Remembering Home

Thursday July 9, 2009 Tianjin, China 10:08 am

Remembering Home Away from Home

Another Country

Chasing Trains

Great Wall

So I realized that I am terrible at blogging. I have a tiresomely long list of things to blog about, and therefore always put it off. But I had a few really good days lately, so I decided to make time to put down my experiences in writing. I hadn’t realized how long it has been. So many of these stories will be quite old, but hopefully still interesting.

When living abroad, in my opinion, remembering and keeping your own culture is just as important as learning and delving into the culture in which you’re living. So here are a few examples of that.

Last fall, I of course was closely following the college football season, as every American guy my age does. I found a way to watch games online here, so I would invite my other American buddies over to hang out, drink Dr Pepper from the import store and watch good old American pigskin games. It was a nice taste of home that was really needed. One of my good buddies here went to Tech, and another was from Ohio, so we definitely had a little of trash talking, which just made it more fun.

Holidays often seem even more important when you are away from home. Thanksgiving was a good one because most of my Chinese friends, and even lots of Europeans, didn’t know much about it. So we got to share our culture with them, which is a sweet reversal of roles. Our Chinese boss graciously allowed us to order a Turkey from an American restaurant here, and so we had turkey and gravy and stuffing! It wasn’t nearly as good as my Mom’s stuffing, but all things considered, it hit the spot nicely. We even finished it off with some cheesecake. I brought my laptop up so we could watch some football and educate some of the Chinese staff about our Thanksgiving traditions. So all in all, it wasn’t that different than a Thanksgiving at home except for the fact that I couldn’t see my family. And as you can see in the picture, we had to eat Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks!! That definitely tested our proficiency.

July 4^th was another holiday where we got to share our American culture. Mandi, another American teacher and I taught the non-American Westerners on our staff how to eat s’mores. We had a little grill on our balcony, and roasted marshmallows using chopsticks and made makeshift s’mores, which some Chinese cracker things to replace graham crackers. Everyone agreed that s’mores are delicious and a great tradition. We couldn’t have any fireworks because apparently they are illegal except during Chinese New Year, but we did sing the Star Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful. I had some good Belgian beer that I got in Beijing, and afterwards Mandi and I went to an American restaurant for a good ole American burger. It was a good 4^th.

For my birthday my boss bought some cake and chocolate, and they sang Happy Birthday. One of the other teacher’s wife knitted me a neck scarf, which was really kind and surprised me. I made daily use of it during the brutal (to a Texan) winter here. It was terrible. A few times I biked home in 0 degrees F (-15 C)!! That’s bloody cold, especially on a bike! For the first time in my life I purchased long underwear, and used it. I don’t like it, but its necessary in those temperatures. It only snowed twice, but it was just painfully cold all winter. I went running in the snow a few times, which was actually fun. The worst was actually in March. The all-knowing Chinese government controls all central heating, and they decide that on March 15, the people no longer need heat. However, on March 24, it snowed. And we had no central heat. I was wearing all of my skiing clothes in my room, and watching my breath as I tried to type on my computer with ski gloves. Its not easy in case you haven’t tried it. Needless to say, this is one of the primary motivations for me moving to a southern and warmer city next year!

Also in the spirit of sharing my culture, I did a lesson about American football traditions. I taught about Midnight Yell, Yell leaders, football traditions, flyovers, and a few famous schools like FSU’s horse Osceola. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I think the students were a bit lost and a bit shocked that we made such a deal out of sports. Here sports are not a big thing at all, with maybe the one exception being the recent youth’s interest in the NBA. So to see a hundred thousand people in a stadium for just a weekly football game I think was quite hard for them to understand. Although I didn’t have nearly enough time to cover everything, I think they got a good taste of some important American culture. And I had a blast teaching it. I would rather teach football than the past perfect progressive tense any day!

I did another lesson on Texas culture which was equally as fun. I taught them about cowboy terminology and a bit of their history. I taught about a brief history of Texas, Remember the Alamo, our flag, flower, and a bit about Texas music, Texas jargon like yall, ain’t, I’m fixin to do something, etc, most of which I didn’t realize were Texasisms until I started traveling. I also showed them some rodeo videos, and they really got a kick out of mutton busting and calf roping. I also showed a video of the Aggie Wranglers. Again I think they had no idea how much culture we had, and they were really interested. I love talking about Texas!

