Life in China

I realized I haven't taken time to share some of my day-to-day experiences, so I will share some of the typical things that happen...

There are some things Sara and I have noticed during our time in China. Because they learn British English more often than American English, they say things differently than we do. Such as: have a sit, or have a rest. Face is a big deal in China. They are concerned about “saving face” and not “losing face”. So, instead of telling us what to do, they make suggestions until we pick the correct choice. That way, it sounds like we have a choice, and they don't make us lose face. Instead, it drives us crazy! Maybe should really be taken out of their vocabulary, because if they use maybe, they really mean you should do whatever they suggest.

Here's a real situation:
Cathy: Dinner is ready, are you coming now?
Ann: Yes, Cathy, we just left.
Cathy: Will you come by bike or on foot?
Ann: We are walking, is that ok?
Cathy: That's ok, but the food is hot now, so maybe you should ride your bike.
Ann: We would like to walk.
Cathy: Maybe you'd better ride your bikes.
Ann: Ok, we'll ride our bikes.
Cathy: Ok, see you in a little bit.
(Note: The food was not ready when we got there.)

OR

Sally: You need to come to the office to sign an important document, is it convenient?
Ann: No, Sally, it's not convenient.
Sally: Ok, I will wait a few minutes then.
Ann: Ok, we'll be down in a little bit.

They also like to wait until the last minute to tell us about something big. Such as classes being canceled, or having to teach on the weekend. Most of the time it isn't an issue, but one time, we found out on Wed, that we wouldn't have classes Thur or Fri. We could have gone somewhere for a four day weekend. But then on Thur evening, we found out we would have Fri afternoon classes. And then about an hour before my class, I found out I would not have it. So, I still didn't have any classes, and Sara had two.

Sometimes, we get lucky and find out details ahead of time. Like about two weeks ago, I found out by accident that Sara and I will have next week off! Sally wasn't going to tell us because it wasn't here yet. But since we found out so early we had plenty of time to plan a getaway. We are going back to Hangzhou to visit three teachers there, and also to Wenling to visit six teachers there. We are so excited to see our friends and have some different people to talk to! Anyway, the reason we have off is that our students will have mid-term exams Mon-Wed, and there will be a sports meet at our school Thur-Fri. I think this means a track meet. I would like to see it, but if I have five days off, I'm going somewhere!

Teaching is going well. Sara and I are getting better at planning lessons. I made a worksheet for the students this week. I thought it would be too easy, but it seems to challenge most of them, so that is good. We are also teaching about Halloween. We put together a powerpoint with pictures and simple explanations of typical Halloween things such as costumes, Trick or Treat-ing, bobbing for apples, hayrides, haunted houses, and jack-o-lanterns. The students LOVE it! They want to know if I have done these things, and I tell them “Yes! I have done all of these things many times.” They can't believe it!

Now for a couple top ten lists (in no particular order).

Things I love
1.Everything is amazingly cheap. I bought shoes for 79 RMB which is about $10.50. In America they would probably cost $50. Also, lunch at the cafeteria typically costs between 1-3 RMB or 13-40 cents!
2.The weather is beautiful, still a cool 75-80 degrees with very little humidity. (The Chinese people are already wearing long sleeves and jackets.)
3.Pearpples. The greatest fruit ever! It looks like a yellow apple, but tastes like a pear. The texture is something in between. Delicious! They just call them pears, but I gave them a new name!
4.Dried pineapple. Guangdong Province is known for its dried fruits and pineapple is my favorite.
5.Shoes! Shoes! Shoes! They don't even have to match your clothes!
6.The music played between classes. It is a beautiful piano tune.
7.Traditional artwork such as tassels, knots, paper cutting and folding.
8.The teachers' kids when they smile because they recognize us.
9.The people who make an effort to talk to us and learn more about us.
10.Teaching! It is so fun when the students have fun with it!

