So, Friday started off like normal. Woke up, went to campus. Once I got to campus, I bumped into Meghan and Laura who were walking back from lunch. I was then informed by them that Meghan and I would only be teaching oral English to English Nursing students from this point forward. This means I would no longer be teaching my classes of anesthesiology and medical imaging, clinical medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and nursing and psychology students. At first I was rather disappointed because my favorite class was the section of anesthesiology and medical imaging students. However, once I thought about it, I am now going to have a lot more time to help the English nursing students which are the only ones of our students that can actually study and work in America in the medical field. Also, this means that instead of over 1,000 students, I know have like 150. Apparently, the university may also add one class of oral English that will be open to any student that wants to take it with either Meghan or I. That was the big news on Friday.
Saturday was a fun day! I woke up and started to tidy up my apartment a little, because I was having some students over. I am going to go ahead and give the English names of these students, even though not all of them had English names at this point. So, I invited six of my favorite students to come over and then go out for dinner and to hang out with us. All of these students were either in my anesthesiology and medical imaging class or clinical medicine. So, I got to campus and met my students (Arwen, Winter, Ted, Vince, Max and Arwen’s friend CiCi). Meghan invited one of her students, who is also an awesome guy named Michael. So, I met the seven of them on campus, then we took the bus back to my apartment. After a short while, Meghan, Megan, Travis and Matt met us at my apartment. Jimmy met us later on at the restaurant. It was really funny, on the bus, because two of my students (err…former students, now just friends) were telling me how nervous they were to meet other foreigners because I am the first foreigner they’ve ever talked with. I was telling them that it’s cool, because they are teachers too and one of them (Matt) knows a lot of Chinese. They were worried that they were going to have to speak perfectly because they were going out with six foreign English teachers. I had to keep reminding them on the bus that we were not going out to dinner with the intentions of having an English lesson.
So, we got to my apartment and hung out for a little bit while we waited for the other foreign teachers. After everyone arrived we headed to a restaurant that Meghan and I had not been to before called The New Red Lantern. When we arrived, we were given a private room because there was going to be 13 of us. It was really nice being able to hang out with students/friends off campus and get to know them better. So, during dinner we had a discussion about English and Chinese names. Three of my students already had English names that they liked. Those students were Arwen, Ted and Winter. Arwen’s friend CiCi already had an English name, too. So, through speaking with my other two students, the other foreign teachers and I came up with the names Vince and Max for my other two students. They seemed to be happy with those names. Then, Meghan’s student, Michael, already had an English name (and I think that name fits him very well). I will be getting together with some of these students for lunch next week and they said they will have some choices of Chinese names for me at that time. I am kind of excited to see what they have chosen. At dinner we also had a discussion about the differences of American and Chinese college students and then social differences (“cheers”ing at dinners, etc).
After dinner, we headed to the KTV to do some karaoke, because that is very popular in China. We went to the one that we’ve been to twice so far. Our students were very impressed that Matt was able to sing a few songs in Chinese. We attempted to get our students to sing some songs in English, but with no success. They did, however, sing some Chinese songs. During the night they did sing along with some English songs, but they were a little too timid to do English songs by themselves, I think. About 10 pm all of the students, had to head back. Meghan and I covered the small cost for their taxis (20 yuan). The residence halls close at 11, and it is normally a 45 minute bus ride, so we made sure that they were all back well in advance of that curfew. They all texed me when they got back around 10:30, so everything worked out fine. Max, however, lives in the city (not too far away from the KTV) so he stayed and hung out with us until around 11:30, then left for home. About midnight, the KTV staff came in announcing that they were closing. We decided that this would be a good point to end the day.
Today has been an incredibly lazy day. I woke up and went to the store real quick, then immediately put on sweatpants and a hoodie and watched a movie. I also finished lesson plans for the week. I, then, for dinner decided that I wanted mac and cheese, so I made that up. Yay for Mac and Cheese leftovers!!!
Tomorrow I don’t have any classes, so I have no actually reason to go to campus, but I still am. I am meeting some of the students from Saturday night for lunch! They are very eager to help me with my Chinese, plus they are very fun to be around. I have been texting them back and forth tonight about lunch tomorrow. Ted texted me that Vince and him have thought of the perfect Chinese name for me. I asked him what it was, and his response was, “I not tell you now. Wait for tomorrow!”. I will keep you updated…
That’s about it! Nothing else new here at the moment.. Hope all is well wherever you are reading this from.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A crazy week....
So, nothing really too exciting this week, just a bunch of mishaps which are making my life stressful because I am very schedule oriented.
Everything went well on Monday. I had my class of first year traditional Chinese medicine students and we played some games and spoke.
Tuesday is when everything kind of became crazy. Mr. Li teaches a class of biochemistry before Meghan and I teach on Tuesdays. Mr. Li's biochem class, after his class finishes, splits up. Half the students go to Meghan's class and about half stay with me. Well, Mr. Li's class is supposed to end at 10:00 then our classes are to start at 10:10. Mr. Li, however, never likes to end his classes on time. He also likes to sit in my class and speak Chinese to students throughout my whole class. So, on Tuesday at 10:15 I waslked into the room (while Mr. Li was still teaching) just to let him know that I was waiting and rather annoyed that he is now eating into my class time. He then turned to me and said, "My class is more improtant than yours" and he conitnued teaching. At shortly after 10:20 am he decided to stop his lecture (10 minutes into when my class was supposed to start) and then proceed to answer questions from students outside in the hallway. It was about 10:30 by the time I had everything set up and ready to go for my lecture, and I was just starting to beging class. Then, Mr. Li decided to walk in and collect his belongings and told me that I should stop teaching while he does so. So, five minutes later, he left the room. Way to go Mr. Li...thanks for using up 25 minutes of my classtime!!
Then after our class Tuesday morning Meghan and I decided to get lunch becuase we had a 3 hour break until our next classes started at 3:20. So after lunch we realized that there was the same stage set up as two weeks ago for the arts festival opening ceremonies. We decided to ask Laura and Maggie if there was a show going on and if they were going to be cancelling our classes again. They didn't know. They tried calling other people who also didn't know. So we waited, and waited and waited and then the show started at 2:30. The show was go0d, there were 12 choirs that sang. Also, I was able to have a really nice conversation with a group of my students for about an hour. However, it would've been nice to know that we weren't going to have class in advance.
Then, we figured, alright, the rest of the week will be better. Well when I got to campus on Wednesday that really wasn't the case. I went to go to my favorite class, which is the Antheisiology and medical imaging students. Their class was originally on Thursday afternoons but their was a scheduling conflict so the class leader (Arwen) moved the class to Monday the second week of school then wednesday afternoon for the rest of the term. However, we realized today that these students were supposed to be in another lecture at this time. Arwen apologized, even though it wans't her fault, and sid that this class would join my next class. I had no choice but to let that be alright for the day (I'll get into that in a minute) but we would find a new pernament time later.
