What's that in the back of your throat?

Whew! The school/work week is almost over. Tomorrow is Teacher's Day here in China where the kiddos write nice notes to their teachers and give them flowers and stuff. We'll see if I get anything, see if my teaching and their smiling little faces around campus really translate into liking me or that I am just a crazy foreigner and they're just messing with me. I got tons of mileage out of three games today in my Junior 1 class, Rock Paper Scissors, Hangman, and Tic-Tac-Toe. There is so much more incentive for the little boogers to learn when it is turned into a competition, sucks to be the kid who made hangman complete by guessing the last wrong letter which resulted in me putting the foot on hangman. Haha. Kids were good today...I got the visuals going with the Junior 3s...thank god for CNN.com and Powerpoint, I was able to turn Hurricane Katrina into a lesson and speaking activity.

Travel aims for the year:
Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Inner Mongolia, at least 8 new cities in China (shouldn't be hard: HK, Macau and Guangzhou are within two hours from here by train). If you're reading this and thinking 'hmmm, Cambodia in the spring sounds nice,' then come on over and visit, I've got a guest room.

Along with travel aims I've got aims for modes of transportation:
Train
Bus (the overnight kind maybe...i hear that's the adventure of a lifetime)
Camel
White Horse (dude, if no prince on a white horse is going to ride my way (no need to find a white horse Adam) I am going to be the feminist on hop on one myself)
Elephant (though I've already ridden on one near Mt. Krakatoa)
Plane (pretty standard)
Subway (check)
Bus (check)
Crazy City Mini-Bus (check - I'm glad I've got insurance)
Ferry
Bicycle

Angst of the day:
Tired of being stared at like I'm an endangered Panda at the National Zoo in DC. Dang it, I'm a foreigner, I've got haltering knowledge of Chinese, yes I walk around town and don't have a chauffeur like all the rest of the snotty foreigners living in Shekou, yes I ride the bus, yes I eat from street vendors. yeesh, get over it - I live here, I get the gist that you talk about me every time I walk by, I GET IT THAT I'M TALL, even EXECPTIONALLY TALL!

Have I ever mentioned the lack of manners in Mainland China? (courtesy of my observations of the Shenzhen public) Perhaps it's all relative b/c every culture has diferent standard for etiquette and there is no international guideline for etiquette.

My TA for the class I taught at Bejing University told me it was b/c people are only taught to study here, and not how to be humans - that's a little harsh, ok way harsh, but there are some huge! idiosyncracies of the area:

Anyways, so it's not considered rude to ...
- pick your nose in public (ie: in the office while grading papers.. on the bus... while waiting in line to check out at the hypermarket)
- to answer your cellphone during a meeting, a government ceremony, or a movie...
- to cut in line b/c in China there really IS NO LINE!
- to throw elbows and hips when in crowded situations...
- to spit mucous and other junx FREELY... literally they spit on every available place other than themselves, unless they have no sense of aim or have poor spitting techniques and then the personal space is spit upon (note: there is no such thing as personal space here)! No place is ever quiet, there is always the faint sound of someone clearing junk out of their throat and leaving it on the pavenment. (This may be the only thing that really gets me about this China....everything else is merely conversation, but the spitting, well you come and see what you think). Apparently the gov't is working on putting a stop to 'tutan' aka. spitting. There's a campaign about it or something... TIC :-)