Back in the Middle Kingdom

Two years.  Two years I was away from this place.  And in those two years both I and the country have changed.  And yet we still seem to agree with each other.

The skies are still grey most days.  The subways are horridly crowded.  And there seems to be constant construction.

And I've missed it all.  So very, very much.

My first days here were spent at a hotel.  The Jinjiang Hotel right across the street of Shanghai Stadium to be exact.  It was an interesting experience, full of free breakfasts and smoking (sometimes shirtless) Chinese businessmen.  We (me and the rest of the June 1 hires) were put up here for two weeks, giving us time to acclimate to the city and find apartments.

                                   My hobbit hotel room.  Yes, there was a tiny bathroom as well.

My first thought after opening my hotel room door for the first time: "I'm living in a hobbit hole."  Unfortunately, I am not a hobbit, and every once in a while would have Gandalf issues, bumping into walls because of the surprisingly close proximity of everything in the hotel room.  I slowly adjusted to the space in the two weeks I was there, but was thankful after I had gotten out.  In my apartment now I don't have to step outside into the hallway to change my mind....

The classic Bund picture, but with extra fog.  You can't see the tops of the tallest buildings in this picture.

I had no proper work responsibilities my first week in Shanghai.  Which was perfectly fine as I was going to bed at 8pm each night and waking up at 4 or 5 every morning (I felt like I was turning into my parents...).  After a week of some exploring and a lot of sleeping, I was finally back to my normal grumpy self in the mornings, grudgingly waking up at 8 or 9 only if I absolutely had to.

In the first week, I met some of the new hires, usually by randomly running into them the lobby of the hotel or at the main office for New Pathway.  They come from many walks of life, spanning econ to psych to biophysics majors, and coming from USC to NYU to U Chicago.  All of us are American (with the exception of one Canadian...but we don't talk about him).  Most of the newest hires are just out of undergrad, with a few exceptions: one just finished his first year of law school and decided and  a break was needed, another is 30 and has been teaching in US high schools for a few years already.  No matter our backgrounds, we all had to go through two weeks of training, guiding us to become the best teachers we can be (or something like that).

New Pathway Education is a now Chinese-owned company (under the parent company EIC Education) that employs mostly US university graduates for test prep for the ACT, SAT, SSAT (to get into boarding schools), AP, IB, TOEFL, and probably a few other acronyms that I cannot remember at the moment.  Most of our kids come from international schools or international divisions of local schools here in Shanghai.  These are the children of the upper class, whose parents (who can afford such things) believe that going to university in the States is the best path.  Some of them are American born but have grown up in China, others have been in China all their lives.

After two weeks of "training" (which didn't really make me confident in my teaching abilities only because I felt I didn't have all that much practice teaching), I was thrown into my first few classes.  During the summer, we have three summer sessions, each three weeks long.  I'm teaching ACT Reading for two levels of kids (Foundations and Advanced) for each session.  The first session had three kids in one and four in the other.  The second session, which I am currently in the middle of, has 6 kids in one and 5 in the other.  Teaching is interesting.  New Pathway has in-house material, including text books, that I teach from.  The rough thing about teaching the ACT Reading section is that I don't actually teach concepts, I teach strategies.  But the easiest way to do well on this section is to just read fast.  Which I can do well.  This is not necessarily true of some of my students, especially those whose first language is not English.  So what does this mean for me? It means that I feel like a useless teacher sometimes, because teaching people to read fast is not something that can be done in three weeks.  However, their scores still go up for each mock test (they take three throughout the course), and that provides some satisfaction for me.

The apartment in which I now live is a two-bedroom, shared with another New Pathway teacher.  He and I have....different personalities.  He grew up in Hong Kong, the son of a man from West Virginia and a woman from Shanghai.  He went to school at USC (Southern California, not South Carolina) and it shows.  He speaks the Southern Cali dialect, throwing out words like "dank" "bro" and "cabsky" (cab).   Listening to him talk is amusing and a fascinating study on the evolution of words throughout the country. And I thought Southerns spoke funny.  However, he pays half the rent, so at least he has that going for him.  The apartment is in a very high income compound, full of families that drive Mercedes, BMWs, Teslas, and the occasional Maserati or Bentley.  It's just a 15-minute walk from the main New Pathway campus.  Unfortunately, this summer I am not working at that campus, but at the campus in Pudong, which is about an hour commute by packed subway in the morning.

