Rebecca A. Foster

First of all, several of you said the way phone numbers are exchanged in China is how they are also exchanged where you live. I didn’t know this. A good reason to not get a cell phone when I return, I don’t like it! Second, I can’t see any blogs because my connection isn’t working correctly, so I am way behind in my reading. Sorry about this! Now, for the actual post.  Vagina : these advertisements for a local women’s hospital are plastered all over our subway stations recently. Doesn’t their logo look just like a vagina? China is pretty wholesome in their advertising, so this caught my eye. I enjoyed pointing it out to my male friends here, who now feel like perverts for staring at the logo when they are in the subway station. I do what I can. Heart : I was in a bakery that had some western style brownies. The guy behind the counter spoke some English, and when I went up to the counter he said, “Do you want a brownie?” I nodded, and he said, “I know your heart.” It was ...

Yesterday I was hauling salsa and tortilla cooking ingredients to R.’s house, so I decided to take a taxi instead of the bus. The driver struck up a conversation with me in Mandarin (unusual, because it’s not the everyday spoken language in my city), including how much money I make, how old I am and whether I am married and/or have kids. These are pretty common questions for strangers to ask each other in China. (People are always shocked when I tell them what our monthly stipend is, because it’s roughly on par with street cleaners. I try to explain I am a volunteer teacher, but that kind of thing isn’t common here, so I think they just think I’m getting ripped off teaching English in China.) When we were near my destination, he asked if he could have my phone number. I get asked for my phone number a lot, and no one ever calls later, they just want the “prestige” of having a foreigner’s phone number in their cell phone. So I gave him the number, and he gave me his. He drove me clear...

This has nothing to with living in China. So I'm a big fan of gchat, as I've mentioned here before. And I have a system. I use iGoogle as my homepage, sort of like my own personal dashboard for the sites I visit most, rss feeds, access to email, and what have you. Gchat is an option in iGoogle, but I disabled it because I actually don't want to be available every time I have a window open. I like you, my friends, but not that much. So I only enable gchat in my actual gmail account page, which I only access when I need to send attachments, search for old mail, actually chat with someone etc. BUT, yesterday these things flip-flopped, and I don't know why, and I can't figure out how to get it back. Google, are you messing with me? Or did I sleep-change all my applications? I can't get iGoogle chat to disable without also disabling it in my gmail window. BUT, chat doesn't show up in my gmail window, even though it is active. Like, none of my contacts load. ARG...

Well folks, I now have fewer than 100 days left in my Peace Corps service. Part of me is like FINALLY SOON I CAN EAT TORTILLAS EVERY DAY I NEVER THOUGHT THIS DAY WOULD COME HOORAY, part of me is really going to miss the chaos and food and people here, and another part is wondering how I’m going to function again with ongoing daily life in America? Have I forgotten, or is it just dormant? I’m sure it’ll all come rushing back to me, but still, I’m worried. (Ah, anxiety. You are giving me lots of chances to prove how far I’ve come.) In the meantime, I’ve been swamped with projects, some more important than others. I finished my wiki entry on body image in China . We had another Writer’s Club meeting. And this week I also designed commemorative t-shirt possibilities for the volunteer group being released from service this summer. They are not for sale, they are just fun for us to wear at our Close of Service conference. Here is one of my designs, a play on the famous Bruce Lee movie The...

A couple of photos from Writer’s Club day at the Starbucks we like to sit in:   Starbucks here isn't just a coffee shop, it's a place "hip" Chinese (and regular Westerners) hang out. It's a destination of sorts. Part of this is because it's expensive by Chinese standards, and partly (as far as I can work out) because coffee isn't a popular taste here; if you like coffee, you're a little more open-minded, fashionable, experienced, and glamorous. Sort of like Americans and smelly cheeses or a particular kind of French champagne or wine? One of my students told me her dream date was to go to Starbucks. So, nice job Starbucks Chinese marketing staff! The name Starbucks in Chinese is Xing Ba Ke 星巴克。 Xing = Star, Ba = desire or fervent hope, Ke = gram, but also popular for transliterative purposes in general for the 'k' sound. I think transliteration from Chinese characters into English phonetic sounds is very interesting. My name, Re...

A few weeks ago, we joked that we should have a Chongqing PCV Writer’s Club, in which we’d write bad/cheesy romance pieces, then read them out loud to each other a la open mic beat poetry night. Did I mention it has been raining FOREVER in Chongqing? It’s making us all a little crazy. So last week in our downtown Starbucks, the Writer’s Club* had their first meeting. (I should mention, Starbucks here are almost like libraries, with sectioned-off rooms, long tables with study lamps for laptops, super comfy couches and lounge chairs, and all the free wi-fi you can handle. You can basically hang out there all day and no one blinks an eye. Also, they make all their specialty coffee drinks in non-coffee versions, which is great. I wish they did this in the U.S. They do this because many Chinese don’t like the taste of coffee. So, a caramel frappuccino will have whole milk instead of coffee, along with the caramel flavorings etc. They also have more teas on the menu here.) We each spent abou...

