IMPORTANT UPDATE

I made a pillow fort today. That is all.

We Can Dance if We Want to

So I know I promised this post a LONG time ago (along with the Chongqing video, which is still in the works), but it's finally here!!

At long last, you get to see our National Day Performance, in which the foreign teachers dance a self-choreographed dance in front of thousands of people. I have done theater in the past, but this was by far the biggest audience I've ever been in front of, and it was both terrifying and tons of fun.

Without further ado, here is the video and you can see for yourself just how ridiculous the whole thing was. Unfortunately, the video cuts off the end of our dance, which is actually the most impressive part, but you'll just have to use your imagination for that. We were just one act among many, many others--though the others were much more professional. Regardless, we had a ton of fun with it, and the students loved it.

Silent Reading

30 eyes glued to their paper,
their lips crumpling,
tongues coiling with
silent words.
The air is filled with the faint hiss
of breathy syllables,
all weaving together
into a blanket of white noise.

Visitor!

This past week, I've had a visitor come and visit me in Pengshan: my good friend Nicole! She and I took many Chinese classes together in college, and this month she was traveling around China doing research on animal rights for a research paper in her final year of college. When I found out that she was coming by Chengdu, I insisted that she had to stay with me while she was here! Over the last week, we've had a blast. On Sunday, I took her into Chengdu and we visited a couple places that I have been meaning to go, but haven't gotten around to seeing yet: the local antique market and the Chengdu Zoo.

We went to the antique market first, and it was delightful! It consisted of a ton of stalls full of old Chinese artifacts, including pottery, jewelry, and other knickknacks.

One stall even had an old phonograph!

I could have spent hours there sorting through everything, but we had other things planned, so after an hour we headed off to the Chengdu Zoo.

Actually, we had originally planned to go see the Panda Research Base, which Chengdu is so famous for. However, google maps led us astray and instead of taking us to the breeding grounds for adorable pandas, it took us to a very industrial part of Chengdu, with no pandas to be found. Luckily, when we consulted the map, we discovered that we weren't actually far from the zoo, so we decided to catch a bus there instead.

Zoos have always been a conflicting experience for me. On the one hand, I love animals, and it's a treat so see so many exotic, beautiful animals in one place. But on the other hand, it's always slightly depressing to see them pent up in cages. And yes, I know there are a lot of justifications for zoos and that it's not like they can just release zoo animals into the wild, but that doesn't change the fact that zoos always make me a little uncomfortable.

The Chengdu Zoo, however, was even more depressing than usual. Their selection of animals was impressive and varied. I got to see some animals that I had never seen before in any American zoo:

This was my first time seeing a Golden Monkey. They're native to Sichuan!

The squirrel monkeys were adorable.

A beautiful White Tiger.

Some baby deer.

A hippo at feeding time. Look at that jaw!

But, while the animals themselves were gorgeous, their habitats left a lot to be desired. With the exceptions of the pandas and some of the monkeys, most of the exhibits were far too small for the animals containing them. The tigers, in particular, were almost all on edge, pacing the lengths of their enclosures. Additionally, most of the cages were open to the sky, which meant that visitors were throwing them bits of food to tempt them closer to the windows. At nearly every cage, the animals were right up near the edge, begging for food. Lastly, some of the animals' sleeping areas had large windows in them, which not only meant that they did not have somewhere to retreat to when they became agitated, but also that people were constantly banging on the glass, trying to get the animals to wake up and do something more interesting!

The lack of "zoo etiquette" was astounding. Simple things that are pretty ingrained in our culture (don't feed the animals! don't bang on the glass!) were simply ignored, and it made me realize how much I've taken that for granted. I can't say that going to the zoo was a pleasant experience, but it certainly made me think. What else is common in our society that is an anomaly elsewhere? What else have I taken for granted?