Settling in

It has been one full month since my plane landed in China. The newness is starting to wear off. I’m a little sad about that. My perspective is changing from that of an outsider to just (sort of) one of the masses. Obviously I am still an outsider, a fact I am reminded of everyday as people stare or shout “Hello! How are you?” everywhere I go, but now I just shrug my shoulders or don’t even notice things that once seemed remarkable to me. I want to be able to write about my everyday life with the wonder that I had when I first got here, but that’s not the point I’m at anymore in my “culture shock” graph (see figure 1).


This graph (courtesy of Vancouver Island University) was first introduced to me in Amsterdam where the orientation leader gave us some version of it on a handout so we could “know what to expect.” In the Netherlands, I never went through these stages because there was no shock. For me, Amsterdam was like a better run America with less pollution, more bikes, and taller, thinner people. My curve went up and then flattened out and plateau-ed towards the end of the first semester at a point high up on the y axis. In China, I think the graph is more applicable. Mine would be a little fuzzier, incorporating my daily highs and lows. I think I went through my initial descent early on, when I first got to Zhangjiagang, though I can’t really think of a time when I bottomed out. I would say that I am now in the leveled out phase, “adaptation.”

I’m still trying to avoid settling into a routine by giving myself new things to do. Last Thursday I started what will hopefully be a weekly meeting with this guy named Yang for language exchange. I met him through the same woman who set up my tutoring with the Korean kids. He helps me with my pronunciation and vocabulary in addition to boosting my ego by clapping his hands and saying “So clever!” every time I recall the proper way to say bicycle. Yang’s English is pretty good, though I think it has suffered from all of the different English tutors he has had (several years of meeting with rotating Foreign Language School teachers). He speaks in a nonsensical amalgamation of mannerisms, the most grating of which is saying “Really?” after he makes any declarative sentence. “Russia is like Canada. Really?” This means that I feel compelled to nod in agreement after each of his sentences, plenty of which I don’t understand. (Using context clues that I gathered from the rest of our conversation, I think he was saying that Russia and Canada have the same geographic area? Though, according to the internet, this is untrue. Russia is 6.6 million square miles and Canada is only 3.9).

I’m also going on a little trip on Monday; that ought to mix things up. We get time off for China’s National day on October 1st. Stephanie, myself, and the two other English teachers here with me are going to Guilin and Yangshuo in the Guangxi province, a province southwest of here, closer to Vietnam. Trivia fact from Wikipedia: the back of the 20 yuan bill is a drawing of Yangshuo scenery. We are taking a 25 (!) hour train ride down there. That sounds crazy long, but at least on a train you have room and can walk around. In exchange for the five days off, this week I have to work Saturday and Sunday. This is common for schools in China, but it still stinks.

To keep myself occupied during this long work week, I made a to do list. Here it is, for a glimpse into my everyday:

TO DO
figure out bus schedule
I’ve been riding my bike everywhere and it is falling apart. I bought the cheapest one, which was a mistake, but it was purple and pretty! The basket in front is dangling by one screw and the kickstand is permanently down and scrapes the pavement, announcing my arrival. The seat is uncomfortable and the bike is incredibly hard to pedal. I arrive everywhere dripping sweat. I didn’t even know how bad I had it until I switched bikes with someone for a little while in the middle of a ride and I felt like I was floating. I can’t afford to get a new bike until next payday, but even when I am not straddling a torture device I know I will want to take buses in the winter.
go to mcdonalds, find grocery store
The big grocery store that is a ways out of town is right next to a 24 hour McDonald’s. Any cab can take you there if you just ask for MacDonLow (how they say McDonald’s here). I did find the big grocery store after making this list thanks to one of the EF guys who biked me there. We went after the grocery store was closed so we just ate Mcdonald’s ice cream cones (Tainted milk products! Oops.)
clean up kitchen area
I have to start cooking for myself. My body cannot subsist on starch and animal grease alone. My fingernails are flaking off in pieces and my hair is falling out. Steph- I checked in the mirror and I'm pretty sure my part is getting wider. I’m probably being a hypochondriac, but there is a reason I didn’t stop growing at 5 feet like everyone else here and that is because I ate a nutritious diet full of calcium and iron and other things that I haven’t ingested in quite some time (excluding the calcium I’m getting from the ice cream cones, but I guess the nutritional benefits are negated by the melamine). My shared kitchen is pretty rank, but I started cleaning some things and made myself some stir fry with baby bok choy and tofu.
go through email
Brown is deleting my email account. Writing this forced me to go through the 25,000 emails in my inbox to save the good ones to my computer. I still have the outbox to tackle.
30 minutes of Chinese lessons/day
This means listening to the tapes I put on my computer. I haven’t been doing this. But I will tonight! I want to impress Yang.
workout at gym
I do yoga at this gym I joined and I am shamed every time. Chinese women are just more bendy than me. I am never going to be able to twist myself into the poses that they can do. I have tight American hamstrings! The instructor comes behind me on every other pose and pushes me to do something extrememly painful and, I’m certain, dangerous for my tightly wound body. On one pose yesterday I actually let out a whimper as she approached me. Luckily, she got the message and didn’t force me to snap my back in half.
figure out when to meet with yang this weekend
self-explanatory