So, my next class, which I haven't had for the past two weeks was interesting. The class was originally supposed to be just 130 clinical medicine students (first year students) whom I have only taught once, due to class being cancelled the past two weeks. So, needless to say, this class was behind. Then, I had one of my more advance classes joining them. That made for nearly 220 students in this classroom. It was ridiculious. Enough said.
Then today (Thursday) was another fun day! On Tuesdays I originally was supposed to have a class of two english nursing sections and a psychology class all together. I found out last week that the psychology sudents could no longer be in that class and that they were going to join Meghan's Thursday afternoon class. Well meghan already has 100+ students in that class and doesn't need another 45 to join. So, I volunteered to teach the psychology students thursday afternoon by themselves. So, last week that was fine. That was actually the class that Kirk came in and said hi to when he was here. This week, was another fun story. There was a teacher that was in the classroom before me and hadn't stopped teaching yet and it was time for my class. I popped my head in at 3:30 (when I was supposed to start teaching at 3:20). She appeared to be not even close to being finished. I called Laura and asked what to do. She said for me to walk in and give the teacher my cell phone and she would tell the teacher to leave. So, there I am walking into a classroom handing my cell phone to a teacher I have never met before, who doesn't not know any English, trying to motion to her to talk on my cell phone. Clearly she was completely confused and the classroom full of students were laughing very much. So, after the conversation, the teacher gave me back my phone then ended class and took her students somewhere. Then, I realized there was another problem. None of my students were there. It was now nearly 3:40 and my class was supposed to begin at 3:20. I called Laura to make sure that this was a pernament change and that it wasn't just for last week. She said that it was, but the students must've misunderstood that they need to continue to come to class. Which makes me think, "Why do the students need to be reminded that they need to come to class?". So, I got on the bus and heading back home.
What a crazy week so far.
However, I am looking forward to tomorrow. I have two classes back to back then I am going to English corner with meghan. This is a time where the entire campus (undergrads, graduate students, teachers, faculty, etc) all get to come and hang out with us and practice English. Yea, we are not exactly sure how many people to expect, so it will be fun...
Then, Saturday I invited a group of some of my favorite students out for dinner becuase I want them to help translate the menu for us so we can have more choices when eating out. Then we might come back to my apartment and watch and English movie...depending on how long dinner lasts. Should be fun. These are students that I am going to be able to hang out with often and ask for help when I need it. There are 6 comming. Two have very good English, and the rest of the student's English is good, but they just don't have a lot of confidence speaking I think.
Alright, well that's it! Hope all is well...
Everything went well on Monday. I had my class of first year traditional Chinese medicine students and we played some games and spoke.
Tuesday is when everything kind of became crazy. Mr. Li teaches a class of biochemistry before Meghan and I teach on Tuesdays. Mr. Li's biochem class, after his class finishes, splits up. Half the students go to Meghan's class and about half stay with me. Well, Mr. Li's class is supposed to end at 10:00 then our classes are to start at 10:10. Mr. Li, however, never likes to end his classes on time. He also likes to sit in my class and speak Chinese to students throughout my whole class. So, on Tuesday at 10:15 I waslked into the room (while Mr. Li was still teaching) just to let him know that I was waiting and rather annoyed that he is now eating into my class time. He then turned to me and said, "My class is more improtant than yours" and he conitnued teaching. At shortly after 10:20 am he decided to stop his lecture (10 minutes into when my class was supposed to start) and then proceed to answer questions from students outside in the hallway. It was about 10:30 by the time I had everything set up and ready to go for my lecture, and I was just starting to beging class. Then, Mr. Li decided to walk in and collect his belongings and told me that I should stop teaching while he does so. So, five minutes later, he left the room. Way to go Mr. Li...thanks for using up 25 minutes of my classtime!!
Then after our class Tuesday morning Meghan and I decided to get lunch becuase we had a 3 hour break until our next classes started at 3:20. So after lunch we realized that there was the same stage set up as two weeks ago for the arts festival opening ceremonies. We decided to ask Laura and Maggie if there was a show going on and if they were going to be cancelling our classes again. They didn't know. They tried calling other people who also didn't know. So we waited, and waited and waited and then the show started at 2:30. The show was go0d, there were 12 choirs that sang. Also, I was able to have a really nice conversation with a group of my students for about an hour. However, it would've been nice to know that we weren't going to have class in advance.
Then, we figured, alright, the rest of the week will be better. Well when I got to campus on Wednesday that really wasn't the case. I went to go to my favorite class, which is the Antheisiology and medical imaging students. Their class was originally on Thursday afternoons but their was a scheduling conflict so the class leader (Arwen) moved the class to Monday the second week of school then wednesday afternoon for the rest of the term. However, we realized today that these students were supposed to be in another lecture at this time. Arwen apologized, even though it wans't her fault, and sid that this class would join my next class. I had no choice but to let that be alright for the day (I'll get into that in a minute) but we would find a new pernament time later.
So, my next class, which I haven't had for the past two weeks was interesting. The class was originally supposed to be just 130 clinical medicine students (first year students) whom I have only taught once, due to class being cancelled the past two weeks. So, needless to say, this class was behind. Then, I had one of my more advance classes joining them. That made for nearly 220 students in this classroom. It was ridiculious. Enough said.
Then today (Thursday) was another fun day! On Tuesdays I originally was supposed to have a class of two english nursing sections and a psychology class all together. I found out last week that the psychology sudents could no longer be in that class and that they were going to join Meghan's Thursday afternoon class. Well meghan already has 100+ students in that class and doesn't need another 45 to join. So, I volunteered to teach the psychology students thursday afternoon by themselves. So, last week that was fine. That was actually the class that Kirk came in and said hi to when he was here. This week, was another fun story. There was a teacher that was in the classroom before me and hadn't stopped teaching yet and it was time for my class. I popped my head in at 3:30 (when I was supposed to start teaching at 3:20). She appeared to be not even close to being finished. I called Laura and asked what to do. She said for me to walk in and give the teacher my cell phone and she would tell the teacher to leave. So, there I am walking into a classroom handing my cell phone to a teacher I have never met before, who doesn't not know any English, trying to motion to her to talk on my cell phone. Clearly she was completely confused and the classroom full of students were laughing very much. So, after the conversation, the teacher gave me back my phone then ended class and took her students somewhere. Then, I realized there was another problem. None of my students were there. It was now nearly 3:40 and my class was supposed to begin at 3:20. I called Laura to make sure that this was a pernament change and that it wasn't just for last week. She said that it was, but the students must've misunderstood that they need to continue to come to class. Which makes me think, "Why do the students need to be reminded that they need to come to class?". So, I got on the bus and heading back home.
What a crazy week so far.
However, I am looking forward to tomorrow. I have two classes back to back then I am going to English corner with meghan. This is a time where the entire campus (undergrads, graduate students, teachers, faculty, etc) all get to come and hang out with us and practice English. Yea, we are not exactly sure how many people to expect, so it will be fun...
