(Hi all - Lauren here. Claire asked me to post this link to her photos for people without facebook. Just click on the link and it'll take you to them.)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32333&l=bdbb9&id=731306263
Sunday, April 20, 2008
an assortment of chinese dumplings.
s
well! long time no speak! im rather lazy on the blogging front. tre sorry.
i cant remember what i last told you all about, so i'll start with qing ming =D
qing ming:
qing ming is a chinese festival. during this festival you honour your ancestors by cleaning their tombs and offering sacrifices. everyone told us qing ming means "tomb sweeping". this is a very deceptive name. there are no brooms involved. why? because tombs in china are a mound of earth. most of the time you wouldnt even know it was a tomb, you would assume it was part of the landscape. sometimes they have a concrete ring around them, and even more rarely they have a small gravestone, but other then that, you wouldn't be able to tell what it was. anywho, these mounds/graves are covered in weeds, hence the sweeping. one must remove these weeds using a variety of garden tools. then a very shallow trench is dug around the outside. after the tomb has been swept, rectangles of coloured paper are placed in a circle on top, and either side of the entrance to the trench around the tomb.
and thus your tomb is clean. but yet to be decorated or your ancestors honoured. carina and i celebrated this festival at lily's husbands house. it was great! we arrive at about 10:30 am, sat around for while, then went and did the aforementioned activity. most tombs in rural china aka hicksville are up the side of mountains, so it takes a fair effort to get there. fortuantly for us lily's husbands family and the rest of their village don't live that close to a mountain, so their tombs are out int he field, nice and close to their house =D when we arrived at the house, everyone was busy preapring lunch, as every chinese festival involves a big family meal. we then sat down and ate some super delicious food, which included coloured rice! there was balck, purple, pinky/red, yellow and white, all mixed intogether ^_^ it's sticky rice that is then fried, its really tasty! the only person there who could speak english though was lily, so we made her translate things to the other family members and had amusing conversations. the craziest thing was though, as soon as they cleared away lunch, people started preapring food for dinner!!! i'd barely even begun to digest my food and they were already plotting to give me more!! it was nuts!
while others were preparing the meal (we weren't allowed to help, i dont think they wanted our vegetarian hands spoiling their lovely food) we returned to the tombs for some hardcore sacrificing and honouring. family members light incense and bow three times whilst making a wish to their ancestors. the incense is then placed int he ground at the front of the tomb. the more incense your tomb has, the more loved you are! then paper money and other paper things are burnt as gifts to the dead. then food that was going to be consumed for dinner was layed out before the tomb as an offering, and then the real fun began! the love affair chinese people have with firecrackers means the set off for any and no reason. so, of course, qing ming is no excuse. first they let off the ones that explode and sned sraps of coloured paper flying every where, then they let off these ones that look like a row of bullets you would insert to a machine gun or sling over your shoulder if you wanted to look like a buff army man. they go off like bullets too, and let of a LOT of smoke, and leave red paper everywhere. its very violent. in fact, the entire thing looks very violent. if you look over the fields, you see coloumns of smoke rising up into the sky, hear something that sounds like gun shots, and see lines of people snaking through it all. it looks rather like a war zone. not that i've ever seen a war zone, but i watch the news!
after this we went and ate more food =D it was as delicious as lunch time but i could barely eat any as i had barely digested the food i ate earlier. so i consumed some delicious vegetables, and then sat around waiting to explode. while i was waiting explode, lily decided to make me sing. someone had fed her the lie that i had a good voice, and one of her relatives is a very good singer and wanted to hear me sing. first this nameless but very nice young lady sang me a chinese folk song and then asked me to sing an australian song. my attempts at protest were thwarted by carina who told lily that i was a good singer, thus forcing me to perform. i sang the only australian song i could think of that wasn't the national anthem. i am australian. and not only did i have to sing, but lily made every single person there stop and listen! everyone! it was horrific! fortuantly none of them excpet lily spoke english, so they were not aware that i was butchering the song. after that i was roped into singing the titanic song. i was then given permission to retreat and wallow in shame.
after my little display, we sat around watchign the men play some drinking/hand/number game thing that involved the loser drinking alot of wine.
then we went home! it was a throughly enjoyable day.
hair:
during a conversation with one of the english teachers, linsey, carina discovered it is rediculously cheap to have your hair permanently straighted in china. as carina has extremely curly hair that the weather was wreacking havoc upon, and had not brought her own hair straightener with her, she jumped at the chance to have super straight locks with minimal effort. so after 4 hours in the hair dresser, and 160Y (less than $30), carina now has extremely straight hair. however, whilst in the hair dresser, i decided to have my hair cut =D seeing as how is hasn't seen a real hairdresser in about 10 months, i thought it would be a wise decision. so on wednesday i went to the hair dresser with linsey and requested that they fix my blonde mop. first however, they had to wash my hair. this was a very interesting experience. not only do they wash your hair, but they give you a massage. it involved alot of hitting on my head, and rubbing of my shoulders and back. however it also included a very odd arm massage when the shake your arm and whatnot. but the weirdest part was the ear wash. the lady not only massaged and cleaned the out side of my ear, she cleaned inside too!! it was so bizzare!! after that amusing experience, a lovely young chinese man spent about and hour hacking off the feral yellow bits of my hair (remenents of many types of hair dyes), and now i have some short, layered, bob like thing with a fringe =D at first i was sad because it looked very mullet-y, but then i came home and hacked off the mullet-y its and now its glorious!
