Jun 2008

Something I like. I also like to entertain and trying new foods. However some of the Chinese foods are very strange.

I purchased a dried fruit which I have no idea what it was but in the ingredients it said licorice. Had won me. I didn't find them that tasty. The tasted nothing like licorice.

Olives are another of my favorites. Here they are similar in colour however the taste and texture was completely different. They seemed to be sweet.

Some staples in China but not at home are cabbage and eggplant. I did not know that there were so many ways to cook them. Eggplant is almost on the menu every night.

I'm contracted to do 20 hours from Monday to Friday every week. Regardless of the hours I work I still get paid for the 20 hours unless of course I work over time then I get paid an hourly rate. It took me 2 weeks before I had worked my first 20 hours. This all came to an abrupt end after the May holidays. I now had 20 hours plus 9.5 hours traveling time. I was most upset as my free time was being eaten up by travel! My friends at home found this quite amusing as I would have worked the equivalent in 3 days in my previous life.

But there's always more work to do, not that I mind. Someone will come to the school to see a leader and they want to practice English. You will be called to the office in your free time to practice English with this person, or prepare them for an English Exam. You are paid in food, IE taken to dinner.

Then there are the speaking competitions. The students want to meet with you to practice their English. You then have to be judge and remain impartial. Once again payment is by food.

There are English corners all over the place. Basically an English corner is where Westerners turn up and Chinese people come to practice their English. They normally last for 2 hours, however it is just like doing a days work. You need to keep the conversation going and listen intently for their Chinglish.

One English Corner I go to is on every Saturday from 2 - 4, (no I don't go every Saturday!). They pick you up and drop you off and payment is in the form of beer. Another one is on every Sunday Fortnight from 9.30 - 11.30. This one I do go to every fortnight but more for the Western interaction after wards! We go and have lunch and catch up with other Western Teachers.

I find it interesting the amount of old men and women you see working. Many of them do regular maintenance and pruning of hedges and other plants and also mow the lawn. I see one lady outside our apartments who shovels sand through a sifter and then makes concrete. Most of these people are way beyond retirement age.
There are also those that clear rubbish. We also have an old man who delivers our water. Carrying 18L of water up to level 4 is no easy task.

China accounts for 20% of the world population. So why don't the rest of the world speak Chinese? That task would be too big in the developed world as we know it today.

So why do the Chinese learn to speak English? Chinese businesses need to do business in the West and the language difference is too great. Hence they learn to speak English. It is very confusing if you try to translate word for word.

In one of my classes I showed a picture and asked the students to tell me what they thought was happening. One of the students said that there was 2 girls and a guy at a party and the guy was having a drink. I then said that it was a girl to which my student said that if it was a girl than she was ugly. I said that it can't be a guy because he doesn't have an Adams Apple. They were quite amused by this. What is an Adam's apple? In Chinese they call it a throat knob!

Can you understand where I'm coming from?

There is very little English information in Tai'an. It used to frustrate me. Now I accept it. I'm going to Jinan for the weekend next weekend. As this is the capital city of the province I'm hoping there is more English information.

Chinese names are difficult at the best of times to write and pronounce. Some people are kind to the foreigners and have an English name.

When a baby is born the parents pick the child's name based on something beautiful. When the students choose their English names they choose them for all sorts of reasons, some you would never be able to guess why.

They then decide for some reason or another that they don't like their English name so they change it. Some of my students have called themselves unusual names like October, Iceman, Genius etc. Others have chosen names such as Beckham, Giggs, Rinaldo. Those I recognize. Then you have the names we recognize like Jackson, Al, Jack, David, Peter, Bruce, Fiona, Sophia, Victoria etc.

Those that don't chose an English name I call by their number. I have 250 - 275 Students, I don't not have a chance of ever remembering their name or number. So I have a seating plan that I refer to. Very impersonal I know.

It is amazing in the winter you see trees with branches and think they are dead and will never come back to life. As soon as Spring is in the air the plants are sprouting buds. The gardens are tendered with great care. The gardens in the school campus are quite amazing. I stopped to smell the roses and was astonished that they had a perfume.

Gardeners can be seen everywhere. They tend to be older men and women who spend hours in the garden and are very proud of their masterpieces.

Somethings at first are hard to understand. Like why do they have rope around their trunks? It has been explained to me so that the tree grows straight.