So many languages! Many of you know I travelled for Chinese New Year.
- Arabic in Guangzhou: During my first layover, I chatted with a guy from Jordan and 2 guys from Egypt, just about the political stability of Egypt and what it's like now.
- Mexican Spanish in Munich: Oh you bet I was eavesdropping!
- French flight attendants on Air France: One guy totally reminded me of Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. It was hard not to crack up when talking to him.
- Chinese of course. I actually learned a lot just from listening to the announcements, and knowing which words to expect. I'm also putting together many of the Chinese characters, even though I only know about 20, I'm finding them everywhere! I'm so proud :)
- Lima Spanish from Munich to Paris: The two guys next to me were traveling together to Lima, imagine my delight! We talked the whole flight! The dad spoke German and Spanish, and the son spoke English and German. So no matter what conversation we had, only 2 people could participate. The dad would get confused though, and ask me questions in German, and his son questions in Spanish. It cracked us up :)
Chinese New Year: Even though I wasn't here, it still happened!
- First, it's good to know that it is the year of the dragon. My year! I'm a dragon! Supposedly, if you're a good luck person and it's your special year, then you'll have extra good luck! But the same works in reverse, if you typically have bad luck, and it's your year, you will have extra bad luck. I'm considering myself a lucky person. Bring on the extra good luck! :)
- Of course, apparently that is the belief held in Western China. Last night I was educated. In the region where I'm actually living, the people hold different superstitions. For year of the dragon people, you are expected to have red touching your skin at all times. Of course there were many jokes about getting a red tattoo, a prominent one on my face, but I guess the most common practice is just to buy a years worth of red underwear. Hmmmmmm.
- On New Years Day, it's everyone's birthday! Everyone turns a year older on New Years Day. Celebrating on your actual birthday is only for us Westerners. So I guess that makes sense why there are sooooo many darn firworks. Everyone is celebrating. (Fun tidbit: For the Koreans, they actually count your age from conception, so typically when you're born, you're already 9 months old!)
- Also, my friend who lives on the 22nd floor (I'm on the 12th) filmed the fireworks celebration just before midnight on New Year's Eve. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE7qRFuqAZg&feature=autoshare Pretty spectacular! Of course the fireworks are pretty constant on a regular basis anyways, but this is definitely overkill. But hey, I guess if it's everyone in the entire country's birthday, by all means, celebrate!
In the classroom:
- Things are finally back to normal. I have all 4 of my elves back, and we don't have another vacation for 2 months. I feel like I can finally get some work done and make some real progress!
- For the 2 weeks of school between Christmas and Chinese New Year, I only had 2 students, and the difference in their ability to speak and understand English is ASTOUNDING. My other 2 students went to their home countries for 6 weeks, and they came back with almost zero English. It's weird to be right back where I started with 2 of them, and leaps and bounds ahead with the other 2. GO GO differentiated instruction!!!
At nap time, most of my elves can fall asleep in about 10 minutes. But I have one who is very restless, and takes at least 20 before he's ready to at least lay down calmly. Today, I sat on his bed laid my head in my arms and closed my eyes, modeling of course!
Elf: "What are you doing?"
Me: "I'm closing my eyes. When I close my eyes, I fall asleep."
Elf: "Oh."
As I watched, my elf laid back down, and closed his eyes. About 2 minutes later, I peeked my eyes open, and my little elf was sound asleep :) Who knew that's all that needed to happen?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
FU
I wish you all a very happy FU on this Chinese New Year of the Dragon.
I also wish these decorations literally said FU. But the Chinese characters will have to do. I didn't have time to make my own.
At School:
Part of the High/Scope curriculum is providing new materials for the students, and letting the students name them. For example, we have lots of different types of blocks, so they name them, "wooden blocks" or "waffle blocks" and today we worked with the "plastic chips". Not really sure how they came up with that name, but it helps during review time for the students to describe what they did and what they used. A couple of the kiddos were using prisms and kaleidoscopes today and other things that distort their vision . At review time, I asked these kiddos what they used in the Math and Science Center. "I was using the So-Many-Ms.-L. You looked really funny". I guess the prism is now called "So-Many-Ms.-L." I'm honored to have a toy as my namesake.
Lately it's been very drizzley outside, so we've been using our indoor playroom for recess. The playroom has several things to climb on, including a tiny castle. I was surprised one day to see several students packed inside.
Me: "Oh my, how many students can fit inside the castle?"
Elf: (Not realizing I was asking as a joke) "One, two, three, four! There are four kids inside the castle."
Me: "Great, now change a light bulb".
Okay, well I thought it was funny. They thought I was really wierd.
Water. I seem to have a lot of issues with water:
- First, it seems I should've been showering in fear this whole time. It appears that when I went to buy "hot water" and I expressly said hot, in Mandarin and in English, the gal put cold water on the card instead. This morning, luckily this time BEFORE I got in the shower, the water stopped. I guess my hair will be in a braid today! Have you ever tried getting ready in the morning with no running water in your whole apartment? That is part of what still baffles me, if I technically still have "cold water", why is there NO water coming out of the faucets or the shower?
