I HAVE A SQUAT TOILET IN MY APARTMENT
this could be a looooong 5 months. But damn my leg muscles are going to be toned.
Thursday, 28 February 2013
A big blur of all things China
So after a long few months of waiting around and the best two weeks in Beijing ever, I've finally made it to my destination of Dongguan, Guangdong on the south coast of China to start attempting to teach some chinese children (god help them). Finding the time to sit and write on here is so hard especially the past few days as it has just been non stop ... but as I have to go back to school later this evening for a "meeting" I've forced myself to skip going out for dinner to have a pot noodle and an hour to myself.
So the last week or so in Beijing was incredible, involving a walk on the Great wall of China, a munch on a snake and a crispy scorpion (tastes like chicken), a night in a Chinese gay bar (apparently) and far , far too many nights in the irish bar. Just your average week right? Despite meeting some of the best people EVER though, I'm kind of glad to leave beijing. It's a really cool city, but 5 months there might have driven me over the edge. The pollution is worse than you could imagine, so bad that you can't see buildings out the window and you can feel it sticking on your lungs. The best touristy places are also filled with annoying Chinese tourists who want to take photos of you with their kids as they've never seen white people before. Funny at first, but the novelty grows old really quick.
After some emotional goodbyes over a few drinks (good old Irish bar), it was time for the longest train journey of anyones life ever. I mean ever. I hopped on the train in "the biggest train station in Asia" at 6.00pm only to find my room was filled with one other white girl and 4 chinese men who spoke about 3 words of English between them. The room was about the size of my wardrobe at home, so negotiating where to store my suitcase and heavy bags in this small space was a struggle to say the least, ending up with me hugging all my luggage to sleep on a bed that felt more like a sunbed. Luckily a few others were in a room down the hall, so to make the best of a bad situation we had a few beers and a bit of a singalong.... which must have amused/confused the Chinese people no end.
When we arrived at 4pm the NEXT DAY, there was a mad rush through the train station with absolutely no idea where to go or what to do... directed simply not to leave without telling anyone. Before I knew it my name had been called like i was going to my execution and I was being greeted by a lovely Chinese lady called Stella. A quick meet and greet later with everyone at the same school as me, I was put on a school bus and headed south to see my new apartment.
I have to say my first impressions of my new area were pretty good... surprisingly good actually. I was expecting slums and found myself in a basic but quite nice apartment with another girl and 5 other interns down the hall and upstairs. We settled ourselves in quite nicely only to find out we were to start teaching at 8am the next day. Panic is not the word.
School the next day was like a complete dream looking back. I think I was still asleep. I found out when I arrived at school that I didn't actually start teaching until the next day, which gave me a whole day of sitting around the office while the Chinese teachers ignored me. Great fun. I got to experience every aspect of the school day going on around me though, with the morning exercises that the whole school does unanimously outside, the eye exercises they do mid afternoon, and the strange 'Chinglish' phrases that are dotted around the school. I can't remember any right now but they will have to be put down here at some point.
Straight after day number one, we all wanted just an early night and a chance to unpack... but no, this is China. So we were sent out for a welcome meal with our principle, Stella, and the head of English, Erin. This was most interesting seeing as the principle doesn't speak English (except for "Gangnam Style", apparently). The food was great though, and the principle seemed to like us as he kept making us down our drinks every 5 minutes.
Day number 2 was my first day of teaching. Terrified doesn't even cover it. Walking into a classroom to see 50 6 year old Chinese children looking back at you is an experience I will never forget. I teach grade 1 and 4, which couldn't be more different. Grade 1 are amazingly cute and hang on your every word as if you are the best thing they have ever seen. They couldn't do enough for me. Grade 4 however, are already the bane of my life. They jump around and scream and shout and are completely impossible to keep under control. They've had English teachers before so me coming in being all white is not a novelty at all for them. They just know they can get away with a lot more than with their Chinese teachers.
