So me and some teachers were eating dinner the other day and I took a moment to notice my surroundings. We were sitting out front at a little table. Next to us, the man who owned the small restaurant was murdering chickens. He would pull one out of the cage, snap its neck and hack away. Not many places I know in ottawa where you'd be able to actually watch your food be killed after you order it. It would likely put people off of eating. After he finished killing and boiling the feathers off he threw it down on the dirty ground and left to serve a table. Out ran a little puppy who started biting at it until the woman cooking out front noticed and went bonkers. She pulled out the metal utensil she was using to cook with and proceeded to burn the puppy with it. This has got to be the only place in the world you can eat a meal, watch chickens get slaughtered and puppies get branded all at the same time. And the funny thing is I barely took notice of it.
This is the reason I haven't been really keeping up with my blogs lately. All the things that at first would blow my mind or shock me have just become the norm now. This year has been one of constant new experiences and tests of what I deemed right or wrong, sane or insane, clean or dirty. From dog heads on christmas morning, to the absolute chaos of chinese new year. The old ladies pushing me on busses and the children defecating in the streets, I still look back on everything I have seen and experienced this year and also see how much I've grown.
It is really hard to explain just what it is like living in a country like China. It really is a different experience than living anywhere else. As someone from the West, every single aspect of daily life is affected. And I mean everything. Important things like going to a hospital if your sick. Imagine going to a hospital and trying to get diagnosed through sign language and then them trying to heal every ailment with some sort of tea. Which doesn't help because you are sick 35% of the time you are here. Buying groceries or supplies is difficult. I once had to walk for 2 hours to find a store that sold a fork. Sliced bread, butter, milk and cheese, most of the staples of our diets back home, are expensive and hard to find luxuries. Busses are terrifying feats of athleticism that require strong legs and a good grip. Taxi's are an exercise in patience as well as minor heart attacks as your car swerves in and out of traffic and pedestrians. People in the street will bump into you, push you, stare at you, point at you, scream into their cell phones, hock spit in every direction and then nearly kill you with their scooters. Oh ya and add the fact that 0.77% of Mainland Chinese are fluent english speakers and good luck reading any menu, newspaper, instructions, medicine or warning sign. When the day is done and you just want to relax you can sit back, breathe in the smoky air, enjoy the peaceful grey, sunless sky and listen to the sound of constant construction and honking. After that hey, jump on the web, you deserve it! Shortly after you will find out that almost every site you know is blocked and the internet goes down a few hours every day. And once your completely out of touch with the world outside, the power might go out in your neighbourhood for hours and you'll be left huddling in the dark, being constantly attacked by mosquitos.
Doesn't this all sound so wonderful? I hope that rant puts things into perspective a bit.
The funny thing is, after all that, I don't hate it here. I love/hate it. In fact, i'm coming back for another year. Have I gone crazy? Most likely. But I signed the contract last week and will be returning for another 10 months at the end of August. Besides all that there really is a lot of good things about being here. As well as a lot of cultural things that I really respect and learn from the Chinese. Believe it or not. But over the year the best thing about being here has always been my students. They are the coolest little dudes ever and I would feel horrible bailing on them, only to have some weirdo teaching them next year. It's like I have 185 children now. I want to see them graduate out of grade 6. They are so happy to see me everyday and when they are not driving me nuts, I really do enjoy teaching them. This is mostly what is bringing me back next year to this crazy place.
I had a dream last night about home. I was sitting outside in the yard, looking at a blue sky and green grass, cooking a steak on the barbeque and drinking a nice cold Keiths. What an amazing and simple joy that I used to take for granted. I am a week away from coming home now and you have no idea how excited I am. It is almost surreal. I really can't wait to get on that plane and know that the next day i'll be back home seeing everyone. It's really wild to think about actually. Especially after spending the year in this place. I'm going to have a sort of reverse culture shock. I won't know what to do with myself. Tim hortons every day? I'm on the home stretch now, I just have to teach maybe 2 more classes and then do the oral portion of their final exams. Then i'll pack up all my things and say goodbye to all the teachers here. Alot of them are leaving and I really will miss them. They were another one of the only things keeping me sane this year. It's weird to think that next year I will be the hardened China veteran having to show the next batch of new teachers the ropes.
See you all soon,
Corey
For those of you who don't know yet, I will be spending the next year in Wuhan City, China. I will be teaching English to children in a public school and living in Wuchang (a district of Wuhan.) Because China has so kindly blocked facebook, youtube, myspace, wikipedia entries, google, twitter and many other sites, This will be one of the only ways I will be able to keep in touch and update all my family and friends of my adventures. Enjoy!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
My life in China
So I just got in from a manly night jog around the track field, weezing and coughing from a few factors: One being that i'm still a recovering smoker who hasn't got much exercise in the last 10 years of my life and two being the fact that at night it seems the chinese burn the shit out of everything on the sidewalks. Apparently nobody told them that was bad for the environment. As well as my health. As if the air wasn't bad enough outside. But besides the dirt and sheer madness of the population at times, I have somehow come to call this place home.
I've lived in china for almost 9 months now and It's really crazy to think about. This is the longest i've ever been away from home, let alone my country. I have a routine here. I love coming home after a day of teaching even though half the things are broken and I still haven't gotten around to buying some simple items, like a fork for example. But this place feels like home now. I've also really grown attached to all my students. Class 5B is still driving me bananas, and my grade 4's are still as hyper as ever some days. But I always have fun. One of my students gave me a wooden sword last week and i've begun bringing it to my classes, carrying it sheathed in my belt. Little Carl wasn't raising his hand yesterday so I walked over and stabbed him in the chest cavity. Any future teachers take note of that one. Worked like a charm.
One thing I love everyday is when I walk through all the little grade 1 and 2 classes playing around at recess on the way to class. They all run up to me and pretty much every day say "nice to meet you" or "what's your name?" regardless of how many times I have previously answered the question. One little girl ran across the yard and right up to me today and said "Hello Hippopotamus!." It was the cutest thing ever and it made my day. Wondering why she said that, I thought back and remembered that I had spent one morning long ago messing with them and told them all my name was something ridiculous like Yoda, Conan and apparently hippopotamus. Good on her for remembering. I also love the little things I get away with in China that wouldn't fly at home. I made a whole story for the kids last week involving a super hero I made named super pig, who at the end of the story pulled out an M4A1 machine gun and shot the bad guy in the face. Anything to make them smile. There parents and teachers work them into the ground everyday.
Some days i'll travel around Wuhan a bit or go for a walk to the new starbucks that opened up down the street. I still notice things in China that confuse and intrigue me at the same time. I've begun to just say "ohh china" and continue walking. Like someone taking a video of me on their phone while i'm eating. Ohh China. The other day I was waiting for a bus with about 4 other people, two of which were elderly chinese women. The bus came rolling around the corner and suddenly the look in those elderly ladies eyes changed. It scared the hell out of me and I could sense they were ready to pounce.
They were getting a seat on this bus. Even if this nice foreigner was standing in their way.
They meant business. It was on.
As soon as the bus came close grandma knocked me out of the way and hobbled over to the doorway. When I reached it finally, grandma number two came busting in behind me, dug her hand into my back and pushed me through the doors. You see I understand China busses can get insanely full, and pair that with the driving capabilities of a chinese bus driver and your holding onto a bar for dear life while people are falling all over you. This I understand. But when this bus pulled up it was completely empty and there were five people clearly getting a free seat on that bus. In a prominently taoist society you think they'd have some patience. Me first, me first, everywhere you go. But I guess in a overpopulated country of over a billion people, if you don't think me first you will always be last. Like I was on that bus. As well as every time I go through a doorway or try wait in a line. Canadian politeness doesn't go far in China.
But thankfully, you all voted for the end of most canadian values this week. So I won't have to worry about that much longer. Thanks for that one by the way.
So this weekend I decided to go to South Korea. I had a long weekend and thought i would be nice to get out of China for a few days and visit my good friend Natalie in Seoul. This pictures pretty much sums up much of the weekend as I woke up on a wooden floor most mornings with the worst hangover ever. Let's just say the expat community there parties harder than they do in China. The alcohol is also much stronger and after spending the year drinking the 2.1% water/beer here, Korea kicked my ass. I did get out to do some touristy stuff as well, but it rained for two days and ruined some of our plans. Seoul is a beautiful city, everyone speaks some english and it's really easy to get around. There are outback steakhouses, burger king, subways and 7/11's everywhere and I can see how a foreigner living there could even forget you were in Asia. Which where I am something nuts always slaps you in the face to remind you of where you are. I would put Seoul right up there with Hong Kong. The second night there we had some Korean barbeque which I will highly recommend to anyone. They basically give you your own grill in the middle where you cook strips of pork and beef. As well as garlic and onions to go with it. Once its cooked you dip it in this fantastic sauce and wrap it up in a big leaf, making kind of a leaf fajita. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. After, we all went out to enjoy the Seoul nightlife.
About 20 jagerbombs and many hours later, I found myself dancing on a stage with a group of koreans until the sun came up. Koreans really know how to have fun. Chinese people just drink a bunch of Baijiu, sing karaoke, yell at each other and then pass out in the street at eleven o'clock.
I had a great weekend in Korea and met a lot of great people.
Anyways, I found out today that I might be able to come home earlier than I thought. The students have their final exams from the 13th till the 18th and depending on when my classes finish I can go home immediately after. The older grades usually finish earlier so I may be able to come home as early as the 16th of June. Which means less that 6 weeks to go.
Going back to Canada is going to be crazy. It's weird to even think about it. But i'm really excited to see my family and friends. I'm going to go to Tim Hortons and Subway every single day and never complain about having to take the OC transpo again.
see you soon,
Corey
I've lived in china for almost 9 months now and It's really crazy to think about. This is the longest i've ever been away from home, let alone my country. I have a routine here. I love coming home after a day of teaching even though half the things are broken and I still haven't gotten around to buying some simple items, like a fork for example. But this place feels like home now. I've also really grown attached to all my students. Class 5B is still driving me bananas, and my grade 4's are still as hyper as ever some days. But I always have fun. One of my students gave me a wooden sword last week and i've begun bringing it to my classes, carrying it sheathed in my belt. Little Carl wasn't raising his hand yesterday so I walked over and stabbed him in the chest cavity. Any future teachers take note of that one. Worked like a charm.
