Catch up -- 16 days in...

I finally got around to making a blog! This will make updating my friends and family back home much easier since now I can make periodic updates to this blog while updating everyone.

It's a shame I only started now.. Some had even suggested starting to blog BEFORE we actually came. That would just have been one more thing to add to the loooong list of things that needed to be taken care of before we left New York. Oh well, better late than never, right?


I want to do some sweeping updates on my first impressions here in China, more for my benefit so I can re-read them later and compare them to my concluding impressions in July.

I think I shared with most of my friends and family that the most striking first impression I had when I came here was how intense the pollution is. Maybe I should back up even further...

I would have to say the plane ride in itself was the first taste of culture shock I experienced. I'm sure this had to do with the fact that we flew a Chinese airline from Seattle to Beijing (Hainan Airlines). Chris and I had different viewpoints on this, but I have to think had we flown Delta or American, the flight crew would have largely been American. Instead, the cheaper flight happened to be on this lesser known Chinese airline, so the immersion really began upon entering the gate area in Seattle. The language barrier and culture difference, paired with the extremely long flight (12 hours) made the entire thing feel like a strange dream. Once we arrived in Beijing, we barely had enough energy to fully appreciate that one of those people holding the signs in the arrivals area was actually for us, FOR ONCE! But luckily it was a student, and not one of our future bosses, since after 12 hours in a cramped space we all tend to look and feel a bit harried. The student was named Flora, and she was a very bubbly sophomore. She made us feel very welcome and her English was very impressive. She got us safely to what would be our new home for the next 10 months and for that, I was very appreciative.

We ended up arriving late in the evening at the school, maybe 7pm local time. We proceeded to fall asleep soon after and then woke up early to go to the health center with all of the other foreign teachers. Our bus proceeded to get into a car accident on the way to the clinic -- it all seemed pretty routine though. The other guy admitted fault right away and agreed to get it fixed on his own accord. That was it. End of issue! Welcome to China ;)

It ended up being no biggie that we didn't have our health examinations as we were able to get that taken care of at the clinic (for just 600 RMB!). Upon leaving the clinic (like maybe 2pm?) we had still not eaten anything since arriving in China. We stopped at a convenience store and I bought some almonds, since they were practically the only thing I recognized, and hey, nuts are nuts, right? The nuts were fine. However, I was not so fine. I tend to get very stomach-y when I am anxious and the two instances when I can get overly anxious are when I am moving to a new city and when I am starting a new job. Throw in the prospect of having to stand up in front of a classroom full of students in a few days and you can guess how my tummy was doing. One almond was about all I could stomach. We got home and fell asleep around 5pm. I woke up at 1am and watched some DVDs on my computer until about 4am and went back to sleep. We woke up at 9am and after that it was pretty much smooth sailing with regard to adjusting to the time change. I think that is pretty remarkable! We just slept it off. I have had a few mornings where I wake up at 6am, then 7am, then can't fall back asleep, but I attribute that to nerves. All in all I think our jet lag was very minimal.

That morning we traveled with our fellow foreign teachers to The Forbidden City (will post pics as soon as I get a new camera cord!). That day was great for morale because not only were we seeing all of this great traditional oriental architecture, but the sky was blue! It was very encouraging.

I don't remember enough of that visit to the Forbidden City since I was still so focused on adjusting and mentally preparing for the idea of teaching. I hope to go back there in the next month or so and I am sure I will go back when friends or family visit as it's a must-see for Beijing (and even all of China for that matter).

Other highlights from that week include:
That first Saturday night, a spouse of one of my Mission Markets coworkers informed us of a gallery opening at the National Museum here in Beijing. Chris and I were psyched to check it out. We told the front desk downstairs about the event and they called a taxi for us. I think I said "National Museum" about three times to the front desk staff. We rode in the taxi and were obviously unable to confirm the destination since the vast majority of cab drivers do not speak English. The taxi dropped us off at what looked like a big museum, which seemed legit. We walked up to the front and it looked pretty dead. Like closed for the evening. As we walked closer we saw a big sign in English that said, "Capitol Museum". Fail.

No problem, right? Just hop in another cab and tell them National Museum. Except we don't know how to say National Museum in Chinese. Plus, we were standing on the corner of the huge intersection where the museum was, trying to hail a cab. Chris and I kept joking, it was like trying to hail a cab on the West Side Highway. Not to mention we were foreigners and foreigners stick out like sore thumbs in China since there are relatively so few of them. We almost gave up.