find out about university/go there
So there is a school here called The Zhangjiagang Radio and TV University and my plan is to bike there and hang out on some steps somewhere reading a book or something and maybe some Chinese students will want to be my friend.

Some photos:
There is some exposition in Shanghai in 2010 that the city is promoting heavily. I'm not really sure what it is for and I kind of like it that way. This mascot, who I call toothpaste man, is everywhere and sometimes he is doing activities like surfing. This particular fluffy toothpaste man is at the top of Shanghai's tallest-but-soon-to-be-second-tallest building.

This picture was taken at my favorite restaurant so far in China. This guy is the owner and he runs around taking orders and shouting whenever food is ready at this very busy university hangout. Whenever we pass him on the street he yells out "See you tomorrow!" even though we probably won't. His facial hair is fantastically sparse.

This is a watermelon split in half with 24 tea lights on it in celebration of Candace's 24th birthday which was Monday. She doesn't like cake (freak!) and so I got her this watermelon instead. I tried to find actual birthday candles to stick in it, but couldn't. I asked my kids if they had cake for their birthdays ("YES!") and if they put lots of little candles in it ("What?? No.") so I made do with these tea lights. I think it's pretty.

I can't wait to update after my big trip! I hope it goes smoothly. I MUST remember to rabbit rabbit for October.

-Rachel

Lots to say

Last Wednesday I had my first KTV experience. KTV is what the karaoke clubs are called here, and they are everywhere. I was with the English First boys and their Chinese female teaching assistants in a private room. During the two and a half hours of my life I spent listening to off-key performances of cover versions of American songs, Chinese pop, and my least favorite, the melodramatic Chinese ballad, sung into a microphone with a horrible reverb issue I learned two truths: 1. Chinese pop culture promotes women being cute, not sexy. 2. Karaoke is only fun for me when I am singing. Which I did a lot of even though all of those people had known each other for at least a year and I had met them two days before. The club also provided us with a tambourine that I didn’t let go of all night. It added even MORE pizzazz to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”

On Friday I went to Shanghai. Over the course of the night, we ran into some interesting characters, but the true standout was this guy Fitzgerald. He randomly broke out in song. And this song just happened to be Prince. Specifically, “Raspberry Beret”. And he bought everyone I was with overpriced hamburgers that they sold at the bar. He was hilarious and works as an engineer for the Chinese government developing some nuclear something or other. I have this thing left over from the Day School when Rabbi Friedman told us all that in every generation there are a certain number of people, I can’t remember exactly how many, but I think it was around 75, that, if all conditions are right, could be the Messiah. They are Levites and direct descendants of King David and whatever else the requirements are, and there are some walking this earth at this very moment, but they probably won’t be the actual Messiah because the time is not right. I have a running list of people I call “Messiah candidates.” Fitzgerald is one. Remember that name.

The trip back from Shanghai was crazy. Sunday night was Mid-Autumn Festival, a Chinese Thanksgiving-type holiday, and no one invited me to their dinner even though I dropped many hints. I’m sort of sad about that, but I didn’t hear of anyone else here teaching who was actually invited to someone’s dinner so at least it’s not just me. The scene at the bus station was ludicrous. Travel on Thanksgiving weekend in America times a thousand. Then, while I was on the bus, the driver started honking. Drivers are crazy here compared to what we are used to as Americans. The parameters that differentiate normal, everyday driving etiquette from the completely absurd expand to include driving in the wrong lane while going around a blind curve to pass a truck carrying combustibles while on a scooter with no helmet and pulling 600,00 flattened cardboard boxes in a small cart behind you etc etc. So I didn’t make much of the honking until I glanced out of the window and saw a giant bus, a bus strikingly similar to the one that I was seated on, not ten feet from my face, ENGULFED IN FLAMES. I felt the heat through my window and my jaw stayed dropped for so long that I had to hold it up with my fingers. What was that?? There were two policemen casually leaning against a car parked about thirty feet from the flaming bus. I saw no hoses.

