First China Vacation Part 1 Beijing

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

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

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



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

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

East Lake, sickness and mosquito hunt

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

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

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

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

Life in Wuhan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corey

Settling into a schedule

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

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

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

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

Corey

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

First Day of Teaching

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

fuzzy panda kill robot good

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

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

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

understanding culture shock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

再见,

Corey