Ni Hao from China - September 26, 2007
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
7
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Zhongshan, Guangdong,
China
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
We left Zhongshan on August 2nd, and headed for Guangzhou so we could catch our flight to Chengdu. We had originally planned to leave on August 6th, as we had been told by Bond that classes didn't end until August 5th, so we made all our flight and train arrangements around the August 6th departure date.
The first morning we were in Chengdu, we got up early to go and see the pandas at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. It was great, as we saw lots of pandas, and we got to see them up close. One large panda stood up on his hind legs and I could have sworn he was a person dressed up in a panda costume. We also saw two babies in an incubator. One baby actually had black and white fur and looked like a panda, but the other one was so small and pink that it was hard to tell what kind of animal it was.. I'm sure it will start to look like a panda in a few weeks, but it looked pretty ugly at that point in time.
That night we went to the Sichuan Opera which cost 70RMB (approx. $10Cdn). We were picked up at our guest house and taken there. The costumes were amazing. One girl juggled a huge porcelain planter, and she also juggled a table! The last part of the show the performers changed their masks many times, but we couldn't see how it was done because it happened so fast! It was pretty cool.
The next day we went to Songpan to do some horse trekking. It was pretty hot and humid in Chengdu, so we called the horse trekking place in Songpan to see what the weather was like, as we were only going to take our daypacks with us. The guy practically laughed at me when I asked him if it was cold. The bus ride was awful! It was supposed to take 8 hours, but ended up taking almost 9 hours. It was very hot, and many times, the AC did not work. At one point, I noticed that the guy across from me was getting sick. He had already gotten sick in to a plastic bag, and it was sitting on the floor of the bus. I was so worried that the bag was going to break, and the contents were going to spill all over the floor of the bus. It did start to slowly leak, but thankfully, we stopped at one point and the guy got rid of the bags. Chinese people definitely are not hearty travelers when it comes to long distance bus rides. We arrived in Songpan around 4:00 and our first stop was the horse trekking office. As we stepped off the bus, we noticed that the temps were quite cool and I was surprised to see that the guy at the horse trekking place was wearing a heavyish jacket. I was now undecided as to whether or not I wanted to do the horse trek, as I didn't bring the proper clothing, and there was no way I was going to go and buy some warm clothing just so I could go horseback riding. I decided it would be best to wander around and go for a bite to eat before making up my mind and committing to the trek.. After dinner, Lisa and I went wandering through town to find some warm clothing for her, as she had her heart set on doing an overnight horse trek. By this point in time, I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to go. We wandered a little bit out of town, and then entered the walled part of the town. It reminded me a lot of Thamel in Kathmandu. As it got later in the evening, it got colder, and I figured that I definitely made the right choice in not going on the horse trek. I'm sure I would have been cold the whole time. Seeing as I didn't have the proper clothing to do anything in Songpan, I decided to head back to Chengdu the next day.
I caught the first bus out in the morning at 6am. When I got on the bus, there were white plastic buckets placed throughout the aisle and all I could think about was people getting sick over the next 8 hours. Going back was even worse as there were times where the bus was actually turned off as we sat and waited for the road construction. The bus took almost 10 hours getting back. Thankfully, no one got sick. There was a young baby on the trip, and I couldn't believe there wasn't a peep out of him the whole time. Once I got back to Chengdu, I checked in to the Sichuan Hotel. What a treat to be in a nice, clean room with soft beds and comfy quilts.
One night when we were staying in the Sichuan Hotel, we watched a program on TV about preparations for the Olympics, as well as a celebration program for the one year countdown to the Olympics. Beijing is very excited about the upcoming Olympics and they are doing all kinds of things to get ready. There are lots of people who are learning how to speak English, regardless of age, so that they can welcome the world to Beijing. They have also been practicing how to queue properly, and apparently the 11th day of every month is queuing day - it was actually on the news! They have also set up translation systems for taxis. Now if they could only teach everyone to stop spitting!
The countdown celebration took place in Tiananmen Square, and was presented in three different languages - Mandarin, English, and French. It was pretty impressive considering it was only a countdown, and not the opening ceremonies. At the end of the show, the announcer said, zaijian, good-bye and mazza bagoo. It took me a couple of minutes, but I burst out laughing when I realized that he was probably saying 'merci beaucoup'!
