The Crab Saga

Well, as predicted, the crabs showed up on my doorstep this afternoon.  And in true China fashion, as I should have predicted, they turned out to be ten very alive, very fast crabs in a cardboard box.  Ha!  I gave them to my neighbors and they invited me over for dinner.  It was quite the adventure, we lost two crabs and had to chase them around their apartment.  In the end, a delicious feast complete with hairy crabs and French wine.  The highlight?  When the student foreign teacher from no-ocean Colorado caught on to the joke "Which is faster, green crabs or red crabs?"

Typhoon Day

Recall the glorious days of childhood schooling called "snow days"?  Well I have one today, SE Asia style.  I am currently in my apartment enjoying a "typhoon day".  Apparently it rained really hard all last night and hasn't stopped this morning, so  now there is no class today.  Which is marvelous because it was going to be a very long day for me.
I still have laundry and packing to do for my holiday -- October 1st is National Day, so I'm leaving on Saturday to go on a week trip to Xi'an with some other foreign teachers.  On a train, for 24 hours, in hard seats because all of the sleepers were sold out, because that's how you travel if you want to travel on National Day, because you are inherently traveling with a billion of your closest peeps. It will be a long travel, but hopefully a lot of fun and cool things to see.
In other news, I managed to snag cheap airline tickets for next June to travel around after the school year is up but my visa has yet to expire.  I'm going with a friend of mine here and the itinerary includes Malaysia, the Philippines, India, and Thailand.  So yeah, be jealous.
And in yet other news, I have an interesting but very Chinese predicament.  For the holiday, my school has gifted the teachers with... ready for this?... ten hairy crabs.  I told them that it was ok, I wouldn't know what to do with them (having never cooked a crab in my life and not entirely inclined to try) and that since I leave in a day I would have no time to eat ten.  But, in typical Chinese fashion, they will not take no for an answer.  So they have my ten crabs in the school fridge waiting for me and all of the teachers have been sending me recipes.  I would generally just ignore it and not go attend to the crabs, but I know China well enough to know that they will not just go away.  In fact, I think I heard them scheming to try and get some of my friends to come and "enjoy hairy crabs" with me.  I think I will give them to my neighbor family if they don't already have too many, I know the little girl likes them.

Ok, time to enjoy typhoon day.  It celebration, here's a link to make you smile (and don't think it's a solitary case, I saw two teachers with elastic sealed plastic bags around their shoes and feet this morning).
http://accidentalchinesehipsters.tumblr.com/post/9365898685/its-going-to-rain-a-lot-you-shouldnt-be

<3 Jenn

Teacher's day picture

As the title subtly suggests, here's a picture I forgot to post from the Teacher's Day ceremony.

Interesting Trip (Part II)

Ok, I'm back.  And let me tell you, it was interesting.  Or not at all as interesting as I led on, I still haven't decided.  Most interesting part: the location.  Guess.  You never will, ok, it was at a hotel at a government sponsored experimental agriculture compound.  The place where they develop super-rice so that a billion Chinese can still eat a bowl of rice every meal every day, where pumpkins do not come in sizes smaller than godzilla eggs, and the only insect repellent you need is the mosquito-eating tube plants that hang on the walls.
Otherwise, pretty standard Chinese get away.
We had a banquet, and...  No go back.  I need to explain "banquet" to my non-China readers.  Yes indeed it does mean food.  Lots of delicious food, lots of really chinese-y food -- which means that the more it looks like the original animal the better -- lots of strange foods I've never seen.  Again, I promise to start adding food blogs soon.  BUT the funnier thing about this banquets is that everyone gets drunk.  Especially the men.  Essentially it comes down to a show of masculinity, because "cheers" don't work here the way they do in the US.  I've explained baijiu ("bye-joe") before, yes?  Well it is the most potent, vial liquor that has ever crossed my path and I refuse to touch the stuff.  But the men here LOVE it.  So they go around, toasting everyone and everything they can think of, and if you do not drink (the entire shot of baijiu, I might add) and toast back, then you are not cool.  It's like a socially acceptable frat party of peer pressure.  Some of ladies like to toast with wine and beer and things, which I'll participate it, but even then you end up drinking more than you might wish.  Really, it's amazing.  I have no idea how they do it.  Some of the male foreign teachers I've talked are dying because they don't have the "oh I'm a dainty female I couldn't possibly" excuse to not toast.  This is the ONE, I repeat ONE, time it is better to be female here.
Long story short, banquet happened, every male teacher was drunk, many females too.  And so we head to KTV!!  Because that's what you do at every possible moment.  I cannot overemphasize how often karaoke happens here.  It was fun, got to hear all the colleagues belting their hearts out to sad, slow Chinese songs (because the Chinese LOVE sad slow Chinese songs as much as they love cheers-ing baijiu).  The evening took a turn for the worse when the colleagues decided they would like to hear the foreign teacher sing, and chose a sad, slow English song for the English teacher.  Oh yes boys and girls, I got to make an awful, awful attempt at Celine Deon for the entire school.  And if that wasn't bad enough, an encore rendition of Simon and Garfunkel.  And then, no it's not over yet, as the night went on I was wrangled into butchering the Beatles, Britney Spears, and Michael Jackson.  My ancestors are still turning in their graves from shame.  It was not pretty.
Next morning we went on a walk of the facilities and saw all the produce.  It reminded me of walking around Hawaii, because that's the only other place I've been with these kind of plants.  There was a dragon fruit grove, and I ate my first star fruits.  It was relaxing and nice wanderings.  Like I said, outside of the locations, not "exciting" per se.  But enjoyable nonetheless, and I got free food, drinks, and entertainments.  All in all, good trip.