One thing I love everyday is when I walk through all the little grade 1 and 2 classes playing around at recess on the way to class. They all run up to me and pretty much every day say "nice to meet you" or "what's your name?" regardless of how many times I have previously answered the question. One little girl ran across the yard and right up to me today and said "Hello Hippopotamus!." It was the cutest thing ever and it made my day. Wondering why she said that, I thought back and remembered that I had spent one morning long ago messing with them and told them all my name was something ridiculous like Yoda, Conan and apparently hippopotamus. Good on her for remembering. I also love the little things I get away with in China that wouldn't fly at home. I made a whole story for the kids last week involving a super hero I made named super pig, who at the end of the story pulled out an M4A1 machine gun and shot the bad guy in the face. Anything to make them smile. There parents and teachers work them into the ground everyday.
Some days i'll travel around Wuhan a bit or go for a walk to the new starbucks that opened up down the street. I still notice things in China that confuse and intrigue me at the same time. I've begun to just say "ohh china" and continue walking. Like someone taking a video of me on their phone while i'm eating. Ohh China. The other day I was waiting for a bus with about 4 other people, two of which were elderly chinese women. The bus came rolling around the corner and suddenly the look in those elderly ladies eyes changed. It scared the hell out of me and I could sense they were ready to pounce.
They were getting a seat on this bus. Even if this nice foreigner was standing in their way.
They meant business. It was on.
As soon as the bus came close grandma knocked me out of the way and hobbled over to the doorway. When I reached it finally, grandma number two came busting in behind me, dug her hand into my back and pushed me through the doors. You see I understand China busses can get insanely full, and pair that with the driving capabilities of a chinese bus driver and your holding onto a bar for dear life while people are falling all over you. This I understand. But when this bus pulled up it was completely empty and there were five people clearly getting a free seat on that bus. In a prominently taoist society you think they'd have some patience. Me first, me first, everywhere you go. But I guess in a overpopulated country of over a billion people, if you don't think me first you will always be last. Like I was on that bus. As well as every time I go through a doorway or try wait in a line. Canadian politeness doesn't go far in China.
But thankfully, you all voted for the end of most canadian values this week. So I won't have to worry about that much longer. Thanks for that one by the way.
So this weekend I decided to go to South Korea. I had a long weekend and thought i would be nice to get out of China for a few days and visit my good friend Natalie in Seoul. This pictures pretty much sums up much of the weekend as I woke up on a wooden floor most mornings with the worst hangover ever. Let's just say the expat community there parties harder than they do in China. The alcohol is also much stronger and after spending the year drinking the 2.1% water/beer here, Korea kicked my ass. I did get out to do some touristy stuff as well, but it rained for two days and ruined some of our plans. Seoul is a beautiful city, everyone speaks some english and it's really easy to get around. There are outback steakhouses, burger king, subways and 7/11's everywhere and I can see how a foreigner living there could even forget you were in Asia. Which where I am something nuts always slaps you in the face to remind you of where you are. I would put Seoul right up there with Hong Kong. The second night there we had some Korean barbeque which I will highly recommend to anyone. They basically give you your own grill in the middle where you cook strips of pork and beef. As well as garlic and onions to go with it. Once its cooked you dip it in this fantastic sauce and wrap it up in a big leaf, making kind of a leaf fajita. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. After, we all went out to enjoy the Seoul nightlife.
About 20 jagerbombs and many hours later, I found myself dancing on a stage with a group of koreans until the sun came up. Koreans really know how to have fun. Chinese people just drink a bunch of Baijiu, sing karaoke, yell at each other and then pass out in the street at eleven o'clock.
I had a great weekend in Korea and met a lot of great people.
Anyways, I found out today that I might be able to come home earlier than I thought. The students have their final exams from the 13th till the 18th and depending on when my classes finish I can go home immediately after. The older grades usually finish earlier so I may be able to come home as early as the 16th of June. Which means less that 6 weeks to go.
Going back to Canada is going to be crazy. It's weird to even think about it. But i'm really excited to see my family and friends. I'm going to go to Tim Hortons and Subway every single day and never complain about having to take the OC transpo again.
see you soon,
Corey
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Bob Dylan!
hello fellow wei guo rens!
thought I'd write a quick blog before bed.
Time is moving quickly now. The weeks seem to pass faster than the beginning of the year. I can't believe i've been here 8 months already. All the day to day things aren't as exciting and new anymore as i'm just so used to being here. This is part of the reason why my blog has been lacking lately, I just don't see that many things anymore that really shock me. Besides the concert I went to on the weekend the most exciting thing to happen around here has been the Starbucks and Walmart opening up the street. Finally civilization around my area! (as much as I HATE those two companies.) Other than that I've mostly gotten used to the crazyness of China and most things come with a "well that's not surprising."
Some things still really bug me often though. I was up most of the night the other night thinking of ways to help some of my students situations. I'm sick of coming to class with another one of my top students with black eyes, fat lips or bruises on their faces. Back home a teacher has the power of calling child services or even talking to the parent directly. Unfortunately for me here I have neither and I really feel helpless sometimes. What really bothers me is it's usually my top students, the ones that get almost 100% on everything, actively participate in class and come up to talk to me all the time. I don't understand how their parents are so hard on them? One would wonder though, if their grades are so high because they are terrified to bring home anything sub par. Fear may be raising their grades, but at what cost? I remember teaching a class about fears awhile ago and a majority of them feared their fathers above everything. Are these the goals of a "family oriented" culture such as the Chinese? Who knows. But that's just the thing. That's the culture here and as many things as I could think of doing, I really can't change the situation. What I can try to do is give the kids a teacher or parent-like figure who teaches them with compassion and friendship. When they make mistakes on tests or in class I personally sit beside them and talk nicely to them and offer any help I can. I try to make my classes fun. Something that's a nice relief from the long 8 hours of school they have a day. This is something a teacher can always control. But I still sometimes wish I could help them out more. If anyone has any ideas feel free to suggest them.
On a happier note on the weekend I went with a bunch of other teachers to Shanghai to see Bob Dylan. I really had a great weekend. The concert itself was pretty historic. It was Bob Dylans first time playing in China in his entire career. What was really hilarious was watching chinese peoples reaction to this crazy, slurring man on stage. They probably heard some big western artist was coming to town and bought tickets. If anyone has been to a Bob Dylan concert in the last 10 years you know what i'm talking about. It really isn't 1960's Bob, that most people know. Alot of the songs you won't realize are actually ones you know until a few minutes in. He doesn't "sing" anymore in any sense of the word. More of a growl or just talking most of the time. Chinese people thought he was out of his mind. I thought it was fantastic. It was really a treat to see Bob Dylan, probably the most influential songwriter in history, right in front of you. And I can say I saw him in China.
The students have had exams all week so it's been kind of laid back for me. I find myself with a lot of free time here. A few weeks ago I spent most of that time doing nothing. I've now watched just about every movie i've ever wanted to see. But now I've decided to use all this free time wisely to improve on some things as well as get in better shape. I started making my bed and keeping my apartment more clean, I started running for the first time in my life, I quit smoking, I'm doing an hour of chinese every second night now and slowly, very slowly getting back into my songwriting. I also cut all my hair off, this city is going to get VERY hot soon and the shag wasn't going to cut it. My students barely recognized me when I walked in the classroom on Monday. They called me Corey 2.0.
All in all, things are going well over here, despite me having to miss both an election AND playoffs this year. I'm not in the mood for a Stephen Harper rant right now and I won't even mention the Leafs. And no matter how much I'm still enjoying it here I still miss home and everyone there everyday. I'm really excited to come home in a few months. But soon i must make the big decision as to wether I will come back and do a second year here.
But that is for another blog.
miss you all,
Corey
thought I'd write a quick blog before bed.
Time is moving quickly now. The weeks seem to pass faster than the beginning of the year. I can't believe i've been here 8 months already. All the day to day things aren't as exciting and new anymore as i'm just so used to being here. This is part of the reason why my blog has been lacking lately, I just don't see that many things anymore that really shock me. Besides the concert I went to on the weekend the most exciting thing to happen around here has been the Starbucks and Walmart opening up the street. Finally civilization around my area! (as much as I HATE those two companies.) Other than that I've mostly gotten used to the crazyness of China and most things come with a "well that's not surprising."
Some things still really bug me often though. I was up most of the night the other night thinking of ways to help some of my students situations. I'm sick of coming to class with another one of my top students with black eyes, fat lips or bruises on their faces. Back home a teacher has the power of calling child services or even talking to the parent directly. Unfortunately for me here I have neither and I really feel helpless sometimes. What really bothers me is it's usually my top students, the ones that get almost 100% on everything, actively participate in class and come up to talk to me all the time. I don't understand how their parents are so hard on them? One would wonder though, if their grades are so high because they are terrified to bring home anything sub par. Fear may be raising their grades, but at what cost? I remember teaching a class about fears awhile ago and a majority of them feared their fathers above everything. Are these the goals of a "family oriented" culture such as the Chinese? Who knows. But that's just the thing. That's the culture here and as many things as I could think of doing, I really can't change the situation. What I can try to do is give the kids a teacher or parent-like figure who teaches them with compassion and friendship. When they make mistakes on tests or in class I personally sit beside them and talk nicely to them and offer any help I can. I try to make my classes fun. Something that's a nice relief from the long 8 hours of school they have a day. This is something a teacher can always control. But I still sometimes wish I could help them out more. If anyone has any ideas feel free to suggest them.
On a happier note on the weekend I went with a bunch of other teachers to Shanghai to see Bob Dylan. I really had a great weekend. The concert itself was pretty historic. It was Bob Dylans first time playing in China in his entire career. What was really hilarious was watching chinese peoples reaction to this crazy, slurring man on stage. They probably heard some big western artist was coming to town and bought tickets. If anyone has been to a Bob Dylan concert in the last 10 years you know what i'm talking about. It really isn't 1960's Bob, that most people know. Alot of the songs you won't realize are actually ones you know until a few minutes in. He doesn't "sing" anymore in any sense of the word. More of a growl or just talking most of the time. Chinese people thought he was out of his mind. I thought it was fantastic. It was really a treat to see Bob Dylan, probably the most influential songwriter in history, right in front of you. And I can say I saw him in China.
The students have had exams all week so it's been kind of laid back for me. I find myself with a lot of free time here. A few weeks ago I spent most of that time doing nothing. I've now watched just about every movie i've ever wanted to see. But now I've decided to use all this free time wisely to improve on some things as well as get in better shape. I started making my bed and keeping my apartment more clean, I started running for the first time in my life, I quit smoking, I'm doing an hour of chinese every second night now and slowly, very slowly getting back into my songwriting. I also cut all my hair off, this city is going to get VERY hot soon and the shag wasn't going to cut it. My students barely recognized me when I walked in the classroom on Monday. They called me Corey 2.0.