Then, Saturday I invited a group of some of my favorite students out for dinner becuase I want them to help translate the menu for us so we can have more choices when eating out. Then we might come back to my apartment and watch and English movie...depending on how long dinner lasts. Should be fun. These are students that I am going to be able to hang out with often and ask for help when I need it. There are 6 comming. Two have very good English, and the rest of the student's English is good, but they just don't have a lot of confidence speaking I think.
Alright, well that's it! Hope all is well...
Monday, October 20, 2008
A visitor!!!
So it’s been an eventful week!
This past Tuesday when Meghan, Maggie and I were leaving lunch from the cafeteria on campus, we were stopped by Ms. Yee, who is the head of the English Teaching Department on campus. She asked if Meghan and I were doing anything the next way (Wednesday) in the afternoon, because she wanted us to be judges in the English Speaking (speech) competition. Meghan and I at first tried to object stating that we would have to cancel a class. The reason why we were objecting at first, is because the previous Wednesday we had no class due to the opening ceremonies of the arts festival; thus we would be cancelling two weeks worth of class (since each of our classes only meets once per week). So, by cancelling class for the competition means that we would have only had one class session with our Wednesday classes instead of the three that we have had with the rest of our first-year classes. Ms. Yee did not think this was a big deal, which is somewhat typical for over here. It was apparently more important for us to judge the English speaking competition. So, we gave in.
The next day, Wednesday, we arrived to campus and went up to the 8th floor of the library where the competition was. It was nice and the students did a very good job. None of my students were in the competition, but two of Meghan’s were. There were 21 students who participated and each had three to five minutes to deliver their speech. It was not required for students to write their own speech, they also had the choice to read a published piece or article. So, we were not exactly sure on some of them if these were their students own work or published, but on others we were able to tell by the content of the speech. Overall, I was impressed, they did a fantastic job. The one strange part of the day was at the end they were giving out the awards. They had one first place winner, I think three second place winners and like 5 or 6 third place winners. With no notice, a student who helped organize the event gave Meghan and Me folders (to put certificates in) to award to the students who came in third place. We had no idea what to do, since we had no notice as to what was going on. It was a little awkward with a couple of long pauses/delays. Oh well….
That was basically the main excitement for the week.
Then, on Thursday and Friday of this week Kirk, the director of my program came to visit. Kirk head up the program that I am here in China through, which is called the Chinese Cultural Exchange Program. He is a huge resource and help for us back at Drake, and conducted an intensive training program on Mandarin Chinese, teaching and cultural aspects of China. Without Kirks help this summer, my transition here to China would not have gone as smoothly as it did. So, it was time for Kirk’s big visit to China. During this visit he goes around and visits all the schools where Drake alum, who are participating in this program, are teaching. He stayed in Chengde for 1 night. He arrived on Thursday. We were told by one of our Waibans that it would be lunch with her, Kirk, Meghan and I at 11 am on Thursday, and we were to meet outside of the hotel where Kirk was staying (luckily, about 5 minute walk from where we live). We met there, and hopped in a car and went to lunch. Little did we know that this was a banquet. It would have been nice to have some advance notice, as Meghan and I were in what we normally teach in (jeans and sweaters, nothing too fancy). Oh well, we will learn for next time I guess. In China, in formal situations, the distance you are from the door is important. We were eating in a private room, and there was an university employee who was the president or director of something (I don’t remember) who was the first person we were introduced to. He then took the seat furthest from the door (meaning the most important guest) then told everyone where to sit. He sat in the middle of Kirk and I, then Meghan sat directly to my left. The food at the banquet was very good. There was tofu, donkey, some pork dish (which I didn’t eat), dumplings, a lot of good stuff. It is also customary at these event to drink Baijo (I can’t spell), which is a white alcohol. It is very strong. Meghan and I both had class so we asked for coconut juice instead. We have heard about how banquets can result in a lot of drinking because each person will want to have a drink, or cheers, with each individual person. However, this banquet was very tame. Only a couple of the eightish people in the room had Baijo and they were seemingly not drunk. They just sipped it, instead of downing it cup by cup.
After that, we headed back to the car and went to campus. Kirk went up to the Foreign Affairs Office with Laura, to talk shop. We were invited to come up, but instead we decided to sit outside in a shady spot and listen to some music because it was a beautiful afternoon outside. Kirk, however, did arrange to come into each of our classes to say hi and meet our students.
So, I went to my class, which was a small class. It is only like 40 first year psychology students. In that class, I started it off like I do the rest of my first year classes, Meghan and I actually got the idea from Matt who is a more experienced teacher here. We call up five students (randomly) and give them a pretty simple word in English. Then, without any time to prepare, I asked the students to speak for approximately 15-30 seconds about that word. This helps build confidence and let students know that their English is actually much better than they think it is. So, Kirk came in the middle of that. After the last student went, Kirk came in and asked if he could speak about a word. So, I said sure, and we asked the class which word Kirk should speak about. One of my students suggested the word, “Chengde” which is the city that we live in. Kirk spoke for a few seconds about it, then received a piece of candy. Before Kirk came, I told the class that a very important friend of mine was coming. I also warned them that he understands Chinese so they need to be mindful of what they say, however they must address him in English. I then opened the floor for questions, and in the middle of questions (when their was a long pause as we waited for students to ask questions) Kirk said that he is not leaving until he has been asked five questions. Most of the questions were pretty basic such as does he have a Chinese name, etc. They were all very impressed that Kirk was able to speak and write Chinese. Two funny questions/answers that came from the class. One of my students asked Kirk was THE major difference between China and US was. The first thing I thought was, “like there’s really just one difference?”. Kirk had an awesome response. He asked my class “How many years of history does China have?” The students answered about 5,000. So he wrote that one the board. Then he asked the class how many years of history does America have? There was a wide range of answers with this one. Kirk then wrote, 232 on the board. Then he asked the students, “So what’s the difference?” After a few seconds, the students understood that this was a math question. The came to the answer of 5768. So, Kirk then said, “That’s the difference between China and America…5,768”. I was standing in the corner laughing when he said that. The last question came from an entertaining student in my class who is kind of a smart-ass as times, but still a very nice kid. His name is Johnniey. It is pronounced like Jonny, but I think he must’ve been trying to include every possible way to spell the name “Johnny” in his spelling. He stood up and asked Kirk, “how did you get here?”. Kirk’s response was somewhat sarcastic, but fitting given who asked the question. His response was, “I kissed my wife goodbye, I left my house, got into a car, when to the airport...” and literally walked the students through every step, but in a very entertaining way. After that, Kirk left my class and we continued on. However, after Kirk left, Johnniey raised his hand. He said, “Kirk speaks Chinese very well, better than you do”. I told him, “Yes he does. You should remember though that Kirk lived in China for three years and I have only been here about seven weeks”. To which Johnniey responded, “He must be smart…smarter than you.” I laughed, and we carried on.