- Second, luckily I do have a culligan thingy (ordering water for the culligan thingy is a whole nother story), but I was still able to wash my face and brush my teeth. I used to never have the culligan thingy plugged in, just cuz it's actually quite noisy, but lately I've been using the insta hot water nozzle for coffee. Ever since I plugged the darn thing in, it started heating the cold water as well. So now I have the choice of warm water or hot water. I guess that goes along with the Chinese belief that cold things make you sick. The moms always heat the water bottles before school. It cracks me up.
Oberservation:
Most teachers were observed by our Head of School last October/November, but since I was still so new, my HoS said we could wait till after the break, problem being of course that I need his recommendation to apply for any other jobs. So today, I was observed. Of course today is the day that all the kiddos drank sugary orange tea for lunch. Tea? Really kitchen staff? Why would you give the kids tea? Let's just caffeinate them, shall we? Needless to say, my elves were helplessly hyper. Even my TAs were surprised. But at least the HoS got to see how I handle the kids when they're choosing not to listen so in the end, I think it was a good thing.
After my "lesson" I usually let the elves browse the books for 5-7 minutes. I think it's their favorite time of day. They LOVE just sitting their and flipping through the pictures. I let them go browse the books with my TAs while I talked to my HoS about the lesson.
The scene: I'm sitting at the table, HoS in the foreground, my elves in the background, so I can at least observe their behavior, but the HoS if facing me.
HoS: "It is very clear that you have taught the rules and routines of the classroom. The students know what's acceptable behavior and what you expect."
Me: .... *slightly horrified but trying to keep my face calm* At that very moment, one of my elves decided to climb up on the picnic table and strike a victorious pose while standing on top.
Thankfully, the HoS didn't notice, and my TA was able to talk him quietly down from the table without incident.
Well, even though I was just on break, I'm signing off for another week. I'll be escaping the New Year fireworks. So for China, see you next year!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Keeping it Classy
On Saturday we had a going away party for one of our school families with all the students from the school. It was supposed to be an amazing race of games throughout Li Ren Gardens, but it turned into the amazingly rained out race in the gym, so I went to support and help supervise. The final dinner party was at Cup of Joe. I'm not a huge fan of drinking with the students and parents from the school, but I did bring my PG *extra classy* soda can of 4% Chardonnay, a fun gift from Dana that tasted more like white grape juice than anything else :) It was a good conversation starter, but when I went to open the can, I popped the top... and nothing happened. I just stared at it, there was no hole to drink from. One of the older teachers just cracked up, and in a very amused way said, "Welcome to the 70's!" He then explained that I had to pull the top completely off in order to drink it. Apparently this is the way soda cans USED to open. Oh China, keeping it old school. Of course after that there were many wise cracks about how I'm old fashioned enough to knit, but not enough to know how to open a proper soda can.
Keeping with the *extra classy* theme, as families and students left, the mom that we threw the party for insisted on giving me a bottle of wine to share with the other teachers, I think for helping out so much when things didn't go as planned with the rain. She didn't have any glasses though, so she gave me paper cups to pass around. When it came time to leave, I poured what was left of the wine into my paper cup and took it to go! China is cool that way. Even better, we used the underground maze of the parking garages to walk home out of the rain. I didn't even know they were all connected down there! Learn something new every day I guess, for example, it's perfectly acceptable to walk the tunnels of the parking garages with my to go paper cup of wine!
Yesterday I had a great lesson introducing Chinese New Year, since I think this is the first year most of them will remember. I didn't actually read the book, we just looked at the pictures and described all the ways the families were celebrating. When we got to the fireworks, the boys didn't know what they were called, just that they go BOOM at night. Well.. they're supposed to, but I more often hear fireworks during the day. We went over all the new English vocabulary, and then I told them we were going to make lanterns for the festival like we saw in the book. Of course, in the end, after following my instructions, the boys thought the lanterns made better animals tales, and kites than Chinese New Year lanterns. "Look, Ms. L, I'm a monkey! Now I'm a dog. Now I'm a horse!" Well, they followed the lesson, and then made it their own. What can you do?
Later as we're packing up, the perfect opportunity for review arises. Fireworks! Lots of them, oh yes, at 3:25 pm. Again, I most often hear them during the day. They were close too. Sometimes it's like you can feel the explosions.
Me: "What is that noise you hear? It's from our Chinese New Year book!"
Elf: "Bad guys! Bad guys coming!!!"
