It's once again been awhile since I've posted...the blames is squarely on the fact that I do not have internet in my room and will not have internet there before I leave as the school has erased the operating system on my computer once already while trying to plug in high speed internet. I have decided not to take further chances with them messing up my computer and will settle for using a classroom computer for these last 12 weeks or so. Am I really down to that little time? It seem surreal. I'm just getting to the point where my students are really comfortable with me and they joke (usually appropriately) with me and the class periods go by rather quickly.
This past week has been fun at school because I have been teaching a lesson about monsters and using vocabulary that is new to them: eyebrows, eyelashes, spots, horns etc. and after week look at many powerpoints of monsters I break them into groups of 4 and give them paper and some crayons and they must draw a monster and then either answer questions about the monster or write a story, depending on the level of english in the class. I think the kids like the crayons the best, as they are from a box that I brought from the states, Crayola in fact. Crayons from the stationary shops here are much more waxy and don't have such brilliant colours. Some of the students are really very good artists, while others, not so much. I can't fault them though; in their 7am-6pm school day they don't have any art classes. In fact the one art classroom that I used to see students in at night doing still-life portraits and really enjoying themselves in, was turned into a book-storage room last week and so there is no more room for special art classes. I guess schools here and ones in the states have that in common, the arts programs are the first to be cut when budget-shaving occurs.
My class schedules of recent have been changing almost daily b/c of testing that is going on and mock-testing for the Junior 3's who will be taking their high school entrance exam on the 15th of June. I had to work on Sunday last week b/c apparently the J3's did so poorly on a full mock test the preceding week, that the school had a meeting about their terrible performance and deemed it necessary for them to re-take the same test on Friday, today. Thus, the Friday schedule was moved to sunday and instead of being able to visit my friends in a district north of here last weekend, I had to stick around and teach two classes beginning at 8am on Sunday. Fun.
It's also a bit ironic that their exam is on the exact day that my contract goes up. All the classrooms have a blackboard in the front and the back of class and the one in the back is keeping track of days left until the 'zhong kao' or 'middle exam' which means so much to them. Thus, in an inadvertant manner its a constant reminder of how much time I have left.....78 days, that's no time at all.
I haven't made any final plans about where I am going to travel during my 7 days off in May, but I am beginning to lean towards Japan b/c the tickets are cheap, even though travelling around there will not be so cheap.
The weather has been beautiful the last couple of days, which is nice b/c in recent weeks we have seen quite a substantial amount of rain that will put even the cheeriest of people into kind of a sullen stupor. I've had many near-falls on slippery pavement, but not wipeouts this month.
I am glad to have come to China and I am glad to have time left here, but I have also realized that I don't want to live alone in a foreign country in the future. It gets a bit lonely when there isn't another person to laugh with while killing swarms of mosquitos in your room, or washing your clothes in the shower b/c there isn't a washing machine.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Living Colonial Style
Living in China has made me something of a tolerant person I would like to think. However my patience has been pushed to the limit in recent weeks, but instead of snapping, I think my demands on living conditions in this country have just gone down to the point where the fact that I have no internet, no hot water in the shower and most recently a washing machine that doesnt drain, doesnt seem quite so bad anymore.
This past weekend was event-filled, most noteably that for one day and one day only, I was a model for a professional photo shoot of nifty Italian mattresses. I was paid a gold mine in China terms and mere peanuts in US terms (so I’m sure some European Model Union is at this time using my head for a dart board realizing that they could have made $8000+ dollars off of a shoot that was outsourced to China where a sucker like me would do it for 1/16 the price). My friend Tim and I were in the photos (they needed a ‘couple’ for some of shots, but really he was in maybe 20% of the pics). We had to travel to the town of Shunde which is two hours away from Shenzhen, so Mr. Luo (the China manager of the Italian mattress company, whose name escapes me right now) picked me up at 6:15am on a Sunday and promised to have me home by 8pm. Ha.
