human contact

My first few days here were pretty hard and such a big part of that, outside of the obvious culture shock, was lack of human contact. When you move, you never know who you're going to keep in touch with.

Since I've been here, I've had more contact with the guy I was dating in Phoenix, that when I left basically told, "I'm moving to China, of course we're not staying together," than anyone else. And he's been great. Between email, skype and random dorky videos, he's been my best sanity saver.

It's not that there aren't people here or that I don't talk to anyone, everyone at my school is really friendly and eager to talk to me. A few of them speak very good English. I had a formal introduction at school where I got up in front of the staff, gave them a quick rundown on my background and they were allowed to ask questions and introduce themselves. Almost every single one of them said they wanted to be my friend or offered to help me or teach me Chinese. They really are all wonderful, but it's definitely not the same as talking to native English speakers. None of the other English teachers (there are 5) were here when I got here, they were all still on holiday.

Since then, a Chinese American grad student, a French Canadian teacher/world traveler and an Indonesian Canadian college student have returned. We are expecting two more by month's end. They have definitely be fantastic to have around. The Chinese American grad student is leaving in two weeks and I'm moving from The Crack Den into his apartment. The French Canadian has been with the school for five years and is more middle aged; she's very used to being on her own and prefers not to hang out much with English speakers because then she doesn't use her Chinese. She does teach French to people at the school though, so I'm excited for that opportunity, and she is a great resource for places to adventure. The Indonesian Canadian has been at the school since September and is leaving in spring, but she's fun, she likes to get out and do things and she knows some other English teachers in the city.

Outside of them, I also talk to a guy that taught at the school for a few months in fall, pretty much every day. He was my round two interviewer for teaching here, after the school director, and he has definitely been my best reference for tips on actually living in China. He's amazing; he is always available, can sympathize with most anything that happens (being an American, having taught in China and worked for my school more specifically) and extremely helpful. I just found out this morning that when I didn't email my mom until around 10am the day after I arrived, after emailing my boss she actually emailed him, and he got back to her right away!

I keep in contact with my mom more now living across the world, than I did living across the country, go figure. I'm sure it's helping to save her sanity too. She cracks me up though, we had our first skype date this morning and she was trying to talk me into giving her power of attorney while I'm gone, or at least medical power of attorney. I AM NOT DYING MOM, just living in China :) Anyone that knows Sher, please feel free to remind her that I will be fine, I think it will help her. She read a lot of horror stories about China online before I left.

Being a few days in now (has it really only been four days?!), I'm getting out more, staying up past 7pm (even if it is a struggle) and much happier in general. A lot of people have been coming out of the woodwork saying they live in China or know somehow who does and have been trying to connect because they know it can be very isolating being a foreigner here. It's a nice reassurance of the inherent good in mankind! Thanks guys and keep it coming.