I'm Moving . . .

So, as some of you may know, once I got to China I found out that access to Blogspot is blocked by the Chinese government (along with Facebook and a bunch of other social networking sites), so I haven’t been able to post my blogs myself, and had to email the blog back to the U.S. for posting by someone living in a democracy.

Good news! I discovered that Shutterfly is NOT blocked by the Chinese government (at least not so far), so I’ve moved my blog over there. As an added advantage, I can post all my photos on the site, too. Look for pics of my vacation in Sanya and Shanghai. The new website is:

http://chinajew.shutterfly.com

Password: Chinajew (case sensitive)

See ya over there.

My Adventure to Remain Literate

So, as you know, I am planning a trip to Hainan. The only thing that there really is to do there is to sit by the beach or the pool and read and listen to music. I love doing that. I love spending the day with my iPod, reading a good book, jumping in and out of the pool (and occasionally the ocean when I am dragged against my will). Well one of the major components of my great day is actually having a book. Living in a Chinese-speaking country makes finding a book in English quite a challenge. My school has some English books but I did not really want to spend the week reading the best of Mark Twain. So after hours of searching the Internet and asking everyone I know I find the English bookshop. I was all prepared. I had the name of the store and the address written in Chinese and pinyin so I would be able tell the cabbie where to go. I should have known from the way the day started that someone out there did not want me to be able to have English books.

The funny thing was this should have been a great day. It was the last day before the break, so the kids were leaving at 11 am and I only had to teach two classes. Well my great day was anything but. I woke up to go to work and it was raining. Not a huge surprise--the weather had not been great and this is Suzhou I am living in. Get dressed, run down the three flights of steps, I even remember my umbrella, things are going well. Right outside the building there are three granite steps (this is not a country worried about lawsuits). Well I step down just like I do everyday except today I go SPLAT. I did not realize how wet and slippery they were and my feet literally slid out from under me, my bags flying through the air. My butt landed right on the sharp corner of the steps, which hurt quite a bit. I also somehow developed a giant, very attractive bruise all over my right forearm. Ironically this was the day after the school surprised us with a “gift” of accident insurance in honor of the mid-autumn festival. (Side note: We had this special meeting and they told us they were giving us a gift for our great work. We, of course, thought “YAY money . . . or at the very least more mooncakes.” The reaction of all the teachers when we found out that the gift was accident insurance was kinda funny. )

So anyway, I get up, go to my classroom, run across the hall to tell my friend, Mexico, what happened, suck up the throbbing pain and begin to teach. I did discover this was not the day to sit and have the kiddies come read to me one on one. Other than that, I figured the worst was over. I forgot the old wives’ tale that bad things come in threes, although things did perk up at lunch. The kids went home but the school was serving lunch for the teachers and the kids whose parents had not gone yet. Every Friday they have noodles in the cafeteria, which, considering the food sucks and is usually cold, is a big deal. Unfortunately my kids never get it cause they don’t eat till the second feeding and by then they are gone. On this day though we got there at 11, plus most of the people were gone so we got the noodles and they were great. Things were looking up.

After lunch, I went back to my room and rested till noon. I had my Chinese tutor that afternoon so leaving at noon should have given me plenty of time to buy books and still have time to go online at Starbucks before the tutor. Guess again. Going out and grabbing a cab was sooooo not happening. All the kids who were not getting picked up by parents or whose parents did not have cars were also waiting for cabs. After about 20 minutes of waiting in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET I gave up. Normally I would have just taken the bus but I did not really know where I was going so that was not an option. Instead, I just took the bus a few blocks to where I knew there would be more cabs and hopefully fewer people. That plan worked great.

I got a cab. The driver was able to read my chicken scratch writing so I was happy. We get to the place she says I wanted to go JUST AS IT STARTS POURING, I mean sheets of rain. I don't see a bookstore. After telling her she must be wrong, I get out of the car and try to find the place. Looking, looking, looking . . . nothing. Just as I was about to give up I find the address. When I look I see that instead of a bookstore, it’s the “Drunken Clam,” a bar. Ironically, we had been looking for that bar the week before. I know what happened. It’s listed right next to the bookstore on the expat blog where I got the address. It seems I wrote down the wrong address.

So now I am lost and soaking wet. Of course now I don’t have the umbrella. I start wandering around asking random people if they know where the bookstore is. They don’t. I finally find a guy who looks like an expat, not a tourist, and ask him if he knows where it is. He does. He also tells me I am nowhere near it. So I start walking, and walking, and walking. (Although during all this walking I was able to find one of my favorite stores from Shanghai so it wasn’t a total waste of time.) I get to the point where I am about to give up just as Mexico calls me. She is with our tutor and the tutor knows the place. Not the address but the intersection. Guess what? I am there! Guess what? The bookstore is not. I am totally about to freak out when I see a tiny sign. The place is behind the building on the main road. Neither the expat nor the tutor thought to mention that important detail. So I am there, YAY. Not a great selection but I don’t care; at least the books are in English.

