unpacking & repacking

For someone without a lot of stuff, it sure seems like I have a lot... this is what I'm coming home to after work to finish packing what I'm bringing to Tianjin tomorrow and what I'm going to leave with the Indonesian Canadian while I'm gone.

random pix: shrimp waist

I love translations over here, they are clearly rarely proofread by native English speakers.

"Shrimp waist and cigar box"... appetizing!

they're on to me

Haha, I've been figured out. One of the Chinese teachers had a lot of English questions for me and was interrupting my lesson planning the other day. To say thank you he bought me chocolate ice cream. Apparently in da ren fa (the big grocery store) they have Western style ice cream; it was delicious! Food is definitely the way to my heart (and the best bribe!).

badminton

Foreigners badminton league played tonight and we had a blast! The last time I played has to have been middle school or high school gym class. I'm definitely not good, but I'm not absolutely terrible. It's all for fun anyway and it's a good group.

You pay a bit to play, and there is a woman there that is the sneaker Nazi. Black soled shoes, even sneakers, are not allowed on the badminton courts for some reason or other, and she keeps an eagle eye on everyone's feet to make sure no black soles sneak by her. She made a couple of us, myself included, play in our socks.

We played for a couple of hours and then went out to dinner. It really does feel like a little family, even though I just met most of these people on Tuesday. They were all very happy for me getting everything straightened out and going to Tianjin Sunday. Hopefully I'm able to connect with some great people there too… and maybe play some more badminton!

running errands

Yesterday morning before work I was able to go to the bank and exchange USD for yuan, add more minutes to my China Mobile SIM card and go to Honey Bread and get breakfast all by myself without a translator. Very exciting stuff, made me very happy! The Bank of China and China Mobile people recognize me (even though I've only been in the bank once), and the people at Honey Bread tried to speak a little English to me. This is getting fun...

Tianjin & a night on the town

Boo for poor internet connections! Not sure what happened last night, but my internet at my apartment wasn't working and it was being a little finicky at work yesterday as well, which explains the seriously slowed pace of posting the past day or two. Well that, and a lot has happened lately.

So, the owner of my school also owns a "school" in Tianjin, near TEDA (Tianjin Economic Development Area). I say school in air quotes because there is no physical school or office space. 97% of the business there is contracts with large corporations and the government, so English teachers there go out to the businesses or government organizations to teach. He had mentioned to me earlier this week that maybe in a month or so he might like to have me go out to Tianjin to teach for a bit and try that out. Given my professional background he thought it would be a good fit.

Well on Wednesday, he asked me to go to Tianjin this coming Sunday to try it out for a month and see what I think. I had looked up Tianjin previously, so I knew it was warmer and a much bigger city with many more people, more foreigners and more things to do. It sounded worth giving a try and I got pretty excited about it. I mentioned that I had a lot of luggage and he said I would keep my apartment here too, so I could leave everything in it and just bring one bag.

Pause this storyline momentarily.

Also on Wednesday, the other Midwestern girl in Songyuan and the Filipino (who turns out is actually Mexican, whoever said he was Filipino was messing with him) organized a group of foreigners to go out to dinner, so the Indonesian Canadian, the Chinese American grad student and I went and met them. Aside from the five of us, there was a guy from their school that used to work for US Airways in Phoenix and a Chinese guy that I had met at badminton on Tuesday. Dinner was phenomenal and family style, so I got to try a bunch of different things. The Midwesterner and the Mexican are really the only people I've met here that drink, so we had a couple beers with dinner.

They were going out to a "bar" after dinner to meet some other friends, so I conned the Chinese American into coming, even though he doesn't drink much, and we joined them. Songyuan doesn't really have bars, they have ktv (karaoke) bars and clubs, but not regular bars. We went and met an older British guy that has been teaching in Songyuan for five years and an Aussie that has been here for three. We got after it pretty good there and had a great time. I may or may not have friendly bullied the Chinese American into having a few beers as well.

After that we were hungry again and I mentioned that I was craving Mexican food; the Mexican said he knew of a Mexican place in the area so I got quite excited and we headed there for a bite. It was not Mexican food. At all. It was Chinese food that uses one pepper that is also used in Mexican food, definitely a letdown, but pretty funny.

Then it was about time to go home, but the Midwestern/Mexican couple was telling us about this lake near their apartment that is frozen and you can walk across, so we took our shenanigans onto the frozen lake; good times were had by all. And that is the story of my first night out on the town in Songyuan!