Moving on…on Saturday I came back to Zhangjiagang for a teacher’s dinner held in honor of teacher’s day, which was Thursday. The top floor of the dining hall was filled with all of the teachers sitting at big round tables. Awards were presented and KTV was sung loudly while I tried to holler questions at the Chinese English teachers who were sitting across the table. There was so much food and some of it was scary. The chicken and duck dishes at the dinner were each adorned with heads propped up on the side of the plate, resting against an orchid, with a good view of the chopped up and charred remains of their respective carcasses. I hallucinated that the chicken face winked at me. Freaky. There was also a turtle dish with the sad shell broken over the mutilated body of the turtle. Though I must admit, I always wanted to see what the part of the turtle hidden under the shell looked like and now I know. My favorite little creature was the hairy crab, a crab that is identical to a regular crab except for being covered in long bushy hair that, at the dinner, was wet and clumpy from being recently boiled. While dishes were brought out, different teachers made rounds. Whenever someone came to our table we all had to stand and have a drink. At first I thought some of the teachers were drinking water from the tiny wine glasses that are standard in China (about the size of a shot and a half). However, it was actually baijui, a throat scorching Chinese liquor. The party started at 4:45 and ended at 6:30. During this span of time, a good number of teachers got really sloshed. After the watermelon was served (fruit generally ends a meal) there was a mass exodus. No lingering.
The brown stuff is hair. That's Mary Beth's hand. Note the tiny wine glass.

Because we had Monday off for Mid-Autumn festival, on Sunday I went with Mary Beth and Candice, the two other English teachers at my school, to a neighboring town called Changzhou for a party. Mary Beth worked in Changzhou last time she was in China and she knew one of party's hosts. While buying DVDs, I bumped into a fellow CIEE-er (the program that I went through to get here) and I went to his place to check out the FOUR STAR HOTEL in which he is housed. The hotel looks like a pad of paper (a regular square building) next to a fountain pen. A different CIEE kid lives in the tip of the fountain pen and his bedroom is a semicircle with its circumference lined with floor to ceiling windows. Before the party started, we played Chinese monopoly. Guess what? Monopoly is boring in every country. I schooled everyone though, and I did it while reading Teen People, UK version. The party was pretty fun. I met some cool people and talked to some professionals working in China NOT teaching 600 kids a week (what I might like to do after my contract is up in January…that is, get a job and stay).

A while ago, at a bar, this guy said that he wished that he could just download every language into his head. I thought that sounded so great, especially considering my personal difficulty with language learning. I told this to Stephanie who said that she wouldn’t like that because there would never be the experience of being foreign. At the time, I argued with her. I said that culture, food, and lifestyle differences would still be foreign and just because you speak the same language doesn’t mean that communication will be problem free. Recently, I’ve come to change my opinion. Being foreign without knowing Chinese has done more for me than just ensure that I will totally rock at charades when I get home; it has made me more receptive and able to express myself in ways outside of language. That includes gestures, noises, and pointing, but it also kind of feels like I’m developing a sixth sense, like how parents can tell from indistinguishable wails that this one means bottle and the other, a diaper change. It feels good to go from huffing and puffing and being frustrated and misunderstood to being able to get my point across without the benefit of language. But don’t get me wrong, I still really want to learn Chinese, and I hope that if I take away nothing else from my time here, I can leave with that skill. That’s why I want to stay for more than five months. I want to stay as long as I need to to come out of here knowing Mandarin. Now I just have to get started.

-Rachel

I signed my contract today!

Since the last time I posted I 1. went to Shanghai and rocked out 2. actually met the elusive English First teachers and 3. started tutoring some Korean kids on the side for some extra cash.

First, Shanghai. It was a great weekend. After classes ended on Monday I took a cab to the bus station and waited for my 5:10 (17:10) departure for my two hour trip. After getting to Shanghai no problem and even managing to take the metro to Stephanie’s stop, I then proceeded to get lost for two hours underground in the sprawling metro station entitled Shanghai South Railway Station, the smaller of Shanghai’s two major terminals. I got to Stephanie’s apartment two hours after arriving at the station, a ten minute walk away from her place. Those two hours included a really frustrating cab ride that I won’t go on and on about because who really likes to hear someone vent about travel issues.? It’s China, stuff like this is bound to happen. I will say though that I had a fierce sweat backpack underneath my actual backpack by the time I got to Stephanie’s sweet bachelor pad (I say this because it was obviously originally decorated by some man who brought home a lot of ladies or at least aspired to. There is a naked lady painted on the glass bathroom door.).

