racheldoeschina

Just filling you in

2009-04-05T00:14:00.000-07:00

Chickened out on the hair treatment thing. I went into this shady Chinese place where no one spoke English and somehow got the message across that I wanted the hair relaxing treatment for 85 quai advertised on the poster that hung on the front door of the basement level salon. Then after an intense consultation with the instructions on the back of the bottle of solution, the Chinese man with a bouffant who was assigned to me applied a thick layer of the pungent white goo to the hair at the nape of my neck. At first I just shrugged when they didn't use any vaseline to protect my scalp from chemical burns. But once they painted on the first layer I just looked at my face in the mirror and imagined myself bald. And promptly freaked the f out. And made them wash it out immediately, got a simple trim, and left. So my hair is still a mess. I'm going to save up and get a treatment at a Western salon eventually.

I got a ton more tutoring gigs recently. Hopefully I'll retain them all. It's a little scary to rely on your main source of income from a source that you is not contractually obligated to pay you, but one-on-one tutoring is totally more my bag than wrassling a classroom full of shrieking 5 year olds. One of the songs I played for them last week to teach them different ailments--runny nose, tummyache, toothache, headache--involved them acting out crying. Let me tell you, that's tough to take on very little (or no) sleep.

On Friday night I met up with some people at this Xinjiang restaurant. I had already eaten with a group of people at a Sichuan place where the food was really spicy and a man did a dance where he changed masked a million times but instantly, like magic. And another man did a dance with a teapot that was really lame and I just ignored it and ate the delicious food. I had rabbit for the first time and also a potato knish like thingy that was amazing. Xinjiang and Sichuan are both areas of China. Sichuan is a province in Western China and Xinjiang is an autonomous region up in the Northwest. It borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and a bunch of other 'stans so the people look different. I didn't eat there but I did play hackysack with the restaurant workers with a lamb hoof that was served with my friends' meal. And then I put the hoof in my backpack and forgot about it. The next day I was looking for my chapstick or something and my hand brushed against it and I totally freaked myself out. Now it sits on my mantle. While I was photographing it for y'all I totally realized that it can act as the shankbone for our Passover seder!

Mm hoof. I gnawed on it semi-drunkenly on Friday night. I regret that now. Ew.

Masked man from the Sichuan place making the rounds through the restaurant. I shook his hand.

I also went to the world's first Barbie mega-store right here in Shanghai. And it totally lived up to expectations which were pretty high to begin with. It is six floors! And includes a spa, a restaurant, a cafe, a boutique, a play area, and much more. Oh, and a crapload of Barbies! Even ones designed to look like famous people which are creepily accurate. Ugh I didn't take a photo of the Beyonce Barbie which was totally spot on. Here is another nameless diva Barbie instead:

And here is a glimpse at the store through the glass wall of Barbies that surrounds the winding staircase in the center of the room:
There are so many other great photos of the Barbie store. It was just so well designed and beautiful in the girliest way possible. I made the girl that I tutored the next morning bust out her collection of Barbies so we could play with them. But even so this, by far, is my favorite photo that I have been a part of since I last posted:

This would be the little guy that my good friend Kelly (who was visiting from Zhangjiagang) and I found sweeping the sidewalk with a baby-sized broom. Notice the split pants in the crotch. You guys are lucky he is wearing a diaper because most babies don't and the slit in their pants allows them to do their business wherever they feel is necessary. Good God he is adorable.

March: Laura, Beijing, and a million other things that happened, none of which was me finding a steady job

2009-03-22T03:57:00.000-07:00

It’s been a month somehow. A long month. The first one I didn’t rabbit rabbit for in quite a while. I’m not sure what effect my decision to not say those words for good luck had on the month of March, but it has definitely been an eventful month. Technically there is still a week left so maybe I’ll know by then what to make of the past few weeks.

Laura came. That was nice. We went to Beijing by overnight train. We shared our car on the way there with an organized tour group of exceptionally rowdy older Chinese ladies squawking away the whole time. I really thoroughly enjoyed watching them. My twelve hour trip consisted of me either sleeping or watching those ladies while listening to my Ipod. The train ride back was nice too. We had to buy tickets in a better class cabin because the cheapest beds were sold out so our beds were softer, we had more space, it was quieter, and I bought a bunch of paper strips so I could make origami stars. I taught Laura and the two Germans sharing our cabin how to make them too.

Between the two train rides some other stuff happened too. Right after we checked into our hostel we convinced a cab driver to take us to the Great Wall, wait for two hours, and bring us back. The Great Wall was amazing. We went to the section at Mutianyu, took the cable car up on a bright sunny Friday then walked the length of a few towers. And it was so uncrowded. Surprisingly so. We even made up a little song sung to the tune of “We’ve got the whole world in our hands.” It went: "We’ve got the whole wall to ourselves, we’ve got the whole [expletive] wall to ourselves" etc etc but with more creative curse words each time. It was amazing (I almost wrote monumental but then I realized that sounds kind of silly). After a few towers’ worth of walking we slid down the slide! It wasn’t as shady as I’d hoped it would be. They even had guards stationed before the more perilous turns. One of which yelled at me in Chinese because I was going too fast.

In addition to the Great Wall we also ate a tofu Peking Duck at an amazing vegetarian Buddhist restaurant. And on this “food street” that had crazy food like scorpions on a stick I ate a deep fried bird’s nest which didn’t really taste anything like I would imagine it to—twigs and bark and such. Now I’m researching it and realizing that the bird’s nest is a special one from a type of bird called an edible-nest swiftlet where the nest is made of solidified saliva. Finding that out I was initially disgusted and then sort of impressed with myself, but I’m pretty sure those bird’s nests were fake because the internet tells me that the nests are usually extremely expensive. And I doubt the legitimacy of the street vendors' claims after they told me like 4 different organ-looking things on sticks were dog penises. Is that just the big time seller to white women or something? I think they just got a kick out of yelling penis at me even though one of the skewers was definitely stuck through kidneys.

Half of a vegetarian duck.

That would be candy-coated fruit of some sort. Don't know exactly what kind. Something we don't have in America. It looks like I eat like Dad here. But it's just me getting out the pit.

Beijing was cool. As someone who studied cities I really liked it because it had that feeling of place about it that Shanghai lacks. There were monuments and squares and old buildings. But I’m glad I live in Shanghai. One really cool thing about Beijing are the hutong, the old style buildings with narrow alleyways.

A man writing with water on the sidewalk in a park in Beijing. He was 89 years old and very sweet. He let me practice my (English) calligraphy with his sponge/paintbrush.

It was good to have Laura here for a week. Good because she is like home, good because she is funny and sweet, good because she brought me girl scout cookies. Hard because my financial troubles were on my mind the whole time, hard because I reverted to the self I am when I am with my family which is a version of myself I don’t like as much. I'm glad I got to share the experience of sliding down the Great Wall with her.

It really was.
Me on the toboggan. Ignore how phallic the brake handle is. Oops now you can't.
Our driver who took us from the forbidden city to the food street in Beijing in his tiny little motorized cart. We sat facing backwards like how we did in the "way back" in the station wagon. I stuck my hand up in front of his face for this shot. You can see the wall of the forbidden city in the background out of the window.

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I picked up a side job in the past few weeks. I write for a Chinese celebrity gossip blog now for money. Not much money, but at least it keeps me writing. This past week was a little rough emotionally and it was also the first week of me posting for the blog (gossip-china.com) so it isn’t as funny as I hope for it to be eventually. So from now on if you hear of any Chinese celebrity gossip, send it on my way.

A highlight of my week recently has been the tutoring session I have on Wednesdays with a group of businessmen who are all pretty young--late twenties--with advanced English abilities. They want to learn how to converse with Americans and slang and stuff because they have a big conference coming up. I spent a long time during one class explaining to them how, in America, it is uncomfortable in a professional situation to be told by someone that you just met at, say, a conference in China, that you are beautiful or sexy. We spent another two hour meeting talking about Chinese folklore including the Chinese traditional beliefs about the afterlife which was really interesting. And they make me laugh. I love it when I have the chance to really connect with Chinese people.

Last night I went to my first Chinese-language concert. It was sort of an accident because I originally went with a friend who knew some people playing in the opening act (an English language band) which we ended up missing because we got there too late. And I surprisingly really enjoyed the Chinese band. Sound Fragment, from Beijing. They sound like a Chinese Radiohead, and I totally don’t mind that they are copycats because I love Radiohead and now I have a CD in Chinese that I can listen to signed by the lead singer. And the club was full of really cool Chinese people.

Tomorrow I am getting my hair "treated" which means slightly straightened just to loosen up some of the kinks. I'm a little nervous. I might end up bald. But if I do that just gives me an excuse to wear my Tina Turner wig everyday, right? Seriously if my hair gets really messed up after the ten dollar treatment I'm getting I will be sad. My hair is my one vanity.

I feel obligated to say something about Stephanie for her Mom's benefit. Um, she is staying for another year? I'm not.

Today is a rainy day.