It has been raining every day for almost two weeks straight in Chongqing. I don’t do well without enough sunshine. I feel really blah and sad. There is a reason I love San Antonio so much: abundant sunshine and delicious food. I miss home. And rain makes my sinus problems flare up. I would not have done well on the Ark. Okay, enough whining, onto the topic of the post: I took this picture on the street over the weekend. The man tried to block my camera, which normally doesn’t happen here, so I figured something must be up. I asked a student, and she said it’s illegal to sell teeth on the street like this. I asked her what animal this is, and she didn’t know. A Google search revealed that teeth from Tibetan wolves are thought to be good luck charms, but I have no clue if these are the jaw bones of Tibetan wolves. But the little jaws in a pile like this made me feel queasy.  Queasy story #2: We ate a big bowl of Xiang La Xia (香辣虾)“Fragrant Spicy Shrimp” for dinner last weekend...

When we join Peace Corps, we get a little booklet about life in our country of service. Our China booklet had a little blurb about some female volunteers struggling with body image because of the cultural beauty standards of China. I remember thinking at the time, ‘Who cares what their beauty standards are? I’m 35 years old, I’m happy with who I am. Only really insecure girls have this problem, and I am not one of them.’ But, I was unprepared for the reality of living here. Two years later, I still think I have reasonably good self-esteem, but it has been a challenge at times to live here and not feel bad about my body, or myself. It doesn’t help that I put on some weight when my dad got sick, the result of hours I used to spend running or working out now spent in hospitals or at his home. And not taking care of my health due to grief and worry. If there is any time in your life when you shouldn’t be concerned about your weight, it is when a parent has terminal cancer! But then I...

Phone conversation I had today with T.: (Ring ring!) Me: "Hey." T.: "I can't find the office." Me: "What?" T.: "I'm on campus but I can't find the office. Oh wait, is it by the bell?" Me: "Wait, what? It's Rebecca. Did you mean to call me?" T.: "Yeah, I meant to call you. Is the office near the bell, am I on the right road?" Me: "My campus?" T:. "No, Sichuan." Me: "Oh, you mean the Peace Corps office?" T.: "Yeah, I'm walking there now." M.: "Oh, yeah, I guess maybe there is a bell there." (Sidenote: I've never noticed a bell, but whatevs.) "Is there a big track and basketball court to your left?" T.: "Yeah, I'm walking past them now." (Sidenote: Why use a bell as a landmark when there's a whole block of track and courts!?) "Wait, okay, I see where it is. Bye." My dad used to observe that I start c...

Here is the video I talked about yesterday. I forgot to mention, yogurt is popular here, but not cheese. I'm not sure why one kind of dairy but not the other is so popular. I hope you enjoy it.

So our weekend dinner party was a lot fun. The food was delicious, the conversation witty and entertaining, and we capped the night off with a little Rain . Rain in Ninja Assassin , that is. Let me tell you, this movie is bloody. So bloody it’s not even really gory, just super bloody. CGI bloody. Non-scary, cartoonish bloody. And the plot? I didn’t really understand all of it, but here’s a summary: Rain plays an orphan raised to be a ninja assassin. He is estranged from his clan. The clans are hired by world governments to carry out political assassinations. Why the clan cares Rain left them, I don’t know. But they do. And Europol wants to question him. (Is that real thing? Or an Interpol knock-off? I’m too lazy to Google that right now.) So Rain gets kidnapped by Europol and then by his clan. Along the way a ton of people die. BUT, we also get this montage of Rain practicing his ninja skills in his barren apartment. The push-ups-on-nails scene alone was enough for me to declare t...

Some of the most memorable things I’ve learned about Chinese culture have come from conversations in my classroom. For example, two weeks ago we were doing a debate activity, and the topic was whether it is better to get married or stay single. One of the students asked, “How will you register your baby if you’re not married?” As the moderator, I wanted to stop the whole discussion with a yellow flag on the play. Wait, what? If you’re single, you can’t register your baby? I had no idea. So I later asked a trusted Chinese friend about it, and she confirmed that if a single woman has a baby, the baby can’t be registered for a hukou (residence papers) or an ID card (similar to registering for a social security number). This in turn means the baby can’t go to school or receive any medical care. I did some research online and found this very enlightening article from the New York Times . The article mentions issues with education and medical care for these babies, tied to the lack of ...

"Sudden onset cryabeetus" Meaning: crybaby whiners. I'm going to start using this in everyday conversation, stat. (From the bottom of the page  here .) While we're at it, how about a Chinese phrase of the week? "An lian" ("暗恋") Meaning: to be secretly in love. Kind of like a crush, but more serious and dramatic, like Jim-for-Pam,  Days Of Our Lives kind of love. You can use it as a verb instead of a noun or adjective, which makes it more fun. I am fond of saying, 'I anlian him.'  But I use it more as a joke, not as a real condition. What's your favorite phrase? I say "evidently" a lot at the beginning of sentences. Or, "Sooo, evidently..." And "suspicious" to sum up.

1. Any food you eat in bed tastes exponentially better. 2. It’s okay to admit you hate camping. When I was younger, I sort of made myself believe I liked the outdoors because most of the guys I was interested in were mountain men on the side. The truth is, I like hot showers and seafood buffets and soft hotel beds, so sue me!  On the plus side, when you admit that out loud, you find the people who feel the same way. Amazing. 3. Something more expensive that will last over time is a much better deal than cheaper and easily broken. This is especially true of shoes and appliances. 4. The question is not “Are you single?” The question should be: “Are there any girls who you know think they’re your girlfriend?” 5. Sometimes what is holding us back is the fear of our own success, either because we don’t think we deserve it, or we don’t want the responsibility that comes with it. 6. A guy who wants to help you carry your bags or pay for things doesn’t necessarily think you’re in...