But alas, after upwards of thirty minutes and the pity of three different passersby who gave us some helpful hints on hailing cabs in Beijing, we had someone translate to the cab driver where we were headed. He drove us to about 8 city blocks from where we needed to be. We did end up making it to the right exhibit but man was it tough! We had some extra champagne, to make us forget about our frustrations =)

Some other highlights have included exploring a couple of the more "happening" areas. We quickly found that within close proximity to where we are staying are mostly residential, lots of banks, liquor stores, a couple electronic stores, and lower-end restaurants. To get to some of the better restaurants and bars and shops, etc, we would need to take the subway.

I am very grateful for all of my experience using public transportation (no thanks to you, Orlando!), gleaned both by my living in NYC and by getting to travel to other cities and having to just find my way. DC, Chicago, Boston, SF, and London are a walk in the park compared to some of the places in Europe that are not English speaking. I remember my friends and I having some trouble navigating the subways in Rome, Vienna, and Athens. We did have students from the school with us the first two times we took the subway here in Beijing, and that was really all we needed. Since then we (ahem, I) have done a great job using the subway to get around here. It's definitely the preferred mode of transportation since each ride is only 2RMB (divide by 6 to get dollars, like 33 cents!). We do intend to get bicycles but personally I'm in no rush. I am a bit terrified of riding a bike here..

One of the first areas we were able to explore was a portion of the Rear Lakes area. This is technically in our district in Beijing, but it's not the same as a neighborhood we might think of in NYC. For instance, if I'm living in Park Slope and I want to go to another part of Park Slope, I can easily walk there. The districts are almost more like boroughs, but maybe not as big geographically (a bigger district here might be similar in size to Manhattan, though...). Anyway, we had to ride like 5 subway stops to get to this area. The first time we ventured to the Rear Lakes we had a specific place in mind, this pizza place that was in all three of my guide books. Ok you haters, YES I like Chinese food. I would even say I LOVE Chinese food. But I can't it everyday. It's just not happening. I need to change it up with other things. (Full disclosure: I ate Mcdonald's. On day 4. I'm not ashamed! Yeah I poo-poo McDs at home, but only because there are a million other better-for-you options. I would be surprised if the food quality at our cafeteria on campus trumps McDs, sadly.)

So halfway to this pizza place we passed a random, sit-down burger place... It was very enticing so we ate there. Big mistake. The meat was mushy and kind of pink. It wasn't tasty (probably would have been better off with McDs!). We left there and walked around a bit to find the pizza place for future reference. The area was very happening -- tons of hookah bars, bars with Chinese bands playing strange Coldplay covers, restaurants, more bars, tourist shops, etc. We were thinking and saying to one another, "This area is fun! We should come back!" When we got home I looked in the guidebook and it said of the area, "One of the worst affronts came in recent years when aggressive entrepreneurs rented much of the property facing the once idyllic lakes and turned the area into a bustling bar area that echoes with loud music and is crowded with cars and rickshaws." Ha. Oops...

Anyway, the following weekend we did try that pizza place and it was very good. Spoken from a pizza snob (NY will do that to you). We will DEFINITELY be going back there again.

One other area we have explored a couple of times now is the much more western-themed Sanlitun area. This area is a well-known westernized area with many recognizable shops: H&M, Addidas, American Apparel, Starbucks, even a goddamned Hooters. I had done some preliminary research on where we could find some BlueBottle/Think/9thStEspresso-esque coffee, and that is what initially drew us to this neighborhood (FishEye coffee). Also, the bookstore The Bookworm, was in that area and it also showed up in all of my guidebooks as a must. Both met our expectations, plus we were able to explore the embassy area north of Sanlitun, where we did see a promising falafel place. Sanlitun is filled with hip restaurants and bars so I'm sure we will be visiting that area often. This past weekend we checked out an Italian place in that area from the Zagat book: AMAZING. I have concluded we should stick to places we find in our books because we haven't had good luck just winging it. Come to find out TimeOut does Beijing so I'll be picking that up every month to get the latest on the new eats in town.

Our exploring did yield one gem near our school. It is in the basement of a hotel right up the street. We have now gone there three times. The second time we went the cook came out to get a look at us. He must have wanted to see for himself these Americans that came back to eat the good food he was serving. That place blows our school cafeteria out of the water, and Chris and I can eat for a measly 34RMB -- that's just under $6. Fabulous!

Ok enough about food. On to the real adjustment -- teaching.

