I've done a bunch of traveling without posting lately, so the time has come for updating.
There are multiple places that I am going on this trip that I am not sure if foreigners have ever visited before. For these undiscovered locales, I will go incognito to unearth their history, customs, and reasons for anyone else to visit. [WARNING: CUTE PHOTOS OF CHILDREN AFTER THE JUMP]
Friday, January 27, 2012
Sunday, December 4, 2011
A Shanghai Thanksgiving Feast
Hey everybody!
After not celebrating either Thanksgiving or Christmas last year, I've decided to go all out for each holiday this year.
After not celebrating either Thanksgiving or Christmas last year, I've decided to go all out for each holiday this year.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Moving in a New Desk
A couple weekends ago, I bought a new desk for my room. Instead of getting a brand new one for about 150¥ ($23), Susu found that we could save a smooth 一百块 (yi bai kuai, 100¥ [$15]) and buy a used one from a guy down the street using the Chinese equivalent of craigslist. What resulted was a bunch of unusual photos.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Those Early Morning Bangs
I wouldn't say it happens every morning but maybe 2 or 3 times a week, I hear what sounds like gunshots going off. With guns being illegal here, one might think that there was some terrible pothole on the road causing dozens of blown tires or children who have an affinity for popping balloons in my complex. A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon the real reason for these noises, and a rather joyous reason at that.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Long Sheng and Yangshuo
Since I came back from Yangshuo over the National Holiday, a bunch of people how my week was. Unfortunately, there is no one good word that I can use to sum up the entire vacation. Actually, maybe turbulent works.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
黄山: Climbing the Yellow Mountain
I gotta get this down before I start my next trip (to Guilin, starting tomorrow).
A Little Intro
Susu and I decided to make the trek to Huang Shan for the three-day weekend of the Mid-Autumn Festival. This "Mid-Autumn" Festival took place on the weekend before my birthday, the 10-12 of September... which is still technically summer. This probably belongs in Gregg Easterbrook's Unified Field Theory of Creep section in the next Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
We had tried to go there on two other occasions, but were foiled each time by predictions of heavy rain. This time, there were again predictions of rain. But we figured that we're young and can handle it, and if we waited for the perfect weather to arrive maybe we wouldn't be and we couldn't. So we made the right choice, said "screw it," and booked tickets and a hostel and stuff.
Setting Out
We left on the Friday morning before the three-day holiday (I get Fridays off from work, which really made it a four-day weekend), deciding to take the cheaper and faster - by arrival time, not top speed - bus to get there. Then we learned why people pay more for trains.
We were unable to sit next to each other, due to a semi-late arrival, and the people we asked refused to switch seats, despite there being no discernible advantage to sitting next to us rather than with each other. Whatever, that's trivial. Next, while I was prepared with a book, Susu was planning on sleeping during the journey. Unfortunately, a passenger with a whole crate of newborn chicks (as in baby chickens) screaming "FEED ME" placed said crate directly under Susu's seat. She put up with that for about five minutes (four-and-a-half minutes too long) before asking the person to take it back, which she did.
The seats were uncomfortable, as they were not intended for someone my height. So when I wanted to doze off (we woke up at like 5:30 to catch the bus, so we were a bit tired), my entire head fell backwards kinking my neck, as the seats only went to my shoulders. Apparently, I'm not China-sized.
At the rest stop, I ask a man, who I think is the busdriver, if I have time to run in and grab some road food/water (you can't buy lunch on a bus, another advantage for trains). He says "sure." He sounds fairly confident, so I walk inside, consider buying a hot lunch, decide against it, buy a water, browse the snack foods, choose two of them, and calmly walk back outside. When I get there, the bus is not next to the gas pump where it was. My phone rings, I see that it's Susu. I hear a loud, long, honking sound just outside of my sight range. Instead of answering, I just book it towards the noise until I reach the idling bus, where Susu is waiting outside for me. Thankfully, she noticed that I wasn't on so she got off to check for me. The busdriver was whaling on the horn for her to get back on so they could hit the road. As I re-enter the bus, I see the man I talked to sitting in a seat three rows behind me. Aiyo.
We arrive in Tunxi, Anhui in the early afternoon tired and stiff, and we hadn't even climbed a mountain yet.
Tunxi
The hostel was quaint and quiet. The owner ran that and the restaurant across the street, where we ate some authentic Anhui food. He also hooked us up with the place we would stay on top of Huang Shan. Nothing five star, just good old fashioned hospitality.
