Week 1!

• 000007428's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Shijiazhuang

Trip Start Aug 24, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 2009 Next
Entry

  Shijiazhuang, China
Sunday, August 31, 2008

So we made it through the first week in Shijazhuang. The total immersion into this culture has been QUITE the learning experience...that is the politically correct way of saying it. It has really been a shock, which is so much fun. Since I have lived in America all my life it is really hard to detect the cultural norms that make up our society; such as waiting in lines, not spitting in public, wearing shoes in public place, chewing with our mouths closed and so on. But here, it is so fun to catch onto everything that is different. They do things very differently around here, but they know it to be normal. Just for fun, here is a list of crazy things we have seen:
- Couches made of WOOD
- Children going to the bathroom on the sidewalk
- Kids with crotchless pants
- Serving a 2 liter bottle of soda at lunch
- Everyone of the same sex holding hands
- People sleep at work
- People sleep anywhere
- Men always exposing their bellies
- Men eat with their shirts off
- Ankle-high panty hose on women
- Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty everywhere
- No one wears shorts
- Bedazzled Jeans

Smog

!
- Everyone gives the peace sign
- Bicycles that hold semi truck loads of stuff
- Dead meat everywhere
- People want to have English names
- They take pictures of foreigners
- Food is served family-style in restaurants
- You go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground
- Take your own toilet paper ;)

(I will add so many more later!)

This first week has not just been about finding and poking fun at the Chinese and their differences; it has been a week of trying to get acclimated with this culture and our surroundings. We have been doing this by taking many walks around our neighborhood and the down town, trying different foods from street venders and the restaurants, trying to speak with strangers, and going into shops just to practice saying "how much" in Chinese

We found a theme park!

.

Our neighborhood is on the Northwest side of the city and the train station/down town is in the center. We know other teachers at other Universities such as Hebei Normal University which have campuses just south of us and then very Southeast, so in the opposite direction. But a cab ride to the far other side of town still amounted to less than 4 dollars...and there were 3 of us in the cab so you can do the math. It is no New York City! I still do not know what our neighborhood is know for by the locals, but I see it as a poor-lower middle class area where people really rely on a skill or trade to make a living. There are many mom and pop restaurants, small clothing shops, mechanic shops, barber shops, and markets where people sell anything from meat to toilet paper. Our apartment building directly faces the entrance of the Number 42. Middle School witch is great for sleeping as late as possible. To the right of our apt are many shops that sell a weird selection of keychains, notebooks (with NBA players on them. One in face had the name of LeBron James next to a picture of Charles Barkley), snacks, and little figurines to decorate your home. Oh ya, and beer which is called pijiu...everyone sells pijiu. To the left is a series of street vendors which eventually leads to a never ending market with meat, produce, huge grapes, house hold necessities, pastries, and seeds

A statue at the park

. We have tried some street vendor food and it has been ok. It was not so ok the next morning, but I think I will get used to my uneasy stomach. We have had something that I will call a Chinese burrito. It was a thick tortilla with shredded carrots and cabbage, topped with an egg and possibly a hot dog-like sausage. Then they brushed a think soy sauce on top and gave it to us for less than 10 cents! Alissa and I got a large meal from the market to day that cost us less than 50 cents. That deal would be great if I could learn to really love the food. We have had great luck at this restaurant very close to our school. We had a few Chinese people who work at No. 42 write down some dishes that we might like at this place. So when we go there, we just point at some symbols on the paper and we eat, it's that easy. We have had potatoes in vinegar, kung pow chicken, beans, rice, and fried meat which kind of tastes like sweet and sour chicken. We have been there at least 4 times in a week! Don't worry, we will branch out soon.

This weekend was move-in time for out students so it was really fun to watch them come in wearing their best clothes so that they looked nice on the first day. We got to see the usual move-in rituals; the kids carrying the bags and pillow, the dads carrying the desk or couch, and the moms leading the way wearing their high-heeled sandals and their ankle-high panty hose socks

A roller rink that used to be a swimming pool

. It was just really funny to finally watch other people struggle in the moving process because we have all been there so often. And to watch the interactions between the students and their parents or between the students and other students hit a universal chord with me. Everyone had a somewhat nervous laughter, the students were all talking about how heavy their books were as they set them down on multiple occasions, and the men chatted to one another over a cigarette and a pulled up collared shirt!

