I'm Becoming a Princess

It is no secret – I am not having a difficult time adjusting to the finer things here in China. It is interesting living here because there are so many things that I don’t have that I took advantage of in the US such as drinking water, a dryer, dishwasher, or an oven. Yet somehow, I am becoming spoiled. Let me tell you about my favorite things in China…CoCo Bubble Tea, Pokey Sticks, market shopping, Foot Massages, Hair Wash, and Oil Massages.

CoCo Bubble tea is just a kind of juice and tea drink, very similar to the bubble tea in the US, but delicious. I am obsessed with Pokey Sticks, but I don’t really know why. They are just a cracker/cookie kind of stick with a flavor cream/frosting either on the inside or covering the outside. My favorite is dipping them in peanut butter – yummm. I am sure you can imagine how much I love market shopping, I mean, really who wouldn’t? I am getting better at the game, even though I leave thinking that I just got it for so cheap, yet I am sure I was still ripped off.

But really, nothing can compare to the massages. I don’t want to make you jealous or anything, but they are pretty fabulous! My favorite is the foot massage. First of all, you sit in an oversized lazy boy recliner while they serve you hot tea and an orange (I know, kind of weird). Then, while my feet are soaking in a hot tea oil bath, the masseuse rubs my neck, shoulders, arms and back. Following the upper body massage, the masseuse spends the majority of the time rubbing my feet and legs with an oil cream. My favorite part is at the end. They mix up some kind of clay and pour it over my feet, and then wrap my feet in plastic. As the clay hardens on my feet, it also becomes warm, and when they finally break it off, my feet are sooo soft. All of that takes about 70 minutes and costs only 58 RMB – which is only about 8 USD.

The hair washes are pretty much amazing. I am not going to lie, when the Courtneys told me how much they loved getting their hair washed, I made fun of them a little bit. I used to tell them that I could wash my own hair. Well one day, they convinced me to try it, so I did – after all, it was only 20 RMB. Well they started off by just rubbing my head, then added shampoo to my dry hair. As they rubbed in the shampoo, they continued to massage my head and play with my hair for like 20 minutes. Then they rinsed out my hair and did the same with conditioner. After the conditioner was rinsed out, they wrapped my hair in a towel and rubbed my neck, shoulders, arms and back while my hair was drying. Finally, they dried my hair.

The full body oil massages are pretty similar to the ones that I have had in the US, only when they give a full body that also includes chest and stomach. I was not sure how I was going to feel about the chest and stomach part – A. because my stomach is ticklish and B. because I didn’t think I would be comfortable laying exposed while someone rubbed around my chest and boobs. Court and I went together and we were in the same room divided by a curtain, and she assured me that it was enjoyable. However, when two young guys walked in to do our full body massages, I was even more skeptical. I went through with it and it ended up being great! My masseuse was professional, and never made me feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, Court was nearly molested by her overzealous masseuse who kept insisting that she take off her panties.

I realized I was a Princess after Court and I spent the day market shopping, then went to the mall to get some CoCo and Pokeys and headed to The Silver Bowl to get foot massages (our second ones in one week).  What kind I say…  you should be pleased that I am adjusting well :-)

Just call me "Mr. Leeesa"

So I am finally getting settled in and adjusted to the many faces of MRA… so do you want the run down? I ADORE my children, a love my staff, I am passionate about teaching, but I am not crazy about the center or the curriculum. I can’t say that I am surprised. I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into before coming. Yet I still made the decision to come knowing that the experience of teaching in a foreign country would challenge my values, beliefs and philosophies. I told myself that I would come out on the other side a stronger person and a better teacher and I still believe that.

My kids are fabulous. Like I have said before, I have four year olds from around the world – Germany, France, Japan, Venezuela, and local China. They are so sweet and adorable and I truly enjoy spending the day with them (most days). Beyond just my class, I have gotten to know the children in the other three classes, and they are just as great! My kids call me all different things - some of them have a difficult time with the pronunciation and they call me Ms. Maleeeesa, Mr. Malessssa, or Mr. Leeesa (this one is my favorite).

I really like the people that I work with two. Thus far, everyone has been really nice. Of course I am close with the Courtneys, and there is one other American teacher from Pennsylvania – she is really nice too. The Chinese teachers have been really welcoming as well. I have two Chinese assistant teachers in my class – Ms. Qian and Ms. Huang. Ms. Qian speaks the best English out of all the Chinese teachers so it is fairly easy to communicate with her. Ms. Huang doesn’t speak very good English so she is really shy to speak to me, but still really kind. If you read my previous entry “Like a Bosssss” you can understand a little bit of what they go through working here. Most of the Chinese teachers hate Morgan, and they complain about him a lot but one thing that I have learned is to not trust anyone. Morgan has created a warzone of a work place putting people against each other that it seems like the Chinese teachers are always feuding in one way or another. We try to stay out of everything and just try to sympathize with them.

Of course I love the teaching part! I told myself that no matter what happened over here, I would be an advocate for children and education and fight for what I believe about teaching young children, and that is exactly what I have been doing. The unfortunate part is that I am forced to do a lot of fighting.

The Chinese culture is interesting in respects to what they believe about education. They all believe that their children are baby Einstein’s and that the most important thing is education, over social and emotional growth and fostering natural curiosity. On the other hand, my philosophy is that the social and emotion development is the most important thing at this age, and that all of the other stuff is learned through emergent curriculum, teachable moments and discovery. Now this part wouldn’t be so bad, if all of my children were Chinese… but they are not, and it becomes a battle.

On the other hand, I have two German families that believe that children don’t learn (nor should they be forced to learn) anything until they are six. My German families refuse to have their children do homework (which is fine by me) and believe that their child should just be allowed to play all day and not do lessons. Although I agree with a play based curriculum, all that I can tell them is that they are at the wrong center.

So anyway, I am given a curriculum that I am supposed to follow monthly with lessons for language arts, phonics, math, science, music & movement, art, oral language and storytelling. In addition to the academic, I have specific character building skills each week, too. The curriculum is straight out of a book and is centered on drilling children to learn English. The children are supposed to do guided reading, however, the curriculum states that they listen and follow along to a CD reading a book 3 times and call it “guided reading”.  The children are also supposed to be writing and reading sentences. The curriculum only allows for two art, two music and two math/science lessons a week – one in English and one in Chinese. I don’t even want to get started on what they call an “art” lesson (cut & paste, models, zero creativity), the music lessons include teaching lyrics to children and then having individuals stand in front of the class to sing independently, and there is nothing emergent about math/science either.

Each week has a book theme and a letter of the week, but aside from that, there are no broad themes or topics, nor are there projects or extended activities. Each lesson is completely separate from the next and there is not a flow to repeat or reinforce concepts taught. For example, today I taught a lesson about the 5 senses. I had the children use their senses to taste, touch, smell, hear and see different things and then we talked about describing the different objects (it looks like… and it smells like…). The children really enjoyed the lesson, and if I were back home, I would have spent at least a week with the children investigating how we use our senses, and let them touch and taste and smell a lot of things instead of just one. I would have extended the lessons to make charts for what kinds of tastes or smells they liked more (math/science), and we could have a scavenger hunt to find things that feel different, and we could have played eye-spy…  you get the point. However, I did the lesson today and (per the curriculum) we will never talk about the senses again.

