a Chinese Christmas

Ni hao foreigners,
Just finished marking two of my classes and i finally have some free time so I have decided to update everyone on my Christmas adventures in Wuhan.
First of all the Chinese really don't celebrate christmas so the schools were still open but our school was nice enough to give us friday-monday off to celebrate.
And celebrate we did.

Thursday:
I taught my usual classes in the morning and then was told all the teachers were supposed to meet at the main school afterwards for a performance. The big show that is next month had its final showing for all the principals and directors so Super MJ Dance Team all piled onto a bus and headed over there as well. I was very nervous for them as we have not been practicing lately because the school either fails to give me proper equipment or enough space to have a proper practice.
I arrived fashionably late with another teacher and sat down to watch some of the other schools performances.
There were dancers, singers and actors. I was happily treated to a performance of some disney movies. They put up scenes from Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Shrek and had the kids acting them out or doing voice overs for the movies. It was hilarious.
After a few performances it was Super MJ Dance Team's time to go up and finally show everyone what they can do.
I sat there biting my lip hoping for the best. But turns out I didn't have to worry because they performed it almost flawlessly. It was amazed and apparently so were everyone else. I had people come up to me after saying it was the best performance of the show.
I really never thought i'd pull it off. It was all them.

After the show, we were told that all the teachers were going to be taken out for a christmas dinner. We walked on through rundown, dirty Chinese allies and in the middle of all of this strangely there was this very nice, fancy restaurant where we had a private room waiting. We all piled in and I somehow got placed at the table with all the chinese men. There was Nemo, Mr. Li (the boss of the foreign department) and Mr. Ye (the big boss of all the schools) as well as our driver who is a scary, beast-like man. I thought this would be the lame table as everyone else would all be drinking and talking at the other tables.
I didn't realize how unbelievably wrong that was.
Almost immediately we were brought out 5 boxes of red wine and a large amount of beer. The food came and we picked through the various Chinese dishes which were actually pretty amazing. So far pretty normal little gathering.
But then came the Bai Jiu. Oh yes, the Bai Jiu. This drink will destroy you. I believe i've mentioned it before, It's about 45% alcohol and takes and smells like something I cannot describe. It's one of those alcohol's that leaves a taste in your mouth for days after and makes you cringe at the smell or thought of it.
But these Chinese men weren't messing around.
Mr. Ye began to poor full glasses of this stuff and giving it to the other chinese men. As well as me and Shane, the only other men at the tables. It seemed custom that the females were not allowed to drink it but I didn't ask why. Nemo looked at me terrified and begged me to take some more of his full glass. You can tell he was only drinking because he had to do what his bosses told him and it would be disrespectful not to. I felt the same way. This is when things started to go downhill.
Flash forward about an hour.
Everyone had congregated at our table now and were taking drinks with all the bosses, who were loaded out of there minds. They brought out another few bottles of Bai Jiu, a bottle of Jin Jiu, another box of wine and a whole crate of $60 cigarettes. It was utterly insane. Everyone was yelling and hugging. Mr. Ye stood up on a chair and yelled "MR.................... YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAA!!!" and cheersed all the foreign teachers. The next time I looked back at him he was on the floor passed out. One of the other chinese teachers who I don't think had ever even drank before was stumbling around with two cigarettes in his mouth, smiling and speaking nonsense. Nemo was pounding shots and laughing maniacally.
Well this got out of hand quickly, I thought. We all left after that. At least I think we did. Because like I said, I partook in the Bai Jiu fest as well. Last I remember we were sitting on a couch outside the corner store we usually go to singing at the top of our lungs. I somehow also got my hands on a guitar in all this.
I woke up the next morning with a bump on my head and the worst hangover I've ever had in my life. Who would have thought that beer, red wine, Bai Jiu, Jin Jiu and Chinese food all mixed together well.

Friday (Christmas Eve)
Consider it erased from my life. I lied in bed for like 10 hours then finally got up and went to Mcdonalds. I had a fantastic, heart-warming Christmas Eve feast of a chicken sandwich and fries, which I ate alone in my room. Merry Christmas to me.

Saturday:
All the teachers woke up relatively early and decided we were going to cook a huge breakfast. Some of the other teachers had went out the night before and bought a GIANT brick of cheese, bacon and sausages. We just needed potatoes and eggs so we went out to the supermarket as well as a christmas morning hunt for Baileys.
The baileys was unsuccessful, but at the supermarket one of the butchers seemed to have a "dog special" on at the time. Just in time for the holidays, how lovely. Sitting there on the counter in front of me was a decapitated dogs head, freshly cut, eyes staring at you. This was definitely one of the more disturbing things i've seen first thing christmas morning in my life. Way to go China.
I shook that off quickly as we all sat down for an amazing breakfast. Me and Bobby, being the manly chefs we are, took control of the kitchen downstairs and cooked for a good hour. They gave us the keys to the eating room and we all sat around the big table, cracked some beers at 11am, cheersed to our new family and gave thanks for the wonderful meal we had. Appreciating it once again so much more. I will never take a good breakfast for granted again.
After that we all played a big game of basketball and I came back earlier to get ready for my second big meal of the day. All the teachers at the Xudong school were having a big late lunch at a place called the Toucan. I rushed over there and enjoyed a massive turkey dinner, barely able to get it all in after the breakfast I had.
The Toucan is the only Irish pub in Wuhan. They had real Guiness on tap and a nice stage set up in the corner, where a guy was trying to get set up to play but seemed to be having trouble. He asked people in the audience if anyone could play guitar to do a soundcheck for him. My friends shoved me up there and I played a bit, then he asked if i could also sing a bit to check the mics. I play like 20 seconds of a Neil Young song and the next thing I know the owner comes over and tells me to keep playing. He wanted me to take half the guys set. I refused but everyone seemed to force me into it. Somehow, I ended up doing a whole set and the owner asked me to play there again next month.
Just when I thought the fun was ending we all went out to a roller skating bar. Flashback to the 70's. I didn't think these things still existed. I had a great time though, I picked it up quickly and was bombing around the place, knocking over many chinese people. I even showed someone what a proper body check was.
Later we went on to Wuhan prison where I got into the Absinthe again and after that I went to Vox where I danced for a good hour.
What a day. I went to bed exhausted and satisfied.

Sunday:
Essentially another write-off day

Monday:
We woke up and decided to have another massive breakfast and enjoyed our last day off

So it's Tuesday now and i'm back to teaching. All my students told me they missed me today and cheered as I walked into the classroom. As hard as it was to spend my first christmas away from my family and friends all the people here as well as my students really made all the difference in the world. I now have New Years to look forward to and then 3 weeks in which I am going to begin preparing to go to Thailand.
I already picked up a few words of Thai. Which turns out is even more rediculous than Chinese
Sawaatdiikhrap!
Corey

Sheng Dan Kuai Le!

Hello friends and family!
For those who don't know already "Sheng Dan Kuai Le" is Merry Christmas in Chinese. It literally translates to "Holy Birth Happy!" which sounds mildly neanderthal but so do most literal translations of chinese words into english. "Ni Hao" (Hello) for example translates into "You, Good."

Other hilarities of the chinese language which i find amusing is the word they use for thinking. When we talk we usually throw the word umm, uhhh or likeeee and hold it a bit while we think of whatever we're going to say next. The Chinese have a word they use for that too, its "ne ge." That might look perfectly normal to you english folk but in chinese it is pronounced "nigga." Which, as you can imagine, caused some concern for me the first time i heard it. One day a student wanted to get my attention and proceeded to call out "nigga.. teacha!" and my eyes widened in shock. Now some of the teachers have already been complaining that my students come up to them and props them and say "whats up homie" (so glad i taught them that!) so I thought maybe one kid did his research and took it to the next level. But then I started hearing it everywhere. On the bus, at restaurants and in shops. I had a Chinese teacher explain to me what it meant, but still, nothing compares to a 6 year old kid dropping N-Bombs all up in here.

Another funny moment that happened last week had to do with a funny translation one of the students made. Nemo has started a new thing where, before each class starts, a different student must do a short 2 minute power point presentation about something to do with western culture. The problem is that they decide to use translators for them. One girl was doing her presentation on western dessert food and included a roughly translated recipe for making a cake. As she was reading out the ingredients I noticed one of them said 1 cup of breast milk. Standing in the back of the class I burst out into laughter and tried to contain myself. No one seemed to understand why i was laughing. After the presentation was over I asked Nemo or the class if they knew why I was laughing and why breast milk was so funny. Apparently not even Nemo knew what that meant.
Well this will be fun to explain I thought.
I cupped my hands at my chest and said "you know, milk from woman"
The whole class went nuts.
By the way the Chinese word for womens breasts is "nai nai." a word I enjoy saying out loud for some reason. Something about how it rolls off the tongue.

Anyways, It's been quite awhile now since I wrote a blog. I sincerely apologize to anyone following it as I've been either too busy or too lazy. This month has been strange and interesting so far. On monday I woke up and was informed by Nemo that I would be saying the sentence of the week on the morning announcements. Once a week a different english teacher makes a new sentence and teaches it to the school while a Chinese teacher translates for them. I had not gone yet so this week was my turn. To add to the excitement, I was told It would be a special one this week because it was christmas. I would be teaching Merry Christmas but also translating for myself as well as wishing all the students and teachers a merry christmas in chinese. Also, announcements would be held outside in the field and I would be on a podium in front of the whole school again. Memories from fuzzy panda kill robot good day started to creep in as I woke up after only a few hours of sleep the night before and made my way downstairs.
Nemo sat me down and said "must practice, have 5 minutes."
Thinking still that I was just going to have to say Merry Christmas In english and Chinese, I told him it was no problem.
But then he explained the rest I was going to say.
"Wo zhu xiao peng you men he lao shi men sheng dan kuai le" meaning "I wish students and teachers a merry christmas"
was what Nemo said I would have to say. I was barely awake, yet let alone ready to be memorizing crazy chinese phrases to say in front of the entire school.
I repeated it a few times then made my way outside to where the entire school was waiting. Oh boy. This was going to be interesting.
Then, by some Christmas miracle, I got up on that stage and spoke perfect Chinese and was applauded by everyone. I guess being around the Chinese language for the last 5 months has paid off and i'm becoming more comfortable speaking it. All day my students were high-fiving me and saying "Corey! I see you morning! you Chinese very good!" I ignored the grammatical errors and thanked them. I worked the rest of the day and took a much needed nap. The night before had been equally interesting.

