Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay in blogs, but I didn’t feel like writing one during my travels and have been settling back to life in Shenzhen for the past couple of weeks. Prepare yourself, this is gonna be a long one.
I started out on January 2nd (much earlier than most people in my program because of my school’s schedule) to spend 10 days in Laos traveling on my own, before meeting up with 5 friends in Cambodia. I took a 26 hour train ride from Shenzhen to Kunming, in Yunan province, followed immediately by a 29 hour bus ride from Kunming to Luang Prabang, Laos. This was exhausting and time consuming, and I think it would have been worth the money to fly to Laos. The night on the bus was pretty rough, mostly Chinese men, and at no point was there a break from snoring or loogie hawking. Rosie, you would have killed yourself. The bus also stopped numerous times to pick up giant bags of seeds and boxes of god knows what, because the bus drivers make extra money by transporting goods as well as tourists. At one point there was some dispute over the price and we ended up sitting in a town for like an hour. However, I made it in one piece, thanks to a couple of Chinese people I met along the way that were quite helpful in negotiating my travel arrangements.
Luang Prabang was pretty sweet, it is a very touristy city, with day tours to nearby waterfalls and caves with temples inside. It is on the Mekong River, and I took a boat to see some of the caves, which was very chill. Most of the boats are long, thin little motor boats, where if the ratio of weight is at all off the thing nearly capsizes, so everyone has to be spaced evenly on either side of the boat. At night the whole main street of the city turns into a market, with people selling various wares along the street. My first day in this city, I knew the food on this trip was going to be great. All the things that China doesn’t have, Southeast Asia does. Baguettes, Coffee, pastries that don’t taste like ass, etc. Their cuisine is heavily influenced by Thailand, and I ate a ton of curry with Sticky rice, Phad Thai, all that good stuff. There is also quite a bit of Indian food. I didn’t really get wild and crazy in luang Prabang, as I only spent a couple days there and was recovering from my recent journey.
The next place I hit was Vang Vieng, which is also quite a popular tourist destination. This place is most famous for its tubing. You rent an inner tube and a guy drives you up the river to the starting point, and there are bars along the river. Hum dee dum, oh that might be kinda cool, I heard there is a rope swing too. Oh nice…NO, this scene was ridiculous. You tube for about 30 seconds and are at the first bar. It’s all made of bamboo, and it has a diving board, a volleyball court, and hundreds of tourists from all over the world getting smashed. And it has a giant rope swing coming out of the trees that I was legitimately frightened to go on. A 30 second float down the river and you are at the next bar, with its own scene, and a zipline coming off of a bamboo tower. And these just go on and on, one bar even had a massive water slide. 6 hours later I had made it about 100 yards down the river, when I realized that the sun was setting behind the mountains. The tube the rest of the way down the river into town is about 2 hours and was really beautiful to see at sunset, albeit a little cold. The next day I rented a motobike and cruised around to the various caves and temples in the mountains outside of the city. I got shafted by the gas station guy and had to push my bike for a bit, but it was still a good morning. The other thing this city has is a row of restaurants with couches around the tables that play endless Friends reruns. When I first heard about this my initial thought was, oh that’s totally lame and commercial. And then I was like, wait a minute, that’s AWESOME. I mean, its not like I came to this city to “feel the real Laos”, and I certainly don’t mind watching a little friends with my happy shake…so take that all you snobby travelers. :P
It was really interesting to meet people traveling in this part of the world. Not only was it weird to see so many white people, but there were also almost no Americans. Most people I met were from New Zealand, Holland, or Sweden. There is a kind of backpacker community, and I kept running into the same groups of people in my travels, even in different countries. I ran into a guy on the beach in vietnam that I had met almost a month ago in Laos just totally randomly. I was wandering around Saigon the first night we arrived by myself because all my friends were going to bed. And this guy comes up behind me and goes “Daniel!” and it was this Swedish dude I had partied with in four thousand islands, Laos a couple weeks before. So I went out that night and kicked it with him and his 5 Swedish buddies. Every town you go to you end up seeing the same faces. But anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself.
After doing the tourist towns, I took a bus down to Pakse, and then another bus out to Tat Lo. Tat Lo really has nothing in it, which is why I went there. There is one dirt road with a couple guest houses and restaurants, that’s it. There are some waterfalls about 6 km up a road that winds through a couple of villages. However, I couldn’t find a bicycle, and a motobike was going to be very expensive. So I just decided to jog up there. Kids would run along with me as I ran through the villages, and I got pretty tired because most of it was uphill. As I was walking through the last village toward the path down to the waterfall, an old lady was sitting working on something. As she sees me walking toward the waterfalls by myself she points a finger at me and says something that I, of course, can’t understand a word of. But I understand that she is telling me not to do anything stupid. When I see the falls, I realize why. There is very little water flowing over them, and it is so windy that the water actually arcs back up over the top and sprays all the rocks above. So it was pretty slippery walking around. I carefully made my way to the edge and sat for a while admiring the view. I spent that night getting drunk in an empty restaurant and chatting with a guy from Laos (who spoke almost no English, but I’m pretty sure was hitting on me) and the owner of the place.
Next day I headed south to Champasak, which has some ruins and not much else. I only spent an afternoon there, biked to the ruins, and left the next morning for Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands). This is a place where the Mekong opens up and there are lots of small islands, hence the name. I wanted to go straight to the small party island near the border of Cambodia (Don Det), but was running low on Kip (Lao currency) so I went to the more developed, yet oddly less happening island further north. It has a bank (and electricity after sundown) so I planned to spend the afternoon there and catch a boat to Don Det Monday morning after changing money. There really isn’t much to do on the bigger island, so I rented a motobike and just cruised around the island a couple times, which was actually a lot of fun. The perimeter of the island has great views, and no tourists, just open road (except for the occasional herd of water buffalo) and rice paddies. I spent the evening at a restaurant on the river watching fishermen throw their nets into the Mekong. I woke up early the next morning to get to the bank, only to find that they would not exchange my Chinese currency and had no ATM machine! This turned out to be a hassle throughout the trip, as no one was eager to take China’s money. Luckily, I ran into a guy that I had met tubing in Vang Vieng who happened to be taking the same boat as me that morning. He loaned me the money to pay for my guesthouse, and I convinced the boatman to stop at a river town with an ATM along the way to Don Det, vowing to never let this happen again.
Don Det was pretty awesome, I biked around the whole Island with the previously mentioned Swedish dude, Ludvig, and chilled out at the various beaches and waterfalls. We got pretty faded that night and wandered around the town, ending up playing pool and ordering crepes. Hard to complain.
The next day I caught a bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where I met up with the other 5 people from my program that I would be traveling with for the rest of the trip.
