Again, I have taken too long to write an update. So I will waste no time with long pointless rambling introductions like I always do. Oh no! I've done it again!
It was about a week ago, maybe Wednesday, January 17th or so, when one of my teacher friends said on the side, "your classes might be canceled next week." Now I never know what this means. First of all, our weeks are 2 weeks long, 11 days of school 3 days off. So I figured I knew this already. I get off of school before the other teachers because I don't give exams, around the 1st of February.
Well the next day I had students asking me if this was their last class with me this semester. I went down to my friendly teachers who are the best at telling me what is going on. They called the person in charge of scheduling and he said that I was done after Sunday the 21st. Almost two weeks early! I was sitting down at lunch the next day and I was told I'm done after Friday!!! Amazing how easy it is to add two weeks of vacation. I felt bad though. My friend who kept translating all this for me, she only gets 10 days of vacation. She also has to work at the school for about 19 days straight without one day of break. The foreigners really get spoiled.
So what am I to do? Well I already had plans to go to Thailand with my colleague Bracha. I looked into going some places in China, but I was running out of funds and I was the only one with vacation. Its not so easy to travel by yourself and not as fun as traveling with someone. I finally got in contact with a friend living in Thailand. I was able to change my flight for no extra charge. I leave tomorrow morning for Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai! Elephant riding and jungle treks!
Before I go though, I have to tell you about a few adventures from the last few days. I left for Shanghai on Wednesday. My Brazilian friends I talk about are moving from Wenling to Shanghai. Rodrigo used to be a lawyer and got a good job with a law firm there. I came along to relax a little up in Shanghai and to help them carry some of their belongings. (Moving using a bus much like a greyhound can be an interesting endeavor).
We arrived late Wednesday night to their apartment. They live in the perfect location, outside of the main city, but right next to a subway station. You can get anywhere pretty fast for very cheap. We hadn't eaten so we made our way to the giant store down the road. This store is much like Sam's Club but it also sells the small versions instead of just things in bulk. Their lives in China would never be the same after finding this store. It had a huge selection of imported goods and many of the usual items found in grocery stores that were impossible to find in Wenling. Rodrigo especially liked their 4 aisles stocked only with different kinds of wine. They also had abundant variety of spaghetti sauces and noodles, breakfast cereals, plates, forks, cleaning supplies, real milk, real sliced ham for sandwiches, bread, and packaged meats. In review, it was almost like a grocery store at home, most of the prices were pretty reasonable, except for the beers that would be expensive at home and some exotic chocolates and the such.
Thursday was a more interesting day. The Brazilians had just signed their contract the week before for the hotel. Today the owners and a member from the agency that rents apartments out came so that all the details about what needed to be fixed could be agreed upon. What should have taken about one hour took three to four hours. The meeting ended with the owners calling our translator dishonest because she wouldn't help them cheat the Brazilians out of money. It was quite interesting to watch. The owners are from a city near Wenling called Wenzhou. Shanghai ren (people) don't like doing deals with people from Wenzhou or Taiwan, they say they are crooked. I sure seemed that way. All of the things that need to be fixed were done by then end of the day, pretty surprising.
The last repair caused some frustrations and provided me with some good humor. There were two repair men sent to fix the heaters. But when we said another one wasn't giving out much heat they said it would cost 100 yuan. But the owners should pay for that, but we didn't know how to say that. So picture this if you can –
The players – Two Chinese repairmen, one American, one Brazilian at the apartment
One Brazilian, one Chinese translator back at work at the office.
Now try to imagine how the conversation and what languages were used here.
We would talk to the repairmen, get what we thought they were saying, in Chinese. Karina and I would confer in English. Karina would then call her husband on the phone, speaking Portuguese. The Rodrigo would tell Rachel, the translator what was going on in English. Then we would hand the phone to the repairmen and they would talk to Rachel in Chinese. Then Rachel would talk to Karina in English to say what the repairmen said, we would attempt to talk to the repairmen in Chinese, Rodrigo and Karina would discuss in Portuguese. The repairmen would discuss with each other in Chinese, then they would call a few people, we would wait a few minutes for new phone calls. And repeat this wonderful procedure again. This went on for around 30 minutes. Mainly the repairmen didn't want to put more gas in the other heater unless they got paid, but we were definitely not going to pay them. It all got worked out in the end.