A few months before Lisa and I decided that we wanted to go to Tibet, we started dealing with a guy in Chengdu by the name of Sam. We got his name out of the Lonely Planet guide book, and he was recommended as the guy who could make all your arrangements for the train to Tibet. He was great when we first started dealing with him. He was very knowledgeable and always replied to my e-mails promptly. However, once we got down to brass tacks and started to make arrangements with dates and times, the service started to go downhill. The strange thing about Tibet is that as a foreigner, you need a special tourist visa in order to be able to get in to Tibet. That means that you can not go there on your own, and you have to be part of a 'tourist group'. Nobody ever checks any of your documents when you are leaving Chengdu or arriving in Tibet, but you can not buy a train ticket without purchasing the tourist visa. The cost is a little over $65Cdn, and is not cheap. Sam quoted us a price which included the tourist visa, the train, and three night's accommodation in Lhasa. This would satisfy the requirements of being part of a 'group' (even though Lisa and I were the only ones in our group). We booked two tickets for two hard sleepers on the train for August 9th. In order for him to get the tickets for us, we had to send him a copy of our passports and visas 15 days before the departure date, which we did. He assured us that our documents came through. However, we never heard back from him before we left for Chengdu, so we weren't sure if he was actually able to get the tickets. When we got to Chengdu, he kept giving us the runaround as to when he would actually get the tickets, and I started to think that he didn't have them, or wasn't going to be able to get them. I was a little bit concerned when he gave me a brochure for the guest house where we were supposed to stay in Lhasa, and they boasted that they were great for budget travelers. If you subtracted the price of the train tickets and the tourist permit from the total that Sam was charging us, that meant that he was charging us each 200RMB/night ($27/Cdn) for our accommodation. The next problem we had with Sam was that we discovered through another American fellow that as an American, Lisa would have to provide a Foreign Expert Certificate (FEC) in order to get the tourist visa. Sam never mentioned this to us, and when I mentioned it to him, he said that we didn't need anything like that. However, a few hours later, he contacted me and said yes she DID need the FEC in order to get the visa. I was a little surprised and extremely pissed off that Sam didn't tell us this before we left Zhongshan. I was also disappointed that the Lonely Planet guide had recommended Sam as an expert when he didn't even know about the FEC. Luckily, we phoned Bond and they were able to fax a copy of the FEC to Sam. Finally, after many phone calls and visits to Sam's office, we had our train tickets in our hot little hands and were on our way to Lhasa!
We went to the hospital the day we left Chengdu to head for Tibet. When Lisa did her overnight horse trek, she shared a tent with a girl who was sick. Unfortunately, we both felt like we caught whatever her tentmate had. There is no privacy in the examination rooms of Chinese hospitals, and at one point, there was about 8 people in the room when Lisa was talking to the doctor. I guess everyone wanted to see what was up with the foreigners. Lisa and I both did a self diagnosis, and asked the doctor for a prescription. Mine was for a bottle of cough syrup, some cold tablets, and a bag of 20 Chinese tea bags. The total cost for the consultation and medicine was 10.91RMB, the equivalent of about $1.49Cdn.
We got to the train station in Chengdu around 7pm, and waited with hundreds of other people before boarding the train just before our departure at 8:30pm. The compartments were made up of 6 bunks; a lower, middle and upper, and we had tickets for one lower and one upper. I told Lisa I would flip her for the lower bunk, but she graciously offered me the lower bunk without having to flip. The other people in our compartment were a young man from Shanghai who could speak some English, another young Chinese man who spent most of the trip sleeping, and a retired Chinese couple. The man could speak a little bit of English, but the woman couldn't speak any. The first thing I did was try out the bed. I was surprised that the hard sleeper was more comfortable than my bed at Bi Hua Li! The excitement of being on the train and talking to people soon wore off, and we retired to our beds. I was woken up in the middle of the night by the older man in our compartment, who kept burping. At first I thought he was about to get sick and all the awful memories of the guy on the bus to Songpan, came flooding back. When I rolled over, I discovered that he was doing sit ups and every time he sat up, he burped! I tried to put my pillow over my ears, but I couldn't drown out the sound. This happened both nights we were on the train.
The scenery on the train was spectacular, at least the scenery that I saw. There were miles and miles of rolling green hills, blue skies and big, white, puffy clouds. Unfortunately, I missed a lot of it because I slept quite a bit. I still wasn't feeling very well, and I was also suffering from headaches. I wasn't sure if it was because of the altitude, or from just not feeling well.