The one thing that Morgan always talks about is DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE. In fact, he preaches about how the most important thing within his center is that we teach developmentally appropriate. Let me be honest – he has NO IDEA what those words mean! The curriculum is a “one size fits all.” There is zero room for differentiation, and it does not foster to different learning styles. So it is completely developmentally appropriate that my child whom does not speak a word of English has to sit through the same lessons as a child whom speaks fluent English and a beginning reader.

So Morgan gave me the OK to change my curriculum around, as long as it is developmentally appropriate. So I have decided to make HUGE changes to my room. Instead of having all whole group lessons, I have divided my class into small groups based on their developmental levels, language and literacy abilities and social/emotional skills and the majority of my reading, writing, language and phonics lessons will be done in small groups – differentiated to the needs of the group. There will be a broad theme that will overlap between all the lessons, and there will be a ton of repetition and reinforcement.

When I told Morgan about my ideas for improving my class, he told me that I am “overly ambitions” and that I am only making more work for myself. How encouraging. Of course, I am making more work for myself because now I am actually planning for MY kids, not just following a cookie cut curriculum – I am actually doing my job now and a little bit of hard work will be worth it if it benefits my children in the long run. He also think that parents are not going to like it, so I am writing a letter to my parents explaining the changes and the new class schedule, why I am doing it and how it will benefit their child. I start my new curriculum next week, so we will see how Morgan and the parent react to it.

That is the other thing about Morgan, if even one parent makes a comment about it, he will completely side with the parent and make me go back to the old way instead of supporting and trusting me as his teacher. Morgan does not have a backbone when it comes to parents. Mostly, it is because he doesn’t actually care about the children – it is a business that makes him a lot of money and parents pay that money. No matter what a parent says, the only thing Morgan will tell them is exactly what they want to hear. There is not standard for our school that Morgan will say, “this is our school, this is how we do things, if you don’t like it then this is not the school for you.” Instead, he tries to please every parent and tell them exactly what they want to hear. The only problem is that he contradicts himself and changes his mind daily.

For example, if a parent says it is ok for my child to “play fight” and he says, “That is ok with us!” Five minutes later, another parent says it’s not ok for my child to “play fight” and he says, “We don’t let our children play fight.”

Ugh… I think I am getting off topic here. Sorry, it has just been a little bit of a frustrating day at MRA. I guess I just needed to rant a little bit!

What a weekend...

Since I have been here, it seems like there is always something stopping me from being able to go out and see the city and do fun things on the weekends – we have all been sick, or we are always so tired from work or whatever. However, this weekend was pretty fabulous!

It started Friday night. H and I had made plans to go to Burger Bistro for dinner and then grab a couple drinks, but Leonardo invited us to join him and some of his friends for dinner and drinks. So we meet up with Leonardo in Pu Dong at a Spanish restaurant for dinner. It was a really tiny restaurant (maybe like 10 tables max) and Leonardo knew probably about half of the people in the restaurant. At first, the three of us sat at our own table and enjoyed a ton of food and some Sangrias. Then Leo’s friend Ben joined us with his friend, Maria. Ben is an American born Chinese guy whom has been living in Shanghai for 8 years, and Maria was an Hispanic girl and had moved from Mexico to China only days before – they were both really nice.

I love meeting new people and it was really nice having them join us so it wasn’t just me and the couple. Don’t get me wrong, I like Courtney and Leonardo and I think they are really cute together and everything, but they seriously make me want to vomit. They are one of those honeymoon couples – like they always have to be touching or hugging or kissing no matter what they are doing. I usually can just block it out when we are at the apartment, but when they are sitting across from me at dinner, it is a little bit more difficult. When they act all snuggly ugly like that, it makes me nauseous and it makes me lonely.

Anyway, back to the weekend… So Ben and Maria were really nice and I spent the rest of dinner talking with them. Although Maria spoke a little bit of English, I was able to speak to her in Spanish too so we had a lot to talk about. Ben was from Chicago, so we had a lot to talk about too.

So after we left the Spanish restaurant, Ben wanted to take us to the Window’s bar across town, but getting a taxi was a little bit of a challenge since there were 5 of us. Sometimes, taxi drivers don’t care and they will let 5 people pile in, but some taxi drivers get pissed and turn off their car and say no. That is what the first taxi driver did. So then we plotted a “sneak attack” as Ben called it – four of us walked together while the fifth walked in front of us. When he got a taxi, the four of us blocked as the fifth person snuck up behind and jumped in. Once we were all inside, Maria was sitting on my lap and the driver never even say me – SUCCESS!

The Windows Bar was incredible. It was a bar in the top of a sky rise building. The inside looked just like a local pub; pool tables, beer pong tables, and shuffle board. The drinks were really cheap and really strong and they had really good bar food but the best part, was that the walls were all glass windows and it over looked the city. I sat next to the window and stared at the view nearly the whole time. There are moments that I just stop and think to myself, I live in Shanghai, China… holy crap! This was one of those moments. It is also those moments that make me wish that my favorite people in the world were here with me to share those moments.

Side note about Bars in China: they don’t have a closing time. Some bars are 24 hours, but most bars close when the business is gone. If there are people in the bar until 6 am, they will stay open until 6 am to serve them. There are also no laws about bringing liquor into bars or taking liquor out of bars. We had a fifth of vodka that Maria brought in and we were taking shots out of it right there in the bar. You can also get a to go cup and drink in the taxi on the ride home if you’d like.

So anyway, I was exhausted and ready to leave the bar around 2:30 am, so I got myself into a taxi, told him where to go and managed to get myself all the way home without a hitch! I know, I know, it is impressive. It is a slow process, but I am learning and gaining a little bit of independence from the Courtneys.

Geography Lesson: like I said before, Shanghai is absolutely HUGE. It is divided in half by the Huangpu River – Pu Dong (east) and Pu Xi (west). We live in the very far west of Pu Xi, almost as far west as you can go without leaving the city. We like to refer to Pu Dong as “Pu York” and Pu Xi as “Pu Jersey” because it is exactly what they are like. Pu Dong is much nicer, it is cleaner and really beautiful and has a more high class city feel. On the other hand, Pu Xi has areas that are really nice and “big city” like, but a lot of it is more like the outskirts of the city. Even further out, Qibao is like the Bronx of Shanghai. We like to spend as much time as we can outside Qibao and we travel closer to the city. Unfortunately, it is about an hour taxi or subway ride into the middle of the city, and over two hours to get to the other side.

Since Courtney stayed out with Leonardo’s in Pu Dong, she called me and asked me to meet her at a market on that side of town to do a little bit of shopping and to see the city. So I got ready and headed to the metro for my hour ride across town. I met up with her at the Science and Technology Museum Markets. The market was fabulous. It was the size of a mall and just a maze of shop after shop. Everywhere had all the same stuff, but that was what made bargaining so much fun! Walking through the halls, people come out of their shops yelling, “hey lady, hey lady. You want shirt, DVD, handbag?” In regards to the bargaining process, I have learned that unless you are 100 percent going to purchase the item; don’t even make eye contact with the salesperson. Once you do, there is no going back. They will bargain and bargain, and chase you around the market until you buy something. It was fun though, and I got a couple different things.