All in all, things are going well over here, despite me having to miss both an election AND playoffs this year. I'm not in the mood for a Stephen Harper rant right now and I won't even mention the Leafs. And no matter how much I'm still enjoying it here I still miss home and everyone there everyday. I'm really excited to come home in a few months. But soon i must make the big decision as to wether I will come back and do a second year here.
But that is for another blog.
miss you all,
Corey
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Alive!
Hello friends,
I finally got my blog working again! I thought the proxy that I have to use to bypass the firewall shut me down once and for all but I finally found another work around. Eat it Peoples Republic of China. It's been over a month now since I wrote a blog. For those people who seemed to be worried, no I didn't die in an earthquake. It seems geography of asia isn't a specialty of people back home and I got facebook messages of people wondering if I was hit by it. Wuhan is right smack in the middle of China, which is a damn big country. If anything I just felt the cheers in the street of Chinese people because they absolutely despise the Japanese in ways I can't fully understand. Oh and for those of you wondering what happened at the end of my Thailand trip, I ended up bailing on my flight back home and going to Hong Kong only to run out of money and get kicked out of my hostel. After wandering the streets for awhile I was rescued by my buddy Sai who took me in to his home in another city called Guangzhou. It was an interesting end to a great vacation. Hong Kong was one of the nicest cities I've ever been in. Chinese people there are actually.. more civil.. they wait for cars and don't spit and smoke everywhere.
Anyways now that I'm back in China things are crazy as ever. I had the opportunity of experiencing chinese new year when I got back and that was terrifying to say the least. Think of 10 million chinese people with unlimited access to explosives, couple that with a complete disregard of safety and practically no laws and you have a fare idea of what happened. We decided to go to a bar in Hankou to have a casual beverage by the water and enjoy a nice "firework" show. As soon as I departed my house I quite literally thought the world was coming to an end. In every square, backyard, park, sidewalk and alleyway, people were setting off fireworks one after another. And I don't mean the little ones we can buy back home in Quebec. These were the full sized ones they use in controlled fireworks displays, all set off metres away from human beings and flying all over the streets. When we finally arrived at the small little bar on the river the owner said he had a "special treat" for us. His buddy pulled up in a truck and proceeded to unload a 5 foot tall mortar onto the public sidewalk, as well as other boxes full of every kind of firework imaginable. Without even motioning us to stand back he began to light them. Much to the despair of the crowds of people walking by, all hell started to break loose. I stood there in amazement and caution the whole time. These were very dangerous explosives being set up in the middle of a very busy street downtown, the cops seemed to just walk by and laugh and casually tell people they should probably keep their distance. One of the boxes exploded the wrong way and shot out at the cars on the street. Utter madness I tell you. When i thought i'd had enough we went down to the water where it was equally a warzone. About a thousand people were shooting all kinds of fireworks off into the water, some just on the ground, and some at eachother. The lack of safety here really makes me happy sometimes, as theres no way that kind of thing would fly back home. It's really hard to explain the madness I was witnessing. Every corner of your eye was filled with some explosion or you'd straight out be dodging something flaming coming at your head. It was Happy new year indeed.
My students are all back in learning mode. We were learning about writing stories last month so I had all three of my grade 5 classes attempt to write stories with the fractured english they knew. This turned out to be a terrible idea, but comical nonetheless. First of all I didn't realize the amount of time it would take to read, edit, mark and return 135 full page stories. I think I spent 6 hours one day doing nothing but marking. Second, some of them were so rediculous as to almost be unreadable, I was getting sentences like "I was one time go store with play dog and look film." I seriously have alot of work to do with their grammar. I spent about 3 weeks ripping all their sentences apart and hammering in different grammatical rules, and I still feel like I didn't get that far. Yes I will admit that my grammar is terrible also, but its getting better. Now that i'm like a teacher person and all.
Anyways, the social norms also have a few kinks that need to be worked out still. Most of their stories involved killing things with AK47's or monsters eating their parents. A few had me being killed by Nemo and one of me fighting president Obama to the death. I said they had to describe their characters the best they could with the language they had and the girl had described Obama as such: "tall and thin and black like a savage." You can imagine my shock when reading that one. One girl wrote a story about a robot going back in time and killing Hitler and then after that killing all the Japanese people. Horrible I know, but I'll have to admit I laughed my ass off through most of them. If anything it let me get to know some of my students personalities more. There are quite alot of them.
Speaking of which, last week I went on my first field trip with the school. I had missed the last one because I was sick, as I often am. I got up early and watched the entire school pile onto about 40 busses, which was some sight to see. We all packed on the bus and headed off. We were going to a sad, sad place. I would soon learn.
As you can imagine a zoo in a country with seemingly no problem with animal abuse is a very cheerful place. We were ushered into the first attraction of the day; an animal circus. Out came unhappy black bears riding on bicycles. Which I didn't think was possible. They were chased with their owners holding little whips and they seemed to just be trying to ride away from them. Then came monkeys doing the tight rope walk and last a group of tigers and lions. There was two large tigers and three lions; two females and one very sickly looking male. They were showboated around with whips, some jumped through hoops and one walked on a ball. I was pretty upset about the whole situation and was glad to learn a lot of my students were too. But unfortunately, there is really nothing I can do about it. After the show came the endless snacks my students brought. They tried to get me to try every little thing they pulled out of their bag, Which would sound good except that this wasn't the good old chips and dunkaroos we got back home. This was China. They were munching on raw sea-weed and little packets of squid. Then came the chicken feet and finally a healthy afternoon snack of chicken fetus. That one really grosses me out. They let the chicken incubate a little more than usual until it starts to grow a little inside and then they sell and eat it at that stage. It's really messed up. And I thought our dinners we get here were bad. We left the zoo after seeing a few more sad monkeys and bears and a sea lion show with the dirtiest pool i've ever seen in my life. It was a great place. Let's say the zoo disappointed me a bit.
Back here at the residence everything's still going great. I'm still sleeping on the floor and showering in the dark. My shower hose exploded last week but I managed to patch it up with super glue. They have pretty much stopped caring about serving decent food to us downstairs. Its pig feet, cabbage and rice at least twice a week now and they seemed to have stopped giving us fruit as well. All in all, pretty good time. Mostly because this weekend i'm getting away from here and heading to Shanghai to see a Bob Dylan concert. It's his first time playing in Asia in his entire career. I'm pretty pumped. Why do we use that word anyways? Pumped? As an english teacher I think about this crap all the time now. Like the sentence I taught yesterday "I ride the ride." Confuses the hell out of them. Or how many words we have for "very good." the Chinese have one: "hen hao" or maybe "fei chang hao." We have: awesome, amazing, incredible, unbelievable, stupendous, brilliant, sweet, sick, great, fantastic, wonderful, sensational, fabulous, super, well, nice, mad shibby, tight and da bomb. English has an absurd amount of words and slang words describe the exact same thing.
I will try to keep my blog updated now that I have it working again. Hope people start to read it again. I'm sure there will be lots more adventures in my last few months here.
I finally got my blog working again! I thought the proxy that I have to use to bypass the firewall shut me down once and for all but I finally found another work around. Eat it Peoples Republic of China. It's been over a month now since I wrote a blog. For those people who seemed to be worried, no I didn't die in an earthquake. It seems geography of asia isn't a specialty of people back home and I got facebook messages of people wondering if I was hit by it. Wuhan is right smack in the middle of China, which is a damn big country. If anything I just felt the cheers in the street of Chinese people because they absolutely despise the Japanese in ways I can't fully understand. Oh and for those of you wondering what happened at the end of my Thailand trip, I ended up bailing on my flight back home and going to Hong Kong only to run out of money and get kicked out of my hostel. After wandering the streets for awhile I was rescued by my buddy Sai who took me in to his home in another city called Guangzhou. It was an interesting end to a great vacation. Hong Kong was one of the nicest cities I've ever been in. Chinese people there are actually.. more civil.. they wait for cars and don't spit and smoke everywhere.
Anyways now that I'm back in China things are crazy as ever. I had the opportunity of experiencing chinese new year when I got back and that was terrifying to say the least. Think of 10 million chinese people with unlimited access to explosives, couple that with a complete disregard of safety and practically no laws and you have a fare idea of what happened. We decided to go to a bar in Hankou to have a casual beverage by the water and enjoy a nice "firework" show. As soon as I departed my house I quite literally thought the world was coming to an end. In every square, backyard, park, sidewalk and alleyway, people were setting off fireworks one after another. And I don't mean the little ones we can buy back home in Quebec. These were the full sized ones they use in controlled fireworks displays, all set off metres away from human beings and flying all over the streets. When we finally arrived at the small little bar on the river the owner said he had a "special treat" for us. His buddy pulled up in a truck and proceeded to unload a 5 foot tall mortar onto the public sidewalk, as well as other boxes full of every kind of firework imaginable. Without even motioning us to stand back he began to light them. Much to the despair of the crowds of people walking by, all hell started to break loose. I stood there in amazement and caution the whole time. These were very dangerous explosives being set up in the middle of a very busy street downtown, the cops seemed to just walk by and laugh and casually tell people they should probably keep their distance. One of the boxes exploded the wrong way and shot out at the cars on the street. Utter madness I tell you. When i thought i'd had enough we went down to the water where it was equally a warzone. About a thousand people were shooting all kinds of fireworks off into the water, some just on the ground, and some at eachother. The lack of safety here really makes me happy sometimes, as theres no way that kind of thing would fly back home. It's really hard to explain the madness I was witnessing. Every corner of your eye was filled with some explosion or you'd straight out be dodging something flaming coming at your head. It was Happy new year indeed.
My students are all back in learning mode. We were learning about writing stories last month so I had all three of my grade 5 classes attempt to write stories with the fractured english they knew. This turned out to be a terrible idea, but comical nonetheless. First of all I didn't realize the amount of time it would take to read, edit, mark and return 135 full page stories. I think I spent 6 hours one day doing nothing but marking. Second, some of them were so rediculous as to almost be unreadable, I was getting sentences like "I was one time go store with play dog and look film." I seriously have alot of work to do with their grammar. I spent about 3 weeks ripping all their sentences apart and hammering in different grammatical rules, and I still feel like I didn't get that far. Yes I will admit that my grammar is terrible also, but its getting better. Now that i'm like a teacher person and all.
Anyways, the social norms also have a few kinks that need to be worked out still. Most of their stories involved killing things with AK47's or monsters eating their parents. A few had me being killed by Nemo and one of me fighting president Obama to the death. I said they had to describe their characters the best they could with the language they had and the girl had described Obama as such: "tall and thin and black like a savage." You can imagine my shock when reading that one. One girl wrote a story about a robot going back in time and killing Hitler and then after that killing all the Japanese people. Horrible I know, but I'll have to admit I laughed my ass off through most of them. If anything it let me get to know some of my students personalities more. There are quite alot of them.