Upon arrival in Shunde, I realized that the city was pretty much entirely furniture, carpet and draping factories and showrooms. As we got out of the mini-van I looked across the street and on a large billboard there was an advertisement for the new summer “Poop Collection” for a leather furniture factory. Either that was a serious typo or some translator really screwed over the company. Though…the color of the furniture was oddly close to uh, poop colour, so maybe that’s really what the company was going for.
Anyho, back to the story. I was ushered up to a really top notch photo studio, mostly for furniture scenes I think and the makeup and hair artists that came with us set to work on my person. It took 2, yes 2, uh huh, 2 hours to do my makeup. That was totally astonishing. I think Mr. Makeup Man spent 45 minutes meticulously covering up every one of my freckles under my eyes and on my nose. He then inquired as to whether he could pluck my eyebrows and I made him show me what he intended to do….he wanted to make my eyebrows about 1 inch long, ha ha ha. I said no, no plucking, but he was allowed to trim. I gotta say….amazing job really. I now have nicely arched eyebrows and they’re still full eyebrows which is wonderful. After 2 inches of makeup was applied, I got ready for him to apply mascara and instead, he pulled out a set of fake eyelashes. Actually, not that’s a lie, he pulled out multiple sets of lashes and tried them out on me before deciding on the right pair. I had never worn fake lashes before…..you have to glue those suckers on !!!!! They were actually glued and then reglued about 9pm that night as shooting began to go way overtime. They looked lovely on camera, but I’ve never felt anything stranger on my eyes before. It almost felt like I couldn’t open my eyes all of the way.
Then came my hair. They decided that my long long straight hair needed to become long curly hair. It looked beautiful, one hour later and through the course of the day had to be redone no less than 5 times. Crazy. Mr. Curling Iron man would set me down between set changes to recurl.
I told them no scandalous or relvealing clothing would be worn by me, so my ‘outfits’ included some rather bizarre elements: a long enormous bath robe with grosgrain ribbon trimming, joga pants and an exercize shirt, and white cotton long underwear….full bodysuit-like. These were all purchased in China, meaning that they were the largest sizes that could be procured b/c I am so much bigger than people here.
The photographer was awesome and his adobe photoshop was even cooler. Almost a second after the photos were taken he went to work on photoshopping out my scraped knee or some errant string on the duvet cover. The resolution was so astonishing….the holes in the foam of the pillows could be picked up on the screen and made to look like swiss cheese.
By 11:30 I was exhausted and cranky and felt myself becoming one of the primadonna models from reality tv. I just wanted to go home. Luckily, shortly after we were able to wrap and be done.
After not having eaten for 13 hours, Mr. Luo wanted to take us for food…..Tim and I were thinking the enormous Mc Donalds that we had passed. Even though I had not eaten Chinese Mc D’s since arriving I felt the evening warranted a hamburger. However, instead we went to a congee (porridge) restaurant. Now, mind you I don’t really fancy Chinese porridge food in the first place, but apparently at midnight the selection at the restaurants goes way down…go figure. The waitress says that they have chicken porridge and snake porridge. I quickly say chicken while everyone else including tim says snake (tim says I should live a little). Well, never fear, the women quickly comes back to say that there isn’t chicken, only snake. So alright snake it is. I’m guessing that cook just didn’t want to make a pot of chicken porridge for one person. Well twenty minutes later a giant cauldron of steaming something or other comes out and the waitress starts to ladle it in our bowls. The porridge part tastes alright….kinda like salty oatmeal….then tim digs his spoon into the bottom of the bowl and pulls out….the jaw, yes the jaw of the snake. Then mr luo spoons up the eyeball, then makeup man takes a mouthful of reproductive organs and I think that I’m going to be ill. I choked down maybe a third of the bowl but honestly, after seeing every bit of the snake grinded up and stuck in that bowl….I really forgot all about being hungry.
Three am I arrived home to my school. I didn’t make it into bed until after 4am for two reasons:
1) I was once again starving so I found it necessary to make some peanut butter toast.