Things I don't like
1.The music played at 6am. Especially the national anthem on repeat.
2.Bones in meat (the best meat is closest to the bone).
3.Trying to talk with people who don't speak English very well. It really takes a lot of energy.
4.Our “jail cell”. Just kidding! We have bars on our windows which makes it obvious where we live.
5.Teaching on the sixth floor.
6.Our bikes. They are too small and very awkward to ride.
7.Being stared at everywhere I go because I am American.
8.Cafeteria food. I usually get the same thing all the time, I'm not sure I will be able to stand it for a whole year.
9.Being so far away from home. I miss everyone so much!
10.Teaching. Some of the students just don't care and won't even try.

I told some of you that I expected to be told that I am fat. I was a bit disappointed when every time I asked someone if I am fat, they told me "No! You are very slim!" Well, yesterday I was told by two people at two different times that my face looks a little fat in some pictures. Especially when I have my hair straight. I'm not sure if that means my face looks thinner now, or if curly hair just makes it look thinner...

Thanks to all of you who check my blog regularly. Your support is much appreciated!
Happy Halloween!

Hong Kong 10/3-7

Right after Mid-Autumn Day is National Day on October 1. This is the Chinese Independence Day. This is the first of our major school breaks. We had a week off from school and decided to go to Hong Kong with Brandon and Caroline. This was quite an ordeal because Sara and I still had not gotten our residency permit which we needed in order to get back into China. We got it just in time, and since everything was so up in the air, our friends didn't get us bus tickets in time. We ended up going Wednesday through Sunday. It wasn't long enough, but it was worth it anyway. We stayed with our friends in Hong Kong. Sara and I stayed with Rob and Judy, while Brandon and Caroline stayed with Mark and Sue.

On Thursday, we learned how to use the MTR (underground train) and Octopus cards (credit card like cards that hold money that can be used to ride the MTR and buses, or in random shops like 7 Eleven or sometimes restaurants). Octopus cards are extremely handy! The only problem is it's easy to spend it because you don't see it, and it's hard to remember to check it to make sure you don't run out of money on it. Otherwise, they are wonderful! Anyway, we didn't have a plan, so we wasted a lot of time, but we did find a street with lots of vendors to buy souvenirs. And we found some cool places to take pictures, too.

On Friday, we went to an area called Stanley to the market to buy more souvenirs. I don't like shopping for other people because I don't know what they will like, so if you have something in mind that you would like from China, let me know (within reason of course)! After lunch, we went to the zoo. What? Hong Kong has a zoo? Yes, even though most people that live there don't know they have a zoo, they do. It isn't very interesting, but it was worth checking out once. They had mostly monkeys and birds, but there were other things, too. There were lots of stray cats running around teasing the monkeys, so that was entertaining!

On Saturday, Sara and I ventured out alone to check out Ocean Park. It is an amusement park and aquarium, with pandas. Very random, but also cool! It is situated by some mountains, and split into two parts. The only way to get to the main part is to take the cable car. It is scary being up so high, but the view was amazing! We had a lot of fun there even though we only had a couple hours. We saw the pandas twice because they are so cute! I took a video of one of them eating bamboo! We also liked the shark tank with stingrays and the sea lions. Their idea of fair food is a little different than ours... such as Mr. Squid... hmmm... The park was also decorated for Halloween with skeletons all over the place, but the thing that made me laugh, was a wooden cart with some hay and a pumpkin or two on it. A bunch of Chinese people were standing around taking pictures of it. The most boring decoration! I wish I had taken a picture of them...

That evening, Rob and Judy prepared a dinner and some other friends, Adam, and the Gurgel's came. It was a wonderful dinner! Real rolls, meat, salad, things we don't get here in China. Then, much later, at about 9:30, we finally decided to leave and check out Victoria's Peak. It is a very scenic spot in Hong Kong. It was the one place that I most wanted to go to and we saved it for last. We took a ferry across to the island, then a tram up to the Peak, then escalators up to the top, and then the view was amazing! Rob let me use his tripod so I got some fantastic pictures! Check them out on Snapfish!
I can't wait to go back! I loved Hong Kong!

