Fra ra ra ra ra, Ra ra ra ra

Tis the season, as it were, to be jolly... or at least not suicidally depressed. This past month has been nothing short of a whirlwind, thus the lack of posting. I find that I don't 'blog' as often unless I'm pretty happy because no one wants to read a downer blog. When I need to vent/talk/be listened to, I catch a friend on Facebook chat or send lengthy e-mails. Both I'm sure most of you can confirm. However, being that today is the day after Christmas and I intended to write a post on Christmas full of heart felt sentiment and longing for fields of white and hearths of orange, I just couldn't. My Christmas was spectacularly unspectacular.

In the few weeks proceeding Christmas I started to receive Christmas cards from students. I asked the other teachers if they had received cards as well, and a few had. At Christmas, the average I got from the other teachers was around 20 with a range of 4-28. As of the cards I received today, my total was around 78. I tried to count them but when they're everywhere, it was hard to do and I didn't care enough to spend much time stacking them up and getting an accurate count. On Christmas I had around 70, so many of them were displayed in my apartment on any dry flat surface. I had too many though, and those not directly related to Christmas were taken down to conserve space. (Sadly kids, this is the excitement of my life. Keep this in mind next time you rag on me about updating the blog) I put many of my favorites on my coffee table around my tree (Pic 1) Kathleen, the best life advisor one could ask for sent me what could only be described as Christmas in a box. Included were various presents, a few snacks (SUNCHIPS!!!!!- Harvest Cheddar), the Gannon University Walker of the Week statue from the Striders Program (I assume Nancy had something to do with that) a Christmas tree and a few notes from various Gannon administration wishing me a Merry Christmas.

On the day I received this package, I was what could only be described as 'on the edge'. The previous week I had spent meeting individually with every staff member in our office who had English skills proficient enough to tell me about the myriad of ways I was wrong/ culturally insensitive/ absolutely right/ taken advantage of/ putting my nose where it doesn't belong/ not understanding the 'real world'/ incorrectly assessing the situation and a litany of assertions I haven't heard in quite some time, if ever, which were at many times contradictory. All of this was while I've been in conversation with the owner of a rival company who has acted as a bit of a shinobi as of late. He is an American who talked in broad stroked about the problems facing many foreigners who come to China to teach ranging from the lack of cultural understanding classes and survival tips provided by companies (of which I have had none) to the general feeling of maltreatment, mistrust and dishonesty in Chinese companies (of which I have had plenty).

As a result of all of these factors, I sent an e-mail off too our Academic Director, Rick, asking him what our purpose is in the program as well as how we in any way measure effectiveness or progress. I then ranted a little about my dissatisfaction with the company and just for kicks CC'ed the big boss, Frank. One thing leads to another and I'm suddenly in the series of very long meetings that I described above. The details, causes and consequences of everyone's actions concerning these little events will be described in greater depth in a future post, I want to get back to how I spent my Christmas.

So, I received Kathleen's package at most possibly the perfect time. Having a tree and then presents under them helped me think of the brighter side of the holidays, all things considered. The index cards written by admin were especially touching. Fr. George's was expectantly vague yet loving, Arlene's contained an inside joke ("If you get bored, you can watch your favorite religion movie, 'Into Great Silence'" - how about them apples Brian) and Deacon Steve's was easily the funniest when we quipped 'Have you found God over there- maybe in the rice- LOL' In all, the reminded me that I have people back home that I may not talk to but who remember me and who I will remember. Most of whom I plan to e-mail as soon as I crack down and reply to mountain I have in my inbox.

As the week went on Christmas approached, the cards stacked and I received another package from the States. This one was from Grandma Morris who sent me a nice bundle of gifts as well as some cookies. All of which were perfect to get the day before Christmas. I added her gifts to the ones Kathleen had given me and made myself a nice little Christmas setup. That evening as I was getting ready to meet Ryan and his girlfriend for dinner I opened the bottle of wine I would probably be drinking on Christmas to have myself a glass or two as I got myself ready. I was slack jawed to find, upon first tasting, that what I thought was going to be Chardonnay was in fact the missing weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. To imply that this 'Chardonnay' tasted like Napalm would demean the good name of Napalm. I didn't know it, but the repulsion of that wine (Pic 2- provided as a warning to all my friends and loved ones) was pretty much par for the course for the evening. I was fifth wheel at a lackluster yet overpriced dinner which took place at a restaurant which refused to acknowledge the reservation they had made with us. After dinner I went to Bo Bo's Bar (little slice of heaven) to have a life saving night cap before returning home.

On Christmas, I woke up bright eyed, fully dressed and with visions of sugar plums dancing in my hang-over ridden head. I got into pajamas, took two aspirin and hit the reset button on the morning. Christmas morning 2.o was much better! (Pic 3) I had a cup of hot chocolate and a few cookies from Grandma then opened my presents. I received a variety of things, all of them cool. From Kathleen I received mostly toys which I understood her to mean for me to have some fun while I'm here and not work too much/take things too seriously. From Grandma Morris I received mostly clothes. She has been floating at a good 80% satisfaction rate for buying my clothing at Christmas and this year was no better or worst. She started out solid with some Family Guy pajama pants, fur lined slippers and a new freakin' argyle Cardigan (sweet!) but then had a questionable finish with nylon blended boxer shorts... I'm still uncertain as to what she was thinking with these. While fairly comfortable, there is, what can only be described as a.... showmanship... to them which makes me feel uneasy owning them, let alone receiving them from my Grandmother as a symbolic birthday present to honor the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. (Praise him!)

I then spent the entire rest of the day cleaning my bedroom, which is no bigger than a prison cell. It was one of those 'big cleans' when you move furniture and take out drawers to organize clothes and stuff- it was a little intense and took most of the day. After being turned down for dinner invitations from every person in my phone book (all 10 of them), I went to get some food alone. While I still had a very good Christmas and received much love and well wishes from people abroad, having a solitary dinner on Christmas (after spending the week teaching How the Grinch Stole Christmas and it's message of the importance of Christmas being together with loved ones) was a bit of a downer. On the way home however, I did pick up a bottle of Chianti and when I arrived in my apartment I continued the McFall Family Tradition with a toast to my father and Dr. Lecter. Afterwords, I watched A Christmas Story (I found it online!) and then went to bed after reading a bit of Hamlet.

That, in essence, was my Christmas abroad. Nothing much to speak of. I hope all of you had a Happy Holidays however, and I look forward to seeing the pictures on Facebook! Thanks again though to everyone who sent well wishes or more for the holidays, though solitary, I fear my day would have been downright rotten without them.

My apartment is freezing

So, I have been meaning to update the blog and have yet to get a chance. I guess I've been a little more busy than usual seeing as how the end of semester crunch time seems to be a world-wide effect. Our semester ends Dec 31st, but I also have off one day for Christmas, yippee! As such, this week I'm giving my final. It's a freaking cake walk for the kids too. I've definitely been teaching way above the books level and then I made the test on the books level and they've been having a breeze on it. In fact, this morning, I accidentally was asking my grade five class the questions from the grade six test and most of the students still knew the answers.

I will offer one defence for never updating the blog and it's that there is usually nothing to talk about. For example, this weekend I stayed in my apartment the entire weekend. Partly because I just wanted to kick back, listen to Christmas music and watch Weeds (I'm hooked!) but also because it was so freakin' cold. The high was 18 on Sunday and that seems generous. The thing is, I'm used to temperatures that low from living in Erie. However, what I'm not used to is the lack of insulation and airtight windows. While it wasn't too bad in most of my apartment, my kitchen windows did this neat thing where they froze shut. By froze shut I don't mean got a little ice in the seems and then was a little stuck. By froze shut I mean and half inch thick layer of ice formed over the entire window... on the inside! (Pic. 1) While cool, no pun intended, it was a little disturbing. When I asked a Chinese friend what to do, she said, 'Close your kitchen door'. Funny how a classic Jeff McFall solution appeared on the other side of the planet. When I woke up this morning the sun was shining and the freezing winds had subsided. In fact, when I woke up and felt the sunlight flooding in through my window, I thought, 'Awesome, now I can look out my kitchen windows... and mop the puddle on the floor..... wait a minute, sunshine?'

