Shenzhen met me yesterday with open arms.....24 hours on a train and 5 minutes in the city and my upper lip becomes target practice for the first flying fire ant that I have ever set eyes (or fingers) on. As I'm waiting for my luggage at the back of the Shenzhen Railway station and taking in the thick, tropical air of my new home city, the ant goes to town on my lip and bites it. Because of my cat-like reflexes I was able to get ahold of the creature and put him out of his misery, but not before my lip started to swell. Yeesh....I had the 'fat lip' syndrome for about three hours last night, but then it began to calm down. I couldn't take any benadryl because we had our medical exams this morning and we weren't allowed to take any medication or eat or drink after midnight.
The train to Shenzhen....who would have thought that 24 hours on a train could go by so quickly, granted I did sleep over half of the time, but still....the trip on the train seemed substantially better than my airplane trip to China earlier in the month. We slept in the 'hard sleepers' (ie not first class as we were previously promised) but that was not a problem. I am of the mind that the hard sleepers were much better. They were sectioned off into six-person compartment (3 bunks up each side of the walls), but there were not any doors to the compartments so it felt sort of like an orphanage on wheels, for everyone was able to peek their heads around the corner and see everyone else. The first class compartments actually get a bit claustrophobic, and they were decorated in frilly Pepto-bismal pink. There was much poker to be played, many conversations to be had and uncountable numbers of instant pot noodles (called 'convenient noodles' in China) eaten. When we disembarked we had to go collect our luggage which was thankfully sent ahead of us on Monday afternoon. Had I been forced to drag my suitcases through the Beijing West Rail Station, I just might not have made it to Shenzhen in one piece. My friends and I were quite the site without the luggage in tow.....my backpack was around my front, so that I could protect the goods from thieves and my computer was slung sideways over the backpack. Then, even though we were at the station 3, yes 3 hours before the train departed, there weren't any seats to sit in. So.....in total Chinese fashion, Shawn broke out a newspaper, gave everyone a piece of it, and we sat in the middle of the waiting room on paper and waited for the train to board. Next to us a beggar was soliciting money and at the other end of my eyeshot was a little boy peeing on the floor near the window.....I'm telling ya, the diaper market in China has yet to be tapped.....little kids merely sport shorts with big pre-cut holes in the butt.
Back to Shenzhen.....I think I'm going to LOVE it. Even though it's very new, it screams "Jakarta" to me with its tropical allure and buildings built largely of tile (all the better to be cleaned by rainstorms). At 7:30 this morning we were wisked by the bureau to the Port hospital to be poked and prodded sufficiently until it was decided that we weren't teriminally ill and were not bringing wonky diseases into the country. I started off with the chest xray....and b/c of it I got to experience all kinds of radiation. They didn't put the lead guards on us and as soon as I walked into the room, I could see my lungs on the screen in front of me; so that means the xray machine was running all the time...interesting. After that I waited in lines to have my blood drawn (grumpy nurse lady b/c I didn't know what my blood type was...i think that's why she moved the needle around as she pulled it out so that I would bleed more or something...for her...mission accomplished). Then I had an ultrasound (not for pregnancy mind you, for the function of the pancreas, spleen etc.). Then I had my teeth checked for black gums, then an ECG, then height and weight and bp and heart listening. Then, because X-ray man was an idiot I got to get radiated some more. He forgot to take the actual chest photo of the first 30 of us, so I went back and gave them a picture of my lungs. Fun fun...I got a free can of Coke out of it though...they figured we were all about to fall over and die from hunger, so the sugar helped.
The food here is amazing! The Education Bureau has put us up here in high style! All the weight people've lost in the last month will be back in days eating the buffets like we are...i've not seen this much food since i left America....yum. However, I'll be glad to get back to Chinese food soon. At the moment (this very moment, I am taking advantage of my western ammenties) here I am using in-room DSL and listening to CNN for the first time in a month....kinda nice...but I'd like my apt. even better. All in good time. Friday we move 'home.' The school we had meetings at today was beautiful, reminded me of Pattimura (an elementary school in Jakarta). I wish I could teach there.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Friday, August 12, 2005
Just a week?