2) I had to wash the 2inches of makeup off of my face (incidentally wearing that makeup into a restaurant at midnight gave me probably my closet feeling ever to being a lady of the night, so to speak). Because the makeup that so thick, I was going to have to use hot and some major scrubbing to get all of it off…..problem….my hot water only worked on Tuesday last week and since then it has been broken. The man came on Saturday with a new hot water heater, but not man for installing. So I am now just sitting around looking at the nice box with the hot water heater in it. Thus, in order to get the makeup off of my face, I had to heat up water in my hot water pot, pour it into a basin once it boiled, added some cold water to it, and voila, warm water. (Incidentally, this colonial-style wash basin showering is how I’ve been doing it for a week since the hypothermic termperatures of the water coming out of the faucet were just too much for me after three showers. When I showed I usually have to heat up 4 pots of water and use the big basin. Just call me Laura Ingalls Wilder….i feel like I should be churning butter or wearing a bonnet while doing all of this too).
3 hours into my well-deserved slumber, I was awoken by pounding on the door. Conveniently, at 7:30am on a Monday, the telephone company decided to arrive to install my phone line. I was mad and happy at the same time…..at least I was going to be in touch with the real world again! However it was strange…in theory they had to install a brand new telephone line because the old one had been ripped out, but really they just cut into the plastic of the tv cable, cut a few wires, twisted them around a wire leading out of the phone and then….my phone worked! Awesome.
I figured since Monday was a good and productive day, then so would Tuesday. Water heater man was supposed to come at 3pm, but oh wait….he never came. I decided that while waiting I might as well get some laundry started. That meant I had to unplug my computer and lamp from the power strip I was using as an extension cord (only one outlet in my apt/room works) and then take it outside, plug in the washing machine to the strip and then plug the strip into the plug in the outside kitchen that is 5 feet up the wall. I pull my clothes in and decided to go for a run.
Upon arrival home (after having fallen on the pavement for the 6th time in china…I’m beginning to worry about myself), I went to hang up my laundry only to find out that…it never got past the wash/agitate cycle. The stupid machine won’t drain. I tried all the different settings and none of them could get past the first of three parts….no rinse, no spin. So…..I got the giant basin, took all of the clothes out and took them to the bathroom to be rinsed. They were….and still are….full of soap. I turned the shower on and spent 30 minutes rinsing and wringing out all of the laundry, but when I went outside to see if they were dry this morning….they felt like they had tons of soap still in them…..kinda yuck. The machine incidentally still has an alarmingly gross coloured water in it.
Other than that, life has been pretty quiet. Im going to a Ball sponsored by the Foreign Experts Bureau on March 18 and had a dress made from a JCrew picture. The dress in the catalogue cost $450 and the copy I had made out of the same silk material cost $20. Amazing. Hopefully that should be a good time.
The school has changed our schedule again. The Junior 1 and 2 students now must do morning exercizes on the field for 20 minutes before school begins, so classes are pushed 10 minutes later, meaning the students get 10 minutes less for lunch each day. Pretty unfair if you ask me. I am teaching a lesson on differences between American schools and Chinese schools this week and some of my students are funny by make me feel sad that the same time. I asked if they have singining, or band, or drama or art classes and they said no. But then I said that I have seen the art room on the bottom floor and they said it is just for show, for when parents or Party members come to visit. I then asked what they do before first period at 8am (they must be at school by 6:50) and they said it’s reading hour, but it usually isn’t reading hour reading…its and hour for the teachers to yell at them. Then they were telling me how easy it is to cheat on tests because the desks are so close and the teachers, when they give the exams, usually fall asleep in the front of the rooms, or put a newspaper on their head or read a magazine. At some of this stuff I just had to chuckle really hard.
Oh China….
In other news, I’m headed back to Dallas on June 16, which means thanks to the good ole international date line….I’ll actually be back in Dallas on the 16th….after 20 hours of flying and a 14 hour time change. 3months….time flies.
This past weekend was event-filled, most noteably that for one day and one day only, I was a model for a professional photo shoot of nifty Italian mattresses. I was paid a gold mine in China terms and mere peanuts in US terms (so I’m sure some European Model Union is at this time using my head for a dart board realizing that they could have made $8000+ dollars off of a shoot that was outsourced to China where a sucker like me would do it for 1/16 the price). My friend Tim and I were in the photos (they needed a ‘couple’ for some of shots, but really he was in maybe 20% of the pics). We had to travel to the town of Shunde which is two hours away from Shenzhen, so Mr. Luo (the China manager of the Italian mattress company, whose name escapes me right now) picked me up at 6:15am on a Sunday and promised to have me home by 8pm. Ha.