2009-02-23T18:06:00.001-08:00

Somehow I still don’t have my job stuff settled. It’s been so long, I’m over being anxious about it. That repressed anxiety might be the reason why my body only lets me sleep a little less than four hours a night. I get to sleep just fine, but then I wake up at four and that’s all I get. Which sucks today because I anticipate a big night tonight in honor of Mardi Gras. My friend Emily is from New Orleans and even made a big trek one Sunday morning to go to the Café Du Monde here all the way out in Pudong. I think it says something about my growing maturity that I didn’t even think twice about the name of this area of town across the river until Laura laughed at it.

Anyways, Emily, Steph, and I and two other of our girlfriends will be wearing sparkly sequined dresses tonight on our night out to celebrate. I’m excited to have an excuse to wear that getup again.

So it’s early in the morning, I’ve been up since four and already had my omelet and by big mug of espresso that I make Italian style on the stovetop (plus some instant mashed potatoes a few hours back during those no man’s land hours) and now I’m debating ordering a bagel with cream cheese to be delivered to me by a “Sherpa” the name of the fleet of motorcycles that delivers food from many of the restaurants in town. I found a bagel company here! I miss them so much. That, pancakes, and lasagna.

I applied for a Chinese reality show the other day. I really want a call back for an interview. I met a bunch of expats who were working for the show at a house party on Friday that I stayed at for way too long while trying to convince them that my personality is perfect for reality tv. See, I always thought that I would be good for reality tv because I am dramatic and obnoxious, but I would never do it in America because then everyone would see just how dramatic and obnoxious I really am. But here there would be no witnesses back home.

Ok I’m ordering the bagel. Actually…I decided against it because online there is no location address and no reviews of this place and I’m pretty sure if there was a bagel delivery store in Shanghai I would have heard of it before finding it trolling the internet at 4 am this morning. And I am especially suspicious of scams after the Daft Punk ordeal a couple of weeks back. Daft Punk are a couple of really popular French DJs. An office held in a loft apartment in an artsy district was selling tickets for 500 RMB (75 bucks). The concert date was given but the time and location were not. People were told to just keep their cell phones nearby and wait for a text with the information. The scam artists got away with the money and the several hundred people who got screwed were pissed enough to start an investigation that even has the French embassy involved.

Speaking of food, or well…I actually just talking about scams so speaking of awesome deals, I found a new, potentially favorite, street food today. There is a cart with different small buckets like at a salad bar with different vegetables and forms of tofu (tofu here comes in shapes, sizes, and textures that I’d never encountered in my 10+ years as a vegetarian in the States) that you pick up with tongs and drop into a little square tray. Then the lady manning the booth weighs out your tray and then mixes what you’ve gathered with sesame oil, peanut oil, chili oil, peanuts, sesame seeds, chopped up garlic, and a ton of cilantro (which I like now that I’m not living in my mother’s house) plus some powders. Due to experience with Chinese food I’m pretty sure those powders are sugar, salt, MSG (mmmm love it), and chicken bouillon. Then she hands it to you in the thinnest sandwich-sized plastic bag you ever saw because that’s what they use for everything here. At the grocery store, people put the leaky, thinner-than-saran-wrap bags filled with newly beheaded fish on the conveyer belt and it leaves pungent wet streaks. Sometimes they miraculously hold up, but this one was leaking all over the place during my 20 minute walk home while I picked at it with my fingers covered with 5 year old snot.

I’m working a little right now (thus the snot). Every afternoon for an hour at one of the most prestigious kindergartens in Shanghai I have two thirty minute classes with some brilliant 5 year olds. When I come in I shake all of their hands and get them to say “Good afternoon Rachel” and then at the end I give them all a high-five and tell them that they did a good job.

Waffles. Waffles would also be good. Specifically the ones Dad used to make in our old waffle maker that were really crispy with shallow syrup divots.

I also applied for a job as a Jewish extra in a Chinese film. There are often postings on the online classifieds for specific types of extras. This is the first ad I saw for Jews. I didn’t give them my address in case it’s all a neo-nazi scam.

Oh I had my Chinese ex-coworkers over for dinner and, no, I did not make them lasagna even though I would have loved to shove some of that into my face because I do not have an oven. I don’t even have a toaster with which to toast my non-existent bagel from the bagel scammers. I felt limited as to the American food I could provide them with only a stovetop. I didn’t want to make them something that they have already had in a Western restaurant like burgers or pasta. And so I made them hummus, bruschetta, broccoli and cheese, and couscous and I also bought some pita bread at the western grocery store. I made all of the food for them so we could eat it when they arrived at 6 because Chinese people like to eat early. But then they were an hour and a half late because my old job, didn’t let them leave until 6:30.

They came, they brought Chinese wine which was cute of them even though Chinese wine is grosssss, and the food was cold. They HATED the food which was hilarious to me. I wanted them to discuss exactly what they hated about it but they had to be polite guests and so we couldn’t play our usual game of closely examining the differences in our cultures. To be fair, hummus isn’t exactly the most easily likeable food. Cold mush. I think someone told them that in America it is respectful to finish your food (in China you should never finish all of your food because then it means that the hosts didn’t have enough to serve you). One girl begged me to not have to finish her cheese that came with the broccoli. Eventually, I brought out some Chinese snacks I had in the pantry. When I automatically put the napkin in my lap before the meal, I watched them all exchange glances and then mimic my movements in unison.

Over the course of the dinner I found out that one of the girls was a practicing Buddhist and I told them I was Jewish. They said that that means I am very smart and I asked them what else it meant, knowing what they would say. One of them finally admitted that it meant that I was very rich too. Chinese have a certain, limited but not entirely unflattering opinion of Jews. They think that we are all good businesspeople.

I accomplished my goal last week and bought a bike. Back then for a few brief days I had a steady job that I could bike to in the mornings. It was also sunny then. And unseasonably warm. It’s been raining for the past 4 days or so and the rains are predicted to continue for a few more. My bike sits in the bike shack behind my apartment building and I check on it everyday to make sure it’s still there. It has 4 locks. It really only needs three, one for the front, one for the back, and one to tie to frame to stationary object so the men in the white vans can’t come and pluck it off the street in the middle of the night.

I was going to buy a bike at the black market, where all the stolen goods are sold along with, I don’t know, whatever intriguing items are sold at a black market in the land of China where stores brazenly display counterfeited products and gun control is nonexistent. I’m picturing beating human hearts in murky glass tanks. But I didn’t get over there and now I can feel like an upstanding citizen who didn’t give her money to bike thieves, though for all I now, the man with tobacco-stained teeth and fingers who sold me mine in his bike shop could have very well acquired it through questionable means. And I sort of don’t feel like an upstanding citizen after I went to TMZ.com and added became another site visitor added to their counter to look at the photo of a beat up Rihanna that they got through their own questionable means from the LAPD. Anyways, I still plan on going to the black market to at least have a look around. Maple, one of my old co-workers, said she would take me sometime. I’m pretty sure it’s a place Westerners aren’t welcome, what with our cameras and fanny packs and all alerting the police that there is something noteworthy there.

I’ve got a couple more hours to kill before my one hour of work per day. I guess I’ll apply to more jobs. Breakfast update: I settled for oatmeal made with whole milk and cinnamon.

Rachel

P.S. I'm teaching my kids weather vocab this week, that's where the title comes from. And it's true.

Photo Post

2009-02-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hey it's Steph's birthday. We had a big party last and actually drank four (half-sized because that's all you can get in China) kegs. I wrote down everyone's name who came in the door and we had 55 people! It got kind of crowded in the apartment for a little, but in general I think everyone had a pretty good time. Success! Let's look at some photos of the past week.

Steph with the cricket that the guy who delivered and set up the kegs had in his pocket (for good fortune). It was massive. Speaking of good fortune, my left eye has been twitching for the past two weeks and apparently in Chinese folklore that means a handsome man is in love with me.

These two dolls in a random hotel lobby wish guests "gong xi fa chai," or Happy New Year, with clasped hands and zombie glares. Literally translated, the Chinese phrase above is "wishing you to enlarge your wealth."

These are the firecrackers we lit to get the attention of the god of fortune on New Year's eve. So long!

This is an example of how adorable Chinese 3 year olds are. This girl is busy making a cookie in the shape of a letter F at my old job.

For a Hanukkah present, I got wood block letters spelling out the holiday. I spent some time trying to make a good anagram, and this one made me laugh. Kunk haha.

The photo for the facebook invitation to our party. This empty frame was in our house when we moved in along with our other Chinese-style furniture. Our Chinese guests loved the apartment and its mix of Western decorations with the more familiar (to them) Chinese style. Apparently, our apartment is more old-style (1920's) Shanghai. Once we stumbled upon a restaurant called 1921 a few blocks from our apartment and it was just so beautiful inside. I wonder what this city was like back then. When the French were here and there were still opium dens.

My beautiful, wonderful, and adorably drunk co-workers from the job I hated along with a new coworker from my new job (white guy on the left), Steph, and Pete (Steph's British boyfriend).

Here is Pete wearing Special Occasion Pants that he changed into at midnight and wore while bringing out the surprisingly-delicious-especially-because-Chinese-people-can't-bake cake (pictured in bottom right corner). You can also see Steph and I's matching sequined dresses. My face is so contorted in this picture from laughter.

