Well, things are starting to wrap up here in Zhuhai; we have finished our crash course in Chinese and the next two days are devoted to our TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) final projects. Soon we will head to Shenzhen, where we will leave the comfort of our huge group, start to settle into our new lives, and start to really learn what it's like to be a stranger in a strange land!
China is crazy. There, I said it, it's true. People sell freshly butchered animals (and I'm talking freshly...like right there in front of you) from carts on the street, little girls pee on the sidewalks (and I'm sure others do too...), crossing the street is to take your life into your own hands, and it is not uncommon to take a walk and have your senses suddenly assaulted by the smell of raw sewage for no reason whatsoever. I would say my favorite part so far is the sheer brazenness of Chinese people. People cut in line, walk right out into traffic, gawk at you, and spurt out random English phrases (my personal favorite is the guy who sells flowers by a bus stop who yells out "Hello! We friends now! I love you!" every time we walk by). These displays of chutzpah are quite intimidating at first, and the language barrier is (obviously) not helpful, but now that I'm starting to get the gist of how things work, it's kind of fun to join in!
On my first trip to the internet cafe, I stood on the side of a four-lane road and tried to wait for traffic to clear so I could cross. As it turns out, you can get old and die waiting for that, so instead you have to dart out into traffic. I'm sorry if the though of me darting into Chinese traffic makes those of you back home nervous, but let me explain: I'm really good at it. What you do is cross one lane at a time and NEVER run in front of a bus. Also, never just follow someone into the crosswalk (like we do at home), you have to pay attention for yourself or you will probably be hit by the car they are out-running. Another piece of traffic advice is to look both ways before getting off a bus. We were given this warning, but the other day I damn near got taken out by a motorcyclist who was zipping by between the curb and the bus...so I now consider this lesson well-learned!
Chinese love to gawk, and because we are very different we get stared at a lot...a lot. This was, admittedly, off-putting at first. However, now that I'm getting used to it, it's kind of nice that when I see something weird or interesting, I feel that I have every right to stare at it. I realize this is impolite and all, but it is very liberating to simply look at whatever is weird or different rather than doing as Miss Manners would do! The same goes for line-cutting; I personally do not like to cut in line, but it becomes a kind of game when someone is trying to do it to you. I have not yet been aggressively cut by someone, it's usually a much sneakier attack and mostly by old ladies at the grocery store.
At the grocery store I frequent, you have to have your fruit weighed at the fruit weigh-station, the candy weighed at the candy weigh-station, etc., rather than at the check-out. Now, the correct way to do this is to walk up and put your fruit on the scale yourself, and this is a prime line-cutting opportunity for the Chinese because of my American preference for personal space. You always know a cut is coming when you see them come up behind you slowly with their bag of stuff; your first instinct is the assume that they are joining into the awkward half-line that people in America will form when they don't know where to stand, but no. They are surveying the scene and seeing if they can get in. When they start to creep up to you, then in front of you, that's when the real game of jockeying for position begins. Luckily I have the weapon of physical size over them, so I can hold my own, but do not be fooled by these tiny women, they are tenacious!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
The fine art of hole-peeing...
Well, I did it, I peed in a hole.
I knew that this day would come, but I hoped it would come a little later than day two. It's an interesting mix of anxiety and deflation when you walk into a bathroom and the first stall you come to is a hole in the ground...and so is the second...and so is the third.... After checking and double checking all four stalls to make sure there wasn't a western-style toilet hiding from me, I decided it was time to man up and do it.
It turns out that it is as hard to do this as one might think, especially since I can barely keep my balance in a squatting position anyway. I managed to splatter my feet, the legs of my pants, and even my face a little, but I did accomplish my two main goals: I did not completely saturate any part of my pants OR (thanks to my tight grip on the bottom of the stall door) fall into the hole.
I knew that this day would come, but I hoped it would come a little later than day two. It's an interesting mix of anxiety and deflation when you walk into a bathroom and the first stall you come to is a hole in the ground...and so is the second...and so is the third.... After checking and double checking all four stalls to make sure there wasn't a western-style toilet hiding from me, I decided it was time to man up and do it.
It turns out that it is as hard to do this as one might think, especially since I can barely keep my balance in a squatting position anyway. I managed to splatter my feet, the legs of my pants, and even my face a little, but I did accomplish my two main goals: I did not completely saturate any part of my pants OR (thanks to my tight grip on the bottom of the stall door) fall into the hole.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The adventure begins!
