Wonderful week-end

We went to a small village in neighbouring Hebei Province for the week-end. "We" = a Chinese English teacher, around 18 students from Continuing Education (Monday afternoon class) and me. We took four cars (owned by my students) and drove there. We stayed with a local villager in her home, which can accomodate many tourists. The villagers make their money by playing host to stressed-out Beijingers looking for the quiet, relaxed country life in the spring, summer and early autumn months. Here's a cute boy and his grandfather that a couple of my female students played with. One of my students gave the young boy (1 1/2 years old) the yoghurt. You drink yoghurt here, through a straw.
The kitchen in the home where we stayed - pretty simplistic but the food was great!
One of my students preparing the sheep meat. I saw the sheep being killed and I have pictures, but I'll post them later. This student spent three months in culinary school at one point. He thought it was boring, but he learned a few tricks. "He'll make a good husband," as they say here.
The view from our porch (just outside our room) - wire reparations were taking place in the village.
A view of the village from our porch. These are the "hills" that surround Beijing. There are some that are open in the winter for skiing, but apparently the snow is man-made!
Another view from our porch. That's a white horse under the...could you call that a barn? An open shack?
Rooftops seen from our porch. I love these very pittoresque rooftops!
The class monitor - a very important position in China - is on the left (in black), and two of my students (working for China Air at the airport) are in the middle and on the right. They're super nice. We toured the local train station before breakfast on Sunday.
Hu Da Ming (in red) and Franklin in black.
The girls' room. I didn't sleep here (I slept in a room for three beside this one - I shared a bed with one of my students).
Me with a group of my students. I'm wearing Hu Da Ming's coat because I'm cold.
We went boat riding on Sunday on this lake in the middle of high hills. There are two ways to move forward: using large poles to push the boat or by peddling with your legs in that plastic blue thing you can see in the picture.
Three of my students. The one in the middle - Jack - he made dinner for me last week and he's coming back tomorrow to make me some more Chinese food. Yum Yum! On the right is the woman - Chang Ping - who came with him and who's also from Inner Mongolia.
Some of the views from the lake.
We stopped at a market on our way back to Beijing - mostly it was a rest stop.

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!! Just came back from a party at one of the restaurants right outside the university campus. Saw quite a few of my students there (not from the continuing education department; they're my first and second-year students). It was fun at first, with dancing and singing and shows, but then it got boring - it was all in Chinese and they were playing Chinese games that I couldn't understand. I've got class early tomorrow anyway.

More pictures from my trip to come tomorrow. These were the pictures from Saturday night and Sunday. Pictures from Saturday to come tomorrow. I loved my week-end, btw! It was wonderful!

TGIF

Yay! It's the week-end!

Still have work to do - prepping for next week's classes, but I'm in such a good mood.

Today was great. The weather's wonderful. Very windy but super sunny and lovely. The temperature is dipping quite drastically. Mornings and evenings are cold, but mid-day is warm, almost hot.

Enjoyed class. Played a vocabulary game that took up an hour and which the students always like. There were only around twenty students, so it was nice. The ones who know how to speak, spoke, the ones who don't know how to speak stayed quiet. That's always tough. But when I try to get the ones who don't speak to speak, they don't say anything and then the rest of the class gets restless or the ones who know the answer chime in! Terrible...

But I'm in such a good mood after nine hours of sleep. I feel like a million bucks.

OK, should get down to business and start working. Finished my midterms and sent them to three important people. Made a coffee date for next week with the guy who lives above me. He's a super nice old man, who at 66 talks to me of his "girlfriend" - which is really sweet but I find it difficult not to laugh when he says "girlfriend." Sounds so high-school-ish for some reason.

This is what I do on a typical day:

my alarm rings at 6:45 AM. I used to set it at 6:30, but I like the extra fifteen minutes of sleep. I use my cell phone as my alarm - I use the "jazz melody" so I wake up to nice music rather than a clanging bell.

