I am a "foreign expert"

Since I last wrote I have moved house - this time to my permanent apartment on the campus of Henan Uni of Technology, I have started some duties as a teacher (giving spoken English exams to students who failed the first time), I have visited Beijing, and have even found time to star in 2 commercials for Henan TV.

New apartment

My new apartment is great - it is about 80 square metres, 2 bedrooms, a toilet that flushes (everything!), even a kitchen. I have a TV, DVD player, double bed, and its right in the the most convenient part of campus, next to the cafeterias and not far from where I will be teaching. The University has been doing everything they can to take care of us - business cards, bank accounts, flight reimbursements...I have heard a lot of horror stories from other teachers whose schools break contract conditions, don't pay on time (if at all) and provide terrible accommodation so I feel lucky to have avoided all that.


Living room


Bedroom


Kitchen - which I'm sure will never be used


Started my teaching duties

My actual students are right now doing their obligatory military training (at 5am every day I am awoken with 一!，二!，三!，四! blaring through my window) - and won't start actual class until next week. But I was asked to give some oral English exams to second year students who failed their first test. All I had to do was read them a topic ("talk about your favourite animal") and they need to talk for 2 minutes - sounds easy if you've been learning English for 10 years right？ Wrong - these kids failed first time for a reason! "I'm sorry, I don't understand 'animal', can I have a new topic?" "Are you serious?　This is the easiest one I have!!" Yes this was seriously what one of the students said to me. They are bad, but I'm a nice guy so I only failed 1 of them who stood there for 2 minutes and didn't say a word - how can you give a passing grade for that??? His topic was to describe his best friend!


First year students lined for their military training


The main administration building of the campus


Chinese teacher's residences opposite the campus


The North gate of the campus which is inconveniently closed for most of the day, meaing a steady stream of students (and foreign teachers) climbing over it


Basketball seems to be one of the favourite sports

TV commercials

Apart from being an extremely generous spoken English examiner, I have also starred recently in 2 commercials for Henan TV's new 'rural' channel as a "foreign expert" - though what I'm an expert in I'm not sure, any Westerner in a suit could do the same job as me. All I need to do is talk in English for 20 minutes about absolute rubbish while a bunch of old men look at me, nodding and clapping their hands. I just hope they dub over what I said with something meaningful! But anyway, 20 minutes gets me about the same amount of money as the average graduate wage in some places, so bring it on.

Beijing

Last weekend I visited Beijing. Massive expressways, manicured gardens, brand new buildings on a scale you can't imagine, luxury cars and department stores, billboards, etc etc... and a lot more foreigners than Zhengzhou. I arrived last Friday and met Anna who is staying with her German friend Caroline in a modest 2 bedroom apartment in the West part of the city.


With Anna and Caroline


My room for the weekend - camera stolen for this photo!

Friday night we went to Hohai, a lake surrounded by bars filled with tourists, and met up with Mish from uni and her friend, a guy from Yale who is also studying at BLCU (language and culture university) with Mish. Saturday we woke early to go look at Chairman Mao's body - a lot of Chinese people seem to worship Mao - my knowledge of him comes mostly from Jung Chang's book "Wild Swans", which describes the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and Mao's other cleansing campaigns, which in total killed some 70 million of his own people. After his death, Deng Xiaoping proclaimed that Mao was "70% right and 30% wrong" and this remians the official Party line. Anyway politics aside, it was a little creppy looking at the real body of a man that died 30 years ago - although it was more than likely a model on loan from Madamme Tussauds!

After that we went to Tiananmen Square and walked towards the Forbidden City. I was expecting to be stunned by the size of the square - it is 100 acres in size and in 1949 the CCP had some 1 million soldiers on parade in it. When I saw it though it was big yes, but so many people, and various Olympic displays and flower gardens seemed to divide it up and it didn't feel quite as big as I expected. Anyway it took us 20 minutes to walk from one end of it to the other, where you find the famous poster of Mao and the entry to the Forbidden City.


The Chairmain Mao Mausoleum at the West end of Tiananmen Square


Tiananmen Square


Anna and I in front of the National Museum, at the south end of Tiananmen Square




Some of the Olympics mascots in the Square


Being patriotic in front of the Mao poster and the entry to the Forbidden City




Forbidden City entrance - didn't actually go inside because we were hungry!!

After the Forbidden City we headed to Wangfujing (famous shopping street) to search out the famous Duck restaursnt Quanjude to have our obligatory Beijing duck, which despite all the hype did taste really good, although cost 200yuan which is about 100 times more than I'm used to spending on food!.


