hello faithful followers.

I thought about deceiving you all for a bit, but I suppose I should go ahead and admit it: This is not Caryn Wang.

[GASP!]

Just messing around. This is Caryn's friend, Beth. For those of you who don't know me, Caryn and I have gone to school together pretty much since pre-K. And since I am almost constantly on my computer for my freelance work, I get to talk with Caryn quite often on G-chat. I think she can access it from her phone. If you want to talk to her on G-chat, her Google account is: carynwang@gmail.com. Original, I know.

She also said she may try to use Skype a bit more, so try her there as well if you want. (Her Skype account is also: carynwang).

Well that was quite a lengthy introduction. But to the point >> Blogger, like most sites, is blocked in China, so Caryn is unable to access or update this site anymore. But never fear! She has found another blogging outlet that is allowed in China.

And here it is! >> http://carynwang.edublogs.org/

She's already got a post up, so head on over.

Apparently she's past the whole excited-to-be-abroad phase and has settled in to the just-another-day-in-the-life phase, so I'm sure she'd love to hear from you all! And of course, her birthday is on January 14th... just sayin'.....

On that note, I've also gotten a hold of her address over there in Chinaland. It's a bit odd looking--imagine the nerve of those Chinese using Chinese characters on their addresses! :P But all joking aside, she said if you are planning on sending her any mail, just print the address out and tape it to your correspondence. And of course, you'll have to put her name on it somewhere.


Is there anything I've forgotten? Hmm. Well, I'll also post a link to the new blog on Facebook since she can't access that either. Isn't it grand that I now have Caryn's passwords?? :P

Hope everyone had a good holiday!
Beth

A Whole New World

I arrived in Hong Kong on Sunday night and even though I’ve only been here 2 days, I am absolutely in love with this city. It’s objectively awesome. I may not have taken a magic carpet 

ride here, but there are definitely new horizons to pursue and a hundred thousand things to see. It’s like an amalgam of London, New York and Miami, but with lots of Chinese people and mountains. There’s so much to do and see and buy, but sadly, my sole purpose for coming here was to get my visa so I can enter mainland China. I am very happy to say that I have successfully accomplished my objective and I have done a bit of sightseeing as well. Yesterday I dropped my documents and passport off at a travel agency (a very helpful Swiss woman I met on my flight over here gave me the name, number and address of a travel agency) and they took care of everything. 24 hours later, I am in possession of a visa to China.

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions (SAR) in China, the other is Macau. An SAR is a highly autonomous region with its own political system, code of law and economy. But they are still part of China. It’s part of Deng Xiaoping’s “one country, two systems” principle. Basically it means that if you’re American, you don’t need a visa to stay here for up to 90 days and you can still use Facebook and Youtube. It also means Hong Kong has its own currency, the Hong Kong Dollar, which I really like because the paper money is really colorful.

Hong Kong is made up of a bunch of islands that are all quite different. I’m staying at a hostel on Kowloon in a very “Chinese” part of the island, as in there’s no English on the menus at most places. Yesterday, I walked to the ferry pier to go to Hong Kong Island and my surroundings got more and more “Western” with every step I took. After I took the ferry over to Hong Kong Island, I just wandered around for a bit. There are lots of parks and gardens spread out all over the city, sort of like London. I also took a tram up to the top of a mountain (it’s one of the “must see” things in Hong Kong) to get a nice aerial view of the city. There were a bunch of restaurants and shops at the top and obviously the view was pretty spectacular. There were also a bunch of nature trails, so I took one that went around the mountain. I didn’t go all the way around, but I walked for a good two hours, listening to my iPod and doing my best to sing with all the voices of the mountain.  I think I walked about 15 miles yesterday, which is probably a conservative estimation. I was very entranced by the city so I didn’t feel like taking the subway. I took a lot of pictures, which as most of you know is very unlike me.

  

I’ve had a very relaxing day today. I slept late and then walked to the Jade Market to just have a look around…haha, I learned very fast that you do NOT go to the Jade Market and just look 

around. You WILL buy something, the vendors make sure of that. Once they catch you looking at something, they won’t give up until you buy it. Afterwards I got some lunch and then picked up my passport from the travel agency. I am currently sitting at a Starbucks in a giant mall, enjoying an Iced Chai and the Christmas music. This is my third Starbucks trip in the past 2 days, each time at a different Starbucks and each time as legendary as I imagined.

