Different Faces

First of all, I have a feeling that either China or my school network has blocked all blogger websites. I'm hoping this will resolve itself in the next few days, but if it doesn't I've set up a wordpress account. I really hope it isn't permanent though, as I love visiting so many blogger blogs and would be quite upset at not being able to do so.

 

Today has been a day when I have very much seen two different faces of China. I sporadically teach at an IELTS preparation school 'on the side', and, as per the timetable I received earlier this week, woke up at 6.30 on a Saturday to go downtown and teach there. Once I got there, I found out that actually, the class was meant to be tomorrow not today. Obviously I had an old timetable and China standard communication has struck again. My face fell. And then I was incredibly surprised.

 

Instead of telling me it was all my fault for not being psychic, as seems to be the norm here, a senior member of staff apologised, and as by luck the oral class I was due to teach was there for their listening class said that they would swap the oral and listening classes. They also promised to make sure I had the new timetable. This took less than five minutes to sort out.

 

Then I had the class, which consisted of four new students. It was fantastic: eager, intelligent, interesting, the students are a teacher's dream. It barely even felt like work.

 

This afternoon I was meant to cover my colleagues at another school. I got there, went into the office smiling 'Hello' and was greeted with the 'Why are you here?' delivered in remarkably vicious and aggressive fashion. I quickly explained the situation, and I was told that the classes no longer existed. It was all delivered in a very spiteful, malicious tone that clearly told me where I could go, whilst all three women in the office were grinning broadly and looking extremely self satisfied.

 

Out of tiredness from lack of sleep, menstrual hormones, frustration at the waste of my time and the loss of earnings, and their meanness, I nearly cried. I feel that probably they've decided to cancel the classes themselves, knowing that the owner won't care about a sub teacher, as they get paid more money when they teach a class themselves rather than 'assist' (i.e., sit at the back of the room playing on their mobile phones or picking their noses) a foreign teacher.

 

On a more positive note, I did have a very friendly taxi driver on the way back, and I taught him some English and he taught me a little Chinese.

 

Now, the humid and close day has given way to the first thunderstorm I've witnessed in China. The sound of torrential rain is strangely comforting, taking me back to my Lampeter bedroom, listening to rain at night, or staring over the blurred, drenched green Welsh landscape, and reminding me of a friendlier land.

 

I do miss rain, even that incredible Welsh rain, that could come down in torrents, day after day, for a week or more, to the point where the shallow brook through campus would become a feisty torrent, rising three or four feet up its rocky banks and then another foot over, bringing about stories of the time that it lapped the doors of the riverside union building. After the first year, you became strangely impervious to rain, valued a thick winter coat and a pair of Wellingtons, and realised what useless contraptions umbrellas often are. And now, strangely, I find myself here in China, nostalgic for a week when we were cut off from the rest of the country and stocks of fresh food in the supermarket started to dwindle more than they usually did, and there was only one footbridge over the river, mounted on steps to make it a foot higher than the others, that was usable. 

A Tale of Two Jobs

This week has mainly been about work. After spending months trying to find side jobs with no success, I’ve suddenly found myself with almost more than I can cope with.

It started on Wednesday night when I went downtown to meet with Peter, a guy who has just started a business linking individuals and schools with native speaking English teachers. He used to work for a no good toerag called Mickey, who I was meant to work for, although luckily, seeing as he’s skipped town without paying any of his employees, including me, he actually gave me very little work.

From the start, and for a variety of reasons that are too tedious to elucidate, I felt Peter’s attitude was towards me was off – especially as he tried to pressure me into doing ‘demo classes’ for half the going rate that native English speakers normally receive. He offered me a job on Saturday mornings teaching at a primary school, and I felt that I should take it, mainly as I really want to save money for travelling in the summer.

However, after keeping myself awake that night agonizing about whether my doubts were idleness in disguise, I decided that, even though I need the money, if you take a job (especially here, where side jobs come with no employee rights) because you feel you 'should', with someone you fundamentally distrust and when your every instinct in screaming at you not to take it, then you are basically asking to get screwed over.

