In China and not dead

I've always wondered why chinese people always yell on the phone.  If you see one on the phone, they will invariably be yelling.  Not necessarily and angry yell, but their phone voices are simply booming.  There's no such thing as whispering to them when on the phone.
I've been wondering why they do this, and now having spoken to a couple people on the phone I have a guess.
China telecom isn't perfect, voices are muffled slightly.  Chinese language has much emphasis on the tones of words moreso than the pronunciation.  Therefore weak quality which makes it difficult to hear changes in tones drives chinese people to yell.

It just is. 
Next, musings on why chinese kids will ignore your lesson for a full 45 minutes and by the end of the class will have fashioned a riced out foam airplane with 3 sets of wings.

Back home when it gets cold people say oh it must be a Canadian cold front.


I can now claim I've felt a siberian cold front.

November 9-10-11

I went to Nanjing this weekend with Cathy, Larry, Corey, Mark and Angeline. Larry is here for 3 weeks to teach the little kiddies and do some team building amongst the teachers. The team building is lame, but I guess it's part of the job. It's not fun like performing a song or dance. Angeline just graduated from university and is trying to go to school in Canada. She was accepted by UofGuelph I think so she'll head there next year. For now we know her as the girl who knows the owner of Ming Ming Cha Dian - the Peking Duck restaurant.

Despite leaving on the Saturday morning, the best part of the weekend and my favourite experience in China so far began on Friday the 9th. Unfortunately I'm kicking myself in the ass for not having my camera that night.

We went to the Sailor club (shui shou - water hand). It was Lindsey's last weekend with us before she left. She didn't like the school, the kids or Chiner. Apparently not everyone can make the cut. If you dislike people hocking huge loogies on the street beware. If you dislike smoking, beware. If you dislike having to look all 4 ways before you cross the street, beware. Yes, traffic can come at you from all directions in Chiner.

Anyway, we had a big party and decided we'd try out a new club. This club is famed for having the dance floor on springs, so as people jump the whole floor bounces. I'm not a dancer, and neither is Mark, however the two of us saw the best show of our lives, something we expected to only be able to find in Bangkok.
The club started out with a crappy fashion show with dudes who looked like chicks. But act 2 made up for it.
A creepy Steve Buschemi looking chinese dude with really long greasy hair and a wife beater came out onto stage carrying 3 veiled cases. I knew from the start this would be great.
He firsted pulled out a snake roughly the size of a garter snake, maybe a foot long and thin. This one was inserted through his nostril and emerged from his mouth. He slid it back and forth for added effect.
The second snake was a longer one, maybe 2 and a half feet long. This one he straightened as an arrow, raised his head high and swallowed the snake whole until all that could be seen was the tail wriggling.
Hist third act had a python. After the novelty of a python on the dance stage wore off it was a weak performance, nothing extraordinary. The highlight was him giving the python a good headbutt.
The DJ lady fell in love with us and gave us free drinks and a private booth. By us I mean she fell in love with Kevin and Nick, the two gay guys on our trip. Excellent taste in men she has.

We agreed with Cathy that we'd leave at 8am Saturday morning. This was a mistake on our parts considering we were at the sailor until 2am imbibing countless free drinks. Cathy is a sweet lady and to keep us to our word she hammered on all our doors at 8am until we woke up. With no hot water we made it to the Yangzhou bus station at 9:30am smelling of drunk. The weekend was off to a good start.

Nanjing is a beautiful city. One of the historical capitals and in the center lies Purple Mountain, full of parks and historic locations such as a Ming Dynasty Tomb, the Tomb of Sun Yat Sen and a chinese marine world.

Saturday was spent wandering around town. We found some foreign food stores where we went nuts, being starved of good american food for so long in Yangzhou. Angeline had some work to do, so we all split up. Mark, Corey and myself wandered around town practicing some chinese in the shopping district while Larry and Cathy went off to do their own thing as old people do.

Here's mark dancing with Ding Dong


We started wandering into toy shops and I found this awesome pornstar action figure. You can fully undress her!


We translated this bottle of alcohol as: Cow shed mountain double rotten head liquor


Saturday night we bought a bottle of Captain Morgans for about $10 (expensive!) and hit some foreigner bars. We met up with one of Corey's friends from Nanjing University. They have a large foreigner res which we hung out at for a bit as well. They have a pet pig... Yes, there is a wild pet pig running around their res building which they've named. It came around one day they said, they started feeding it and playing with it and it's been around ever since. Here she is.


At the school I met a couple other Canadians from Ottawa mainly and a couple other guys. It was fun. Angeline taught us a whole bunch of laowai hua as well. Foreigner dialect. Foreigner dialect is where we literally translate english sayings into chinese and see if any chinese people can understand them. It's funny because they can't and we're immature.