Me: *facepalm for my failed vocabulary lesson*
So we're sitting in Riri's apartment, switching from Mandarin lesson to Mad Men Monday/Finer Things Club, and we've been smelling smoke for about 15 minutes. Finally I say, "So ... that smoke smell isn't getting any better." And it's not the you've-burnt-your-dinner smell, it's the something's-on-fire smell. Sure enough, when we go out to the landing, the air is visibly smokey. We make sure the family on that floor from our school isn't home, and we start to make our way down the stairs where we find another family from school hanging out on their landing on the 17th floor, so we do the most sensible things we can do, chill with them on the landing. It's still smokey, but less so. Observation: I feel like in the US, the protocol for seeing smoke is leaving the building. In China, you hang out and wait. Even having actual smoke could still be a false alarm. All of us except John, the smart one, who continued going downstairs. At this point we're joking about how the fire alarm goes off all the time EXCEPT when there is actually smoke, and we wait to hear from our board member from the 15th floor since she can actually speak with the guard station. She comes to report that some dingbat on the 3rd floor decided to boil herbs and leave her apartment for an hour, but she forgot to add water before she left. They opened all the windows and doors to her apartment, and that's why we got inundated with smoke. Cool, kinda false alarm, but no reason to walk down the next 17 flights of stairs. We head back and wait for John, and he has a different story. He met up with another teacher heading down, and when they got to the 11th floor, there actually was a small fire on the landing with several locals jumping up and down and pointing. Our other teacher got a bucket of water, doused the flames, glared at the locals, and walked back up stairs. What are the chances of 2 fires in one night?? And NO fire alarm? I always thought it would be an incompetent foreigner who would burn down our building (mainly me, I suck at electronics here), but I guess it's the locals we have to worry about.
Keeping with the *extra classy* theme, as families and students left, the mom that we threw the party for insisted on giving me a bottle of wine to share with the other teachers, I think for helping out so much when things didn't go as planned with the rain. She didn't have any glasses though, so she gave me paper cups to pass around. When it came time to leave, I poured what was left of the wine into my paper cup and took it to go! China is cool that way. Even better, we used the underground maze of the parking garages to walk home out of the rain. I didn't even know they were all connected down there! Learn something new every day I guess, for example, it's perfectly acceptable to walk the tunnels of the parking garages with my to go paper cup of wine!
Yesterday I had a great lesson introducing Chinese New Year, since I think this is the first year most of them will remember. I didn't actually read the book, we just looked at the pictures and described all the ways the families were celebrating. When we got to the fireworks, the boys didn't know what they were called, just that they go BOOM at night. Well.. they're supposed to, but I more often hear fireworks during the day. We went over all the new English vocabulary, and then I told them we were going to make lanterns for the festival like we saw in the book. Of course, in the end, after following my instructions, the boys thought the lanterns made better animals tales, and kites than Chinese New Year lanterns. "Look, Ms. L, I'm a monkey! Now I'm a dog. Now I'm a horse!" Well, they followed the lesson, and then made it their own. What can you do?
Later as we're packing up, the perfect opportunity for review arises. Fireworks! Lots of them, oh yes, at 3:25 pm. Again, I most often hear them during the day. They were close too. Sometimes it's like you can feel the explosions.
Me: "What is that noise you hear? It's from our Chinese New Year book!"
Elf: "Bad guys! Bad guys coming!!!"
Me: *facepalm for my failed vocabulary lesson*
So we're sitting in Riri's apartment, switching from Mandarin lesson to Mad Men Monday/Finer Things Club, and we've been smelling smoke for about 15 minutes. Finally I say, "So ... that smoke smell isn't getting any better." And it's not the you've-burnt-your-dinner smell, it's the something's-on-fire smell. Sure enough, when we go out to the landing, the air is visibly smokey. We make sure the family on that floor from our school isn't home, and we start to make our way down the stairs where we find another family from school hanging out on their landing on the 17th floor, so we do the most sensible things we can do, chill with them on the landing. It's still smokey, but less so. Observation: I feel like in the US, the protocol for seeing smoke is leaving the building. In China, you hang out and wait. Even having actual smoke could still be a false alarm. All of us except John, the smart one, who continued going downstairs. At this point we're joking about how the fire alarm goes off all the time EXCEPT when there is actually smoke, and we wait to hear from our board member from the 15th floor since she can actually speak with the guard station. She comes to report that some dingbat on the 3rd floor decided to boil herbs and leave her apartment for an hour, but she forgot to add water before she left. They opened all the windows and doors to her apartment, and that's why we got inundated with smoke. Cool, kinda false alarm, but no reason to walk down the next 17 flights of stairs. We head back and wait for John, and he has a different story. He met up with another teacher heading down, and when they got to the 11th floor, there actually was a small fire on the landing with several locals jumping up and down and pointing. Our other teacher got a bucket of water, doused the flames, glared at the locals, and walked back up stairs. What are the chances of 2 fires in one night?? And NO fire alarm? I always thought it would be an incompetent foreigner who would burn down our building (mainly me, I suck at electronics here), but I guess it's the locals we have to worry about.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Knee How Ma?
Some of you will remember this kid from my last post:
"Ms. L, your Chinese isn't very good."
So I've been practicing even more than usual.
- Riri lent me a book that is basically Chinese MadGab called "Knee how ma", which is the phonetic spelling of "Ni hao ma" meaning "how are you?". It's a whole book of Chinese phrases written in English words. My favorite one is "You're welcome" which is "Bu ke qi" which is pronounced "Book itchy". Now that can never be unlearned!
- I picked up a really old grammar book from Cup o Joe. It's been the most helpful thing, tying all the strings of random Mandarin knowledge together. The coffee shop is cool like that. They have a lending library shelves of all sorts of books and dvds.
