Filipino Funk

My seat on the train - it was quite a
surprise to sit down and find it broken.

I wasn’t intending on making a last minute trip to any other countries before we left until Air Asia reared its beautiful head. It all started with Emma and I casually looking up plane tickets (I promise it was all casual) and WHAM. There she was – PVG to MNL for only $100. For all who know my style of travel, plane tickets are generally the big expense – dirt cheap hostels are definitely the way to go once you arrive.



How quickly an aiport becomes a play-
ground in the middle of the night

The trip started with a 24 hour delay in the Shanghai airport; at first this wasn’t a bother because they had a BURGER KING, but burger king wore off pretty quickly. Let’s just say at this point Emma and I are experts when it comes to the Shanghai airport.

Jeepney

At long last we reached the Philippines. First stop: Mindoro. We spent the day exploring part of the island and ended it investigating the night life. Throughout the night we saw various discos and were told by one of the locals we should check one out. We made sure to ask if the discos were strip clubs (due to the suscpiciously hung curtains in the doorways) and were assured by him that while people danced at them they definitely didn't strip. Talented dancers at a disco always makes for a fun night so away we went. We walked in and ordered a drink when I looked off to my right towards the stage and, well, let's just say that it wasn't a strip club because one can't possibly strip what they're not wearing. Emma and I had just enough time to register the situation when we were surrounded by 3 to 4 of the "dancers" interested in talking to the only foreign FEMALES in the joint. It seems we could only do what anyone would - strike up conversation. One of the girls was incredibly sweet and told us about her 3-year-old daughter (though she herself didn't look older than 17). After polite conversation and a great deal of observing those who were at the "disco" observing the stage (which was the most interesting part of being there) we hightailed it out. As we exited we passed by a child who couldn't be older than 5 years old singing along to the disco song and saw various other kids running in and out of the bars; mind you at this point it was closing in on 11 p.m. With everything I’ve heard about Thailand I must say that the Philippines was more "Thailand" than Thailand was when we were there, at least where we stayed. It sounds cliché to say but it really did hurt in the heart region of the chest to see kids subjected to this kind of culture and growing up knowing nothing different. On another note, a theme that continues to present itself in my life over the last few years is how easy it is to simply talk to people. Different cultures, different walks of life, no matter; relating to people may sometimes be difficult but loving them and pursuing understanding certainly isn't.

Needing to wash off certain aspects of cultural grime we spent the next day making our way to the Tamaraw waterfalls. We started off in a jeepney which was unique but miserable in the heat - they're glorified jeeps with long benches in the back - and then opted for a motor cart for the rest of the way. The falls were beautiful and the best part of the day was engaging in a series of dares with some Filipino preteens (I’ve posted about this on Facebook) which included jumping from rocks of various heights into the falls. After this trip we spent the rest of the day at the beach before we were rained out. Emma convinced me to buy a pair of fake Ray bans – apparently they’ve been “in since 2009” and it's becoming apparent that I'm one of the least cool Americans she seems to know – mostly in terms of fashion and other things that make a person cool.

We ended the trip in Manila which was too hot for comfort and too chaotic to make sense of before returning back home to the middle kingdom! All in all a remarkable $100 investment.

               

Fire Fever

It seems to be a continuation of blessings for Paul and I. Here’s the rundown of what’s incredible right now (in somewhat chronological order):

-          We weren't expecting to be reimbursed for our original flights to China this year because we had to return home with Beau and miss almost 2 months of work. We also weren’t expecting to receive any pay for the month of February as it was Chinese New Year and we were traveling through various countries. However, in a moment of sheer brilliance, we decided to make our case. We spoke with administration at the university and told them we hadn’t technically broken contract since we returned and  also had taken it upon ourselves to get our classes covered by other teachers (this was a big one). We were told to write a letter of request and we would have to wait to see what happened from there. Last week we checked our accounts and WHAMO. An extra 20,500 RMB which is around 3,000 USD. It may not seem like much in America but here that goes a LONG way. Not to mention it will cover our summer trek through Europe (which, by the way, we would NOT have made so extensive if I’d actually believed I would get into Yale!).

-          Our taxes were significantly more complicated this year without W2’s and with Chinese contracts so we had to wait some time for them to be completed. Because of this we both missed deadlines for receiving financial aid from our schools and were expecting to have to cover EVERYTHING with loan money. We were sent both of the account outlines and, low and behold, I was given a $7,000 scholarship from Yale and he was given a $2,000 scholarship from Fuller. Unexpected scholarship is the best!