Hmm, already a week has passed in one of my favorite cities in the world and at the same time I feel like an eternity has passed.....hmmm 'like sand through an hour glass, these are the days of our lives'. It seems as if it were forever ago that I was in Dallas feeling moreose over the loss of a particular piece of brown luggage. That was about a week and a half ago. I've got about a week and a half left in Beijing before the south of China beckons me to my home of the next year.
Today was my fake Saturday (ie. it is Friday, but I didn't have to work). To make this seem more logical...I teach Sunday-Thursday here at Beida. My students truly made the week completely pleasant and made me not fear that I am going to be a crummy teacher. They took my teaching partner and I out to lunch on Wednesday for hotpot. For any of you who have never had it....it's amazing Chinese food. We each had little cooking pots filled with water and spices and seasonings. Then a fire was lit under the pot and we cooked a wide range of raw meats and mushrooms and greens. Then once you cook your meats to your liking you take them out and dip them in a heavenly sauce...mine was chive and peanut sauce; quite quite tasty really. Our students seemed to have a great time. They liked teaching us drinking and toasting protocol...really I think it was just an excuse to get drunk at noon on a wednesday. I think one of the funniest parts of lunch was my teaching partner Tom getting suckered into eating garlic cloves. One of our students was popping them in his mouth like candy (there was a plate of them on our table's lazy susan) and I made some comment like "Gump! are you eating garlic....you'll have stinky breath!" and he responded by saying in Chinese that it was in fact sweet and good. So Tom tried it....it was pickled garlic indeed. No worries though; after some truly interesting facial expressions, I had his back and gave him some gum....no need for me to suffer the afternoon through just b/c he chomped garlic.
I think this is the first time in my life that I have experienced 100% humidity without it actually raining. Yesterday walking around Beida it was like going swimming. Jenny and Jess and I ended up feigning idiocy and ate lunch on the air conditioned steps of the mini-mart even though no one is supposed to sit there, b/c it was toooo hot to be sitting anywhere outside.
Oh, the other day we had to get visa photos taken. No one in America has grounds to ever complain to me about passport photos, b/c in the US, you only get 4. Here in China we had to get 12 photos for our work permit. That translates into 12 photos of me with a frozen look of heat exhaustion (100 of us had to wait in a line outside the photo shop in order to get the photos taken). Lord have mercy for all who must gaze upon that look once, or twelve times for that matter. Haha, only in China.
Last night, since it was 'friday' for us, we went out to Houhai and took a stroll around the tropical-like manmade lake that is this bar-laden tourist attraction. Don't get me wrong though, I do like it. Some of the people I was with were having trouble spending 4 dollars US on a drink since we've been living on about a dollar or two a day total for food thus far. I maintain the mindset that if i'm pleasantly frugal during the week, the weekend can include a justifiable splurge....hopefully everyone else will figure that out b/c there are only a limited number of nights where I can stand outside fun bars and drink 30cent liters of Tsingdao whose bottles are washed in fermaldehyde, yuck while others inside enjoy yummy beverages and comfy seats
Today was a day akin to fun days of Beijing summers past (read: last summer). I met up with Tammy and her Swiss friend Ziggy in Wudaoko for lunch at a cafe. We were also joined by some random American businessman who was doing his own laptop thing in the corner of the cafe (it's got wireless) until we got our lunch and then he inquired as to whether we'd be okay with some company b/c he'd been working away all morning. Of course we said it was fine and he never actually gave us his name...just kinda chatted, but that's just fine too. We jetted down to Sanlitunr afterwards to do a little perusing of the markets....we watched with moderate humor in our eyes as foreigners got royally ripped off buying just about every kind of knock-off and junky object known to man. Ziggy bought a couple of things and tammy and I bargained for her. It was nice speaking Chinglish and Chinese with Tammy....I haven't gotten to do a whole lot of that here as yet.
The most 'harrowing' part of the day involved the cab ride back to Haidian following our stop for gelatto. After waiting almost ten minutes for an empty taxi to roll by (yesterday was chinese valentine's day and i think some fellas forgot or something so they were taking their ladies out for dinner and dancing etc. tonight and so every every taxi was filled with tanlianai ren (lovers, daters etc.)) and finally this crummy blue taxi rolls by, but he's going the opposite direction. I start to make a comment about the shabby condition of it...ok, really I was mocking it, and sure enough it turns around and stops for us. We get in b/c it's rush hour and we'd been waiting a long time. Well as soon as we get in and he goes tammy and I notce that of course he's not a licenced taxi driver b/c he doesn't have his beijing permit on the dashboard like he should. Then comes the shadiest part.....as soon as we get near the highway, he puts his hand on the top of the car and peels off the lighted "TAXI" sign on top of the car! He must have done so that the police wouldn't pick him up for illegal taxing. He weaved in and out of traffic like nobody's businesss. Yeesh! But eventually I got home, and in one piece.
