Brrrr, it's cold in Beijing

Salutations from the Great city of Beijing where the Red Mao reigns over all. I keep on reading all

 

these articles about China in the news on The NY Times and the Economist about China. Essentially I think the media has hooked onto a newly developed fear of Chinese domination. However this isn't something new the concept has been around for ages. What happens to world order when the hegemon (US) is no longer a hegemon? The most commonly perceived country is China, due to its economic capacity in the wealth of its population size. Whether or not China could mobilize these masses to the work force was another story . Now whether that be politically, economically or most undoubtedly culturally, the media is amid a feeding frenzy on the possibilities for the future, as China's economy skyrockets past that of the United States, the most recent economic power. Reading about all of this can get a bit depressing, seeing as I am from the U.S. and currently I'm in China.

The most recent article to catch my eye was about the internationalization of the "Redback" Mao into the world economy, having the Chinese yuan set as the standard for monetary values, a position the US Greenback currently holds. I scream a silent (No!) in my head while merely reading the article. It would be strange to have some other standard than that of my beloved Greenback. The same as it would be strange to think of anything inherently Chinese in culture and values as the accepted Standard.

I feel like I'm a walking product of classes with Lorenzini and Lomperis (Political Thought of Asia). I think about this stuff tooo much! Ok, here we go. I've always heard that China is a society based on harmony. The most valued thing in Asian society is Harmony, the most valued thing in Western Society is freedom...there by ipso facto Colombo Calypso--haha--Asian societies are community driven while Western societies are intrinsically individually driven. Of course there are the exceptions in both societies but anyway....

Let's take the idea of responses toward the recent North Korea conundrum, the west (particularly the Obama Administration) is/was mystified and agitated about the talks with China on the matter. They couldn't understand whyyyy China took so long to respond, was so hard to get a hold of, and didn't want to sharply reprimand the North Koreans (essentially the western approach). What was China's method in all of this? To Assure the North Koreans that their security was not going to be affected--a unique harmony-based Asian approach. Is this absurd? No, when you think about it, China's not being stubborn they are just thinking about things in a different manner.

Now relating all of this mumbo jumbo to my class room is interesting. When I first arrived I took a training course in which I had a nutty/cool teacher named Chuck who forewarned us that Chinese are very competitive and individualistically based in the classroom. He said this because students would deliberately hold questions until after the class so that they could gain an upper edge against all the other students. However on the less mature level, I think this concept still holds true. I like my primary school kids, and competition is always a way to keep them engaged while learning new concepts. Every day, I divide my class into 3 groups and those groups compete against each other to get rewards from their TA in the end. Generally there is a certain level of cheating by whispering answers that goes on in the classroom. I would never give kids on the other team the right answer so that they could get a point. This is precisely what happens in all of my classes, there is inter-team/group cheating even when it could hamper one of the teams. A whispers to B and B's team wins. This isn't just cases of friendship its whole groups. haha I don't know how to explain it much better than that but it makes me laugh and I enjoy it.

...On a much darker note, its getting very close to Christmas and surprisingly it is not completely uncommon to see Christmas decorations sold and already put up. My friends an I are planning on a X-mas day meal or "X'mas" as was so fondly displayed in a prominently western shopping area. I've started listening to TSO (Trans-Siberian Orchestra for all you newbies) and thinking about the lack of Christmas cookies I will be able to eat. Note to self, NEVER miss Christmas again. I want some Orange Tea Cookies...yum! Another note to self; please take many pictures of Xmas decorations this weekend. Oh, and p.s. I might begin work for a Chinese movie star if everything pans out.

Soo lets talk about China

Sooo everybody I would like to talk about China, the country and statistics....and then a homey touch of my favorite food baozi

Anywho, moving on soooo China, Modern day China, that is. China is an up and coming economic superpower that rivals and surpasses even the former hegemonic power of the United States. Boasting a population of about 1,330,141,256 people.....lets take a look at the U.S.'s population at a staggering 310,232,862. Essentially China has a good BILLION plus people on us. Now that statistically we've settled that China has an enormous population, just image on 1 Billion plus people is dispersed about a region, even one as large as the landmass of China. In China, the cities are very important bustling centers of the country. When people living in rural areas were allowed to migrate to the cities after the reign of Mao, the cities began to double and triple in size. Cities could be considered small countries.