Instead of waiting for a bus, or overpaying for a taxi, we decided to grab a bicycle towing a cart with two seats in it for five yuan to get to the Old Town. Not too shabby.
The Old Town was like a smaller version of Li Jiang, where I went with my parents. The town is set up in the old fashioned way, but they only have five different shops that repeat themselves endlessly wherever you go. It's pretty and easy to buy trinkets, but it also takes about half an our to get the gist of it.
However, just as we were about to buy some sweet rice wine and head home, we saw this:
A game shop. Literally, a shop full of mind-bending games. The type of games where you have to fill a small normal wooden object - like a cube - with smaller wooden objects of abstract shapes and sizes. We went from thinking, "it's only 4:30, what are we going to do for the next five hours, I've got so much energy," to "holy crap it's already past 6 and I'm mentally worn out. Let's eat, drink that rice wine, and pass out." And pass out I did, at around 8:30.
The Ascent
The next morning, with the help of our friendly host, we caught a cab to the base of Huang Shan for 20¥. We split the ride with two unsuspecting Chinese ladies and the fee on the cab's meter was over ¥130, so I don't know if we actually got a good deal or what happened really. All I know is we got there fairly cheap. Woohoo!
After making reservations at the bottom for a tent at the top, we took a bus and a cable car about halfway up the mountain. The pretty voice in the cable car told us about the beautiful sights we were beholding in four different languages... unfortunately, instead of being able to see for miles, we could only see for inches due to peasoup fog. All we could do was hope it wouldn't last the whole weekend.
Exiting the car, we started making our way towards our campsite. The first group we pass by is a bunch of tourists from Duluth, Minnesota with huge, heavy-looking cameras and tripods pointed directly into the haze. I caught myself giving them the "crazy laowai" (老外, affectionate [maybe] term for foreigners in China) look that many Chinese were giving them. No fog and I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but under the circumstances, they looked kinda ridiculous.
The first major spot we reached was Now-I-Believe-It-Peak. The sign says it all:
Here are some other early photos we took:
As we approached camp, we ate the first of several instant, no-need-to-microwave noodles. This was actually kinda cool. One package came with rice, sauce, a spoon, chopsticks, water, and a package of an unknown chemical. After breaking up the rice, you place the chemical in the small space underneath the rice in the plastic container, then you pour the water on it. Put the rice on it and the sauce under the whole container. The chemical gets very hot and simultaneously heats the rice and sauce. 15 minutes later, you can enjoy an above-average instant meal. I think we got one of each of the four varieties for this trip.
Sometime in the mid-afternoon, we reached the camp area. The tents were not yet set up (that'll come later). However, there was a basketball court. After catching me looking at the court longingly, Susu told me to go and play some.
I just wanted to score one point at this altitude before continuing on, but the other guys wanted me to keep on playing. Maybe twenty minutes later, I was dripping with sweat having scored five or six points myself in an ugly game. And not at all prepared to hike around the mountain for another two hours, which is exactly what we did.
We took a winding path that went between the mountains and the sightlines cleared up to display hundreds of mountains floating on the clouds like islands. Huang Shan is one of two mountains in China that inspired the floating mountain of Avatar. Really incredible looking, like with this sort of thing, it's hard for photos to do the real thing justice. The wind would push the clouds like waves over the tips of mountains or over the edge of cliffs like waterfalls. What would have been a two-hour hike turned into three because we would turn a corner and just stand and stare in awe at the fantastic view we were unable to comprehend.
We returned to find the tents all setup. This is Chinese camping:
Furthermore, I had to sleep diagonally in the tent. As I said, I'm not China-sized. Fortunately, Susu is small and wasn't too bothered by the sleeping arrangement.
The Ascent, Day Two
We woke up at 4:30 the next morning to catch the sunrise an hour later. Due to the previous day's fog, one of the managers of the campground gave us a 30% chance of actually seeing the sunrise. We decided to risk it. After waiting until 5:15 or so, many people started fleeing to return to camp for sleep or food or whatever. We were some of the few who stayed and witnessed this:
Simply amazing.
We headed back to camp, got our stuff, and set off for the peaks. There are three major peaks of Huang Shan, we decided to go to two of them: the 1860m and 1864m peaks (6,102ft and 6,115ft).