-          It’s been a little stressful trying to figure out where we’ll live when we return. We’ll be in Europe until August 7^th, orientation at Yale starts August 19^th and somewhere in the middle of that is my sister Taylor’s bridal shower and our welcome home/re-going away party. I decided to apply for on-campus graduate apartments because it is incredibly expensive to live in New Haven and these apartments take up a little less space in the pocketbook and also looked pretty neat-o. Not to mention it would be an opportunity to meet other graduate students and be on a beautiful campus (that’s the part I’m most looking forward to; I must admit Wuhan isn’t exactly “beautiful” in the traditional sense). They had really low apartment availability to applicant ratio so I didn't think anything would come of it but we received word this morning that we were offered the exact two-bedroom apartment we wanted. Note the two bedrooms; this means to come visit us as we’re a hop, skip and jump away from a number of delightful destinations.

-          Last but not least – ok, probably least – is that we were given free tickets from a Chinese friend to the Wuhan vs. Shanghai soccer game today. Thanks Jin Xun!

Besides all of the aforementioned we’ve been trying to soak in as much of Wuhan as we can before we can’t. A lot of that has been hopping on buses and arriving at wherever that takes us; this has made for some “interesting” adventures – in China you never know what you’ll come across!

Great place for a nap

 

Bathing in Blessings

Though I’ve posted it all over Facebook in a flurry of excitement, I wanted to take a moment to simply write down how memorable this past week has been.

I applied to nurse practitioner programs in the fall assuming I’d get into a “safety” school somewhere in Michigan. Due to random circumstances (statistics classes taken more than five years ago and the like) my applications to my safety schools were rejected. This left me with two top ten schools for the program I applied to – the University of Michigan and Yale. My assumption was that both were a long shot, I’d be rejected and work for another year before trying my hand again. But somehow, by the grace of God and the skin of my teeth, I was accepted to both! I never thought I’d be in the position to choose but I chose Yale! Yale’s program is far more conducive to my professional goals with a stout emphasis on the disenfranchised population and international health care along with far more opportunities for the students.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, exactly 24 hours later Paul found out that he was accepted to Fuller Theological Seminary! Paul had only applied to FTS because it was the only school he wanted to go to – he has more guts than I do.

My program is very intensive so it’s only two years while Paul’s is three. He is allowed to do ½ online so he’ll work on that while I’m in school and then we’ll head to Pasadena so he can finish his second ½. It couldn't work out more perfectly and I'm ecstatic knowing we get to pass a few years in New England only to turn around and live in California right after!! While sad to leave China this has certainly made it easier on us. :)

Hubu Xiang and the Duck Incident

Frog
 

This past Saturday we set out for Hubu Xiang, which is an alley of street vendors selling an assortment of different foods – everything from fried pumpkin balls to rice patties to frogs.  Hubu Xiang is in the Wuchang district of Wuhan and we live in the Hanyang district so it was a decent trek by bus, but fun to navigate our way to a place in Wuhan we hadn’t been yet.

 

Duckling

Overall it was fun and we had a good time with a few of our friends who came as well; however there is one incident which blanketed the entire day and has frustrated me to such a point that I decided to journal about it. As we were leaving I saw a young Chinese boy, around 4 years old, and his friend with a baby duck. A duckling may appear a strange companion for a child but animals in China don’t seem to be viewed in the same way as America; in marketplaces it’s not uncommon to see a man carrying a basket chock-full of baby ducks, baby porcupines or baby [insert animal] to sell for whatever purpose (that part of the equation I don’t usually like to ponder). So this boy, whose parents were workers in the alley, took his newly purchased duckling and proceeded to throw it to the ground…with his parents standing by and watching. In all of four seconds my jaw dropped, the parents smiled and the boy had tossed the duckling around a few more times for his own personal amusement.

The Culprit

I’ve seen countless  things that don’t seem to “make sense” to my western mind and there are often moments I have to stop, take a breath and remind myself that my opinion isn’t going to “change China," nor should it. This was not one of those moments. Musing for a quarter second more I marched over to the two children, grabbed the boy’s arm and yelled “bu shi!” (no!) Where I may have been sued in America his parents merely watched in shock here.

After they were over the initial astonishment of a foreigner approaching them I then commenced explaining (in embarrassingly broken Mandarin) that they are big, the duckling is small and it’s not ok to hurt something smaller than you. I pet the duckling gently and encouraged them to do the same. Trying to personify the poor animal to them (which was breathing heavily, had a slightly cracked bill and hobbled its way over to me seeming to understand I was there to protect it) I asked what the duckling’s name was. We talked for a while longer – his parents finally approached me excited to speak with the foreigner and agree with what I had to say – and when I was convinced enough that my point had been made I departed. Turning around to glance one more time I saw another young boy approach my two new friends and… kick the duckling. My young friend screamed as loud as he could in the new child’s face and brought the duckling under his protection.

