Bugs Anyone?

So in my pursuit of Medical Mandarin I have discovered a highly disturbing fact. Most Chinese Medicine includes insects. This enlightenment has cemented the fact that I never need to subject myself to taking Chinese medication.

I stopped at the local Chinese Medicine Clinic yesterday to look into their numerous brown bags and what did I see?

Cicadas. After we moved away from the counter neither my friend nor I could recall if they were just the skins or if it was the whole thing.

We asked the woman mixing the mixture (of herbs, nuts, flowers, furry items, and white balls) how you eat this kind of medicine. She said that you boil it and then drink it. After an extended conversation with my language helper and friend I learned that they will grind the insects up with everything else in that pile of mystery and then you will put it in your tea and drink it.

In this same conversation Ruth Anna assured me that cicadas are only the beginning for bugs/insects/creepy crawlers in medication. Grasshoppers, Scorpions, Millipedes, Spiders, and Earthworms are all part of the giant modpodge that makes up Chinese medicine.

Chan tui is the name of the medicine created using Cicadas. If you want to read in-depth on the ins and outs of the philosophy of how cicadas can be a healthy life choice click on: Chan tui. I will give a brief over view here. Cicadas are a cold substance. I am still trying to determine the logic behind what is cold and what is hot. It is supposedly good for the liver and the lungs. Some of the highlights of its medicinal attributes are: reduces fever, relieves restless sleep or nightmares, antispasmodic, and treats rashes and eye issues such as-cataracts, pink eye, or blurred vision. The only problem associated with taking cicada treatment seems to be possible miscarriage.

All in all Chinese Medicine is still very interesting but slightly strange and there is no way I intend to eat cicada.

Ma Ma Hu Hu

So I was reminded today that I haven't blogged in a while. I apologize. I forget that you all cannot read my mind or tell what is happening a gagillion miles away.

Life right now is just a week in and week out of class and tutoring. It is pretty mundane. But I am very thankful for the steady stream of busyness. The routine is nice and I am really enjoying strengthening my relationship through conversation and sharing. It is not a stressful existence. For which I am very thankful. Because only 7 months ago I was a very stressed language learner. Tomorrow I have a tingli. The listening portion of my lesson. Which means the first part of the lesson will be me listening to a story being told by my teacher and then after the story is done she will ask me a string of questions I have to answer regarding the story.

When I first started those days were my most feared classes because usually I would get like 20% of the story. Now I am more confident and even if I didn't catch some details I will have caught the majority of the large details. So that is always encouraging.

Today I want to teach you some of my favorite words in Chinese. The three most useful phrases in Chinese (for me) are: Ma Ma Hu Hu, Ma Fan, Zen Me Yang.

Ma Ma Hu Hu: (马马虎虎) these characters are literally Horse Horse Tiger Tiger. The deeper meaning is a combination of: so so, just okay, not great, or mediocre. I use this often in my daily life. It is an easy explanation of many things.

Ma Fan: (麻烦) these characters are literally Numbness Annoyed. The deeper meaning is a combination of: troublesome, annoying, too much effort, irritating, or not worth your time. This phrase is probably used at least once a day. Because so many things in China are mafan.

Zen Me Yang: (怎么样) this phrase means-how do you like it, what do you think, how are you. If I were to say it alone it means-How are you? If I say Green tea zen me yang? it means what do you think of having green tea. or if you already drank the green tea I would be asking how you liked the green tea. I use this phrase daily as well.

I have been here almost two years now and I find that some days I feel like this life is so natural and other times I wonder what in the world am I doing here. However, the sun shines here, the moon shows itself, we have rain and the flowers grow. We have good days and bad days, people are born here, and some die. I am grateful for each meal I have and every friend in my life. I have become used to the isolation/difference from people in America and am thriving. I feel at home here and yet am not at home at all. Indeed, all is the same under the sun.

Thank you for your continual thoughts for me.

May 2011

Happy Birthday to Me!!! Happy Birthday to Me!!! Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Hi Friends, Last year at this time
I had just taken my very first vacation in China.
I spent my 30th birthday in Dali with a good friend.




I like to look back over my last year of my life when I am celebrating a birthday and thought I would lay out some lows and highs of my 30th year for you!!

-LOWS-
School progress feels regressed.