Here are other assorted oddities/stories in no particular order.

Yesterday me, my Australian boss, and a few other teachers went to see where the Great Wall goes into the sea. We had to get an early start and catch the 6am train. However, since I had gone out with a few friends the night before, I uncharacteristically went to bed late. I must have slept right through my alarm, because my friends called me at 5:37 to see why I hadn’t arrived yet, and I got out of bed to answer. So I had 20 minutes to make the train. I was praying like crazy, and it was a total miracle that I sprinted onto the train as the whistle was blowing. The train itself was a cultural experience. They simply sell tickets until the train leaves, with no regard to the number of people or seats on the train. Consequently, the trains are frequently packed like cattle cars with people standing shoulder to shoulder in the aisles and you can barely even walk to another car because of all the people. It took us almost 10 minutes to walk from one end of the car to the other. Eventually someone got off and offered us some seats. The people next to us were snacking on bear and chicken feet for breakfast. Just what I crave at 6am in the morning! We went to Beidaihe, a famous tourist spot on the way, and my boss who is into geocaching led us to find our first geocache. It was quite exciting and we had a ‘first find’. Geocaching is when people hide things somewhere and post the GPS coordinates online so other people can find it. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching http://www.geocaching.com) It was good fun. Then we went to Qinhuangdao where the Great Wall meets the sea. It was really beautiful, despite the bad weather. It was my first time to see the Great Wall even though I’ve been in China almost a year now. We dressed up in some traditional clothing and got our pictures taken as you can see in the photo. When we tried to get the train home, there was an unbelievably ridiculous line of people waiting to buy tickets. We probably would have waited for several hours to find a ticket, to then stand on the train for 4 hours. Not exactly what we preferred to do. So I found a bus that was leaving now with seats, and we ran to catch it. It was pulling out of the station and stopped so we could run on. Another close call, but we made it. Then about halfway home a belt in the engine snapped and we had to stop for an hour to repair it. Thank God they carried extra belts otherwise we would have been stranded.

(continued July 13^th 2009, 2pm, Tianjin)

A few weeks ago I went with some people from school to see the Shi family courtyard, a big house of a ancient powerful Chinese family. Then on the way back we went up the 450 meter (almost 1500ft for you Americans) TV tower to see the view. It was a rare clear day in Tianjin, and cool to see our school and house from the air.

Sometimes after my early morning swims, I stop to play what they locals call ‘jian zi’ with a bunch of old ladies. It’s fairly similar to a ‘birdie’ used to play badminton, but they use their feet to ‘juggle’ it like a soccer ball. We play in a circle, and the old ladies are surprisingly fit and nimble. They are very welcoming and friendly, and its quite fun. Speaking of swimming, a few times I have had some of the old men at the pool offer to pay me to teach them how to swim. I have declined so far for reasons of logistics and language, but perhaps this could be something I could pursue in the future. I think they rarely see someone who actually knows how to swim properly. At their request a few other teachers and I attempted to teach some of our Chinese staff at school how to swim, but they gave up after a few lessons.

Also at the pool, I have made friends with one of the lifeguards as she often asks me to help her with her English. She brings in some sentences and I just quickly correct them for her. She also asks me how to say swimming things in English. I don’t mind as its only a few minutes, and she is really nice. Occasionally she will bring me small gifts, I guess as a way to ‘pay’ me. I have had some chances to share with her. I think she is taking some kind of new lifeguard certification, and also coaching swimming somehow. She has introduced me to a few of the swimmers at the university here who also want to practice their English, and ask about swimming in the States. I have seen them practice a few times, and have learned useful swimming vocab from them. The Tianjin University swim team consists of a measly 5 people. That tells you about the status of sports here. Still nothing like back home. They are friendly and I enjoyed talking to them about swimming. Brings back lots of memories.