After class was done, Meghan and I headed back to our apartments to get ready for dinner. We met Kirk outside his hotel and then walked over to the restaurant to meet the other Drake kids who teach at the Teacher’s College. We went back to the BBQ where our friend serena took us. We had a great meal consisting of Spicy chicken, beef, rice, fried dough balls that you dunked in this milky sauce stuff, potatoes, onions, etc. At this restaurant they bring all the food out raw, then there is a little grill in the middle of the table and you cook your own food. We also had an assortment of drinks that I hadn’t had before. We had the standard tea and coke, but then we got a couple different flavors of this flavored milk stuff. It was good.
Then, it was off to the western restaurant for some crazy deserts. You will have to see the photos to understand what I am talking about, but these were some of the craziest deserts I have ever seen. It was really funny because they had names like, “lust” or “together” but there were no descriptions (or even notes of what flavors of ice cream were used). When Kirk asked the waitress about this in Chinese, she responded, “It’s whatever the cooks give me.” You know it’s bad when even the waitress has no idea what the deserts are. We all attempted to order different deserts so we could see what they looked like. I won’t write about each one, but when I post the photos of the deserts onto my photo page, I will include the name of each. A few are worth a good laugh.
It was a great trip, and nice to have a visitor! Sorry for the long note, but just thought I’d let you know everything that happened last week!
This past Tuesday when Meghan, Maggie and I were leaving lunch from the cafeteria on campus, we were stopped by Ms. Yee, who is the head of the English Teaching Department on campus. She asked if Meghan and I were doing anything the next way (Wednesday) in the afternoon, because she wanted us to be judges in the English Speaking (speech) competition. Meghan and I at first tried to object stating that we would have to cancel a class. The reason why we were objecting at first, is because the previous Wednesday we had no class due to the opening ceremonies of the arts festival; thus we would be cancelling two weeks worth of class (since each of our classes only meets once per week). So, by cancelling class for the competition means that we would have only had one class session with our Wednesday classes instead of the three that we have had with the rest of our first-year classes. Ms. Yee did not think this was a big deal, which is somewhat typical for over here. It was apparently more important for us to judge the English speaking competition. So, we gave in.
The next day, Wednesday, we arrived to campus and went up to the 8th floor of the library where the competition was. It was nice and the students did a very good job. None of my students were in the competition, but two of Meghan’s were. There were 21 students who participated and each had three to five minutes to deliver their speech. It was not required for students to write their own speech, they also had the choice to read a published piece or article. So, we were not exactly sure on some of them if these were their students own work or published, but on others we were able to tell by the content of the speech. Overall, I was impressed, they did a fantastic job. The one strange part of the day was at the end they were giving out the awards. They had one first place winner, I think three second place winners and like 5 or 6 third place winners. With no notice, a student who helped organize the event gave Meghan and Me folders (to put certificates in) to award to the students who came in third place. We had no idea what to do, since we had no notice as to what was going on. It was a little awkward with a couple of long pauses/delays. Oh well….
That was basically the main excitement for the week.
Then, on Thursday and Friday of this week Kirk, the director of my program came to visit. Kirk head up the program that I am here in China through, which is called the Chinese Cultural Exchange Program. He is a huge resource and help for us back at Drake, and conducted an intensive training program on Mandarin Chinese, teaching and cultural aspects of China. Without Kirks help this summer, my transition here to China would not have gone as smoothly as it did. So, it was time for Kirk’s big visit to China. During this visit he goes around and visits all the schools where Drake alum, who are participating in this program, are teaching. He stayed in Chengde for 1 night. He arrived on Thursday. We were told by one of our Waibans that it would be lunch with her, Kirk, Meghan and I at 11 am on Thursday, and we were to meet outside of the hotel where Kirk was staying (luckily, about 5 minute walk from where we live). We met there, and hopped in a car and went to lunch. Little did we know that this was a banquet. It would have been nice to have some advance notice, as Meghan and I were in what we normally teach in (jeans and sweaters, nothing too fancy). Oh well, we will learn for next time I guess. In China, in formal situations, the distance you are from the door is important. We were eating in a private room, and there was an university employee who was the president or director of something (I don’t remember) who was the first person we were introduced to. He then took the seat furthest from the door (meaning the most important guest) then told everyone where to sit. He sat in the middle of Kirk and I, then Meghan sat directly to my left. The food at the banquet was very good. There was tofu, donkey, some pork dish (which I didn’t eat), dumplings, a lot of good stuff. It is also customary at these event to drink Baijo (I can’t spell), which is a white alcohol. It is very strong. Meghan and I both had class so we asked for coconut juice instead. We have heard about how banquets can result in a lot of drinking because each person will want to have a drink, or cheers, with each individual person. However, this banquet was very tame. Only a couple of the eightish people in the room had Baijo and they were seemingly not drunk. They just sipped it, instead of downing it cup by cup.
After that, we headed back to the car and went to campus. Kirk went up to the Foreign Affairs Office with Laura, to talk shop. We were invited to come up, but instead we decided to sit outside in a shady spot and listen to some music because it was a beautiful afternoon outside. Kirk, however, did arrange to come into each of our classes to say hi and meet our students.
So, I went to my class, which was a small class. It is only like 40 first year psychology students. In that class, I started it off like I do the rest of my first year classes, Meghan and I actually got the idea from Matt who is a more experienced teacher here. We call up five students (randomly) and give them a pretty simple word in English. Then, without any time to prepare, I asked the students to speak for approximately 15-30 seconds about that word. This helps build confidence and let students know that their English is actually much better than they think it is. So, Kirk came in the middle of that. After the last student went, Kirk came in and asked if he could speak about a word. So, I said sure, and we asked the class which word Kirk should speak about. One of my students suggested the word, “Chengde” which is the city that we live in. Kirk spoke for a few seconds about it, then received a piece of candy. Before Kirk came, I told the class that a very important friend of mine was coming. I also warned them that he understands Chinese so they need to be mindful of what they say, however they must address him in English. I then opened the floor for questions, and in the middle of questions (when their was a long pause as we waited for students to ask questions) Kirk said that he is not leaving until he has been asked five questions. Most of the questions were pretty basic such as does he have a Chinese name, etc. They were all very impressed that Kirk was able to speak and write Chinese. Two funny questions/answers that came from the class. One of my students asked Kirk was THE major difference between China and US was. The first thing I thought was, “like there’s really just one difference?”. Kirk had an awesome response. He asked my class “How many years of history does China have?” The students answered about 5,000. So he wrote that one the board. Then he asked the class how many years of history does America have? There was a wide range of answers with this one. Kirk then wrote, 232 on the board. Then he asked the students, “So what’s the difference?” After a few seconds, the students understood that this was a math question. The came to the answer of 5768. So, Kirk then said, “That’s the difference between China and America…5,768”. I was standing in the corner laughing when he said that. The last question came from an entertaining student in my class who is kind of a smart-ass as times, but still a very nice kid. His name is Johnniey. It is pronounced like Jonny, but I think he must’ve been trying to include every possible way to spell the name “Johnny” in his spelling. He stood up and asked Kirk, “how did you get here?”. Kirk’s response was somewhat sarcastic, but fitting given who asked the question. His response was, “I kissed my wife goodbye, I left my house, got into a car, when to the airport...” and literally walked the students through every step, but in a very entertaining way. After that, Kirk left my class and we continued on. However, after Kirk left, Johnniey raised his hand. He said, “Kirk speaks Chinese very well, better than you do”. I told him, “Yes he does. You should remember though that Kirk lived in China for three years and I have only been here about seven weeks”. To which Johnniey responded, “He must be smart…smarter than you.” I laughed, and we carried on.