Mid-Autumn Festival

Lets see if I can explain Mid-Autumn Festival... (with help from a website)
It usually falls between mid Sept to mid Oct. around the Autumn equinox. It is sometimes called a harvest festival kind of like Thanksgiving. People hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon, they also send round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. When it becomes dark, they look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Together with the celebration there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense, setting off fireworks, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. Because the full moon is round and symbolizes reunion, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the festival of reunion. All family members try to get together on this special day. Those who can not return home watch the bright moonlight and feel deep longing for their loved ones.

On Saturday, 9-22, Sara and I were invited to perform at a dinner celebration. We said we would sing a song and 6 other English teachers decided to join us. We sang a song called “Tomorrow Will be Better”. It is originally a Chinese song translated into English, so some of the words don't make sense. But it is a pretty song. The celebration was a lot of fun. The Chinese people don't just sit and talk, they play games and perform! They played three games: 1. Two people hold a balloon between their heads and run with it, 2. A relay holding a ping pong ball with chopsticks and running, and 3. Five people per team pass a ring between them with bendy straws. We played the third game. It was pretty funny! We ended up with the principal and headmaster on our team! Our performance was ok, some of us forgot our lines and we were way off the beat, but the crowd loved it anyway. Probably mostly because of the Americans! They also like to give away money or have drawings for prizes. All but one of us at our table won some money.

The school was closed from 5pm Tues 9-25 until Wed 9-26 at 7:30, so Sally and her fiance, Ale (not pronounced the way you think), entertained us. On Tuesday, we went out to dinner and then went shopping at the supermarket. We hadn't been upstairs before, so when we went up, we were amazed at how big it is! I got a pair of shoes! They are very Chinese looking. I love that the Chinese don't care if their shoes match their clothes or not, because I got a pair of yellow shoes! On our way back home, Cathy called and wanted us to go to KTV with her and her family and friends. We couldn't say no (it's impossible with Chinese people), so we went and actually had a lot of fun.

On Wednesday, Sally and Ale took us to Zhao Qing which is about an hour away. We met Sally's classmate, Shirley, and her fiance, Mr. Ge. We saw our first dragon dance! And we rode a boat across the river to downtown. Went to the shops which is really more of a mall, complete with large rotunda similar to the Mall of America's. Then we went to a lake nearby and took lots of goofy pictures. We had a blast! Shirley invited us back whenever we want to visit. I'm sure we will!

Mid-Autumn Festival is my new favorite holiday! (Except for the moon cakes.)
I'll try to post more pictures from each of these events. I have lots!

Observations

The students have classes almost every day, so they typically wear at least part of their uniform. I suspect that there are different colors of blue for each grade level, but I haven't totally figured that out yet. But when they aren't wearing their uniforms, they wear jeans and t-shirts with "English words and sayings" on them. They usually don't mean anything. They rarely wear shorts and never tank tops even though it is so hot. Modesty is important. The other teachers wear skirts or slacks and cute tops like I wear. The men of course wear "trousers" and button-down shirts.

I had the assumption that they would be "behind the times", but they are actually very trendy. Since I left most of my trendy things home, I feel a bit "behind the times"! They have adorable shoes! I can't wait to go shoe shopping. The women are always wearing dainty high heels, or ballet-type flats like are popular in America.

There is an average around 50-52 students per class. Sometimes more or less. It doesn't really feel like that many, though. They are seated in four rows of pairs:
xx xx xx xx
xx xx xx xx
all the way back.

Addresses - Before you Send Anything!

If you plan to send anything to my school address, please email me first. I am going to get a word document with the address in both Chinese and English. We are afraid anything that might come here will get lost or sent back because they won't be able to read it. You can still send things to HK, it only takes up to 10 days to get there. But be careful of the weight. Mark has to deliver them to us, and I feel bad if the packages are too heavy.
Thanks!

