Not your Average Spa

For my entire life I've suffered with headaches and migraines.  Over the years I've tried a variety of different techniques to tackle the pain: medicine, yoga, physical therapy, chiropractic treatments, stretches, breathing techniques, special diets, you name it!  While I lived in Singapore my mom and I would religiously visit our local reflexology friends at Causeway Point and get weekly foot and back massages which seemed to be helpful (plus, who doesn't like a good rub down?)  So, when our new friends here in Huangdao told Jordan and I that they'd found an AMAZING place for reflexology we jumped at the opportunity to test it out.  We woke up this morning pretty stoked for a 2 hour, 60RMB massage (less than $10 per person!) However, we were sorely mistaken about what this 'massage' would entail.  

We began with a pleasant foot soak in tea infused water, while our feet were soaking our backs were gently rubbed by two jolly looking Chinese men.  We then sat back in our soft recliners and sighed peacefully while they rubbed oil over our freshly cleaned feet.  Then it began...

While punching our feet and laughing as we tightly gripped the lazy boy arms in pain, the Chinese men proved to be much stronger than their tiny physiques let off.  I remember thinking the first few rounds of foot reflexology in Singapore were painful after not having been in a while, so I decided I needed to toughen up and try to enjoy this 'massage'.

After about 50 minutes of the foot massage, I had begun to unclench.  We were then ushered into the next room and asked to lay face-down on the massage table.  Being spoiled by the Singapore American Club and the Houstonian Spas I was slightly disappointed at the lack of pre-massage dips in the sauna, freshly cleaned long white robes,  lavender and eucalyptus oils, and soothing music to accompany my full body massage, however I decided I could survive getting a back massage in my jeans with my face pressed into a questionably 'clean', mildewy scented towel.  I was determined to enjoy the back massage because my headaches always seem to temporarily subside after a good massage.  

While I did feel completely satisfied with the back massage portion, I became slightly nervous when I thought I was done, and then looked over at Jordan who had somehow lost his shirt and had glass cups stuck to his exposed butt.  I watched for a second as Jordan's masseuse lit a fire under each cup and quickly inverted it on Jordan's back creating some sort of giant hickey.  I asked Jordan how it felt and he seemed perfectly content so I decided if he could handle it, i could too.  

A diagram of how cupping is performed.

The skin gets sucked about an inch into the glasses. There is a feeling of sweet relief when they are removed.

Little did I know that Jordan's circulation is much better than mine and he therefore got to skip the 'scratching' part of the experience.  I was asked to take off my shirt and lay face down on the table while my sadistic masseuse used a tooth-less comb type object to literally scratch my back for 20 minutes.  He smiled and told me this will make my headaches better- yeah we'll see!  After the scratching came my turn for cupping.  While Jordan and most other people say that cupping isn't too painful I'm going to go ahead and liken it to waxing;  After the first 5 times or so it's not that bad, but the first 5 times you want to cry and slap the person inducing such pain on you.  I tried to go to a happy place, and that happy place did in fact look a little bit like the Houstonian Spa, so I was a little bummed to open my eyes and find myself still in a smelly room with 10 glasses fire-sealed to my neck, back, butt and legs.

All in all, we survived and I'm going to try to keep an open mind.  If I miraculously feel brand new tomorrow (which I was promised) then perhaps I'll go back, and after 5 more sessions I will be convincing all of you that scratching and cupping is the wave of the future.  Otherwise, brace yourself if you ever happen upon a Chinese 'Spa'. 

Notice how Jordan's marks are nicely shaped and his back only looks slightly strange?

Now, draw your attention to my back which looks a bit like I was run over by a bus.

Miscellany

Before I post on some of our more recent events, I wanted to give a quick update on what we've been up to the last month or so. 

New Class

For the last 3 weeks I have been teaching a new class because one of the other foreign teachers had a "disagreement" with his class. The class is an oral class and I guess all the previous teacher did was have one student per class give an oral presentation and then a few students would ask questions. The students had complained that they were only getting to practice their oral English one time in the semester, and the rest of the time they spent sitting and listening. Also, the class has a textbook the students had to pay for, but the teacher refused to use it.