classes:
are fantastic! im having so much fun teaching, and they kids are awesome! i only have one mildy unenthusiastic, boring class, but the others more then make up for that! the kids are really friendly, and when i had a bit of a cold recently they were very concerned; they all told me i had to rest and go to the doctor and look after myself! and they keep bringing gifts of food and one students made me something to hang in my room. its called a chinese knot, and im not even going to attempt to describe, but its very nice. starting to run out of lesson ideas though... i recently did a lesson on hero's with my students and three students said i was their hero ^_^ i also had some of the english teachers sit in on my class, and they were very impressed. lily said she enjoys my classes so much she would like to come and watch every time i do a new lesson plan!
KTV:
known to those in oz as kareoke. here ktv places are as common as pubs, and have the same function in society as a pub would in a western country. which is why it is suprising that it took untill last sunday for carina and i to experience it. it wasnt quite what we expected. for starters, its not in a public room with us singing to a bunch of stangers. instead was in a private room, but we were still singing to a bunch of strangers, as a number of teachers we had never met came along. we arrived early with linsey, and so she made us sing english songs while we waited. linsey and carina got me to sing happy birthday for you mum =] (for those not yet aware, i forgot it was my mothers birthday when she rang me. sorry mum) oddly enough, the film clip that played was the part of the sounds of music where they prance around the hills singing do re mi. we hoped we wouldn't be expected to sing for the whole night, and fortunalty we weren't. as the others arrived the took over and belted out chinese songs, thus absolving carina and i from singing any more. until they requsted we sing do re mi. and then they made us singing it again. it was horrible. and the film clip they played awas some couple roaming around 90's sydney!!! it was so weird!! whilst all this was happening we were being fed yummy fruit and popcorn and everyone was drinking beer. fortuantly we weren't expected to. then after a while they decided they were bored of singing and suddenly a strobe light comes on and carina and i are being forced to horrible club music! i was so confused!! it was made worse by the fact that i dont know how to dance, so i sort of shuffled my feet and swayed my hips. it was torture. finally, at midnight, everyone decided to go home and carina and i were left feeling slightly bewildered and keen for another even of hilariality!
thats all folks, hope your all wonderful, i certainly am!
may the force be with you.
love from claire xo.c
ho
well! long time no speak! im rather lazy on the blogging front. tre sorry.
i cant remember what i last told you all about, so i'll start with qing ming =D
qing ming:
qing ming is a chinese festival. during this festival you honour your ancestors by cleaning their tombs and offering sacrifices. everyone told us qing ming means "tomb sweeping". this is a very deceptive name. there are no brooms involved. why? because tombs in china are a mound of earth. most of the time you wouldnt even know it was a tomb, you would assume it was part of the landscape. sometimes they have a concrete ring around them, and even more rarely they have a small gravestone, but other then that, you wouldn't be able to tell what it was. anywho, these mounds/graves are covered in weeds, hence the sweeping. one must remove these weeds using a variety of garden tools. then a very shallow trench is dug around the outside. after the tomb has been swept, rectangles of coloured paper are placed in a circle on top, and either side of the entrance to the trench around the tomb.
and thus your tomb is clean. but yet to be decorated or your ancestors honoured. carina and i celebrated this festival at lily's husbands house. it was great! we arrive at about 10:30 am, sat around for while, then went and did the aforementioned activity. most tombs in rural china aka hicksville are up the side of mountains, so it takes a fair effort to get there. fortuantly for us lily's husbands family and the rest of their village don't live that close to a mountain, so their tombs are out int he field, nice and close to their house =D when we arrived at the house, everyone was busy preapring lunch, as every chinese festival involves a big family meal. we then sat down and ate some super delicious food, which included coloured rice! there was balck, purple, pinky/red, yellow and white, all mixed intogether ^_^ it's sticky rice that is then fried, its really tasty! the only person there who could speak english though was lily, so we made her translate things to the other family members and had amusing conversations. the craziest thing was though, as soon as they cleared away lunch, people started preapring food for dinner!!! i'd barely even begun to digest my food and they were already plotting to give me more!! it was nuts!
while others were preparing the meal (we weren't allowed to help, i dont think they wanted our vegetarian hands spoiling their lovely food) we returned to the tombs for some hardcore sacrificing and honouring. family members light incense and bow three times whilst making a wish to their ancestors. the incense is then placed int he ground at the front of the tomb. the more incense your tomb has, the more loved you are! then paper money and other paper things are burnt as gifts to the dead. then food that was going to be consumed for dinner was layed out before the tomb as an offering, and then the real fun began! the love affair chinese people have with firecrackers means the set off for any and no reason. so, of course, qing ming is no excuse. first they let off the ones that explode and sned sraps of coloured paper flying every where, then they let off these ones that look like a row of bullets you would insert to a machine gun or sling over your shoulder if you wanted to look like a buff army man. they go off like bullets too, and let of a LOT of smoke, and leave red paper everywhere. its very violent. in fact, the entire thing looks very violent. if you look over the fields, you see coloumns of smoke rising up into the sky, hear something that sounds like gun shots, and see lines of people snaking through it all. it looks rather like a war zone. not that i've ever seen a war zone, but i watch the news!