We celebrated, ok there was nothing to celebrated, but we went out to dinner at a really shopping center near Rodrigo's office and the Pearl of the Orient (the tower thingy to the right, with the spherical shapes and yeah, its kinda funky looking). Rodrigo mentioned something that they had the chain Hookers. I was really confused. I know China has a lot happy massages and the sorts but had never heard of the place Hooker's. I thought it was a little forward. In the end he actually meant Hooters. I really didn't believe that they would have Hooters in China, but after searching for 10 minutes we found it. Neither Karina or Rodrigo had ever been there, so they wanted to see what it was like. It was just like in America, ok food, but over priced. It was pretty fun though and we surprised our waitress. We said xie xie (thank you) in Chinese and she said Ay Oh (that’s the Chinese way of being astonished)! From then on we knew we were in a totally different place then Wenling. In Wenling barely anyone else speaks English, here, they were surprised we knew any Chinese at all. This though was the heart of the business center of Shanghai at a very western restaurant. We tried to order and talk to her in as much Chinese as we knew just to give her (Sophie on the left) a change.
I cannot express my joy when walking outside the restaurant and hearing Postal Service (one of my favorite bands) being played. Even here in Shanghai every other place plays either Chinese pop music, or your favorite hits from America's 80's. Oh, I forgot! The waitresses at Hooters danced to the Macarena, they only played 2 minutes of it which was good, because I was about another 30 seconds from going into shock and curling up in a ball and not talking to anyone for many many years.
Today my meals consisted of Frost Flakes (which have never tasted so good before, mmmmmmmm hmmmm! They're Great!) and Spaghetti sauce and noodles all cooked in the microwave because half of their things are not moved up here yet. I also got to look like a cave man trying to open a can of spaghetti sauce with a dull knife bought in Tibet and anything else around. I would have done better with a rock. I wish I could have invented fire while I was at it, I guess we had the microwave which worked ok.
I've been asked by a friend to write about the differences between here and the United States for his Chinese history class. I will do this when I return from my traveling. But Tomorrow Thailand!
Xai Jian!
NOTE: I'm having trouble loading pictures up into the blog, so check back later for the version with the pictures.
It was about a week ago, maybe Wednesday, January 17th or so, when one of my teacher friends said on the side, "your classes might be canceled next week." Now I never know what this means. First of all, our weeks are 2 weeks long, 11 days of school 3 days off. So I figured I knew this already. I get off of school before the other teachers because I don't give exams, around the 1st of February.
Well the next day I had students asking me if this was their last class with me this semester. I went down to my friendly teachers who are the best at telling me what is going on. They called the person in charge of scheduling and he said that I was done after Sunday the 21st. Almost two weeks early! I was sitting down at lunch the next day and I was told I'm done after Friday!!! Amazing how easy it is to add two weeks of vacation. I felt bad though. My friend who kept translating all this for me, she only gets 10 days of vacation. She also has to work at the school for about 19 days straight without one day of break. The foreigners really get spoiled.
So what am I to do? Well I already had plans to go to Thailand with my colleague Bracha. I looked into going some places in China, but I was running out of funds and I was the only one with vacation. Its not so easy to travel by yourself and not as fun as traveling with someone. I finally got in contact with a friend living in Thailand. I was able to change my flight for no extra charge. I leave tomorrow morning for Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai! Elephant riding and jungle treks!
Before I go though, I have to tell you about a few adventures from the last few days. I left for Shanghai on Wednesday. My Brazilian friends I talk about are moving from Wenling to Shanghai. Rodrigo used to be a lawyer and got a good job with a law firm there. I came along to relax a little up in Shanghai and to help them carry some of their belongings. (Moving using a bus much like a greyhound can be an interesting endeavor).
We arrived late Wednesday night to their apartment. They live in the perfect location, outside of the main city, but right next to a subway station. You can get anywhere pretty fast for very cheap. We hadn't eaten so we made our way to the giant store down the road. This store is much like Sam's Club but it also sells the small versions instead of just things in bulk. Their lives in China would never be the same after finding this store. It had a huge selection of imported goods and many of the usual items found in grocery stores that were impossible to find in Wenling. Rodrigo especially liked their 4 aisles stocked only with different kinds of wine. They also had abundant variety of spaghetti sauces and noodles, breakfast cereals, plates, forks, cleaning supplies, real milk, real sliced ham for sandwiches, bread, and packaged meats. In review, it was almost like a grocery store at home, most of the prices were pretty reasonable, except for the beers that would be expensive at home and some exotic chocolates and the such.
