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| This plate of food cost 9 kuai (under $1.50). Delicious. |
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Things in China that shouldn't smell as good as they do
-Bug spray. Seriously, it would probably work as a gentle perfume, in a pinch.
-Dish soap. I've been tempted to try some, but haven't been quite that hungry. Yet.
-Napkins/TP/Kleenex. Oh, you have a runny nose? That's OK, dear, because now your face smells like lavender and apple pie.
-The Metro. Granted, there are exceptions, but for the most part it's a surprisingly well ventilated and clean place. (Except the bathrooms. We don't talk about the bathrooms.)
-Construction workers. My school is currently undergoing hefty renovation. Considering the high concentration of glue, sawdust, paint, and man sweat that's been flying around the school, I was expecting it to make my nose fall off. Nope! Flowers.
-Dish soap. I've been tempted to try some, but haven't been quite that hungry. Yet.
-Napkins/TP/Kleenex. Oh, you have a runny nose? That's OK, dear, because now your face smells like lavender and apple pie.
-The Metro. Granted, there are exceptions, but for the most part it's a surprisingly well ventilated and clean place. (Except the bathrooms. We don't talk about the bathrooms.)
-Construction workers. My school is currently undergoing hefty renovation. Considering the high concentration of glue, sawdust, paint, and man sweat that's been flying around the school, I was expecting it to make my nose fall off. Nope! Flowers.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Daily life, the universe, and everything
By request, this post is all about what it's like living in Shanghai. After being here a month I'm no seasoned veteran, but I'm getting there! Story time.
I wake up in the morning, groggily stumble to my bathroom, and turn on the shower. There's no actual bathtub or designated 'shower area.' Water comes out of a shower head that's attached to the wall, hopefully falls onto me, and runs to a drain in the middle of the floor. It's a bit awkward at first, since I could multitask and take a shower while doing any other bathroom-related activity. Sure makes cleaning your bathroom easy, though!
After turning on the shower, I realize the water is freezing, give a manly little yelp, and turn the water back off. Grumbling, I wrap a towel around myself and make my way to the kitchen, where I turn on the gas and water heater. We're not supposed to leave them on overnight, because we'll suffocate. Or explode. Or something. The rest of my morning routine proceeds normally.
I go outside, and start walking toward the metro. On my way there, I see hundreds of people, almost get run over by a scooter and a bus, and pass two street vendors inexplicably selling lace. I stop in a small restaurant and convenience store, buy a bottle of water, coffee, and a couple delicious dumplings for approximately $1.50 total.
In the metro station, I blend in with the locals by breezing by the guards at the security check who are supposed to scan my bag. I swipe my metro card, and whip out my trusty Kindle. A few metro stops and a bus ride later, and I'm at school!
After greeting the security guard and front desk people, I wade through a swarm of children and parents to the teachers' lounge. (Sidenote: kids should really have their own collective noun. There's a herd of cattle, a murder of crows, etc. I'm thinking "an anklebite of children.") I say 'hi' to all my fellow teachers, sit down, and begin preparations for the day's classes.
In this hypothetical day, I conveniently teach one class of each age group. My Small Stars class, containing students approximately aged 4-6, consists of me excitedly counting, asking the students how they are, and playing vocabulary games with flashcards. In my next class, which is full of a group of High Flyers aged 7-9ish, I juggle introducing new vocabulary and phrases with keeping the students entertained. It's a balancing act between retaining their attention over a severe language barrier, and getting them to actually learn and be productive. My final class of the day is a calm group of Trailblazers, aged 10-13. In this class, we can more naturally converse, talk about a wider range of subjects, and have extra time to explore subjects that interest the students.
After school, some friends and I decide to have a few drinks. So, I hop on the metro and make my way halfway across Shanghai to the French Concession. The trip costs $1, and puts me within easy walking distance of several bars. Worst case scenario, I text/call a very convenient service, which gives me the name and address of my desired location in both English and Chinese, and take a $3ish taxi ride from the metro stop.
