Momma Says...

My momma gets my ONE-HUNDREDTH blog entry!


Ever wonder about another perspective on Shanghai, my life, of China in general? I feel like it is always great to hear from another person about their experiences, which is why I asked my mom to write an entry for my blog. Sometimes it is still so strange for me to think that this is the life I led, yet, mostly I look around and that is just how I view it - this is my life. Things are not strange or unusual anymore. I am acclimated into the culture - become one with the people - and I no longer see my life as "interesting"... it is just my life. 


It is funny because when my mom first arrived, we were driving in a taxi from the airport. My mom stared out the window absorbing her surroundings when she noticed a motorbike driving down the street carrying a heavy load of something or other. My mom began shouting, "Did you see that? Did you see that? That was crazy!" I didn't see what she was talking about, but believe me, I am plenty used to seeing the strangest of strange things being piled onto a moped (as my mom quickly learned as well). I thought to myself, oh, yeah, I guess that is weird to someone who is not used to living here....  So anyway, my mom wrote down some thoughts, so without further a do...


Where do I start. My time in Shanghai was an amazing adventure! SHANGHAI is awesome.  From the minute I landed we hit the ground running. I never felt like I was in a foreign country - so many cultures here. Never feeling unsafe at night or day, in a group or alone. I’m very comfortable. My first day I had McDonald breakfast  delivered. I'm glad I cant do that in the states. And with all the tea in china, you think I would not have missed my sweet tea, but I did!  The food was all awesome - from the up scale dinning to the little shack or the street food. YUM ! But I didn't really care for the numbing spices, which are very popular here. I think they change the taste of the food, not to mention the way your mouth feels. I’m just not a fan. But I am a big fan of super chicken, sticky fruit and fried dumplings - so delicious!


You can get just about anything you want on the street – food, clothes, cell phones and everything in between. Not much of a need to got to store, but if you want to there are plenty of them.  It is funny to me how you can have an upscale store and right next door there is a little shack. The way the classes mesh is unusual to say the least. It all just blends; so not like US. And every one is treated the same - RUDE.  I spent the first few days saying excuse me to everyone. Then, I just started to push, shove and cut in front like everyone else does. I don’t like being rude, but when in Rome...  


The weather could not have been better! Sunny skies, nice breeze. I had some strange looks because I like short sleeves and no coat. Here, everybody wore coats and scarfs everyday no matter the temperature. It was in 70s and the babies were in snowsuits. I guess they get use to it from birth. The fashion was a cross between little girl cute and hooker. I guess that's the best way  to describe it.  Everyone wears heels, scarfs, coats and carries designer bags - all fakes of course.  I saw a girl wearing wedge tennis shoes with Hello Kitty on them, a lace evening gown (tea length), nylons with striped print and blue jean jacket with studs; and none of the colors matched!  It’s something you have to see to believe. It’s not just the teens but all women - old and young.  I saw a lady a little older than me wearing fish net stockings, leather shorts, kitty tee shirt, scarf and rhinestone jacket - ROFLMAO! Anything goes. People watching was the bomb! 


Our trip to Beijing was awesome - filled with history and sightseeing. We did everything there was to do there.  I thought it was different from Shanghai and Mel agreed. The language was another dialect from Shanghai and even Mel was having a hard time understanding them. She called it pirate Chinese with marbles.  We packed alot into the 2 days we were there - The Great Wall, Tennimen square, the Forbidden city, Temple of Heaven. the Summer palace,  The Ming tomb and the Bejing opera, and Peking duck for dinner!        At the end of our 2 hour walking tour of Forbidden City we were treated to a foot massage and a visit with a chinese doctor of herbal  meds and reflexology. By looking at my hands and feeling my pulse he told me what was wrong with me and he was dead on! It was kind of scary but very interesting! Then, of course, they tried to sell us hundreds of dollars worth of herbs. NOT. Then back on the plane and uggg my ears hurt. 