Sunday morning we did our touristy things before heading back to Yangzhou.
We went to purple mountain. First off was Sun Yat Sen's tomb. He was the one who brought down the Qing Dynasty and created the Chinese republic. Here I am at the entrance to his tomb.


We counted 280 some odd steps up to his tomb.


There he is.


Here's a pretty view from the top.


Here I am with a giant turtle. I forget what it was for, but it was still cool.


There was a museum as well. I remember in chinese history class learning about the Opium war there was the celebrated hero Commissioner Lin who destroyed such and such amount of british opium. This was a commemoration plaque. I was particularly fond of "uprightness asseting itself."


Next we headed for the Ming Emperor tomb. The path leading to his tomb is lined with statues, it was pretty and nicer with the fall colours.




Angeline and I.


Last but not least.


All in all it was a good trip. Nanjing was pretty. We met some new people at the university, got to practice some chinese and see cool things. The hostel we stayed at was 40kuai a night as well. Good thing we were only there for 1 night though, I certainly would never have showered in that place.

Early November.

I'm starting to eat well. I've discovered I can afford to eat out fancy maybe twice a week. And by fancy I mean 40kuai (still less than $6).

Exhibit:


The second dish is a new way of doing Peking Duck I haven't seen back home. All the gristle is deepfried into goodness. You can chew on the bones and they melt in your mouth, mmmmm.

We got two Peking Ducks that night. It was a good deal. I'm also starting to get my Chinese menu down. It's handy being able to ask for what you want to eat.

Shi zi tou - lion head = meatballs
Yang rou = mutton
Gou rou = dog meat

Haven't tried the Gou Rou yet. We tried the other day but the restaurant told us to come back when it was colder. Apparently dog is a winter delicacy. They fatten the dogs up over the summer, and come winter time when food is scarce, any stray dog is fair game! We were all very disappointed too. I had brought my camera out and everythiing hoping to get some good pictures of it.

Late October

So it's been almost a whole month without any posts. Thankfully I have the memory of an elephant! I don't think it's turned to mush yet. Late October two things hand out in my mind. Our teacher presentation and Halloween.

The teacher presentation was for a bunch of Beijing education bigwigs who came through the school. There was a whole day written off for their arrival and a number of school plays performed. Included in this program was a song to be sung and danced by the foreign teachers. This meant we needed an original number. Great minds were put together and the result was this shining gem to the tune of Sinatra's New York New York.

The best part is, I was somehow placed front row center for the dance! Here I come Broadway!

Start taking Kung-Fu
And learnin' Feng Shui
I want to see a lot of it
Yangzhou, Jiangsu
These ex-pat shoes
Are leading the way
Right to the top of Wen Chang Ge
Yangzhou, Zhong Guo
I wanna wake up in th ecity with the Grand Canal
To find I'm a foreigner..... teaching English

My home sick blues
Are melting away
I'm gonna eat a lot of it
Yangzhou chao fan
Because they make it there like they make it anywhere
And learn Kung-Fu
Yangzhou, China........ Yangzhou, Yangzhou

I wanna wake up in the city that goes to sleep (at 10 o'clock)
To find I'm a foreigner.... teaching English.... speaking Chinese.... What the hell's this?
I'm really confused
But i'm gonna stay
I'm gonna make a life of it
In old Yangzhou
I know if I can make it there
I can make it anywhere
It's up to you
Yangzhou, Yangzhou


And then there was Halloween which was celebrated early since the school does it as a weekend event. On the Thursday night all of us teachers went from classroom to classroom giving out candy and on the Friday there was a big Halloween parade.

Thursday night was life threatening at points. 3000 Chinese kids and free candy is a volatile combination. My classes were controllable cause they're older and lazier. Some of the younger classes however, they wouldn't stay in their seats as we entered the class.
After all the classes were done and we were hanging out in the teacher's offer the kids attempted to swarm into the office for more candy. Corey made the mistake of being a nice guy and going out with a handful of candy. He was swarmed and pushed into a corner. Dr. Bob, our boss, had to rescue him by throwing a handful of candy in the air which immediately made the kids scatter. They were like flies on honey! Vultures, the whole lot of them.

The next day was the parade. All the students walked around the track in their costumes. Two of the grade 10 classes stole the show however, one of which is mine. They made a huge float and had a halloween wedding on a rickshaw. It was pretty cool. Here's some pictures.