I now I have about 45 minutes to get to my tutor. It’s pouring rain. I may have found the bookstore but I still have no idea where I am. This is not an ideal situation to get a cab. In the end, I got to Starbucks just in time to get a latte before meeting the tutor. The best thing that happened that day was that when I got home and started to pack for Hainan I found the swimsuit I thought I left in AZ. A nice surprise. I'd thought I'd be swimming in shorts and a tee shirt all week. At least the day ended well.

Autumn Comes to China

Well, it seems I am famous here in Suzhou. Last weekend two friends and I went out on Friday night. We were walking and saw a group of around 40 middle-aged women dancing on the sidewalk. It was kind of like Tai Chi except they were dancing and there was music. Anyway we stopped to watch and dance. Some women came over to help us and all of a sudden one of the women starts pointing at me. They find someone who speaks English so she can tell me they recognize me from TV. (You may remember from my last post I talked about how I lost my wallet and ended up on TV. It seems these women saw that program.) They were happy to hear I got my wallet back.

I am going to be on TV again, although I am not sure why. Last week a mother came in to make moon cakes for the autumn festival with the kids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooncake (The ones we made tasted like hamentashen.) Somehow a TV show found out so the mother is coming in again today and we are doing it all over again, except this time we are going to be filmed. At least this time I know I am going to be on TV so I dressed up. Plus it is picture day so I get to kill two birds with one stone.

Last week, in celebration of the beginning of Fall, I had the class make pumpkins and I hung their finished product all over the classroom. Note the cute parochial school-type uniforms.

In theory we have a vacation coming up. In reality it is more of a re-juggling of schedules. I do not have to work Oct 1–Oct 8. October 1 is National Day, which is the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and the whole week is what is called a Golden Week, when most of the schools and businesses are closed. Although they call it a week-long vacation, I am really only getting 3 days off. Right now it is Sunday morning and I am waiting for my kids to come back from music so I can teach spelling. I should be sleeping at this time on a Sunday. After the Golden Week we work over the following weekend to make up some more days. I am not focusing on that part, I am focusing on the fact that in a few days I am going back to Hainan. In my opinion it is the most beautiful place in the world. It is an island in the South China Sea and the Chinese version of Hawaii but, at least based on the last time I was there, less built up and more natural. Of course, being that this is China there is a very good chance that now it is unrecognizable. One example of things changing is that what was the big bar street last time I was in Shanghai has been knocked down. It now has another Western looking shopping center. Isn’t it wonderful that China is picking up some of the better aspects of America? Soon I will be able to get off the plane and not know if I am in Shanghai, Phoenix, or LA.

I should probably get going. My kids just got back and several of them seem to have acquired fruity-smelling markers and erasers over the weekend which they now feel like shoving in my face. If I don’t stop them I am going to have a pink and purple mustache for picture day.

First Impressions

So I know it took me a long time to get this first entry out. Things have been a little busy for me over here. So I guess I should start at the beginning. I got here (I am not going to say the name of the school because I don’t want someone doing a Google search and finding the blog in case I ever say not so great things about the school) and was told I am teaching 1^st grade. They give me literally 16 textbooks and three days to get ready. I am working in the international program at my school which means the student get 3-4 hours of English and only 2 hours of Chinese everyday. It is an interesting theory on teaching. I use normal American 1^st grade textbooks, not ESL books. Unfortunately ,my students don’t really speak English. I have a Chinese assistant who is supposed to help me by translating instructions and other things I need but she is usually on her cell phone in the hall.

My school has both day and boarding students. Being that I am in 1^st grade I see a lot of tears. Of my 25 students 9 are boarders. It is so sad. They are 6 or 7; I was 9 when I first went to sleep-away camp. I was in the youngest bunk and did my share of crying but that was only for six weeks and the staff was nice. I originally thought that the kids who lived here did so because they lived too far away to commute. I was wrong. Their parents want them to learn independence. I think they could wait till they are 10 to be independent but what do I know. On Fridays all the parents come in to pick up the kids. It is nice to see how happy the boarders get when they see their parents.

For the moment I am living on campus but I think my days of living here are numbered. The room is fine, it’s like a very small studio. I need more space but I also need quiet. Because this is a boarding school I get woken up at 6:30 every morning when the bell goes off for the kids. This is not one quick bell that I can ignore. It goes from 6:30-7:00 starting of with some nice loud music but ending with a man screaming attention and then other things at the kids. I have been told that during the screaming portion of the morning the kids are outside exercising. Since during this time my head is squished between two pillows I have never been able to confirm this.

So, as I said, I am living in Suzhou. It is about an hour away from Shanghai. I am hoping to get there soon. We have a week off at the beginning of October and my friends and I have yet to decide where to go. The entire country of China is off for that week so flights are expensive and hotels are booked. We have tried looking at other Asian countries but we are not the only ones with that thought so we are running in to the same problems. I have a feeling we will probably end up making some day trips into Shanghai that week and staying here on campus. Hopefully they won’t have the bells on that week and I can sleep past 6:30. If not, one of the other international teachers already has a plan to find the speaker by us and cut the cord.