When we were done shopping, Leonardo met us at the market and we jumped back on the subway and headed to Nanjing Dong Lu (E. Nanjing Rd. – a pedestrian walkway of shops and restaurants) in the middle of the city. We walked around a little bit, and eventually made our way to the Huangpu River to see The Bund. The Bund is a walkway look out next to the river that overlooks the Pu Dong skyline. It is a huge touristy area and an absolutely breath-taking sight. It was about 8:30 by this time, so it was dark and the city was lit up. Standing on the walkway, I could see the entire skyline of Pu Dong and the city lights of Nanjing Dong Lu too. It was a really great view and another one of those moments that make me think, this is where I live… We stayed there to admire the view for a little bit, but it was kind of crowded so we headed back down Nanjing Dong Lu. We found a subway to eat at, then got in a taxi to go back home to Qibao for a movie night.

The next morning, we woke up and decided to go to Old Town in Qibao. Old town is within walking distance from our apartment in Qibao (only about 2 miles), and it a small area known for its market shopping, delicious food and street food. It was a pretty nice day, so it was jam packed! The walkway through the market was only about 6 feet wide, and people were herding in all directions trying to get through. We made it about half way through to find s small Chinese Restaurant to eat at. I really like going out to eat with Leonardo because he is not only Chef and I trust his food choices, but he also speaks a little bit of Chinese so it makes eating a local places a little but easier. He picked up the menu and just started rambling off stuff to order for us all.

Chinese restaurants are all family style, so you can’t order an entrée kind of meal, but a couple dishes and side dishes to just share. Also, nothing comes out together – they just bring it out as it is ready so it is a meal of never ending food. However, rice always comes out last. They don’t eat rice with their meals, they eat it as a filler if you are still hungry after all the rest of the food is gone, so it is kind of tricky trying to explain that we want the rice out with the rest of the food. They just don’t get it. We got fried rice, shredded potatoes and peppers, cabbage and mushrooms with an oil brown sauce, a dry veggie “salad”, sweet and sour shrimp, and a spicy pork and peanuts dish. It was all really good.

After we left the restaurant, we were going to head a little bit deeper into the markets, but it was a sea of people and, to be honest, it frightened me just a little bit, so we ended up turning around and going back. I couldn’t leave the market without getting some sticky fruit though first!  Before going home, we got some bubble tea (they are awesome) at the mall and Courtney and I went for full body massages at our favorite spa – the Silver Bowl…

But that is a story for another day…

No Thank You!

Sometimes when I think about my job, it kind of freaks me out a little bit to think that I am responsible for little humans. Parents leave their prize possessions in my care for 6 hours a day and expect me to empower then with an abundance of knowledge and transform them into outstanding little people. At times, my job is fun and entertaining and my children are caring and kind and hilarious. On the other hand, sometimes they are resistant, aggressive and mean. My job here in China is more demanding than your average preschool for obvious reasons and I am challenged daily. I have grown fond of all of my children, but there is one child that I have really connected with… his name is Yushi.

Yushi is a brand new Japanese student. He has only been in China for a couple of months, and here at MRA since early January. Yushi speaks only Japanese. We are fortunate enough to have a couple multilingual students that speak Japanese, English and Chinese so it helps communicate with him a little bit. When I first meet Yushi, my heart just broke for him. He always just looked sad, he never paid attention during lessons, and he was really aggressive towards teachers and other students. All of the Chinese teachers would talk about how “bad” Yushi was and that they were not fond of him but I, on the other hand, was very fond of him and so patient with him.

During work time and outdoor time, Yushi would run up to people, hit them and then run away. The teachers would get really made and grab him and scold him. When he would do it to me, I would drop down to his level and hold his hand very gently and tell him, “I don’t want you to hit me” and shake my head. Whenever I interact with him, I am calm and gentle and I smile a lot and use my hands a lot to talk to him.

There was one day when Yushi broke down during class. I don’t even know if there was a reason or what the reason was, but he lost it and became hysterical. I picked him up and took him into the hallway and just sat with him while he cried. There really was nothing that I could say to him to make him feel better, and he wouldn’t understand, but I still talked to him in a calm and warm voice. My heart just broke for him. This poor guy, only 4 years old, moved to a foreign country and dropped into a preschool of ten different languages. I am sure he felt terrified and alone and he had every right to be upset. No wonder he was aggressive and withdrawn – I would be too.

I have a new appreciation and respect for children like Yushi (like many of my other children), and for the first time, I really understood what it was like to be the outsider and the Second Language Learner. So while he sat there and just cried, I wanted to cry with him.  

After a week or two, Yushi’s demeanor completely changed toward me. He was no longer as aggressive, in fact, he was much more loving. At play time outside, instead of running around hitting people, he would just walk around with me holding my hand. He also began interacting with me more during class as well. He still was not speaking, but he was becoming pretty good at sign language. Throughout the day anything that he would “sign” to me, I would repeat back to him in English several times. I wanted him to repeat the word back to me, but he never would. Still, every time he pointed to a chair, I said chair; and every time he grabbed his water bottle, I said water; and every time he would shake his head no, I would say no thank you. It was slow, but it was a work in progress.

One day, I was setting up snack for the kids. I know that Yushi never wants snack, but I still ask him every day, and he will shake his head, and I will say, “Ok, say no thank you” but he doesn’t say it. On this day, however, Yushi came up to me while I was preparing it and said, “No thank you” and pointed to the snack. It was the first time that I ever heard him speak any English and it was the first time that he made any kind of language initiation. I smiled at him, repeated it and gave him a big thumbs up. I was so excited and everything came together for me and I felt that I really did have a purpose here. In that moment, I was reminded of my passion for teaching and I knew that I was able to make a difference – even if it was only one child, and only one small phrase, it was a huge step for him and for the trust in our relationship.

Since that day, all of the words that I have been saying to Yushi, he is now saying to me. It kind of makes me laugh every time because he would never say or repeat them, but it is like he was taking them in and storing them in his memory for later. Now, he was say line up when he is asking if it is time to line up; he will say water when it is time to get water, and coat when he is asking if he needs to wear a coat. He also says some other things such as; yes, no, chair, art, house, blocks and his favorite song is Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here in China, Valentine's Day really is not celebrated like it is in the US. In fact, the majority of my children did not even know what Valentine's Day was, with the exception of my Western children. In class, I showed my children how to make hearts by folding paper in half, and then we did Valentine's Day art - but that was the extent of the celebration. It was kind of nice to not have to worry about a party or anything, but it was kind of depressing at the same time.

After work, I celebrated Valentine's Day with the two best pseudoValentines in China - the Courtneys. We went out to PuDong and went to Pistolera's. It is sooooo delicious and probably my favorite restaurant in China thus far, but it is on the complete other side of town and takes an hour by subway and then a 15 minute taxi ride, so we don't get to go there often.

Anyway, H's boyfriend is the owner of Pistolera's and he had to work that night, so we decided to go out there and surprise him and get some dinner. He was definitely surprised and luckily they were not too busy at the time so he got to sit down and eat with us. He treated us to some appetizers and Margarita's, and we ate some really delicious food. Unfortunately my stomach was still not feeling well from being sick all weekend, so I really did not enjoy the food as much as I should of, but it was still a nice evening.

I wish my Valentine could have been here with me...

Like a Bosssss

I would like to introduce you to my boss, Morgan Huang – the director of Morgan Rothschild Academy – and he sure is something. Originally, he is from Taiwan, then attended University of Michigan and Harvard for graduate school before he ended up in Shanghai, China to open the best High Scope Childcare Center to international families (I hope that you sense the sarcasm). Although he studied education at Harvard, I would like to start by telling you that he is not, or has he ever been a teacher, therefore has a pretty interesting philosophy and approach. For the sake of keeping this entry short, I am going to focus on just Morgan… and I will get to the curriculum later.

