Winging it

I met "Jenny" today for my teaching schedule and an overview of how to run the AV equipment in the language lab. Jenny gave me my schedule sheet(in Chinese) and tried to translate it to me with very broken English. She said a number of things that contradicted each other including the times that I am teaching, but I think I have pinned down my schedule. "You are the boss now" she told me. " Teach oral, listening and writing and you come up with class syllabus". The language lab, where I will teach all my classes 8-12am M-Thurs has no A/C or fans. It is one small, hot room...and thats before you get 50 students into it come Monday morning. The computers to operate the AV equip are in Chinese. I tried to memorize what Jenny clicked to run the programs for playing audio feeds and DVD clips. I hope I can figure it all out on Monday. I have each group for 2 hours/week and get to decide how I will teach listening, writing and oral in order to prepare them for the end of year exam. The orientation was amusingly confusing, but I think I am ready to wing it.
I am off to do a little curriculum planning.

Supercenter

Street Crossing---Nightime styles

I would say that most of the cars and buses have their headlights on at night, and most of the street lamps work, but some parts of our walk to dinner last night were very dark. We had a street crossing "incident". Josh and Mae saw an opening and they went for it. Karen and I are hesitators--and this can spell disaster for street crossing. A few days ago, I asked Josh to please hold my hand when we cross the streets. On the next street he took my hand and went for it. Only one problem: my feet were planted. We played tug of war with our arms for a split second and then I bounced forward. Because we were a moment later than Josh's planned window of crossing, we were in more danger. I have promised to "just go" with him, but he is not as willing to hold my hand anymore. So, back to Karen and I stuck across the road with a rush of traffic coming in the dark. We decided to wait for the light to turn red and then walk through stopped cars, but as soon as they all stopped and we went for it, the light turned green and they just started to go! I think i screamed and took off. Karen thought I was going to run into the oncoming traffic in the set of lanes travelling the other way, and grabbed my arm with brut force. But there were no oncoming cars, so we both sprinted the rest of the way. What a rush. My heart was pounding for 10 minutes afterward. Maybe night crossing is no more dangerous, it is not as though the drivers/cyclists/scooters slow down when they see you.
Last night, at 6:30pm, when I was thinking I was ready for bed (I didnt succumb to a nap yesterday), we decided to go out to dinner with Karen and Mae--but not before scoping out another...supermarket!! I could write a guide to supermarkets in the city. This one was the best yet, however. I posted a photo of it. It is about 3 times the size of an American grocery store, and 5 times a Kiwi one. Carrefour was huge and sparkling clean. On this tour, Josh and I picked up museli, yogurt, and honey--which will make many a delightful breakfast like this morning's. This was the first store I have seen that takes credit cards. Ji'nan is a cash society, and when I whipped out my Mastercard at another supermarket, there was confusion and shaking heads.
After shopping, we went to dinner at one of the countless restaurants in the area that all have the same menu. On the way to dinner, I was thinking.."I could really go for a Greek salad right now", but was preparing myself for something hot, oily and salty. The walk to dinner was neat. It looked a bit like we were in a warzone or the aftermath of an earthquake. The road and sidewalks were torn up. Lanterns were strung out and old men sat on homemade stools playing Mah Jang (sp?) on little tables. Kittens stalked around looking for food and street vendors were still out. Shopowners were sitting on the curb eating dinner out of old pots and pans outside their open storefront. We passed a few doorways bordered with lit red Christmas lights where heavily made up and scantily clad women sat in chairs looking out into the streets.
Dinner was fried pork on the bone, a very oily green onion omelet, and tasty broccoli. I paid another visit to the WC and saw that they also use the sink in there to wash the dishes. Dishwashing is an interesting topic. Late at night, there are a lot of people out on the street with big plastic buckets of soapy water (at least I think it is soapy) washing dishes and dumping the water into the street. I guess dishwashers only exist in flash hotel restaurants and rich people's homes. I like to think of the dishwater washing the loogies off the street at night. There is a lot of hoiking and spitting that goes on around here. A few days ago, Josh and I bought fruit from a shirtless man, holding a cigarette who spat to his side while we were picking out a pommegranite. Most men smoke here, but I have yet to see a woman light up.
After dinner, we came home and crashed. What a day! Today the sky is so blue. I want to go out and about but need to wait for a phonecall from a woman who called earlier this morning. She is going to show me where I am teaching, give me a handbook of some sort, and go over my schedule with me. She said she would call back later with a time to meet me tomorrow, so here I am cleaning house and reading Foreign Babes in Beijing, which I am glued to. It is so much fun to read here in China, its familiarly funny, and turning out to be a useful resource for some etiquette. If you talk to Soy, tell her how much I am enjoying it!
Josh is out and about with "Judy" today scoping out the English department and his classrooms. Zai-jien for now.