On sunday night, me, Chris and Shane were invited by the owner of the Wuhan Prison to play at some festival in Hangyang. We practiced up 4 crappy cover songs and headed there not knowing what to expect. We had no idea how big or what kind of festival this was, but we were totally unprepared for what would ensue.
We were met by the guy who set it all up and taken through the festival, which was in a big dark park. There were the craziest, brightest lights i've ever seen seperated by long patches of dark forest. It was very strange. We walked through the first forest part in the dark and first walked by a man on stilts, a small clown, a man dressed as a sheep, snow white and the most terrifying attempt at a batman costume i've ever seen. Now the lights, dark forest, strange costumed people and overall situation made us start believe we had been slipped some sort of hallucinogen. When we finally got to the stage we were equally confused and slightly scared. The stage was off from the festival surrounded by forest, with many bright flashing lights and a small patch in front of the stage with giant animals dancing with eachother. Not like halloween costumes, i mean mascot-sized costumes.
Picture a bunch of mascots dancing in the middle of a dark chinese forest with strange flashing lights and you get the general idea. We waited on the side of the stage and watched the show in confusion for a bit and prepared our things to go on and play.
As the band that was playing winded down all the mascots/costumed people left, along with all the people that were there with them. So now there was a lone chinese band playing to no one and we were supposed to be on next. You could literally hear crickets. Well in China its actually dogs being slaughtered off in the distance but same idea.
They pulled the guy who booked us off to the side of the stage and shortly after we were informed that the show was cancelled because no one was there anymore. We were then given 100kuai each and sent packing. Stepping out of the festival, we all walked on and wondered exactly what the hell just happened.
once again, China is a strange place.

Besides all the strangeness that has been happening this month two amazing things have happened:
1. I booked my trip to Thailand for Chinese New Year/Spring Festival
2. I found a Subway in Wuhan

I had heard only rumours of the first subway restaurant opening up in Wuhan recently and after doing research I decided to head over there one day after a class I was teaching near the area. Its about a 45 minute cab ride away from where I live but worth every Chinese RMB stashed in my nightstand. I ate it in ecstasy and bought 2 more to take home with me. I'm probably going to make a trip there once a week for sanity purposes. Rice is really starting to drive me mental.
From January 20th-February 5th I will be travelling in Thailand. I have alot to prepare for the trip including learning some basic Thai, which is even more ridiculous than chinese. But i've looked up itineraries and I will be visiting massive old buddhist temples,hiking through jungles, staying in small mountain villages, riding elephants, exploring caves and lying on some of the nicest beaches in the world. You have no idea how excited I am to have an opportunity to do something like this in my life. I want to thank my Dad again for helping me to book my flight there, which was only $386 US for the return trip.
I have a lot to look forward to in the next little while it seems. Christmas will be hard without family and friends but know that I am thinking about you all and miss you very much.
The teachers here are all going out for a nice big dinner again and exchanging presents on saturday and we also get 4 days off work. Happy times.
I will try update my blog more often and I also hope to buy a new camera soon to take more pictures, especially for my trip next month.
But until then Merry Christmas everyone!
Corey

the ups, the downs and the just plain crazy!

to kick things off, here's the moment everyone's been waiting for!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coreyinchina/5222962749/

Good day far away friends,
I have a few things to update everyone on about my crazy life here in China. First as you can see Super MJ Dance Team™ is well on its way to stardom. I was only able to upload a small part of the dance, so unfortunately you miss the best part in the middle where I get them to jump around in a circle and pretend to stab each other in the chest with knives (this is not a joke! go watch the beat it video!)
On Tuesday this week I was well into teaching my second period grade 4 class when, bursting in, came two members of the Super MJ Dance Team™ out of breath from running across the schoolyard and up four flights of stairs to find me. Also, in their haste, they both failed to realize that I do not speak Chinese and their attempted message would be hard to relay.

"Hello, small portion of Super MJ Dance Team™." I said to them as they entered the classroom.

"Relax. Breathe. What message do you bring from afar, oh young ones?"

"Dance. Principal. Michael Jackson. Corey. Oh my Gaga! Come now!"
A short note: I don't know how it started but when I first started teaching the kids would all say "Oh my god!" once in awhile when I did something crazy or gave them alot of homework. But somehow it then morphed into "Oh my Lady Gaga!" and now it has shortened to "Oh my Gaga!" They all say this all the time and it boggles my mind as well as amuses me. Back to the story...

"Oh my Gaga!" I replied. And told my co-teacher that I must leave immediately and she would have to take over the rest of the class.
The principal of our school, the principal of the main school, the headmaster, my boss and two incredibly cute dance teachers were all coming to see my progress on our performance and decide if they will put funding into it or not. We were not even remotely prepared for this. I had just taught them one other part of the dance the day before and haven't even started on the musicians yet.

I raced across the schoolyard with the two messengers and yelled "Super MJ Dance Team™ ASSEMBLE!" ran up to my room, grabbed my guitar and Joes bass he's lending me and ran down to our practice room. Nemo was waiting for me at the door and seemed equally stressed out about the situation. I told him thank you for the wonderful surprise and he proclaimed he had no idea this was happening either. We both walked in the room to see them all sitting there, headmaster smoking a cigarette (in an elementary school.. what a baller) and Super MJ Dance Team™ ready to rock.
I told them we hadn't practiced it all together yet and we're not even close to finished but they said to just do each part separately. OK then. I pulled up a chair and played through my part on my acoustic guitar, while a few of them sang. So far not bad.
After trying to impress the dance teachers with my Beat it guitar playing skills we all moved on to the main dance. It went well, besides the part in the middle they had just learnt where I was running around telling them to pretend to fight each other. They all seemed relatively satisfied with the performance and proceeded to hash out the equipment details and everything with me. Mr Li handed me a smoke and, after the fourth time trying to explain I don't smoke in elementary schools nor in front of my children, they all left.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That wasn't so bad.

Later on that day I walked in to teach my grade 5 class and noticed they had all drawn pictures of snowmen and posted them all over the classroom. How cute I thought, until upon further inspection:
One snowman was holding a handgun with a happy smile on his face and kids playing all around him.
One snowman was shooting other snowmen.
One snowman was shooting a man in the face.
One snowman was shooting Michael Jackson.
One snowman was strapped to the teeth like Rambo.
One snowman was shooting fire out of his hands and burning an entire village.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE CHILDREN! This kind of thing would never fly in my elementary school. Or any in Canada for that matter. I brought Nemo over and asked If this was okay. He said his usual "Is good!" and I stood there in wonder. Something about the whole scene seemed both totally wrong and totally awesome at the same time. Oh yes, I remembered, I'm in China. I realized this wasn't so bad. If I had been allowed back in the day I would have drawn guns on everything I made at school. That's just how boys are. It seems in Chinese schools the teachers don't have much of a problem letting children draw or act out that kind of thing. I've even jumped on the band wagon and gotten into the habit of shooting my kids once in awhile. They all do a fantastic fake death. I even walked in the classroom with a gun to a kids head once and told them all to stay back, afterwards I shot the kid and then offed myself. They all laughed hysterically, including Nemo.
What a strange, strange country this is.

Now for the good times. Last Thursday all the teachers planned to celebrate American Thanksgiving at a restaurant called Aloha. The school was even nice enough to provide us with a driver to take us there. We all met at the main school and then hopped in a van for an hour trip into Hangyang, a part of the city I have not been to yet.
Hanyang is the industrial part of town it seems and the main streets are lined with car dealerships and small factories. Packed in with all that is a very large foreign population, international schools and westernized restaurants. Many families whose parents work in industry live there and I saw my first child walking around in quite awhile who wasn't asian. We pulled up to the area and I bolted out of the van excitedly. On the water there was a big pirate ship. Amused easily, I ran over to find that it was an old restaurant on the water that had been closed down recently. There would be no pirating for me today. We then found a giant life sized chess game and my disappointment over the pirate ship quickly faded. A few of us played a quick game and then went into Aloha for our meal.

This place was amazing. It was owned by two americans who both greeted us at the door and informed us that we would all be leaving there with full bellies. We had appetizers and wine to start. Things wrapped in bacon and pastry with cream cheese, I was in heaven already and had to stop myself from filling up before the actual meal came.
And what a meal it was. Real turkey imported from America (there are no turkeys in China) real gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, vegetables in this cheese sauce. I almost cried to be honest.
We made a toast to good friends and good food as well as being thankful for all the times like these, while we're all so far from home and our families. I have always been appreciative of those things but this was something new. We were like a little family. I ate with a smile on my face, packed up some pumpkin pie and went home to a deep sleep, one of those after-turkey sleeps.
amazing.

Now no good moment here goes without out a sudden awakening, with China suddenly bursting back to reality. This happened, quite literally, to me Saturday morning.
I had spent the night at another teachers house. After I work my teaching job Friday night over there I usually go hang out with some of the teachers who live in that area and then just crash there.
I awoke to the sound of machine guns.
Or at least I thought it was machine guns. Only after jumping terrified off my futon and wiping away the sleep haze did I finally realize they were just fireworks. But not nice colourful kind in the sky, the ones you set off at ground level that just make alot of noise and sound like machine guns. I'm all for random explosives I thought, but then looked at the time: 7am. What in the hell was someone setting fireworks off for at 7am? Just when I thought they had ended, out of nowhere the amplified sound of an orchestra blasted through the area. I was unsure if it was a real orchestra or just some guy with a giant speaker but I really didn't care. The song played for about 1 minute and then as soon as it reached the closing crescendo came another round of fireworks. Okay, that was odd. I thought.
But then it repeated again, and again, and again. On it went throughout the morning. An orchestral song followed by loud, gunshot like fireworks. All starting at the wonderful hour of 7am on a Saturday. What's wrong with these people? I was confused and enraged beyond belief.
I asked Lyndley if she possessed a sniper rifle but alas, she did not.