Apart from a few rowdy classes though, the school and everyone seem great so far. We got a chance to explore our area last night too, which happily resulted in the fact that their is a night market with amazing street food and 40p beers AND A KTV down the road 10 minutes from our house. Plus an English bar, Italian resturant with real Italian owners and TESCO 10 minutes in the opposite direction. So we have good Chinese culture and good English culture to choose from depending on our mood. Fab.
As I said it's been a mental blur so far and this probably has made no sense. Things are so strange here it can't be put into words. But despite being ridiclously tired and overwhelmed, I'm loving it. I can't believe it took me so long to get out here :)
More to come soon I'm sure, so much I've missed out too. Never been looking forward to a weekend so much to have a proper explore and unpack myself. But ya know..... YOLO.
So the last week or so in Beijing was incredible, involving a walk on the Great wall of China, a munch on a snake and a crispy scorpion (tastes like chicken), a night in a Chinese gay bar (apparently) and far , far too many nights in the irish bar. Just your average week right? Despite meeting some of the best people EVER though, I'm kind of glad to leave beijing. It's a really cool city, but 5 months there might have driven me over the edge. The pollution is worse than you could imagine, so bad that you can't see buildings out the window and you can feel it sticking on your lungs. The best touristy places are also filled with annoying Chinese tourists who want to take photos of you with their kids as they've never seen white people before. Funny at first, but the novelty grows old really quick.
After some emotional goodbyes over a few drinks (good old Irish bar), it was time for the longest train journey of anyones life ever. I mean ever. I hopped on the train in "the biggest train station in Asia" at 6.00pm only to find my room was filled with one other white girl and 4 chinese men who spoke about 3 words of English between them. The room was about the size of my wardrobe at home, so negotiating where to store my suitcase and heavy bags in this small space was a struggle to say the least, ending up with me hugging all my luggage to sleep on a bed that felt more like a sunbed. Luckily a few others were in a room down the hall, so to make the best of a bad situation we had a few beers and a bit of a singalong.... which must have amused/confused the Chinese people no end.
When we arrived at 4pm the NEXT DAY, there was a mad rush through the train station with absolutely no idea where to go or what to do... directed simply not to leave without telling anyone. Before I knew it my name had been called like i was going to my execution and I was being greeted by a lovely Chinese lady called Stella. A quick meet and greet later with everyone at the same school as me, I was put on a school bus and headed south to see my new apartment.
I have to say my first impressions of my new area were pretty good... surprisingly good actually. I was expecting slums and found myself in a basic but quite nice apartment with another girl and 5 other interns down the hall and upstairs. We settled ourselves in quite nicely only to find out we were to start teaching at 8am the next day. Panic is not the word.
School the next day was like a complete dream looking back. I think I was still asleep. I found out when I arrived at school that I didn't actually start teaching until the next day, which gave me a whole day of sitting around the office while the Chinese teachers ignored me. Great fun. I got to experience every aspect of the school day going on around me though, with the morning exercises that the whole school does unanimously outside, the eye exercises they do mid afternoon, and the strange 'Chinglish' phrases that are dotted around the school. I can't remember any right now but they will have to be put down here at some point.
Straight after day number one, we all wanted just an early night and a chance to unpack... but no, this is China. So we were sent out for a welcome meal with our principle, Stella, and the head of English, Erin. This was most interesting seeing as the principle doesn't speak English (except for "Gangnam Style", apparently). The food was great though, and the principle seemed to like us as he kept making us down our drinks every 5 minutes.
Day number 2 was my first day of teaching. Terrified doesn't even cover it. Walking into a classroom to see 50 6 year old Chinese children looking back at you is an experience I will never forget. I teach grade 1 and 4, which couldn't be more different. Grade 1 are amazingly cute and hang on your every word as if you are the best thing they have ever seen. They couldn't do enough for me. Grade 4 however, are already the bane of my life. They jump around and scream and shout and are completely impossible to keep under control. They've had English teachers before so me coming in being all white is not a novelty at all for them. They just know they can get away with a lot more than with their Chinese teachers.