- I've been working on Chinese characters because of all the darn homophones. One guy was really impressed I'm bothering with the characters, but I responded by complaining that I'm really not learning useful characters. The first one on was list is "mountain". Really? How often am I going to see the word "mountain" written on signs as I walk the streets? I can think of many more common words that I would more likely recognize and actually use. Wouldn't you know, not 45 minutes later, June made a comment after seeing that I had copied my name in Chinese characters into my work book. Mountain is one of the characters in my name. I had no idea. And if you're really curious, the characters that make up Kari are: stuck, king, mountain, but.
I'm also working on the culture notes.
- I picked Alice's brain about what it's like to go home for Chinese New Year. It sounds like a week long superbowl game, just replace football with fireworks. She says the family makes about 28 different dished that you pass around, and you just eat and eat and eat the whole week. You're expected to eat from each dish. She also says in order to show wealth, the families will make every kind of meat dish possible, even though people typically eat mostly vegetables. So they stuff themselves the whole week with meat and feel sick because their bodies aren't used to it.
- Travelling over Chinese New Year is supposed to be a nightmare. The infrastructure can't handle the whole population going on pilgrimages to their home town. And I learned at international quiz night that in 1988, China had exactly zero expressways. This is also the first year that the people have been allowed to purchase train and bus tickets online. So many of the younger people got tickets, while the older less tech savvy people went to the stations only to find all the tickets had already sold out.
- There is a community group here that helps the foreign experts adjust to Chinese culture and feel more welcome. According to an email sent to all staff today, this group would like to welcome us into the New Year by giving us a big FU. I'm proud to say that I was the only colleague who did not read that as "Eff You" at first glance. Fu is a Chinese word meant to bring good luck. The group would like to come to our apartments and decorate our doors with FU. We can't stop laughing. Pictures to come soon.
Cafeteria food:
- Today the cafeteria served spaghetti with red sauce, beef stew, and steamed vegetables. None of the TAs would eat it. I was surprised to see them all go hungry. It's a long day with kids, and usually I need a full row of brownies minimum to keep up my energy level. Wendi said the food was "too American" for them today. So they left and got KFC delivered instead. Oh if they only knew the irony.
- Another thing they served was what appeared to be a roll cut in half with cream cheese. Wendi soon told me with a disgusted face that it was whip cream. We think they maybe saw a picture of a bagel with cream cheese, and just assumed with was whip cream. I guess that mistake has also been made with baked potatoes and what was supposed to be sour cream.
- I had to watch my kids carefully today because we also had strawberries. I often forget that this could the first time they experience different types of food, so I wanted to makes sure they didn't eat the green part of the strawberry, not that it would kill them. But one time one of my kiddos popped the whole hard boiled egg into his mouth and started to bite, not realizing he had to peel it first. Eating is always a learning experience.
Kari Points:
This is a game that Jessi and Kirk created. It comes from the time when I used to live with Lara and Jessi and I would lose everything in our apartment. Not that it was messy, we lived with Lara :), but I would place things, like my keys, in random illogical places. The girls would either take a mental note, or move the keys to a more prominent place in the apartment where I was more likely to find them again on my own without having to ask. So, if you can find whatever I lost before I do, you get a Kari point. This has become especially fun in the classroom (most often I set my coffee cup down somewhere) because my TA Jean is always the one to get the Kari point, and she doesn't even speak English. I feel like that's the ultimate Kari point, because I never even have to say, "Now where did I put my [insert inanimate object here]". She just knows. She sees me wandering around looking confused and directs me to my precious lost thing. Today she directed me to Wendi's classroom where I found my kindle. I'm not sure how she knew that was the exact missing object I was pursuing. She just knows!
"Ms. L, your Chinese isn't very good."
So I've been practicing even more than usual.
- Riri lent me a book that is basically Chinese MadGab called "Knee how ma", which is the phonetic spelling of "Ni hao ma" meaning "how are you?". It's a whole book of Chinese phrases written in English words. My favorite one is "You're welcome" which is "Bu ke qi" which is pronounced "Book itchy". Now that can never be unlearned!
- I picked up a really old grammar book from Cup o Joe. It's been the most helpful thing, tying all the strings of random Mandarin knowledge together. The coffee shop is cool like that. They have a lending library shelves of all sorts of books and dvds.
- I've been working on Chinese characters because of all the darn homophones. One guy was really impressed I'm bothering with the characters, but I responded by complaining that I'm really not learning useful characters. The first one on was list is "mountain". Really? How often am I going to see the word "mountain" written on signs as I walk the streets? I can think of many more common words that I would more likely recognize and actually use. Wouldn't you know, not 45 minutes later, June made a comment after seeing that I had copied my name in Chinese characters into my work book. Mountain is one of the characters in my name. I had no idea. And if you're really curious, the characters that make up Kari are: stuck, king, mountain, but.
I'm also working on the culture notes.