One of the things I learned about dealing with altitude when I did Kilimanjaro is that if you pass gas, it means that you are acclimatizing well. I guess the wife of the burper was acclimatizing well, because she seemed to be passing gas quite a bit. The thing about Chinese people is that they don't make any bones about trying to hide the fact that they are passing gas. In fact, there were many times that she would actually roll over on to one butt cheek and let 'er rip!
After 45 hours on the train, we arrived in Lhasa late in the afternoon, and were supposed to be picked up. A quick phone call to the local contact, and our ride was there within a few minutes. It was nice, as the train station was only minutes out of town. When we were picked up, we were told that the hotel we were originally booked in to was full, so they were taking us to another hotel for the night. They ended up putting us in a dorm room that had 7 beds. I couldn't believe that Sam had charged us the equivalent of $27Cdn per night for our accommodation, and we were being put in a dorm room. If you multiplied $27 by 7 beds, that meant the hotel would have been making $186Cdn/night for a dorm room, when normally, a dorm bed would cost approximately $3.50/night. I understand that Sam needs to get a commission, but that was ridiculous!! When I talked to the local contact and told him how much Sam had charged us, his comment was 'Ouch!' We immediately got on the phone to Sam, and within a few minutes, there was a knock on the door, and we were taken to a room with only three beds. We were still being charged outrageous prices, so Lisa got on the phone to Sam and went up one side of him and down the other! In the end, there was nothing we could do except notify Lonely Planet of Sam's business practices. The worst part is that a new LP guide just came out, and Sam will probably continue to get the business for the next three years.
After getting settled in to our room, we went out exploring. The first thing I noticed was the hard time I was having with my breathing. I was surprised that it was so hard for me to catch my breath. When I did Kilimanjaro, which is a couple of thousand meters higher than Lhasa, I never had any problems with the altitude. There were times where we would be sitting having a meal and I would have to catch my breath. What a strange and sometimes scary feeling it was!
We were only a short walk away from Barkhor, which is a pilgrim circuit and must be navigated in a clockwise direction. The circuit is a beehive of activity and is lined with stalls that sell everything from prayer flags to t-shirts and everything in between. It is not uncommon to see prostrating pilgrims as you circumambulate Barkhor, and it's hard not to stare. Many of them wore wooden blocks to protect their hands, and a makeshift apron. They would put their hands together over their heads, bring them down in front of them to the prayer position, bend at the knees, then put their hands on the ground and slide forward on the wooden blocks until they were laying flat on the ground with their hands over their heads. After saying their prayers, or whatever it is they do when they are laying flat on the ground, they would do the same in reverse, then do it all over again. Many of them stood outside the Jokhang temple doing this, but we also saw many pilgrims doing it around Lhasa, and outside the Potala Palace. They seemed very devout in their practices, and concentration was seldom broken, except maybe, to give change to someone making a donation ☺
It was so fascinating walking around Lhasa and seeing so many people carrying prayer wheels. They came in so many different sizes and I wondered if there was any significance to the size. I got a teeny tiny one to attach to my backpack, and I saw them so big that the person carrying it had to carry it in a holster worn around their waist.
The next day we checked in to the guest house we were originally booked in to. We had already paid for two nights. Extra nights were 50RMB (approx. $7Cdn - nice one Sam!) for the two of us. Once we got settled, we went upstairs to the rooftop restaurant, and got our first glimpse of Potala Palace in the distance. What an impressive building it is! After we had something to eat, we went out wandering again, and came upon the Potala Palace up close. It's even more amazing when it's right in front of you. We really wanted to go inside Potala, but had heard from a guy at our guest house that you had to line up the day before to get tickets. Apparently they only sell 850 tickets a day, and each person in the lineup is allowed to buy 4 tickets, so you have to get in the lineup early to avoid disappointment.
We got up at 5am the next morning to go and line up for tickets to Potala Palace. We got there just after 6, and their was already quite a few people lined up. Just after we joined the lineup, a local guy came up to us and tried to sell us his place in line. He said he had been in line since 8pm the night before. We politely declined and told him that we would take our chances and remain in our place. At 7:30 they opened up the gates, and we got all excited when we started to move, but as it turned out, they just moved us to another line. Apparently the ticket office didn't open until 9:30, so we had to wait for the ticket office to open. When it was all said and done, we ended up having to wait in line for five hours!!! Once we got the tickets, we had to wait until the next day to actually go inside Potala. We had heard that you also had to line up at Potala, but thankfully, we just showed them our tickets, and walked right in. Unfortunately, you are only able to see a very small part of the Palace, so it didn't take us long to go through it. As much as I would have loved to have seen more, I left a happy camper.