A few weeks ago, one of my buddies had to make a ‘Hong Kong visa run’ to renew his visa. So I decide to join him for a few days. I had my temperature checked for swine flu at the border, but had no problems. Hong Kong is another world from mainland China. I don’t think you can really appreciate it unless you have lived on the mainland, but its amazing. It was owned by the British until 1997, and was never under Communist rule. Its very cosmopolitan, and I didn’t feel like a foreigner at all. It was much cleaner and really felt like another country. There really isn’t much to see as far as tourism goes, but I hope to return to some of the islands near there that are supposed to be beautiful. One night we found a really high class rooftop bar on the 30^th floor of one of the sky scrapers, that offers a view of the whole Hong Kong skyline. We went up to check it out, but then decided to eat first and come back. As food is really expensive in Hong Kong, we ended up just eating at Burger King, so there are none in Tianjin where we live. When we went back up, the lady asked us where we had eaten, and we laughed and just discreetly said we ate downstairs somewhere. The cocktails at this place were 100HKD, which is only about 14USD, but is VERY expensive for China. And they were quite exotic. My buddy had a cocktail with lemongrass and a chili pepper. I had one with passion fruit and blackberries. They also had some with wasabi and bleu cheese. It was quite a fun jaunt into the ‘high life’ for a short time. Other than the fact that I had stomach trouble during the whole trip, it was a nice respite into something more ‘western’ than mainland China.

Long Overdue Update - Part One

So here I finally am, updating my blog after almost 6 months! I am kinda ashamed it took me so long to write. But I have kept small notes of important things to remind me not to forget them. However, due to the sheer length of time and volume of interesting things, I’m sure I have forgotten some, or at least will not be able to capture the emotions that they sparked at the time. Alas, this is why I am angry with myself for being slow in updating, so hopefully in the future I will be more regular. This post will probably be somewhat scattered as it is a conglomeration of dozens of notes of small and big interesting happenings of the past few months of my life in China. Also the chronology of this post is not necessarily in order, so forgive me. Anyway, here it goes.

People

Encounters and interactions with people provide by far the most interesting cultural experiences. Here are a few ones that I thought were noteworthy.

Within the space of two days, I had two noteworthy taxi rides. Because they are dirt cheap here, and I don’t relish the even dirtier and cheaper buses because you have to stand like a sardine, taxis are the main way to get around other than my bicycle. If I know where I am going, I usually take my bicycle, but sill use the occasional taxi ride. In the hundreds of taxi drivers I have had in all my rides in China, I have had ONE who spoke English other than the words “hello” or “America” or “teacher”. This one guy had really good pronunciation and was actually able to hold a basic conversation. It was quite surprising, and upon inquiry he told us that he taught himself! Pretty impressive seeing as he probably has very little chance to practice. The second taxi ride was more interesting however. Upon using my basic Chinese to talk with him (this is a great way to practice new words and try to understand taxi drivers awful accents), I told the driver I was from America, was an English teacher, and liked China. He immediately pulled out his cell phone and proceeded to call his daughter and then handed the phone to me to have her try to practice her English with me. In truth, I felt kind of bad for her because I think she felt very embarrassed. She answered the phone in English, and had decent pronunciation, but seemed to freeze up, probably due to the awkward circumstances. I’m not sure if the driver was trying to ‘hook me up’ with his daughter, or just really wanted her to try to speak English to a native speaker, since MOST Chinese have never spoken English with a native speaker, even though they may have studied it in school for years. In any case, the driver was really friendly and smiled a lot. He said “Welcome to Tianjin” in English.

Another interesting English encounter happened in the elevator of my building. An old lady in the elevator turned to me one day and started speaking in really good English, with good pronunciation. She asked if I was German, haha. Not sure why, but even in Germany, people often confused me for German. I guess I have German blood in me somewhere. Anyway I asked her where she learned English, and she said she learned it in school BEFORE the Cultural Revolution and the Communist takeover. Meaning she learned it during WWII! Haha, I have no idea how much she had practiced it since, but she would have been an interesting person to pick her brain about the changes in China in her lifetime. Wish I would have had the chance to do so.

I have been swimming at the University pool here close to my house. On the first day that I tried out a new pool, I was struggling to ask for prices and times in my bad Chinese, when a lady came up and spoke good English and offered to help. She told me she had lived in America – in Dallas! Small world huh? She liked America, but missed China so moved back. Turns out this happens more often than you would think. Despite the developed country versus developing country, some Chinese decide to move back to China after living in the West because they miss their own language, food, family or any number of other things. I found this somewhat surprising when I first learned of it.

