Christmas

This is what I want for Christmas. If you've never met my family you may think this is presumptious and slightly selfish. If you are my family you might leave a comment like "Well it's about time! Christmas is only 6 weeks away!" See, I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing it for them. Here goes.

Item 1: Send me food! Unfortunately, most of the things I really really miss are perishable, but if you could send me candy (chocolate bars in particular, anything with caramel or nuts or peanut butter in it) awesome. Other potential food items include:

arrowroot cookies
peanut butter
jam (if anyone sends me homemade jam I might cry from happiness)
icing (like for cakes)
maple candy
anything pizza. ANYTHING!
instant noodles (SO KIDDKING...there are tonnes here haha)
This may not be a thing that is legal...so you should probably look into it first. I would be ecstatic if I could get my hands on a Rickard's Red or Keith's or Mill St. But sending that may not be a thing that is legal. So find out first.


Item 2: I would also love some recipes for some things:
a) those caramel square things that I keep being told only involve crackers and caramel and are delicious.
b) pie, please send me pie recipes, PLEASE. I may need you to send me that stuff you use for the crust
c) easy bread recipes (I might ask mom to bring me a bread maker machine because I'm a total wuss that can't go a year without half decent bread)
d)basically any recipe that is delicious and easy and doesn't have a lot of ingredients. Send it to me please.


Item 3: I have some places for you to donate money to. They are fantastic. I highly endorse them. And anything to can give them helps me help them. Perfect present.

1. Shem Women's Group http://shemgroup.org/

Work with rural Tibetan women to empower and educate in their communities. Really well organized and operated.


2. Pentok https://omprakash.org/partner_profile/p/182

Pentok is similar to Shem, but they focus on one village, and they have an overall goal of actually building a school in this village and encouraging girls to become educated. Also a great organization.


K guys, thanks!

Enlisting your help

Does anybody recognize this writing, or know someone that might? We are trying to figure out what it is an where it's from. Thanks team.

Mary WOULD do this

Well, this is going to be candid. And embarrassing, but ya'll need to hear this story, because in a month or so it's going to be on of those stories that I bring up ALL the time. SO here goes.

On Saturday night I met one of my friends at a bar and proceeded to drink way too much. Just indulging in the culture mom! Anyway, left the bar, got in a taxi (apparently), and got home. This is when the problems start. We have a gate. Everywhere has a gate with a guard. I'm pretty sure it's more for the purpose of watching the residents than protecting them, but whatever. Usually when they lock the gate, the leave just enough space for a person to squeeze through. However, due to it was apparently super late (3am?) the gate was locked tight. I was in no state of mind to try to be climbing any gates (almost certain death), so I panicked. Drunk in China locked out of my house!? Not good. I called both my roomates and luckily they didn't answer (3am!), called my friend (who's fault it was I was so drunk in the first place) and started to kick the gate. Because apparently I decided that the best solution to this problem was to try to kick down the gate. KICK DOWN THE GATE! Geez. A security guard finally appeared to open the door. My reaction was "OH CRAP; CHEESE IT!" but instead I just said "I'm so sorry, thankyou, I'm SO SORRY" and ran up to my house. Nothing came of it until just a few minutes ago, when my roomates came back from dinner to tell me "the security guard just yelled at us because you broke the gate". YEAH. OH CRAP RIGHT? So I just ran down to apologize and see if he wanted me to pay damages, but he eventually told me not to worry about it. I still got the charm you guys. Awesome. But yeah. Close call. Gonna try to avoid anything like that next time. I managed to ask in Chinese what I should do if the gate is locked and he said just to knock until a guard comes. So now I know.


Uh so yeah, also, school is good. Good enough that I could speak Chinese to this guard (WHAT UP!?) And I'm going into the office again tomorrow. Very nice. And I am probably going to start working on my thesis proposal sometime soon probably. NO promises.

That's this week's story.

PS- I had a terrible hangover the next day.

Mopey Mary

I think everyone who does one of these placements experiences moments in which they go "holy crap I miss Canada" (or anywhere else they may call home). I mean, even with all the flaws, we really do have it good. Not once in Canada have I had to think to myself "hmm, I wonder if this person is a government spy trying to trick me into expressing my dissent". Or "I wonder if it's safe to take a picture of this, or to keep it on my computer, or to put it on the internet". Or "I wonder if that man in that car is there to watch me." Or received phone calls telling me not to come to the office for a little while because of "some problems". Or stuff like that. It's weird.