Take for instance Beijing, home of 20 million plus people (according to the Chinese -recently the census happened so this could be reliable). Try to picture living in a city that large. For me, it is still a bit un-imagineable to think that that many people live in one city. The largest city I had ever lived in was Santiago, population of around 7 million people. Beijing trumps Santiago times 3! No matter how extensive the subway system is, it still cannot compensate for how long travel will take. For me to travel from West Beijing to East Beijing, it would easily take me over an hour and a half. This is with me living a 5 minute walk from my apartment to the subway station. My old apartment was a 15-25 minute bus ride TO the subway. Driving in a taxi (chuzu qiche 出租车) during rush hour could easily take you about 2 hours to get to your destination, even if it wasn't very far away.

Now, Beijing isn't even the largest city in the country, the city that holds that title is Shanghai. Navigation in Beijing is a nightmare, so navigation in Shanghai can only be more of a nightmare. So taking this into consideration, just because there is an incident in Beijing, doesn't mean that the incident happened down the street from me. Nor does it mean that I will even hear about the incident in the news until you tell me. Ahaha. case and point, (no offense mom, I love you!) my mother sent me an article about "the world's longest traffic jam" that happened in Beijing where people were in a jam for approximately 9 days. No, I hadn't heard of anything of the sort. This just means that traffic was really really bad for about 9 days. ....Is that unusual? No. Soooo, if you see an article about Wu Dao Kou, or Wudaokou, then I might have heard about it. If not then I don't know what you are talking about. ahaha

China is  such a large country that it has very diverse cuisine, which if you've talked to me much, you would know that it's not really my favorite. There are plenty of dishes of the Northern style that I like, but equally there are plenty that I will not touch. People rave about Peking Duck in China, which is fairly good and appetizing, however this is not what floats my boat. What does is, 包子 or Baozi, essentially they are dumplings filled with meats, vegetables or egg and are the most scrumptious when eaten with soy vinegar.

 

This is a bag of baozi that I used to get at least once a day from my local baozi woman. Seriously I've never had baozi better than hers. It didn't always look like baozi but it always tasted better than baozi. They vary in size and in fillings but generally are always good. Here's a picture of how baozi normally looks... So essentially, I love my baozi (which I can find no good street baozi in Wudaokou) and I really like the strange fruit and juice selections. I've discovered pamelos, what I describe as a cross between a grapefruit and an orange. I buy them whole, peel them and eat it throughout the week. Other big fruits in China include dragonfruit, hawthorn berries and peaches (you can find many different peach juices here. Hawthorn berries are puzzling because I find the actual fruit disgusting but the juice amazingly delicious. The other type of juice that I've only seen here is Sea-Buckthorn juice....yes sea-buckthorn juice. I can't find it everywhere, some random street vendors have it but I think it's delicious. It tricks you though because it looks like orange juice. The 'sea-buckthorn berry' is found on cliff environments and must go through an intense juicing process because it is normally an oily berry. Don't let that throw you off the juice is actually pretty good.

Ok, thats all for now folks BYE!

It's definitely December

So sorry everybody for not writing a whole lot! I've been sick quite a lot, including the majority of November. I recieved medical attention so the worst of it is over and I'm doing much better. By the way, if you are ever in Beijing and need a doctor for any reason, just go to any of the area hospitals. Near me there were at least 3. I chose to go to the Sino-Japanese Friendship hospital near Hepingli. There was a nice International Wing where the majority of the staff spoke English and spoke it well. Even the nurses were able to speak English. I was in and out in about 30 minutes. The most costly thing about the visit was my prescription. Next time I get sick, I will probably choose to go to a cheaper specifically Chinese hospital so I can spend even less. Anywhoooo, enough of the depressing stuff