I never did find out what that was all about but it ruined my day. You see China is always sort of in the middle with everything. So many great, wonderful, cultural things about it and then it all ruins your day with one asshole with fireworks, or one guy pushing you to the ground on a bus or cars flying in all directions in a traffic nightmare. Some things I think are improved and innovative while others are completely backwards and just plain crazy. I try to just take everything in the best I can and just realize it's all an adventure. Good or bad, up or down.

What happens in Changsha stays in Changsha

Ni hao friends and family.
So last weekend I safely returned from the Changsha excursion. I'm not even going to explain what partook in this city. Let's just say 11 guys and many bottles of whiskey in a foreign city for 3 days is a recipe for disaster. Mother do not worry your son was relatively behaved. I cannot say the same for some of the other teachers on the trip. But it was expected.
Changsha is a big city quite similar to Wuhan, I didn't find much difference in it besides the fact that there was a subway (the restaurant) and I ate there about four times in complete bliss.
We boarded the train after school at about 3 in the afternoon on Friday and three blurry days later we somehow all arrived home in one piece. I took no pictures of the trip but i did take a video of all of us racing through the streets on electric motorbikes yelling at each other. Unfortunately, when I checked my bag recently it seems I have lost my camera. I either left it in Changsha or it got stolen. I lose everything I own at some point or another as some of you already know. This means there will be no pictures or videos for awhile until I get a new one.

and that is all i will say about Changsha.......... It's for the best trust me.

I returned to Wuhan and went back to work. After classes on Monday it was time for my big audition for my super Michael Jackson singing, dancing team. I was surprised to see that about 40 kids showed up and I had no idea where to even start. Basically, I started pointing at people and saying "you. sing" or "you.dance" "NOW". I didn't expect so many people to show up and I knew I could only choose maybe 10 of them to be part of the show. I felt so bad telling kids they had to leave, but Nemo and Mr. Li were booting kids out the door left and right. I guess with that many people it had to be narrowed down quickly.
I ended up with about 20 kids because I couldn't choose between people, some of them just tried so hard and I couldn't stand to see the look of rejection on their faces. Some were also my students and I have to admit I was picking favourites. I was being way too nice for this.
I explained this to Mr. Li and he straight up told me "This is China, they are used to being rejected"
Oh well i guess when you put it that way....
So I had spent the short time I had before my audition scrambling some sort of mini dance routine to teach them to seperate the dancers, as a majority of the kids who showed up were girls wanting to dance. Let me reiterate that I have no experience in this whatsoever. But I learnt the first few parts of the dance from the actual music video of Beat It and proceeded to try to teach them. The ones that couldn't keep up got sent away. It actually became fun after awhile.
You, leave.
You, get the %$# out.
You, cut.
You, yea your not good enough get out.
You, your humping the air repeatedly. Awesome, but CUT.
The singers weren't too hard to pick out. I basically just picked the ones who were brave enough to sing on the spot and showed enthusiasm. Singing is all about confidence and I needed performers, not people who were going to choke on stage. Choking on stage in front of people will get you killed in China. I didn't want any kids deaths from their parents on my hands. Oh and one kid is totally a homosexual, he can sing and dance like no ones business. He's definitely in.
Funny actually, I told Nemo I wanted 6 boys and 5 girls and he pointed to the gay kid and said "but he is girl." I was speechless.
Nemo.. you clown you.
I also had to assemble a little asian rock band. I think our band name will be "Fuzzy Panda Kill Robot Good." I would be shredding the lead Van Halen guitar in Beat it, while I had to pick my drummer and keyboard player as well as figure out who is going to play bass. None of the kids had any idea what a bass even was. I found a little boy who was pretty good at guitar and strapped a bass to him. "Okay asian Paul Mccartney" I said "Now you have to play bass, no more guitar for you."
I think thats how all bass players start out. No one plays bass by pure choice. If they do, it's because they know they've killed most of their brain cells from Marijuana use. Who are they kidding? They can't play guitar. Let alone spell the word.
Corey=1 Bass players=0

After two days of tryouts and disappointed children I had picked out my super MJ team. I stood in the middle of the room and yelled "super MJ team. ASSEMBLE!"
and we started work on the choreography. With all my bosses watching I proceeded to teach my first dance class.
Why did I agree to this?

Through watching many youtube videos and dancing around my room for a few days I was able to piece together the dance from the music video. I wish you guys could see me do this thing. Hilarious.
So lately this is how I've been spending most of my days. I teach my four classes in the morning, have an hour break for lunch and then teach singing, dancing and a band for 3 hours after school. It really is alot of work. I get home and just want to relax but then I have to keep up on my marking for my classes and lesson planning. But I guess it's good that I am keeping busy and not sitting around like last month.

Today though practice was cancelled. All the teachers were called in to a meeting this afternoon and told we were going to be learning a song. Oh great, I thought, more singing. To my wondrous surprise the song we would be singing would be a chinese song. How thoughtful of them. Apparently there is a big show next month with all the schools and they want all the foreign teachers to sing a chinese song on stage for all the parents, directors and principals. What a fun idea that is.
We sat in a room for 2 hours today all attempting to sing this traditional chinese song. I rather enjoyed it actually and pondered why I didn't join the choir in highschool. Oh yes, because it was totally not cool at the time.
Then she said we would be doing another song, an english song this time. The chinese singing teacher busted out the lyrics to Take Me Home Country Road by John Denver. Interesting. I've learnt that the Chinese absolutely love this song. I played it at the bar and the whole place went insane.
Apparently we would be singing Hua Dua li Huo (or whatever the hell it is) followed by some good ole John Denver. What a beautiful set list. They flow incredibly well together.
Me, Sean and Chris all ran and got our guitars for the song and all the teachers sang it at the top of our lungs. We only needed some beers and it would have been a party.

Other than all that I haven't been doing too much else. The other day I got lost for 3 hours, that was fun. I've also recently succeeded in getting an N64 on my computer and tonight made an excursion to the computer store to buy some USB controllers. I now have a fully functional multiplayer console and the other teachers are all wanting a turn, being equally deprived of video games.
This is definitely what I need right now. Sweet sweet video games. And maybe a massage. And maybe a real beer. And maybe some fresh air. And maybe a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich from Broadways.
Oh man what have I started. I could go on for awhile.

Anyways, I will try to keep everyone updated when I can about the progress of Super MJ Team. But for now it's been a long, tedious day and I think I slept about an hour last night. I was so delusional this morning I was walking through the schoolyard propsing kids and saying "what up playa" and various other things I knew they wouldn't understand.
sleep. now
good night.

China sickness, show lessons and Michael Jackson.

Dear outside world,

I am trapped in China.

My immune system has been brutally sabotaged.

I cannot sleep, breath properly or have the energy to leave my prison cell of a room.

Mosquitos are continuing their never-ending brutal assault on me.

The world outside is terrifying, people speak a strange tongue, stare and point at you.

Try to order food and you get sea otter vagina.

Try to go get medicine and you get Rhino horn with Tiger brain super chinese remedy.

The streets are full of baby detriment and animal guts.

Soap is non-existant, the water is undrinkable and the air is an apocalyptic haze.

I feel healthier when i eat mcdonalds and breath cleaner when I smoke a cigarette. Both of which do not help the immune system, creating a vicious cycle.

This my friends, is what I call China sickness.

I've had it for almost two weeks and I am only now finally recovering, though still coughing. I have never been sick for this long in my entire life.

This week I finally went back to work after being in this room for almost a full week. I felt the beginnings of insanity but decided it was best not to pursue it. I recovered last weekend and am starting to get things in order again.

It was dreadful. Being sick here really blows. It's hard enough to do anything as it is but add having a fever, no energy and being alone on top of it and things really are difficult. Also add in my usual case of random bad luck and you have a good time. My heater randomly decided to break during the coldest week here and no one still has come by to fix it. I had been curling up in my blanket in a sweater breathing into my hands, while trying to battle the sickness. Also my water ran out and the lady also failed to deliver it for a week. Meaning I either had to walk all the way to the store or boil water in my pot which makes it taste like metal. Also the meals here are getting worse. I think the first month they eased us into things and now they are just full on trying to destroy me. Part of the reason I became sick in the first place was because of a meal I ate one day that I don't even have the stomach to explain to you right now.

But... I overcame, I persevered. I grew stronger day by day. I didn't let China bring me down.

I got back on my feet and bitch slapped mother China right in her dirty red and yellow face. All in the nick of time too. Because the day I went back to teaching, Nemo decided to inform me that I would be having my first show lessons. The parents and the directors would be coming in and watching my lesson. Watching my every move. Like an ancient Chinese on Mongolian watch.

I was terrified. My lessons that I did teach in the last few weeks have been unplanned and boring. My energy level and enthusiasm was as they say in china, "bu hao." But now I had to do the most important classes since starting this job. holy ji ba.

(by the way i've recently incorporated Mandarin into my random things I occasionally yell out. I now have multi-lingual tourettes. some would argue this an accomplishment.)

My first show lesson for the grade 5's went alright. I spent a few hours the day before scrambling through ideas. My mother saved the day as usual and sent me a bunch of pictures of the different rooms in our house from home. I created a powerpoint presentation and a lesson where I showed the students the rooms and got them to try to name everything in it. Simple, yet they got to see a real western household. Which is very different from alot of the housing here. Some of which consist of a cave-like stone structure that chills the soul. I also showed them some pictures of a Canadian winter and they went bonkers. "Whoaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!" they all yelled. I also started the lesson by speaking chinese to the parents, "baba mama, zao shang hao" I said (good morning parents), and they applauded and laughed. Always a good start. Though, the parents may or may not have enjoyed the lesson. I have no idea considering none of them speak any english and wouldn't know they difference on what i was teaching anyways. I could have been repeatedly insulting and threatening to maim their children with a smile on my face (which is my usual teaching style) and they would be none the wiser.

For my grade 4 show lesson the next day I went all out. My co-teacher Ruby told me she was very scared for the lesson because she knew I was a new teacher. This made me feel like she thought i was a horrible teacher. So I decided to mess with her a bit. I was also still not thinking clearly from my drug-induced, bedridden last two weeks.

