Multiple old blogs!

Hey everyone!  Here are some old blogs from the past month that I wrote off-line and have been meaning to upload for a while.  Sorry, I still don't have internet in my apartment or else they would be updated more often.

Another fun week, with a new Chinese friend!

So on my birthday, we met a friend (Chinese) at the bar who speaks English pretty well.  He bought me a drink and also brought over a fruit bowl with a birthday candle in it for me.  We thought that he actually worked there, at the time, because he was hanging out behind the bar for most of the time that we were there.

 

This week I actually got to know him much better.  On Monday, Di and I went to the bar for a drink.  Shanon was there with a few of his friends.  Shanon recognized us, but did not invite us to join his friends right away which is kind of strange for a Chinese person not to do.  But, eventually we ended up singing KTV and playing pool with them for a while for the night.  I started to talk with Shanon and found out that he studies Chinese at university.  So, he is qualified to teach Chinese.  Therefore, I took this as an opportunity to have another person teach me Chinese.  His English is ok, so I volunteered to teach in English in return.  During our conversation, I found out that his Chinese name is similar sounding to the name Shannon.  He said that he knows that this is a girl’s name, so he took out one of the “n”s this making his name Shanon, and therefore it is no longer a girl’s name.  He is 25 and owns a video production company and is the lead singer in a band.  He has also played guitar for eight years.  So, not only have I recruited him to the another person to teach me Chinese, but he is going to help me with the Chiense songs that I am trying to learn.  Furthermore, he is going to help teach me how to play guitar!  I am very excited.

 

Tuesday, I went to dinner with Rosie, a couch surfer who was staying with Rosie (from Australia) named Kate, Meghan,  Anderw and Shanon (I thought it would be fun for him to come along to join us).  It is great having a new Chinese friend in the city.  He took us to a hot pot that is owned by one of his “sisters”.  Chinese use the label brother and sister for some of their very close friends.  It was great. We had two different types of goat, potatoes, cabbage, and tofu skin.  It was really good.  Then, we headed to OK Bar.  I was really impressed, because Shanon’s knowledge of American music is amazing!  I have not met any Chinese person who knows such much western music as he does.  He knows Eddie Vedder, Kurt Korbain, etc.  We had a huge conversation about his favorite singers and guitar players.  He then showed us some videos of his band.  His band plays covers and Shanon also writes a lot of their songs.  Furtheremore, while at the bar, Shanon pulled out his phone and asked if he had seen “Two Girls. One Cup”.  I was SHOCKED that a Chinese person knew that video.  Meghan and I looked at each other in complete shock when this happened.  Rosie, who has been in China for a few years, “unfortunately” missed this video, and so did Andrew and Kate. So, Shanon insisted on them watching it.  As expected, they could only get through about 5 seconds of the video.  Afterwards, Shanon said, “I hate the video, I just like watching faces of people watching”.  From that point on, I decided that he is going to be the coolest of our Chinese friends in Chengde!

 

For the rest of the week, nothing else really going on.  It is a holiday this weekend, so I do not have classes on Monday at the university.  However, I do have to teach Friday, Saturday and Monday at the private school for my classes with the younger students. 

 

Tomorrow I am going to KTV with Chris, Megan, Travis, Di, Jerry (one of our favorite students) and Shanon (maybe, if he is not too busy).  Should be a good time.   It is always fun going to KTV with Chinese friends because it is a fun way to learn some new characters when they sing songs in Chinese.

 

Saturday I will spend the afternoon hanging out with Shanon.  He is going to help me learn a few new Chinese songs.  I will help with his English, too.  Also, we are going to go to the guitar shop and hang out with some of his friends.  Yay for Chinese, Chinese songs and guitar lessons!

 

That’s about it.  Nothing to big and exciting planned for the week and nothing really too exciting has happened recently!

 

Hope all is well!

 

Z

 

 

 

 

Friday was great.  I taught from 320-5, but my class was just ok.  This class is the lowest English level of all of my classes so sometimes it is rather frustrating.

 

After class, I went to dinner with Megan and Chris (two teachers from the teacher’s college. Travis, the other teacher from the teacher’s college joined us late.  Megan and Chris brought two of their students who have great English, too.  The students were Jack and Jerry.  Jerry is the student who took me to his family’s home in Baoding last term.  We went to a great dumpling restaurant and had some chicken and vegetable dumplings.  After dinner, we wanted to do something else.  So, we were debating about either KTV or going to OK Bar.  We thought that since there were only five of us, that going to the bar would be a better option.  So, off to the bar we went.  Jerry and Jack left around 11 because they had to get back to their school.  While at the bar, Shanon was there, so he came over and joined us.  He was more comfortable speaking around the foreigners because we had two Chinese students with us so he wasn’t the only Chinese person.  Chris and Megan left around 1230.  Shanon, though, made me stay with him so we could continue to work on our songs and guitar.  It was great, however he is a very mean teacher!  Whenever I would do something wrong with my hands or fingers on the guitar, he would slap them and yell “wrong!”.  My hands were so sore after the lesson!