- I picked Alice's brain about what it's like to go home for Chinese New Year. It sounds like a week long superbowl game, just replace football with fireworks. She says the family makes about 28 different dished that you pass around, and you just eat and eat and eat the whole week. You're expected to eat from each dish. She also says in order to show wealth, the families will make every kind of meat dish possible, even though people typically eat mostly vegetables. So they stuff themselves the whole week with meat and feel sick because their bodies aren't used to it.
- Travelling over Chinese New Year is supposed to be a nightmare. The infrastructure can't handle the whole population going on pilgrimages to their home town. And I learned at international quiz night that in 1988, China had exactly zero expressways. This is also the first year that the people have been allowed to purchase train and bus tickets online. So many of the younger people got tickets, while the older less tech savvy people went to the stations only to find all the tickets had already sold out.
- There is a community group here that helps the foreign experts adjust to Chinese culture and feel more welcome. According to an email sent to all staff today, this group would like to welcome us into the New Year by giving us a big FU. I'm proud to say that I was the only colleague who did not read that as "Eff You" at first glance. Fu is a Chinese word meant to bring good luck. The group would like to come to our apartments and decorate our doors with FU. We can't stop laughing. Pictures to come soon.
Cafeteria food:
- Today the cafeteria served spaghetti with red sauce, beef stew, and steamed vegetables. None of the TAs would eat it. I was surprised to see them all go hungry. It's a long day with kids, and usually I need a full row of brownies minimum to keep up my energy level. Wendi said the food was "too American" for them today. So they left and got KFC delivered instead. Oh if they only knew the irony.
- Another thing they served was what appeared to be a roll cut in half with cream cheese. Wendi soon told me with a disgusted face that it was whip cream. We think they maybe saw a picture of a bagel with cream cheese, and just assumed with was whip cream. I guess that mistake has also been made with baked potatoes and what was supposed to be sour cream.
- I had to watch my kids carefully today because we also had strawberries. I often forget that this could the first time they experience different types of food, so I wanted to makes sure they didn't eat the green part of the strawberry, not that it would kill them. But one time one of my kiddos popped the whole hard boiled egg into his mouth and started to bite, not realizing he had to peel it first. Eating is always a learning experience.
Kari Points:
This is a game that Jessi and Kirk created. It comes from the time when I used to live with Lara and Jessi and I would lose everything in our apartment. Not that it was messy, we lived with Lara :), but I would place things, like my keys, in random illogical places. The girls would either take a mental note, or move the keys to a more prominent place in the apartment where I was more likely to find them again on my own without having to ask. So, if you can find whatever I lost before I do, you get a Kari point. This has become especially fun in the classroom (most often I set my coffee cup down somewhere) because my TA Jean is always the one to get the Kari point, and she doesn't even speak English. I feel like that's the ultimate Kari point, because I never even have to say, "Now where did I put my [insert inanimate object here]". She just knows. She sees me wandering around looking confused and directs me to my precious lost thing. Today she directed me to Wendi's classroom where I found my kindle. I'm not sure how she knew that was the exact missing object I was pursuing. She just knows!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Back in the Saddle
I feel lucky enough that I have experienced relatively minimal jet lag since arriving back in China. The first day I fell right back into my routine of going to bed around 7:30 pm and waking up before my alarm clock at around 4 am. For whatever reason, on this side of the world, my body feels like that is the best time to sleep and I've had little success convincing it otherwise. The only side affect might be grogginess, since I fell asleep wearing my glasses, and didn't notice until my vision became blurry and splattered after getting in the shower the next morning.
Speaking of the shower ... I've been showering in fear since I got back. I've explained how the hot water bill works before, but here is a refresher: I have a card, maybe similar to a laundry card, that I load with money and then swipe it on the scanner of the hot water tank. When the hot water runs out, I can swipe the card on the water meter again with my emergency "stash", and receive a conservative amount of hot water that lasts for 3 more days (according to Riri). When I first arrived, the water had already been swiped so I had yet to go through the loading the card with money process.
Problem: The hot water ran out on my last morning as I was preparing to leave for the airport, 10 seconds into my shower. Not only does the hot water run out, but apparently ALL water runs out (so even if I had been willing to take a cold shower, which I was not, it wouldn't have been an option).
Problem: The hot water meter/tank is outside my apartment on the landing.
Problem: I'm wet, cold, and in my towel.
It took about 30 minutes for me to figure out how to use that emergency stash of money kept on the hot water card. First, the swiping mechanism isn't very intuitive, and second, there are two hot water meters on my floor, and they're not labeled. Swiping the wrong tank could give my non existent neighbor an emergency stash of hot water. As I contemplate which tank most likely belongs to my apartment, I dash back into my apartment every time the elevator moves, which was probably a little ridiculous .. the chances of it opening on my floor aren't that great. But things don't ever function logically in China, and I have had a negative affect on all technology related to my aparment.
Since my arrival after the holidays, I went to the water company on the first day to reload my card. But when I got to the landing and looked at the meter ... I forgot to label which tank is actually mine. I made my guess, but all that happened was a beeping red light. Last time I got a sound effect like a race car engine starting and revving. I'm thinking the red light may not have been the best sign, but I tried many other ways to swipe the card, and even the other tank, and nothing else happened. And so, I shower in fear. Hoping hoping hoping that the water doesn't run out one day before school, and I have to show up to work a greasy mess.