                                                                      My building

                                                                           My room

                                                     The living room (with the roommate)

                                                                          My kitchen

I've explored the city some since I've been here: wandering about the French Concession (which has a large number of bars...), walking along the Bund at night, going to the plethora of high-end malls they have here.  Summer session is unfortunately one of the busier times during the year, so I won't be able to travel at all until August at the earliest.

                           A street in the French Concession, identified by the trees on every street.

I have many more things to talk about and show you, but this post had already gotten a little long.  So I will save other things for other posts.

I am alive.  And I am in China.  So far, so good.

Holy Crap, I actually went to Shanghai

Shanghai is a very different city than Beijing.  I've yet to decided which I prefer.  Maybe I'll just have to come back and stay for a little bit longer next time...

(7/26) The bullet train ride down to Shanghai was relatively uneventful.  Partially because we only stopped in Nanjing.  That's right, one stop, all the way down to Shanghai. This made the ride just under 5 hours and far less jerky than the ride back up to Beijing that I made two days later.  My quick trip down was probably also do to the speed of the train: (it's called a bullet train for a reason)

I made it to Shanghai just before 7 pm, and Mal and Paul (her boyfriend) picked me up at train station.   But, wait, who is Mal? Who is Paul? They were not random strangers, I promise. Mal and I have a mutual friend back in Colorado (John Toles), and has been living and working in Shanghai for three and half years.  Her boyfriend is the CFO of Lindt Chocolate in Asia.  Which is kinda cool...I guess.  He's also South African, which is also cool...(more like freaking awesome...)

Here we are with one of the most iconic views in Shanghai in the background. 

So, first night, they took me to a Beatles-themed Japanese restaurant, because, really, where else would you eat when in Shanghai.  I think this restaurant was the first (and not the last) indicator that told me Shanghai was not going to be at all like Beijing.  Shanghai is more international and less, well, Chinese.  Which sounds strange, but that's the only way I can think to put it. 

(7/27)  The next day we slept in.  Which was a nice change.  In Beijing sleeping in is a rare occurrence.  After we got up (11 am...super later,  I know), we wandered over to the Yu Garden.  It's history goes as far back as the Ming Dynasty, but it's been destroyed and rebuilt twice now, which makes the buildings there seem a little plastic.  It seems to be where the all the tourists in Shanghai go.  Probably because that's what their guide books tell them to do. 

Quite pretty, but full of tourists.  However, it does contain a wonderful soup dumpling restaurant.  Now, you might ask, what on Earth is a soup dumpling? Exactly how it sounds:

Full of hot, crabby juices.  Wonderfully tasty.  We had lunch with one of Paul's friends.  His name was Ivan, he was originally from Venezuela, sounded like an American, and went to university in Germany....I meet the most interesting people in China. 

That evening Mal, Paul and I had dinner with an ex-pat couple from Colorado.  (On a side note, it seems that whenever a Coloradan leaves Colorado, they move to China.  Mal works with 2 or 3 other Coloradans as well).  Their names were Merna and David and they had been living in China for three years, but are repatriating in September.  David is one of the leading oncologists in the United States and was opening up a clinic here in China.  I should also add that they are both in the 70s.  Dinner with them was absolutely wonderful.  They had such interesting insights about China that I don't think I would have been able to get from any one but them.  Learned a little bit about the corruption in the government (China doesn't like old foreigners working in China, so David had to pay the government off to get his visa) and a little bit about the drama between older ex-pats in Shanghai.  They were lovely and gave me a little taste of Colorado, if only for a few hours. 

(7/28) Sunday was the day of my departure, but my train wasn't until that evening, so we took advantage of the time we had left.  We went and had brunch on the Bund.  Our restaurant was ideally situated for taking the kind of pictures you find in guide books:

We then walked over to the People's Square.  The most interesting thing we discovered there was the Marriage Market. Yes, the Marriage Market.  Because I'm in China, so, really, what else would I find?  Now, you're probably asking what exactly is a marriage market.  Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure.  But that doesn't make it any less interesting.  Along the paths in the park, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of pieces of paper telling about all sorts of people:

Each advertisement (which is essentially what they are) tells us where the person is from, their sex, age, income, height, and a little bit about their personality.  I'm pretty sure this is what online dating was inspired by.  Except in this case, you don't make your profile, your parents do....There were people from every province in China looking for love.  And of every age.  I saw adverts for people as young as 21 and as old as 60. 