There  are so many things I'd like to talk about but  that would take too long, but there were a couple of things worth mentioning that I enjoyed - the Marriage Market.  Every sunday parents  & grandparents or a Representative  go to the market to find a husband or wife.  All of the kid's stats (age, edcuation, picture, ect...) are written down and  hung on a fence. When you are chosen then the agreement is written. I wonder what they agree about!  Money? Cows? Chickens?  I'm surprised the a society so advanced would  have such old traditions still going on.  


I got to spend sometime with Mel's roomies, too. Such awesome ladies! Amy Jo & Christina and  boyfriend, Nick who arrived a few days before I had to leave  And all of her co workers and friends. There were so many nice people . It was nice meeting and spending time with them. They all played part in my amazing vacay. But all the things that I did that meant more and I enjoyed the most was being with my Mel .  oxoxoxo


BIG THANKS FOR THE ADVENTURE ! 


Where we going next ?

The Return of MRA

The other day, I received a strange, yet intriguing email from a teacher whom currently works at Morgan Rothschild Academy. She admitted that she had read my blog prior to moving to Shanghai to work for Morgan, but she had convinced herself that it could not have been as bad as I made it out to be... I can understand her position. Several people had warned me about his school, and I even knew of several people that had broken their contracts to leave MRA, and yet, I believed that it couldn't possibly be that bad, and I couldn't pass on the opportunity to move across the world and teach abroad. Although this teacher had gone into MRA with an open mind, she soon discovered the reality and in fact, I was not just some crazy cry baby of a teacher with an unjustified hatred for the director.

Now the most interesting part to me is that I have always thought that my blog was unsearchable. I mean, it is not like it is private, but I once had a friend warn me about the censorship in China, and since I was consistently talking shit about their corrupt educational government, I decided to keep it on lock instead of having it shut down. So I asked how my blog had been discovered? Morgan made damn sure that we were not in contact with any of the future employees of MRA so that we couldn't corrupt them, so I was not sure how she would have found me, my blog, or my email address. Turns out that when she was offered the job at MRA, she did a google search, and low and behold, there was my blog staring her right in the face. She began reading it, and apparently, so did several other perspective teachers. She told me that Morgan lost several other teachers because of my blog, and that Morgan has cracked down and become a bit paranoid because of the things that were said in my blog - I can only assume that Morgan is aware of my blog and has even read it. GOOD!

Even thought this was never my intention for my blog, I am glad that other teachers have stumbled upon on it, and discovered the truth about MRA before committing a year of their life to him. I feel as though I am responsible for saving a part of their soul! I do not regret working at MRA because of the children, and I believe that it made me a stronger person and a better advocate for teaching, and it also got me where I am today - at a much better school - but I do wish that Morgan and his "school" would disappear forever.

SAVE THE TEACHERS - SAVE THE CHILDREN!

Back to Life as Usual...

Wow... I can't believe that two weeks have already come and gone. My mom and I were planning our trip for sooooo long and I was going crazy with anticipation (as was she). It seems like just yesterday, I was rushing out of work, headed in a taxi for the airport with my handmade glittery sign that read, "Ni Hao Momma!" with a special addition happy face brought to you by Mr. James. In reality, yesterday I was dragging my mom's overloaded suitcases into work with me so that she could spend her last morning with me and my kiddos at school. Although the mold and pollen at my school nearly killed her, I was happy that she was able to meet my kids :]

I am not going to lie, it was kind of strange having her here... like I said before, it seems as though this is a part of my life that my past life doesn't belong in. That probably sounds terrible, I am sure, but I don't mean it in a negative way. Of course, I welcome the intrusion, but it just seems odd having my two worlds collide and having my mom on the other side of the world with me, even for a brief period of time.

We packed in as much as we possibly could, and I am glad that we hit the ground running right from the start because by the time we got back to Shanghai following our Beijing excursion, my mom was achy, tired and sick with allergies - the walking, hiking, climbing, air quality, dust, mold and all had finally caught up to her and she was rather miserable after our flight back from Beijing. That last weekend, we didn't do a whole lot. I took her to the ERA show that I love, and even though we were nearly a half-hour late (who knew it would take my mother 30 minutes to walk a couple blocks), my mom still really enjoyed it. We ate at one of my favorite local Muslim Chinese noodle joints down the streets. It is dirty, but it is cheap, the people are super friendly and you get to watch them make their famous hand-made noodles right next to the table! My mom was pretty much on a perma-high from all the delish food we were eating. Every time we tried something new she would confess how it was one of her favorite things that she had eaten - literally, every time! We cooked some amazing meals at home for Easter Sunday and enjoyed the day with my roomies (the first holiday I have celebrated with family since Christmas 2010). We did some last minute shopping and made our return to the fabric market to pick up our stuff.

Yesterday, it was nearly impossible for me to take the afternoon off work to escort my mom to the airport to catch her flight by 4:00 (the airport being nearly 2 hours away from my work), but my mom assured me that she was fine to navigate the metro system all by herself with two roller suitcases, a backpack and not a clue! Luckily she made it ok, and soon she was off, and I am happy to report that she has landed safely back where she belongs, and I am happy to have my bed back to myself.

Can't wait to be home in three months to see the rest of my loved ones.... departure date is set - JULY 3rd... look out Mitten, here I come!

Beijing Day Two

We had another jam packed afternoon planned for the second day in our tour. That morning, a different tour guide (we'll call him Allen because I don't really remember what it was, but it was something like that) picked us up and we set out at 8:00 am. Unfortunately, Victor was put on a different tour, but we only had two other people with our group, so it was nice to have a small group. We began at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the largest city square in the world, and just next to the large open square is a monument dedicated to Chairmen Mao. Chairmen Mao is responsible for the Cultural Revolution which basically turned the Chinese culture into what it is today. Many Westerns would say that Mao ruined the traditional Chinese culture, but the People of China love and respect him for what he did for the culture. At any rate, they loved him so much that they not only build a large monument to honor him, but they have gone through great lengths to preserve his body inside the monument for people to view and pay their respects. His body has been preserved for 35 years in a coffin in the center where people can view only his head because the rest of his body is "incomplete" and filled with herbs, and placed in a freezer each night. The herbs are changed every two weeks. If you ask me, it is completely repulsive! However, people love him so much that they are willing to wait in line for hours on end to get in to view his body. We admired Tiananmen Square and the monument from a distance, but I was happy that we were not going any closer to it! 

On the other hand, the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace - called the Forbidden City because common people were not allowed in during the dynasties) was incredible! The city was build during the Ming Dynasty and was the home to 23 different Emperors and Empresses throughout the years. It is not only a couple building, but literally a small city of 900 buildings and over 8,000 different rooms! Of course there were bedrooms, dinning rooms, dressing quarters, wedding quarters, banquet halls, etc. Additionally, there were living quarters where the Emperor housed his concubines (mistresses). Nearly every Emperor had at least a 1000 concubine that were drawn from a lottery to sleep with him at night as he attempted to populate the country! Once a young girl became a concubine, her entire life was dedicated to the Imperial family, and once the Emperor died, all of his concubine were killed and buried with him. Anyway, we heard a lot of really interesting story as our guide lead us in and out of the different building - about the different elements and feng shui incorporated into the city that was the foundation of beliefs. The different traditions that they had, etc, etc - but I wont bore you with all that. It took us nearly two hours to walk down the parallel line in the center of the city from one end to the other. Here are some pictures...