Mm just got back from all-you-can-eat buffet brunch and I'm so pleasantly full and happy I don't have to go back to that horrible job. And I think I'm going to keep hanging out with my co-workers I love. I'm cooking them an American feast on Tuesday. Though I'm not sure what to make them. Suggestions? And Steph's super-fun friend who is teaching in Japan is visiting on Wednesday and LAURA (my sister) IS COMING for her spring break. If only she could hide Maggie (other sister) in her suitcase, then supreme happiness would be achieved.

This week's goal: buy a bike.

Rachel

Happy New Year

2009-01-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. You would not believe how loud it got last night with all of the fireworks. Apparently, the worst of it is actually on Thursday of this week. Traditional Chinese belief is that the more loud fireworks you set off, the more prosperous your year will be and the better the chance is that you will catch the attention of the money guy (who comes on Thursday of this week).

I spent last night with my friend Simon and his family who are from Hong Kong. We set off fireworks in their apartment complex along with every other family living in the complex. While eating dinner giant fireworks you could never get your hands on in the States exploded two feet from the window. Simon’s brother was telling a story about a friend whose apartment windows exploded from too-close fireworks. Basically I was terrified all night. I’ve always loved fireworks but watching a grandpa smoking a cigarette while reading something on the bottom of a 3x3 foot cube of gussied up gunpowder in an apartment lobby is just too much for me. I did muster up the courage to set off one extremely loud firework in order to ensure I will have a prosperous new year. Seriously it sounded like a nuclear explosion. Not that I’ve ever heard one of those. I was shaky for about an hour afterwards. On the walk home I would carefully peek around every corner to make sure a fireball wasn’t headed in my direction.

So I’m living in Shanghai and I am absolutely blissful. Our apartment is fantastic. Right now I am listening to my ipod through the great sound system on our big comfy couch on wireless internet. We have a dining table that seats six and has a candelabra in the center. And all of this was included. Well except for the internet. We’ve already had our first dinner party. I think I’ll make it a weekly thing because for all of my slobitude I love being a hostess. Steph and I both were raised by mothers who know how to throw a great party.

Everything has somewhat settled down, but much of these first two weeks here were full of upheaval. Visa drama consumed me. I was averaging about three hours of sleep a night due to stress while going to interviews and working on visa stuff all day long. Then the company that ended up getting me my visa wanted me to start work immediately at a winter camp which I worked at for 11 days straight. The camp was for kids aged 3-5. Those Chinese babies were adorable, energy-sucking little things.

I may not stay with this school, which might introduce another set of visa complications. I have another job offer where I wouldn’t have to work weekends as I would with the first job. Because I only had ten days to get everything worked out before my visa’s expiration date, compounded by the fact that during Chinese New Year all of China shuts down for a week and the week before the shut down, the processes of previously inefficient government bureaucracies slow to a crawl—sort of forced me into a job that could get a visa pushed through quickly. Bureaucracy, you suck.

So I hate this new job. The only native English speakers currently employed by the company are me and Jim. Jim is a thirty nine year old man who moved here three weeks ago with his Shanghainese wife. Jim gives me the heebie-jeebies. Bad vibes. He acts like a children’s entertainer on the verge of a breakdown. He has several facial tics. When he talks to me his eyes contact is unwavering (except for the frequent and forceful blinking—one of the tics).

I do happen to love my Chinese teacher coworkers. One in particular, Maple, and I get along really well. I think it’s because we both have what she calls “flower hearts.” We can’t make up our minds and we want to try everything. She is married to a chef at one of the nice hotels in town who drops her off at work on his motorcycle at 9 am everyday and then makes the trek back to pick her up at nine pm--or whatever time my bosses allow her to go home to her nineteen month old daughter. My bosses work my Chinese coworkers to the bone, but I breeze out of there at 4, my white face their biggest asset.

The school is brand-new and there are a lot of kinks to be worked out. The start up money was provided by the parent company, a publishing agency whose books and dvds are sold as part of the course. The winter camp I was working at was a promotional tactic to get the word out about the school. Personally, I don’t see the school succeeding.

Life in Shanghai is really grand. I feel like there are countless possibilities, opportunities, things for me to try, and people for me to meet here. Every night I get to go home to a place that feels like home even though I’ve only lived in it for a week and a half. And I get to live with Stephanie who makes me laugh every day. We are planning our first house party (different from dinner party) on February 7th, the day before her birthday. I told the Chinese teachers at the school and they were all so excited to be invited, it made me feel good. I have learned so much about Chinese people in the few intense days working with them.

I love that in Shanghai it is easy to find Chinese people fluent in English. I have also made friends with the newspaper vendor across the street where I can buy the English language Chinese newspaper, the China Daily. It’s easy to find restaurants with English language menus. I am going to sign up for a Chinese class once I get my working schedule figured out.

I wish everyone a prosperous new year. This week I’m going to try to avoid getting my face blown off which I am seriously paranoid about. Especially because if it happened, I doubt there would be anyone working at the hospital to stitch me up.

Rachel

Times are a changin'

2009-01-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

Hey Y'all guess what? The semester is over!!!!! I turned in all 600 graded exams. Tomorrow morning I somehow convinced the school driver to give me and all of my crap a ride to Shanghai and it's there that I'll stay for the next six months.

On January 13th, Steph and I can pick up the keys to our new apartment. We found it this past weekend. It’s in a great area of town called the French concession, close to the subway, and it has charm. Which is difficult to find in Shanghai, a city so proud of its modernity. Fourth floor walkup, but when you are walking up the stairs the walls are painted and there is crown molding and the steps are wooden instead of cement. There are even little gardens in front of the first floor apartments. It’s adorable. Most importantly, it’s a great apartment to entertain in which was our number one concern when looking at apartments. It's fully furnished and really home-y. We will be signing a six month lease.

In case you are wondering, I still don't have a job. I'm repressing the anxiety now pretty well though. I have some interviews starting on Sunday. There are prospects. Deep breath.

Ouch. Oh yeah that's right I can't breath deeply anymore ever since I totally busted in the dining hall, taking down a stack of used trays with me. My coat is now coated (ha!) in a splattered assortment of Chinese food (and instead of cleaning it I just bundled it into a ball and shoved it into a suitcase). They always mop the floors before everyone is done eating plus it was raining that day. I went down HARD and now I start whimpering before I sneeze because I know the sharp jab in my side that's coming. I had the wind knocked out of me for at least thirty seconds or so while all the cafeteria ladies hovered around me, trying to get me to stand up and patting me down because they think that cures sore muscles.

I hope everyone has had a great start to their new year. It seems like New Years was ages ago. I guess a lot has been going on since then. We went to a really classy party up high in a skyscraper with a great view of the Shanghai skyline. Though when I think back to that night, what has stayed with me is the two hour walk in the freezing cold Steph and I were forced to take when we couldn't get a cab. We sang pop songs to ourselves so it turned out ok.

Let's look at some pictures:
New apartment. Fake fireplace. Steph promised to paint a family portrait of us in tribute to the actual family portrait that hangs above the Aland family fireplace. And then we will take prom photos in front of it.

The "wall" that separates my future bedroom from Stephanie's. Taken from my side of the room. Look at that pirate treasure chest. I kind of want to fill it with something creepy....maybe all of mine and Steph's stray hairs that are destined to fill up the apartment. And then inside that big gob of hair I'll nestle some gold-plated bird's eggs? I have to confess, I've had a couple of celebratory glasses of wine after I turned in those graded exams.

The eating contest at the goodbye party I threw for myself in my apartment. That navy blue futon isn't mine, Mary Beth and I lugged it up to my apartment from hers for the occasion. In case you're curious, the food being consumed is popcorn.

At a lull in the party I popped out of the bathroom in my Tina Turner wig. In every candid photo of myself speaking I look like this. Neck muscles strained, mouth open wide, and finger pointed. I wonder what words of wisdom I was espousing here?

Rachel

The End

2008-12-28T16:57:00.001-08:00

I’m stressed out about potentially getting kicked out of China. No job yet and my visa is up on January 20th. Ugh ugh ugh ugh. Ok moving on.

I have three days of classes this week, then a couple of days off for New Years (which I will be celebrating in Shanghai), then its exam week and my time in Zhangjiagang is over. As my time is winding down, I’m getting a little nostalgic. One big change that I will have to adjust to in Shanghai is the commute. To work, to bars, to anywhere. That city is ginormous. The problem with finding a job is that I want to live in a specific, central part of town, and I don’t want to spend three hours of my day commuting to and from work. I want to have a centrally located apartment that Steph and I can entertain (throw borrels) in. Here in ZJG nothing is further than a 25 minute bike ride away. And my classes are a five minute walk through campus. I’m also going to miss the EF teachers, but they say they’ll come visit.

I’ll also miss my kids. Even though there are 600 of them, I still can recognize all of them and know the names of a bunch. My favorite student is Angela. She is my fangirl and she is hilarious. When she sees me on campus she screams “RACHEL! Look at me! Look at me!!!!!” And when I do, she just waves and smiles a huge smile. I want to show you a picture of how adorable she is, but my camera broke and I have no idea how to get it fixed.