Let me tell you, that is a lot of stairs. But we actually reached the 1860m summit pretty quickly (like in an hour or so). This is me upon arrival:
Overreaction? Perhaps. Furthermore, the next peak is only 4 meters higher, that can't be too tough to climb, right? Wrong! We had to climb about half way down (on teeny, tiny steps that were not made for my 13 sized shoes) before ascending back up again. Plus, during the steepest sections, the railing was below my waist level, which didn't make me feel very secure when using - I was just hoping a gust of wind wouldn't knock me over the side to fall into eternity. But still, very beautiful scenery, the mountains we passed here have stories of gods living on top of them. Although, I thought they looked more like evil fortresses for super-villains, I can understand the sentiment, they look completely impenetrable and unclimbable. Finally after descending and reascending, we reached the top top.
After touching the top, we made the long descent all the way down, eschewing the cable car. My god was I sore. For whatever reason, going down gave me a lot more pain than going up (the tiny steps didn't help). But Susu and I helped each other out. When she was lagging, I lent a hand. When I was lagging, she would go as fast as possible spurring on my competitive fire. At the end of the day, we had hiked up-and-down for about 8 hours that day and 14 over the past two.
Near our hostel, we grabbed a quick foot massage while watching an incredibly entertaining show: The Generational Game! A couple of celebrities born in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s duke it out trivia style with some songs thrown in for fun (China requires at least three songs per show, or two if it's a news program). They start old to embarrass the know-nothing-about-the-good-old-days kids then get more and more current much to the detriment of the dinosaurs. Replace one celebrity on each team with an everyday person and I think this show kills in America.
We take an overnight train home, arriving in the early morning. Just a beautiful weekend, thank goodness we didn't decide to put it off again.
I'm in Guilin now, so more adventures to come soon!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer
A Little Intro
Susu and I decided to make the trek to Huang Shan for the three-day weekend of the Mid-Autumn Festival. This "Mid-Autumn" Festival took place on the weekend before my birthday, the 10-12 of September... which is still technically summer. This probably belongs in Gregg Easterbrook's Unified Field Theory of Creep section in the next Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
We had tried to go there on two other occasions, but were foiled each time by predictions of heavy rain. This time, there were again predictions of rain. But we figured that we're young and can handle it, and if we waited for the perfect weather to arrive maybe we wouldn't be and we couldn't. So we made the right choice, said "screw it," and booked tickets and a hostel and stuff.
Setting Out
We left on the Friday morning before the three-day holiday (I get Fridays off from work, which really made it a four-day weekend), deciding to take the cheaper and faster - by arrival time, not top speed - bus to get there. Then we learned why people pay more for trains.
We were unable to sit next to each other, due to a semi-late arrival, and the people we asked refused to switch seats, despite there being no discernible advantage to sitting next to us rather than with each other. Whatever, that's trivial. Next, while I was prepared with a book, Susu was planning on sleeping during the journey. Unfortunately, a passenger with a whole crate of newborn chicks (as in baby chickens) screaming "FEED ME" placed said crate directly under Susu's seat. She put up with that for about five minutes (four-and-a-half minutes too long) before asking the person to take it back, which she did.
The seats were uncomfortable, as they were not intended for someone my height. So when I wanted to doze off (we woke up at like 5:30 to catch the bus, so we were a bit tired), my entire head fell backwards kinking my neck, as the seats only went to my shoulders. Apparently, I'm not China-sized.
At the rest stop, I ask a man, who I think is the busdriver, if I have time to run in and grab some road food/water (you can't buy lunch on a bus, another advantage for trains). He says "sure." He sounds fairly confident, so I walk inside, consider buying a hot lunch, decide against it, buy a water, browse the snack foods, choose two of them, and calmly walk back outside. When I get there, the bus is not next to the gas pump where it was. My phone rings, I see that it's Susu. I hear a loud, long, honking sound just outside of my sight range. Instead of answering, I just book it towards the noise until I reach the idling bus, where Susu is waiting outside for me. Thankfully, she noticed that I wasn't on so she got off to check for me. The busdriver was whaling on the horn for her to get back on so they could hit the road. As I re-enter the bus, I see the man I talked to sitting in a seat three rows behind me. Aiyo.
We arrive in Tunxi, Anhui in the early afternoon tired and stiff, and we hadn't even climbed a mountain yet.