Side Note – History Lesson: Mr. Morgan’s assistant is Ms. Shi (she is great and is a huge help for the American teachers). Mr. Morgan and Ms. Shi dated for like 4 years, but now they have been broken up for a while, but she is still his assistant. Mr. Morgan is now dating Ms. Li, one of the Chinese teachers in the toddler room. Mr. Morgan is 40 and Ms. Li is 24 (gross). Ms. Shi, and just about every other Chinese teacher, hate Ms. Li – for obvious reasons.

Anyway… I have been at MRA for less than a month and already, I have zero respect for the man. The first week, he spent a lot of time in my classroom helping me adjust and get used to the schedule so I got to know him pretty well right off the bat. First of all, he is one of the most awkward people I have ever met in my life. I am still trying to decide if it is a cultural thing, or if it is just him. He speaks decent English, but just so awkward… like he is unsure of himself and looking for approval, but also trying to sound authoritative and knowledgeable at the same time. It is almost like he is intimidated by the American teachers because his interactions with the Chinese teachers are completely different (but I’ll get to that part later). However, his interaction with parents is pretty similar – awkward.

He tends to talk down to people, too, which really drives me crazy. I feel like he talks to me like a child, and he feels the need to explain things to me over and over, unnecessarily. For the first three weeks, every time he walked in to my class he would tell me that one of my students was aggressive, and that he just needs to be reminded to not hurt his friends… “Thank you for clarifying because I couldn’t see that with my own two eyes. I am glad that you are here to remind me every day that he is aggressive.”

To call Morgan a hypocrite would be inappropriate. In fact, it would probably be understatement of the year. He does more preaching than a pastor on Sunday, but does not live up to a word he says. This man could talk an ear off about developmentally appropriate practices in preschool, but I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing developmentally appropriate about MRA – but again, I’ll save that one for another entry…

Aside from him being a tool of a human, let me tell you how inappropriate he is with the children (WARNING: if you are an American parent, you are about to have a heart attack. Bayer aspirin is recommended). From my understanding, his interactions/relationship with the children is completely culturally accepted, but I cannot get past it.

He acts more like a crazy uncle with the kids then the director of the center and a “teacher” figure. He wrestles on the floor with them, picks them up and throws the around, tickles them, chases them and loves interrupting class lessons. He allows the children to kick, hit and punch him and he loves to threaten them. His favorite saying is, “If you do not do ____, then I cannot let you ____.” They are empty threats, however, because he doesn’t follow through on anything. None of the children see him as any kind of authority figure. They do not listen to him and as soon as he walks into a room, they all think it is play time because that is all he does with them. Now of course everyone loves a crazy uncle, right? But how would you feel if you walked into your child’s classroom to see the male director of the program sitting on top of your child tickling him/her? Or my favorite, when children begin to hit him and punch him like they always do, he turns his body and sticks out his butt so the kids hit his butt.

The worst is when he comes into my classroom when I am trying to get the kids ready for a lesson. As soon as they see him, the boy automatically attack him, and I sit there, waiting for him to grow up so that I can continue with my lesson. Then after he leaves, I spend the next twenty minutes trying to get the attention of my 4 year olds back on the lesson. But then Morgan has the nerve to tell me that my boys are “aggressive”. I want to tell him, “No, my boys are not aggressive until you walk into the room and allow them to hit and kick you. Then, of course they are aggressive.”

I have seen kids slap him across the face hard enough to knock off his glasses and he laughs. Now tell me how I am supposed to tell my kids it is not ok to hit and kick and wrestle in school when an adult is not only supporting it, but encouraging it? Additionally, when he wrestles on the floor with a pile of kids jumping and climbing all over him, a child always ends up getting hurt because he is too rough with them, or another child accidently hits his friend instead of Mr. Morgan. Parents complain about the behavior on a regular basis, especially the Western families. Whenever the complaint is brought to his attention, he always seems so surprised… like he has no idea that his behavior is inappropriate.

Last week, I had to have a meeting with him after one of my parents was completely livid with the fighting going on at school. It was interesting having to sit down with my boss and tell him that fighting is not ok in my classroom and I would appreciate it if he did not play fight with my kids to encourage the behavior. I told him that my parents were outraged and that his interactions with my children were completely inappropriate and that his actions would land him in jail or at least one hell of a lawsuit in America. His response – “Oh, ok. I will try to cut back with your class.”

Well, I sure hope you are as worked up as I am right now. I think that you are beginning to feel some of the same feelings for Morgan as I do… Now let me tell you the other side of Morgan – the Chinese version. Now, apparently, the “Chinese Morgan” is very different from “American Morgan” (I use this very condescendingly because sometimes he refers to himself as “We Americans…” and sometimes he says, “We Chinese…” but I assure you, there is nothing American about him). Morgan is a completely different person to the Chinese teachers, and compared to them, our job and our relationship is a cake walk.

First of all, the job responsibilities divided between the American and Chinese teachers is completely unfair. I am the lead teacher, but the Chinese teachers are supposed to do all of the bitch work. They come in hours before us to ride on the school buses to pick up the children, then they stay hours after us to clean and disinfect the entire preschool. Throughout the day, they are supposed to do all of the cleaning and set up. They do not get a break throughout the day either while the American teachers get over an hour. Aside from their daily duties… you might be interested to learn that they do not actually make a wage. Instead, their pay in based on their performance throughout the month and bonuses are added and fines are subtracted for Morgan to come up with an amount that he feels is appropriate.

For starters, Chinese teachers get bonuses if they tell on each other – this makes for an interesting work environment (and I have learned that you can’t trust anyone). One the other hand, Chinese teachers are fined if they don’t wear enough make up, if their hair is not done perfectly every day, if they do not finish their lunches, if too many kids are absent from their class, if parents complain about anything, and anything else he feels like fining them for. It is appalling, and yet another reason why he would go to jail in America.

The other day, Mr. Morgan came into my classroom and asked for both of the Chinese teachers to step out into the hallway with him. Then he proceeded to tell them that they did not look pretty enough because they were not wearing enough red lipstick. If that was me, I would have slapped him! However, in the Asian culture, it is completely acceptable for the boss to enforce a “dress code” and fine employees for not following dress code. They were each fined 200 Yuan and wore a little more make up the next day. Then there are the American teachers… we roll out of bed, sometimes shower, throw our hair back and never wear makeup. Also, on days that the Chinese teachers can’t finish their lunch, they will scoop the left over’s into a bag and hide it in the garbage. The Chinese teachers tell me stories all the time about the things that he says to them or tells them to do, and I just can’t believe it. All of them hate him, naturally, but I just can’t imagine why they stick around (some of them for several years).

Anyway… I am done ranting for now. There will be more to come. I can’t wait to tell you all about my curriculum!  I am in the process of making some huge changes to my classroom so I will let you know more about that later.

Zàijiàn for now

Zhu Ni Sheng Ri Kuai Le

I wish that I could say that my 24^th birthday was the best ever, and that I did something so amazing because it was my first birthday celebrated in Shanghai. Unfortunately, it ended up being a pretty horrible, actually… Well I shouldn’t say the whole day was horrible, it started off perfectly.