 (outside the front of the Forbidden City - Chairmen Mao's photo)

Following the Forbidden City, we went for a foot massage at the Institute for Chinese medicine. It was really interesting because while we were getting a massage, they had a professor come in and talk about Chinese medicine and reflexology. Then a doctor came in and gave us a diagnosis based on our pulse, the lines in our palms, face and tongue. It was the first time that I have interacted with a Chinese Doctor and it was very interesting! Following the foot massage and our lunch, we made our way to the Palace of Heaven, built in the very center of the city. From the top of the Palace, we were able to see a 360 view of the surrounding city. It was neat, but I have seen soo many temples.

Following the Temple of Heaven, we went to the Summer Palace - a second palace built (destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, and rebuilt again and again) for the Emperor and Empress as their summer home along with a man-made lake and island. Unfortunately, we were not able to take the dragon boat to the Summer Palace because it was too windy, but we got to admire the palace from a distance. My mom and I walked around the island and stopped for a while to take some fun pictures!

Last on our list was the Beijing (Peking) Opera... it is one of the things that you are supposed to do when you are in Beijing, so I surprised my mom with tickets! It was interesting enough, but kind of annoying at the same time. The orchestra and music was so loud that you could barely hear the singing, but the singing was screechy and ear piercing anyway. The costumes, make up and head dresses were the most interesting part, to be honest! 

Following the Opera, we were beat! We headed back to our hostel, got some pizza and called it an early night. The next morning, we had a plane to catch at 6:00 am! What an incredible trip! By the end, I was exhausted, not only physically, but my mind was overly stimulated with everything we saw and all of the history that we learned! It was pretty awesome that I got to experience this with my mom as well.

Beijing Day One

Mom and I made our way to Beijing to explore the city for just two days and believe me when I say that we packed as much into our two days as we possibly could! We signed up for a tour because we figured that it would be a little easier with an expert guiding us around the city so that we could do it all and not have to worry about transportation and whatnot. The first day, we were picked up at our hotel at 7:00 am by our guide, Jenny. We loaded onto a bus with 10 other expats from the US, New Zealand and Italy and rode all over the city beginning with The Ming Tombs  - a series of 13 tombs from the emperors of the Qing Dynasty - and we saw the biggest of the 13, the tomb of Chingli. It was interesting enough, but to be honest, I was too excited for the Great Wall. We made friends with a single traveler from New Zealand named Victor. He was outgoing and kind and he spent the entire day traveling the city with my mom and I (did I mention that he was extremely cute)! We lucked out with perfect warm, sunny weather and blue clouds! I have been told that the polution and smog in Beijing is so much worse than Shanghai, but the air quality almost seemed better than Shanghai for the couple days that we were there :]

Following the Tomb, we headed to Jade Factory to watch how jade is produced (a huge product of China), then we had a Chinese lunch at the Jade Factory. Then finally we headed to the Wall. Honestly, no words can really explain how incredible the Great Wall was and photos will never do it justice! Nonetheless, it was amazing! We took a cable car up the side of the mountain that dropped us off next to the wall at the BaDaLing Section so that we could walk along the wall and explore on our own. Of course, my mom was freaking out the whole cable car ride, but she was pretty brave once we got to the top. Victor and I took off and began running to the top. We ran up to one peak, then back to down look for my mom. When we couldn't find her, we ran back up and then down another side of the peak. When it was time to go back, we ran back up to the peak and then back down.

The Wall was absolutely MASSIVE and incredibly beautiful! It stretched out throughout the mountains, curving, waving and bending up and down and all over. Parts of the wall were just flat cement but step so it was difficult to walk up or down, and the parts that were stairs were broken, and uneven - one step would be just a couple inches high and the next two feet tall... anyway, just amazing!

(standing on the highest peak of BaDaLing)

(with our friend Victor)

Momma Invades Shanghai

Well this trip has been months in the works, but my mom has finally made it out to Shanghai! I left work early on Thursday and drove straight to the airport to pick her up! James and I made a very sparkly sign that I held out when I saw her coming out after baggage. You would think that after 24 plus hours of travel, she would have been a bit exhausted, but she was pretty high from flying and arriving safely on the other side of the world, that she was ready for a cocktail! We took her to one of our local happy hour spots on the Hong Mei Pedestrian Street and she got to meet some of my friends and co-workers. It was rather uneventful, but everyone was happy to welcome her to the 'Hai! 