So this weekend I got to blow off some steam that had built up during my first week of teaching. We went to some clubs, met some other English teachers, went to a couple of art openings, and even snuck in a couple of cultural outings. On Saturday we went to two markets. The first was an “antique” market. I put antique in quotes because I’m pretty sure about 95% of the stuff was made in the past decade or two. Then the vendors either pulled these artifacts out of the garbage or just straight up poured dirt all over them to make them look authentic because these things were dirty. It was blocks and blocks of a flea market filled with all of the pretty souvenirs that the friends of Americans who come to China hope they will get as presents. I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t feel like lugging it around, but I definitely will make another stop there before I come home. Don’t worry, I’ll rinse everything off before I give it to you.

The next market we stopped by Stephanie had found in her lonely planet guide which described it as some weird bug or animal market. We walk in and are immediately overwhelmed by noise and stink. The first thing I see is an overgrown rabbit in a too-small cage and I immediately think of Sugar, Laura’s rabbit who used to growl at Dad like a dog whenever he tried to get Sugar from under Laura’s dresser and back into its cage. My personal favorite display was the amphibians. There were those tiny little turtles that they won’t sell in Alabama anymore because little kids were choking on them. There was also some sort of frog creature Stephanie called “worse than fetuses” that looked like a frog without its skin (Dad). Super creepy. Most intriguing of anything in this market was a section with rows and rows of small tin cans. People were standing around and holding the cans right up to their faces and lifting the lid very carefully, poking around inside and then putting them down, inspecting can after can. I was all up in people’s faces trying to see what was inside without having to actually pick up my own can and have whatever it was jump out on me and eat my face off. So, it turns out that it was crickets. Crickets in China are adored and are seen as a sign of prosperity. I haven’t seen Mulan and so I wasn’t aware of this. Crickets are often kept in special cages and fed ground up mealworms and other smelly stuff that was also for sale at this market in giant containers. Just the thought of those buckets of moving mealworms gives me the heeby jeebies even now. After researching this cricket phenomenon I also found out about cricket fighting, like cock fighting but with freaking crickets. I must see one of these before I leave, it sounds hilarious, a bunch of Chinese men and me crowded around a tiny ring watching two little insects go at it. Here is some linkage for more info…. Eventually, I had to leave that crazy market because the sensory overload was making me woozy.


The following day, our little cultural outing was to a beautiful garden called the Yuyuan garden. It was nice and peaceful and we got to see some big old Germans pay 25 quai to dress up in some garish traditional costumes. It was all good. I came back to my tiny little bus station, took a cab home, and was totally exhausted. It was a great weekend.

Monday at about five pm I got invited to that dinner party I mentioned might happen in my last post. There I met the folks who work at English First, an English teaching program that is all over China. In Zhangjiagang, EF has its own building that people of all ages can go to for lessons as well as private contracts with different schools. Most of the guys were British, had been in Zhangjiagang for a little while, and had beautiful Chinese girlfriends. It was nice hanging out with them. They have a good little community going for them, I hope to elbow my way into it. I got pretty drunk at the house even though I shouldn’t have because I had my physical the next morning at 8 am.

Even though to get my initial arrival visa I had to get a physical in the states, I had to go through the exact same process, Chinese style, in order to get my multi-entry work visa. I got home at a reasonable hour Monday night, but I could only sleep for a little while. I got up at 3 am and couldn’t go back to bed. Perhaps it was due to the lack of sleep, but I thought the entire time spent at the physical was completely hysterical. The facilities were nice and clean. I had to have blood drawn, which sort of freaked me out, but they used nicely packaged needles. Instead of having your own room and your own personal doctor, in China the physical means making a little journey from room to room for each separate inspection. My personal favorite room was where the eye inspection, color-blindness test, ear, nose, and throat inspection took place. I took a million pictures of this Chinese version of Dad who was wearing Dad’s little ENT head-gear thing and was advising me on where to stand while photographing him “for better light.” I also had an ultrasound! I was asking the doctor what exactly he was looking for as he prodded around in the goo on my abdomen. Apparently, my spleen and liver. It’s nice to know they are both doing alright. I even got a print-out of my liver! I told everyone it was my baby. They didn’t let me keep it though (the photo of my liver, not the fake baby I told everyone was inside me).
By the way, I am making a face because that ear checker thing was not washed between each ear. and it was cold.

