Other than friends, family, and a hot bath, the thing I am missing the most is American food. I have mentioned this in some of my personal emails already, but today, it will be the topic of my post.
I will admit that my eating habits have never been particularly good (it’s a good thing I was blessed with a fast metabolism or I would be fat). In the States, pizza, chocolate, and wine were regular parts of my diet. I knew that my food choices would be different here in China and I was right.
Before I came, I heard that people tended to eat out more than they cooked at home and that it was less expensive to do so. This is only partly true. People do dine in restaurants frequently but it is more because they don’t know how to cook than for economic reasons. This has presented a few challenges for me. I cannot read menus to order foods and generally prefer to eat at home anyway (where I don't get stared at). Because people aren't really interested in cooking, supermarkets have very few “ingredients” and mostly carry snack-like items. Ramen noodles and frozen dumplings are readily available and have become staples in my diet. I have a hard time trusting the meats I can buy in the markets because they are either, quite literally, chopped up parts, or they come in blocks of processed who-knows-what. Fruits and vegetables are generally not sold in supermarkets. Rather, there is an outdoor farmer’s market and small produce shops that sell them. Some veggies are still hard to find, however, such as iceberg lettuce (I think the climate is too harsh for it). Another challenge in food preparation is that I only have a stove. I am saving up for toaster-oven because, although I have not seen any, I am told I can find one.
Refrigerators are not considered a necessary household appliance and many people do not own one. This means that there are few items sold in supermarkets that require refrigeration including one of my favorites, dairy products. Milk is sold off the shelf in juice boxes (needless to say, it does not taste the same) and butter and cheese are not available in Tai’an. I am told that in the city, I can find some honest-to-goodness Land o’ Lakes cheddar but that I will pay 30 RMB for it. When translated into dollars, this does not sound too bad (a little more than $4) but in terms of cost of living it is nearly a third of my weekly food budget. The Chinese do make wine but it is not very good and I will pay 50 RMB or more for a decent bottle. Again I am told I can buy an imported wine in the city but it will cost me 230 RMB. To put this into perspective, I paid 250 RMB for my cell phone. The only thing I have found in Tai’an that is imported (and tastes like the real thing) is Dove chocolate and although it is not cheap, I splurge on a few.
As far as restaurants go, I talked about that a little already when I first got here. The included video features the same restaurant we ate at when I first arrived (we have been there several times since it is right next to the school). I have eaten several places, however, and have found a few general rules. Place settings always consist of chopsticks, a bowl and spoon, a tea cup and saucer, and a glass. A variety of dishes are ordered and placed on the table to share. It is unheard of for a dish to be considered one person’s. When a large party is present, there do not seem to be any rules about how the lazy-susan is spun—you just eat from the dishes that are in front of you until the table is spun and you are presented with new dishes or if there is something you want, move the table yourself. I do see a lot of value in this kind of communal eating. Besides tea, beer is the most common beverage and it, too, is shared since the bottles are large and the glasses are small.
The dishes that are served are usually tasty but generally simple in their ingredients. One of my favorites, sweet and sour pork (different from what you have tasted in the States), is, unfortunately, one of the more difficult dishes to make and requires ingredients I have not found in the supermarket (like flour). The only thing I have rejected eating on the basis of ingredients was a dish of what looked like white semi-translucent jello slices. I was told it was pigskin that was boiled down. That ranked too high on my “eww” scale to warrant a taste. I think the strangest thing I have eaten so far was a meat that was served on a dish with the cooked heads of the animal. The heads were suspiciously close to the size of a small dog’s so I asked what the animal was. I was told but had never heard of the animal before and was told it was like a horse. The meat didn’t taste too bad but I only had a little bit because I had a hard time getting over the mental block that I was eating horseflesh.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
What's in a Name?
I’ve had a very busy week. Nick decided not to return to teaching so I worked his classes as well as my own. They are bringing Ed, who was working in Anshan city, to replace Nick and my schedule will change starting Monday. My classes will be light on Monday and Tuesday, heavy on Wednesday and Thursday, and I work a half day on Friday. I think the most annoying will be Tuesday, when I have one class the second period and one class the last period. This means I have to walk to work in the morning, work one hour, walk home, then walk back at 3:45, work another hour, then walk back home again. Still, I guess I shouldn’t complain. I’m making 3 times the usual salary for teachers (who have a high salary compared to other jobs) and I’m only working 24 hours a week.