I go into the bathroom and wash my face and take a shower and all that. I look out the winder to see what the weather's like and get dressed.

I boil water to make myself instant coffee - it's a 3-in-1 deal with coffee/milk/sugar all in one individual package. Convenient!

I turn on the computer and read my email and Lucas' webcomic (usually the same as the night before) and James' site and the CBC website if I have time, while sipping my coffee.

I look for the class list(s) for the day's class(es) and try not to forget anything.

I make sure I have a full bottle of water (600 mL) because my throat gets pretty dry in class.

I take out 1 kwai in order to buy baoze for breakfast at the campus cafeteria.

I usually walk to cafeteria number 2 to buy 4 baoze for 1 kwai from the same lady. It takes around 5 minutes in total - the walking and buying.

I'm always on time for my class in Building #1; my classroom is either on the third or fourth floor. I turn on or off the fans, open or close the windows as I see fit.

I close the doors to the hallway when I start class. I feel better.

I teach. I try to enjoy myself.

When I get off from work I usually have lunch by myself, unless there's a student (rare) that invites me to lunch or I meet someone who's ready to have lunch themself. I often eat leftovers from the night before or an instant noodle or something I grab from the cafeteria later on (1-ish) because at noon there's way too many people at the cafeteria and I don't want to bother.

If I don't have class in the afternoon I'll most likely eat at a restaurant outside North Gate. I'll bring something to read - maybe a book or some Chinese to study or something.

In the afternoons I'll usually work or watch TV or find somebody to hang out with - someone from the French crew. Everyday is different.

We always meet up for dinner - the French crew. We talk about where we're going to eat, what we're going to do that evening. There's always something. If it's not billiard's, it's a video at someone's place, or drinks, or even KTV (kareeokee) at a bar.

And then I stress about next day's class and if it'll go OK. Usually it's OK.

That's my day. Alright, here's wishing you many happy days in your life!

Beijing crowds on National Day - October 1st. We were in Xidan - a shopping district - which is usually pretty crowded anyway, especially on week-ends (I had already been with a couple of my students one Saturday afternoon).
Crazy Beijing crowds.
People like to sit and stare into space or at their cellphone screen.
Sports Day at BISU (the university I work at). There are runners in the distance, going around the track.
Sports Day - it's a glimpse of the campus and the place where I work (I work in Building #1 - the big red one on the right).

I felt OK this morning, but after work I didn't feel so hot. Maybe it's the beginning of a flu of some sort. Sucks. Ate lunch with Katia, Loic, and one of Loic's good students whom I see very often now, Wang Sheen (not sure of the Pinyin spelling...). We bought our food at the cafeteria and went to eat it outside in the sunshine. It was wonderful.

Spent the afternoon visiting the very interesting Lama Temple in the north of Beijing. It was a beautiful - and quite warm in the end - afternoon. There are lots of places to pray to Buddha, and many intricate statues of different buddhas of varying sizes (one is 25 metres, or 80 feet, high, and is apparently made of only a SINGLE piece of sandalwood - it looks amazing!).

Got two hours of class tomorrow, then I'm off to the countryside (the real outskirts of Beijing) with 18 of my students and one other English teacher (of Chinese origin) for the week-end. We're leaving early Saturday morning and coming back Sunday afternoon. Horse-back riding is apparently an option and we're going to eat farmers' fare, including a whole sheep! I'm looking forward to the break. :-)

Please leave comments - I can now read them no problem!

Wushu

This afternoon my Chinese friend, Zou Chuan Jun (let's say Jun for short), met up with me all happy, telling me his friend had already bought him a stamp and that he had even gotten me a stamp as well (I had told him I needed to buy stamps). It was truly touching. But then, of course, the stamp was for China, not for Canada, and I wanted ten stamps, not one, so...to the post office we went.