After class was done, Meghan and I headed back to our apartments to get ready for dinner. We met Kirk outside his hotel and then walked over to the restaurant to meet the other Drake kids who teach at the Teacher’s College. We went back to the BBQ where our friend serena took us. We had a great meal consisting of Spicy chicken, beef, rice, fried dough balls that you dunked in this milky sauce stuff, potatoes, onions, etc. At this restaurant they bring all the food out raw, then there is a little grill in the middle of the table and you cook your own food. We also had an assortment of drinks that I hadn’t had before. We had the standard tea and coke, but then we got a couple different flavors of this flavored milk stuff. It was good.
Then, it was off to the western restaurant for some crazy deserts. You will have to see the photos to understand what I am talking about, but these were some of the craziest deserts I have ever seen. It was really funny because they had names like, “lust” or “together” but there were no descriptions (or even notes of what flavors of ice cream were used). When Kirk asked the waitress about this in Chinese, she responded, “It’s whatever the cooks give me.” You know it’s bad when even the waitress has no idea what the deserts are. We all attempted to order different deserts so we could see what they looked like. I won’t write about each one, but when I post the photos of the deserts onto my photo page, I will include the name of each. A few are worth a good laugh.
It was a great trip, and nice to have a visitor! Sorry for the long note, but just thought I’d let you know everything that happened last week!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Hammer Hill
This weekend was great! On Friday Meghan and I went out with two other foreign teachers (Matt and Jimmy) and then Lotus. We went to the tree restaurant. I don't actually know what the restaurant is called, but it has a huge fake tree in the middle...thus the name of the restaurant to us is the tree restaurant. While we were out for dinner, we found out from Jimmy that his Birthday is on Wednesday. So, we figured that we should call Friday part of his birthday weekend and continued hanging out after dinner. We went to a bar on bar street called "ok bar" for a drink and to play some free pool. While we were there, we met a photojournalist from outside of Philly. He was a really cool guy.
Then Saturday we took it easy and got stuff ready for the week.
Sunday morning Meghan and I woke up early (8 am) and went to meet Mr. Lei. He is one of the teachers in the English Nursing department, and is an AWESOME guy! He is one of the nicest, most helpful and incredibly connected people that I have met here in China. He took us to a sight called Hammer Hill. I will be trying my best to have photos put up of this trip this week. Mr. Lei (pronounced "lay") has a pass from the government to get into all tourist sites free, so he was able to get Meghan and I on the lift up the Hammer Hill and the entrance free to Hammer Hill for no cost. Hammer Hill is this HUGE rock that is very tall at the top of this very large foot hill. We took a ski lift to the top of the hill then went over to Hammer Hill to touch it. It is said that if you touch Hammer Hill rock that you will live for a very long time. There was a man selling t-shirts there that said, "touch hammer hill, live to be 130". After that, we went on a little hike over to the frog's leg (it was the frog something) which was another really cool rock that you could see under and through. It will make more sense when I have pictures posted. It was a really good time, and we lucked out with how nice it was. The weather was absolutely beautiful for October, becuase it starts to get colder here in October (justl like back home in the midwest!). After our trip to hammer hill, Mr. Lei treated Meghan and I to lunch at a hot pot. It was fantastic...but like all of our Chinese hosts so far, Mr. Lei ordered WAY more food than we actually needed. It was an amazing meal, though.
While at lunch, Mr. Lei, Meghan and I had a great discussion on ways that we can be utilized more on campus. Meghan and I are looking into the possibility of having our English classes be like a "lab" for the English classes that our students take with Chinese professors. For example, if the students are learning about adverbs and proverbs in their traditional English classes (with Chinese professors) than we can have activities that will make the students work on these new skills in our Oral English classes. This will really help our classes have more focus than what they are having know. Also, it will allow us to interact with the English department faculty more. There is obviosly alot that Meghan and I can learn from them and hopefully there is alot that the other faculty can learn from Meghan and I.
Also, Meghan and I are looking into trying to create/join some other activities on campus that are focused around English. We want to have an "English club" on campus where students can join us for English movies, games, conversations, etc. One of the problems that we are having with our students is that they don't practice their conversational English outside of class. It is understandable that English is hard for them and they would prefer to speak to each other in Chinese. Therefore, they only practice their spoken English in our classes. If we were to have a fun, non-academic environment for our students to practice their English this would really help them alot. Plus, this would be a great way for us to get to build better relationships with our students, too. It is always great being able to interact with students outside of class.
That's about all that's giong on here. The advisor of our program, Kirk, is going to be visiting this week. We are excited for him to be here, as this is the first visitor that we've had.
That's about it! Hope all is well back in the US!!
Zach
Then Saturday we took it easy and got stuff ready for the week.
Sunday morning Meghan and I woke up early (8 am) and went to meet Mr. Lei. He is one of the teachers in the English Nursing department, and is an AWESOME guy! He is one of the nicest, most helpful and incredibly connected people that I have met here in China. He took us to a sight called Hammer Hill. I will be trying my best to have photos put up of this trip this week. Mr. Lei (pronounced "lay") has a pass from the government to get into all tourist sites free, so he was able to get Meghan and I on the lift up the Hammer Hill and the entrance free to Hammer Hill for no cost. Hammer Hill is this HUGE rock that is very tall at the top of this very large foot hill. We took a ski lift to the top of the hill then went over to Hammer Hill to touch it. It is said that if you touch Hammer Hill rock that you will live for a very long time. There was a man selling t-shirts there that said, "touch hammer hill, live to be 130". After that, we went on a little hike over to the frog's leg (it was the frog something) which was another really cool rock that you could see under and through. It will make more sense when I have pictures posted. It was a really good time, and we lucked out with how nice it was. The weather was absolutely beautiful for October, becuase it starts to get colder here in October (justl like back home in the midwest!). After our trip to hammer hill, Mr. Lei treated Meghan and I to lunch at a hot pot. It was fantastic...but like all of our Chinese hosts so far, Mr. Lei ordered WAY more food than we actually needed. It was an amazing meal, though.