Out on the town

Josh, Liam, Mae, Karen


This is a supermarket/supercenter. It has EVERYTHING you can think of and more. Its 4 stories, and packed.







Foreign Students Building and another kitten.

Today was a winner!

This morning started off great with a phone call from Claire at 5am. I was actually already awake. Yesterday I decided to take a "nap" around 2:30pm and woke up at 7:30pm. Oops. We had planned to go out to dinner, but were both so groggy that instead we just forced ourselves to stay up for a couple more hours playing cards. For dinner, we decided to try on of the exotic fruits we picked up at the supermarket. It was the size of a canteloupe, had the skin of a grapefruit and was light green. So, really, it just looked like a giant---no, I am going to go with gigantic---green grapefruit. As we ate it, I nicknamed it margarita fruit, because I thought it tasted like a delicious margarita. Around nine, Karen and Mae knocked and came in for a chat. They said the fruit was called something like "pomello". Anyone heard of it? Mmm, so good.
Back to this morning when we naturally awoke at 5am. I promise it wasn't the phone ringing, Claire. :) So after a great catch up, we had more familiar fruit for breakfast and then came over to throw in some laundry. Karen in Mae are living in a hotel next door until their apartments are ready at the South campus. Mr. Guo called to tell us that he had arranged another student to come and show us around. This time, the four of us met Liam. Liam speaks almost perfect English and was so happy to meet us. He literally cheered with joy. All his English teachers are Chinese and teach English in Chinese apparently (hmmm), so Liam was really pleased that we had come from America to teach English. It was great to feel wanted here. Liam showed us the foriegn students building (right next door to us, turns out). It has a gym, a little cafe, and a shop with all kinds of treats in it including some imports like Corona and Pringles. Nice to know its there. After a short campus tour, we asked Liam to take us to yet another...supermarket! Poor Liam, little did he know what he was getting into. We caught the bus to a part of town that was much cleaner. Everywhere in Jinan looks like a construction zone with shops and apartments tucked in between piles of bricks and garbage. This part of town looked like it was holding up a little bit better.
I have already mentioned the extreme sport of street crossing, but it was a whole new ballgame today. The cars will not stop for you. I think it's so crazy, I have say it twice: the cars simply do not stop---even if you are pushing your grandmother in a wheelchair (which I saw today), they keep rolling towards you without slowing. The funny part is that the Chinese honk their horn incessantly, just not when they are headed towards you. Usually, you can see it coming, but I felt we had some close calls today. I bet they will seem pretty routine in a few months.
In the supermarket, Liam helped us buy all sorts of things like speakers for my ipod, a kettle and some Jasmine tea. There are many places in the supermarkets where you have to pay for items in their departments and sometimes it gets confusing if they have to get your item off the shelf. Liam was such a good sport--the man is invaluable. I hope he gets paid. He spent all day with us.
On our way to lunch we ran into Olga, another foriegn teacher. Olga teaches Russian and she has been here for a year. She says she doesn't have many ties to her home country and likes it here. The 6 of us went out to lunch at a nice hotel restaurant. We had more joudza (dumplings) filled with all sorts of delights, a peanut vinegar salad and some fried rice. It was delicious. Afterward, I made a visit to my first "hole in the ground" WC. hmmm...uncomfortable and odd..
We found a bookstore with some more books in English. They had the whole Harry Potter series for $38. Josh thought that was too expensive. We had just seen big screen tv's for that price in the supermarket and we are starting to adjust, so it seemed like a great deal of money. Josh got Sons & Lovers and Pride & Prejudice for himself. He is entertaining himself with one of the two right now. I am listening to Brook Fraser on my flash new speakers ($6)and am about to steep myself some fresh Jasmine tea. Ahh, life is a solid 8.
The best part for me is that I feel like I am starting to learn the language albeit verrrry slowly and akwardly. It makes you want to try really hard when you see how much the shopkeepers and other folks really appreciate even a simple exchange of words in their language. Once my classes start up, I will look for a tutor. I really need someone to say the words for me over and over. I also am starting to feel more like we belong here. We know our way around pretty well and the apartment is starting to really come together, so life is good. And just a moment ago, Mae delivered a fun size pack of peanut M&Ms to me, so I am really--as my Grandaaddy would say--tickled pink.

