Birthdays and a Rant About Fireworks

Sorry about the lack of pictures again. It’s much easier to write up something about the week than take photos…I just don’t think about photos much.

This last week was crazy for several reasons.

Shaun and Joe both had birthdays this week. Shaun, whose birthday was on Wednesday, decided to celebrate at a restaurant called Taste, which a bunch of us went to. Taste is relatively expensive, which means they have American prices for everything. Fortunately, their food quality matches the prices. Stateside, a restaurant like Taste would cost $25 a plate. Here in China, it’s about $28 for a 4 or 5 course meal. I just got fish and chips because I’m more on a budget, but it was quite good. Margaret decided she didn’t want the rest of her tiramisu, much to my benefit.

For Joe’s birthday (Saturday), we all went out to an Indian place called Ganesh, which is right next to a restaurant/bar called the Blue Marlin, a place I’ve mentioned before. The food was quite good; an order of naan and a samosa appetizer were enough to make me stuffed. The TV’s at that place all showed MMA fights taking place in Manila. I haven’t watched MMA since probably March or April, and I miss watching that and doing some kind of martial arts.

In the cab on the way to Ganesh that night, we passed an MMA place. I have no idea where it is in this city, but I really want to find out, and then find out if they allow women to participate. I’m really unsure about whether I would be allowed to join; the Wushu guy who taught us in Beijing tended to favor the guy(s) who participated. Oh, well. Time to do some research.

One quality of life thing that most people outside China would find interesting: the prevalence of fireworks. Every day, multiple times a day, I hear firecrackers or fireworks outside my apartment. They can go off at 3:30 in the morning (and they have); they can go off at 4:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes they are for weddings, but honestly, I think Chinese people use them any time they celebrate. It’s really frustrating when you really just want to sleep and all you hear are loud noises outside. I’ve woken up a few times at 12:30, 1:30, 3:30, and 5:30 in the morning, completely tempted to run outside in my pajamas and start yelling at people in Chinese because I just want to sleep and why on earth would you set off fireworks in a residential neighborhood between the hours of 11:30 pm and 6:30 am?! This is especially annoying because a large portion of the people around here have very young families, with children under the age of 5, including my neighbors. The process often goes: wake up to fireworks-hear motorbike alarms-hear babies crying-stuff head under the pillow and go back to sleep if it’s quiet enough. I really don’t think I’ll ever see the 4^th of July the same way again. We see fireworks as a treat in the states; after hearing them multiple times a day for over a month, they have lost all their fun. Below, a video of fireworks and the aftermath, for your viewing pleasure.

Aaaanyway. The National Day week-long holiday is coming up, so Claire and I are planning a two night trip to Nanjing. We’re still working on the return tickets. Getting tickets at this time of year is ridiculously difficult, but we’re trying. Traveling during Spring Festival is supposed to be the hardest, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. 

One of the big things I did this weekend was explore the superstore pretty close to my house, right across the street from IKEA. Metro has a lot of different things (drat it, I forgot to look for tea!), so I managed to get an HDMI cable to connect my computer and television (I can watch movies on my TV now!), some Hershey’s chocolate syrup (about $5), and some pots and pans, namely a teakettle, pot, and wok. Altogether it was about $26-$27, not bad for much-needed cookware. Claire was a lot better on her wallet: she got a bag of penne for $1.50. 

The level of awesomeness at brunch went up this week. Mark, Shaun, Dominique, and Claire all came over for some French toast and Firefly. I don’t think Mark is a Firefly fan. The best part of all of it was that Mark and Shaun did the dishes after Claire, Dominique and I cooked, so I didn’t have to do my least favorite part.

Overall, this week has been a very social week for me. So much to do, so little time…

Tianyi Staff Shenanigans

I’m reaching the point in my time in China where I’m so busy I don’t have a lot of time to take photos. Sometimes people look at me funny when I take photos, too, like I’m a crazy tourist or they’re like, “Why the hell are you taking a picture of us?” and kind of expect the whole picture-taking thing to be a fad. So I don’t have pictures this week. Sorry.