So, I had shown up to dinner quite excited about the Tianjin opportunity and it was a topic of discussion all evening. The other foreigners are much more experienced for the most part, so they brought up a lot of good points for me and gave me a bit of a reality check. I was kind of freaked out by the time I got home. They said I needed to see if I was actually going to be in Tianjin (which they said is an awesome city), or just close, and if not in the city, how close, how near to public transit, etc. They said they had heard of someone from my school that went there and ended up sharing an apartment with their teaching assistant when they weren't expecting to, so I needed to check on that. They told me that the cost of living there is significantly higher, especially if I plan to go out, so I would need a raise. They also said I should leave my things with someone in Songyuan, not in my empty apartment, just in case.

I addressed all of that with my owner yesterday. I will be just outside Tianjin, 20 minutes by bullet train maybe 40 by regular, and my apartment will be within a five yuan taxi ride of the major public transit (all taxi rides in Songyuan are five yuan unless you are going FAR). I will have the option of living alone or sharing my apartment with my TA, I can check out the apartments when I get there. I got a small raise and if I decide to stay there after a month I will ask for more. I also arranged to leave my stuff in the Indonesian Canadian's apartment while I am gone. If I decided to stay I'll figure out how to get it here at that point.

All that settled, I now have a flight to Tianjin for this Sunday night! I'm excited, but it's bittersweet because I am also sad to be leaving Songyuan and the amazing people that I have found this week; we have a great little community here and I have been very happy the past few days (feels so much longer!). We'll see what the month in Tianjin brings!

outside The Crack Den

This is the back side of The Crack Den. My bedroom and kitchen look out this way.

This is the front side of the building.

My front door is the middle one (remember the bunny?). The stuff on the ground next to it smells bad and hasn't moved in the past week.

Same goes for this stuff on the landing below.

inside The Crack Den

I was feeling somewhat bad about calling The Crack Den The Crack Den for about half a minute, until I went over to the Chinese American grad student's apartment Wednesday night to be nosy and see where I might be moving into if I stay in Songyuan and saw how much better it is. It's like twice the size, not that The Crack Den is that small, but the bathroom is a zillion times better (which, as we all know, is huge for me), it's much newer, and just light years better in general. The Crack Den remains. A few people have asked me for pictures so, feast your eyes on these!

This is a small area off of my bedroom. It sticks off the back of the building, adjacent to the kitchen, and is not heated.

bedroom (duh)

Ugh. Note the shower head on the left. Also, just under it in the corner is where my washer was. The thing my loofah is hanging off of is the spout where you have to fill the washer to do laundry.

More ugh.

Washer!

Living room looking back into the kitchen. Yes, there is a random Pepsi fridge. Don't ask questions... I don't.

Kitchen area, again, sticking off the back of the building and unheated.

and so it begins

When I came here, I thought I was going to prefer teaching very young learners. I told my school as much, but I asked to teach a bit of every age group and English level just to get the experience, and see if maybe something else turned out to be a better fit. This is the beauty of private schools, and mine in particular, the opportunity for flexibility and catering my classes towards what I want.

I had my first "class" yesterday, I tutored a high school senior for two hours. She is applying to universities at the end of this school year and would like to study English there, so she is coming to my school for additional study above and beyond her public school English classes. Since I am tutoring her, not working through a class with a book, I come up with all of the materials and focus on whatever she needs to get in to the university. I have her working with Judy Blume's "Are you there God? It's Me Margaret," which makes me probably happier than it should. We also worked through a news piece about July's haboobs. It's the little things!

I really enjoyed working with her though. She was very shy at first, but once she got more comfortable a lot of working with her is really just conversational. She is a very quick learner and tutoring her flows very easily. Maybe I will end up preferring this age...

My full class schedule for next week included all ages and levels of English, including my five hours this weekend with a group of business English learners from a local oil company (oil is the main industry in Songyuan). BUUUUUUT I have a big change coming. I will keep my working hours through this weekend here in Songyuan (another tutoring session, a level 2 Oral class and then my business English classes) and then Sunday night I will fly to Tianjin to teacher there. More on that to come!!!

mirror mirror

One thing I am loving about China is not caring at all what I look like. There aren't nearly as many mirrors around as in the US, The Crack Den doesn't even have a full length mirror anywhere, and people really just don't care nearly as much. They wear a lot less makeup (if any), they wear their hair in ponytails most of the time and they'll wear the same clothes a few days in a row.