In addition to this kind of tense atmosphere in which I am paranoid about making connections with anyone who may be questioned because of it (for the SOLE reason that I am a foreigner and all my radical freedom loving ideas need to be quarantined from the Ts, because apparently indigenous people would never come up with these ideas on their own...sigh), one of my good friend's little brothers passed away in a car crash in the Clinton area on the weekend. If you've ever been unable to get home when something tragic happens then you probably understand how shitty I feel about it. Being separated from all the other people who feel shitty about it is just the worst. My friends are great and they'll help each other through it, I just wish I could go home to help them too. Sigh.

On top of all this, it was Halloween. I haven't missed a Halloween in EVER, literally. I have never missed a Halloween. Until now. And everyone's costumes were AMAZING this year. I mean, spectacular, clever, original. The works. So I'm mopey about that too.

Here's what's good: I am starting to pick up the Chinese. I can understand some of the conversations I hear. And I know how to ask certain questions now. It's getting closer, I can feel it.


Well that sucked. I'm sure things will blow over soon and I can't get back on track with work and stuff.

PS- if you have no idea what I'm talking about use Google. It is your friend.

It's been a while...

Sorry! But really, it's a good thing. It means I'm busy and not bored. Not a whole lot is new either. We have been trying to sort out the work thing because it has turned out a little more complicated than planned. Miscommunication seems to be a big issue with the people I'm working with. In my opinion, it's probably because they are academic types that have difficulty wrapping their heads around logistics, but I may already be biased about that. As soon as some kind of plan is devised for me I will be fine. I just can't understand why anyone would think it was a good idea to seek out an intern if they couldn't even outline a mandate or overall goal for them. I double checked the definition of intern just to make sure I wasn't confused about this. According to the internet, an intern is definitely supposed to have some kind of work assigned to them. So I'm not crazy. As some of you are probably aware, it wouldn't kill me to spend a year here just kind of doing what I'm doing now (not much) and learning Chinese and hanging around and traveling. But that doesn't look very good on a resume, nor will it look very good on my reports back to Students for Development when they ask what I did with the money they gave me to come here. So it really is kind of an important problem that I need to get sorted out. My people at U of T are being awesome at trying to sort this out and I feel pretty confident that something will end up working out.

In other news, Chinese lessons are getting intense. Lots of work. But it means I'm learning it faster. She is making us learn the writing too. Which means I may be able to order food in restaurants soon. Which would be nice. I accidentally ate a HUGE chunk of garlic the other day, spit most of it out, and spent the rest of today and the day after feeling terrible. I maybe know how to pronounce the word now (although my pronunciation tends to be so terrible that nobody understands me) for garlic, so I should be able to avoid it in the future. Also, in a taxi yesterday I actually conversed with a taxi driver for about 5 sentences. I was incredibly excited.

I have friends (only a few)! Yay! Locals. I don't trust the expats here. They all have questionable motives for being in Xining. I am sticking with the locals for now. They take me out and order me drinks and get me on the right bus to get home. It's good. I think that from a combination of the beer being awful quality and the altitude being so high hangovers are much worse here though. So I can't go out and then get up in time for class like I can in Toronto. I also can't skip class like I can in Toronto. I explained the concept of skipping class to some of my friends and they were like "WHAT!? That's allowed!? We would never do that, just not go to class for no reason at all!" I try to tell them at least one thing that blows their minds every time I see them haha. They want to come back to Canada with me.

I have been kind of looking around for a new apartment, since everything I do is on the other side of town. I will definitely have to move by January, since that's when my roomates leave and I have NO desire to be in this big apartment in practically the middle of nowhere (it's like living in Scarborough) without them. I'm not hustling too much though since I really do enjoy their company. It's so nice to be able to come home and be Canadian all over the place after speaking Chinglish all day and worrying about being respectful and appropriate with everyone. Apartments here are incredibly cheap so I am resisting the temptation to get a REALLY nice one just to myself. For here it's very expensive, but in Canada money it would only be like $185 a month. That's so cheap...BUT, I could also live in a less nice place and pay only $60 a month in rent. Whatchya'll think? Splurge? Save for travel plans?