I’m really enjoying the fact that I blend in really well here. It’s really nice to not be an obvious tourist; people treat you very differently. An unfortunate side-effect of that is people assume I speak Chinese and they just ramble away and I have to wait until they are finished talking and inform them that I did not understand a word they just said. Even the stewardess on the flight over here assumed I was from here so she didn’t give me an arrival card. I had to wait in line at passport control, get a card and then get back in line as I filled it out. A really good side-effect will be that the starting prices I get at markets will be much lower than those given to people who are obviously Westerners.

Tomorrow I leave for Xi’an. The anglicized pronunciation is “Shee-ann,” in case you were wondering. It was the capital of a bunch of important dynasties (you can Wikipedia it if you really want to know which ones) and is still one of the cultural centers of China. It is also where the Terracotta Warriors are. So there will be a lot to do and see there as well. I also start teaching really soon, the 26^th I think, which I’m really excited about. It will be nice to have some kind of consistency week to week; my schedule the past 5 weeks has been pretty erratic.

Thanks for all the comments, I love reading them and I hope everyone is having a great Holiday Season!!! 

The End in the Beginning

The first part of my journey is almost over. Today is my last day in Cambodia and I really can't believe four weeks went by that fast. I finished my TESOL course yesterday and received my little certificate saying I'm qualified to teach English. I have already updated my resume and everything, so its really official. And with the continued devaluation of bachelor's degrees, this certificate might actually be the most useful piece of paper I own. Anyway, I will be traveling to Hong Kong tomorrow to apply for my Chinese visa. I'll be there for 3 days and then I go to Xi'an (Shaanxi province). I'll be in Xi'an through the end of February and then I'll move to Jinan (Shandong province), which is where I will be for a year (I've included a map for your convenience).

I had to say goodbye to a bunch of really awesome people, which kinda sucks, but now I have friends all over Southeast Asia, which is pretty cool. I really loved Cambodia, but I am very excited about finally going to China.  The visa process has been pretty stressful and confusing, but I think that's normal. Hopefully everything works out and my 3 days in Hong will be uneventful and relaxing. I think they have a Disney World there and I know they have Starbucks...talk about magical!! I haven't seen that wonderful, green mermaid logo in 4 weeks. When I was in Russia, there wasn't a Starbucks in St. Petersburg, but there were a few in Moscow. I was only in Moscow for 4 days and I think I went to Starbucks 8 times...I would go see some awesome piece of history and then follow it up with a венти холодний чай (Iced Venti Chai). The baristas knew my drink by the second day, now that's legen...wait for it...dary!! It's amazing how a little taste of something so familiar can make you feel at home, even when you're on the other side of the world. It was also the only place in Russia that understood the phrase "customer service." There might be a Starbucks in Xi'an, but according to my latest google search, there is definitely not one in Jinan. Fortunately, I will be in the land of tea, so I should be able to find a satisfactory local substitute for my addiction.

There's an App for That

In addition to teaching everyday, I also take Chinese lessons so I can learn to say important things like, “the cat is on the chair” and “the monkey is on the branch.” I am finding that even though I didn’t really know how to say anything in Chinese, the fact that I grew up hearing it is very helpful. When I learn a new word or phrase, I can remember having heard it multiple times from either my dad or from one of the martial arts movies he always watches.  Chinese sentence structure is actually quite similar to English; the hard part is the tones. There are 4 different tones and if you try and say something and use the wrong one, you’re probably saying a completely different word. For example, the word ‘ma’ can mean all of the following: mother, trouble, horse, curse and locust. So if you wanted to say, “this is my mother,” but you accidentally use the wrong tone, you could be saying, “this is my curse.” So yeah, getting the tones right is very important. Fortunately, there’s an app for that. I downloaded an app for learning Mandarin before I left home that models the pronunciation of words and phrases so I can practice them at my leisure.  Hopefully when I get to China I don’t accidentally say something completely offensive…maybe I’ll just speak English for the first few months. 

It's a Small World After All

Fact: nothing brings people together better than throwing around a little piece of plastic. There’s a group of people from all over the world that play pick-up Ultimate Frisbee every Sunday at a school here in Phnom Penh.  I have now played Ultimate Frisbee in Russia and Cambodia, only about 190 countries left.  We met at 3:30 and just played until the sun went down. It was very chill and just awesome Ultimate fun. It felt great to be able to run around and get some quality exercise.  It was also cool to meet some other English-speaking people who live here, outside of my program. I met a lot of Westerners that are here working for NGO’s and volunteering.  A small sample of the people I met: an Australian guy here for work, a Philippino guy here teaching, a guy from Oregon who is here doing some volunteer organic farming, another American guy doing solar energy work, a Canadian girl working with an NGO that helps victims of human trafficking and a guy who actually grew up in Atlanta and is here for work (he went to either Stars Mill or McIntosh high school).  So the people were obviously really awesome and interesting, but what really made this Ultimate experience complete were all the chickens chillin’ near one of the endzones. Hopefully I'll be able to find the Ultimate scene when I get to China...in one week! I can't believe my time in Cambodia is almost over, it really flew by. 