 

Saturday was a very random day.  I slept in until around 10:30, then moped the apartment.  I met with Shanon for three hours to practice guitar and he also taught me a lot about Chinese music.  I am still lost about some of the Chinese music he is teaching me about, but it sounds really cool.  We decided that next time we meet that I would teach him about some of my favorite American music…including jazz and he only knows about American rock!  After that,  I did some errands around town, then was meeting up with Di to go to dinner and the bar for a drink.  I was going to meet Di at the public square, because it is a close place to meet.  While walking to the square, I saw a group of nine foreigners that were walking past me.  So I made eye contact and said, “hello”.  A few seconds later, two of the girls in the group came running over to me and asked if I knew where a good place to get food and a drink was.  I said that I was going to get dinner and drinks with a friend and invited them to join. They did.  It turns out that the nine of them study Chinese in Beijing.  Six of them were from Spain, two from Vietnam and one from Morocco.  Their English was all very good.  It was a great time at dinner being able to have new foreigners to hang out with.  This was the biggest group of foreigners I had hung out with in Chengde since the group of doctors in October and November!  After dinner, we went to the bar.  Yun the owner of the bar was very excited that we brought nine new foreigners to the bar.  Also, everyone was at the bar, I ran over to the little store really quick to get some peanuts for us to munch on.  While walking to the store (one block away), I saw a group of five foreigners.  They asked me if I lived here and what bar was the best.  I told them that I did live here and I was just going back to the bar.  These five foreigners were from France, but were also studying Chinese in Beijing at Beijing Language and cultural university.  So, I came back to the bar with five new foreigners.  Yun, when I came back was even happier that even more foreigners came to the bar.  He, later that night, through Shanon, told me that he appreciates when we suggest his bar to the foreigners who visit the city.  He also gave us a discount on our drinks.  While at the bar, some of the Chinse people were asking us to sing some songs in English. The bar doesn’t have the best selection of English songs, so the group of us rocked out to the songs that we knew such as, “Country Roads”. “Hey Jude”, “Seasons of Love”, “A Whole New World”, “My Boo”, and my personal favorite, “My Humps”.  There was also one Spanish song, called “Ole” by Ricky Martin.  The group from Spain sang the versus while the entire group sang the chorus which included us yelling “Go! Go! Go! Oley! Oley! Oley!”.  Eventually by the end of the song, we had the entire bar (the 15 foreigners) and 20 Chinese people and Yun and Shanon singing the chorus and yelling “Go! Go! Go! Oley! Oley! Oley!” with us.  It was crazy fun! We stayed at the bar until around 11:30. Then we went back to the hotel where the foreigners were staying at we hung out and watch a movie and just chilled.  It was great having such a large group of foreigners to hang out with!

Sunday was an eventful day!  The new foreigners who were visiting Chengde called me at 10.  We met at KFC for coffee, then we went to two of the eight outer temples.  We spent about five and a half hours going through these temples.  They were absolutely beautiful.  We also had a little picnic at one of the temples.  I was supposed to meet with Shannon again in the afternoon, but he had to cancel.  He was performing in a show in another city in the morning, but it went so well that he was asked to perform again in the afternoon.  So, instead of having another guitar lesson and a Chinese lesson with him, I stayed and hung out with these new foreigners.  After the temples, I suggested a good hotpot to go to.  It is very close to our apartment.  The hotpot was very excited when 10 foreigners decided to come and eat there.  I had been there numerous times before, so the owner of the hot pot knows who I am.  We were put into a private room because of the size of our group.  The restaurant gave us some free vegetable dishes, one free large meat plate and a free fruit desert plate because they appreciated our business and were very happy to have so many foreigners eat the restaurant.    After dinner, we  debated about what to do.  They caught on quickly that there is not a lot of night life within the city!  So our three choices were to ktv, OK Bar, or either my apartment/their hotel to watch a movie and hang out.  We decided to go to OK Bar…again!  So, on the way to OK Bar we did cause a couple scenes on the street!  While walking to the bar (which is about a 20 minute walk from the bar), one of the foreigners needed to stop at the ATM.  While we were waiting for him, we head that a store across the street was playing the Backstreet Boy’s song, “I want it that way”.  Backstreet Boys are huge here.  Everyone knows them. So, the ten of us stood on the sidewalk of the very busy street (one of the main streets in the city), singing that song as loud as possible.   There because a large group of Chinese people surrounding us to listen and watch what has happening.  After we were done singing, one of the foreigners took of his hat to collect money, as a joke.  The people who were watching then quickly left and some were laughing about how some of the foreigners were jokingly asking for money.  We then continued on to the bar.  This time at the bar, we decided that signing KTV was not going to be something to do.  So, we played some cards instead.  While at the bar, the Chinese like to play a game that looks like the drinking game played with dice from the movie “The Prirates of the Carribbean”.   Well, we got some dice from Yun and decided to make up our own version of the game. After that, one of the foreigners pulled out her deck of Uno! Cards from her purse.  We played Uno!  It was a lot of fun.  I had not played that game for so long!  We had a lot of Chinese people watching while we played, because they had not seen the game before.  After we finished playing. Shanon invited me over to learn how to play some Chinese card games.  The foreigners left around 12 midnight, but Shanon would not let me leave because we were in the middle of the game.  Playing the card games was Yun, Shanon, Jennifer and Harry.  Jennifer is Shanon’s girlfriend (she is Chinese) and Harry is a Chinese friend of Shanon’s who hangs out at the bar often, too.  So, I ended up staying for a few more hours to continue to learn these games!  Also, Shanon knows how to play Mah Jong, so he is going to teach me to play this!