The truth is, I don’t know if the lesson will stick with them for longer than ten minutes but in that moment I was so enraged that nothing could stop me, right or wrong. Perhaps it was compounded with the overall experience I’ve had personally watching the maltreatment of animals on the streets along with a clip I recently watched concerning the treatment of animals on a fur farm in China (you can view that HERE). WARNING – IT IS VERY GRAPHIC. IF YOU DON’T THINK YOU CAN HANDLE IT DO NOT WATCH IT.           

Not the happiest of posts but this is what has been, unfortunately, on my mind.

Bucket List (30 things before I'm 30)

This past month or so has been peppered with conversation about the future. What is our plan for this upcoming year? Where will we live after our summer trek through Europe? Leaving China is a sad, sad option but it is one we need to really pray about and consider.

However, because so much is up in the air I've decided to get my hands on something I can be intentional about - and that's going to be a bucket list of 30 things I want to do before I'm 30 (and only a couple of short years to do them in....)

Bucket list – 30 things to do before I’m 30

1. Travel to Vietnam (it's kind of cheating because I did this last year, but after seeing the Rambo series years ago I was interested in Vietnam and I figured starting with one checked off the list would make me feel accomplished)

2. Go on a multi-day bike trip

3. Do a homestay with personal tutoring in South America

4. Get into a nurse practitioner program

5. Take my husband on a surprise trip

6. Take a MENSA test

7. Get in the routine of waking up early for alone time

8. Travel to Dubrovnik and see the Dalmatian coast

9. Get Open Water scuba certified

10. Pay off my undergraduate loans

11. Listen more, talk less

12. Journal and write poetry daily

13. Travel to Istanbul + get a Turkish bath

14. Take rock climbing lessons

15. Buy an Estonian sweater IN Estonia

16. Learn to cook ten solid meals well

17. Be at peace with whatever season my life is in

18. Do another medical missions trip

19. Randomly hop a plane to the cheapest “out of country”location available and spend a few days there

20. Do a road trip in the Northeastern part of the U.S.A.

21. Go on more backcountry camping adventures

22. Eat less sweets

23. Try a new food in every new place traveled

24. Travel to ALASKA

25. Hike the Inca trail to Machu Picchu

26. Read 100 books

27. Learn to salsa dance

28. Write a manifesto

29. Send a message in a bottle

30. Complete a 365 photo project (starting now)

This was quite fun, try it!

Chinese New Year 2013

Blogging seems like the perfect distraction to writing a paper on Chinese Traditional Medicine so time to recap Chinese New Year. As many know we were in America for a couple of months getting my brother, Beau, set up stateside so returning to Asia without him was definitely bittersweet. However, returning just in time for Chinese New Year was everything we needed to heal and re-stumble upon our “us.” The past couple of years have definitely set us back in terms of the desire to spawn a “little buddy” but I think we’ve more than earned the extra time together! Here’s the recap on the beginning of our new season of marriage and continued exploration into all the nooks and crannies Earth has to offer.

Indonesia

Because I’d booked a shockingly cheap room through hostelworld I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when arriving in Indonesia. The only thing I really knew (thanks to the quick pre-arrival study-up) was that it was a country that was comprised of 15,000+ islands and that we were staying on a small one towards the north. When we got to our hostel we found it to be far cleaner than many of our Asian experiences and even beyond that there was a free shuttle to a sister resort which was far nicer than anything I’d be willing to pay for. We took advantage of this a couple of our days and passed some time leisurely reading our kindles on the beach. Dostoevsky took over my life for those two days so it was well worth it.

Because I’m not one to enjoy being confined to a resort on a small island (no matter how picturesque) one day we took to walking for miles and happened across some small villages scattered along the east side of the island. This was by far my favorite part of Indonesia for two reasons: it’s the first time I’ve ever seen monkeys just doing their monkey business out in nature and conversing with the people the best we could I found the friendliest and happiest communities I’ve ever really come across. The more I travel the more I discover the direct correlation between having less and smiling more. That’s not to say that hard times don’t produce hard people but on the whole I’ve observed the irony that simple living brings richness to life worth more than its weight in gold. I WANT THIS.