Last week was the last real class I’ll have with some of my students because of the New Year’s holiday and at the end of class they all rushed me with paper and pen in hand for my contact info like I was famous. I really hope that I get some adolescent Chinese pen pals out of this experience but I sort of doubt it.

The day before Christmas the school put on a big production and I had to sing a Christmas song with the other English teachers. I found out what the song was a few hours before the performance and I totally didn’t know the words so I just smiled and moved my mouth a little while staring into the crowd of maybe a thousand Chinese students all looking up at me. They had all dragged their chairs-with-attached-desks out onto the big plaza in front of the school. That’s pretty impressive considering some of their classrooms are 6 floors up.

The best part of the show was this one dance that all of the biggest troublemaker boys (read: favorites) that I teach performed. It was like the dance in Napoleon Dynamite only a million times better. There are a limited amount of silly dance moves that we Americans are familiar with: the robot, the vogue, the worm, etc. This dance introduced me to an entirely different set of hilarious dance moves. I talked to my students afterwards because I really wanted to learn the dance. Lucky for me, there is a video online. Sadly, these kids didn’t come up with the routine themselves. A group of postal workers in some random city did! Here is a link so you can all learn the dance at home and we can break out into a spontaneous choreographed dance at the next wedding/Bar Mitzvah/street fight we go to like I’ve always wanted (I secretly wish real life was a musical).

After the show, the kids all had “Christmas parties” in each of their classrooms. They performed plays, watched movies, sang karaoke, and got hopped up on sugar. The other teachers and I all went around to our classrooms to wish them Merry Christmas and say hello. The kids were so sweet when I came in and so happy to see me. They gave me little presents like stuffed animals and a ton of candy--most of which I gave back to them the next couple of days as prizes for the games we played.

The backup plan if I don't find a job that will get me a work visa is to fly to Hong Kong and purchase a tourist visa. That will buy some more time for me to get a work visa which I'll need if I want to go to Tibet which I really want to be able to do.

Happy New Years everyone! I'm looking forward to 2009.

Rachel

Christmas in China

2008-12-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Zhangjiagang. That may come as a surprise to some--that China does Christmas--but in fact, it does. A Christmas with no relation to Christ. Just Santa Claus, lights, and trees. And, for a few Western-wannabe-families, gifts. All of the department stores are decorated. It’s kind of like Cinco de Mayo for college students. It’s an excuse for us (or rather, them….ahhh that’s still weird) to drink tequila and eat queso dip. Except in China’s case its decorate fake plastic trees and put strangely ubiquitous and thin Santas-playing-saxophones out front.

Last week I was making myself some dinner before I biked to my tutee’s house and my coworker, Candice, walks into the kitchen and tells me to cancel my tutoring because of a mandatory Christmas banquet with the mayor of Zhangjiagang that all three of us teachers had to go to in twenty minutes. Oh and there was a crate of apples for me in the front office. So I canceled, lugged my crate back to my apartment, and hopped in a teacher’s car with Candice and Mary Beth to head to the Guo Mao hotel, the same hotel where the Korean service is held, for the banquet. The teacher drops us off and heads home and the three of us sit alone at a big table in a room full of big tables. All of the most prominent businessmen in town were there. After every fifteen-person table in the room was occupied, the organizers of the event finally came and sat down with us. There was lobster! And performers. Jugglers, singers, dancers, Chinese opera--this man danced and somehow changed his mask over and over without actually holding any masks. His hand would slide over his face and there would be a new one. And a Chinese man in sunglasses came out and played “Careless Whisper” on sax. It was so awesome I had to text myself a reminder so I could laugh about it again in the morning. (create message. send to: me. careless whisper.) It would have been better if he’d been in a santa suit.

There was also a raffle and when they asked for volunteers to read off the numbers, of course I volunteered. I didn’t win anything though, but the prize at the door was an electric ceramic teapot. And a little stuffed cow. I gave my cow away though. So crate of apples+teapot=successful day of freebies! And I found a 100 quai bill in my camera case while photographing the events at the banquet! Still not really sure why it was mandatory that we went. I guess they wanted some white faces there.

Look at the ridiculous lobster display. One on every table and there were probably 40 tables.

Then this weekend I got really horrible food poisoning and didn’t leave my room for 48 hours. On Monday I did nothing, Tuesday I went to the bar, last night I went to an EF house party. Not much else to report. It’s still cold. They leave all of the windows open in the classrooms and there is no heat so that’s getting kind of old. Also, now when I bike I have to wear gloves so when a good song comes on my ipod I have to turn up the music by rubbing my nose around the little circle. The other day I was running late for tutoring so I had to substitute some wool socks for gloves because I couldn’t find the gloves in time. So I gave something for everyone to be staring out besides the color of my skin when I was making my way down the street with my floppy sock-hands rubbing a square of shiny metal on my face with my tongue sticking out because its really hard to coordinate biking and rubbing an ipod on your face just the right way.

Rachel

What I want to be when I grow up

2008-12-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

I got the manicure last week. My nails are neon pink with little white flowers that have glittery silver centers. They are so beautiful and tacky and it only cost me 4 American dollars to get a hand-painted design that took a full hour to complete. It was a good time killer but I’m still on the lookout for any nail fungus. When I first biked past this particular nail salon I thought it looked legit, but once I was inside I realized it truly wasn’t. It was filthy and all of the implements were sitting naked in glass cups, not swimming in blue cleaning fluid like they are in America.

Oh and I also realized once inside that most of the clientele were prostitutes who worked in two brothels that flanked the salon. They were really loud and joking around, not like typical Chinese women, and they all were done up to the nines, many of them with white faces—not geisha style but just foundation that was a couple of shades off. I don’t get the appeal. Whitening creams are everywhere for women trying to bleach their faces. When I was in the convenience store I somehow managed to communicate to a saleslady that I was looking for some makeup to cover blemishes and she was trying to push this kind with face whitening on me and I was like do I LOOK like I need that? In nighttime pictures with flash I am nose-less and glowing.

The brothels here are everywhere and somewhat inconspicuous, much different than what I experienced in Amsterdam with clearly demarcated zones and a red light just in case the half-nude woman standing in the window wasn’t a clear enough indication. The two brothels on this road, a non-sketchy road with a big shoe store across the street and the town’s main grocery store a block away, were rooms with storefront windows and filled with couches with bored looking women sitting or standing around talking, eating sunflower seeds, or doing their nails. In the back there is a curtained off room. The women aren’t wearing anything out of the ordinary usually. No fishnet tights or wacky wigs. Just a sweater and jeans. Sometimes a dress.

When I wanted to get a massage last week I was afraid to go into the parlors I passed because I didn’t know which ones were fronts and which ones were legitimate. These are the trickier forms of brothels. It was late at night after a tutoring session that ran long and I really needed to get the tension that had built up in my neck from slouching on my couch watching DVDs or typing with my computer in my lap (like I am doing now). If I had mistakenly gone to a brothel, I still would have gotten a massage but it would have been a crappy one. I had my eye out for the blind massage place. Yeah, it’s kind of weird, but blind people in China often work as masseurs. I had a massage by a blind person during orientation week at one of these places and it was a little creepy. It was my first massage ever and I had just gotten to China so I didn’t realize what his signals (for me to turn over, to lie down, where to move my arms) meant and I would try to talk to him in English and use hand motions that he could not see and he couldn’t recognize that I was talking to him in the first place and not, you know, one of my English speaking friends, because he couldn’t understand me or see me looking and speaking at him.

The blind massage place in Zhangjiagang in called “Blindy Brothers Massage.” I couldn’t find it last Thursday night but I must because I have got to find out what’s going on with that. Do they have some hereditary disease? Or was it like when Laura accidentally poked out the windows in my dollhouse when she was little and so I, in cold blood, poked out the windows in her dollhouse when she got one for Hanukah the next year? But with each other’s eyes? I just think its kind of quirky to have a family business based on a physical handicap.

So I couldn’t find that place and I was afraid of the other massage places/brothels so I went to the one place that I knew was legit, One Tea One Foot. Unfortunately this is a foot massage place that only includes a little neck action at the end. I was curious to find out what a foot massage was like. Some of the EF teachers in town love them. The massage was for an hour and twenty minutes and after about five I realized that foot massages are not for me. My feet are so sensitive and I kept on grimacing as he pummeled them. Even now I am making a face and curling my toes. Ouch. Somehow, after thirty minutes of this torture that I paid for, I convinced the guy to give me a full body massage for the remaining 50 minutes and it was amazing. He beat the crap out of me. When I left the tension was gone but the skin on my neck and back was sensitive to the touch. Cheap massages are definitely something China has going for it. The best part about this particular place is that afterwards they let you pass out for as long as you want in your lazy boy chair.