Apart from a few rowdy classes though, the school and everyone seem great so far. We got a chance to explore our area last night too, which happily resulted in the fact that their is a night market with amazing street food and 40p beers AND A KTV down the road 10 minutes from our house. Plus an English bar, Italian resturant with real Italian owners and TESCO 10 minutes in the opposite direction. So we have good Chinese culture and good English culture to choose from depending on our mood. Fab.
As I said it's been a mental blur so far and this probably has made no sense. Things are so strange here it can't be put into words. But despite being ridiclously tired and overwhelmed, I'm loving it. I can't believe it took me so long to get out here :)
More to come soon I'm sure, so much I've missed out too. Never been looking forward to a weekend so much to have a proper explore and unpack myself. But ya know..... YOLO.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
china so far....
Sooooo I've been in china for well over a week now and only just managed to find a wifi spot to sit with my laptop and write my first china blog post. which means i'm sat with some of the girls in our local (the irish bar) stealing the internet and eating a "chicken" burger ... yep being very cultured I know.
I literally don't know where to begin with what's been going on over here, it's been a massive blur of nights out, hungover sightseeing and probably far too much western food.
So I guess I'll start at the beginning.... THE HAPPY DRAGON.
I decided to get into Beijing early to sleep off the jetlag and get a headstart on getting used to the Chinese culture before orientation began. Instead, after getting robbed blind by a taxi driver from the airport with my long lost twin sister Beth (apparently), we met up with some other westerners and got drunk on cheap Chinese beers which resulted in my first Beijing night out and Chinese hangover. Oooooooops. After a quick trip to Tian'men square and the forbidden city, it was back to the hostel to get ready for the start of Chinese New Year. I'll be honest, I wasn't really sure what Chinese new year was all about before I arrived and was kind of assuming it would be similar to NYE in England with a bit of a countdown and a few cheap fireworks. Ohh how wrong I was. When midnight rolled round, we all left the hostel bar to go watch some fireworks the hostel was putting on for us. Instead of fireworks in England with red tape everywhere and health and safety madness, these fireworks were being set off in the middle of a road (which cars and bikes were of course still driving down) which was about two meters from where we were all standing. What health and safety? A bit of firecracker actually shot me in the arm... welcome to China! Aside from these, fireworks were being let off as far as you could see into the distance on every single street in Beijing, which was an amazing sight that I will never forget. I thought I could watch them forever they were so beautiful. A week later however when the bloody things are still going off at EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY EVEN FIRST THING IN THE MORNING the novelty kind of wears off. But still an amazing experience that I will never forget.
So after an incredible, blurry few days at the Happy Dragon with about 30 other teaching interns, we alll made our way to the University campus for our orientation. The campus wasn't really what I was expecting, with a quite nice room and no squat toilets (so far). It didn't take us long from moving in our stuff to find our local Irish pub which of course pleased all my new Irish friends. The 10Y beers kept me quite happy too. 8am starts every day was a bit of a shock (I haven't got up that early in years unless someone was paying me to do so) but after a few intense days of TEFLing I can officially say I'm trained to teach english as a foreign language - but still couldn't feel any less prepared if I tried. We don't find out our placements for another week so everyone is trying to keep that at the back of their minds and enjoy Beijing, which turns out to be a pretty cool place to be. Aside from the pollution, that sticks in your clothes, hair and up your nose from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, and some Chinese people who want to take a million photos with you and find it hilarious when you attempt to speak mandarin. I know I'm not really selling it but I really like it here. Everything is weird, from the adverts on the walls to the food (mmmm, vacuum packed chicken feet). But in such a hilarious way. I hope I get placed in a big city and not in the middle of nowhere... the amount of people who stare in Beijing is apparently nothing compared to in a smaller city, so I don't fancy dealing with 5 months of that.
Tomorrow we head for our "tour day" which is the day we've all been waiting for.... THE GREAT WALL. I'm so excited and hopefully the pollution won't be too bad so we actually get a nice view.