After the marriage market, it was time to go back to Mal and Paul's apartment, pack up, and then head to the train station. But this is not the end of my adventure:

On the train back to Beijing I met a lovely family from the city of Xufu (Confucius' birthplace).  The mother was an English teacher at a middle school and had a twelve-year-old daughter.  The mom and I started our conversation in English and progressed until it was almost all Chinese.  She then switched seats with her daughter, and her daughter (Dong Qing) and I proceeded to have an hour and a half conversation in Chinese.  She helped me a little with my homework, we talked about Beijing, and talked about America.  Right before they got off at Xufu, we exchanged emails and she and I now write each other about once a week.

This is why I love China.  There are so many unbelievably kind people here, and if you're willing to talk with them, they have some of the most wonderful stories to tell.  They are all so eager to talk and exchange ideas and cultures.  I think this is one of the biggest reasons I want to come back here.  Dong Qing's mother invited me to stay at her home if ever I passed through Xufu again.  She was a perfect stranger, but after only two hours of conversation, she was open and generous enough to offer me a place in her home.  I've never encountered anything like this in the United States.  My exchange with this family was one of the highlights of my two months here.

An'yang, the city of a Thousands Rains

Each term, CET takes their kids on a "long" trip.  For us, the trip was not so long, only three days, but it was away from Beijing, so it was definitely not lame.   We ventured to An'yang, the previous site of the Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC) capital.  This is considered a medium size city for China, with a population of only 5 million (yes, that is the same number as Colorado's population...one must remember I am in China).  How does one travel to An'yang, you might ask...by train, of course

(7/11)   We only had a four day week for classes, which, as all students know, is always a blessing.  However, this was also midterm week.  So it was a blessing and a curse.  Got through the midterm, and that Thursday we (~70 students and teachers) took the bus to Beijing West Train Station.  Going their, we took the 普通车 (common/regular train).  Doesn't go über fast, and they have standing-room tickets as well as seated tickets.  This was not something I had ever encountered before in the US and Europe (as it is with most things in China).  Most of the people who buy standing-room tickets are migrant workers traveling to or from their job in Beijing.  The train was a train, but the standing-room tickets holders did get a kick out of the American girls and their card games (especially when they started playing Chinese card game).  The guys had loads of advice to give the girls:

 It was actually quite adorable.  After a 5 hour train ride, we made it to An'yang.  We were staying at the An'yang Hotel, which we were told by many a person was a Four Star hotel.  Now, coming from a hospitality industry family, I was little bit skeptical.  An'yang is not a major tourist destination, and is almost considered small by Chinese standards, so why on Earth would they have a four star hotel?  However, though it might not have been truly four star, it was definitely acceptable as a place to stay for two nights:

This was just one half of the room, so it was really quite spacious. Mom, Dad, if you ever want to take a group to An'yang, China, I have already done your site visit.  You're welcome.  We got in late to An'yang, so it was time to sleep, though we grabbed dinner first at a "nice" restaurant (aka, they had western-style-ish food).

(7/12)  Now, I must tell you of the wettest day of my life.  A lesson I learned: climbing mountains in the rain is not the most enjoyable experience.  I would advise to avoid.  However, in spite the large of amounts of water that fell from the sky, it was an unbelievable hike.  We didn't truly climb a mountain.  More like a bunch of stairs.  We was still freaking hard (shades of the Great Wall).  Here are a few examples:

I know, they appear so very safe, don't they? The best part was how wet they were.  I have no problems with heights, but some of my friends do, so it was, how can I say it....interesting.  But the views were absolutely unbelievable:

 

We were all quite wet by the end, but happy to be in China.  This is my class (minus Gongxue aka Shelby).  With Bi Laoshi in the middle (probably one of the most adorable people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing):

We then ate a "rural" like lunch (it was very similar to much of the food we had eaten in China before) and we were bused to yet another hike....needless to say I was not entirely pleased to be there.  We were wet, we were tired, it was time to sleep, not time to hike.
However (I seem to use this word a lot), it was beautiful.  We back into a canyon, the rain stopped, and there weren't as many stairs.  This made for an easy, peaceful afternoon.

We arrived back in An'yang, dried off, then explored the town a little.  Not much to it (when compared to Beijing) but it does have a movie theater.  Which, for some unknown reason, beckoned us in and made us watch an absolutely horrendous movie.  Why so horrendous?  1) American movie, Chinese dubbing 2) No English sub-titles 3) Sylvester Stallone.  Sigh, sometimes you make bad decisions.  Only good thing I got out of it was and understanding of where my Chinese level is (still quite low, sad to say). 