 Starfruits, and asian posing with my colleagues

I will get more group pictures from other teachers on Monday, so I'll post more then.

Interesting Trip (Part I)

I realize it’s been a few days, but you’re in for a special treat.  Or I am.  Or nobody is.  Who knows.  See, I’m about to go away for a while.  They won’t tell me where, and the why’s a little spotty, but I’m instructed to be at the school gate at 4:30 prompt with an overnight bag.

I am going on interesting trip.

“Eh?” you say?  Well, my friend, me too.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the class I teach twice a week called “interesting group” here, so let me give you a run down.  Here’s exactly how interesting group was described to me:

Me: “I see I teach interesting group on Tuesday and Thursday.  What’s interesting group?”

School: “This is interesting group, here, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Tuesday will be lower level, Thursday upper levels.” 

Me: “But what is it?” 

School: “It’s interesting group.  It’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Me: “…”

Turns out interesting group is a smaller class (only 25 students) of students who are engaged in English class and so have won the privilege to watch the foreigner flail around for another hour a week.  I enjoy this class, because the students actually understand what they’re supposed to understand, learn quickly, and on occasion will actually speak English. I get to teach pretty much whatever I want.  Which means yesterday my higher levels were racing around the room blindfolded shouting directions in English to try and get to the Franks (I have a collection of yellow softballs with faces painted on them, all of whom are name “Frank”) before the other teams.  And whenever they are so inclined, half the faculty sits in on the class too.  Ha.

So, interesting trip.  One would think it would have something to do with interesting group.  And one may be correct.  Or not, for all I know.  Here’s the description of interesting trip:

School: “This Friday, there is interesting trip.  You will be available?”

Me: “Ummm.  I think so?  What’s interesting trip?”

School: “It is Friday after work.  For interesting group teachers.”

Me:  I’m the only interesting group teacher…  “Ok…  Where are we going?”

School: “Another district in Shenzhen. Maybe we will be back at 12 on Saturday.”

Me: “Ok, and what will we do?”

School (on Tuesday): “Mmm, maybe relaxing. Swimming. Things like that.”

School (On Thursday): “We will hike a mountain.  There won’t be any swimming.”

School (Today): “Maybe KTV tonight. Maybe if you wake up very early you can go for a walk on the hill.  There is no mountain.”

So, interesting trip.  Yep.  I’m leaving in a couple hours to go somewhere and do something, with some people that apparently have also been teaching my interesting group without my knowledge.  I’m pretty excited.  It sounds… just like China planning!  I will bring a camera, and you may start making bets on what actually goes down.  If I don’t come back, avenge me.

Now I'm not sure what banks are for.

Sometimes I feel this blog is a complete waste of time, because there is no possible way to properly convey the experience of living in China to those who have not.  But today, a tiny event happened that I think will help me.

First, some background.  This is a cash society.  They don’t really use plastic for anything but major purchases like airline tickets or at the numerous extremely swanky malls.  Which, on a side note, are bizarre in themselves because I couldn’t even afford to shop there in the states and yet they have these malls every few blocks it seems.  The income levels and gaps here are both extreme and strange.  You know, because it’s “communist” here.

I’ve gotten well used to paying for everything with cash, no problems because my card works at most ATMs here.  Just have to remember to take money out every couple weeks.

But here’s the first headache: for some inexplicable reason, giving back change is the most troubling, soul crushing act for every seller in China. [for the rest of this post, “$” is China bucks unless otherwise noted because my computer is entirely in Chinese and I can’t find the silly little “Y” sign] If it costs $7 and you hand them a $10, the first question will be, do you have smaller bills?  If not, the next question will be, do you have $2 more so they can just give you a $5 back instead of $3?  If it costs $7.60, they want the .60.  And god save you if you’re the asshole who only has a $100 (which is equivalent to about $15USD and is the only bill that you will get from an ATM, so pretty often you can count on being that asshole).  I’ve lived in China for a small while, so I’ve gotten the hang of breaking “large” bills at places I know will have change, like KFC, and praying that I have the correct change when I need to buy something simply to avoid that look you get for not having it.  I’ve literally had a shopkeeper pull a smaller bill out of my wallet when she saw that I had one instead of breaking the larger bill I had handed to her.  I couldn’t make this up.

