Making the Classroom Adjustment- After

Probably the biggest adjustment is getting back into the technology mode. My ZUFE Chinese classroom is pictured below. My Frederica Academy classroom is pictured above it consists of 24 student computer sharing 1 laser printer. 2 teacher computers (one on the teacher’s desk and one application demonstration computer with projection system. This is in addition to a Whiteboard and an Activision board. Most of it came back to me – sort of like riding a bike.

Making the Classroom Adjustment- Before

My New Car

When I left for China, rather than let my 5 yr Honda CRV old car rust in the driveway for a year, I sold it. That meant when I came home I was car-less. Unfortunately St Simons lacks the great public transportation that all of China has. No stuff-it buses and no B1’s here. I borrowed Paula’s 15 yr old, always running, Toyota but I needed my own car. I love HAVING a new car but I HATE going thru the process of doing the dickering for the car so I begged Neil G into doing the preliminary stuff for me. You would think that after a year in China where you bargain for almost EVERYTHING that I would have started to enjoy the pricing process. I did end up enjoying the bargaining in China - which was easy to do because the same item would probably be right next door. So you just walk out and try another place. BUT HERE it's different. For some psychological reason (which I haven't figured out) dickering with car salesmen is different. I always end up feeling really stupid or gullible. I gave Neil my criteria: reliability, comfort, price, and looks. With Neil's research and my criteria we had sort of narrowed it down to the Toyota RAV4 or another Honda CRV. We looked and drove both cars and I ended up with the car pictured above with not too much pain. The Toyota place hadn’t worked with Neil yet and they were going to do the predictable back and forth price negotiation which was their kiss of death for me, but the Honda place had already worked with Neil and he had gotten that coveted final price. That made the decision easy. Unfortunately Neil couldn’t shield me from the extra service coverage sales pitch and the accessory sales pitch. But I got out of there by 4 pm driving home my new car. I love it and I survived the purchasing process.

42 Hours!

That’s how long it took for me to get from my bed in China to Willies Weenee Wagon in Brunswick Georgia.
I wasn’t sure the taxi would be allowed in the school gate so it took me two trips dragging the luggage to the east gate (about a block). Usually the trip to the Hangzhou airport only takes 30 minutes BUT the short way to the airport was under construction so the driver had to go a longer way. I still got there in plenty of time and the driver helped me get my luggage inside the terminal and onto a manageable cart. No extra charge for the extra weight and I was WAY over weight! The Dragon Air flight to Hong Kong was fine BUT the Cathay Air flight from Hong Kong to LAX was late taking off so I missed ALL my connections.
1 hour TO airport
1 hour AT airport
2 hours flight to HK – extra seat
4 hours waiting for next flight – FREE wireless Internet!
12 hours flight to LAX– extra seat and no problems at customs!
12 hours - layover – 6 hours stuck with ALL 4 bags – couldn’t get to the bathroom, NO free wireless Internet, was 'lucky enough' to get picked for the extra special security search (but I had plenty of time so it was sort of entertaining) and unfortunately THIS time I was charged for my extra baggage weight
4 hours flight to Atlanta – no extra seat
5 hours waiting for next flight – NO free wireless Internet
1 hour to Brunswick – all baggage arrived and Gail was there to help me carry it all!
NEXT STOP WILLIES

Last Supper

Above is a picture of the last supper participants – from left to right and all showing the universally used Chinese photo victory sign are: Sharon & David, Ashley, Nathan & Elizabeth, Heidi and Ricky. I used the rest of my Metro’s ‘just ok’ spaghetti sauce, WuMei’s ‘pretty close’ Italian bread and something that looks a little like lettuce to make a pseudo Italian dinner preceded by a big give-a-way. Nathan & Elizabeth and myself were leaving Xiasha but Ricky & the Chuan Mei group were staying another term so they got to share all the stuff we didn’t want to take with us but that we didn’t want to leave to the unknown “new guy”. They got to shop such bargains as free pickle relish, bikes, cheese, toothpaste, 2 parmesan pasta dishes, tunafish, spices, people magazines, paperback books, American TV show filled external hard drive, my beach recliner, DVDs, shampoo and many more hard to find items that kind relatives and friends have sent me.