Phnom Penh was cool, although the most memorable sites were the school that was used as a detention facility during the Pol Pot regime, and the killing fields outside the city where 17,000 people were systematically exterminated. These places don’t hold anything back. The school still has a lot of the machines in it that were used, the cells are still intact, and there is a whole room of mug shot like photos of many of the deceased prisoners that are just eerie. The killing fields have a GIANT tower of skulls that that were dug up, with the victim’s tattered clothes alongside. There are pits of grass that have signs next to them which say things like “Mass grave of 166 victims without heads.” Or “Killing tree against which executioners beat children.” Pretty disturbing stuff. It’s hard to get back to your carefree vacation lifestyle after touring these places, but we managed. Phnom Penh has a solid nightlife scene, great food, and everything is dirt cheap. Also, throughout the Kingdom of Cambodia, or at least everywhere we went, the prices are in US Dollars. It was nice to see some greenbacks again. J
The next place we hit was Angkor Wat. You stay in the town of Siem Reap (Khmer for “Siamese Defeated”) and can get a tuk tuk to take you around the ruins of Angkor Wat for the whole day for pretty cheap. I’m not gonna say I’m an expert, but I’ve seen some Ruins in my day, and these were some of the best. There are a ton of different sites throughout the Jungle around Siem Reap, with massive buildings that are still intact. We watched a sunrise and sunset at different sites (very overcrowded), and spent a full 2 days driving around to different abandoned cities and towers. You can walk up and around all of them, and many have Buddha statues within. Outside of every single site are children selling water, bracelets, travel books, etc. that are a little over aggressive, but excellent salesman. “you buy water! no? ok you buy when you come back, you remember me you come back you buy from me I remember you. Whats your name? where are you from? America? What state. Washington? If I tell you the capital you buy from me.” And those kids actually knew the capital of every state. Oooh, before I forget, for all you Warcraft fans out there, all of the ruins have tons of statues of Naga. That’s right, blizzard totally jacked the Naga idea from Hindu and Buddhist mythology. However, at least they got their purpose right, as they are indeed protectors of water. We took a boat ride out onto the lake near Siem Reap with just our group and watched a sunset as well.
After we were ruined out, we decided to spend a few days just lounging on the beach. The town we hit was Sihanoukville, which has about everything you could want in a beach town. There is a strip of bars and restaurants that provide a happening nightlife, but also plenty of beaches nearby that you can ride a motobike to which are completely isolated. For a couple of days we just sat on the beach eating bananas and swimming in the sea. There were almost no waves and it stays shallow for a long way out. Occasionally cows would wander by. The town also had a casino with 2 dollar blackjack and neverending beers, which I think I went to for at least part of every night. I mean, why pay for beers at the bar when the casino is giving them out for free? Sihanoukville was also the spot where we celebrated Obama day. His inauguration aired in Cambodia live at 12 midnight and we were quite inebriated. I was hella into it at the time but had to go watch it again at the internet café in the morning to remember what he had actually said. Our last day we took a day-long boat excursion to some of the nearby islands and went snorkeling and sat on the beach some more.
After a few days on the beach we headed off to Vietnam. The first place we hit was Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon, which ill use from here on because it’s faster to write). Here we met up with a few other groups of people from our program traveling in the area, and had a large group (about 15) for 2-3 days. The first place I wanted to go was the Vietnamese war memorial museum, which was really interesting They didn’t sugarcoat anything about the actions of the US during the war, but I thought it was very fair. All of the massacres were documented and there was an actual aborted fetus in the Agent Orange section. We also went to the palace that the tanks stormed into during the Fall of Saigon, and it’s very surreal standing on the roof looking out at the gates imagining the scene on that day.
Saigon was also the place where I celebrated my 25th birthday. We all went out and partied in a Vietnamese club near our guesthouse the night before, and got up at 7 the next morning to go see the Viet Cong tunnels outside of Saigon. They show you all the Booby traps that they built, the camouflaged entrance to the tunnels, and the organization of life underground. And then you actually crawl through some of them, which have been lined with concrete since the war and, I’m sure, widened for tourists my size. However, you get a small taste of what it feels like to crawl around underground. Also at this place is a shooting range where you can pay by the bullet to shoot various automatic rifles. They had an M16, M60, AK 47 and some other types. I chose the AK 47 just for the novelty of it, and totally wasted this wooden picture of a camel at the end of the shooting range. That night was Tet, the lunar New Year celebration in Vietnam. The streets were absolutely packed, with concerts playing all night and an incredible fireworks show at midnight. It was a cool celebration to witness, but the holiday that followed turned out to be a bit of a hassle later on.
Saigon is absolutely packed with motorbikes whizzing by, the sheer number of them is amazing. It’s also pretty frightening as one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get around is by motorbike taxi. And they aren’t afraid to put 2 people on the back or put your backpacking backpack between their legs. I actually witnessed a crash on the last day we were there, which surprised me, since I had watched these motorbikes weave in and out of each other seemingly effortlessly for 3 days. There is also still a lot of prostitution still going on, and pretty much any time I was walking alone or with all men after dark I was offered sex. Also, the Vietnamese currency is called the Dong…and that joke doesn’t get old.
Next place we went was Nha Trang. Supposedly an awesome beach town about 10 hours north of Saigon. Maybe it was because we were all going through Cambodia withdrawal, but I didn’t find this place all that awesome. It was overpriced, the food and service was sub-par, the beach was dirty, and the waves were the kind that if you catch them right they slam you on the sand and you just regret it. There are some “ruins” nearby, but they were pretty lame after seeing Angkor Wat. However, I did get a chance to go Scuba Diving here. Two of the girls we met up with in Saigon ended up traveling with us for a while, and they had just gotten their dive certification in Thailand. Nha Trang is supposed to be one of the best spots for diving in Vietnam. It wasn’t incredible wildlife or visibility, but I haven’t been in a while and it was fun just to get back underwater again. They took us out for 2 dives at nearby islands, and it was a beautiful day. After I think only 2 days here we had had our fill, and decided to go inland.
The next town we visited was Dalat, which is a very unique part of Vietnam. It was untouched during the war, and the architecture looks more European than southeast Asian. We arrived here, as in every town, with no hotel reservations. This had worked out fine, except now, because of Tet, every Vietnamese person was on holiday. As we walked around to the numerous guesthouses near where the bus dropped us off, we realized that we had made a mistake. Every hotel was completely booked. From holes in the wall to the giant resorts, no place had even one room available. We found one lady who would let us sleep in her undeveloped backhouse with mattresses on the floor and a very weird smell. The price was quite high, and we tried to bargain with her, but she was unwilling to negotiate. Recognizing that this was not a good sign, we left and continued looking for places available rooms. We even had a motorbike taxi drive all around the city asking for us and he couldn’t find anything. When we went back to that lady with our tail between our legs, the backhouse was already taken. She was nice enough to let the 8 of us sleep on her living room floor, for an exorbitant amount of money. Fortunately we were able to find cheap alcohol that night, and booked a place at a hotel early the next morning.
After that debacle, Dalat turned out to be pretty awesome. There are hiking trails through pine trees in the nearby forests, and great food. One of my favorite days on the trip, a few of us went out into the woods with a guide and went “canyoning.” You basically repel off a cliff with a harness around your waist like after you have just gone rock climbing. Except there is no rock climbing, just lowering yourself. Very little training involved in this (and certainly no paperwork), but it’s not that complicated, and is pretty exciting. After a few increasingly high cliffs, they take you to a waterfall and you lower yourself off with the water running over you. When you get to a certain point you just leap off backwards into the pool below. There are a couple of waterfall repels, some cliff jumping, and even a small waterfall that you can slide down like a water slide. The scenery is beautiful around Dalat, comparable to that of eastern Washington, and you almost forget where you are. I can’t say all that much about the nightlife in Dalat, because we spent most of them in the hotel room watching the Australian Open. For those of you that didn’t watch it, the men’s semi-final and final were pretty epic.
Our last stop in Vietnam was Mui Ne. This was the beach town we should have gone to originally (instead of Nha Trang). Tet was over, and we found a beachside hotel that was just beautiful. The beach was clean, the sea was calm, and there was a volleyball net right out in front of our hotel, with ladies offering massages as you sit on the beach chairs. Unfortunately, we only had one full day to spend there, and rented motorbikes to go out to the nearby sand dunes. Here we went sand sledding, which is actually much less fun than it sounds. You have to dig down to get to moist sand, and throw it down the hill in a line, then cover the back of your sled with sand, and get someone to push you with all their might, and you don’t even go all that fast. Just one of those things you do because it’s there and it’s different, but we were all happy to head back to our hotel early to lounge on the beach and watch the sunset. The next morning we caught a bus back to Saigon and flew to Bangkok.