After many complaints from students and many requests by the administration to change his teaching practices, the teacher still refused to make any changes. So, the class was given to me. It kind of bums me out that a foreign teacher can be so stubborn and the school can't really do anything about it. The teacher is still getting paid as much as he was before, and he has one less class. His stubbornness and refusal to cooperate actually benefitted him. Unfortunately I see many foreign teachers taking advantage of their "foreigness" in this way. Oftentimes the school will do anything to please the foreigners, even if we're being total jerks.

The students are undergraduate English majors which is quite a contrast to my post-graduate students from various majors. The English majors are significantly better at English and much more enthusiastic. It makes teaching the class a ton of fun and also much easier than my post-grad students. With the post-grad students I feel like I have to struggle to get any sort of response from them, but the English majors happily volunteer answers to questions. I'm hoping next semester I'll be able to teach some more English majors. 

CUBA Game

Since it's founding in 1998, all major Chinese universities have competed in the Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBA). The CUBA is the equivalent the NCAA, but only for basketball, and Shandong University of Science and Technology is the CUBA equivalent of Kansas or Duke. Our school won a CUBA National Championship in either 2001, 2002, or 2004.  When I've asked various students or other teachers I have heard all three answers.  I've even had the opportunity to see the CUBA National Championship trophy, which is an awesome golden backboard and rim (think slightly larger Nerf hoop, but pure gold), but it doesn't even say the year on it.  The CUBA wikipedia site says 2002, for what it's worth.

Regardless of what year they've won, SUST has won one national title (out of only 10 so far) and nearly every year they make it to at least the Elite 8 of the CUBA Tournament, usually the Final Four. They are a powerhouse. I have told my students that if they ever know of a game that I could watch they should let me know.

One evening I received an email that SUST would be playing Hunan Normal University at our school's gymnasium the following afternoon at 2:30 pm.  He said that finding tickets would be difficult but he wanted to let me know anyway.  Fortunately, Megan and I were able to land tickets from our well connected friends Kerstan and Karen, and we headed to the game. When we arrived, we learned from some other spectators that this game was the Quarterfinals for the national tournament, so SUST was in the Elite 8.

The gym was packed with students when we arrived and we found our seats which were in the very front row behind the visiting team's bench. Apparently the tournament is set up in a home and home format, where a game is played at each team's campus and the team with the highest aggregate score continues to the next round.

The game was a blast. The pregame and halftime festivities were half of the show. There were "Basketball Babies" (what they call cheerleaders here), mascots (a panda, a pig, and an inflated basketball-headed creature), drum and singing performances, giant flags, and traditional dancers. Also, the student section was arranged to spell "CUBA" with the colors of their shirts. While the students clearly cheered for our school to win, everything official was completely unbiased. The cheerleaders did not openly support one team or the other, the student section was comprised of students wearing both schools' colors and spelled "CUBA" rather than "SUST" and each team had an equally large flag.

The actual game was a blowout. SUST dominated the game from start to finish, winning 99-71. This was the first leg of the match, so aggregate score counted, and they had incentive to run up the score. The level of play was pretty high. The players rivaled NCAA Division 3 athletes in both physicality and skill, but the coaching left a lot to be desired. With the exception of a few inbounds plays, the game was basically unorganized streetball. There were times that some players did not even pretend to get back on defense, but their coaches did not seem to care. A well coached Division 3 team like Calvin would probably run all over these teams.

Since the game they have had the second game of the match at the other school's campus and SUST is successfully into the Final Four, so there will be another game on campus so I hope to watch it too.

Here are some photos of the game:

Cameraman for CCTV 5 (China's ESPN). This dude was texting on his cellphone before he saw me about to take a picture and pretended to be filming.

Karen, Kerstan, and Megan in our seats before the game.

The student section spelling out "CUBA"

The players from the teams threw some mini-basketballs into the crowd and I caught one!

Halftime drummers.

The inflated basketball-headed mascot with a guy inside it walking around.

Halftime dancers.

Game action from our seats. Our seats were right behind the opponent's bench.

Most of the gym.

Final score: SUST 99 - Hunan Normal University 71

Basketball Team Dinner

My weekend basketball team, Team Bangbang, recently had a team dinner after one of our games a week or so ago. We ate at an outdoor barbeque restaurant in Huangdao and it was great chance to do something social with both the American and Chinese members of the team. Almost every player on the team has a wife or girlfriend too, so all in all our group was about 12 or 14 people. 