If you would like to send mail or packages with clothing/sensitive materials, please send it to the following address:
Life Net Ltd.
C/O Mark Sprengeler
688 Shanghai Street 10F/B
Kowloon, Hong Kong

Other packages can be sent here to the school:
XinXing County Number One High School
XinXing New City, YuCai South Rd. #1
Guangdong, China 527400

I've been told that Priority Mail International is the best way to send things to China.

Wo shi laoshi! (I am a teacher!)

This has been a busy week! On Monday, our school had its opening ceremony. Sara and I were required to be there and sit on the stage. We sat behind the important officials, along with several other teachers. I think they were department heads. Finally, we were introduced, and when we stood, the students cheered! It was awesome! They are very excited that we are here. We feel like celebrities every day.
On Wednesday, our luggage finally arrived! We have teaching clothes! We also got our bicycles. It felt like Christmas.

On Saturday, our school had a banquet for Teachers Day, which was Sept. 10. All of the teachers went, and we got to sit with the other English teachers. It was a great time! All of our friends were laughing at my chopstick abilities. I'm pretty good, but it is harder when 9 Chinese people are watching you... During the banquet, our principal introduced us and presented us with Letters of Appointment. All of the teachers cheered this time!
On Sunday, Brandon and Caroline came over to have a weekly meeting. Then we went out for supper at the Western restaurant closest to our school. It is a coffee shop! I thought I wouldn't be able to find coffee here, but it is right down the street! Anyway, we thought we would be able to get by at a restaurant by ourselves, but it didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. I had written some foods down in a notebook that I had along, and Brandon has been studying Mandarin for a year, so we thought it would be fine. It seems like Brandon missed the class on restaurants... Finally, he told them to do what they could, and we would eat it. We ended up getting everything we ordered/wanted! But we also got something like chai tea. I'm just glad it was good... :) So that was our first venture out without anyone to translate for us. It was a bit scary, but it turned out well.
On Monday, I started teaching. It went pretty well. I rushed through my first class and ran out of things to talk about, but it was fine. After that, it has gone much better. I've been bringing a picture of my family to show the students. They love it. They think we are all SO beautiful and SO young! One of the girls thought my Mom was the most beautiful, another one thinks Holly is very beautiful. Then, I was told that my Dad looks like Bill Gates... Oh, and one of the boys wants Bethany's phone number. I've also been bringing all of my MN Twins things. They don't know much about baseball, but I'm pretty sure that after a year, they will all be Twins fans!
I'm trying to work on learning Mandarin, also. I haven't taken enough opportunities to learn it yet. But I am trying to just learn one thing at a time. At least the language doesn't sound like gibberish anymore, it sounds like words now. If only I knew what they mean! The Chinese people we have met are so great! They make me laugh all the time. Our favorite question for them is how they chose their English names. There is always a good story behind it. I love some of the English names that they have chosen, too. Some of my friends (other teachers) are: TuTu, Greek and Shicano (she made it up). Some of my students are: Today, Character (I already have one in my class!), Flower, Lucky, Energy, YoYo, Tiger, Dacky, Dwyne, and Terly.

One week in China

Where to start? So much has happened... On Monday evening, we stopped at Carrefour to get some clothes or other items we might need. Sara and I found these great t-shirts. Yes, they say "We ahe tre bert fsiedns". All of the correct letters are there, but they got switched around somehow. :) Also, we bought 5 shirts for 100RMB. That's only 13 USD!!! Everything is so cheap here!

We have walked along West Lake (the first three photos) quite a bit the last few days. It is so gorgeous! It seems like everywhere you look is another beautiful scene. There is also so much to do and see.
Thursday we went up to a buddhist temple in the mountains (fourth photo). We hiked quite a bit through the rocky terrain up the mountain. The views were amazing. We could have spent days walking all of the paths.

Friday night we went to KTV since it was our last night all together. We all had a blast singing songs of all sorts. We stayed out until 2am!