The happy couple


Two 'small girls' that's what their nicknames are


And all the little guys

October 19-21

I went to Shanghai this weekend to meet up with Shaun Chen. He was visiting China with a Canadian delegation from the Toronto Schoolboard. They were looking into setting up sister-school partnerships with Chinese schools for teacher and student exchanges. From what I gathered the idea was to begin introducing mandarin as a language in Toronto area high schools. To accomplish this the delegation was primarily focused upon teacher exchanges. Student exchanges may be preferable for Chinese schools however, Canadian schools are a different set up. Unlike China where students are housed on campus, Canadian schools are not boarding schools.
With the exception of UCC, the thought of shipping your kids away to school seems to have disappeared in Canada. And even at UCC the boarding school dynasty appears to be coming to an end amid scandal. Those wimps.
Anyway, I spoke with a number of the delegates. They were amazed at my minimal command of the chinese language. I suppose only being in the country for 2 weeks you don't have much time to try and learn, nor the incentive. But still, they all seemed so very lost it was frightening. China isn't that bad. As far as teacher swaps go, hopefully I was an example for them of what a successful teacher swap may look like.
So I came back and told Dr. Bob about what they were looking for. Hopefully some good can come of this and I'll receive a good word from someone.

Anyway, I met up with Shaun Friday night. I left school at 4pm and arrived in Shanghai around 7:30pm. I wandered around town and found my way over to his hotel. I also found a sweet la mien place to eat dinner. Those weegers, Chinese muslims, are everywhere with their noodle shops.

Saturday morning we woke up and headed for the Oriental Pearl Tower. It was basically the CN tower, but with a better view. There's a lot more Shanghai to see from way up top than there is Toronto. Here are Shaun and I infront of the Pearl Tower.


I spent most of the time hanging out with their Chinese tour guide lady. She was teaching me a bit of Chinese. She was also asking me about the delegation. The funniest part was when she asked how all of these officials did on the government exams. I had to explain that in a democracy there are no government exams. The smartest do not necessarily rule.

We had lunch and then headed to YuYuan. A beautiful garden in the old area of Shanghai just southwest of the Bund.

It wasn't a bad garden, but had nothing on the ones I saw in Suzhou. The shopping area around it however was spectacular. The shopping was good, but the architecture was all restored buildings as so.


After this Shaun and I took off from the pack and went off to Nanjing Lu for some shopping. We traversed all the illegal shops. Apparently I flirt with the young Chinese girls when I'm trying to shop. I throw in a little bit of Chinese here and there to try and get a better price. But then again they probably sick the girls on so they can sucker me into buying stuff so it's a two way street. In the end, they still win because no matter how low I get the price I'm still buying something.
This is one thing Toronto needs though, illegal stores. The sort where you wander through the back alleys and walk into someone's house and then one room is just set up as a store with fake everything.

Shaun and I also took a walk along the boardwalk along the Pu river. Here I stand next to Mao.


And here is the Shanghai skyline.

Shanghai is a sweet city. When I get more money I'll have to go back. It is one of the few international cities in China. People were not amazed to see me because there were so many other foreigners. The salespeople spoke enough English to sell you things. But this is also the downside. I like people running up and trying to get pictures with me!
Oh, this was also on the washroom wall in a family restaurant above the urinal.

Our school is surrounded by rice fields. Consequently so is the entire city of Yangzhou. Chinese farmers all have a farmers almanac book provided by the government which tells them how to properly care for their crops and fields. Included within this almanac is the provision that the fields should be burned after their rice harvest. It is healthy for the soil, there's no disputing that. However the smoke it creates engulfs the entire city in smoke for a full month which hinders the breath. It's funny to see, horrible to live through.

I did my best to chronicle the burning of the fields. I missed a couple pictures, especially the first few days while on my trip to Shanghai. Here are the rice fields a the beginning of the month.


Here they are after the harvest.

What happens next?!


And here are some night fires.


The one night when the fields immediately next to our dorm were on fire were terrible. I didn't even want to go outside to take pictures. It looked pretty as all you see was a giant orange glow emanating from beyond the wall, but you could see nothing but smoke.

When going into town, the entire town was engulfed in smoke, visibility was less than 100m.

October 14th landed on a Sunday this year. Unfortunately I was grounded to a 5minute radius of my room due to a case of what I like to consider the spicy stomache, la du zi. However, in this case the 'la' is 'pull' as opposed to spicy. You can take a guess what the 'pull stomache' means.

The school provides a 100kuai gift and a cake for birthdays. They know when the birthdays are, but I made a self bet that given my knowledge of the bureaucratic gears anything must go through to get anything done in China my gift would not arrive until Wednesday. I was pleasantly surprised when I got my cake, gift and a package from Lauren on Tuesday! It made my day.

The week prior the teachers also received their monthly stipend of fruit. Just as last month we received a crate of green oranges, this month we received a bag of apples.