Which leads me to my tiny event.  I finally got my passport back from the visa people, so I could finally go open a bank account here for that shining future day when I get paid.  After a funny moment of confusion when all the little Chinese girls were trying to figure out whether “Jennifer” was my first name or last – apparently my school has also been confused on that because neither attending teacher could correctly answer – I was asked to pay $15 for the account and card.  I handed them a $20, being the only smaller bill I happened to have at the time.  And waited.  And waited.  Brace yourself.  The bank, THE BANK, did not have $5 to give me.  They finally decided to credit the money to my cell phone.  Which I could care less about.  What I am mind boggled about is that THE BANK DID NOT HAVE $5 CHANGE.  What do they do there?? 

Hopefully, this post has enlightened you just a bit as to my current plight.  Every day in China is….a day in China.  I can neither label this a "love China" nor "hate China" experience, becuase all I can do is shake my head.  I wonder if when they come to the US it is so bizarre and incomprehensible to them.  But I really don’t think it is.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, a kind of Chinese Thanksgiving. In that families get together, eat lots and lots of food, and celebrate.  Yesterday I made pans and pans of dumplings with my adopted family, photos below.  It was much fun, a fellow foreign teacher came as well, and general merriment was had pinacled by the consumtion of said dumplings, with sauces, a fruit called "dragon eyes", and of course beer.
Today, the tradition to to eat a lot (naturally), and gather in parks to share moon cakes and gaze at the moon.  There's a legend behind this, but you may do better to google it than hear my rendition because my understanding comes completely from hearing it in Chinese and then trying to decipher.
I will add that Saturday was Teacher's Day, a splendid holiday in which students and the school bestows flowers, food, and small gifts upon the teachers.  So all in all, lovely weekend for me.  This combined with the successful-ish completion of my first week as a teacher at this school, good company, and fun with friends has officially made this a "love China" weekend.  (For those of you new to my China blogging, I have found that my opinion of living in China is distinctly broken down into a love/hate relationship, and last time I lived here the amount of each was just about equal.  I like to classify on the blogs so everyone can have an idea of what emotional life is like here haha)
So happy Mid-Autumn Festival everyone, I miss you all and must reiterate, you would not believe my life.

Good (and filling) to be the king!

They have this holiday called "Teacher's Day" here, and it's tomorrow.  Closely followed by the Mid Autumn Festival on Monday, which is like Chinese Thanksgiving.  So our school and students have been giving us gifts all week.  I now have more fruit and rice and things than I have any idea what I'll do with.

From the school:  rice, oil, grapes, oranges, pine nuts, milk, goji berries, dried jujube, misc dried fuits jar, and best of all -- dried tree ears!  They're this marvelous mushroom thing that grows on wood so directly translates as a tree ear, haven't been able to tell if there's a real English word for them or not.  If there is, I don't care, "tree ears" is too great a name haha.  You soak the dried ones and then put them in soups and things, it's delicious.  More to come in a planned massive entry about the food here. 
I'm curious about the milk because it was not refridgerated.  So I'm not sure what "milk" means in this case, I'll let you know when I find out.
Outside of this picture is a large box of fresh jujube fruits and a handful of little phone charms from students.  Ay yo yo!  I think I'm going to propose a fruit swap for the teachers in my area, because I will never finish 30 oranges, 3 large bags of grapes, and a box of jujubes because they go bad!

Well, must go to bed.  I have to wake up at 630 every morning for breakfast before my 8am classes!  (I know my parents are rolling their eyes but I've been in college for the majority of my recent life so 630am every day is killing me!)  The classes are going better, but still need a lot of fixing.  I'm teaching my department head's classes tomorrow and she'll be watching so wish me luck!

Twilight Zone: Hawaii

Well, it’s my first “lazy” day since I left home.  No, maybe since a week before I left home.  It’s also the week anniversary of my arriving at my school and new home away.  I thought I would take the small window of opportunity and mark the occasion by getting my sad butt online to write a new blog entry.  I keep thinking that I’ve fallen so far behind on blogging only to realize it’s been maybe two weeks, but every day here feels like so much longer with everything that’s been happening.

As you may have heard, I’ve gotten my certificate to teach TEFL in China and have arrived in Shenzhen.  Turns out, the training in this program is… um how you say… not the best.  I feel very unprepared still, but after this year I think I’ll be able to tackle anything.  The returners keep saying that the first couple weeks are the hardest, so hopefully that’s true.