Last Minute Pearl Purchase

Before I came home I had to make one more Shanghai Lisa Pearl run so I took Penny with me. She had never gone to Shanghai before but she sort of got gypped on her first trip. It was rainy, foggy and cold most of the time. Before our 2 hour marathon Lisa Pearl purchases we did a couple of touristy things such as walk to the Bund and go up to the top of the Oriental Pearl tower but unfortunately visibility was very limited at both. Only excitement of the day was that my credit card was declined because of either the large purchase amount or due to not getting conformation caused by the broken Tiawan Internet cable. The only phone number I knew by heart of one of the pearl purchasing persons was Paula. (say that 5 times fast) Now you have to understand that Paula really enjoys her sleep. I have already been in the doghouse a couple of times when I woke her during one of our trips. So I was really leary of waking her in the middle of the night (1:30am) for her credit card number. But it had to be done or the two hours of waiting while all the girls double knotted the pearls would have been for naught. Sorry Paula and thanks!

Oh – wait – we did have one more noteable event. In the Yu Garden/ old town area they have lots of small junkie stalls where I found a “Hello Kitty” Pin. I had been looking for one of these because when the Chinese kids say hi to me it always sounded like “Hello Kitty” – not Hello Katie. A couple of the kids even thought that Kitty was my name (and probably still think) and gave me some Hello Kitty paraphernalia.

Libraries - Chinese Style

Usually all Chinese college campus Libraries are the fanciest and sort of edgy in their archectectual design. They are usually the center of the campus and provides the 'theme' for all the other buildings to follow. Penny gave me a tour of the ZUFE library the other day. (I wish I had taken Paula here - sorry) I would have liked to have toured the library at the beginning of my contract and not at the end because it would have been nice to know about the English language newspapers and the books to help you learn Chinese. They have a pretty garden on the 9th floor with a great view of the campus. Photo above was taken from here. Picture taking was lousy though because it was another cold, rainy and cloudy day. In the library section most of the books on the metal shelves were paperbacked and not hard backed. Different subjects were on different floors along with about 10 computers on each floor. Penny proudly showed me all the sections of books on the United States such as history, geography, and famous Americans. What struck me as unusual was that the majority of famous American books were about our generals or soldiers. What kinds of famous people do our kids study? Generals or sport stars? Makes you think - doesn’t it?

Cutesy Stuff

Sometimes it would strike me as odd that the college & older girls were into such cutsy things. Cutesy- as in stuff that preteen girls in America would have. Hello Kitty stuff, dolls and animals hanging off of their cell phones, carrying around stuffed animals, wearing lots of pink, ruffles and sparkles, and silly gloves. Above is Rachel, a graduate finance student and one of the first students that I really enjoyed getting to know wearing her cutesy gloves. So if you are into cutesy- and you are small in stature this is the place to shop and fit in!

XiKou Farmer’s Market & Dinner

Stilwell's Grandmother

On the way back to Stilwell's home we stopped by his Grandmother's wooden house to invite her to dinner. (You don't see many wooden houses anymore most homes are cement block) She had already eaten so she declined but she stopped by later to bring fresh fruit for dessert. Most grandparents raise the children while the parents work so there was a strong loving tie between the two. The tangerines and his grandmother were both very sweet!

XiKou Farmer’s Market & Dinner

After the school tour we went to the local farmers’ market. Even though it was covered market, you had to watch out for bikes and scooters which treated the area like a giant drive thru grocery store. We bought our food for that night. Stilwell and the kids were cooking at his house that night. That’s Stilwell cooking pictured above. In China you spend a lot of time grocery shopping. You can’t carry home trunk loads of processed food so you buy fresh and frequently. And I mean really fresh! All the fish were alive and they gutted and scaled them after you bought them. That night we had eggplant, clams, fish, cucumbers, rice, a green vegetable I can say in Chinese but can’t spell in pinyin and a couple of other delicious dishes.

