ChinaTeacher

Last week, during China’s New Year Festival, I headed down to the  Qinghefang Neighbourhood of Hangzhou.  It’s a very touristy place, but still one of my favourite spots in Hangzhou.  As you can see from the pictures (look for the photo link to the right of your screen), everyone else decided it would be a good idea to head down to Hefang Jie for the afternoon as well!

Hefang Jie is lined with small stalls, shops, pharmacies, restaurants and teahouses, and food stalls housed in traditional-style buildings. Walking along this street, you can easily imagine what it was like in centuries past.  You can bargain for good deals on paintings, tea, jade, silk products, animal horn combs and embroideries, etc.

If you want a good meal, there are some fine restaurants and teahouses in this area. There are also many snack food vendors along the street – duck head, anyone? Seriously, the food choices are enormous!  You can have traditionally-prepared tea in a teahouse here and visit old stores, even an herb museum and a traditional Chinese medicine shop.  It all comes at a price though, so bargain hard, and do so with a smile!

I have just returned to Hangzhou after spending a couple of weeks in Vancouver.  I had a wonderful time visiting with old friends and gorging on favourite foods but found myself longing to return to China after a week or so.  I miss the cheap lifestyle – It’s awfully expensive living in Vancouver, even if you try to limit your expenses!

Upon my arrival last night, I didn’t see any snow in Shanghai, but here in Hangzhou there is lots!  Many of the highways only have one lane open, and there are huge chunks of black snow everywhere.  Over the past 2 weeks, China has been crippled by snow storms the like of which they haven’t seen for over 60 years!  This comes at a particularly bad time because it’s Chinese New Year here.  For most people in China, this is the only time they can go home to see their families.  it’s common for many people in the countryside to work in the cities throughout the year, returning annually with enough money to tide their families over until they return again (yes, much of China is still cash-based so seeing people with shoeboxes full of cash comes as no surprise.  

My apartment is so cold (no central heating), that I went to bed last night with my room heater on and a space heater, as well as my electric blanket – turned up full!  Thank goodness the electricity didn’t go off!  Looks like it will take me several days to warm up my apartment!  The bad news is that they’re expecting more snow next week!  My apartment is still so cold that I had trouble ‘squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube’ this morning!

Today is New Year’s Day (it sounded like a war zone last night when all the fireworks were going off all over Hangzhou!).  Most stores will be closed today and, with all the students/teachers away for the holiday, this campus feels like a deserted village!

But, no worries – a couple of days from now and things will definitely improve.  In the meantime, provided the electricity stays ON, I will be able to get a headstart on my Lesson Plans for next semester!

If you have a moment, check out the PHOTOS Link on the right side of your screen for lots of pictures of beautiful Vancouver!

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2008 is the Year of the Rat (Earth), which begins on February 7, 2008 and ends on January 25, 2009.  First in the cycle of 12 Animal signs, the Rat Year begins the sequence and recurs every 12^th year. It is a time of renewal in so many ways. From New Year’s to Valentine’s Day, to the arrival of spring, may all the blessings and delights of the New Year be yours.

A Rat Year is a time of hard work, activity, and renewal.  This is a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start.  Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful.  The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly, and make the most of every opening you can find. 

So, Happy New Year everyone – all the best for 2008!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the following:  You know you have been in China for too long when…

Yesterday I returned from doing a performance at a Primary School here in Hangzhou, and it got me to thinking about all the things I have accomplished this year.  Last week my university’s Foreign Affairs Director had asked me to join her daughter’s class at school to ‘liven up the activities’.  I said “sure”, but after several repeated efforts for more detail (I wanted to know whether I needed to prepare anything in case they ask me to ‘teach’ – believe me, it’s happened before!), I discovered that now I am expected to perform for 10-20 minutes in their performance hall, to an audience of over 300 children aged 6-16 years of age!  We’re talking Beginner English to Advanced level English!  Oh, and they would like me to “talk about Christmas and the Olympics”. Right… with this audience – how? 

Well, having lived in China for 3.5  years, I have learned to ‘over-prepare’ and then ‘be prepared for disappointment’.  Sure enough, upon my arrival, I was ‘whisked back-stage’ and then told to keep my performance to 10 minutes or less.  So there I am, crossing out half my speech in order to meet the new target.  2 minutes later, I’m in front of the lights, microphone in hand, yelling NI HAO to the children!  I’m a university teacher, how the hell did I wind up doing this gig?!

