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