Speaking of which, last week I went on my first field trip with the school. I had missed the last one because I was sick, as I often am. I got up early and watched the entire school pile onto about 40 busses, which was some sight to see. We all packed on the bus and headed off. We were going to a sad, sad place. I would soon learn.
As you can imagine a zoo in a country with seemingly no problem with animal abuse is a very cheerful place. We were ushered into the first attraction of the day; an animal circus. Out came unhappy black bears riding on bicycles. Which I didn't think was possible. They were chased with their owners holding little whips and they seemed to just be trying to ride away from them. Then came monkeys doing the tight rope walk and last a group of tigers and lions. There was two large tigers and three lions; two females and one very sickly looking male. They were showboated around with whips, some jumped through hoops and one walked on a ball. I was pretty upset about the whole situation and was glad to learn a lot of my students were too. But unfortunately, there is really nothing I can do about it. After the show came the endless snacks my students brought. They tried to get me to try every little thing they pulled out of their bag, Which would sound good except that this wasn't the good old chips and dunkaroos we got back home. This was China. They were munching on raw sea-weed and little packets of squid. Then came the chicken feet and finally a healthy afternoon snack of chicken fetus. That one really grosses me out. They let the chicken incubate a little more than usual until it starts to grow a little inside and then they sell and eat it at that stage. It's really messed up. And I thought our dinners we get here were bad. We left the zoo after seeing a few more sad monkeys and bears and a sea lion show with the dirtiest pool i've ever seen in my life. It was a great place. Let's say the zoo disappointed me a bit.
Back here at the residence everything's still going great. I'm still sleeping on the floor and showering in the dark. My shower hose exploded last week but I managed to patch it up with super glue. They have pretty much stopped caring about serving decent food to us downstairs. Its pig feet, cabbage and rice at least twice a week now and they seemed to have stopped giving us fruit as well. All in all, pretty good time. Mostly because this weekend i'm getting away from here and heading to Shanghai to see a Bob Dylan concert. It's his first time playing in Asia in his entire career. I'm pretty pumped. Why do we use that word anyways? Pumped? As an english teacher I think about this crap all the time now. Like the sentence I taught yesterday "I ride the ride." Confuses the hell out of them. Or how many words we have for "very good." the Chinese have one: "hen hao" or maybe "fei chang hao." We have: awesome, amazing, incredible, unbelievable, stupendous, brilliant, sweet, sick, great, fantastic, wonderful, sensational, fabulous, super, well, nice, mad shibby, tight and da bomb. English has an absurd amount of words and slang words describe the exact same thing.
anyways. Off-topic there.
I will try to keep my blog updated now that I have it working again. Hope people start to read it again. I'm sure there will be lots more adventures in my last few months here.
love
your hero,
Corey
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thailand Adventure part 4
About a 4 hour mini van ride out of Bangkok and a quick ferry gets you to the beautiful island of Ko Samet. I hadn't originally planned on going there but I had a few days in Bangkok to kill and didn't expect to be sick of that place so fast. I was also drawn to the fact that Ko Samet was originally inhabited by pirates and that buried treasure is said to exist somewhere on the island. If that wasn't enough to convince me to go I don't know what else was.
We arrived at the port in Ban Phe after much delay and boarded the small ferry boat at 1:30. It had been quite awhile since I had seen the ocean and after being in the over-populated megacities of china, the endless expanse was freeing to say the least. After a short ride to the island, we pulled into the port at Ko Samet.
Land ho!
I asked the information desk lady for directions to our guesthouse. Let me rephrase that. I asked the Thai man dressed as a woman for directions to our guesthouse. If you weren't already aware, Thailand is the ladyboy capital of the world. Some of them are quite deceiving until you get up close. Tread carefully.
Anywho.
So after she/he pointed out where we were heading on a map. We headed out through the small village before the beaches. Turned out Heshe had pointed us in the wrong direction and we got lost for awhile before finally arriving at Naga Bungalows. The cheapest place on the island. The room consisted of a small wooden shack with nothing in it but a bed, a mosquito-net and a fan. The outdoor showers had no hot water and you had to brush your teeth at night in the creepy jungle.
This may sound horrid to some people but I was in love.
The atmosphere of Ko Samet was like Kanchanaburi but with white-sand beaches and tropical weather. Since it was during the week the place wasn't packed with many tourists. After relaxing on the beach for the rest of the day we hit one of the bigger bars along the beach. They had a happy hour special where whatever drink you bought you flipped a coin for. If you won, you got the drink for free. If you lost you just had to pay the regular price for the drink. I thought this was an excellent way to mix alcohol and gambling all into one. As the night rolled on we met a couple from Ontario and were treated to a fire show on the beach. Men would juggle sticks and spin staves around until finally they lit a hoop on fire and proceeded to jump through it. After that they invited people from the bar to jump through it. Perfect, I thought.
I've always wanted to see someone on fire. What a great idea to let intoxicated people jump through a flaming ring of death.
I waited in patience until finally a drunk woman stumbled into the hoop and caught on fire. It was a strange feeling, I was torn between running to her aid or sitting there and enjoying this delightful moment in my life. But, no one seemed to panic and they just threw some sand on her and laughed it off. The party went on and afterwards, I joined them jumping through the flaming hoop. Good times.
The next day, we rented ourselves off-roading vehicles. Vanessa got an ATV, which in hindsight was a much better off-roading choice than the two-wheeled scooter I decided to get. Which wasn't all that sturdy on the ridiculous backroads of Ko Samet. We headed off to the other side of the island through a rugged jungle trail, half of which was mud and sand.
It was when I was flying through the air and smashing into a rock on the side of the road that I realized the bike wasn't the best choice. I came down a hill too fast and my bike fell over, throwing me off and smashing the side mirror up pretty bad, as well as my body. I bent the front wheel slightly and on the way home would crash the bike every 10 minutes. I was covered in dirt, bleeding and bruised and just wanted to get home. But we were about an hour out. I didn't have a phone so it wasn't like I could call anyone to come pick me and the bike up, and I was far too lazy to walk the heavy bike back up hills and through mud. It was terribly frustrating, and and hour and 20 bike crashes later, I stumbled and limped to our bungalow to recover for a few hours.
That night I ended up getting up on stage and rocking out with a Thai band. It made me feel better. The next day we spent a few more hours on the beach before heading back to the boat. We would be heading back to Bangkok AGAIN, a place I didn't want to be after the quiet paradise i'd spent the last few days in. But Vanessa had a flight back to Canada the next day and my vacation was coming to it's end. I had done everything I had hoped for on this vacation to Thailand. Hiking through jungles, waterfalls, elephants, tigers, white-water rafting, monkey battles, temples, mountains and oceans. It was all I could ever ask for.
I saw Vanessa off at 5am Friday morning. I would be spending another night in Bangkok alone before heading back to Wuhan. I spent the day visiting the Grand Palace and then had an incredibly spicy salad at a restaurant playing Piranha 3D on t.v. That movie is ridiculous by the way if anyone's seen it. I later met some guys from montreal and, judging by my past experience in Bangkok and by people from Montreal in general, you can guess where the night went.
It was sometime around 3am. I was sitting watching woman do incredible things with ping pong balls, when I realized I was not ready to go back to Wuhan just yet. Also how I ended up at this place.
My flight was the next morning with a quick layover in Guanzhou (a city in China) before heading home to dirty, cold wuhan to sit in my room alone for a week before school started up again.
I don't know if it was the cheers from the crowd as a ping pong ball flew into a cup, or the ladyboy sitting in the corner flashing her butt at me. But I had not finished with my vacation yet. I still had a bit of money.
And there's always room to do one more crazy thing.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Thailand Adventure part 3
We were back in Bangkok at about 7:30pm. After getting dropped off at Kao San road and bargaining a price with a Tuk Tuk driver, we were on our way to the train station. A Tuk Tuk by the way are the 3-wheeled trike taxis that bomb around Bangkok, weaving crazily through traffic and consistently try to rip off tourists. Luckily this was one place where my Thai came in handy, and when they heard me speak Thai they usually wouldn't rip us off.
At the train station we tried to get our tickets to Chiang Mai but much to our disappointment, all the sleeper class tickets were sold out for a few days. Memories suddenly flooded into my head of my 13 hour train ride in China without a seat. I would NOT go through with that again in any circumstance, but i also did not want to stay in Bangkok for a few days. While sitting around debating what to do, we found Craig sitting alone in the train station waiting for the same train we were trying to get on. What are the chances of that? He was here about an hour before us and got one of the last sleeper tickets. What a doosh. After much debate we decided to suck it up and book a ticket anyways. We ended up scoring the 2nd class air-conditioned car with two, very broken but better than the ground, seats.
The train ride turned out to be quite a crazy adventure. As we rolled out of the Bangkok station heading north, we met up with Craig and made our way to the restaurant car for dinner and some drinks. We ended up meeting a whole group of Germans and the beers kept coming. They even kept the car open just for us. But soon, the Thai staffs hospitality waned when they realized we could drink all night and weren't going to bed any time soon. So they kicked us out of the restaurant and closed the car for the night. Left to wander the cars with nowhere to continue our little party, we all somehow ended up in one of the bathroom cars. Out came another bottle of whiskey from the Germans and the night continued on, much to the annoyance of the rest of the train who were likely trying to sleep. We would meet lots of other Germans on our trip and i'll have to say they are quite the fun bunch of people. Especially when they get into the booze. So here we were, all crammed tightly into the washroom car, taking shots and discussing the differences between our countries late into the night. When finally enough people had come to complain and we decided we should probably head to bed. I stumbled back to my car, sat down in my chair and fell into a nice, whiskey induced sleep.
I woke up surrounded by thick, green jungle and beautiful mountains. There was a part between the cars which was open to the outside and I leaned out to take a look. The view almost immediately cured my hangover and I took a deep breath of some of the freshest air i've breathed. We were about an hour out of Chiang Mai already, what a great train ride.
