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Week 1 in China: Part 2

Challis Hackley
Sep 25, 2017
6 min read

So here's the second half of my first week in China. I like how I structured the last one just starting with what I learned and then telling you all about it, so I think I'm going to stay with that same format. Here goes.

What I Learned

You have to know how to use chopsticks.

That is really all they have sometimes, so if you don't know how to use them, and use them well, you will have to learn really quick if you want to eat. You will not find forks all that easily so if you do find one, cherish it.

You will get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You will not always know what is going on or what you are doing. That is okay. Accept it and figure it out as you go along. Missed your train stop? Get off and circle back. Over-payed for a souvenir. Better luck next time. Can't find that Muslim Noodle stand that everyone and their grandma is talking about. Don't worry, it's bound to show up somewhere.

You're going to get really good at playing charades.

You can really get most of your ideas across with some hand gestures, and Google Translate is accurate enough to help. There are lots of people here who know enough English to help you but you will not be able to rely on that.

What I Did

So this is talking about the second half of my first week. It's a lot about getting settled, meeting new people, and exploring the city. Hope you enjoy.

Thursday

I woke up to late on Thursday to get a warm shower or breakfast. So I just waited around a little bit and hung out until lunch. I came to understand and accept that most of the time I am here in China I will not know what I am eating, and that has to be okay. So the question that you end up asking people is not 'What are you eating?' because 75 percent fo the time they will say 'I don't know.' What you should be asking is 'Does it taste good?' School hasn't started yet, but when it does, all three levels of the cafeteria will be open and I'm hoping that with more options, the food quality might improve. After lunch we played some ping pong, and I swear, every student or teacher that saw us, laughed, because we are really not that good. But the ping pong tables are everywhere so maybe we'll get better at it in our spare time.

We had a little field trip to the metro station. I went because I thought that we were going to get metro cards, but the rest of the group was just going to the bank, but I learned how to pay for the tokens, and how it all works, so I guess it was worth the trip.

When I came back from that, I went exploring the campus again. I had heard about a bamboo garden and a small farm and so, another girl and I found that and took some really cool pictures. I have mixed feelings about the farm. It's really picturesque and pretty with all sorts of neat rows of crops, a little pond, and chicken running around everywhere. It's quaint. But then you realize that this is where your food comes from and you see a dead chicken on a stump and it all seems less cute.

I missed dinner again, because I wasn't all that hungry and well, I slept thorough it. Jet lag is real and it's a pain. I slept through dinner and would have slept through a teacher training session at 6:30 pm, if someone hadn't come and knocked on my door. Maybe someday my body will catch up with me.

Friday

Thursday I woke up too late, the next day, I had the opposite problem. I didn't sleep as soundly that day and woke up at like 3:00 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. That's actually when I wrote most of this post. Jet lag had caught up with me in a big way.

I saw the sun for the first time since I had been in China. Since we landed it had either been night or the sky had been so overcast, cloudy or hazy that I hadn't seen that big fiery orb in the sky. SO that was nice, like seeing an old friend.

The food was better this day. I got some really good fish sticks that look like chicken strips... at least I think they were fish. The school campus that I live on is massive, and I still haven't seen it all, so we went exploring again.

That night, we took the metro to downtown Nanjing and that was astounding. So up until that point, I hadn't realized that we had been living in the suburbs. The city of Nanjing houses somewhere around eight million people and used to be the nation's capital. So we walk up the stairs from the underground metro stations and we are greeted by these massive skyscrapers and great big televisions screens and blinding lights. It was breathtaking in a way. We had come to late in the night to actually do anything so we explored the city and familiarized ourselves with some of the streets and buildings.

Saturday

At 9:00 am, one of our local coordinators, Bonnie, took a few of us to the campus where we'll be teaching the older kids, 5th and 6th graders. We saw our office, supply room and our classrooms. We worked on a a few things, figured out a few more before heading home.

That afternoon we had another little excursion to downtown Nanjing. As a big group we went to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. Let me tell you, it is not for the faint of heart. It was free to enter and when you get there the first thinking you see is this massive statue depicting a wailing woman holding a limp child. It was at that point that I realized that I didn't really know any of the history of this place. So I talked with some of the others in my group and this is what I found out. In the late-1930's, Japanese troops attacked Nanjing, bombing, pillaging, raping, and killing their way through the city. The deaths where in the hundred thousands.

Knowing that, I began walking down the main strips, passing these smaller statues depicting tragic scenes that were sure to have happened during the massacre. After that outdoor strip, we went inside to a museum There weren't a lot of artifacts but I got to read a lot about what happened and some of the survivors stories. So tragic. Not anything I want to repeat but I would if I thought I could do it in any sort of accurate way. After we left the museum I thought we were done but the saddest part was yet to come. A mass grave was discovered and a memorial hall was build around it. There was one part where I kind of broke down and started to cry. Most of the signs were also in English, so I got to one display that numbered some of the skeletons that you could see and told you more about them. Within the ones that I read there was a baby, a child with nails located in various parts of it's body and an elderly woman. I started to cry as I read about them. So much pain. I can't even imagine.

After the burial site there was another memorial that had the family names of the victims and candles lit for them and the tour ended with a large statue of a woman with the simple inscription 'Peace.' I'm glad I went even though it was difficult to see all that.

After the museum and memorial, we wanted something a little bit lighter. So we walked a few blocks and went to this massive mall. We did a little shopping, all i bought was something from a bakery, and then went home again. I have really enjoyed just walking around the city, time and time again. There is so much to see without even really doing anything.