Blogspot is Blocked

Monday, May 18. Get this. Blogspot has been blocked (by China?) so haven't been able to get on the past few days. However, now using a proxy server so can get around the blocking. Since most people in China seem to know how to do this (which apparently also allows you to surf the internet anonymously), it's hard to understand what the government thinks it's accomplishing. YouTube has been blocked for a long time but that doesn't interfere with my daily life so has not been a problem.

I've generally been keeping up with blog in "draft" form but just not "publishing" as most entries consist only of notes to remind me of things. So here are some highlights of my life over the past month:

April 10: I won Third Prize in a province-wide essay competition held by the Hunan Department of Foreign Experts Affairs. ("Foreign experts" is what they call people from other countries working in China. As in the US, you can't get a work/temporary residence visa to stay here unless someone offers you a job). The topic was "Experiencing Hunan" and the title of my essay was "At Home in Hunan," about my fears of coming and my adjustment to life here. Got to go to Changsha for award ceremony and dinner at fancy hotel. My school was very excited!

April 15 & 16: Overnight train to Shanghai. The first day, we walked up the entire length of The Bund. Then on to the French Concession for lunch and more walking. I loved the Xintiandi neighborhood and the Shikumen houses there. Second day to the fabulous Shanghai Museum. The building and the exhibition spaces are stunning, and the collections (bronzes, ceramics, sculpture, furniture, etc) are superb. Spent FIVE hours there with a break for lunch. Then to Yu Gardens and Bazaar in the afternoon/evening.

April 17 & 18 We took the train from Shanghai to Suzhou, which is a beautiful place with another lovely museum (designed by I.M. Pei to blend perfectly with the old museum) and many wonderful gardens. We saw the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Garden of the Master of the Nets and the Couple's Garden. We were lucky to be there in April when things were blooming. There are also some wonderful neighborhoods in Suzhou that haven't yet been (a) demolished or (b) tarted up for tourists so it was very nice to spend a little time in those. The Chinese have a proverb which goes something like this: If the old doesn't leave, the new will not come in. I guess this explains their approach to urban renewal.

May 1: I was invited to a traditional Chinese wedding, which was amazing. Complete with bridegroom on horseback and bride (her head covered in a red cloth) carried in a sedan chair, a dragon dance, procession down the street. I feel so fortunate to have experienced this since it is very unusual now for couples living in cities to have traditional weddings.

May 5: Field trip to Shi Yan Hu (a beautiful lake surrounded by hills) with 300 Senior 1 students. Now there's a story!

This evening I get a call from someone who says "You can call me Johnson." Turns out he's an intern in the Primary School (he goes to a teachers college in Changsha) . He asks me if I would participate in an activity for the primary school on Wednesday morning. So we meet in front of the school store and walk over to the primary school. His Chinese name is Li Xing, and his English name is "Johnson" after the 36th President. I tell him we had another President Johnson too, long before LBJ. (I ask him how he got my telephone number; he said one of the teachers in the Junior School gave it to him. Must have been Juju.)

So apparently there is an assembly in the Primary School on Wednesday mornings, with all of the Primary School kids out on the courtyard in the middle of the school. They have announcements and morning exercises and then something else. I'm to be the something else this Wednesday! Johnson says I can tell a story or do a song or whatever I want. Later in the evening, after looking at a bunch of poems and songs, I decide to tell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Simple, lots of repetition, and I can do different voices while telling the story. Whew. Glad to have that settled.