It began just like any other day. As I got ready for work, my sister and niece called me on skype to wish me a happy birthday. Then I headed into work. In the morning, my phonics lesson was interrupted when Ms. Shi came into my class with a dozen purple roses. They were so beautiful and so completely unexpected that I was absolutely blown away. The note attached read, “I will not let half of the world stop me from doing something special for you on your birthday…” I know, amazing right! My kids loved the flowers. They kept saying, “They are the most beautiful thing I ever saw” (and they pretty much were). That afternoon, Mr. Morgan bought a big cake for me and we had a big birthday celebration with my class and the toddler class and a couple teachers. The kids all sang Happy Birthday to me in both Chinese and English, and they gave me a huge card that was signed by the whole school.

After school, the Courtneys and I had planned on dinner and some drinks. We ended up at an Italian restaurant close by called De Marco’s. It was a fabulous restaurant with pretty good Italian food. At the end of dinner, as we discussed where to head next for drinks, I started to not feel so great. We were all tired, so we ended up heading back to the apartment for a fun night in with wine and games. In the taxi, I started to feel worse – just completely nauseous. Once we got home (around 8:30 pm), I began vomiting and continued to vomit every twenty minutes for the next 12 hours. It was absolutely awful! It was very strange though because I never had a fever and I did not feel sick in any other way besides the vomiting. I could not decide whether I had picked up some kind of stomach bug or if it was something bad that I ate. I still really don’t know, but it sucked nonetheless.

I had planned to treat myself to a massage and a little bit of shoe shopping to celebrate my birthday, but I spent the next two days and the rest of the weekend lying in bed forcing myself to eat crackers and drink water – letting my body recover from being run over by the bus!

Hot Springs

We heard there were some of the best natural hot springs in Nanjing so we decided to take advantage of the experience while we were on vacation, and headed into the mountains to pamper ourselves a little bit. Once we arrived, it was not exactly what I had pictured, but it was interesting. I guess I had pictured something a little bit more exotic and natural and adults only. Instead, it was a built up resort with rows and rows of hot tubs and pools and a ton of kids. Don’t get me wrong, we made the best of it and we had a good time, it was just different. So let me tell you a little bit about it.

First of all, I should start by telling you that the majority of the hot springs are fully nude, but fortunately, we ended up at one that was not (thank goodness). Nonetheless, as we walked down the stairs to the locker room, there were naked women and children everywhere. Like I told you before, the culture has very little discretion so being naked is no big deal. Anyway, we made our way to our locker, changed into our swim suits and headed outside. I was nervous about going outside. After all, it is the middle of winter, and I wore a scarf and gloves into the resort, but strangely enough, it was actually not cold outside. I guess that is the good part about being on a hot spring, the hot water below the surface warms the air just above the surface and makes it feel warmer. Surprisingly, it was warm enough to walk around in bathing suits comfortably.  

Like I said, it was not exactly what I had pictured in my head, but it was nice. There were like one hundred different hot tubs with all different kinds of herbs, minerals and teas in them. Of course this is just my conclusion based on the fact that they each smelled a little different and some had different thing floating in them – I do not actually know what the heck they were because it was all in Chinese. It also had several pools with jet massagers and stuff. There was one pool that had little fish that supposedly eat all the dead skin off your body – kind of gross, right? When we found that pool, it was jam packed with people swimming in it, when you are supposed to sit still. Looking at the water, I could see lots of little fish, lots of dead fish floating and murky water I attributed to the combination of dead skin, fish and a whole lot of fish poop. Gross!

My favorite part of the hot spring was the mud bath!  We had to pay a little extra to go in, but we were the only one in it at first. It was very strange. The mud was really soft and warm on our skin, and we were supposed to rub it all over. The strange part was that we floated in the water because the mud was so thick. It scared me at first because I tried to sit down and couldn’t because I was floating. After the mud bath, we were buried in a pit of hot red rocks – literally buried from our neck down. The rocks were really heavy and they were pokey, so to be honest, it was not very enjoyable. When we got out, we were all freaking out because the rocks had turned our skin red and our entire body was textured from the pressure of the rocks. We looked like snakes, and it took a really long time for the color and texture to go away.

After a day like that, you would not think that we would have been so exhausted. I guess it is kind of like spending the whole day at the beach – even though it is relaxing, the heat and the water is just draining. After leaving the hot spring, the Courtneys hit up the street corner for some street food, I opted to get pizza hut instead, a couple dessert from the bakery (because it was H’s birthday) and some wine and headed back to the hotel to pass out.

You have to pray before eating street food

The second day of our trip to Nanjing, we ended up at a Lantern Festival. We had planned to do some sightseeing and touristy stuff, but when we asked the taxi driver to take us to the Confucius Temple, he dropped us off at the Lantern Festival instead and insisted that it was where we wanted to be… Little did we know, it is actually where we wanted to be – the temple was just tucked away behind the festival.

Anyway, so the festival was interesting. It was mostly market shopping and a ton of street food. This was where I learned the fine art of bargaining and bought my first pair of Nike tennis shoes, along with a couple shirts, sweatshirts and some light put bunny ears (for the new year celebration, of course). Some people are fun to barter with because they are really friendly and happy, and very willing to negotiate. They always know just what to say… so pretty; beautiful lady; your best price. And even thought we don’t speak the same language and most of the communication is done via a calculator, there is a mutual respect for the positions. On the other hand, there are also the jack asses that hike up the price and are rude about bargaining. That is when I walk away and say, “Eff you!”

The other highlight of the festival was the street food. I must admit that it definitely looks interesting and sometimes is smells delicious but I am just not brave enough yet. Some people say that they come to China just for the street food, and the Courtney’s absolutely love it. I am sure that is probably is fabulous if you can get past the fact that the raw meat is sitting out all day, and that they cook with their bare hands (before and after dealing with money), and that once the food is cooked, it just sits there in the open until someone buys it. There are many things about the health and safety of the process which disturbs me, but if you can get past that… maybe it is edible.

Street food is everywhere and they have just about anything that you can imagine – fruits, veggies, squid legs, octopus, chicken heads, dumplings, beef on a stick, eggs, sushi, rice, noodles and lots of fried things. Sometime these people are set up in a stand where they cook the food on a large flat top, or fry it in a fryer, and have all the food laid out cooked to choose from. On the other hand, sometimes people pull raw meat out of their dirty van and cook it on a grill right on the sidewalk.

The Courtneys absolutely love street food, and they ate a ton of it at the festival, and there were even a couple things that I tried…  dough ball stuffed with red beans, sticky fruit on a stick (sooo delicious), fried dough on a stick, egg role, fried noodles, and quail eggs. The Courtneys also ate squid legs, beef on a stick, dumplings, chicken, and Nian Gou (I don’t know what this is but it was a really weird texture but it looked like potatoes). Each time we would try some street food, L would say a little prayer because everyone knows you have to pray before eating street food – honestly.

Let me tell you about STINKY TOFU… it is the most disgusting thing that I have ever encountered in my entire life. There is a reason it is called stinky tofu – because it is repulsive. Stinky Tofu is old, fermented tofu soaked in vinegar, and then it is fried. It smells like the worse combination of the most disgusting smells all rolled into one – like a farm, sour milk, rotten cheese, vomit, burning rubber and vinegar. The Courtneys don’t think it smells that bad or perhaps they are used to it by now, but I can smell it from miles away and it makes me sick to my stomach. I am pretty sure that stinky tofu is the only thing served in hell. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to eat something that smells so awful!

