Back to School

I realized that I talk about school here assuming like you all know how it’s like. But when one of my friends sent me an email not even knowing what days of the week kids go to school here, I decided to write a bit about school. So here goes.

School here is Monday through Saturday at noon. I can’t say for sure that that’s how it is at all schools, but you can assume it’s relatively similar. Our school holds about 2000+ students all in three different grades and maybe up to three programs. I teach in the AP program and all kids in this program plan on going to college in the US.  It’s a special program that they have to test into OR know/be somebody really important (this is key since some kids do not deserve to be in this program).

The Campus.

The kids live on campus which has dorms, a cafeteria, a soccer stadium and basketball courts, a snack shop, a pharmacy and obviously class rooms. The kids are not allowed to leave this campus EVER. They get dropped off by their parents Sunday night and get picked up Saturday at noon. Sounds pretty miserable to me. They are also required to be in the class room essentially 7am til 10pm. It pretty much sounds like military bootcamp! And the kicker is that during the summer before school all freshman actually do have bootcamp! Anyways, the kids also have scheduled times to shower and a mandatory mid morning exercise routine. O and sometimes the kids order food for delivery. The crappy restaurants across the street pack up the food and walk it across the street. The lazy delivery people use their e-bikes to ride across the street.

The AP program that I am in spends a lot of their time worrying about the kids TOEFL and SAT scores. In fact, as I’ve ranted about previously, they like to frequently cancel classes so the kids could spend the week or two prior to the said exam studying and not worrying about school. Well, I’ve seen these kids study and their “studying” look an awful lot like playing computer games. This is where my rant about the kids not caring about their classes would be, but instead I will just say the following. I think the kids have figured out that their grades get upwardly adjusted (if you know what I mean) by the office (who is essentially paid off by their parents) and therefore have no motivation to even pretend to be engaged in their classes. The smartest kid in my class frequently skips questions on a test simply because he doesn’t want to do it. This does not reflect positively on the Chinese education. Other kids are simply struggling because their English is not good enough so they get lost and behind in class and are also failing (see note about how to get into school above). Overall, my views of the Chinese education have totally done a 180. The work ethic everyone raves about does not exist as far as I know, and the natural smarts in math and sciences is also not particularly there.

The bare hallways that open directly to the courtyard. Aka no heating.

Further, regarding the more fun social aspects of highschool, there are none! There are no dances, no lockers, no signs and posters, the class room walls are pretty much bare, the teachers don’t teach in innovative ways, no musicals, no school spirit, nothing! When one student asked for help with her application to some school in California, I realized that she doesn’t meet the schools requirements because her school does not offer any type of art, music, drama class that she needed to take to apply to that college. The arts as we know and have taken for granted back in America, do not exist in China. Sad. Very Sad.

Bare walls.

Three years worth of stuff piled up. Notice the phrase above the the board...

That is the highschool life of a Chinese student as I have learned. I honestly can’t imagine replacing my memories of class color days, locker groups, football games, pep rallys, homecomings, teachers who did cartwheels, School Chest, art classes with Mr. Bleck, Mr. DHS and school musicals with white walls, cold unheated hallways, same room for three years, no weekends, and zero highschool spirit. I am thankful to have gone to highschool in America.

DHS Warriors celebrating after a victory against HPHS

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to share some thing that I am thankful for (and will get to see and touch and love in about three months!) outside of my family and friends, of course. You guys are number one!  I have a feeling that if I had never lived in China, I wouldn’t have noticed or appreciated these things.

1. FDA – I am sick of eating mystery meat. I mean, seriously, it’s not healthy and I think more than half of it is full of filler.
2. Western toilets – the eastern ones aren’t that bad but with lack of flushing and cleaning supplies, the western ones win hands down any day.
3. Cuisines of the world –The Chinese have yet to discover the joys of Mexican food, and their renditions of Italian food (and every other type of Western food) can really use some work.
4. Cheese- Why does this country not like it! It’s like a little piece of heaven and goes wonderfully with wine.
5. Wine –more specifically good cheap wine. The wine here is either cheap or good. Finding a wine that is both is pretty much impossible.
6. Microwave –I don’t use mine at home that often, but man, there are days where I would kill to have one here.
7. A separate shower in my bathroom – Who wants to shower standing next to the toilet? Enough said.
8. Good construction – I can’t put anything on the walls here because they are all cement. Did you know that at one point the world ran out of cement because China took it all?
9. A dryer –you would never know this, but the drier is just as equally important in maintaining your clothes as a washer is.
10. A good meal – According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic human need is to fulfill hunger and thirst. I have never in my life (thank you Mom!) felt what it was like to be deprived of that need until I moved to China. Obviously, there is food here and I eat it, but the food doesn’t fully fill that need. It is very weird how depressed and unmotivated you get when you can’t get a satisfying meal. I hope to never experience this again, and I don’t wish this feeling upon anyone.
11. Unrestricted internet –I think many of us take this one for granted thanks to the US Constitution. J USA! USA!
12. A grocery store –You want butter? It’s there. You want some cereal? You have a whole aisle with every kind you could possibly imagine. Meat? Yes, just tell me how much, what kind and in what form you want it. Fruit? Yup that too, from every corners of the world, even when it’s not in season. I can go on…
13. A good school system –I now know what it’s like when the inmates run prison and I don’t like it one bit! It’s not good for the students, and its ultra degrading and frustrating for the teachers. Thank you and I heart you teachers!
14. Christmas spirit –It’s really weird to be surrounded by a bajillion people, but to have no one share your Christmasyness. No Santa songs, minimal Christmas trees, no decorations and no smiles and cheer between strangers. I never want to miss another Christmas again!

