Xuzhou was the capital city during the Han Dynasty. Naturally there were terra-cotta warriors and a tomb that people could visit and spend money at. Since we didn't see the Ming Dynasty tombs while we were in Nanjing, Patrick and I decided to spend one of days off visiting these tombs.
When we arrived at the tombs we got in for half price because we told them we were students and got a discount. The tombs are mostly a huge garden with multiple museums and buildings. After wandering around for a while we found a huge Buddhist temple with paintings of the family of the emperor of that time. We also found a museum with a bunch of rubbings in it. Apparently, the Han Dynasty is known for it's stone work which was then made into rubbings. The translations at this place weren't very clear so I am guessing when I say that. We eventually found some of the terra-cotta warriors. The place where they were found was underwater so the building housing these was half way underwater and halfway above water. The statues here were about 2 1/2 feet tall and were warriors on horses. After that we went to another building that had statues in it that were about a foot tall. Not very impressive but still cool to look at since they are thousands of years old. There were three displays in this building. One was just a glass case that had dirt in it that supposedly had warriors still buried there. The second had some of the dirt moved away and the third had completely unearthed warriors.
The coolest part of this place was the mausoleum of the king or emperor or whatever during that time. As with Egyptian kings, the Chinese would create a huge underground house for the deceased emperor filled with food and gold for the afterlife. The place was huge and dark and very wet. It was like being in a cave. The ceilings were quite low and the rooms where jewels and food were kept were small. At the end of a long hallway with rooms on each side was a replica of the coffin (the original is in a national museum). The coffin is the shape of a man made of jade and gold wire.
I have to admit that I expected a lot more from this place but it was still interesting to see none-the-less.
Pictures from the outing.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Nanjing
One day Patrick and I and our roommates decided to head to Nanjing for a quick trip. Patrick brought along Monica, a girl he was seeing and Elizabeth brought her boyfriend, Chad. Because the others worked until about 4 or so we got a bullet train to Nanjing that left in the early evening. We were going to stay at a hostel there that Elizabeth had stayed at before. When we arrived in Nanjing we were greeted by one of Elizabeth's foreign friends who walked us to the street the hostel was on. After making plans to meet back up with him later on after showers and whatnot we headed to the hostel.
When we arrived we learned that Patrick had not booked enough beds for all of us. There were six of us but there was only one or two beds that were booked. That wasn't even the biggest problem. Turns out that none of the boys had brought their passports or IDs with them. Patrick and Chad just hadn't thought of it and Dan's passport was at the visa office getting a new visa. Without ID you can't stay at a hostel or hotel. We considered what we could do. Monica ended up saving the day. Actually, not just the day but our entire trip. She used to frequent Nanjing and knew of a hotel that we could stay at and best of all she had a VIP card for it and saved us quite a bit of money. She got on her phones (she had two for some reason) and started calling around. All of the hotels she talked to said that all people staying there had to have a form of ID. We eventually got a room at a hotel on the other side of the city. Because the boys had all forgotten their IDs, we decided that the girls would ride in one cab to the hotel and the boys would follow. Before heading to the hotel we met Elizabeth's friends and had real burgers and milkshakes at a nearby burger joint run by and American. We then took separate cabs to the hotel. After we had gotten the room the boys could waltz in and pretend they were picking us up to go out. It worked out perfectly. There were 3 guys and 3 girls. There were already two couples so Dan and I got put together.
The way hotel rooms work here is that your key not only opens the door but also turns on the electricity in the room. There is a slot on the wall that you put your key in which engages the power. Because it was so hot in the room we cranked the air and left the key in the room. When we asked for another key we were told we couldn't have one but when we came back the security guard would let us in our room. We headed out to a bar called the Blue Marlin and had some cocktails (which was unheard of in Xuzhou).
After some time at the bar we decided to head back to the hotel. The only problem with the room was that there was a single bed and a double bed but there were six people. We ended up pushing the two beds together and five of us slept on the huge bed while Patrick slept in the window (it was a small ledge where maybe three people could sit comfortably but still too small for one person to sleep comfortably). I don't think any of us slept very well that night due to the lack of room in bed.