The conversation was held half in English and half in Mandarin, with the bilingual among us translating for the less lingually inclined. Those of us who knew very little English or Mandarin tried our best to keep up and pitch in with a few words of our own. Many toasts were attempted in toaster's foreign language with laughter usually following. My Mandarin toast was the embarssingly simple "我们是朋友!” (Women shi pengyou!/We are friends!).

These truly cross-cultural moments are some of my favorites in China, and make me extremely thankful that Megan and I decided to come here.

Here are a few photos:

Our table outdoors at the barbeque. A great evening.

Good food and drink.

Three of our Chinese teammates showing their strength: Jack, Li, and Gao.

An interesting insight into male/female relationships in China: Jack (left) ran home after our game to change and told us not to tell his wife that he was playing basketball because she doesn't want him to play so much. There are things that I do or don't do at Megan's request, but something healthy like basketball isn't one of them.

Team Bangbang: (top L-R) Gao, Hunter, Roland, Li (bottom L-R) Jack, Me, Kyle, Kerstan

The wives and girlfriends.

Back in Business

The lack of posting here for the last month has been caused partly by being busy, partly by lack of motivation, but mostly by China. For reasons unimaginable, they have blocked blogs so I haven't been able to access the blog myself.

Well, thanks to the help of a fellow CIEE Teach in China participant from our orientation group, Peter Youngblood, I was able to get around the block. We are up and running. Expect more posting to come very soon!

Long Weekend Recap

With Friday being Chinese Labor Day, Megan and I were more than happy to have another 3-day weekend to enjoy. After sleeping in on Friday I headed into Huangdao with Kerstan as he had stumbled upon some sort of basketball league with some of his other Western friends in town. Apparently last weekend they were playing at an outdoor court and were invited to play an organized game with some sort of official club team. Of course they accepted and had the chance to play a full court game with officials and a scoreboard and everything.

They were promised another game on Friday but needed more players, so I was happily recruited to play. One of the players on our team also managed to buy us uniforms for wholesale price, though they feature an image of motorcycles on the front with the words "Bangbang - Live Action Live Life" on the front. Nonetheless, we all looked "uniform" so we were ready to play. Our team features 4 American and 3 Chinese players, most of which speak pretty good English.  Team Bangbang was born.

The game on Friday was a full four quarter game which our team won 87-73. It was close at the beginning, but towards the end we wore the other team down as we had 2 subs while they only had 5 guys. Also, their cigarette breaks during time outs and half time couldn't have helped. The whole thing was organized by this 50ish year old Chinese man who rolled up in a shiny new car (a clear status symbol), honked and waved to everyone on the court, and then got out and blew a whistle to signal 5 minutes till tipoff. We immediately dubbed him "the Godfather."

After the game, Kerstan, Kyle (another player and the owner of the Western bar Catch-22), and I went to a driving range nearby. For 40 RMB (US$7) we could hit about as many balls as we wanted. The driving range was placed right at the base of a few small mountains and is quite removed from the city so it was quite pretty and peaceful. Plus, I haven't hit golf balls since I've been here so I was glad to get that chance again. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but if I go back I'll be sure to take some photos.

Kyle has recently decided to turn his "Bar & Lounge" into a "Bar & Grill" so he has been experimenting with serving food. As he's just starting this, he offered to bring us back to the bar to have a free meal so his employees could practice serving groups of people. We met up with Megan and Karen and the five of us had a nice Western style meal. I'm pretty sure we all ordered bacon cheeseburgers, which is something I've been craving for a long time. It hit the spot, and it helped that it was on the house. Kerstan was so hungry he ordered a second bacon cheeseburger, which he intended to pay for, but it arrived without the actual burger. Kyle told Kerstan not to pay for and then explained to his cook that the whole point of a burger was to have the beef in it. Apparently it was still a pretty nice BLTish sandwich.