As mentioned in my last post, I had the students choose an English name then practice introducing themselves. Although one might think this is straightforward enough, I had many occasions to laugh this week. I did provide the students with a list of names to choose from but some of them decided to look elsewhere for inspiration.
I have said that they are really into basketball so I have a number of Kobe’s and if that was taken, some of them wanted Bryant. I also have quite a few Jordan’s.
Quite a number of them used a glossary in the back of their English workbooks to find names and this was sometimes amusing because the names came from the lessons and were not always appropriate names. For example, there is a module on literature that focuses on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist so the names in the book appear in the glossary. I let Pip slide but I thought it would be cruel of me to allow one boy call himself Bumble.
In one class, a girl wanted to be called Apple, and I let that one go since it is now known because of Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter but then another girl in the same class also wanted to be called Apple so I told her it was taken and she said she wanted Orange, but I had to draw a line. I suggested a few names but this girl, who was on the chunky side, decided she wanted me to help her choose a name that meant “skinny” so I suggested Twiggy. She liked that one.
I had a few look in their dictionaries for words and they were probably the funniest. I wouldn’t let a girl call herself Monster and I didn’t let one boy call himself Super and refused another to call himself Phat but I got tired of arguing with the students sometimes and let a few weird ones slide like: Pound, G, Rock, Stone, Panda, and Demon. There were also a few I allowed, even though I have no idea where they came from: Geduo, Dill, Hebe, Lich, Chauncy, and Melo.
I have been given a Chinese name: 奧卓 (hopefully the characters come out ok). The pronunciation is close to that of my English name: ao zhuo (fourth and first tone, respectively [if you don’t know what I mean, I’ll explain more about the Chinese language in another post one day]). The first character means obscure/mysterious (though another character of the same pronunciation means proud/haughty!) and the second character means profound/outstanding. I have been told it is a good name and it has special meaning since the first character is also part of “Olympic” and I am here the year the Olympic games will be in Beijing.
As mentioned in my last post, I had the students choose an English name then practice introducing themselves. Although one might think this is straightforward enough, I had many occasions to laugh this week. I did provide the students with a list of names to choose from but some of them decided to look elsewhere for inspiration.
I have said that they are really into basketball so I have a number of Kobe’s and if that was taken, some of them wanted Bryant. I also have quite a few Jordan’s.
Quite a number of them used a glossary in the back of their English workbooks to find names and this was sometimes amusing because the names came from the lessons and were not always appropriate names. For example, there is a module on literature that focuses on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist so the names in the book appear in the glossary. I let Pip slide but I thought it would be cruel of me to allow one boy call himself Bumble.
In one class, a girl wanted to be called Apple, and I let that one go since it is now known because of Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter but then another girl in the same class also wanted to be called Apple so I told her it was taken and she said she wanted Orange, but I had to draw a line. I suggested a few names but this girl, who was on the chunky side, decided she wanted me to help her choose a name that meant “skinny” so I suggested Twiggy. She liked that one.
I had a few look in their dictionaries for words and they were probably the funniest. I wouldn’t let a girl call herself Monster and I didn’t let one boy call himself Super and refused another to call himself Phat but I got tired of arguing with the students sometimes and let a few weird ones slide like: Pound, G, Rock, Stone, Panda, and Demon. There were also a few I allowed, even though I have no idea where they came from: Geduo, Dill, Hebe, Lich, Chauncy, and Melo.
I have been given a Chinese name: 奧卓 (hopefully the characters come out ok). The pronunciation is close to that of my English name: ao zhuo (fourth and first tone, respectively [if you don’t know what I mean, I’ll explain more about the Chinese language in another post one day]). The first character means obscure/mysterious (though another character of the same pronunciation means proud/haughty!) and the second character means profound/outstanding. I have been told it is a good name and it has special meaning since the first character is also part of “Olympic” and I am here the year the Olympic games will be in Beijing.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
School Tour
OK, this is going to be a two-part post. First some background…
During a typical day for the students, classes start at 7:50 and run until 5:00. There are 8 45-minute lessons a day with 10 minute breaks in between (except after the second lesson, when the student go outside for 20 minutes of exercises and some kind of daily speech, as seen in the video) as well as a two-hour break for lunch. I usually go home for lunch but most of the students (remember, there are 2500 or more) descend upon the nearby restaurants.
