Three GIRLS!

When I told our ayi I was pregnant, her first question was, "Do you want it?" I said I did, then I told her it was a girl.
"Do you want it?" She asked again. When I assured her we did, she looked happy.

At one time I would have been offended by such a line of questioning, but now I realize it was just the culturally logical inquiry. Wanting three children and wanting three GIRLS was pretty far outside the norm. Besides, she seemed relieved to find out I did indeed want this one.

I love having three girls in China. I like being able to tell neighbors and strangers that no, this one is also a girl (since it is polite to assume the baby is a boy), and finding out what their response will be.

Most of them are reassuring. "Girls are good." it's kind of them to be reassuring and sad that they feel like they must be.  The other day when a granny heard about all my girls she looked happy. "That's how it is in my family. There are two girls." I could tell her I thought that was very good, and I think she believed me.

Some are disbelieving, wanting to know the American attitude toward girls. I tell them we really do think that girls and boys are the same and both are good.

Of course, in America we still believe that everyone is looking for the perfect boy-girl family. I don't know a single family with all girls who hasn't gotten comments to the effect that surely they must want a boy, and the same is true for all boy families. For some reason we have the idea that we couldn't possibly be content with just one gender.

Personally I'm very happy to have all girls. I was hoping for a girl at some point, but after that I really didn't have a strong desire one way or the other, and neither did Kevin. By this pregnancy, I was rather hoping for another girl. We already have all the clothes, sharing a room won't be an issue, and we'll already be dealing with all the preteen mean girl drama anyway.

While I was pregnant, our ayi asked how my parents and in laws felt about all girls.
"They are happy," I said. "It doesn't matter to them. They are also happy with girls."
"Oh, that's very good," She said. "In China, your in laws probably wouldn't speak to you any more if you only had girls."

Attitudes are changing in China, especially in the cities. Even so, it was only a few years ago that our (mostly rural) female students were telling stories of being unwanted, or even of their families trying to get rid of them.  And even so, everyone wishes you will have a boy.  But hopefully we will continue to see more value placed on daughters, one (or three!) girl at a time.

Chinese Style Check-Up

When I was pregnant with Juliana, we made several overnight treks to Beijing for prenatal appointments. It was our first baby, and I thought they actually did important things at prenatal appointments.

The next time I was pregnant, trips to Beijing seemed costly and highly inconvenient, so I decided the local hospital would be fine. But I did go to the newer hospital where you have to pay almost $2 to see the doctor.

But were always tons of people at the newer hospital, plus the 20 minute taxi ride is kind of inconvenient, so this time I decided the older, closer hospital with the 80 cent doctors was sufficient. Third baby, right?

Wherever they happen, I don’t look forward to doctor visits in China. Today I was scheduled for a 25 week check-up and 4D ultrasound. Apparently 4D ultrasounds are standard procedure to check the baby’s facial features. It seemed like it could be interesting, so Kevin decided to come along as well.

We arrived at the hospital for an 8am ultrasound appointment. That’s right - I guess 4D ultrasounds are fancy-smancy enough to warrant appointments. First we had to go pay the money (you always pay up-front), but fortunately it was early enough the lines were still short. Often there are 20 people in line - and you may have to go through the line several times to pay for each separate procedures.

We didn’t have to wait too long for our appointment either. The ultrasound tech scowled when Kevin entered the room.
“You have to wait in the hallway.”
“Why?” We asked. “In America the husband is allowed in.”
“This is China,” she said.
Kevin retreated to just inside the door where he could still see, and the tech apparently decided it wasn’t worth fighting over.

You would think a 4D ultrasound would be interesting, but you know what’s not interesting? Lying on a table for 40 minutes when you can’t see anything and the doctors don’t tell you anything. The monitor is positioned so the tech can see it, the only one who needs to be in the know. I might have fallen asleep except it was very uncomfortable to lie on my back for that long.

At one point we tried asking what they were looking for in this ultrasound. The tech gave me a Look and didn’t talk to me the rest of the time. Oh right, it is not the patient’s job to ask questions or receive information. Every so often the tech gave me an unpleasant look and pushed down a little harder on the ultrasound wand. I contemplated whether this was a “something is wrong” look or just her permanent facial expression.

For about half of the ultrasound, we could hear a woman crying just outside the door. I wasn’t sure if she was in pain or distressed, but the ongoing, animal-type moaning was rather disconcerting.

After a long while, she called in the head tech to take a look. Apparently she couldn’t find something, although I’m not exactly clear what. The head tech also ignored me completely, but she did look moderately pleasant while doing so.

When finished, they sent us out into the hallway to await the report. Since they didn’t say anything, apparently everything was okay? Kevin used my phone to quietly video part of the ultrasound, so at least I could see it in retrospect. Most of it wasn’t 4D anyway, since they were also doing the anatomy scan.

They handed us a report with a couple of cute pictures of the face. My student friend, who came with us to help with translation, tried to make sense of the report.
“This is the size of the head...the length of the arm. The heart looks okay. They could see the kidneys but not the liver. I think everything else is okay, but I can’t understand some of these things.”

Kevin headed off to teach while my friend and I went to get the glucose blood test done. More waiting in line to pay (16 cents), then upstairs to the laboratory. They said we first needed to go back to the OB doctor.

Back to a different section of the hospital where the OB nurse said we needed to pay the fee again. I was feeling a little woozy since I was fasting for the test, so my friend kindly told me to sit and wait while she went downstairs again to pay the money.

Like most doctors, there were no appointments, strictly a first-come-first-serve basis, so we were pretty far down the list. The waiting area was filled with women in various stages of pregnancy and a few of their mothers. Men aren’t allowed even in the waiting room of this area.

Eventually we were called back to the doctor. We crowded around the desk with 10 other people. Privacy...not such a big concern. The doctor asked the women to weigh themselves and then call out their weight for her to record. I can imagine that going over well in America! Fortunately I have been in enough embarrassing hospital situations that it takes a lot more than announcing my weight to a group of strangers to faze me. (Besides, one the other ladies weighed more than me.) While the doctor measured waists, listened to heartbeats, and prescribed medicines, I examined the cheery posters showing pictures of babies with various birth defects.