Problem: neither one of us knew where the post office was. So I stopped someone on campus and asked them - in English - where the post office was, and we found it easily enough. Jun wanted to stay outside while I went to buy my stamps! The whole point of going with him was so he could ask in Chinese for me! So I insisted he come with me...

Conclusion: funnily enough, with a Chinese person in tow, I rely more on myself and my English (and very poor Chinese) rather than on the Chinese person.

Wushu was great! We ended up practicing in my living room. I didn't think I'd break a sweat but I certainly did! It's quite demanding even though it looks more like a graceful dance than martial arts. I don't remember any of it, but it was really fun. I'll certainly continue. The routine Jun taught me apparently lasts ten minutes! I learned maybe the first thirty moves or so - maybe I'm being optimistic. I think what we did today lasts less than a minute! Oh well...

Went grocery shopping. Dental floss doesn't exist here. Neither does deodorant (it's very hard to find). I bought a broom. My place gets super dirty super easily. I feel like I spend all my time cleaning my marble floors...

Hope class goes well tomorrow. Hope your days go well too. Good luck!

The horrors of the Iraqi war hit home at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5369610,00.html

Thanks to Lucas for the link.

There seems to be an avian flu scare - especially in Europe - but I'm not worrying about it one bit. I'm registered at the Canadian embassy so if anything were to really happen, they can contact my mother and she'll come and save me.

I was sick this morning and I stayed in bed. I slept a lot. I feel much better now.

I'm off to practice "wushu" (martial arts) with a Chinese guy I met through friends. I'm the first foreigner he's ever spoken to (but he's seen plenty!). We're going to buy stamps as well.

Tuesdays

Well, today's Tuesday and it's going well. I'm surprised actually. Usually I like Mondays and hate Tuesdays, and this week I didn't like my Monday and have so far enjoyed my Tuesday!

Weird.

Right-o.

Congratulations to Jessie for getting her American visa and going back to Washington to work for National Geographic Traveler. Yippee! I want to see your article on Vancouver!!!

Congratulations to Rachel for getting a second interview with a very impressive accounting firm - good luck!

And congratulations to Grace for being Grace!

I could go on...congratulating everybody...but then it wouldn't be "special" anymore.

Hope you're all well. More later (and maybe pictures).

Monday blues

My 26-year-old student, Jack (he didn't give me his name in Pinyin) making the noodle dough.
A better view of my kitchen...snazzy-looking eh?
The other student who came to "help cook" - I feel bad but I forget her name! She's stirring the mutton-noodle soup that was so delicious!

Well, usually Mondays go well but I found this Monday tiring and stressful. This morning I had nine students in my class so for the first hour we simply had a conversation and we went over the students' mistakes. My second class of the morning was tiring because the students were noisy and non-attentive. The problem is that I like my classes to be interactive and I think these students are used to learning super passively. If they don't know how to speak, it must be the teacher's fault and that's the end of it. It frustrates me. I try to get them to participate in some interesting activities but they certainly don't show any enthusiasm. My last class always goes well, I just hope they're getting something out of it. I'm not looking forward to working another six hours tomorrow...sigh.

What I need is a good night's sleep.

Yesterday I went to an art district called Dashanzi (http://www.benoa.net/beijing/dashanzi/). It's a cool artsy neighbourhood. It used to be an industrial area which has now been renovated into many art studios and galleries. You need to walk outside from gallery to gallery. There are little shops and studios and cafes and some of the galleries turn into clubs at night. I went there with Josh and some of his buddies when he was in town back in early September - so long ago it seems! But we didn't see much. This time I saw only one of the places I had already been to - the rest of them were new to me. And the place I had already been to had changed its exhibition so everything was new, in fact. This art district is big! There's so much to see!

Today is Monday which means the end of the teacher's strike in B.C. which means my mother goes back to work and also my friend Lucas can get to sub again. Sorry, they're not called subs any more (how demeaning!) but TOCs (Teacher On Call) - that should be TsOC.