Today was my fake Saturday (ie. it is Friday, but I didn't have to work). To make this seem more logical...I teach Sunday-Thursday here at Beida. My students truly made the week completely pleasant and made me not fear that I am going to be a crummy teacher. They took my teaching partner and I out to lunch on Wednesday for hotpot. For any of you who have never had it....it's amazing Chinese food. We each had little cooking pots filled with water and spices and seasonings. Then a fire was lit under the pot and we cooked a wide range of raw meats and mushrooms and greens. Then once you cook your meats to your liking you take them out and dip them in a heavenly sauce...mine was chive and peanut sauce; quite quite tasty really. Our students seemed to have a great time. They liked teaching us drinking and toasting protocol...really I think it was just an excuse to get drunk at noon on a wednesday. I think one of the funniest parts of lunch was my teaching partner Tom getting suckered into eating garlic cloves. One of our students was popping them in his mouth like candy (there was a plate of them on our table's lazy susan) and I made some comment like "Gump! are you eating garlic....you'll have stinky breath!" and he responded by saying in Chinese that it was in fact sweet and good. So Tom tried it....it was pickled garlic indeed. No worries though; after some truly interesting facial expressions, I had his back and gave him some gum....no need for me to suffer the afternoon through just b/c he chomped garlic.
I think this is the first time in my life that I have experienced 100% humidity without it actually raining. Yesterday walking around Beida it was like going swimming. Jenny and Jess and I ended up feigning idiocy and ate lunch on the air conditioned steps of the mini-mart even though no one is supposed to sit there, b/c it was toooo hot to be sitting anywhere outside.
Oh, the other day we had to get visa photos taken. No one in America has grounds to ever complain to me about passport photos, b/c in the US, you only get 4. Here in China we had to get 12 photos for our work permit. That translates into 12 photos of me with a frozen look of heat exhaustion (100 of us had to wait in a line outside the photo shop in order to get the photos taken). Lord have mercy for all who must gaze upon that look once, or twelve times for that matter. Haha, only in China.
Last night, since it was 'friday' for us, we went out to Houhai and took a stroll around the tropical-like manmade lake that is this bar-laden tourist attraction. Don't get me wrong though, I do like it. Some of the people I was with were having trouble spending 4 dollars US on a drink since we've been living on about a dollar or two a day total for food thus far. I maintain the mindset that if i'm pleasantly frugal during the week, the weekend can include a justifiable splurge....hopefully everyone else will figure that out b/c there are only a limited number of nights where I can stand outside fun bars and drink 30cent liters of Tsingdao whose bottles are washed in fermaldehyde, yuck while others inside enjoy yummy beverages and comfy seats
Today was a day akin to fun days of Beijing summers past (read: last summer). I met up with Tammy and her Swiss friend Ziggy in Wudaoko for lunch at a cafe. We were also joined by some random American businessman who was doing his own laptop thing in the corner of the cafe (it's got wireless) until we got our lunch and then he inquired as to whether we'd be okay with some company b/c he'd been working away all morning. Of course we said it was fine and he never actually gave us his name...just kinda chatted, but that's just fine too. We jetted down to Sanlitunr afterwards to do a little perusing of the markets....we watched with moderate humor in our eyes as foreigners got royally ripped off buying just about every kind of knock-off and junky object known to man. Ziggy bought a couple of things and tammy and I bargained for her. It was nice speaking Chinglish and Chinese with Tammy....I haven't gotten to do a whole lot of that here as yet.
