Didn't believe me...?

I'm sure I've mentioned to a few of you that every time we have to get on bus in China, people act as if it's the last bus out of China on Armageddon day. It's crazy how they push and shove just to get on the bus. It literally cannot be explained in words. But maybe a picture will help...

Image taken from China Smack

This really did happen in Beijing earlier in the week! Now hopefully you have a very vivid image of what we have to deal with everyday. Oooooo China!

Photoshop much?

The other day Brandon and I got stuck waiting 20 minutes for the bus that didn't want to arrive. (The bus finally arrived packed to the brim... so needless to say we didn't get on it. 30 seconds later another bus pulls up totally empty and we score a seat! That's what I like to call winning! I have to admit that we actually laughed at the other bus as we pulled up to it!) To entertain ourselves, we got to discussing this one billboard.

From first glance, nothing really appears out of the ordinary, however, at second glance you start noticing things. First off, where is the guy's right hand?! It seems to have magically disappeared! Then you look a little closer, and you realize that his right foot is missing too! I wonder if anyone got fired over this botched advertisement.... my Magic-8 ball says "outlook not so good". 

Oooo China! You sure do love your Photoshopping a bit too much!

Also, here's a random toy featured in the window of some store. Do people really buy these or is it in the window just to make more room on the good shelves for stuff people actually buy?

And last but not least... I'm a baller! 

Consecutively numbers bills! Booo yah!

New Semester

The last day of teaching is slowly approaching yet time is starting to go a bit slower. My schedule for the semester is a lot fuller than last semester so even though I have only nine more days of actual teaching, filling the classes with content is getting hard. I am teaching SAT test prep this semester and the students bore easily. I try my best to keep them entertained, but with my exit date quickly approaching my motivation level is low. Furthermore, the grade I am teaching  (juniors) has a bad rep for being inattentive, rude, nonparticipant, and just overall “the bad class”. No one participates; they come and go as they please, they are on their phones/ipods all the time, and much much more. It’s a hard situation.

To add to it, the school has gotten ultra annoying. They have this new rule where you have to be in the classroom five minutes before class starts. Now that is not a problem by itself but them lurking in the hall way with clipboards practically looking at stopwatches is really demeaning. None of the current teachers have ever had a problem with being late (the one who did, just disappeared one night :o) so it’s just so awkward the immense importance they put on this. I really think that I am at the end of my patience and understanding with the school and the Chinese culture in general that a lot more than normal annoys me immensely. I think it’s best I leave China… and thank goodness that day is so near!

If anyone is curious as to what my part of town looks like, here is a little glimpse. It's dull here, truly!

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. :)

Ooo China - Pizza hut

So we went to Pizza hut the other day. In China, Pizza huts are kind of a date place. The inside looks rather nice. In fact, they even have escargot on the menu. Fancy right? 

The Pizza Hut Extraordinaire 

Pasta with sausage that tastes like dog food

Well, in the good ol’ US of A, fancy restaurants are usually known for their impeccable service. Not that I want to compare the Pizza Hut in China to a Michelin grade restaurant in Chicago, but I still want to stress service or in my case, the lack there of. At the Pizza Hut, one of us ordered pizza and the other ordered pasta. The pizza came and was fully consumed before the pasta even showed up at the table. The concept of timing food so it arrives together so the party that came together can eat together is totally lost on the Chinese. This is not the first time where one of us has completely finished our meal before the other one even started.

Oooo China! Get your stuff together!

Jobs in China

      Yesterday I was on the bus taking my usual hour and a half trek to go get dinner, when I looked out the window and saw about three people standing in the middle of the road, wiping the metal highway divider with rags. Normally, this wouldn’t faze me, but I realized that most of you folks back home would actually find this unusual. So I’ve decided to actively try to pretend like it’s my first week in China, and report back all the “weird” things I see on a daily basis that I no longer find weird and have been desensitized to.

       So going back to the people wiping the metal highway divider, it is not unusual in China to see many people doing what appear to be unnecessary tasks. Wiping the highway divider is one. Having five attendants stationed at each aisle in a grocery store is another. Sweeping the sidewalks everyday is one more! I’ve never actually seen this as it probably happens late at night, but I’m pretty sure that there are people assigned to sweep up after a night markets so they can set up the next night and trash the streets again. For those of you that don’t know, all remnants of food and garbage are thrown on the street at night markets. Apparently using the garbage cans is too hard. Either way, labor in China is cheap. So cheap that a restaurant will have someone whose only job is to open the door for the patrons. As such, you will find the Chinese doing the most ridiculous jobs all over the place. With 1.3 billion people in China, the government has to sometimes find creative ways for all of them to have work.

