Randomness

Sorry I've been so absent these past couple of weeks. It's been mostly work for us, with little time for play. We're nearing the end of our summer overtime, so from now on we'll only be working a measley 24 hours a week. To celebrate, we're headed to Beijing for a three-day weekend on Monday. We'll be celebrating our four-year wedding anniversary on Wednesday! So far we've never spent an anniversary in the states, but I think this year will be extra special because we'll finally be able to do something special. We're also taking our first vacation October 12-20, and we'll be headed to Shanghai for the World's Fair! Hopefully we'll have a lot more exciting posts in the near future. But for the meantime, here's a mish-mash of random things we've seen and done in the past two weeks:

Andrew taught Julia, John's niece, how to cook hamburgers and fries. It was a big success, though John ate too much and abruptly had to get up and leave the apartment to lie down. Can't decide if this is good or not...

Andrew's student Lily celebrated her 17th birthday, and we had her and Karen over for chicken soup and cake.

Andrew decided that the "dragon fruit" needed a bit more dragon, so he gave it a makeover. He was sad to eat it and ruin his beautiful artwork, but he made me promise to show you all his masterpiece for posterity's sake.

The best thing about the past two weeks was my introduction to Mop Dog. This little guy belongs to the shop-owners near the school, and while I often saw him running around outside, I was too shy to introduce myself. Instead, I admired him from afar and planned to dog-nap him. One day I got up the courage to pet him and since then he and I have been good friends. I think he might come willingly with me when the time comes. It helps that I bring him treats and scratch his belly. He's the sweetest dog, and not once have we heard him yap like others of his breed. His owners seem bewildered by my interest in him, but are happy to give me (supervised) visitation rights. I wish I could say that he wasn't being treated well and thus justify my plans of grand theft doggery, but his owners adore him, as does everyone else on the street. His real name is "Ball" in Chinese, but I've had his fake passport made to say "Mop Dog" because that was how I first thought of him that fortuitous day so many weeks ago.

The second best thing that happened recently was that we got paid! A mere pittance compared with what most of you are making in the states, but considering our only expenses for the moment are food and paying off our enormous debt, it felt like we were millionaires! It was especially noticeable because we were paid in cash. I swear this job is legit, really!

So how did we use our small fortune? After wiring about 70% back to the U.S. to pay for our loans and credit cards, we went shopping! We finally found the cheap stores that really live up to the "Made in China" label. Shirts for $2, dresses for $10, bags for $1.50, you name it, we bought it. Andrew seems to be under the impression that I am some sort of Barbie Doll, and he forewent a day at the beach in favor or dragging me through four shopping malls, buying me everything in sight. What a jerk! ;) I'm sure you can see the theme of my purchases, though. Did I mention that I love purple??

I received yet another too-generous gift from a student. Penny gave me a very nice, very expensive jade Buddha necklace. This was because I invited her to taco night at our house. They better stop it, or I'll get used to this pampering!

We've been raiding the bulk candy section of Tesco to try out some new flavors. It's actually kind of overwhelming because there are so many types of candies and many are not recognizable. There are even little packets of dried peas and fish in this section, so you have to be careful of what you buy!

This guy is near the Tesco

Last night Helen and John took us out to dinner after our staff meeting. In addition to getting to try new, delicious foods for free, these little trips give us plenty of ideas for meals when we're too tired to cook for ourselves. This place was very similar to eating raclette. A big grill is placed at the table, and each person can choose their food from a huge buffet table full of meats, vegetables, and seafood. You then grill your food right at the table. They have different sauces and spices that you can add. It's an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The price? A mere $3.50/person. Even Andrew was full by the time we left!

We finally made it to the beach today. Somehow we managed to get on the right bus (though going the wrong direction), and though we had to get off and find the other line, we made it to the beach all by ourselves. Our first stop was the Dolphinarium to see the dolphin show. It didn't compare to Sea World, but it was still pretty cool and predictably cute. There were also sea lions, which are always my favorite part of a water show. After that we hung out on the beach and tanned for awhile, which drew stares from others around us. Have I mentioned that Chinese women HATE getting tan?? When they ride bikes or motorcycles, they wear long ballroom gloves to protect their arms from the sun, and if there's even a little bit of sun out, all the women walk around with their umbrellas. It's a bit obsessive, really, but kind of cute!