Saturday evening we were invited to the home of a Canadian couple who teach at the local international school (which is about 95% Korean apparently, and only has 6 or 7 kids per grade) for lasagna. This couple had been friends with Kerstan and Karen for a while and Megan and Karen had ran into them the day before which got us the invite. They have two really cute daughters who were about 6 and 8 years old and adopted from China, which is why the couple decided to come to China for a few years to teach. Also, the woman, Bernice, was first generation Dutch-Canadian, so we had quite a bit to talk about. Also, you can't go wrong with lasagna. It was a great evening, and one that made me forget for a while that we are even in China.

This afternoon we had the second game on the schedule for team Bangbang, this time against the Godfather's team. We had heard that his team is the best in Huangdao, so we were eager to play them. The game, while a lot of fun, was pretty rough from the beginning. I had flashbacks to my days playing at SAS with Chinese refs and Chinese opponents who seem to be in cahoots.

With the deck stacked against us (at least from my perspective), the game was pretty close throughout. Towards the end of the third quarter or beginning of the fourth quarter our team had built up a lead of 8 or so. Before long, however, and seemingly without a big run from the other team, the score was tied. We tried to fix the scoreboard but everyone insisted it was correct. So, we kept playing, after being told there were 6 minutes remaining in the game. We had possession and scored to take a two point lead. After a possession for each team without scoring, our opponents scored to tie the game, 53-53. We brought the ball up court like any other possession, but as soon as we crossed half court the refs blew the whistles to signal the end of the game.

Needless to say, we were pretty upset. I was probably the worst offender, shouting at the ref and signaling to the ref that we did not even have someone yell "10, 9, 8...." like at the end of every other quarter. It was so clearly rigged. We were grumbling to ourselves and one of our teammates' wives who is Chinese said "Please don't be angry, this is the way it has to be."  I suppose that is true, this team was the "best" team in the area, and apparently their company sponsors the upkeep for the court that we were playing on, so they just can't lose.

We talked a bit about how in China things are significantly less democratic (obviously) than in America. Megan commented that oftentimes people don't earn things by merit as they would in the States (and how we should have by winning the game), but rather things are given to people based on status. Our opponents were captained by the Godfather and we were playing on their home court. They had the status, so we simply were not allowed to beat them. We had to maintain the natural order by ending the game in a tie. I'd rather lose than tie (still bitter).

Anyway, it was still great fun to play and there is talk of an all-city tournament with eight teams in a few weeks that we'll probably play in.

Warming up before the game. Notice the older guy in the sweater and collared shirt. No one knew who he was, but he went through our layup lines with us and seemed like a nice guy.

Game action (though you can't see me in the picture).

Drama Salon

Megan and I were invited to an event on Saturday night called "Drama Salon" put on by the Foreign Languages Club at the university. While there was a distinct absence of hair cutting or styling of any kind, the event turned out to be a good time. A few groups of students put on some skits in English and Japanese, but the show could be more accurately described as a multi-lingual talent/variety/game show.

The Salon was held in a large classroom with a bit of a stage at the front, and when we arrived we found that a few seats in the front row had been saved for us. As always Megan and I, along with a Japanese professor, were the guests of honor. On this occasion, that meant that on the desk in front of our seats sat a banana, 2 oranges, a pile of sunflower seeds, a few candies and a bottle of water. Megan and I are happily growing accustomed to this this kind of hospitality everywhere we go now.

Our seats stocked with sunflower seeds and fruit!

Waiting for the show to start.

The show started with one of the emcees of the event crooning a popular Chinese ballad. The guy was an absolute lady killer. His voice was good and he had the moves to pull it off, complete with the mic cocked vertically and the classic "eyes-closed-arm-outstretched" move that R&B singers have been perfecting for decades. Years of karaoke have clearly paid off for this gentleman. There were several more songs performed throughout the drama salon and none lived up to this first song.

The star singer. This photo does not do him justice.

Two other singers who were not quite as charismatic as the first singer.

After the opening song there was a performance of a famous Japanese folk story that I'm pretty sure I read in Japanese class in college. I didn't understand it then and I didn't understand it now, but it involved a girl who has a horrible deformity on her face, which was displayed in the skit by sticking a ping pong ball to a girls face.

The girl with the ping pong ball on her face.