 

Monday I didn’t not have to teach at the university because it was a holiday.  That is why I was willing to stay out so late on Sunday night learning the games from Shanon.  I met with Shanon at 2 in the afternoon to work on singing One Night in Beijing and Bu De Bu Ai.  We started off by having him print off the lyrics in Chinese, then we started with One Night in Beijing.  He wrote the words in pinyin (which is English letters with the symbols for the four tones), and taught me how to say each word. We practiced his English by having him explain the meanings of the words to me.  We did not get very far, as after going through the lyrics of One Night in Bejing, I put the papers in my bag and Shanon saw that I had my computer.  He then asked to hear my music and to look through it.  We spent the next two hours talking about American music.  Oops!  Looks like we didn’t get through Bu De Bu Ai!  We decided to do it next time we meet. We decided it was a good thing, because know I won’t feel overwhelmed having the words of two songs to learn at once.  After I was done hanging out with Shanon I had to go to the private school to teach.  I was teaching the little kids, but it was very fun. I was very happy because it was obvious that they had all practiced between classes, this making my job much easier.  I had suckers in my bag, so they all got a sucker for practicing their English between classes!  After my class ended, I met with Di for dinner.  Then we headed to the bar for a drink.  Dinner with nothing exciting.  We went to BBQ.  WE got some grilled veggies and some chicken and lamb.  I love the cheap eats at the BBQ!  Luckily the weather is getting consistently nicer to the BBQs are open on a nightly basis now. We then headed to the bar for a drink.  We were just going to stay for one drink.  Once we got there, Jennifer came over asking me to play pool with her.  Luckily she is not very good at pool, so I am able to win about half the time.  Shanon just stands in the corner and laughs at how bad both of us are.  We were then trying to leave, but Shanon asked us to stay for one more drink so he could talk with us, because he want to continue practicing his English.  Di decided to leave, but I stayed for about another hour. 

 

Sorry, kind of a long Blog entry, but it was a really fun weekend!  Nothing too exciting going on this week.  Tuesday is my long day.  I have: teaching from 820-10, Chinese class from 1010-1150, lunch with Mr. Lei, chill for a little bit on campus, teach from 320-5.  I then have to clean the apartment again.  It is getting to be a huge mess.  Nothing else really is going on for the rest of the week.  I am going to continue learning the songs, guitar and Chinese from Shanon and then also will continue to teach him and Jennifer English!  Also, on Thursday I will make western dinner for them as they have not had a western dinner before.   Shanon said he wants to try a lot of different American foods, and he doesn’t care if they are necessarily foods that we would eat together for a normal meal.  So, I will make one box of mac and cheese, one package of speghetti, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies (carrots, potatoes, celery and egg plant), Hamburgers (with all the fix-ins!) and some devilled eggs.  Yea, I know..random collection, but with the ingredients that I have from trips to Beijing and that I took with me back to America (and the few ingredients that I can get here in Chengde), that is all I can really make.  For desert, we will have Cheesecake.  As a late birthday gift, Rosie made me a cheesecake that she gave to me on Saturday.  I put it in the freezer as I knew I wouldn’t eat it very fast.  So, we will have some of it on Thursday.

 

Alright, hope all is well.

 

Z

 

 

This past weekend was great.   I taught on Friday at the University, nothing really too exciting there.  Then went and taught my little students at Dong’s school.  After that, I had a guitar lesson with Shanyn.  We changed the way that he spells his name, too.  Because Shanon is normally a female’s name, but his name sounds like Shanon, we thought that changing the spelling would be cooler.  So, we decided that since he is the lead singer in a rock band and because he plays guitar, that his name needed to be more “rocker”ish.  So, we changed the spelling to Shanyn.  Our lesson started at about 715 and lasted for about 4 hours.  We worked on guitar for about two hours, then worked on singing Bu De Bu Ai and then practiced some Chinese.  Next week I will give him an English lesson.  Then we went to the bar and we met Chris and Megan for a drink.  We played Never Have I Ever with Shanyn and Harry.  We left around 12:30 though, because we were tired.  Also, Shanyn and Harry along with some of their friends were leaving at five am to go fishing the next day, so we didn’t want to make them feel like they had to stay up with us.  So, after we left the bar, I went home and called it a night.

