Chia-yi

It was quite rainy yesterday but siggy, kate and I headed to a night market. It was fun, there are a different street foods here than in guiyang. There are a lot of tropical fruits and lots of tea places. We had great crispy crepes filled with banana, chocoate and ice cream.
This morning, we ate some Chinese omelettes- egg wrapped around peppery pork-then headed to chia-yi park which has some nice greenery, a Confucian temple, and a tower overlooking the city. After that, kate and siggy had to go to work so I set off with a map of the city. I got trapped in the rain but luckily I was in a bookstore. I'm jealous because it has a floor of a nice selection of English speaking books (apparently in guiyang we only have a shelf of mostly classics in one bookstore). So I hung out and read there, and bought dead until dark for my collection. Now I'm in a large cafe next to the school, waiting for the teachers to finish so we can hang out tonight!

Taiwan!

Yesterday, I woke up earlier than I meant to and took a last ferry ride just because I love the HK ferry. And ate breakfast at my favorite Starbucks with a harbor view. On the ferry I met some nice Canadians who were on their first trip to HK, so I told them a bit about HK and helped them find their way around. I headed to the airport and flew to Taipei. Taiwan has this high speed rail system that can go from Taipei to the southernmost city in Taiwan, Kaoshiung, in about 2 hours. I took the rail from the airport to Taipei city, and a very nice French pilot helped me find my way to buy the ticket, though Taiwan does have a lot of English signs and a fair amount of people that speak some English. At the train station I met another lost looking American named Rick. He is an engineer from Shanghai, and since I had a few hours to kill in Taipei, we decided to go to Taipei 101, which is currently the tallest building in the world. It also has the fastest elevator in the world which is crazy, it zooms up to floor 88 in less than a minute. By the time we got up there it was dark, so we saw the city by night. It was pretty cool, and there was also an outdoor deck. After that Rick helped me get a taxi to the rail station (he speaks Chinese which was handy).

This is when I had some trouble, mostly my own fault. I accidentally bought a regular rail ticket instead of high-speed to Chia-yi, and didn't realize it until I was about to board. It was supposed to get in at 12:30! So I ran to the HSR (high speed rail) ticketing area, bought another ticket, and got on the train to Chia-yi. It only took a little over an hour to get there, but by that time it was about 10 pm. I was supposed to meet Kate and Siggy at their school at around 9 pm, when they got off work. So I took a taxi to their school and no one was there. They did leave me a note with a phone number on it. I attempted to buy a SIM card for my phone, which has been very easy in every country I've been to. But here they wanted an Alien Residence Card and a passport and to do all this paperwork. Kate and Siggy don't have ARC's yet, so they have no cell phone numbers or internet at their apartment, which is inconvenient. At any rate, they found me and we met up and headed back to their apartment.

Taipei has a lot of the same chains as Hong Kong. Taipei seems more spread out as a city than Hong Kong and less frenetic. For some reason, I was thinking Chia-yi, a small city in Taiwan, would be similar to Guiyang, a small city in Mainland. However, Chia-yi has a population of 270,000 while Guiyang is about 4 million. So Chia-yi, to me, seems very quiet and has a very relaxed vibe. It's more spread out and more rural feeling than Guiyang as well, and everyone gets around on scooters, including Kate and Siggy. So I've been riding around on the back of their scooters (don't worry, we all have helmets), which has been a fun way to see the city. I am sleeping on Kate and Siggy's couch. Their apartment isn't much larger than mine, and they actually have a kitchen as well. It's a bit outside of the main city. Extremely quiet compared to the constant noise of Guiyang.

Kate made an itinerary of things for us to do here, including a trip to Tainan, an apparently beautiful smaller city, and Taipei (since I'm flying out of there). Kate and Siggy actually haven't been to Taipei, since they came straight to Chia-yi from the airport. Today, I slept in while Kate and Siggy had Chinese lessons. Some nice relaxing time. Then we went to drop Siggy of to teach class at their school and Kate and I went to get haircuts. A haircut here includes a 20-minute head massage and shampoo, and a 15-minute neck and back massage, which was great after carrying around my backpack everywhere yesterday. Then it started to rain pretty hard. We tried to wait it out but Kate had to get to school to teach. Back at school, Siggy was done for the day so we went out for dumplings. We got curry dumplings, which were really delicious. Now we are at a smoothie cafe, where I just had a delicious pineapple-banana smoothie, to use the free wireless internet.

I think this is a pretty nice vacation. It's a good change from loud and busy until late-night Guiyang.