Chiang Mai is a small city of about a million people in the hills of northern Thailand. It's surrounded by jungle and in close proximity to the many hill tribe villages that live in the mountains, who still try to maintain traditional ways of life. We took a Tuk Tuk through the main city to the hostel which I had picked out from my guidebook. Julies Guesthouse in Chiang Mai is definitely one of the coolest little places i've ever stayed and if anyone ever goes there I recommend it. The rooms were also 150 baht a night for a two bed private room. Which is about $4 Canadian. On the roof they have hammocks laid out and the downstairs common room is full of backpackers mingling. They even have a giant fridge they stock with beer and let everyone take whatever they want as long as they write down in a book what they took. That was the mood in Chiang Mai, laid back and friendly. The bar worked on the honour system for god sakes. This was a place that old hippies flocked to, and we met lots of them who had taken up permanent residence in the city. We explored the city a bit, but decided to take a day of rest before heading on any crazy adventures. At night we went to the Riverside bar and saw one of the best cover bands i've ever seen. Thai people know how to rock and roll like no ones business. Looking around the bar I noticed they were very different from Chinese people. The Thai are hipper and more stylish. They were more laid back and friendly than their distant cousins from the North. If I could describe Thai people i would say they are like Rastafarian Chinese. I heard Bob Marley and Chilli Peppers everywhere. They definitely had a better music taste than the endless Lady Gaga I hear in China.
The next day I rented myself a second bike. Scoot Scoot II. This red beauty came with helmets this time, but because i'm badass like that I decided against wearing it. But mostly because I saw children driving around on them without helmets. As you probably figured already, safety regulations are much more - whats the word i'm looking for.. non-existant.. in Asia. Like petting a 500-pound man-eating predator for example or driving 90 down a highway on a vehicle I had never driven before without a helmet. But, living in China the past 6 months I had grown used to the carelessness and come to embrace it. I myself had gotten a little better with driving the bike, but we were deciding if we were going to let Craig rent his own to follow us up the mountain we intended to drive up. We worried about our new adopted child, you know? I took him out on mine to show him the ropes and then gave him the keys and let him go off on his own for a bit. We were sitting eating breakfast when he came back covered in blood. He had bailed out on one of the busy streets and gone flying onto the sidewalk. We took the keys away and patched him up.
"Yea... theres no way i'm letting you get on a bike and try to drive up a mountain after that." I said to him. And we put him in a cab to follow us there.
We began our ascent up Mount Doi Suthep, about 20 minutes out of the city of Chiang Mai. The roads twist and turn sharply with perilous cliffs on the side of you. It was quite the ride and Vanessa was hanging on the back for her life as I twisted my way up the mountain. The view kept getting nicer as we made our way up. On top of the mountain, we visited a Buddhist Temple, had lunch and decided to go off on our own little hike through the jungle. As we made our way through the thick jungle we came across a bunch of caves where as we passed noticed some monks who had taken up residence in them. I tried to be quiet and respectful while passing them but much to my surprise they suddenly turned on some music and one started puffing on a cigarette. What was this? Were monks allowed to smoke cigarettes? Had we discovered renegade monks who escaped the monastery to live in caves? They did not speak a word of english but happily waved and smiled at us as we passed. It was a strange sight indeed. We headed back to the bike and made our way down back the mountain. I now wish I got a picture with smoking cave monk. Oh well.
On our last day in Chiang Mai, we signed up for one of the day trips. We jumped on a truck with about 6 other people and headed off about 2 hours out of the city. After one of the bumpiest rides of my life we got out at an elephant camp where we got to hang out with some elephants for a bit. I thoroughly enjoyed feeding them bananas for some reason. They would get all excited when you had them and follow you around until you gave them to them. Then they'd snatch them from you with their trunks and pop them in their mouth, peel and all. When it came to ride them I didn't really even want to. I just wanted to feed them more bananas. But the tour group had a schedule and moments later I was riding atop an elephant through the jungle. After the elephant ride we would have a three hour hike to a waterfall. And we pulled up the camp where we met our Thai guides, one of which was a dog, who ran through the jungle with tourists everyday and knew the route. We followed our canine guide through the dense jungle and eventually stopped at a little hill tribe village hut to have lunch. We ate some Pad Thai and then they gave us a bucket of rocks and slingshots to keep us busy for a little bit. Oh they knew me so well. After trying to peg a target for awhile the hike continued to the waterfall. And after a white-water raft trip back to the elephant camp, we got back in the truck and headed to visit one of the hill-tribe villages. The most famous one being the long-necked Karen tribe. Who you've probably seen in national geographic with all the rings on their necks. I had no idea they were in Thailand until then.
Just outside the Karen village there was a little monkey going crazy. He had a leash attached to him but he had gotten himself all wrapped around a bush. His owner was nowhere to be seen so I decided to help the little guy out and broke the branch, freeing him from his shackles.
This was a terrible mistake.
The monkey immediately jumped up and knocked someones drink out of their hand, which was a cold coffee drink. He then proceeded to drink the coffee and after that he was wired beyond belief. He went bananas.
Jumping off the bench at me, he grabbed onto my arm, climbed up and ripped off my necklace. I was pissed.
This monkey was going down.
I grabbed him and tried to pin him down on the ground but he jumped out again and started climbing up my leg. He started pulling my hair and I grabbed him again and tried to hold him still. Grabbing his little arms, flailing and punching me, I managed to throw him off me. At the time I was not very happy but thinking back I had just enacted one of my lifelong dreams. I had successfully had a duel with a monkey. Though he was far too nimble for me and I eventually gave up the battle. I still believe it was a tie.
After a long day of elephant feeding, hiking, white-water rafting and monkey battling we once again had to head back to Bangkok. When we got back to the train station we were informed that the train we were supposed to board had broken down and we would have to take a bus back. We weren't too happy about this but luckily the bus only took about 8 hours and we arrived back in Bangkok at about 5am monday morning. We checked into another of the thousand hostels near Kao San road and took a much needed day of rest.
We would be heading down south next, to the island of Koh Samet to spend the remaining days of our vacation in a tropical paradise.
At the train station we tried to get our tickets to Chiang Mai but much to our disappointment, all the sleeper class tickets were sold out for a few days. Memories suddenly flooded into my head of my 13 hour train ride in China without a seat. I would NOT go through with that again in any circumstance, but i also did not want to stay in Bangkok for a few days. While sitting around debating what to do, we found Craig sitting alone in the train station waiting for the same train we were trying to get on. What are the chances of that? He was here about an hour before us and got one of the last sleeper tickets. What a doosh. After much debate we decided to suck it up and book a ticket anyways. We ended up scoring the 2nd class air-conditioned car with two, very broken but better than the ground, seats.
The train ride turned out to be quite a crazy adventure. As we rolled out of the Bangkok station heading north, we met up with Craig and made our way to the restaurant car for dinner and some drinks. We ended up meeting a whole group of Germans and the beers kept coming. They even kept the car open just for us. But soon, the Thai staffs hospitality waned when they realized we could drink all night and weren't going to bed any time soon. So they kicked us out of the restaurant and closed the car for the night. Left to wander the cars with nowhere to continue our little party, we all somehow ended up in one of the bathroom cars. Out came another bottle of whiskey from the Germans and the night continued on, much to the annoyance of the rest of the train who were likely trying to sleep. We would meet lots of other Germans on our trip and i'll have to say they are quite the fun bunch of people. Especially when they get into the booze. So here we were, all crammed tightly into the washroom car, taking shots and discussing the differences between our countries late into the night. When finally enough people had come to complain and we decided we should probably head to bed. I stumbled back to my car, sat down in my chair and fell into a nice, whiskey induced sleep.
I woke up surrounded by thick, green jungle and beautiful mountains. There was a part between the cars which was open to the outside and I leaned out to take a look. The view almost immediately cured my hangover and I took a deep breath of some of the freshest air i've breathed. We were about an hour out of Chiang Mai already, what a great train ride.
Chiang Mai is a small city of about a million people in the hills of northern Thailand. It's surrounded by jungle and in close proximity to the many hill tribe villages that live in the mountains, who still try to maintain traditional ways of life. We took a Tuk Tuk through the main city to the hostel which I had picked out from my guidebook. Julies Guesthouse in Chiang Mai is definitely one of the coolest little places i've ever stayed and if anyone ever goes there I recommend it. The rooms were also 150 baht a night for a two bed private room. Which is about $4 Canadian. On the roof they have hammocks laid out and the downstairs common room is full of backpackers mingling. They even have a giant fridge they stock with beer and let everyone take whatever they want as long as they write down in a book what they took. That was the mood in Chiang Mai, laid back and friendly. The bar worked on the honour system for god sakes. This was a place that old hippies flocked to, and we met lots of them who had taken up permanent residence in the city. We explored the city a bit, but decided to take a day of rest before heading on any crazy adventures. At night we went to the Riverside bar and saw one of the best cover bands i've ever seen. Thai people know how to rock and roll like no ones business. Looking around the bar I noticed they were very different from Chinese people. The Thai are hipper and more stylish. They were more laid back and friendly than their distant cousins from the North. If I could describe Thai people i would say they are like Rastafarian Chinese. I heard Bob Marley and Chilli Peppers everywhere. They definitely had a better music taste than the endless Lady Gaga I hear in China.
The next day I rented myself a second bike. Scoot Scoot II. This red beauty came with helmets this time, but because i'm badass like that I decided against wearing it. But mostly because I saw children driving around on them without helmets. As you probably figured already, safety regulations are much more - whats the word i'm looking for.. non-existant.. in Asia. Like petting a 500-pound man-eating predator for example or driving 90 down a highway on a vehicle I had never driven before without a helmet. But, living in China the past 6 months I had grown used to the carelessness and come to embrace it. I myself had gotten a little better with driving the bike, but we were deciding if we were going to let Craig rent his own to follow us up the mountain we intended to drive up. We worried about our new adopted child, you know? I took him out on mine to show him the ropes and then gave him the keys and let him go off on his own for a bit. We were sitting eating breakfast when he came back covered in blood. He had bailed out on one of the busy streets and gone flying onto the sidewalk. We took the keys away and patched him up.
"Yea... theres no way i'm letting you get on a bike and try to drive up a mountain after that." I said to him. And we put him in a cab to follow us there.
We began our ascent up Mount Doi Suthep, about 20 minutes out of the city of Chiang Mai. The roads twist and turn sharply with perilous cliffs on the side of you. It was quite the ride and Vanessa was hanging on the back for her life as I twisted my way up the mountain. The view kept getting nicer as we made our way up. On top of the mountain, we visited a Buddhist Temple, had lunch and decided to go off on our own little hike through the jungle. As we made our way through the thick jungle we came across a bunch of caves where as we passed noticed some monks who had taken up residence in them. I tried to be quiet and respectful while passing them but much to my surprise they suddenly turned on some music and one started puffing on a cigarette. What was this? Were monks allowed to smoke cigarettes? Had we discovered renegade monks who escaped the monastery to live in caves? They did not speak a word of english but happily waved and smiled at us as we passed. It was a strange sight indeed. We headed back to the bike and made our way down back the mountain. I now wish I got a picture with smoking cave monk. Oh well.