The next morning Elizabeth and Chad headed off by themselves and the rest of us went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. During WWII the Japanese raped and murdered thousands of Chinese. I had only heard of this once before but never really learned about it. The museum was amazing. Everything was translated into Japanese and English. It was actual English too. I didn't see one word of Chinglish or Engrish. Some of the things that the Japanese did during this massacre were absolutely horrific. We weren't allowed to bring bags or cameras into the museum. There were numerous things on display but there are a few that stick out to me at the moment. One was a picture of dead bodies. These bodies weren't adults they were toddlers and infants. Another was a wire cylindrical cage that had nails pointing to the inside of the cage. A person was put in the cage then rolled down the hill all the time being stabbed by rusty nails with every rotation. There were a lot of Nazi symbols because Hitler helped the Chinese during this massacre (Hitler probably learned a lot of his torture techniques from the Japanese during this time). There were interviews by survivors and by some Japanese soldiers. Some of the soldiers were very apologetic about what they were ordered to do. Some smiled during their interviews and thought they had done a great job. Outside the museum there was a bronze pathway with footprints of survivors cast in it. There were mass graves that had been unearthed that you could go in and look at. The entire experience made me realize why so many Chinese truly hate the Japanese. There is also a documentary about the massacre called Nanking which is pretty good if anyone is interested.
After the museum we went to a shopping mall to get some Japanese food (quite suiting considering where we had just visited). At this time Elizabeth and Chad showed up and we all decided to go to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. We found the correct buses and headed that way. Once we got close, Elizabeth and Chad went off on their own again. We eventually found the tombs but they were really expensive. I wanted to see the tombs because I would probably never have the chance again but the rest of the group decided that it wasn't worth it and the tombs are pretty much the same as the ones in Xuzhou. After I heard that I wasn't so bummed about not seeing the ones in Nanjing. We got back into town after waiting forever for a bus and went to a large park near the train station. Because we had some time go kill we decided to rent a small boat and drive around on the lake. From the boat (which only went about 3 mph) we saw some great buildings and got really close to the old city wall. When it was about time for the train we got on the subway and met up with Elizabeth and Chad and had some dinner. When we arrived in Nanjing we tried to buy bullet train tickets back to Xuzhou but they were sold out. We did manage to get hard seat tickets on a regular train.
We got to the platform just in time for the doors to be opened and boarded the train. This train was severely over booked. When there are no more seats available on a train here they sell "standing tickets". Basically, if you can find a seat you can sit. If there are no seats available you stand or sit in the aisle or where ever you can. Luckily we had seats. After arguing with someone to get out of our seats we were on our way. I was constantly being bumped as I was in an aisle seat. I had a man stand next to me for at least half the train ride that was constantly shoving his crotch in my face or resting it on my shoulder. I tried to nicely push him off me since my glares were not working. Eventually I ended up elbowing him every time he came close to me. There was also a family that had standing tickets. The father had convinced some college kid to share his seat with him. His daughter and wife were stuck sitting on the floor in the aisle. The poor little girl was exhausted and fell asleep on the floor but had to be moved every once in a while as a snack cart was wheeled through. Eventually we got back to Xuzhou and went home.
It was a great trip and a nice change of scenery.
Some pictures of the trip.
And some more.
When we arrived we learned that Patrick had not booked enough beds for all of us. There were six of us but there was only one or two beds that were booked. That wasn't even the biggest problem. Turns out that none of the boys had brought their passports or IDs with them. Patrick and Chad just hadn't thought of it and Dan's passport was at the visa office getting a new visa. Without ID you can't stay at a hostel or hotel. We considered what we could do. Monica ended up saving the day. Actually, not just the day but our entire trip. She used to frequent Nanjing and knew of a hotel that we could stay at and best of all she had a VIP card for it and saved us quite a bit of money. She got on her phones (she had two for some reason) and started calling around. All of the hotels she talked to said that all people staying there had to have a form of ID. We eventually got a room at a hotel on the other side of the city. Because the boys had all forgotten their IDs, we decided that the girls would ride in one cab to the hotel and the boys would follow. Before heading to the hotel we met Elizabeth's friends and had real burgers and milkshakes at a nearby burger joint run by and American. We then took separate cabs to the hotel. After we had gotten the room the boys could waltz in and pretend they were picking us up to go out. It worked out perfectly. There were 3 guys and 3 girls. There were already two couples so Dan and I got put together.