Tracking the Bag '05

We just got out first phone call and it was from Mr.Guo. He said my bag has been located at LAX and it is on its way to Shandong University. I wonder how many days until we will be reunited.
Josh and I have developed a method for efficiently communicating to each other how we are holding up. This immersion process can be scary and stressful and our feelings about the experience seem to be temperant. The scale is from 1-10, here are some measures:
1- I am barely hanging on here, reassure me that it will be okay because I really want to call it quits and go home
4- I'm not coping too well. I know I want to stay for the year, but I need to be pissy and grumpy right now.
5- I am teetering on the edge of happy and depressed. I know I will feel better soon.
9-Everything is falling into place. I am happy as a lark. I only wish it didn't smell so funny around here.
10- I want someone back home to send me the rest of my things, I found my new home.
Right now, Josh is at an 8. I have moments of 6 and moments of 8. (Guess I could call that a 7, eh?)

RT Mart

RT Mart is the giant supermarket about 20 minutes walk from us. It has everything; clothes, washing machines, fish, pots and pans... We decided to go for a walk this morning and look for somewhere to have breakfast and then hit the RT Mart on the way home for some supplies. The pollution seemed worse today. The sky is kind of gray and gritty and the streets are very dirty. There are a lot of people who have homemade brooms are sweep up clouuds of dust and garbage all over the place.
I don't know what we were expecting to find for breakfast, but we just kept on walking past stalls of hot food thinking we would find something we liked more. You know how that goes, nobody wants to commit to a decision in case something better is up ahead. I think we must have been holding out for a Waffle House or something because we never found a breakfast spot that tickled our fancy.
We decided we would get something in RT Mart to eat on the way home. RT Mart was packed, even at 7am on a Sunday morning. Thankfully, Josh offers to push the cart. I can barely push myself through the crowds. You really have to be assertive when walking here. There will always be crowds of people in front of you and you can't sort of wait for an opening like you do when you are getting off an airplane. Nobody will notice you and let you ahead of them. We all kind of cram together in one direction and push your way to the sides if you see items you want to put into your basket. Lines (queues to NZers) don't exist, I kind of picked that up at the Chinese Embassy in D.C. "Take a number" was not all that effective. I pussyfoot around too much (am I allowed to use that word? It's really the best way to describe me). I need to believe I have just as much right to push my way through to the bananas as the next guy. I need to dedicate the rest of today to learning some Chinese, starting with numbers. There were many occasions in the RT Mart that we were doing something wrong (i.e. not having our produce weighed at the right scale, or trying to buy one bread roll when you had to buy three) and it would have been nice to know how to say a few things. There are also different hand signals for numbers. You'd think that 8 fingers to mean 8 would be universal, but here it is a sign that you make with your thumb and index finger....I think. :)
RT Mart is a challenge, it is very hot and crowded and I won't go on an empty stomach again. But we did come out with some great stuff, so we can cook for ourselves tonight. We also learned of a foriegn market that sells mustard and pancake mix. I'm not going to lie, a little mustard won't be unwelcome around here.

Testing...

I am thinking of using this blog to post photos and write about life over here. Send me a message on betsy.quicksall@gmail.com if you are reading this and able to view the photos.

Photos of the apartment

Second Night

Yesterday was officially our second day in Jinan. I took a long nap between 2-6pm, and as a result woke up at 4am. The sun is rising and there are kittens roaming around outside our office window.
Today's plans will be to go to the RT Mart (a very large Wal Mart supercenter equivalent near our campus)and get some groceries, pots and pans and laundry detergent.