We had two full days in Bangkok, just stopping through on our way back to Shenzhen. Since our flight stopped in Bangkok and there is no tourist Visa requirement for Thailand, we figured we might as well spend a bit of time here. The first day I spent with the family that my Grandparents lived with while my Grandpa Bob was working for the Thai government. Panarai, the daughter of the couple that my grandparents rented from, met me at my hotel with their driver and drove me and a friend out to their house. They served us lunch, and told me stories about my grandparents. They also showed us around the elementary school that they run, attached to their housing complex. Afterwards, Panarai took us on a boat ride back to our guesthouse. The rest of the day I spent shopping (much easier to find clothes that fit in touristy areas of Bangkok than in Shenzhen) and getting a massage. That night we all went out and partied, Bangkok style. The next day we went on a day trip to the countryside around Bangkok. We walked across the Bridge over the River Kwai, took a bamboo raft down the river, and saw some waterfalls. The real highlight, though, was the elephant ride. For most of the ride you sit on a wooden bench on a platform strapped to their back. However, my buddy and I were lucky enough to get the guide that let us climb up and sit directly on the neck of the elephant. It’s a bumpy ride, but good times. It’s pretty fun to climb around barefoot on the rough skin of this giant animal. At one point, my friend drops his camera. The guide turns his elephant around and it picks the camera up off the ground with its trunk and hands it above his head to the guide. I was pretty impressed. You can also buy food there and feed it to the elephants.
Our guesthouse was located near Kao San rd, which is a giant road full of bars, restaurants, and street vendors (no cars). Most meals I ate street Phad Thai, and sticky rice with mango for dessert (which is just to die for). There are dudes along the street that will make you any kind of fake ID you want, along with fake degrees from different Universities, scuba diving cards, whatever you need. These men are ironically situated next to bars that have signs saying “VERY STRONG COCKTAILS, WE DO NOT CHECK ID.” The next day we went around to see some of the sights in Bangkok – various temples, giant Buddhas, and the royal palace. The deal with the tuk tuk drivers is that they charge you almost no money as long as you let them take you to a couple of tailoring shops around the city on the way. Here you have to walk in and pretend you are interested in having some clothes made, then politely decline. For this, the tuk tuk driver gets a gas card from the tailoring place (and probably commission if you buy anything).
That evening we flew back to Shenzhen. I went through a rough couple days of vacation withdrawal and homesickness, and felt no desire to entertain middle school kids for the next 4 months. But now I’m back in the swing of things and I really do enjoy teaching…most of the time, and in June I get to travel for another month or so. Plus, this weekend my school took us to the nearby city of Mei Zhou, all expenses paid. We went to a mud bath and hot springs on Friday night, and went sightseeing all day yesterday.
This week I am teaching about nutrition, focusing on McDonald’s and the movie SuperSize Me. Speaking of which, I could go for a Big Mac right about now.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
China is Awesome
Just had to sit down and write a quick blog about the generosity of Chinese people on this particular day. Before today starts, the school is already planning to throw a Christmas party for me tomorrow. They will also give me a gift of anything I want up to $200 Yuan ($30), which may not seem like a lot to you, but it goes a long way over here. I asked for a ping pong paddle which I had planned to buy tomorrow.
I woke up this morning practically still full from the dinner I was treated to the night before by a couple I met randomly on the subway.
7:50 am - I am with all the students and teachers at my school out on the basketball courts. The Chinese national anthem and flag raising has just finished, and I am wondering what the man on stage is talking about, as I do every Monday morning. A lady that I recognize as someone important (and therefore unable to speak English) comes up to me and hands me a slip of paper. after a bit of translating from a nearby English teacher, I understand that the school is giving me, and all the teachers, 350 Yuan (about $55) to spend on items at a nearby mall.
10:00 am - I return from teaching class and start trying to book plane flights to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand for the 5 PAID WEEKS OF VACATION I HAVE COMING UP. This is quite difficult given the amount of Chinese characters you must understand to even deal with my bank. I have two different teachers helping me, Laura and Susan. they spend the morning checking different flights, calling my bank to ask questions, and calling friends for advice. I have to leave in the middle to go to the school's recording booth to tape a dialogue which will be used on an upcoming test for the junior 3s. "What does your sister make those beautiful kites for?" "On the weekends I like to spend time with my friends."...after working on my travel arrangements all morning, Susan even takes me to the bank during lunchtime to help me hook up online banking.
1:00 pm - After lunch I continue trying to book flights (I eventually had to use my US credit card, which WAMU decided to cancel after the first transaction for my security. After an unnecessarily long international phone conversation my card was back up and I was able to book my flights). Laura comes to my desk and tells me that one of the girls in her class thought today was my birthday (I’m not sure why). She then hands me a Tupperware full of sushi that the girl made me and brought to school! At that point I start feeling guilty because I don’t even know the student's name and I have never liked sushi. But it turned out to be delicious, and I thanked the girl profusely. I guess I like Sushi after all.
4pm - I return to my desk from the second batch of classes to find a brand new, creme-colored trench coat sitting on my desk. Apparently our school ordered these for all of the teachers (men and women) at my school, because winter is here. Being XXXL size as are most things that have a chance of fitting me in China, it is a bit wide for me, but it’s really nice. While I could see it invoking columbine/flasher emotions in Americans, it is a pretty common style in china. I wear this around for the rest of the day and receive praises of "ooh you so cool" and "oh so handsome" from the majority of people I pass (students and teachers).
4:30 pm - I am still trying to figure out how I will get to Laos for the beginning of my vacation, because the plane flights aren't working out. Laura is still helping me, and asks one of the PE teachers, Simon, to come help because he knows Yunnan province (the one from which I will enter Laos). I meet Simon for the first time, and after Laura explains to him what I hope to do, he tells Laura he will write out detailed instructions and give them to me tomorrow (Simon speaks almost no English). Pretty sweet guy. Then for some reason Laura tells Simon that the school is giving me a 200 Yuan ping pong paddle. Before I know what is happening, Simon has decided that this is not enough money for a really quality ping pong paddle, and he is going to give me one instead! I mean, are you kidding me?
6pm - My friend Alice, another English teacher, gives me a box of fancy chocolates and a very sweet Christmas card.
Needless to say, it was a pretty great day. And a much needed one to power me through the holidays with no family around.
Much love,
Danny
I woke up this morning practically still full from the dinner I was treated to the night before by a couple I met randomly on the subway.
7:50 am - I am with all the students and teachers at my school out on the basketball courts. The Chinese national anthem and flag raising has just finished, and I am wondering what the man on stage is talking about, as I do every Monday morning. A lady that I recognize as someone important (and therefore unable to speak English) comes up to me and hands me a slip of paper. after a bit of translating from a nearby English teacher, I understand that the school is giving me, and all the teachers, 350 Yuan (about $55) to spend on items at a nearby mall.
10:00 am - I return from teaching class and start trying to book plane flights to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand for the 5 PAID WEEKS OF VACATION I HAVE COMING UP. This is quite difficult given the amount of Chinese characters you must understand to even deal with my bank. I have two different teachers helping me, Laura and Susan. they spend the morning checking different flights, calling my bank to ask questions, and calling friends for advice. I have to leave in the middle to go to the school's recording booth to tape a dialogue which will be used on an upcoming test for the junior 3s. "What does your sister make those beautiful kites for?" "On the weekends I like to spend time with my friends."...after working on my travel arrangements all morning, Susan even takes me to the bank during lunchtime to help me hook up online banking.