I am at Meishan Primary School.  Yeah, you heard me, primary.  Which is good and bad in it’s way.  The kids are so. damn. cute. But they are so full of energy I’m amazed, and many of them are barely able to speak a few words of English.  Pretty much exactly what you would expect of a thousand 6-11 year olds.

The school is very nice as far as schools go, and from what I can tell I got a relatively sweet pad.  They set it up for me so it was ready to go when I got here.  I have a computer, T.V., bed with bedding, giant teddy bear, etc.  AND A LAVENDER COUCH.  That’s my favorite part.  I may continue to live here just for that.  The place is tiny compared to what I’m used to, essentially a studio apartment in a room with the area of my freshman dorm room.  There’s a small area for cooking (on a hot plate or microwave) and the bathroom… oh the bathroom.  It’s about 4x4ft, a squatty potty in the ground and a shower head over top.  It will take some getting used to, but so far I’m adapting all right.  I think the thing I miss most is having a sink disposal, since the pipes here leave some wanting.  I have one small tin sink in the bathroom area for the entire place.  There is also a washing machine outside for me, but I admit I’m having some trouble figuring out what the characters on it mean since there’s no English on anything, haha.  Hand washing isn’t that bad though, and it’s nicer on my clothes unless they’re filthy.

Everyone here has been SO NICE.  I have hospitality like you wouldn’t believe.  Aside from setting up my apartment, people at my school have walked me through the entire visa process (which I’m still in the middle of, more on that later), shown me around campus, taken me out to the beach and to dinner, given me sample lesson plans, set up my internet, etc.  I have a contact teacher (= senior faculty member to help me with living here) who has been so helpful and has introduced me to her friends and other teachers, taken meals with me, and gotten me set up work-wise.  My neighbors drop by often, often unannounced, to say hi and many have brought gifts or offered me food.  They are great to chat with, even though they speak about as much English as I speak Chinese.  We are both practicing and hopefully will be much better soon.

One family that lives next to me is especially great, they have two children who are a riot and the mother has cooked me dinner and offered to teach me how to cook Chinese food, since I have no fathom.  Seeing as most everything I eat here only exists in China and I have never seen it before in my life.  The daughter will be one of my students in fifth grade and the boy is at the middle school next door.  One of the best nights here so far, I helped the kids with their English homework and taught them how to moonwalk like Michael Jackson, whom everyone in this country is obsessed with.

Of course, it’s extremely stressful here too.  Everything is so different, from how you eat meals to how you address people, the language, the shopping system, the expectations, the attitudes.  It’s like entirely relearning what your idea of normalcy is.  So much so that I got excited when I identified a carrot in the soup yesterday, simply because I actually knew what it was.  It’s so difficult to explain, you really have to experience it to know it.  I’ve been calling it “Twilight Zone: Hawaii” because it looks like a tropical vacation, but it feels like you woke up in the twilight zone with no idea what was happening and no way to ask.  I think it will all change in a couple months when I’ve settled in a little bit, but it’s really just been unreal so far. 

I think the worst part has been all the surprise impromptu speeches.  My school has never had a foreign teacher before so I’m a novelty and therefore keep getting introduced in front of large audiences and being asked to speak.  It’s very awkward because I’m so off guard that I have nothing intelligent to say, and it ends up being “Nice to meet you, your school is so nice, the people here are so nice, I’ve very happy to be here and I can’t wait to teach because the students are very nice.”  Ugh. And I’m very concerned about disgracing myself, my family, my country, my ancestors, etc. because that’s entirely possible here haha.

I start teaching on Monday, and I’m pretty apprehensive.  I was excited, and then another new teacher came and told me her class was insanely rambunctious and excited, which equals impossible to control or get to do what you want.  Maybe luckily, my school is still figuring out the having a foreign teacher situation and I will have the actual class teachers there when I come in for my hour, so they will help control the class.  The downside is, they all have specific things they think I should teach so I’ve had to scrap my lesson plans several times now and start over.  The way that’s going, I’ll have to write a separate lesson plan for every class according to the teachers.  Which is not ideal, but at least they’re giving me guidance.  A lot of guidance.  Some of them are concerned because apparently I’m about the same age as all of their sons.  I will definitely have to prove myself.

Thank you everyone who’s been in contact, I know I’m pretty slow at replying to anything but I promise I’ll be better now that I have a residence and some regularity in my life.  Sounds like it’s mostly good on the homefronts.  I miss you all, and I miss home more and more.  I just can’t believe the life I’m having right now.  I hope that people can come visit me, because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to adequately explain it!

Until next time,

Jenn