"Qinhuangdao, known for it's ice-free port."-tourist brochure

Yes, that dolphin is painting

Finally, some more about food. Andrew decided to be adventurous at the store today, so we scored some dried BBQ eel jerky, some blueberry flavored potato chips, a slice of durian, which smells strongly of poop but tastes pretty good, and some "passion" soap, which actually smells pretty wonderful (but is not for eating, of course).

Reflections on the Chinese Education System

I have only four students: Molly, Sandi, Karen, and Penny. Two are university students, and two are high school students. Working and speaking them has led to many interesting, and disturbing, discoveries about the Chinese education system. I thought I'd share those revelations with you.

Molly went to an arts high school, which is a different experience from most Chinese students, but in some ways better. Because she was a musician, she didn't have to cut her hair like a boys, which is what my other high school students have to do. Apparently wearing your hair as you want is an expression of creativity that is necessary for art students. Of course, if the contrary is true, what does this day about those students who are forced to cut their hair? They aren't allowed to be creative?

In addition to stifling creativity, the school is heavily involved in the student's life. All students in high school are forbidden from dating. If a student is found to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, he or she will be kicked out of school. Even Molly, who is goes to a university in Beijing, has still never had a boyfriend or been on a date. And don't even ask them is they've ever been to a party or done anything fun in their lives. It's all school, school, school.

Karen has extremely short hair, not by choice, but because her school demands it. She just started high school, and this weekend she'll be moving into the dormitories across town. Her school day will begin at 6:00am and end around 9:00 or 10:oopm. These are just the hours she will spend in class, learning. She will have three hours on Sunday afternoons to visit her family, who lives only twenty minutes away, or, more likely, catch up on homework. In her dormitory, she will not be allowed to have a cell phone, computer, or MP3 player. There aren't even outlets available to charge electronic equipment. Karen is really excited because she received special permission from her school to spend Thursday and Saturday nights with me learning English from 6:00-9:00pm. This means that for two nights a week she can leave the school and spend the night at home.

Summer vacation is only about two weeks for them, sometimes only 12 days, and yet during this time Chinese students choose instead to take extra English classes at our school, which is why we've been pulling so much overtime. If you only had two weeks of vacation a year, would you spend it taking an intensive language course?

All four of my students are hoping to study at a college in the U.S. or Canada. They all claim that if they work hard enough now, they will be able to enough the relative easiness and calm of being an American college student. I hope for their sakes that they are accepted and can go, because these kids need a break!

Of course, this rigid system explains why the Chinese have a reputation for being so hard-working and intelligent, but it all kind of seems unnecessary to me. If their goal is to study in the states, it seems that they're going above and beyond the necessary to get in. After all, I went to a pretty bad high school (in terms of its ranking in the system), I had friends, boyfriends, family problems, did extracurricular activities, attended school dances, and didn't get straight A's. After all that, I still got into the best public university in the country! Surely these over-achievers can let up a little and still be accepted to a good university? Or maybe times have changed so much and it's much harder for anyone, especially foreigners, to get into college.

Great Wall of China

Andrew and I have added yet more overtime to our summer schedule, so we only had Tuesday morning and all of Wednesday off this week. Tuesday morning John's niece, who is visiting from the north, came over to our apartment and taught me two traditional Chinese dishes. It was really funny and confusing because of the immense language barrier, but somehow I managed to learn to cook an eggplant dish and a fried mushroom and pork dish.

Time seems to go by so quickly here. I guess it's just the novelty of being busy again and having a full workday. Classes can get a little repetitive and boring, but they're not too bad. Usually I start my class by giving my student a speaking topic about the day's chapter. For example, if we're studying values, I'll ask her to talk about what values are most important. She will then have a couple of minutes to prepare her speech. All of my students are studying to take a very important English exam, so they need to practice their speaking skills. After she delivers her speech, we usually start the chapter, with her reading, writing, listening, and completing grammar exercises. After about two hours spent on a six-eight page chapter, we then start doing extra listening, reading, and grammar in preparation for the exam. So you see it can get a bit boring, but because this exam is so important to them, I can't really skip much or incorporate "fun" activities without taking away time from essential topics they need to cover. If anyone has any ideas on how to make it more interesting for them, I'm all ears! Since we don't have time to do fun stuff in class, we've been doing stuff outside of class. Tuesday evening after class Molly came over and watched "Stardust" with us to practice her English. She understood the story, but there were a lot of difficult accents and expressions.