...But I'm Not the Only One

This is probably the most precious thing I've ever seen. My friends Ashley (from Scotland) and Igna (from South Africa) teach at a different orphanage and this is a video of them singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." 

 

You May Say I'm a Dreamer...

As you all know, I have traveled across the world to teach English to kids. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but after teaching for a week in a Cambodia I can honestly say that this is probably the best life decision I’ve ever made. Seriously. I teach at an orphanage sponsored by a Chicago based NGO called New Day. I have a class of 27 Khmai kids ranging from 9 to 15 years old and they are absolutely amazing. They’re SO eager to learn and so respectful and they seem to really have fun in class. I pretty much get to do whatever I want during my lessons because I’m just at this orphanage as a volunteer teacher for 2 weeks and I’m supposed to supplement what they learn out of their textbooks. So my lesson for Friday consisted of me printing out the lyrics to the Glee version of “Imagine,” with some of the words missing, and we listened to it 7 or 8 times while they filled in as many words as they could. We then sang through it a few times, which was just a magical experience. Just imagine 27 adorable Khmai kids singing along to the Glee version of “Imagine.” Amazing. I also printed out the opening monologue from Beauty and the Beast, but I moved the words around in each sentence, so as I read through it they had to put the words in the correct order. They got really competitive with this and would shoot their hand in the air as soon as they finished to let me know they were done already. They get really competitive with pretty much everything, which I totally relate to and absolutely love about them.  I also get to play football (soccer) with them sometimes during their breaks, which is just SO much fun. Just running around and playing with these kids is an uplifting experience.  

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Okay, so there’s this market in Phnom Penh called the Russian Market, so named because during the whole communism thing when the Russians were here, it was where the Русские went to find the things they needed. There aren’t actually any Russians here anymore, kind of a letdown, but the Russian Market is a magical place. Seriously. It’s like walking through the wardrobe: on the outside, it’s really nothing special, kind of looks like a giant shack, but then you walk inside and there’s this magical world you never knew existed. You can find anything there at a fraction of the retail value. And by anything, I mean everything you ever wanted, but resisted buying because it was too expensive. It’s really not the best place for a compulsive buyer or someone who has trouble saying no…the salespeople are super friendly and very good at what they do. 

I went to one area planning to buy a t-shirt, as in 1 t-shirt, and I ended up buying 5 t-shirts and 2 skirts...it was still only $20, but that was the moment that I realized I needed to get out of there and never go back…haha, yeah right. I also bought real orange Ray-Bans for $7, which is how much I paid for my fake ones! They also have Coach purses for $20…I’ve managed to stay away from them so far. I did buy an 80L North Face backpack for $20 and I’m pretty sure the retail value of it is around $300. Oh, AND they have every TV show you could possibly want. You can buy a boxed set of every season of a show for about $15. I bought a boxed set of 4 seasons of Star Trek Enterprise for $10. FOUR seasons for TEN DOLLARS!! It’s ridiculous! You can buy 5 seasons of the Office for $15. I spent double that on one season of the Office at home.  I also bought New Moon on DVD for $1.50…totally awesome.

Sidebar: I absolutely loved New Moon. It was a fantastic adaptation of the book and the overall quality of the film was way better than Twilight. 

The whole shopping experience at the Russian Market is kind of cool because you're expected to bargain. Although, sometimes I just pay their original asking price because it's already a great deal and I sort of feel like a tool bargaining from $6 down to $5. That dollar means very little to me, but it goes a long way here. When I do bargain, my strategy is to just look like I really want whatever it is, but then hesitate for a really long time when they say their price. They'll usually say something like, "for you sista, special price!" and they'll knock a couple bucks off. Or sometimes they'll ask, "what price is good for you?" and assuming that what you say is reasonable, they'll add a dollar to it and say, "good price for both of us!" It's really a lot of fun if you do it right.

In Latin Jehovah begins with an "I"!