Channeling Elvis

Most of the kids here had never talked to a foreigner before so every class change, they pushed out of the rooms to see me. They waved and yelled ‘hello’ to me. It sort of made me feel like Elvis. They felt really safe yelling questions from the second floor balconies but when I went up to the second floor to talk to them – they sort of shied away back into the classrooms. (Sort of like what Paula and I did in 2002 when we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Budapest china shop). The brave ones actually approached me and asked the standard English corner statements “Glad to meet you”, (before they even knew my name) Where are you from? etc ) I even had kids tell me that I was beautiful. You can tell they REALLY haven’t seen many foreigners when they think a 58 year old woman without any makeup and 2 inches of gray roots showing was classified as beautiful.

Stilwell’s & Chiang Kai-skek’s School

Stilwell’s high school was Chiang Kai-skek’s school and obviously had lots of history along with lots of really enthusiastic kids. Interestingly they had a large demerit board posted outside with the total scores for each class – pictured above.

Xuedou Temple – Traveling Chinese Style with Stilwell

We rode a bus up a really steep mountain past some beautiful scenery with lots of tea bushes growing on the mountain side that would have been even more spectacular if it wasn’t raining – (it seems to rain most of December and January in the Zhejiang province) to a Buddhist temple. The Xuedou Temple was built in the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the temple was honored by emperors of the Song Dynasty as Xuedou Holy Temple" and "One of the Ten Greatest Temples of the Zen Sect of the Country." What was unique about this one is that it was filled with lots of doll sized brightly colored happy Buddha. The happy Buddha is my favorite so I was smiling the whole way past all the hundreds of different doll type Buddha. Some were eating, some were drinking, some were lying down but all of them were definitely having a good time. Also the temple had a nice western toilet (ok I tried but – I hadn’t adapted completely).

After we got back down the mountain we ate at a good noodle shop that all the students frequent which means it is cheap but good and then walked to Stilwell’s old High School and got permission to go in.

Side note - I have learned to love a hot noodle bowl on a cold winter day. My favorite is Da Pai Mien (Big Piece Noodle) which really means a large piece of meat (translate into pork chop) inside a noodle bowl. The restaurant located near our campus called “Today” had my favorite version. All for 5 Yuan – which is about 60 cents.

“Traveling Chinese Style” -XiKou

The next morning after avoiding the local kids throwing firecrackers at us we hopped on a bus to travel from Stilwell’s village to XiKou. We walked thru the old part of town and bought the obligatory souvenirs. Most towns have their own local snacks. This one had two. They have a weird looking potato type of vegetable that is unique to this area. (Sorry Stilwell I already forgot the name) The other one is called 1000 layer cookie. (which is pictured above) It is a rolled and many folded square that is cooked on the inside walls of big open pots. It was made with rice flour and some green stuff which I never could get anyone to identify (sometimes it is better not knowing). It tasted pretty good. XiKou is famous for being the family home for the Chiang Kai-skek family who were salt vendors. It is strange that the Chinese government allows and promotes this anti-communist person’s hometown. The Chinese cannot go to Taiwan but the Taiwanese can come and visit this town to honor their hero. China is definitely a country of contrasts and unexplained exceptions.

More of Traveling Chinese Style

The Homes – In the beginning I did the American thing and focused on differences. I mean they did not have heat or an indoor toilet. But it took me a just night and a day to see that they had so much more than a lot of Americans. They were happy. Stilwell would like to go back to his hometown to teach math at his old high school. Why not, the area is surrounded by mountains, clean lakes, beautiful plants, 1000 year old trees, clean air, friends and his family.