(7/13) Next day we did some history stuff.  Which I know can be very boring, but I like it, and I'm writing the blog, so you have to deal with it for just a little bit.  We went to the site where Shang Dynasty oracle bones were discovered in the 1970s.  Now this was a big deal.  Because previous to their discovery, the Shang dynasty was really just a legend.  We didn't have any hard evidence that it had existed.  Another big thing about oracle bones: they help us understand the origin of thousands of Chinese characters.  I'm a nerd, so I think this is fantastically cool.  For example, the character for heart:

Sort of looks like a heart, doesn't it? The Chinese knew what they were doing when creating their characters, even if it seems like they actually use ramen to write:

 This is what oracle bones look like:

Really old, lots of history, kind of cool.  The archeologists put them back together like the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle because they were found thrown in a pit, all jumbled together:

If you ask me, that was not terribly nice of the Shang Dynasty shamans. 

After our history lesson, we decided to spice up a little and play some music and dance with elderly Chinese women in bright costumes:

 Then we played goofy, wonderful children's games.  Because, really, what else are you supposed to do in China?

After our adventures with the colorful elderly, we made our way to what is supposed to be the most famous landmark in An'yang: the Wenfeng Pagoda.  We went, we saw, we couldn't got in, we left and got snacks for the train.  Little bit underwhelming, but here's the evidence:

We took the bullet train back to Beijing.  It took only 2 hours and we went as fast at 297 km/hr.  It was a very different experience that the regular train.  No standing-room tickets here.  Just big seats, attractive stewardesses and lots of blurry trees.  Didn't get any pictures this time, but don't worry, I'll be taking the bullet train again soon, because in the next episode: Paige goes to Shanghai.

Roller Skating in China is Fantastic

Hello there friends, family, and strangers.  I know it's been a while.  Part of this is because it was midterm week last week.  Which means I got to review 500 plus vocab words and lots of grammar.  But all went well.

(7/3)  Yes, I know it's a Wednesday.  But we were done with all our homework, so Rachel, Ricky, and I decided to get lost in a few hutongs.  It ended up being an absolutely brilliant idea.  Because we found the Imperial College. Which was built in 1306.  And is where all the Emperors went to read Confucian classics to thousands of students.  No big deal.  And we just stumbled upon it in our wanderings.  The Beijing Emperors of old must have been guiding us.  Or maybe even Confucian himself.  I even got the a picture with the man:

 I know, pretty fantastic.  It was awing, being on the same ground that emperors of China had graced.  Moral of the story: get lost in cities.  That's the only way to find the good stuff.

(7/5) After our test that morning, the CET gang made our way over to the contemporary art  district of Beijing: 798.  I felt like I was in Soho.  There were strange, artsy sculptures all over the place:

And there were as many art galleries as there were people (you must remember, we're in China, so there are always people).  It was so art-tastic I could barely handle it.  And I know for certain Pretentious Paige showed at least a few times on during our time there.  It was wonderful to get a break from the super Chineseness that I face everyday.  In 798, I felt as though I were back in the states, even for a couple of hours.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Chineseness, but every once in a while, it's nice to have a break.  Because in the end, I am still an American.

A few of my friends and I share a strange liking for absolutely horrible movies.  Well, I found one.  And it had Keanu Reeves.  Which is really what dropped it's level of watchableness down so far.   The name of the movie is Man of Tai Chi (太极侠).  And it was well worth the 35 RMB and little bit of baijiu (Chinese vodka, sort of) that I consumed beforehand.  For those of you interested, yes, we can definitely watch it when I return to the US.  It's wonderfully painful.  Because Keanu directs and acts in the film.  Thank you, Mr. Reeves, it was truly terrible.

(7/6)  But not all is ugly and filled with terrible American actors.  Because the next day I found my self in a wonderland. The Summer Palace. Some of you have probably seen pictures of this before:

 Yes, that's my picture.  Taken on my old, sad, little iPhone 3.  It's just that spectacular.  And for those non-believers out there, here's a picture of me taken in front of the same beautiful building:

   Look, I'm actually in China.  Still kind of hard to believe sometimes.  This palace was built by the Qianlong Emperor in celebration of his mother's 60th birthday.  Sorry, Mom, there's not a chance in hell I'll ever be able to top this one.  Most of the grounds are lake, but the every building is even more beautiful than the last.  It is also known for the Long Corridor, which looks like this with no tourists:

But, really, it never looks like this. Because we're in China. And there are always tourists:

The Summer Palace was a different kind of break than 798.  This was a break from the city.  Beijing is like New York in the fact that it's mostly metal and cement, with a little green every once in while. The Summer Palace was the every once in a while. 