I went into the office the day before the lesson and told her I had no idea what I wanted to do for the show lesson. No plan, no powerpoint, no ideas. I was just going to wing something and see how it went. She looked quite scared.

I went back home and got to work on what might be the greatest powerpoint presentation known to man.

There was robots and aliens. Wizards, lasers, elephants, giraffes, snakes, explosions, Yao Ming, Jackie Chan and things flying through space. I wrote a whole animated story where a robot named Zozo visited Earth and learnt how to speak about the things he saw from a powerful wizard (named Corey ofcourse.) Zozo gets attacked by evil space monsters and the only way to save Earth is to help Corey perform a powerful spell by answering a series of questions. I even recreated the whole star wars intro with music and all. I spent 6 hours on it and barely moved from my chair. I went to bed thinking this was either going to be the best lesson ever, or I may have over-done it and the parents will think I am a wacko.

Thankfully, I was not labelled a wacko by the parents and my lesson went amazing. The kids loved it and the parents were all laughing. I blew not only my co-teachers mind, but her soul as well. Remember this, nothing will make a chinese person happier than if you can make them look good in front of their boss. I left the class smiling.

I finally felt like I had proven myself as a teacher.

Afterwards the head director, Mr. Li, came up to me and asked me to come to a meeting with him. He wanted to discuss some ideas for some sort of music thing and said that was part of the reason they hired me in the first place. I was intrigued.

I went to the meeting today and left thinking I may have dug myself quite a hole. Turns out they have a big show with all the other schools in December and the school wants me to head the organization of our schools performance. Apparently, our branch has been lacking in the cool department at the yearly performances and the other schools have been making them look lame. I am their secret weapon. Or so they think.

After going back and forth with many ideas apparently I have agreed to teach a group of asian kids how to sing and dance to a Michael Jackson song. As well as organize the music. In two weeks! music okay! but yes. me. choreographing a dance. Dear god.

Now most of you know I am not the most graceful person. I come from a family of dancers and performers which helps, except for the fact that i'm on the other side of the world.

I am going to focus on the music first. On monday I get to hold auditions to find little MJ asian kids.

But first I am going to be spending this weekend in Changsha. A big city about 4 hours from here. One of the teachers at our branch is getting married in a few months so a whole bunch of us guys are going to go away for the weekend. 3 day road trip/bachelor party. Terrible things are going to happen. My next post may or not be family friendly. I hope I live to tell the tale.

I will update you all upon my return. Until then stay alert and stay safe.

Corey

Rainy Wuhan

I believe I am about due to update everyone on my life here on the other side of the planet. I find myself finding less to write about as things get settled into a daily routine without much change. Lets start by a new list of weird stuff and observations i've seen and made this month in China!

5. It seems the students have no idea what the word Religion means. Which hampered my ability to teach the word spiritual as was required the text, but also pleased me to some extent. They have a class they take called "Moral Class" where they learn to follow the Socialist ideals and read the words of poets and Chairman Mao (the ones that aren't crazy). You wouldn't find a elementary school kid in Canada with any knowledge of socialist ideals or even all that much poetry for that matter. Wether this is a good thing or not it was strange hearing the words great socialist ideals coming from a 10 year olds mouth.

4. Muslims make the best lamb sticks. It is becoming one of my favourite snacks in Wuhan, you can find them on many corners with their little barbeques cooking lamb on sticks with spices. One of them asked me "Ni shi Muzi ma?" which afterwards i learnt meant "are you muslim?" Nemo told me he thought I was muslim because I look slightly middle eastern apparently..... news to me.

3. Chinese people HATE the Japanese. I don't even know if the word hate is strong enough. If you even mention the word to a kid they will cower in fear. I was asking my class what they are scared of most and among the spiders, snakes and their fathers, a popular answer was Japanese people. Alot of them seem unaware why they don't like them it's just one of those things that IS. The Japanese do have a long history of occupation and massacres in China, many of which they still have not apologized for. But I still find it strange the level of propaganda going around about the Japanese in general. I am even scared to even write these words here, thats how strange it all is. I will touch more on this on the essay I plan to write on cultural differences.

2. WEIRD FLAVOURED SNACK FOODS! This one point is driving me mental. The Chinese seem to have this weird fascination with mixing salty and sweet together, which i believe is a no no. You cannot find regular flavoured chips anywhere, some I have found and had the misfortune of eating are: Blueberry, Sour and hot Fish, Cucumber, Lime (but like green skittles) Mexican Tomato Chicken and Lemon Tea. Popcorn is also flavoured sweet like strawberry or other fruit. Lays needs to take the notch down on the crazy-flavoured-shit-o-meter in China. I know they are strange and little and like different things but this is wacko.

1. And the number one weird and disturbing thing i've witnessed in the last little while is the consumption of mans best friend. Which I thought was a myth before coming to China. I was bored one day and decided to memorize the Chinese word and character for dog meat, which is gou rou or 狗肉, and go on a little adventure. I rode the bus to Xudong and tried to see If I could see that on any of the restaurants on the way there. This was a terrible game. There was tons of shops on the way and I soon realized I did not need to learn the characters because there was pictures posted on the signs outside. Here I was thinking they were pet shops. I used to think oh look at that nice place that sells Golden Retrievers, such beautiful animals they are. But now seeing the character for dog meat on the banner, pet shops they were no more. I even saw a place showing a dog on a plate cooked and cut into four pieces, the little head and tail sticking out the end. I left myself pondering If I could ever eat a dog. What makes it so different from say, a pig? Is it intelligence or cuteness? Pigs are statistically proven to have a higher intelligence level than dogs. I've also seen the movie Babe. Still, years of coexistence with those wonderful animals I know I could never bring myself to do it.

I hope I haven't ruined anyones day

On to my update:

It rains so much in Wuhan I have actually questioned the existence of either Chinese weather control, or magic ancient Chinese water dragons. Either one seems a plausible explanation for the amount of rain that poors down in Wuhan. Sometime it will rain for a week straight, only to see the sunshine for a day at most. When the sunshine finally comes you realize oh yea, I'm in China and the sun barely penetrates the clouds of pollution anyways. Everything is always grey or rainy. In fact thats a good way to describe China, so many shades of grey. This, along with the language barrier, lack of western comforts and endless crowds of pushy-shovey asian people you can quickly see how easily it is for a foreigner to feel depressed or have culture shock. Luckily I've been okay so far. Theres only been one FML night i've had here and it was coming home drunk one night alone and thinking way too much. But everyone knows alcohol is a depressant as it is.

I find the key to staying sane for me has been the company of those around me, appreciation for little things and a steady schedule.

During the week I have classes from 8:40 till 12:15 here at this school. On Monday and Wednesday nights I have chinese classes. Wednesday afternoon, Friday evening and some weekends I do extra work for other schools around the city. In between all of this I am marking, creating lesson plans or keeping in touch with friends from home.

On weekends the teachers usually all get together, we are like a big family.

2 weekends ago I got to play my first show in China at a bar called Wuhan Prison, which is a really awesome little indie/folk bar in Wuchang. They put me headlining the show without even hearing me play and all the teachers came out to watch as well as a bunch of Chinese people. I borrowed someones guitar and played about 8 songs, including some of my own. They all loved it. I had the chinese people all singing wonderwall at the end and it was really great to be playing and doing what I love again.

Last weekend two of the teachers (who got engaged here in China) hosted a chili night at their apartment. It was amazing to taste western food again! There was grated cheese and garlic bread and Franks red hot sauce. I was in heaven. Like I said, being in China makes you appreciate the little things so much more. Like great friends and great food, something that seems to go unappreciated sometimes back home. But when your on the other side of the world every little moment like that you cherish, like when I had poutine and Moosehead in Shanghai and toasted Canada. Every little thing.

This week we get paid and I plan on doing a little shopping. I'm going to finally buy a guitar as well as some new clothes, as Wuhan has become terribly cold and I only brought one sweater. Although I can imagine the snow is starting to roll in back home in Canada. I told my students the size of the snowbanks in Canada and they seemed terrified. If anyone wants to send me pictures to show my kids of our snow-ridden landscape that would be cool.

Also feel free to leave comments so I know people are actually reading these!

Love and miss you all,

Corey

Coreys Fun China Train Game!

So I'm up at 3:30 in the morning and for some reason have some crazy thoughts flowing through my head... which may be the norm for me i don't know.. define crazy thoughts..
Anyways, after writing my blog the question i'm still getting asked most is what it was like on the 13 hour standing class train ride of doom. So after long, careful thought I have come up with a perfect game you can play at home in order to fully experience what it is like to be on a China train. I call it Coreys Fun China Train Game! You don't need much just a trip to a local printing place and a good patient friend. Only 5 steps to it. So instead of explaining my experience to anyone anymore you can now all do it from the safety of your own homes.

Requirements:
1-3 very good friends
5-10 giant cardboard cutouts (for the full experience over 200 will be required but 5-10 will suffice for simulation)
a meter stick or measuring tape
an area of your home without a T.V on, a painting or any sort of eye candy. The more soul-crushing the surroundings the better.

Step 1:
-Find full body pictures of Asian people (preferably chinese but they are all alike). The more irritable they look the better. Next you must find a place that will do full life size cardboard cut outs and print off at least 5-10 full sized asians. Expenses are the responsibility of the main player of the game and not the friend participants.

Step 2:
-Find 1-3 friends that would be willing to spend 13 hours in your house. They are free to eat or drink as they please and may do whatever they want when not performing duties. 3 works best because they can go in shifts.

Step 3 (Setup):
-Measure a spot in your house approximately half a meter (50cm) square.
-Place the Asian cardboard cutouts around the square. Get them as close as possible. Leave no room to move within the square or move out of the square. Only the friend participants will have the ability to move freely in or out of the square.

Step 4:
-Tell your friends to come step over you or try to knock you over the second you ever look remotely comfortable. This includes closing your eyes, crouching, sitting cross legged with your head down or any attempts to sleep whatsoever. The moment they witness this they must come walk overtop you if you are crouching or sitting or push you aside if you are standing. If they let you sleep even 5 minutes they have failed. Make these rules very clear before beginning.