My home HK

I am back in hong kong and it's wonderful. It's like coming home. The weird culture shock for me was feeling like I blend in really well! After guiyang, where everyone stares and says hello, it seems like there's so many foreigners here. It's strange. So far, I went to a bookstore to buy English books, the one thing that's hard to find in guiyang.I went to central where there was a bookstore that I went to quite often- but it's gone! I was shocked but it shouldn't really come as a surprise considering that was two yeArs ago. So I headed to the huge harbor city mall in tst, which I now realize I'd never fully explored. It's absolutely huge and it has a great bookstore. I bought the 4th twilight book, eat pray love, and the girl with the dragon tattoo. Some fun reads. Then I headed to the indie movie theater, and bought one of the last tickets to kj, a local documentary about a piano prodigy. I'm very excited to see it- it starts in about an hour. Taipei tomorrow!

Sick

I haven't been blogging for a while....because I've been sick. On Wednesday morning I went to the hospital- I figured out that I had intestinal worms. I won't go into the gross details but I am on medicines and I am feeling better, though maybe not fully recovered yet. I'm sure they are very easy to get in China, even if you try your best to watch the foods you eat. And although I was taken to the cleaner Chinese hospital, and the experience was pretty decent, Chinese hospitals are still crowded and not up to a Western standard (or even a Hong Kong standard- those hospitals were spotless and efficient). So I had to cancel my Chinese lessons this week and my Wednesday class. I am still planning on teaching my one class tonight and my full day tomorrow, and then the day after I leave for Taiwan! It's very soon. I'm basically all packed and ready to go. I'm not sure if I will be blogging while I'm there or do it all when I get back so I might not be on the internet much for the next 10 days, we'll see. And after that I'll be very busy- the Wednesday and Thursday I get back are very full days of classes.

Blame Sunday

It's been a very busy weekend, or "work week" as I would call it. Saturday, yesterday, I had classes straight from 8:20 am to 8:50 pm. The good thing was today I ended somewhat "early" at 6:20 pm. My new classes, which I have taken over from Caitlin, are all pretty well-behaved so that made things a bit easier. It was still a LOT of classes plan. But now I have a much better idea of what the classes are like so I can hopefully do better plans next time. And I have an older class! Reading and Writing. They are ages 12-16 and pretty funny. I had them read an article about facial expressions, and then write about each other's facial expressions. Mike wrote "Tom moves his eyebrows up and down when he sees a beauty." And then Tom did it, and it was hilarious. They also said things like "the eyes are the window to the heart." I asked what kind of things they want to read in future classes (they all said they wanted to watch American movies of course- Sean loves Will Smith) but one guy said "I want to read love stories." Hahaha.

I also had English Corner, completely by myself with maybe 40 people who came. It was crazy. Everyone wanted to talk to me as always. I was amazed to learn that they all knew the Phoenix Suns, my basketball team. They love basketball in China. They all knew Steve Nash too. I didn't realize he was so famous! We also talked about Obama. Most of the people expressed that they liked Obama a lot, but now that he has enacted that tariff on tires they are pretty upset. I think Obama may have really killed the enthusiasm for him over here in China with that act.

By the way, if this blog doesn't make sense or seems strangely worded, remember: It's Sunday. That's our excuse for everything. At the end of a Sunday, we are all brain dead. If someone makes a terrible joke, we excuse him and blame Sunday.

I leave in exactly one week for Taiwan! Crazy. I feel like there's a lot I want to do. Study Chinese, clean my room, learn more about Taiwan, and make some stellar lesson plans. I got my schedule for the next two work weeks. I only work Saturday next week and then leave for Taiwan Sunday! I get back Tuesday, though, and have to work a very full day Wednesday. Also a pretty busy Thursday, but Friday and Saturday are pretty light.

Okay, I'm so done with this. It's Sunday night after all.

Nimen yao dian cai ma?

Okay, I wanted to prove that I am learning SOME Chinese by now. This is what the waiter (fuwuyuan) might ask you at the restaurant- What food do you want to order?

I had two hours of Chinese lessons yesterday (xing qi san = Wednesday) and 4 hours today. It's a lot of information packed in to a short period and I'm not a natural at languages. But the three girls who team teach only me, now that Caitlin has left, are very nice. They ask me what I want to learn- like a restaurant lesson. I also told them I am going to Taiwan for break, so they taught me some Taiwan sights and foods (oh- and how to say Taiwan with the proper tones). They also want to do some lessons out places, instead of just in the classroom, so I can actually get practice. Basically, I also have 3 built-in Chinese friends- they asked me if I wanted to go shopping yesterday but sadly I couldn't, since I had to teach a class.

Speaking of vacation, I booked my plans. I have to fly through Shenzhen since it is about a million times cheaper. So I leave on Sunday the 27th for Shenzhen. I will spend one night in Hong Kong and fly to Taipei the next day. I return to Guiyang on October 6th, since I have to work on the 7th. By the way, if anyone is interested, I discovered a new (well, new to me) discount flight site for China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong): travelzen.com. They even called my Chinese cell phone to confirm my order, which was pretty legit, and there is no service charge for overseas credit cards. Ctrip and elong are the other main sites for discount travel in China. A lot of times they all have the same prices but travelzen definitely had the best deal for HK-Taipei.