Most of you know that I don’t like cold weather, but I have learned to adjust. You just wear your coat and scarf inside and outside in the winter . I now love long underwear (only major drawback is that it makes me look fatter). Doors and windows are left open so there is always lots of fresh air. The students are hardly ever absent so maybe there is something to not breathing stuffy, re-circulated air. It’s probably not common knowledge in the US that the public buildings in China north of the Yangtze have heat but no air conditioning and the public buildings south of the Yangtze have no heat. We are south of the Yangtze – therefore no heat in the classrooms or dorms or government built homes. Their country homes were like townhouses with 2 rooms down and 2 rooms upstairs. The living room and kitchen were downstairs and 2 bedrooms were upstairs. The floors were cement or linoleum which was smart because they would wheel the electric scooters in at night to charge them. The girls slept in the living room on a bed that doubles as their couch during the day. I was given a bedroom upstairs with a really thick, heavy comforter to cocoon myself in. The second night I had adjusted so well that I slept like a rock not even turning over. The bedroom had it’s own chamber pot to use if I didn’t want to go outside in the middle of the night. Stilwell’s mother came over the next morning and fixed us breakfast which they called porridge. It was made with rice and sort of had the consistency of rice pudding but was hot and delicious with salty/pickled vegetables in it. Definitely not Dunker Donuts but still really good and probably much better for me.

Side note: When I show people at the English corner my photo of my little beach cottage they call it a “villa”. It is sort of hard to think of my 1100 sq ft house as a villa but I now I understand why.

Traveling Chinese Style

I was invited by Stilwell and his friends to travel to his hometown. A lot of students ask me to visit their hometown but these guys actually “came thru and delivered”. Strangely, Stilwell and friends are not actually MY students. Stilwell I had met during the 3 hour train ticket line fiasco (see blog of Sept 26th) and he is one of those brave kids that has the guts to talk to a foreigner, visit me and actually follow up on the “hometown visit” invite.

Side Note: Most educated Chinese under 30 can speak some English but not many are willing or brave enough to start talking to me on the bus or in the canteen. (Thank goodness for my MP3 player or I would go crazy during the hour and a half long bus rides to and from Hangzhou). Unfortunately I have to admit that I am also not brave enough when it comes to initiating conversations with strangers and maybe I need to work on this a little bit too! Even I don’t say anything to the “laowai” I see in China. Enough of my insecurities……

Back to the travel story…. Little did I realize that text messaging, going to Stilwell’s English corner and couple of visits with him would lead up to one of the best trips ever . After talking to him I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to travel American Style and I was just going to have to give up control (which is a hard thing for me to do – as some of you know) and travel Chinese style. This meant no firm time of leaving, no tickets, no idea of where I was going and what I was going to see or when I would see it. This was ontop of not knowing where or when we would eat, sleep and pee. I did know it was some place close to Ningbo. So curbing my strong desire to have everything planned out and know everything in advance – I took a deep breath and I just let the adventure happen as it may. (Zac & Nicole would be soooo proud of me) It started out with us catching a stuff-it-bus to the 525 bus stop which takes you to the train station. When we arrived at the station an hour and a half later we found out that we couldn’t get train tickets for Ningbo for another 2 hours (yes, I was biting my tongue at this point) so we climbed into 2 taxis and went to the bus station and bought tickets for Ningbo, which was leaving immediately. The bus arrives in Ningbo and we go across the street to the train station and buy train tickets for going home on Sunday (the American travel person inside of me was feeling relieved). We walk a couple of blocks and catch another 45 min. bus ride into XiKou (pronounced ‘she-coo’), which was sort of our final destination. We meet up with Stilwell’s father and we have a nice meal at a local restaurant. We walked around town and I was given a preview of some of the sites I would see the next day. We shopped for some snacks and visited Stilwell’s High School (they call it middle school) English teacher. She was sweet enough to give all five of us a ride in her brand new very small car to Stilwell’s farm village. We walked the rest of the way to his aunt’s house where us girls were staying and we visited and played cards till about 11.

PS - another major difference between traveling Chinese Style or American style is the amount they take on a trip versus the amount we take on a trip. I had JUST a backpack and my purse, but the girls only brought a large purse. I definitely could have done without my makeup and pajamas and extra top, because all anyone ever sees is your coat, scarf, and gloves.