On Thursday I taught my regular morning classes then took a cab through torturous traffic to an English school in the centre of town, which prepares people for the Ielts English language test. The students at the school mostly want to study in Britain or Australia, and need to get a good pass in the test in order to do so. The cab ride alone ate up an eighth of what I was getting paid, but it was a one off job covering for a friend who is away, and I hoped that perhaps it might lead to more work. Luckily my hunch paid off, as Eric, the London educated manager, was delighted to find himself with a real, live British person as a teacher, and has asked me to teach at the school regularly.

I, meanwhile, am delighted that for once being British has helped me find work rather than otherwise, as there is quite a prejudice against British people in this city. It’s not just a preference for American English over British English – one of my friends tutored a woman who also needed elementary French instruction, and I was all set to start tutoring her after Spring Festival, but as soon as she found out I was British she backed out of the arrangement!

I’m also delighted that the job is great – really small classes of eager, intelligent students who are hungry to learn. I actually feel that I’m teaching them rather than babysitting, as I often do with my ‘own’ students. Hopefully I’ll teach there twice a week from now on.

I taught there again this morning and the two hours of class flew by in interesting discussions. After class some of the students invited me to eat lunch with them, so I we went and had this great noodle dish. I don’t normally like noodles, but these were rice noodles and I loved them. Naturally, they also seem to be the most expensive kind of noodle!


You get a tray of various different foodstuffs, which you then tip into to the broiling hot broth. I don’t know how the students could eat theirs straight away, I caused a commotion by repeatedly burning my mouth. No doubt they now think all foreigners have severe difficulty with the physical act of eating!

On the bus home I managed to get a seat all the way, I had a nice stroll back through park, a good work out at the gym and have just spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out and eating fruit, so even though I have to get up early again tomorrow (sob!) and go to teach at another private English school I've been working at (more about that tomorrow), I'm feeling happy and relaxed: long may it continue!

You know it's a bad week when...

...Friday the 13th is the best day of the week.

Thursday saw me so frustrated and pissed off that after my last class I just went home and drank two bottles of beer, then didn’t talk to anyone or leave my apartment because I was one tiny little incident away from pounding my fists against the walls and screaming ‘why did I ever come to this God-forsaken country?’

After a bad end to the weekend, things only got worse. There are three things I hate about China: the lack of organisation, the inability to give a straight answer and stalker tendencies. All three were amply present.

On Tuesday I’d gone to have an interview with the manager of a chain of bilingual kindergartens, where A already works. She had told A that she wanted someone to work at the kindergarten near where we live, called Ugly Duckling. I’d given this woman a copy of my school schedule in writing and discussed it over the phone, then at the meeting we went over it again. She wanted me to work in the downtown branch one morning a week, but as it would mean a four hour round trip for me, I said no, despite her pressuring me. We agreed that I would teach at Ugly Duckling for one hour on Thursday mornings at either 9.30 or 10 and she would call me on Wednesday to confirm which time. Wednesday comes and goes: no call. Owing to the Chinese habit of doing things at the last minute, this didn’t worry me. So I call on Thursday morning at about half past eight. Response?

‘Oh, it’s Thursday? I forgot it’s Thursday! I’ll have to call you later.’ Ok lady, you’re obviously either on crack or the world’s worst liar.

She calls me at midday to ask if I can work that afternoon at another kindy, again much further away from Ugly Duckling, despite the fact that if she’d bothered to check the schedule I’d given her she would have seen that I have classes then. So I’d wasted quite a bit of time and money, when if she could just have said what she was actually looking for in the first place….

Twice a term our school has testing on Thursday and Fridays, which mean swe get a long weekend. I wanted to plan a trip away so asked the foreign affairs office to confirm if it was the next weekend, as some students had said, because normally they only give us two or three days notice at the most. They said yes, so I tried to plan my trip, although I had to give up on going to the one place I really want to go because of frustrations with the Chinese railway schedule and ticketing office. Then I replan and start really looking forward to my weekend away. On Thursday I find out that the exams actually take place the week after, and the foreign affairs office just randomly told me the wrong date. So I’ve had to rearrange already booked spots at a youth hostel.