1:00 pm - After lunch I continue trying to book flights (I eventually had to use my US credit card, which WAMU decided to cancel after the first transaction for my security. After an unnecessarily long international phone conversation my card was back up and I was able to book my flights). Laura comes to my desk and tells me that one of the girls in her class thought today was my birthday (I’m not sure why). She then hands me a Tupperware full of sushi that the girl made me and brought to school! At that point I start feeling guilty because I don’t even know the student's name and I have never liked sushi. But it turned out to be delicious, and I thanked the girl profusely. I guess I like Sushi after all.
4pm - I return to my desk from the second batch of classes to find a brand new, creme-colored trench coat sitting on my desk. Apparently our school ordered these for all of the teachers (men and women) at my school, because winter is here. Being XXXL size as are most things that have a chance of fitting me in China, it is a bit wide for me, but it’s really nice. While I could see it invoking columbine/flasher emotions in Americans, it is a pretty common style in china. I wear this around for the rest of the day and receive praises of "ooh you so cool" and "oh so handsome" from the majority of people I pass (students and teachers).
4:30 pm - I am still trying to figure out how I will get to Laos for the beginning of my vacation, because the plane flights aren't working out. Laura is still helping me, and asks one of the PE teachers, Simon, to come help because he knows Yunnan province (the one from which I will enter Laos). I meet Simon for the first time, and after Laura explains to him what I hope to do, he tells Laura he will write out detailed instructions and give them to me tomorrow (Simon speaks almost no English). Pretty sweet guy. Then for some reason Laura tells Simon that the school is giving me a 200 Yuan ping pong paddle. Before I know what is happening, Simon has decided that this is not enough money for a really quality ping pong paddle, and he is going to give me one instead! I mean, are you kidding me?
6pm - My friend Alice, another English teacher, gives me a box of fancy chocolates and a very sweet Christmas card.
Needless to say, it was a pretty great day. And a much needed one to power me through the holidays with no family around.
Much love,
Danny
Monday, December 8, 2008
You gotta love Globalization sometimes
The little fruit shop by my school is currently selling apples from the beautiful State of Washington. Yes indeed, they have Gala and Red Delicious. I would recognize that Washington sticker anywhere. They are a bit pricey compared with the rest of the fruit, about $.60 per apple, but worth every penny.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thanksgiving in China
Well it’s the 4th Thursday of November here in China. But it isn't actually thanksgiving in America until tomorrow, and it just feels like another day here. I am doing a thanksgiving lesson in my activity class today however, and I plan to explain to them that I should be sitting on the couch and eating stuffing while watching football. "This is what we like to do in America. We stuff our face with food and watch TV." God bless America. Oh I just realized that I haven’t posted since the election. Between Hong Kong TV and a fast internet connection I was able to watch all the results come in live, it was 12 noon here on November 5th when they called it. Needless to say I was ecstatic, and have never felt more homesick than I did that afternoon. I have this newfound pride in America that I have never felt before. It’s very weird, let me tell you. I think my expectations of Obama are so high that there is no way he will ever live up to them. But really, it doesn’t matter. He hasn’t even taken office yet and I already feel good knowing that on January 20th there will be a President in the White House that is not a moron. (sigh of relief)
But anyways, what is this blog supposed to be about? Oh ya, China! Since my last post I have done a bit of traveling. First was Hong Kong, which is actually very close. With public transportation it only takes about 2 hours from my school in Shenzhen to downtown Hong Kong. The most notable thing about Hong Kong is the number of foreigners there. I can actually walk around and no one stares at me! I'm like, hey come on guys, look at me, I’m American, I’m special! Jeez the least you could do is point at me and call me a foreigner. But in all seriousness, it’s nice to blend in again. Everyone there also speaks English, and the feel is very western.
Later that week I went to Macau. Macau is the self proclaimed Vegas of the East. It is a port city that was occupied by the Portuguese. It is technically part of China but has a high degree of autonomy, at least for the next 40 years or so. Portuguese is one of their official languages, and is written on many signs, but no one speaks it. The main draw of this place for most people, and for me, is the casinos. You can find pretty much any game you want in the city’s assorted casinos, however the minimum bet ranges from about $15 – 75 (US). At this rate, your $750 a month salary doesn’t last long. So after losing all I was prepared to lose on the first night, I had to find other things to do for the rest of the weekend. And it turns out there are a ton of sights in the area - old churches and temples, museums, and great restaurants. Little shops all over the city sell egg tarts, which are mini pies made out of egg custard deliciousness. This city is also very close to Shenzhen, only about an hour or two by boat.
Last weekend I went to Shanghai. My friends Shannon and Owen arrived in Shanghai on Saturday night, so I decided what the heck, Ill head up there for the weekend. I took the 2 hour plane ride up there on Friday morning, and went sightseeing by myself until Saturday evening. There is a lot to see in Shanghai. “The Bund” is a very famous street on the Huangpu River, and my hostel was located about a block from it. There is a lot of cool architecture along the Bund, dating back to the late 1800s and a monument to the people’s heroes of china. Across the river is Pudong, which has skyscrapers that at one point were some of the tallest buildings in China. However, the day that Shannon, Owen and I were there, it was extremely foggy and we figured it was not worth the money to go to the top floor just to see clouds. In the center of downtown Shanghai is people’s square. This area also has large park and a few museums that are pretty sweet. My favorite was the urban planning exhibition hall, which had incredibly intricate models of the entire city, and showed the mapping process for designing a city like Shanghai. Because of its history, Shanghai has a lot more tourists, and most Chinese people are frantically trying to sell you something or trick you into getting outrageously overpriced tea with them. This was quite a shock coming from Shenzhen, where every Chinese person I have met has been very nice and exceedingly generous.
While I enjoyed my trip to Shanghai, I missed the thanksgiving dinner that my program put together for all the foreign teachers last Sunday. So I am missing you all today, and wishing I could hang out in rainy Seattle with family and friends and thanksgiving leftovers for the next couple of days.
But I have an interesting weekend planned nonetheless. Tomorrow, I will be attending a job fair in Shenzhen, which I will be mainly volunteering at as an English speaker. I am not sure exactly what this will entail but I’m sure it will be entertaining. On Saturday, I will be accompanying students from my school to a competition where they will perform an English play that I have helped them rehearse. They got 1st place last weekend while I was in Shanghai, so they are in the finals this weekend. This event, I am also sure, will not disappoint.
That’s all for now. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
But anyways, what is this blog supposed to be about? Oh ya, China! Since my last post I have done a bit of traveling. First was Hong Kong, which is actually very close. With public transportation it only takes about 2 hours from my school in Shenzhen to downtown Hong Kong. The most notable thing about Hong Kong is the number of foreigners there. I can actually walk around and no one stares at me! I'm like, hey come on guys, look at me, I’m American, I’m special! Jeez the least you could do is point at me and call me a foreigner. But in all seriousness, it’s nice to blend in again. Everyone there also speaks English, and the feel is very western.
Later that week I went to Macau. Macau is the self proclaimed Vegas of the East. It is a port city that was occupied by the Portuguese. It is technically part of China but has a high degree of autonomy, at least for the next 40 years or so. Portuguese is one of their official languages, and is written on many signs, but no one speaks it. The main draw of this place for most people, and for me, is the casinos. You can find pretty much any game you want in the city’s assorted casinos, however the minimum bet ranges from about $15 – 75 (US). At this rate, your $750 a month salary doesn’t last long. So after losing all I was prepared to lose on the first night, I had to find other things to do for the rest of the weekend. And it turns out there are a ton of sights in the area - old churches and temples, museums, and great restaurants. Little shops all over the city sell egg tarts, which are mini pies made out of egg custard deliciousness. This city is also very close to Shenzhen, only about an hour or two by boat.