Saturday was pretty uneventful.  I met with Chris and Megan and we hung out around the park for a little while.  We then went to the Tree restaurant for dinner.  I love that restaurant.  It is Sichuan style so the food is very spicy.  They also have the best egg plant and potatoe dish in the city, I think.  Geez, I never at this much egg plant before coming to China.  Then after dinner, I went to Megan and Chris’s and we watched “Election”.  Gotta love that movie.  Then, I got a text from Maggie and Laura that workers were coming to my apartment so I had to go back to my place in the middle of the movie, unfortunately.  After the workers left, I met up with Meghan and Ceceilia who were just leaving a bbq with some of Cecelia’s Chinese friends.  We then headed to the bar for a drink and some KTV.  We hung out at the bar with Cecelia, her friends, Shanyn, Yun and Harry until around 1. 

Sunday Di had some couch surfers stay. One was from Korea and one was from California. David and Andy were their names.  They were both studying Chinese in Beijing.  Their Chinese were very good. So, I me them for dinner.  It was a good time. We went to the Korean BBQ. Following dinner, we went to the public square for some dancing with the local Chinese people and to play some shuttle cock (Chinese hackey sack).  Then we headed to the bar for a drink. Shanyn was very excited, because he was able to practice his English with two new foreigners.  He was nervous at first because there was a Korean and it is an accent that he is not used to, but he grew more confident after time went on.

Monday was pretty fun. I met up with Di and his couch surfers at Punning Temple at 7 in the morning.  I did not know that there were monks that actually lived at the temple. So we were able to observe some of the morning rituals and prayers of the monk community living at this temple.  The other cool thing about this site is that it has the largest wood carving of the Buddha in the world.  It is amazing.  I think one of the workers said it is 66 meters tall (but I might have misheard because my Chinese is awful).  After that, I headed to school to collect salary and then go to the bank.  I taught in the afternoon at the university.  This week in my classes, I am playing a game with my students called Tuerettes.  For this game, I have made sets of cards with all of the letters of the alphabet on them.  Each group received 150 cards with one letter on each card. Then the students got into groups of five.  One person would be the “dealer” and would be the person to flip over the card.  Everyone would then see the letter, lets say it is “P”.  Then, the students must race to see who can say the first word to start with P.  However, there are some rules.  You must say a noun.  You cannot say a proper noun or a bad word.  If the students was first, then they got to keep the card.  The student with the most cards at the end won.  This was just kind of  a way to see how many words my students really know and to make them try to think quickly in English.  They seemed to enjoy the game, I think.  We also did a preposition activity to learn the correct ways to use prepositions and prepositional phrases.  With my little kids at Dongs school, we learned things in the kitchen.  Their vocabulary words were:. Chopsticks, fork, forks, knife, knives, spoon, spoons, glasses, cups, plates, oven, microwave, toaster,  bowl and bowls. We then also worked on “there are”, “they’re”, “there is” and “there’s”.  After I was done teaching, I met Di for some hot pot.  The hot pot that we went to had the BEST carrots.  It was delicious.

 

It’s now Tuesday and that’s my busy day.  I teach from 820-10, then I attend Chinese class with the students from Pakistan from 10:10-11:50.  After that class, Meghan and I are having lunch with our friend Mr. Lei. He is the coolest guy ever.  He is a teacher in the international teaching department and is a very good friend to Meghan and me.  After lunch, I will then do some work and then I teach from 320-5.  After that, I am going to go tback to my apartment and clean a little bit.

That’s about it.  Hope all is well….

 

Another update!

Hello from Beijing!  Once again I have ventured over to Beijing for some western culture and to see my Chinese friends who live here.  It's always a fun time when in Beijing.

So, I will start where I left off in the last blog entry.  Really nothing too exciting going on.

This past week in my classes I have been showing my students Spellbound.  I decided to show this one movie in my class this term.  If you are unfamiliar with this movie, it is a documentary about the National Spelling Bee.  The movie follows eight students, between the ages of 10 and 13, I believe.  It shows how these students study their words for spelling bees and also shows some great hints for learning and remembering English words.  I thought it would be a good movie to show my students, because I know that studying vocabulary and new words is one of their least favorite things to do. Some of these kids use very creative ways to study words involving post-it notes, homemade crossword puzzles and games involving scrabble boards and tiles.  I thought that maybe if my students saw some creative ways of studying words, then maybe they would be "inspired" to spend more time studying.  I don't know if it will work or not, but if nothing else at least it is an entertaining movie with an educational purpose.  Overall, it seems like most of my classes enjoy it.  There are some students who seem bored during it, but oh well.  Not everyone can like everything.