Tunxi
The hostel was quaint and quiet. The owner ran that and the restaurant across the street, where we ate some authentic Anhui food. He also hooked us up with the place we would stay on top of Huang Shan. Nothing five star, just good old fashioned hospitality.
Instead of waiting for a bus, or overpaying for a taxi, we decided to grab a bicycle towing a cart with two seats in it for five yuan to get to the Old Town. Not too shabby.
The Old Town was like a smaller version of Li Jiang, where I went with my parents. The town is set up in the old fashioned way, but they only have five different shops that repeat themselves endlessly wherever you go. It's pretty and easy to buy trinkets, but it also takes about half an our to get the gist of it.
However, just as we were about to buy some sweet rice wine and head home, we saw this:
A game shop. Literally, a shop full of mind-bending games. The type of games where you have to fill a small normal wooden object - like a cube - with smaller wooden objects of abstract shapes and sizes. We went from thinking, "it's only 4:30, what are we going to do for the next five hours, I've got so much energy," to "holy crap it's already past 6 and I'm mentally worn out. Let's eat, drink that rice wine, and pass out." And pass out I did, at around 8:30.
The Ascent
The next morning, with the help of our friendly host, we caught a cab to the base of Huang Shan for 20¥. We split the ride with two unsuspecting Chinese ladies and the fee on the cab's meter was over ¥130, so I don't know if we actually got a good deal or what happened really. All I know is we got there fairly cheap. Woohoo!
After making reservations at the bottom for a tent at the top, we took a bus and a cable car about halfway up the mountain. The pretty voice in the cable car told us about the beautiful sights we were beholding in four different languages... unfortunately, instead of being able to see for miles, we could only see for inches due to peasoup fog. All we could do was hope it wouldn't last the whole weekend.
Exiting the car, we started making our way towards our campsite. The first group we pass by is a bunch of tourists from Duluth, Minnesota with huge, heavy-looking cameras and tripods pointed directly into the haze. I caught myself giving them the "crazy laowai" (老外, affectionate [maybe] term for foreigners in China) look that many Chinese were giving them. No fog and I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but under the circumstances, they looked kinda ridiculous.
The first major spot we reached was Now-I-Believe-It-Peak. The sign says it all:
Here are some other early photos we took:
As we approached camp, we ate the first of several instant, no-need-to-microwave noodles. This was actually kinda cool. One package came with rice, sauce, a spoon, chopsticks, water, and a package of an unknown chemical. After breaking up the rice, you place the chemical in the small space underneath the rice in the plastic container, then you pour the water on it. Put the rice on it and the sauce under the whole container. The chemical gets very hot and simultaneously heats the rice and sauce. 15 minutes later, you can enjoy an above-average instant meal. I think we got one of each of the four varieties for this trip.
Sometime in the mid-afternoon, we reached the camp area. The tents were not yet set up (that'll come later). However, there was a basketball court. After catching me looking at the court longingly, Susu told me to go and play some.
I just wanted to score one point at this altitude before continuing on, but the other guys wanted me to keep on playing. Maybe twenty minutes later, I was dripping with sweat having scored five or six points myself in an ugly game. And not at all prepared to hike around the mountain for another two hours, which is exactly what we did.
We took a winding path that went between the mountains and the sightlines cleared up to display hundreds of mountains floating on the clouds like islands. Huang Shan is one of two mountains in China that inspired the floating mountain of Avatar. Really incredible looking, like with this sort of thing, it's hard for photos to do the real thing justice. The wind would push the clouds like waves over the tips of mountains or over the edge of cliffs like waterfalls. What would have been a two-hour hike turned into three because we would turn a corner and just stand and stare in awe at the fantastic view we were unable to comprehend.
We returned to find the tents all setup. This is Chinese camping:
Furthermore, I had to sleep diagonally in the tent. As I said, I'm not China-sized. Fortunately, Susu is small and wasn't too bothered by the sleeping arrangement.
The Ascent, Day Two
We woke up at 4:30 the next morning to catch the sunrise an hour later. Due to the previous day's fog, one of the managers of the campground gave us a 30% chance of actually seeing the sunrise. We decided to risk it. After waiting until 5:15 or so, many people started fleeing to return to camp for sleep or food or whatever. We were some of the few who stayed and witnessed this:
Simply amazing.
We headed back to camp, got our stuff, and set off for the peaks. There are three major peaks of Huang Shan, we decided to go to two of them: the 1860m and 1864m peaks (6,102ft and 6,115ft).