The most 'harrowing' part of the day involved the cab ride back to Haidian following our stop for gelatto. After waiting almost ten minutes for an empty taxi to roll by (yesterday was chinese valentine's day and i think some fellas forgot or something so they were taking their ladies out for dinner and dancing etc. tonight and so every every taxi was filled with tanlianai ren (lovers, daters etc.)) and finally this crummy blue taxi rolls by, but he's going the opposite direction. I start to make a comment about the shabby condition of it...ok, really I was mocking it, and sure enough it turns around and stops for us. We get in b/c it's rush hour and we'd been waiting a long time. Well as soon as we get in and he goes tammy and I notce that of course he's not a licenced taxi driver b/c he doesn't have his beijing permit on the dashboard like he should. Then comes the shadiest part.....as soon as we get near the highway, he puts his hand on the top of the car and peels off the lighted "TAXI" sign on top of the car! He must have done so that the police wouldn't pick him up for illegal taxing. He weaved in and out of traffic like nobody's businesss. Yeesh! But eventually I got home, and in one piece.
I love China!
Right, so I was thinking that maybe my last posts might have sounded like I wasn't liking China this year....but I've figured it out. I don't like American groups. I've spent my last two days off in small groups of people, speaking Chinese and going to all the great places in Beijing and I've been loving it. Today I took Tim and Jenny to a tiny French-like cafe in a building by a bookstore in Wudaoko to use wireless internet. I love it. And what's more - the coolest thing happened to me. So here i am in Bejing....a foreigner...haven't been here in a year and about five minutes after I sit down in a cafe that i haven't been to in a year, a teacher of mine from Shoushida last summer strolls in, not only remembers me, but calls me by my Chinese name. It was awesome! We got to chat for a bit....I was ecstatic.
Additionally, I went into a totally great Chinese bookstore today and bought the first Harry Potter book in Chinese.....the lady behind the counter probably thought I was off my rocker....but I talked with her for a little bit and she seemed to think it was cool that I was going to read it. Her comment was that 'people who look like you don't speak Chinese.' Ha, whatever that means.
I think we might go to the night market off of Wangfujin dajie tonight....scorpian and chicken heads on a stick are the specialty, good thing I had a super lunch today.
Additionally, I went into a totally great Chinese bookstore today and bought the first Harry Potter book in Chinese.....the lady behind the counter probably thought I was off my rocker....but I talked with her for a little bit and she seemed to think it was cool that I was going to read it. Her comment was that 'people who look like you don't speak Chinese.' Ha, whatever that means.
I think we might go to the night market off of Wangfujin dajie tonight....scorpian and chicken heads on a stick are the specialty, good thing I had a super lunch today.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
I think my hubris regarding not getting mosquito bites caught up with me, b/c for every bite I got during my first day teaching, i've gotten one right next to it, to match of course. There is a guy on the program who claims he never gets an mosquito bites....his blood must be haggis-flavoured or something....and mine mint-chocolate chip.
Chinese class is shaping up to be pretty hard and I feel like I am not able to give it my full attention (read: any attention) b/c I'm really focused on teaching right now. However, the only thing that makes me feel better is that everyone else in my class feels and is doing the same. The morning class, with the distinguished professor is great, it's just the drill class in the afternoon that is truly terrible. We all just kind of sit there sometimes and stare blankly, part out of not understanding and partly out of being tired, haha. I'm guessing I didn't realize just how esteemed this particular professor was until yesterday. There is a girl in our class who is not going to Shenzhen and I asked someone about her and her story and this is what I found out: she is Chinese and her parents live in America and she goes to an American university but has been teaching here in China this last semester. Well she is staying on as a TA for our program in Beijing in exchange for being able to take our two hour lesson with this particular professor each morning....kinda cool that we've got him for three weeks I'd like to think.
Tomorrow Tom and I are going with our students to hotpot for lunch....should be good, as they are very excited. It's weird thinking of them as students b/c some of them are law students at Qinghua (think Yale or Harvard) and others are equally intelligent. We're teaching i think the oldest class, so we're having to tailor the lesson plans to cater to a higher level. We spent today talking about newspapers and using new vocabulary like columnist, editor, financial section, news flash and my favourite, scoop. Scoop was kind of hard to define, but fun no less. We also taught them about the 'advice column' of the paper b/c there was an example in their textbook and decided to make an activity out of it: We started a letter to "Stella" for them and they had to finish it, creating a problem for Stella to solve. It was: Dear Stella, My name is Frank and I recently bought a brand new shiny truck.......Their problems were quite creative and finally at the end of the period we as a class came up with a classified ad to sell the truck in question, as it was causing 'Frank' too much trouble. Hahaha, teaching is pretty fun. tomorrow i'm teaching them about American holidays and they're going to work in groups to develop their own holiday b/c "the government has found a surplus in the budget and can afford for its citizens to take some additional time off." They're going to petition the gov't to pick their holiday...I think it'll be fun. Tomorrow will be my first day teaching on my own and being observed by instructors....i hope it'll go well.