This past weekend I got to see my cousin Billy. It was so nice to see him! On Saturday night I got to meet some of his friends from when he lived in Shanghai and catch of glimpse of what life is like for thirty-something expats. I’ve mostly been hanging around the twenty-something crowd, all relatively new to Shanghai and China, but these guys have been here for years. That won’t be me I’m pretty sure. Moving to Shanghai is really going to shake things up, but I think I’m going to come home in the summer. On the bus ride back to Zhangjiagang this weekend I read through a free English magazine for expats in Shanghai and I couldn’t believe all of the fun stuff that is going on and available to do there. Everyone keeps saying that I’ll be a better person for living in this small town. I’m not really sure how or why, but I do know that I am totally ready to leave it. Only 4 weeks left!

By the way I think I’ve figured out what my true calling is. I used to secretly think that is was to be a cult leader—if not the face then at least the right hand man, or woman rather. But the success of this weeks’ lesson with my kids (where they race each other to the board and erase vocabulary words) has changed my career trajectory. I’m pretty sure I was put on this earth to be a gameshow host. Now listen, I love and respect the Bob Barkers and Chuck Woolerys of the world, but I’m going to declare it right here: the idea of a female president is all well and good, but true equality will be reached when there is a female gameshow host on prime time television. Meredith Viera doesn’t count. I want to be the sleazy kind of gameshow host that people make t-shirts for.

Next week Mary Beth and I are going to tag team and teach our classes together. Fifty kids, 2 teachers, 225 square feet. Should be exciting.

Rachel

P.S. Did the title make you think that at first I was going to say I wanted to be a prostitute and then a massage artist before I hit you with gameshow host? No? Ok.

Winter time

2008-12-01T22:21:00.001-08:00

It’s been awhile. It has gotten to be winter all of a sudden and there is no heating in the classroom and my room’s heating isn’t all that good so the only thing I want to do when I’m in my room is lie on my couch under blankets and watch dvds. Ugh and the part that’s even worse than the weather and the damp cold that makes my toes freeze even though I wear really thick socks is the CHANTING. Each morning every high schooler must run a government-mandated two miles around the track. Recently, the younger kids have taken up these morning runs too. And the path they take goes right past my window at 9 am sharp. It takes a full ten minutes for the primary students to pass. I looked out the window the other day and saw the river of children with their female homeroom teachers running alongside in their high heeled boots looking miserable so I really can’t complain about my obnoxious daily wake-up chant. Even though it’s up to them to wear the proper footwear. But Chinese women love their high heels; I’ve seen women climbing mountains in stilettos.

One thing that did get me warm in the past several weeks was the heated floor pad at the apartment of a Korean kid I was tutoring. It was so nice that I forgot myself a little and sprawled out even though I was wearing a dress. It is traditional for Koreans to have heated floors that they will sit or lie on, especially in the family room. When I settle down into my own place I will definitely invest in one of those. Stephanie bought a heated blanket, but I’m a little scared of buying my own because I worry it would either result in my apartment building burning down or searing off my flesh in the middle of the night.

What is keeping me warm right now is a big grandpa wool sweater that I bought off the street in Shanghai this past weekend. Somehow in the middle of bargaining with the twenty-something boy who was selling these sweaters dumped half-hazardly on a plastic tarp a crowd of approximately 75-100 older Chinese men gathered around us. Ok, it may have been that the guy was really funny and I was being loud and joking around and I made him take off the sweater he was wearing so I could see if I wanted to buy it. And at one point he started breaking out kung fu moves. I think the crowd that I helped him gather around his little sweater kiosk allowed me to bargain him down from 70 yuan to 30. I washed my sketchy street sweater before I put it on today, and even though I used a lot of Tide detergent is still smells like pine-sol and China.

The way that people will just decide to sell things in random places is remarkable to me. For example, I had been looking for a blanket and so I bought one at the supermarket. Then, the next day as I was biking down the road, a man stopped his bicycle in a parking lot and ripped open the garbage bags stacked on a cart in the back to reveal a bunch of blankets. And people just rushed up to him and started buying blankets. I guess I am just used to needing something and then setting out to buy it instead of just waiting to stumbling onto someone selling it. Especially something practical like blankets. When I am biking home late at night there is always no one out and the city is completely quiet except once there was this random guy selling tube socks on a street corner with a couple of people in pajamas buying them up.

Oh, and before we stumbled onto this street lined with sweaters for sale, we had intended to go to the creepy cricket/animal market to show it to Stephanie’s friend from NYU that was in town but it was CLOSED. And a building that already had about a story and a half built was in its place. The way that they can build up things and tear stuff down is fascinating to me. I figure its because they don’t have to go through the whole hassle of permits and whatever we have in place in the states. Within my first month of living in Zhangjiagang, the old bus station, built of plaster and cement blocks, was closed and the new one of glass and steel took its place. They built a wall around the old one and they just hack at it and whenever I bike past, sandy bits of building fly into my eyes and mouth. I would be afraid of asbestos poisoning, but I doubt they ever try to fireproof anything here. Though they probably should with people setting off fireworks everywhere and at all hours of the day. There is this one scary construction site that hasn’t been worked on in a while. They tore down the old structure and now it is just rubble with a makeshift wall around it. Once I peeked in and there was a family just living in the wreckage. I’m still fascinated by the 1st world and 3rd world coexisting. China’s rise just seems to be happening so fast and sometimes it seems like its all just built on stilts.

Anyways, I finally found a Chinese tutor and I have had two private lessons so far. It really helps. I can already pick up on the words I learn in the conversations that I hear around me. My tutor’s name is Nancy and she used to work with English First, the other organization in town that employs English speakers, as a classroom assistant. Her English is pretty good. I still have to move my head in order to pitch the tones of words correctly. (For example, when the tone goes down and then back up for a syllable, while I say it I have to awkwardly move my chin down and then up.)

I finally got a haircut. I went into this legitimate looking place and they sat me down in the chair in front of the mirror and started spritzing at my hair while adding shampoo and lathered me up right there, nowhere near a sink. She started “massaging” my scalp--which actually meant scratching her nails up and down my head while gathering my hair into a giant rat’s nest at the top. I didn’t realize, but in addition or maybe because of my hair falling out at an alarming rate, my scalp is super sensitive. It got even worse when she rinsed out the shampoo (after sitting me down next to a sink after the “massage”) and tried to disentangle the giant rat’s nest she had just created. She had to enlist the help of another stylist. They were throwing hair to the floor by the fistful. Then after she and the other person got through all of the knots together and the second guy gave me a little trim, he started to blow dry my hair without a brush or any conditioner and gave me a knot-infested ‘fro. There was a lot of miscommunication and it was after tutoring and so I was tired but it ended up turning out fine. I have an hour and a half to kill downtown every Tuesday between when I tutor and when I meet the English First people at the ex-pat bar so that’s what I did last week and it sort of sucked but at least I don’t have split ends anymore! This week I am going to get a manicure.

Thanksgiving was last week and it was a little sad to be away from America, specifically American food. I did get a group together to go eat lunch at the fancy French restaurant in town and so we got to eat something non-Chinese and have a meal with friends. I made some classes draw turkey hands. These kids have never seen or eaten turkey, but it was the one thing that they knew about Thanksgiving until I taught them about the pilgrims etc. One class even started chanting “Turkey! Turkey! Turkey!” when I walked in. So last week was thanksgiving bingo and the week before that I made them fill out a questionnaire in groups with questions like “who in your group has the biggest feet?” and “name all of the musical instruments you can” in addition to questions for my own amusement like “name three things you think Rachel might like.” My favorite list of three was “handsome men, lovely jewelry, squirrels.” For the record, I absolutely hate squirrels and I am just now realizing I haven’t seen any in China or pigeons for that matter. I did see a kitten under a pile of bags in a garbage can and it freaked me out and I didn’t do anything about it. Am I a bad person? This week I am teaching body parts and the best thing to come out of it so far is I found out what the literal Chinese translation of thumb is…..big mother finger.

Not many pictures this week because I have been forgetting to take my camera places with me. The worst was forgetting to take it to Suzhou, this beautiful city that Zhangjiagang is technically a suburb of even though it is a two hour bus ride away. There was this area of town that was actually declared a historical district, something I’ve never seen before in China, and it was full of cute stores with traditional Chinese gifts lining canals. We stumbled onto this secondhand store full of Chinese memorabilia like stamps, postcards, old ticket stubs and magazines. It was pretty neat.

Here is a photo of the old town that I didn't take.

Oh here is one picture I took this past weekend of a crazy Chinese cat/Christmas tree that blew bubbles that I played in:

Here is a tower of books at the bookstore in town that I had to photograph to resist the extremely strong urge I had to knock them all down:

This is a night guard looking lovingly at the cricket he keeps in his pocket for luck. It was so loud we thought it was a noisemaker and then he brought this enormous jarred cricket from his pocket.

Laundry day at school.

That’s all for today. Happy Birthday Mom!

