-The whole experience of my first haircut is a decent story unto itself, but I’ll just stick to the results here. It reminded me very much of my previous international haircut this year while in Belize for Micah and Nicole’s wedding. The (totally understandable) method employed by the barber is the same one he would use to cut and style the hair of his local customers. However, my hair is a bit different than the average Chongqinger’s. I wish I had snapped a picture of it, because similar to my experience in Belize, I walked out of the barber’s shop rocking a hairdo that would have allowed me to pass as a local; if one ignores the white skin, blue eyes, and lack of prerequisite local linguistic faculties necessary to speak to most people here. Regardless, after some serious work with a blow dryer and hairbrush, the barber tamed my curly hair into the ubiquitous ‘do seen here. I was impressed.
-As part of the local governments efforts to promote their city, there are signs espousing different benefits of living in Chongqing all over town. The signs (which are in both English and Chinese) say thing like “Healthy Chongqing”, “Safe Chongqing”, etc. But my favorite of the signs is the “Unimped Chongqing”. The sign has a picture of an open highway (clearly photoshopped, as I have yet to see one of those), so I think they meant to say unimpeded, but this is merely guesswork. Regardless, it is my favorite sign because every time I see one of them I imagine how far the city has come since resolving their pesky imp problem. Now if only they would lift the stoching ban...
-I’m going to be a bit of a downer here for a minute, but stick with me. The lack of sunshine here is something I hadn’t thought would be a issue. Turns out not seeing the sun is a bit of a bummer. Even during my year living back in Ireland a few years back I saw more sun. It turns out that one of Chongqing’s many nicknames is “Fog City”. It make sense, considering that it is a mountain city centered around the confluence of two major rivers. This, coupled with the air pollution that is unlike anything I’ve ever lived around, makes for a perpetually gray sky. I had not thought much about it until last week when we had two days of sunshine. It was glorious. The city looked totally different, you could see mountains and other parts of the city that most days are fully obscured by fog and smog, and it made for a fun couple of days. Which bring me to my next point.
-Anything that I do in class that is out of the ordinary elicits a shocked and elated buzz from the students. On Thursday and Friday last week (the two days of sunshine) I took two of my classes outside. When I told them what the plan was for the day, the first reaction was confusion. Then I tell them to get their stuff together, stand up, and follow me, and the “Waaaaaaa!!!” (see previous post) chorus begins. Fortunately two of my five classes those days were easy enough to conduct outside, and though the students were slightly distracted, I still feel that it was to every one's benefit to go outside those days. I know I enjoyed it.
-As part of the local governments efforts to promote their city, there are signs espousing different benefits of living in Chongqing all over town. The signs (which are in both English and Chinese) say thing like “Healthy Chongqing”, “Safe Chongqing”, etc. But my favorite of the signs is the “Unimped Chongqing”. The sign has a picture of an open highway (clearly photoshopped, as I have yet to see one of those), so I think they meant to say unimpeded, but this is merely guesswork. Regardless, it is my favorite sign because every time I see one of them I imagine how far the city has come since resolving their pesky imp problem. Now if only they would lift the stoching ban...
-I’m going to be a bit of a downer here for a minute, but stick with me. The lack of sunshine here is something I hadn’t thought would be a issue. Turns out not seeing the sun is a bit of a bummer. Even during my year living back in Ireland a few years back I saw more sun. It turns out that one of Chongqing’s many nicknames is “Fog City”. It make sense, considering that it is a mountain city centered around the confluence of two major rivers. This, coupled with the air pollution that is unlike anything I’ve ever lived around, makes for a perpetually gray sky. I had not thought much about it until last week when we had two days of sunshine. It was glorious. The city looked totally different, you could see mountains and other parts of the city that most days are fully obscured by fog and smog, and it made for a fun couple of days. Which bring me to my next point.
-Anything that I do in class that is out of the ordinary elicits a shocked and elated buzz from the students. On Thursday and Friday last week (the two days of sunshine) I took two of my classes outside. When I told them what the plan was for the day, the first reaction was confusion. Then I tell them to get their stuff together, stand up, and follow me, and the “Waaaaaaa!!!” (see previous post) chorus begins. Fortunately two of my five classes those days were easy enough to conduct outside, and though the students were slightly distracted, I still feel that it was to every one's benefit to go outside those days. I know I enjoyed it.
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