My favorite student picked his English name yesterday. His Chinese name is Gao and so he decided that Gump, after Forest Gump was a good name. We have a new student in our class too, he joined today and is attending the Police university here in town. The class helped him pick the name Arthur after King Arthur (one guy really wanted him to be Lancelot, but he could not pronounce it). However, the best names have come out of some of the other classes, like "Superman, also known as Hercules and sometimes Hero" teehee. His best friend was Cinderella.
Well, there must be two bazillion people on the Beida campus right now, b/c the time Tom and I got to the front of the lunch line after teaching today, all the good food was gone...all that was left was steamed lotus root in a ketchup sauce (mmmm tasty minus the freakin ketchup, gross!) and rice.....so I quite astutely supplemented that interesting lunch with a Magnum bar afterward.
We had a guest lecturer come and speak (woohooo for making my day even longer) today. He is actually a student who was recently admitted as a freshman at Beida for the fall and he came to give us insight about the life of chinese high school students. It was actually a really cool lecture.
So on to my adventure. I met a really awesome girl here from Hawaii who went to UVA and she's been running here every day and she heard that I used to run a lot in America, so she asked me today if I wanted to go with her on a run after we got home today (today was perfect running weather b/c it had been raining all day and the temp. was low). I agreed and we set out and ran for about 25 mintutes and came upon this beautiful park in between some really awesome buildings and posh apts. and so we ran through it and came out the other side and figured we'd just make a huge square and run home. So we kept running and running and running and nothing looked familiar. So finally we admitted that maybe we didn 't know exactly where we were and so we asked a women how to get back to the beida medical campus (she speaks chinese too). Well the lady didn't know, but she said that the regular beida was in the direction that we were going, and that's good, b/c theoretically we'd hit our campus first and then if you went on further you'd get to beida. So we kept going and about 15 minutes later we were still facing unfamiliar territory. So we asked a security guard and he didn't know, so he radioed his friends to ask and they had an idea but weren't sure, but then he said to ask the taxi driver who was getting a soda from the street vendor. We asked and he immediately knew and we asked him to point us in the direction and he asked if we realized that we were kinda far away. He said he'd take us there but we told him we didn't have any yuan on us, but he said not a problem...he'd take us to our campus and one could wait with him and the other could get the money. We agreed even though we were still convinced we were close to where we lived. Well, it took us 15 minutes by taxi to get there....somehow instead of going in a square, we ran in some sort of weird trapezoid. But we were never worried as we both spoke Chinese and were together. As it turned out...our dinner party (who we were supposed to have met at 7:30) were outside the campus and a friend of ours lent us the money to pay the driver right away.....needless to say we probably won't live down our adventure for awhile...haha, oh well....it sure was fun and I made a great friend out of it.
Chinese class is shaping up to be pretty hard and I feel like I am not able to give it my full attention (read: any attention) b/c I'm really focused on teaching right now. However, the only thing that makes me feel better is that everyone else in my class feels and is doing the same. The morning class, with the distinguished professor is great, it's just the drill class in the afternoon that is truly terrible. We all just kind of sit there sometimes and stare blankly, part out of not understanding and partly out of being tired, haha. I'm guessing I didn't realize just how esteemed this particular professor was until yesterday. There is a girl in our class who is not going to Shenzhen and I asked someone about her and her story and this is what I found out: she is Chinese and her parents live in America and she goes to an American university but has been teaching here in China this last semester. Well she is staying on as a TA for our program in Beijing in exchange for being able to take our two hour lesson with this particular professor each morning....kinda cool that we've got him for three weeks I'd like to think.