I am scheduled to teach 22 lessons a week spread out Monday through Thursday. Most of the lessons are taught at the high school but I also teach 4 classes at a nearby middle school. The average class size is around 60 so I’m teaching over 1300 students.
The students have a Chinese English teacher so I have found that they are quite good at reading English (especially when they get to the upper classman level) but their listening and speaking abilities are lacking, which is where I come in. They need me to have the students practice their auditory and oral skills. I think this would be a great job for a speech-therapist! Even though I am technically teaching three levels, my lessons will basically be the same, which means I teach the same lesson 22 times. This can be a little monotonous.
There are two uniforms that are worn and although I haven’t figured out exactly who wears what yet, I’m pretty sure it distinguishes the upper and lower classman. Some of the students wear a track suit and the others wear army fatigues (!). They don’t seem quite as hip with American culture as I might have thought but they are really into basketball.
Now some details…
One of the funniest things to me is that the students often applaud when I enter the room. This is certainly not something that happened while I was teaching in the States! For my first lesson, I introduced myself with pictures. They were very impressed with the picture of my house and I almost always got an applause when I showed the picture of me with my 4 siblings (most of the Chinese only have one sibling if any). You’re heroes, Mom and Dad!
I left a few minutes at the end of each class for them to ask me questions and one of the funniest things they asked me was to sing. I think at least half of the classes wanted me to sing for them. Eventually I asked them why they all wanted me to sing and I was told, “Pretty girls sing pretty.”
At the middle school, I had a few students pull hair off my shirt as I passed them and some of them asked me to sign autographs, including autographing their English-Chinese dictionaries. I suppose though, the culmination of my fame was when a reporter visited one of my classes to get some footage for the local news.
The video is from this week’s lesson. I had the students choose an English name then introduce themselves to me…including a proper handshake. I have some good stories to tell about this as well but that will have to wait until next week!
During a typical day for the students, classes start at 7:50 and run until 5:00. There are 8 45-minute lessons a day with 10 minute breaks in between (except after the second lesson, when the student go outside for 20 minutes of exercises and some kind of daily speech, as seen in the video) as well as a two-hour break for lunch. I usually go home for lunch but most of the students (remember, there are 2500 or more) descend upon the nearby restaurants.
I am scheduled to teach 22 lessons a week spread out Monday through Thursday. Most of the lessons are taught at the high school but I also teach 4 classes at a nearby middle school. The average class size is around 60 so I’m teaching over 1300 students.
The students have a Chinese English teacher so I have found that they are quite good at reading English (especially when they get to the upper classman level) but their listening and speaking abilities are lacking, which is where I come in. They need me to have the students practice their auditory and oral skills. I think this would be a great job for a speech-therapist! Even though I am technically teaching three levels, my lessons will basically be the same, which means I teach the same lesson 22 times. This can be a little monotonous.
There are two uniforms that are worn and although I haven’t figured out exactly who wears what yet, I’m pretty sure it distinguishes the upper and lower classman. Some of the students wear a track suit and the others wear army fatigues (!). They don’t seem quite as hip with American culture as I might have thought but they are really into basketball.
Now some details…
One of the funniest things to me is that the students often applaud when I enter the room. This is certainly not something that happened while I was teaching in the States! For my first lesson, I introduced myself with pictures. They were very impressed with the picture of my house and I almost always got an applause when I showed the picture of me with my 4 siblings (most of the Chinese only have one sibling if any). You’re heroes, Mom and Dad!
I left a few minutes at the end of each class for them to ask me questions and one of the funniest things they asked me was to sing. I think at least half of the classes wanted me to sing for them. Eventually I asked them why they all wanted me to sing and I was told, “Pretty girls sing pretty.”
At the middle school, I had a few students pull hair off my shirt as I passed them and some of them asked me to sign autographs, including autographing their English-Chinese dictionaries. I suppose though, the culmination of my fame was when a reporter visited one of my classes to get some footage for the local news.
The video is from this week’s lesson. I had the students choose an English name then introduce themselves to me…including a proper handshake. I have some good stories to tell about this as well but that will have to wait until next week!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Anshan and Tai'an
Over the past week, I have learned and experienced more than can fit in one post so I'm going to focus this one on the place where I'm living. I'll talk a little bit about the school, but I'm going to save those details for next week.