While we were in Lhasa we went to Nechung as well as Drepung Monastery. I couldn't believe how many people go to these monasteries on a daily basis, and I can't believe how much money they give. As you walk through, there is money EVERYWHERE, and there are literally buckets overflowing with money. As you walk through, you can watch as the Monks count it. I'd be so curious to know how much money they take in every day between entrance fees and donations.
The unfortunate thing about going to Tibet, is that you are really restricted as to what areas you can go to. You can wander freely around Lhasa, but if you want to go further afield, you have to hire a Landcruiser and tour guide at 1000 RMB (approx. $135 Cdn)/day. This doesn't include your accommodation or food. Lisa and I talked about going somewhere other than Lhasa, and we decided to go to Shigatse and Gyantse, as those were places we could go on our own - or so we thought. We packed up our things, checked out of our guest house, and went to the bus station to buy our tickets. After pushing and shoving and trying to hold her ground in the lineup, when Lisa handed the ticket agent her money, the woman held up her hand and shook her head. We were talking to another foreigner who said it looked like they weren't going to sell a ticket to us, so we decided to go to the main bus station. We encountered the same problem there, BUT there was a guy standing by with a private car who said he could take us there for 100RMB each, which would end up being double what the bus would have cost. We thought it was a little pricey, but thought we would pay it, as we really wanted to go. Another guy was going to join us, and all of a sudden the cost of the car was tripling, not being divided three ways. I started to wonder what would happen if we did end up going to Shigatse, what it would be like trying to get back. Would we be able to even get transportation back, and if so, would the price be even higher? We were both quite put off by the fact that they wouldn't sell bus tickets to foreigners and then we started wondering about whether or not we would be able to get back without breaking the bank, so we decided to scrap the idea and stay in Lhasa. We looked in to other options but our time limitations didn't leave us much choice. Lisa decided that she would go to Nam Tso Lake. I really wanted to go as well, but it was higher altitude than Lhasa, and I didn't want to take any chances with my breathing. The guide book said you should be in Lhasa for at least a week before going to Nam Tso and we hadn't been there for quite a week yet. Seeing as there weren't really any other options for me, I decided to go to the travel agent to book a flight to Zhongdian. I was able to get a flight the next day, but unfortunately, Lisa wasn't able to get a flight until four days later. That meant that I would have to move on, and then wait for her to catch up. I spent the rest of the day hanging around the Potala Palace, and taking pictures from every possible angle imaginable.
The next day I caught the bus out to the airport, which is about two hours away from Lhasa. Flying out of Lhasa is so impressive with all the mountains surrounding the airport. I would have to say that it is probably the most beautiful takeoff I have ever experienced. It was a gorgeous sunny day, the sky was blue, and the clouds were white and puffy. I was surprised to see a couple monks in first class when I boarded the plane. They must be able to afford first class tickets from all that money they take in at the monasteries! I sat next to a monk on the airplane, and I found it strange that he kept putting food in to a fold in his robe. Maybe he was saving it for a snack later???
I arrived in Zhongdian a couple of hours later, and was disappointed to find that I was still having problems with my breathing. I had wanted to go to Zhongdian as it was the inspiration for a movie I had seen many years ago called Lost Horizon. It is about a plane crash, and the survivors end up in a place called Shangri La. It has become so popular because of the movie that it is actually now called Shangri La. Upon arrival at the airport, there were a bunch of monks to greet the plane - I would imagine they were there for the monks that were on our plane. I stayed in a guest house in the Old Town part of Zhongdian. It reminded me a lot of Whistler, Tibetan style. There seemed to be a lot of development going on in the Old Town, and I bet it will be a real hopping place in a couple years' time. There was a square in them middle of Old Town that had stall after stall set up as an outdoor bar-b-q. As tempting as it might have been, I skipped the bar-b-q, and went and ate in a restaurant. You never know what kind of meat you are getting in China. After I finished dinner, I was heading back to my room and had to pass through the same square. The outdoor bar-b-q that had been there earlier had now been transformed in to a dance floor! There was a large circle of locals dancing to the music, and in no time, there were about three or four circles dancing to the music. Within about twenty minutes, the entire square was filled with people dancing. No one was too old, too young, too shy or too cool to dance. After two hours of watching the dancing, I finally tore myself away and went back to the guest house to go to bed.