Last weekend I went to Shanghai. My friends Shannon and Owen arrived in Shanghai on Saturday night, so I decided what the heck, Ill head up there for the weekend. I took the 2 hour plane ride up there on Friday morning, and went sightseeing by myself until Saturday evening. There is a lot to see in Shanghai. “The Bund” is a very famous street on the Huangpu River, and my hostel was located about a block from it. There is a lot of cool architecture along the Bund, dating back to the late 1800s and a monument to the people’s heroes of china. Across the river is Pudong, which has skyscrapers that at one point were some of the tallest buildings in China. However, the day that Shannon, Owen and I were there, it was extremely foggy and we figured it was not worth the money to go to the top floor just to see clouds. In the center of downtown Shanghai is people’s square. This area also has large park and a few museums that are pretty sweet. My favorite was the urban planning exhibition hall, which had incredibly intricate models of the entire city, and showed the mapping process for designing a city like Shanghai. Because of its history, Shanghai has a lot more tourists, and most Chinese people are frantically trying to sell you something or trick you into getting outrageously overpriced tea with them. This was quite a shock coming from Shenzhen, where every Chinese person I have met has been very nice and exceedingly generous.
While I enjoyed my trip to Shanghai, I missed the thanksgiving dinner that my program put together for all the foreign teachers last Sunday. So I am missing you all today, and wishing I could hang out in rainy Seattle with family and friends and thanksgiving leftovers for the next couple of days.
But I have an interesting weekend planned nonetheless. Tomorrow, I will be attending a job fair in Shenzhen, which I will be mainly volunteering at as an English speaker. I am not sure exactly what this will entail but I’m sure it will be entertaining. On Saturday, I will be accompanying students from my school to a competition where they will perform an English play that I have helped them rehearse. They got 1st place last weekend while I was in Shanghai, so they are in the finals this weekend. This event, I am also sure, will not disappoint.
That’s all for now. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Life goes on
Hey folks. So they have just told me that i will have all next week off while the students are at military training. thats right, my 7th and 8th graders will spend all week at mandatory military training. In addition, many teachers have asked to use my oral english class time this week for extra test prep for midterms on thursday and friday. So I am basically off for the next 2 weeks. This would have been a great time to take a little vacation by myself, since no one else has time off and prices are cheap, but I want to be in the area for Halloween and the election next week. I think I will take 2 small trips, probably to Hong Kong and Macau over the next couple weeks, and just enjoy the free time. I am very excited that i will not have to work at all the day of or day after the election. i will be emotional either way, and really in no place to teach, especially if Obama becomes the next president of the United States. Picture Mr. Danny extremely hungover running around class and screaming, then trying to express to 12-year-old chinese kids what this means for America.
After my last post i spent a week traveling with some folks from my program. We first took an overnight train to Xiamen. While they do have assigned seating on these trains, they also sell standing tickets. This means that the entire train is packed to the gills with people standing and sitting on the floor, bodies crammed into every possible nook and cranny. Sounds miserable, and when you have to pee it kind of is, but the train ride was actually a lot of fun. We ended up playing card games and drinking Bai Jiu (hard alcohol made of rice) with a group of chinese dudes and then passing out for the rest of the trip. all in all it was about 12 hours i think. Once in Xiamen we found a reasonably priced Hotel (unfortunately no room for the donkey friend) and just hung out for a few days. Around town, we checked out Nanputou Temple, a buddhist temple where you can hike up a mountainside and look out over the whole city. we also went out to Gulang Yu, a short boatride to an island where no cars are allowed. There are lots of little trinket shops and stuff like that, and a nice beach to hang out on. Nights were spent partying with random chinese people. It is amazing how little the language barrier impeeds making friends. Pretty much anywhere we go if we look like we want to party chinese people will come up and start drinking with us and buy us beers. The only really necessary words are Gang Bei! Which is like cheers but also means kill your drink. We have had some pretty sweet nights with sketchy, but ultimately awesome Chinese dudes.
We also had a great national day night in Xiamen with some ladies that we met on the train. After a fabulous dinner, we took a cab to the beach. upon arriving at the beach we noticed that just past a thin strip of sand, there was a traditional chinese play going on (faces painted white, costumes, chinese guitar music, all that). After watching for a little bit, our friends brought us down to the beach and told us they wanted to teach us a chinese card game. This turned out to be the game Mafia, which i have not played since I was a little kid. We had a lot of fun playing this and then just hung out on the beach for a while. throughout the night people lit lanterns on the beach, which are like mini hot air balloons. You light a candle at the bottom and it carries the lantern up into the night sky, taking your dreams with it. We lit some of our own, all with the soundtrack of the play in the background.
After a few days in Xiamen, we went out to Yongding. This is an actual rural area, my first in China. This village is known for its Tulous or "earth buildings" that the Hakka people used to live in. These are giant circular buildings that are open air and have a little courtyard inside. I believe the Hakka used them as defense, and could live inside them for long periods of time while keeping invaders out. We spent most of our time on tours going around to see these buildings, and were even able to sleep in one. We crammed 5 dudes into 3 beds covered only with wooden planks, and refrained from using the bucket in the corner for any bowel movements. It actually wasn't that bad, and was definitely a cool experience.
Since that trip I have been hanging out in Shenzhen. my weeks are busy teaching and private tutoring, and I spend my weekends mostly eating, partying, sleeping, and playing sports. I now have a regular ping pong partner and basketball game. Yesterday I spent all afternoon playing soccer with a couple other foreign teachers and a whole team of chinese guys. it was a lot of fun, and about the right level of intensity for me. These guys were average soccer players, and would be a lot better if they didnt take frequent smoke breaks during the game. Afterwards, of course, they took us out for dinner (Sichuan food) and a night of drinking ensued during which no American paid a dime. I am actually a little uncomfortable with how eager they are to pay for us. I think that our salary is actually quite high by chinese standards, higher than most teachers. And they pay for EVERYTHING, the food, the drinks, the pool table, the cab, and never give you an opportunity to even get your wallet out. It's great, but I need to find a way to chip in without being rude.
For Halloween I found a Jason mask at walmart, which i think will go well with the uniform of the maintenance staff at my school. One of the english teachers is on the task, so hopefully i will be able to borrow one. Most Chinese people will probably not recognize this costume, certainly not my students, but I think it is scary nonetheless.
Until next time.
Danny
After my last post i spent a week traveling with some folks from my program. We first took an overnight train to Xiamen. While they do have assigned seating on these trains, they also sell standing tickets. This means that the entire train is packed to the gills with people standing and sitting on the floor, bodies crammed into every possible nook and cranny. Sounds miserable, and when you have to pee it kind of is, but the train ride was actually a lot of fun. We ended up playing card games and drinking Bai Jiu (hard alcohol made of rice) with a group of chinese dudes and then passing out for the rest of the trip. all in all it was about 12 hours i think. Once in Xiamen we found a reasonably priced Hotel (unfortunately no room for the donkey friend) and just hung out for a few days. Around town, we checked out Nanputou Temple, a buddhist temple where you can hike up a mountainside and look out over the whole city. we also went out to Gulang Yu, a short boatride to an island where no cars are allowed. There are lots of little trinket shops and stuff like that, and a nice beach to hang out on. Nights were spent partying with random chinese people. It is amazing how little the language barrier impeeds making friends. Pretty much anywhere we go if we look like we want to party chinese people will come up and start drinking with us and buy us beers. The only really necessary words are Gang Bei! Which is like cheers but also means kill your drink. We have had some pretty sweet nights with sketchy, but ultimately awesome Chinese dudes.