While at lunch, Mr. Lei, Meghan and I had a great discussion on ways that we can be utilized more on campus. Meghan and I are looking into the possibility of having our English classes be like a "lab" for the English classes that our students take with Chinese professors. For example, if the students are learning about adverbs and proverbs in their traditional English classes (with Chinese professors) than we can have activities that will make the students work on these new skills in our Oral English classes. This will really help our classes have more focus than what they are having know. Also, it will allow us to interact with the English department faculty more. There is obviosly alot that Meghan and I can learn from them and hopefully there is alot that the other faculty can learn from Meghan and I.
Also, Meghan and I are looking into trying to create/join some other activities on campus that are focused around English. We want to have an "English club" on campus where students can join us for English movies, games, conversations, etc. One of the problems that we are having with our students is that they don't practice their conversational English outside of class. It is understandable that English is hard for them and they would prefer to speak to each other in Chinese. Therefore, they only practice their spoken English in our classes. If we were to have a fun, non-academic environment for our students to practice their English this would really help them alot. Plus, this would be a great way for us to get to build better relationships with our students, too. It is always great being able to interact with students outside of class.
That's about all that's giong on here. The advisor of our program, Kirk, is going to be visiting this week. We are excited for him to be here, as this is the first visitor that we've had.
That's about it! Hope all is well back in the US!!
Zach
Thursday, October 9, 2008
My students changed my class time...
So, the begining of this week we got a new schedule from Maggie. Due to a scheduling conflict with another teacher, they switched one of my classes on Friday with my class on Thursday. I didn't think anything of it, and just continued on teaching when they told me to.
Today, in my class, there were supposed to be 125 students in there. I was shocked when there were only 35. I asked where everyone was at. The leader of my class told me that they were all in another class. Well, clearly this was the best time for my class to be moved to. So, then the class leader said that this class will be moved to Monday afternoon next week and then will be switched to Wednesdays. I was a bit stumped as to why a student would have this information and not me. Oh well...hopefully this means that all of my students will be able to attend this class in the future.
After class was done, Meghan and I came back to our apartment and went out for dinner. Nothing really to exciting.
Life is kind of dull here right now. We are just trying to play catch up because we did not get through all of the paper grading/correcting that we should have over break. Therefore, we somewhat have double work for grading becuase we have more papers being turned into us this week! Oh well, that means an uneventful weekend full of lounging around in pajamas and grading assignments! I guess a lazy weekend once in a while isn't too bad of a thing.
I did borrow an idea for my midterm exams for my students. I will be giving this out to my students next week, and then the midterm will be the middle of November (3rd week of November). This midterm was actually an idea that one of the other foreign teachers in the CCEP program presented during our training session. It is where a student will research a famous person (either past or present) in America. This can range from a celebrity to a political leader. Then, they will present a first person speach and will give the speach acting as that person infront of the class. They will be someone a "wax figurine" of that famous person. Each student will speak for 45 seconds. I will allow my freshman students to write out their speech for the midterm then at their speach (which will be a different style) at the end of the semester they are only allowed to use note cards. Then, my sophmores are able to use notecards for the midterm and no notecards for the final. So, this weekend I will be creating the rubric for this midterm and then discussing it with students. I will be doing one as an example for my students. I have the weekend to figure out which "famous person" I want to "be" to show my classes the expectations that I have.
That's about it. Hope everything is good for all of you.
I did add about 50 photos onto my photo site (www.zasinchina.shutterfly.com). I know that I promised more, but I was having difficulty getting them uploaded. Hopefully more to come this weekend.
Today, in my class, there were supposed to be 125 students in there. I was shocked when there were only 35. I asked where everyone was at. The leader of my class told me that they were all in another class. Well, clearly this was the best time for my class to be moved to. So, then the class leader said that this class will be moved to Monday afternoon next week and then will be switched to Wednesdays. I was a bit stumped as to why a student would have this information and not me. Oh well...hopefully this means that all of my students will be able to attend this class in the future.
After class was done, Meghan and I came back to our apartment and went out for dinner. Nothing really to exciting.
Life is kind of dull here right now. We are just trying to play catch up because we did not get through all of the paper grading/correcting that we should have over break. Therefore, we somewhat have double work for grading becuase we have more papers being turned into us this week! Oh well, that means an uneventful weekend full of lounging around in pajamas and grading assignments! I guess a lazy weekend once in a while isn't too bad of a thing.
I did borrow an idea for my midterm exams for my students. I will be giving this out to my students next week, and then the midterm will be the middle of November (3rd week of November). This midterm was actually an idea that one of the other foreign teachers in the CCEP program presented during our training session. It is where a student will research a famous person (either past or present) in America. This can range from a celebrity to a political leader. Then, they will present a first person speach and will give the speach acting as that person infront of the class. They will be someone a "wax figurine" of that famous person. Each student will speak for 45 seconds. I will allow my freshman students to write out their speech for the midterm then at their speach (which will be a different style) at the end of the semester they are only allowed to use note cards. Then, my sophmores are able to use notecards for the midterm and no notecards for the final. So, this weekend I will be creating the rubric for this midterm and then discussing it with students. I will be doing one as an example for my students. I have the weekend to figure out which "famous person" I want to "be" to show my classes the expectations that I have.
That's about it. Hope everything is good for all of you.
I did add about 50 photos onto my photo site (www.zasinchina.shutterfly.com). I know that I promised more, but I was having difficulty getting them uploaded. Hopefully more to come this weekend.
New Photos...
Hello everyone,
I am working on adding more photos. I apologize for the delay, I am just not patient enough to deal with slow uploading times on pictures. However, tonight I am going to be watching video of both the second presidential debate and then the first vice presidencial debate. Therefore, that leaves me lots of time to upload photos. More photos should be added under a folder titled "Beijing" on my photo page.
Again, the address for that page is:
www.zasinchina.shutterfly.com
Hope all is well. Another blog update will be posted by the end of the week!
Zach
I am working on adding more photos. I apologize for the delay, I am just not patient enough to deal with slow uploading times on pictures. However, tonight I am going to be watching video of both the second presidential debate and then the first vice presidencial debate. Therefore, that leaves me lots of time to upload photos. More photos should be added under a folder titled "Beijing" on my photo page.
Again, the address for that page is:
www.zasinchina.shutterfly.com
Hope all is well. Another blog update will be posted by the end of the week!
Zach
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
You may or may not have class today...
So, today was an eventful, and somewhat random day.
Today we arrived to campus at about 1:20 and stopped by the Foreign Affairs Office to meet with Maggie. She helped me with a problem I am having with my cell phone, then told Meghan and I that due to the art festival opening ceremonies we may or may not have class today. We asked her what that mean, and she said, "You may or may not have class today..."