On our last day in Chiang Mai, we signed up for one of the day trips. We jumped on a truck with about 6 other people and headed off about 2 hours out of the city. After one of the bumpiest rides of my life we got out at an elephant camp where we got to hang out with some elephants for a bit. I thoroughly enjoyed feeding them bananas for some reason. They would get all excited when you had them and follow you around until you gave them to them. Then they'd snatch them from you with their trunks and pop them in their mouth, peel and all. When it came to ride them I didn't really even want to. I just wanted to feed them more bananas. But the tour group had a schedule and moments later I was riding atop an elephant through the jungle. After the elephant ride we would have a three hour hike to a waterfall. And we pulled up the camp where we met our Thai guides, one of which was a dog, who ran through the jungle with tourists everyday and knew the route. We followed our canine guide through the dense jungle and eventually stopped at a little hill tribe village hut to have lunch. We ate some Pad Thai and then they gave us a bucket of rocks and slingshots to keep us busy for a little bit. Oh they knew me so well. After trying to peg a target for awhile the hike continued to the waterfall. And after a white-water raft trip back to the elephant camp, we got back in the truck and headed to visit one of the hill-tribe villages. The most famous one being the long-necked Karen tribe. Who you've probably seen in national geographic with all the rings on their necks. I had no idea they were in Thailand until then.
Just outside the Karen village there was a little monkey going crazy. He had a leash attached to him but he had gotten himself all wrapped around a bush. His owner was nowhere to be seen so I decided to help the little guy out and broke the branch, freeing him from his shackles.
This was a terrible mistake.
The monkey immediately jumped up and knocked someones drink out of their hand, which was a cold coffee drink. He then proceeded to drink the coffee and after that he was wired beyond belief. He went bananas.
Jumping off the bench at me, he grabbed onto my arm, climbed up and ripped off my necklace. I was pissed.
This monkey was going down.
I grabbed him and tried to pin him down on the ground but he jumped out again and started climbing up my leg. He started pulling my hair and I grabbed him again and tried to hold him still. Grabbing his little arms, flailing and punching me, I managed to throw him off me. At the time I was not very happy but thinking back I had just enacted one of my lifelong dreams. I had successfully had a duel with a monkey. Though he was far too nimble for me and I eventually gave up the battle. I still believe it was a tie.
After a long day of elephant feeding, hiking, white-water rafting and monkey battling we once again had to head back to Bangkok. When we got back to the train station we were informed that the train we were supposed to board had broken down and we would have to take a bus back. We weren't too happy about this but luckily the bus only took about 8 hours and we arrived back in Bangkok at about 5am monday morning. We checked into another of the thousand hostels near Kao San road and took a much needed day of rest.
We would be heading down south next, to the island of Koh Samet to spend the remaining days of our vacation in a tropical paradise.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thailand Adventure part 2
I awoke to the sounds of the most annoying animal i've ever heard.
I thought the chinese bird outside my window or the man coughing up phlegm every morning was the worst, until I heard this thing. It would continue to pester me each morning in Kanchanaburi and regretfully I do not possess a firearm. Nature 1 Corey 0.
I stepped outside of our wooden hut to check out what was making this awful sound and was greeted by a wonderful little dog we afterwards nicknamed Buddha; Because he was wise beyond measure. It was then that I took notice of the 5 foot long lizard sitting on a rock beside our bungalow. Good start to a day so far.
We had our breakfast at our hostel on the terrace overlooking the lake. It was then that we met Craig from Vancouver. A 19 year old kid travelling through Thailand on his own and would later become me and Vanessa's adopted son. I left the two there and headed out into town to rent my motorbike.
At the rental place the man took my passport as a deposit and asked if I had ever driven one before.
"No, but i've ridden on the back of one in China many times." I said. This didn't seem to bother him in the slightest as he started up the engine and gave me a quick run down on the bikes controls. I left out the fact that I've crashed near every vehicle i've ever driven as well as have no balance whatsoever.
"Turn handle. Gas. Brake. Stay to the left. Go. Bye bye." He then quickly handed me the keys and sent me on my way.
I peeled out of the parking lot and wobbled my way slowly onto the street. I immediately regretted this decision. I was in ASIA for god sakes, with the craziest drivers in the world. Driving a vehicle with no experience, no insurance and no helmet. What the hell. You live once. I drove around town for a little bit to start to get the hang of driving, then headed back to the hostel before setting out.
Minutes later I was cruising the countryside, with the green mountains of Burma on my left and the jungles of Thailand on my right. It was a feeling of freedom hard to describe. After the first hour or so of driving my fear started to fade and I was becoming more confident on the bike. We even named the bike. Scoot Scoot.
Amazingly, I found my way there using the jumble of maps i'd picked up at the hostel and we finally pulled up to the Erawan 7-Step Waterfalls hiking trail entrance. On the way into the park I was surprised and shocked to bump into Ryan and Tyler; we had parted ways in Bangkok and I had no idea they would be there. It's weird how things like that happen and it wouldn't be the first time.
The Erawan waterfalls is about an hour hike up steep hills and rocks. There are seven tiers of the hike, each with an even better waterfall than the next until you reached the seventh. Which is the one the place is named after. As we made our way up the tiers I couldn't help to notice the abundance of fat old european men with incredibly attractive girlfriends. Oh how the hot ones cling to money. And i knew they were european because they were all wearing speedos. So. Many. Speedos. We made a game out of it. I probably saw at least 75 men hiking the trails or swimming in the waterfalls in speedos. All of which shouldn't, in ANY circumstance, ever consider wearing one in public. We were so distressed by the scenery in fact, we didn't even stick to the path at one point and went off on our own climbing up a waterfall. Doing so we didn't make it to the seventh waterfall before the park closed and had to go back the next day. After swimming in one of the pools and getting attacked by fish, a feeling I despised but everyone around me didn't seem to mind, we headed back down the trails. On the way down we came across a family of monkeys who laid claim to the steps leading down. I approached cautiously, as I was told the monkeys here sometimes attack people. The smaller ones moved away as I moved closer but the oldest and biggest one stood his ground, baring his teeth at me and staring me down.
If he could speak I was imagining him as Gandalf saying. "You shall not pass!"
I tried to find another way down the hill but they were all about a 20 foot drop. The stairs were the only way. It was do or die. Man or beast. As I was getting ready to challenge this primate to a duel over who may pass, a "Speedo" came by and threw a bag of peanuts at him. The monkey excitedly caught it and ripped the bag open, peanuts flying everywhere. Now was my chance! I quickly jolted around him and ran down the stairs.
Nature 1 Corey 1.
Back at the hostel we met up with Craig again and headed out for drinks for the night. After a random game of Jenga we found this bar sitting out on the street offering 10 baht shots. Which i believe is the equivalent of a few cents Canadian. We sat and met other backpackers from all over the world and enjoyed the end to a great day. Next, we would be heading to the Tiger temple.
The tiger temple in Thailand started out with one tiger cub. It's parents were killed by poachers and it was brought to a monastery near Kanchanaburi. After that many more tiger cubs were given to the temple to be raised by monks and the numbers quickly grew. It became a sanctuary for the declining numbers of tigers and eventually a tourist attraction, today, they have about 90 tigers. We were initially debating going or not because we had heard rumours of mistreatment and generally hated tourist traps, but when we got there we were proven wrong. All the tourist activities there are not intrusive. You are only allowed to help with or be part of natural daily activities such as walking them, exercises, feeding and playing. The part where you can take pictures with the bigger ones is during a point in the day where they generally nap. In half the pictures I have with the big guys they are asleep. But nevertheless, as I crouched down beside this 500 pound animal and pat him on the head, I couldn't help to be just a little scared knowing it could end my life instantly.
After escorting one of the big tigers on their walk to their resting area, we headed up a hill and through a random herd of water buffalo to the cub pen. We had payed a little extra to be part of the feeding. Luckily there were only about 3 other people with us and we had the little guys all to ourselves. There were 9 cubs, from only few weeks old to about a month. When we got there most of them were sleeping but they soon woke up for play time and were running all around us. Or trying to, the newborns could barely walk. I was playing with one of the younger ones when I noticed out of the corner of my eye one of the older cubs stalking around a corner. Next thing I knew he was charging at me full speed and pounced on my back, digging his new teeth into my side. He may have only been a month old but he had new teeth and was eager to use them. I was bleeding through my shirt as I chased him down and picked him up. "No mauling!" I said to him. Little bastard. Nature 2 Corey 1. But yes, now I can truthfully say I have tiger mauling wounds. It was such an amazing opportunity to be so close to these endangered animals. I can't think of too many places in Canada i'd get the chance to do that. After a quick feeding we said our goodbyes and headed home. It was one of my favourite memories from Thailand.
On the way home, just to add some more excitement to the day, I pulled sharply around a corner in town, lost control and rammed the bike into a bench. I flew off the side and scraped myself up bad on the sidewalk. Good job Corey. Almost two days without crashing and it had to happen at the end. Luckily, Scoot Scoot was okay but I ended up having to pay for the bench that I destroyed. I left it there but I'll have you know i'm the proud owner of the nicest, slightly broken, hand-made bench in town.
The next day we left Kanchanaburi, said goodbye to Craig and boarded another minivan for Bangkok. We would be taking a 13 hour overnight train up to the northern province of Chiang Mai. Where there was thick jungles and the southern tip of the Himalayas. As the bus pulled away I knew I would miss this little town, the waterfalls, the monkeys and tigers.
But I was looking forward to the next part of the trip.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Thailand Adventure part 1
It began like most of my adventures have;
Me running full speed through an airport because I miscalculated something or got lost somewhere. Out of breath, I finally made it to my boarding area to find the flight was delayed. Big surprise. Every single flight I have taken in China so far has been delayed. I got in the long line of asians and waited excitedly. I was finally going to Thailand. The months of waiting had finally passed. I was getting out of this dirty, cold city for one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
After a quick layover in Guangzhou, I finally landed at the Bangkok airport at about 11:30pm and waited around for an hour to see if i'd catch my friends landing. Ryan and Tyler (2 teachers from the Xudong branch) were supposed to be arriving around the same time as me. Almost immediately I noticed the amount of english everywhere. The Thai people were all so friendly and helpful. The language I had attempted to pick up became almost pointless as everyone there spoke english. The moment I stepped outside someone came up to me and asked me where I was going, translated for a taxi driver and escorted me there. This wasn't like China at all.
I made my way through Bangkok, past huge highways, toll booths and shopping malls, juxtaposed with hundreds of temples and massive pictures of the King on every corner. Yellow. Everywhere. It was a shock to my senses after the grey of China. I've never seen so much yellow in my life. As well as elephant statues. Thailand has revered elephants for many centuries as well as being part of their national symbol.
