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.