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October 25, 2005
About eating lobsters
Naomi had the privilege of grading this essay last week. The topic she assigned was, "Agree or disagree: the thinner a woman is, the more beautiful."
The Thinner and the Beautiful
I think the women the more thinner the more beautiful. Nowadays almost every people like thin women. So many many women want to lose weight.
Losing weight can make people healthy. Fat people can get alot of illness. So many people keep weight not only to become beautiful but to keep healthy. And keep fit can make someone eat more nutrition. Because people always eat lobsters.
Losing weight can make people beautiful. When you walking in the street, I think you always like to watch thin girl. Thin girl can wear beautiful clothese.
So I think the more thinner the more beautiful. If I can lose weight I will very happy.
Posted by huzzlecoo at 02:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 24, 2005
Everyday dangers
Conversations like this are common:
A: Do you drink water before you go to bed?
Me: Um…I do if I’m thirsty.
A: So do I. But many people tell me I shouldn’t.
Me: Why not?
A: It’s bad for your eyes.
Me: Bad for your eyes?
A: Yes. If you put honey in the water, it’s okay, but if you drink the water without honey and then lie down, the water will go to your eyes and ruin them.
Me: Hm. I’ve never heard that before. But I’m pretty sure the water goes to your stomach.
Posted by huzzlecoo at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
Why I love my job (for the 146th time)
If you want to get me going for a while, ask me why I skip off happily to the classroom every weekday morning and grin stupidly as I’m walking back to my room for lunch. I won’t go into all the details now, but one of the reasons is that occasionally, after hours of wading through Chinglish drivel -- I love my students, but the fact is, much of their writing is mind-numbingly uninteresting; maybe a portion of the fault is in the assigned topics, or lack thereof -- I get something like this (I’ve made some grammar corrections to preserve the flow):
Blue Autumn
It was raining. But I was having a walk without an umbrella, for the rain was slight.
Looking back, I saw my lovely family standing under the grey sky. The rain had covered everything here.
It is said that rain stands for great sadness because Chinese believe that it always happens where there something bad, such as someone dying. The rain is the tears of and sympathies from God.
Under the rain, everything seemed to have lost its color. A gloomy day it was.
Continuing my way, I passed by the chicken’s family: two hens and their eggs. But it seemed that they didn’t like this weather because their house had got wet and they couldn’t go out for food.
Suddenly a flock of birds flew over my head and into the distance, leaving melodious songs. Did they want to make me happy? Did they know and understand my sadness?
The sharpness of their formation was very tidy: Sometimes it was like a dash; sometimes it was like the Chinese character “人”. Whatever it looked like, there was always a leader, as a star, guiding them to the warmest and lightest world.
I sat on a stone beside the road. The crops lay before me.
Dad said we wouldn’t have a good harvest this year. No one knew why there were so many diseases that destroyed the crops.
Seeing the crops falling down in the wind, I cried out and imagined I was in a desert and without food and water.
The yellow waves filled my eyes; the sad rain kissed my face; the wind made my hair fly. I tried to forget myself and the world. The mixed scent of fresh grass and soil filled the air, which brought new energy and might, and I couldn’t ignore it. With the sound of heavy steps came the poor farmers, including my father.
"We needn’t worry and give up,” they said, “We still have the stored food.”
“But what about next year?” one of them asked. No one answered.
What about next year? Like the river, didn’t we need to be refreshed and cheered up? The technology was too old and limited. Farmers also should learn more and more to improve themselves and should love nature; then it would love them. Just this. Everyone wants to eat delicious food, but not everyone loves making it.
I wiped my tears dry and was determined to try to help them. Although I may not play an important role, I wouldn’t give up. Next year there might be a golden autumn.
For more reasons why I love my job, check here and here.
Posted by huzzlecoo at 06:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Answers
I did get some answers to my non-rhetorical question. I’m grateful to those who responded to my moment of confusion with answers that seem obvious when we’re thinking straight, but are easy to forget when we’re (I’m) lost in our own pain and self-pity.
Here are parts of the answers I got, for your edification*:
Why bother? Because if you don't, then why bother with life? We are social
creatures of the 3 person God who are meant to be in relationship with each
other and with God the Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Unless we come close
enough to be vulnerable and risk being hurt, we ensure that we will not have the
joy of deep and meaningful relationships we are meant to have…When you start counting up what your life has meant (it's a bit early for you to start doing that) I think you'll find that most of what really matters boils down to relationships.
