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.
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.
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