And many more…

Yes I realize that those are all a bit “preachy”, but it’s all true. We live in an amazing country and I think we take a lot of it for granted sometimes. And as the saying goes “you never know what you have until you lose it”. I may have had to go all the way to China to realize these things, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to share with you so you can learn from my experience too. Maybe the next time you walk into a grocery store (or do any of the other things I’ve mentioned), you will stop and think for a second, how freaking amazing that act alone truly is. There are shelves full of products full of stuff from Mexico, and Poland and China and India and the Philippines. And for those who really want it, I’m sure they can even find some Veggie Mite (why they would want to, I have no idea! Heheh). Either way, the huge assortment of available food is astonishing and it’s definitely a rarity around the world. 

And that is what I am thankful for today. Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble!

Around ZZ

One our way to dinner, we walked around on this one nice night in ZZ. Just wanted to share some pictures with you.

Erqi Pagoda that was under construction earlier. But they fixed it quickly!

It's the new thing -  lettuce as decoration in flower pots

They do have some cute window decorations.

If you all didn't know: My name is Goda and I'm six years old. Here are the dvds that I buy. :)

Ooh China - A few odds and ends

Brandon and I met another foreign teacher who took us out to show us the town (thank god for her! She knows a place where you can easy bake your own cake!!). Here are a few Ooh China moments I ran into while gallivanting around town.

Our first stop was good old Dunkin Donuts to grab a nice iced coffee (ice is a rare commodity here: it’s either unavailable or it could be full of bacteria and whatnot so you don’t want to use it). I was checking out some donuts and this is what I found:  Pork Floss.

 Ooh China! First off, why do you put pork on your donuts? And two, what the heck is pork floss?! Do I even want to know?

Our next stop was good old Carrefour, which is the French version of Walmart. It looked ultra promising and I think I’ll be able to find a few “luxuries” there when I’m in need of some good ol’ USA homey feelings. Anyways, I came upon this aisle:

Really China? You need a whole aisle for soy sauce?! I didn’t know you had 298,753 different choices. I guess when you use something a million times a day, you want to have “variety”. Whatever floats your boat! (It also kind of goes with the Chinese saying of 我是出来打酱油的, which literally means "just looking for soy sauce" aka" mind your own business")

A few aisles over, I discovered this:

All I have to say about that is that I’ve never seen so many random flavors of oreos ever in my life. Chinese like choices. Lots of them.

And last but not least, we took a stroll through the night market and I came upon this sight:

Nothing really shocking since the Chinese don’t have any rules of the road. But still. First off, this car appears to be facing the wrong way (as you can tell by the fact the sign is not facing the driver’s seat) on the street, and two it’s illegally parked (along with another 10 cars on the same road). Could someone tell me why bother with these signs if no one follows them and if the police don’t enforce them? 

Oooh China, not even during  a little stroll through our city do you cease to amaze me. Will I still be able to find as many Ooh China moments towards the end of the year as I do at the beginning? Challenge accepted!

Ooh China: the beginning

On an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Ted starts dating a girl (Katy Perry!) whose name no one can remember. Due to her silly, random, nonsensical stories that don’t really go anywhere and odd things she did, they decided to name her Honey which went perfectly with the well known phrase “ooooh honeeeey” that often followed every one of her many stories. As such, I am starting a group of posts called “Ooh China” in honor of Honey and in honor of the many different things the Chinese people like to do.