We also had a great national day night in Xiamen with some ladies that we met on the train. After a fabulous dinner, we took a cab to the beach. upon arriving at the beach we noticed that just past a thin strip of sand, there was a traditional chinese play going on (faces painted white, costumes, chinese guitar music, all that). After watching for a little bit, our friends brought us down to the beach and told us they wanted to teach us a chinese card game. This turned out to be the game Mafia, which i have not played since I was a little kid. We had a lot of fun playing this and then just hung out on the beach for a while. throughout the night people lit lanterns on the beach, which are like mini hot air balloons. You light a candle at the bottom and it carries the lantern up into the night sky, taking your dreams with it. We lit some of our own, all with the soundtrack of the play in the background.
After a few days in Xiamen, we went out to Yongding. This is an actual rural area, my first in China. This village is known for its Tulous or "earth buildings" that the Hakka people used to live in. These are giant circular buildings that are open air and have a little courtyard inside. I believe the Hakka used them as defense, and could live inside them for long periods of time while keeping invaders out. We spent most of our time on tours going around to see these buildings, and were even able to sleep in one. We crammed 5 dudes into 3 beds covered only with wooden planks, and refrained from using the bucket in the corner for any bowel movements. It actually wasn't that bad, and was definitely a cool experience.
Since that trip I have been hanging out in Shenzhen. my weeks are busy teaching and private tutoring, and I spend my weekends mostly eating, partying, sleeping, and playing sports. I now have a regular ping pong partner and basketball game. Yesterday I spent all afternoon playing soccer with a couple other foreign teachers and a whole team of chinese guys. it was a lot of fun, and about the right level of intensity for me. These guys were average soccer players, and would be a lot better if they didnt take frequent smoke breaks during the game. Afterwards, of course, they took us out for dinner (Sichuan food) and a night of drinking ensued during which no American paid a dime. I am actually a little uncomfortable with how eager they are to pay for us. I think that our salary is actually quite high by chinese standards, higher than most teachers. And they pay for EVERYTHING, the food, the drinks, the pool table, the cab, and never give you an opportunity to even get your wallet out. It's great, but I need to find a way to chip in without being rude.
For Halloween I found a Jason mask at walmart, which i think will go well with the uniform of the maintenance staff at my school. One of the english teachers is on the task, so hopefully i will be able to borrow one. Most Chinese people will probably not recognize this costume, certainly not my students, but I think it is scary nonetheless.
Until next time.
Danny
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Teach Teach Teach
Hey all. So I have settled into my teaching schedule now. I have taught my intro lesson to all 20 classes, and most are fabulous (ooh, good vocab word). My intro lesson was about seattle, which after being told that it is in the state of washington, they all immediately think is in washington DC. I show a picture of the white house, where "boosh" lives, and explain that I am as far away as i can get. :)
I show them a beautiful picture of downtown with Mt. rainier and the space needle and tell them how much it rains and all that. then I show a picture of bill gates, who they all immediately recognize, and tell them that he lives in seattle. i do the same with Obama when I tell them i went to this school called "occidental college," for those of you who dont know Obama went to Occidental for 2 years. they all immediately scream Obama! when I show his picture, which always makes me happy. I showed them pictures of my family, highlights being trying find the word for Niece, A picture of me with my long hair (they all guess "your sister" when i ask "who do you think this is?"), and trying to guess Carter's age. They start at 50, and one kid in every class eventually shouts out 100! and they think it is a riot. After getting through this I get them to talk by tossing a beanbag to volunteers or random kids that havent spoken, asking questions about what they like to do for fun, what music they like, where they want to visit, those types of things. If the class goes well, which all but one did, I show them a powerpoint with nba stars and basketball vocabulary. They go crazy over this, and know an incredible amount about the nba.
My second lesson is on american slang, teaching them words like gonna, gotta, wanna, etc. and phrases like "what's up?" and "hang out." it is too much fun to say, whats up class? and have them all reply "not much, wassup with you?" This is followed by a game where they pull phrases out of a jar and have to turn them into slang. If they are able to do this they get to take a shot with a foam basketball i got from walmart, the hoop being me with my arms in a circle. They LOVE this, and the winner gets to pick an american song to listen to at the end of class. They like obscenely cheesy music, like backstreet boys, celine dion, and "Westlife" an even cornier boy band from the UK. but hey, give the people what they want.
There are a couple of rowdy classes but physical violence is a surprisingly effective class management technique (j/k). Students, even the troublemakers, really do not like to be called out. Bringing them to the front of class and making them speak english in front of everyone, or asking them to stand in the back of class quickly shuts them up. I also teach the fun class, so the threat of ending games or assigning homework is quite effective. Additionally, many of them think I'm cool because I'm a giant american and I play basketball and ping pong with them so i have it pretty good.
Really the most problems arise when the class does not undertand me. Often times they will split up two classes. so i teach, for example, class 5 and class 6, but class 6 has all the best students. So it is like night and day between what class 6 understands, and what class 5 understands. However, they don't tell me which is which prior to the class. so I get out of class 6 feeling like a superhero, and get out of class 5 wondering why i came to China. kids start glazing over and goofing off when they dont understand what the heck i am talking about. understandable, really. so what it usually comes down to is how interesting and appropriate the subject matter of my lesson is. I have newfound respect for all of the good teachers in my life, cause it aint easy. Especially with younger kids, their attention spans are short, so each lesson has to have a few good ideas to keep them engaged.
I am also now teaching "activity class" three times a week, to the top 3 students from every class. These kids speak a ton of english, and are very well behaved, so I can do more advanced lessons with them. However, it is a fine line to walk. For example, I did a madlib of "Eleanor Rigby" ("All the fancy toilettes, where do they all come from...") by the beatles with them, and their vocabulary is impressive. Next I wanted to show them some "Darwin awards" but ran into trouble introducing Charles Darwin, because the vocab involved in the evolution of species is a bit out of their league.
The school has also followed through with the "teach the teachers" class, which basically consists of me sitting down with all of their english teachers (all women) each week and talking about america for a half hour. this is kind of great, but also a lot of pressure. I try to make it clear that i only speak from my own experience, but I dont know if they are taking it with a grain of salt. I am hoping this will turn into more discussion of the differences between our countries, but so far it has been mostly me talking. Last week I talked about the education system and job market. Standardized tests, public school vs. private school, individuality, group work, debate, leadership skills, hierarchy in the workplace, etc.
I am on a regular schedule of 3 private lessons a week, which are a lot of fun. I found a huge resource of english board games online, soccer turned into a word game, snakes and ladders, all that good stuff. i actually turned down a job today teaching classes at a private school walking distance from my school. It would have been a lot of extra work, and only paid 3/4 what I make doing private lessons. Also, I have been feeling really busy. My activity class goes until 5:45 and I often have an hour private lesson after that, so i don't get done until about 7. Fortunately, its vacation time!
We have next week off for "national day." However, we did not know if we would have our permanent visas in time to leave the special economic zone until very recently, and most of our travel destinations were already booked (all 12 million people in Shenzhen have the week off, and it is a city of migrant workers). We did manage to get train tickets to Xia Men, which is a village (and when i say village, i mean like the population of Seattle) on the beach northeast of here. It is supposed to be beautiful, and ill be going with 7 other folks from the program. All hostels seem to be booked, so we are planning to figure it out when we get there. If we cant find a spot, I guess we'll just have to party all night. Hey, my name is Danny, I like to party.