Step 5:
- Stand in square for 13 hours

First China Vacation Part 2 Shanghai

I boarded the 10pm train to Shanghai on Tuesday night.....
The Beijing train station was packed full of people, all on vacation for the national holiday. Because I was not in the seating class I was boarded last and I, along with about 50-70 other poor individuals without seats, scrambled and squeezed onto the train to find ourselves a nice place in the aisle. Some people were smart enough to bring little stools. Some just sat on each others laps or cuddled up against the person beside them. You see the idea of personal space is much different in China and there seems to be no problem with two grown men who don't know each other to sit on each others laps or rest their heads on each others shoulders.
I scoped out a prime location on the floor and crouched down to read for the first leg of the trip, though a little cramped and awkward with all the stares from people. What was this foreigner doing in the aisle? Aren't they supposed to be rich, those from the west? I just kept to myself and tried to get comfortable with my claimed spot of land where I would be spending the next 13 terrible, begrudging hours. I envied those with seats. Never before have I felt so appreciative of a comfort as simple as a place to sit.
The train rolled out of the station and I knew I was in for a long night.
I got close to those around me. On the floor of the train people would help each other get comfortable any way possible. They would move their bodies to help you lean on them or coordinate some sort of seating/crouching arrangement to help those around you. People from home I think would be quite uncomfortable with this ideas of being so close to complete strangers. But after the first 6 hours of the trip, with no sleep and no place to sit properly, you'd be surprised how fast that fades. The biggest pain the ass was people would be constantly getting out of their seats to either go to the washroom or go to the back of the train to smoke (directly under a no smoking sign btw.) You would finally get comfortable and close your eyes and another person would get up and climb over all those in the aisle. It made you feel nice these fortunate people with their SEATS walking over you like you are scum. Also apparently asians have to go to the washroom or smoke every 3-4 minutes.
At about the 10 hour mark the train stopped at a random city and decided to pick some more people up. All also without seats and to be shoved in the aisle. We all got up to make room for them and being the nice person I am, moved to let someone pass. Except he didn't pass. He stood directly in front of me and stayed there, now preventing me from crouching down or sitting on the floor like I was before; Which was dirty and cramped but a hell of alot better than standing for 13 hours. I took a deep breath and practiced patience, like i had for the last 10 hours, and stood for the rest of the journey.
Finally, after I thought the trip was never going to end, we pulled into the station in Shanghai. Never have I been so happy to get off a train in my life. I could move again. I was free to sit, stand or lie down at will, without asians squished up against me. Free at last.

Now saying Shanghai is a large, modern, bustling city is an understatement. This place was HUGE. Everything about Shanghai was huge and happening. Giant skyscrapers and neon lights, you think your in an asian Manhattan (which I later learnt downtown Shanghai is in fact modelled after). I checked in to my hostel where I met Bobby and Lloyd and had another wonderful Western style breakfast of Bacon and Eggs. Okay eggs and a strange meat resembling bacon, but I was definitely missing a real breakfast all month. After wandering the city for awhile and having a much needed nap, I decided to go meet Shane and Dina at the world expo.
Shanghai was the host of the world Expo this year and I just caught the final days of it. Countries from all over the world had set up pavilions in this giant park (think Landsdown on crack) and In the pavilions were exhibits, food and other cultural things to represent their country. Each had their own unique building.
There was only one destination I had here.
I bought tickets and walked past every single countries pavilion. I ran actually. Past Mexico and Poland. Past Russia and Thailand. Past a huge red white and blue building covered in corporate advertisements for mcdonalds and walmart (guess who!) and finally, around the corner from Australia and Great Britain, I came to a beautiful red and white building with a large neon sign that read;

Canada.

I smiled.
At the expo, If you are from the country of the pavilion you get right in. No waiting in line for me, I was getting VIP treatment.
I walked in to a whole wall dedicated to Hockey night in Canada. Beautiful sight. I could hear the asian kids behind me amazed at the sight of people flying across the ice and smashing into each other on the boards, probably seeing it for the first time in their lives.
The rest of the pavilion showed videos of our cities and landscapes and I've never been so proud to be Canadian in my entire life. We truly live in a beautiful country.
At the end of the building there was a little restaurant where I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of Poutine. AND Canadian beer. As I sat in the restaurant eating poutine and drinking a Moosehead I made a toast to our wonderful country.
Outside the pavilion, Shane informed me that there would be a concert. Bedouin Soundclash of all bands was playing in China that night! How random is that? We took our seats up front and watched. Apparently the Chinese had no idea how to react to this strange rock/reggae music so all the Canadians up front got up and got the whole crowd dancing. It was hilarious.
Afterwards, I met a group of people from Sudbury. Even at the opposite side of the Earth you'll still bump into folks from Northern Ontario. They were such nice people.
We then left the expo and headed to Jin Mao Tower to have drinks in the sky.

The bar in Jin Mao tower, called Cloud Nine, Is the highest bar in the world. We took the elevator up to the 87th floor where the bar is located and immediately felt out of place and underdressed. This place was way too classy. After being informed from the staff that there is a 130rmb minimum per person as well as a 15% service charge (the only place you would tip in China) we took our seats and looked out to the view of the city. I couldn't believe how high up we were. It made the view from the CN tower look like nothing. The drinks were all around 100Rmb each and we saw bottles of wine for around 30,000. Me and Shane ordered the cheapest draught on the menu and got a small plate of appetizers and still the bill came to around 500rmb. Which was more than i'd spent on my whole trip to Beijing. Damn crazy sky bar. I better get drunk faster at this altitude, I hoped.
I did not. sad face.

We payed our bill and headed home. It had been a long eventful day and I was more than ready for bed.

The next day was rather uneventful. We went to a bar called Abbey Road. Our Chinese server had a Liverpool accent, which, hours later I still couldn't get over for some reason. Then we went to a bar called the Beaver where I had a 2 hour drunken conversation with a group of German evolutionary Biologists. Everywhere we went their were tons of foreigners, I was no longer the only one. It was a strange place, Shanghai. A mix of the modern and the old. By the end of my trip I had forgotten I was even in China.
I remembered that the next day I would be heading back to dirty, foggy Wuhan. Where the streets are constantly full of the slaughter of random animals, construction and fireworks. I actually missed Wuhan for a strange reason still unknown to me.
I woke up at 6 the next morning and checked out of my hostel. But not before an early morning walk to the waterfront where i snapped that panoramic of the sunrise. I waved goodbye to Shanghai and took the subway to the train station.

Boarding my train to Wuhan, I stopped for a moment to breathe in a wonderful sight.
For there, in front of my eyes, was a seat.
A beautiful, glorious seat.

First China Vacation Part 1 Beijing

Hello Westerners! I am back from my week long vacation and my first time really travelling in China. I'll have to say it was quite the adventure and I have so much to tell I've decided to take it in two parts. Once again i know my blogs have been stretched far and in between (if anyone actually reads them!), this is mostly because my day to day life in Wuhan has become at times repetitive! Although I still see the odd thing that is worth writing about. Anyways, a little preface:
I hadn't had the money at the time to book my train ticket with all the other teachers so I ended up flying out on sunday morning by myself to meet them all there. My flight left at 8am and I had to be there at 7am. Taking an hour to get there that meant I woke up at 5:30. Except I didn't really wake up per se. I gave up on sleep because I was too excited and just stayed up all night.
I walked outside at 6am into complete nothingness. Had I just died? All you could see was cloudy white air and maybe a few feet in front of you. I assumed this was morning fog and, when mixed with Wuhans usual pollution haze, offered a view distance of about 5 feet. The few taxis that were on the main road were driving so slow you could walk faster than them. I was glad to be leaving this grey depressing place for the capital of China. But as most things in my life it was not without random bad luck obstacles. The fog/pollution/end of all mankind fallout was so thick that my plane was grounded on the runway for about 2 and a half hours. Awesome. Perfect start to a day. If I didn't make it to Beijing before noon or so all the other teachers there would most likely be off sightseeing without me and not at the hostel. Making it difficult to find them. Eventually though, I sighed a breath of relief as my plane lifted off and I was off the Beijing.

I landed in Beijing at about 1pm. So much for making it before noon. I quickly called all the teachers but no one seemed to pick up. Looks like I was going to have to find my way to the hostel on my own. Before leaving i had written down basic directions and a hilarious kindergarten map of the area I would be staying in. Very confused and lost in the airport, I somehow managed to find the bullet train that took me to the subway line and eventually to where my hostel was near Tiannamen Square. While riding the train through the city, I looked out the window in wonder. Is that a BLUE sky I see? are those TREES? Is this lady on the intercom speaking in ENGLISH? Was I even still in China? I swear I had just gotten off in Scarborough and was heading into downtown Toronto. What is this madness. I made my way to the crowded Beijing subway. When I say crowded I mean crowded. This was China National Week and apparently, pretty much every asian was headed to the capital. Facing my second obstacle of the day, I realized my subway stop was not even functioning as the train just blew right by. I got off anyways and decided to walk to my hostel using my crayon map.
Beijing is a beautiful city. I had expected it to be dirtier and more polluted than Wuhan but I was definitely wrong. This was a vacation from the China I knew. Everywhere had english signs. When I bought water she spoke english to me and said have a nice day. I was beaming as I checked into my hostel and set out to find the rest of the teachers, who were at the Beijing Silk Street doing some shopping.

I'm going to have to say that the silk market in Beijing is every womans dream and every mans nightmare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Street.
6 floors of everything you can even think of buying, all bunched up into tiny stalls. People yell at you when you pass them, asking if you want this or that. Armani, Gucci, Prada, Luis Vitton all either incredibly cheap or flat out amazing fakes. Everything you buy comes with a wonderfully addicting game to go with it, the bargaining game. The "Whos a Cheaper Asshole" game. The girls were all having a heyday. They had already perfected the art of bargaining and were getting things that were at first 1500 kuai, down to about 100 (which is about $15 canadian.) Myself I wanted to leave the place about 3 minutes after being in it. But the girls were in for the long haul so I decided to make a few purchases. I bought a swiss army knife, a poker set and some Nike Air running shoes (150 kuai!) for the 10k Great Wall hike we were doing in the morning. Apparently I was not very good at "Who's A Cheaper Asshole" and the other teachers laughed at the prices I got the stuff for. Except the shoes. Which i brought one of the expert females with me to purchase.
Later on we went to a Western restaurant and i had my first real pizza and beer since i've been in China. But I was exhausted and ended the night early. We were getting up at 6am to go hike the Great Wall Of China.