My next stop was Lijiang. I only stayed in Zhongdian for one night because I was still having problems with my breathing. At this point, I was starting to get a little worried that I hadn't been able to acclimatize to the altitude after a week. The bus to Lijiang was five hours, and I sat in the back of the bus with my eyes closed, listening to my music. At one point, I opened my eyes just in time to see the guy next to me lifting his head up with drool coming out of his mouth. I was too afraid to look and see what was on the floor beneath him. That, along with the woman at the front of the bus who seemed to hoark and spit every minute and a half, helped me make up my mind that I wasn't going to take any more long distance bus rides in China.
I was relieved to find that once I got to Lijiang, my breathing was fine. As soon as I got to the Old Town area, a woman asked me if I needed a place to stay, which I did. As I followed her through Old Town to get to her guest house, I got quite excited about going out and having a look around. It was a really charming little town, and there were so many shops and restaurants. It was even more impressive at night with all the lights illuminating the buildings and surrounding trees.
There was a little girl who performed just outside of the Old Town. Once I discovered her, I couldn't help but go back and see her each night - she was soooo cute! She had a little stand set up that was similar to a mini tripod. It spun around, and on the top of the stand was a mouthpiece. Every couple of minutes she would bite down on the mouthpiece, go in to a handstand, flip her legs over, grab on to the stand, give herself a good spin, then let go and spin. She must have one very strong jaw!
After a couple of days in Lijiang, I felt that I had pretty well seen everything that I wanted to see, but I still had a few days to wait until Lisa was supposed to arrive. We had planned to do Tiger Leaping Gorge together, but I really didn't want to have to wait in Lijiang any longer, plus the weather was dry and I didn't want to take the chance that it could be raining by the time Lisa got there. The next morning, I caught the bus to Qiaotou, and then started the trek from there. My first stop was a place called the Gorged Tiger - a restaurant run by Margo from Australia. After talking to her, I discovered that she did the gorge ten years ago and never left. She said that she does it about once a week. She is the person to see for any information about trekking the Gorge. There was a woman at Margo's place who was just finishing off her breakfast, and we ended up trekking together for a little bit. We also started off with a young, fit guy from France, but after a couple of hours, we were too slow for him, and he left us in his dust. After we had stopped for lunch, we encountered probably the hardest part of the trek called '28 Bends'. I never counted, but I guess there were 28 bends, and it felt like it went straight up. There were locals on the trail who would come by with their horses and ask 'hor-sah?' I guess if you didn't want to climb anymore, you could hop on the horse and let it do all the work for you. They seemed to linger around the trekkers who appeared to be struggling.
Unfortunately, Anna, the woman I was trekking with, had brought her entire backpack with her (I just used my daypack), and with each step, her backpack got heavier and heavier which started to slow her down. I was a little concerned about getting to a certain guest house before it got dark, so we decided to part company. Lucky I did, because just after I got to the Halfway Guest House, the heavens opened up, and the rain came pouring down. On my way to the guest house, there was a sign spray painted on the rocks boasting 'spectacular toilet view'. They were certainly right about the toilet view, it WAS spectacular, however, the trough toilets left a little bit to be desired. I had a double room to myself at the Halfway Guest House, and my window opened up to a spectacular view of the mountains. The hot shower I had was welcomed and much appreciated after a long day of trekking.
I left fairly early the next morning, and made it to a place called Sean's Guest House a couple of hours away. There had been a landslide in the prior weeks, and in order to get back to Qiaotou so I could catch a bus to Lijiang, I had to take a taxi to the landslide, walk over the landslide, then catch another taxi on the other side. It was pretty scary to think that it could have happened when I was there. As we drove along, they were clearing even more debris off the road from the landslide and pushing it off the side of the cliff.
When I got back in to Lijiang, I got a text message from Lisa saying that her flight from Lhasa had been delayed by a day, so I decided that I would start making arrangements to go back to Zhongshan. We had talked about going to Dali, and our flight back to Guangzhou was from Kunming. I wasn't bothered about not going to Dali, and after all my experiences on long distance bus rides, I couldn't stand the thought of having to take another one to get to Kunming! Not only that, there were so many tour groups in Lijiang, and I felt that if I saw one more flag toting tour leader, I was going to go crazy, so I decided to change my flight arrangements to fly out of Lijiang instead. Lisa and I got to hang out in Lijiang for one night before I left to go home the next morning.
