Ok, just a warning...this blog will be really random and maybe slightly confusing...I have so many things to blog about and always forget right after they happen...so I play catch up...and you, my readers, get confused. So sorry in advance! This will be in the form of 3 different blogs...
1. It says a lot about a person when...
They can laugh hysterically at themselves, without anyone to laugh with them. This is something that I did yesterday...I had an interesting afternoon. I was at CAIS in the morning, helping with Spiritual Emphasis week, then I walked to another school to have lunch with one of my girls. Well, I ended up being one street over, and was "lost" so I only was able to be with her for like 12 min. Then on the way back to where I knew I could catch the right bus. I decided to take a different bus, that I thought was going to a place where I could easily get back to the office. When I first arrived here, I was warned about the minibuses. Green minibus means good, red means bad. You know you're on the wront bus when: a. there is not an octopus reader b. the bus driver doesn't know how to shift smoothly c. you almost fall out of your seat at every turn d. you do not recognize anything that you are passing e. when you arrive at the end of the bus line, and realize that you are no where near where the sign on the bus said it was going
So I ended up somewhere totally different than I thought. As I got off the bus, I couldn't help but laughing at myself. And I wasn't just laughing inside...I was laughing audibly outside. I couldn't help but have this huge smile on my face. And I also realized that there is something wrong with the world today. I felt kind of dumb that I had this huge smile on my face just walking down the street, so I tried to stop smiling, but couldn't. Then I thought, "Why should I hide my smile? That is the dumbest thing ever!" So then I openly smiled and laughed to my heart's content. It felt good, very good. So I finally got back to the office without major difficulty, but it just took a long time.
2. You know you're doing a good job of blending in when...
You get asked if you speak chinese. Yes, this did happen to me! Aren't you so amazed?!!! I sure am. I was in the market the other night with Kristin, and we were at this store...there were these 2 indian women in there and they were trying to pick out one item of clothing in two different colors and the lady that worked there was trying to find it for them in the right size. So she said (in chinglish...that is my new word for both english and chinese) "Do you want white also?" And yes, she had an accent and half of her words were chinese, but she was pointing to the white one. So they said I don't understand you, and so she repeated herself again, and after failing to communicate, she started to turn away...so I said to the women, "She asked if you wanted the white one also" and they looked at me so impressed and asked if I spoke Chinese!!! I said no, and they were like, are you learning? And I was like no, I just picked that up... It made me laugh so hard. And I was pretty pleased with myself! I didn't think I would ever get that reaction here!
3. You know you're in a different place when you see buddhists in robes and you are choking on incense....
This was my experience last night. Last night was the funeral of the father of a man from our church. Pastor Ed was doing the service and asked me to play piano for it. I was sooooo incredibly nervous to play. First, hymns are NOT my forte, and I didn't have a lot of opportunity to practice because pianos aren't very available to me. So yeah. Me and PM went to this HUGE funeral home, and there are about 20 funerals going on at the same time. Each one has there own great room for the service. Most of the funerals that were going on were Buddhist. There was a lot of incense, and on the way out, we saw several men in robes singing and chanting and half dancing with incense. I love just being slapped in the face with the reality that I'm in a different place. But we were in a different room and instead of smelling incense, we smelled hundreds and hundreds of lilies...which by the way, are my new favorite flower. So back to the funeral. When we walked in, we were ushered down a middle aisle, before a huge "altar" of flowers and a picture of the deceased. We were then supposed to bow toward it, and then bow toward the family, who were seated on the side and stood to bow to us. PM, Pastor Ed, and me actually did it a bit wrong, but thankfully we were ushered to our seats pretty quickly! Hahahaha. So yes. I played the piano. It didn't go as bad as I thought, but not as good as I would've liked. But I made it through it. There was also a pretty famous person there, who was sitting 5 chairs from me. Unfortunately, I didn't meet this individual, because I wanted to respect the fact that we were at a funeral. Oh, something else that they do at chinese funerals is they give you a small packet with the program. In it is a tissue, to dry your eyes, a coin to symbolize paying for the trip home, and a piece of candy, and I forgot what that was for.
Finale:
So that is what has been happening lately. Kind of a lot. But I love it here...still! Last night I slept over at PM and Melissa's and watched a movie with them. And today I am working from home. I bought lillies for my room and now it smells like heaven. I cleaned up my room, swept and shook out my rugs, doing my laundry, and called a dear friend. A pretty productive day, and peaceful too. Although, right now I am craving a milk bun. MMMmmmmm...milk bun.
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