They cut the duck at your table which is pretty cool


Inside the famous Quanjude restaurant where a bunch of famous politicians have dined before


Wangfujing shopping street


One of the department stores in Wangfujing - everyone says Beijing is a historical city but most of what I saw could have been built in the past 15 years

After that we hopped onto the subway to a market to stock up on cheap ripoff clothes. The subway is ridiculously crowded as you would expect, and the Chinese people don't seem to understand the concept of letting people off before you start pushing to get on. Anyway, the second train we caught this guy was pushing up against me, and being fairly competitive, I wasn't prepared to let him get on the train before me. It ends up he was pushing up against me to get his hand in my pocket to take my wallet, which I only realised once I was on the train, and noticing he wasn't and that my pocket was feeling light, I only then realised what had happened. Stupid! Anyway it had around 1000 yuan and 2 bank cards so not the end of the world - travel insurance better pay me!


The subway station where my wallet was stolen!

We nevertheless did a lot of shopping at the clothes market (lucky I had more money hidden elsewhere) - a lot of bargaining (basic rule is divide by 10 whatever they say). Sunday we went to the police station to file a police report so I could claim travel insurance - you would think this is a fairly simple process but they seemed to be pretty confused by the request and it took us more than 3 hours to get a small piece of paper - all in Chinese of course so I will need to get it translated for the insurance claim!


Inside the police station waiting for them to figure out how to write a police report

That afternoon we went back to the market and did some more shopping - over the 2 days I think I spent about 400 yuan and got 4 shirts, a jumper, 4 pairs of cufflinks and a pair of timerland sandals. Not bad!

I promised my Chinese friends I would write some Chinese on my blog so here my Chiense version of my Beijing trip.

上星期我去北京了， 我是坐火车去的，这个星期一回来。从郑州到北京坐火车大概七个半小时。我觉得北京是一个很特别的地方。我一到北京就跟朋友见面。她跟朋友住在城市西边。我们先吃饭，然后去后海的酒吧喝酒。后海的酒吧里外国人很多，中国人不太多。北京的外国人比郑州多，所以我在北京不太特别。北京的天气不冷也不热，大概有二十五度。星期六和星期日，我去北京很有名的地方旅行(我参观了北京的名胜古迹)。先去毛主席纪念堂，然后去天安门广场。天安门广场很大，参观的人很多。我们走路去故宫，里边很漂亮。突然我们很饿，就去王府井的全聚德饭店吃北京烤鸭。北京烤鸭做得很好吃，可是比较贵。

吃完午饭，我们就去秀水街买衣服。北京秀水街的东西比郑州便宜 （别的地方都比郑州贵！）。我们跟服务员讲价。她们先说“三百块”，我说：“真得太贵了。我给你三十块！”她们说：“不可能！但是，因为你的中文说得很好，我给你朋友的价钱，两百块怎么样？”“我说，还是太贵了。这件衣服不是真的！给你三十块！” 要是他说“不可能”，我说，“好的，我不要，谢谢”他总是说“OKOK, 五十块，好吗？”我说，“三十块。拜拜。”有时候他说“OK 三十块”，有时候说“四十块”我觉得价钱都很便宜，所以我买了很多衣服。

我们回家的时候，在地铁里人很多，也很拥挤。我上车的时候，一个男孩儿偷了我的钱包。我很郁闷！我的钱包里有一千块钱，还有两张银行卡，还有健身房卡和澳大利亚驾照。我们得去派出所报案，三个小时以后我们才报完案！吃一堑，长一智！ 以后再起北京，我一定会小心自己的钱包。

星期一早上，北京的交通真的很挤，我去得太晚了，没有赶上火车。我又很郁闷。我先退票，然后买新的火车票。星期一晚上才回家！我在北京的周末虽然有一些不开心，但是很有意思。要是有机会的话，我打算再去北京。

Anyway I am back in Zhengzhou now but would like to go to Beijing again because I didn't get to see a lot of the sites I wanted to. This week is a 1 week National Day holiday and next week I will start actually teaching! Will update again after I meet all my students.

Partying it up China style

Sorry for the long delay in updating - my access to Internet has been pretty restricted and even now it is painfully slow to do anything. I have been busy since my last update - studying, exploring, partying, moving house... I was supposed to start teaching last Monday but that has been pushed back to October because my students are all first years and have a month's compulsory military training before they start classes. No complaints about that!

Despite the fact that I am doing no work for them yet, Henan University of Technology has moved me into a hotel and is paying me which is nice. I much prefer where I am living now, it is much closer to the centre of the city and the area is quite nice, a lot of students, restaurants and shops around. I am studying around 15 hours of formal Chinese lessons each week with my tutor, who was one of my teachers out at Zhengzhou University. She is excellent - very strict, and gives me a lot of homework. I also have a fairly steady stream of Zhengzhou University students coming to visit me to practise English and help me with Chinese so I am keeping busy. Most Friday or Saturday nights I head to one of the crazy nightclubs in Zhengzhou with some other foreigners - some of then studying Chinese at Zhengzhou University and some of them other teachers from Henan University of Technology. Our favourite club so far is called 'Babybody' - we are treated pretty well there - probably because we spend a lot of money, but it keeps us going back.

