just another American teacher in SK

Summer is approaching – the first indicator is the parasol (or sun umbrella), but you know that summer is near when the dreaded enormous head visors come out.

While the foreigners enjoy a nice “sun-kissed” color, Asians are very cautious about exposure to the sun and  go to great lengths to avoid it.   It’s early May, but there are already women carrying around 4-foot-wide (patio-sized) umbrellas, others who are sporting the visors that protrude at least 12 inches from their forehead.  I haven’t seem many of the “bleaching” products that are popular with my girlfriends in China, the sunscreen is already flying off the shelves  ~ in the meantime, the “whities” are taking advantage of the late afternoon rays, looking forward to a nice gentle tan, over time …

Last week, it was still cool in the mornings and warm in the afternoon, but we are rapidly approaching “hot”.  Today it’s  27C (80F), even though it’s overcast/cloudy. The worst part about summer is that I will have to deal with yet another (potential nightmare) appliance  ~ the air conditioner.

Listen ~ I know that it makes me sound like a complete moron, but the appliances are very confusing here. EVERY foreign teacher takes a picture of the controls and takes them into the office for translation~ it’s TRUE! I’ve seen pictures of control panels and remote controls for everything produced for translation ~ washing machines, cooking areas, the heating system, the air conditioner, microwave, refrigerator, television, telephone … at some point, you have no shame.

I suspect it is going to be a long, hot summer in SK.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 10:07 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.