Friday morning, I had to go to work, but my mom insisted that I order her McDonald's breakfast for delivery before I left (the first luxury she experienced). Later, she braved money exchange, getting lunch at a restaurant and hailing a taxi all by herself before meeting me at work. I was really happy that I got to show her around my work, and she got to meet a lot of people. Friday night, after work, we got a two hour hair wash, massage and blow dry! Then we went out to one of my favorite places for spicy Hunan Chinese food - Di Shui Dong. She LOVED it! Following dinner, we took her to another one of our favorite hang outs - The Spot. 

The sun was shinning Saturday morning when he woke up. Mom, of course woke up with the sun (still claiming that she didn't have jet lag) and we got our day started early as we began our city tour of Shanghai. We jumped on the metro and headed downtown to visit Yu Yuan, Shanghai Old City and one of the favorite places in the city. It was the perfect time of year to visit the garden and my mom really loved all of the old Chinese architecture. It was the first time that she actually felt like she was in China - all of the people, the pushing and shoving, the tourists, stinky tofu and all! That night, I had to work at a charity event for Roots and Shoots and mom went along with me to sell t-shirts and enjoy some live music. Here are some photos from our day...

(my favorite place in the city)

Here are some photos from the Yu Yuan Garden tour

(mom eating squid from the street)

Sunday morning, we awoke to another perfectly beautiful day! Could not have been a better day to take her to the Marriage Market downtown in People's Park and Jessica joined us. The Marriage Market is always so interesting, especially for someone whom is not used to Traditional Chinese Culture. I mentioned the market in a previous blog, but parents and grandparents go to the market in an attempt to make connections and arrange relationships between their children. It is really a disrespectful to take photos, but I managed to sneak a couple...

(a man admiring an entire wall of posted information)

 (mom got to try sticky fruit!)

 (eating street dumplings.. yummmmmm)

The rest of the afternoon/evening, we spent running around, all over town! We spent so much time wondering around People's Park, then to American Eagle and H&M, along with a couple markets, that we never made it to the fabric market or to get mani/pedis like we planned... but all and all a really enjoyable day! Mom was sooooo tired (jet lagged) that she thought everything-was-roll-on-the-floor-in-tears-laughing worthy! Any little thing would set her into a fit of tears and laughter. Then, later after we were home, she retold all of the stories of the day to my roommates and again through herself into a fit of tears! 

The next day we finally made it for a mani/pedi in the morning and a cocktail in the sun before heading to the fabric market. Now the fabric market is a bit overwhelming for anyone, but my mom was loving it! We got a couple dresses made for me and a couple jackets made for my mom's friend Julie. My mom was still a bit scared about bargaining so she has Jess and I do most of her dirty work. After spending nearly the entire evening at the market, we headed down to The Captain's Bar to enjoy the beautiful view of the Bund. The cool thing was that we got there in the late evening when it was still light out, but by the time we left, it was dark and all of the lights were on. That night, we met up with some others for Sushi at my favorite sushi place in the French Concession. Then Philip invited us out for a foot massage (and to meet my mother). Of course, my mom enjoyed the Chinese foot massage (and she absolutely adored Philip).

Tuesday, we spent the day at the Shanghai Glasses market with Christina. It was my first time at the market, but Christina has been there before and LOVES it! It is five floors of rows upon rows of glasses in all different colors, shapes, styles, sizes, and brands. They can give you an eye exam on the spot to determine prescription and get the lenses ready in less than thirty minutes for next to nothing! By the time we left, we had purchased ten pairs of glasses between four people each for less then 15 USD a pair (including the eye exam, frames and lenses) - pretty much a steal!