Thursday was a more interesting day. The Brazilians had just signed their contract the week before for the hotel. Today the owners and a member from the agency that rents apartments out came so that all the details about what needed to be fixed could be agreed upon. What should have taken about one hour took three to four hours. The meeting ended with the owners calling our translator dishonest because she wouldn't help them cheat the Brazilians out of money. It was quite interesting to watch. The owners are from a city near Wenling called Wenzhou. Shanghai ren (people) don't like doing deals with people from Wenzhou or Taiwan, they say they are crooked. I sure seemed that way. All of the things that need to be fixed were done by then end of the day, pretty surprising.
The last repair caused some frustrations and provided me with some good humor. There were two repair men sent to fix the heaters. But when we said another one wasn't giving out much heat they said it would cost 100 yuan. But the owners should pay for that, but we didn't know how to say that. So picture this if you can –
The players – Two Chinese repairmen, one American, one Brazilian at the apartment
One Brazilian, one Chinese translator back at work at the office.
Now try to imagine how the conversation and what languages were used here.
We would talk to the repairmen, get what we thought they were saying, in Chinese. Karina and I would confer in English. Karina would then call her husband on the phone, speaking Portuguese. The Rodrigo would tell Rachel, the translator what was going on in English. Then we would hand the phone to the repairmen and they would talk to Rachel in Chinese. Then Rachel would talk to Karina in English to say what the repairmen said, we would attempt to talk to the repairmen in Chinese, Rodrigo and Karina would discuss in Portuguese. The repairmen would discuss with each other in Chinese, then they would call a few people, we would wait a few minutes for new phone calls. And repeat this wonderful procedure again. This went on for around 30 minutes. Mainly the repairmen didn't want to put more gas in the other heater unless they got paid, but we were definitely not going to pay them. It all got worked out in the end.
We celebrated, ok there was nothing to celebrated, but we went out to dinner at a really shopping center near Rodrigo's office and the Pearl of the Orient (the tower thingy to the right, with the spherical shapes and yeah, its kinda funky looking). Rodrigo mentioned something that they had the chain Hookers. I was really confused. I know China has a lot happy massages and the sorts but had never heard of the place Hooker's. I thought it was a little forward. In the end he actually meant Hooters. I really didn't believe that they would have Hooters in China, but after searching for 10 minutes we found it. Neither Karina or Rodrigo had ever been there, so they wanted to see what it was like. It was just like in America, ok food, but over priced. It was pretty fun though and we surprised our waitress. We said xie xie (thank you) in Chinese and she said Ay Oh (that’s the Chinese way of being astonished)! From then on we knew we were in a totally different place then Wenling. In Wenling barely anyone else speaks English, here, they were surprised we knew any Chinese at all. This though was the heart of the business center of Shanghai at a very western restaurant. We tried to order and talk to her in as much Chinese as we knew just to give her (Sophie on the left) a change.
I cannot express my joy when walking outside the restaurant and hearing Postal Service (one of my favorite bands) being played. Even here in Shanghai every other place plays either Chinese pop music, or your favorite hits from America's 80's. Oh, I forgot! The waitresses at Hooters danced to the Macarena, they only played 2 minutes of it which was good, because I was about another 30 seconds from going into shock and curling up in a ball and not talking to anyone for many many years.
Today my meals consisted of Frost Flakes (which have never tasted so good before, mmmmmmmm hmmmm! They're Great!) and Spaghetti sauce and noodles all cooked in the microwave because half of their things are not moved up here yet. I also got to look like a cave man trying to open a can of spaghetti sauce with a dull knife bought in Tibet and anything else around. I would have done better with a rock. I wish I could have invented fire while I was at it, I guess we had the microwave which worked ok.
I've been asked by a friend to write about the differences between here and the United States for his Chinese history class. I will do this when I return from my traveling. But Tomorrow Thailand!
Xai Jian!
NOTE: I'm having trouble loading pictures up into the blog, so check back later for the version with the pictures.