Oh, by the way, I've learned that I can't read the comments on the blog. I thought I set it up to email me the comments, but apparently not. I will be able to access my blog in HK and Taiwan, so I will change it then and catch up on reading comments. Sorry I haven't replied!

A Month Living in China

Well, I arrived on August 15th so I've been here about a month now, which seems strange. It's gone by really fast, that's for sure. And it really doesn't seem like a month. I am more used to finding my way around and I've been to a few places in Guiyang but I've really barely been anywhere- there is a lot more to the city. I can see what the guys mean- Chris and Garry have been here 6 months but they say it has gone by very fast, and I see how that can happen. But still, a lot has happened in a short amount of time so it's very weird. I've learned to teach, gotten new classes, started Chinese lessons, had 4 dumpling Friday dinners, spent a day at the park with Zunyi staff, and been to Qianling Park. I'm now getting adjusted to my schedule of a couple of afternoon and evening classes on Wednesday and Friday and full, long days on Saturday and Sunday.

Caitlin, the one girl teacher and one American, had to go home suddenly for a family emergency yesterday. I don't know if she'll come back eventually but she'll probably not come back for a while, at the least. Anyways, I'm a bit sad because it was nice to have a girl friend who was new like me and we explored the city a lot together. And now we also have to rearrange the teaching schedule, so I'm sure my 26 teaching hours will be completely full.

I'm sure this month will go by very fast as I have a vacation to look forward to. From September 27-October 6 we have days off for National Day. I was going to travel with Caitlin, but now I am making plans to go to Taiwan to visit my friend Kate, who is a Bryn Mawr friend teaching in Chia-yi, a small Taiwanese city. I will stop in Hong Kong, probably for a night on my way, since I have to fly through Hong Kong anyways to get the cheapest flights to Taipei. I am very excited to see Kate and to see Taiwan. I've heard that it's very scenic with lots of great food. I can also buy some English speaking books in both cities. At least in Hong Kong, I know where a lot of bookstores are.

So I am busy making lesson plans, planning my vacation, and studying Chinese. I'm hoping to really study hard and practice a lot of Chinese this month, because it will also come in handy when I'm traveling in Taiwan.

The weather seems to be getting permanently cooler here- it has been what locals and British people call "hot" but would I would call "nice." The cooler weather is good for walking around the city, though. Although today is one of the first really rainy days I've experienced here.

Chinese Lessons

It's been a pretty busy week. Caitlin and I are getting 6 hours of Chinese lessons a week. Maosi, one of the bosses, teaches at a teaching college. So his students are our teachers- they want to be Chinese teachers to foreigners. Chinese is very hard- there are four tones and several sounds that aren't found in English. We are doing an immersion type of method which is good, because it is like what we do to teach the kids English. But it can be a bit overwhelming. I also think Caitlin is better than me. It feels a bit like school, which is sort of tough for me. I'm really sick of school of any kind at the moment. Yeah, but I know I'm also lucky to get free Chinese lessons from native speakers. Hopefully we will do writing eventually. I have never really learned to write Chinese so I think that would be cool. I need to actually study to learn something. The best way to learn would be to apply what I've learned. So hopefully I can start doing that when I go shopping (we've learned some clothes) and play dice games (the numbers are still hard for me!).

I have the same schedule as last week for my classes. I am starting to get better at this teaching thing. Putting kids on teams and taking away points when they speak Chinese works wonders- they start to only speak English and they also stop misbehaving. Today in my older beginner class I played number bingo, with numbers 1-10. It was really good, especially since that is a class of 16 crazy kids (13 are boys, only 3 girls!). Plus they even learned something- most of them could name the numbers by the end of class.

Pictures

Pictures! One is me, Summer, and another girl from the Wondergirls bar. These girls are really nice. There is also a picture of my room and the view from my window. As you can see, I've already made a mess in there...

On Sunday night, after work, Garry, Matt and I went to what they call the "hamburger restaurant." It's just this very random restaurant that serves these little steaks on skewers, as well as potato skewers. The hamburgers are steaks on a toasted bun. But the guys were right, it's very good. And I got mine more Guiyang style, which meant they were covered in chili. It's a good way to satisfy your craving for a hamburger the Chinese way.

 

Then Matt and I went to a bar that only played music videos from the Korean pop girl group The Wondergirls. They played this one song especially over and over and over. We met some very cool people there. I mostly hung out with this one girl Summer, who speaks a little English but hopefully we can hang out some more.