The drinks are the most expensive part of my day, and cost anywhere between $2 and $11 apiece. Fortunately, I rationed myself and only brought a reasonable amount of money so that I wouldn't overspend. (Which is easy to do, since the money here still doesn't seem real to me. I know it has value, but my subconscious self still hasn't caught on.) Good thinking, pre-tipsy Tom. At some point, I decide that I'm hungry, so I walk to the nearest street food vendor. I pick up a few bamboo skewers filled with a wide selection of vegetables, raw meat or seafood, and hand it to the vendor. They grill it to perfection, season it with something delicious and spicy, and hand it back to me. At most, the meal costs about $3.
After a night of revelry, I'm forced to take a taxi back home since the metro closes at 11:00. This time, I don't need to cheat and use the address service thing. I can say where I need to go. I've been practicing. It's my moment to shine! Somehow the taxi driver can't believe what perfect Chinese is coming out of my mouth, and asks me to repeat myself a few times. I assume it's just so he can marvel at my natural, unaccented delivery.
The taxi ride back is like something out of an arcade game. The driver is pulling stunts that would get your license revoked in America, but is absolutely normal here. He weaves through traffic and pedestrians with impressive aplomb, and knows the dimensions of his car with machine-like precision. Somehow, we arrive incident-free, I walk home, and go to sleep.
The end.
I wake up in the morning, groggily stumble to my bathroom, and turn on the shower. There's no actual bathtub or designated 'shower area.' Water comes out of a shower head that's attached to the wall, hopefully falls onto me, and runs to a drain in the middle of the floor. It's a bit awkward at first, since I could multitask and take a shower while doing any other bathroom-related activity. Sure makes cleaning your bathroom easy, though!
After turning on the shower, I realize the water is freezing, give a manly little yelp, and turn the water back off. Grumbling, I wrap a towel around myself and make my way to the kitchen, where I turn on the gas and water heater. We're not supposed to leave them on overnight, because we'll suffocate. Or explode. Or something. The rest of my morning routine proceeds normally.
I go outside, and start walking toward the metro. On my way there, I see hundreds of people, almost get run over by a scooter and a bus, and pass two street vendors inexplicably selling lace. I stop in a small restaurant and convenience store, buy a bottle of water, coffee, and a couple delicious dumplings for approximately $1.50 total.
In the metro station, I blend in with the locals by breezing by the guards at the security check who are supposed to scan my bag. I swipe my metro card, and whip out my trusty Kindle. A few metro stops and a bus ride later, and I'm at school!
After greeting the security guard and front desk people, I wade through a swarm of children and parents to the teachers' lounge. (Sidenote: kids should really have their own collective noun. There's a herd of cattle, a murder of crows, etc. I'm thinking "an anklebite of children.") I say 'hi' to all my fellow teachers, sit down, and begin preparations for the day's classes.
In this hypothetical day, I conveniently teach one class of each age group. My Small Stars class, containing students approximately aged 4-6, consists of me excitedly counting, asking the students how they are, and playing vocabulary games with flashcards. In my next class, which is full of a group of High Flyers aged 7-9ish, I juggle introducing new vocabulary and phrases with keeping the students entertained. It's a balancing act between retaining their attention over a severe language barrier, and getting them to actually learn and be productive. My final class of the day is a calm group of Trailblazers, aged 10-13. In this class, we can more naturally converse, talk about a wider range of subjects, and have extra time to explore subjects that interest the students.
After school, some friends and I decide to have a few drinks. So, I hop on the metro and make my way halfway across Shanghai to the French Concession. The trip costs $1, and puts me within easy walking distance of several bars. Worst case scenario, I text/call a very convenient service, which gives me the name and address of my desired location in both English and Chinese, and take a $3ish taxi ride from the metro stop.
The drinks are the most expensive part of my day, and cost anywhere between $2 and $11 apiece. Fortunately, I rationed myself and only brought a reasonable amount of money so that I wouldn't overspend. (Which is easy to do, since the money here still doesn't seem real to me. I know it has value, but my subconscious self still hasn't caught on.) Good thinking, pre-tipsy Tom. At some point, I decide that I'm hungry, so I walk to the nearest street food vendor. I pick up a few bamboo skewers filled with a wide selection of vegetables, raw meat or seafood, and hand it to the vendor. They grill it to perfection, season it with something delicious and spicy, and hand it back to me. At most, the meal costs about $3.