Let me tell you, that is a lot of stairs. But we actually reached the 1860m summit pretty quickly (like in an hour or so). This is me upon arrival:
Overreaction? Perhaps. Furthermore, the next peak is only 4 meters higher, that can't be too tough to climb, right? Wrong! We had to climb about half way down (on teeny, tiny steps that were not made for my 13 sized shoes) before ascending back up again. Plus, during the steepest sections, the railing was below my waist level, which didn't make me feel very secure when using - I was just hoping a gust of wind wouldn't knock me over the side to fall into eternity. But still, very beautiful scenery, the mountains we passed here have stories of gods living on top of them. Although, I thought they looked more like evil fortresses for super-villains, I can understand the sentiment, they look completely impenetrable and unclimbable. Finally after descending and reascending, we reached the top top.
Near our hostel, we grabbed a quick foot massage while watching an incredibly entertaining show: The Generational Game! A couple of celebrities born in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s duke it out trivia style with some songs thrown in for fun (China requires at least three songs per show, or two if it's a news program). They start old to embarrass the know-nothing-about-the-good-old-days kids then get more and more current much to the detriment of the dinosaurs. Replace one celebrity on each team with an everyday person and I think this show kills in America.
We take an overnight train home, arriving in the early morning. Just a beautiful weekend, thank goodness we didn't decide to put it off again.
I'm in Guilin now, so more adventures to come soon!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer
Sunday, September 25, 2011
9/18-9/24: A Week Full of Songs, Sports, and Food
I've been too busy to blog on a daily basis, but there's been enough interesting stuff going on to recap it here today.
Sunday 9/18:
Woke up early to take Lady Susu to the train station. She's heading back to Hunan for a couple weeks. Sean and I were pretty nervous that the apartment would implode and I would starve without her. Fortunately, I've stayed alive long enough to write this post. We'll meet back up over the National Holiday (10/1-10/7) in Guilin, somewhere between a winding river and beautiful mountains.
Came back and watched Bridesmaids with Sean and Ellie (a British girl who works in a school in Pu Dong). Really really funny movie by the way. See the unrated version, Kristen Wiig is fantastic at awkward/make-you-squirm comedy. Made me break out the booze a little earlier than I intended.
Jimmy - my best Shanghainese friend - came over and we went and played basketball for a couple hours. Afterwards, I hit up the street market to get Jimmy the fixings for 宫保鸡丁 (Gong Bao Ji Ding, Kung Pao Chicken). Sean cooked up tomatoes and eggs for the first time, Ellie fried some cabbage, and we finished off the leftovers from what Susu and I had cooked up the night before (when I made my dad's special New Orleans Garlic Shrimp). First successful post-Susu meal. Woohoo!
Monday 9/19:
A full day of classes with some of my better kids, nothing too notable there. Then it was cooking time.
A little background. For the past few weeks, I had been preparing for Susu's eventual departure by helping out in the kitchen. Mostly washing, chopping, skinning, mixing ingredients, etc. But once the food was in the wok, it was her show. Sean is a visual learner, so he would watch and was already starting to make his own mean noodle dish. I'm more hands on, so I had the preparation on lock down, but once the food got into the wok, I was a little panicked. The first time I tossed food in the air to mix it, half ended up on the floor... I haven't tried again since.
Sean and my first independent meal was carmelized onions and eggs (him) and chicken, peppers, and green beans (mine) plus leftover kung pao chicken. He nailed his dish, and mine was edible, if a little bland. We both survived.
Tuesday 9/20:
Long day at school. First two classes were loud and crazy. Third class was my good international class; a bunch of kids from America, Canada and Hong Kong (all of Chinese descent), so that's always fun. Fourth class is the opposite; a bunch of kids who all speak two languages, neither of which are English (such as French, Japanese, Thai, or German). But I get to teach using my Mandarin, so that's fun for me. My last class was my Senior I class, which means they are three years older than all of my other classes (who are Junior I), and instead of being crazy and loud, they are just quiet. I got two people to speak all class, so I just made them write papers - which means I have grading to do. I've got to do some work to get them speaking for this "Oral English" class.
But we had Chinese class after-school, which put me in good spirits.
Tuesday night, Sean cooked up his noodle dish and I cooked pork, onions, and hot peppers. A noted improvement from the night before.