Work this week has been a little atypical. Even though we obviously just came back from holidays, Chinese New Year is in two weeks, and we get a whole week of vacation for that as well. Consequently, most families elected to take a 6 week vacation instead of an awkward 3 week off, 2 weeks on, 1 week off schedule. (Why weren't the teachers given that option ????)
Anyways, I came into work Monday morning, knowing the attendance situation and I unwisely announced to Wendi that I am a mom this week. Her face looked like she was trying to show acceptance, so I amended my statement. I FEEL like a mom this week. I probably should've said that first. I have one student. One little 3 year old to devote all of my time and attention. I am basically a 9-5 mom. Maybe nanny would've been better word choice. So most of my lesson planning is on hold, and we've just joined Wendi's classroom for the time being. This means I get to interact with Wendi's students a lot more, which was exciting until one student informed me, "Ms. L, your Chinese isn't very good." Thanks for the support, kid. Mandarin lessons resume today! Thank goodness. I apparently need a lot of work.
Speaking of the shower ... I've been showering in fear since I got back. I've explained how the hot water bill works before, but here is a refresher: I have a card, maybe similar to a laundry card, that I load with money and then swipe it on the scanner of the hot water tank. When the hot water runs out, I can swipe the card on the water meter again with my emergency "stash", and receive a conservative amount of hot water that lasts for 3 more days (according to Riri). When I first arrived, the water had already been swiped so I had yet to go through the loading the card with money process.
Problem: The hot water ran out on my last morning as I was preparing to leave for the airport, 10 seconds into my shower. Not only does the hot water run out, but apparently ALL water runs out (so even if I had been willing to take a cold shower, which I was not, it wouldn't have been an option).
Problem: The hot water meter/tank is outside my apartment on the landing.
Problem: I'm wet, cold, and in my towel.
It took about 30 minutes for me to figure out how to use that emergency stash of money kept on the hot water card. First, the swiping mechanism isn't very intuitive, and second, there are two hot water meters on my floor, and they're not labeled. Swiping the wrong tank could give my non existent neighbor an emergency stash of hot water. As I contemplate which tank most likely belongs to my apartment, I dash back into my apartment every time the elevator moves, which was probably a little ridiculous .. the chances of it opening on my floor aren't that great. But things don't ever function logically in China, and I have had a negative affect on all technology related to my aparment.
Since my arrival after the holidays, I went to the water company on the first day to reload my card. But when I got to the landing and looked at the meter ... I forgot to label which tank is actually mine. I made my guess, but all that happened was a beeping red light. Last time I got a sound effect like a race car engine starting and revving. I'm thinking the red light may not have been the best sign, but I tried many other ways to swipe the card, and even the other tank, and nothing else happened. And so, I shower in fear. Hoping hoping hoping that the water doesn't run out one day before school, and I have to show up to work a greasy mess.
Work this week has been a little atypical. Even though we obviously just came back from holidays, Chinese New Year is in two weeks, and we get a whole week of vacation for that as well. Consequently, most families elected to take a 6 week vacation instead of an awkward 3 week off, 2 weeks on, 1 week off schedule. (Why weren't the teachers given that option ????)
Anyways, I came into work Monday morning, knowing the attendance situation and I unwisely announced to Wendi that I am a mom this week. Her face looked like she was trying to show acceptance, so I amended my statement. I FEEL like a mom this week. I probably should've said that first. I have one student. One little 3 year old to devote all of my time and attention. I am basically a 9-5 mom. Maybe nanny would've been better word choice. So most of my lesson planning is on hold, and we've just joined Wendi's classroom for the time being. This means I get to interact with Wendi's students a lot more, which was exciting until one student informed me, "Ms. L, your Chinese isn't very good." Thanks for the support, kid. Mandarin lessons resume today! Thank goodness. I apparently need a lot of work.
Friday, January 6, 2012
24 hours - ish
I'm not really willing to do the math right now, but after roughly 24 hours, I'm "home". It was a fun journey, culminating with an entertaining 2 hour taxi ride.
Some of you know, I had the same flight back as Riri, the 3rd grade teacher at my school, and one of my former college classmates. The 11 hour flight actually sailed by ... or should I say "flew" by, and we were navigating the Beijing airport in no time. It was my 3rd time in the airport in the span of 2 months, and since last time I walked between Terminals 1 and 2 about six times (a ten minute walk, no tram!), I'm getting pretty darn good at this! We had no hitches.
While waiting to fly out to Ningbo, we sat next to a convenience store, and the workers were playing with a little mini robot. Kinda looks like a smaller version of the lady robot in Wall E. SOOOOO CUTE! It could sing and dance, mostly country, Chinese oldies, and Shakira. So yes, I had "Waka Waka" stuck in my head for 7 hours till I got home... and now it's stuck in my head again :)
With our mass luggage, Riri and I took separate taxis from Ningbo to Beilun. I asked Riri to talk to my driver though, just to make it clear where we were going, and if he got lost that he should just follow Riri's taxi. My driver had a mind of his own though and took off in the lead. Awesome. He was the type that was determined to talk to me. I've gotten better at this though. Usually they ask me a question and I just shake my head. But then they keep talking and talking, and I keep thinking, why don't they get that I just don't understand what they're saying? Then I realized they're probably asking me yes/no questions to which my answer is always no, such as -
Taxi driver: Do you like China?
