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Hey all, we are ready for another weekend of teaching starting tomorrow, so I wanted to make a quick post about some random things. Not a whole lot is new since we came back from Beijing, but I went out for the first time to some real Chinese night clubs last night. We started the night getting dinner at a restaurant with our boss, Eddie, and the other teacher, David, and had a nice meal. Eddie was pretty drunk by the time we left the restaurant, so Erin made the wise choice of staying home instead of going to the club called the Toy Bar. David (the other teacher) wanted me to go and I felt bad leaving him with a drunk Eddie (again), so I tagged along. It was a pretty hilarious experience, especially considering all the horror stories the Chinese teachers at our school told us about massive fights, drug use and other things at this bar. Don’t worry, this would have been the tamest club in the USA, so it is incredibly edgy for Chinese standards. There were 3 dancers that came out every 15 minutes to do a little dance show, involving some bad hip hop dance moves that was quite amusing to watch. Random guys kept coming up to me and trying to buy me drinks or talk to me, and were touching me a LOT which was a little awkward, but is totally common in China. It was deafeningly loud and the room was filled with smoke, but it was still funny to see the Chinese people dancing horribly and singing every lyric to some of the worst English pop music I have ever heard. Why they are playing English pop music in a Chinese dance club is beyond me, but every person knew every word, so I guess they really like it. We left pretty early, before Eddie could do any serious damage to the place.
Overall we have adjusted to life here pretty easily and are having a good time. There are some things that are really starting to irritate me though. Nobody here looks before they cross the street. Cars just go before they look to see if things are coming. People will walk right at you until the very last second, then stop in front of you, THEN move out of the way. I truly do not understand why they do this, and it is a miracle that people aren’t killed constantly while crossing the street. I have asked Chinese people if they look both ways before crossing the street and they all say “No, we don’t do that.” Don’t do that?! Why? WHY? WHY?! It makes driving, riding a bike, and even walking that much more difficult, dangerous, and time consuming, because you have to always move out of the way of people that are paying no attention to anything. In America this is some people, some of the time. In China this is all people, almost all of the time. I have seen lots of traffic accidents the past few weeks, almost all involve a taxi and someone trying to turn. People just turn, they don’t look. They just go and hope traffic stops. Most of the time it does, but again, why not just follow the obvious (to an American) rules of the road, which will save you time and cause less accidents. For now, I just keep both eyes on the road at all times, because you never know what people will do.
Only one more complaint, I know everyone is probably really enjoying my whining. I do not think a single person in China turns their cell phone on vibrate. You can be sitting next to someone on a bus that will get 50 text messages in 10 minutes, with their phone making lots of noise each time, and the only person that it appears to annoy is me. It is not just in those situations, though, because the Chinese teachers and the parents of students that are in class will let their phone ring away in the middle of class, and it is like nobody even notices. Obviously this is not a big deal most of the time, but it is pretty annoying when you are trying to teach and have to start screaming to talk over the noise. It is to the point that I think it is perhaps a sign of status to have your phone make a ton of noise, the more often the better. My mind often tempts me to grab the parents cell phones in class, smash them against the wall, but I try to remember good ol’ Kung fu Tze (Confucius) saying, “Let there be no evil in your thoughts.” Serenity now, as Cosmo Kramer would say.
Alrighty, we are going to watch an episode of our new TV series that we got, Madmen. We finished The Wire a few days ago, and if you have never seen it, you should watch it (it is for mature audiences only)! I have attached some more pictures for your viewing pleasure from our trip to Beijing. Time to teach all weekend for us! Get on skype so we can chat. Zaijian.
Ran Qiu said, “It is not that your Way does no commend itself to me, but that it demands powers I do not possess.” The Master said, “He whose strength gives out collapses during the course of the journey (or the Way); but you deliberately draw the line.” The Analects, 6.10
Yo yo yo, just a quick little update for tonite. If anyone doesn’t have Skype, you should get it and Skype with us. It really makes us feel like we aren’t a billion miles away, because we can see and hear you all calling us. The best part about it? ITS FREE! I truly do not understand how this service is free. A product this good simply should not be free if you ask me, but I am not complaining. I wanted to cancel a credit card due to some fraudulent charges popping up (stupid South Africa!!), and I wasn’t sure how to call the 1-800 number that I needed to. I talked to our friend from teacher training, John, and he told me you can call 1-800 numbers for free with Skype. Problem solved! So now I love Skype even more than I did before, which was already infinitely.