after this we went and ate more food =D it was as delicious as lunch time but i could barely eat any as i had barely digested the food i ate earlier. so i consumed some delicious vegetables, and then sat around waiting to explode. while i was waiting explode, lily decided to make me sing. someone had fed her the lie that i had a good voice, and one of her relatives is a very good singer and wanted to hear me sing. first this nameless but very nice young lady sang me a chinese folk song and then asked me to sing an australian song. my attempts at protest were thwarted by carina who told lily that i was a good singer, thus forcing me to perform. i sang the only australian song i could think of that wasn't the national anthem. i am australian. and not only did i have to sing, but lily made every single person there stop and listen! everyone! it was horrific! fortuantly none of them excpet lily spoke english, so they were not aware that i was butchering the song. after that i was roped into singing the titanic song. i was then given permission to retreat and wallow in shame.
after my little display, we sat around watchign the men play some drinking/hand/number game thing that involved the loser drinking alot of wine.
then we went home! it was a throughly enjoyable day.
hair:
during a conversation with one of the english teachers, linsey, carina discovered it is rediculously cheap to have your hair permanently straighted in china. as carina has extremely curly hair that the weather was wreacking havoc upon, and had not brought her own hair straightener with her, she jumped at the chance to have super straight locks with minimal effort. so after 4 hours in the hair dresser, and 160Y (less than $30), carina now has extremely straight hair. however, whilst in the hair dresser, i decided to have my hair cut =D seeing as how is hasn't seen a real hairdresser in about 10 months, i thought it would be a wise decision. so on wednesday i went to the hair dresser with linsey and requested that they fix my blonde mop. first however, they had to wash my hair. this was a very interesting experience. not only do they wash your hair, but they give you a massage. it involved alot of hitting on my head, and rubbing of my shoulders and back. however it also included a very odd arm massage when the shake your arm and whatnot. but the weirdest part was the ear wash. the lady not only massaged and cleaned the out side of my ear, she cleaned inside too!! it was so bizzare!! after that amusing experience, a lovely young chinese man spent about and hour hacking off the feral yellow bits of my hair (remenents of many types of hair dyes), and now i have some short, layered, bob like thing with a fringe =D at first i was sad because it looked very mullet-y, but then i came home and hacked off the mullet-y its and now its glorious!
classes:
are fantastic! im having so much fun teaching, and they kids are awesome! i only have one mildy unenthusiastic, boring class, but the others more then make up for that! the kids are really friendly, and when i had a bit of a cold recently they were very concerned; they all told me i had to rest and go to the doctor and look after myself! and they keep bringing gifts of food and one students made me something to hang in my room. its called a chinese knot, and im not even going to attempt to describe, but its very nice. starting to run out of lesson ideas though... i recently did a lesson on hero's with my students and three students said i was their hero ^_^ i also had some of the english teachers sit in on my class, and they were very impressed. lily said she enjoys my classes so much she would like to come and watch every time i do a new lesson plan!
KTV:
known to those in oz as kareoke. here ktv places are as common as pubs, and have the same function in society as a pub would in a western country. which is why it is suprising that it took untill last sunday for carina and i to experience it. it wasnt quite what we expected. for starters, its not in a public room with us singing to a bunch of stangers. instead was in a private room, but we were still singing to a bunch of strangers, as a number of teachers we had never met came along. we arrived early with linsey, and so she made us sing english songs while we waited. linsey and carina got me to sing happy birthday for you mum =] (for those not yet aware, i forgot it was my mothers birthday when she rang me. sorry mum) oddly enough, the film clip that played was the part of the sounds of music where they prance around the hills singing do re mi. we hoped we wouldn't be expected to sing for the whole night, and fortunalty we weren't. as the others arrived the took over and belted out chinese songs, thus absolving carina and i from singing any more. until they requsted we sing do re mi. and then they made us singing it again. it was horrible. and the film clip they played awas some couple roaming around 90's sydney!!! it was so weird!! whilst all this was happening we were being fed yummy fruit and popcorn and everyone was drinking beer. fortuantly we weren't expected to. then after a while they decided they were bored of singing and suddenly a strobe light comes on and carina and i are being forced to horrible club music! i was so confused!! it was made worse by the fact that i dont know how to dance, so i sort of shuffled my feet and swayed my hips. it was torture. finally, at midnight, everyone decided to go home and carina and i were left feeling slightly bewildered and keen for another even of hilariality!
thats all folks, hope your all wonderful, i certainly am!
may the force be with you.
love from claire xo.c
ho
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