After a night of revelry, I'm forced to take a taxi back home since the metro closes at 11:00. This time, I don't need to cheat and use the address service thing. I can say where I need to go. I've been practicing. It's my moment to shine! Somehow the taxi driver can't believe what perfect Chinese is coming out of my mouth, and asks me to repeat myself a few times. I assume it's just so he can marvel at my natural, unaccented delivery.
The taxi ride back is like something out of an arcade game. The driver is pulling stunts that would get your license revoked in America, but is absolutely normal here. He weaves through traffic and pedestrians with impressive aplomb, and knows the dimensions of his car with machine-like precision. Somehow, we arrive incident-free, I walk home, and go to sleep.
The end.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Attention gamer friends!
This is where I'm sitting RIGHT NOW. It's a coffee house / LAN center named Tristram 5 minutes from my apartment. If they have Starcraft / Dota tournaments here, I'm going to enter. And lose horribly.
School pictures
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| The courtyard just outside my school |
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| To the left of that courtyard, a bouncy palace that's set up every single day. Why wasn't there a bouncy palace at school when I was growing up? |
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| One of the classrooms, for the young 'uns |
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| An IWB (interactive whiteboard) in one of the classrooms |
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| More classroom! |
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| One of the areas that gets full of kids and parents every day |
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| The front desk |
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| In the entryway. These are 5 characters that form the cohesive story for our older kids. There are animated cartoons, sound clips, songs, and powerpoints all integrated with their textbooks. It's all created by EF. |
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| One of the big classrooms with Chris, one of our locals. :) |
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| Two people tie balloons around their left foot, then try to pop the other person's balloon. I won my match, and got some fancy EF swag shown below! |
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| My lovely coworker Rachel displaying one of the flash cards I won. |
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| Now I can learn the characters for all the important words! |
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| Fancy winnings, all for popping a balloon. |
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Shanghaireland
As an example of the multicultural mishmash that is Shanghai, let me tell you about last night. One of my coworkers is an adorable, bouncy, happy little Irish bundle named Aisling who convinced us to go watch the Gaelic football finals. It was her team, Mhaigh Eo (pronounced Mayo), vs. the other guys. Gaelic football is sort of like rugby and soccer mashed together. It's a huge field populated by huge men wearing no protective gear who are beating the living piss out of each other to score points. Good fun.
Getting to the pub where the game was showing was bizarre. Aisling led the group along some street in the French Concession (a nice part of Shanghai), we took a sharp right, and suddenly we were surrounded by intense, rowdy, Irish soccer hooligans. The transition from "crowded Chinese street with food vendors and performing monkeys" to "Irish pub and Mhaigh Eo jerseys" was jarring, and took place in about 5 seconds flat. The game was being projected on a huge screen in the middle of the pub's courtyard. Unfortunately, the only picture I took turned out fuzzy, but I"ll post it eventually anyway.
Mhaigh Eo made another solid fan in me that night, and it's only partially because mayonnaise is delicious.
Getting to the pub where the game was showing was bizarre. Aisling led the group along some street in the French Concession (a nice part of Shanghai), we took a sharp right, and suddenly we were surrounded by intense, rowdy, Irish soccer hooligans. The transition from "crowded Chinese street with food vendors and performing monkeys" to "Irish pub and Mhaigh Eo jerseys" was jarring, and took place in about 5 seconds flat. The game was being projected on a huge screen in the middle of the pub's courtyard. Unfortunately, the only picture I took turned out fuzzy, but I"ll post it eventually anyway.
Mhaigh Eo made another solid fan in me that night, and it's only partially because mayonnaise is delicious.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
New apartment pictures
The view, inside and out. Also, it's RIGHT next door to an IKEA. Big selling point, I say.
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