Saturday we flew down to Guangdong and got to see our apartment and Brandon & Caroline's at the Experimental Middle School. Theirs is bigger, but ours is nicer! :)

We don't start teaching until next week since we don't have any of our teaching clothes! We have met many of our fellow English teachers and they are so worried we won't like it here, but they are so friendly, too. Our town is very small and not as nice as Hangzhou. It was quite a shock when we got here. But we will make it home. We have what we need-each other and our best friend.

Ni hao from China!

I have arrived in China!! I was off on my estimation of 26 hours... it took 18 hours more. We missed our flight from Chicago to Shanghai, so we had to spend 10 hours in Chicago waiting for or next flight to London. Then we had a 1.5 hour layover and then we finally arrived in Shanghai at 8am (China time). We were on three continents in three days! For those of you who don't know the time difference, China is 13 hours ahead of Central Time in USA. So as I write this, it is 5:30pm on Monday here, but it is 4:30am on Monday back in MN and WI. I'm writing from the future! :)
Anyway, we have not received 3 of our bags yet. I got one of mine, but it is the one I had packed so that I wouldn't need anything from it until I got "home" to XinXing. So we are getting by, but it would be nice to have our things.
We spent yesterday afternoon walking all around Shanghai. We went to a beautiful garden called the Yuyuan Garden. It is really more of a maze of walkways. There was a lot of water, trees, and rocks as well as small houses. As I try to describe it, this sounds nothing like it... I guess I'd better post my pictures on Snapfish pretty soon! After that we walked through the shopping area looking for a bookstore. We all bought books to teach ourselves Mandarin. We will also start some classes on it tomorrow.
Today I learned the word for eggplant: qie zi (it sounds kind of like chee ed ze). This is the word Chinese say when posing for pictures. I also learned the word for asparagus: lu san. We also had eggplant and asparagus for lunch today - yum!
Today we took a bus ride to Hangzhou. The architecture of the houses is amazing! I haven't gotten a very good picture yet, but I have until Saturday to get one. I think we are going to West Lake soon for dinner. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in China.
For those of you who are wondering about my previously mentioned problems with unfamiliar food, I am doing very well! I get excited every time I get full! :) Last night was a little rough, but otherwise I have been able to eat everything I have tried. I haven't gagged once! We are going out for western food tonight for a change of pace. I'm also doing pretty good with chopsticks. I struggle occasionally, but that's mostly because here they are plastic so there is no friction to grab stuff with!

It's almost time...

I just looked at my countdown, and even though I really have almost 10 hours until my flight leaves at 8:55am, it says I have less than one hour (it's counting down to midnight). These last few days have flown by. It's hard to believe that in about 26 hours I will be landing in Shanghai and starting my adventure. Tonight the plan is to stay up as late as I can so that I have a better chance of sleeping on the plane.

I got my passport complete with visa back from Texas yesterday. Thanks for everyone's prayers on that one! I was a bit nervous about cutting that so close, but it all worked out just fine.

I love you all, I'll try to post as soon as I'm able to find an internet connection to let you know that I made it safely.

Thoughts as the day approaches

It's getting close to time to go and I'm anxious to start this new chapter of my life. But I'm also not sure I'm ready to uproot myself. I have so many great friends here that I am going to miss, not to mention my family. A year is such a long time to be away from everyone. I'm going to miss out on a lot of parties, weddings, birthdays, holidays, and every little get-together. My friends will move on without me and make new memories together.

I was trying to explain my feelings last night, and I guess it goes something like this: I used to make wishes about my life, and sometimes I still do. Right now, I want to wish that I could skip to the day I get to come home and be reunited with my friends and family. But before I get to the end of the wish, I think of all of the experiences in China that I would miss out on and I change my mind. As much as I will miss everyone, I want to go to China and go through this most challenging time in my life. If I didn't go I would regret it every day. I know that all of you are going to be here when I get back, and while I am gone you will be here praying for me and cheering me on.

Thank you all for supporting me as I prepare for this amazing adventure.