I have told you all that I am in Anshan, but it turns out that Anshan is the name of a district as well as the name of a city. I am actually in a town called Tai'an (pronounced "tie-ann") and I am told the population is about 300,000. There are only three foreigners in Tai'an, of which I am one, so you can imagine how I stick out. Bill, who you met in the video is another, and I met Nick (from London) yesterday. I don't think I'm the first female teacher that has been here but I think I'm the first white woman many of the newer students have seen. I get stared at a lot in the street and in the halls and I often hear "piao liang", which means "pretty" but the Chinese are very shy and generally don't approach me. Still, Ricky (the English name for my teacher's assistant) doesn't let me walk anywhere by myself.
Last Thursday (the second day I was here), I was taken to Bill's school to watch him teaching his classes. His students pulled out their camera phones and wanted to take pictures with me. Bill started using it as a bribe: practice your English with the new teacher and you can have a picture. It was all rather embarrassing for me.
On Friday I was taken to Anshan city to apply for residency. It took us a little over an hour to get there. Anshan city is more like I was expecting when I envisioned living in China but it is still very Soviet-industrial if you know what I mean. As part of the resident application process, I had to go to the hospital for an EKG and X-ray (don't ask me why) and all I have to say is I hope I don't get sick. I think the hospital would make a fantastic set for the next Resident Evil movie. While I was in Anshan, I met two more foreign teachers: Ed from Wisconsin and Oscar, who is also from London. All told, I believe there are 9 foreign teachers spread out across Anshan district.
I'm not sure how many schools are in Anshan district, but there are two in Tai'an (at least I'm working at two). The school where I am mainly at has about 25oo students and I'm told it is the largest one. Some of the students board there. There are 5 floors...I share an office with Nick on the 4th floor (add my 20 minute walk to work and the fact that I live on the 4th floor of my apartment building and you can imagine I'm getting a lot of exercise!). Perhaps I'll be able to bring my camera to school one day and get some video.
OK, I have lots more to talk about but I don't want to make my posts too long. I'll write more next week. Until then, I love receiving your emails!
I have told you all that I am in Anshan, but it turns out that Anshan is the name of a district as well as the name of a city. I am actually in a town called Tai'an (pronounced "tie-ann") and I am told the population is about 300,000. There are only three foreigners in Tai'an, of which I am one, so you can imagine how I stick out. Bill, who you met in the video is another, and I met Nick (from London) yesterday. I don't think I'm the first female teacher that has been here but I think I'm the first white woman many of the newer students have seen. I get stared at a lot in the street and in the halls and I often hear "piao liang", which means "pretty" but the Chinese are very shy and generally don't approach me. Still, Ricky (the English name for my teacher's assistant) doesn't let me walk anywhere by myself.
Last Thursday (the second day I was here), I was taken to Bill's school to watch him teaching his classes. His students pulled out their camera phones and wanted to take pictures with me. Bill started using it as a bribe: practice your English with the new teacher and you can have a picture. It was all rather embarrassing for me.
On Friday I was taken to Anshan city to apply for residency. It took us a little over an hour to get there. Anshan city is more like I was expecting when I envisioned living in China but it is still very Soviet-industrial if you know what I mean. As part of the resident application process, I had to go to the hospital for an EKG and X-ray (don't ask me why) and all I have to say is I hope I don't get sick. I think the hospital would make a fantastic set for the next Resident Evil movie. While I was in Anshan, I met two more foreign teachers: Ed from Wisconsin and Oscar, who is also from London. All told, I believe there are 9 foreign teachers spread out across Anshan district.
I'm not sure how many schools are in Anshan district, but there are two in Tai'an (at least I'm working at two). The school where I am mainly at has about 25oo students and I'm told it is the largest one. Some of the students board there. There are 5 floors...I share an office with Nick on the 4th floor (add my 20 minute walk to work and the fact that I live on the 4th floor of my apartment building and you can imagine I'm getting a lot of exercise!). Perhaps I'll be able to bring my camera to school one day and get some video.
OK, I have lots more to talk about but I don't want to make my posts too long. I'll write more next week. Until then, I love receiving your emails!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Apartment Tour
I've put my camcorder to use and made a movie of my apartment. I hope it works. FYI, the guy in the video is Bill, who is from Canada and has been in China for two and a half years.
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