We all hopped on the bus early Monday morning. The tour would be taking us about 4 hours out of the city to a section of a wall rarely travelled by tourists and far more authentic. What some people don't know is that the main part of the wall you see in pictures and as the tourist attraction is not even a real part of the wall. It was restored and made to resemble the original wall, they even made it wider so as to fit more people on it, meaning more Kuai from tourists. As I will learn theres not much real left from ancient China.
On the way there I was pleased to enjoy an episode of southpark. Last thing I had expected. It was the one where they hire the Chinese guy to build a wall to keep out the Mongolians. It was fitting and hilarious. When we finally arrived I strapped on my new Nikes and got ready for one of the hardest hikes of my life.
I had no idea the stamina it was going to take to climb this thing. In pictures it seems so straight and casual but not this part. It goes straight up a mountain by way of steep, broken, stone steps and some parts none at all. Your always climbing, but that meant the view got better everytime you looked back and what a view it was. The view from the Great Wall is breathtaking. For the first time in China I was in awe of something natural. The endless green mountains and the wall snaking for miles out of view, I enjoyed every minute of the hike besides the fact I was huffing and puffing, so out of shape, as the air got thinner. I yelled and threw rocks off the great wall and tried to picture Mongolian hordes attacking from the other side. The thin air was for sure getting to me. At the halfway point of the hike you get to the part of the wall that hasn't been restored for 500 years. It was grown over with shrubs and trees for the most part and others were just a thin line of concrete where you have to walk across. I though back home this would never be allowed without some sort of safety rail and was happy the Chinese don't really care all that much for safety. After the 3 hour hike was over I was exhausted and inspired at the same time. Also starving. After carving my name into the one of the wonders of the world, we headed home to have Peking Duck for dinner. It was delicious.

The next day I went to the Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden City. Which was equally packed with tourists. This blog is already way too long so instead of explaining the history behind the place i'll just post a link for anyone interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City. All i have to say about the forbidden city is that while being beautiful and massive, not much of the real architecture is authentic. Most of it was restored. But It was still badass walking on the same forbidden ground the emperors of China walked on for hundreds of years. After a long 5 hour walk around Beijing I took a much needed nap and planned the next leg of my journey.
This is where things got interesting. A few of the teachers decided that instead of going back to Wuhan and doing nothing for 4 days they would take a train to Shanghai and spend the rest of the vacation there. Unfortunately for me they failed to mention this to me and had already booked the tickets well in advance. I scrambled to get a ticket booked but all the trains were booked up. The person at the hostel told me there was another option but usually they don't even bother offering it to foreigners; Standing class. You see on China trains you can get Soft Sleeper (the most expensive, offering a nice comfy bed) Hard sleeper, Soft Seat and for the poor or unfortunate few, standing class. You have a ticket on the train but no seat and you are forced to stand/sit/kneel/crouch in the aisle of the soft seat cars. This was a 13 hour overnight train. I figured screw it, I'm in China. What other chance would i get to do something like this. Also the ticket was only 150 kuai (the same price as my running shoes). I took it. The chinese people working at the desk and the other teachers around all looked at me crazily "are you sure!?!" they asked.
It can't be that bad? right?
I would soon find out.... to be continued

East Lake, sickness and mosquito hunt

So its 12:30am and I should definitely be sleeping considering I have to get up at 7. But I am awake for three reasons:
1. I had to mark 45 two page tests.
2. The nightly mosquito hunt has gone on longer than usual.
3. I'm becoming unhealthily addicted to Starcraft 2 (this is mostly the reason)

Blog instead? My thoughts exactly. Let me update you on the last few days.
On Saturday I did my first real touristy type thing since being in Wuhan. Me and another teacher decided to go to East Lake, which is the biggest lake within a city in all of China. It was about a 30 minute cab ride away so I went to meet the other teacher up at Xudong and then we set off with my trusty Ipod map guiding the way. I've gotten into the recent habit of getting around by pointing to my destination on my Ipod. Which sometimes works and sometimes ,like the last time i took a cab home, fails miserably. But it is a hell of alot better than trying to pronounce "Wo xiang yao qu Nan Hu Hua Yuen Xie Xie, Hao ma?" which i usually have to say to get myself home.
When we pulled up the main gate I was excited to see the amount of trees and how quiet it seemed to be in this part of the city. We walked around the lake for about 3 hours. There are many paths and walkways to go down as well as a bunch of random amusement rides and restaurants on the water. It was beautiful. The picture above I took standing on a dock just before we took a boat ride. The man stopped us and wanted to take us for 50 kuai, so I laughed at him and kept walking. He lowered the price and I agreed. My first successful haggle in China. We got in the boat not knowing what to expect. This man turned out to think he was in some sort of Jackie Chan movie and decided to pull crazy stunts in the motor boat and scare the hell out of us. The ride lasted maybe 5 minutes and I was kind of upset about the fact that I just payed 40 kuai for a 5 minute boat ride. Here I was thinking I got a deal. Anyways we continued walking and saw huge ponds of lotus, alot of pagodas and on the other side of the lake we could even see Chairman Mao's private villa where he stayed in the summer. Next time I go to East Lake i'm going to for sure check it out.
In our 3 hours of walking we barely saw half the stuff there is to see on the lake. You can take a boat across and go to a zoo where they have Pandas apparently. On a side note I taught a kid named Panda on the weekend. I really couldn't contain my excitement upon learning his name. Off topic. I posted a few pictures of East lake as well as the massive mall we visited after on my flickr site. www.flickr.com/photos/coreyinchina
When I say massive, this is in Chinese terms I'm talking. They build everything massive. Perhaps trying to compensate for..... yes.. So this thing had 6 floors, an arcade, a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, a movie theatre, basketball nets and tons of things i can't read. The food we got in said shopping mall was the cause of the second title of this blog, sickness.

After eating saturday night I woke up Sunday with a bad fever and a terrible stomach ache. I was yet to get sick so I was wondering when that would happen. It seems inevitable when getting used to new food, air and an incredible lack of cleanliness in China. Oh I forgot to mention I also was supposed to teach on Sunday. We have a holiday on Wednesday so you'd think, well thats nice the kids and teachers get a 4 day week. But China doesn't lose education over silly holidays. They work there kids straight into the ground. In protest and in sickness I decided to take the day off. My grade 4's were just reviewing for a test anyways and It would do my grade 5's good to just go over what I taught them last week. Which was about Boy scouts and Cub scouts, by the way, for some strange reason they think that it is an important part of learning english.
I lied around all day yesterday and finally recovered so today I went back to work feeling a little better.
Now let me explain my nightly ritual to you all. The great mosquito hunt. I had no idea China would have so many at night time.
The first few nights here I would just sleep with the blanket over my head and hide but I apparently have an annoying need to breathe oxygen (if you could call chinese air that.) I keep all my doors and windows closed all day so I know there is only a set amount of mosquitoes present each night. If I get all of them before bed I will have a peaceful sleep. If not, then one little bastard will bite me constantly all night while I flail helplessly in the dark.
So i turn on all my lights and stand in the middle of my room, usually half naked, and I wait. I stand perfectly still and see If i can see any flying around or lure any towards me. If that doesn't draw them out I go and shake all my clothes on the floor and my blankets. I can't explain to you how smart chinese mosquitoes are. I've seen them hide behind things when i turn the light on, land and disguise themselves against dark things, or hide under my bed until I am not looking. Mosquitoes back home seem to hover around you aimlessly but these things hit and run. Maybe they are tiny robots controlled by the government. Who knows but I need to do something about them. My hunts aren't usually 100% successful. I bought some sort of mosquito repellant thing that plugs but because I can't read chinese I failed to realize I needed to buy the fluid for It also. So annoying.
Since I started writing this blog, Corey: 2 kills Mosquitoes: 8 bites

Anyways, tomorrow I don't have to go to work but I still have to get up early. Me and some of the other teachers who arrived late are going to the police station to get our residency permits. Actually I don't have to work for the next two days because like I said Wednesday is a holiday. Awesome. So goodnight everybody, hope all is well on the other side of the world.

Life in Wuhan

I finally got into my blog! I've been having problems logging on for the last few days or so. I have to go through a website that blocks my IP so i can get onto blogger.com because blogger is blocked by China. So i hope people have not lost interest and will continue to check up on me and my crazy adventures. Let me fill you in on my last week or so.
but first!
The top 5 weird shit i've seen while in China so far.

5. People smoking in a Hospital
4. Having a man grab a live chicken out of a cage break its neck, drain its blood and boil it beside me while I was eating a meal.
3. In the middle of the morning the entire school goes into the field and does a synchronized dance (picture 2000 asian kids dancing to techno) and then after lunch, everyone in China has "nap-time," even government workers.
2. Students will give ME a present on their birthdays.
1. Parents will whistle to their children to get them to pee/shit on sidewalks (some strange form of auditory potty training)

I am almost positive I will have a new list at least each month, as each day i'm learning and seeing strange things.