Tomorrow Tom and I are going with our students to hotpot for lunch....should be good, as they are very excited. It's weird thinking of them as students b/c some of them are law students at Qinghua (think Yale or Harvard) and others are equally intelligent. We're teaching i think the oldest class, so we're having to tailor the lesson plans to cater to a higher level. We spent today talking about newspapers and using new vocabulary like columnist, editor, financial section, news flash and my favourite, scoop. Scoop was kind of hard to define, but fun no less. We also taught them about the 'advice column' of the paper b/c there was an example in their textbook and decided to make an activity out of it: We started a letter to "Stella" for them and they had to finish it, creating a problem for Stella to solve. It was: Dear Stella, My name is Frank and I recently bought a brand new shiny truck.......Their problems were quite creative and finally at the end of the period we as a class came up with a classified ad to sell the truck in question, as it was causing 'Frank' too much trouble. Hahaha, teaching is pretty fun. tomorrow i'm teaching them about American holidays and they're going to work in groups to develop their own holiday b/c "the government has found a surplus in the budget and can afford for its citizens to take some additional time off." They're going to petition the gov't to pick their holiday...I think it'll be fun. Tomorrow will be my first day teaching on my own and being observed by instructors....i hope it'll go well.
My favorite student picked his English name yesterday. His Chinese name is Gao and so he decided that Gump, after Forest Gump was a good name. We have a new student in our class too, he joined today and is attending the Police university here in town. The class helped him pick the name Arthur after King Arthur (one guy really wanted him to be Lancelot, but he could not pronounce it). However, the best names have come out of some of the other classes, like "Superman, also known as Hercules and sometimes Hero" teehee. His best friend was Cinderella.
Well, there must be two bazillion people on the Beida campus right now, b/c the time Tom and I got to the front of the lunch line after teaching today, all the good food was gone...all that was left was steamed lotus root in a ketchup sauce (mmmm tasty minus the freakin ketchup, gross!) and rice.....so I quite astutely supplemented that interesting lunch with a Magnum bar afterward.
We had a guest lecturer come and speak (woohooo for making my day even longer) today. He is actually a student who was recently admitted as a freshman at Beida for the fall and he came to give us insight about the life of chinese high school students. It was actually a really cool lecture.
So on to my adventure. I met a really awesome girl here from Hawaii who went to UVA and she's been running here every day and she heard that I used to run a lot in America, so she asked me today if I wanted to go with her on a run after we got home today (today was perfect running weather b/c it had been raining all day and the temp. was low). I agreed and we set out and ran for about 25 mintutes and came upon this beautiful park in between some really awesome buildings and posh apts. and so we ran through it and came out the other side and figured we'd just make a huge square and run home. So we kept running and running and running and nothing looked familiar. So finally we admitted that maybe we didn 't know exactly where we were and so we asked a women how to get back to the beida medical campus (she speaks chinese too). Well the lady didn't know, but she said that the regular beida was in the direction that we were going, and that's good, b/c theoretically we'd hit our campus first and then if you went on further you'd get to beida. So we kept going and about 15 minutes later we were still facing unfamiliar territory. So we asked a security guard and he didn't know, so he radioed his friends to ask and they had an idea but weren't sure, but then he said to ask the taxi driver who was getting a soda from the street vendor. We asked and he immediately knew and we asked him to point us in the direction and he asked if we realized that we were kinda far away. He said he'd take us there but we told him we didn't have any yuan on us, but he said not a problem...he'd take us to our campus and one could wait with him and the other could get the money. We agreed even though we were still convinced we were close to where we lived. Well, it took us 15 minutes by taxi to get there....somehow instead of going in a square, we ran in some sort of weird trapezoid. But we were never worried as we both spoke Chinese and were together. As it turned out...our dinner party (who we were supposed to have met at 7:30) were outside the campus and a friend of ours lent us the money to pay the driver right away.....needless to say we probably won't live down our adventure for awhile...haha, oh well....it sure was fun and I made a great friend out of it.
Friday, August 05, 2005
The first of many for the year to come
Well, after cruising over Siberia to the tune of a 135 mph headwind, I arrived in China yesterday evening. This time all my bags came with me; though for a time there, standing and staring at the baggage turnstile, I was afraid that once again I had arrived in China minus my total of wordly goods. However, finally the little machine spit out my suitcase and I was on my merry way.
I can't explain the feeling I had getting off of the plane and glancing around at the buildings surrounding the airport. It was a sort of euphoria really, like I was back to some place familiar. It is just as I remembered it from last summer, though I suspect there are more construction cranes dotting the skyline, as the impending 2008 Olympics requires quite the building necessity.