For those of you who remember, in order to get to Wanghai Primary School by 8, I need to wake up by 6... A second later my phone rang and it was the school asking me if everything was alright seeing as how my first class has started five minutes ago... without me. I told them I would be there is 30 minutes (which I knew was a lie as soon as I said it) and began to get ready. Oddly enough, I didn't run around like a crazy person getting ready, I sort of look my time. I mean, I didn't have my cup of tea or anything, but I certainly couldn't have cared less even though I knew I had effectively missed my first class and thus didn't give them their final. I get to see them next week, so it's no big deal really. The head teacher at Wanghai, who called me this morning, informed me in hushed tones (as if anyone could understand English anyway) that she had not informed my office or anyone else of my absence. I really didn't care, because it was an honest mistake (did one of those set the alarm for 6 PM rather than 6 AM idiotic mistakes) but if she wanted to keep it a secret, who am I to squeal.

I have other things to relate concerning the holidays. I have some pictures of the meager decorations I was able to produce for the season, most being cards from students, which I will include in the next post. I hope to get the holiday edition out Christmas day, which will be Christmas Eve stateside. In the meantime, I hope every one's holiday preparations are going off without a hitch, I expect cookies when I get home in July! Cheers.

Sanksgiwing

As I laid naked, spread eagle among my co-workers as a Chinese man rubbed my body with hot oil, I decided my attitude of 'I'll try almost anything once' may or may not have negative as well as positive ramifications. Before, I get into my traditional Thanksgiving, I should start at the beginning.

The main point of my teaching in the school system is to provide the students an opportunity to hear, question, and learn from a native English speaker. As such, most of my teaching centers around pronunciation rather than content. The regular teachers provide grammar and vocabulary lessons and I'm the barely trained talking English machine, which is daunting. However, my students are seemingly unable to pronounce two sounds 'th' and 'v'. Granted, I understand that 'th' is a rarely occurring sound in world languages but after three months of me correcting them with 'th' and 's' sounds, you'd think some progress would have been made. However, I digress, I should discuss my Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has never been my favorite of the big holidays because it always seemed like rehearsal Christmas just on a cheaper scale. As such, my home sickness wasn't too bad for most of the holiday, until I had to tell all of my classes what we do on Thanksgiving. At the beginning of class, I asked my students what Americans do on Thanksgiving and in almost every class they proclaimed that we eat chicken, fruit and vegetables. OK, here's the problem. Their texts are written by British trained Chinese people. However, Chinese students want to learn about America, so the text book publishers accommodate by trying to teach about America. The problem naturally arises that the authors have never been to America and are teaching the children British English. Most of my classes are involved with correcting information or explaining unnecessarily difficult grammar into easier to understand American English. (e.g. asking 'Do you have...?' rather than 'Have you got any...?' to which the answer is 'Yes, I've got.' or 'No, I haven't.') Anwho, on Thursday my classes went well enough, even though it was at my least favorite school. Since I had a talk with the teachers though, things have been getting better at that school, which is a relief. Now, JieFang is almost my favorite school incidentally.

For lunch on Thursday, I always get a special meal made my the kitchen staff because the slop they serve is uneatable and one day I finally snapped and refused to eat breaded fish heads and cabbage soup. The principal, who has given herself the moniker of my 'Chinese mother', asked me to make a list of all the foods I like and all those I do not for the kitchen staff. I now usually have their interpretation of Western food, which is usually just stewed tomatoes mixed with something else. It sucks, but I can usually choke it down. Anywho, on Thursday I discovered that the principal herself is making my lunches now. Furthermore, that day she was going to show me how to make sushi. So, on Thanksgiving I learned how to make sushi from my Chinese mother, which was kind of fun. I didn't fish in my sushi, only vegetables wrapped in rice and seaweed which I think is technically something else but I don't care.

As we were making sushi, I talked with her in our mutual Chenglish and I told her about our Thanksgiving foods. When I got back to the English office, I learned she was throwing us a little Thanksgiving dinner party after my lessons that day. When I arrived in the English office, they other teachers and the principal were scurrying covering a few desks pushed together with a table cloth and laying out food. My Chinese mother looked on the internet to see what foods we ate and tried her best to accommodate. The spread included chicken breast (no turkey in China, though the Chinese words for turkey actually translates to field chicken), corn, taro rolls, bread and jam, grapes, apples (from America) and a fruit the name of which I do not know. It was actually kind of touching how much trouble they went to in order to make me feel like I was having a real Thanksgiving. I ate everything like a person who hadn't eaten in years and it was pretty good. They even sent all the left overs home with me, thus it really was like Thanksgiving.

The next day, I was back at JieFang for my afternoon classes and was invited to their monthly school sponsored outing. The last two times, I had Chinese classes or some other excuse, but since they went to so much trouble for me the day before, I figured I should suck it up and go with them to the bath house. I have been to a different private health spa here in China, this was really something different indeed.

After all the male teachers and I stripped down and got our shower, we went into the giant hot tub to stew. It was nice, but being in the middle of a giant room full of naked Chinese men while being naked myself left something to be desired. After a bit, we went into the two saunas. The one was a lesser temp but horribly humid while the other was a dry wooden one at a higher temp. I have to saw, awkward as it is, I had a good time in the saunas. Then came another shower and the exfoliating scrub....

I expected some sort of chemical wash or cleanser as an exfoliate. In China, the exfoliate they use is a big Chinese man named Wang with a rough towel wrapped around his hand. I laid naked on this table as did the other male teachers on their respective tables and began to be rubbed by Wang and his cheese grater towel. To say it was refreshing would be a misnomer, but it certainly was invigorating. After Wang gives you a giant Indian rug burn on your WHOLE body, we gets out the hot oil. As if it's not awkward enough hanging out naked with your co workers, nothing really bonds males together quite like laying next to each other with your legs over a Chinese guys shoulders while he rubs hot oil on your taint. In fact, besides Natalie I don't know any of my friends who have had Asian men rubbing oil on any part of their bodies.

After my oil rub down, we had another shower and then got some weird paper clothes on and went upstairs to meet up with our female co workers and my Chinese mother of course. We all had some tea and a chat before I had to leave for a company dinner. I told my co workers the name of the restaurant I was going to, who in turn told an attendant at the bath house and he got me cab and told the driver where to take me. I ate another Thanksgiving dinner, this one at a German brew house which was a (dare I say... buffet). Needless to say I didn't eat much, but certainly drank a few pints.

So, that was my Chinese Thanksgiving. Learning how to make sushi, eating chicken pretending to be turkey, having my body assaulted by an over zealous Chinese man and then pints of dark beer at a German brew house. In short, not a far cry from the first Thanksgiving encountered by our founders.

P.S. Liz, I just got the card today. It made me laugh my ass off! Yet again, the people in my office failed to grasp the humour. Chumps.

You teach almost English then

So, yesterday I had/got to have lunch with a group of teachers from England. A town called North Lincolnshire, which is apparently a sister city to Dalian, at least in their education systems. Anyway, the lunch was alright, the Brits were nice enough. One woman even explained top me how I teach 'almost or lazy English' seeing as how I'm American. I was going to return a barb about 'at least we can say toothpaste correctly' but I let that ship sail, they were guests after all.

At the lunch, they were thrilled at all the 'wild' things they were eating. For me, it was pretty much par for the course, fried tofu an sweet potatoes? Sure. 20 month old duck egg sitting in garlic? More please! In all I think the only exotic things I can add to my every growing list was goose meat and aged duck egg. The Brits raved about the Cherried Meat (which is the literal translation) until I explained to them it was just sweet and sour pork not an ancient Chinese secret. (Pic. 1 is some exotic street food. Let's see who can identify all of the animals in the spread. Hint-There are tarantulas, lizards, star fish, scorpions, centipedes, cicadas and long flute fish)

One nice side affect from meeting them was that, for once, I wasn't the odd duck out. Moreover, I wasn't the one wide eyed and trying to keep up in a culture so different from my own. They fumbled with their chopsticks, didn't know what a single dish was, talked loudly at the Chinese (but still used idiomatic expressions. Note to readers, if you're every trying to communicate with someone whose English is a second language, cut down on idiomatic expressions and figures of speech.) and just generally looked like they were trying as hard as they could to not look uncomfortable. They had been here for about a week, so I remember what they were going through and I explained to them how I'm that way probably once a day, but it hit me that I'm really not that uncomfortable. I mean, I go to work and it's just another day at the office. I come home, sometimes go to the grocery store or Chinese class, come home cook some food in a wok using chopsticks and then eat it in front of a programming of pirated DVD's. It's like when you see another country's version of a movie or taste another country's attempt at cooking in a style different that their own. My life now is a Chinese attempt at portraying my life as it was. It's not all good, but it's not half bad either. For example, until writing this I had over looked that here in China, food preservatives are a little less common and so Chinese people go grocery shopping two or three times a week, buy enough for dinner for one or two days, and that's it. I haven't exactly made that transition yet, but I used to go grocery shopping once every three months, now I go about once or twice every two weeks. I'm giving it a shot at least.

The work has sucked lately, as I mentioned last blog. I never wanted to be an elementary teacher and never laboured under the delusion that I would be good at it. Reportedly, I'm not necessarily bad at the job, I just feel that I'm wasting my time. Or at least I did until I talked to my friend Kari the other day. Not many of you know Kari, she's one of few remaining friends from high school and I'm pretty excited about that. She lives in the Pitt area and is generally a pretty awesome person. I was having a particularly bad day and she bucked me up pretty well. I told her I give her a 'shout out' (as the kids say) seeing as how I've been remiss in mentioning her. When I get back to America, we'll all have a big dinner followed by/ held concurrently with a big drink fest.

Speaking of which, by all projections, I should be back in the states in July. I'm unsure yet if I'll be back in time for my birthday since the turn around would have to be damn fast from my last teaching day, June 30th to be arriving in America a few days later, but we'll see. Furthermore, I'm unsure if I'll be coming back for good, or buying a round trip ticket. It's way to early to make a decision like that, so we'll see. I'm currently flopping between a few different ideas for my future. A different country may be in my plans...

It's Nov 4th in China

Here is China is already election day. I know that everyone who reads my blog, except for Bryan, will be voting for Obama and I guess I'm OK with that. I find his political philosophy horribly flawed, but I think he'll end the war, which to me is pretty important. In short, I think he'll do the least amount of damage in his four years, which I guess is OK.

As I type this note, which I have about five minutes to do, the song The Times They Are A-Changing just came on the radio and helps me put things in perspective. The only problem I have is that our options for change aren't that much of a change from what we've been swallowing for the party 20 years. If anyone doesn't know either by name or face the men at the top of this blog post, shame on you for not being as educated as a voter as you thought you were. If you don't know what they stand for, find out right now. Seriously, leave my blog site and look at there's. It would take about ten minutes for each candidate's position to come clear. If you're impressed by what they have to say, give'em a vote. Don't worry about 'wasted' votes or the low numbers of third party candidates. Honestly, the ten people who read this blog aren't going to sweep the election. If you actually want change, stop saying it and vote for it. Don't vote for 'warmed over Bryantism' and socialism philosophy polished with rhetoric. Likewise don't vote for the man who has so much contempt for the office of president that he asked a woman to be his running mate who isn't even competent enough to find the countries on a map that she feels we should bomb... in the name of Christian compassion of course.

I know you're all going to go out and vote for Obama anyway, and go ahead. Just remember when you're making less money, paying more taxes, having a harder time in the job market, seeing the rise in oil prices and wondering where the change went that you voted for the handsome guy.

Cheers!

I'm not dead

I know, I know, I haven't updated this blog in forever. I'm sorry, but I just feel like I have a standard by which an experience is measured which makes it blog worthy. Nothing ever meets that standard, but if I lower it just a smidgen then I would have a tidal wave of experiences to recount. From discovering a new wine shop to finding the complete series of Frasier on DVD! (Pic. 1) In essence, I'll make a little bulleted list of things currently making me happy, things making me sad and things I'm unsure about:

Things making me happy...

• I FREAKIN' FOUND THE COMPLETE SERIES OF FRASIER ON DVD!! So, I'm now a member of Amy's DVD Emporium, which is one of the countless underground DVD stores in China. I like Amy's because the selection of TV shows is inferior to none, price and quality are good, and if a DVD sucks, you can return it to her for a refund. You don't often find black markets willing to do exchanges. I bought Frasier, Absolutely Fabulous, plus a few movies.


• I finally watched The Dead Poet's Society for the first time. I recently bought it at Amy's and watched it last night over a bottle of wine. In short, it was a little formulaic but made it's point powerfully. Luckily, I brought my Ron Clark 'Carpe Diem' stickers as well as two books on poetry with me to China. For some reason, I was ready to teach like Robin William's character before ever knowing he existed.


• I got to go to Liz's wedding, in a sense. I know I've told everyone who would listen, but the fact that Liz printed out a pic of me for the table then Watson made sure I got pictures of it was oddly about as moving as the fact that Liz actually got married. While I love China, miss the US, and long for the college days of yore I couldn't imagine enjoying much of my life without the people who are closest to me and don't share my DNA. You all know who you are and what I think about you, so if it's all the same, I'll skip the sentimentality. But it still made my day and portions of my life to see the pics.


• I found a pretentious wine shop, called Bacchus Wines, near the only decent pizza shop here. It's not too far away from my house and the prices, while in the hundreds and thousands of kuai, are pretty standard for alcohol here in China. I bought an Italian white and a Australian Merlot. One of the women who works there speaks pretty good English and was brutally honest about the wines. She actually discouraged me from buying a more expensive wine because she said it was 'a desperate attempt at class that achieved the taste of liquefied bus exhaust'. She and I got along like peas in a pod. I was going to buy a corkscrew because I broke mine opening a bottle for Dead Poet's movie night with myself. She told me not to bother and gave me a free one instead.


• I met a Junior 3 student from another school district who has English skills rivaling her independent thinking abilities. I talk to her at English Corner and I find her fascinating. She tells me about the 'mind control' that the school systems force down their throats. She's had to write another composition last week about how great China was that it came back from a major Earthquake and held the Olympics in the same year. She wanted to write about how the government should have saved the money it spent on the Olympics and used to it to fund building regulations in zones which rest on fault lines so as not to have the major loss of life sustained in the last quake. She's a god damn peach! I haven't had a chance to fully explain doublethink to her yet, but I have a feeling she'll love it. She worries that her classmates are buying into the Nationalistic tripe the schools are peddling but knows it's dangerous to ask them for obvious reasons. I gave her my e-mail address and hope to tutor her in my free time. Usually English tutors are a delicacy only had by the rich here, but I'd be willing to tutor her for free as long as she keeps fighting the intellectual fight.

Things making me sad...

• The Chinese government controls the heat in residential buildings. It's freaking freezing in my apartment and there's nothing I can do about it. The government has a schedule of when it will turn the heat on and that won't be for another week or so. In the meantime, we all bear the cold by sleeping under piles of blankets, jackets, towels and anything else able to withhold body heat. I finally broke down and bought an electric blanket. It was a little expensive, but it's well worth it. I've been sleeping better, but it's still damn cold.


• I'm not as respected by the people around me as I used to be. I play hangman with 5th graders and make enough money to obtain the alcohol needed to continue playing hangman with 5th graders without hanging myself with my belt. I hate kids. I've always hated kids. I hate teaching kids. I'm desperately anticipating next semester.


• I had my last private Chinese lesson with my very attractive bitchy yet effective teacher. Abdul and Ashley are not continuing with the classes but Ryan and I want to. My teacher gave me her number (Boosh!) to call her to set up more classes if we wanted. Ryan is a lot better than I am Chinese, and if it's just us I'm going to look especially div by comparison. There's nothing better for instilling learned helplessness faster a constant lack of measurable progress.

Things I'm unsure about...

• It's already November. I'm getting comfortable here. Too comfortable though, and it scares me. I don't want to live in China for a decade, but the reasons not to are growing smaller with each proverbial wine shop I discover and adolescent freethinker yearning for expression I meet.


• I have to meet with Jonah to renegotiate my contract for next semester. Ed basically tells me I can have the moon and stars if I ask, but Jonah gives me the impression I should keep quiet and do the work if I'm lucky enough to receive it. I need to draw a hard line with the company about my wants but I've never had to fight for a list of demands which were solely for my personal benefit. I've always been an advocate for a group or other person, which makes it easier. Plus I'm really out of practice with thinking lately.


• It's getting colder, which makes me think of Christmas. There is literally a planet size distance between me and my family. Between me and Grandma Morris, who is now in her 80s and will not live forever.


• I'm getting better at Chinese... it's just at a maddeningly lackadaisical pace. It's like being insufficient at breathing or walking. It's so essential here and I'm so bad at it.


• A lot of my personal relationships with the people here are changing in very unexpected ways. I invoke the fifth.

That was a long post after an even longer hiatus. I liked the list formula, it was easier to organize my thoughts. I may try it again in the future. In the meantime, I recommend that everyone check Facebook for the pictures which fill in the gaps I have in the blog experiences.

Cheers!

Lamentation (wo xiang wo jiejie)

'Sometimes, the magic of the past is all we got.

Just you and me at a cross-roads then,

Ain't it funny how we were old friends,

Accidentally thrown together, did we intend

To be that romantic novel, you never thought would end.

And it's the contact of the eye that meets across a crowded room,

And how I kinda wound up the lyrics to your tune,

You say, 'Funny how it feels like, I've known you all my life.'
- Sir Elton John

Being in China has never been as painful as it is on this day at this hour.

Big, I wish I could be there to watch you walk down the aisle and later have a dance with the bride. When I decided to come to China, the first thing I thought about was how I was going to miss your wedding and now I am. Currently, I am sitting in my apartment having just opened a bottle of wine.

At 12 o'clock (mid night here, noon there) I'm going to listen to that awful song Pacolbel's Canon in D, even though I know you won't play it, and I'm going to pour myself a glass of chardonnay that I bought just for the occasion. I'll drink a toast to you, Randy and your eternal happiness together. When, I tear up (which I guiltily admit will happen) they will be of joy for you both.

Were I there, I know all too well that you and I would get a little tipsy, slip away to some corner of the reception and, within view but not ear shot of the crowd, begin to talk about every person in the room in no uncertain terms. The clock tells me I've got a date with a certain dead composer and a glass of wine.

I love you Liz, save a dance for me.

A Week in the Life... the Lost Days

So, I will attempt to update everyone on the events of the weekend in one relatively quick post.

Friday- I taught 6th grade all day. I started the day (five minutes late, shhhhhhiiiiitttt) at Shan Ping Primary School, they kept telling me not to worry about it, but I still felt like an ass. So, I taught three classes there, had some crappy lunch and had a nice long walk to Jie Fang Primary School. The three classes there were so bad, I don't even want to think back on them now to right about them. I hate that school with a passion. I will either not be teaching in that school next semester (which it's almost guaranteed that I will not) or I'm coming back to America early and breaking my contract. Those people can lick my....

After school, I came home and got ready for the company dinner/ drink fest. Unfortunately, the company wasn't going to pay for this whole dinner like last time... Instead, Frank (the owner of the company) came out with us and bought a bottle of baijiu (bI-Gyu, which come in different proofs and is designed solely to instigate mistakes) and a case of beer for the table. That's his idea of not having the company pay for anything. Despite everything, he is one pretty awesome boss even though he's never around that much. After we had some hot pot and Jonah poured beer and baijiu down my gullet, I was pretty tipsy. So then we all decided to go to Dave's bar for more drinks.

I can't recount the events of the evening on the world wide internets but, suffice it to say, the goings on did not leave my fancy un-tickled. If anyone wishes to know what happened, and you do, just send me a message...

Saturday - JESUS CHRIST I WAS HUNG OVER!!! Baijiu is the smoothest 120 proof alcohol on the planet. The next morning, you pay the piper. I attempted to get out of bed three times and I was only successful at 3PM. After that I wanted to only eat peanut butter and go back to bed, which I did, in spades. I had some dinner with Ryan and then went to meet Patrick for a drink. I only had one campari and orange (current drink of choice) and just hung out talking to him while he got faced. I left the bar at 2 AM and had to meet Jonah at 9AM to get my hair cut...

Sunday- Met Jonah in the morning to get a haircut, I woke up at 8, right on time. Then I did that, 'I'm just gonna sit here on my bed for a ......' Woke up again at 8:30, which is what time I needed to leave the house. I threw on old clothes, didn't shower and pretty much ran to the hair place. I met her on time, more or less. We didn't leave that place until about 2 because Winston had to get his hair braided. Funny thing about black people is that they have different hair than Chinese people. Hair that the Chinese find baffling. After they could find someone who could actually do it, it took her about 3 hours to do it. Plus Jonah dye job took ages. In China, you pretty much make a day of the salon.

I really can't/ don't want to relate the whole day, but I didn't get home until about 11PM. In that time, Jonah took me, Kailey, Ashley and April to get our hair did, have Korean barbecue, visit the beach, see an amusement park, shopping ( I bought absurdly expensive wine), street food eating and tea tasting. I was freakin' exhausted but ended the night on a pretty good note. We have plans to go mountain climbing/ hiking next weekend. In the hour before bed, I threw some shit on paper and called it a lesson plan.

That officially concludes the week. I hope this has given you all some insight into my life, though I will admit it's a little odd not knowing who exactly reads this other than Brian, Bryan, and Liz. Then again, I bet it's not too many more than that and I'm OK with that.

Today, I went to Wang Hai, taught some kids and graded homework from Hu Tan students. I had them write letters to Santa. Picture 1, was one of the more creative ones. Some were a hoot, some reminded me of the poor living conditions in China ( from on little girl 'I want a new body because mines is always ill. Can you help me Santa?') but most were just pretty much boiler plate.

Now that I have become more comfortable 'blogging' I hope to do it more often and with slightly more humour. I should be in a pretty good mood this week considering the weekend I had and that I got a package from Grandma today... my navy blue blazer and black top coat!! If you think I sung the song 'My Friends' from Sweeney Todd to them, you would be absolutely correct.

Keep posted for future misadventures, which I have a feeling will be happening; things seem to be going my way.

A Week in the Life... Day from hell Edition

Thursdays suck. Every Thursday sucks a lot. At the end of the day on Thursday, I look back on the day and think 'At least it can't get too much worst.' I find that statement to be true... until seven days later.

I start my day at 7 AM, which is doable but by this time all the early mornings catch up with me and I'm a little grumpy. I must leave the house no later than 8:15 to get to school on time since I have a 45 minutes walk to work, all up hill the entire way. I follow most of the path I take on Monday, but then I keep going for another 20 minutes through a creepy street. (Picture 1) So, it seems that the Chinese government decided one day to build a street in the middle of a neighborhood which was designed as pretty much a 'show street' for foreigners thinking about investing in the area. It has a lot of China's attempt at Western architecture, which is pretty funny (Pictures 2 and 3). In all, it seems as fake and inappropriate as Sarah Palin's VP nomination *Rim shot*. But seriously folks, it's creepy walking through it in the morning since all the buildings are completely empty and the place it meticulously clean.

I arrived at Jie Fang Primary school to be treated with one pissed off English teacher. Yesterday, when Rick came to evaluate me, he and I talked and he asked me to name the school/ situation with which I'm having the most trouble. I told him about how Jie Fang was too far from my apartment, the students did not listen to me, and none of the teachers speak to me. Well, he put in a word to Jonah after she skewered the Head master, the Head master must have reamed out the English teacher, and well, shit rolls down hill as they say. So, I had to be diplomatic in my explanation that I hated her, her friends who teach there, her students and pretty much her entire institution. The main reason I hate is just because... well I just don't like it. Something about the place just puts me in a foul mood and I think I exude that fact which only intensifies the bad situation. Anyway, I was able to make it through my classes alright, even though I was teaching a Unit that the teacher hadn't taught yet, which was impossible. Maybe the teachers in that school should spend a little less time talking about me and teach some English for once.

Anyway, once again I was avoided at lunch (the only school who does that little chest nut). I was making small talk with one of the teachers on the way out of the cafeteria and explained to her how much I was looking forward to the post-lunch nap because I was having trouble with energy in class. She smiled and told me, 'Oh, well, I'm sure you can have a nice nap in the office when we get up there.' After about 20 minutes of the techno music the other teachers thought it would be funny to blast while I tried to sleep, I decided to listen to what they were saying and sneaking a few peaks at what they were doing... In short, I gathered enough to notice that they were just being assholes because I was trying to sleep. By biggest hint was when they all started singing around me, just in case I hadn't noticed the blasting music. Mature. I tried to remind myself that I was there to teach kids English, not make friends but all of a sudden it made sense why the students don't listen to me. They're just treating me like the teachers are. It's amazing how kids have always and will always be able to pick up on things we don't know we're doing.