I know in previous notes I have mentioned the fact that my last semester of school was not very productive to my learning and I have now changed some details of my schooling. But for a period of four months I really felt like I was drowning in language studies.



Christmas was harder than last year.




Last year’s Christmas was my first Christmas away from friends and family so everything was new and different-this past year was harder for me because I was realizing that me being away from family at holidays is not something new but soon to be a way of life.


A close friend left Kunming for good.


My closest friend in Kunming went back to the States at the end of November with no plans to return. Now, I look forward to seeing her when I on Home Assignment.

A close friends had a miscarriage.
One of my close friends had been trying to conceive and did but then lost the baby. This was very difficult to be included in but I felt privileged and thankful that our friendship is that close and real. PTL they now are pregnant again. Please ask for safety of the little one.


-HIGHS-
Being a part of my brother’s wedding and holding my nephew for the first time.



This provided me a brief reprieve from China and allowed me to be a part of a very exciting and important event in my family’s journey. Needless to say it let me spoil Henry just a little as well.




Having a visit from my friend Jill.



Jill’s visit allowed me to see China again with new eyes and appreciate once more all the little quirks. Jill also brought with her many lovely notes and gifts from all of you at home and those were very encouraging.

Going on a well digging trip and visiting the leprosy clinic.



These two trips into the villages refreshed in me the true reason I am here and learning Chinese. Being with the villagers also awakened in me the desire to learn how to do Ethnographic Research.



Meeting and Spending time with Teammates from Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Taiyuan.
Our Company has teams in all four of those cities as well as where I am and it was really great to get to hear what is being done in those places as well as get to know some of the people who live there better. You can click on the above link to see pictures of that time.


I have been able to look over my life as a whole and see the hand of our Heavenly Father pulling me and shaping me into a different person.
This is weird.
I know that my plans are not always His plans but I want our plans to merge into the same plan. I am excited to see where this plan comes from and where it leads. What I do know is that as I accomplish it I intend to give all Glory to Him who sits on the Throne in Heaven.
So, despite all the hard times this past year-which really were not that hard-and because of the good times I want to Thank Him for this life He is leading me in and Praise Him for bringing me this far. Please stay tuned to the ways my plans and His plans unite in the future. At this time I have yet to know, but I go forth-“Praying for the Merge!!”




I intend to come back to the States in December of 2011 through February of 2012 for my Home Assignment. For the month of December I think I will be mostly in South Dakota, but after that doing some traveling to various places. I look forward to talking to many of you about these past two years, changes to my personal life, as well as changes in my bigger picture. You are all so wonderful and I hope that there will be opportunity to see you all, so as I begin to arrange this trip home, please send me an email with dates and such so that I can plan ahead.


Love, Denise

Modern Toilet

So a new and exciting restaurant opened in Kunming. It turns out that it is a chain.

Amazing enough is what it is all about. It is truly called Modern Toilet and the entire place is decked out in bathroom decor.



My family has a joke about bathrooms. They claim that since I was a wee thing I have always wanted to see every bathroom. So whenever we would go to someone's home or out to eat I always had to use the bathroom.


Therefore, this place was quite my perfect combination.
We got ice cream at Modern Toilet and it came to us in squatter toilet bowls.

A Note of Reassurance

My Dad asked me to post a note telling all of you how my spirits are doing currently. I am doing fairly well. My computer had a melt down this past week so my week was a little stressed-however I am enjoying learning Chinese with my old teachers and have much more confidence in my speaking skills. I still have times when I miss the West, but for the most part I am trying to think and act more Asian. Not that I am succeeding!! I feel happy to be here and am getting involved with the International Fellowship's junior high youth group. Those girls are CRAZY!!! To all my old teachers out there-I want to apologize for all the CRAZY I know I caused in your classes and possibly your life. WOW!! You are true angels!! :) I know the crowns are going to be many for you!!! Today, I discovered that a bus that stops right outside my house goes to Carrefore (kinda like a giant Target). I am so happy!! So I am going to post this and then continue to reinstall all my programs to my now empty but working computer. Love you all. Your thoughts to Father are always appreciated and needed. Know that I am doing well. :)

The Amazing Race!!