Me: *Shakes head*
... whoops! So now I just go with the *blank stare*, which totally worked because after he rambled for 5 minutes he just looked at me and muttered, "ting bu dong" meaning "doesn't understand". That made me smile. He did keep repeating "Beijing" to me, so he must've known we came in on the Beijing flight. This airport only has like 2 gates so it's really not difficult to know the flight schedule. I finally said:
Me: "Meigua (USA) - Beijing. Beijing - Ningbo"
Taxi Driver: "Ningbo - Beilun"
Me: "Yes yes yes yes!
And then he repeated my travel itinerary for about 15 minutes: "Meigua - Beijing. Beijing - Ningbo. Ningbo - Beilun". And then smiled to himself.
That was our complete conversation until we got stuck in traffic and I noticed little white flurries drifting through the beam of the headlights. In my excitement, I involuntarily said, "Xue!" meaning "Snow!". They're so insignificant though, they could actually be dust from all the semi trucks in traffic with us. Still, this caused my taxi driver to start a whole new round of conversation about the "xue", which I didn't understand at all. When we picked up speed, the snow simultaneously changed from flurries to really snowing, causing the *millenium falcon effect* as it appeared that we were jumping into hyperdrive. (You know, when the snow is coming at you so fast that it looks like a zillion shooting stars. And for all you Star Wars fans, I double checked my spelling of the Millenium Falcon on "Wookiepedia"). My driver suddenly began shouting, "Wooooow! Xue!!!!!" and then laughing hysterically. He then pointed at me, said "xue" over and over, and laughed again and again. As far as I can tell, that point was the first time my driver actually noticed the snow, so earlier, when he was babbling about the xue? He definitely was not referring to the snow. Xue is one of those very popular words in Mandarin and I must've used the wrong tone, so when I thought I was pointing out the snow, I was really saying something entirely different. Again, whoops. Makes me wonder what he was saying when he created that whole lecture all by himself that was not about snow.
When it was finally time to get out and pay, I gave him the amount that the meter showed. But then he reminded me about the toll. As I was pulling out more money for that, a couple 1 dollar bills fell out of my purse. He got super excited and started chanting "meigua money"! So instead of paying him the extra 35 kuai, he was very satisfied with $2. Works for me!
Lastly, in general, if you stop staring at the color of my hair, I'll stop staring at the 18 inches of rhinestones on your boots. Seriously, if rhinestones were living creatures, they would be extinct. Welcome back to China :)
Some of you know, I had the same flight back as Riri, the 3rd grade teacher at my school, and one of my former college classmates. The 11 hour flight actually sailed by ... or should I say "flew" by, and we were navigating the Beijing airport in no time. It was my 3rd time in the airport in the span of 2 months, and since last time I walked between Terminals 1 and 2 about six times (a ten minute walk, no tram!), I'm getting pretty darn good at this! We had no hitches.
While waiting to fly out to Ningbo, we sat next to a convenience store, and the workers were playing with a little mini robot. Kinda looks like a smaller version of the lady robot in Wall E. SOOOOO CUTE! It could sing and dance, mostly country, Chinese oldies, and Shakira. So yes, I had "Waka Waka" stuck in my head for 7 hours till I got home... and now it's stuck in my head again :)
With our mass luggage, Riri and I took separate taxis from Ningbo to Beilun. I asked Riri to talk to my driver though, just to make it clear where we were going, and if he got lost that he should just follow Riri's taxi. My driver had a mind of his own though and took off in the lead. Awesome. He was the type that was determined to talk to me. I've gotten better at this though. Usually they ask me a question and I just shake my head. But then they keep talking and talking, and I keep thinking, why don't they get that I just don't understand what they're saying? Then I realized they're probably asking me yes/no questions to which my answer is always no, such as -
Taxi driver: Do you like China?
Me: *Shakes head*
... whoops! So now I just go with the *blank stare*, which totally worked because after he rambled for 5 minutes he just looked at me and muttered, "ting bu dong" meaning "doesn't understand". That made me smile. He did keep repeating "Beijing" to me, so he must've known we came in on the Beijing flight. This airport only has like 2 gates so it's really not difficult to know the flight schedule. I finally said:
Me: "Meigua (USA) - Beijing. Beijing - Ningbo"
Taxi Driver: "Ningbo - Beilun"
Me: "Yes yes yes yes!
And then he repeated my travel itinerary for about 15 minutes: "Meigua - Beijing. Beijing - Ningbo. Ningbo - Beilun". And then smiled to himself.