Teaching at the private school is going very well.  My little kids (ages 6-8) are working on sentences with the words, "I like", "I don't like" and then working on using the words, "He", "she", "his", "hers", "mine", "ours", "my", "we" and "us" and so on.  We will spend a few weeks on this as it is very hard for them.  I have some games and activities we are doing to help make sure that they are able to use these words.  My older students are working on a story in their text book.  The story is about two thieves that climb into an apartment through a window and get scared by a talking parrot.  So, we have been learning the new words and then reading the story out loud in pairs. Then, each pair has to act out a couple sentences of the story.  This way everyone reads, hears and sees the story to help them understand fully.  Then, I quiz them with questions and they get candy for answering correctly.  They seem to enjoy acting out the stories alot!  

Other than that nothing else really is going on.  Our summer mountain resort passes expired at the Chinese New Year and so we will get our new ones on Monday.  I am excited that the weather is going to be warm enough to start going back there.  There are some thai chi classes that take place in the mornings and I would love to join those classes.  Also, there are a group of people who dance in the public square in the evenings.  I know Meghan and been joining some with one of our Chinese friends, Cecelia.  I am thinking it would be fun to be a regular there.  Also, at the park there are a lot of kids ages 16-20ish and then adults who play with the Chinese hackey sack type toys until late in the evening.  It is really fun to go and watch them for a few minutes, then they will invite us to play. It's great fun for me to interact with some of the local people, and to improve on my Chinese hackey sack skills.  It's also a fun way to work on my Chinese, as it is still not very good.

Speaking on Chinese, we are still taking classes with the students from Pakistan.  It is very hard, because their class is too advanced for us.  However, next month the first year Pakistani students will start Chinese, and then we will be able to join their class.  It is nice because they start with the characters (reading and writing), along with conversational Chinese.  This way we can work on our characters too, because I still do not know very many.

Last week I took some of my students in my Monday night class for dinner.  We went to Korean BBQ.  It was great.  Then we stopped at KTV for about 30 minutes after.  It was a great time.  I really like hanging out with my students outside of class.  The Monday night class, however, is very big  because it is two classes combined.  Oh well...they are a really good class.

I am know getting ready and excited for visitors to come! In the middle of June my sister and her fiance (she just got engaged!!!) will come.  They will stay for almost 2 weeks.  While they are here, we will spend time in Beijing, Chengde, Chengdu and Guolin.  I am very excited to travel with them because they are both a lot of fun.  Then, the my best friend Jess will be visiting.  She will stay for almost two weeks, too.  While she is here, we will go to Beijing, Xi'an, Chengde and then one or two other places.  We haven't exactly decided yet.  We still have some time.  So, if anyone else wants to visit, this is your invitation.....!

Hope all is well,

Z

Birthday, back to teaching and a new job!

Hello!

Sorry it has been so long since the latest post. There is a lot to tell.

Well, as you know, I am back in China and have been back in Chengde for a couple weeks.

The classes at the university are basically the same. Same classes, same students, same problems at the school. Our schedules changed a couple times because the teaching department decided to change aroun the student's schedules without telling the English teaching department. Well, it's kind of hard for students to learn Chemistry in Chinese during the time that their Oral English class is supposed to be happening. I told my waiban that I would comprimise and the other teacher and I could work together, thus making the class English Conversational Chemistry...but no such luck. At least, I hope, our schedules are now set. Meghan and I, this term, are also taking some Chinese classes. It is a little challenging, becuase we are taking the class with the international students from Pakistan that are much more advanced in Chinese than we are. So, we have some catching up to do. However, it's cool that the university is alright with us joining the classes. It meets three times per week, and we've attended most of the classes so far.

I am also teaching at a private school. I am teaching three classes there, possibly four. Two of the classes are of older students (upper middle school), so 5-7th graders. Then one class is very young students mostly second and third graders. They are alot of fun! I will tell more about the classes once they get going. I have only taught one week at this school so far. Things seems to be great there, and the students are a lot of fun. They haven't tested my patience too much, yet.