-Rachel

Some scattered thoughts

2008-11-13T00:51:00.001-08:00

It’s been a while. Let me tell you, spending 48 hours within a week on a plane is not good for your health. I lost my voice last week and I’m just now getting it back. After spending a week in America, I returned feeling very disoriented, like my brain was floating overhead, only attached by a string. Last week was a culture shock explosion. I didn’t really have time to deal with being back in America and then I was thrust back into China, this time without the buzz and glitter that new places give off. So it was just my same little town, Zhangjiagang, now with the food not tasting quite as good and the realization that beds in China are really hard! When I sat down on my first American bed, I felt like I was lying on a mattress filled with marshmallow fluff. And then I came back here and figured out that I sleep on a wooden box with a thin mattress pad on top of it. I was wondering why I would wake up with my shoulders asleep when I slept on my side.
Food in China. Seriously...THIS picture is thought to be appetizing enough to blow up into a five foot tall poster. Random meat chunks in a pool of oil and salty broth. Do I only feel this way as a former vegetarian? Or are people agreeing with me here?

Luckily, having no voice gave me an excuse to show the kids a movie last week while I allowed my brain to find its proper place back inside my head. I chose “Freaky Friday” and they loved it! The best part is I forgot that a pivotal scene takes place in a Chinese restaurant! I leapt out of my seat in the first class I showed it to and exclaimed in my raspy mucus voice, “This is what we THINK Chinese restaurants are like in America. We love Chinese food. See! Chopsticks!” and then the film went on to show lots of cultural stereotypes of Chinese people that I hope flew right over the kids’ heads. At one point, Lindsey Lohan starts talking about some “strange Asian voodoo” and a couple of the kids in my more advanced classes kind of chuckled to themselves. Also, at the Chinese restaurant in the movie there are fortune cookies BUT trivia fact--fortune cookies are an American invention. Most Chinese kids have never heard of them.

.....

I never had the chance to talk about my trip to Hangzhou. It feels like I went there YEARS ago. It was a great trip. I definitely want to go back there again because there were a couple of things I didn’t get to see. One part of that trip that has stuck with me these past couple of weeks is the Six Harmonies pagoda, or in Chinese, the Liuhe pagoda. Pagodas are these multistoried towers built for Buddhist religious reflection. They are all throughout China, and this was my first. In addition to its religious purposes, the Liuhe pagoda was built in 1165 as a lighthouse for boats on the Qiantang River which is faces. Inside, I could really feel that it was a spiritual place. Something about the form itself--the inscribed hallways that built to be paced while contemplating and the way space inside the building was manipulated to give a feeling of both connectedness and disjuncture.

The pagoda, my travel companions, and myself. Kind of a sucky photo, but you can see what a pagoda looks like.

My favorite place was on the second to last floor, the one floor where the supporting column in the center of the room was exposed. It was a massive block of wood, round and covered in flaking red paint. I sat down to one side of it, facing the bridge that crossed the river, and the three people I was traveling with joined me, each of us facing a different direction with a different view. The “Six harmonies” that the pagoda is named for symbolize both the six principles of Buddhism (something like this: do not fight, do not be greedy, do not seek, do not be selfish, do not pursue personal advantage, and do not lie) and the 6 directions: North, South, East, West, Heaven, and Earth. At that moment the pole was heaven and earth and each of us one of the directions. After contemplating our view we switched until we had seen what we could from the windows in all four directions.
One view from the column. Do you see what I mean about the hallways and the space inside? Probably not and this photo doesn't really do it justice. It was early evening at this point and the light wasn't good.

.....

This past weekend was the first I stayed in town for the whole weekend. On Saturday I slept for sixteen hours, not including the two or so hours I spent asleep in the movie theater in town watching the new James Bond movie dubbed in Chinese. When I woke up on Sunday morning I felt amazing. It’s all thanks to melatonin, a hormone that the human body naturally produces to enable sleep. I take a melatonin pill sometimes in the States, and I found it here at a Chinese drugstore. By the way, Chinese drugstores are fascinating places. The melatonin was on the shelf wedged between the cow placenta pills and the kangaroo essence tablets. I wonder what parts of the kangaroo are included in its essence and what benefits this essence has for human health? Seriously, I am really interested in Chinese medicine. This particular drugstore had a few English labels (how I found the melatonin), but no English explanations.

When I was in Hangzhou I went into a beautiful Chinese pharmacy and saw lots of scary fetal roots in jars, tree bark and other random plant matter in cases, and jars and jars of herbal medications. People had prescription slips filled out that they brought to a window and got a bag of some herb handed to them. I like the use of natural ingredients to treat ailments and I really wanted to know what everything was. I want to take a class on Eastern medicine.

Here are the roots that remind me of fetuses. Is it just because they are floating in jars?

.....

Sunday morning, Mary Beth and I went to a Korean church service. We were invited by the priest and the church’s president one time at the expat bar. The church consists of a room at the nicest hotel in town, The Guomao. The altar has the hotels logo on it in big block letters, and organ music is played from a macbook in the corner. During the announcement portion of the service, in the middle of a bunch of Korean, I heard “Rachel” and everyone turned to look at me and applaud. I swear, I don’t think a room of Asians applauding me will ever get old (or a room full of people from any continent for that matter, but it just doesn’t happen as much in North America). One of the church members owns a Korean restaurant in town and after the service every Sunday he serves up a big free meal for everyone who attends. And it was so tasty! Korean food is much lighter that Chinese food with less oil and more vegetables. I liked the kimchee (pickled cabbage) so much that the restaurant owner had his wife, who handmakes it, package me up a big box of the smelly stuff to take home. And then he took us for a golf lesson at Zhangjiagang driving range! Sunday was the first day it stopped raining all week and it was a clear crisp fall day. This man, Mr. Shee, used to be a professional golf player in Korea and now teaches golf as a side job. He gave us a free lesson and it was really fun!
Me and Mr. Shee. He kept telling me that I looked like Tiger Woods. I asked him how and he said because I was tall.

.....

Even though after coming back I felt sort of harsh towards China, I’m getting to love its ways again. I think my emotions are really tied to how much sleep I am getting a night. Though sleeping on a hard mattress and eating Chinese food are sort of getting old, two mundane activities I really enjoy doing are going to the post office and getting my bike fixed. The post office is really old fashioned. They use envelopes straight out of the 1920’s and the lady working there had to use a paintbrush dipped in a bottle of glue in an old brown bottle to close it. And when I go to get my bike fixed, usually they don’t charge me anything for labor but only for parts which means nine times out of ten I sit there on a stool about three inches from the ground watching this sweet man tinker away inside a dark dirty alcove where he keeps his tools with his bedroom in the back room behind a door and when he is done he sends me off with a smile and a wave.

To close, an anecdote from when I was still attempting to teach last week before my voice was completely gone. I made up a lesson about superheroes because the kids all love comic books so much. For the warm up I had them name all of the superheroes they could think of and then describe each super hero’s super powers. One kid said Mao Zedong and when I asked the class what his super powers were, they came up with this (granted, it was a lower level class): 1. has many wives 2. saved China 3. is talkative.

And here is a picture of a typical scene at the expat bar. EF boys and an Indian businessman:

Alright well I am off to tutor a Korean kid, but first I'm going to stop and pick up a Diet Coke and chug it because I fell asleep in both of our last two sessions.

-Rachel

A lucky week

2008-10-16T01:29:00.001-07:00

On my birthday last Thursday my afternoon classes and all of Friday’s got cancelled because of some physics exam. I hopped on a bus to Shanghai to start off the birthday weekend a day earlier than planned. Because of the cancellation I got to vote! I didn't know if I'd be able to because the embassy in Shanghai is only open during the week until 2:30 pm, I didn’t get my ballot until the day of my birthday, and Alabama 1. requires that you have the document notarized and 2. won’t let voters send in ballots through Fed ex (which is providing free expedited mailing service for expat voters accepted in EVERY state besides Alabama). Hey Alabama, way to live up to your reputation for disenfranchising. The lady at the embassy was like, "Are you sure you need a notary? Very few states require a notary. And we are going to send this Fed Ex, that is the only mailing service we offer for voters." I had to talk to three people and convince them that "Alabama is different."

Friday night was the big celebration night. We got off the subway on the way to a Dutch borrel (beer party) for Dutch expats, and Steph stopped in at this club that has western toilets. She ran in first and Emily and I came in a few seconds later and entered a room lined with Chinese men and women sitting on barstools. They started applauding and so I danced up and down the big open space in the center of the room while they cheered and then ran up and down the length of the crowd giving out high fives. Afterwards, while standing at a table munching on some free food this guy told us to eat, we found out we had stumbled upon a birthday party for the six or so people who have October birthdays in this group of coworkers? friends? At this time, I was wearing “special occasion pants” (shiny really 80’s lycra stretch pants) and a birthday hat Steph made for me that said “it’s my birthday” in both English and Dutch. We were each given a small red scented candle to hold as we fell in line with everyone else. Then, a massive three-tiered cake was brought out and set up, beautifully decorated with fruit and cherry tomatoes.