On Wednesday my student Karen and Andrew's student Lily treated us to "Chinese pot." We tried to explain that maybe they shouldn't use this expression to describe what we did, but they couldn't be convinced! Chinese pot is a style of eating in which you place vegetables and meat in a pot of boiling broth that sits at your table. Once your food is cooked, you take it out of the broth and eat it with one of the many sauces offered: sesame sauce, red tofu, salty green gunk, soy sauce, vinegar, and hot chili. We cooked cabbage, spinach, lamb, shrimp, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, meatballs, and thinly sliced beef. It was a fun experience.

Lily, Karen, and Chinese "pot"

After lunch, Lily's driver showed up and took us to the First Pass Under Heaven. This is the section of the Great Wall just outside Qinhuangdao. Lily paid our entrance fees and we stopped at the interesting museum before climbing to the wall. The section of the Great Wall wasn't as impressive as I thought it'd be, mostly because a lot of it has been reconstructed, and you can't walk along it for very far. Still, it was cool to be on top of the Great Wall! I also paid $0.50 to pose with a peacock. Apparently the peacock is a very lucky bird, and the guy made Andrew get in the picture, too, because it would bring us happiness in our marriage. I guess it worked! Other animal attractions included an iguana, a snake, and a fawn.

Just a little way down the road, we stopped at the Dragon's Head, a much more interesting site. Here, the Great Wall meets the Pacific Ocean and there are many old buildings, such as temples and army barracks, that still stand today. Here I bought a cool leaf hat at an awesome price of $0.30.

Where the Great Wall meets the sea

Round doors are only for women. Me and Lily

Cool maze at the Dragon's Head

You can find the weirdest things in the supermarket here. In addition to being able to buy krill, pigs feet, and huge chunks of seaweed fresh from the sea, you can also buy 50% alcohol in a water bottle for only $1.50. Andrew has had a good time psyching out Helen and John and his students at school.

What's wrong with this picture?

Ummm...

P.S. I have a black spot on my camera that shows up in most of my pictures. From doing research online, I think that there is dust on the sensor. Does anyone know how to clean it out? I really don't want to have to buy a new camera, which is what all the websites suggest, especially since this camera is barely a year old!

Proof!

I went an entire meal in the presence of Chinese using my chopsticks! I have photos as proof! I can get witness statements for those who are still disbelievers. As my grandmother said, "At least now you won't starve."

Taco night with Molly was a success, even though we had two minor last minute crises:

1) the green fruits I had bought turned out not to be limes, but a type of orange

2) Andrew's corn tortillas did not work out, so I had to, at the last minute, make flour tortillas (a much more time-consuming process as it requires yeast and rising)

But all in all, she liked the food and had a good time learning how to play "Go Fish," "Crazy 8's," "Blackjack," and "Jungle Speed," which is a French pattern-recognition speed contest that a friend gave us as a going away gift. In exchange for our humble meal, Molly brought us 6 bottles of Great Wall red wine, a huge bag of delicious fruit, and a 1994 bottle of Hungarian wine. Her gifts were super generous, especially since her parents had already taken us out to a very expensive and delicious meal the night before, and because I know for a fact that red wine in China is very expensive, about $10 a bottle. I'm not sure what made her think that we needed seven bottles of wine, but we're not complaining! I can't wait until Helen gets us the trays for our oven so that I can bake them some deliciousness to repay them for their kindness.

Yet another example of Chinese generosity was demonstrated tonight when Helen and John took us out to a Korean restaurant for dinner with John's nephew and his family. At the restaurant, we took off our shoes before entering a private room and sitting around a table. The first dish was lettuce leaves and a variety of "sandwich" fillings, such as grilled pork, garlic, onions, and different sauces. Using the lettuce leaf, you pick your fillings and then fold your leaf into something resembling a square and eat it. After that the usual food overload followed: sweet and sour pork, calamari in a spicy sauce, whole grilled fish, kimche'e, or spicy cabbage, cold noodles, black noodles, rice, tofu, a peanut dish, potato cakes, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others. All this for seven people! John's niece has offered to teach us to make some Chinese food while she's here, including dumplings! The language barrier might prove difficult, but her son Edward just started Andrew's class, so hopefully he can overcome his shyness and help us out.