When my turn came, she carefully examined my ultrasound pictures. “It looks like a foreign baby! Look, it has big eyes and a big nose!” After she asked several simple questions I could easily answer, she told my friend, “I don’t know why she brought you! She can understand everything fine!” Yes, but there is a little difference between understanding “How many weeks are you?” and other medical details!

After a 3 minute check-up, we said we needed to do the glucose test. Well, apparently at that point it was too late to do it (that’s my guess, who really knows) and she said we would have to come back another day for the multi-hour extravaganza. I’m so excited. So much for fasting.

When we finally left at 11am, I was glad for my granola bar. Also, I was happy I will not be having my baby in Yinchuan.

That one time when nobody came

I don't usually plan large events, but recently, on an ambitious day, I decided: Hey, let's have a big party for all the Sophomore students!  This Saturday the Sophomore English majors all took a big, important standardized test, the TEM-4. They spent a lot of time studying and preparing, and most of them were pretty nervous about it.  So I thought, we could have a big party for them after the test is over!  A chance for them to have fun and let go of the weeks of cumulative stress.
Our teammate currently teaches all the Sophomores, and Kevin has taught them all in the past, so we invited all 5 classes, about 130 students total.  When our teammates invited the students in class, they all seemed very excited.  "I think we should expect a big turnout," he said.  "I'd think around 100."  That's what I was thinking too, as I planned games and activities.  I tried to come up with things that would work well for a really large group of students.

I planned relay games and gathered necessary items.  I put together a photo scavenger hunt to do on campus.  I bought candy prizes.  I baked at least 120 oatmeal cookies and around 100 cookie bars. Our teammate baked some brownies and bought a few snacks as well.

Today the weather was warm and sunny, perfect for an outdoor party.  We headed outside at 2:30pm to set up.  We were ready.  Juliana was excited.  3pm rolled around, and nobody was there.

It started to rain.  And by rain, I mean it was partly cloudy with a few sprinkles here and there, not worth an umbrella.  The air turned colder.  And by colder, I mean 65*F.  Surely this wouldn't keep the students from coming?

By 3:15pm, two students had shown up. Two. There was no way we could do our party with two students! We waited a few more minutes, just in case, but it was pretty clear no one was coming. I packed up all the supplies while Juliana cried, "Why can't we have the party? Why did nobody come? I wanted to have a party!"  Adalyn was crying after being dragged all over for nothing.  I was feeling frustrated, disappointed, and just ticked off.

We invited the two students to our house, and they invited two others as well. If these were the only students who bothered to show up, we could at least make it worth their while.  I put aside my frustration and focused on rewarding these few thoughtful students.  Juliana cheered up a little bit; she loves playing with students.

We brought out the cookies and encouraged them to eat to their hearts' content.  We played Uno and Dr. Seuss Memory.  I made up a quick game of "hide the candy," which they really got into.  They were interested in the games and happy to be around the kids.  At dinnertime we all went to the cafeteria together.  The students thanked us for having them over and assured us they really enjoyed it.

So the afternoon was not a total waste, but I won't pretend that it wasn't disappointing.  I still feel pretty ticked off.  How do 100 people just not show up?  And no, they didn't have a conflict, the other students said, "I think they are just busy...it is a little cold out..."

What about the people we know and communicate with regularly? The ones who indicated they would come?  Could they really not have told us, "Actually we're not going to come and neither is anyone else from our class."

No, they couldn't tell us that, because we would lose face, and then they would lose face, and then the world would end.  It's better to just not show up and pretend like it never happened. It's not the first time this has happened, but never on quite such a large scale.

Maybe we will reschedule the party. I do have 200+ snacks filling up my freezer space, plus the games I went to the trouble of planning.  And I did want to do something nice for the Sophomores, although not quite so much just right now.  Our teammate will probably mention that nobody came to the party, and they will all feel ashamed, and then everyone will come the next time.  Nothing like a guilt-induced party, right?

The best laid plans and all (America).  Plans cannot keep up with change (China).  Apparently it's a universal principle.  There are some lessons you never stop learning.  Oatmeal cookie, anyone?

Morning Commute

The 8 o'clock "go to school" bell is ringing as I snap on Juliana's helmet.  Coat, gloves, towel to cover the legs, princess backpack - check.  We wave goodbye to Daddy and Adalyn and head down the stairs. Here on the edge of the desert, the temperature drops every night.  Right now it is 28 degrees, but long about January our early morning bike rides are going to get awfully chilly.  I heave Juliana up onto the bike seat, and we are off to Kindergarten.

Selling fried egg bread outside the school gate

The guard waves cheerfully as we pass through the school gate.  Just outside the gate, several carts sell morning snacks to the students passing by.  Flat egg bread sizzles as it fries.  Vendors pass out cups of hot soy milk.  The fruit seller begins to arrange her wares.  The bike repair man is already fixing a flat tire.  Many of the shops and restaurants are still closed.  Since China is all on one time zone, here in the "west" morning begins a little later, and shops cater to students' later hours.

On the small street across from the campus gate, the morning market is in full swing.  Local farmers line the street with trucks, carts, and sheets full of apples, cabbages, and all manner of produce.  Grannies and housewives are already making their way back home with their morning purchases.

A fruit seller is ready for the morning

The roads are seldom crowded out on the edge of town, but other parents drive small, backpack-ladden children to kindergarten.  Middle school students, garbed in their schools' track suit uniforms, bike to school with friends.  A car pulls up next to a food cart along side the road for some "drive-thru" breakfast.  I enjoy biking, though I'm not looking forward to the cold winter months, but one primary disadvantage is the inability to drink coffee during the commute. 

So this is actually a new building, but you get the idea...

The sun is still low but reflects brightly, turning old, rust-rimmed windows to brilliant orange.  The snow-topped mountains are starting to show through the morning haze.

Music is blaring from the local park, and through the gate we catch a glimpse of 30-40 middle aged women dancing together.  They wave fans and march along to the music.  The weather is chilly, but they are warmed by their dancing - not to mention their multiple layers of long underwear.

Dancers in the park

As we get closer to the kindergarten, we see more parents and backpack totting children biking and walking toward the school.  The tiny road in front of the school is a mess of cars, motorbikes, and bicycles trying to get around each other during the morning drop off.  Lively children's music is playing through the speakers and the guard gives each child a friendly good morning as we join the line for the morning health check.