Last weekend we went on an excursion to Siem Reap, which is where a ton of really old temples are. If you want to know about the actual historical stuff, you can look it up on Wikipedia because I didn’t really pay attention to the tour guide. I pretty much took any opportunity I could to sneak away from the group to explore and climb the ruins, obviously remembering to step on the 'I' and not the 'J' and being constantly on the lookout for poison darts, tombs filled with snakes and secret passageways that lead to underground civilizations of people who can take your heart right out of your chest…there were a few close calls, but we made it out alive.
So yeah, it was a lot of fun. We also saw a temple that was used in the movie Tomb Raider. It’s actually called the Tomb Raider temple and you can hear all of the tour guides speaking their different languages throw in an “Angelina Jolie” every few minutes. She’s kind of a big deal there because the movie brought a lot of tourism to the area and I think she might donate money to them. And honestly, I don’t blame her for taking a kid home with her when she left. There are so many adorable kids on the streets selling bracelets and postcards, but they’re pretty much child slaves because they don’t actually get the money from selling those things. People just use them as bait to lure in tourists. It’s kind of tragic. Welcome to the “developing world” (the term “third world” is no longer used in international relations, in case you were wondering).

Thanks to Mike for inspiring the title for this post and taking this picture.

Tuk Tuks, Motos and Hummers? Oh my!!!

The traffic situation here is ridiculous. There are no apparent traffic laws except try not to get hit. It’s pretty fascinating how the lack of road rules is actually pretty efficient here. I haven’t seen a single accident, they do happen, but when you first witness the traffic here you’d think there would be an accident every 5 seconds. It was kind of scary at first, but I’m used to it now. I’ve learned that when you want to cross the street, you just have to go for it and don’t look back. I always envision the grandma from Mulan when she puts the blindfold on and walks through traffic. That’s pretty much what it feels like.

Anyway, there are five basic modes of transportation here: walking, bicycles, motos, tuk tuks and cars. Motos are sort of a cross between a dirt bike and a moped. Most people ride around on these and you can’t walk five feet without someone asking, “moto?” It’s sort of like a freelance taxi service. Usually it costs about a dollar, you hop on the moto and they drive you wherever you want to go. It’s actually pretty fun and really convenient. Oh yeah, and seeing three or four people on a moto is pretty common. Sometimes you’ll see a whole family on one: mom, dad, kids and the dog.

Tuk tuks are essentially rickshaws pulled by motos. So if you’re going somewhere with a bunch of people you get a tuk tuk. At first I was like, wtf? You expect me to ride around in that? But after two weeks of riding in one at least twice a day, it feels like a very normal way to get around. So imagine streets filled with motos and tuk tuks (eventually there will be pictures so you won’t have to just imagine it) and then a few older model cars and trucks, sometimes with license plates from the States. And then there are the random really nice cars and the one guy in Phnom Penh who drives a Hummer. I think Hummers are a bit extravagant at home; so seeing one here sort of caught me off guard. I mean, I saw a moto with two people and 4 dogs on it the other day and I didn’t think that was weird. But a hummer…really? If that’s not a blatant sign of higher-level corruption, I don’t know what is. I mean, when most people are riding around on motos offering their services for a dollar and someone can afford to drive a hummer around, there’s a problem with that.

A Long-expected Blog

Naturally, I have procrastinated a little in writing my blog, so I now have to do two weeks worth of blogging in order to catch up. A few basic facts you need to know:
1. I’m spending a month in Phnom Penh, Cambodia doing a TESOL training course so I can technically be qualified to teach English.
2. I’m here with a program called Language Corps. Basically, they train me, provide housing while I’m in Phnom Penh and set me up with a job in China, where I will be spending 15ish months, if I ever get my visa.
3. I created the template for this blog months ago in anticipation of writing it, but since I had nothing to write at the time, I just wrote “Tabula Rasa” as the header with the intention of renaming it. I have decided to leave it as Tabula Rasa since it’s actually kind of how I feel about traveling. I try to enter into a new cultural experience with no preconceived notions of what it will be like and just absorb everything I can.
4. Also, Tabula Rasa is the title of a season 1 LOST episode, a season 6 Buffy episode and a season 4 Heroes episode.
5. Cambodia is 12 hours ahead of EST, so basically I’m in the future…do NOT drink the coffee! If you don’t watch the Office, shame on you.
6. It’s my goal to reference as many TV shows, books and movies as possible in this blog. And I won't always tell you or make it obvious, so read carefully.