Moving on, October ended with a BanG! Halloween! Even though many Chinese do not celebrate Halloween, there were plenty of places that sponsored and joined in the festivities! All of my friends and I went out for a night of good fun on Halloween. I was a pirate-ess, along for my good friend Cady. I realized that my roommate Erin has a secret turned not-so-much-a-secret-anymore of a burning love for face paint. She whipped out a picture on her phone of herself earlier this year in full avatar body/face paint. She REALLY looked like an avatar!. So needless to say, face paint was a part of her attire for the evening as she dawned a mime outfit. Other friends included Beethoven, David Bowie, Peter Pan and a Frenchman (James) complete with a baguette. 


So Halloween was a lot of fun, then I was sick for about three weeks, and when I was finally better and I was able to celebrate my birthday! Yes, now officially I'm an old woman at the ripe old age of 23, it's all downhill from here. 23 might as well be 25, which fully qualifies me as an adult and therefore means I might as well be 30...or 40... Anyway, my birthday weekend was fun, my friends and I went out to a club and then on my actual birthday my friends took me out to eat for dinner and for breakfast!

....thats all I got for now....I'm boring.

I found Christ!

So Chinese people come up with the strangest names for Children. The best I've ever heard have been some like  Bob, Monkey, Apple and Orange, Plus One, Barbie, Lucky, and....(drumroll please....) Christ, pronounced like Chris...with a T on the end. When I first realized there was a child named Christ in my class, I nearly lost it. So for the past week or so, I was wondering what happened to Christ. I didn't see his name card anymore so I didn't know where he was. There was a kid named Lucky that I usually called on to answer questions and without hesitation he would stand up and answer them

Yesterday I was explaining the concept of Thanksgiving and I asked Lucky to show me his turkey that he drew. He was about to stand up when my TA interrupted me and asked me "ahh, Gabi, Who is Lucky?" I told her, the kid I just called on. She then informed me that Lucky was actually Christ and I'd been calling Christ, Lucky for the past week or so. NOW I know what happened to Christ, he just had been misnamed for a while. Now the real question is.....Who is Lucky? I know there is someone in one of my four classes named Lucky.....

See you soon for another blog....

(Later that day....) Good news everybody, I found Lucky today, Class 7. For the record Lucky and Christ look very similar.

October onward!

So moving on from my amazing Great Wall experience I haven't done too much in Beijing, I will probably have to wait till the weekend to maybe go somewhere, probably not since it will be my birthday. 

Recap on the rest of October.

So I was working at Ke-Er International Kindergarten with the lovely Montessori Teacher Cynthia, pronounced Cyncia. She, the Chinese teacher Nina and I all worked together in the Montessori teaching environment. From my experience working there I believe the Montessori teaching style to not be such a free and relaxed atmosphere. In fact I found that the environment at times of instruction was the exact opposite. In times of instruction, (the initial stages of integration into the class) the children had specific ways to walk, talk, look, move, carry things, eat...etc. This bothered me a bit until I saw the effect of enforcing this behavior at the beginning. They then learned from it and later we did not have to worry about what that child was doing.

In the Montessori learning environment, children learn through TBL (Task Based Learning) meaning that everything that they are supposed to be learning in the classroom, they are learning through doing different activities.  So they would have activities that were used to teach them things about practical life, sensory education, math education etc. I think there were a couple of areas, but I never understood what Cynthia was talking about. 

 

My kids were adorable....crazy to hear me say right? I know, but anyway the children grew on me. During the strict regimented time of the children, I was provided time for a 30-40 minute lesson with them in English during my "English Circle Time". Usually I would choose a song or two and we'd sing those songs, and then possibly practice some vocabulary flash cards and lastly read a book. Without fail, the children always wanted to do these songs "Little Bunny Fufu, Body talk (the song ended in shaking your whole body), and Old MacDonald". Everyday I would introduce myself and we'd go through everybody's name and say hello. This is also how I introduced new classmates. 

 

These were my cutest kids, Ulsha (3 yrs) he couldn't really speak any English but he tried to understand and would talk right back to you in mandarin. Isabelle (3yrs) couldn't speak English and was pretty shy. Lastly was my little favorite Fan Qi, (2 1/2 yrs) could speak no English but was super cute! She would always call all of the teachers "ayi" which is a general term for a nanny/woman who does the cleaning.  We would always hagve to sit her down and say "Wo Laoshi bu ayi" and repeat laoshi (teacher) and she would repeat it back. I worked at Ke-Er for about 2 and 1/2 months before I quit.

Yes, I quit my job and I quit the company I came over here with. I realized that the school ways paying almost triple what I received from my company, meaning my company was pocketing a good 8-10,000 kuai each month. So essentially I quit because I worked around 45 hours a week and didn't get paid enough for it. There is plenty of work in Beijing so I wasn't worried about quitting.

Good-bye Ke-Er! I told my Montessori teacher Cynthia face-to-face, surprisingly she understood but she was sad to see me go! She is an amazing person!

 

What are the repercussions from quitting: I needed a place to live, a new job, a roommate, and a way to get my visa in the end. Soooo let's see how far I've gotten on those lists....

The weekend before I quit, I went apartment hunting with a good friend of mine, Erin, who had recently returned from teaching in Yijing, a city about 2 hours away from Beijing. When she returned to Beijing she did not like the job that the company had placed her in. So we quit together and looked for an apartment together. After a lot of searching we finally found a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment that we both liked. We moved in about two days later.

The following week we looked for jobs together. We signed contracts with a bunch of different companies trying to get part time work. This we realized is just a gradual process because with private tutoring companies, the hire you initially, put you in a demo, and if the student likes you from there, then you begin a regular basis job. The other jobs we have found easily is part time primary school work. I currently work part time at a primary school called Shi You, teaching English to 1st graders. I generally like my job and I don't mind the hours so it's a good set up.

So job, roommate and housing (check, check and check). Now all I needed was my visa. This was a bit stressful. I had no of where to get my visa extended until my friends found a company that extended your visa for you and took you to the immigration office to get it processed with just minor agency fees. So currently my visa is being processed. Add another check.

I'm feeling good, I'm loving China. I don't want to leave, I just want it to warm up! ahaha!

(This is to remind me to talk about Chinese english names and chinese life for my next blog)
Toodles, Adios, Ahlan, Zaijian!

Mooncakes and the Great Wall

Moving on to the last recap about the Moon Festival. So here's the deal, evidently there is some widely celebrated Moon Festival in China. It celebrates some story about a Chinese woman from the Moon who brought rabbits for good luck back to earth.... Something of the sort. Every chinese person you ask to tell you the story, tells you a different one.

What is the Moon Festival known for? MOON CAKES!!! WOOO! (in all actuality I would have to be forced in order to eat a moon cake.) They can be made with many different designs and shapes but essentially they are a little 'cake' that has some sort of filling on the inside, whether it be meat floss, berries, ice cream, etc. (Don't ask me what meat floss is... I do not know)

 

My school put on a Moon Festival Celebration whereupon I was prompted to be the coordinator for the moon cake making room. The children would come in and take some pre-made dough and filling and put them together into the mold. I was on oversight patrol. If you ever need to know how to make a moon cake... Come see me. Aahaha!

OK THE BIG KAHUNA!!!

OF course I visited the Great Wall of China. However, I did not just visit this wondrous structure, I camped for a night on this structure! Technically not what you were supposed to do, but we found plenty of neighbors in nearby guard towers doing the same thing.