Hi all again, I wanted to give you all the opportunity to see my home town on t.v. The television show The Amazing Race aired an episode last week that took place where I live. In fact some of the places that the contestants went were less than 10mins walking distance from my house. Soooo Exciting!!!! I think that the people I watched it with got really tired of hearing "oh! that is by my house!!" Anyway, I know that some of you may have seen it already but a lot of you have not. So I am going to post a site where you can download the episode. Click Here. I have it uploaded in AVI format, so it you do not have a media player that can play avi's you can download one here: AVI player download. I hope that it doesn't take super forever to download. But it probably will. I miss you and hope that you enjoy this little tidbit into my life.

The 5 things we found funny while watching the episode:

1. The Americans speaking English to their taxi drivers to wait for them.

2. The Cheerleaders and the Goth couple carrying a solar water heater up 7 flights of stairs in the dark.

3. The one team that said they didn't think their taxi driver knew how to get to the Stone Forest because they had been driving for a half hour. (The Stone Forest is 2.5 hours away from the city)

4. The giant Harlem Globetrotters in the Tibetan Outfits.

5. When the older lady says she is putting together the dinosaur for her grandson and then starts
to cry.

Five things we said over and over again while watching it:

1. I know where that is.

2. If only we had known they were filming we could have helped them.

3. That one is my favorite dancer.

4. Wait, what just happened?

5. That's soooo funny.


2 things you should now about this episode:

1. The Tibetan Restaurant and the place where the Double U Turn occurs are both just around the corner from my house. Opposite corners!!

2. My good friend Whitney who does not appear anywhere on the show helped one of the teams get a taxi when they first got to Kunming.

Official March Newsletter!

(Please Note again that these official newsletters are not as recent or up to date as my regular blogs due to Company regulations to turn them in two months in advance. This letter was written in Feb.)

I just got home from Beijing (in Feb) where I connected with and reconnected with Team mates. We also celebrated the Chinese New Year (Feb 3) together. It was exactly what the Doctor ordered. I have been in Kunming, Mile, Chengdu, and Beijing now. I have lived, played, studied, and worked in China for over a year now. I have seen many a tourist attraction, eaten countless bowls of noodles, brushed hundreds maybe thousands of shoulders on the bus and it wasn’t until this week in Beijing that I felt really renewed, re-juiced, and revitalized. This truth has caused me to question how to keep electrified in Kunming. And I think it comes down to this basic truth which I am sorry to relay to you all because most of you have already figured this all out but the Basic Truth is that while I have been in Beijing the focus has been on who I am in the Father's Son. Not how well is my Chinese, not whether or not I am contributing, not even what I plan to DO for my Father, but instead it has been about Worshiping Him who has called me and focusing on my rightness with Him.

How to achieve relevant transition into a new culture and a new language depends a lot on attitude. I admit that the past 3 months (Nov, Dec, Jan) I have had a bad attitude. I know that uncomfortable circumstances play a part in attitude but I also know in my head, as well as in my heart that if you have a good attitude it can change how you feel about difficult circumstances. My attitude since about Mid November till about the middle of Jan has been like this: the circumstances of the task set before me (language learning) is not good to the point of hindering my learning and therefore I cannot succeed. This attitude has fed and sustained a sense of depression or gloom over everything I did or didn’t do. I beheld myself in a constant state of guilt. Because I knew that I wasn’t doing everything I could to be an effective learner because I had determined that I had already failed from the start.

I told a friend of mine recently that I was afraid I wasn’t learning as much as I could because I didn’t believe that I could learn Chinese anymore..

All in all it comes down to FEAR. Fear that I will disappoint You (my dear readers), disappoint my Heavenly Father, disappoint my parents, and disappoint my team. And this disappointment steams from failing to achieve the goals or expectations all the above have for me (which is silly because I don’t really know what expectations you all have for me; all I know is the expectations I have for myself).

So in light of being rejuvenated to focus on my relationship with Father versus what I am doing for Him and reminding myself that a good attitude makes a better situation I feel ready to start the new year (the Chinese year of the Rabbit as well as the Western year or 2011) with new purpose and new attitude.

Please ask that I would soak up much in my new school and with my new teachers. I started at my new school Feb 14. Please ask that I be self controlled and diligent to be an active learner and not a passive one. Also ask that I focus more on who Father is rather than on who I am.