After dropping of Juliana at her classroom, I join the other parents hurrying off to work and home.  The street is less crowded now.  Several tractors lumber down the road with huge loads of hay.  I pass a local mosque, it's green roofs peering out from behind a large gas station.  I hear the tell-tale sound of "It's A Small World" as the water truck drives through spraying off the road.  The street cleaners work their way down the sidewalks with large, straw brooms.

A local mosque

A car drives down the wrong side of the street and swerves onto a side road, narrowly avoiding my bicycle.  This happens so often it's not worth worrying about.  You know what they say: "6 inches is as good as a mile."  Instead I feel a little nostalgic for the old days of chaotic traffic, when part of the bus route went down the wrong side of the street.  As more and more cars take over the roads, traffic is tamer, especially on Yinchuan's wide roads.  

At the park, some women are still dancing, but others are returning home.  One woman pulls a large red drum on wheels.  The sun is higher and the windows no longer shine.  Campus is quiet; most students are in class now.  The grannies have not yet brought their babies and toddlers out to play.  I open the door to the warmth of home: to a baby toddling toward me, to laundry and dishes and to-do lists, and to half a cup of coffee waiting to be reheated.

Parents Day at Chinese Kindergarten

Welcoming the parents and grandparents

Today Juliana's 幼儿园 kindergarten had a "parents day" where parents and grandparents could come and see a typical morning of kindergarten.  Since the reports we get are usually a big convoluted, it was interesting and helpful to see exactly what Juliana does while she's gone!

This morning we caught a taxi to school since I needed to bring Adalyn along too.  I dropped Juliana off and then went to a friend's house (The mother of Juliana's Norwegian classmate used to be my language school classmate) for a quick cup of coffee while the kids ate their breakfast.  Then we headed back to the kindergarten.

The back of the large classroom was lined with child size chairs, already crowded with parents and grandparents when we came in.  The two dozen children were lined up in their own chairs near the front of the room, waving excitedly to their parents.

Telling a story about candy rain

The lead teacher asked the children some questions and then told a short story about when it rained candy.  She showed a large picture which went along with the story.  She asked if the children had ever seen it rain candy, and they all replied, yes, they had!

She called on different children to tell what kind of rain they would like to see.  Candy, ice cream, and hamburgers were some of the answer she received.  She asked where they would like to see this rain, and the children answered, "Just outside my door!" or "Inside my house!"  She asked what they would use to collect the candy-rain.  "My hat!  My gloves!  My clothes!"

The group of 4 year olds were surprisingly quiet and orderly.  I guess this is one of the important things you learn at kindergarten!  After the story, the children gathered at different tables to paint a collective picture based on the story, using paints and q-tips.

By this point the kids were getting a bit more restless, and there was a break for drinking water (they each have a tin cup in their own cup cubby), using the bathroom, and generally wandering around the classroom.

Collaborative painting

Next several activity stations were set up.  One group of children painted pictures.  Another built with connecting block-tiles.  Juliana's group used a large box of different colored cylinders to build a tower.  Toward the end of the activities the calm was beginning to evaporate, and after some clean up the kids got on their coats.

We all traipsed outside to the large courtyard and playground area.   The students each lined up on a painted spot on the ground and the teachers led them in dances.  I already knew the dancing is Juliana's favorite part, and she had it down pretty well!  They did several different dances and Juliana seemed to know just what to do for all of them, adding a little extra hip-shaking-vigor of her own.

Dancing!

Inside the classroom Juliana seemed a little lost some of the time.  She watched the other children, but I could tell she didn't understand a lot of what was going on.  I saw her stand around uncertainly, trying to figure out what she was supposed to be doing, and I felt glad she is young enough to not have developed too much self-consciousness.

Doing a circle dance with a partner

But dancing outside, Juliana returned to her confident self.  She knew just what to do and could follow the directions better than many of her classmates.  And she loves to dance!  Everyday she still tells me that dancing is her favorite.

After dancing, the children got out balls to throw back and forth with their parents and had a little time on the playground.  The kindergarten has a lot of great playground equipment, which is a big plus for a little kid!

Serving lunch

Outside time was over far too soon (as far as Juliana was concerned) and the kids were ushered back inside for lunch.  The teachers ladled out rice, meat, and vegetables into their metal bowls.  The children eat with spoons; generally chopstick skills are learned a little later.

By this point all the parents were getting a bit antsy, because after the children were done eating, they could take them home.  "Eat quickly.  Come on, eat quickly so we can go home."  Which was what I was telling Juliana as well!

Adalyn wonders when someone is going to feed her

For Adalyn's part, she thought kindergarten was very interesting, especially being outside.  Inside she charmed many grannies and aunties and uncles with her big smiles.

One auntie kept asking Adalyn if she could hold her, and Adalyn kept shying away against me.  Then the auntie said, "我抱抱你，给你好吃的！Let me hold you!  I will give you something good to eat."  Adalyn smiled and held out her arms!  So maybe she understands more Chinese than I realized!

Adalyn making friends with a 姐姐 (big sister)

I was really glad to get a better picture of Juliana's school.  In many ways it seems just like I would expect from any preschool.  I felt a little sad thinking about how much Juliana would thrive in American preschool, if she understood everything that was going on and could interact easily with the other kids.

When I watched her standing uncertainly, twirling her hair and wondering what she was supposed to be doing, I thought, “Surely this is too much to ask of a 4 year old.  To go every day to a place where they stand out, don’t understand, and don’t fully belong.”  But despite the difficulty, Juliana really seems to enjoy kindergarten.

I was proud of her, as I saw her watching the other kids to see what she should be doing, as she waited patiently through the parts she didn't understand, as she dove in and got involved anyway.  Her resilience and natural confidence came through. I am so thankful kindergarten has been a positive experience for Juliana!

Shī Shì shí shī shǐ ("Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den")

By Kevin

One of the frustrating things about learning Chinese for a foreigner is the number of homophones (or homonyms, if you prefer) -- words that sound either exactly the same or nearly the same. In English we have plenty of homonyms. I'm sure English learners struggle with "two," "too" and "to," but it's nothing compared with Chinese. 

The number of homonyms make it easy to misunderstand Chinese when hearing a word or phrase taken out of context.

