Week 2 in China

What I Learned

Bring tissues and hand sanitizer.

Bring it with you wherever you go. whenever you go. The toilets here are squatters and a lot of the time the bathrooms doesn't have toilet paper or hand soap so tissues and hand sanitizer are good alternatives.

You are going to get your picture taken.

And they are not shy about it. So have fun, pose for pictures. Ask to take pictures with them. You're something new for them in a country where most everyone is the same ethnicity. They will actually appreciate your photo bombs.

Plan ahead for hot water.

You can't get hot water whenever you dang-well please. There are hot water times when you are guaranteed hot water no matter how many people are showering at a time but outside of those times, you will be taking a cold shower. You have to plan ahead and know when the times are.

Break out your walking shoes.

You will be walking...everywhere. Wear comfy shoes because walking is what you will be doing. All. The. Time. I really miss my own car right about now. But I wouldn't want to drive here.

Don't gossip in front of them.

A lot of people still speak English, enough that you can't pull off any of that talk-about-someone-in-another-language-right-in-front-of-their-face crap. They can do it to you but you can't do it to them. It sucks but that's life.

You're going to stand out, in more ways than one.

Chinese women, like most other women outside of the United States, always dress up. They don't really do causal here. I figure, I'm already going to stick out, I might as well be comfortable, but dress up when you can.

Eat all the egg-waffles!

Egg-waffle ice cream cones are literally my favorite thing about China right now. They have these waffle makers that make bubbles of gooey goodness. They cook it up right in front of you and roll it up to make a cone. And then they scoop a healthy serving of awesome ice cream with chocolate syrup and sprinkles to top it off. It is all so good.

What I Did

Sunday

Church takes up most of my day Sundays. We leave at 8:30 AM to catch the metro and after an hour-and-a-half ride, changing trains once, and a seven minute walk we get to Church at 10:00 AM. My Church lasts for three hours, so we don't get home until 2:30 PM at the earliest but hey, I am attending a religious ceremony in a communist country, which is pretty freaking cool if you ask me.

So there's church on Sunday. the only other thing that I have to report is that day was also the first time that someone asked to take their picture with me. I've had plenty of pictures taken of me, some I've posed for but I'm sure there are others that I didn't catch. I'm getting better about noticing thought; I's like I'm developing a spidy-sense. Anyway, this older lady sitting next to me was recording our group on the metro and then when she saw that I had noticed we played a little game of charades and she took her picture with me. Well, she was my first, so I had to get a picture with her too. I'm sure it won't be the last.

Monday

I started teaching. I teach the oldest kids in our group, the 5th and 6th graders. There anywhere between nine and thirteen years old. The first day is always the worst, that's what I've heard, and man, those kids did not fall short of that expectation. I had a break for lunch, where one of our Chinese school coordinators, Linda, took really good care of us and made sure that we found the cafeteria and got enough to eat. During that break, I also got some feedback that made the rest of the day go smoother. After two-and-a-half hours teaching though, i was ready to be done.

IMG_0817

IMG_0819

ECJF6978

Tuesday - Thursday

Not a lot to report for those day. Teaching was exhasuting so I wasn't up for much in the evening the highlight of my weekdays was McFlurries at McDonals. The consensus, including me, is that the ice cream is better here than in the states. We all like it a lot especially because it's so hot and humid here.

KUKY2363

IBTP7821

IMG_0949

Friday

I started my teaching day off at 12:50 PM and it was off to a rocky start. I pulled out some teacher sass, which I am quickly developing and had to have my first class just sit in silence for the last five-minutes instead of play a game. But my last class was great and I got some fun pictures and videos with them. And thus my weekend started.

That night, a group of us went out to one of the many malls that we have around here and ate at Skyway sandwich shop that has some of the American food that I have been missing. I had a egg-salad sandwich and a sprite, along with a little scoop of chocolate gelato (that wasn't worth the 12 yuan that I paid for it but the rest of the food was great).

So after we got food, we went like, right next door to this little hole-in-the wall shop that sells American products. So i got a new tube of deodorant and split a case of Dr. Pepper with a friend. It seems more expensive, because everything else here is so dang cheap but really, it's about normal US prices.

Our last stop for the night was the Golden Eagle mall. We wanted to find the international movie theater (you all know that I am not going to miss Thor: Ragnorok) and look around. We ended up wandering into a sale. It was kind of like a store jsut rented one of the shops for their sale because there weren't any displays or decorations, and when we went to go pay they took us across the mall to a different store. Anyway, it was my first experience buying clothes in Asia and it went pretty well. In general, Asians have a way different body type from me so some of the things that I was hoping would work, I realized probably wont ever work no matter where I shop. But i did end up getting a cardigan and a collard shirt that says 'Hero' on the breast pocket. There both long-sleeve so you won't see me wearing them in any pictures until it cools way down.

IMG_1012

IMG_1014_edited

IMG_1016

Saturday

We went to the purple mountain! Okay, well first we stressed about buying train tickets. So our long vacation falls on one of China's national holidays, so all of China is basically vacationing at the same time, so if you want to get train tickets anywhere you have to buy them right when they go on sale. We're not traveling until the beginning of October but tickets went on sale on Saturday and were literally sold out in seconds. There was some screaming and crying and pilling-out-of-hair, but eventually we got tickets that we were happy with.

And them we went to the Purple Mountain! So it's one of those free things here in the city, and on the mountain up about a bajillions steps is the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China. The structures are only about eighty years old but they look really cool.

On our way back down all the steps, we did a little shopping in the tourist shops. I didn't buy anything, but I'm starting to get an idea of the souvenirs that I want to bring back for my family and friends.

IMG_1060

IMG_1054

IMG_1049

Coming home, my roommate and I were hungry so we stopped for some McDonald's before we went grocery shopping because you should never shop for groceries when you're hungry. After McDonald's we found there egg-waffle ice cream cones, and seriously, they are my favorite thing about China so far. I love them! I researched and found some shops in New York and California that sell it back in the states. So I guess I'm going on a road trip sometime when I get home.

Happy Travels,

Challis Hackley