I am staying at the Beida Yixiao bu (Beijing U. Health Center) ....so not actually the main Beida campus itself. The group I am in China with all went to the Summer Palace today...it was sweet to go back and see it; esp. since today was a blue-sky day, owing thanks to the storms of the previous evening.
The one difference of being in China this time is that people are relying on me for translations and aide getting around, versus last summer where I had no qualms about letting someone else figure things out for me. For the most part my fellow teachers-to-be don't speak Chinese and are feeling on quite unfamiliar territory here in China. Hopefully that all will change. I've clued many into the subtle nuances of Beijing life...for example: despite the fact that we're staying in 'luxury' university accomodations (translation: shower curtain, sit-down toilet and AC) there are still things that foreigners don't understand. The toilets, even though they've got running water in them cannot handle toilet paper, the pipes here aren't made for that. So that is why there is a little basket next to the toilet to toss away the TP when done. Well my roommate learned that from me, and some others learned by walking in our room....but many came to breakfast this morning with stories of clogged toilets. haha, welcome to china. It's always something.
Classes start tomorrow, yes on a Saturday!
I can't explain the feeling I had getting off of the plane and glancing around at the buildings surrounding the airport. It was a sort of euphoria really, like I was back to some place familiar. It is just as I remembered it from last summer, though I suspect there are more construction cranes dotting the skyline, as the impending 2008 Olympics requires quite the building necessity.
I am staying at the Beida Yixiao bu (Beijing U. Health Center) ....so not actually the main Beida campus itself. The group I am in China with all went to the Summer Palace today...it was sweet to go back and see it; esp. since today was a blue-sky day, owing thanks to the storms of the previous evening.
The one difference of being in China this time is that people are relying on me for translations and aide getting around, versus last summer where I had no qualms about letting someone else figure things out for me. For the most part my fellow teachers-to-be don't speak Chinese and are feeling on quite unfamiliar territory here in China. Hopefully that all will change. I've clued many into the subtle nuances of Beijing life...for example: despite the fact that we're staying in 'luxury' university accomodations (translation: shower curtain, sit-down toilet and AC) there are still things that foreigners don't understand. The toilets, even though they've got running water in them cannot handle toilet paper, the pipes here aren't made for that. So that is why there is a little basket next to the toilet to toss away the TP when done. Well my roommate learned that from me, and some others learned by walking in our room....but many came to breakfast this morning with stories of clogged toilets. haha, welcome to china. It's always something.
Classes start tomorrow, yes on a Saturday!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Stolen Time
Well, it's August 2 and the next time that I post I will be living at Beida in Beijing.....scary thought huh. The 'i'm going to china' comment is actually becoming a reality whether I am ready for it or not. I have spent the last week shopping (guh), in a feeble attempt to reclaim all that was lost. I realized last night that the missing suitcase had my retainers as well and after I relayed my recollection to my mother....it was decided that early this morning I would have to go in and have new ones made. Bah.
So this morning, this very last morning that I am going to be in America, I had to get up at seven and take myself down to the dentist....again. I swear he must think I have a weird obsession with the dental chairs or something because this morning was my third trip there in five days. They made molds of mouth and I was on my way, with the promise that I would return later this afternoon to have them fitted. No sooner had I been home ten minutes when "USAirways" pops up on caller ID. I'm in shock, maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I was still asleep on my last American morning and the dental chair was only a sick joke. Nope, it was no dream. They had found my bag; it had been here the whole time. Geez. So apparently (as of now I have yet to capture a glimpse of said bag) it's coming this afternoon. So this means, that all the receipts and tags must be placed back with all the items bought this week and returned. Man, so not cool at all. I knew my week in Dallas was going to be busy, but I had wanted to spend quality time with mum and dad (i never get to see him) and adam, and instead I feel like the bag debacle robbed me of every last bit of family time. That's the part that really hurts. I don't mind having to return everything....i like my old stuff way better, but time, time you cannot get back, and right now, at this very moment I feel like my time was stolen. I've only seen my dad for maybe six days since Christmas and instead of hanging out with him (i don't care if we just sit in the same room and read) I had to go out and spend my time shopping for what was apparently lost (and apparently found). So at the end of all this what have I gotten.....nothing really, except a stressful week in Dallas, that is buttressed against what will be a full and stressful month of study in Beijing. Hmmm, Chinese neck massages here I come....maybe acupuncture too, or taichi????