Sorry about that rant… anyway, so after we ate our way through the market, we finally made it to the Confucius Temple. That was pretty neat. It was really decorated for the holiday and there were a ton of lights to see. The temple itself was really beautiful and there was a lot of interesting history and traditions behind it, however, I feel like most of the spiritual aspect was lost for me. It was unfortunate that a lot of the information was not translated into English so we could not read about everything. Additionally, some of the customs were lost. There was a large bowl of water that people were throwing coins into. At the bottom of the bowl there were Chinese symbols that (it appeared) people were trying to get their coin to land on. We also threw coins into the bowl, but we don’t really know why. Overall, it was really interesting to see all of the artifacts at the temple.

That night, we tried to give Nanjing nightlife another shot. We had heard about another area that was supposed to be really lively, fun and a large expat area called Shanghai Lu so we headed in that direction. Turns out Shanghai Lu was an even bigger bust than 1912! We found only one restaurant/bar open along the entire street. We went in and had dinner and drink, but we called it a night early after three creepy expats invited themselves over to our table.

Year of the Rabbit

The New Chinese Year is known as the Year of the Rabbit and coincidentally, that is also my Chinese Zodiac so this is supposed to be my year of good luck and good fortune :)  It probably sounds really cheesey, but when I found out that it was the year of the Rabbit, something put me at ease - like I made the right decision about moving here and that good things were going to come out of the year. After all this MY year!

Chinese Zodiac is a rotation of twelve different animals based on the year of your birth. The Chinese people believe strongly in the Zodiac and many people base their lives and big decisions around their Zodiac - career paths and compatiblity. Here is what my Chinese Zodiac says about the Rabbit...

Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Rabbit enjoy being surrounded by family and friends. They’re popular, compassionate, sincere, and they like to avoid conflict and are sometimes seen as pushovers. Rabbits enjoy home and entertaining at home. Compatible with Goat or Pig.

Personality
Occupying the 4th position in the Chinese Zodiac, the Rabbit symbolizes such character traits as creativity, compassion, and sensitivity. Rabbits are friendly, outgoing and prefer the company of others. They also prefer to avoid conflict. In confrontational situations, Rabbits approach calmly and with consideration for the other party. Rabbits believe strongly in friends and family and lacking such bonds can lead to emotional issues.

Their serene nature keeps Rabbits from becoming visibly upset. Because they’re serene animals, Rabbits are easily taken advantage of. Their sensitive nature makes them shy away from aggressive or competitive situations. They’re overall conservative and not interested in taking risks.

Classy, sophisticated, expressive, well-mannered and stylish, those born under the Sign of the Rabbit enjoy leaning about cultural issues and learning about people from other countries. Rabbits are most comfortable being home, and their homes are always neat and organized. Home is also where Rabbits prefer to entertain. Rabbits are conservative in their decorating tastes.

Rabbits should work at building more self-confidence and self-worth so they can feel more secure. The desire for remaining in safe, comfortable environments keeps Rabbits from taking risks which sometimes causes them to miss out on good opportunities. 

Health
Even though Rabbits don’t usually get visibly upset or stressed, they do tend to keep these feelings inside. When they don’t express these feelings, such feeling can cause Rabbits to become ill. Rabbits could benefit from more everyday activity which would reduce their stress levels and better their health.

Relationships
Rabbits are very sexual, but tend to give more of themselves than they should. This can lead to unrealistic expectations and unhealthy situations. Rabbits need partners who won’t take advantage of their giving nature. Such pairings will be strong.

Career
Rabbits are articulate and good communicators which is why friends and acquaintances seek out their advice. It’s also why Rabbits make excellent diplomats and politicians. Other good careers for Rabbits include: writer, publisher, actor, fashion designer, therapist, doctor, administrator, public relations, and teacher.

Element:  Fire – Years 1927 and 1987
Fire adds spark to the Rabbit’s personality and all that Fire Rabbits do. Fire compels Rabbits to seek new adventures. Prone to tantrums, Fire Rabbits prefer to avoid conflict.
The Rabbit is most compatible with the Pig and Dog and incompatible with the Rooster and Rat.


So I can say that I agree with some of this...  ok, most of it!

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè

History Lesson: Spring Festival is the most important holiday celebrated in all of South/East Asia. Although it is commonly called Chinese New Year, it actually marks the beginning of a new lunar year. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself century’s old and gained significance because of several myths and traditions. Today, the holiday is celebrated for fifteen days beginning on the first of the lunar month and commences with the Lantern Festival. During that time, families celebrate by gathering and eating a TON of food, exchanging gifts, and lighting off fireworks to protect against evil spirits and wish for happiness, wealth and longevity. The holiday traditions are comparable to the way American’s celebrate Christmas and New Years.

I arrived here in China in the middle of Chinese New Year and I was fortunate enough to have a week of work to travel. The Courtneys and I decided to travel to Nanjing to enjoy some of the festivities and the night life. We spent weeks planning our trip, talking to the Chinese teachers and researching Wikipedia trying to decide the best place to stay and the best places to visit. We left Wednesday morning bright and early and boarded a train headed two hours northwest to Nanjing. We drove through a lot of interesting looking villages, country side and mountains before we made it to the city.

We left the train station and got right in a taxi headed toward our hotel… the famous Motel 168! Ok, so it is not famous, per say, but they are everywhere so naturally, it was our first choice. The hotel was fine; nothing fabulous, but a pretty standard motel – one small room with a full size bed (that the three of us were going to be sharing) and a small bathroom. We stayed in the room only long enough to drop off our bags and freshen up before we set out to explore the city.

Nanjing was a beautiful city and very industrialized. The streets were lined with shops, restaurants, boutiques, and cafes. There were a lot of tall sky rise buildings and a ton of decorations for the holiday. Our first goal was lunch, so we wondered around looking for a delicious local restaurant to try. However, to our dismay, we found the majority of local restaurants were closed for the holiday. It is true that in American many businesses close for the Christmas holiday, but it is usually just a day… maybe two. Here, when I say they were closed for the holiday, I mean they were closed for five to twenty days. It was ridiculous, and since we arrived on New Year’s Eve, next to nothing was open. We finally ended up at a Burger King, because the fast food chains were the only things open L

We spent the rest of the day shopping and touring the city. Nanjing is home to one of the biggest shopping districts in China called Fashion Lady – a huge underground mall. The mall was really neat. The ceiling was lined with rows of bright, flashing lights so it almost felt as if I was walking through a pin ball machine instead of a mall. Half of the mall was mall shopping and the other half was market shopping (where all the bargaining takes place and the best kind of shopping).

Interesting side note: it is really strange how the local people react to the Americans. Sometimes they make me feel like I am an alien because they stare at me awkwardly (and don’t look away when I catch them), and other times they make me feel like a celebrity and they want to take pictures with me. As we walk down the street, or through a store, we would catch people taking our pictures. The best part is that they are never discrete or inconspicuous about it, they just do it. At one point, L was taking a picture of H and me, and a Chinese man walked up beside L and also took our picture… like we were posing for him. Heaven forbid we ask someone to take a picture for us because they will take a picture with our camera, then take a picture with their own camera, then they will ask us to take a picture with them, their friend or their child. We never turn them down, but it is always so funny. It is also really funny when random people approach us on the street and ask to take a picture with us. I am still trying to decide if they want to take pictures with us because they think we are awesome or if they want our picture the way we take pictures of the weird people at Wal-mart – to laugh at them later.