Driving through the very small back streets, I arrived at the area around Kao San road; The main spot for tourists and backpackers from all over the world. As I was pulling up to my hostel I didn't feel like I was in asia anymore. Hundreds of foreigners all sat at outside bars and restaurants. 7/11's on every corner. I would come to know this area well. I checked into the Wild Orchid Villa in my double room. Vanessa, My friend and travel buddy from Ottawa was supposed to have arrived that night, but her flight was delayed and she was stuck in Tokyo. So I was all alone in this strange new place, but after a long day of travel I passed out quickly.
The next day I stepped outside to the heat and blue skies. Suck it China.
Randomly, I finally bumped into some of the other teachers and we all set out for the day. Bangkok is situated on two sides of a river and a ferry taxi can take you to most of the main spots in the city. It was great travelling around Bangkok by boat and it offered scenic views of the various temples along the river. Me and another teacher boarded the boat and some lady started yelling at me. She pointed to a sign saying "space for monks." and I was standing directly under it. Great. I've only been here a few hours and i've already disrespected the culture.
In Thailand, Monks play a big part in society. Everybody is encouraged to become a monk for a few years of their lives. They must be silent, dress in a giant orange robe and shave their heads for the duration of there monkhood. Everywhere I went in Thailand there were monks and it was a strange sight seeing them in loud, bustling Bangkok. It's not a very serene city to say the least.
I visited my first temple compound, replete with giant conicle spires and the biggest Buddha statue i've ever seen in my life. There were also a lot of rules for being on temple grounds. You weren't allowed to wear shoes or shorts and women had to cover their shoulders. All out of respect for the city monks. The temples were tourist attractions, but they are still used daily by the hundreds of monks in the city. I respected the culture accordingly, and asked Buddha to not let me die a tragic death on my vacation. Why not.
As the day winded down I came to learn the other side of Bangkok. The nightlife. As I drunkenly staggered through Kao San at night, there was music and alcohol as far as the eye could see. The beer was also %6.4. Which after drinking the sad excuse the chinese call beer for so long, hit me like a truck. My third night in Bangkok I vaguely remember meeting some Thai people, downing some scotch and ending up at a gigantic club. It was shortly after that I realized there were absolutely no women in this club. Except for Vanessa, who had finally arrived, I wondered why it was the biggest sausage fest in all of Asia. Oh yes. I finally realized, I was at a gay club. Awesome.
I layed off the booze for awhile after that. We needed to get out of Bangkok asap. I packed my bags and we booked our bus ticket to Kanchanaburi, where we'd spend the next leg of the vacation.
We took a 4 hour mini bus out of Bangkok and, after passing out from our hangovers, we woke up in a much different scene than we came from.
Kanchanaburi is a quiet little town with a small foreign area for tourists and backpackers. It would become one of my favourite places on the trip.
The driver dropped us off in the middle of the town, and we somehow had to find our way to wherever this backpacker area was. Hoping my lonely planet guide book was up to date, we made our way to Sams place which was a hostel one of the other teachers had recommended. As we strolled through town, I immediately fell in love with this cozy little place. It had a small town feel to it and the main tourist street was lined with small westerner bars, restaurants and live music. Most of the town is right by the river and across that miles of jungle and the mountains of Burma. At Sams place, we checked into our little wooden bungalow that was actually on a platform over the riverbank and I talked with the owner a bit about my itinerary. I planned on renting a motorcycle and driving two hours into the countryside to the Erawan waterfalls. Let me add that I've never ridden one in my entire life. Add the fact that in Thailand they drive on the left side of the road. I also get lost quite often. But I decided that on this vacation I wasn't going to go with any tour groups or take guides, I was going to do things my own way. Which required a lot more planning and left lots of room for disaster. Which the bruises on my body would now tell you.
Me running full speed through an airport because I miscalculated something or got lost somewhere. Out of breath, I finally made it to my boarding area to find the flight was delayed. Big surprise. Every single flight I have taken in China so far has been delayed. I got in the long line of asians and waited excitedly. I was finally going to Thailand. The months of waiting had finally passed. I was getting out of this dirty, cold city for one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
After a quick layover in Guangzhou, I finally landed at the Bangkok airport at about 11:30pm and waited around for an hour to see if i'd catch my friends landing. Ryan and Tyler (2 teachers from the Xudong branch) were supposed to be arriving around the same time as me. Almost immediately I noticed the amount of english everywhere. The Thai people were all so friendly and helpful. The language I had attempted to pick up became almost pointless as everyone there spoke english. The moment I stepped outside someone came up to me and asked me where I was going, translated for a taxi driver and escorted me there. This wasn't like China at all.
I made my way through Bangkok, past huge highways, toll booths and shopping malls, juxtaposed with hundreds of temples and massive pictures of the King on every corner. Yellow. Everywhere. It was a shock to my senses after the grey of China. I've never seen so much yellow in my life. As well as elephant statues. Thailand has revered elephants for many centuries as well as being part of their national symbol.
Driving through the very small back streets, I arrived at the area around Kao San road; The main spot for tourists and backpackers from all over the world. As I was pulling up to my hostel I didn't feel like I was in asia anymore. Hundreds of foreigners all sat at outside bars and restaurants. 7/11's on every corner. I would come to know this area well. I checked into the Wild Orchid Villa in my double room. Vanessa, My friend and travel buddy from Ottawa was supposed to have arrived that night, but her flight was delayed and she was stuck in Tokyo. So I was all alone in this strange new place, but after a long day of travel I passed out quickly.
The next day I stepped outside to the heat and blue skies. Suck it China.
Randomly, I finally bumped into some of the other teachers and we all set out for the day. Bangkok is situated on two sides of a river and a ferry taxi can take you to most of the main spots in the city. It was great travelling around Bangkok by boat and it offered scenic views of the various temples along the river. Me and another teacher boarded the boat and some lady started yelling at me. She pointed to a sign saying "space for monks." and I was standing directly under it. Great. I've only been here a few hours and i've already disrespected the culture.
In Thailand, Monks play a big part in society. Everybody is encouraged to become a monk for a few years of their lives. They must be silent, dress in a giant orange robe and shave their heads for the duration of there monkhood. Everywhere I went in Thailand there were monks and it was a strange sight seeing them in loud, bustling Bangkok. It's not a very serene city to say the least.
I visited my first temple compound, replete with giant conicle spires and the biggest Buddha statue i've ever seen in my life. There were also a lot of rules for being on temple grounds. You weren't allowed to wear shoes or shorts and women had to cover their shoulders. All out of respect for the city monks. The temples were tourist attractions, but they are still used daily by the hundreds of monks in the city. I respected the culture accordingly, and asked Buddha to not let me die a tragic death on my vacation. Why not.
As the day winded down I came to learn the other side of Bangkok. The nightlife. As I drunkenly staggered through Kao San at night, there was music and alcohol as far as the eye could see. The beer was also %6.4. Which after drinking the sad excuse the chinese call beer for so long, hit me like a truck. My third night in Bangkok I vaguely remember meeting some Thai people, downing some scotch and ending up at a gigantic club. It was shortly after that I realized there were absolutely no women in this club. Except for Vanessa, who had finally arrived, I wondered why it was the biggest sausage fest in all of Asia. Oh yes. I finally realized, I was at a gay club. Awesome.
I layed off the booze for awhile after that. We needed to get out of Bangkok asap. I packed my bags and we booked our bus ticket to Kanchanaburi, where we'd spend the next leg of the vacation.
We took a 4 hour mini bus out of Bangkok and, after passing out from our hangovers, we woke up in a much different scene than we came from.
Kanchanaburi is a quiet little town with a small foreign area for tourists and backpackers. It would become one of my favourite places on the trip.
The driver dropped us off in the middle of the town, and we somehow had to find our way to wherever this backpacker area was. Hoping my lonely planet guide book was up to date, we made our way to Sams place which was a hostel one of the other teachers had recommended. As we strolled through town, I immediately fell in love with this cozy little place. It had a small town feel to it and the main tourist street was lined with small westerner bars, restaurants and live music. Most of the town is right by the river and across that miles of jungle and the mountains of Burma. At Sams place, we checked into our little wooden bungalow that was actually on a platform over the riverbank and I talked with the owner a bit about my itinerary. I planned on renting a motorcycle and driving two hours into the countryside to the Erawan waterfalls. Let me add that I've never ridden one in my entire life. Add the fact that in Thailand they drive on the left side of the road. I also get lost quite often. But I decided that on this vacation I wasn't going to go with any tour groups or take guides, I was going to do things my own way. Which required a lot more planning and left lots of room for disaster. Which the bruises on my body would now tell you.
Monday, January 17, 2011
The halfway point!
Good evening wei guo rens! or good day...
A little delayed I know but Happy New year to friends and family. Chinese New year isn't until february 3rd so I will exempt myself from such delayed accusations. I've been here 5 months now i can say i'm at least part Chinese.
I'm here now at the halfway point of the school year as well as my time here and I'll have to say, China has been everything i'd imagined as well as nothing i could've conceived. I can only write about my thoughts and feelings about this place but you really can only fully grasp it by being here. Even then, so much of China is 50/50 that you can never quite pinpoint what it is. For every thing I admire about China, another thing opposes it into almost redundancy. For example, they seem to be uptight about saving energy. They have heaters in the classrooms and buildings but almost never turn them on. I teach my classes in my winter jacket, breath visible from the cold and my hands shaking as they write on the chalkboard. Most restaurants are practically outside. The buildings have no insulation or central heating, they are just concrete slabs. Now coming from Canada, this has been completely backwards to me. We are a culture that is quite prepared and adjusted to the cold, but Wuhan has no idea what to do when the snow comes. I see people outside walking around with umbrellas when its snowing and I can't help but laugh. When i've asked why they don't shut the windows or doors and turn the heaters on they have told me that it would waste power. Also, they believe that if they shut all the windows in a building they will die of not having enough fresh air.
Now heres the redundant part. There is no fresh air in Wuhan! You can barely see across the river on a clear day, through the grey blanket that covers the city. This is also the reason it always feels colder or hotter than it actually is. The sun cannot penetrate the pollution cloud very well. I've noticed it only gets lighter in the morning around 8 or so because it takes the sun awhile longer for its light to penetrate the hazy Chinese horizon. And on the wasting electricity part, they seem to turn there heads when it comes to advertisement or aesthetic. Forget comfort of human beings. Like I noticed back in my first day here the Chinese light up everything. They put huge neon signs on everything the eye can see, advertisements and eye candy glittering 24/7. Even the ancient pagoda in the centre of the city, Yellow Crane Tower, hasn't escaped this fate. At night it's lit by thousands of bright yellow lights.