View from our hotel roomWell, here it is, 4:45pm in Zhuhai and I am sitting in an odd little coffee shop/pizza joint sipping a coffee that cost 20 kuai. Today was pretty laid-back, just a little training and getting some decent (though aggressive) food in my system. I managed a few hours of sleep last night in a bed that is not much more than a board with sheets, and I think I have avoided any serious jet lag. My hotel room is nicer than I expected, even with the hard bed and lack of hair dryer :) We have a western-style toilet and more than adequate air conditioning and my roommate is pretty cool. This relatively uneventful day is in sharp contrast to the adventure of the last few days...suffice it to say that I am very pleased that I won't be on an airplane anytime soon!
My trip to China started at 4:30am Thursday, August 21st when I left my parents' house with my dad to get on a shuttle bus on the Illinois campus, and by 5:30, after a couple of tearful goodbyes, the shuttle was en route to Ohare. A few hours later we arrived at the airport, where I told the driver the incorrect terminal. No big deal though, just hop on the airport monorail, right? Kind of. It took me about 30 minutes to get on the right one because they weren't marked right; not that that's a good excuse because the monorail only goes two directions and even if you get on going the wrong way it will eventually turn around and go where you meant to go. So, after lugging my big suitcases around Ohare for a while I finally got to my ticket counter. I tell the attendant that I am going to Hong Kong; she promptly disappears and I heard the first whispers of a cancelled flight. The attendant reappears a few minutes later and directs me to another line, which as far as I can tell is the same line I was just in. I do as I'm told and a few minutes later I get up the the counter again and this time am told that because of a typhoon hitting Hong Kong, there will be no flight today. She slightly upgrades my seat, hands me a ticket that says the flight is at noon the next day and tells me that the flight is at 9am. Luckily for me I did bring my phone with me fort his leg of the trip, so I was able to call my aunt Rita who got off of work as soon as she could and we spent the afternoon chatting and drinking white wine.
The next morning I got up at about 6am and called the United Airlines number which confirmed that my noon flight was running on-time. However, because the ticket counter woman had said 9am I decided to go ahead to the airport, figuring that the worst case scenario would be that I spent the entire morning at the airport. Inside the terminal I checked my bag where I was told AGAIN that the one and only flight that day was at noon. I got through security without an issue and got to my gate only to find out that my flight was indeed at 9am and we were to board at approximately 8:15am. We board the plan pretty much on time, but then proceed to sit there for nearly an hour as the luggage people remove the bags of the people who changed their minds about taking this flight - I found out later that most (if not all) of those people had changed their flight the day before and yet United still put their bags on the plane. But, no worries, we took off and it was smooth sailing for about 13 hours. I slept alright on the plane, I ate some food and watched not one, but two Jack Black movies and was figuring that this wasn't so bad. Oh how wrong I was. About two hours from our intended landing time we were told that because of conditions in Hong Kong, the airport is not open and because we don't have enough fuel to circle for the amount of time they told us, we have to stop off in Taipei to refuel and wait for the airport to reopen.
At 3pm, one hour after we were supposed to land in Hong Kong (and 46.5 hours after I left my parents house) we landed in Taipei. We sat there for long enough to watch another entire movie (no Jack Black this time), and I figure that even though I never got off the plane (or even looked out the window, for that matter) I can count Taiwan as one of the countries I have officially visited. A couple hours later we were in the air again and headed for Hong Kong. This flight was fairly short and we only had to circle once in the air over the airport before landing. The plane landed and taxied to the gate without a hitch, the 'fasten seat belt' light went off and everyone grabbed their stuff and stood in line to leave. An hour later they actually let us off the plane. By the time all was said and done we had been in that aircraft for a total of 22 hours.
In the airport we had to do the normal customs thing and money exchanging, then we sat around and waited for...well, I don't know what exactly we were waiting for, but it took a long time. Eventually we got onto our bus and took off. At the Hong Kong/mainland border we had to get off the bus, go through a checkpoint, and get back off the bus. We then had to cross a bridge, get off the bus again (this time will all of our luggage), fight our way through a customs scanner, then head out to wait for the bus. Somehow I was the first of the group to make it through customs and out to the bus area, where I was greeted by very enthusiastic Chinese man who wanted to help me with my bags and blow cigarette smoke in my face, though he could not understand a word I said (nor could I understand anything he said). Finally the group all trickled in and we stood around en masse waiting for heavens only knows what, for an hour or so before we got onto some bus to head to the hotel. I tried to go to the bathroom during this extended wait, only to find that the bathroom had the charming hole-in-the-ground toilets. I understand that I will probably have to figure out how to use these one of these days, but I was not interested in discovering the fine art of hole-peeing at 1am in a customs station.The ride to the hotel took a couple of hours and by the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly 3am. So, if I have run the numbers correctly, it took me 58 hours from start to finish to get to Zhuhai. As the Chinese teacher put it "it wasn't a pleasant time, but it will be very memorable."
