No more cameras!

The other day the foreign teachers at my school were invited to eat lunch at a restaurant in our building.   It's a nice restaurant that we've gone to before and really enjoy.  So, we were excited about our free meal.

We sit down and all of a sudden there's a camera crew in the restaurant. We realize what this invitation includes. Supposedly this wasn't a commercial they were filming but they're opening another restaurant and it's going to be played there, or it's going to be played at this restaurant to advertise their other restaurant - I don't know.  They shot us eating our entire meal.  We had to stop and say how good the food was.  A little warning would have been nice!  We were far from camera ready.  I guess that was payback.

This sort of thing actually happens a lot.  Restaurants, schools, and businesses like to have foreigners in their establishments. It draws business.  Sometimes they even pay the foreigners decently - and they know what they're getting into before they show up.

I also saw this Chinese JIB in the park:

 

For those of you who don't know the long arm with a camera on it is called a JIB.  We used one on pretty much every show I worked on.   It seemed to work the same way ours do in the States.  Maybe I found the first thing in China that works the same way in the States!  Although, I'm no JIB operator.

Superstars!

This weekend I taught a class about family and family members.  I decided to bring in a few pictures of my own family.  The students were incredibly interested in the pictures. Before I knew it half the class was out of their seats and standing right in front of me looking at the pictures.  I had the Chinese teacher translate what one of the girls was saying because she REALLY wanted me to know and couldn't explain in English. She said my grandma looks young and stylish!  I couldn't agree more.  It was funny that a Chinese girl pointed it out.  When I told her my Grandma was 85 she could not believe it. 

This is the picture:

Trying to guess someone's age here is difficult.  I have parents in some of my classes and I cannot tell how old they are.  I would think they're around my age because their children are young,  but most of them look older.   I think it might have something to do with the one child policy.  I still have a lot to learn about that.

I also showed them a picture of my sister.  The Chinese teacher saw it first and immediately said Julie looks like an American super star!  At first she couldn't remember her name but about a minute later she said Scarlett Johansson.  My sister seems to get this a lot - even all the way in China apparently!

Playing at the park..

I love going to the park.  My intentions are always to go for a run but I end up being so interested by what people are doing that I get my camera out and forget about running.  Next time, no camera.   I need a proper workout one of these days! 

It's finally warming up so there have been more and more people coming to the park in the morning.  When I first saw this part of the park I thought there would be lots of little kids playing on the toys.

 

Then I looked closer......

It's all adults!  I'm not laughing at them it's just a CHILDREN'S playground and you expect there to be children.  It's all adults 'playing' on the playground.  They're stretching and doing exercises.  I think it's pretty awesome that they take care of themselves and seem to really enjoy it.

Bottoms up!

At this point I'll try anything to get rid of my cold.  My mom sent me Theraflu from the states - it's almost gone and didn't help.  So after having a coughing fit 4 times today (the kind where you can't talk and your eyes water) I decided to stop in the pharmacy.  The pharmacist spoke zero english.  He's tried to give my roommate cough syrup before so I thought he'd just sell me that and send me on my way.  Well he must not have been the same guy because he was trying to give me amoxicillin and antibiotics.  Maybe I'm not being realistic but I don't think I'm THAT sick.  Everyone has a cold I just thought some cough syrup would at least make me cough a bit less. 

I pointed to a couple boxes that looked like cough syrup and bought one.   Some of the box is in English.   The syrup is as thick as honey.

INGREDIENTS:   Snake's bile, bulbus fritillariae cirrhosae, folium erobotryae, rhizoma typhonli flageliformis, radix platycodi, mentholum, assistant material:  sucrose, mel.

YUM!  Right?!  Snake's bile!

ACTION AND INDICATIONS:  Moisturize and relieve cough, remove sputum and alleviate asthma.  It is indicated for the treatment of cough, sputum, dyspnea and feeling of oppression over the chest which caused by wind-heat evil.

Gotta love the Chinese translations.  Bottoms up!

Verdict:  It's like CHEWING cough syrup / snake's bile.  So far,  not helping.  I heard today that Chinese medicines work they just take longer than western medicines.  Maybe that means if I started taking this last week I would be better by now.   I will continue to chew the snake's bile until my cough is gone OR the bottle is gone - whichever comes first.

One of my favorite neighborhood restaurants

We've figured out that if we walk left out of our apartment it's the richer part of the neighborhood.  If we walk right it's the poorer part.  However, the restaurants and vendors to the right are cheaper and in my opinion better than the restaurants in the richer area.  

This place is fantastic.   Lorynn went there first with a Chinese person so she knew what to order when just the 2 of us went back.  The menu isn't in English of course so we just point to what we want.   I have no idea how it translates but we get the first item that's 3.5 and the 3rd from the top that's 4.5.  This comes to 8RMB or a little over 1USD.

The first thing is a 'Chinese hamburger'.  I've had it quite a few different places and this one is the best so far.  I think it's pork inside.  The bowl of soup is HUGE.  I don't even eat 1/4 of it. There are tons of noodles, a few little veggies, thinly sliced potatoes, a few pieces of meat, and of course spices.  Today I took my leftovers home, in a plastic bag.  Whenever you get anything take away (or 'to go' as American's call it) they give it to you in a plastic bag.  For lunch at school I eat noodles or rice out of a bag.

The conditions in this restaurant are not the best.  I didn't notice it for a while but I was getting dripped on from a pipe up above.  Hopefully it was water because my head and back were already pretty wet by the time I realized it.  But you can't beat the price and the taste.  I'm going to eat my leftovers for lunch tomorrow.  Two meals for around $1.10 - not bad!

Will this ever get easier?!

I'm struggling a bit with this teaching thing.  I thought every weekend would get better but as I found out yesterday that's not the case.   I felt like Sunday was my worst day so far.  It didn't help that I was being assessed in 2 of my classes.  I realize I'm doing something totally new that I've never done before - in a completely new country where they speak a completely different language.   I'm out of sorts in almost every possible way.  Still - I don't like the feeling of not knowing how to do something.

A few things that frustrated me this weekend:
-Kids were just bad.  I think maybe it had to do with the rain.
-No one seemed to understand me - Obviously this happens a lot in class but this weekend I never seemed to be able to get my point across - no matter how much I mimed or drew on the board.  Maybe they just like to see me frustrated.
-I got sooo many blank stares.
-I still can't remember student's names.  I'm even struggling remembering faces.  I don't recognize my kids in the hall before class.
-In one of my 2 hour classes I did my entire lesson plan in the first hour.  On break I asked other teachers what else they do in this class so I was able to gracefully recover but geez. I spent time preparing!  I guess I'm still getting used to how I actually need to prepare.
-I had to jump around like a rabbit with 5 year olds - while their parents were watching and I was being assessed.  
-I had a class of 4/5 year olds that collectively went insane.  The parents did nothing.  It was like as a group they all linked together and decided how they could be as bad as possible.  It was a ball of screaming, bad 5 year old Chinese kids. They were literally all on the floor fighting for toys.  So much for the fun games I planned.
-I have a terrible class of older students that are usually pretty out of control.  This week I kept them in their seats for most of the time and they were quiet.  I'm glad they weren't bouncing off the walls or hitting each other but I don't know if they learned anything.  They all had a kind of glazed look in their eyes.

Wow, that was more than a few things!  I'm sure if I wanted to keep thinking about it I could come up with a list double that.  Yikes.

After a weekend like this it's hard not to want to throw in the towel.  I have to remind myself why I came here.  Teaching was obviously a big reason. Sometimes I wonder if that's actually what I'm doing though.  I feel like I don't get to know these students.  I feel like I'm teaching kids that don't even want to be in my class but are there, on the weekend, because their parents make them.  I've never taught before!  Are these kids learning anything??

There's a girl in one of my classes that keeps asking for my phone number.  I always forget to bring my phone with me to class and I don't know my number.  She put this in her notebook for me to see when I graded her homework.

Yeah I drew a stupid heart.   I had like 2 seconds and as most of you know I can't draw!  She asked me when she should call.  Is she really going to call?!  I mean her English is ok but what could we possibly talk about on the phone?    ANYWAY - I need to walk away with something positive from a weekend filled with lots of frustrations so I think this is pretty good.

Should this be in the kitchen??

When I first saw this bottle in our break room at school I thought forsure it belonged near the washing machine.  Then I saw it being poured into a water bottle.  What IS that?!

Turns out - it's yogurt!  And actually tastes really good.  I found my very own bottle of it at Walmart.  Yep - there's a Walmart here.   I'll take some pictures of it this week.

My 1st weekend as a teacher in China

For the first weekend of teaching I arrived at my apartment around midnight and by 10am the next morning I was already at school getting my books.  Pretty overwhelming.  We met with all our CT’s (Chinese teachers).  I have 8 different CT's.  At the time my schedule was nearly impossible to put my head around. 

After seeing the school and having meetings we went over to the main school for a meeting about the calendar and our contracts.  We had a little time for lesson planning and then off to dinner.