We do disappoint /hurt people when we are close to them. It is very important that we stay closer to Jesus than to anyone else. When we let the Holy Spirit have control of our lives, we will see people as God sees them and have His kind of love for them. It is dangerous when we let any person have the closest place in our heart that belongs to God alone. Jesus is truly the only one who will never leave us, never disappoint us and never hurt us!
"The paradox is that part of what binds us closest together as human beings and makes it true that no man is an island is the knowledge that in another way every man is an island. Because to know this is to know that not only deep in you is there a self that longs above all to be known and accepted, but that there is also such a self in me, in everyone else the world over." --Frederick Buechner
We'd like to think that to be known and accepted by a person is an easy process, with utopian-like results. But inevitably, as yet imperfect creatures, we mess up this, one of God's greatest gifts to us. Our sin gets in the way, and then we are each tempted to stay on our own islands, where we cannot get hurt any longer. We ask, "Why bother?"?
But that desire is still there. We long to be known and accepted. And so we try again.
Another friend said she could relate to my question and wanted to respond, but didn’t know what to say. This isn’t something we talk about often. But I want to make it clear to anyone who’s reading this: I go through times of intense struggle in my relationships, as most people do. Usually it makes me want to run and hide, to withdraw into my icy shell of pride and self. But I am committed to keep trying, to break the cycles I find myself spinning around in, for the reasons listed above, and because there is no viable alternative.
*Extra Three Lines of Scrawl points for guessing who wrote them, heh heh
Posted by huzzlecoo at 06:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2005
Not a rhetorical question
If being close to people
inevitably means being hurt
by them
and hurting them in return,
then
why
bother?
Posted by huzzlecoo at 01:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 06, 2005
Expectations & reality
Eating a fruit jelly today*, I found a maraschino cherry. I bit down and inside was a pit. A pit! Everyone knows maraschino cherries are pitted and utterly without resemblance to the fruit that grows from the pink-blossomed trees! But it’s a great illustration of my life in Zhenjiang.
My expectations are China’s plaything. I never know whether there will be a pit in the maraschino cherry. I am constantly running across shapes that look familiar – because they’re similar to something from home, or to something I’ve seen in China before – but which hold surprises. China keeps me on my toes.
Naomi and went to our favorite Korean restaurant at the beginning of the year, walked in, sat down, opened the menu – only to discover it was now a goose hotpot place**. A little earlier we’d tried the hole-in-the-wall Korean joint outside our university’s gate…to find it in the process of being demolished.
At this time last year we were sweating our way around Nan Shan (South Hill, one of the city’s parks). This year I was shivering my way around Nanjing, jacketless, because who knew it’d be so cold in early October? This isn’t Seattle, it’s southern China!
To get to Nanjing last Sunday, we got tickets for what I call the “devil train”: I think it’s 5055; it leaves around 7:30 am. A few of the experiences Naomi and I have had on this train are indescribable. Once, the 5055 pulled into the Zhenjiang station an hour late; it was already stuffed with people and I didn’t think there was any way we’d make it on. But the crowd was determined; elbows and arms and loud voices were employed; we were buoyed up the stairs onto the train along with the rest of the people-sea. Once squished on (we had standing tickets), firmly pressed in on all sides, we discovered to our utter horror and sardonic amusement that the food and toy-cart pushers stop for no crowd. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, these determined train employees are not fazed by the familiar sight of people stacked on top of each other; they will roll up and down the train, calling their wares, offering beer, chicken feet, ramen noodles, magazines, and flashing tops which play an off-key Happy Birthday to their dear passengers. It was one of the longer hours of my life.
Oh, the memories. When I found out we were scheduled for the “devil train” this past week, I resigned myself to a miserable time. It was the second day of National Holiday and the whole country would be traveling. I was not looking forward to it, to say the least.
But when we got on the train and found our seats (seats!), I was amazed to see only a few people standing in the aisles. The train left Zhenjiang on time and the ride was fairly comfortable – at least, uneventful. Pit or no pit? It’s impossible to guess.
*"Jelly" in the British sense=jello
**Mongolian hotpot, or chafing dish=a pot of broth at your table kept boiling by a flame underneath, in which you cook a variety of ingredients chosen from the menu. At the goose hotpot place, you order a half or whole goose to go in the pot to start with.
Posted by huzzlecoo at 09:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack