Of course, this being China, everything I've just told you has the ability to change at any time. For instance I may not have class on a certain day for some random holiday that they just created such as "we don't feel like teaching day" or sommat. In such case I will be gone. For example next week my group of foreign teachers are planning on taking a trip to Shanghai because we have the week off because it is National Week. If we go it should be an interesting time because Shanghai is supposed to be an international city.
I smile as I look around my little cubicle. It's only been two weeks since I started and already it is littered with papers, books, and drawings from myself. Not to mention photos of people and places from home as well as letters and cards from my eager little students. I keep giving them my email but today one little boy said he didn't have email at home so he wrote me a letter instead. It's hanging in my cube, this is what it says:
My name is Andy, my Chinese name is Xi Yang Yang. I'm 12 years old. I live in Shenzhen. I would like to be your friend. My favourite hobby is playing piano! I like to eat very much. I'm fat, yes? I like swimming but I usually drink water. (So clever they are, and no he's not fat)
I asked him if I could keep it because it was so adorable.
This weekend was actually not as exciting as the last weekend but it was still enjoyable (God that sentence is so bland it sounds like it came from one of their texts.) Friday I didn't teach because I had to nip off to the police station with the rest of the group from Nanshan, Luohu, and Bao'an to apply for our visas. Yes, it's still in application mode and no I still don't have my passport (which means travelling to Shanghai may not even happen.) We basically stood around for two hours until they called our number and then we handed them a load of papers and walked out. We all felt as if we got shafted in some way but weren't sure in which way. Again...China....the hurry up and wait policy. Afterwards, those of us who remained from Bao'an (like patient little puppies) took a trip on the Metro with J.J. (code name James Jones) and then went to eat at a Sichuanese restaurant. Anyone who's up for spicy food would appreciate Sichuanese food. Sichuan food comes from Sichuan of course, but this is the area that had the big Earthquake back in May. After lunch (where we learned that J.J. was only 26 and looks like he's nearly mid thirties) we tramped around the city until it was time for Chinese class, which was in the same area. (This included a small shopping exceursion to WALMAR {the chinese pronunciation of Wal-Mart} to attack the DVD's for 1.90kuai bin. This is ridiculously cheap people, $1.00 = sometimes like 6.5 kuai. So 1.9 is a helluva deal. I stocked up on movies like Shopgirl, Marie Antoinette, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind {which I've heard is really good} and we also meandered over to Book City and I finally found my first English novels in China. Oh happy day! It's so comforting to see English words jump out at you in a sea of Chinese.
Ok, writing about my daily to me is kinda boring yeah yeah I know some of you want to read the fine details of my life but to write them up all the time makes me fall asleep so I can't imagine that I'm keeping you guys awake as well. So I think for the rest of this post I'm going to switch to bullets and get the finer points.
- Bought a book of a 100 Chinese folk tales with Chinese/English so I can better my Chinese pronunciation a bit.
- My friend Benny (who's name in Chinese is Jin Chuan, I found out this past weekend) took me to the "Ecological reserve Park" in Nanshan which is a seaside park with lots of trees and a boardwalk. All very gorgeous and smelling of the ocean. It's nicer in the evening time.
- Still can't eat fish heads...no matter how they persuade me
- Oh! I played ping pong with my three Chinese male teacher buddies, Mr. Huang, Benny and Chen Da. They said I was better than many of the female teachers (which is saying alot because Chinese people are born with the ability to play table tennis.)
- After ping pong two of them took me dancing, which I wasn't aware was where we were going and as such did not dress appropriately in retrospect. This place was right out of SYTYCD (or Dancing with the Stars if you like) with people dancing the Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Samba, and any number of dances -ALL of which they wanted me to try. Apparently I'm making progress.....ohhh my. When we left I started chiding them in English saying that "Dancing is the thing that I'm most afraid of and that I want to learn the most, and I am at the beginning level and you threw me into the advanced class!" It was funny listening to Benny translate my frantic English into Chinese as I walked in front of them. Albeit, it was fun. I'm going again but next time I think I'll drag Brendon along with me.
- Thinking about it, sometimes I have more fun with my Chinese friends than with my English friends. The foreign teachers always want to hang out and watch movies, or have days where it's just us like every day! That's cool and all but honestly I came to China to learn Chinese customs and ways of life, not to spend time only in groups of foreign kids. It's not my fault that they don't want to make friends with their Chinese teachers.
- Saturday I had tutoring to which I was LATE. Of all the people in China, I get the one kid who shows up on time....ugh. As far as I was concerned it was a good tutoring session. I had really nothing planned so I just chit chatted with her while we ate the food her mother cooked for us in little tupperware containers. Her English was much better than many of the students in my other classes and it was refreshing to know that there are some kids who have the ability to learn the language. I was impressed. Even if she was a little stuck up about it. I found out that she liked Harry Potter and it was all over though, that was what we talked about for nearly an hour. 200kuai a session aint bad I suppose.
- What else...what else....Oh! I got my shoes mended and they did a helluva job! The guy stitched the lining all around my sandals and glued the parts that were falling apart. All for only 10kuai. It's like they're brand new, which is impressive because at the rate they were going I was going to kill them in about a month. China destroys your shoes, from all the walking you do to the horrible way that the streets are put together, your shoes will die. I am always falling. But I am beyond happy about the shoes. Yay. Squee.
- On a final note, I skipped out on going out with the guys to nanshan on Saturday because I had tutoring 'til late and I really didn't feel like traveling all that way for the second time that day. I'm glad I didn't go because everyone that went either drank too much, got sick, blacked out or passed out. And one guy even got into a fight with some Chinese punks - although if it's the person I think it was he was probably hitting on some Mafia chicky - which is a big no no in China.
Right, I'm off to hand out English names. Although, letting them make them up themselves has proved to be the funnies thing this side of the ocean. Some of the weirdest are splendid, gold, lazy sheep, consumer, box, Madonna, Finger, Letcher and Zero.) I'm lovin' it.
No comments:
Post a Comment