And so on this last day in America, after procuring strange Texas type gifts for my headmaster (to the tune of Armadillo Droppings (pralines) etc.) I find myself with only time for one last run in America, one last dinner, and maybe one last quality tv show (that isn't going to be a bootleg copy purchased on the pedestrian fly-overs in Beijing....quality dvd sellers there no doubt).
It's 100 in Dallas today...it's 90 and raining in Beijing, go figure. I'm excited to be back in Beijing; I've got some friends there now and hopefully on one of my two days off this month I'll be able to meet up with them and catch up on life. I can't wait to see the campus of Beida; I've heard it's breathtakingly beautiful and I have no reason not to believe it, after all it is only minutes from the Yihe yuan (summer palace) and it's really beautiful there (minus the ominous grey sky of course...but that's always there). Hmm, maybe on the 18 hours I've got from San Fran to Beijing I will have to read my new camera manual so I can start taking pictures as soon as I get there.
I've yet to decide whether or not I am going to make the "no eating at American chain restaurants" pact with myself like I did last summer in Beijing. I think in a year I might crave a little bit of home (even if it comes at Christmas as a quater-pounder with cheese). So I'll just say that I am going to attempt to stay away from the American food, after all....Chinese food is rather delectable and I've had visions of street vendor food in China for a whole year.
So this morning, this very last morning that I am going to be in America, I had to get up at seven and take myself down to the dentist....again. I swear he must think I have a weird obsession with the dental chairs or something because this morning was my third trip there in five days. They made molds of mouth and I was on my way, with the promise that I would return later this afternoon to have them fitted. No sooner had I been home ten minutes when "USAirways" pops up on caller ID. I'm in shock, maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I was still asleep on my last American morning and the dental chair was only a sick joke. Nope, it was no dream. They had found my bag; it had been here the whole time. Geez. So apparently (as of now I have yet to capture a glimpse of said bag) it's coming this afternoon. So this means, that all the receipts and tags must be placed back with all the items bought this week and returned. Man, so not cool at all. I knew my week in Dallas was going to be busy, but I had wanted to spend quality time with mum and dad (i never get to see him) and adam, and instead I feel like the bag debacle robbed me of every last bit of family time. That's the part that really hurts. I don't mind having to return everything....i like my old stuff way better, but time, time you cannot get back, and right now, at this very moment I feel like my time was stolen. I've only seen my dad for maybe six days since Christmas and instead of hanging out with him (i don't care if we just sit in the same room and read) I had to go out and spend my time shopping for what was apparently lost (and apparently found). So at the end of all this what have I gotten.....nothing really, except a stressful week in Dallas, that is buttressed against what will be a full and stressful month of study in Beijing. Hmmm, Chinese neck massages here I come....maybe acupuncture too, or taichi????
And so on this last day in America, after procuring strange Texas type gifts for my headmaster (to the tune of Armadillo Droppings (pralines) etc.) I find myself with only time for one last run in America, one last dinner, and maybe one last quality tv show (that isn't going to be a bootleg copy purchased on the pedestrian fly-overs in Beijing....quality dvd sellers there no doubt).
It's 100 in Dallas today...it's 90 and raining in Beijing, go figure. I'm excited to be back in Beijing; I've got some friends there now and hopefully on one of my two days off this month I'll be able to meet up with them and catch up on life. I can't wait to see the campus of Beida; I've heard it's breathtakingly beautiful and I have no reason not to believe it, after all it is only minutes from the Yihe yuan (summer palace) and it's really beautiful there (minus the ominous grey sky of course...but that's always there). Hmm, maybe on the 18 hours I've got from San Fran to Beijing I will have to read my new camera manual so I can start taking pictures as soon as I get there.
I've yet to decide whether or not I am going to make the "no eating at American chain restaurants" pact with myself like I did last summer in Beijing. I think in a year I might crave a little bit of home (even if it comes at Christmas as a quater-pounder with cheese). So I'll just say that I am going to attempt to stay away from the American food, after all....Chinese food is rather delectable and I've had visions of street vendor food in China for a whole year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