Soon, the guests of honor come in blindfolded, unaware of the vigil of people standing in a circle holding lit candles. You could tell they were being told to watch out for holes and obstacles because they were moving really awkwardly. Each blindfolded person had a guide and as they were walked around the room the people sitting on stools would hold up their legs and make them maneuver around or hold the burning flames of the candles to their faces. Some of the people in the room were pretty drunk. Eventually one of the Chinese people who was explaining everything that was going on to us told the hostess who was busy interviewing the blindfolded guests that it was my birthday too. So they brought me up with the six other people and gave me a white rose from someone else's bouquet. Everyone sang happy birthday to us and then broke out into this chant in Chinese. A woman standing next to me translated it for me. The chant was basically about counting your blessings. For example, the crowd would say “For your parents who gave birth to you and cared for you” and the birthday people would respond to each statement by shouting “I love you.” Then we all took turns cutting the cake. They gave me a giant piece and Steph, Emily, and I dug in at the bar where we also drank some free wine. It was really special. Rabbit rabbit works people.

The high fives that occurred after the applause and before we figured out what all of those people were there for.

On the street outside the borrel. A beggar's child who was fascinated with my birthday hat. I let him wear it for a little while. So cute!

The next day Steph and I went to the Science and Technology Museum way out in Pudong. It was absolutely massive. It kicked the McWane Center’s ass. As an added bonus, there were strangely serious placards at the different exhibits preaching Obama-like messages of peace and harmony with things like robots and spiders. For example:

There was a big exhibit dedicated to outer space. China is very proud of the space program it is building. Steph and I got to harness ourselves up and feel what its like to walk on the moon. And I found out about China being the very first in at least one aspect of space exploration--growing mutant space vegetables. Apparently, in space, because cells grow all messed up, you can breed a genetically mutated cucumber with 30% more vitamin C!

Speaking of nutrition, since I have been here, I have acclimated myself to Chinese cuisine. I like the food, especially street food (even though it has been wreaking havoc on my digestive system and most of what I eat is nutritionally barren). However, pancakes, fluffy oversized pancakes with maple syrup, are something I have been craving since I arrived. On Sunday in Shanghai we went to a diner that served American food and I finally found some pancakes! It was a perfect way to end my birthday weekend. Unfortunately, one unlucky thing did happen this week: I lost my phone after dropping my purse on the ground about fifty times on Friday night. But, when I bought a new one today, they did give me two free thermoses!

Another fortunate event that happened this week was sports day. Because of sports day I got today and yesterday off while the kids competed in various track and field competitions. Yesterday Mary Beth and I went on a long bike ride to one of the beautiful parks South of the city and watched the sun set over the lake. And today I finally got my birthday package! It was held up in customs for a couple of weeks and I was starting to think I was never going to see it. Included in the package was a box of cake mix and a box of brownie mix. It’s going to be hard to make those in a wok. I’m thinking that I can make little batches and put them in foil bowl and bake them in the toaster oven that we have. Chinese kitchens don't have ovens.

Today I bought some new pillows because the ones that were here when I moved in are totally grody and smell funky when I go to bed with my hair wet. Yesterday, when I washed my sheets for the first time, I saw that they were all stained and just gross. So I’m biking home with one pillow hanging on each handlebar and the wind is blowing them out perpendicular to my bike and I’m taking up a lot of space. Bike lanes here are part of the sidewalk and though they are red and the sidewalks are grey, pedestrians walk on both indiscriminately. On this one shopping road the sidewalks are always full and there are little guards stationed every 15 feet with whistles and armbands pointing and blowing their whistle at you if you bike in the car-less street. So I was forced to bike down the sidewalk and hit all of the oblivious pedestrians in the butt with my new pillows as I cycled past.

This weekend I am NOT going to Shanghai for a change, but a little bit further South to a city called Hangzhou. I’m excited to see a new place! Maybe I'll find some shoes there because one of my two pairs has a whole in it and they have foreign clothing stores there like H and M. Salespeople just shake their heads every time I walk into a Chinese shoe store here and hold my hands out far apart to indicate that I need something in size YETI.

Till next time,

Rachel

Vacation update/Happy Birthday to me

2008-10-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

For 23 hours to Guilin and 23 hours back I sat on a train in the “hard sleeper” cabin. A hard sleeper is a made up of little cubbies with three hard and narrow beds stacked on each side for a total of six beds per cubby. At one end of the car is a small room with two sinks and two toilets (“squatters” as we call them) with a conveniently placed bar that you can hold on to to stop yourself from swaying side to side with the train and missing your target. The other end has a boiling water station to fill up your tea thermos or your noodle bowl. It wasn’t actually so bad. On the way down, we made French, Israeli, and Canadian friends and on the way back we occupied ourselves by making hundreds of origami paper stars (something a Korean girl I tutor turned me on to). Lucky for us, we didn’t have hard seats like the Canadians I met sitting in the front of the train on rows of plastic benches, three seats across, with two rows facing each other. I met the Canadians in the dining car downing beer to prepare themselves for a long night in these crowded seats with people who bought standing room only (!) tickets huddled around them in the same car but without chairs. It was pretty brutal in there.

Rosh Hashanah=an apple, honey, and an Israeli on a crowded train.

After a train ride that wasn’t so bad really except for brief moments of desperation, we got to Guilin and took an hour and a half bus ride to Yangshuo. The landscape of the area is filled with eery and beautiful karst peaks (a karst landscape is one that is shaped by dissolution of rock by acidic water). Yangshuo itself is a cute little tourist town with dense streets and lots of little shops selling things like fans, scarves, and other Chinese tchotchkes.

During our stay we went on a bamboo raft ride down the Yulong River. We had a little bit of a wait once we got to the river while everything got set up—it was all a little hectic that day because it was the actual national holiday (October 1st) and Yangshuo was packed with Chinese tourists. While waiting, we were constantly harassed by old ladies selling various merchandise including little flower wreaths for your hair, stupid water guns made out of PVC pipe, postcards, and random little trinkets. These old ladies were everywhere in Yangshuo. They were really freaking cute and a bunch of them bring around their doubly cute toddler-aged grandchildren.

To turn down peddlers, there is a phrase in Chinese that you are supposed to say--“bu yow”--which means “I don’t need.” It hadn’t been working for us that well the day before as we ate on the patio of a restaurant with old lady after old lady coming to our table. However, later that night, someone revealed to us the secret to getting those little old ladies to back off: 1. wave your hand really fast back and forth from the wrist 2. make a little frowny face. This is what the Chinese themselves do. The original gesture is pretty subtle and effective, but not the way I do it. To ensure that there is no question about whether or not I want what they are selling, I hold my arm out straight and stiff with my hand very close to the peddler’s face, make an exaggerated frowny face, turn my upper body away from them, and shout “bu yow!!” At first I felt bad doing this to toothless old ladies with babies strapped to their backs, but they all just laugh good-naturedly and then peace out. One imitated the way I say bu yow but she said it in a really gruff man voice that I don’t think I really sound like but maybe I do. Is this a bad way to start of the new year--dissing sweet, smiley, and tenacious old ladies one by one? By the way, the Chinese tourists totally bought all of those stupid little crap things. An older gentleman even shot at me with one of the water guns while I was on my bamboo raft and got me wet.

Floating down the river for two hours with the beautiful scenery on either side of us was very relaxing. Even more so because Steph and I both had a couple of beers that were sold from stationary bamboo stands in the middle of the river. By the time we got to the end of the ride and got off, we were a little tipsy. Immediately, a cute little six-year-old boy took our beer bottles to recycle them. (You couldn’t hang on to an empty container for more than five minutes without a little kid or an old lady taking it from you to recycle. It was great.) And then…we stumbled onto one of the many photo opportunity stations that are set up all around Yangshuo—some monkeys dressed up in shiny little suits on stools. Stephanie forked over the 75 cents and we had a great photo shoot with some tiny furry monkeys.

Chinese people actually often like to have their own little photo shoots with us. When people ask to take pictures with me I don’t mind, especially when it is an entire family because it’s so funny and odd (last night I had a group of 15 businessmen stop me on the street to take pictures with me, one by one), but what weirds me out is people doing it on the sly. I’m standing there staring into space and thinking about what I want for lunch and then I notice some random 40 year old Chinese man standing ten feet away taking pictures of me. When Steph and I went swimming in the Li River in Yangshuo, we started asking the creepy fools taking our picture for three yuan just like the monkey station does. No one paid up though.

In a mud cave we went to after the bamboo raft. Some lucky Chinese tourists get to show their families yours truly rocking a mud fu manchu.

While in Yangshuo, Steph and I took a cooking class from this great lady named Jessie. She took us to the market and I realized why Chinese grocery stores are full of noodle bowls and little else--because Chinese people still cook for themselves. They go to markets several times during the week to buy fresh produce, meat, and fish. It was great going to one of these markets with Jessie because we could point to all of the vegetables that we had never seen before and ask her what they were and how Chinese people cook them. There were like 10 different kinds of sweet potato that all look completely different. In addition to things that you would expect in China like lotus root and bamboo shoots, there are also lots of different types of corn, squash, mushrooms, and melon that we don’t have. The variety of produce in China is much greater than you can find in a typical grocery store in America. After we bought the vegetables and watched a carp fish get killed for us we brought our stuff back to Jessie’s place. She had a huge patio with a beautiful view and a bunch of woks for us to cook on. We made kung pao chicken (called gung pao in china), dumplings, eggplant, and beer fish (the local specialty--carp cooked with locally brewed beer). Carp fish are part of the iconic image of Yangshuo: a fisherman on a bamboo raft with two cormorant birds tied to it. These large scary looking birds with crazy eyes catch the carp in their beaks but can’t swallow them because of the strings tied around their necks. The fisherman take the fish out of the birds’ mouths and put them into buckets. I’m not exactly sure if this is the method that Yangshuo fishermen still use or if it just for tourists now. BTW Steph also had a photoshoot with the birds tied to a pole. I was too afraid and I didn’t do the monkey thing either because I don’t want to get rabies.