So here we are, at the end of another year, 2007.  Looking back, I think I’ve had a pretty good year.  I’ve traveled a lot and learned a great deal.

TRAVEL

In January/February I spent 2 weeks in LAOS on my own, and traveled through VIETNAM for 4 weeks with Intrepid Travel.  Come April I was invited by my old business students to ZHOUSHAN Island for a couple of days.  The ancient river town of WUZHEN was next on my itinerary, with a former student of mine.  In August I invited another former student to join me on a 5-day trip to XIAMEN and the picturesque, vehicle-free island of GULANGYU.  During our week-long October holiday I ventured west to CHENGDU, LESHAN and EMEI SHAN.  Oh, and there was last week’s day-trip to XINCHANG.  Add in a couple of daytrips to SHANGHAI, and I think it was a pretty good year for travel, both domestic and international.

WORK

I signed on for a second year at my university where I have developed an excellent reputation, so much so that 8 different Chinese English teachers observed my classes this semester.  Not bad for someone with only 3.5 years’ teaching experience!  To financially support my ‘travel habit’, I taught part-time this semester at a real estate development company.  I have also enhanced my work portfolio with ‘voicework’ experience.  One of the top-tier universities in Hangzhou has requested my services on several occasions to record English dialogues and articles for their English Majors students.   This work has made me realize how important it is to take care of my throat and voice (now I think I have some idea of what those professionals singers must go through!).

FRIENDS

Well, as I have said before, university schedules are quite lax, so one has tons of free time.  Unfortunately, I feel I have spent far too much time alone this year.  I know, you’re wondering how that could be, right?! Well, my free time rarely coincides with those I wish to spend time with. But, nevertheless I have made some good friends, both foreign and Chinese, as well as some new ones.  In fact, one of my new friends is a business woman from North Carolina – she comes to Hangzhou every 6-8 weeks, so we try out different restaurants whenever she’s in town.  It’s a nice change to be able to chat with someone who doesn’t actually live in China.  She can also update me on what’s happening in the world outside China.  I also became friends with a Shanghai businessman while waiting in line at a supermarket.  It’s really very easy for us ‘foreigners’ to make friends with the local people here – everyone wants to have a friend from the west!  I’m finally ‘breaking the ice’ with many of my school’s Chinese English teachers too.  I have been told that most are afraid to show their true ‘lack’ of English, which is one reason for their not forming friendships with us foreign teachers.  I think that’s so sad, so I am doing my best to slowly break down their defenses, and it seems to be working! 

An interesting thing happened last night in fact.  I dropped by our student cafeteria to drop off two cakes given to me as thank-you gifts for this afternoon’s performance.  I certainly didn’t want to eat them all by myself, so I encouraged the students there to ‘dive in’ and enjoy!  Well, a Chinese English teacher came up and introduced herself – I have never seen her before.  She is a new teacher at the university this year and expressed her interest in making friends with me – done!  Turns out that because she is new, she is also having trouble ‘fitting in’ with the other Chinese English teachers.  So, I’m realizing it’s not a cultural matter after all, it’s simply about breaking into the various cliques, which of course we have the same problem back home.

Maybe one of my New Year Resolutions for 2008 can be to develop one or two deeper relationships with the people I meet here in China!  Let’s see what the future holds!

The Foreign Teachers at my university were invited on an outing to Xinchang, located in eastern Zhejiang Province, about 3 hrs. from Hangzhou. Xinchang has beautiful scenery and numerous historical sites, including three provincial scenic areas — the Dafo Temple, Chuanyan 19 Peaks, and Wozhou Lake. It is considered the center of the ‘Tang poetry road’ and ‘Buddhist pilgrimages’. Tianlao (Skyland) Mountain and Dafo Temple are famous, as the great Tang poet Li Bai wrote in a poem entitled “Mount Skyland Ascended in a Dream — A Song of Farewell”,

“Mount Skyland threatens heaven, massed against the sky,
Surpassing the Five Peaks and dwarfing Mount Red Town.
Mount Heaven Terrace, five thousand feet high,
Nearing the southeast, appears to crumble down.”

The Great Buddha in the Xinchang Dafo Temple is the earliest example of grotto art in southern China, having a history of 1,400 years.  Okay, I guess I did plagiarize most of the above text, but you’ll get my meaning after you see the photos – click on the Photos Link to the right of your screen.

We took off at 7:30am that morning on a nice big air-conditioned/heated bus – large enough for everyone to have their own double-seat to stretch out in comfort!  The Dafo Temple site is  much larger than I expected and consists of several temples, ponds and lakes and very attractive scenic spots.