They pride themselves on proper parenting, they say us from the west are too soft on our children. So they put them through almost 12 hours of school a day and when they get home at 7 or 8 at night its 3 hours of homework or practice before bed. Where is the quality family time in that? They eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at school except on weekends, even then they probably eat at the various training schools they go to. I believe it is too much. This was nailed on the head for me last week during the kids final exams for the semester. One of my favourite students from my grade 4 class came up to me with red scars and bruises all over his face. When I asked him what happened he said his father hit him to make sure he got over 95% on all his tests. And this is one of the smartest kids in that class. This seems like its quite commonplace here. And I don't like it one bit.
As crazy as that all sounds there are many good things about China. I'm still here aren't I? There's just something about being here that's hard to explain in words. It's definitely a love/hate relationship and I'll write about some of the more positive aspects of China in the future. But let me update you all a bit on recent events.
I had a great weekend, I finally experienced a truly Chinese night out on Friday when I was invited by Christian to come out with all his chinese friends. See, while we have all been hanging out with each other on weekends, Christian has gone out and made a lot of chinese friends. Ones that speak decent english, no doubt. Which are hard to come by.
We all went to the roller skating place again. It took me awhile to get used to, but everyone there holds hands. Guys in the chinese group would come up to me and hold my hand while I skated. Which years of hanging out with dudes back home told me was a definite no no. Then, Chinese girls would also come up and hold my hand while I skated. Which years of being around women, told me it was time to throw on the old charm (and fail). Alas, Neither was the case. This is just normal here.
Afterwards, we all went to a typical Chinese barbeque, where we got every type of animal known to man barbequed on a stick. I ate cartilage and intestine for the first time. That was interesting. Then me and Shane, being the canadian men we are, decided to challenge the chinese guys to a beer chugging competition. Let me remind you that Chinese beer is 2.5%, so let's just say we destroyed them.
This all backfired when we noticed all the guys were then quite drunk. Apparently drinking 3 beers in China is a big deal. And if you all remember the last time I was at dinner with drunk chinese men you can imagine how it went from there. Next thing I knew I was driving someones car through the city to a KTV (karaoke) bar. If you also recall what I have written about chinese driving you can imagine my fear. But don't worry mother I only almost got hit by a van once and slightly crashed while parking. Just a dented license plate. No big deal.
About half an hour later I was standing on a couch with two beers in my hand singing Bon Jovi to a room of chinese people. How do you hold a microphone and two beers at once you ask? Easy! You hang the mic from the ceiling.
Chinese karaoke is very different from our karaoke. You basically get a room with a big TV, a couch and a table. You all just take turns selecting songs and sing to each other. It was strange at first but once i got into it I was singing backstreet boys and at the same time wondering where my dignity went.
After getting home at 5am, I woke up the next day and started to prepare for my show. Me and Shane were performing for our second time at the Toucan.
I'm really starting to like this bar. And I think they are taking a liking to us as well. We've played there twice now and every time we do they keep offering us more. We are now booked every second weekend as well as get free food and beer. They also booked us St. Pattys day, which will be ridiculous considering the Toucan is the only Irish Pub in the entire Hubei province. It's such an escape from China being there. You walk in and you could very well be at any pub in Ottawa. They have real beer and real food. I convinced them to make me poutine and we are in talks about getting hockey games played as well.
On saturday we invited all the chinese friends out from the night before and showed them a western style party. Heres a video taken by one of the chinese girls of me and Shane introducing Canadian east coast music to the Chinese populace.
http://www.56.com/u32/v_NTc4NDU4NTM.html
Anyways, now here I am all alone in the building. All the other teachers have already left for their holidays and I don't fly out until Thursday. I'm getting pretty anxious to leave, my bags are pretty much already packed and i've been pacing my room all day. Also, I was sleeping the other night and my bed decided to break. Actually more like implode. It sent me crashing to the floor and as you can imagine it was quite the way to be woken up. Once again, this sort of thing only happens to me.
So I am now sleeping on the floor.
I'm not going to have my laptop with my on my trip so after Thursday I won't be able to update this for a month. But I think i'm going to take my notebook with me and try to keep a written journal of the trip. I'll just type it all up when I get back. I think that might be better than me just trying to remember everything like on my trip to Beijing/Shanghai.
Anyways, i'll write again before I leave.
Good bye!
在见！
ลาก่อน!
A little delayed I know but Happy New year to friends and family. Chinese New year isn't until february 3rd so I will exempt myself from such delayed accusations. I've been here 5 months now i can say i'm at least part Chinese.
I'm here now at the halfway point of the school year as well as my time here and I'll have to say, China has been everything i'd imagined as well as nothing i could've conceived. I can only write about my thoughts and feelings about this place but you really can only fully grasp it by being here. Even then, so much of China is 50/50 that you can never quite pinpoint what it is. For every thing I admire about China, another thing opposes it into almost redundancy. For example, they seem to be uptight about saving energy. They have heaters in the classrooms and buildings but almost never turn them on. I teach my classes in my winter jacket, breath visible from the cold and my hands shaking as they write on the chalkboard. Most restaurants are practically outside. The buildings have no insulation or central heating, they are just concrete slabs. Now coming from Canada, this has been completely backwards to me. We are a culture that is quite prepared and adjusted to the cold, but Wuhan has no idea what to do when the snow comes. I see people outside walking around with umbrellas when its snowing and I can't help but laugh. When i've asked why they don't shut the windows or doors and turn the heaters on they have told me that it would waste power. Also, they believe that if they shut all the windows in a building they will die of not having enough fresh air.
Now heres the redundant part. There is no fresh air in Wuhan! You can barely see across the river on a clear day, through the grey blanket that covers the city. This is also the reason it always feels colder or hotter than it actually is. The sun cannot penetrate the pollution cloud very well. I've noticed it only gets lighter in the morning around 8 or so because it takes the sun awhile longer for its light to penetrate the hazy Chinese horizon. And on the wasting electricity part, they seem to turn there heads when it comes to advertisement or aesthetic. Forget comfort of human beings. Like I noticed back in my first day here the Chinese light up everything. They put huge neon signs on everything the eye can see, advertisements and eye candy glittering 24/7. Even the ancient pagoda in the centre of the city, Yellow Crane Tower, hasn't escaped this fate. At night it's lit by thousands of bright yellow lights.
They pride themselves on proper parenting, they say us from the west are too soft on our children. So they put them through almost 12 hours of school a day and when they get home at 7 or 8 at night its 3 hours of homework or practice before bed. Where is the quality family time in that? They eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at school except on weekends, even then they probably eat at the various training schools they go to. I believe it is too much. This was nailed on the head for me last week during the kids final exams for the semester. One of my favourite students from my grade 4 class came up to me with red scars and bruises all over his face. When I asked him what happened he said his father hit him to make sure he got over 95% on all his tests. And this is one of the smartest kids in that class. This seems like its quite commonplace here. And I don't like it one bit.
As crazy as that all sounds there are many good things about China. I'm still here aren't I? There's just something about being here that's hard to explain in words. It's definitely a love/hate relationship and I'll write about some of the more positive aspects of China in the future. But let me update you all a bit on recent events.
I had a great weekend, I finally experienced a truly Chinese night out on Friday when I was invited by Christian to come out with all his chinese friends. See, while we have all been hanging out with each other on weekends, Christian has gone out and made a lot of chinese friends. Ones that speak decent english, no doubt. Which are hard to come by.
We all went to the roller skating place again. It took me awhile to get used to, but everyone there holds hands. Guys in the chinese group would come up to me and hold my hand while I skated. Which years of hanging out with dudes back home told me was a definite no no. Then, Chinese girls would also come up and hold my hand while I skated. Which years of being around women, told me it was time to throw on the old charm (and fail). Alas, Neither was the case. This is just normal here.
Afterwards, we all went to a typical Chinese barbeque, where we got every type of animal known to man barbequed on a stick. I ate cartilage and intestine for the first time. That was interesting. Then me and Shane, being the canadian men we are, decided to challenge the chinese guys to a beer chugging competition. Let me remind you that Chinese beer is 2.5%, so let's just say we destroyed them.
This all backfired when we noticed all the guys were then quite drunk. Apparently drinking 3 beers in China is a big deal. And if you all remember the last time I was at dinner with drunk chinese men you can imagine how it went from there. Next thing I knew I was driving someones car through the city to a KTV (karaoke) bar. If you also recall what I have written about chinese driving you can imagine my fear. But don't worry mother I only almost got hit by a van once and slightly crashed while parking. Just a dented license plate. No big deal.
About half an hour later I was standing on a couch with two beers in my hand singing Bon Jovi to a room of chinese people. How do you hold a microphone and two beers at once you ask? Easy! You hang the mic from the ceiling.
Chinese karaoke is very different from our karaoke. You basically get a room with a big TV, a couch and a table. You all just take turns selecting songs and sing to each other. It was strange at first but once i got into it I was singing backstreet boys and at the same time wondering where my dignity went.
After getting home at 5am, I woke up the next day and started to prepare for my show. Me and Shane were performing for our second time at the Toucan.
I'm really starting to like this bar. And I think they are taking a liking to us as well. We've played there twice now and every time we do they keep offering us more. We are now booked every second weekend as well as get free food and beer. They also booked us St. Pattys day, which will be ridiculous considering the Toucan is the only Irish Pub in the entire Hubei province. It's such an escape from China being there. You walk in and you could very well be at any pub in Ottawa. They have real beer and real food. I convinced them to make me poutine and we are in talks about getting hockey games played as well.
On saturday we invited all the chinese friends out from the night before and showed them a western style party. Heres a video taken by one of the chinese girls of me and Shane introducing Canadian east coast music to the Chinese populace.
http://www.56.com/u32/v_NTc4NDU4NTM.html
Anyways, now here I am all alone in the building. All the other teachers have already left for their holidays and I don't fly out until Thursday. I'm getting pretty anxious to leave, my bags are pretty much already packed and i've been pacing my room all day. Also, I was sleeping the other night and my bed decided to break. Actually more like implode. It sent me crashing to the floor and as you can imagine it was quite the way to be woken up. Once again, this sort of thing only happens to me.
So I am now sleeping on the floor.
I'm not going to have my laptop with my on my trip so after Thursday I won't be able to update this for a month. But I think i'm going to take my notebook with me and try to keep a written journal of the trip. I'll just type it all up when I get back. I think that might be better than me just trying to remember everything like on my trip to Beijing/Shanghai.
Anyways, i'll write again before I leave.
Good bye!
在见！
ลาก่อน!
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