The birthday here was a lot of fun. I spent the weekend before my birthday in Beijing with some of my Chinese friends. We did some KTV, went to dinner and hung out. It was a great time. Then here in Chengde, on Tuesday (my birthday) we went to tree restaurant. We got some great spicey foods including chicken wings, spicey mutton, bucket of fried rice, egg plant and potatoe dish (which I think is the best in the city), salad and then these rolls (half are steamed and half are fried) that are served with sweetened condensed milk to dip it in. It was great. Cecilia, our Chinese friend who was with us, ordered me birthday noodles too. There are pictures of me eating it. It is tradition on your birthday to get a very long noodle that you must try to slurp, basically and it's like attached to a hard boiled egg in this hot water. This is to signify a long life. So, it was fun having that Chinese tradition at my birthday. Then we went to OK Bar for a couple drinks and to use their free KTV machine. While we were at OK Bar, there was a very happy drunk Chinese guy who danced with all the females that came with us. He was very funny, and was not innapropriate with the girls the way that some Chinese guys are. We later found out that it was his birthday, too! One of the highlights was singing the YMCA at the bar (on the KTV Machine). We were all dancing and doing the arm motions and yelling while the Chinese people in the bar just stared at us like we were crazy. It was rather entertaining. The bartender, because this is the only bar that we go to in the city, brought out a birthday treat too. A large bowl of fruit with a candle in the middle of it for me, then the bar sang "Happy Birthday". It was very fun.

Oh, and jumping to earlier in the day, I had to teach two classes on Tuesday and then also attended the Chinese class. In my first class, they found out it was my birthday somehow, so they had the chalk board decorated for me and the entire class sang "Happy Birthday" when I walked in. Then at lunch, when we were eating with some of our favorite students, they sang "Happy Birthday" in the dinning hall to me. Luckily we were eating off in a corner, so not everyone was able to hear this and cause a big scene! Overall, it was a good birthday!

Here are some pictures of the past couple weeks, too:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058742&id=34000178&l=84af2

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2058741&id=34000178

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058209&id=34000178&l=d1331

Back again!

Hey,

This is going to be a short post.  I arrived back in Beijing yesterday afternoon.  The trip over was relatively painless, and a lot of fun.  The flight to Beijing arrived one hour early which was awesome.  I was also sitting next to some players of the China National Baseball team.  They were a lot of fun, and we spent basically the entire flight talking.

Nothing else too fun or exciting here yet.  It is nice to know that my Chenglish hasn't escaped me.  The second I arrived back in China, my English turned horrible again!

More updates to come.  Hope all is well...

Sorry!

Sorry for the long amount of time it has been since the last blog posting.  I still have no internet in my apartment.

Nothing to exciting here.  In Beijing for another day (been here a few already) and am leaving tomorrow to head back to the states for a quick visit.

I will make sure that my internet works as soon as possible next term and continue updating my blog as much as I can.

Sorry again!!!

Thanksgiving in China

Well, this was the first Thanksgiving that I have ever celebrated outside of the United States…so obviously it was the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever celebrated outside the United States!

We had all the normal foods except for turkey and cranberry sauce. We had chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, a corn dish, sweet potato dish, green been dish, pumpkin pie, wine, etc. It was fantastic. Meghan did a lot of the cooking. Rosie brought over her convection oven along with some cooking supplies and cooking staples, then also baked the pumpkin pie. I was amazed that Rosie had never made a home-made pie before and her pie turned out looking, smelling and tasting amazing. Everyone kind of pitched in on something and we had a great time. When we cooked the dumplings with my students a couple of weeks ago, we learned that cooking and eating in my apartment doesn’t work because it’s too small. So, we cooked in Meghan’s apartment, then ate in mine. It worked out really well, because I have more space in my apartment for people to sit in than Meghan does. Everyone came over around 7:30 and then left close to midnight. It was a great time!

Friday we kind of took it easy. There was no English Corner this week on campus, because of another activity that was going on. Friday, during the day, there was an AIDS show on campus. Students organized a show, like the other art festival activities that had happened the previous months on campus, to help raise money and awareness for AIDS. The students who performed in the show did a great job. I, however, had to leave the show early to teach a class. Friday night Meghan and I went to donkey restaurant for dinner then we watched Wall-E. I, unfortunately, was so tired, I think I slept through half the movie. So, after the movie it was time for bed.

Saturday was another really fun, random night. At first we planned on going to dinner as a group then heading to OK Bar to play some free pool and hang out. Ok Bar is our favorite place to hang out because the staff knows us and we normally always sit at the same table. There is a western toilet, toilet paper and free pool table, so that makes the place awesome. However, not everyone was able to make it to dinner. So, Megan, Chris and I went to donkey restaurant (yea, one of our favorite restaurants) and got some food. We were then on our way to the OK Bar to meet up with everyone, when Meghan pointed out a Chinese arcade on the way to the bar. I was amazed and wanted to go in. They had all these way cool looking Chinese games, including DDR, of course…there were a bunch of people who seemed to be between the ages of 16-25 in there hanging out and playing games (and staring at the three Americans walking by) when we were in there. I think I found a fun new place to go with students, as I am kind of amazed by some of the games that are in there. I didn’t have my camera on me, but next time we go back I will have it and take some pictures. Then, after leaving the arcade, we got a call from Matt. He was at the KTV across from my apartment with some of his Chinese friends and they wanted us to join them. This KTV is the one that wouldn’t let us in twice, because apparently there is a membership fee…I don’t know. But it also is a very expensive KTV. So, it was nice being able to see this one…however I think I like our regular one more! Matt’s Chinese friends were great. The guys that were there did not know much English, but they were very sociable and spoke to us with their limited English and we attempted to use our limited Chinese. There were three girls there two. One’s name is Cecelia, and she has AWESOME English, then one of the other girls English was pretty good. It was a good time, but we left the KTV around 10:30.