(7/7)  The last little bit of weekend we had we used to our utmost advantage.  In front of this building:

Believe it or not, but at night, bunches of old and young alike come out and sing karaoke poorly, participate in dance lessons, and roller blade.  It is exquisitely Chinese.  And then this happens:

This was so much better than doing homework.

The Great Wall is truly Great and other China Adventures

(6/29)  That's right folks, I joined the ranks of the millions of other Americans and foreigners that have trekked to the Great Wall and survived.  I'm quite proud and quite surprised, seeing as their were 1,003,435 stairs that I climbed in the process.  Yes, 1,003,435 stairs.  That's a fake number, but that's what it felt like.  For those of you who have never been, the Great Wall is not one long continuous wall, all flat and pretty and useful for warding off Mongols.  Oh no, it is discontinuous, full of stairs, and not so useful for warding off Mongols (Yuan Dynasty, Mongols got over the wall).  But still an absolutely unbelievable architectural and cultural feat.  Again, well done, China.  So, stairs, here are a few sets:

This is just part of the set of stairs we had to climb to get there.  This is not the Great Wall.  These are the steps you climb to get to the Great Wall.  Because, steps are fun.  Good work out.  Fun bonding experience.  Super effective sweat producer.  But all was not for naught.

 We did finally find it.  The real thing.  Sort of.  Most of the Wall we were on had been restored and rebuilt.  Because no restoration makes for a super unsafe will.  Which people don't like, for some reason unbeknownst to me.  Now, more stairs:

 Yes, all of that was stairs.  But is was also the Great Wall of China.  Which made it soooo much better. 

 As you can see, it was a bit misty that day.  So we were just very wet.  All the time.  So it goes.

This is one of my new favorite people at in China.  His name is Zhou Yubai, and is the roommate of a friend here.  He and I bonded over climbing the Great Wall, and have been fast friends ever since.  We speak a wonderful combination of Chinese and English (Chinglish), that most of the world would be unable to understand.  It's a grand time.

 

We finally got to the end.  But it wasn't the end.  I encountered this sign:

 

And then kept on walking.  Because really, why would anyone listen to a sign like this.  Life is short. We had to walk through this:

 

And finally got to this:

 This was probably the best discovery of the day.  Most of the wall is completely over grown with trees and bushes, and the unrestored parts are just as cool as the restored.

All and all, a brilliant Wall.  I would go back in a heart beat.

Now, that night, because we weren't tired enough, a few friends (both Chinese and American) wandered over to Wudaokou again and decided to try our voices at a karaoke place.  Now, in China (and Korea and Japan) they take their karaoke really seriously.  Here, you don't go to random bars, get plastered, and then sing in front of a bunch of strangers. Here, you get a private room, and song selection that could fill a 180GB iPod (for you old folks, that's a lot of songs) and a flat screen TV.  Oh, and lots of fun fancy lights.  Freaking fantastic.  My voice hurt the next morning.  Totally worth it.

I must also mention that they didn't have just Chinese songs.  They had Korean, Japanese, and more American songs than I knew what to do with.  And this was all for 45 yuan a person.  Yes, $7 for three hours of singing badly.  How great is that.

(6/30)  The last adventure of the weekend was the Beijing Zoo.  I was told not go by many people because of its high level of depressingness.  However, I was mildly surprised.  It had it's moments of depression, but also a lot of cool animals, a fair share of closed exhibits and pandas.  Just above what I expected of a zoo in China.  Yippee.
PANDAS

 

I felt like I was seeing the Mona Lisa all over again.  A bunch of Asian tourists in my way with their phones and cameras out.  And then I saw it, and it was smaller and sadder than I expected.  But that's ok.  It's still a panda, and we all like pandas.  

Something a little bit different about this zoo when compared with American is that you could get just a little bit closer to the animals:

When I say closer, I mean I probably could have petted a llama or a tapir if I had really wanted to.  And the "DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS" signs obviously weren't super effective either.  All of these things are just more reasons why China is strange.  But strange seems to be very good here.