I went on a trip with a Chinese friend and another teacher from school to the Fragrant Hills near Beijing. They are the highest point near Beijing, where you can hike to the top and see all of Beijing. It was a good hike, and quite beautiful and green. It was a nice respite from the city, although even the trail and the top of the hill were really crowded. It was a lot of fun, but the most interesting part was when we got a little turned around on our way out and couldn’t find the bus station. We walked around looking for someone to ask (we were on the far outskirts of Beijing) and an American saw us and came up and asked if she could help us. I though her accent was pretty familiar, so upon asking, it turns out she was an Aggie!! The first Aggie I met outside of the Olympics! They truly are everywhere! And I never would have met her if we hadn’t gotten lost. Anyway, I asked her about an Aggie club, and she didn’t know of one. But it’s always exciting to meet Aggies.

At one of the pizza restaurants I have been to in Tianjin, I noticed a Bible laying on the table a few times, so I asked the owner about it. Turns out she is a Korean Christian. A few times we have talked about it and I let her read a few verses from my English Bible. It’s really encouraging to meet other believers.

I had a Canadian teacher from one of the other English First schools here move in with me for a month or two last fall. He was cool and turns out he is also a cyclist. It was a God thing, as it gave me someone to ride with. He has since moved out so I have had a large two bedroom place to myself for the past few months. I have enjoyed the quiet! Along a similar vein, one of the other new teachers at our school worked as a bike mechanic for a few years back in England. He loves working on bikes and has helped me with maintenance for my bikes. What a blessing!

Students

As any teacher knows, students provide lots of interesting stories. Well this is even more true with language and cultural differences. I’m sure I have forgotten some, but here are a few I remember. One of my teenager students invited me to go play squash with him. It was my first time to play, but it was fun. In talking to him I learned many things. He actually said he wasn’t a big fan of the Hu Jintao. I thought this was quite interesting, although I didn’t find out much more than that, and he isn’t the first Chinese person to tell me this. Apparently, his father is having trouble in work, so his whole family moved to Australia a few months ago to open a book store. He would finish his last year of high school there. His English was not bad, but I’m sure this would be a struggle for him. He said he was really excited because in his opinion the schools in China were not very good compared to the West.

In general, the stereotype that Chinese people on average are not very athletic is very true. If they play sports it is most likely badminton, ping pong, tennis or squash. And usually these aren’t played with intense vigor or competitiveness. There are exceptions however. I did find out there is a ‘Sports University’ here in Tianjin. Apparently China, not surprisingly, has a system where athletic children are chosen even at young ages and put in special athletic schools to train athletes. Makes the whole beating us in the gold medal count at the Olympics a lot less impressive if you ask me. While riding my bike around town one day, a random Chinese guy about my age rode up next to me and tried to strike up a conversation with me in English. Turns out he plays ultimate Frisbee and goes to the Sports University. Apparently they went to tournaments in Hong Kong and Shanghai, so I guess they are pretty good. He invited me to play with them, so I joined them a few times. It was fun. They were decent, but nothing crazy. I think an average college club ultimate Frisbee team back home would be better. But I enjoyed the company. I actually met another foreign ‘brother’ and we got along well. He has an interesting story. They also play soccer there, so hopefully if my parents can send me my soccer equipment, I can play once it warms up here.

One of my adult students invited me for dinner after my last class with him. Turns out his son studied computer science at Tianjin University here, and actually had the same class and the same professor that I was taking at the time. (I took a C++ class that an American friend of mine was teaching last semester) He wants to get a master’s in the US, so wanted to talk to me about American schools. He actually was looking at t.u. or A&M! I gave him my biased opinion, but did mention that t.u. has many more Chinese students than A&M. His English was good, and he was quite a talkative fellow. He was very open about China. He talked openly about Mao and how millions of people died, but also lots of good things happened. He knew that the media was state controlled, and that to get ‘the truth’ (his words), they had to use a VPN to read Western media. He agreed China isn’t as free as other countries. But he still thought life in China was good. He was the lead singer in a band and really into music, particularly classic rock. He told me his English name was Axl, after Axl Rose from Guns N Roses. But he was quite angered by their new CD Chinese Democracy, which interestingly enough, the Wikipedia entry about the album is blocked here. The album itself is also outlawed in China, supposedly because the title track talks about some banned movements here. I haven’t heard the song myself, but if you have let me know what you think. He was an interesting fellow, and I enjoyed my dinner with him and his dad, even though his dad poured me a whole glass of Chinese liquor called bei jiu, and kept trying to get me to finish it off. I tried, but that stuff is brutally strong and I couldn’t drink it haha.

