Rebecca A. Foster

Last night I got a bad case of vertigo, which brought on some serious nausea, which meant tossing my cookies in a little garbage can next to the couch. Have you ever had vertigo? It's a beast. And I hate throwing up. I'm a groaner, moaner thrower-upper. It's just not normal for your insides to want to become your outsides, you know? I was with T., so he had the fun job of watching me puke (and helping me out). Friends who help friends when they puke are real friends. Then, this afternoon I was walking down a road under construction in a long skirt when I tripped on the uneven ground and fell out of my 3-inch heeled sandal, but couldn't get my legs far enough apart to stabilize myself because of the long skirt. Bags in each hand, I crashed to the ground in a totally clumsy and ungracious fall. A bunch of construction workers saw me, but no one came to help me. I scrambled to get out of the road so I didn't get hit by the big dump truck coming up behind me. On top o...

In the past I've only purchased souvenirs for friends and family, so this weekend I splurged a bit and bought something for myself. I need something to remember China by, right? I found this beautiful Buddhist icon fabric wall scroll, and I couldn't resist. I'm so happy to have this to bring home with me. It's just perfect for me. Just for comparison's sake, this scroll cost the equivalent of $40 USD. I have no idea what something like this would cost in America, but I am guessing more than $40. This scroll and really good oolong tea will be my two splurges to bring back with me to America. J. came down for the weekend, so we had a little get together last night with friends. Bugles on the fingertips never stops being funny, right? (My hand-- I'm silly, I know.) And here is what we had for lunch yesterday, a Uyghur dish called Chao Mian Pian 炒面片. It's a tomato based spicy sauce, with freshly made noodles, tomato, green pepper, onion, cabbage and bee...

I’ve been conducting oral interviews this week in English for part of my students’ final exam. One of the things we talk about is their childhood. A few telling facts: -98% of my students are first generation college students -About 90% are from the countryside and their grandparents and/or parents were farmers -About 75% did not live with their parents while growing up because their parents had to leave the countryside to find work in a city in another province in order to put their child/ren through school; instead, most of my students were raised by their grandparents. The kids felt a lot of pressure to do well in school because their parents were working so hard to pay for it. (Farmers are often not subject to the one child rule.)   (One girl is a twin, and she said her grandparents could not afford to keep both her and her sister, so she stayed to live with her grandparents in the countryside and her parents took her sister to work with them in the city. She has spent ...

It's 12:10 AM Beijing time and I'm awake because I just got done watching the nail-biting U.S. soccer game online (yes, I'm a soccer fan now, thanks China!) and answering texts from my students congratulating me on the U.S. win. I usually ignore texts my students send me after 10 PM until the next day, but tonight I made an exception. They were too cute! Congrats U.S. soccer team! What an ending! Onto the next round! Btw, if you are not watching the U.S. team, you are missing out !

Sometimes I wonder where I get my ideas about which men are attractive and worth investing in, and then I remember: Danny Zuko. *shaking my fist in his general direction* I was but an impressionable five year old when I first saw Grease. My dad bought me the album at our base PX, and I might or might not have secretly kissed his picture on it a few times. Danny was THE boyfriend I wanted when I grew up, cocky attitude and all. I blame him for any poor dating choices I’ve made over the years.  And the fact I don’t mind guys who smoke cigarettes perhaps as much as I should. Also, my love of tight leather pants; but Sandy was right: they ALWAYS WORK. I also remember having a huge crush on Mr. Ice Castles himself, Robby Benson. Sort of like Danny Zuko, but after being rolled about in cotton candy and sugar sprinkles. A little toooo sweet, if you know what I mean. But my 10 year old self thought he was bees knees. But it does seem as though Olivia Newton-John and I h...

Those of you who watch Glee know the season finale had a version of the old song To Sir, With Love . My mom loves this song and used to sing it all the time when we were little, so it was a nice surprise to hear it on the tv. For those that don’t know, my mom was a teenage popstar in Chile. She plays the guitar by ear, too, so when we were growing up, we spent lots of time singing while my mom played for us. It was like non-stop karaoke in our house. She sang from age 14 to age 19, when she came to the U.S. A while back I put a few of her songs on YouTube, along with some of her scanned magazine pictures. You can see/hear her here. She is the young one on the front row. (We have a box of magazines and other stuff, I’ve just been really lazy about scanning it all in.) Her stage name was Tina Vilches. If you read Spanish and Google her name, you’ll find some stuff online about her. I get fan mail for her on the YouTube site, and I forward it to her. It always makes me chuckle a bit...

A short video I made of some...interesting products I have come across here. I made a few English mistakes, oops! I know you still love me, even though my English can be crappy these days.

When I first came to China, I was living in the aftermath of the hurtful actions of a man I knew. I thought his actions were my fault. And I spent so much time trying to figure out what I did wrong to make him do these things. And trying to fix it. And my only regret about China is this: in all the turmoil of adjusting to China, I lost all that time I spent trying to figure out why a man would act this way. I know now, there was nothing for me to figure out. There was nothing for me to fix. And there was nothing I did that made him treat me how he did. Sometimes, a jerk is just a jerk. I wish I could have learned this lesson without the firsthand experience I unfortunately had; but, because that is not possible, I resolve to at least never forget it. Or let it happen again.  How I wish I could have experienced the hardship and turmoil of adjusting to life in China without his actions forming a terrible shadow hanging over me. I sometimes still fantasize about how much easi...