Starting with the first: Rules of the Road. Or lack thereof I should say. After three weeks of observing the multitudes of buses, motos, bikes, and other motor vehicles, I have decided that the rules of the road are actually more suggestions than anything else. For example, while driving home in a taxi late one night, we were driving next to a giant cement truck. At every red light, our taxi driver would dutifully stop and wait for the green (he was probably the best taxi driver we’ve had here) light. This cement truck, however, would just blast through the red light without even tapping the breaks. I saw this happen at three stop lights in a row since we kept passing it in between lights. Additionally, apparently, there is no need to stop and look while trying to make a right hand turn onto a street. Even though the pedestrians have the right of way, buses, cars, motos will just power through and it’s up to you, the pedestrian, to look out for them and not get hit. I must say a bus came pretty close to plowing me into a paper doll at one point. Staying in your lanes is also more of an option than a requirement. Many a times I have seen a car attempt to switch lanes and then get bored or something and just stop mid switch and drive down the highway in the middle of two lanes as if it’s no big deal. O and the shoulder on the highway is also a legit lane if you want it to be. And if you feel the need to have a party while on the highway, it’s not unusual to just pull over and have a pow-wow with you and thirty closest friends right there on the highway with all the speeding cars passing you by.

O and I’ve seen a driver here drive their automatic in 2^nd gear (instead of D for drive) for the entire ride. Ooh China.

Rated R - for nudity

Sorry for the delay in this post, as I was traveling before and then when I got home to ZZ, I didn’t have internet. I know I’ve kept you in suspense long enough! Hahah.

Anyways, while in Shanghai with Mom, Jim, Brandon and I decided to go to a Chinese Spa. Sounds fabulous, doesn’t it! Well it was great, but it was different. Here’s how our experience went down. We arrived and they took our shoes and gave us rubber sandals. This shoe swap was for many reasons, but I think the main one being so you can’t leave without paying. We were also given wrist bands with a number on it. At that point, we were split up and went into our designated locker rooms (if you want Brandon’s version of what happened and how he liked hanging out with Jim, just ask him) In the locker rooms you basically lock up all of your things and strip. Haha no shyness here. Then you walk into the shower area where you rinse off. Then you proceed to the scrub area. Here you have a few choices of treatments, but I went and stuck with the most basic one: a body scrub with a milk bath and a cucumber mask. I was told to lay down on my back on one of maybe six tables in the room (still very much naked at this point) and the lady attendant haphazardly threw a towel on me in the general direction of what I would have wanted covered. She then covered my face in cucumber mush (it felt nice). Then came the best part. She basically started scrubbing my entire body with this mitt that felt kind of like a soft velcro material. She scrubbed every inch of my body and then I flipped over and she did the same to my back. Side bar, you know when you get sunburnt and peel. The skin comes off in flakes or if you rub it, it comes off in kind of a dark skin roll? Well, as I was getting off the table after being scrubbed, the entire table I was laying on was covered in that type of skin roll. Hahah noooo I’m not dirty but she basically scrubbed tons of layers off of my skin! I have to say my skin was baby smooth for days! It felt amazing!

Anyways, that’s the most exciting part of the shower room part. After that you just go hang out in the steam room or sauna or one of the six hot pools. Then you shower and go back to the locker room to change and dry your hair etc. Well, upon entering the locker room again, we went into the towel room where they dried us off as we just stand there. Hahah it was interesting. I kinda felt like a baby.  And of course we were handed disposable panties and a Hawaiian, floral, bright and obnoxious miu miu (aka pajamas) and slippers. After getting dressed (I have to mention that while I was blow drying my hair, I saw a Chinese lady blow dry… ummm her downstairs if you will :o), we went upstairs to meet the boys who had just gone through a similar experience and were dressed in equally attractive Hawaiian getups. We had dinner and then proceeded upstairs again for the spa portion of the experience. Upstairs there was a whole room full of loungey spa chairs where we sat down and ordered spa treatments off a menu. Mine was a full body Chinese massage so I got led into a private room. The guy I got was definitely rough and he had me doing yoga and all sorts of funny things I can’t really describe in a post. But it was still a very typical massage. My mom got a food massage and a manicure. The two boys just took a nap.

One thing I want to point out about this place is that it is open approximately 21 or 22 hours a day. They close at some random hour (lunch time I think) for a few hours and that’s it. So basically if you ever have a long layover and don’t want to get a hotel, you can just show up at a spa and get spa treatments for hours on end. They do not push you out or yell at you for sleeping (as the boys did). You can order dinner there and just hang out and relax. They have pool table and arcade games and every spa chair has a tv. It’s literally heaven! I think we stayed about 3 or 4 hours. I don’t remember since it’s really easy to lose track of time. And you also don’t need money on you at all (the beautiful miu mius don’t really have pockets anyways) since they charge everything to the number on your wrist. You just pay as you leave and pick up your shoes. How’s that for a spa experience!