I don't have to dress up for school, I just have to look put together and not be revealing. Their definition of revealing is a bit different, short things are fine and tight things are fine as long as you have tights underneath so no actual skin is showing. I'm wearing jeans, a hoodie and my glasses now and I fit right in. I did wash my hair today for the first time in like four days though :) I haven't blow dried my hair since I got here, haven't broken out more than eyeliner and mascara and haven't worn anything for less than two days (and I've only been here for six). It takes absolutely zero time to get ready in the morning, it's great!

I am constantly surprised though by the ponytails and the short shorts or short skirts with tights just because of the weather. It's way too cold out as far as I'm concerned to have exposed ears or minimally covered legs and a LOT of women do this every day. To each their own I guess...

random pix: party time in Diamond Mall

Party time in Diamond Mall? Same floor as the random badminton courts, just go with it.

yep, it happened

This was my lunch. Yes, I ate rice (it would happen the day after I mention that I've avoided it thus far). This is what happens when you give a Chinese person running out to get lunch money and say, "Surprise me!" It wasn't bad though, some kind of Korean dish that was kind of spicy, had veggies in it and a fried egg on top.

someone HAS to be messing with me

These were up on the wall next to my desk when I started. Just read them today... Seriously, the poetry about the bathroom would have to be right next to my desk, it's destiny!

He came back from the WC / Without no smell / He moved hands slowly / Ask for some handkerchief / Then we saw his hands / Yo is yellow

He went to the WC / WC is dirty and beautiful / You're my superstar in WC / TA wants to live in the WC / Small flower and big flower / Their home is the WC

today. was. awesome.

Today. Was. Awesome.

Connected with the man, my #2 in Phoenix and my parents this morning; always wonderful to start the day with people you love.

Then I went to school a little earlier than I needed to be there and was reminded how great everyone there is. As soon as I walked in, three people came up to me to talk about the issues I have with The Crack Den and make sure everything was getting taken care of so that I am comfortable (and I'm only here two more weeks). I didn't say anything about The Crack Den for the first couple of days because I didn't know what was normal here and what wasn't and definitely didn't want to be that whiny American girl, but from the second I did they've been completely on top of addressing everything. I got some new furniture and kitchen stuff today and tomorrow my new fridge and water heater will arrive.

This is my school, the green sign, all 4 floors.

Then one of the Chinese girls gave up a few hours of her time to take me to get more passport type photos for my new work visa, took me to open my new bank account and get my new cell phone. Yes, that's right folks, I am legit, complete with a Chinese bank account and phone number! I had actually already been to China Mobile and got a number a few days ago, but my stupid iPhone 4S that I got in the States and is completely unlocked hasn't been working here, so I had to got a super awesome and retro Nokia to supplement what now amounts to my very expensive iPod's uses.

Back at school I had some good training with my boss and got my class schedule for next week. My first day teaching is tomorrow, but I just have an hour tutoring. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I have two teaching hours each and then next week I'm teaching full days Monday through Friday! The next two weeks are a weird winter holiday period for us, so I'm working a zillion days in a row, but I get to accumulate my missed days off and take a longer vacation later, so it's actually better for me.

I got my first invite to a Chinese home at school today too. One of the girls I work with invited me to her aunt's house for a day and would like me to meet her family.

After work I had plans to go with the Indonesian Canadian teacher, the French Canadian teacher and my boss to go get foot massages. In between school and the massages the Indonesian Canadian teacher took me to the most awesome thing ever. All (and by all I mean like 95%) of the foreign teachers in Songyuan apparently play badminton together every Monday, or in this case Tuesday due to yesterday's holiday. I met pretty much everyone in the city that speaks English all at once! They play in this crazy mall literally right across the street from my school that randomly on the 6th floor has badminton courts. There are two other schools with foreign English teachers here; one has a guy that I didn't get to meet, not sure on his background, the other has three Kiwis (two are a couple), a Filipino and an American (also a couple) and the American is from Chicago! They're all very friendly of course and I'm the first "fresh meat" in Songyuan in quite some time it seems.

After that the Indonesian Canadian, the French Canadian and I got our foot massages (boss had to bail) and then Indonesian Canadian took me to a good dumpling place right down the street from my apartment. And I ate shrimp dumplings. On my own free will. Shocking, I know. They were little whole shrimps, kind of crunchy and fun, but still too much of that shrimpy texture for my liking. The mushroom and pork dumplings were great though, as was the milk tea. I actually tried some seafood the other night at the girls' work dinner, but I still have yet to have any rice in China. We'll see how long it lasts...

So people I love, Crack Den upgrades, legitimized Chinese life, upcoming extended vacation, family invite, English speakers and dumplings. Such an awesome day.

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.