Anyway, the work day sucked, but as I said, it's always the worst day I've had...until the next one. I got home in time to change my shoes and jacket, do my Chinese homework, and eat a banana and peanut butter sandwich before I had to run out the door to Chinese class. Luckily, my intensive class was canceled yesterday, so I had a bit of a reprieve. I had class tonight and it went alright. I'm still awful, but a month ago I couldn't even say hello in Chinese so and now I know enough to order some fried rice, dumplings, and a beer, so I'm doing OK I guess. Luckily, I had a slightly better evening.

Ryan and I were going to get some food, but before we left the office (where our class is held) I asked Jonah if she wanted to come with us. An hour later, Jonah, Ryan, Kailey, Ashley and I were eating at a private club on the company's tab. It certainly almost made up for the day of teaching. Unfortunately, I was looking forward to a game night with a group of people from work and our new friends (an English guy and his wife) who invited us to their house. They're relatively young, late twenties/ early thirties and are a lot of fun. After the day though, I just wanted to go home, listen to some Sinatra and burn some incense. All of which I'm doing as we speak.

Jonah also gave me another bit of good news! We are having a company dinner like our last one which I documented in yesterdays post. Hopefully, Rick and I can engage in Round Two of the International Drink Off between America and Canada. I'll try to do the States proud against that Kanook. Plus, after I got home, Jonah sent me a text promising me that she would drink with me tomorrow. Boosh! Goodnight...

And now for something completely different!

While I was brushing my teeth I was reminded of a joke that British John told me when he was in town. British John is another teacher who works for our company but works in a different province so we don't get to see him. We trained together in Dalian and he and I got along perfectly. He's from outside of Manchester and has a thick accent and a giant beard (he's sort of Muslim).

Anyway, when he was in town last week we got 'pissed' and started telling jokes. The one I loved went as follow:

So, a family is coming back from a wonderful holiday and they were going along a treacherous mountain road. The family was small, consisting of only a father, mother and daughter. As the car was gong around one of the curves, the father lost control and headed for the edge of a cliff side. In a last minute effort to save her daughter, the mother threw her daughter out the door and cried 'I love you' as the car flew from the precipice.

The daughter was understandable distraught and only sustained a broken leg. She sat on the road side and began to weep uncontrollably and considered throwing herself off after her parents. Just then a local man came to her and asked, 'Lass, why is a pretty young girl like yourself crying so?' To which she replied, 'I'm 17 years old and I have just lost both of my parents. One our way back from holiday, our car lost control and crashed, killing my parents and leaving me orphaned. To make matters worse, I fear I've shattered my leg,' she cried.

The local man gazed at her compassionately, unzipped his pants and said, 'Boy, this really isn't your lucky day is it lass...'

A Week in the Life...Wednesday Edition

It's Hump Day. The only thing incorrect with that monocer is that it implies that the rest of the week is downhill. In my week, it doesn't start going downhill until Saturday at about 4:30, you'll see why as the week continues.

First things first, Wednesday's are usually a breeze, but this one was a little 'special.' I don't know how many days in a row I will say 'This day is a little different than a normal day' before I just accept that every day is a complete surprise and test in adaptability. I started my day at 8, which is the latest I can get up all week. From 8 o' clock on, I had a series of misunderstandings. First and foremost, I must have had a stroke in my sleep because I completely lost reasoning skills. I knew I had to be at school by 9:50, and school is about 15 minutes away... naturally that led me to deduce that I couldn't leave the house any later than 8:40!! I still have yet to understand what the hell I was thinking.

ALL morning, I was running around thinking I was late. I skipped my shower, didn't have breakfast, didn't even make tea in my travel mug, and luckily I forgot my Palm pilot with my schedule in it, HAPPY WEDNESDAY! But at least I was being evaluated by my company today, which also helped me calm down. I arrived at school right in time, sat down at my desk at 8:50... the regular English teacher who helps me in class just looked at me and was like, 'Why you so early today?' I thought at first, she was mocking me for walking in with a minute to spare, so I was like, 'Yeah, I know I'm really late, but I'm on my way to class now.' By that time she was totally confused and said, 'You'll be waiting for a very long time for your class.' Then she sat me down and taught me how to tell time on the watch I've been using for five years. At that point, I hated myself a little.

It wasn't all bad because she and I had a chance to chat about her break and have an apple. I told her about Rick (our Academic Director who is a Canadian who has been teaching in Dalian for about four years) coming to my class and that I was nervous for no reason. Rick is one of the nicest guys I've ever met who always sees the best in people... for some reason that makes me so uneasy. Anytime we're not talking about education, he and I get along amazingly, and even once got into a drinking competition at a company dinner. (Picture 1) Very professional on both of our parts. I didn't even remember leaving the restaurant and I reportedly went to four other bars that evening.

More to the point, the day went pretty well. I got into the groove and had some fun with my classes today. I didn't want to teach from the book because it bored me, so we played tongue twisters and word games; I'm allowed to get away with doing anything I want in order to 'teach' and the school loves it. Rick was pleased with my class (even though it was the worst one I've done yet) and he had mostly good things to say with only a few tips. Really, I was so tired today that in retrospect now, it was all pretty much a blur. I just remember that it was all good and that I love Junior school sssssoooo much better than Primary.

After school I had to go to my office in Sanba to give my passport to April for bureaucratic purposes. Something about residence permits. Afterwords I went for some street food to see the city. In Victory Plaza (Pic. 2), which has the enormous underground mall, I remembered that they had an incense store so I bought some incense and some Chinese art. Got a pretty good deal on both and then came home to enjoy them. I practiced writing my Chinese characters, talked to Liz (High Big!) for awhile and hit the hey. I'm just dreading tomorrow when I have to go to Jiefang Primary all day. To make things better, I have been trying to get moved from that school, so I told Rick today that the school doesn't give me any help from the regular teacher (which is true) and he hit the ceiling. One of the biggest problems in the school is that none of the teachers talk to me, the school is a 45 minute walk away from my apartment and the students can be hard to manage. By the time I made it to the Sanba office in the evening, Jonah had already called the school and bitched to them about my situation and they will have a TA for my tomorrow. That'll make me popular with the other teachers! At least it's my worst school and the only one I teach at two days a week.

The joys of teaching. Cheers!

A Week in the Life... Tuesday Edition

It's only Tuesday... It feels like I haven't had a weekend in months and I've only worked for two days since my last vacation. In all honestly, Tuesday's are not too bad at all. Every Tuesday I teach at two different schools in the Zhongshan District. The first is Lao Hu Tan Primary School and the second in Zhongnan Primary School. All in all, I can't complain too much about Tuesdays for a variety of reasons. For starters, no morning walk because the bus stop is right by my apartment and I start later so I usually leave around 8:15.

The biggest reason I enjoy Tuesdays though is because I love the Hu Tan School. The students try the hardest, they care the most, they are always well behaved and, for the most part, they are actually pretty funny kids. Also, one thing I forgot to mention is that the usual English teacher (the one who teaches each class on the 4 days I'm in a particular school) usually sits in my class. They are there to help, translate, and discipline for me, as needed. At Wang Hai, the teacher usually sleeps and only yells at the kids when they are so loud that they wake her up. She's a great lady, but she gives me complete control of the class. While this sounds good, I prefer to team teach with their usual teacher because the students don't seem to get 'language shock' only hearing English. Hu Tan is the only school in which the teacher and I totally click and work amazingly together. She's an older woman who has quite a bit of Western philosophy under her belt for never having left China. When I turn to right on the board to take a sit of tea, she jumps in and translates (only the words they don't know) to keep them from talking in the down times. At that school, I teach three Primary 6 classes.

Also, today, like most days, I ate lunch with the Hu Tan English teachers. All of the English teachers like eating/ talking with me at lunch just about life. They also usually try to set me up on a date with the 4th grade English teacher, which I have yet to fight. She's 22, just moved to Dalian and is fairly attractive. The only downside is that she's incredibly shy and thus our talks are very short and un-romantic to say the least. You can't make 'Yesterday, I washed dishes' sound sexy in China. Fact. (As a side note, I'm curious to discover the kinds of new readers to the blog I will have seeing as I have used the words 'Chinese', 'shock', 'girls', and 'sexy' in the same blog post. I feel a little sorry for them, disappointed and horny is a bad mix of emotions. Now that I've added the word 'horny' to the internet alphabet soup, I'll have hundreds of hits.)

Anyway, the first picture is one I took from Hu Tan (with means something like 'port' or 'bay' in Chinese) while I was attempting to take one of the awesome coast near the school. Unfortunately, there is some construction going on and the view was blocked. Instead, I noticed during the morning exercise break that the students were all choreographed dancing. Every class had their unique dance routine an old American song from the '70's. I'm not even sure what the song was. Apparently, the school is being reviewed by the Education Board tomorrow and its customary to have a big dance show for them, that's China. I thought it was funny/adorable, so I took a picture.

After lunch I had to forgo my post-lunch nap to take a bus to my next school, Zhongshan Primary. Zhongshan is a horse of another colour completely. The school has only one English teacher that I've seen and her English is very limited. The students aren't as advanced, so its hard for me to have as much fun with them because of the extreme language barrier. Even though I also have two Primary 6 classes in that school, the difference is like night and day between my morning and afternoon classes. For the most part, I'm in and I'm out in no time and I don't stick around. I feel really bad for the school because its rather poor and I know they could be spending their money more wisely than on me. The students aren't getting anything from me but headache. The principal sat in on one of my classes (something which has happened at most of the other schools already) so maybe she'll notice that without the proper basis in language, I'm wasting every one's time. On the bright side, I live within spitting distance from the school, so I have barely any walk home afterwords.

This evening I had Chinese class in the evening downtown in our companies office. As part of our compensation, our company treats all of the teachers to free English lessons twice a week (every Tuesday and Thursday). Everyone but Kailey usually attends. The classes are VERY beginner which makes them great for most of us, but a waste of time for her. During that time she usually just practices her Chinese by shooting the shit with the Chinese staff, namely Jonah. I guess everyone wins.

Class went pretty well, which only means I didn't suck as much as I usually do. Progress I suppose. After class, I went to dinner with Kailey and Ashley at some hole in the wall restaurant. I ate lamb, something I usually do at least three times a week now, and it was amazing. Lamb is one of the few things that I eat that Kailey knows how to order, thus my love of adorable meats has been born out of necessity. The three of us then went to Dairy Queen, I had an Oreo blizzard and then came home to lesson plan for a few hours. I'm teaching at Si Shi Junior School tomorrow, which is my absolute favourite. My Junior 3 (9th grade) class is my saving grace but more about them tomorrow.

As a lark, I decided to look over my attendance sheets to see how many students I had in total... After I added them all up, I came up with a quick list of numbers to explain my alcoholism. Picture 2 is just a picture of Dalian, over which I have earned the following stats:

I teach at 6 different schools (5 Primary, 1 Junior)

5 different grade levels (5th-9th)

My largest class is 70 students, smallest 26 and my average is 46.7

I have 26 different classes totaling 1,238 students. YIPPEE!!

A Week in the Life... Monday Edition

Happy Monday! You know that's something I have never heard anyone say in my life. I have never heard anyone feel enthusiastic about the start of another work week... after today, I've still never heard it. Today was my first day back in a classroom since last Saturday, and I got a little spoiled. Even though I went to bed around 2 AM, I was up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6 AM to get ready. This is my usual wake up time, though as you'll see later this week, sometimes I snooze it until 6:30. I don't have my alarm clock in this country so I have to use my little Palm pilot alarm. Brian's going to kill me for this, but I'm amazed that that tiny beep wakes me up much better than my alarm at home. I've been torturing myself for years for no reason it turns out; I guess I learned something new in China. Fancy that!

To get to school on time for my first class at 8:10, I have to leave my apartment no later than 7:30 for about a 30 minute walk. The first picture is the Botanical Gardens I walk through every Monday and Thursday morning on my way to school. It's just a park stuck on the side of a hill that people do... well, what people usually do in parks. They walk their dogs (no leashes in China though), get some fresh air, and do tai chi in the early morning mist. The only time I feel really 'in China' is when I see about a dozen Chinese people in the park doing tai chi around sunrise.

On Monday's, I teach at Wang hai Primary School, which is the best rated public school in the area... as they remind me constantly. I'm not a big fan of the school, but the kids are growing on me a little. I teach three classes of Primary 5 (5th grade) and three classes of Primary 6 (6th grade). Today in Primary 5 classes we started with a tongue twister, read a passage from the book, and learned how to use 'going to...' plus a verb to show an intended action. It went alright, though I couldn't care less about teaching today. The most interesting thing about Chinese schools (other than the fact that the students sweep, mop, and clean the entire school in between classes) is that every morning the whole school stands on the field outside and listens to morning announcements and chants about how great their school is and pledge to be good students that day (Picture 2).

After morning announcements, I teach two classes of Primary 5, after which ,around 10 o'clock, the whole school goes back outside (teachers included) and does morning exercises. They also have PE every day, but morning exercises are just the morning pick me up. Also, they have ten minute breaks between each class. It makes the schedule seem very laid back. Even though Chinese school is from about 8AM-5 or 6PM every day.

During the 40 minutes when the school is out doing exercises, some students run around the school cleaning or finishing up homework, I'm not sure what the policy is on this, but I see students still in the school. I usually hear them too because every morning I eat a Swiss roll and then pass out on my desk. Sleeping on the job here is tremendously common and is not at all viewed as lazy or unprofessional. Any time an employee is tired at work, of a teacher has a break between classes they almost always just sleep right on their desks.

After my little nap, I teach two more classes then go to lunch, for which I have an hour and a half. All of the teachers usually eat in the teacher's dining hall and the school provides food. The food sucked today so I just ate some rice. I usually eat with a computer teacher named Mr. Ling who speaks pretty good English. All of the other English teachers are female, and usually teachers of all one gender eat together, so they introduced me to him so I had a lunch buddy. I think he's forced to eat with me, but he's always very nice about it. Sometimes he begs other teachers to eat with us because they treat me like I may pass on plague at any second. That's the 'teaching in the best public school in the area' attitude. Sometimes other teachers join us, but it's rare.

Today however Mr. Ling wasn't here because his 10 month old daughter has been in the hospital for a few weeks and he was visiting her on his lunch break. I feel really bad for him because the first time I met him he talked about his new daughter for about an hour, he was such a proud father. Two weeks later his little girl's in the hospital with abdominal bleeding...

Any way, since he was not there and lunch sucked, I took very little food. It was like Def Con 4 in the teacher's dining hall!! Four teachers came over to me wide eyed, asking me in Chinese and their best broken English why I wasn't eating. They brought the cafeteria cooks in and began to ask me what they could cook for me since I didn't like the food. They would not accept that I just didn't want to eat. Luckily, Mr. Ling arrived and I explained to him that I 'had a stomach ache' and he told them in Chinese, they bought it but still seemed sceptical. At that point, I was almost done eating my rice and steamed bread, so I was over it.

After lunch, I attempted to take my usual post-lunch nap on my desk, but wasn't in the mood. I just sat with my eyes closed in between sending texts to Kailey and Ryan. Then, at about 1, I taught my last two Primary 6 classes about Christmas and Thanksgiving (I just follow the book.) Since the book introduced no new vocab or grammar that chapter, I decided to have the kids sing a Christmas carol. It went OK (see attached video). It was all I could do to not have them sing 'Fra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra' just for a lark but I thought I'd actually be semi-professional.

After school, I had to go to the post office with Ed (the only American who works for the company and is in charge of H.R., a.k.a keeping us alive) to pick up a package from Grandma (just shoes, no cookies) and then headed home. After I made a pretty simple pasta dinner for myself, I met Ryan downtown for an Irish coffee and to catch up about his vacation out of Dalian. After coffee I took a little walk around the city, hopped in a cab and came home to write this entry. Now I just have to figure out how to add the video I already mentioned. Here goes nothing.... Cheers!

A Week in the Life... Sunday Edition

So, for this entire week, barring some horrible act of nature I intend on giving an account of my average day here because I feel like I'm overlooking things and my other posts are less thrilling than a Jane Austen novel (a sad state of being for certain.) So, today I embark on a week of doldrums... Here goes.

This morning, which started at about noon for me, was the final day of a week long vacation from work. In China, National Day (Oct. 1) is celebrated by most people having the entire week off. I was one such lucky soul. I spent the holiday doing the only two things one can do in Dalian, shopping and drinking. Today, however, was the end of the blissful seven days. Two of my closest friends here (two other teachers from America) Ryan and Kailey, were out of Dalian for the week so I wandered about the city like a bear in a cage, hanging about with nothing to do. At about 10 o'clock this morning I got a text from Kailey letting me know that she was back in town!

I had plans to meet Winston and Patrick (two other teachers) downtown, at a place called Zhongshan Square (see picture above) for an event that happens every week. On Sunday, from about 2-5 o' clock in Zhongshan Square is something called English Corner, in which native English speakers come to talk with Chinese people wishing to flaunt and improve their English skills. Pat and Winston go every week and always have a lot of fun, and I have felt the need to know more than 12 people in this city, so I decided to go.

After I got off the phone with Kailey I got ready and met Winston and Patrick at English Corner. Within about five minutes I had a little crowd of people around me asking me all sorts of questions like where I was from? what I thought of Dalian? what do I do for a living, etc. That was all fun and good because I got to talk to some natives, which happens all too rarely. Then after about a half hour there were about 20 people standing around me as I sat on a bench. One guy, who was mainly listening started asking me all sorts of good questions about American politics, economic crisis, etc. It was nice to not be instructing on the language for once, but more concerned with communicating the ideas behind it. After about an hour, a very old man who had been standing in the back of the crowd and one I assumed spoke no English, but was more interested in just seeing a foreigner (not uncommon here for those who lived in China during Mao's xenophobic reign) made his way up close to me. After I finished answering one of the questions posed, the old man asked me, 'Seeing as how America had a Great Depression in which people were forced to live in tents in public parks and people lost their entire life's work in the stock market collapse and have since often criticised the government's unwillingness to act as a key factor, do you feel that the American people will allow their government to pass this simple bailout as the only measure to fix the growing recession?' (Or something very near that only more comprehensive) I was totally taken aback but from then on, he and I began a dialogue.

Many people carry little stools here, to open and sit if they feel it necessary. This old man, set down his cane, opened his little stool and sat face to face with me for the next three hours asking me questions about American culture past and present. Topics included women's rights, changes to culture brought about by war, slavery, discrimination, Shakespeare, health care, taxes, art (primarily neo-classical and art deco, both of which he found fascinating), governmental authority, the Constitution, American paradoxes (e.g. why does America say they promote freedom but involve itself in the internal workings of other countries? why does America pretend to be impartial while in all but name choosing sides?- the last of which brought to mind the Jefferson quote 'Impartiality is always partial.') as well as an amazing amount of other topics. Thankfully, he also allowed me to ask him a series of questions, which he answered with frank candidness, about Mao's years in power, China's loss of cultural identity, the gradual transition from communist to free market, governmental fear of an intelligent general public, etc.

Some of the stories he told me were heart breaking, such as when he was younger and was not allowed to educate himself by going to college because the government decided he should be a sentry at some nearly abandoned post in some small neighborhood. Luckily, since he had little to do but sit in a lonely box, he surrounded himself with books, taught himself English and from then on studied anything he could get his hands on. At the same time, he bounced from his agonizing past to his hope and optimism for a China free from governmental regulation. I feel that nothing will ever supplant my patriotism and libertarian ideals after hearing his personal history. The only other person around us who felt capable of chiming in was an attractive Chinese girl who often offered a perspective on how the younger generation of China sees their future and relationship with the West. I can honestly say, I finally found some of what I came to China looking for; a fact I didn't realize until I typed this. At about 5:30 Kailey came and met me to get some coffee and dinner.

I did make plans to go back next Sunday to meet the old man and talk more about life. He collects art and antique books from flea markets and said he would take me to find good deals on art while I'm here. I think I've made a friend after my own heart finally. Plus, the attractive 20 something girl said she would be back and, if I wanted, she would help me study Chinese. Some things translate just fine from one language to another, that offer was one of them.

Luckily, Kailey came when she did because I was freezing and we got coffee then found a little out of the way restaurant to get some Japanese food. Kailey is from Texas but studied abroad in China last year where she got a solid basis in the language. She recently graduated with a degree in international relations. Ethnically, she is half Chinese and half Irish, though both of her parents are American. She serves as my tongue in restaurants and my accomplice the rest of the time. However, at this time I renew my objection to talking about those around me on the public world wide Internets. If you want to know more, just send me an IM or Facebook message.

After dinner, which it was more than refreshing to be around her snideness again, I returned home to lesson plan. The past few Sunday evenings I've been going to Pub Quiz in a bar on the other side of town, but tonight I had to lesson plan for the upcoming week since I did none of it over break. This week I have to cover Christmas and Thanksgiving in my 6th grade classes. Honestly, nothing made me more homesick than thinking about how to explain and impart our holiday customs with our families and the things we do (e.g. sing Christmas carols, bake cookies, eat Turkey, watch Football/fall asleep on the couch) quite like reflecting on how I spend my holidays. I mean of course beyond the McFall Christmas tradition of Silence of the Lambs and Chianti. More to the point of studying for finals in the SGA office with a small group of people also plagued with chronic procrastination (i.e. Brian and Levi) as well as snow ball fights, midnight trips to the Dog for a night cap and going to Molly's for a pint and a shepherd's pie in the middle of a blizzard. Hopefully, I got it all out of me tonight and I won't have a breakdown in the middle of drawing my hand turkey in front of the class, I guess we'll see...

As for now, I'm packing my briefcase and listening to Joni Mitchell before bed. Nothing raises the spirits quite like Both Sides Now, eh? Cheers!

Toe to Toe with the Rooskies

I promised Brian and I have a new post before morning in America, so here goes.

The other night, a few of us from the office went out for a little dinner followed by some beers. The bar we infested is called Dave's and looks like a cross between The Dog and...well, higher ceilings. The only difference is rather than a thong above the bar, they have a lot of different currencies. Dave's is a common hang out for ex-patriots of pretty much every country. On any given night you can usually find some people from England, America, Spain, Australia, Russia and South Africa. That's a bit about Dave's, back to my evening out.

The people who went out were Kailey, Abdul, Ryan (all are English teachers like me and about my age) Jonah, and April. The last two are Chinese employees of the company for which I work and are in about their mid to late twenties. After we had a few drinks at Dave's, the girls, being girls, wanted to dance. So, we all loaded up into the car and headed over to a dance club that Ryan thought he knew how to get to. Luckily, we arrived safe and sound to Club Love (or 爱的俱乐部) with relatively little difficulty.

We get in to Club Love, and it's not too bad. It's a two level club that plays a fair amount of American dance music and most importantly has Absolut. Bottles and bottles of Absolut. I drank so many shots of Absolut, a few Russians came up to me and asked if I was Russian- only it was in Russian so I can't remember exactly what I said. So, I buy three shots at the upstairs bar before we all head downstairs to grab a table by the dance floor. After we're sitting for a few seconds, a waiter comes up to us and starts talking to me in Chinese. As always I replied by yelling for Jonah to intervene. A heated exchange broke out between the two of them during which I understood that the table at which we were sitting would cost us 100 kuai. Furthermore, Jonah informed me that I was not allowed to bring drinks from the bar upstairs to the downstairs. The waiter gave me three options 1.) Pay him the 100 kuai, we could keep the table and he would look the other way about the shots 2.) Pay him 50 kuai for the difference between drink prices up and downstairs or 3.) His literal translation was that I could 'give him the glasses' and we would take the drinks away.

Naturally, I chose the third option which was to give him the glasses. Before he could stop me, I took the three shots of Absolut one after the next and handed him the three glasses. He looked at the glasses, glanced at me, glanced at the glasses and then gave me a thumbs up. The thing about many Chinese people is that they LOVE to watch foreigners drink for some reason. That guy had his fill then.