This past Friday my fellow foreign teachers welcomed Claire and me with drinks. I still managed to invite people over to my place the next day for a non-alcohol evening filled with weird chocolate and multiple different card games. Dominique, Shaun, and Mark came over to play Fluxx (spelling?) and Euchre (yay Shaun is from the Midwest!). We nearly got into a game of Set, but I think we might save that for next time. Once Mark left, Dominique and Shaun and I sat around talking about fun stuff, like crazy college things and doing lighting tech in high school.

I suppose I should give a brief intro of my fellow Tianyi expat teachers. In no particular order:

1) Shaun is our 25 year old physics teacher from Wisconsin. As one of my few fellow nerds here, I’m pretty glad he’s around.

2) Dominique, our math teacher, is a couple years older than me (24-25, I think), and is a die-hard Oregonian who went to Willamette. She’s also a big Tamora Pierce fan and lives in my apartment complex.

3) Mark is another math teacher who focuses more on statistics and…uhhh…stuff. He’s closer to my parents’ ages and has a couple of kids who live in the states now. I think one of his kids is older than me. He and I tease each other about being old/young a lot.

4) Joe and Margaret are our general science teacher and English teacher respectively. They’re both great and like to hang out at the bar scene in Wuxi a lot (but really, who doesn’t?). I think they’re both around Mark’s age, but as staff we’re a little divided into people-who-really-are-adults and people-who-just-became-adults.

5) Nathan and Abby are a newly engaged couple who teach economics and English, respectively. I don’t know them quite as well; I met Shaun, Joe, and Margaret pretty early, and Dominique lives nearby, so I know those folks the best. Apparently Noah, my predecessor, was really close with Nathan and Abby.

6) Neal is our AP English teacher. He’s our oldest teacher and we definitely had a conversation where someone said he was old and looked up and said, “No, my FATHER is old.” One of the others replied, “No, your father is ANCIENT.” He doesn’t hang out with us a lot outside of work, but he’s a really great guy who I work with a decent amount because we’re both doing English with the G12s.

7) Steve is our Center Principal. He teaches AP Psych, but honestly he doesn’t really seem like a teacher to me because I knew him first as an administrator.

So far, I think all of the Tianyi expat teachers are pretty great. Some of them are people I might not normally hang out with, but honestly, that’s the beauty of being abroad – you can hang out and learn from folks who might ignore you or who you might not get along with at home.

Also, since I got to China, I think Microsoft Word’s grammar check is giving me problems on every computer. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that I can no longer speaky ze English.

Life with a Paycheck

Last week ended with me being the last staff member off campus on Friday night, which is not typically a great start to a weekend. No one actually told me that people leave early on Friday, so of course I had a meeting with a student after everyone had left.

That said, the evening was both entirely awesome and entirely nuts.

I went to an Italian place with some of the foreign teachers at my school. It’s a lot more expensive than the local Chinese faire, but for foreign food it wasn’t bad. I got some passable spaghetti Bolognese for about 60 yuan (nearly $10). Afterwards, we went to this bar/restaurant called the Blue Marlin (not to be confused with the Blue Bar). It’s definitely a bit pricier there, but the location was right by one of the nice canals in Wuxi, which I hadn’t seen until that point. I finally got to meet some of the Wuxi #1 School staff, including this great Chinese-British guy with a really neat arm tattoo that he got in the Netherlands. Another guy there brought his baby (yay bars in China that let you bring kids), who was possibly one of the cutest 1-year-olds I have ever seen. I have a picture of Phoebe holding her, but I don’t want to put it up on my blog without permission, so I’m having Claire ask whether it’s okay to post. 

Mark and Shaun at the Italian place (candid shot):

 Saturday was another great day; Claire and Dominique came over for brunch, then the three of us went shoe shopping and didn’t buy any shoes. Instead, we all got milk tea (or something similar) at Coco and bought non-shoe items. I got a really neat vest-thing that says “Love is the Answer” with a really dorky picture of two guns growing flowers out of the barrel. Claire got a really cute dress at H&M. I have to say, it’s really nice having a paycheck and living in a country where a lot of goods are cheaper than at home. It’s nice to be able to go shopping with friends and not leave having spent my whole paycheck. 

