Kasey in China: My Peace Corps Journey

Blog of a Peace Corps Volunteer. Hello, my name is Kasey and I am in China from June 2014 to July 2016 as an English Education Volunteer with the Peace Corps. You can read my blog to know more about me, the Peace Corps, or China. Feel free to ask me any questions you have. Enjoy! The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps. Click the links below:

[kaseyinchina]

RPCV

It’s official; I’m a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer)! In two days I will fly out of China after living here for more than two years. This will be my last blog post since I will no longer be living in China. Best of luck to all my fellow China PCVs

[kaseyinchina]

Color Run Chengdu start line

[kaseyinchina]

To celebrate my last weekend as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China I participated in a 5k Color Run in Chengdu. It was a great experience and very messy! I had colors thrown on me while jogging, went through a bubble pit, and said goodbye to some of my close friends in China. I COS on Thursday July 7th, and then I will be a RPCV. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in China for two years and soon I’ll be returning to America.

[kaseyinchina]

I will leave China July 10th, and the goodbyes have already started. Several groups of students have asked me, and some of my foreign colleagues, to dinner to say farewell. I’ll miss my students and some of the great food here when I leave. 

[did-you-know]

An artist in China spent 3 days and nights painstakingly building a massive, $15,000 sculpture of Nick from Zootopia for a LEGO Expo in Ningbo, China. Some kid pushed it over and destroyed it within the first hour of the exhibition. Source   Source 2   Source 3

[kaseyinchina]

What are your plans after the Peace Corp?

First I’m going to travel through Europe for a few weeks, Then, I’m going to grad school to study special education. Then I plan to be a teacher in America. 

[dvmcn]

Peace Corps China 20, Close-of-Service Conference

[kaseyinchina]

Almost done. 2 months to go

[kaseyinchina]

Last weekend I went to the Bamboo Sea in Yibin with one of my students. We climbed up the mountain to see waterfalls, bamboo, and beautiful scenery. At night we walked along the riverside to see the lights of Yibin city. It took about 6 hours to get there by bus from Wenjiang, but it was a fun trip.  

[kaseyinchina]

This week in cooking club my students burnt the tofu they were cooking and my apartment filled with smoke that smelled horrible. We took a 15 minute break in the hallway because we couldn't stop coughing in my apartment. We look cheerful in our hallway selfie though. Once we threw away the burnt bits we still managed to have a tasty dinner. We had a egg and tomato dish and soup, beef with a vegetable that I haven't figured out the name of in English yet, and spicy tofu. Only downside is that it's been three days and my apartment still smells like burnt tofu.

[kaseyinchina]

I finished my COS (close of service) conference this week. It was the last training session for my group and we spent the week talking about life after Peace Corps and saying goodbyes. I have less than 3 months left in my Peace Corps service and then I'm heading back to America to start grad school.

[kaseyinchina]

Monday was Tomb Sweeping holiday and I spent the day with a few other foreigners and our students. We visited Luodai, an ancient town close to Chengdu. The town is also known for it's population of Hakka minority people. It was busy there since it was the holiday and my student said it was "people mountain people sea." This is a popular Chinese saying that means it's really crowded. It was a fun day filled with spicy noodles, people, and learning about a different culture.

[kaseyinchina]

This week in cooking club we made hot pot, which is a spicy Sichuan specialty. We used fresh ingredients like pumpkin, cucumbers, lotus root, lettuce, and other vegetables. Cooking club has been one of the best parts of my Peace Corps service because I've gotten to know my students so much better and I get to eat homemade Chinese food every week.

[kaseyinchina]

English Corner

Every other week for an hour over the past four semesters I have participated in English Corner. Students ask me questions and I try to lead them into different discussion topics at English Corner. Sometimes it can be a bit tedious because I am often asked the same questions every week. I’m most frequently asked: do I like Chinese food, do I have a boyfriend, can I speak Chinese, what do I think of Chinese people? Tonight, however, students asked me many different questions and it was a nice change of pace. These are some of the interesting questions I was asked and we talked about as a group: 

The color blue can mean sad; what can other colors mean?

Why do westerners use different toilets than us?

What does squat mean (in reference to the toilets)?

What words can we use to describe different skin tones?

Why do American students have so much free time and what do they do with it?

Have you seen Star Wars?

[kaseyinchina]

I taught the students in my cooking club how to make grilled chicken and vegetable wraps. They've never made them before and were excited to learn something new. It was funny to watch them try to eat them. They couldn't figure out how to eat them without everything falling out. Next week one of the students is going to teach me how to make homemade hot pot.

[kaseyinchina]

Student Names

It's my last semester of teaching in China! This semester I am teaching all new freshmen students. I handed out the attendance sheet and asked them to write their English or pinyin name. Here's my most unique student names for this semester:

Queency

Beryl

Puppy

EZ

Vigor

Allo

Evening

Bruce Wang

W

Mr. Zhang

Jodelle

Bang

Soup

Elf

Bricklayer

Dragonfly

Camel

[kaseyinchina]

I ate scorpions, silk worms, tarantulas, grasshoppers, and crickets at the Bugs Cafe in Cambodia while on vacation. They all tasted pretty good 😀

[kaseyinchina]

Lovely Vietnam