When I got back to Zhongshan, I discovered that there had been some changes with one of the foreign teachers, and there was a shortage of teachers, so I figured I might as well start back at work earlier than originally planned. It was good that I did because I ended up getting the following weekend off, so I went to Hong Kong.
A couple of days after we got back, Bond took everyone on a rafting trip. I was pretty excited about it, and I thought it would be fun to hang out with everyone outside of work and not in a bar setting! We all piled on to a bus, and then went around to the different suburbs of Zhongshan picking up Bond staff. One of the first things our guide told us was about the plastic bags that were available on the bus for getting sick, and immediately, all those awful memories of the bus trip to Songpan came flooding back. We drove for what seemed like forever, and then made a stop at a mushroom farm. When we got there, the parking lot was packed with other tour buses. They took us to a covered area that looked like a bunch of sawdust with a couple of mushrooms growing out it. Not too impressive. Also, I wondered why we had stopped there if we were supposed to be going rafting. After a cup of tea, and a talk about mushrooms (try not to fall asleep during THAT one!), we made our way to board a barge/boat to have our lunch. As e were leaving the mushroom farm, the only way to get back to the bus was to go through their gift shop! Anyways, lunch was okay, and then we continued to the place where we were going to go rafting. It was absolute chaos! There were lots of other tour buses there, and of course, flag toting tour guides. I wondered to myself how I ended up in a situation like this when it's that very situation that I tried to get away from, in Lijiang. Once we all suited up in our rafting attire, we got back on the bus to be taken to the put in area. I was surprised to see so many of the Chinese girls wearing their heels to go rafting! We drove alongside what looked like a man made river that had hundreds of Chinese people wearing army helmets, floating downstream in rubber rafts. Oh my God, was this the 'rafting' that we signed up for? It turned out to be quite a bit of fun, but certainly not worth the long bus ride to get there. I kept referring to it as Disneyland rafting. After the rafting finished, we weren't able to go home, as we had to go to another place that served deer tea or something ridiculous like that. It was just another opportunity for a Chinese tour company to take us shopping. An opportunity that I would have been more than happy to do without. After meeting at 8am, we ended up getting home around 9pm!!
The new school term started around the second week of September. This term, I am doing two New Concept classes on the weekend at Bond - one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. They are both three hours each - the longest class I've ever taught. They range in age from about ten to twelve years old. I don't usually like teaching the younger kids, but I have to say that I am really enjoying these new classes. They all seem keen and eager to learn.
On Tuesday and Thursday nights I teach a business English class. I have 11 students, and they are all from the same company. I always love teaching my adult and business English classes, and the students in this class seem to be a lot of fun.
From Tuesday to Friday, I teach middle school classes. We teach grade 1 one week, grade 2 the next week, and grade 3 the next week. We have a total of 12 classes of 30 students each week which means we see close to 1100 students over a 3 week period. It was so nice being back at middle school again, as I really enjoyed my classes there last term. I remember when we first started there last March. Many of the kids would say hi to us, and then shy away. They wanted to talk to us, but were very shy. This time around, many of the kids will call me by name and come up and talk to me, and it's now the grade 1's who are like the kids last year.
When I started any of my classes at middle school, I would always ask the students about their summer vacation. The response I usually got was 'boring', or 'not very good'. When I asked them why, they told me they had too much homework. Too much homework in the summer!!! I get so frustrated and upset sometimes by all the studying these kids have to do. Some of them go to school 7 days a week, plus some of them also study at Bond on the weekends. They just never have time to have fun or be a kid. Whenever you ask them what they like to do, they usually respond with sleep, watch TV or play computer games. There is little deviation from those three. It is so sad. As an aside, I taught one, one hour class at a place called Weibo. The kids I taught were around 7 or 8, and they go to Weibo on their lunch. My goodness, the kids can't even have a decent lunch hour without having to go and do some more studying. I really can't see how all this studying can be good for anyone!
I think it was on my second day at middle school, one of the boys came up to me and told me that I looked younger this term! What a sweetheart. I also had a girl come up to me at the end of one of my classes and she said 'I am afraid to speak to foreigners, but you are an exception'. I was thrilled that she felt comfortable enough to come and talk to me, but I was even more thrilled by the fact that she was able to use a big word like exception!