The view from Jessie's balcony and our cooking class.

Some lady at the market loading up her scooter with a big bucket of freaking out live carp. It has to feel so odd having those fish bodies writhing around against your calves.

On Friday morning we left Yangshuo for Guilin, the big city we were leaving from on Saturday morning. Once we got to the hostel, Stephanie wanted to nap so I left with a book to walk around and explore on my own. After taking a couple of photos with random teenagers that stopped me on the street, a man said hello to me and started walking with me on the path alongside the river. His name was Tang and he said he was a teacher too. We walked around for a while and he told me lots of stuff about the area. Then he conned me into spending all of this money on tea and I didn’t even really realize I had been scammed until later that day. First, he walked me by a tea shop and casually asked if I wanted to go inside. He was so freaking excited about tea and we were trying a bunch of different types. It felt like a cultural experience and I was learning about the customs of tea drinking and what different teas were good for (your skin or your blood pressure and other crap like that). A “tea expert” who worked at the store was drinking with us and saying lots of stuff in Chinese that Tang would translate for me. Then Tang pulled out three big ones (300 yuan) for this big old box of tea and I was like wow that’s a lot of cash for tea. Then I spent all of this money and walked back to the hostel feeling buyers’ remorse but also really good about what I learned and the little “experience” I just had. Mary Beth went on a similar buying trip, but she was just approached on the street and was straight up asked if she wanted some tea while I had the little walk-around. Tang buying the tea for himself threw me off. One clue that I didn’t notice at the time is that the labels for the tea, written in Chinese with a number value, were labeled A, B, C to show what level of quality they were at. Why would they use the English alphabet? Afterwards, in a grocery store I looked at tea prices and the most expensive was 50 for a big box. I bought 2 small boxes for 100 each. I guess I’m getting a little bitter about getting ripped off all the time because I am white. I am getting paid in Chinese yuan and my salary translates to way below the poverty line in America, but here in China I am doing alright, but not as well as every salesperson here assumes.

Hey it has been my birthday here for less than an hour. You know what I did for the past two hours that I have never done on my own initiative before (is it on my own initiative or of my own initiative)? Mopped. I know, it’s a pretty big deal for me. My feet were getting all black just walking around my room. Also, non sequitur, today when I was biking home from the grocery store I heard an ice cream truck and I got all excited to try the Chinese version of a Choco Taco, but then I saw that the vehicle making the tinkling kids’ music was a big old street cleaning truck. Bummer. It’s Yom Kippur. I don’t really know what sort of statement you are supposed to make to another person on this day; I know it’s not happy Yom Kippur....May you all be sealed in the Book of Life.

-Rachel

Settling in

2008-09-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-09-09T23:42:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-09-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

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

Hello there

2008-08-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

So I finally made it to my town Zhangjiagang (pronounce Jong-Jeeyog-Gong….still working on it). I had a little breakdown yesterday, but things are looking up after I spent some time with the two other American English teachers who are here. This entire past week had been a crazy, fun, busy week, but it has also been filled with Americans and held in a crazy, fun, busy city and I knew that wouldn’t last. The high school (I am teaching 13-16 year olds) is located a couple of blocks outside the center of town and yesterday, on my walk to the grocery store to buy toilet paper alone, I was overwhelmed by the tiny shops lining the street that are more like caves then shops, just alcoves with signs above them and a garage type door that pulls down at the end of the day. The dusty beat up couches and dress models that they were selling made me believe that I was in deep China, away from civilization. I, however, am not. There are also a couple of other English speakers here, British people working for some program called English First that I haven’t yet met but hope to at Malone’s, the famed (thanks to Wikipedia) American style bar that Candice, one of the other two girls here, pointed out to me on our way to dinner last night.

I’m not completely anxiety-free yet though. My first classes start tomorrow and I have five-count-em-five periods to get through. Each one is only forty minutes so hopefully it won’t be too painful. I have twenty classes a week which totals sixteen hours. This is a lot more than the Chinese English teachers have to take on, but I think that they get paid less than we do. This past week during orientation there was some time devoted to teaching tips and we even had to do a practice lesson in front of everybody for twenty minutes. I sort of screwed mine up with a complicated game that was confusing everyone, but everyone said my diction was clear and free of extraneous language and idioms, which is what I was concentrating on so hard that I stopped making complete sense. We had two experienced teachers who started with CIEE and have stayed in China teaching as independents for several years help us out. I still don’t feel really prepared, but I figure it’s a sort of learn as you go process. The other two girls here actually were with CIEE last year and came back on their own and so I have been asking them questions and am glad to have them both as resources. One girl, Candice, actually worked here at the Foreign Language School. (sidenote: the flags that line the driveway from the gate to the parking lot say Forrign Language School) The other girl, Mary Beth, worked at another town that is an hour bus ride away where a bunch of other CIEE people were sent this year. The two of them know each other from College of Charleston which they graduated from in 2006.

I want to devote a little bit of time to decribing the lead-up to my breakdown. I didn’t sleep much on Friday night. A group of people went out to a club but I stayed back with some other people, got wine at a little convenience store by the hotel we were staying at in the Shanghai Jiaotong University campus, and hung out in the park. I got to bed late and woke up at 6:30 with my roommate, Emily--a girl I got along with really well, who was leaving at 7:30 to catch her flight to her town, Baoding, that is right by Beijing. I then proceeded to pace and wring my hands until I got picked up by a Chinese-American teacher named Ken (obviously his English name, all students when they are very young pick an English name that stays with them). His English was alright--there was still a lot of miscommunication between us--but he was pretty nice. He just moved here two weeks ago from way up North in a town close to Russia and he has never taught before so he wasn’t so great at answering the questions that I had. After the hour and 45 minute car ride from Shanghai we stopped to get some lunch. Chinese meals at restaurants all work the same way. Someone orders a ridiculous amount of food that the people at the table could never possibly finish and they are brought out in random spurts and put on a lazy susan which you pick from with your chopsticks and put onto a tiny plate or into a tiny bowl. As a guest I got to make some suggestions. I told him meat made my stomach upset because Chinese people don’t get not eating meat. I said I liked tofu and fish dishes. He ordered a tofu dish that was good along with fish FACE, pig ear strips, chicken claws, eggs with shredded boiled pork skin, and some delicious orange colored soup with mysterious and dense tan colored balls that I ate without questioning. I laughed to myself at the selection of foods and then abruptly stopped laughing when the driver of the car pulled off the left side of a fishes face, like the flat bone part where the eye is, and shoved it in his mouth. Oh yeah, they also ordered shrimp which they eat with the shell, eyeballs, and tail on. My teeth can’t freaking even grind through that. Their esophagi must be lined with steel.

Afterwards I got to my apartment which is nice. I have tall ceilings and dorm-like furniture: a double bed (!), a desk, a tv I doubt I will never watch, a nightstand, some built in shelves, and a huge cabinet/closet. The walls are full of like sticky stuff and tape from the crap other people put up in the past. I have my own bathroom which is a little gross. According to Candice, the guy who lived here before me was sort of gross and messy. The sheets on the bed smelled like Watermyn (the condemned co-op I lived in my senior year at Brown) but I bought new ones yesterday along with a phone! I am so glad Candice was there to help me out she speaks pretty good Chinese that she learned here last year. My number is 1377-628-8703.

I have so much to tell you, there is so much here that is new and exciting or strange to me and it is sometimes extremely overwhelming but I am also starting to feel some ownership already. What I mean by ownership is that feeling of familiarity with the culture. In Amsterdam that meant when I was riding my bike and hissing at tourists or when I would see something and think to myself “oh that it so quintessentially Dutch” and smile. It happened the other day when I left the hotel to buy a bottle of water and I was walking through the park and I heard the music and saw the little ladies who practice dancing with their fans every morning in the park alongside the old people practicing tai chi. On the other hand, there is also a lot of distance created by the way I, as an American and a Jew and a neurotic, express emotion compared to the Chinese. It seems difficult to truly connect and make friends with Chinese people, especially in this town where few people outside of the Chinese English teachers speak English. I am kind of hoping that through this experience I can learn a little bit from them about how to approach life and grow up and outside of myself. By that I mean to fill my mind not with the constant and consuming self-reflection but more with the workings of the outside world. That’s why I think I like traveling so much and that is why I am excited for the upcoming months even though there are times when I don’t think that I am strong enough to do this.

I took a million notes on the past week since I have been here and I have a lot to say but I think that this is enough for now. When i figure out how to post photos I will.

-Rachel