On Tuesday I was due to go to dinner with a woman whose private English school I occasionally work at. She was set on me staying over at her apartment, which I found kind of weird as it’s not very far away from where I live, I don’t know her that well and the journey between our neighbourhoods is much easier in the evening than during the morning rush hour. I had several errands that I needed to run in the morning too. I’d told her several times that I wouldn’t be staying over. On the trip to her apartment, she asks me when I will leave in the morning! Throughout the whole evening she tries to pressure me into staying.

the worst behaved kid in China?

Even if I’d wanted to stay, the behaviour of her two year old son would’ve decided me the other way. I have possibly never seen worse parenting: he threw his (live, for now anyway) pet chicks across the room onto a tiled floor, was fed beer, cola and peanuts and repeatedly tried to spit in the dumplings mixture. The parents response was to mix smacking him with total indifference.

She was curious about Skype, so we looked it up on the internet. She didn’t understand the English pages, I didn’t understand the Chinese ones. I took a long time to get this through to her, although I’ve told her several times I can’t read Chinese. She also wanted me to give her my mother’s profile details and home phone number! Er, no. So not a very relaxing evening.

I’ve also been phone stalked by two random teenagers wanting me to write a script for them for an English competition (which I’m pretty sure is cheating somehow!). I have no idea who gave them my number and the volume of their calls and texts was such that only by threatening to tell their school did I get them to stop!

This is probably far too long, and very boring, but given my week this seems apt.

Food and frustration

the boat restaurant

My most exciting news is that I have booked my ticket home, and will be arriving in the UK on the 8th of August after spending a month in Laos, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia. So I have more travel planning to do before I’ve even finished telling you about my last trip – lucky me! I feel so fortunate to have the chance to work and travel so widely, especially in comparison to many of my students, some of which are 17 or 18 and haven’t been to Beijing, two hours away by train.

My weekend started frustratingly. I had been scheduled to tutor five year old triplets in English every Tuesday and Friday evening, outside of my work for the school, and had my first class with them last Tuesday. It went well, and I was looking forward to meeting them again. However, on Friday the time of the class was changed but my employer forgot to tell me, meaning I arrived half an hour late for class through no fault of my own. My employer blamed me, meaning that the parents decided they no longer wanted me to teach the girls, which was annoying to say the least!

shepherd's pie? well, kinda........

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. I went to the Boat Restaurant, one of my favourite restaurants in Shijiazhuang, with my friends on Saturday night. As you can tell from the photo, if you get here early enough you can eat in a boat. The dish above is normally shepherd’s pie, but for some reason when we ordered it on Saturday they first brought us this vile looking tomato and beef strew. We spent about five minutes wrangling with a waitress in our very limited Chinese before they took that away and brought this, which still wasn’t what we really wanted but it seemed close enough. It was pretty tasty, and we also had excellent sweet and sour pork with pineapple and dry fried green beans.

We spent the rest of the evening chilling out in a nearby pool hall, people watching and marvelling at some of the Chinese fashion on display.

the pool hall, one of the cleanest places to hang out in the city

On Sunday evening one of the Chinese English teachers, Mr Liu, took me and another Chinese English out to dinner. Mr Liu speaks completely fluent English, and is fantastic company, full of interesting anecdotes. I would like to have taken photos of the food we ate, as it was beautifully presented as well as delicious but I refrained as I was afraid they might think I’d gone insane. We ate vinegar peanuts, di san xian, a traditional Chinese dish made with aubergine (egg plant), potatoes and green peppers, a barbeque pork type thing, turnip balls, which do not sound appetizing but were very moreish and succulent, and pork and cabbage dumplings. A lot for three people! I probably ate more than by fair share, as the food was so good it was hard to stop.

Throughout the meal we were ‘gambe-ing’ beer, which is when you must down your (thankfully relatively small) glass in one, so by the end I was just about ready to explode. The restaurant is quite near to my apartment, and I’m grateful for Mr Liu for introducing me to it. Because of our somewhat non existent Mandarin, it’s very difficult for us to find new places to eat, so I’m looking forward to going back with my friends and trying more of their food. A project for this weekend perhaps?