The way hotel rooms work here is that your key not only opens the door but also turns on the electricity in the room. There is a slot on the wall that you put your key in which engages the power. Because it was so hot in the room we cranked the air and left the key in the room. When we asked for another key we were told we couldn't have one but when we came back the security guard would let us in our room. We headed out to a bar called the Blue Marlin and had some cocktails (which was unheard of in Xuzhou).
After some time at the bar we decided to head back to the hotel. The only problem with the room was that there was a single bed and a double bed but there were six people. We ended up pushing the two beds together and five of us slept on the huge bed while Patrick slept in the window (it was a small ledge where maybe three people could sit comfortably but still too small for one person to sleep comfortably). I don't think any of us slept very well that night due to the lack of room in bed.
The next morning Elizabeth and Chad headed off by themselves and the rest of us went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. During WWII the Japanese raped and murdered thousands of Chinese. I had only heard of this once before but never really learned about it. The museum was amazing. Everything was translated into Japanese and English. It was actual English too. I didn't see one word of Chinglish or Engrish. Some of the things that the Japanese did during this massacre were absolutely horrific. We weren't allowed to bring bags or cameras into the museum. There were numerous things on display but there are a few that stick out to me at the moment. One was a picture of dead bodies. These bodies weren't adults they were toddlers and infants. Another was a wire cylindrical cage that had nails pointing to the inside of the cage. A person was put in the cage then rolled down the hill all the time being stabbed by rusty nails with every rotation. There were a lot of Nazi symbols because Hitler helped the Chinese during this massacre (Hitler probably learned a lot of his torture techniques from the Japanese during this time). There were interviews by survivors and by some Japanese soldiers. Some of the soldiers were very apologetic about what they were ordered to do. Some smiled during their interviews and thought they had done a great job. Outside the museum there was a bronze pathway with footprints of survivors cast in it. There were mass graves that had been unearthed that you could go in and look at. The entire experience made me realize why so many Chinese truly hate the Japanese. There is also a documentary about the massacre called Nanking which is pretty good if anyone is interested.
After the museum we went to a shopping mall to get some Japanese food (quite suiting considering where we had just visited). At this time Elizabeth and Chad showed up and we all decided to go to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. We found the correct buses and headed that way. Once we got close, Elizabeth and Chad went off on their own again. We eventually found the tombs but they were really expensive. I wanted to see the tombs because I would probably never have the chance again but the rest of the group decided that it wasn't worth it and the tombs are pretty much the same as the ones in Xuzhou. After I heard that I wasn't so bummed about not seeing the ones in Nanjing. We got back into town after waiting forever for a bus and went to a large park near the train station. Because we had some time go kill we decided to rent a small boat and drive around on the lake. From the boat (which only went about 3 mph) we saw some great buildings and got really close to the old city wall. When it was about time for the train we got on the subway and met up with Elizabeth and Chad and had some dinner. When we arrived in Nanjing we tried to buy bullet train tickets back to Xuzhou but they were sold out. We did manage to get hard seat tickets on a regular train.
We got to the platform just in time for the doors to be opened and boarded the train. This train was severely over booked. When there are no more seats available on a train here they sell "standing tickets". Basically, if you can find a seat you can sit. If there are no seats available you stand or sit in the aisle or where ever you can. Luckily we had seats. After arguing with someone to get out of our seats we were on our way. I was constantly being bumped as I was in an aisle seat. I had a man stand next to me for at least half the train ride that was constantly shoving his crotch in my face or resting it on my shoulder. I tried to nicely push him off me since my glares were not working. Eventually I ended up elbowing him every time he came close to me. There was also a family that had standing tickets. The father had convinced some college kid to share his seat with him. His daughter and wife were stuck sitting on the floor in the aisle. The poor little girl was exhausted and fell asleep on the floor but had to be moved every once in a while as a snack cart was wheeled through. Eventually we got back to Xuzhou and went home.
It was a great trip and a nice change of scenery.
Some pictures of the trip.