That night, we got ready for the big night out… New Year’s Eve. It was our first new years, but we had heard nothing but good things about the celebrations and the nightlife in Nanjing, so we were pumped. Everyone told us that we had to go to 1912 – a pedestrian walk full of bars and restaurants – but man, what a BUST! It was supposed to be the happening place, full of young expats and expat bars, but once we got there, again we found that almost everything was closed for the New Year. We finally found an expat restaurant/bar that we settled on for dinner at the Blue Marlin. The food was good, but the drinks and service was terrible. After dinner, we wondered to other bars but the whole area was very Chinese (remember that term… all Chinese and no Expats) and we ended up back at the Blue Marlin. The bar was lame, the food was lame, and the crowd was pretty old.

We were really frustrated that we had come so far to be really disappointed by the night. So there we were, three girls, dressed to impress on New Year’s Eve just before midnight in Nanjing, China, and bored out of our minds. Fed up, we decided to leave and start heading home. This was when all the fun began…

Now believe me when I tell you that Chinese people enjoy blowing up fireworks more than anything else in the world. Since the day I arrived in China, I have seen and heard fireworks nonstop throughout the day. With Spring Festival, we knew there would be an increase in the amount of fireworks being blow up, but we really did not understand the full magnitude of it. After arriving in Nanjing, we had asked several people where we could go to see fireworks, but people just laughed at us and said anywhere. Fireworks stands were set up on every corner, and people where literally just buying them and lighting them off everywhere.

After leaving the bar, we found ourselves on a busy street intersection in the middle of the city. Looking around, we could see and hear fireworks in all directions, so we stopped and watched. All of the sudden, some guys start piling boxes of fireworks in the middle of the intersection and lighting them off. It was absolutely INSANE! Please do not be fooled, when I say boxes of fireworks, I mean boxes, and not just the little Michigan bought bottle rockets fireworks. I am talking about hardcore, Chinese made, Fourth of July finale fireworks. They were huge and beautiful colors and different styles and designs and they were right above our heads – so close that we could feel the explosion in our chest and we ducked as the colors ignited the sky.

The craziest part was that while these incredible fireworks were going off in the street, traffic did not even pause. Cars continued to drive feet away from the boxes as if they were not explosives and nearly ran over the people that were standing in the road to watch. It was so dangerous but we were on such a high as we watched box after box of fireworks for nearly an hour. It was exactly what we had wanted to see, and exactly the kind of eventful New Year’s Eve celebration that we were looking for. Once the fireworks finished, we bought a bottle of 17 Yuan Dynasty Wine, opened it right in the liquor store and began drinking it as we headed back in the direction of our hotel by foot (about three miles).

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè – Happy New Year  J

The Fight

I was pumped for my first shopping experience. I just needed to get a couple basic things for my apartment plus some groceries but it was my first trip out into the city. We headed to Tesco, which is only about a quarter of a mile walk from our apartment. As we walked inside, we realized it was a complete mad house! Courtney (my roommate) said that she had never seen it so busy, and we put it to the fact that Spring Festival (or Chinese New Year as we know it) was approaching. We ventured in regardless, but I almost wish that we would have turned around.

So let me set this up for you… within the Tesco shopping center, there are other restaurants and boutiques that line the parameter. There is one entrance into the actual store. First you have to grab a cart (they are all located outside the entrance), and then you can either go through a metal detector with guards to enter in the first floor of mostly groceries and food, or you can take an escalator to the upstairs of mostly household, cloths, and hygiene stuff. If you want to go upstairs, you have to go first, because once you enter on to the first floor, you would have to pay for everything, then come back out of the store, and reenter the second floor. However, if you start upstairs, you can then take the escalator down stairs and continue shopping or proceed to the registers – I know, I know, it is a really stupid set up!

The shopping carts are horrible! They may look like normal shopping carts, but I like to call them Tokyo Drift shopping carts because the wheels move in all directions. So I’ll just be strolling along with my shopping cart moving forward, and someone will bump into my cart (as usual) and all the sudden, my cart is in the next isle. And turning corners in a hurry – forget about it! I hate the carts! Oh, and the escalator looks like a conveyor belt. There are not any steps; it is just a flat hill so you can take your cart upstairs.

So anyway, back to the experience… there were more people in this grocery store than I have ever seen at a concert in my life. Can you imagine? And it is very Chinese. We use that term a lot! There are stores, bars and areas of the city that are known to be expat locations and they have a ton of foreigners, but Qibao is not one of them, and neither is Tesco. We are usually the only foreigners anywhere we go in Qibao.

So here we are trying to fight our way through the crowds of people to find things that we needed with a shopping cart. After about an hour at Tesco, I was ready to go and we had not even made it down stairs to the groceries yet. I decided that I would rather save that experience for another time. I was too irritated and hot to fight through another floor of people, so we just headed to the check out down stairs. Remember how I told you that people are inconsiderate, rude and disrespectful? This was when it all came together for me. Down by the check out, there were not lines of people but herds of people shoving their way to the checkout counter. When in China, do as the Chinese… so we found a good area, and pushed our cart right in.

We held our own, and after about 30 minutes of herding with the others, we were only about 4 people behind a register. The checkout lanes look line normal checkout lanes, but there is only enough room for one cart to fit through at a time (it is really tiny), and there are metal bars that divide two separate checkout lanes. In front of us, there was one guy at the register, then a girl with a cart and two individual people with a handful of stuff that were all pushing to get in next. Although the girl with the cart was really shoving, the guy made it in first, then the other girl was pushing her way in to get in next. The girl with the cart was definitely not going to let that happen, so when the girl managed to get her body in front of the girl’s cart, the other girl began shoving her cart into the other girl – crushing her up against the metal railing divider. They both began screaming and yelling at one another in Chinese. I don’t understand Chinese, but I could promise you that they were not talking about the weather.

We stood back and watched, laughing at the absolute ridiculousness that was happening right in front of us. They continued to push and shove and yell for several minutes, and the girl with the cart was not about to give up. As soon as some free space opened up on the conveyor belt, the first girl threw her stuff up there while the other girl continued to repeatedly shove her cart into her back. Then she jumped in front of her cart and threw the other girls stuff on the floor and began putting her stuff on the belt. We were pretty sure at this point, they were going to start pulling hair and bitch slapping, but they didn’t. They kept screaming and yelling until they both left. The first girl managed to check out first, but I am not really sure how, but the girl with the cart did not stop bitching, even after the other girl left.

Somewhere in the time that we were distracted by the girl fight, some Chinese man had managed to shove his way next to me and eventually in front of our cart. It is absolutely ridiculous that people could be waiting for an hour, and then someone can just walk up and right ahead of them without a guilty conscious. He was even trying to shove his elbow into me to push me back. Although I can hold my own, it is also just not worth it to me to fight and scream in the grocery store.

So after the entertainment left, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We spent over 900 Yuan! It sounds like a lot, but really, it is only just a little over $100 USD, and when you think about all the stuff we got, it was a steal. We got a comforter, sheets and a duvet, blankets, pillows, towels, some bathroom stuff, kitchen stuff, hangers, a couple heating blankets, some chips, water, propel, etc. I know, a steal right? Then we loaded everything into bags and began the walk home. When you go shopping, you have to bring your own bags otherwise you have to pay like 5 Yuan per plastic bag – rip off!

Qibao Living

Shanghai is MASSIVE, and I live in a small part called Qibao (Chi-bow). I must admit that it is one of the more ghetto parts of Shanghai that I have seen, and it is does not have a big city feel, but still interesting nonetheless. Honestly, I have not seen a lot of Qibao because we usually go to other parts of the city but I love Shanghai.

