Lending A Hand

It is winter. My least favorite time of year. The skies get dark, the temperature drops and the roads and sidewalks get slippery and dangerous. Winter means I tend to stay indoors more often and play host, except for when I absolutely must face the ice. Yesterday I was given a hand in facing the ice… not just one hand actually but three.

On the way to the accountant’s office, I was not looking forward to crossing the slippery street without the help of a crosswalk in the midst of the constant game of frogger. As I got closer I noticed one of the street sweepers had fallen instep beside me. She kept looking at my white skin and foreign face before finally trying to engage me in conversation. We chatted lightly until I pointed to the place where I had to cross. She put down her shovel and broom and grabbed the whistle out of her pocket. She gently took my arm and led me across the street, all the while stopping the traffic at each lane as we went. On the other side of the road, this kind hearted stranger gave me a hug, told me to “go slowly and wear more clothing”

After leaving the accountants office I decided to take the bus home. The only bus that went that direction was an old dilapidated one with holes in the floor. The water underfoot on the bus was therefore freezing into a slippery mess. I stumbled from one pole to the next moving towards the back of the bus. One older man saw my obvious fear and offered up his seat. Totally not the way it is supposed to happen. Bus etiquette says young people must give up their seats for seniors. “Big brother” I said, “I am so embarrassed, I can’t take your seat”. But he insisted and for the second time in an hour a complete stranger helped me out. When we disembarked from the bus he too said “goodbye young girl, go slowly and wear more clothes”

Finally I was crossing my last street to make it home to safety. This street has an underground passage. I started down the stairs, but they too were coated in greasy grimy winter slush. I gripped the broken railing tightly. I soon felt a light tap on my shoulder. “Here let me help you, You’ll get your glove dirty holding on to that… and I am a lot sturdier” said the stranger as she took my arm and lead me slowly down the steps. As a way to thank her I told her “be careful on the road and wear more clothing”.

Morning sounds

This morning, before my alarm went off, before I had opened my eyes or even fully woke up, I knew it had snowed last night. While I still lay all tight and snuggled in my blankets I could hear the all to familiar “crashing, clanging, and banging” sounds of snow being cleared from the school yard next door. It was barely 6:30 am, but already students were arriving and grabbing their brooms, shovels and pickaxes to attack the white layer that covered their play area. I hate the disturbance it caused to my morning sleeping plans, but at least by the time I head out much of the ground will be clear and safe to walk on.

Hospitality is Selfishness

Hospitality as selfishness may seem a contradiction to many people’s views on manors and propriety, but there are some days I can’t help but think it is the reason why people really open their home and invite others to join them. Sure there are several stresses that go into the role of hostess, from planning a meal to making sure the house is clean. But these tasks can all be done from the quietness of home with soft relaxing music playing in the background enhancing the pleasure of the task.

The guest, however, must brave the outside world in order to fight their way to the predetermined location. At times these travels can seem arduous for all involved. You must find the right bus stop, stand and wait, run with the crowd to board the proper bus, push your way aboard, stand packed like sardines for more stops than you can count, listening to the garbled sound of the intercom system announcing each stop at a decibel that breaks the acceptable noise levels of public places, guard your belonging from pick-pockets and the like, walk in extreme temperatures from the place where the bus stops to where your friend actually lives, buy fruit or some sort of appropriate hostess gift by haggling over the price, toting said purchase of several kilos up numerous flights of stairs, all the while trying to look pleasant and put together in order to smile your greeting to the host.

The longer the visit lasts the more one’s mind becomes distracted with thoughts of returning home. Will the buses still be running? Will I be able to get a taxi? How many blocks will I have to walk before some form of transportation will become availed? This nervous preoccupation with the return journey can often start to sour the end of the evening.

The host merely puts on music, whips down the table, washes a few dishes and heads to bed, selfishly enjoying the fact that they never had to leave the comforts of their own home.

Okay, so today was the first snowfall of the year and I might be a little bitter at having had to go outside and face the snow and ice covered streets.

Snow a Blessing and a Curse

Over the last two days the city has once again been blanketed in a thick covering of snow. Every snow fall really is a mixture of good and bad, both a curse and a blessing.

The days leading up to a snowfall are often bitterly cold and gloomy. The air is heavy with pollution that sticks to the inside of your lungs, and is so thick you can't see across the street.

The only thing that can solve this problem is falling snow to clear the air. And when it does it is a welcome break......

But then the roads are slick and icy, the bus lanes are slippery, and getting around town seems so much more dangerous.