John and Helen are the ones farthest on the left

Sweet and sour pork

After a very filling dinner, during which I used my chopsticks the entire time, wowing the crowds, John took us to Olympic Park, a park that was built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics (some of the competitions were held in Qinhuangdao!). It's a beautiful park, and I especially loved how all the trees were lit up with different colored lights. We didn't have much time to linger, as John had to catch an overnight train to another city in order to process our "Foreign Experts Certificates" (makes us sound important, huh?) which we'll need to continue working in China. But our students are dying to show us around town, take us out, and in short, spoil us, so Helen said one of them would definitely take us back for a second visit, and hopefully to see the nearby Safari Park, where rumor has it, you can play with elephants.

Cool reliefs at the park

I want a sword, too!

Famous Olympian's hand and footprint

We think this guy must be a distant relation to Andrew: see the similar noses?

Los Angeles!

P.S. As a side note, I know that there are many more people who read my blog than it indicates. If you read this blog, I'd appreciate it if you became a "Follower." At the top of the blog page, on the left, just click "Follow" and enter your email address and you'll receive an email notification every time I post a new entry (I promise, you'll never get spam or junk mail from Blogger). This would just be a nice way to let me know that you're out there reading this!

Monday is my Friday...

First day of school

Our last few days before classes began were spent shopping and wandering around the city, but mostly being a little bored. We were excited to actually start working, and our schedules are pretty nice! A normal work week is only 24 hours, but the school is really popular, especially right now as the students are on summer break and want to devote extra time to their English study (are they nuts???), so Helen asked us if we wanted some extra hours. Uh, yeah! At this rate, we should be able to pay off our credit card within two months and continue to pay our loans on time. After that, we can spend two or three months paying back Andrew's dad, and then we should be able to start saving money and taking some trips. Thankfully the cost of living here is pretty cheap, especially since all of our utilities and rent and even our everyday medicine (like aspirin, couch syrup, etc.) is all paid for by our bosses. They gave us a generous advance on our salary when we arrived, and we're currently living on $12/day. And this includes shopping at Tesco, the big British supermarket where we get most of our groceries. I've been cooking all of our meals, mostly because we don't have the time, money, or courage to visit restaurants yet. But we have been eating a lot of Chinese food! Here's a picture of my ginger chicken:

Our vegetable lady at the market

There are some yummy desserts available in the bakeries here, but I have to say, no one does chocolate like the U.S. or western Europe.

For the moment Andrew is working 29 hours a week and I work 30. Basically my schedule is as follows: Thursday-Monday I see one student from 8:30-11:30am and another from 2:00-5:00pm. So far my week is only divided amongst three girls: Molly, Sandi, and Karen. So I see Molly pretty much every day and the other girls about three times a week. I helped Sandi choose her American name, and she chose my mother's! And on her birthday, too! Andrew has some individual classes with Sandi and Lily, but the bulk of his classes are two-hour time slots with groups of 12-15 students. The students are so serious, though! They always read through the chapter beforehand and do the exercises and they always ask for ways to help them learn. It really makes me step up my lesson plans and my preparation. They're paying a lot of money to have me as a private teacher, and they work so hard, the least I can do is be prepared and help them get ready for their exams. Helen and John are also workaholics. They don't usually take any days off in a week, especially during the summer. The language school is very popular, even though they don't do any advertising or recruiting. In fact, Helen is having to turn away students because between the three of us, we just don't have time to teach them all. Helen and John typically spend 12 hours a day at the school, Helen teaching and John handling administrative things and being a general handyman around the school. We might add some more hours to our schedule next week, and forfeit a day off. This boom will only last until the school year starts again and then we should be down to a more manageable time schedule.

Andrew's group class

Me and Sandi

Having individual classes is fun. We just sit and talk a bit, and then we read through a chapter in the textbook together, and then the last hour is spent doing exercises to help them prepare for the IELTS or the TOEFL exam, which are required English-language exams for foreigners who want to study in the states. I have a very good rapport with my students, especially Molly.

