Face panties... they're all the rage...

My students decided that I was too cold and in a sincere effort to both keep me warm and help me blend in better around here they went out and bought me some designer face panties (definitely not their official name).

I think these were probably intended for a honeymoon of some sort.

I know you can't tell, but I am smiling.

The scariest thing: America vs. Tibet

No, this is not about mashed potatoes, but it could be...

One of the scariest things that's ever happened to me in America:

I had just turned maybe seventeen and I was driving home by myself one night. It was really dark and I was inexperienced with driving in the dark but I was very close to home. Less than a mile from my house in the glare of the headlights I see a figure in the middle of the road. I began to slow down but as the car gets closer it becomes apparent that this person is not moving. Edging the car closer and closer the figure of a woman begins to take shape, but she does not move from the center of the road. Soon, I am close enough to see her face, she is staring right through the headlights, right at me. Tense, I move the car around her but going slowly enough that she is able to reach out and bang on the hood of the car and claw at the door handle on the passenger side.

By the time I got home I was a white as a ghost and shaky.

One of the scariest things (turned pretty hilarious) that's happened to me in Tibet:

Last night, I had had a friend over for dinner and walked her back to her apartment. It was about 10p upon my return through the dark dankness to my warm and comfortably well lit apartment. Not one minute after shutting the door there is a frantic banging. Startled I turn around and stare out the peep hole into the shadowy darkness of a face of a woman who is speaking in Chinese. She is speaking in Chinese and still banging on the door. Tentatively, because I obviously do not recognize this person, I call out "hello" (thinking, hey if she's got the wrong door, she'll know when I answer in English) at this point she goes into hysterics. I'm watching all this through the peep hole but she's clearly very frantic, waving her arms, and talking very quickly in Chinese. Keep in mind I can only see an outline of her because it's dark outside.

Not knowing what to do I open the door a crack (isn't that how all horror movies go?) and she tries to push her way in. The only words that I'm understanding are "water" and "kitchen" so I think: maybe she's desperate and needs some water? I reach to get her some and she grabs my arm: "bu, bu" (no, no). Finally, heart racing, I reach for my phone and motion that I will call someone who "hui shu han yu" (speaks chinese). At which point she grabs my arm, pulls me out of the apartment, into the darkness, down two flights of stairs, muttering and going on the whole time in Chinese. I am horrified, maybe I am being abducted?

Not quite: We end up at an english speaking Chinese teacher's apartment. Apparently this woman is a teacher who lives two floors below me. Her kitchen was flooded with water and she chose 10p at night to come knocking on my door to ask me not to use my kitchen sink until the plumbing is fixed. In Chinese.

My main question is: how do you say "sketchy" in Chinese?

A brief vignette on altitude sickness:

On Tuesday, over one month after arriving at 12,000 feet, I got it. More appropriately: it got me.

Here is what my day looked like:
4:30a wake up gasping and so nauseous that I can only lay in a curled up position.
6:30a drag myself to the bathroom (for no reason) and turn the heater on.
7:30a A little dizzy and still nauseous, force myself to take a warm shower and eat some crackers and drink warm water.
9:30a Teach class.
11:30a Stumble back to the apartment, quite queasy with no idea what's wrong with me. I feel bad but not deathly. Talk to teammate who diagnosis me with altitude sickness: basically my body is not able to get the oxygen it needs. The prescription: rest.
12:30p Slowly slowly walk across the street to buy a liter of Sprite and some more crackers. Slowly slowly walk back.
1:30p Pull all the heavy blankets out from the wardrobe, turn the heater up full blast, put on extra socks and thick pajamas, cocoon myself in my bed with the Word, the Sprite, and the crackers close at hand. Feeling worse now than when I woke up this morning. Think dizzy but not able to faint, nauseous but not able to throw up, weak and tired but not able to sleep.
2:30p "sleep"
4:30p wake up, eat crackers, drink Sprite and water. Go back to sleep.
7:00p wake up, eat crackers, drink Sprite and water. Use bathroom. Go back to sleep.
9:30p repeat.
11:45p wake up, way too hot, turn off the heater, crack the window, take off the socks and go back to sleep.
7:15a wake up. Feeling ten thousand times better but still weak (probably from the diet of simple carbs and water). Get ready for class.

Now that I'm back to normal, it's hard to remember how bad I felt.

The moral of this story: oxygen, it does a body good.

Freezing rain, gasping students...

This morning I awoke to find the valley unlike I've ever seen it. In fact I couldn't see it. All of the mountains and most of the city was obscured by what I at first took to be a heavy fog and quickly found out was what we like to call in North Carolina "a wintery mix". So think cold.

Nonwithstanding the fact that it's not supposed to rain here from September to March, I donned a thick scarf, two layers of socks, a heavy waterproof coat and trudged off to class.