After the KTV we decided to go to OK Bar because it was too early to go home. So we went for a little bit. When we walked in, we all immediately noticed there was a foreigner in the bar. It is always fun meeting a new foreigner. He is from Germany and is working for the German based company in our city, however last night was his last night in the city. He had a lot of Chinese friends with him too (all of which worked at the same company). His Chinese friends were from Shanghai and spoke very good English. I also met a Chinese guy, his English name is Chris, who lives in Chengde part of the year and also lives in Auckland, New Zealand for the other part, due to his work. We had an awesome talk about New Zealand, as I studies abroad there. It was a great time. Always fun meeting random new people at the Ok Bar.. The best part about this trip to the OK Bar was this married man who was very flirtatious with Megan and Meghan while his wife was at the bar. He was dancing with him, calling them beautiful, etc. He was a very entertaining, nice guy…we were just shocked that his wife was cool with him dancing with two random American girls at the bar. Oh well, all in good fun, I guess.

Today is lesson plan day! Yay for leaving lesson plans for each week to Sunday. This seems to be the Sunday afternoon ritual now, creating lesson plans.

I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving…photos from my Thanksgiving will be posted soon.

Another Trip to Beijing!

So, I spent 5 days in Beijing, Meghan spent about 5 hours in Beijing! Meghan was off to Thailand almost as soon as we arrived, however, some of the foreign teachers from the Shiz were going to meet me.

Thursday morning at about 5:30 am Meghan and I headed off to the bus stop to catch the 6:30 bus to Beijing. We hoped on and luckily it wasn’t very full. We each had an extra seat by us so it was easier to sleep! Yay for that!! We arrived around 10:45, and got a taxi to go to the central train station. From there, we met our friend Hooligan Mike (who is Chinese) and he assisted us with purchasing train tickets back to Chengde on Monday morning. From there, we went and got Papa Johns Pizza. MMMMM…..so delicious!

After that, we headed to the sketchy DVD store. Meghan was able to get all the seasons of the TV show 24. I grabbed some movies, including the NEW JAMES BOND MOVIE which is still in theaters in American! I was so excited! After that, we went to the non-sketchy dvd store to try to find some specific movies for our classes. Meghan found what she needed, I just kind of looked around. After that, we went to the silk market, because we needed to get some heavy winter clothes as it is getting COLD in Chengde. Meghan stayed for about an hour, then I saw her off into a taxi to head to the airport. She was off to Bangkok to visit her brother-in-law for the extended weekend. I then went back into the silk market where I got some boots, a heavy hoodie with fur lining, and lots of Hannukah/Christmas gifts for family and friends! After that, it was time to go to the hostel to store everything! I just had dinner at the hostel and had a relaxed night. I hung out in the common area that night and met some guys from Iceland, Germany, Britain and Russia. They were all a lot of fun to talk with. Most of them were just traveling around, but the guys from Iceland were graduate students in Korea. They were really cool and fun to talk with.

Friday I met up with the teachers from the Shiz. I met them at the West Beijing Train Station. We then went to eat at Grandma Max’s . We had to take two taxis, because there were so many of us. The taxi I was in was me, Alissa and Jane. I had yet to meet Jane, but we became good friends over the weekend. She is from England and is a lot of fun. So, we were in the taxi catching up, then we realized that our taxi driver decided not to follow the other taxi as we instructed them too. So, we were driving around for nearly an hour. The taxi driver kept stopping and asking pedestrians were this restaurant was. It was ridiculious. So, after going up and down nearly every side street in Beijing, talking to the restaurant twice, and asking about 8 pedestrians on the street where to go, the taxi driver finally found the restaurant. At this point, we called the others, because we were not going to pay this entire taxi fare…it was nearly 80 yuan! We called Bence (who was in the other taxi) and is fluent in Chinese to come out and help us argue with the taxi driver. The driver was being stubborn and not willing to budge. We were being nice and offering to pay the total of the fare from the other taxi (which was 50 yuan). Finally, he agreed. However, this was not the end of the situation. Alissa thought that Jane had stuff in the trunk, and Jane thought Alissa had stuff in the trunk. So, they told Bence we wouldn’t give the money to the driver until he opened the trunk. The driver wouldn’t open the trunk. So, Bence took our money and said that he would hand it to the driver as soon as he opened the trunk. This negotiation went on for a couple minutes. Finally the driver agreed. He opened the trunk and Bence handed him the money. Then, we realized that none of us had anything in the trunk. Oops! That was a fun situation!