Upon arrival in Shunde, I realized that the city was pretty much entirely furniture, carpet and draping factories and showrooms. As we got out of the mini-van I looked across the street and on a large billboard there was an advertisement for the new summer “Poop Collection” for a leather furniture factory. Either that was a serious typo or some translator really screwed over the company. Though…the color of the furniture was oddly close to uh, poop colour, so maybe that’s really what the company was going for.
Anyho, back to the story. I was ushered up to a really top notch photo studio, mostly for furniture scenes I think and the makeup and hair artists that came with us set to work on my person. It took 2, yes 2, uh huh, 2 hours to do my makeup. That was totally astonishing. I think Mr. Makeup Man spent 45 minutes meticulously covering up every one of my freckles under my eyes and on my nose. He then inquired as to whether he could pluck my eyebrows and I made him show me what he intended to do….he wanted to make my eyebrows about 1 inch long, ha ha ha. I said no, no plucking, but he was allowed to trim. I gotta say….amazing job really. I now have nicely arched eyebrows and they’re still full eyebrows which is wonderful. After 2 inches of makeup was applied, I got ready for him to apply mascara and instead, he pulled out a set of fake eyelashes. Actually, not that’s a lie, he pulled out multiple sets of lashes and tried them out on me before deciding on the right pair. I had never worn fake lashes before…..you have to glue those suckers on !!!!! They were actually glued and then reglued about 9pm that night as shooting began to go way overtime. They looked lovely on camera, but I’ve never felt anything stranger on my eyes before. It almost felt like I couldn’t open my eyes all of the way.
Then came my hair. They decided that my long long straight hair needed to become long curly hair. It looked beautiful, one hour later and through the course of the day had to be redone no less than 5 times. Crazy. Mr. Curling Iron man would set me down between set changes to recurl.
I told them no scandalous or relvealing clothing would be worn by me, so my ‘outfits’ included some rather bizarre elements: a long enormous bath robe with grosgrain ribbon trimming, joga pants and an exercize shirt, and white cotton long underwear….full bodysuit-like. These were all purchased in China, meaning that they were the largest sizes that could be procured b/c I am so much bigger than people here.
The photographer was awesome and his adobe photoshop was even cooler. Almost a second after the photos were taken he went to work on photoshopping out my scraped knee or some errant string on the duvet cover. The resolution was so astonishing….the holes in the foam of the pillows could be picked up on the screen and made to look like swiss cheese.
By 11:30 I was exhausted and cranky and felt myself becoming one of the primadonna models from reality tv. I just wanted to go home. Luckily, shortly after we were able to wrap and be done.
After not having eaten for 13 hours, Mr. Luo wanted to take us for food…..Tim and I were thinking the enormous Mc Donalds that we had passed. Even though I had not eaten Chinese Mc D’s since arriving I felt the evening warranted a hamburger. However, instead we went to a congee (porridge) restaurant. Now, mind you I don’t really fancy Chinese porridge food in the first place, but apparently at midnight the selection at the restaurants goes way down…go figure. The waitress says that they have chicken porridge and snake porridge. I quickly say chicken while everyone else including tim says snake (tim says I should live a little). Well, never fear, the women quickly comes back to say that there isn’t chicken, only snake. So alright snake it is. I’m guessing that cook just didn’t want to make a pot of chicken porridge for one person. Well twenty minutes later a giant cauldron of steaming something or other comes out and the waitress starts to ladle it in our bowls. The porridge part tastes alright….kinda like salty oatmeal….then tim digs his spoon into the bottom of the bowl and pulls out….the jaw, yes the jaw of the snake. Then mr luo spoons up the eyeball, then makeup man takes a mouthful of reproductive organs and I think that I’m going to be ill. I choked down maybe a third of the bowl but honestly, after seeing every bit of the snake grinded up and stuck in that bowl….I really forgot all about being hungry.