So i'm sitting here at about 9pm putting off marking my grade 5's workbooks. They learnt about writing letters the other day and I got them to write a letter to their grandparents telling them about their teacher Corey. Not actually, just a pretend letter. Last week they had learnt how to vaguely describe people so to describe me I also taught them the words; tattoo, beard and earrings along with extremely handsome and very strong. To be fair they had the option wether to include those words or not but let me read you an example of one of them:

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,
My teachers name is, Cary. He is very clever and cuet! I'm very like his english class, and he teacher very well! OK. I'm very good! Bye Bye
Love,
Eive

I think I will see past the misspelling of my name, the obvious spelling errors and lack of using "extremely handsome" because you can't read that and not think it's adorable. I am learning more and more how to be a better teacher everyday and i'm glad I am "teacher very well!"
I've been taking extra jobs at different schools also and its been giving me the opportunity to see how things are run elsewhere. I'll have to say the kids at this school are geniuses compared to the other two schools i've been to. First, to help clarify the stories and future stories, let me explain a bit about the geography of Wuhan.
Wuhan is divided into 3 huge parts: Hankou (the biggest), Hanyang (the most scenic) and Wuchang (where i live). They used to be three distinct towns a long time ago until the two hans joined the wu and became Wuhan. Wuchang is seperated from Hankou and Hanyang by the Yangtze river, the most famous river in China. My school has three branches in Wuchang. The one we live above is where I work and is known as the Nanhu branch in southern Wuchang. The Main branch is in eastern Wuchang and the Mae ling branch (which I just call Xudong) is to the north near the bridge to Hankou. Everyone follow? haha
Today I worked at a school up near Xudong (pronounced shoo-dong.) It is a primary school much like the one here except for one fact; The students there either don't care about english at all, or have terrible teachers. Judging by today I assume it is a mix of both. I went in there and taught three classes of 3's, 4's and 5's. At my school I can almost openly communicate with alot of my grade 5's and they more or less understand what i'm saying but there, simple questions I asked like "how old are you?" or "where are you from?" blew right over their heads. I tried to play simon says with one of the classes but it failed because they didn't know what legs were. One of the teachers told me after that they do not really practice speaking out loud or writing english. They just kind of listen to the teacher read some stuff and repeat what they hear, not really learning the meaning along the way. When I asked them individual questions they looked terrified.
When I went to teach the grade 4 class their teacher stayed and decided to help out.
Oh ok well heres the problem, I thought.
The girl who I had seen outside the school and assumed was a hooker walked in with a microphone strapped to her head, a very tight dress just barely covering her ass, a rediculous amount of makeup and high-heels. "I am their english teacher!" the hooker/teacher said "My name is Minnie!" how perfect. My dogs name.
She saw that I was asking them "where are you from?" and trying to get them to respond "I come from China" and walked to the board and decided to try to help out. In big letters she wrote "What do you come from?" and started asking the students.
I looked at her sideways and didn't quite know how to tell her that it was clearly a WHERE kind of question. Unless of course the answer was the womb of my mother and judging by the students current performance I assumed this was not the case. For the first time I actually realized the value of having us foreign teachers here to teach english. It is generation after generation of bad chenglish speakers teaching each other until a native speaker steps in and breaks the chain. I see now why they pay for everything, put us up in nice apartments and treat us to expensive buffet dinners.
I came home and really looked forward to teaching my students here tomorrow. They are miles ahead of those students and its a great feeling knowing that our kids here will have a better chance out in the world because of us. That's really what teaching is all about I suppose.

I have so many other stories I wish I had time to write about. Like Sunday, how i got lost on my way to the other job in Hankou and some random man took me for a drive on his scooter to help me (which was terrifying.) Or how I walked out of class yesterday to see a little boy during recess with a microphone singing poker face by lady Gaga. It seems during recess they have a little talent show in the field with a different person each day.
I'll also have you know that I went to the club again last weekend and DID NOT get picked up by a gay guy. But we strolled in there and didn't spend a cent on drinks like before. I've gotten over the feeling of being a monkey in a cage whenever I go out and started to embrace it as kind of a celebrity status here. Everyone just looking at you, they all think you have lots of money or are someone famous from the west. Little do they know I'm a poor musician from a boring city in Canada.
Anyways I have to go mark the rest of the letters about me. I have been meaning to spend a day taking more pictures from around my school and Wuhan, I will do that as soon as I remember too!
Goodbye while I go flatter myself,

Corey

Settling into a schedule

So it's been awhile since i've written a blog on here. Mostly because i've begun to settle in to a daily schedule of teaching and planning lessons. Let me update you on the last few days.
On the weekend some of the foreign teachers decided to go to a big chinese club called Soho. Beforehand, we taxied over to another teachers apartment for a good ole fashioned pre-drink. Because I am so intelligent and lose things every 5 minutes, I decided it would be a grand idea to leave my cell phone in the taxi on the way over there. I've had the thing for two days. Go team me. I thought I would never see the thing again but Sean with his limited chinese skills somehow managed to call my phone, get the driver to pick up and direct him to meet us to give it back. I offered the driver a smoke and 10 kuai and after he looked at me like i was a cheap a-hole I went merrily on my way, happy to have my cell phone back. Since being in china I have already lost one of my teaching books, broke my sunglasses and left my cell phone in a taxi. Not bad for a week and those who know me well, understand this is normal life for me.
Anywho, so after purchasing a bottle of bai jiu (this stuff is nuts!) and its less potent friend jin jiu, we wandered our way into the club. Apparently, they don't ID here or wait in lines, you can drink your own booze on the street outside the club and also smoke inside. Awesome.
Almost immediately I noticed that we were the only foreigners in the entire place and was also quick to notice the blond haired, metrosexual asian man dancing on the stage singing a crazy chinese pop song and yelling at the audience something completely unintelligible to me. I guess he was like the MC/pump the crowd up guy/fashion statement guy that we sometimes see at our clubs. The place was huge. I was also happy to notice that almost every one at the bar wanted us to come drink with them at their tables. One man gathered us all around his table and bought a 1000 kuai bottle of hennessey and started handing it out to us. He pretty much just kept yelling "I'm sooo crazzyyy" and dancing around handing us shots and drinks. What a hilarious man.
Later on said man was dancing on a riser and pulled me up to dance with him. I thought alright, this guys just the most friendly wild asian man here and loves foreigners. He yelled lots of things in my ear that I could not make out and somehow in all this I ended up giving him my phone number. God people are friendly in Asia. After leaving the riser I noticed all the other teachers laughing at me. Apparently this man was gay and had tried to pick some of the other teachers up also, which is why they weren't drinking with him anymore. Well then.
Between the hilariousness/awkwardness of that, the bai jiu and the triumphant return of my cell phone i'd say it was an overall good night. None of us payed a cent. It seems it is somewhat of a social status thing to be the one in the club partying with the "wei guo rens" in China. At least in an area with very little foreigners.

When monday strolled along it was time to get back to work and start my first full week of teaching. Every monday they have a big ceremony in courtyard/soccer field thing, much like last week. I strolled down there and to my surprise I noticed I was the only foreign teacher present. The others had all opted to sleep in. I soon learnt why.
Nemo walked up to me and said I was going to speak in front of the whole school again. They have a thing called the "sentence of the week" in which one of the foreign teachers gets on the mic and teaches a phrase to the entire school of 1500 children. I was really not prepared for this and had not thought of a "sentence of the week" and "fuzzy panda kill robot good" was out of the question today. I begged him to let me go next week in order to have something actually prepared and thankfully I got off the hook. Anyone with any suggestions for the sentence of the week for next monday i'd be happy to consider them.

I currently just finished marking 135 workbooks and making 5 lesson plans for tomorrow. Slowly I am learning some of my students names, personalities, strengths and weaknesses and also how to be a good teacher. My grade 5's are learning how to fill in information like first name, last name and addresses. The chinese don't have the same concept of names as we do and you would usually refer to a person here by their title first and then family name. Only close friends or family would call them by their given name. Explaining to them that I have three different names and that my family name was at the end actually took a whole lesson. I gave them their full names for the first times by explaining they would use their english names first and their chinese family names last. This also gave me an opportunity to learn some more of their names and I have a few more interesting ones for you. I have a kid named Dragon, Butterfly, Angel, Grace, Hope and one kid named Bob! who insists that the ! is and essential part of his name. In Lloyds class it seems they are even more rediculous. He told me he has two kids named Banana and one named Milk. What crackhead english teacher or parent named these children? Or perhaps they named themselves. I think if i was young and had the opportunity to name myself I would've definitely gone the route of my grade 4 and named myself Dragon. So badass. I expect great things from him.

I'm learning more everyday how to plan lessons properly, how to make sure each kid understands what I am teaching and how to control my classroom. Some things make them go bonkers while others bore the hell out of them. Its all a balance being a teacher and I find it stimulating, challenging and creative. Tomorrow the school is taking all 21 teachers out for big dinner. They really take care of us here and are very happy to have us. I will try to keep my blog updated and also take more pictures of stuff!
all is well,

Corey

P.S I will also be filming a video of the kids doing the MJ routine again soon. Be prepared. It's a magnificent achievement in cinematography

First Day of Teaching

So i woke up yet again after a restless sleep, excited to start my first day. I was unsure of when first class even started so I went down to the English office where they told me I was pretty early and that first class was not until 8:40.
I prepared all the stuff I wanted to show my kids for the first lesson. Before I left I bought a whole bunch of pictures of Canada: a Canada goose, a beaver, a mountie, a picture of the parliament buildings, some people playing hockey and a mini-stick and ball.
I walked into my first class, which was a grade 5 class with Nemo as my co-teacher. "Good morning everyone!" they responded in unison, "Good morning teacher!" I couldn't help but smile. I wrote on the board my name and first got them to pronounce it properly. Originally, I thought they would have trouble with the R in it but they all seemed to say it well enough. I then got them to guess my age and what country I was from. They guessed right within 15 seconds (besides one kid in every class who yelled out 100!)
I started pulling out pictures. First the goose. "What animal is this?"
"A Chicken?" "A Duck?" "A Goose?" apparently they do have geese in China.
The next one ought to freak them out. I pulled out the picture of the beaver and everyone had no idea what it was. The best I got was a "fat mouse!"I taught them the name and told them that it ate trees. They are so receptive and excited about everything.
I then pulled out the mini-stick and the class went bananas! They might have thought it was a beating stick of some sort and I was about to go chairman Mao on their ass but I explained and took the ball and shot it against the wall.
"Hockey!"
"Oooooohh!"
hilarious.
After I introduced myself I started asking them to stand up and say their names and what they like to play. Some of their names were great. I have about 3 Coco's between all my classes, 3 Leelees, a girl named Cori (they had a laugh at that) and one girl named Poetry. Incidentally, Cori sits beside Cindy, which is my moms name and in my second class I have two girls in the front row named Alexis and Carley. Its funny when they are named after my friends and i'm looking forward to yelling "NO, Cindy that is wrong!" sorry mom.
Next, I decided to have some fun and taught all my classes three things. First was high-five. I had tried out high-five on one of the children in the hall before class and he looked terrified and thought I was going to slap him across the face. As much as I enjoy slapping small folk, this lack of high-five was not going to fly.
The next thing I taught them was props. I wrote on the board P-R-O-P-S and they looked at the word very confusingly. They actually caught on really quick, and soon enough I had a class full of gangsters eager to props me and give me high-five. great success.
The last thing I taught them was a throwback to my elementary school days. Hands on top! That means stop! I thought hey, might as well bring this to china. Maybe I will start a trend. They seemed to love it and after I let them talk for a little bit I yelled "HANDS ON TOP!" and bang: instant response. instant class attention. I am going to enjoy this.
By far the best part of my day was teaching my last class, 5D. This is the class with Cindy and Cori in it. I was asking them all If they played music and If they liked to sing, then I asked If they knew how to sing any english songs. Two boys in the back eagerly raised their hands and jumped up and down wanting to show me. I was not prepared for what ensued. The two boys went to the front of the class and started singing Beat it by Michael Jackson in perfect unison. They knew all the words. I was laughing my ass off. To top it off at the end one of the boys started dancing, he did the kick and the hand thing and all that crazy stuff MJ does. I asked him If he could do the moonwalk and he did it perfectly. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Did that actually just happen?
They bell rang and they all swarmed me. Some asked for my signature, or my e-mail address, or phone number. Apparently, its common for a teacher to give their personal information to students here. It was all so cute. One little girl even came up and handed me a little candy.
I finished the day smiling and headed back to my room. I'm going to enjoy this job.