Yes, that is a real picture, no I didn't photo-shopped anything. Moving on, so this section of the Great Wall was called Jinshangling. My friends and I were supposed to go to Si Ma Tai, but evidently there was some kind of road block so we went here instead. The route to take: from Beijing City, take the Express bus 980 from Dongzhimen Bus Station to the City of Minyuan (should be a bit over an hour or so). Get off at the LAST STOP! ahah Do not let the Chinese taxi drivers take you off the bus before you need to! They will shout hello and see if they get a response. Ahah that is how they got us. Anywho, if you go during the day, there are plenty of minibuses that will bring you to the Great Wall from Minyuan. If you arrive during the evening/late afternoon, you will have to find a taxi and they will try to rip you off. Don't go over 200-250 kuai for the entire cab (50 kuai per person)

If you camp on the Great Wall, I would advise going during the summer months because it gets freezing up there! or bring some kind of foam mat to put your sleeping bag on because of how cold the stone gets at night.

So I went with a  bunch of friends, mostly English (how unusual) Cady (English girl), James (English), Owen (English & the Best House-mate EVAR!), Brendan (the Irishman), Simon (Canadian), Andrew (American), and Alex (American).

Here's a picture of the best house-mate ever, and everyone else ahah. Well not everyone, some people went off to explore Si Ma Tai, but they're playing cards at around 9am on the wall.

So we got to the top (the wall) around 4 or 5 and we picked a spot to sit by 6or 7 and set up camp! There was a steady supply of baozi available as well as sweet bread, animal crackers, chips and ahhhhh Baijiu (Traditional Chinese alcohol made from rice, really gross and smells like paint-thinner, also very cheap) We met a French couple, some Germans who were camped out in the next tower, some Irish folk (I could not understand a word of what they said), some Canadians and some Spaniards! 

             The Night was absolutely freezing, I think I remember shivering every minute I was laying down. But all in all the experience was a good one! 

p.s. I've come to terms with my fear of ancient steps (realized in Machu Picchu, and exaggerated and accepted on the Great Wall) Shout out to Ali and Marta for holding my hand down Machu Picchu and Cady for holding my hand down the Great Wall! ahaha!

So I thought I didn't like the food...

I thought that I didn't like Chinese food, I was not used to the mass amounts of grease found in everything including vegetables. Veggies are not served fresh nor steamed in any place that I can think of. Pork. It's in everything. Good right? I prefer it to beef. Jiu-ro? or Jidian? Chicken or Pork? Those are my options. Spicy or sweet, those are my options. ok. time to go, more to write later!

Update on my life!

So lets expand on the current happenings/past happenings in my life!.