Tomorrow is Tuesday. I just hope I survive in OK condition...before I collapse.

Saturday night

Two of my students from the "Trainee" program made me dinner tonight. It was sweet. I met them at North Gate (in Chinese: Bay Mern) - one of the main entrances to the university campus - at 5 PM and we went shopping together at the supermarket.

It was super funny because they kept asking me if I had this or that utensil or basic food (like oil and vinegar and salt) and I was like, "No. No. No! I'm sorry, but no." So we bought many things (including a chopping board, a huge kitchen knife - for $3 Cdn - and sponges and rags to clean dishes afterwards) and headed back towards my apartment in the teachers' dorm.

These students are from Inner Mongolia (very distinct from plain old Mongolia). They work for an engineering company. He's 26, she's 25. They're both married but to different people (fortunately). As you may have guessed they're from my Monday afternoon class, which is a continuing education class where the students are older; they've stopped working in order to focus on learning English to improve their job skills.

The man, Jack, was the cook. He made fresh noodles using Mongolian flour and a bit of water. The woman, Alice, helped out by washing and stirring things when needed (and folding up his sleeves when he was kneading the noodle dough). Photos to come tomorrow.

So now my kitchen is a little more fleshed out. It means Jack will definitely come back to cook because I won't be the one doing any cooking in my kitchen.

Jack made us mutton-noodle soup with tomatoes and spices. It was delicious! It was simple but it took over an hour to make... Everyone was very pleased and happy.

We talked on my sofa after dinner. Alice and I drank OJ while Jack drank orange-flavoured beer. I showed them (upon their insistance) photos of Vancouver and Paris and Banff - some of you are in there! Hope you don't mind.

It was a super pleasant evening. They left around 9:30 PM. I went to Katia's to watch a video - I HEART Huckabees. I've already seen it but I totally forgot it so I didn't mind seeing it again. It's still just as strange as the first time I saw it. If it weren't for the excellent cast I'd feel like it was a pretty stupid movie, but there are some interesting and entertaining moments.

Tomorrow I need to work. I have to create a midterm for my students! I found this out on Thursday. My department wants a copy of the midterm I've created by the end of October. No outline of what the midterm should look like or be like (other than that it's a one-on-one with a teacher). Gotta love China.

That said, I don't think I'll feel like working, so it'll be hard.

Departments are important here. There's a whole structure to the university that I'm not fully aware of. I know I work for the HND (Higher National Diploma) department but then I have that extra "Trainee" program class Monday afternoon that screws everything up. I'm not sure if I belong to two departments or if I even belong to the English department at all...

I'm falling asleep at my computer. It's 1:30 AM. Good night.

I'm half-watching CNN at the moment. In my new apartment I have access to some international channels: Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, French (TV5), German, and CNN.

Sometimes my internet doesn't work. It wasn't working earlier, but then it works again, so I don't bother complaining.

Heating started today. I got the remote control to adjust the temperature of my apartment yesterday. It's getting quite chilly in the evenings and I still don't have winter clothes. Maybe I'll die.

Watched a dance competition organised by the university last night. The auditorium seats 900 and it was packed - lots of people standing at the back. It was pretty cool. There were groups and also individuals (8 competitors in total) and some of them weren't bad. There were professional guests invited - a couple who danced salsa beautifully, it was a joy to watch! And a group of breakdancers that were too cool for school (baggy clothing and baseball caps). They were lots of fun to watch.

Went clubbing yesterday at Club 7 (in the area of Sanlitun - the international bar district - on a street called "Ladies' street") - it was mostly foreigners and rich Chinese. Entrance fee was 50 kwai so only the elite could go... We were a group of twelve: Gaetan, Katia, Guillaume, Loic (all French), JiWoon (Katia's Korean roommate), JiWoon's Chinese friend called Emily, Bob and Maisy (Chinese friends), Tom (British - an English teacher), Matt (American - an English teacher), and Loic's new friend that he met over the internet and saw for the first time last night; she's French (from Toulouse) and is doing an internship for a real estate company in Beijing and her name is Laure. Gaetan was super drunk and was dancing crazily with everybody. I left early (1:30 AM) with Tom, who was also super drunk, it was kinda weird.