 

Monday I slept in and went to lunch at Ajisen Ramen, which is a chain Japanese restaurant they also have in Hong Kong. It has a nice big window on the second floor so I thought it would be a nice place to eat by myself. They also have an English menu with pictures and tons of food. I like the restuarants here that have big windows so you can watch the action on the street below, which is always busy. Later I went to the apartments where Garry, Chris, Philip and now Caitlin live in Jongtian. It's on the outskirts of the city so it's a lot quieter with more space and parks and such out there. I was walking around with Caitlin and I heard "Megan!" It was a few of my students! They were playing on the playground out there. I was pretty excited that they remembered my name after just one class. Jongtian is about 20 minutes taxi ride away from the school but it has everything you could need there and it is very quiet and nice.

 

For dinner we went to a Brazilian buffet. I'm not exactly sure what Brazilian food is but I don't think it was this. They had people going around with lots of different types of meat on a stick that you could eat- and I mean all types, like pure fat (mmm?) and mutton and beef and sausage. Then there was the buffet- which had everything from Guiyang spring rolls to seafood to spaghetti to ice cold hard French fries served with a red sauce that was definitely NOT ketchup. And lots of little cakes and fruit for dessert. It was a very strange combination of food.

 

Today, Tuesday, my last day off. I went to the police station to drop off my passport to get my visa. Everyone at the office was very friendly and spoke some English, which was nice. I think I'm going to have a relaxing day of laundry, room cleaning, and lesson planning today.

10 Hour Teaching Day

Today, Sunday, is my full day of teaching- I had 5 classes today which adds up to about 10 hours of teaching with a half hour lunch break- woo! I am starting to get into the swing of teaching a bit more. All my classes so far are only up to about age 12-13, so I'm a bit sad I don't have an older class since those are pretty easy- by high school a lot of the kids are fairly fluent. I am figuring some things out: like how to get the kids to stop speaking in Chinese. When I divide them into teams and award points, I take away a point for each person who speaks Chinese. Immediately the teams begin disciplining themselves- the others get mad if someone messes up and speaks in Chinese. Also, I'm quickly figuring out that 2 hours is really long. Most of the classes at our school are two hours with a ten minute break. I could barely make it through 2 hours in college! I am trying to plan my lessons better. I basically try to model them after Matt, who I think is the best teacher here. He does not allow Chinese, and he uses lots of games and activities varied with the book work. Teaching can be pretty fun. There are some brats but mostly the kids are pretty great and really funny.

 

Caitlin and I wanted to go to the Huanguashuo Waterfalls this weekend, which is probably the most famous site in Guizhou. It is the biggest waterfall in China and the 3rd largest in the world. However, we found out the bus there is all booked and plus our time off is quickly filling up. I have to go the police station on Tuesday to get my work visa. Caitlin and I are having Chinese lessons together and we are having 6 hours a week of them! Hopefully this means I will get good fast. Maosi, our boss, trains teachers so he is also using us as guinea pigs for his teaching college students. Apparently our first lesson will be with Maosi and he will have his students observing us- great. I'm pretty positive that Caitlin is better than Chinese at me already.

 

I have my first paycheck coming up this week which is very exciting. Especially as I have a vacation coming up- though I'm still unsure of what I am doing. Caitlin and I will probably travel together.

 

Hopefully this "weekend" (Monday and Tuesday for us) I can explore some more of the city. I am starting to get used to living here, and once the Chinese lessons kick in I think I'll really be able to get around.

 

 

Huaxi Park with the Zunyi Staff

On Monday night the Zunyi staff got into town so we went out together. Zunyi is a town a couple of hours away; Interlingua school has a branch there as well. They have about the same number of teachers that we have although mostly American and half girls. On Tuesday we had some "planned fun"; we got all together and went to Huaxi Park, about an hour outside of town. There is a river there, bikes, tiny horses to ride, and boats. We bonded with the Zunyi guys, ate lunch at the park, and then went in a boat. I had a good time, the Zunyi people are very fun. Then we decided to buy bathing suits and go swimming in the river. They were Chinese one size fits all style though so fitting into mine was a bit of a squeeze. It was really fun though, we climbed into boats with random Chinese people and hung out with them.

We went to a Uyghur Muslim restaurant which was very good- lots of meat on a stick and bread. We were all quite tired by that night though so it was an early one. Hopefully we will get to visit Zunyi sometime and hang out with the guys there again.

I have a more full schedule of classes coming up this weekend. Sunday I have class all day in fact. Last night I had my 4 year olds, and I had 4 new students, including one named Flower and one named Cherry. Their moms came up to me and told me in broken English that I was a good teacher and the girls liked me, which was very nice. Hopefully I'm getting somewhat better at this teaching thing.