Three am I arrived home to my school. I didn’t make it into bed until after 4am for two reasons:
1) I was once again starving so I found it necessary to make some peanut butter toast.
2) I had to wash the 2inches of makeup off of my face (incidentally wearing that makeup into a restaurant at midnight gave me probably my closet feeling ever to being a lady of the night, so to speak). Because the makeup that so thick, I was going to have to use hot and some major scrubbing to get all of it off…..problem….my hot water only worked on Tuesday last week and since then it has been broken. The man came on Saturday with a new hot water heater, but not man for installing. So I am now just sitting around looking at the nice box with the hot water heater in it. Thus, in order to get the makeup off of my face, I had to heat up water in my hot water pot, pour it into a basin once it boiled, added some cold water to it, and voila, warm water. (Incidentally, this colonial-style wash basin showering is how I’ve been doing it for a week since the hypothermic termperatures of the water coming out of the faucet were just too much for me after three showers. When I showed I usually have to heat up 4 pots of water and use the big basin. Just call me Laura Ingalls Wilder….i feel like I should be churning butter or wearing a bonnet while doing all of this too).
3 hours into my well-deserved slumber, I was awoken by pounding on the door. Conveniently, at 7:30am on a Monday, the telephone company decided to arrive to install my phone line. I was mad and happy at the same time…..at least I was going to be in touch with the real world again! However it was strange…in theory they had to install a brand new telephone line because the old one had been ripped out, but really they just cut into the plastic of the tv cable, cut a few wires, twisted them around a wire leading out of the phone and then….my phone worked! Awesome.
I figured since Monday was a good and productive day, then so would Tuesday. Water heater man was supposed to come at 3pm, but oh wait….he never came. I decided that while waiting I might as well get some laundry started. That meant I had to unplug my computer and lamp from the power strip I was using as an extension cord (only one outlet in my apt/room works) and then take it outside, plug in the washing machine to the strip and then plug the strip into the plug in the outside kitchen that is 5 feet up the wall. I pull my clothes in and decided to go for a run.
Upon arrival home (after having fallen on the pavement for the 6th time in china…I’m beginning to worry about myself), I went to hang up my laundry only to find out that…it never got past the wash/agitate cycle. The stupid machine won’t drain. I tried all the different settings and none of them could get past the first of three parts….no rinse, no spin. So…..I got the giant basin, took all of the clothes out and took them to the bathroom to be rinsed. They were….and still are….full of soap. I turned the shower on and spent 30 minutes rinsing and wringing out all of the laundry, but when I went outside to see if they were dry this morning….they felt like they had tons of soap still in them…..kinda yuck. The machine incidentally still has an alarmingly gross coloured water in it.
Other than that, life has been pretty quiet. Im going to a Ball sponsored by the Foreign Experts Bureau on March 18 and had a dress made from a JCrew picture. The dress in the catalogue cost $450 and the copy I had made out of the same silk material cost $20. Amazing. Hopefully that should be a good time.
The school has changed our schedule again. The Junior 1 and 2 students now must do morning exercizes on the field for 20 minutes before school begins, so classes are pushed 10 minutes later, meaning the students get 10 minutes less for lunch each day. Pretty unfair if you ask me. I am teaching a lesson on differences between American schools and Chinese schools this week and some of my students are funny by make me feel sad that the same time. I asked if they have singining, or band, or drama or art classes and they said no. But then I said that I have seen the art room on the bottom floor and they said it is just for show, for when parents or Party members come to visit. I then asked what they do before first period at 8am (they must be at school by 6:50) and they said it’s reading hour, but it usually isn’t reading hour reading…its and hour for the teachers to yell at them. Then they were telling me how easy it is to cheat on tests because the desks are so close and the teachers, when they give the exams, usually fall asleep in the front of the rooms, or put a newspaper on their head or read a magazine. At some of this stuff I just had to chuckle really hard.
Oh China….
In other news, I’m headed back to Dallas on June 16, which means thanks to the good ole international date line….I’ll actually be back in Dallas on the 16th….after 20 hours of flying and a 14 hour time change. 3months….time flies.
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