The dinner was really good and it was nice to chat with teachers from the other schools.  After dinner I stayed up a few hours doing more lesson planning.  The next morning I was in my first class by 8:30am and it felt like I didn't stop till Sunday night.  I taught 17 classes over the course of 2 days.  I probably taught over 250 kids.  This isn’t even counting my 3 classes on Fridays that hadn't started yet.

The first weekend went by in a blur.   There is so much to remember - what class you're going to next, which room you're going to, if you're teaching the 1st 30 minutes, the middle 30, the last 30, or the entire class, which Chinese teacher you're working with (and what she looks like),  the lesson plan, and sadly I feel like the last thing I remember are the student's names.  There are parents in the classes with the really little kids.  That adds a whole other level of AHHHH.  But I made it through the first weekend and the 2nd weekend.   I'm gearing up for the 3rd weekend now.  It's really nice to have Monday thru Thursday off.  I don't have to even think about teaching until at least Thursday.

This is something totally different than what I've been doing for the past 7 years - or I guess in my entire life.  It's been a big adjustment but there are definitely good moments during class that make me laugh or make me feel good because they are actually learning what I'm teaching.

Some highlights from my first weekend:
-A little boy grabbed my butt.
-A girl wouldn't stop hitting my butt.
-I taught my students to say bike instead of bak.
-I was yelled at by an entire class of little kids - in Chinese.
-A student (girl) asked me for my phone number.
-One of my CT's answered all the questions I was asking the students.  Grrr.
-I got 3 completely mute 4 year olds to talk!
-One kid gave me the finger (on both hands) when I made a 'bad' call during a game. (Not sure if he really knows what that means)
-One class was completely fascinated by my blue eyes.

Cereal on the street

I've found that cereal in Asia is very expensive - if you can find it.  I usually put cereal in yogurt or just eat it plain.  Good for breakfast or a snack.  I was surprised to find this on my way home from work last weekend:

It is puffed oats, nuts, and sugar or honey.  Maybe a tad too sugary but delicious with yogurt.  He sells it by the hunk and chops it up into smaller hunks.  I think I paid around $2 USD for a big bag.  That is my 2nd favorite thing for breakfast in China......

My Chinese apartment

My apartment is on the 7th floor and since there are only 7 floors there is no elevator. If there were 8 floors the building would have to have an elevator. So the heavy bags I paid an arm and a leg for had to be carried up the stairs. Yikes.

My roommate's name is Lorynn and she’s from South Africa. We teach at the same school. Our apartment has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and a weirdly arranged kitchen. The bathroom smells but I think we're slowly getting used to the smell. Not sure if that's good or bad. In general all bathrooms seem to smell here. We have a water tank on the roof that we need to fill so we can have a hot shower. It takes 40 minutes to heat the water. Some planning definitely goes into showering and figuring out how much water the tank needs and when you need to get up to plug in the water heater. Otherwise the apartment is fine.

The door / locks are a bit weird. One night after a long day of teaching I hit a wrong button on the lock and the key holes were blocked. It was fun trying to explain that to the security guard who didn’t speak English. I literally made my hand into a hole and stuck my finger in it- then put my hand in front of my other hand to show it was blocked. Nothing like crude gestures to make someone understand you.

We also have access to the roof. I'm not sure what to do up there but it's a nice view.



LIVING ROOM


MY BEDROOM


WASHER


BATHROOM - The shower is just behind the toilet. Everything is in one room. This is after it was cleaned.


LORYNN'S ROOM


KITCHEN #1 - Refrigerator, microwave, and pantry.


KITCHEN #2 - Sink and dishes.



THE ROOF

Xi'an, China

For the next year I will be living in Xi'an, China.  The characters for Xi'an look like this:   西安 and mean Western Peace.

The population of Xi'an is about 8 million people.

Xi'an is 3,100 years old - one of the oldest cities in China.

The main attractions here are the Terracotta Warriors, museums, the wall surrounding the city, and the Bell Tower.

There is an airport, train station, and bus system.

Since leaving Cambodia I've had to start all over again.  New people, new climate, new language, new currency, new food, new apartment, completely new culture.

In my life I have never felt like a foreigner before.  I live outside the center of the city so almost no one speaks English.  There are no signs in English.  Sometimes I walk into stores and have no clue what they sell.  The sign is in Chinese, the boxes or packaging is in Chinese, the workers only speak Chinese.  Menus at restaurants are all in Chinese.