Fun things to leave you with. First, awesome english names that students told me straight-faced:
Mars
Girl Named Andrew
Brilliant
Jackie Chan
Goofy
Next, an excerpt from the website of a hostel that, shockingly, was booked. the english translations here are hysterical, even in museums and on public posters.
"The culmination international youth hotel has provided comfortable luxurious, the honeymoon as well as the family anteroom for the donkey friends, simultaneously has also provided during neat, the simple and elegant standard for the back person who hires a prostitute, and the multi-worlds and so on many kinds. The hotel facility is complete, helps oneself washes clothes, the self-service kitchen, the Internet bar, the book shed, the parking lot, CD to engrave records, the personal safe cabinet, the goods to check, the text printing, the bicycle to rent, wireless network turning on, the home and the international call, the bar is momentarily open for the donkey friend; The bathroom 24 hours provide the hot water; The hotel provides the ticket clerk the service and the peripheral traveling consultation."
Later donkey friends.
I show them a beautiful picture of downtown with Mt. rainier and the space needle and tell them how much it rains and all that. then I show a picture of bill gates, who they all immediately recognize, and tell them that he lives in seattle. i do the same with Obama when I tell them i went to this school called "occidental college," for those of you who dont know Obama went to Occidental for 2 years. they all immediately scream Obama! when I show his picture, which always makes me happy. I showed them pictures of my family, highlights being trying find the word for Niece, A picture of me with my long hair (they all guess "your sister" when i ask "who do you think this is?"), and trying to guess Carter's age. They start at 50, and one kid in every class eventually shouts out 100! and they think it is a riot. After getting through this I get them to talk by tossing a beanbag to volunteers or random kids that havent spoken, asking questions about what they like to do for fun, what music they like, where they want to visit, those types of things. If the class goes well, which all but one did, I show them a powerpoint with nba stars and basketball vocabulary. They go crazy over this, and know an incredible amount about the nba.
My second lesson is on american slang, teaching them words like gonna, gotta, wanna, etc. and phrases like "what's up?" and "hang out." it is too much fun to say, whats up class? and have them all reply "not much, wassup with you?" This is followed by a game where they pull phrases out of a jar and have to turn them into slang. If they are able to do this they get to take a shot with a foam basketball i got from walmart, the hoop being me with my arms in a circle. They LOVE this, and the winner gets to pick an american song to listen to at the end of class. They like obscenely cheesy music, like backstreet boys, celine dion, and "Westlife" an even cornier boy band from the UK. but hey, give the people what they want.
There are a couple of rowdy classes but physical violence is a surprisingly effective class management technique (j/k). Students, even the troublemakers, really do not like to be called out. Bringing them to the front of class and making them speak english in front of everyone, or asking them to stand in the back of class quickly shuts them up. I also teach the fun class, so the threat of ending games or assigning homework is quite effective. Additionally, many of them think I'm cool because I'm a giant american and I play basketball and ping pong with them so i have it pretty good.
Really the most problems arise when the class does not undertand me. Often times they will split up two classes. so i teach, for example, class 5 and class 6, but class 6 has all the best students. So it is like night and day between what class 6 understands, and what class 5 understands. However, they don't tell me which is which prior to the class. so I get out of class 6 feeling like a superhero, and get out of class 5 wondering why i came to China. kids start glazing over and goofing off when they dont understand what the heck i am talking about. understandable, really. so what it usually comes down to is how interesting and appropriate the subject matter of my lesson is. I have newfound respect for all of the good teachers in my life, cause it aint easy. Especially with younger kids, their attention spans are short, so each lesson has to have a few good ideas to keep them engaged.
I am also now teaching "activity class" three times a week, to the top 3 students from every class. These kids speak a ton of english, and are very well behaved, so I can do more advanced lessons with them. However, it is a fine line to walk. For example, I did a madlib of "Eleanor Rigby" ("All the fancy toilettes, where do they all come from...") by the beatles with them, and their vocabulary is impressive. Next I wanted to show them some "Darwin awards" but ran into trouble introducing Charles Darwin, because the vocab involved in the evolution of species is a bit out of their league.
The school has also followed through with the "teach the teachers" class, which basically consists of me sitting down with all of their english teachers (all women) each week and talking about america for a half hour. this is kind of great, but also a lot of pressure. I try to make it clear that i only speak from my own experience, but I dont know if they are taking it with a grain of salt. I am hoping this will turn into more discussion of the differences between our countries, but so far it has been mostly me talking. Last week I talked about the education system and job market. Standardized tests, public school vs. private school, individuality, group work, debate, leadership skills, hierarchy in the workplace, etc.
I am on a regular schedule of 3 private lessons a week, which are a lot of fun. I found a huge resource of english board games online, soccer turned into a word game, snakes and ladders, all that good stuff. i actually turned down a job today teaching classes at a private school walking distance from my school. It would have been a lot of extra work, and only paid 3/4 what I make doing private lessons. Also, I have been feeling really busy. My activity class goes until 5:45 and I often have an hour private lesson after that, so i don't get done until about 7. Fortunately, its vacation time!
We have next week off for "national day." However, we did not know if we would have our permanent visas in time to leave the special economic zone until very recently, and most of our travel destinations were already booked (all 12 million people in Shenzhen have the week off, and it is a city of migrant workers). We did manage to get train tickets to Xia Men, which is a village (and when i say village, i mean like the population of Seattle) on the beach northeast of here. It is supposed to be beautiful, and ill be going with 7 other folks from the program. All hostels seem to be booked, so we are planning to figure it out when we get there. If we cant find a spot, I guess we'll just have to party all night. Hey, my name is Danny, I like to party.
Fun things to leave you with. First, awesome english names that students told me straight-faced:
Mars
Girl Named Andrew
Brilliant
Jackie Chan
Goofy
Next, an excerpt from the website of a hostel that, shockingly, was booked. the english translations here are hysterical, even in museums and on public posters.
"The culmination international youth hotel has provided comfortable luxurious, the honeymoon as well as the family anteroom for the donkey friends, simultaneously has also provided during neat, the simple and elegant standard for the back person who hires a prostitute, and the multi-worlds and so on many kinds. The hotel facility is complete, helps oneself washes clothes, the self-service kitchen, the Internet bar, the book shed, the parking lot, CD to engrave records, the personal safe cabinet, the goods to check, the text printing, the bicycle to rent, wireless network turning on, the home and the international call, the bar is momentarily open for the donkey friend; The bathroom 24 hours provide the hot water; The hotel provides the ticket clerk the service and the peripheral traveling consultation."
Later donkey friends.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Settled in Shenzhen
Hey folks. So i write to you now from my school in Shenzhen. And i have pretty much hit the jackpot - let me try to put it in perspective: There are like 7 districts in Shenzhen. two of them are the main downtown area, and 5 of them are off in the middle of nowhere - factory districts, rural towns, all that. These people have to take a couple buses and it takes them like an hour and a half just to really get into the city. i am in the upscale downtown area called futian. you name it, i got it. Numerous Banks, two wallmarts, all kinds of fast food (and chinese restaurants), a short walk to many bus routes and the subway, a short walk to the electronics district where you can buy pretty much any bootleg (or legitimate) piece of elecronics equipment you could want. I also get free breakfast and lunch at my school, which would have made me much more excited if i wasnt absolutely sick of chinese food. but wait, it gets better. I am at a "Key school" of which there are only a handful, and they are the most selective schools in the city. So even though i am teaching classes full of about 40-50 7th/8th graders, so far they are amazingly well behaved and very sharp. I think my middle school is ranked like 2nd or 3rd out of all the schools in the city. I have a room complete with air conditioning, kitchen (microwave, toaster, fridge, etc), western style toilet, Washing machine (no dryers in the whole counry but it is hot and things dry quickly outside), tv with cable, dvd player, and cable internet (to all of you who told me i should bring a laptop, you were right, i hope you're happy :) but it doesnt even matter because I have a little cube with my own computer that has about the fastest internet I have seen so far in china. pretty much the same speed as at home. i have a key for the door and they say I can use it whenever i want. This is going to be very crucial when planning lessons on weekends and evenings. This may not sound like much to all of you, but this is about as good as anyone has it out of all the placements. I feel like it is too good to be true and they are going to switch me to another school any day now.
some goofy 7th graders just walked by my cube and said "hello, nice to meet you" and walked away. That happens multiple times a day. Now where was i...
