A Year in the Life of a Waiguoren

Well it has been awhile since I last posted. The weeks are flying by and it is actually cold here now. In fact, as I am typing this there are huge flakes of snow coming down outside and it is actually sticking! It makes me feel Christmassy. It has snowed for 24 hours now and we have about a foot of snow. No classes today or tomorrow! When they called school off the students who live of campus had to leave right away so I took the rest of my students outside for a snowball fight. It was sooo much fun! I can’t say I am loving the cold but I am loving the snow. Apparently in China, the countrywide “turn on heat” day is November 15th. So until then I just have the heat my AC unit produces. It is interesting sitting and eating dinner at a restaurant when you can see your breath!
For Halloween I dressed up as one of the three blind mice with my friends Laura and Sam. You can see the picture below. With limited resources I would say we did a pretty good job! On Halloween Jordan decorated his apartment and we had a party there. Some of our other American, Russian, and Hungarian friends came over to join us here at No. 42. Then we headed downtown to a club called Mazzo. They had Halloween decorations up as well and everyone was looking very festive.

The three blind mice

Me, Mei mei, and Laura

Panda hats

Happy in the snow,
Lizzie

I realized recently that I have not told you very much about my actual teaching and what I do, so here is the low down. Most of the lessons taught so far have been pretty simple and introductory to get the students back into the English listening mode. I really can tell a difference as time goes on that they are beginning to understand more of what I say...most of the time. There are those moments when I finish explaining a task and tell them to get started and I am greeted with 60 blank stares...or completed work that is not at all what I explained. But there are also times where they actually understand and laugh at my jokes. Which is always refreshing.

Anyways, with my 14 senior 2 classes I have covered topics such as ways to describe people, discussing preferences and how to communicate what you prefer, travel differences and similarities between the US and China, tongue twisters, and vocabulary games. The tongues twisters are quite funny to experience. We did Peter Piper and they were all very impressed with how quickly I could say it. It helps to say it at least five times per class for 14 classes. I dare you to challenge me I played Jeopardy with one class. All of the questions were about American culture, holidays, and sports. I was very surprised at how much they knew! My questions will have to be more difficult next time. Sometimes planning lessons is difficult a. because there are 60 some students in my classes b. because there is only 40 minutes and c. because the students don't actually get graded in our classes and therefore don't always take it seriously. They are pretty good at listening and participating most of the time, but there are always those students that would rather sleep or chat so that is always a challenge. Homework is pretty nonexistent due to the situation so if I want them to do independent work it all has to be done during class. I'm still trying to figure out a way that logistically I could get around and have a one on one conversation with everyone in the class to see where they are at but still have something productive for the rest of the class to be working on for probably two class periods. Ideas? hehe

I have two Junior 2 classes and they are about 5 years younger than my other classes. I have started doing completely different lessons with them because they don't have nearly the same comprehension level that my older students do. Last week I did a body parts lesson. We reviewed easy parts and I taught them some new ones like elbow, eyebrow, shoulder, etc. and then we got to play "Lizzie Says" and sing Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. It was quite amusing to watch and they seemed to enjoy being silly and singing so that was a fun lesson.

I recently asked one of my classes to give me a Chinese name. After multiple names of vegetables and flowers and other names that they either just giggled at our could not explain I decided the class was not to be trusted for such an important task. My name must fit me, have a legit meaning and be given to me by someone who can actually tell me what it means. So I guess I will continue on as a no name foreigner for now.

A few weeks ago Jordan and I also started working at a foreign language school a couple miles away. We met the owner through a friend, Jason, who taught in Shijiazhuang last year and is back for another year. This language school is like an after school and weekend program. Older elementary and middle school aged students come here for even more English learning. I teach classes of about 15 students for either an hour and a half or two hours depending on the age. We are basically there so the school can say they have foreign teachers. When we arrive at the school for our night of teaching we receive the lessons and off we go! So there is no prep involved. Just show up, pronounce some new words and sentences for the students, and then play games that allow them to practice their English and listen to you speak. Not too difficult, although the students there can be quite naughty considering it is at night or weekends, they don't really want to be there, and they only understand maybe half of what you say. The younger age group is fun though and it keeps me busy!

Okay update on daily happenings. Last week we decided to go check out a place that appeared to have massages for only 20 Yuan. We walked in to a dark room with three beds where Laura, Steph and I all took a seat. Andre was taken into another room by himself cause he was a boy lol. This massage was more of a meat tenderizing but still felt good...most of the time. There was a lot of giggling and grunting during the 45 minutes we were there!

Thursday morning I woke up to a text from Mr. Dong our boss informing us that we don't have to teach on Thursday or Friday because the students are taking exams so we could take a rest! I decided to take full advantage of these days so on Thursday I headed downtown with Steph to do a little shopping. Somehow I forgot to pack shoes that were close toed and would keep my feet warm but still be stylish. I ended up buying purple corduroy converse high tops. I'm very excited about them On Friday we were going to go hiking in the mountains just West of us for the day but we woke up to crazy winds! And when it is windy in China that means there is dirt blowing everywhere. So we decided it would not be a very enjoyable experience to inhale dirt and have it in our eyes the whole time. We will get there eventually...hopefully.

This weekend Laura, Jordan, and Steph headed to Beijing for a couple days. They are going to buy tickets for a concert that we get to go to in November! The band is called Owl City. I am very excited but that means I am stuck here working hehe. This afternoon I am headed to People's Plaza with John. He has to take the foreign students there for a day trip so I am keeping him company. He said we might have time afterwords to go to his uncle's kids bookstore which would be super fun. I wouldn't mind buying a Chinese kids book or two!

Stay Classy USA,
Lizzie

So it has been a while since my last entry and so many exciting things have happened! The majority of this entry will be about the adventures leading up to and including my October holiday that just ended as of today (Friday).

Two Saturdays ago 5 of us from our group headed out to a travel agency with our Chinese friend John to attempt to buy tickets to Hong Kong for our week long vacation that started that Thursday. We had only found out the exact dates of our vacation the previous Thursday. So we thought we were doing pretty well. Little did we know what it is like trying to book a trip in China over a national holiday. We ended up being gone for three hours, going to two different travel agencies, and ending up at the train ticket counter where we bought tickets to Hangzhou a day later than hoped. There was literally nothing else left to places that we could think of that we wanted to go to. In China you can only buy tickets from your departure city so we didn't buy our return tickets, or our tickets to Shanghai, just the ones to Hangzhou...hoping we would be able to get tickets to be back and teach in time a week later!

On Thursday the first we celebrated Chinese National Day celebrating the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the People's Republic of China and the communist party. Beijing had a huge celebration and basically locked up the city limits. We watched part of the ceremony/parade on television and it was pretty spectacular. There were so many bright costumes and people and dancing! I cannot imagine organizing and choreographing that event! October 3 was also Mid Autumn festival which is a Chinese lunar holiday. Moon cakes are the traditional food to eat during this holiday and they were delicious. The are round, harder cakes filled with different things. My favorite one tasted kind of like a fig newton in the center. Apparently they are round to symbolize the family and being together. Many traditional foods in China are round for that reason.

Eight of us left Shijiazhuang on a 5 O'clock train Thursday evening. Our train to Hangzhou took 17 hours so we bought hard sleepers. Meaning we each had a hard small bed on the train. There were about 10 compartments per car and 6 beds per compartment stacked like bunks with three on each side of the wall. We were all pretty close to each other so we had a blast just eating, chatting, meeting nice Chinese people, and sleeping. Luckily we met a Chinese man who spoke very good English and was willing to help us buy our return tickets and our tickets to Shanghai once we arrived in Hangzhou. That was such a blessing!

Shanghai is only another 2 hours by train from Hangzhou so Friday afternoon we hopped on another train and headed to the largest city in China to spend the weekend there. It was so wonderful! The weather was beautiful, blues skies, nice breeze, just perfect. We all loved our time there and it was amazingly clean and quiet compared to the Shiz (Shijiazhuang). I never thought I would enjoy architecture so much but it was a refreshing change to walk around a city that actually had variety in their buildings! Here in Shijiazhuang everything pretty much looks the same; gray cement square buildings. We stayed in a very nice hostel called The Sleeping Dragon that used to be the home of a rich Jewish man. Our weekend consisted of a lot of walking, a boat tour in the harbor of Shanghai (so many pretty buildings to see from the water), lots of amazing delicious western food, Chinese acrobats (so good!), coffee , and the Shanghai nightlife. I think Shanghai might be my new favorite city in China.

Monday morning we got up and headed back to the train station to go back to Hnagzhou. There is a saying in China that goes like this "in the sky there is heaven, in China there is Hangzhou." Which is a semi true description of Hangzhou hehe. There is a very large lake there called West Lake that is very beautiful and serene with mountains on one side, pagodas around it, and pretty boats floating on it (see my photo gallery). That is where we spent our afternoon. Just walking around the lake watching people and relaxing in nature for a change. The city part of Hangzhou is pretty much the same as any other city, lots of buildings and people. Although it was quite nice compared to some. Monday night we had another delicious dinner and just sat at the restaurant next to our hostel enjoying happy hour, eating food, and reminiscing about our trip that was now coming to an end.

Our train ride back seemed a bit longer but it was still fun. Once again we met some nice Chinese people who could speak a little English or we could communicate through my broken Chinese and their broken English. Mainly we just laughed at eachother. We also met two kids. The little girl was named Nancy. She could only name the body parts in English and say "hello how are you" but she was basically the entertainment for all 8 of us on the way back to the Shiz. She was quite the little ball of surprises. Dragon Ball Z as we called him was the other little boy. He was about 8 years old and loved to pretend to fight like in video games and throw "fireballs" at you hence the name. He had a little too much energy for us on occasion, but still fun

Since we got back to the Shiz at 6 am on Wednesday I had two full days to relax, clean, and sleep before heading back to work. Which ended up being quite nice. On Thursday to finish out our vacation Steph, Laura, Jordan and I headed downtown to do a little shopping. We got so overwhelmed by all the people and commotion we ended up hanging in a classy coffee shop for two hours where I tried egg and honey coffee. As strange as it sounds it was actually quite good. I did not taste any coffee and it kind of reminded me of egg nog, just not nearly as wonderful Then we finished off the night with a delicious meal of Beijing duck, ribs, wine soaked pears, fried rice, an egg dish that you put inside of fried bread, and some cards at one of the few actual bars in China. It was so good

Be sure to check out the pictures from my trip that I am posting right now!

Laterz,
Lizzie

Pay no attention to the title. It is merely a conglomeration of the stories I have to tell you today.

1. Imagine this. You are walking out from teaching a lovely class of eight sweet Chinese children and the evening greets you with a pleasant rain. But then you realizing you road your bike to work. Well okay, you can handle this just whip out the umbrella and go Chinese style riding down the street one-handed, in the dark, with your umbrella. Perfect. But then it starts not just raining, but poring. And the street turns into a river that splashes mud, trash, sand, and most likely urine (since the children relieve themselves on the street wearing buttless pants) onto your now soaking wet clothes. Oh, and your umbrella turns inside out on you. Did I mention the rain is most likely acid rain since it has to go through loads of pollution before it gets to you? Only two more miles to go before you are home.

This was my trek home last night at approximately 9 PM. Needless to say I was soaked from head to toe and covered in mud by the time I got to my apartment. The rest of my night consisted of washing my clothes and taking a shower. Yuck. Luckily I was in a surprisingly good mood after my class and I actually found myself singing and giggling most of the way home until I got back and realized the mess I was. I mean, what else can you do? You are in China, alone, the rain is coming down in sheets, you are riding a used bike with a broken umbrella...I think laughing might be the only option, oh and singing, out loud. No one understands you anyways and "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" would not get out of my head so I belted it. It was a wonderful Saturday night. I have an "after" picture that I will put up soon.

2. Donkey. Ever had it? I did for the first time for dinner tonight! Laura and I decided to try someplace new after our hip hop dance class at the gym (hilarious:hip hop, in China, in Chinese). The restaurant will now be referred to as the Shrek restaurant due to the large Shrek donkey looking picture on the front of the building. Anyways, we managed to select some cold donkey and two donkey burger-esque sandwiches that were delicious. The cold donkey was alright but you encountered quite a lot of fat on those pieces of meat. Plus I usually only like cold meat with cheese and crackers or on a deli sandwich. I would compare donkey meat with a tender roast beef. And darker meat. Over all a good experience.

3. One of my new favorite activities is my own Chinese version of Where's Waldo. This is how it works. At a restaurant we decide what kind of food we want to eat. Then I look up the characters for those foods in my nifty phrasebook and then search for those same characters on our menu! So far it has a 100% success rate. Both times I have done it (okay so my successes are not very extensive but...) the dishes we end up getting actually have the food item in them I was looking for and they taste wonderful!

4. Last but not least, I think Shijiazhuang is prettier at night. Now this opinion does not hold true when the day is sunny and beautiful. But on your typical gray smoggy day, the night view definitely wins. China is very good at lights. There are many buildings with brightly colored screens and moving light displays and such. If I had seen Vegas I might compare it to that but since I haven't....it is like what I would imagine Vegas to look like. Colorful and almost twinkling sometimes. It makes me smile. I will try to snap a picture of some of my favorite lit up buildings. It is just so difficult to get a picture that truly captures what I see and I don't want to give you mediocre pictures of all the amazing things I see. So patience until I manage to find that perfect shot

If you have anything specific you want to hear about let me know!

Until next time,
Lizzie

Another week has gone by and so many things have happened but yet it is beginning to feel like "a typical week". Just as I got into the routine of my classes another teaching opportunity came up so I now teach at a foreign language school as well. It is just a few nights a week and on most weekends. The students at this foreign language school are younger (between 8 and 11) and are so cute! They are very good at teaching me Chinese during our class breaks. At this new school I am basically there for them to hear me speak and play games with them. Not too difficult. I get the lesson for the day as I am walking to the classroom. The school is about 2 miles away so on my to do list this week is buy a bike! I'm very excited to do this. Although it will take some getting used to biking on Chinese streets. They are crazy! Cars, people, bikes, mopeds, and buses everywhere and nobody pays attention to traffic laws. Needless to say I will need to have my brain on high alert when I hit the streets on my new set of wheels.

I can now successfully take a taxi on my own and return back to my apartment on the first try. I have the name of my school down and so far every taxi driver has been able to understand me! Now I just need to be able to hold a conversation with them once I get into the taxi. Should be easy enough, right? Riding in a taxi for 20 minutes and not saying anything is pretty boring. The taxi driver quickly gives up on you when all you say is "ah" and "I am from America" in Chinese.

Our favorite dumpling place right down the street from our apartment is now remodeled and reopened! This is very exciting for us because it is delicious, cheap, and close. We are waiting a few days to go eat there because apparently when a new restaurant opens and all of the equipment is new it is very dirty so you want to wait for them to break it in. Seems kind of funny to me that you don't want eat there when is it new...but when in Rome (or China)!

Which brings me to another puzzling observation about China. It can take forever to get some things done, like your toilet or shower fixed, or getting a new light bulb. But other things, such as tearing up a sidewalk, building a bridge, or remolding a restaurant get done very quickly. Like within days! Strange I tell you. I have yet to figure out why.

I received word yesterday that there is a new coffee shop that opened by the train station (which I can take a bus to) and it isn't very expensive. Hopefully my schedule this week will include a trip there because I would really like to try out a Chinese coffee shop that isn't insanely priced. There is one coffee shop that is super nice with couches, wireless internet and pretty designs in your coffee froth but it is 30 kaui for one cup of coffee! In America that is like a $4.50 cup of coffee, not too bad, but I could by a KFC combo meal here for less than that!

Which brings me to American food. KFC and Pizza Hut are amazing. In Chinese standards they are expensive but totally worth it. Don't get me wrong, I love the Chinese food here and have yet to have a meal that I am unsatisfied with. But sometimes American food is just too good There are also McDonald's around but not as many as there are KFC's. Apparently the Chinese like KFC better because it has more Chinese qualities to the food than McDonald's.

Quick update. The noodle shop family is doing very well. The little girl recently go a new haircut and we think it gave her more attitude and sass. There is another women working there too but we have not figured out the relation yet...perhaps sister?

Sunny in Shijiazhuang,
Lizzie