Who knew that in about 15 minutes, it took Jonah little convincing in order to get me to the dance floor. As the group of us were dancing I became more and more aware of group of Russians who were dancing near us - only with more vigor. They repeatedly glared at us as if our dancing was paling in comparison. I, not being a fan of Russians for some reason that evening, decided that we should dance with the same frivolity with which the Russians were dancing. The rest of my group obliged and the Russians looked taken aback. They then raised the stakes by jumping onto the stage and continuing to dance from there...

I don't know why I had my mind set on starting the Cold War of Dance, but set it was. Possibly it was the excitement of dancing, possibly it was because my dance partner Jonah is gorgeous intelligent Chinese woman who dances like a professional. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the lack of blood in my alcohol system. The world may never know, but dance we did. Before I could totally take stock of the situation my friends and I were dancing on the three tiered stage. I remember being on top of the highest tier and 'not leaving room for Jesus' in my dancing. The Russians seemed discouraged, or just bored and retired. We had taken the field!

Th rest of the evening was relatively uneventful with just a smattering of me and Ryan drinking, my falling into a glass table, and me dropping a shot glass. Sadly, the last two of that series had little to do with alcohol and everything to do with my own clumsiness. Well, my clumsiness peopled with the increased gravitational pull that seemed to follow me that evening.

Long story short, I had a few drinks, danced against some Russians and broke a shot glass. The picture accompanying this post was taken by either Ashley or Abdul and is no way related to the evening out described above. The only people from the evening actually in that picture are Jonah, April and Ryan. I'll let you guess who is who. Cheers!

Missin' You More Than Kathleen Misses Her Old Office

Just a quick note following my last entry to let everyone know that even if I do not e-mail or IM you that often, I'm usually thinking about most of you. The other English teachers here probably know more about you guys than you would wish people you have never met to know.

I promise to update the blog every day for the next few days because I understand that this is the only form of communication with some people. I have some OK pics to put up and some titles I'm proud of.

As a side note, when I had people at my apartment the other day, my slide show was running on my computer and of all people, my friend saw a picture of me and Paula and out of nowhere asked 'Is that your acting teacher?' I replied, "Uyeah, how in the heck did you know that?" She said that Paula 'Just looked like an acting teacher.' I guess she kind of does.

Anywho, just wanted to say hello to the Gannon crowd!

Mao Money, Mao Problems

Just as a starting note, I thought I would mention that on the 100 yuan note is a picture of Mao. Come to think of it, the picture on the 50 yuan note is also Mao... Actually the only picture on all denominations of money is Mao. I have a pocket full 'o Mao's, as it were.

It is very weird thinking that I carry a picture with me of a man who I have been taught to hate and who himself was a notorious xenophobe. I'm not sure if it is irony or not, but uncomfortable it is for sure . Anywho, I wanted to write this note on foreign money in light of the...luster muck on Wall Street. The American dollar has criminal buying power here. I honestly feel bad sometimes when I think about how much I did to earn some of that money and how much work I am buying in exchange. The only thing that is not much cheaper is alcohol and I'm sort of OK with that.

The current exchange rate is about 676.07 or take your amount in dollars and multiply it by about 6.56. I don't really want to get into figured but suffice it to say a full body massage by a blind man (that's just sort of what they're into here) is 50 yuan for an hour. I'll let you do the math for that. I can eat a pretty good meal for about 20 yuan and I can eat street food, which is usually much better and a little safer than a restaurant, for about 10 yuan. It's amazing that food in this country is cheap. In fact, necessities for life (e.g. food, water, etc.) is pretty cheap but the more refined things are a little pricier. The pricier food includes unhealthy food like McDonald's or KFC ( basically the only two chains here), which is perfect. It's refreshing to see a country where a lower class is not confined to obesity by having no healthy food options. Plus they walk a freakin' lot. I walk about 45 minutes to work on some mornings in the nice Chinese summer heat. At least I'm healthy, I shouldn't complain.

The money in China is sort of odd because they use some coins and some bills. They have standard bill denominations like 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 as well as coins worth 1 yuan, .50, .10, and .05. Due to inflation however the 'dime' and 'nickel' are so worthless, one would not even give them to a beggar. Their only use is to throw in a big bin then after about a year's time cash them in at a bank for about 5 yuan. The 1 yuan coins I sometime forget are money. They are about the size and weight of a quarter and are basically bus tokens in my eyes. A bus ride costs 1 yuan so it works out pretty well for me. I'm embarrassed to say that I have no idea how much public transport is in America but 1 yuan sounds pretty cheap and is essential to transportation in China.

In all, I must say, the living is cheap. As much as it upsets me to be supporting a government I have my differences with, and encouraging their commercial power all the while using money celebrating the life of a mass murder on their money from what I have seen happening on Wall Street, the US doesn't deserve help. Anywho, stay tuned for a bit about my city.

The Digs

So, I have no idea where to start updating people on what it's like here. Pretty much everything is different, but a lot is the same too. I guess I should start with my apartment for now.

I have a Japanese style apartment sort of in the boonies, I have views of mountains out my windows. It's a pretty nice neighborhood except for the fact that all residential areas in China look like slums. All of them. Slums. Looking at my apartment building, I thought I was in the projects, but then I got inside. From the pictures you can see that it's not a bad place at all. It's certainly no Harborview and its sort of boring living alone in a strange country, but I'm making due. As soon as I get some booze and food in this place, I need to have a party. I never realized how much I would miss having people over for wine, dinner, pizza, etc. I don't exactly have a party place though, seeing as how I don't have any sitting surfaces with backs on them and everything is low to the ground. I feel like I live in Japanese Lilliput sometimes.

Anywho, just finished the first week of teaching and wanted to drop a line and some pics. I'm on my way to the store because I'm having one of those 'Need to Spend Money' days'. I think my next post will be about the job, but if anyone has any questions/ ideas, please let me know. Cheers!

Getting to China

I finally have a free chance to jot some things down, so I decided to go ahead and do just that. Last I checked in I was in San Fran and after a hurried dash across the airport, which I had no idea had a whole other terminal I lost my good folio but caught my plane. On my flight from Pit to San Fran, I had to buy my drinks and a can of Coke was $2, go US Airways. Air China on the other hand to Beijing gave me all the food and drinks I wanted, and actually poured a lot of wine down my throat. Long story short, I had a great flight through which I slept a lot. No one sat next to me for four seats, so I actually got to lay down the whole time.

When I arrived in Beijing, it was a bit crazy being in a foreign airport but I found my way around no problem. As I was waiting at my gate, the guy at the podium made some sort of announcement in Chinese, of which I only understood the word for 'phone.' At hat point there was a bit of a brew ha ha and everyone took out their cell phones and made calls. I didn't really have a cell phone that made calls, so I just put my head down again and read. I didn't notice that there was no one around me anymore until there was almost literally no one and some Chinese girl came up to me and asked, "You don't speak Chinese, do you?"

Thankfully, she informed me that my flight to Dalian was cancelled. She was a student in a Canadian university and spoke English pretty well. She served as my translator for the guy at the podium who told me that they would bus me to a hotel with all of the other passengers for the night and bus us back in the morning for our flight.

I won't go over the details but long story short, I spent a night in a nice hotel, got some free meals and had incredible culture shock. They gave me some Yuan the next morning (for what I had no idea) and I somehow got my company in China in the know about picking me up in the morning, though I had no idea what time I was getting to Dalian. I made it to Dalian and the girl, whose name I don't remember was vital to my trip. I have no idea what I would have done had she not been there.

Anywho, I arrived in Dalian at about 8AM on Sunday to be greeted by one of the two people I had been e-mailing in China. It was nice finally putting a face to her name. In fact it was very nice putting a face to a name seeing as how she is smoking hot. So I spent the day being escorted by a very attractive and feisty Chinese woman. I was taken to my apartment, got money exchanged, went grocery shopping, etc.

I will post pictures of my Japanese style apartment, as well as other hot spots of Dalian when I get my camera back from the office. I love this city, and am getting used to this country. The other teachers in the program are pretty good too. There is an older guy here from the Mon Valley, which is weird. I don't want to get into the other people in the program on the public internets seeing as how anyone can read this, including them. If you're interested, send me an IM and I'll dish the dirt on the lot of them.

Well, this blog post is super long and not very exciting, I'll get better at this I hope. Cheers!