And some more.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Elevator Story
The new apartment that we lived in was on the 20th floor. One day I got home from school and got on the elevator to go to the apartment. This elevator does not service the 2nd-7th floors of the building, only 1 and 8-25. There were 7 people and a bike in the elevator, including me. I think the capacity is 13. We are going up just fine until on the 6th floor the elevator starts falling! Luckily it corrected itself and just dropped to the 5th floor. All the buttons stopped working and the door opened. The door opened to a floor that is not serviced by this elevator... Luckily people had cell phones and started calling the service numbers. And all though the elevator doesn't go to the 5th floor there was a door there. After about 15 minutes of pounding on this door that was nailed shut, calling service numbers, holding the elevator door open (so it wouldn't close and potentially fall the rest of the way down), and pushing the call button someone pries the nailed door open and we exit into some sort of storage room. The elevator on the other side of the building was packed and I assumed it only went to floor 8. So I found a flight of stairs and went down them to the first floor (this flight was not a flight that would go to my hallway). I end up in some sort of wierd parking garage. There were cars on lifts over cars on lifts over parked cars. It was just strange. Anyway, I walk around the building to get to where my stairs are and walk up 20 freaking flights of stairs! I was almost to the point of trembling when I got up to the 20th floor. About 2 minutes after I got home my roommate, Elizabeth, walks in cool as could be. I asked if the elevator was still broken. She said yes but she used the one on the other side of the building. Apparently the other elevator goes to the 20th floor. I never thought it did since in our hallway there is only one elevator. Apparently you can walk down half a flight of stairs through a breeze way then up another half flight of stairs to get to the other elevator. I had McDonalds to make up for all the calories I burned by walking up and down so many flights of stairs...
After the elevator was eventually fixed, it was a good 2 inch gap between the floor and the elevator. Here is a picture I took from the 20th floor between the floor and elevator looking down.
After the elevator was eventually fixed, it was a good 2 inch gap between the floor and the elevator. Here is a picture I took from the 20th floor between the floor and elevator looking down.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Daily occurances in Xuzhou
Day to day life in Xuzhou was pretty normal. I would typically get up at about 6 am and head to the shower. I would dawdle around for a bit and leave for work after grabbing a bottle of frozen water from the freezer. Depending on how much I dawdled I would either walk the mile and a half or take a taxi to work. On the way I would stop and get one of the amazing "Egg McMuffins" (if I was running late this was pushed back an hour during my break). I started work at 8 am with a C2 class. C2 is an hour long and filled with 6-7 year olds. I then had an hour break where I would typically prepare for my next class which was C5 (10-13 year olds). I then had C5 at 10:15 for two hours. After that came lunch. Depending on if other foreigners were working that day or not determined what I ate for lunch. If there were foreigners working we would all go to lunch at a nearby restaurant. If I was the only one there I would wander around, find some food, and go back to school to eat. At 2:00 it was time for class again. I had a C1 class filled with 5 year olds. This lasted for an hour. Those children were adorable but they went crazy during break when I had to leave. They would grab onto my shirt, pants, and backpack and try to pull me back in the classroom. Originally, I would leave the classroom, go to the teachers' lounge, then leave the school. Eventually though I ended up fighting 10-15 5 year olds to get to the teachers' lounge then I would hang out there for about 10 minutes until the kids were back in class so I could successfully leave the school. After the C1 class I had about an hour to get across town to Aston 2 for a C3 class. I took the bus and usually got there about 20 minutes later. C3 started at 4:15 but I usually had about 30 minutes before that class. On nice days Patrick (who exclusively worked at Aston 2) and I would sit out on the front steps and talk and smoke. After a few weeks of this some of my C3s started arriving at school early so they could sit on the front steps with us and talk to us. C3 lasted an hour. Patrick's 3:15 class lasted 2 hours so I would usually hang out and wait for him so we could share a taxi or ride the bus together (depending on the weather). When we got home we would usually order up from a restaurant near our building that would deliver to your apartment. The evenings were either spent lesson planning or talking to the roommates or spending time on the Internet.
I always had Wednesday and Thursday off. Because I was working the summer intensive program I was typically exhausted and took full advantage of these days off by sleeping and lazing around the apartment. Occasionally I would go to the store or just wander around town for a while.