China loves marble. It's everywhere - in banks and in our apartments. It gets dirty super easily. There's a lot of dust, but also mud gets spread on the ground. It's annoying. I'm constantly cleaning.

Saddam Hussein's trial has begun - but then was adjourned until November because the defense hadn't been allowed to see the evidence in time to prepare properly. And now one of the lawyers representing one of Hussein's co-conspirators (one of the lawyers representing Hussein's side)has been found dead. This is going to be another one of those super drawn-out, super expensive processes. You can always check out the CBC link: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/10/21/saddam-trial051021.html

What's happening in Pakistan is a real-life horror story. Thinking about it depresses me so I don't. It's not the answer but it's a way for me to continue living with myself.

On that note I hope you're all well and happy.

Tai'an and Tai'shan pictures

At the back of the mini-van we took from Qufu to Tai'an, the city at the bottom of Tai'shan mountain.
At the bottom of the Tai'shan (the most famous of the 5 sacred Taoist peaks). This is around the place where we bought our tickets to go up the mountain and take the bus (20-minute bus ride) to the bottom of the steps.
Tai'shan here we come: it's the name of a TV series. :-) We found this picture reminded us of an ad for a popular TV series - we're at the bottom of the 6000 steps (or maybe more?) that lead to the top of Tai'shan. A waterfall along the way up Tai'shan mountain - if you look closely you can see engravements of Chinese calligraphy in the stone.
The view of the stairs leading up Tai'shan. The temple is up at the top in the centre - it was our goal! This is after we had already been climbing for at least twenty minutes. With a half-hour lunch break it took us two hours to reach the top.
From L to R: Gaetan, Guillaume, Loic. In front of an egravement of beautiful red calligraphy (who knows what it says) onto a part of Tai'shan mountain.
The view up Tai'shan. Look at the people!
Outside the KTV in Tai'an (the city from where we could get to Tai'shan mountain - the sacred Taoist peak). It was raining and we were waiting for a taxi when a worker from the KTV came out with an umbrella to keep the girls dry. :-) Katia is taking out a plastic poncho that we bought for 3 kwai - they're the equivalent of a garbage bags and they look just as fashionable.

I spent the afternoon shopping in Xidan with Katia. First we did some banking stuff (the central Bank of China is quite impressive in and of itself), then we went to eat at one of the many food courts in the area. We were looking for a specific food court Katia had seen before, but we never found it.

Katia bought a t-shirt, a bag, and socks, and she was ready to buy more, making me feel guilty for not having bought anything. We went to this huge bookstore and looked at the selection of learn-Chinese books. Katia got a CD-Rom-type thing, plus a book of Chinese songs, but upon closer inspection (in her dorm room), she realised what crap it was. The CD-Rom is useless because the explanations for very basic words (numbers and "me," "you," "it") are all in Chinese, which makes it very difficult to understand... And her book of songs, well, she already knows all the grammar in it, and in fact, they're not even songs at all...not very useful.

I got a good textbook, written by a French author, Belassen. It's supposed to be the best one around. They didn't have the accompanying CD though, which is very unfortunate. Katia's going to see if she can't burn hers (Gaetan is borrowing her book + CD for the moment) so that both Gaetan and I can use it. We went down and back up three flights of stairs and we asked about a million different people a million times where we could find the CD - "mayo" is all they answered ("We don't have it."). Very frustrating. We even went to the CD (media) section and found the place for learning Chinese cassettes and CDs, but my specific CD for my specific textbook wasn't there...

This evening we went out for dinner - there were ten of us. Five French and five Chinese students all studying French. It was good fun.

