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!