My teaching experience thus far can be separated into:
1) my experience in my Topical Discussions classes, of which I have five different classes of International Economics students (juniors & seniors / 3rd & 4th year), meeting once per week (each session is 90 mins)
2) my experience with the Oral English class (freshmen / 1st year) I was given just 3 or 4 days ago (these students meet twice a week, 90 minutes each session)


The first Oral English class was this week, on Tuesday. I thought, OK, no sweat, do some introductions, go around the room, etc. There are 36 kids in that one (with only about 20 in each Top Disc class) so I was SURE it would take up the entire session to just go around introducing one another. As soon as I started to introduce myself to the class, everyone started giggling. They had no idea what I was saying. I quickly learned that as I tried to go around the room and have them share where they are from and the story behind how they got their English name that they were on a completely different level than my Topical Discussions students. Some of these students just stared blankly at me when I asked where they are from. I needed to really slow down talking and used a lot of pantomiming. That first class was incredibly rough. I got around the room and the halfway point bell went off.. That meant we still had another 45 minutes to go. What on earth was I going to have them do for 45 minutes? At this point I still had no syllabus (who am I kidding, right NOW I still have no concrete syllabus for that class..) so it's not like I could spend time going over that.

The only thing I could come up with was for them to make suggestions to me for what topics they would want to discuss during the course of the class. I made a loooong list and am sincerely going to try to include all of them. Lord knows basketball was one of them. The Chinese are obsessed with the NBA. Whenever I say I grew up in Orlando and went to undergrad in Miami, they all say, "Oh the Magic!" "Oh, Miami Heat! Lebron James! Dwayne Wade! Bosh!" I am so glad I watched the playoffs this year! I actually have something to talk about with them. Then as soon as I mention NYU, they all get excited... "Gossip girl!" Really? Gossip Girl? That's all you got? Some mention "Friends" but mostly it's "Gossip Girl".

Thank god I got through that first class. I have been doing tons of internet surfing to get ideas of different activities I can do that might get them talking and practicing their English. I still have a ways to go but at least I have a bit of direction now.

As for the Economics Topical Discussions classes, those are going much better. The first week it was easy to take up the entire class period introducing myself, the syllabus, and learning about them. This week I have now had two of the Topical Discussions classes where we are actually starting to talk about substance. This week my topic was "Globalization". Yeah, pretty broad, I know. I did that intentionally. Honestly, I was terrified I would not have enough to talk about to keep them going for 90 minutes. I sent around about 7 news articles and had them read them before class. I made some notes on the articles and asked them open ended questions during class, while showing a very basic powerpoint. It worked almost too well! We actually went OVER the amount of time I had allotted for class discussion. I structured the course (on the syllabus) to include breakout time for them to get into small groups to discuss some of the more highly-debated topics. Again, I did that so it would take the pressure off of me to lead a big discussion for 90 mins. Except I was able to just barely squeeze about 8 minutes group discussion time into my class on Tuesday, and today I couldn't even come up with that. The class today was so excited to talk about these topics, it was awesome! I decided next week I am going to try assigning less articles, just 4 or 5, and focus on delving deeper into them. Plus I will keep a closer eye on the clock so I can be sure to set aside group time for them.

I was so impressed this week with my two Topical Discussion classes so far. These kids know their stuff and they are very articulate. I really enjoy hearing their opinions and I find their perspectives very interesting and refreshing.

I'm really glad I'm teaching this Topical Discussion course. It allows me to spur discussions about topics I have had the opportunity to experience first hand (like the stock market, the recession, etc.). I am very much looking forward to my last two classes of the week tomorrow!

I will close this opening post with a list of some of the most interesting and funny names of the kids in my classes (keep in mind, the students normally get to choose their English names at some point early on in their English studies, sometimes as early as 12 or 13 years old, some as old as 18):

Lavendar
Miracle
Nemo ("you know, like Finding")
Ten
Wing
Neo
River
Milan
Echo
Bush ("you know, like the President. It's because he is my favorite US president")
Lil Jon ("He is my favorite rapper")
King
Mentor ("because I help other people in the class")
Honey
Fish
Voldemort ("You know, like from Harry Potter")
Lancer
Star (male)

... and the best one was someone WITHOUT an English name. Her name?
Zuang DingDong

I said, "What should I call you?" praying she wouldn't dare...
But of course, she said, "Dingdong".
It will be very difficult, but I will call her that. ONLY because she requested it!
(Note: I changed her first name here just in case she ever googles her own name and finds this blog lol)


I will be trying to make posts at least once per week with updates on my classes and exploring Beijing.
(pics to come..)

zai jian!