 

This is a woman "sweeping" the floor. Only odd thing is that she is using wet sand and pushing it around with her broom. I mean it seems to do a good job. But really? Wet sand?

Restaurants in China

         Hole in the wall restaurants in America are a joy to visit. They are usually smaller, cute and cozy and full of really nice staff. The food is usually very homestyle or ultra unique. The experience usually leaves you with a happy heart and a happy stomach.

          In China, it’s a bit different. Hole in the wall restaurants are the norm instead of the exception. They all have a rectangular sign with some sort of colored background and some sort of Chinese written on them. In my previous post, I’ve mentioned that they all look the same so we make up names for them. Inside they all contain the same wooden tables with a horizontal beam so low, that your thighs don’t fit under it, causing you to sit two feet away from the table. A cup of “sanitized” chopsticks stands in the middle of the table along with a stack of tissue thin napkins. Upon entering one of these hole in the wall establishments, it is up to you to find a seat at one of these impossible to sit at tables, which during the lunch rush could be difficult. Often times, you just sit at a table with other people. Enjoy the stares you get, as you are often the only white people in the restaurant.

            Ordering is obviously an ordeal, but once that is done, you can sit back and enjoy the piping hot water that they serve you. The Chinese don’t do cold water…  even on the hottest day in the middle of summer.

             The thing you will notice about Chinese hole in the walls is the excessive noise. The servers don’t bring your food to the table, but rather they pick it up from the chef and then scream the name of the dish out loud, and it is your responsibility to claim it. So at any given point in your meal, you will hear random Chinese screaming which is highly annoying. Further, the Chinese patrons themselves don’t understand the concept of indoor voices. It’s one thing to speak loudly every now and then to emphasize a point or because you got excited, it’s a totally different thing to scream across the table for the duration of the entire conversation. Most of the time it doesn’t  even sound like a conversation, but rather a screaming fest, kind of like six 5 year old children arguing over legos.

               So between waitresses screaming out dishes every 3 minutes, and the table next to you and behind you engaging in some verbal  combat, Chinese hole in the wall dining is not particularly pleasant. Add enough cigarette smoke to make you disoriented and then you are having a jolly good time.

Beer Duck. That upside down glass has actual beer in it. Pretty darn delicious!

Here are some other observations regarding Chinese dining:

-all bones of animals are placed directly on the table or throw on the ground

-all used napkins are thrown on the ground

-slurping noises are not a problem in China. They are by no means considered rude.

-bringing your entire face to the table to eat something is not considered bad etiquette

-if you ever need your waitress, it is up to you to scream out “waiter!!!” Same thing goes for when you want your check

-immediately upon sitting down at your table, you are handed a menu and are expected to order right then and there. If you aren’t ready, the waitress will stand there staring at you until you are. It’s normal protocol here.... me personally..... I think it's creepy.

Trophy Case

Let’s talk school. In the past week or so I’ve experienced some situations that I think are unique to China and to this day I still can’t really get my mind around it.

                I gave my seniors their first AP Biology test. It was unit one and the information was not necessarily ultra difficult or that new to them. After grading the majority of the tests (apparently people like to disappear on test day and are currently still making up exams), I was appalled to see that half of my students failed (six out of the twelve that took it). Considering these students had to test into this special “AP” class within the school and considering the “dumbest” kid scored in the top 80^th percentile on the SAT, the failing rate on my measly bio exam seemed a bit high. There are obviously a few reasons why this could be so. One could be that the students don’t care. Now, why would they not care when obviously their GPA’s matter for college applications AND the information I’m testing them on will be on their AP exams in May. I’m not just giving a test for no reason. I’m trying to help them learn the information slowly over the course of the year so they will be prepared when the time comes. Trust me, no teacher spends the time to make an exam just to be mean. I spent my time looking for old exams that have been released and going through them to find old AP question applicable to our unit to insert into the unit test so my exam would be close to the AP exam. I tried! I really did! And what I get is half the class failing.

                 Two, when I asked the student who received the highest grade (B+) what he thought about the exam, he responded that he wished he had more time. Hmmm ok. Let’s think about this one. For the past two or three weeks we (the teachers) have been specifically told by the office not to give homework (that is a whole different story), which I can personally say at least 2 of the 3 AP teachers (Brandon and me) complied. Additionally, the seniors have at least four to five “study halls” every day. So with that much time to study and no homework, how the heck can this boy tell me he wished he had more time! This just leads me to believe that they don’t care about their grades, because if they did, they would have used one of their four study halls a day to study for the unit test! So this just takes me back to my first point, they don’t care. Why? After living here in China for a few months now, I can get a sense that the school “takes care” of the student’s grades if you know what I mean. I was just yesterday asked into the AP office to help one of the teachers answer some questions about weighted and unweighted GPA and weighted and unweighted class rank. She was filling out the Common Application that some schools use now a days. The entire school has about 850 seniors, 15 of which are in the school’s special “AP” program and 15 of which are actually applying to American Universities. I also have to point out that the “AP” Office does not work hand in hand with the main office. Aka they report their students information separately. If I had to guess right now where those 15 students will fall in the class rank…. Well I’m sure you guys can figure out what I’m saying.