Once inside the classroom, I start to take off my jacket. Immediately all of the students began gasp and call out desperately "Noooo Teacher" "Ms Kelly noooooooooooo". Really I didn't understand what they were so upset about. So I laid the jacket on my desk and, to the utter horror of my students, begin to take off my scarf as well... the room errupted into an even more desperate chours of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO TEEEEEEECHER!" "Ms Kelly doooooooooooooon't".

It turns out that they believe that removing a jacket, much more so a scarf, in cold weather is the equivalent of jumping into an iced over lake with no clothes.

But judging by their reaction you would have thought I was stripping down to nothing in front of them.

Trust me I wasn't... after all, I still had two layers of socks to go.
haha

The mashed potato trial by fire...

Allow me to teach you a very handy Tibetan word:


It means "danger". I learned it the day before I made the mashed potatoes, but apparently I didn't apply it correctly.

Allow me to show you a photo:


Yes, that is what looks like some extremely tasty and well made mashed potatoes. However, need I remind you that looks can be deceiving?

Here is a list of what normally goes into mashed potatoes: potatoes, milk, butter, salt, pepper... if you want to get fancy you'll throw in some green onions or garlic.

Any fool can make edible mashed potatoes... unless you use the following ingredients: potatoes, milk, yak butter, salt, pepper, and green onions.

They sell yak butter on the streets here; usually it's in some intestine lining that you have to peel off before using. There are about as many different kinds of yak butter as there are people in China, but they all have one flaw: they are rancid. Think a rotten cheesy foot smell.

So I took a student with me to buy butter, surely a native can discern really rancid from just a little rancid. At the little shop I asked him what the difference was between all the butters... quite clearly he told me that the one on the end was "good" butter ("delicious" he said) and all the others were bad. And since those were my options I chose the "good" butter and bought about a fourth of a pound. Everyone in the shop kept asking why I was buying so little.

So I thought to myself: "I have the good butter, and besides, how rancid can rancid be?" I mean I've eaten the stuff in tsampa before (not bad) and I've drunk about a liter of it in their infamous butter tea (no comment) but I figured that a tiny bit in some potatoes really wouldn't be noticeable.

Seriously I used less than a teaspoon of that butter and those potatoes were filthy. Filthy.
I couldn't even swallow a full spoonful without triggering my gag reflex.

Don't worry about drugs kiddos, just say no to yak butter mashed potatoes. Tha for real.

This is Buddhist country my friends...

In response to a query about the latest video that I posted:

"To earn merit" is a totally foreign concept to most Americans, but to the people here it can be the very definition of life. That is not the overstatement that it sounds.

As best I can (based on the things I've read and conversations I've had), allow me to describe life through the eyes of a Buddhist:

*note to everyone* This is an EXTREMELY simplified version of a small part of Buddhist philosophy... so take it for what it's worth.

You do not have one life, you have many, many, many thousands of lives. And while usually you don't remember your previous lives (it's not like if you are a worm you remember that you beat small children or kicked dogs in your previous life, all you know is that now you are a worm), you are expected to accumulate merit in this current life in order to advance to a higher level of being in your next life. Failure to do this will result in squalor, misery, or a non-human status in a later life.

So the result is that if you live here you are doing things for one of two purposes: to make money or to make merit.

There are endless, literally endless, ways to accumulate merit. Some are extremely effective: such as spinning those huge wheels which house rolls of paper with the phrase "om mane padme hum" written on them hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times. The more wheels you spin the more merit you get. Other ways are less effective: such as giving money to a beggar or helping someone in need.

So as you watch that video, just imagine that someone, somewhere, is gaining merit. And that's serious business.

A bike is a girl's best friend... so I've heard.

Seriously, I am terrified of riding bikes.

I can see that my hands are trembling, I can see that my legs are weak, I can see that my head is spinning, but I will overcome.

There is no part of me that is comfortable or confident on a bike, it is just not my nature or experience. I get nauseous even thinking about riding next to buses, taxis, and these weird bike/cart situations, much more so actually weaving in and out of electric scooters, gaping potholes, people carrying their weight in vegetables, random herds of cattle, women with small children and old men hobbling along with canes.

And I know that my heart is hurting, and I know that my soul it aches, and I know that it seems I'm failing, but I will overcome.

So I am scared. Scared of falling off, running into someone, hurting myself, causing an accident, looking a fool, and the way that potential disasters seem to be amplified once on two wheels.

But I know that everyone in this city rides bikes. I know that if I will ever be a part of life here I too will ride a bike.

I am strong in You, I am wise in You, I can see in You, and I will overcome.
I am loved by You, I am free in You, I'm complete in You, and I will overcome.

And I will not give way to fear.