I could make a lot of money here as a model or DJ. I have been offered 1000 yuan for 2 hours modelling and 2500 yuan for a 3 hour DJ set - both I have declined because firstly I don't trust that they will pay me and secondly I came to China neither to DJ or model and I don't really feel like my photo showing up in random magazines or bus shelters in the city like some of the other foreigners here. But it is a lot of money - the average graduate wage here is around 500-1000 yuan per month, and most of the students seem to manage on close to 300 per month, A$50. It is possible - the food is very cheap and their accomodation while pretty uncomfortable (8 people to a room, no aircon or TV, shared bathrooms), is very cheap - around 600 yuan for a year. If you want to you can buy clothes at a market for 10-15 yuan for a t-shirt.

Having said all that there are a lot of people with a lot of money in this city. In the east part of the city, close to a lot of the nightclubs, there are some very swanky new apartments, and a lot of Audis, BMWs and Mercs driving around. The large department stores in downtown have prices similar to Myer/DJs and they are always swarming with people.

OK enough rambling, here are some photos:

Zhengzhou University - class, friends, food...

Anna with Lin laoshi who is now my tutor


After the Russians left it was just Anna and I in the class


John (from Cameroon), Anna and I with a couple of English major students - Lucy and Randy


In the Shitang with Lisa, Randy and Lucy


Lisa with her koala


We went to a Dan's house (a Chinese friend) for dinner - Anna trying to help out in the kitchen


Toasting with Chinese "bai jiu"- white alcohol - which tastes pretty bad!


With Anna, Dan and John at a restaurant near campus - eating our favourites gongbao jiding (Kungpao chicken), fanqie chaodan (tomatoes with fried egg) and tieban niurou (sizzling beef with vegetables)


Some of the more typical northern-chinese dishes in the Shitang


Whole bunch of Chinese students watching China get thrashed by Greece at the basketball championships


John playing soccer with some other foreigners (against Chinese - of course we won)


John at the campus store stocking up on 2yuan beers


One of the crazy Koreans smoking on the balcony

Babybody pics

John, Anna and I outside "Dennis"- one of the department stores we like because it has a restaurant inside where you can get real Spaghetti!


Dan, Anna and John at the restaurant


At Babybody - John and I with random Chinese guy


Anna & Dan's cousin (who actually lives in Adelaide, visiting China for the summer)


Two of our Korean friends Heather and Christie (I gave them those names because the Chinese names are too hard to remember)


Our hostess Sarah (We call her "cazy girl") who always gets us the best table and seems to be in a perpetual state of drunkness


Crazy girl with Toby (Aussie) and David (Scottish - can't understand a word he says ) - both English teachers


With one of the KTV (karaoke) managers and Paul, one of the Koreans - our nights often end up at KTV until the early (and sometimes late) hours of the morning


Sarah with Ullbech who is from Krygistan (sp?) - he is 16 years old, can't speak any Chinese and only came here because his mother wants him to learn (he hates most things about China!)


With Korean guy and crazy girl on the dancefloor


All of us foreign students at Zhengzhou University


Korean with John and random Chinese guy




Babybody inside - pretty swanky


Paul with one of the other managers we are friends with

Farewell to Anna
Anna, my Greek friend has left us for Beijing. We are hoping to go up there in the next couple of weeks to visit


John, Anna and Dan at the train platform


Anna with cute kid in her 'soft sleeper' (second class) train carriage

OK there ends another instalment. For the many people that have sent me emails, I am sorry that I haven't gotten back to you - I will try to in the next day or so. Bye for now.

Photos Instalment 1

I have been in Zhengzhou for almost 2 weeks now and am starting to get used to life here. There aren't too many other foreigners now that the Russians have left, though there are some Korean students who are also here studying Chinese that I have made friends with - they can't speak much English so we get by in broken Mandarin. At the moment I prefer it to hanging out with Chinese students who speak too fast for me to understand anything! The Koreans also like drinking which is an extremely cheap pastime here - a 750ml bottle of beer costs 2 yuan (about 30c). It is pretty tasteless but at that price nobody is complaining.

