It’s Friday evening and I’m riding the 455 minibus back to my school, Nan Shan Waiguo Yu Xuexiao. That’s Chinese for Nan Shan (South Mountain) Foreign Language School. Right now, I’m in Fu Tien district (I think), and I have a 40-60 minute ride in front of me.

I eat in my place a lot because the food here is really unpalatable. They eat a lot of chicken feet, pigs' ears, pigs' feet, congealed animal blood, animal stomach and stuff like that. I think Cantonese people like their food to look like the animal it comes from when it is on the plate, whereas Westerners feel the opposite. Here they leave the heads on a lot of things — chickens, ducks, pigeons, shrimp and fish at least. They also like to leave the animals alive until the last possible minute. You choose it, then they kill it. One restaurant I went to had a peacock, ducks, chicken, fish, snakes, a rabbit and a cat waiting to be killed. A person who was with me tried to buy the cat, but the owner wouldn’t sell it.

It’s bizarre that I’m too big for public transportation. I’m only 5’5’’. I’m always hitting my head getting off the bus because the doorway is so low. People here are ultrashort. Most men are only about 5’3’’. In Beijing, people are much taller. The average man is 5’7’’ or 5’8’’, and about one out of twenty men is six feet tall or over. I think that’s why people in Beijing are not that impressed by Chow Yun-Fat — he’s only a little bit bigger than average there, but compared to Cantonese men, he’s a giant.

I was sad to have to leave Beijing. It's a crazy place, but it has a lot of soul. There is no way to describe how crowded it is -- about 14.5 million people live there. Rush hour is really incredible to see because the streets are totally full. Also, every kind of vehicle imaginable is on the road at the same time. There are cars, buses, 18-wheelers, bicycles, walking people and horse carts. Another peculiar thing about Beijing is that, at least around Beijing University, most people walk in the street because there are too many cars driving on the sidewalks! There seem to be no traffic laws, or at least no enforced traffic laws. Even city buses run red lights. There is a guard in front of the Beida (Beijing U.) west gate to make sure people dismount from their bikes before crossing into the campus, but no policeman to make sure people stop at the red light before the gate! Another interesting thing is that in America, if a car misses someone’s body by six inches, they become upset because the car almost hit them; here, I think the only thing that is important is that the car misses. Nobody seems to mind even when they narrowly escape being run down.

I have very little free time. Usually there are only one or two periods per day when I’m not teaching. On a normal Tuesday or Thursday, I start teaching at 9:15, then teach three second grade classes. This past week we did parts of the body. They were all very excited to learn the words for "belly button" and "bottom." On Thursday, in my year 2, class 3 (the worst one), the kids kept screaming "PI GU!" (butt) because I drew a picture of a naked baby on the board with an arrow pointing to its bottom. This other American teacher came into my classroom for a minute. His Chinese name is Mr. Ma, and he used to teach second grade but now just teaches chorus. He is an evangelist! Apparently he is bankrolled by some Christian group in Colorado. He sort of preaches to the kids, which is illegal, but apparently nobody notices or minds. After the end of class one of the kids came up to me and said, "Miss Mary, is Mr. Ma your daddy?" They have also asked me if the English lady who teaches in the kindergarten is my mommy. I get really furious with 2.3, and this little girl came up to me at the end of class and gave me another picture of me, which had written on it in Chinese, "Please don’t get angry." So I felt guilty.