I get stared at a lot.  I don't notice it as much when I'm walking around with other people but when I'm by myself it's impossible not to notice all the stares.  Sometimes people will say the one word they know in English - usually hello.  I met 2 ladies on the bus that just talked and talked to me - all in Chinese.  They were fascinated by my blue eyes, nose, and hair.  I don't know how to relate to seeing a foreign person for the first time.

A couple people in our neighborhood that we see every day have recently learned to say hello in English.  The convenience store is working on their numbers to tell us how much things cost.  We are also working on our numbers and greetings in Chinese.

I am enjoying China despite (or maybe because of) the differences.  It's a shock that China has been more of a challenge than Cambodia.  Everything (internet, phones, food, language, getting small tasks accomplished) just seems to be harder here.  I'm learning patience and how to adapt!

I made it!

Wow, China is different than Cambodia. I actually thought if I made it through Cambodia, China would be no problem. I was wrong. It is much harder to adapt to China. I'll start with my last day in Cambodia...

(No pictures yet - I still don't have internet on my laptop)

On the way home from lunch we were talking about where we lived. I said 'I like this neighborhood.' Out of no where this old man appears and says, 'I like YOU. I like YOU'. This was strange for 3 reasons.
1. He was wearing a suit. I don't know if I ever saw another Cambodian dressed up.
2. He was speaking English.
3. He was old. I haven't had a chance to blog about this yet but there aren't a lot of elderly in Phnom Penh. They have had a tragic history and sadly in the 70's nearly the entire population of Phnom Penh was wiped out.

That's about my last memory of Cambodia before heading to the airport. I like it - maybe he appeared out of no where to tell me Cambodia liked me. Does that mean I should return?

I traveled to China with my friends Jason, Jen, and Andrew. I'm so glad we all traveled together. After paying a huge amount of money for our excess bags we got through security and sat down for a beer. We had 5 minutes until boarding supposedly was scheduled to begin. While we were sitting there an airline employee came over and said we were boarding. We had no idea what the hurry was but downed the beer and went to the gate. The gate was completely empty. We thought back to the check in counter - it was also completely empty. Are we going to be the only ones on this flight?? we had no idea what we would find when we got on the plane but, there were people in most of the seats. They had actually boarded the entire plane before it was even time to board. We took our seats and off we went to China.

We landed in Guangzhou and had to collect our bags and check in again. On both flights we were only allowed 20 kg for TWO bags. The airline workers actually burst out laughing when they saw how much our bags weighed. That counter couldn't take our money so we had to go upstairs and wait in two more lines to actually pay and get our bags on the plane. Luckily Jason and Andrew speak a little Chinese. We had no time to do anything in the airport, by the time we were all finished with our bags it was time to board again. The flight was good - I said 2 things to the stewardess in Chinese (with some help from Andrew) and she understood me! Awesome.

We landed in Xi'an, got our bags, I found my ride, and sadly parted ways with Jason, Jen, and Andrew.

Aw kohn Cambodia!

Pronounced AW KOON and means thank you!

Today I'm flying to Xi'an, China.  I connect through Guangzhou, China.  Each flight is only a few hours. I arrive at 11pm tonight.  I have 3 friends traveling with me which is great.  We all fly to the same airport and then they take a bus to their city.  I am completely starting over again in China.  New country, new people, new language, new currency, new food, it'll be cold there compared to Cambodia, new students (I taught 17-21 year olds in Cambodia.  I'll teach 4-16 in China), new school, new apartment. I start teaching already on Saturday.  I will work a total of 20 hours per week - most of those hours are on the weekend. I actually feel prepared to teach.  We'll see how I feel when I have class after class after class this weekend.

I'm excited and ready to settle in to Xi'an.  Since May I've packed up my suitcases 7 times!  It's going to be a luxury staying in one place for a year.  (As long as I like it)

I can't believe I'm leaving Cambodia already.  One month in Phnom Penh hardly seems long enough.  English teachers are needed here so you never know, I could come back.    I wouldn't mind learning more about the Khmer culture.

I'm not sure when I'll have the internet or what I'll have access to.  So in the meantime here are some highlights of my time in Cambodia.

My first morning in Phnom Penh.  Coffee with Tanya and Mariola while watching wrestling.

Royal Palace

The Villa (My home in Phnom Phen)

.$.50 beers!

Eating tarantula!

School

Angkor Wat

Dara - tuk tuk driver / security guard

The Beach

Eating fruit on the beach

Getting blood drawn at the hospital

I took this outside the villa.

Post Office

National Anthem

A cow at the orphanage

Chinese class and Davy our teacher.

Fresh coconut after the gym

Teaching

My first class!