My delicious birdy-in-a-basket sandwich with stir-fried onions in the middle: 

Claire's scrambled eggs:

Another picture, because it was so freaking delicious: 

The after shot: 

Claire and Dominique cooking brunch in my kitchen:

Dominique cooking scrambled eggs:

My completed living room:

After hanging at Claire’s for a bit, Dominique and I headed home (we both live in the same complex) amidst some seriously pouring rain. Even Dominique, who is from Oregon, admitted that it was raining hard. A lot of the puddles were ankle-deep or higher. Finding a cab was so much fun…I don’t think I’ve ever been more soaked in rain without actually trying to get wet.

Sunday was a much more difficult day for me on a personal level. The combination of long distance, a 15 hour time difference, and me working about 45-50 hours per week has been really difficult in terms of my relationship with Julian. We previously agreed that we would no longer be in a relationship for the duration of my stay in China, and I very unfortunately suggested that our agreement take effect. Right now, my hope (our hope?) is that ending this relationship on good terms now will leave us open to the possibility of getting back together when we can live on the same continent in the future.

Claire very kindly took part of her Sunday to spend some time with me. We ate at a ramen place downtown, went grocery shopping, got more milk tea, and sat in McDonald’s and shared an order of fries. We spent a lot of this time talking about the future and what we might want from our lives. I need something to focus on to keep from losing my marbles a bit, so I’ve started to consider the possibility of graduate school and the more immediate need to take the GRE. Combined with work, I think I’ll be staying pretty busy.

Things Here, Things There

Since returning from the TEFL course in Hefei, I’ve had my real first week of work. I ended the TEFL course on Sunday, hopped on the train back to Wuxi, and really started work on Monday. This 12-day work week has been completely exhausting, but I think I’m finally figuring out what I’m supposed to do at my job (it only took me 3 months). I have quite a few students, so giving them all the right amount of attention is a bit of a challenge, especially when editing college essays can get so personal. As per the usual with students, some of them are rather brilliant and some of them need some serious college help. Chinese students have been taught to use very flowery language and it can be hard to ground them. I’ve come across essays that over-use SAT words and phrases that include words like “cherubic” in similes. A lot of them also come up with topics to write about that take a fair amount of skill in English even for a native speaker. My job is to make sure they choose the right topic for their level of English, and then make sure their essays get as good as they can while still keeping the student’s voice.

On Tuesday a bunch of us went to the bar known as Havana, which turned out to be a much larger gathering than I think most of us originally planned. Initially it was just me, Claire, and three guys we met at the TEFL course, but it turned out to be Spencer’s (one of the guys) birthday, so he invited most of his company. Three teachers from my school also came with us, and it turned into probably 15 people all gathered at Havana. One of the American teachers at my school remarked that it was one of the largest gatherings of foreigners he had ever seen in his 2+ years in Wuxi. I finally tried the tea at Havana. It was passable, but I seriously miss my US tea. It’s been a month without decent tea (sometimes I really super hate being allergic to green/white teas) and I’m in some pretty bad withdrawal as far as non-addictive yummy things go.  

Considering how grueling this week has been, I’m actually decently happy with how things have been going. I’m still technically in the “honeymoon” stage of culture fatigue (thank you TEFL course), but honestly, there are only a few things that could be going a lot better than they are; most things are normal. The worst things right now are: 1) I miss everyone in LA including Oxy, 2) it’s taking a little while to make friends, and 3) my bathroom smells. Considering that the smell of my bathroom is in the top three worst things, that says that either my bathroom is really disgustingly smelly (which it is, and it’s NOT my fault), or that life here is surprisingly good (which so far it is). I’m really starting to get to know my neighborhood and my fellow expats and have very few amenities from home that I really miss. Having my own space and a semi-permanent routine is really nice right now. There are some great restaurants just downstairs and getting across the city is very easy so I see Claire all the time. It’s good to have a friend I can be silly with in Wuxi.

Sorry about the lack of pictures. I’ve been pulling 9+ hour days with the rest of the semester looking even busier, so I just haven’t gotten around to pulling out the camera.