The Japanese skit was followed by an English skit about a guy and girl who lament to their friends that they need a significant other. Coincidentally, one of the guy's friends is the brother of one of the girl's friends, and the siblings decide to set the lonely pair up on a blind date. When the time for the date comes the boy introduces himself to the girl and declares her the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Unfortunately, the girl was revolted by the boy and ran out on the date. The moral of the story, as recited by the entire cast at the end of the skit, was "Love should be expected, not made."

Next came the game show portion of the evening, in which volunteers from the crowd were made to play musical chairs on the stage. If a contestant was eliminated, they had to perform some sort of punishment in front of the crowd. The punishments included popping a balloon between the back of another person, making the noise of 5 different animals, or singing a song in front of the group. The winner of the game, who was quite a ham, decided he wanted to sing in front of the group as well, even though he didn't have to. He wasn't a great singer, but his song was redeemed when about 1/3 of the way through two of the hosts and the runner-up decided the urge to sing was too strong and joined the winner on stage for a spontaneous quartet. It was awesome.

Musical chairs!

One of the punishments. They're popping a balloon between them.

The spontaneous quartet. The winner of musical chairs is far right, and very into the song.

There were a few more skits and songs, but those were definitely the highlights of the night. We hope to be invited to more similar events in the future.

Hoops

I've found that if I only play basketball when I am invited, I will still play at least 3 times a week. After perhaps only ping pong, basketball is the most popular sport in China. Based on the huge number of hoops on our campus that are almost always filled with students playing, I would say that that is true. So naturally my students frequently ask me to play with them and typically I accept.

I must admit that I do not have as much fun playing basketball here as I do in the US. The main reason for this is the considerably low level of competition , which results from that fact that none of the students have ever been formally coached. Instead, the students try to imitate their favorite NBA players' moves, resulting in varying levels of hilarity. Also, no one ever tries to shoot from outside the key. Generally, there are just 10 people standing in the key at one time, and no one has any space to do much of anything. Adding to the lack of space is that everyone just plays half court games. A few weeks ago I played a 6 on 6 game, half court.

Due to my height, I basically just stand under the hoop, collect missed shots, and make layups. This is a pretty boring way to play, so I try to play like Chris Webber in his heyday with the Sacramento Kings. I stand at the high post, get the ball, hold it as high as I can, and make passes to cutting teammates.

One of the most disappointing things about playing basketball here is that people rarely keep score. They just play until they don't feel like playing anymore. Today the students I played with actually kept score, and I enjoyed the game a ton more. Players were more competitive, especially when it got close to game point. Maybe it is just my capitalistic American nature, but I think sports are way more fun when you're actually, you know, competing. 

Here they are asking me if "Rebound" is a verb or a noun.

English Corner

Last Wednesday a few of my students invited me to attend their English Corner on Friday afternoon at 4PM.   I of course accepted without hesitation because I have started to realize that every event Jordan and I are invited to seem to end up being pretty entertaining.  

Jordan and  I both finish classes on Friday afternoons at 4, so our usual Friday afternoon routine is to take a bus into the city after class, buy some movies, get Pizza Hut, go home, binge.  Last Friday we decided to postpone our ritual and I forced Jordan to come with me to this English Corner.  There were two classrooms packed with English students, and Jordan and I both entered a room full of cheering undergrads (which is basically what we have come to expect upon entering a room, so everyone prepare yourself to treat us with that kind of respect when we get home).  The students had already arranged the desks into groups of about ten, so Jordan and I were both ushered to different groups.  On the board, the students leading the English Corner had already written our discussion questions:

1. What is your opinion on the clone?

2. Where do you think the women should stay?  At the home or at the company?

3. What do you think about the gays' marriage?

Let me tell you, it was an interesting 2 hours.  I tried to correct any grammatical errors I saw in the questions, but mainly I was just interested to hear what they thought about these topics since I doubt they have many opportunities to speak freely on such "taboo" topics here.  We basically touched on each question and then started talking about life in America.  How do Americans feel about the clone?  Jordan was apparently asked if he "was a gay marriage" (I guess they didn't realize that we were married, or perhaps they still were struggling with what exactly it meant to be gay).

I saw a bunch of my students and I was impressed with how dedicated they are to their studies.  If only I had made an effort to start some sort of Chinese Corner at CU, and then actually attend it on Friday afternoon!

We have already been invited back to English Corner this Friday afternoon, and we're looking forward to seeing what questions they'll have this time.