No Two Snowflakes are Ever the Same

When we started to get into the Christmas mood out here my roommate and I decided to throw a party and invite some of our friends over to help us decorate. We got out the paper, markers, and scissors and decided we could have our friends help us make paper chains for the tree and cut out snowflakes for the window.
I had already make a few snowflakes before the guests arrived (ever since elementary school I have loved cutting out snowflakes and trying to make them as delicate as I can). Several of our friends saw the samples and decided they wanted to make them, but no one knew how. We had a group of over ten local college aged friends and none of them had ever cut out a snowflake before. I explained how to fold the paper, where to cut and where not to cut, I even made a new one as I explained. They all folded the paper, picked up one of my finished one and used it as a tracer. I tried to explain that no two snowflakes are the same and they they should use their own imagination to make their own. At that suggestion some of them gave up and went to make paper chains or to help hang the lights.

The whole situation made me think of what my American friends had commented about when they sent their kids to a local school. The education system here is based solely on rote memory and following examples to the letter. Creativity and imagination are not encouraged in school. They tell the story of when the teacher called them in because their son's picture of a cow was not the same. The teacher had been teaching an art lesson on how to draw a cow. Their son had changed his picture by making the cows head down and having him eat grass. The little boy had even added the grass to the picture. The teacher saw this as a child not able to follow directions and called his parents in for a meeting. The parents saw their son's picture as creative and fun, and praised him for thinking outside the imposed box.

Thinking back on this story reminded me why none of these young adults had never made a snowflake before. We cut them in school as an expression of our individuality, not a strict lesson in following rules. My friends still wanted a sample and so they cut out ones that were identical to mine. Now in our window there are more than 'two snowflakes that are the same'.

Not Over Yet

I was going to write a post the other day about the coming of spring and the melting of the snow... but considering this is what I woke up to this morning, I think it is a good thing I waited.
The weight of last night's snow fall even caused tree limbs to break off. I guess winter is going to be here for a little longer.

Black Hands

One of the most satisfying things about living out here in the winter is washing your hands. As I have mentioned before ever single surface gets covered with a layer of coal dust, your hands are not exempt. As I use hand railings in staircases, or touch things for sale on the street my hands also get covered in it. There is nothing more satisfying than coming home and washing them (okay I guess if I actually had warm water to wash in that would be a little more satisfying) just watching the dust and dirt and grim drip off and get washed away. The end result is fresh, white, clean hands.

The coal dust does not only turn my hands black it turns everything black. I often keep a tea set set out on the table so that I can serve guests when they come over, however now I have to dust it every day.

Worst of all is the white snow. I am listening to Christmas music as I type and all of the songs are about white Christmas’ white winter wonderlands, but not here. This is what the coal dust does to the snow just a few days after it has fallen.


Pretty isn’t it.


And that is one of the offending coal piles that I use to look out at, when I lived at my old school.

Cleaning the snow

I know I have written on this topic in the past in my emails and letters, and I am sure I will mentioned it again in the future, but every year when the snow first arrives I am always amazed at what a great equalizer it is.

The day after the snow stops falling the pounding, scraping and shouting begins. Every business is responsible for clearing the snow from in front of their shop, not only the side walk but also the road. You will see ladies from fancy dress shops out in their high heeled shoes with a pick axe in their hands, working next to the butcher who still has blood on his apron and a shovel in his hand. Every business sends all but one of its workers outside. The whole street becomes alive with the sites and sounds of snow removal. It is like a street party with a purpose. The buses stop running and everyone joins in. Even on our campus each class (except of the foreign students, thankfully) is assigned a portion of side walk or road that they have to clean off).

It is funny because in Uyghur the verb for shovelling is actually cleaning the snow. And it sometimes seems like that is what they are doing. Today when I was out for a walk I saw a guy trying to shovel off the snow using a big over sized broom. I really can’t say how successful he was with his tool, but he was cleaning the snow.



The first day after it snows is also special for other reasons, it is one of the few days in the winter that we are blessed with clear skies and white snow. The falling snow does a lot to clean the pollution out of the air. The snow is white for all of a few days before it is covered with a light layer of coal dust that make it look black. I better enjoy it while I can.

If it never snows than what do you call the white stuff falling from the sky?

As some of you might already know I am looking into the possibility of moving next semester and teaching English. My friends I left on Wednesday night to make a trip down to the school to check it out and talk with officials. Thankfully we where able to take the train instead of the dreaded sleeper bus.

On Wednesday we where overwhelmed with our first snow fall of the year. Instead of just a few flurries… it dropped buckets. I was excited to be headed south to the edge of the dessert and escaping the winter furry that had been unleashed. When the guy meet us at the train station on Thursday morning ( it is a 13hour train trip) we where pleased to see that the sky was clear, the trees still had some of their fall leaves hanging on, and there was no slipper white stuff covering the ground. We asked our host from the school how often in snows in this part of the country, and he assured us it didn’t. Buy the time we left the meeting at about 6pm it had started raining, and after a little supper, the rain drops where starting to look a little fluffier and a little whiter.

The next morning when we woke up the ground was covered with the slushy type of slipper snow. Our host blamed us for bringing it with us from the capital city, but in reality winter is just here. We took the bus back this morning and found out that it has now been snowing for four days straight. Everything is covered in the white winter wonder land.