fuzzy panda kill robot good

Let me update you on the last three days.
On Tuesday I woke up early and got picked up to go to the hospital. In the van I met 3 teachers from the other branch. Shane, Darla and Lyndley. They were all Canadian and all very nice. I sat down and prepared myself for another bout with death, which is the driving standard in China. On that note, I haven't even seen a seatbelt yet. Oh so safe.
After five mild heart attacks we finally made it to the hospital which was packed full of people. The first thing I noticed was people smoking in the hospital. I neglected to light one up. Something seemed rather wrong about it. We were handed sheets with a list of tests that we had to go around doing all over the hospital. I don't know if the translations were wrong or not, but some of them sounded rather terrifying. Like "Internal Examination" for example. It turns out that was just a blood pressure test, Although the room it was in was deceivingly named "Department Of Surgery." I think they are trying to purposely scare the hell out of me.
For one of the tests I lay on a table and they stuck little ball suction cup things all over me. When i lifted up my shirt the nurse began giggling to the other nurse about it. I asked Shane and he said that the Chinese don't have chest hair so they are amazed to see it. Then came the eye exam. First a colour test. Oh goodie. I'm colour blind.
They pulled out some cards that were a bunch of colours and had numbers hidden in them. I couldn't see any of them and the woman thought I was retarded. She gave me the most confused look as I tried to explain to her that I couldn't see any of the numbers because I could not distinguish the colours. I asked one of the chinese teachers that brought us to translate but he had no idea what I was talking about either. Okay then. She scribbled down some notes on my sheet (no doubt saying, "very stupid, cannot understand colours") and I went on my merry way. After my favourite part of the adventure, needle time, we got back on the bus and went home.

Now I had previously thought that my first day was on wednesday so I stayed up most of the night tuesday after the hospital tossing and turning, quite excited and nervous for the next day. I woke up at 6am and planned my first lesson, got everything ready and headed downstairs. Nemo was there informing us that the students will be watching a movie from 9-11 and that i will not have to teach until tomorrow. But we would still have to be present for the opening ceremony. Which was one of the most amazing sights i've seen since i've been to china.
I looked outside and saw the children all walking in pairs to the soccer field and main courtyard of our school. Boys and girls, and boys and boys even, all hold hands when they walk which is kind of strange at first but really cute. They all lined up in rows by grade and wow, their was alot of them. By estimate I would say about 1500 children in uniforms and about another 100 parents and teachers walking around. It was quite the sight to see. They all started marching on the spot along with some welcome song that was playing and then sang the national anthem and raised the flag. That many little voices singing at once was incredible to hear.
Nemo then decided to let us know that we would be invited up on the podium to introduce ourselves in front of the whole school. Well that would have been nice to prepare myself for. Thank you nemo. I started to get really nervous. What the hell was I going to say? I've never spoken in front of that many people, not without a guitar to hide behind at least. I let all the other teachers go in front of me and when they handed me the mic, I still don't know what i said. I may have said "me Corey, fuzzy panda kill robot good" who knows. But it was a blur and I was shaking after.
I then got shown around the school, got my schedule and met my co-teachers. I would be teaching two grade 5 classes with Nemo, another grade 5 with Christina and a grade 4 class with Ruby. I walked by the classrooms and waved in at all the kids. I would see them Thursday.
I had the whole day off so I decided to sit in on one of the other teachers lessons in the afternoon. Joe offered to let me see his grade 4 class, which was with my co-teacher Ruby. It was really helpful to see how classes were run.
At the beginning of the class, this song came on the P.A. Their was a really high-pitched woman's voice saying numbers and following a music track. All the students begin in unison rubbing their temples and around their eyes. I was very confused as to why the kids suddenly broke out into this synchronized behaviour, but I sat back and just watched. I learnt after that all kids here do something called "eye exercises", once in the morning and again after lunch. It is hard to explain but It seems to involve massaging different parts of your head. All I know is that the song for it is REALLY annoying. I found a link for you to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPeMLeBvMEo.

After a long confusing two days of needles, heart-attack transportation (driving), gigantic crowds of marching children and strange eye exercises, I went to bed thinking I was better prepared for what to expect Thursday on my first day teaching. Which I will write about in my next post!

understanding culture shock

I woke up at about 5am this morning. My body is still getting used to the time difference and I really only sleep a few hours at a time. Thankfully, 5am here is around dinner time back in Ottawa, and I had a nice chat with my mother on skype.
Over the last few days I've taken note of some of the more difficult challenges that I will be faced with in my day-to-day life. The language barrier creates many problems

1. Ordering food.
The main one. Generally menus here are in chinese characters and very few have pictures. The servers also speak no english around here. You can use the whole point and pray method but that could mean the waitress returning with a nice plate of monkey penis.

2. Transportation.
I haven't seen any street signs labelled and even if i did i would not be able to read them on a map. Taxi drivers speak absolutely no english. Even if you memorize the address of where you want to go, one wrong tone and you could end up in the middle of nowhere with no way back.

3. Buying anything that requires negotiation or explanation.
cell phones, haircuts. being unable to ask questions about purchases.

4. Getting lost.
If you wander too far on your own your screwed. Not being able to ask anyone for help, understand a map or even call anyone (see problem 3) really keeps you on your toes.

To begin to tackle some of these problems this morning, I made myself little cards and started to memorize the characters for certain menu items. Chicken 雞肉, Beef 牛肉
Pork 豬肉, Fish 魚, Duck 鴨 , Vegetables 蔬菜 , Rice 饭 and Noodles 面. Being terrible at drawing, attempting to scrawl out these elaborate symbols was not easy. Knowing all of them covers most of the dishes found around here though, and the point and pray will be greatly improved. After I felt i was somewhat confident in recognizing the symbols, I headed out for my first solo adventure.
So far I have been travelling around with the other foreign teachers and i'll have to say its very different when your alone. Everyone stares, parents point you out to there kids and say "look, look!" and then call you either a meiguoren or a laowei, the chinese word for foreigner. The feeling is hard to describe. Maybe kind of like being in a zoo, everyone staring and pointing and your unable to communicate back. Just smile your big dumb foreigner smile and wave. I made my way out of the neighbourhood and into the busy main street. After crossing the 6 lane road (not an easy task.. think Frogger in asian driver mode) I decided to go find some breakfast.

For breakfast yesterday me and two of the other new teachers decided to go try Re Gan Mien, a food that Wuhan is famous for. I literally see every person eating this for breakfast. It basically consists of noodles and a sesame paste. Apparently you are also supposed to get chili paste and little vegetables on it, but being the dumb meiguorens we are had no idea how to ask for it. We just smiled and nodded as she handed us the bowls. It tasted like noodles with peanut butter on them. interesting. I learnt for next time how to ask for it the proper way.
So for breakfast this morning i said to hell with it. No more peanut butter noodles. I went to the Mcdonalds up the street. I figured hey its Mcdonalds. This is our turf. But once again, like most things here, I was wrong. I walked up to the counter and said "wu" which is the chinese word for number 5. I got the usual confused look that i get whenever i attempt to speak mandarin so I gave in and put up five fingers. She responded with a rapid-fire chinese question which I assumed was asking if i wanted the combo or not. Since i had no idea how to say I wanted the combo it was the old dumb smile and nod for me. After feeling borderline retarded I went and ate my breakfast alone near the window where people were staring in at me. For the first time i really felt in over my head. I believe this is what they call culture shock.

All the other teachers on my floor today left to go to a meeting at the main branch. Apparently they will be working at the main branch, while I will be working here where we live. Our apartment is pretty much above the school and I just have to walk downstairs to get to work, while the other teachers have a half an hour commute.
After sitting around for a few hours today waiting for everyone to get back, I finally met Nemo. He came to my door and did not understand me when i said "one minute i'm changing" so yea pretty much full frontal for him. Being asian i'm sure he was impressed. He told me a few things. The main thing being that tomorrow at 8am they will pick me up and take me to the hospital for tests and needles. Those who know me will understand my reaction to this news. Second he informed me I would be teaching grade 5's and he would be my co-teacher for the year. I didn't expect to get a higher grade right away so i'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Either way i'm sure the students will be wonderful and being able to actually communicate with them will be great. Now that I think about it most of my students were around that age back home.
speaking of the kids, they were all here today for their orientation i guess before classes start on wednesday. At about 8am there was an announcement on the intercom and I could hear the laughter of children. It is a joyful way to start your day and i'm looking forward to it. Walking by them on my way out today they all waved and smiled. Some even said hello. Their parents seemed so proud for their kids to be speaking to a foreigner. They seem to really love us.
Seeing the kids put me at ease a bit today and I can't wait to start teaching on wednesday.

再见,

Corey