The lesson we are doing in middle school right now is 'Tell me about yourself'. Before I get them to tell me about themselves, I tell them a bit about myself and what I like to do. One of the things I tell them is my age. After one of my classes, one of the students came up to me and said 'I can't believe you are 48 years old, you look so young'. Those were her exact words! I couldn't believe it - she spoke just like a native English speaker and sounded like one too!
This week was the first week teaching the grade 1's. When I walked in to the classroom, they were all crowding around me asking me my name, where I was from, and wanting to shake my hand. They are so much fun, as they are still keen about learning, and are very responsive. They always want to show off what they know. I remember Lisa and I always had more fun with our grade 1's last term.
This term, I am teaching with another Canadian teacher as Lisa is teaching at No. 1 High School this term. Her name is Jenna, she is 21, and she's from Ottawa. She loves middle school as much as I do, and we are constantly comparing notes on our students.
During one of my grade 3 classes, one of my students that I also taught at Bond, stood up in the class and said that she had heard that many Canadian's don't like Chinese people - is that true? Boy, talk about being put on the spot!! At that one single moment in my life I didn't want to be a Canadian! I think I told her that it's not everyone that don't like Chinese people, and the ones that don't are usually people who have never been outside of Canada, and never taken the chance to get to know Chinese people. I later sat down with her and explained how I had had problems with two boys in Zhongshan on two different occasions, but I didn't judge the rest of China on those two boys and I hoped she wouldn't judge all Canadians just because a few of them might not like Chinese people.
There have been two occasions where two boys have tried to rip me off. The first time, I was walking along probably the busiest street in Zhongshan when I was going to meet some of the other teachers for dinner. For some reason, I turned around, and there was a young boy right behind me. I immediately checked my backpack to see if any zippers were open, then I started yelling at him asking him what he was doing. I also checked his pockets, etc. to see if he had taken anything from me. I noticed that he wasn't wearing any shoes, and figured it was probably so that I wouldn't hear him creeping up behind me. Not too far away from him was another little boy who was carrying his shoes. They couldn't have been anymore than ten years old. Although there weren't any other pedestrians, there were lots of cars driving by. A week or so later, I was walking on another street in the same area, and felt my purse moving. When I turned around, there was a young boy who was trying to get at my purse. I guess I swung around very quickly and scared him, as he fell on the ground on his butt. I started yelling at him in a very unladylike fashion. I'm sure he didn't understand a word I said, but he definitely knew that I was mad. Just before he ran off, I realized that it was the little boy that had been carrying the shoes for his friend the week before. I mentioned the incidents to some of my students, and they said that because I am a foreigner, I am a target for that sort of thing. I now walk around Zhongshan looking over my shoulder.
The other night, Bond took us all out for dinner to celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival. We went to a crab restaurant, and then went to a karaoke bar after that. I am certainly not in to karaoke, but everyone else was going, and I didn't have to work the next day, so I decided to go. Most of the teachers were there, along with 4 of my 5 IELTS students. One of them, Mark, has been taking classes at Bond for almost as long as I've been there. He arrived shortly after me. He is hoping to go to Vancouver in December to study. I tell him about Vancouver all the time, as I want him to get excited about it. He is such a nice kid, and I will definitely keep in touch with him when I'm back in Vancouver. Anyways, on Sunday night, I told him that I was going to take lots of pictures when I went home to Vancouver so I could show him what it looked like. I finally ended up leaving around midnight (which was pretty late for me!). I said my goodbyes, and then walked out the door to go and get a taxi. After I had left, I turned around when I heard the door open. It was Mark, and he gave me a big hug. I was sooo touched, as Chinese people are not emotional at all. What a great kid he is!
I am sitting at the airport in Seoul, Korea waiting to catch my flight after a 14 hour layover. I am finally headed back to Vancouver for my 30 year reunion. I will only have 9 days in Vancouver, but I am so happy that I'm even able to go back at all.
When I get back from Vancouver, I will have less than three months left in my contract. I keep thinking about all the different stages I have gone through since I came here in January. At the end of my travels in August, I was feeling very frustrated and feeling like I was done with China. However, I am quite enjoying myself again, and keep thinking that I need to make the best of these last three months, as I know they will fly by. I'm feeling so much more confident with my teaching now, and am really enjoying my classes this term. I'm still not sure if teaching English is my cup of tea, but meeting people and making a connection them is, and I really feel that I have done that.
Until next time,
Gaye