On a completely random note, at the moment I am sitting in my classroom. We just had lunch and in America the kids would be at recess or taking a nap, but not here. I am not really sure what the Chinese teacher does during this time because it is in Chinese but it always involves a lot of yelling. My kids are worked quite hard. They get here around 7:30 the first batch leaves at 4:30 and the second at 6. With the exception of 20 minutes for lunch they are working the whole time. After 6 the boarding students just sit in the classroom watching TV until 8:30 or 9. Compared to the High School kids my kids have it easy.

My school has several different programs but they are all on the same track. The parents who send their kids here expect their kids to go to University outside of China. As I said I am in the International program, which at the moment only goes up to fifth grade. My kids are supposed to feel like they are going to school in America, hence the American teacher. That is why most of their classes are in English. As opposed to kids in other programs who wear tracksuits, my kids wear cute little traditional private school uniforms. Due to the fact that my program is slightly more “laid back” as well as the fact that they learn both English and Chinese from an early age the classes have kids from all over the world. About a third of my class is Korean. I have one kid from Indonesia and one from Singapore. Pretty much all of the international classes including mine have at least one non-Asian student.

My school is kinda far away from anything good. It takes a half hour on the bus to get downtown and an hour to get to “Singapore Industrial Park” AKA SIP (will talk about that next time) There are several apartment communities around my school as well as about 30 more getting built. If I had come in a few years it would be a whole different ball game. They are building a subway stop right next to the school. We are starting to explore the little communities around us. In large part because we are hungry. I love Chinese food. This time around I am not keeping kosher which has made Chinese food even better. The first time I had a dumpling with meat was amazing. Now I understand why people were always getting them; in the past I had only had veggie ones. That being said, I have no idea what they serve here in the cafeteria. For the record I am not that picky of person over here. Some of my favorite food items are street food. The food on campus is unrecognizable. There is supposed to be a western dining room on the third floor but none of the new teachers has gone yet, in part because you have to pay for it. If they can’t make Chinese food edible why would I pay for them to make American food?

So I am trying to get a lot in this one entry but a lot has happened and I have to teach again soon so I will end this entry with a fun story. On my third or fourth day I went out with some of the other teachers. Somehow I left my wallet in the cab. I was already having a really bad day. I was homesick and having issues in my class so I was so not in the mood for this. (Random again, my students are on a break right now and they keep pointing out letters on my screen and telling me the name of the letter, kinda cute. I would be more concerned about them reading this if I had taught them the whole alphabet already.) I realized it was gone as soon as I got to my door and went for my keys. We ran across campus to the girl who paid for the cab to see if she kept the receipt, she had not. They talked about calling the cab company but we had no idea which company we were in. I was not holding my breath. I went back to my room, called my mom and told her to cancel all my cards. I assumed that was the end of the story. Fast forward about a week, I am sitting in my room and I get a phone call from one of the Chinese teachers I talk to. Teacher- “Hi Blake it’s teacher, did you lose your purse?” Me- “um yea I did about a week ago. Why do you ask?” Teacher- “I was watching the news and they showed your purse, I saw the picture and thought it was you.” Me- “OMG are you serious? That’s amazing! Did they say how to get it back?” The conversation went on a little more but I am assuming you get the point. I asked if she could call the number since my Chinese is not great. She called a while later and told me she could not get through but would try the next day.

I get to class the next day and find out why she could not get through. It seems she is not the only person who watches the Suzhou Sunday news. Most of the teachers I work with, including the principal of the whole school and the women in charge of my program all saw me on the news. This was apparently a big deal. A few days later, armed with an official thank you letter from the school someone took me to the TV station where I was met by a TV crew. In pure Chinese fashion the return of my wallet was a well-orchestrated event for the media. They told me what to say in Chinese and I handed them the letter and received my wallet several times before they decided it was TV ready.

Once the official hand over was completed I asked how this all happened. Apparently this guy found my wallet in the cab and brought it to the TV station where they decided to put it on the air. I was told the story would be airing that night so I watched the news for an hour and a half. I never saw it and the next day no one said anything so I am assuming something important happened that day and I got the boot. Or maybe they are just waiting for a slow newsday.

Well that’s all for now. I have to go grade homework. If you read through to this you are awesome as I am now on the third page in Word. I promise I will do this more often and the entries will be shorter in the future. Also, while there are many things I love about my adopted home it has some faults. Since the Olympics Blogspot has been blocked in China. Therefore I am emailing the entries to my mother and she will post them. If you leave comments it could be a while before I hear about them and I might not respond but feel free to email me. Hopefully sometime soon I will have time to go sit at Starbucks where they do not block the software used to get around the blocks that China puts up.

BYE BYE USA

Hey all

So I am sitting here unable to sleep waiting for my friend to wake up so he can drive me to the airport. I am so excited today is the day I finally get to go move to China. As many of you know I have dreaming about this for years. All I can think about is getting on the plane and then meeting my colleague at the airport in Shanghai. I hope to use this to keep everyone up to date about my life and also give a unique view of China. While I may make political statements once in a while I ask that you please dont leave any comments that paint China in a poor light. I would really rather not end up in jail and I dont know Bill Clinton to get me out. Other then that I would love to hear other comment from you. So I hope you stop by often and find this interesting. I will write once I get settled and tell you all about the school and the city.