I was reminded of this when going through my Chinese flashcards the other day. On my phone, I often use a flashcard program called Memrise to help me remember vocabulary. I have it set up to sometimes play the audio for a word, then ask me to provide the definition. When you don't know the context of how a word is being used (like, say, in a flash card program), sometimes it's hard to guess its meaning. A simple word like shī could mean "teacher" (师), "wet" 湿 "poem" 诗,  "lion" 狮 or "corpse" 尸. And  if you aren't careful to listen for the intonation of each word, it might be impossible. Change tones and you could wind up with "time" "ten" "true" "stone" "food" or "to know." And that's just with the second tone - there are four (plus a neutral tone). There's even a famous Chinese poem concocted to show the limitations of pinyin (courtesy of wikipedia) that only uses the sound "shi":

Shī Shì shí shī shǐ

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.

Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.

Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.Shì shì shì shì.

In characters, it looks like this:

石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時，適十獅適市。是時，適施氏適市。氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。試釋是事。

Translated, it means: 

"Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den" 

In a stone den was a poet called Shi,

who was a lion addict,

had resolved to eat ten lions.

He often went to the market to look for lions.

At ten o'clock,

ten lions had just arrived at the market.

At that time,

Shi had just arrived at the market.

He saw those ten lions,

and using his trusty arrows,

caused the ten lions to die.

He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.

The stone den was damp.

He asked his servants to wipe it.

After the stone den was wiped,

he tried to eat those ten lions.

When he ate,

he realized that these ten lions

were in fact ten stone lion corpses.

Try to explain this matter.

Even compound words made up of two or more characters can sometimes be difficult to guess without context. When the audio for shí jiè appeared in my context, I had to think carefully. After all, there were four different words I'd learned with similar pronunciation. With this exact pronunciation, it can mean "season" (时节) or "the 10 commandments" (十诫). With different intonation, " shì jiè" can mean "the world" (世界 shì jiè) or "field of vision (视界). And shījié (失节) means disloyal, whereas shǐjié ( 失节) is a diplomatic envoy. My dictionary lists at least 13 different meanings for "shi jie."

Often this is one of my biggest difficulties when conversing with a Chinese friends. I might think I understood what somebody was talking about, but then find myself suddenly confused. I'd look up a word that I thought I understood and discover that it has a homonym that has a completely different meaning, which I was unsure of. It's one of the reasons one of our teachers, when we came to China assured us that "the first ten years (of studying Chinese) are the hardest." 

Chinese people often ask me why I don't listen to more Chinese radio or watch more Chinese television (I really should, but my listening level is closer to Juliana's than that of an adult, so her cartoons are somewhat suitable for me). The puns are one reason. It's just harder to catch those things when someone's speaking fast and I can't interrupt them to ask a question to clarify meaning. Hoping that we'd have enough Chinese to understand a Chinese cross-talk program (a popular category of skit) after two years of study is clearly a stretch. Chinese humor is all about puns and wordplay. And more and more, the internet is filled with it. 

Last semester, my tutor pointed me to an assortment of relatively obsolete characters, which are gaining new life on the internet. One example is the character 囧, pronounced jiong. On the internet, it's basically transformed into an emoticon to express embarrassment. Look at it -- it's a bit . But even more, people have been using words that sound the same as a word that has been put on a blacklist by the government, trying to convey an entirely different meaning. 

This article gives some perspective: 

According to Moser, the Internet has become a place for people to play with the Chinese language. Puns and wordplay have a long history in Chinese culture. Chinese is the perfect language for punning because nearly every Chinese word has multiple homophones. Homophones are two words that sound similar but have different meanings like hare that rabbit-like creature and the hair on your head. In Chinese there are endless homophones.

“Because there are so many homophones there’s sort of a fetish about them,” says Moser. “As far as the culture goes back you have cases of homophone usage and homophone humor.” Many times forbidden or taboo words in Chinese are taboo precisely because they sound like another word.

A good example of this is the number four, which in Chinese sounds like the word for death and the number eight, which sounds like the word for prosperity. Moser has a Chinese aunt who used to work for the phone company and she could make money selling phone numbers. People would beg her for a phone number with a lot of eights. “People would actually give her gifts or bribes for an auspicious phone number,” says Moser.

Today, wordplay online has less to do with getting auspicious numbers and more to do with getting around censorship. Moser cites an example of a recent phrase he saw online mentioning the Tiananmen Square incident – only the netizen didn’t use the words “Tiananmen Square” or even 6/4, which refers to the date the incident took place. Tiananmen Square and 6/4 are both censored online. Instead the netizen referred to the “eight times eight incident.” Moser was confused when he first saw the reference. “And then I figured out, eight times eight is 64,” says Moser.

The Internet is ripe with clever examples of how people evade the censors. However, censorship is just one reason netizens play with words online. Another is the very technology that enables people today to input Chinese characters onto their cell phones and computers.

Jack Wang explains how he types Chinese characters with his phone. He uses an English keyboard and uses the pinyin system. Pinyin is the method for converting Chinese characters into our alphabet. For example, the Chinese word for “today” is 今天, which is rendered into pinyin as “jintian.”

Wang types the English letters “jintian” on his phone. As he types the first three letters, “jin” a list of Chinese characters pops up on the screen. Each different character sounds just like the word for today, “jin” but means something completely different. Wang points to each possible character and explains its different meaning: gold, clothes, only, and finally 今, the character for “today.”

Everyday, people are typing in a word like “today” and seeing all of the potential homophones for that word. This says David Moser has fueled wordplay like never before.

“I think that’s given rise to a lot more puns then would normally have been uttered in the earlier days when you had to just pull everything out of your head,” says Moser.

People have gotten even more creative playing with this input system to intentionally create new Chinese slang, translating English phrases into pinyin and then into Chinese characters. The meaning of these new words can seem random but they’re not. For example the Chinese character for glass, 玻璃, pronounced “boli” has come to mean “gay man.” Turns out, the slang term actually comes from an English phrase, “boy love.” But netizens have abbreviated the phrase into the English letters “B L” and then they looked for a similar abbreviation in Chinese, typing “B-L” into their computers and out popped the character for glass. “Suddenly the word glass was being used for male homosexuals,” says Moser.

Beating censors sounds like a great idea for proponents of free speech. But I think it probably only works for native speakers. For us foreigners trying to learn Chinese, it's a recipe for disaster. If Chinese people start using Chinese characters to convey meanings that are completely separate from their literal meaning, the likelihood of me catching it is next to nothing. Unless I have someone "in the know" to explain that someone is describing that man as a "bottle" means he's homosexual, the meaning will completely fly over my head. I'd probably guess they mean the man is weak, or easily breakable. 

If you enjoy Chinese and seeing the difficulties of translating these many different homophones into English, be sure to check out my Chinglish book "Chinese + English = Chinglish" on Blurb and Amazon.

Moving Day

Moving day finally arrived. There were several times in these weeks leading up to it when I thought I might die, if it's possible to keel over dead from exhaustion. I finally got over my super long cold but am entering the third trimester with plenty of exhaustion and back pain, even without dealing with the move. Lately I am far too tired and uncomfortable to sleep. Apparently my body is gearing up for jet-lag because I've been waking up at 3:30 or 4am unable to sleep for hours.

A few weeks ago Kevin hurt his hand, which has been a bit of a problem in the packing and moving process. It is still sore but now he can at least pick up things again. Juliana is very familiar with packing suitcases for a trip but is completely thrown off by packing up everything we own. She has been pretty stressed and confused lately. Even though we've tried to explain what is going on, she doesn't quite understand that she will in fact see her toys again (like “8 months later” really means much to a preschooler), we're not just taking them all way. She also has been a little freaked out to leave our sight; I think she's afraid we will leave her behind.

Despite the challenges (Did I mention the heat? And the A/C unit in our bedroom just stopped working...), all of our belongings are packed and no one died in the process. Even if we wanted to move all our things down from the 6^th floor, down the road, and back up to the 3^rd floor on our own (which we didn't), I can't carry anything heavy and Kevin can't carry much with his hurt hand. So we hired a moving company for about $70. Originally we scheduled the moving guys to arrive at 9am this morning, but they called the night before to say it would be noon instead. Shortly before noon, they called back to say 2-3pm, and they finally arrived just after 4pm. I guess we should have expected it.

Three normal-sized Chinese guys pulled up downstairs in a large truck. We were their third move of the day, and they were happy that almost all the furniture belonged to the landlord. Still, we had 40 boxes and a dozen trashbags, plus two cabinets and a crib. I'm pretty sure we moved here with about 30 boxes total (larger ones, granted), so the accumulation mystery continues. Where did all this stuff come from?? It's not like our apartment is that big.

The three men sized up the load and then started hauling. They looked like average sized guys, no bulging muscles or anything, but looks can be deceiving. I watched the first guy tie together half a dozen boxes, strap it to his back, and head off down the stairs with a load twice as big as himself. One man was obviously the main mover. Even though he had already moved two households today, he was still smiling, joking with the other guys, and chatting with me as he energetically gathered boxes. He rather seemed to relish his job.

He strapped eight boxes together and hoisted them onto his companion's back. When the other guy wavered and decided it was too much, the main mover said something to the effect of, “Really? You can't handle these eight boxes? Come on!” Then he strapped them to his own back and headed downstairs with no problem. A couple of trips later, he hoisted our large 3-door wardrobe onto his back. It was too big to fit down the stairs frontwards, so he backed his way down 5 flights of stairs - with the giant wardrobe on his back. It was all highly impressive and a little nerve-wracking. I was a little concerned for our belongings and a bit more concerned that this would be the part where someone keeled over dead. If this were the States, they could probably put on a show and charge admission.

Kevin stayed downstairs to watch the belongings being loaded into the truck, and I stayed upstairs telling the movers which items to take. I would have felt a little bad about sitting and watching them work so hard if not for my big pregnant belly. At one point I moved a very light box out of the way and they said, “Oh no, don't pick that up. We'll move it.”

Halfway through, the men paused downstairs for a smoke-break and when they came back up they had stripped their shirts off. It was mid-90's after all. One guy paused appreciatively in front of our fan but the other guy explained that he was avoiding the fan because after sweating so much he was afraid of getting too cool. Uh huh. Two of the guys were starting to look winded, but the main mover was still energetic.  He showed his moving buddy how to balance a chair on his back and still have his hands free for a couple more items.  Finally he strapped four large boxes of books on his back and trotted off downstairs.

In just under 1.5 hours, everything was moved downstairs. Now all that was left was carrying it up 3 flights of stairs to our new apartment. Piece of cake. They were finished by 7pm.

I'd say those movers were definitely worth it.

Chinese phone conversations

By Kevin

I have a confession to make. I hate making phone calls, particularly to strangers.

It was one of my least favorite parts about being a journalist. I hated being the interruption to somebody's day. I hated the impersonal nature of it. But it was a necessary evil. If I wanted the story, I had to make dozens of calls a day. So I sucked it up and did it. For an introvert like me, it was always a task. It wasn't something I did on the spur of the moment. It took deliberation. It was a means to an end. I even got to the point where I didn't mind it so much because I can type much more quickly (and legibly) than I can take notes by hand.

If I hated making phone calls in America, imagine my hesitation in China. For my first year in China, I didn't even have a cell phone. I enjoyed the freedom of being able to go for a hike in the hills behind campus and not have to worry about it ringing with some pressing need. My students and superiors all had my home number. That was good enough.

I only broke down and bought one because Ruth and I were dating and I wanted another way to talk to her on the days when our Internet in Tonghua cut off at 11 p.m., making Skype useless. I also decided I'd need something I case I needed help getting out of inevitable travel difficulties on my first solo domestic China trip to see her in Yangzhou. But I only spoke English. Only to friends. In fact, the only people I gave my number to were friends -- and if they were my friend, at that time, they could speak English. If someone on an unrecognized number spoke Chinese to me, I apologized, told them I was a foreigner and my Chinese was bad, and hung up. If it was important, they'd find an English speaker to help them call again.

Year three, when we moved to Weinan, I was forced to pick up the phone and call my first Chinese stranger: the water delivery company. In China, you can't drink the tap water, so you must purify your own water with a boiler or filter or buy bottles of purified water (a bit like those 5-gallon Sparkletts bottles you can sign up for in the States). The first words out of my mouth (in Chinese) were: "I am a foreigner." Then, reading from a script, I informed them that we needed them to deliver a bottle of purified water to my door. I crossed my fingers and hoped that they'd understood. Thankfully, the water company had gotten the routine down from the previous foreigners who lived there, so as soon as they saw our telephone number on their caller ID, they knew the drill. Before long, I just had to tell them I was the foreigner on the third floor. An hour later, water would magically appear. Success. I could speak Chinese. As long as it was written out in script form. If they varied from the script, I was utterly lost. I usually just went back to the top and repeated myself. In Tonghua, this wasn't an issue mainly because I had a water purifier in my apartment, so I never had to order water delivery. This continued for years three through five. My Chinese improved incrementally in that span of time, but not enough to branch out beyond the now memorize script, plus a few variations.

Year six in Yinchuan was the start of language school. Day one, we repeated the water ordering routine we'd established in Weinan, first informing them I was a foreigner, then explaining our need for water and where we lived.

A month later, one of our homework assignments was to call information and ask for a particular phone number. I was so spooked when the operator asked me to repeat my request (the name of a park) that I had to call back a second time to get the number right. I continued to avoid phone calls.

Halfway through the year, I signed up for a Taobao account (kinda like an Amazon.com of China, though China also has Amazon.com). I figured it would be easy, I'd use Google translate to sort out any problems I had with ordering, then the items would arrive. The delivery guy would either call or send a message upon arrival (most domestic deliveries in China don't arrive via the standard postal service), but it wouldn't be too difficult, even with beginner Chinese. Then one of the orders was bad. Apparently sometimes Taobao merchants continue to list items that are out of stock. So one day, after ordering something, the merchant called to explain to me that they didn't have the item. It took me awhile to figure out that she was asking if I wanted another similar item or if they should return the money. Eventually I figured out to just ask for a refund. It didn't make me enjoy talking on the phone any more.

An aversion to talking on the phone isn't exactly a great trait to have as a language student. Some students might relish the challenge of a phone conversation. They might be excited to see how well they can communicate. They may be excited to see if the other speaker is able to guess that they aren't Chinese. Generally that isn't me. I just want utility. Usually talking on the phone is nothing more than a necessary evil.

The one highlight to my phone experience in China was when one day, I had to order more propane. Our apartment has a small 10 gallon propane tank underneath the counter to run our stove burner. It needs a refil every 8 months or so. Anyway, when the delivery guy arrived, he was shocked that I was a foreigner. It was the ultimate compliment: I hadn't made enough pronunciation or grammar mistakes in my short phone conversation to reveal myself as a non-native speaker. I was ecstatic.

I should probably put today's phone calls in the "language win" column. After all, in the end I was successful at completing my task. I think. But after a rash of miscommunication, it feels like it belongs in the "loss column."

Let me explain. We will be moving next week. Ruth is 6 months pregnant and I fell down while jogging two weeks ago. Nothing was broken, but I scraped the knuckles of my left pinke badly enough that I still can't bend it and sprained my wrist badly enough that twisting bottles and lifting heavy boxes is out of the question. Not ideal timing for us to move. Since we live on the sixth floor and will be moving to the third, we need to hire movers to do the heavy lifting. Thankfully hiring movers plus a van here costs less than renting a moving van in the States.

So I called up some movers recommended by my Korean classmate (who ironically taught at the same college in Tonghua as I did the year after I left -- but that's a different story). My classmate said they charged them 200 RMB for the move, which is half of what some American friends paid for their move. The caveat -- their new building has an elevator. So the operator answered and cut quickly to the chase: where were we moving from and to, how much stuff and what floors. She didn't recognize the new apartment complex, so I explained that it's just across the street from our campus gate. I explained that we have very little furniture, just a wardrobe and a crib and 40 or so boxes of various sizes. Then the floor - sixth to third. It took her a few seconds and she gave me a quote: 350 RMB. Reasonable, but I figured I'd try another mover.

Yesterday, my classmate Kevin -- whose apartment we will be moving into -- had arranged to move some other furniture and boxes belonging to our friend Kaylene into his apartment at Cai Xiao (the name of the complex). Kaylene had to leave early last year for medical reasons and plans to return to a different city in China after she recovers. So we packed up her stuff, bought some of her furniture (since our new apartment is mostly unfurnished) and decided to store it all in our apartment while we are in the States awaiting the birth of baby #2.

Kevin had also bought some of her stuff, so he called the movers and got a quote that he could move the stuff -- from floor 2 to floor 3 of Cai Xiao -- for 260 RMB per truckload. Plus, the movers would charge a little extra for big stuff like refrigerators and giant wardrobes. He set it up for Tuesday morning. Kevin said the guy's Chinese was a bit hard to understand, but he'd worked things out fine. Granted, of everyone in our class, Kevin's Chinese is the best. Every semester he gets the award for being the best student in class.

So, since I also needed movers, today, I sent the same mover a text message with the details of our move and asking for a quote, hoping to avoid a phone conversation that would immediately reveal me as a foreigner. But when he hadn't replied after an hour, I decided to give him a call.

I asked if he'd received my text message and told him I wanted to move from Ning Da to Cai Xiao (our new complex). Immediately, he seemed confused. "You called earlier about moving on Tuesday, right?" he asked. I feigned ignorance."No. That must be someone else." I didn't want to admit that I was a foreigner. Often the price quoted to a foreigner is significantly higher than that offered to a Chinese. I didn't want to be a target for being cheated. I just told him that I wanted to move on Friday. I didn't mention that my friend had spoken with him yesterday. He said that he'd already said that it would be 260 because He charges by the truckload.

A couple hours later, he called me back. "I just saw your text message," he said. "If it's not the second floor to the third floor, but the sixth to the third, it is more agonizing (Sometimes Chinese is a bit melodramatic -- word used to explain difficulty -- 痛苦 -- literally means pain and bitterness). "The price will be 350 RMB." So, a bit more than 20 RMB extra per extra floor.

Then he asked, "Aren't you the international friend I spoke with yesterday?" I told him I wasn't. I'd been foiled. So had Kevin. How he figured it out I'll never know. Was it my limited vocabulary or my repeated requests for him to repeat himself. Who was I kidding? I'd mostly hoped he would think I was someone from a different province, whose Mandarin was poor. "But you are moving to Cai Xiao also, right?" "Yes." I gave in. "Yes, my friend spoke with you before. He is moving from another apartment to Cai Xiao on Tuesday. I am moving from Ning Da to Cai Xiao on Friday."

We'd thoroughly confused the poor guy. I was afraid that might happen. Now I'm hoping he still shows up on Tuesday. Maybe I'll wait till then to decide if it goes in the "language win" or "language loss" column.

Walking advertisements

By Kevin

Once again, we were an advertisement. In exchange for the use of one of the first 70 degree Spring afternoons of the year, we were giving  the University "face." But that's not what we were told going in. All we were told was that there would  be an activity (活动) in the afternoon involving sports. And that we must come and participate. There's no asking:  when you are a student, the school often tells you what to do.

The cameraman we had to wait for before starting

When we arrived with around 150 of the other foreign students on campus, the teacher in charge divided us into four rows of people and explained that we were going to be filmed by CCTV (China's national TV station) and the local Ningxia TV station because Ning Da is participating in 留动中国 (meaning "stay active China," I think) -- an activity meant to promote "healthy exercise" (redundant, I know), cultural exchange and "joining hands in  the sun" for foreign students living in China. It sounds like participating schools were supposed to arrange 3-on-3 basketball  tournaments, ping-pong matches and 毽子 (jianzi) (a sort of traditional Chinese hacky-sack) exhibitions,  in addition to other cultural activities. While we waited for the videographer to show up, a reporter  started making the rounds, interviewing several students, including our teammate about all sorts of  things. I heard a few questions about food and studies and why he came to China. Nothing could start  until the videographer was there.

3-on-3 basketball "trials"

It really came as no surprise that our sports activity, which the school's website called "trials" for a national competition featuring foreign students didn't actually involve most of us doing something we wanted to do or really learning anything. After all, this was a made-for-TV event. Not an actual activity for  our enjoyment or enrichment, no matter what the propaganda said. At the root, I figured it would be some sort of face-giving publicity stunt, no matter how much it had been dressed up as a fun outing. In fact, though we were told it would involve playing  sports, very few were chosen to don University t-shirts and compete. The school chose six guys they'd heard could play basketball (two of them our teammates), gave them T-shirts and split them into two teams. The rest of us were just told to  be there.

A handful of students played. The rest of us were the audience.

Foreign students holding signs

We were supposed to simulate a "real" competition. The athletes would play their hearts out. The rest  of us were told to 拉拉手, which I took to mean, be cheerleaders (the closest dictionary entry I could  find to this says "to shake hands" -- either that or maybe I got the tones wrong and she meant 辣手,  which means "troublesome" or "vicious" -- I'm guessing that none of these are what she was going for).  We were to mimic the way Chinese students constantly cheer on their classmates at sports meets and basketball games , shouting the traditional Chinese cheer of “加油” (add oil! -- meaning  something like "more effort" or "go team"). But few joined in. Most  just watched. We just weren't  naturals. Teachers repeatedly attempted to start a chant, but it would die before the third or fourth repetition. A few chanted cheers in Russian or other native languages. Students who were given an assignment to hold four signs reading 留动中国 held the signs with less and less enthusiasm as the game went on. The student  tasked with holding up the 宁夏大学 sign tried to prop it up using a package of water bottles, then later by attaching it to another student's backpack.

Student shows off his prowess at jianzi, a Chinese hacky-sack-like game

The basketball players played a fierce half-court game for 15-20 minutes, long enough for our teammate to get a  bloody nose and hurt his knee. Then, as they finished their  game, the teachers pointed the rest of us to the other end of the court and told us to watch and learn how to pay 毽子 (jianzi). In this game, which has been around since the fifth century, we all spent a few minutes attempting to use long-dormant or non-existent hacky-sack skills as we kicked around a shuttle-cock made from four brightly colored feathers attached to two or three small quarter-sized pieces of metal. A few  students from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had obviously played something similar before because soon they  were jumping in the air, tapping the feathered hacky sack back and forth, showing off for the cameras.  A teacher tried to get the rest of the students to gather around and again cheer them on for the  cameras. By this time the crowd had shrunk to maybe 100 students. And half weren't interested in  anything more than chatting with friends.

By the time we made it to the third activity, the ping-pong "tournament," only 50 or 60 students were left to crowd around the ping-pong tables in the  classroom building. But still the cameras rolled.

Wang Hui, school director, interviewed by NXTV.

In the end, I don't know if it had the desired effect. Perhaps if the competitions were real, rather than made-for-TV, people would have gotten into it.  Perhaps if everything didn't feel so staged and manipulated it would have worked. But it didn't. It  felt forced because it was. But maybe that's not how the school saw it. After all, the local news did run a report on the event, trimming out the fat and concentrating on the action and conveying the message the school was going for: "The primary (goal is) to offer our foreign students and Chinese university students a platform to interact and at the same time give them more opportunities to experience Chinese culture," said Wang Hui, the director of the School of International Education.

The only interaction we had with Chinese University students was with the three who served as referees of the basketball and ping pong matches. We probably could have gleaned the Chinese love for ping-pong or basketball without attending a staged event. The jianzi activity was interesting, but most of what I learned about Chinese culture came from reading Wikipedia after learning that the sport isn't actually called "Chinese hacky-sack."

So I guess I learned two things - the importance of giving face and the name of the hacky-sack-like sport.Being the foreign faces in the crowd often gets us roped into events ostensibly for education's sake. But really it's all about giving face or  publicity sake. We often go along with the publicity shoots because they "give face" to our hosts. "Face" is a huge thing in Chinese culture, so our hosts are generally more appreciative (at least when we were teachers they were -- as students, it's more of an expectation). Surely the school didn't gain as much face as it  wanted. I wonder what we'll be roped into next.

Farmers work the fields at Ningxia University's experimental farm

As students, we've been taken to a  farm owned by the university so we could be photographed by  local media among the fields, we've given New Year's performances for University and governmental leaders from China and several other countries and gone to teach Christmas lessons at a local  university. As teachers, we've had colleagues and students ask if they could take our photo so they could advertise their school (even though we didn't work there), invite us to spend a day playing at the  kindergarten (meaning teaching the kids some English songs), ask us to give high school students an  impromptu English lesson and invite us to be interviewed for school radio programs, among other  things. The difference between the two was that as students, we tend to be told to participate, whereas  as teachers, it's a request. Often it's a very urgent request because they've already told others that  we will participate, but at least it gets phrased as a request. We then must decipher how urgent it is.

But sometimes, as students, when told that we must participate, it's just not feasible: there was the  2-1/2-to-three-hour one way bus ride last Spring to Shapotou,

Shapotou, sand dunes along the Yellow River in Ningxia.

a scenic sand dune along the Yellow  River. I went alone. It was interesting, but the full-day trip just wouldn't have worked with then 1- and-a-half-year old Juliana skipping all naps. Then there was the 5K our first fall in Yinchuan. Students were told that  they would be going to a small city an hour away, where there would be a 5K run. We were assured that we wouldn't have to run it if we didn't want to do so. We foreigners were also encouraged to bring our kids and assured that we wouldn't need a stroller. Thankfully, we declined the invitation, using the baby excuse. The bus dropped everyone off at the starting line, then drove to the finish line, forcing everyone to at least walk the route. Glad we decided not to go to that one. Carrying then 1-year-old Juliana for the whole route would have been terrible.
I can't help but wonder what the next face-giving event will be.

Self-heating Chinese TV dinner

By Kevin

It felt like I was eating a science experiment.

I'd bought the box of rice topped with a common Chinese pork dish called 鱼香肉丝 （Yu Xiang Rou Si) on a whim last time I went to the grocery store. I thought it might make a quick microwave meal some night when  we didn't feel like going out or cooking something else. I figured --  I'd eaten halfway decent Chinese TV dinners in the States many times.  Undoubtedly the Chinese could do a better job of it. And I'd never  even seen a Chinese TV dinner before in China, I should give it a  try. But this was a TV dinner without the microwave.


I noticed Chinese on the front of the packaging saying something  about "10 minutes." But surely it wouldn't take that long to microwave  it. So I flipped to the side of the box and looked at the English  instructions. I was puzzled. Nowhere did it mention the word  "microwave" "stove" or "oven" for that matter. I looked back at the  front cover and noticed it said something about 自热 (zi re). I knew these  two words - "self" and "heat." The English instructions weren't  perfect, but they mostly got the idea across (copied literally, so  any unclear English or grammar mistakes are entirely theirs):

Directions:

1. Remove the plastic wrap, open the lid and remove the dish bag, the  wet tissue and the spoon
2. Cut the parafilm of rice with the end of a spoon tear off the rice  cover, use spoon to stir rice empty the contents of the dish bag pour  onto the rice evenly
3. Place the lid back on, pull the tape until the red label.
4. Wait for 10minutes and enjoy your delicious meal.

Cautions:

• Ensure the lid is tightly closed when pulling the tape. Beware of hot steam during the heating process. It is normal for the lid to rise by  approximately 2-3cm while heating. Do not attempt to remove lid  during the 10mintue heating process.
• Adult supervision is required for children. Please wait for 15 minutes in the elevation of 3,500 meter above area.

Thankfully the Chinese cleared up some of the punctuation omissions.  It also helped me figure out exactly what the "dish bag," "wet tissue,"  "parafilm" and "3,500 meter above area" were. The "dish bag" was the sealed bag containing the main dish (food) to be spread atop the  rice. The "wet tissue" is a handy pre-wrapped napkin so you can wipe your hands after eating (it wasn't wet). The parafilm was the  cellophane wrapper. And "3,500 meters above area" refers to elevation  -- almost 11,500 feet above sea level (For perspective -- that's  about the altitude of Lhasa in Tibet, where altitude sickness is a  common problem for visiting travelers, higher than the peak of any  of the mountains in the range near Los Angeles. I guess that mountain  climbers are envisioned among their clientele). 

I pulled everything out and looked at it, tearing open the cellophane  and dutifully pouring the contents of the "dish bag" onto the rice.  Inside the box, underneath the rice tray, was a napkin-wrapped cloth  bag containing a powdery substance lying atop a bag of a liquid  substance (water perhaps) with a string running across it and outside  of the box.

I shoved everything back into the box as if I hadn't done anything to  it and tugged (hard) on the string, releasing the water into the  bottom of the box, uncertain what exactly I should expect. Amazingly,  within a minute, the box began to get warm and a chemical-scented  steam began pouring out of the ventilation holes in the top and  sides of the box. It was working. Then I remembered those chemical  hand-warmers I used a couple times watching high school football games  on cold November nights in the States. It must be a similar idea. The  chemical smell, however, made me open the window and wonder: is it  safe to eat food cooked over a pool of chemicals? It felt like  something we would have done in our high school chemistry class.  Something that might end in an explosion.

I waited the 10 minutes it suggested to cook it, then remembered that  Yinchuan is at about 3,000 feet above sea level. A big difference  from 3,000 meters, I know, but it seemed like longer would probably  help.

I Googled "self-heating food" and discovered an article from The Guarding titled "Is self- heating the future?"  In addition to emergency workers, the author writes, "There should be a market for good self-heating food –  for mountaineers, campers and explorers, for luckless fishermen,  isolated cottages, power cuts and for the impending global apocalypse. There's a market for it, and nobody's cracked it yet."

I also found a Wikipedia article and some companies in the States selling them. They point to FDA claims that they're safe. OK.

So I pulled the box open and crossed my fingers that the Chinese company is using the heating method approved by the FDA, or at least that the Chinese food safety label on the front of the box means something. There was steam  and the food was mostly hot. I poured it onto a plate and stirred it  up, but the rice kinda stuck together in semi-hard clumps. I took a  deep breath and took a bite. It wasn't terrible. But it was too cold  and the rice needed more steaming. I threw it in the microwave for  another minute in hopes of softening up the rice. It worked. But it  wasn't something I'd purposely eat again, either. The "Yum Flavor"  claimed on the cover? Not so much. "100% New Sense." Sure. 

If it actually tasted, um, good, it seems like it might appeal to  college kids who don't want to go out to eat, since Chinese students  aren't allowed to have any sort of cooking equipment in their dorm  rooms. However, the 30 RMB price-tag (about $4.75) seems prohibitive.  The school cafeteria makes the same dish better at about 1/4 the   price. Plenty of local restaurants make it actually taste good better  for about half the price).

I found a website from the company (旺禾) with a video demonstrating the  heating process. I notice on the  page, they also provide microwave instructions. Might be handy to  have those on the box, but then again, maybe anyone who buys this is  just buying it for the novelty.