Last weekend was busy - on Saturday I was taken to lunch by my Sydney Mandarin tutor's mum and her friends. Before some of the other guests arrived, nobody there could speak English so I made use of the waitress' limited translating abilities for a while. She ended up giving me a tour of the (massive) restaurant much to the amusement and giggling of the other waitresses. With the rest of the guests came a 19 year old girl that could speak English quite well and was very keen to practice with me. The food was sensational and despite having some difficulties with communicating I had a great time - my hosts have been extremely welcoming and tolerant in my limited language abilities!

Mayhem is the best word to describe the roads here. There variety of vehicles is vast - bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cars, tractors, buses and trucks all sharing the same limited space. Often they don't stick to lane markings, and usually all drive pretty slow which is a good thing because at any moment another vehicle could lunge at you from any direction. There is not much respect for any of the rules - cars will cut you off, turn right in front of you and red lights are frequently ignored. It's great fun to watch and every taxi trip so far has been a thrill!!

The state of the environment here is quite poor and most of the Chinese are willing to admit it. I haven't seen blue sky and there is a smell in the air that is inescapable. My dormitory window is permanently shut and the air conditioner hasn't been turned off since I arrived - in a way I am contributing to the environmental problems that much China are experiencing, but the one night I tried to open the window I woke up in a sweat and not being able to breathe, so air conditioning is back on for good. Having said this I am impressed with the cleanliness of the streets both at the university and downtown. Many of the roads are wide boulevards with trees stretched over them, and there is a lot of life below - the sidewalks aren't too littered and there is no graffiti at all. There are people and vehicles everywhere and in many ways it is less depressing than the car-ridden lifeless highways of Sydney.

I have been watching a bit of TV in my spare time. The 1 English channel is fairly boring - they repeat the same 5 shows every day and it's pretty much just news and business shows ("attracting foreign investment to China" type stuff). Some of the Chinese channels are great - there are numerous Idol style competitions, my favourite is a "family idol" show where a whole family (usually 3 people!) get up and sing and dance together - the kids are usually really young and put in a lot of effort - and its hilarious to watch. At the end of each show only 1 family progresses through so inevitably there are a lot of tears from parents and child when they get kicked off.

The advertisements are also fun to watch - there is a huge amount of Olympics propoganda (ads that say "just 730 days to go" and TV shows that test student's English abilities to become international ambassadors) - I am worried they may be getting excited a little too early. Then there are the many many commercials for products that apparently can shrink your waist line, boost your height or grow your clevage just by taking a pill or attaching a bizzare vibrating machine to your body. Many of these ads show a Western doctor in a white labcoat to legitimise the products' scientific effectiveness - hilarious to watch. I'm told that the government has banned these ads but they still are shown pretty frequently!

I have finally got around to taking some photos. I haven't been very selective with what I uploaded so apologies in advance for it taking a while to load.

University


Outside the Shitang (cafeteria) where I eat every day


One of the other Shitangs - apparently cheaper than mine (30c a meal instead of 50c??) but the food is apparently not as good


Bicycle parking outside the Shitang


Ladies hand weeding the grass


One of the roads through campus


Some of the apartments the Chinese students live in


More apartments...


More apartments...


Apartments with clothes hanging out - there are no dryers!


One of the main roads through campus


Can anyone can enlighten me about these troops of red-hat wearing youths?


An old biycle dumping ground


Basketball courts - always packed


The man made lake separating the student accommodation with some teaching buildings


Another shot of the lake


Campus scenary - they have put a lot of effort into landscaping


Chinglish everywhere - one of the 'don't step on the grass' signs


The administrative building that greets you at the main entrance - everything here is on a massive scale


The gates of the university (you can see the administrative building in the background)

Campus surrounds


The tuk-tuks waiting outside the university


The road running by the university - it is in the middle of a hi-tech development zone


One of the large office buildings in the around surrounding campus


Aside from office buildings the area is quite rural - plantations like this are dotted between the university and office buildings


Just down the road from campus - a few shops with a heap of people just mulling outside


Down the road from campus




This market is also close to campus




This is what they call a bar - a bunch of outdoor seating with some BBQ outlets scattered around - gets pretty busy most nights and is a pretty cool place to hang out


The hi-tech development zone has some pretty nifty, and underutilised, infrastructure - I have never seen more than 1 or 2 cars on this road

Views from the cab going downtown






Gas power plant fairly close to campus


























Not unusual to see a pedestrian walking casually along the freeway!

Goodbye Russians


Outside of class I didn't spend much time with the Russians - they all much prefer to talk in Russian and it's pretty intimidating! This is Anna (Greek) on the left, with 2 of the Russian girls and I.


All the Russian students with Huang laoshi our teacher in the middle


The bus taking them to the train station where they had to endure a 20-something hour train trip to Beijing and on to Irkusk where they live (north of Mongolia in Siberia)

OK - that's it for now. I hope you are all well!