So this update is far from complete, but I am out of time for the moment. So I’ll post this as Part 1, and hopefully Part 2 will follow soon.

Water Cube Adventure

Wednesday September 17, 2008 Tianjin, China 9:10 pm

Water Cube Adventure

The one major thing that I didn’t get to do at the Olympics (other than meeting Phelps or Nastia Liukin) was go inside the famous Water Cube. There were two reasons for this: 1) I didn’t arrive at the Olympics until the last day of swimming events and 2) swimming tickets were simply outrageously priced. The only way to get ahold of a ticket was to pay a scalper, and those tickets were running close to $1000 – way out of my price range, even for the Water Cube.

But I had a solution: I would come back to Beijing (the advantage of living in China close to Beijing) during the Paralympics to get into the Water Cube and watch some swimming. The ticket prices would be a fraction of the cost, and the main goal of seeing the inside of the Water Cube would still be accomplished.

So on my day off I set off to Beijing a day early to make sure I could get a ticket. I had the intention of buying my ticket directly form the ticket outlet instead of scalping it, which saves hugely on price. (though I would realize later it was impossible) I was going to stay one night in Beijing then see my event the next day. Through the help of a nice Chinese girl, I was able to successfully get on my train and to Beijing. All I had was an address in Chinese that a friend had looked up for me for where to buy a ticket. So I handed it to the taxi driver and off we went. My friend thought it was close to the station, but turns out it took over an hour and a half. Which was really unfortunate because as I go into the taxi I realized that I needed a restroom. It was a rough hour and a half. I finally arrived at what the taxi driver thought was the correct location, and went in. It took several minutes to find someone who spoke English, and they promptly told me that they don’t sell tickets there. I needed to go down the street about half a mile, but had to hurry because they closed in 10 minutes. After running down the street with my backpack, I rushed into the other bank breathing hard. The lady gave me a ticket and I took my spot in line. A few minutes later she came over and asked me for my passport. My heart dropped to the floor and I’m sure my face showed my disappointment. I did not have my passport. At first I thought I had simply forgotten it, and was kicking myself harshly. What kind of traveler forgets their passport? It was then I realized that my company had taken my passport to give to the police so I could register and receive my official work permit. This is only allowed to be done once you are in China and takes a few weeks. So I couldn’t have brought my passport anyway! I tried to give the lady my Texas Drivers License, but she said that would not do. I was starting to get really frustrated. Then she suggested that a Chinese person in line could purchase the tickets for me. This seemed like a perfect solution until I informed them I was looking for swimming tickets and she said they were all sold out. Argh! I figured I would just go by the stadium and try to scalp a ticket like I did for gymnastics before. By this time it was getting close to the deadline for when I had to check into my hostel, so I headed there first. Upon arrival, the first question they asked me was my name. And the second was one I was dreading: “Can I see your passport?” I told her the story and not only did she look skeptical, but she said I cannot stay in any hotel without a passport. The police will check and would shut down the hotel if they were caught. Now I was getting frustrated. She said if I had a copy of it that would work, but I would also need a copy of my visa – which was in my passport. After realizing that there was no way I could stay in Beijing that night, I took a casual dinner and got the last train back to Tianjin. Then returned to Beijing the next day and was able to scalp a ticket out front fro the swimming. So in the end it all worked out, thought it ended up being much more complicated than I had anticipated. The Water Cube is truly incredible. It is so much more stunning up close than on TV. And inside it is beautiful as well. I ended up sitting next to some Brits who were parents of one of the gold medalist swimmers! Pretty cool. It was cool to watch as they broke a world record! (paralympic) I learned about the different rankings of disabilities. Upon leaving the Water Cube, it had gotten dark, and while taking pictures (I took literally over 100) I realized that it changes colors on the outside! I got a picture (attached of me in front of it when it was red). It was a fantastic trip, and I’m so glad it worked out!