That was our complete conversation until we got stuck in traffic and I noticed little white flurries drifting through the beam of the headlights. In my excitement, I involuntarily said, "Xue!" meaning "Snow!". They're so insignificant though, they could actually be dust from all the semi trucks in traffic with us. Still, this caused my taxi driver to start a whole new round of conversation about the "xue", which I didn't understand at all. When we picked up speed, the snow simultaneously changed from flurries to really snowing, causing the *millenium falcon effect* as it appeared that we were jumping into hyperdrive. (You know, when the snow is coming at you so fast that it looks like a zillion shooting stars. And for all you Star Wars fans, I double checked my spelling of the Millenium Falcon on "Wookiepedia"). My driver suddenly began shouting, "Wooooow! Xue!!!!!" and then laughing hysterically. He then pointed at me, said "xue" over and over, and laughed again and again. As far as I can tell, that point was the first time my driver actually noticed the snow, so earlier, when he was babbling about the xue? He definitely was not referring to the snow. Xue is one of those very popular words in Mandarin and I must've used the wrong tone, so when I thought I was pointing out the snow, I was really saying something entirely different. Again, whoops. Makes me wonder what he was saying when he created that whole lecture all by himself that was not about snow.
When it was finally time to get out and pay, I gave him the amount that the meter showed. But then he reminded me about the toll. As I was pulling out more money for that, a couple 1 dollar bills fell out of my purse. He got super excited and started chanting "meigua money"! So instead of paying him the extra 35 kuai, he was very satisfied with $2. Works for me!
Lastly, in general, if you stop staring at the color of my hair, I'll stop staring at the 18 inches of rhinestones on your boots. Seriously, if rhinestones were living creatures, they would be extinct. Welcome back to China :)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Mandarin Fails
With all these Mandarin lessons, I've been trying to go out on my own a little more, interact with the Chinese, and be a contributing member of society, aka shopping! I have failed every single time.
Shelly and I were browsing a store about a block away, but I wanted to wait to make a decision. When I went back later and described what I wanted to order, and when I would be back to pick it up, he go the totally wrong impressions. I ended up calling someone to translate, and then he called someone to translate, it was just a mess, and I ended up coming back with Shelly the next day to make the purchase.
Shelly actually seems to save the day a lot. I was heading to RT Mart (grocery store) to pick up a couple of things, and I asked her if they had eggs there. The Chinese are a little iffy on dairy so it was a legit question. She then offered to accompany me. It turns out, eggs are sold like fruit, but they have an employee bag how many you want, and put them on the scale for you before check out. Then, I actually needed an RT Mart card to purchase them. Shelly didn't know she was going shopping with me, so she didn't have her card on her, and she ended up asking the guy at the next register if we could borrow his.
Thank goodness for Shelly and the random stranger buying groceries next to us, or I would never have been able to make brownies!
Also, it's almost time to leave so I went to the bank to withdraw money in USD to bring with me. It's cheaper than transferring :) Before I went, I thought I was clever, I had Lisa write down in Chinese characters a message that said I had come to withdraw from my account and the amount I wanted in USD. Lisa then asked me, "you have everything, right?" Then I learned, in order to make a withdrawal, I have to have my passport, my foreign Chinese resident document, my pay slip and my tax slip. Woah. And it turns out, the bank requires not just one pay slip, but all my pay slips for the money I wanted to take out. I have to prove that I deposited that money, and that I was paid legally. It's not enough that the money is in MY account, I have to prove that I earned it. NER.
Well I have one more glorious day of school, and then I'm home free! So I'm signing off for now. More blogging to come January 7th.
Shelly and I were browsing a store about a block away, but I wanted to wait to make a decision. When I went back later and described what I wanted to order, and when I would be back to pick it up, he go the totally wrong impressions. I ended up calling someone to translate, and then he called someone to translate, it was just a mess, and I ended up coming back with Shelly the next day to make the purchase.
Shelly actually seems to save the day a lot. I was heading to RT Mart (grocery store) to pick up a couple of things, and I asked her if they had eggs there. The Chinese are a little iffy on dairy so it was a legit question. She then offered to accompany me. It turns out, eggs are sold like fruit, but they have an employee bag how many you want, and put them on the scale for you before check out. Then, I actually needed an RT Mart card to purchase them. Shelly didn't know she was going shopping with me, so she didn't have her card on her, and she ended up asking the guy at the next register if we could borrow his.
Thank goodness for Shelly and the random stranger buying groceries next to us, or I would never have been able to make brownies!
Also, it's almost time to leave so I went to the bank to withdraw money in USD to bring with me. It's cheaper than transferring :) Before I went, I thought I was clever, I had Lisa write down in Chinese characters a message that said I had come to withdraw from my account and the amount I wanted in USD. Lisa then asked me, "you have everything, right?" Then I learned, in order to make a withdrawal, I have to have my passport, my foreign Chinese resident document, my pay slip and my tax slip. Woah. And it turns out, the bank requires not just one pay slip, but all my pay slips for the money I wanted to take out. I have to prove that I deposited that money, and that I was paid legally. It's not enough that the money is in MY account, I have to prove that I earned it. NER.
Well I have one more glorious day of school, and then I'm home free! So I'm signing off for now. More blogging to come January 7th.
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