Me in front of the school

Yesterday, our first day off, Molly took us to the beach in Qinhuangdao. It was overcast and a little windy, so we just walked around and took note of the "Undersea World" and the "Dolphinarium" for a future visit. We then drove to a different beach and met Molly's parents for dinner at a very cool restaurant. In this restaurant, they had huge tanks of live seafood, including a tank with a mako shark, sea slugs, giant clams, the biggest crabs, lobsters, and shrimp I've ever seen, and even sea urchins! The idea is that you walk around and order your food. We let Molly's father deal with this part, as we were giggling over the sea creatures and too busy to pay attention to the menu. Our dinner was served in a private room overlooking the beach (private rooms are very popular in Chinese restaurants), and to begin we were served a Chinese "white wine," which was actually more like schnapps! It was so strong. In addition we were given tea and fruit flavored yogurt to drink. On the table was a large glass lazy susan, and our appetizers consisted of a strange nut, cold jellyfish salad, papaya in honey, chicken wings with chestnuts, and a bunch of different wrapped candies. Our first dish was a skewer with one giant shrimp on it. I love shrimp, so this was my favorite. Then was a skewer of an entire spicy fish. After that they brought out beef, a huge fish in a noodle sauce, sushi, and dumplings. They also gave each of us our own crab, which was pretty big and a little difficult to eat. We also tried sea slug, which was too rubbery and not very tasty. There were a couple of other dishes on the table, but I was too stuffed and nervous to eat any of it. You see, despite the fact that I've managed to eat five meals at home using chopsticks, I didn't do so well in public with them. I had a difficult time, and didn't feel really comfortable even when they brought me a fork and knife. But also, it was just way too much food! After every dish or so, Molly's dad would make a toast to us and require us to drink 1/2 or 1/4 of our "wine." He quickly gave up on me, but Andrew followed him drop for drop, which made him very interesting in the evening. To finish the meal was watermelon, dragon fruit, and cantalope. After dinner we walked around the pier and let our very full tummies digest.

Andrew, Molly, and me

Tonight Molly will be joining us for taco night at our place. We're going to make the tortillas by hand, I bought some $10 avocados for guacamole, and we have some shrimp and black beans and ground beef. The only thing we're missing is sour cream and cheese! Cheese is not really available here, which normally wouldn't be a problem for us, since we like to make our own, but you can't get fresh milk either! The only thing available is long-life boxed milk, which won't work for cheese-making.

We've found we can get most other things at the store here. The only things we're lacking are western-style spices, such as rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, etc. We also can't find vanilla for baking or baking cocoa. We have a little oven so we should be able to bake some things, once we get some key ingredients. We're going to try the big supermarket in Beijing when we go next month, so we'll see what they have there! There's also a real shortage of English books here, so we're hoping to find some good reading material, too.

For those who'd like to send postcards or care packages, here's our address:

Nicole and Andrew Wallace

Ao Jia Language School

351 Wenhua Ave

Haigang District

Qinhuangdao City

Hebei Province

China 066000

We found the DVD "store" yesterday, and were able to score the Vampire Diaries, Season 1, Heroes, Seasons 1-4, and Spartacus Season 1, as well as all three Indiana Jones movies, for about $1.20 each! Yes, they are all pirated copies, but the quality is good and after a while you learn to ignore the Chinese subtitles. We also have a couple of English channels on the TV, including one that plays bad, never-even-knew-it-existed films, like Fair Game with Billy Baldwin and Cindy Crawford, and the Witches of Eastwick! Vampire Diaries was obviously my pick, and I actually enjoy it more than Twilight. It's not as awkward. Also, Stefan is HOT. But seriously, how did they get away with so blatantly plagiarizing Stephenie Meyers? Spartacus was Andrew's choice, and it really only has two types of scenes in it: very graphic sex scenes and very graphic battle scenes. Perfect for men.

Tomorrow it's back to the grind. I have to say, after working an almost-normal work week, I HATE it. It sucks being at work the entire day and not having any time or energy by the time you come home in the evening. This only makes me more freaked out to return to the states and "grow up" and "get a real job." It sucks working the 9-5! Anyone know of a part-time job that's fun and dynamic and pays a lot??? Seriously, my job is easy and fun, but it sucks when 90% of your waking day is taken up with work. The real world sucks. How do you all do it???

Here are some random photos from the past week:

View from our apartment at night

Crazy crosswalk

Near our apartment

Pretty tree

How's our Chinese coming along, you ask? Not very well. We don't have an official teacher, and anytime someone tries to teach us something, we can repeat it but it's always in such an informal setting that we can never remember it later. Andrew has been reading through a book, but even he can't really use what he learns. He can recognize some characters, but in terms of speaking, we're pretty incompetent. Luckily, body language works pretty well at getting what we want. I asked for some chili peppers at the market today, and when I asked how much (in Chinese) she responded with something that wasn't a number (I know the numbers, kind of). It took me forever to realize that they were a gift. Chinese is hard! I also think I'm a little worn out from language learning, and I'm not that interested in becoming fluent. But maybe when I get on a regular schedule and have a little more time to study, I'll pick things up. The pronunciation is the hardest. Andrew does a much better job than me. I still keep thinking in Bambara or French!