Lunch was reserved for us at an extremely expensive restaurant, with crab as its feature.  My own large crab was put up for grabs, since I don’t like it.  I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the food – strangely enough, lunch consisted of many meat/fish dishes but only a few vegetables, this I really missed.

The Chuanyan 19 Peaks was really quite outstanding in its beauty.  We trekked along a river-side path bordered with Bamboo forest (gorgeous!).  Majestic rock cliffs cloaked in mist soared high above us. Best of all was the silence, only the sound of our voices as we rarely saw other tourists or even locals!  The Xinchang area is not on the well-trodden tourist trail, that’s for sure!  I recommend it highly!

I headed back along the trail well before the others (sore knees), and ran into two young Chinese men.  One teaches English and the other is a science teacher.  Their English is pretty good (contrary to their own opinions), so we had a great chat on the way back.  They live in Wenzhou (about 5 hrs. away) and had traveled to Xinchang to enjoy the sights, just like us.  My new friend was determined not to waste this opportunity – He asked me for advice on how to make his own classes more interesting.  Unfortunately, as he must follow a very strict curriculum to ensure the students pass their exams, I cannot tell him to run his classes like my own highly ‘active’ ones.  But, I was able to suggest some 5-minute warm-up activities and gave him some ideas about how to liven up some of the ‘drier’ exercises his students have to complete.  I wish him well.

Back at university, we enjoyed our second huge meal of the day, this time in our university’s hotel restaurant.  Dish after dish emerged from the kitchen – I thought they would never stop!  And then the yellow wine began to flow.  This is deadly stuff, but when the School President wants you to drink, you drink!  There must be caffeine in that wine because it took me a long while to get to sleep that night, but I did wake up the next morning hangover-free! 

No…. not MINE!  A former colleague of mine, Kelly, invited me to her wedding last month.  Needless to say, I was thrilled at the opportunity to attend my first Chinese wedding! 

I first met Kelly when I moved to Hangzhou in January 2005 to teach at a English language school.  We worked together there for a year and a half and have since remained good friends. 

In China, the ‘wedding’ actually consists of two parts: the ‘official ceremony’ which requires the couple to present themselves to the proper government office and register to be married.  Later, they will plan their ‘wedding party‘ – this can take place within days, or months of the office wedding. 

The Wedding Party is essentially the same as our ‘wedding reception’.  Kelly and her Dad made the official entrance to the ballroom where she was met by her ‘husband’ who stood in a heart-shaped archway.  Funny enough, our familiar ‘wedding march’ was played as they walked down the red carpet toward the stage at the front of the ballroom!  A number of speeches and toasts took place (in Chinese, so I didn’t understand a word).  Then they sat down and the feast began.  I’ve never seen so much food!  Dishes kept arriving at our table until there was no room left, and yet they still came – after that the plates were simply set` haphazardly atop one another.  There was some amazing Chinese food, including some very expensive delicacies such as shrimp and soft-shelled turtle, snake.  One of my table companions is vegetarian and wondered whether there would be many vegetable dishes.  Well, he worried no longer because we had at least 10 different vegetable and tofu dishes.  China has the largest variety of vegetables and types of tofu that I have ever seen.  You can never get tired of the food in China! 

As dinner wound to a close, the Bridal Party started making the rounds of all the tables, toasting each person as they went.  Regrettably, I discovered that Kelly was sipping only fruit juice!  She changed her clothes two times during the evening, winding up in a party dress and short black wig.  I was surprised that she did not appear in the traditional Chinese “Chipau” (long narrow fitted sleeveless dress with a mandarin collar). 

At they approached the last of the tables, everyone started leaaving.  BEFORE the bride and groom?  We couldn’t believe it! Kelly came over to our table and announced “the party is over, folks”.  We were stunned – it was only 8:30pm (the wedding party started at 5:30pm).  There was no dancing, no removal of a garter belt, no tossing of the bouquet.  And… no cake!  We laowais (foreigners) reluctantly got up, grabbed our coats and headed for the door.  We did hear later that the wedding party did continue to party the night away, and went to great efforts to ensure the bride and groom did not get too sleep easily on their first night.  That makes me happy!  Oh, by the way, you don’t give them presents, just CASH in red envelopes – nice!

Check out the link on the right to my PHOTOS – I got some great shots!
 

