8/31/12
Now we have had a whole week to adjust, and it’s going
pretty well. I haven’t gotten sick
and I’ve completely adjusted to the time difference. The food has been pretty good… it’s nothing like American
Chinese food but it’s been good for the most part. Most meals I have had either rice or noodles, vegetables,
and some kind of meat. My favorite
dish so far was rice with beef, carrots, and mushrooms in a dark sauce. Sounds pretty American now that I think
about it. I’ve already tried
several new things including fried squid (tentacles and all), pig feet, and
something called fish balls. I did
not care for the pig foot, but the squid was delicious. The first night we were taken to a nice
restaurant for a welcome dinner with one professor and several students from
the university, which was a lot of fun.
We dove right in to traditional Chinese food and everything was great, including
my shrimp that still had legs, tail, and head attached. Throughout our four-day stay in the
international dorms at South China Normal University we made several friends
and spent each day exploring the city and navigating the subway system. I was immediately shocked at the amount
of people constantly in the streets and on public transportation. We went down several busy shopping
streets that all looked like Times Square on New Years Eve. It seemed like every five meters there
was a new shop or store, mostly selling clothes, all with a higher than average
number of employees doing everything possible to get the attention of the
shoppers passing by. We ate dinner
at a crowded restaurant that night with a menu written totally in Chinese. Our Chinese tour guides ordered for us
and we had noodles and fish balls famous in Guangzhou along with hot green tea
that is only good when steaming hot.
Four of us sat at a small table with a very old Chinese couple who
didn’t talk. One of the things
I’ve noticed in this busy city is that the number of people and lack of
personal space really changes the whole culture. You have to be okay with constantly being pushed past,
bumped, and honked at. In order to
get where you want to go or get what you want, you have to be assertive and
confident. You have to have no
shame and you also can’t be embarrassed to literally hang your dirty laundry where
everyone can see it. That’s
another thing I have come to really like; there are no dryers here so everyone
hangs their clothes to dry outside on their porches. The countless skyscraper apartment buildings are
characterized by their porches strung with colorful clothes. The porches look almost like a birdcages because of the bars that enclose them that
are always overflowing with plants. It makes the countless gray buildings beautiful.
In just my first few days I felt like I learned so much,
partly from the sensory overload of walking the streets of the city, and partly
from talking with the Chinese students from the university where we
stayed. Vivian, one of the
students who already spent a semester in America at Shawnee State University
and has since returned to South China Normal University, taught me a lot about
China, Chinese schools, and the differences between China and America. She told me the thing she misses most
about America is the space, the quiet, and the peace she felt there. The university campus here in Guangzhou
had a large park in the middle that offered beautiful scenery and peace, but
the city as a whole here is always loud and offers little personal space or privacy. Vivian also told me she had to readjust
more returning to China than she had to adjust when she arrived in the
states. For one thing, the beds
here do not have mattresses. At
our new apartment we were lucky enough to have real mattresses, but our first
four nights were spent on beds that are more common in China. The “mattress” is really just a board
with a blanket. If I had more
time, I’m sure I would have gotten used to sleeping on such a hard surface, and
my back might have even benefited from it. According to Vivian it was much easier to adjust to American
mattresses than it was to go the other way around. This seemed pretty obvious to me. She also said that it was harder for her stomach to readjust to Chinese food and she
was sick for her first two weeks after returning home. Luckily I have not had many problems
with the food, although I can’t bring myself to eat noodles and meat or
porridge for breakfast. Luckily we
found a very cheap bakery right outside our new apartment at our new school. And by cheap I mean I bought a whole
loaf of fresh bread and three buttery rolls all for one US dollar. Not everything is so cheap, and we have
definitely been gypped a few times when purchasing unmarked items in the
smaller markets, simply for looking American and being too ignorant to know the
difference. For instance yesterday
Livia and I broke down and bought two snickers bars at a small convenience
store outside our school and they cost nine yuan. That’s about 75 cents each, which is about the same as
buying a snickers bar from Kroger at home, but we also felt like the sales
woman was laughing at us when we walked out. The prices at the bigger supermarkets are very good. We bought a 2-liter of coke for less
than a dollar and a set of hangars for 50 cents. The food at our school cafeteria is pretty good, though it’s
hard to know what you’re ordering.
Our apartment is great, a little dirty to begin with, but we
are grateful to have an American mattress and an American toilet. Though I did use one of the dreaded
hole-in-the-ground toilets at a store yesterday and it wasn’t too bad… as long
as you carry your own toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The other best part of our apartment is
the air conditioner unit in the bedroom.
I haven’t mentioned it yet but it is HOT and HUMID every day here. We’ve only had one day of rain so far,
but every other day has been hot enough that you start sweating after walking
outside for 10 minutes. Our first
full day at our new apartment we got a tour of the campus, which is
beautiful. Several of the
buildings are very old, but there is a gigantic new teachers building where all
of the classrooms are located. The
classrooms look like typical college classrooms. Some are theater style and others have individual desks
facing the front of the room where there are blackboards and projectors. All of the classrooms have room for at
least 60 students. We haven’t
started teaching yet but I now know that I will be teaching some 8th
grade biology, 7th grade oral English, and every other week we will
be taken to an elementary school to teach English! I was not expecting to get to teach younger kids and I am
very excited for that opportunity.
It might be more challenging because they have not had as much practice
speaking English, but all the kids I’ve seen so far are adorable.
The two teachers who brought us to our
new school took us out for Karaoke on our second day. I was unaware of this but Karaoke is very popular in
China. I wasn’t sure what to
expect because they took us at 10:30 in the morning. It was a really nice place and it turned out to be a lot of
fun. There were five of us and we
got a private room with couches and a big screen TV, two microphones, and thousands
of songs to choose from. There
were plenty of American songs we knew, and our friends chose several American
songs to sing as well. One of the
Chinese guys with us sang a Lady Gaga song, which was rather hilarious. There wasn’t much time to be
embarrassed because Livia and I sang first. Our first song was by the Black Eyed Peas, and we sang some
Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson as well.
We ate lunch and ended up spending most of the day there. It was an interesting experience, but a
lot of fun. On my birthday Livia
and I took the bus from our apartment by ourselves and found a Starbucks with
free wifi and coffee that’s just as good and just as expensive as it is at
home, but it was a nice birthday treat. We should have wifi access in our apartment within the
next few days, which will be useful and means I will be able to post more
often.
I haven’t really been homesick yet, partly because we have
been so busy and partly because everyone we have met so far has been so
friendly and hospitable. Everyone
wants to get to know us and help us in any way possible. I was sad to leave our friends at South
China Normal University but I’m sure we will be back to visit soon on the
weekends. We start teaching on
Monday, so I think time will start to go by even faster then.
Until next time, zaijian.