So starting with

1. I got stuck in the Chicago Airport before I left for Beijing and Taxi Ride to the Hotel!
1. OK, so before I left for Chi-town my mother booked a ticket on mega-bus for my sister and I to Chicago (because my flight was out of Chicago). The bus ride went down without any issues, as well as the day and a half spent exploring Chicago with my lovely sister! However the trouble came after the long and burdensome walk to the metro from her apartment. This took FOREVER!! After that came the 1 hour metro ride to the airport. Ok not so bad so far right? Next I got everything in order and I went through the security check followed by going to the boarding area/lounge. I made some friends with some people my age who were going to some other city in China to do the same deal, Teaching English. 
2. My flight was due to leave at 12pm was delayed until about 2pm due to a 'modular panel issue'. Whatever that means!  Then 2pm rolls around and they give out free lunch passes for the wait and say that the plane will be ready around 3pm. So we wait till 3 pm. Then at about 3:30 they announce that the plane part was just flown in from Denver and they were beginning to install it. However, there would be no flight that day and the flight would be delayed until the next morning.
3. Mind you I was on a schedule to be picked up from the airport and I needed to be there on August 16th instead of the 17th! So I panicked, I talked to the flight attendents/managers and asked if there was any way to get to Beijing on the 16th. The only way to do so was to go on a different flight and my baggage would NOT be transfered. WHA???? So I somehow had to find internet and let my company know that I would be late so they could meet me. What was the e-mail that I got in response to this??? Of course it was "OK. We will not be able to meet you at the airport. The address of the Hotel is: 和平西桥往南拐，路西，速8酒店的旁边“ 安怡之家”酒店。My number: 134 6678 4765.Call me if any problem." 
4. NOW whAT was I supposed to do??? Somehow find a printer to print off these Chinese symbols that mean absolutely nothing to me? No, of course not, I'm cheap so I decided to copy these symbols down by hand and pray that whatever taxi driver I hired would understand my scribblings! 
5. TOUCHDOWN: after much stress on board the flight and desperate conversations with Chinese people that spoke minimal English, I was able to ensure that I had decent scribblings and any taxi driver would be able to understand. I landed and was in awe of the vast airport space and security cameras everywhere! Then I made my way through the airport to the taxi exit! AGHHH! This was stressful, now how would I speak any Chinese to the taxi driver. I got out my Chinese dictionary and mandarin phrasebook and made a feeble attempt at saying hello "Nihao". Luckily there was a man who directed people to taxis, and he spoke enough English to tell the taxi driver that I needed to go to the address scribbled down in Chinese characters.  The taxi ride itself was amusing. All I could say is Hello! and he would reply with the same. I knew he was ripping me off from the moment he refused to turn on the meter! I was told that the taxi ride should be somewhere from 70-80 kuai. He told me in the only english word/phrase that he knew "100". I looked up the word for 80 in my dictionary and kept repeating 'bushi' and kept repeating it emphatically while pointing to the Chinese character in the dictionary. Well now that I think about it, bushi is a form of negative in Chinese and NOT 80, it is actually ba-shi (with a completely different tone). He still repeated 100, so I just dropped the topic feeling defeated. After this we rode in silence for a while I took out my camera and snapped a few pictures (including his photo ID, in case I wanted to report that he was ripping me off). He motioned to me with his hands to ask if I wrote the Chinese characters, to which I replied yes with a nod of my head. We both had a good laugh after that.  Finally we made our way to the hotel and we found it successfully! Evidently our laugh had had some kind of effect on him and he lowered his price to the price I wanted 80 kuai!
6. YAY so I had finally moved into the hotel, and by some miracle had communicated in enough Chinese to get me where I needed to go!!!!!!!!
2. Started training for a few days, Interviewed at a Montessori Kindergarten but didn't get the job, Interviewed at Ke-Er International Kindergarten (also Montessori), Attended TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification class and passed, Was Hired at Ke-Er
3. Saving the rest of this for later... I'm tired of blogging for today. I wrote a good bit of information for all you folks! toodles and till next time!

Can I recap?

Hi everyone! I've been in Beijing for about 2 months right now, working as a kindergarten teacher and doing many different things. I love living in China! What more can I say, the people are friendly and always willing to help you, despite the language barrier! Anyway, as a brief introduction I will recap on the sequence of events in my life over the past two months in a quick time line. Maybe the next time I blog, I will add some more details.

1. Got stuck in Chicago on my way to Beijing (I was put up in a fancy hotel by the airlines).
2. Arrived in Beijing Airport with no one to meet me (I had to direct my own way--in my own lame attempt at Chinese characters--to the hotel)
3. Checked into the hotel and slept for a day
4. Started training for a few days
5. Interviewed at a Montessori Kindergarten but didn't get the job.
6. Interviewed at Ke-Er International Kindergarten (also Montessori)
7. Attended TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification class and passed.
8. Was Hired at Ke-Er.
9. September 1st - The school year started and I had children to look after :/
10. Moon Festival happened (don't eat moon cakes, they're gross)
11. Went to the Great Wall of China! - It was pretty Great!
12. October 1-7th was a 7 day break where I sat around the apartment, watched movies and went out on the weekend.
13. Got some cool kids, got some turds (the kids). I was even able to give some of the kids English names!
14. Worked with Cynthia who pronounces her own name Cyncia.

I'll save the rest for the next blog. But for now at least everyone has now had a quick run-down on my life and times in Beijing!

oh yea and I cut my hair really short before I left! The 1st picture is a picture of me on the Great Wall after my hike up to the wall. The second picture is me on the park grounds of the Old Summer Palace near Haidian Huangzhuang.