So, on that note, we left to meet with Ms. Yee who is the head of the English Teaching Department. The first thing she asked us was if we were having our class today. We told her that we didn't know. So, she made some phone calls to find out. The profound answer we were given was, "If your students come, see if they want you to teach or if they want to go to the Opening Ceremonies. If your students don't come, then dont' teach".
No students came to either my or Meghan's class. Therefore, Meghan and I went outside and watched the opening ceremonies. There were alot of performances which included dances and singing. They were all very good, although we did not understand anything of what was said or sung during the show.
So, we are now back at our apartment. Let's see what other excitement happens for the rest of the week...
Today we arrived to campus at about 1:20 and stopped by the Foreign Affairs Office to meet with Maggie. She helped me with a problem I am having with my cell phone, then told Meghan and I that due to the art festival opening ceremonies we may or may not have class today. We asked her what that mean, and she said, "You may or may not have class today..."
So, on that note, we left to meet with Ms. Yee who is the head of the English Teaching Department. The first thing she asked us was if we were having our class today. We told her that we didn't know. So, she made some phone calls to find out. The profound answer we were given was, "If your students come, see if they want you to teach or if they want to go to the Opening Ceremonies. If your students don't come, then dont' teach".
No students came to either my or Meghan's class. Therefore, Meghan and I went outside and watched the opening ceremonies. There were alot of performances which included dances and singing. They were all very good, although we did not understand anything of what was said or sung during the show.
So, we are now back at our apartment. Let's see what other excitement happens for the rest of the week...
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Back from Beijing
Hey everyone!
Wow, what a fun Holiday we had in Beijing. It is easy for me to mix up days, so I am going to try to recap as close as I can to each day, but just may end up making it one gigantic story!
So, Meghan and I left on the Saturday 2 pm train to Beijing. There were other Drake CCEPers going to Beijing (3 others from our city plus 4 others from the Shizz) so we were going to be hanging out and sight seeing with them) during our time there. Once Meghan and I arrived to Beijing, we found a hotel to stay in for the night which wasn’t too far from the train station. However, no cabs would stop for us, because we think they thought we wanted to rent the cab for the entire day. When the cabs would stop, we told them “Tiananmen Square”, because the hotel we wanted to stay at was right by there. The cab drivers thought we wanted to rent a cab for sight seeing. So, we hiked it the 25 minute walk to the hotel. Oh well!
We put our stuff away at the hotel and then decided to walk around Tiananmen Square and see what it was like at night. Oh by the way, I will be putting a lot of photos up on the photo site in the next day or so. I took like 400 photos so it is taking a LONG TIME to get them all uploaded. I apologize for the delay.
The next days, we did a lot of the typical sight seeing in Beijing. We did two days at the Forbidden city, Tiananmen Square, summer palace, Olympic buildings (water cube (?) and Birds Next), western street (I can’t remember the Chinese name of it, I’ll explain it later) and the crazy food market. We did not do the Great Wall because first Meghan and I both were not feeling 100% because we were both getting over bad colds and it was also expensive for the tour. We figured that we have people coming to visit us and that they want to go to the Great Wall, so we will have many other opportunities to go! This way I can experience the Great Wall for the first time with my sister and her boyfriend (and possibly two other friends) when they come to visit next year!
While we were in Beijing, we ate A LOT of western food! It was really nice, because the only western food we have in Chengde is McDonalds and KFC. So, we had Outback Steakhouse, Papa Johns, Hooters, etc. It was nice. We also found some fun places to go out at night with some of the other Americans.
One of the most exhausting things that we did while in Beijing was go to this giant silk market. It was four floors all of this giant market. There was an entire floor of jewelry (watches, necklaces, jade, etc)., floor of clothes, a floor of coats and other random things and the basement was all like purses, belts, handbags etc. The rule of these markets is that whatever price the worker offers, you should counter-offer 10% of what that price was. Then, don’t pay any more than 20% of their original offer. For example, Meghan and I each got new North Face winter jackets. For both, the lady wanted 3500 Yuan. Meghan and I offered her 300. She laughed and acted like she was insulted. So, then Meghan and I started to walk away. After about 5 minutes of negotiating (repeating to her, “we will only pay you 300”, we agreed on a price of 400 yuan total for both coats. Therefore, Meghan and I each paid 200 Yuan (about $30 US) for North Face winter jackets. It was great. We got a lot of other cool stuff at this market including face Rolex’s, purses, wallets, etc. It was very tiring and frustrating at times, however, because the workers at the market would literally grab you by the arm and pull you into their store. Then, they would literally trap you in their little shop while you negotiated prices so you couldn’t walk away from them. They were very tricky! They all spoke very good English too. It got very tiring having to keep trying to avoid eye contact with every worker there. It would have also been nice to stop at the shops and look around without feeling obligated to make offers on products. They had everything there though, from every designer purse you could imagine, designer watches, designer clothes, knock-off DVD’s….it was amazing the amount of stuff that was there. Meghan and I spent about 3 hours there and that was with us knowing exactly what we wanted and skipping past all the stuff we didn’t want. I could totally see people who love shopping (and who are extremely patient) being able to spend 6,7,8 or more hours at this market. Next time I go to Beijing, I will give you all advance notice and if you want anything let me know!! I can get it then ship it back to you. Shipping is pretty reasonable if I take the 3-4 week option for the arrival date.
One of the other highlights was going through the crazy food market. This market was kind of similar to the Chinese BBQ’s that I have mentioned before. The were outside markets or shops that were just lined up one after another for probably about 3 blocks. They had everything from grilled mushrooms, squid, star fish, etc. It was crazy and so incredibly busy. When any of you come to visit, we will for sure stop there for dinner one day. There is something for everyone from vegetables, crazy fish, meat, etc. Plus coming to Beijing and not going to this market is like going to Orlando and not going to Disney World.
Oh, a few other random stories that were kind of fun from Beijing. First, one day Meghan and I were leaving our hotel room and at the front desk were this mother and daughter who were from Spain and asked us if we spoke English. We helped them with what they needed, then found out that they were having literally the worst vacation that you could ever imagine. I could write 10 pages about all the things that had gone wrong for these poor people on their vacation. They saw that Meghan and I were comfortable with getting around on our own and asked us for some simple help on a couple of occasions. It was really nice being able to help other foreigners who were visiting China. It felt like we had learned something about China for living in Chengde for the past month. They were such nice people too. The last night we were in Beijing, we ended up going out for coffee/tea with Barbara, the daughter while the mother went to bed. She studies genetics in Madrid and her mother lives in Barcelona.
Also, you can only buy your train tickets five days in advance in China. So, on Tuesday Meghan and I headed over to the train station to buy our tickets for Saturday to go home to make sure that we got back in plenty of time to rest up and be ready to go back to work on Monday. So, we got into a line and ended up behind two Americans. We got to talking and found out that it was a daughter, named April, who has lived in China for two years doing some kind of journalism and the mother was just over visiting. We exchanged numbers with April and shared some travel stories. Luckily, we got into line behind her, because she was fluent in Chinese and helped us get our train tickets. We could’ve done it on our own with our phrase book (plus we had our old tickets too), but it was really nice that she did all the work for us! Hopefully we’ll stay in contact with her and maybe meet up sometime.