There's so much more to say but I literally can't think right now. I think a mix of jetlag, hangover and general tiredness has had a negative impact on my ability to form sentences so sorry if this made very little sense. I can't believe I even had to consider whether I wanted to come here.... if you want to travel just do it, every day is so different.
for now I'll leave it at that because all of us on our laptops are slowing down the wifi in the bar and none of us are even eating or drinking any more and the chinese lady behind the bar is getting a bit annoyed. To anyone who made it to the end of this post, well done, and more to come soon.
Love you long time x
I literally don't know where to begin with what's been going on over here, it's been a massive blur of nights out, hungover sightseeing and probably far too much western food.
So I guess I'll start at the beginning.... THE HAPPY DRAGON.
I decided to get into Beijing early to sleep off the jetlag and get a headstart on getting used to the Chinese culture before orientation began. Instead, after getting robbed blind by a taxi driver from the airport with my long lost twin sister Beth (apparently), we met up with some other westerners and got drunk on cheap Chinese beers which resulted in my first Beijing night out and Chinese hangover. Oooooooops. After a quick trip to Tian'men square and the forbidden city, it was back to the hostel to get ready for the start of Chinese New Year. I'll be honest, I wasn't really sure what Chinese new year was all about before I arrived and was kind of assuming it would be similar to NYE in England with a bit of a countdown and a few cheap fireworks. Ohh how wrong I was. When midnight rolled round, we all left the hostel bar to go watch some fireworks the hostel was putting on for us. Instead of fireworks in England with red tape everywhere and health and safety madness, these fireworks were being set off in the middle of a road (which cars and bikes were of course still driving down) which was about two meters from where we were all standing. What health and safety? A bit of firecracker actually shot me in the arm... welcome to China! Aside from these, fireworks were being let off as far as you could see into the distance on every single street in Beijing, which was an amazing sight that I will never forget. I thought I could watch them forever they were so beautiful. A week later however when the bloody things are still going off at EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY EVEN FIRST THING IN THE MORNING the novelty kind of wears off. But still an amazing experience that I will never forget.
So after an incredible, blurry few days at the Happy Dragon with about 30 other teaching interns, we alll made our way to the University campus for our orientation. The campus wasn't really what I was expecting, with a quite nice room and no squat toilets (so far). It didn't take us long from moving in our stuff to find our local Irish pub which of course pleased all my new Irish friends. The 10Y beers kept me quite happy too. 8am starts every day was a bit of a shock (I haven't got up that early in years unless someone was paying me to do so) but after a few intense days of TEFLing I can officially say I'm trained to teach english as a foreign language - but still couldn't feel any less prepared if I tried. We don't find out our placements for another week so everyone is trying to keep that at the back of their minds and enjoy Beijing, which turns out to be a pretty cool place to be. Aside from the pollution, that sticks in your clothes, hair and up your nose from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, and some Chinese people who want to take a million photos with you and find it hilarious when you attempt to speak mandarin. I know I'm not really selling it but I really like it here. Everything is weird, from the adverts on the walls to the food (mmmm, vacuum packed chicken feet). But in such a hilarious way. I hope I get placed in a big city and not in the middle of nowhere... the amount of people who stare in Beijing is apparently nothing compared to in a smaller city, so I don't fancy dealing with 5 months of that.
Tomorrow we head for our "tour day" which is the day we've all been waiting for.... THE GREAT WALL. I'm so excited and hopefully the pollution won't be too bad so we actually get a nice view.
There's so much more to say but I literally can't think right now. I think a mix of jetlag, hangover and general tiredness has had a negative impact on my ability to form sentences so sorry if this made very little sense. I can't believe I even had to consider whether I wanted to come here.... if you want to travel just do it, every day is so different.
for now I'll leave it at that because all of us on our laptops are slowing down the wifi in the bar and none of us are even eating or drinking any more and the chinese lady behind the bar is getting a bit annoyed. To anyone who made it to the end of this post, well done, and more to come soon.
Love you long time x
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