We then got into the restaurant and had an amazing dinner! After that, it was back to the hostel to hang out and catch up with everyone.

On Saturday, I went with Angela and Josh to the Forbidden City, once again. I really wanted to see the Emperial Garden, as I didn’t get to see it on our last trip to Beijing. Everything was dead when we were there, but it was still very beautiful and fun to see. We strolled around the Forbidden city for a couple hours, then decided to go to the silk market to finish our holiday shopping. At the silk market, we figured out that we would get better prices if we negotiated in Chinese with the people. Clearly we don’t know Chinese fluently, but we do know numbers very well along with simple phrases like, “too much”, “we are teachers” “we are friends”. “We are American” etc. So, we were having some good luck with the shopping and had fun just walking around and looking at all the cool things that were there.

After that, we met up with the rest of the group and went to a restaurant called The Den. This is in the middle of Western Street, as I like to call it, because there are a whole bunch of bars and restaurants where foreigners like to hang out. The food was great there. However, there was one strange moment at the restaurant. The waitress wasn’t super attentive to us, and we were wanting to order some appetizers as we were really hungry waiting for our food that we knew would take a while to cook. So, I yelled in Chinese for the waitress to come to our table. This is very common and expected to happen in China. That is what people do when they need something. Well, clearly everyone at this restaurant, besides us at our table, were not foreigners who lived in China. Everyone around us just stopped what they were doing and stared at us, because they thought we were so rude for yelling at the waitress. It was kind of funny! Also, Megan V (who teaches in the Shiz) had her boyfriend come in on Saturday. His name is Mike and is a really cool guy. He is an actuary from Chicago and was going to be visiting for 10 days. It was fun to have another new foreigners to talk to!

That was about all the exciting parts for the night, so I thought.

After I got back to the hostel, I was hanging out in the common area, and met a guy from Cedar Rapids, Iowa! He is teaching at a high school in an outer island of Japan and was in Beijing for an extended weekend to travel around. What are the odds of meeting another Iowan randomly in China! It was exciting. He was a very cool guy. He was there with a friend who is also a teacher in Japan, but not on the same island as him. So, the next morning I did join them for breakfast.

Sunday, after breakfast, I met up with Alissa, Megan and Mike to go back to the silk market. I felt bad for Mike as he just got done traveling like 20 hours to China, had a 14 hour time change to deal with and now was being dragged around the silk market which is super intense. Incase you forgot what the silk market is like, go back and read my blog entry about my last trip to Beijing. Today at the silk market was a different story than last time, however. The people were not being very polite to us. I was called “stupid teacher” from my counter offer that I offered to one person. And as we were walking away, he kept pointing at me and screaming, “stupid teacher! Stupid teacher”. I know think it is kind of funny, but at the time I was really annoyed. There must’ve been a lot of tourists that day that were not bargaining down on prices because none of the shops were going as low on prices as I thought they should’ve. Darn tourists!!!

After that, I headed with Alissa to the western grocery store. I got some mac and cheese, spaghetti o’s, soup, bagels, cream chese, etc. Great things that I was totally missing in Chengde. I was so excited to pick up these items. It was then time to say bye-bye to Alissa, because she had to head back to Shiz on her train. I then went back to the hostel to wait for Megan V and Mike to finish their side trip to the Olympic stadium before dinner. Unfortunately, Megan and Mike got held up trying to book a tour for the great wall, because they were staying in Beijing until Tuesday. So, I ended up going out for a quick dinner with my new friend from Cedar Rapids. It was great. We went to one of the restaurants on Western Street and met a few guys from Australia and England who were all really entertaining. It was then time to head back to the hostel to pack everything up. A few hours later Meghan arrived back from Thailand. Then, unfortunately, 5 am came around very soon and we took the 6:30 train back to Chenge.

We arrived in Chengde around 10:30 and headed back to our places. Then, we had about 2 hours to relax before going to teach!

Everything this week has gone by pretty smoothly. We are having a Thanksgiving dinner tonight. It is going to be Meghan, Megan, Chris, Rosie, Matt, Jimmy, Lotus and me. Meghan is doing a lot of the cooking in her apartment, then we will bring the food over to mine and eat here because I have more space than she does. After that, I think we might head out. We have all the normal Thanksgiving food, except for a turkey. We are having chickens in place of the turkey. Oh well, though, I love chicken. So, I have decided that the unofficial theme of our Thanksgiving dinner here in China this year is going to be, “No Turkey, No Chopsticks!”. I will write about the Thanksgiving dinner later and will post pictures.

Hope all is well. I miss talking with everyone! You all should get skype and add me as a contact on there. My skype name is: zasinchina. Also, send me some e-mails and let me know what’s going on!!!