We also got our Chinese cell phones up and running today and they are decent. We got the phones, 200 kuai worth of minutes (which is a decent amount), free unlimited calling between the two of us, and international calling capabilities for about $25 US each! Again, this makes no sense at all to me. How could it possibly be this cheap?! Also, how much money are US cell phone companies making?! It is pretty incredible, and everyone we talked to said it was the best deal they had ever heard of for a cell phone in China. Woo hoo!
Ok, just a short post today, sorry folks. I included some photos of our apartment to make up for the lack of text. The last picture is of some street food, a omelette/pancake type thing with some of our boss’ home made salsa on top. All for about 40 cents! Go Hoyas tonite, I will be teaching unfortunately, but enjoy March Madness for those of you that care. For those of you that don’t, have a good day! Peace.
Despite the fact that the snow is STILL following us from the US…we are having a good time in Tangshan! We taught all weekend, which was especially rough for David because he was sick. Teaching 15+ hours with a sore throat is not fun, but we made it and are beginning to get to know the kids a little better. We also had our first classes at a public school at the end of last week, and I really loved the experience. With all that I had heard about the intensity and rigor of schooling here, I expected public school to be a very solemn atmosphere. Much to my delight, kids seemed happy and excited to be in school. I assume that English classes with a foreign teacher are particularly exciting, but the kids were giggling and clapping when I walked into the room and they were even better at English than most of my students at Aston. The most touching moment of the day came when I introduced myself and then asked the kids to tell me what they like to do. One girl said, “I like to sing,” and I replied, “can you sing?” She immediately looked at the teacher, who hesitantly nodded her head, and the girl skipped to the front of the room and began to sing! Her voice was so sweet and really good, and the kids mostly clapped along with her. I really hope to have more experiences like that, where I can encourage kids to show me a little more of themselves. The teachers in the public schools were also good at English and very professional, I hope that we can befriend a few.
After class on Sunday I had a long talk with one of the teachers at Aston about education in China. She explained that in Chinese schooling only three subjects really matter: Chinese, Math and English. Parents generally get upset when classes like music and PE are introduced into their children’s schedules. This teacher mentioned that her sister had always loved music, but was not allowed to pursue her interest. However, she didn’t do very well on the final high school exam (the really important one that determines which type of university you will attend) and had no other choice than to attend a music school. Apparently music and arts schools are the most expensive and least desirable, and are mostly for kids that don’t have any other options for schooling. Fortunately, this girl’s parents were liberal enough to let her attend, and she’s now a Chinese folk singer!
On Monday we were off and although David didn’t feel great, we went around the city a little. We met a new 24-year old student that we will be tutoring once a week. His parents own a tree-fencing company and want to expand to English-speaking tradeshows, and he’s hoping to learn business and conversational English in one month. I think this may be quite a challenge because while he knows the phrase “Next time it’s on me,” he doesn’t know colors! I also got a basket put on my bike, we ate “pizza” at the “Italian” joint in town, and bought a lot of groceries at RT Mart. Oddly enough…there was a stage and live singing in front of the mega-store too! Afterwards, I attempted to cook our first real dinner at home, which consisted of a stir-fry of beans, onions, peanuts in vinegar, ginger, mushrooms and eggs over rice…which turned out pretty well. One of the teachers at our school has offered to teach us how to cook some more traditional Chinese food, so we hope to learn more. We have also watched the movies Kung Foo Hustle and Memoirs of a Geisha, which have been really good. Our manager has over 3,000 DVDs at his house, so we hope to catch up on a lot of Chinese and American films.
Today (Tuesday) we met the other David and teacher, Ada and went downtown to the Palagic Mall and street market. Ada was nice enough to help us buy cell phones. We got two phones for $20 each, which included a few hundred minutes per month, and a plan that allows us to call each other for free…sweet deal! The phones won’t be active for 48 hours, but after that we can receive calls for free and call the US in case of an emergency for about $2.50/min. The mall was really nice, complete with a movie theater and good restaurants. Ada also wants to find a gym with yoga classes, so I’m very excited about that. After the mall we headed to the plant and pet market. We bought 5 plants for the house for about $20, and pet lots of cute puppies. David was asking how much all the plants were and as a joke, he pointed to a man’s dog and asked how much he cost. At first the man laughed, but then told Ada that he would sell us the dog for 300 RMB, haha. Tempting to have a little pup in our apartment, but we had to pass.
Next up we need to open bank accounts and further decorate the apartment. We also plan to take our first trip to Beijing this weekend. And now to post lots of pictures of the things I have just described…
Tone Deaf - A Chinese Journey 