                As for when the students will actually take the time to study and learn the information needed for the AP Biology exam… well I can only guess. I have a feeling that a month before the AP exam, my classes will be cancelled for no apparent reason, and the kids will sit and memorize the entire Princeton AP Review book for every AP subject exam they are taking. In other words, they will sit and memorize (not learn) an entire year long curriculum in one month and get 5s on the exams. So why am I here? If they don’t care to learn now because they need to focus on the one thing that can’t be faked or fixed for them (their college personal statements) and if they don’t need me later when they are cramming on their own, then why do they need me at all? Answer: trophy.

                On a separate topic, I show up to my AP Psychology class Saturday morning ready to give them their unit test, to find that only 4 of my 15 students are in class. Earlier in the week I had asked them if they wanted one class to take the test (Friday’s we only meet once) or two (Saturday we meet for two periods back to back). Everyone responded with two. Ok so I go and schedule the test for Saturday and made Friday a review day. This all went down on Tuesday. So basically, between Tuesday and Saturday, not a single one of my students bothered to tell me that they will not be in class on Saturday. The office did not inform me either. When I walked into my nearly empty class room on Saturday, I just about had a hissy fit! I was not going to give a test to four students in Psychology, nor was I going to continue teaching in Biology next period to those same four students! I ended up editing one personal statement and walking out of the class.

                Communication about attendance with teachers here is not considered mandatory I guess. And due to the fact that the office probably had no idea how many students were in class and that I just walked out of the classroom and left the kids alone, I’m guessing the school doesn’t have any liability issues or any regard for knowing who is in their school and when. I’m sure the school and the students don’t think this, but I think it has to do with respect. Because they cancel our classes last minute and don’t show up to meetings last minute and do other things to push us around AND on top of it, I get a class of four students…. This just confirms to me, again, that no one cares what I do…I am in fact just a trophy but a damn good trophy at that.

How to do laundry in China

Doing laundry isn't really that fun back home, but it's a lot worse over here. Let me shed some light on how I have to do laundry for the next 8 months or so!

Meet our washer and spinner.... Notice... no drier included. Ugh. 

Here you can see the very clear instructions on how to run this machine. Thankfully our brains were able to use context clues to figure out what to do. So first you have to fill the main compartment with water. This is a manual task: all you have to do is turn the knob. However, there are a few tricky parts. One: don't forget to turn off the knob when the compartment fills.... it will not turn off itself! Two: if you want hot water.... you have to boil it yourself and pour it in, or use cups to transfer hot water from the sink in the bathroom. Aka getting warm water is a pain. But then again, nothing cleans your clothes free of dirty China smog as hot water so we have to do it. ( so far at this point its been at least 10-15 minutes boiling water and slowly adding it to the main compartment)

Here you can see the water slowly filling up the main compartment. Isn't it lovely?

Here is the washer killing our clothes. Yes, I meant to say killing because all it really does is mush our clothes around until they turn into one big knot. Then we the laundry is done, I get to play a game of untangling. It's joyous really. Not only is it a game, but I can also see at the same time my clothes getting destroyed. I'm coming back to Chicago naked I swear. My clothes will be in shreds.

After the wash cycle is done, I get to drain the water. You'd think it would be relatively simple to somehow install the draining mechanism to drain directly into a pipe somewhere, however, instead, there is a hose that goes to our bathroom and since the drain there isn't wide enough to drain the water fast enough, the dirty China smog filled water floods our bathroom. You can't see it that clearly but the water basically is past the toilet and on the green rug. We usually have to plan when we do laundry and use the facilities prior to laundering as no one likes walking into a wet bathroom. Then you fill the main compartment and repeat for the rinse cycle, sans the hot water this time thankfully.

Then comes the spinner. Just load up the clothes, make sure they are balanced, and spin away. I have to say that the spin cycle here is a whole lot more efficient than back home.... but that's not big enough of an improvement to ever justify this method of doing laundry.

Finally, we get to be all old school and hang our clothes out to dry. Takes about one day on a sunny day, or more if its cloudy and China smoggy. :/

And that is how my laundry lives it's life here. My clothes are stretched out since there is no drier to shrink them back. Like I said, I have a feeling half of my clothes won't make it and will meet their ends here in China. O how I hope it's not my favorite polka dot sweater! :)