It was such a beautiful and sunny day today that I simply HAD to take my camera and head down to West Lake in Hangzhou!  Check out the ‘blue sky’ in my pictures – hardly any pollution today – yahoo! 

I was surprised to see so many people around on a Tuesday.  I have no classes on Tuesdays, but surely not everyone down at West Lake today could be retirees, housewives and the independently wealthy, could they?! 

Actually, it is best to stay away from West Lake on weekends.  Hordes of people choose this destination to ‘relax’, away from the stresses of daily life.  But how does one relax when the lake can barely be seen through the masses of bodies?  But, I digress. 

No worries for me today – it’s only Tuesday.  I did meet a number of wonderful people today.  One young ‘western’ couple arrived just 3 days ago via Beijing – turns out they are in Hangzhou to spend a month training at one of our local Chinese Medicine hospitals.  They had a free morning today, so decided not to waste it and wandered around the lake, trying to ‘take it all in’.  I told them they had arrived in Hangzhou at a great time: The weather is expected to be absolutely glorious for the next few days – lots of sunshine and blue skies! 

Later on I met an American and his wife (he from San Francisco and she from Shanghai).  They were visiting relatives and decided to take a little ‘sidetrip’ to Hangzhou; they were very glad they did!  Yes, today was definitely a great day to see my city in China. 

Check out the photos – the link can be found to the right of this page.

Well, I finally got a chance to spend a couple of days in Shanghai last weekend.  I haven’t visited since the Spring which is surprising.  I mean, it’s only 1.5 hours by train away.  To be honest, I don’t often go to Shanghai because I don’t really like it very much.  Shanghai is too big, too noisy, has too many buildings, too many people, it saps my energy – I could go on….!

But this time was much better.  This time I decided to explore just one area of the city, rather than try to make it to several destinations in one go.  In fact, I found everything I needed to buy that very first morning, which meant I could then spend more time exploring without having a schedule and a time limit – yahoo!

I did take another stroll along the Bund – there is something very special about this place.  You can’t help but notice the historical buildings all around you, and futuristic Pudong just across the river.  But this time I noticed that Pudong is losing its surreal aura – the last couple of years have brought tremendous development to that part of Shanghai, so it doesn’t look so outlandish any more.  There are tons of apartment buildings, plazas and department stores encroaching on the skyline over there.  It’s too bad – I kind of preferred its surreal quality to what it looks like now.  Oh well, that’s progress I guess.

My hotel accommodations were quite excellent.  A friend’s recommendation got me a small private room with bath for only 240 RMB, which is CHEAP for downtown central Shanghai!  Actually, that’s the most I have paid for a hotel ($35) since I left Canada three years ago!  Most economically priced Shanghai hotels charge about 350-450 RMB per night – ouch!  But then again, this IS Shanghai!  The Hotel is called 24K International – it has several locations in Shanghai.

I found a wonderful surprise when I looked out my hotel window (yes it even had a window!).  Directly behind my hotel sit approximately 6 rows of ancient family homes which are undoubtedly several hundred years old!  It was a wonderful sight.  Apart from these Chinese houses, the entire block is surrounded by towering hi-rises.  You can’t even see them from the street unless you know exactly what to look for.  Obviously the landowner is waiting to make a big score down the road, and he certainly will!  

So, I took the opportunity early the next morning to wander down the narrow alleyways between those buildings in hopes of catching a glimpse of ‘old China’.  It took me a while to figure out which doorway led into that haven of alleyways, but I eventually found it!  Unfortunately, the neighbourhood dogs found me very quickly and started barking up a frenzy.  My tour was cut short and I hightailed it out of there.  Great security system they have!

For those of you in the United States, I would like you to know that there is a COLD STONE CREAMERY ice cream shop in Shanghai!  First, you choose your flavour of ice cream and condiments (fudge sauce, chocolate chips, black cherries for me) and then they spread it all out together on a frozen slab of marble to mix the flavours, before placing it in a bowl for you – yummy!!!

I took one of the new CRH Bullet Trains back to Hangzhou.  Japanese technology has made it to China!  These trains started up earlier this year and feature WIFI, and electric outlets which are a hit with businesspeople and students alike.  They’re comfortable, clean and FAST!  Only one hour and fifteen minutes to Hangzhou.  I’ll have to make sure I don’t let so much time pass by before I make a return visit to Shanghai!

It’s Sports Day this week which means no classes on Thursday/Friday!  Most of my students are sneaking off to return home for a 4-day weekend rather than stay and participate in the event.  It’s a shame because the Chinese really know how to pull off an event in style!  They take it for granted, but I sure don’t! 