So how to celebrate a birthday in China? There was the fireworks option. Instead, we opted for smoking cigars and hanging out on the roof of our dorm. Until Corey recalled he had a giant 3 person slingshot in his room. This combined with each of us recently receiving a bag of apples was an equation for fun.

Here we are doing what immature boys with jobs do best.




This picture is from the following day so you can see what we were shooting at.


We could launch the apples almost a 100m. That boat was about 60m off however so it was tricky to get the range and aim right. After a full bag of apples I was the only person to hit the boat. Everyone came close however, but it was my birthday luck which put me over the top and received the acclaim. What a night.

October 3rd

We woke up in the Bai Ma Se. Kevin's friend was supposed to wake us up at 5:15am for monk breakfast, and he tried. I recall someone rapping against the door, but none of us wanted to get up at that hour. We did wake up at around 7:30 and were out by 8:15 and on our way into Luoyang. Since we weren't staying in Luoyang this night and were instead getting a bus back to Zhengzhou for our 1am train departure we had to pack around all our stuff. This served me right for buying things. Thankfully I had my large camping backpack with all sorts of straps to fit stuff into. But I still managed to weigh myself down with a useless sword that I bought because it was sharp and looked cool and 2 scrolls which I bought at the Bai Ma Se. They were pretty, a pair of these Chinese nature paintings with the mountains and waterfalls peaking out from behind the clouds. They look sweet, but I need a personal packhorse.

Anyway, Luoyang was a busy day. Kevin's friend told us which bus to take to get to the Longmen Grottos. These are the equivalent of Mount Rushmore for China. Except much better. It's a rockface with thousands of Buddha carvings engraved into it, rather than just 4 heads. The bus ride took us all across town, and this time we at least didn't fall asleep on it.

The Longmen Grottos were beautiful. The only drawback was that it was still National Day holiday and if I thought the Shaolin Temple was busy this place was worse than disneyworld. Although we did see a bunch of Lao Wai here, something we had yet to see anywhere else so far this trip.

Me.

Just one section of it.

Some carvings.

Check out this dude's pinky nail. It's beautiful.

The big ones.

Here at the Grottos we were accosted more times than any by Chinese people. It was great. Every Chinese tourist on vacation kept asking us for pictures with them. It's fun to feel like a celebrity.


From the otherside of the river.

After the Grottos we had lunch in Luoyang and made our way back to Zhengzhou, the grimy city of fun and debauchery. We arrived at the trainstation and dropped off our bags so we could be free of our encumberence and drink weightlessly.
3 bottles of jin jiu later, some schwarmas and an hour in an arcade we were happily sitting on a street corner reminiscing about our vacation. A few chinese people came by to say hello and chatted with us for a bit. It probably didn't take them too long to realize we were drunk lao wai though.
Here's our street corner.

Here's a sweet chinese shirt.

And here's the same view from which I started this vacation, back on the train.

October 2nd

We left DengFeng and headed for Luoyang, another of the historic capitals in China. Outside the city is the Bai Ma Se, White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist Temple in China. It was a well kept temple with a male and female quarters. The male section looked more like a temple while the female side better resembled a large garden with a pagoda in the center. Kevin said he knew one of the monks there and he may be able to get us in for free. Sure enough he did, but he was busy doing his monkly duties to meet us at first.

Here is the gate.
The gardens.
A resident.
The cloisters.

After our walk through we met Kevin's monk friend. He didn't speak much english and between Mark, Corey and myself we could only slightly communicate with him in Chinese. He was still kind enough however to offer us monk quarters for the night, for free! These were our cleanest rooms yet for the trip and the cheapest! Our accomodation had run us in descending order for most expensive and shittiest (quite literally) to best and free! The monk quarters even had a working shower with hot water! The guesthouse in DengFeng only had cold water.

We even got to eat dinner with the monks. Monk food is the only vegetarian food I've ever really liked. That'll say something.


I felt it would be a bit offensive to take a picture while everyone was eating since they eat in complete silence. They also all face the same direction so they're not looking at one another while they eat. They have a bowl which they are allowed to refill as many times as they wish, however it is frowned upon to waste food, so they shouldn't fill the bowl with more they can eat.
It's an interesting custom, but it makes eating feel more like a chore than an event. I thought almost everyone enjoyed conversation while they ate. The monks do not. They eat quick and then get out.

Here's Kevin speaking to his monk friend.

There were two highlights of the night. We all hung out in this pagoda in the middle of the temple until roughly 10pm entertaining ourselves. And a monk walked by, looked at us and said "foreigners?!" in the strangest engrish accent imaginable. Mark's answer was "Zhongguo ren?!" He was a nice guy, he was a monk after all.


Oh, and here was the other highlight. Playing poker with prison stakes.