I maybe am getting closer to having a research topic. The problem here is that EVERYTHING that is interesting is also sensitive. I was thinking that looking into how NGOs function in an environment where they aren't really even allowed to touch public policy would be cool. Locals I have talked to think it would be cool too, but my roomate has warned me that it may be too sensitive of a topic. Here, you don't worry about getting yourself in trouble, but rather getting anyone who is connected to you in trouble. They can't call their embassy and jump on a plane to Canada. So I may have to rework this so it's less political. But it's the best idea I've had so far, so I'm getting somewhere (I hope?)

I realized a few days ago that I miss the diversity of Toronto. First it was "I miss seeing white people." Then I was like "Man, I miss black people!" Shortly after I was like "I miss ALL the people" (except the Chinese...there's lots of them around haha). But yeah. I will never again take for granted the sheer variety of different kinds of people in Toronto. I swear it.

My roomate just opened the window and apparently it is snowing. Toque power time? I think so.

Okay. That is an update just so you're aware that I haven't forgotten about Canada. It's long again!

Dumplings

Dear family and family of friends,

These are dumplings. They are delicious, and widely available in the GTA, and unless they poison me I love them. Just for clarification.

Working on getting some work. Have maybe made friends. Almost done the second season of X-Files. Will divulge more at a later date.

Rebgong Adventure

This one is journal style, written over a couple of days. I'm back in the city now

So, I am going to blog this trip in installments, because it's been that awesome so far, and tomorrow is supposed to just bet better. And I can't access blogspot from my hotel room internet, so this is just the way it's going to have to happen. To start off, my sweater smells like yak. Yak smell has become imprinted on my U of T sweater. How cool is that? Now I will tell you how this came to be.

The first week of October is some big holiday in here, although nobody I know has been able to give me a clear answer as to what it's about or what it's for or anything. Typical. Anyway, we all get 10 days off school, and "work" too. Work is in quotations because what I have done thus far should not be classified as work by almost anybody's standards. Hopefully that will change post-holiday. Anyway, my roomates and I decided to take a little trip to the next town over. There is a big monastery here, which we saw today.

I took a lot a lot of pictures, so ya'll should be satisfied. We unfortunately weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the temples themselves, but that just makes common sense. Even I don't like risking incurring the wrath of gods nobody can prove don't exist. Common sense, right? They were beautiful though. Breathtaking. Tibetans like colour and goooold. And HUGE statues. Come visit, I will bring you here. For sure.

Other reasons this town is better than Xining: everything to see and do here is within walking distance of the hotel.The hotel itself is great! Hot water, internet, TV, western toilets (wait till you see what I peed into at the monastery heh heh) clean, safe rooms...that kind of stuff. People are friendlier, and taking a great interest in us. While we were eating our breakfast dumplings (awesome right?), 5 people just stuck their heads into the restaurant, and then started talking to us about anything. Another reason it's awesome: this is a major trading post for nomads. Nomads are sweet. I'm not even sure if I can explain why...they just look so cool. I really like TIbetan jewellry...big and bright. I am going to come home with lots of that stuff.

Oh yeah. The reason my sweater smells like yak is probably because this whole town smells like yak. Because it's awesome.

Okay, that was the important stuff for now. I will upload this along with the second one after tomorrow, because I'm sure that's going to be saweeet.




THE NEXT DAY...
Breakfast was awesome. No MSG, no grease, no meat...it was glorious. And the best bread I've had in China yet. Most of the time they fry their bread instead of baking it, which leaves it pretty greasy. This bread reminded me of the bread in Italy...a little hard and dry, but insanely wholesome tasting. So yeah, that in itself was awesome. Then we climbed the mountain. It probably took us about an hour to get to the hermitage at the top. So we made it to the top, where there is a hermitage that some famous lama (I can't remember which) used to meditate at for long periods of time.They are renovating it, so there were a bunch of workers, as well as three junior monks looking after the temple thing. Apparenlty they rotate every 10 days so taht the same three aren't stuck up there forever.