Wednesday 9/21:
My easiest day, school wise, with only four classes. With maybe my best kids in my final two classes of the day. Feelin' good.
We go to a banquet with all the other foreign teachers, the foreign language Chinese teachers, the vice principal, and his friend a former dean from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. A lot more fun than last year's banquet (which was in a hotel), this year we went to a sweet restaurant in the French Concession.
We go around and introduce ourselves before the ex-dean talks a little bit about how the VP founded our school. Apparently he didn't like the lack of appreciation for other cultures and languages in Shanghai, so he founded the Shanghai Foreign Language School. I know the VP a bit - we play basketball on Fridays together - but I didn't really know his story. So I asked him the question that can get most Chinese people talking: 你是哪里人？(ni shi na li ren, literally: you are where person? English: where are you from?)
He was born and raised until the age of 11 in Xi'An. He told us about how emotional Xi'An people are; there is a phrase that goes something like "when one Xi'An person meets another, their eyes are wet," and some funny experiences from that. Then his family moved out west to a more Muslim-dominated part of China. He talked about having friends and neighbors who were Muslim and not eating pork out of respect for their religion (not clear whether this is ongoing or not). He was one of the most cultured people I've met here in China; in addition to speaking Mandarin, Xi'An language (Xi'Anese?), and Shanghainese, he also speaks English well and apparently some French and Japanese. He's not bad at basketball and badminton either.
The free flowing beer and wine had reached the breaking point, so it was singing time. One Russian lady sang a folk song, which was the most beautiful I've ever heard the Russian language used (no offense to Russians, the language can be a bit harsh). She told us that the song is about a woman waiting for her husband to return home from war, but he dies and never arrives. Sounds Russian to me. Jean, our French teacher, sings a quick beautiful, romantic French song. Sakimoto, the Japanese teacher, sings a fun song, which got everyone clapping... but never quite at the same time as him (he's a riot). Then it was the Americans turn.
Sean Skinner (our school added a second foreign English teacher named Sean for confusion's sake) and I volunteered to sing but realized we had forgotten the words to America the Beautiful and This Land is Your Land, and we both thought the Star Spangled Banner was too long and excessive compared with the other teachers' songs. So we settled on God Bless America, which either one of us would have butchered, but we corrected each other as we went along to salvage the tune (I'm not a huge fan of the song ever since the Yankees started using it to ice Pedro's arm during the 7th inning stretch. But that's what I get for forgetting the other songs I guess).
All-in-all a great day and a great night.
Thursday 9/22:
Worst day of school all week. I had seven classes, including my three worst ones. Just before my sixth class, while I'm feeling exhausted, a little boy fires the chalkboard eraser at a kid in the front row (point blank range), but misses and hits a little girl in the head, sending her to the clinic. WTF. There were some bright spots during that class, but that's my most hellish class.
Then I had to miss my Chinese lesson to give an extra class to my good international class (so the Chinese English teacher could give an extra class to the remedial international class). I had them play a game and everyone had fun.
Can't remember what Sean and I cooked that night... but I vaguely remember it being good.
Then we went out to Trivia Night at Bulldog Shanghai. Sean and my team finished second, thanks to our buddy Jack correctly identifying a teenage photo of Vladimir Putin. If I'm there next Thursday (I may leave on my vacation early), our group gets free champagne!
Friday 9/23:
No school today! I had my first Chinese writing course with the lady who teaches my Tuesday/Thursday class through our school. Since I wrote about 60-70 characters over the summer with the help of the internet, she was impressed by my basic knowledge of stroke order. So I'm moving fast.
I need this in order to pass the HSK, which is the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL. If I do well enough on that test, I can study or work in China, or translate between English and Chinese anywhere in the world. From everything I've heard, it's a daunting test. But what's the point in knowing just a little Chinese?
Afterwards, I went to the gym to play basketball, but arrived to find that they were going to play volleyball instead. No problem! After shaking off some rust, I was probably the second best player on our team. I played really well up front, but getting digs was a little tougher. I thought I had mastered it until this one woman kept serving to me with ridiculous topspin. No matter what I did, the ball spun back over my head after I hit it. Finally she hit it out-of-bounds, but that was a big difference when we lost 24-26. Lots of fun though, I hope to play again soon.