There are over 6,000 students at No. 42 and 500 teachers. There are only 5 foreign teachers and we are 3 of them! So we get a lot of attention. Tonight, Willie has to make a speech on behalf of us in front of all the students, faculty, and staff. He gives his speech from a raised platform that is outside next to the basketball courts. Willie, Alissa, myself , and the head principal are the only 4 on this platform just to show you what kind of undeserved attention we are receiving. We thought that maybe the teachers who have been there for 30+ years might deserve to sit up there, but whatever...it will be an experience! We will each teach 15 class periods a week with 50-60 students per class. I am teaching 3 periods of Junior 1 students which are the youngest and equivelant to 7th graders in America. I am also teaching all of the Senior 2 student which are almost the oldest students and are comparable to junior in highschool

Funny English

. Willie is teaching all of the Senior 1 students and a couple classes of Junior 1. And poor Alissa has the rest of the Junior 1 students which might be younger and more cute, but do not know that much English AT ALL. We were all supposed to start teaching today, but Alissa and I teach Junior 1s on Monday and they are at orientation all day so we already have a day off! We will start tomorrow with introductions and class rules. We never see the same class twice in one week so we figured out that if Alissa makes all the lesson plans for Junior 1; we will only have to create 1 lesson per week and deliver two! So that boils down to not a lot of preparation and 15 hours of classes...it is hard to believe that we are getting paid for this! I say that now, but lets see if that changes once I start teaching!

We also had our first night out on the town on Saturday. We met up with some fellow Drake grads at the Hebei Normal University East campus and had dinner at the Golden Dragon or Golden Monkey (WOW....I am listening to itunes music while I am writing this and the Beastie Boys' song "Brass Monkey JUST came on...hahaha, that is HILarious!). So the restaurant must be called the Golden MONKEY because this has to se some sort of sign! We were taken to the third floor or the Monkey as I will refer to it for now on. They really make you work for your food here with all of the stairs and such. We were then seated in a private room with a huge round table with a lazy susan in the center. We ordered beer and a plethora of dumplings. Some ended up having sea food in them, while others seemed to just have way to much cilantro! We went to a different bar afterward because a fellow teacher knew some local that hung out with the Drake teachers last year. By locals I mean pretty much foreigners who have lived here for a few years. There is one guy, Jake from China; some guys from Australia, Great Britain, and somewhere in Africa

A Scottish bar in our town

. We drank a Heinken! They frequent a downtown club called Seven...so we headed there. I stepped into the club and was met by a singer on stage performing her English version of a Shania Twain's "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" Jake told us that she sings it every week because it is the only English song she knows! I am not looking forward to my Saturday nights! This place was full of random techno and bad English songs, but over all we had a very memorable night...and they had glow sticks so what wasn't there to love. Drew, you would have to come here...bring Keith!

So, my to-do list this week includes:
- Taking Chinese lessons from Helen
- Studying Chinese
- Buying a bike
- Getting a gym membership
- Going to club Seven
- Teaching about 700 students
- And blogging about it...so that's what you can expect next time!

I miss you all a ton!!!!!!!! Kara

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

A pic of down town at nite	Willie and Hellen with two L's	An ally by our place	The ally
A house with meat hanging in front of it	This is part of the market by our place	Men playing Mahjong	Meat stand, yummy
The biggest grapes I've ever seen	They can carry anything on a bike	The city bus we take to get to down town	The restaurant we love
The front entrance of our school	Lindsey. She was a teacher here last year	Some of the students playing basketball	More basketball behind the school
Some of the dorms	Students on move-in day	More of move-in day	The school's soccer field
Other end of the soccer field	One school building	Students' bikes	Willie sitting around the school
The outside of our apartment	Department store workers	The sold us our cell phone	Helen, our foreign affairs helper
Helen posing for this one	My bedroom	More of the bedroom	Toilet
Shower that leaks a ton	Sink and porch/kitchen	Alissa and part of my living room	Refridgerator
Only mirror, where I do my makeup	Willie and Alissa in Willie's room	Some Drake teachers in our city	Alissa and I at dinner
Thank you Alissa	This is better	Fellow teachers in our city	Alissa after some pijiu (Chinese for beer!)
Night in playing Scrabble	The board	We were a little bored	I don't know why she's smiling, she lost!
I won!	The Olympic torch ran through here!	Olympic torch

Slideshow Print this entry Share Shijiazhuang hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry