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