Because Shanghai is so big, it is divided into small parts like little towns and cities. Then each part is divided into compounds. The compound that I live in is called Won Ke (like Wonka). The compounds are basically self-contained gated communities. You need to have a pass to get into the compounds and there are guards at each entrance and guard stations set up throughout. Won Ke is the largest compound in Qibao full of huge apartment buildings, houses, general stores, restaurants, a bank, post office, parks, sport courts, a river, etc.

Just outside of my compound (a not even five minute walk), there is a huge Tesco which is comparable to a Meijer. They have groceries as well as clothing, general merchandise, household stuff and a ton of boutiques and restaurants. There are several other streets of shopping, restaurants, fruit/veggie standing, massage houses, a big mall and the subway all within half a mile walk - really, anything that I could need.

My apartment is not terrible. From what I hear, it is actually pretty good living for the area, although not exactly what I am used to. We have a good size living room and dining room. Our bedrooms and bathroom are also decent. Our kitchen is kind of pathetic and really tiny. Our fridge is shorter than I am, we do not have an oven or a dishwasher and we are lucky to have a microwave, toaster and rice cooker.

Our washer is in our bathroom and no taller than my waist. The toilet and shower and in one room of the bathroom, and the vanity and washer are in a separate part. Our shower has good water pressure and hot water, so I can’t complain too much. My favorite part about the bathroom is the heat lamp. When I wake up in the morning, I turn on the heat lamp and the water and close the door for about 5 minutes so that everything can heat up.

What I hate most is the heating system. Nowhere in China has heating installed. Instead, there are small heating boxes in each room which we control and turn on and off throughout the day. They are pretty expensive to run, so we leave them off during the day while we are at school but then come home to a freezing apartment every evening. Then it takes an hour for anything to heat up, and even then, the apartment is still cold because we have big bay windows, hardwood floors and zero insulation. I always have to wear multiple layers and slippers around the apartment, and I sleep with a heating blanket. My school is just as cold (which is why I wear so many layers and school) and all restaurants and stores. I absolutely hate how cold it is. It is not like the weather is colder than Michigan, or even as cold, it is just that I am always cold and I just can’t seem to get warm enough.

Survival

At this point, it is all about survival – like the primate instincts have kicked in – eat or be eaten! Ever heard of “Culture Shock”? I would say that is an understatement. Don’t get me wrong, I knew things would be different over here. In fact, that was one of the reasons I chose to come here. I wanted something totally different from the norm, outside my comfort zone, and man, oh, man, I just scored the winning touchdown in triple overtime! As I am sitting here reflecting, I actually cannot think of anything that isn’t crazy different from the norm. Not just different, but crazy different.

So how about a rundown of how I am surviving thus far… driving is the scariest thing I have ever encountered. There are more mopeds and bikes than cars, but a ton of taxis and buses, and I truly believe that laws do not exist. People drive however and wherever they please with little regard to anyone or anything around them. Bikes and pedestrians do NOT have the right of way to cars, and if you are in the way – LOOK OUT! People do not wear seat belts (I have yet to even see a seat belt in a taxi) or helmets and I am pretty sure laws do not exist in regards to children. Children are not required to sit in a car seat and they are allowed to ride as a standing passenger on a moped. I was absolutely appalled the first time I saw a young child jumping around in the front seat of a car – that was until I saw a mother riding on the back of a moped, carrying her infant in her arms driving down the highway, as the driver swerved in and out of traffic. Honestly, I am more afraid of being run over by a moped (because they come out of nowhere and drive down the sidewalks) than being abducted. Furthermore, if being a taxi passenger doesn’t give me high blood pressure, I don’t think anything will. They speed in an out of traffic, fly through red lights, and honk their horns like it is going out of style!

Car horns drive me CRAZY! People use their horns as a “turn signal”, to announce that they are running a red light, or to yell, “Get the hell out of my way!” Heaven forbid if a taxi happens to hesitate for a fraction of a second when a light turns green because every car behind it will lay on their horn. The noise really irritates me because it seems to be the only sound of the city.  I am sure soon it will be music to my ears…

Let me tell you a little bit about the Chinese culture. Blatant honesty – they are rude, inconsiderate, and pretty dirty. I hate to sound so pessimistic and generalize but hear me out. I think the culture lacks a general common decency; like when two people are walking toward each other down a sidewalk, they each veer off to the side to avoid running into one another and to give the other person space. Here, if I didn’t move out of the way, that person would run straight in to me and not even blink about it. People do not hold doors open for one another, give up a seat on the subway to an elder, or offer any gesture of kindness. The other day I watched a girl struggle to get a door open with her arms full of groceries, while people shoved their way around her, nearly knocking her over. The next day, I saw a girl trip and fall near a crowd of people, and her bag of things went flying everywhere. Not a single person offered to help her; instead they just watched, laughed or ignored it.

Overall, I just feel like there is a total lack of respect for each other. For example, people do not wait in lines. No matter where I go, restaurants, the grocery store, or the subway, it is a contest for who can push or shove their way to the front first. It is like cattle herding and politeness would only get me run over and starving probably. The other morning, we were waiting for several minutes for a taxi to go to school. Just as one was pulling up, some guy comes out of nowhere and tries to get in our taxi. At first I was kind of appalled, but my survival kicked in and I shoved right along with the Courtneys to clam our taxi. And although it should not have been a fight (because it was rightfully ours), I still felt rude for shoving past him to get into the taxi.

Another huge thing that is really turning me off to the city is the lack of discretion for bodily functions – it is actually pretty disgusting. People spit and snot everywhere (especially this time of year), parents let their children poop and pee on the busy sidewalks, farting and burping is as natural/common as breathing, and I have witnessed several people puke in the middle of a crowd and continue with their day like it didn’t even happen. At school, bodily fluids are not a concern. Our school does not even keep protective gloves in stock, which makes for an interesting experience when it comes to changing a diaper or dealing with a bloody nose. In public bathrooms, people rarely flush toilets and they never throw toilet paper in the toilet so there are usually piles in the corners or an overflowing waste basket. However, you probably should not even get me started on public bathrooms…

In an effort to remain more “sanitary” in the most crowded place on Earth, the majority of Chinese public bathrooms are squatty potties as we like to call them. Although I was warned about squatty potties, you cannot imagine my surprise the first time I opened a stall door to find a hole in the ground. I have only had to use one once, and I am proud to announce that I was successful; however, I will avoid having to use a squatty potty at all cost. A lot of Western places have regular bathrooms, and sometimes if you are lucky, places will have some squatties and one regular toilet, but the majority of local places are all squatties. Additionally, a lot of public bathrooms don’t provide toilet paper so you better carry your own.

That is another thing that I learned pretty quickly – always carry a small pack of tissue. My first trip to the grocery store, my roommate handed me a Costco size pack of the small individual tissues and told me that I would need them more than anything. There are several reasons to carry tissue aside from the general use. First, toilet paper. Second, paper towel because if a bathroom does not have TP, they are sure to not have paper towel. Third, a napkin at a meal because most restaurants do not provide you with any kind of napkin (it is strange). Forth, for grabbing and holding on to things (doors, railings, or the subway).

OK, OK, now I don’t want you to think that my experience has been all negative… it actually has been very positive, even with all of the differences. I think at this point, I seem to just be focusing on all of the cultural differences that make me… uncomfortable (for lack of better description). Anyway, I will have much more to post soon.