And now I'm exhausted. I've got class tomorrow but I get to sleep in until 8:30 AM. Yay!

The picture is of a guy in Xidan in the typical Chinese stance: the squat. I thought it was pretty funny that he was in the middle of a patch of grass, squatting on a manhole, talking on his phone. Had to take a picture. :)

Erika

All together now: let's wish Erika the best of luck on her midterms. Go Erika!

And I want to thank Pierre from the bottom of my heart for thinking ahead yet again and insisting at London Drugs that I get the 1 Gigabyte memory card for my digital camera. That way I was able to take all the pictures I wanted (plus videos) on the trip and not have to worry about filling up my memory card. It was truly wonderful.

I've asked a couple times for some more furniture to put my things in, but I've been told no everytime. So when I saw a couple furniture-type things in the open space between the hallway and the apartments (our building is weirdly constructed), I jumped at the chance to simply take. Maybe I was wrong, but they were there a whole day so they don't have anywhere pressing to go. Might as well spend their time in my place, where they'll be used. This evening I got Guillaume and Gaetan to help me take a bookshelf-type thing into my room. It's just one of the two things I saw. If there's a problem, I'll survive the consequences, I'm sure.

Good night, y'all. I hope to visit the Temple of Heaven tomorrow, after my 8-10 AM class.

Qufu

At a rest stop on the side of the highway. That's our bus. We traveled in it for about five hours from Qingdao to Qufu.
This is where the bus dropped us off...pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We were about an hour's walk away from downtown Qufu. We walked for about ten or fifteen minutes, until a nice man with a mini van and a son in the front seat took us to our hotel.
A view of the first people we saw once we got off the bus. They stared at us for about as long as we stared at them.... Notice how the road isn't paved. We just got off the highway. The road to Qufu was paved, of course.
We were walking in the hutongs (alleyways) when we saw this man feeding his dog - he tied up his dog's ears before giving him anything to eat! It was too funny. He used a clothing pin to tie up his dog's ears (it's light blue in the picture). Older men also often have birds - they carry their bird cages with them everywhere, it's like they're "walking" their bird.

A noodle-maker in Qufu's night market. This is where we ate our first night in Qufu. That's noodle dough in the forefront, where he strings it and suddenly noodle-shaped noodles appear before our eyes. Then he puts them in that black cauldron-type thing that he's going towards in the picture. He adds some herbs and meat to make a delicious soup. Nobody got sick. It was nice to sit outside.
A dragon on the ceiling of a pagoda in Confucious' temple.
A young girl praying at Confucious' temple.
Chinese kids are so cute. Chinese people don't use diapers. Kids have holes in the bottom of their pants and simply squat whenever they feel like doing anything. That's why you gotta watch out for puddles on the street... It also means that kids' butts are continually feeling a slight breeze...
Confucious' residence: full of temples and parks. Apparently the Residence takes up one fifth of the size of Qufu's area.
A Chinese family - only men. In front and to the right is the garbage can (nicely disguised, no?). Behind them is an old tree...
One of the gates leading to Confucious' forest that we passed under... I don't know what the horse was doing there. Confucious' forest, to the North of Qufu (about a half-hour walk away), where Confucious and some of his descendents and many important Qufu people lie burried.

Confucious' tomb
Guillaume's head got cut off by the date & time. We're in Confucious' forest.

Qingdao pix

Us by the ocean in Qingdao - it was so nice to be by the ocean again!
Guillaume took the picture....From L to R: Katia, me, Gaetan, Loic. With Qingdao's famous cathedral in the background (built by Germans).

Streets in Qindao (not in the tourist district).
Candice, Melanie, me and Guillaume beside our names in Chinese at a beach in Qingdao.
Qingdao beach - notice the rotten weather and yet the large number of people on the beach! And some people were swimming!
Another street in Qingdao: main tourist street.