That night, we went to Jack's for potluck night. We've done a couple of these recently, where we get a group of people and everyone brings or cooks a dish. Sean did his tomato and egg dish and Ellie did cooked up cabbage again (Brits love their cabbage). I cooked up pork, peppers, and tofu. Jack bought pizza (pretty good actually, but I still funny). A delicious dinner!
We went out and met up with some folks at a small bar called The Rhumerie -- they make their own rum. Enough said.
Saturday 9/24:
Woke up and talked online with Susu, and she gave me the photos from Huang Shan and my birthday party. So I should have a post coming up with pictures one or both of those events in it. Hooray!
New Sean (the one who isn't my roommate) and Jimmy come over and the four of us play basketball for a couple hours. We win three of four games.
Kind of a lazy day punctuated by an early, but overdue, sleep.
And that's my week. I believe it's always better to be busy than idle, so this was a good week all things considered.
I'll try to get at least one more in before Guilin next week,
Stephen Scuba Lauer
Sunday 9/18:
Woke up early to take Lady Susu to the train station. She's heading back to Hunan for a couple weeks. Sean and I were pretty nervous that the apartment would implode and I would starve without her. Fortunately, I've stayed alive long enough to write this post. We'll meet back up over the National Holiday (10/1-10/7) in Guilin, somewhere between a winding river and beautiful mountains.
Came back and watched Bridesmaids with Sean and Ellie (a British girl who works in a school in Pu Dong). Really really funny movie by the way. See the unrated version, Kristen Wiig is fantastic at awkward/make-you-squirm comedy. Made me break out the booze a little earlier than I intended.
Jimmy - my best Shanghainese friend - came over and we went and played basketball for a couple hours. Afterwards, I hit up the street market to get Jimmy the fixings for 宫保鸡丁 (Gong Bao Ji Ding, Kung Pao Chicken). Sean cooked up tomatoes and eggs for the first time, Ellie fried some cabbage, and we finished off the leftovers from what Susu and I had cooked up the night before (when I made my dad's special New Orleans Garlic Shrimp). First successful post-Susu meal. Woohoo!
Monday 9/19:
A full day of classes with some of my better kids, nothing too notable there. Then it was cooking time.
A little background. For the past few weeks, I had been preparing for Susu's eventual departure by helping out in the kitchen. Mostly washing, chopping, skinning, mixing ingredients, etc. But once the food was in the wok, it was her show. Sean is a visual learner, so he would watch and was already starting to make his own mean noodle dish. I'm more hands on, so I had the preparation on lock down, but once the food got into the wok, I was a little panicked. The first time I tossed food in the air to mix it, half ended up on the floor... I haven't tried again since.
Sean and my first independent meal was carmelized onions and eggs (him) and chicken, peppers, and green beans (mine) plus leftover kung pao chicken. He nailed his dish, and mine was edible, if a little bland. We both survived.
Tuesday 9/20:
Long day at school. First two classes were loud and crazy. Third class was my good international class; a bunch of kids from America, Canada and Hong Kong (all of Chinese descent), so that's always fun. Fourth class is the opposite; a bunch of kids who all speak two languages, neither of which are English (such as French, Japanese, Thai, or German). But I get to teach using my Mandarin, so that's fun for me. My last class was my Senior I class, which means they are three years older than all of my other classes (who are Junior I), and instead of being crazy and loud, they are just quiet. I got two people to speak all class, so I just made them write papers - which means I have grading to do. I've got to do some work to get them speaking for this "Oral English" class.
But we had Chinese class after-school, which put me in good spirits.
Tuesday night, Sean cooked up his noodle dish and I cooked pork, onions, and hot peppers. A noted improvement from the night before.
Wednesday 9/21:
My easiest day, school wise, with only four classes. With maybe my best kids in my final two classes of the day. Feelin' good.
We go to a banquet with all the other foreign teachers, the foreign language Chinese teachers, the vice principal, and his friend a former dean from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. A lot more fun than last year's banquet (which was in a hotel), this year we went to a sweet restaurant in the French Concession.
We go around and introduce ourselves before the ex-dean talks a little bit about how the VP founded our school. Apparently he didn't like the lack of appreciation for other cultures and languages in Shanghai, so he founded the Shanghai Foreign Language School. I know the VP a bit - we play basketball on Fridays together - but I didn't really know his story. So I asked him the question that can get most Chinese people talking: 你是哪里人？(ni shi na li ren, literally: you are where person? English: where are you from?)