With our remaining time we travelled to the main market streets of the island to experience a busier part of the culture that the village life simply doesn’t offer. Here we were met with a hodgepodge of different ethnicities that I came to learn was pertinent to Indonesia as a whole – as their national motto is "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" which literally means “many, yet one.” While there I splurged (it really was splurging as we’ve learned that if you want to travel, travelling light is the way to go) and bough a tank top that said “free puk puk.” When I showed it to one of the locals he laughed and said “ah, puk puk, haha.” I’m hoping it doesn’t mean anything too scandalous but our new marriage talk has been to ask for some “puk puk” when we want a kiss so that’s what it’ll mean for the Johnson’s.

Singapore

We were in Singapore the least amount of time so I’ll probably have the least to say, but essentially I was the most surprised that it was SO CLEAN. We’ve only been to dirty, chaotic and manic Asia. Singapore was ordered, law-abiding, strict and clean. To top this off they spoke English so nothing was lost in translation as par usual. We went to a small island the first day and visited the amazing Singapore aquarium, and on the second we got to do my favorite thing – walk around aimlessly and see what fate has in store. We met with some locals who told us about the best dish (fish head curry) and the best place to get it (Muthus Curry) so we made our way to the Indian side of town and spent an hour meandering along until we found it. And dare I say, it was more than worth it.

Malaysia

Malaysia excited me the most, largely because we were there the longest and acrrued a plethora of random knowledge about its history and people. We’d been to Johor Bahru already, which was right across the way from Singapore (it was worth it to go through customs every day, staying in Singapore was far too expensive for the budget we travel on), but Melaka had a far more charming feel than Johor Bahru. We spent most of our time simply walking up and down the streets, exploring unique and interesting graveyards (I found them quite fascinating in this city) and eating at local joints for less than $1. The fact that we were eating off of banana leaves and being served whatever goopy concoction they’d made for the day made it that much better. We spent a lot of our time in Melaka with a couple we met (him from New Zealand, her from Denmark) and also passed a full day riding bikes to wherever caught the eye.

Kuala Lumpur was the next and final stop, and here we met up with a friend from China. He is Chinese and was born and raised in Malaysia, so for the two days he was there he took us to experience as much of the local flavor as he could. We went to a church which was marvelous, particularly when they worshipped in Malay. We bought some squid for breakfast at a street vendor (and though I tried to hide it the visceral response to my tongue's disgust was so intense that I almost vomited on the spot), and we also went to a party to celebrate the last day of Chinese New Year. This was probably my favorite because here I learned about the substantial presence that the Chinese and Indian populations hold in Malaysia. It wasn’t surprising to learn that most of the Chinese who came fled in the days of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Celebrating the new year immersed in a Malaysian subculture was definitely different than the typical Chinese celebration but still held some resemblances.

We finished up our time at the Batu Caves and then headed up to glorious PRC. After a night spent in the Guangzhou train station (in which we were actually disgusting enough to sleep on the floor) it was back to Wuhan!

Overall the travel was GREAT. Not quite as outdoor adventure-filled as last year but everything we needed at the time.

Changes

Time to make it officially public, today marks some pretty hefty change in our lives (and as much as my family and friends would love to hear me now announce my pregnancy, I’m sorry to disappoint). Actually, rather than increasing in size our family is decreasing. Many know Paul and I took on the guardianship of my younger brother, Beau, a couple of years ago. It has been a long and trying road filled with cheers and tears and yet for the sake of both my original decision I would not change.

Without going into full detail I would like to let you all know that we have decided to relinquish our guardianship. I will simply say that I wish we had been all he needed, but we were not, and that’s ok. He’s got a tough journey ahead but I have also seen him grow in many ways and what we can do now is pray that he takes the experiences he’s accrued forward into future circumstances. I can’t say it enough and yet again after a tearful goodbye I recognized that he really and truly HAS grown, as have we.   

Thank you for all who have been there with us in the past month to listen as we unpacked our quandary again, and again, and again. We’re blessed to have such support and love in our lives and through this I am relearning that one of the greatest gifts you can bring someone in need is a listening ear (hey, I’m proud of the cheese I’m presently spreading), I hope I can be that for some in the future.

To also let you know, Pablo and I have decided to head back to China and fulfill our contracts. It’s slightly bittersweet without Beau but I’m looking on the positive side, so woohoo! As we’ll be heading back smack-dab-a-lab in the middle of Chinese New Year we get the joy of returning to a month of no work which for us translates into a month exploring Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. I’ll try to keep you posted and thanks again friends!

"My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest."