Nanjing

Okay so it’s my turn for a new blog post. Sorry I’ve taken so long to take my turn! If we are honest, the past week has been crazy! We are now in our city, Nanjing and we’ve been teachers since Tuesday of last week! To start out, let me tell you about our living arrangements.

We live on the fourth floor of a building on the Nanjing Foreign Language School Main Campus. We both have our own room and bathroom. In our room, we have a mini fridge, two desks, a tv, a wardrobe, two chairs, two end tables, a bookshelf/display case, lots of cupboards, and a full size bed. The bathroom has a sink, toilet and shower with pretty instant hot water which is so nice. However, you can’t put any toilet paper in the toilet because their plumbing system can’t handle it.

Most buildings aren’t ever heated even when it’s below freezing here. Lucky for us, our apartments have great heaters that work really well. We turn them off when we aren’t in the apartment, but it’s always still pretty warm when we come back. The TV only has one English channel and it’s lame. Not that we watch tons of TV anyway. We both have a cell phone and a landline. My landline phone is pink. Whoo!

On our first day, our liaison Stephen just showed us to our rooms and made sure everything was working well. Then he showed us to the grocery store across the street before letting us get settled in. For dinner, our group which includes Brad, Brian, Jenny, Kimee, Sherisse, and me, went out and found a place to eat. Lucky for us, Brad speaks Mandarin so when we are with him, we don’t have to play charades.

The next day, Stephen took us around the city a little and let us ride the buses and things to see how it all works. He is CRAZY! He’s a 70 year-old alcoholic from Australia with Chinese roots. His English is excellent, but he repeats everything he says about 80 times all while drinking his beer. He is very helpful and kind though, despite being a broken record. He answers all our questions before we even ask because he talks so much. He has a scary apartment. He’s a packrat.

Nanjing is quite large. There is a metro and buses as well as tons of taxis. Also, there are tourist appeals here. We haven’t checked those out yet, but when we do, we’ll tell you all about it. We live in the center of the city so it makes it nice to get to any of the places we want to go. We walk most places or catch the bus since the school provides us with a travel card for buses. Bus drivers are crazy and if you stand up, be prepared to hold on for dear life because there is no way you will stay standing without something to hold onto. Also, ignore personal space in China. Your bubble is WAY too big and you have to shrink it about 80 times. It takes some getting used to.

We have two Chinese friends who do things with us. Richard, who we’ve already told you about, and now Oliver. Oliver is a student at Nanjing Foreign Language School where we teach, and he is preparing for a huge interview with a Japanese University. I told him I would help him with his English if he needed me to and today, he came to my apartment with a gift. When we were out, he heard me say I liked a certain little purse thing. I wasn’t going to buy it our anything, but he noticed and got it for me. That’s just one example of how kind the Chinese are. Also, I asked Oliver about the candied haw berries and he went and bought me one so I could try it. He’s so nice! Interestingly enough, he’s 19 even though he’s still in High School.

Kimee and I teach 20 classes a week. I teach grade four and she teaches grade three. Each class has 20 or so students so overall we have some 400 students each. We have text books that we are to teach out of. Just today, I got asked to be a private tutor for some students at another school, so I’ll be doing that on the side. The students are so smart and Kimee tells me how cute her kids are every five minutes. Haha! They get to choose their own English name and some of them have really weird names like Karrot, Happy, Apple, Howk, Rain, Sunny, Thumb, Tider, King, Moon, Simba, Cherry, Queena, Bobo, Yoyo, Seven, Brain, Jam, Barbie, Top, Glory, Win, Flower, Kitty, Dido, Wobbly, Grace (boy), Fish, Njoy, Sweetie, Garbo, and Island. It’s really hard to call on Fish. I have a hard time with that one and Wobbly. They also use a lot of normal names, but spell them really weird. I have tons of Mary, Jack, Leo, John, Angel, Lucy, Daniel, Angela, and a few more. Now imagine trying to remember everyone. SO hard. But I do have a few favorite students already. One boy named Lee always says, “Hello Miss Sarah!” And gives me a high five. He’s really smart. Then one of the Leo’s is SO cute and he is also very smart. Some kids pick things up much faster. There is one little boy named Jack who seriously is SO little. And CRAZY. He reminds me of my brother Zach as a kid, a complete maniac. Ha! Also this girl named Amy. She’s super cute and clever. Okay, I know I shouldn’t have favorites, but it’s nice to have kids who know what you are talking about and can explain to the rest of the class. That’s what the Chinese teachers are for, but most of them don’t sit in on the class with me like they are supposed to. I guess they figure I’ve got it just fine on my own or something.

We really love the food here. Today, we had the best pulled noodles ever. A lot of the street food is a lot better than the nice sit down restaurants and they make it right in front of you. If you went into a restaurant like these ones in America, you would barf and run out. You get used to the way things are and it isn’t scary anymore. Typically, the little alley ways you would avoid in the states are where you can find the best food. We play charades or use our little Chinese cheat sheets to get the things we want. One word we use a lot is jiga(sp?). It means “this.” It’s our favorite word because it gets us basically everything we want. I love to say xie xie (thank you) because it seems like people here don’t use it very much. It’s just not part of the culture.

In China, they have an instant messaging system called QQ that pretty much everyone uses. I have one and Brad has had a bunch of his Chinese friends add us. One guy, Robin gives me Chinese lessons. It’s so funny because he voice calls me on QQ and has me say things, I never seem to get them right. The differences are so small that it’s really hard for the untrained ear to hear them. I am quite determined to learn this language though. I think I’ll just stay in China forever. I love it here so much. When I am forced to come back to the U.S. because my visa expires, I will take Chinese language classes. I’m so very determined about this one. China is incredible and so are the people. I am so excited to be here for so long.

Okay, one last thing before I send this to Sadie to post. I had a little free time last week so I went out exploring. I went to this small Buddhist Temple just ten minutes from my apartment where there was a few pagodas. It was so beautiful and peaceful and the view from the top of the stairs was so pretty! On one side, you see the city sky line and on the other, the lake. I love Nanjing.

Sorry again that this took so long! Miss you all and hope everything is going well for you! I love getting emails so totally send some my way!