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!

Mainland China

Today (Tuesday) we made the journey to Shenzhen. We are now in real, authentic China! After a long ride on the subway, getting through customs, and then going on a one and a half hour bus ride, we arrived at our hotel. (It has 15 floors! In China, they don’t have a fourth floor because the word for “4” sounds like the word for “death.” It’s an unlucky number.) Our room is so nice! I was so surprised. We have a great view of the city, and it is very Chinese with everyone’s clothes hanging out their windows to dry.

Hong Kong at night.

Sarah and I are officially in Mainland China!
This is just after crossing the Hong Kong border.

We are in China! Today we split up into groups, walked the streets, and practiced talking to people in Mandarin. I got a bit of a culture shock. My group went to this street market and practiced bartering. I actually really enjoyed it, though I still need to kick myself into the water and actually barter myself instead of watching other people do it. A married couple returning to teach told us about how those people live so simply; they work in their little shops every day and live in the back portion, and that’s it. And they still find a way to be happy while living in such a small sphere. That re-taught me that no matter what your circumstances are, you are the one who decides if you will be happy. That couple also told us that people will live in places that look so run-down on the outside, but inside it is really nice. You can’t judge too quickly. I’m trying to remember that and keep an open mind about the Chinese culture.

Sarah went out with another group. They talked to people on the streets saying things like, “Hi, how are you, what’s your name, nice to meet you, I am from America,” etc. She got laughed at a few times, but one guy was so excited and asked the group for their email addresses all from a simple, “Ni hao.” The people are very friendly and excited to talk to us.

Everyone stares, and some get super excited when you smile and wave. Others just keep staring. I feel really self-conscious, but maybe I’ll get used to it eventually. J

Tonight we had an amazing, authentic Chinese dinner with our group. The servers just kept bringing out dishes! There was fried eggplant (SUPER good!), potatoes, the best green beans I’ve ever had, cabbage, chicken (complete with head—someone in the group actually ate it), duck (its head was decoratively cut in half and placed artistically on the dish. I got light-headed from that!), tofu soup (a gross texture I can’t describe), egg and tomato, rice, spicy dried fish, beans, and lentils or baby asparagus (we think), and mantau (amazing scone-like bread balls). Most everything was delicious! It was fun trying so many new things. Sarah and I are getting pretty good at our chopsticks skills. ;)

Backing up to Sunday after church and Monday in Hong Kong.

After we went to the Cantonese (at least we think) branch Sacrament Meeting, we went to see Big Buddha. The bus ride up was beautiful with the fog and the greenery and mountains; it looked like a Chinese landscape painting. We had to climb like 10 flights of stairs to get up to Big Buddha, and the fog kind of covered it up, but it was still really neat (I felt like Po in Kung Fu Panda). There were people praying up there. And burning incense. The monasteries were decorated so beautifully that I can’t describe them. Just look at the pictures.

Sarah and I really felt that we experienced the Chinese culture on Sunday, and it was so neat! I went a little camera happy. :)

Sarah is pretending to be nervous about the stairs.
But really, she is super fit and can run up all the stairs.
She's a Kung Fu Warrior. Like Tigris.

I'm amazed at how colorful it is outside this Monastery.
We really felt like we were in China when we saw it!

A Buddha inside one of the Monasteries.
I felt a little strange taking pictures inside, but it was too beautiful not to.
People would walk in and pray

That's my best friend! :) Sarah's so cute!

Burning incense. Pretty awesome, but also very smokey!

Monday was a very full day. We went to the 10,000 Buddha Monastery that morning. It was quite a hike! Definitely Po-style with all the stairs. There were golden Buddhas with different facial expressions and poses running up on either side of the stairs, all the way to the top where the monasteries were. It was beautiful. And we saw a monkey in the trees accompanied with a sign that said, “Do not feed the monkey. Beware of the monkey attack.” I love English signs here. Like the one on our hotel room window says, “The window has been fixed, please do not push by force. In order to protect your benefits as well as others, please do not hang your clothes on outside of the window to invoid to fall and hurt others.” It’s great.

Sarah and our beloved Chinese friend, Richard,
as we walked up the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

Richard is the best.

This is Sarah and Brad, our friend and one of the paid teachers at our school.
I told them to stop and then took a picture, and then Sarah and I broke out the song,
"Stop! In the name of love...before you break my heart..."

Richard positioned us for this picture at the top of the stairs at the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. I don't know about Sarah, but I got a good work out while squatting down like that after taking pictures with 10 cameras!

Sarah and I and a lot of neat Buddha statues.

After that, we went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. It was really eye-opening. Our history teachers never taught us about the Japanese occupation in China and Korea. The museum had fun exhibits with clothing, dragons, furniture, etc., showing the Chinese way of life through the ages. They had one display of a Chinese Opera. If you went around back, you could see back stage and how it would look. That was really fun to see.

That night we went on two short “Star Ferry” rides and watched a light show that a few of the major buildings along the harbor took part in. Hong Kong is so beautiful at night with all the lighted up buildings and decorative lights for the New Year. However, there are no stars. The pollution is too thick.

It’s been a really great arrival tour! Along with all the other great people in our group, Sarah and I are making friends with Brad Johnson (the paid teacher who will be at our school in Nanjing) and his Chinese friend, who's English name is Richard. Brad is really nice, and Richard is so fun to talk to! He teaches us things like how to count to ten in Mandarin, and what the hand gestures are. It's fun to teach each other how to say things in our languages. We love Richard! His Chinese name is Pin Pin. Cool, huh?

Today, tomorrow, and Thursday we have our teacher training. Teaching and learning to live in China (and live with each other—even with your best friend, it takes a lot of effort to live together harmoniously) will be such a good experience for us. I’m so grateful for the opportunity we have to be here! (Kimee is a good friend because she puts up with me. I’m a little hard to live with. J -Sarah)

We love you! Have fun in America! ;)

-Kimee