He was born and raised until the age of 11 in Xi'An. He told us about how emotional Xi'An people are; there is a phrase that goes something like "when one Xi'An person meets another, their eyes are wet," and some funny experiences from that. Then his family moved out west to a more Muslim-dominated part of China. He talked about having friends and neighbors who were Muslim and not eating pork out of respect for their religion (not clear whether this is ongoing or not). He was one of the most cultured people I've met here in China; in addition to speaking Mandarin, Xi'An language (Xi'Anese?), and Shanghainese, he also speaks English well and apparently some French and Japanese. He's not bad at basketball and badminton either.
The free flowing beer and wine had reached the breaking point, so it was singing time. One Russian lady sang a folk song, which was the most beautiful I've ever heard the Russian language used (no offense to Russians, the language can be a bit harsh). She told us that the song is about a woman waiting for her husband to return home from war, but he dies and never arrives. Sounds Russian to me. Jean, our French teacher, sings a quick beautiful, romantic French song. Sakimoto, the Japanese teacher, sings a fun song, which got everyone clapping... but never quite at the same time as him (he's a riot). Then it was the Americans turn.
Sean Skinner (our school added a second foreign English teacher named Sean for confusion's sake) and I volunteered to sing but realized we had forgotten the words to America the Beautiful and This Land is Your Land, and we both thought the Star Spangled Banner was too long and excessive compared with the other teachers' songs. So we settled on God Bless America, which either one of us would have butchered, but we corrected each other as we went along to salvage the tune (I'm not a huge fan of the song ever since the Yankees started using it to ice Pedro's arm during the 7th inning stretch. But that's what I get for forgetting the other songs I guess).
All-in-all a great day and a great night.
Thursday 9/22:
Worst day of school all week. I had seven classes, including my three worst ones. Just before my sixth class, while I'm feeling exhausted, a little boy fires the chalkboard eraser at a kid in the front row (point blank range), but misses and hits a little girl in the head, sending her to the clinic. WTF. There were some bright spots during that class, but that's my most hellish class.
Then I had to miss my Chinese lesson to give an extra class to my good international class (so the Chinese English teacher could give an extra class to the remedial international class). I had them play a game and everyone had fun.
Can't remember what Sean and I cooked that night... but I vaguely remember it being good.
Then we went out to Trivia Night at Bulldog Shanghai. Sean and my team finished second, thanks to our buddy Jack correctly identifying a teenage photo of Vladimir Putin. If I'm there next Thursday (I may leave on my vacation early), our group gets free champagne!
Friday 9/23:
No school today! I had my first Chinese writing course with the lady who teaches my Tuesday/Thursday class through our school. Since I wrote about 60-70 characters over the summer with the help of the internet, she was impressed by my basic knowledge of stroke order. So I'm moving fast.
I need this in order to pass the HSK, which is the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL. If I do well enough on that test, I can study or work in China, or translate between English and Chinese anywhere in the world. From everything I've heard, it's a daunting test. But what's the point in knowing just a little Chinese?
Afterwards, I went to the gym to play basketball, but arrived to find that they were going to play volleyball instead. No problem! After shaking off some rust, I was probably the second best player on our team. I played really well up front, but getting digs was a little tougher. I thought I had mastered it until this one woman kept serving to me with ridiculous topspin. No matter what I did, the ball spun back over my head after I hit it. Finally she hit it out-of-bounds, but that was a big difference when we lost 24-26. Lots of fun though, I hope to play again soon.
That night, we went to Jack's for potluck night. We've done a couple of these recently, where we get a group of people and everyone brings or cooks a dish. Sean did his tomato and egg dish and Ellie did cooked up cabbage again (Brits love their cabbage). I cooked up pork, peppers, and tofu. Jack bought pizza (pretty good actually, but I still funny). A delicious dinner!
We went out and met up with some folks at a small bar called The Rhumerie -- they make their own rum. Enough said.
Saturday 9/24:
Woke up and talked online with Susu, and she gave me the photos from Huang Shan and my birthday party. So I should have a post coming up with pictures one or both of those events in it. Hooray!
New Sean (the one who isn't my roommate) and Jimmy come over and the four of us play basketball for a couple hours. We win three of four games.
Kind of a lazy day punctuated by an early, but overdue, sleep.
And that's my week. I believe it's always better to be busy than idle, so this was a good week all things considered.
I'll try to get at least one more in before Guilin next week,
Stephen Scuba Lauer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