My contact teacher is AWESOME. She is a tiny asian lady whose english name is Susan. She studied in the UK and her english is very good. She has a very cute chinese/british accent. She is very nice and very helpful with anything that i need. My school has a soccer field, a track, basketball and volleyball courts, and a room full of ping pong tables. I played ping pong a little bit with another teacher and was able to at least return some shots, so maybe he will play with me again. My school has a few campuses in Shenzhen, and i am the only foreign teacher at my particular campus, which I think has about 1500 students. however, i am very near a couple of our coordinators and some other foreign teachers. this is perfect for me because it will force me to learn some chinese, but im also near americans when i need them. I have Junior 1 (7th grade) one week, then Junior 2 (8th grade) the next, then back to the junior 1 kids. Classes are 45 minutes. ARE YOU DOING THIS MATH? I only see each class of kids for 45 minutes every other week. This means 2 things. 1) They really arent going to improve much - im ok with this. 2) I only have to come up with one lesson plan every 2 weeks. Some teachers see the same class 3-4 times a week. I also only teach 10 classes a week so far, and do not have any classes on fridays.
like i said, Im trying not to get too excited about this yet, because things are subject to change at any moment around here.
Most sentences that are said to me begin with the word "maybe." I feel that many years ago someone in china got the meaning of this word wrong and it just stuck. Here are some examples:
Chinese authority figure: "How many classes you teach per week?"
Me: "I believe the contract says up to 15."
Chinese authority figure: "oh...Maybe you can do more." "Maybe you teach class for our english teachers as well." (They havent actually followed through with this yet, but who knows)
Chinese authority figure: "You teach tomorrow?"
Me: "Yes, I have two classes in the morning."
Chinese authority figure: "Oh...Maybe you teach them on thursday instead."
Chinese authority figure: "You come tomorrow?"
Me: "What's happening?" (its like 6 oclock)
Chinese authority figure: "It is teacher day. Maybe you come to ceremony at ten to 8."
I think the real reason for this is that they want to be non-confrontational. However, they have no problem punking me as long as they begin the sentence with a "maybe." Yesterday, after numerous commands beginning with "maybe," I ended up dressed nicely at the back gate of our school where a bus picked me up and took me to a teachers day celebration with the mayor of shenzhen. Let me try to paint this picture. Very fancy stage and audience of Chinese people, important chinese people giving speeches during wich i mostly only understand the word for teacher, very warm, starting to dose off..........and EXTREMELY LOUD CIRCUS MUSIC STARTS BLASTING. Attractive young chinese women appear as if from nowhere dressed like stewardesses and hand plaques to the important men sitting at a table on stage. teachers parade onto stage, the important men give the plaques to the teachers, then little girls come out holding flowers and stand in front of the teachers and do a salute. then they all leave stage and it happens again with another group of teachers. Next scene, Im riding the subway last night and see the ceremony on TV. I was really hoping to be on TV after having my picture taken so many times while sitting in the audience, but the crowd shots are all from afar.
Sitting at my desk earlier today one of the english teachers propositioned me with a tutoring job. After a bit of discussion, i will now be tutoring three 11-year-olds for an hour twice a week (starting tomorrow). As of this afternoon my going rate for tutoring is $30 an hour. Hell ya. Jeez I better figure out what I am going to do with these kids...
Well thats all for now. If you are reading this, I probably miss you :)
Much love,
Mr. Danny (Oh ya, that is totally what they call me)
some goofy 7th graders just walked by my cube and said "hello, nice to meet you" and walked away. That happens multiple times a day. Now where was i...
My contact teacher is AWESOME. She is a tiny asian lady whose english name is Susan. She studied in the UK and her english is very good. She has a very cute chinese/british accent. She is very nice and very helpful with anything that i need. My school has a soccer field, a track, basketball and volleyball courts, and a room full of ping pong tables. I played ping pong a little bit with another teacher and was able to at least return some shots, so maybe he will play with me again. My school has a few campuses in Shenzhen, and i am the only foreign teacher at my particular campus, which I think has about 1500 students. however, i am very near a couple of our coordinators and some other foreign teachers. this is perfect for me because it will force me to learn some chinese, but im also near americans when i need them. I have Junior 1 (7th grade) one week, then Junior 2 (8th grade) the next, then back to the junior 1 kids. Classes are 45 minutes. ARE YOU DOING THIS MATH? I only see each class of kids for 45 minutes every other week. This means 2 things. 1) They really arent going to improve much - im ok with this. 2) I only have to come up with one lesson plan every 2 weeks. Some teachers see the same class 3-4 times a week. I also only teach 10 classes a week so far, and do not have any classes on fridays.
like i said, Im trying not to get too excited about this yet, because things are subject to change at any moment around here.
Most sentences that are said to me begin with the word "maybe." I feel that many years ago someone in china got the meaning of this word wrong and it just stuck. Here are some examples:
Chinese authority figure: "How many classes you teach per week?"
Me: "I believe the contract says up to 15."
Chinese authority figure: "oh...Maybe you can do more." "Maybe you teach class for our english teachers as well." (They havent actually followed through with this yet, but who knows)
Chinese authority figure: "You teach tomorrow?"
Me: "Yes, I have two classes in the morning."
Chinese authority figure: "Oh...Maybe you teach them on thursday instead."
Chinese authority figure: "You come tomorrow?"
Me: "What's happening?" (its like 6 oclock)
Chinese authority figure: "It is teacher day. Maybe you come to ceremony at ten to 8."
I think the real reason for this is that they want to be non-confrontational. However, they have no problem punking me as long as they begin the sentence with a "maybe." Yesterday, after numerous commands beginning with "maybe," I ended up dressed nicely at the back gate of our school where a bus picked me up and took me to a teachers day celebration with the mayor of shenzhen. Let me try to paint this picture. Very fancy stage and audience of Chinese people, important chinese people giving speeches during wich i mostly only understand the word for teacher, very warm, starting to dose off..........and EXTREMELY LOUD CIRCUS MUSIC STARTS BLASTING. Attractive young chinese women appear as if from nowhere dressed like stewardesses and hand plaques to the important men sitting at a table on stage. teachers parade onto stage, the important men give the plaques to the teachers, then little girls come out holding flowers and stand in front of the teachers and do a salute. then they all leave stage and it happens again with another group of teachers. Next scene, Im riding the subway last night and see the ceremony on TV. I was really hoping to be on TV after having my picture taken so many times while sitting in the audience, but the crowd shots are all from afar.
Sitting at my desk earlier today one of the english teachers propositioned me with a tutoring job. After a bit of discussion, i will now be tutoring three 11-year-olds for an hour twice a week (starting tomorrow). As of this afternoon my going rate for tutoring is $30 an hour. Hell ya. Jeez I better figure out what I am going to do with these kids...
Well thats all for now. If you are reading this, I probably miss you :)
Much love,
Mr. Danny (Oh ya, that is totally what they call me)
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