Chinese Lantern Festival

One of the other English teachers at my school and I decided to go exploring for the Chinese Lantern Festival tonight. It. Was. Insanity. Everyone in the city was out, literally every third person on the street was shooting off fireworks or firecrackers, streets were shut down, you could not find a cab if your life depended on it... it was amazing. I thought the air was bad before though, eek. It was also SOOOO cold ("I want to die" cold) and started snowing, which kind of killed the lanterns. I was expecting (hoping for) one large unleashing of the lanterns, "Tangled" style, but everyone was just releasing them at random from wherever. The festival did mean that all Chinese restaurants were closed too, so we ended up having to go to Pizza Hut for dinner, the most expensive and fanciest looking Pizza Hut ever I might add. We were stared at so much I felt like we were the beginning of a joke, "So, a white girl and an Indonesian girl walk into a Chinese Pizza Hut..."

random pix: Merry Xmas, 911 & The Crack Den

This went up a block away from my school yesterday... complete with lights and ornaments. Merry Xmas?

"Quick, what's the number for 911?"

Panoramic view from The Crack Den...

Panoramic view from The Crack Den...

Panoramic view from The Crack Den...

fireworks

There are seriously fireworks going off ALL THE TIME. It's 7:30am, light out, and there are non stop fireworks. I feel like a whole population missed the memo that you can't see them during the day...

Like I said... passed this on the street at 8am. I know these are just firecrackers, but really people?

downtime, design, cold & The Crack Den

You can tell how busy I am in any given day by how much I'm posting on here. Three post day today- I had a lot of downtime. I got to work early and then finished my lesson planning for my demo classes very early and had nothing to do. Then after my demo classes one of my bosses blew off my orientation... again. This could get interesting.

Had a long chat with our owner today and he's definitely going to have me doing graphic design as well as teaching; I get to design a business system, uniforms, etc. and he's going to buy me the software and pay me extra instead of taking away from my teaching hours. After our chat he also switched my class focus to mostly business English because of my background. Songyuan is primarily an oil town, so there is a lot of money here and many of our contracts are with the oil companies; my schedule actually says "Oil Adults 1" and "Oil Adults 2".

I'd love be outside exploring the city in my downtime but it is freaking cold! Today was a high of around 25 degrees Fahrenheit... which is warm. The next few days the high is between 16 and 9. This week Monday through Thursday I'm only working from 1:30pm-2:30pm so I'm going to have to figure out SOMETHING to do to amuse myself. Luckily two of the other English teachers got in today so I have more people to play with!

Being busy here makes me much happier. Someone asked me to go to lunch today and we had a girls' staff dinner tonight; having plans made my day. Well, that and the news that I'm moving out of The Crack Den in two days tops, woot!

Note to self: REMEMBER TOILET PAPER. I switched bags today and forgot to transfer the tp... huge tactical error.

Note to self: Traffic here WILL hit you; drivers do not give a crap about pedestrians. Or lanes and right/wrong sides of the road. Or speed limits. Or traffic laws in general.

Chinese appliances & The Crack Den

I've been noticing that Chinese appliances are kind of strange compared to Western ones and it took a while to dawn on me that they are the way they are (in some part) because they're pretty pressed for space here (duh). As a person with weird bathroom issues (I like them clean, big and well lit- if they're not going to meet all of those standards I require a good dousing of bleach) the showers drive me nuts. They throw a small hot water heater up on the wall in the bathroom with a removable shower head coming out of it and a bracket for the shower head next to it. There's no specific shower area, floors aren't sloped towards a drain, the whole bathroom is the shower. No shelving or anything for products. In The Crack Den the washer/dryer unit is in my bathroom too, or was until I moved it. It's TINY (like, I wouldn't be able to put 3 pairs of jeans in it), you have to put the water in yourself, the dryer is attached and about half the size, and the whole unit is super light and moveable. No test run yet so I'm not sure how well it works. I need to wash my bedding tonight so we'll see how that goes. Nobody has a stove or an oven, but they do have hot plates!

In other Crack Den news, I brought up my issues with The Crack Den to my boss so hopefully I'm moving soon (tomorrow?!), cross your fingers! I also discovered today, whilst venturing the opposite direction I usuaully go from my place, that The Crack Den complex is right next to some sort of Olympic building... what?!

The Crack Den is in a short red building, like the one in between the two tall ones on the left here, but at the far end of the complex.

random pix: The Crack Den, The Biebs & Fun Fun

Welcome to The Crack Den, this is my front door.

This was at my desk when I started yesterday... awesome.

These are 2 of our course books, Fun Fun!