That’s about it. We kind of did just the whole tourist thing in Beijing and had a great time.
We got back to Chengde about 11:30 this morning. Today I went and got some groceries and also added more minutes to my cell phone. Nothing too exciting. While we were in Beijing, we got some knock-off (ripped) DVDs so we will probably stay inside tonight (because it’s cold and rainy) and watch a movie. Yay for noodles and movies on rainy days!!
Hope all is well!
Wow, what a fun Holiday we had in Beijing. It is easy for me to mix up days, so I am going to try to recap as close as I can to each day, but just may end up making it one gigantic story!
So, Meghan and I left on the Saturday 2 pm train to Beijing. There were other Drake CCEPers going to Beijing (3 others from our city plus 4 others from the Shizz) so we were going to be hanging out and sight seeing with them) during our time there. Once Meghan and I arrived to Beijing, we found a hotel to stay in for the night which wasn’t too far from the train station. However, no cabs would stop for us, because we think they thought we wanted to rent the cab for the entire day. When the cabs would stop, we told them “Tiananmen Square”, because the hotel we wanted to stay at was right by there. The cab drivers thought we wanted to rent a cab for sight seeing. So, we hiked it the 25 minute walk to the hotel. Oh well!
We put our stuff away at the hotel and then decided to walk around Tiananmen Square and see what it was like at night. Oh by the way, I will be putting a lot of photos up on the photo site in the next day or so. I took like 400 photos so it is taking a LONG TIME to get them all uploaded. I apologize for the delay.
The next days, we did a lot of the typical sight seeing in Beijing. We did two days at the Forbidden city, Tiananmen Square, summer palace, Olympic buildings (water cube (?) and Birds Next), western street (I can’t remember the Chinese name of it, I’ll explain it later) and the crazy food market. We did not do the Great Wall because first Meghan and I both were not feeling 100% because we were both getting over bad colds and it was also expensive for the tour. We figured that we have people coming to visit us and that they want to go to the Great Wall, so we will have many other opportunities to go! This way I can experience the Great Wall for the first time with my sister and her boyfriend (and possibly two other friends) when they come to visit next year!
While we were in Beijing, we ate A LOT of western food! It was really nice, because the only western food we have in Chengde is McDonalds and KFC. So, we had Outback Steakhouse, Papa Johns, Hooters, etc. It was nice. We also found some fun places to go out at night with some of the other Americans.
One of the most exhausting things that we did while in Beijing was go to this giant silk market. It was four floors all of this giant market. There was an entire floor of jewelry (watches, necklaces, jade, etc)., floor of clothes, a floor of coats and other random things and the basement was all like purses, belts, handbags etc. The rule of these markets is that whatever price the worker offers, you should counter-offer 10% of what that price was. Then, don’t pay any more than 20% of their original offer. For example, Meghan and I each got new North Face winter jackets. For both, the lady wanted 3500 Yuan. Meghan and I offered her 300. She laughed and acted like she was insulted. So, then Meghan and I started to walk away. After about 5 minutes of negotiating (repeating to her, “we will only pay you 300”, we agreed on a price of 400 yuan total for both coats. Therefore, Meghan and I each paid 200 Yuan (about $30 US) for North Face winter jackets. It was great. We got a lot of other cool stuff at this market including face Rolex’s, purses, wallets, etc. It was very tiring and frustrating at times, however, because the workers at the market would literally grab you by the arm and pull you into their store. Then, they would literally trap you in their little shop while you negotiated prices so you couldn’t walk away from them. They were very tricky! They all spoke very good English too. It got very tiring having to keep trying to avoid eye contact with every worker there. It would have also been nice to stop at the shops and look around without feeling obligated to make offers on products. They had everything there though, from every designer purse you could imagine, designer watches, designer clothes, knock-off DVD’s….it was amazing the amount of stuff that was there. Meghan and I spent about 3 hours there and that was with us knowing exactly what we wanted and skipping past all the stuff we didn’t want. I could totally see people who love shopping (and who are extremely patient) being able to spend 6,7,8 or more hours at this market. Next time I go to Beijing, I will give you all advance notice and if you want anything let me know!! I can get it then ship it back to you. Shipping is pretty reasonable if I take the 3-4 week option for the arrival date.
One of the other highlights was going through the crazy food market. This market was kind of similar to the Chinese BBQ’s that I have mentioned before. The were outside markets or shops that were just lined up one after another for probably about 3 blocks. They had everything from grilled mushrooms, squid, star fish, etc. It was crazy and so incredibly busy. When any of you come to visit, we will for sure stop there for dinner one day. There is something for everyone from vegetables, crazy fish, meat, etc. Plus coming to Beijing and not going to this market is like going to Orlando and not going to Disney World.
Oh, a few other random stories that were kind of fun from Beijing. First, one day Meghan and I were leaving our hotel room and at the front desk were this mother and daughter who were from Spain and asked us if we spoke English. We helped them with what they needed, then found out that they were having literally the worst vacation that you could ever imagine. I could write 10 pages about all the things that had gone wrong for these poor people on their vacation. They saw that Meghan and I were comfortable with getting around on our own and asked us for some simple help on a couple of occasions. It was really nice being able to help other foreigners who were visiting China. It felt like we had learned something about China for living in Chengde for the past month. They were such nice people too. The last night we were in Beijing, we ended up going out for coffee/tea with Barbara, the daughter while the mother went to bed. She studies genetics in Madrid and her mother lives in Barcelona.
Also, you can only buy your train tickets five days in advance in China. So, on Tuesday Meghan and I headed over to the train station to buy our tickets for Saturday to go home to make sure that we got back in plenty of time to rest up and be ready to go back to work on Monday. So, we got into a line and ended up behind two Americans. We got to talking and found out that it was a daughter, named April, who has lived in China for two years doing some kind of journalism and the mother was just over visiting. We exchanged numbers with April and shared some travel stories. Luckily, we got into line behind her, because she was fluent in Chinese and helped us get our train tickets. We could’ve done it on our own with our phrase book (plus we had our old tickets too), but it was really nice that she did all the work for us! Hopefully we’ll stay in contact with her and maybe meet up sometime.
That’s about it. We kind of did just the whole tourist thing in Beijing and had a great time.
We got back to Chengde about 11:30 this morning. Today I went and got some groceries and also added more minutes to my cell phone. Nothing too exciting. While we were in Beijing, we got some knock-off (ripped) DVDs so we will probably stay inside tonight (because it’s cold and rainy) and watch a movie. Yay for noodles and movies on rainy days!!
Hope all is well!
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