So, true story: when I was around 7-8 years old I thought stripping was the best thing ever. I wanted to be a stripper when I grew up, and I used to put on my dad's soundtrack to The Sting , crank up Hooker's Hooker , put on all the clean clothes from the laundry room and play stripper for hours in the living room. (I always stopped at my own clothes! I only took off the extra laundry!) My parents, being the laid-back parents they are, didn't freak out or chasten me for playing stripper. In fact, I don't remember them ever saying anything to me about it, ever. And one day, I just stopped thinking I wanted to be a stripper. Please note that at age 8, I had only a marginal idea of what strippers actually did; I thought it was just wearing pretty clothes and dancing, two things I still think are pretty awesome. As an adult, I asked my dad why he never told me to stop playing stripper or to stop saying that when I grew up, I wanted to be a stripper. And my dad told me, ...

You might wonder, after two years living in China, does anything happen that shocks me? Or have I become so inured to the chaos of daily life that I take everything with a blasé grain of salt? No, things still shock me. Here are two recent shocking moments: 1. I was asked to help with an English speech competition sponsored by a major Chinese educational book publisher. Oratory has an influential cultural history in China, so speech competitions are a big deal. The topic was being a good public citizen. One girl opened her speech with the following statement: “We didn’t cause the earthquakes, but our hands built the buildings that failed. Our hands made the milk that killed the babies.” I was shocked to hear this spoken out loud, by a young girl, in public, at a speech competition attended by the school’s Party officials. These things are not spoken of here in this manner. They’re just not. My Chinese counterparts appeared to have no reaction at all. (In Chinese culture, such a cl...

Have I ever told you I am a klutz? I am. A big one. Here is a hematoma I acquired on the train ride home last weekend. When Andrew saw it, he said, "How on earth were you walking that you hit THAT part of your arm?" Good question! But I was holding a heavy bag in one hand getting on the train, so my arm was akimbo. It doesn't hurt so much today, and is a lovely green-ish purple. I have a theory I should have been taller or shorter because I seem to not have internalized how long my arms, legs and head are. I hit them on everything. The other day I hit my head on the street phone booth while climbing out of a taxi in the rain. -------------------------------- Speaking of proportions, I was talking with R. this week about butts. Specifically, how ours have changed thanks to climbing literally flights and flights of stairs and hilly streets everyday for the past two years. The LAST thing I needed was a rounder butt, but here I am. (Muscle, not fat, but ...

Wow, time flies! E. came down for a few days, and then I had to go to Chengdu for my end-of-service-very-thorough medical examination. It lasts a few days, and we get tested for communicable diseases and whatnot; I check out okay on all fronts, yay! And blood pressure 114/78, bring on the salt! We have our parasite test the day before we leave, and I don’t think you want to know the details of how that is done. But, I hope to also be parasite free, cross your fingers for me. Last Tuesday night we had girl’s night at the movies and saw Prince of Persia . Definitely China-good, meaning, only good because we are living in China and need the American eye-candy. My Chinese friend Summer came with us and she liked it a lot, for the same reason we did. Hotness is the universal language, y’all. I got in late last night and had to teach early this morning as a make-up for the days off I get next week for Dragon Boat Festival. Tonight we are watching the U.S./Britain soccer game at 2:15 ...

Ok, I do have a documented weakness for dark-haired, green-eyed men , but still...this is one good-looking man. Hrithik Rashan, South Asian Indian actor. V. loaned me a movie he's in called Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.   I loved the clothing and dancing. Bollywood movies can be cheesy, but they are also fun.

The Sichuan* accent of Mandarin is famous for dropping the ‘h’ in the consonant combos ‘sh’, ‘zh’ and ‘ch.’ They become ‘s’, ‘z’ and ‘ts’ respectively. When I started learning Mandarin, I swore I would never drop my h’s! Never! Last winter, I noticed I was dropping my h’s. I was yi ping sui (yi ping shui - a bottle of water) and sang zoumo (shang zhoumo - last weekend) and haotsi (haochi - delicious) –ing all over the place. Oh well, so much for my pure Mandarin. But then…last weekend at dinner…I said, “I really love sellfish.” SHELLFISH, I MEAN. I got a good laugh out of it, but it’s a little scary that I’m now pronouncing English with a Sichuan accent, as well as Mandarin. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m leaving China soon. My English is crap. I’ve also noticed there are some things I like to say in English, other things in Spanish, and some things in Chinese. For example, I sent T. a text that said, “Tu quieras 吃饭吗?”(“Do you want to eat?”) I’ve also told him in a text, “中人 be loco!” (“C...

Hope you all had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We owe a lot to our veterans and their families. Last weekend I went to visit friends in a small city about four hours away. It was so great to spend time with them and get out of the Chongqing smog, traffic and all around chaos for a few days. We went shopping and I saw these t-shirts. I didn’t buy them, but I couldn’t let them go without documenting them either: These leggings were for sale at a kid’s clothing store. I was so tempted to buy them, just because they exist: Sign in the small town square. Conveniently find all the women and children in town, as well as Iraqis. (The Mandarin says roughly “Her Decorations World” so I have no idea how they got ‘Iraqis’ out of that. It’s a mystery.) E. lives full-time in this small town, and she told me about being at their long-distance bus station and asking if there were an outlet were she could plug in her cell phone charger. “Sure,” the bus employee answered…and unplugg...