My trip to China started at 4:30am Thursday, August 21st when I left my parents' house with my dad to get on a shuttle bus on the Illinois campus, and by 5:30, after a couple of tearful goodbyes, the shuttle was en route to Ohare. A few hours later we arrived at the airport, where I told the driver the incorrect terminal. No big deal though, just hop on the airport monorail, right? Kind of. It took me about 30 minutes to get on the right one because they weren't marked right; not that that's a good excuse because the monorail only goes two directions and even if you get on going the wrong way it will eventually turn around and go where you meant to go. So, after lugging my big suitcases around Ohare for a while I finally got to my ticket counter. I tell the attendant that I am going to Hong Kong; she promptly disappears and I heard the first whispers of a cancelled flight. The attendant reappears a few minutes later and directs me to another line, which as far as I can tell is the same line I was just in. I do as I'm told and a few minutes later I get up the the counter again and this time am told that because of a typhoon hitting Hong Kong, there will be no flight today. She slightly upgrades my seat, hands me a ticket that says the flight is at noon the next day and tells me that the flight is at 9am. Luckily for me I did bring my phone with me fort his leg of the trip, so I was able to call my aunt Rita who got off of work as soon as she could and we spent the afternoon chatting and drinking white wine.
The next morning I got up at about 6am and called the United Airlines number which confirmed that my noon flight was running on-time. However, because the ticket counter woman had said 9am I decided to go ahead to the airport, figuring that the worst case scenario would be that I spent the entire morning at the airport. Inside the terminal I checked my bag where I was told AGAIN that the one and only flight that day was at noon. I got through security without an issue and got to my gate only to find out that my flight was indeed at 9am and we were to board at approximately 8:15am. We board the plan pretty much on time, but then proceed to sit there for nearly an hour as the luggage people remove the bags of the people who changed their minds about taking this flight - I found out later that most (if not all) of those people had changed their flight the day before and yet United still put their bags on the plane. But, no worries, we took off and it was smooth sailing for about 13 hours. I slept alright on the plane, I ate some food and watched not one, but two Jack Black movies and was figuring that this wasn't so bad. Oh how wrong I was. About two hours from our intended landing time we were told that because of conditions in Hong Kong, the airport is not open and because we don't have enough fuel to circle for the amount of time they told us, we have to stop off in Taipei to refuel and wait for the airport to reopen.
At 3pm, one hour after we were supposed to land in Hong Kong (and 46.5 hours after I left my parents house) we landed in Taipei. We sat there for long enough to watch another entire movie (no Jack Black this time), and I figure that even though I never got off the plane (or even looked out the window, for that matter) I can count Taiwan as one of the countries I have officially visited. A couple hours later we were in the air again and headed for Hong Kong. This flight was fairly short and we only had to circle once in the air over the airport before landing. The plane landed and taxied to the gate without a hitch, the 'fasten seat belt' light went off and everyone grabbed their stuff and stood in line to leave. An hour later they actually let us off the plane. By the time all was said and done we had been in that aircraft for a total of 22 hours.
In the airport we had to do the normal customs thing and money exchanging, then we sat around and waited for...well, I don't know what exactly we were waiting for, but it took a long time. Eventually we got onto our bus and took off. At the Hong Kong/mainland border we had to get off the bus, go through a checkpoint, and get back off the bus. We then had to cross a bridge, get off the bus again (this time will all of our luggage), fight our way through a customs scanner, then head out to wait for the bus. Somehow I was the first of the group to make it through customs and out to the bus area, where I was greeted by very enthusiastic Chinese man who wanted to help me with my bags and blow cigarette smoke in my face, though he could not understand a word I said (nor could I understand anything he said). Finally the group all trickled in and we stood around en masse waiting for heavens only knows what, for an hour or so before we got onto some bus to head to the hotel. I tried to go to the bathroom during this extended wait, only to find that the bathroom had the charming hole-in-the-ground toilets. I understand that I will probably have to figure out how to use these one of these days, but I was not interested in discovering the fine art of hole-peeing at 1am in a customs station.The ride to the hotel took a couple of hours and by the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly 3am. So, if I have run the numbers correctly, it took me 58 hours from start to finish to get to Zhuhai. As the Chinese teacher put it "it wasn't a pleasant time, but it will be very memorable."
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