To conclude, here is the poem that I am making my kids work with this week. It is hilarious. It is also hilarious to explain what bitter, batter, and especially butter means to the kids. Most understand quickly, but a few are totally lost on the word “butter.”

Betty bought a bit of butter.
But, she said, the butter is bitter.
If I use it in my batter,
it will make the batter bitter.
So she bought some better butter
and she put it in the batter
and the batter was much better.
Better not use bitter butter
if you want some better batter.
Bitter butter makes it bitter.

-Rachel

So I guess I am a teacher now...

I have a class roster list for sixteen out of the twenty classes I teach in a week because I haven’t gotten to Friday’s (today’s) yet and it is at almost ten full pages. About six hundred kids this week will hear about how I like 1. reading 2. riding my bicycle and I don’t like 1. cleaning 2. doing laundry. Every time I tell the kids that “doing laundry” is what we in America call washing clothes they all let out an “ahhhhhh” in unison. I think one time they even clapped. My favorite thing to do is to make a class of Chinese kids either break into spontaneous applause or laugh hysterically. I’m pretty sure by the end of this thing I’ll just be doing stand-up.

I teach classes Junior 1-Junior 3 which are the equivalent to grades 7-9. Each of these grades is divided into 8 classes of about fifty. I only teach 25 at a time though because I split them with Mary Beth. The classes from 1-8 go from least intelligent to most. I’m not sure when or how they are divided up but they stay that way until they graduate. Teaching the upper level classes is fun but they are total punks, especially class 8 who knows that they’re the shit. “Teacher, we are very clever!” It’s cool to see what they know. One kid in my Junior 3, Class 8 class asked me who I was voting for in the upcoming election. I said “I’m not sure yet” (it’s not wise to talk politics here) and I asked him if he knew who the candidates were. And he did! I like teaching mid-level (classes 4,5,6) because they are sweet and pay attention. I don’t give these kids grades and they go to school from 7-5 for the young ones and 7-9:30 for the Junior 3s so my class is a total gut class which I don’t really mind (recall that my goals are to get them to laugh and clap at me). I am really just here to be a white face walking around that parents can see when they pick up their kids. I even have to perform at all of the school assemblies (totally pumped about that!).

Today at 17:10 I’m taking a bus to Shanghai to stay with Stephanie. Being with English speakers for two days will be nice. I’m trying to meet the other elusive seven English teachers in Zhangjiagang. Tuesday and Wednesday I went to that stupid ex-pat bar Malone’s. The first night there was a rowdy group of Germans. Last night it was a little tamer and I got a hold of one of the English teachers, Carla, who works with this program called English First via someone else’s cell phone after complaining about how lonely I was. I gave her my number and hopefully I didn’t sound too needy. She said something about a party Monday night.

By the way….I found oatmeal! This is what I eat every morning for breakfast and I had resigned myself to being without it for five months. Then, while perusing one of the two giant local supermarkets, I stumbled upon it. The bag was labeled “Nutrition for the frail and elderly” and then I found a canister of good old Quaker. I bought the Quaker one, not due to brand loyalty, but because the Chinese versions were sold in giant plastic sacks while Quaker comes in a sensibly re-sealable container. All of the canisters looked like someone had come at them with nun chucks or something and were covered in dust but whatever….oatmeal!!!!

Also, I have taken to long bike rides through town. My bike is pretty and purple and has a little purple squeaky mouse for a bell. The seat is super low and it really hurts my back, but biking is super fun. This place is supposed to be tiny, but there sure are a lot of giant buildings and fancy hotels. Yesterday I stumbled upon two Olympic training facilities. One was this glorious pool built inside this pointy glass structure and the other was a basketball and tennis facility. The tennis nets must have been eight stories high. Is that really necessary? In my explorations I have also found three (3) open-air amphitheaters. What are they used for? Mom, don’t get mad, but yesterday when I went on an exploring mission I listened to my Ipod. I know this is totally foolish because biking in China is the most dangerous thing ever, but listening to “I am the walrus” during rush hour traffic through this shiny new beautiful/ridiculous city is totally great.

Pictures soon?
Rachel