As you will see from my pictures, the Opening Ceremonies for our Sports Day event looked like something out of the Olympics.  (Check out my PHOTOS link on the right side of this page).  All the schools in China seem to do this kind of thing.  I recall seeing something quite similar at the primary school where I taught three years ago in Guangdong Province, China.

In Canada, we don’t do anything like this elaborate.  If we have a sports event, then that’s what it is.  The Host gets on the microphone, welcomes everyone and then announces the first race of the day.  Oh yeah, I seem to remember a pie-eating contest one year back home….!

In the case of my university, the competitions couldn’t start until after almost 2 hours worth of performances.  It was fantastic!  I do try to attend most of my university’s events to support the efforts of my students and, well, it’s free entertainment so why not?!

CHENGDU    (Photos – Look for My Links on the right side of this screen and click on Photos!) 

The Chinese refer to Sichuan Province (southwest China) as the ‘heavenly kingdom’ , due to its abundance of natural resources and cultural heritage (as quoted by Lonely Planet).   I took advantage of this year’s one-week October National Holiday to travel to Sichuan’s capital city of Chengdu.  It is home to fantastic sidestreets, great teahouses, Sichuan Opera and the Giant Pandas. 

 I arrived in Chengdu and sought lodgings at Holly’s Hostel where I had a private room reserved (with shared bath) for 100 RMB per night.  Holly’s is located just across the street from Wuhou Temple, and set deep in Chengdu’s Tibetan neighbourhood, a fantastic location for shopping and dining!  Jinli Street, a newly constructed ‘ancient’ street can be found next to Wuhou Temple – it features shopping, snack foods, restaurants, galleries, teahouses, arts and crafts and exhibits of Sichuan folk customs – it even rates its own Starbucks!  As a lone traveler, I was delighted to find such an interesting spot to spend my evenings, yet in such close proximity to my hostel! 

I have to say that Chengdu is number one in my books for having the best western food in China!  I tried the highly recommended Peter’s Tex-Mex Grill my first night in Chengdu.  It was fantastic!  My table mates and I sampled their enormous beef hamburger and fries (25 RMB), potato skins and enchiladas.  Everything tasted better than all the western food I have consumed in China over the past 3 years.  Oh, and their dessert menu includes keylime pie, buttery cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake and ice cream sundaes!   Even my hostel’s restaurant has better western food than most western restaurants in my city of Hangzhou! On Monday, I headed off to Chengdu’s Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding, located just north of the city.  It is home to native Chinese endangered species such as the Giant Panda and the Red Panda (they look like raccoons).  It was necessary for us to go quite early in the morning, as this seems to be the only time to catch the Pandas when they are ‘active’.   Apart from eating ginormous amounts of bamboo, they sleep most of the day, I am told.  The pandas are not caged; rather, their living quarters simulate their natural environment, complete with lush green grounds, over 400 kinds of trees (including Gingko), numerous varieties of bamboo which is their primary source of nourishment, rolling hills, lakes and birds.  I was also impressed with how well maintained the entire facility is, having observed the staff doing ‘poop and scoop’ duty throughout the morning.While in Chengdu, I simply had to see the famed Sichuan Opera and Folk Performing Arts.  For 120 RMB (some other places are cheaper), we were transported to a fabulous facility where we were seated in front of low rattan tables holding tea and snacks for our enjoyment.  Tea was replenished by special ‘Sichuan-style’ teapots long narrow spouts which the pourer used to fill our cups from as far as 5 feet away!  We were even offered Chinese robes to wear during the performance as the evening weather was sure to cool off – such luxury was well worth the 120 RMB!  I quickly made friends with two American women sitting next to me – turns out that they are both teaching in Quanzhou, and staying at Sam’s Hostel in town.  (Their accommodation was much nicer than mine, but Sam’s doesn’t have a big common room for travelers to meet, an essential element for hostel living, in my opinion.)  We saw a number of performances including Stick-Puppets, Hand-Shadows, Baixi Zhengba Opera, and a classic ‘clown play’ combining humour and Sichuan Opera.  But, the highlight for everyone was the “Changing Faces” performance exhibiting the magic skill of Sichuan Opera.  Several performers changed their elaborate face masks several times, faster than the blink of an eye.  And, from just a few feet away, I still could not figure out how they do it!  Unbelievable!  The evening’s performances featured elaborate costumes and traditional music instruments.  Of course, everything was available for purchase from the opera house shops as we exited!