Daily life in Xuzhou was pretty hum-drum and uneventful.
Pictures of my kids and the schools.
One night the foreigners decided to have an international potluck. The Australians made Bangers and Mash. The rest of us were Americans so we made the following: Dan-Nachos, Elizabeth-Mac and Cheese, Me and Pat-Spaghetti and Garlic Bread. We invited some of our Chinese friends. One was Elizabeth's boyfriend, one was a girl that Patrick was kind of seeing, and the other was our friend Bob's boyfriend (Bob had recently returned to the States).
If we weren't too exhausted we would spend evenings at Shao Kao (BBQ), KTV, or the club.
Random pictures of Xuzhou.
I always had Wednesday and Thursday off. Because I was working the summer intensive program I was typically exhausted and took full advantage of these days off by sleeping and lazing around the apartment. Occasionally I would go to the store or just wander around town for a while.
Daily life in Xuzhou was pretty hum-drum and uneventful.
Pictures of my kids and the schools.
One night the foreigners decided to have an international potluck. The Australians made Bangers and Mash. The rest of us were Americans so we made the following: Dan-Nachos, Elizabeth-Mac and Cheese, Me and Pat-Spaghetti and Garlic Bread. We invited some of our Chinese friends. One was Elizabeth's boyfriend, one was a girl that Patrick was kind of seeing, and the other was our friend Bob's boyfriend (Bob had recently returned to the States).
If we weren't too exhausted we would spend evenings at Shao Kao (BBQ), KTV, or the club.
Random pictures of Xuzhou.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Moving and the New Apartment
Because of the amount of bags that Patrick and I had it took a couple of days to fully move. When ever we would go to the new apartment to see the other teachers we would haul as much as we could fit in the taxi with us.
After the first night in the new apartment I was sitting in the office at work when Dave walks in. He said about one sentence if that then drops a note on the desk in front of me. I no longer have the note but it basically called both Patrick and I ignorant, disrespectful, unappreciative, and homophobes among other things. He also made comments about how we left the apartment a mess when we moved. I went about my morning going to classes and dodging running children in the hallway. During one of my hour breaks Dave walked into the teachers' lounge. I seized the opportunity to get some things straight. I looked at him and said, "Dave, I need to tell you something. Patrick and I are not the same person. You cannot keep blaming me for things that he did." I then started to walk out the door to get my daily "Egg McMuffin". He began telling me that I am indecent because I allowed him to sweep dirt and trash into a pile in the middle of the living room. I calmly responded with: "I am not Patrick's maid or mother or wife or caretaker. I am not Patrick." I then closed the door and walked down the stairs to go outside. I reached the bottom of the steps and found Dave behind me yelling at me about how I am disrespectful and should respect him because he respects me. He was yelling at me in front of students and parents who were arriving for class. I calmly looked at him and said, "Dave, I'm not going to argue with you in front of these parents and children." I started walking off but Dave continued to follow me and yell at me. I finally turned around, looked him right in the face, and told him to "Fuck off." This must have worked because he left me alone so I could go get my "Egg McMuffin".
Now these Egg McMuffins were the highlight of my morning. A street vendor had a sort of bar-b-que looking contraption with a skillet on the top. He would fry an egg then stick it in the middle of a flakey pita-looking pocket. Even without the greasy egg in the middle, the bread was delicious! Whenever I would go to this man's shop all I had to do was hold up a finger to tell him how many I wanted and he knew exactly what to do. You can't beat that delicious breakfast for about $0.25!
The new apartment was great! Not only was the apartment great but the people were easy to live with as well. We lived in a huge building with elevators! Our apartment was on the 20th floor out of 25. The apartments were set up similar to a suite. Once you got to our floor you would unlock our front door. But then there was a small hallway with three more doors. These doors lead to the actual apartments. Patrick ended up living with a nice 19 year old guy named Dan and I ended up with a nice early-twenties girl named Elizabeth. My apartment was quite small but it sure beat living with Dave. The floors were clean for the most part, there wasn't a horrible mystery smell in the kitchen or bathroom, and we had gas for our stove! The best part is that I had an actual bedroom now! I even had a closet! The view from my room was quite nice. I had a large half circle window that I could see the TV tower from and I could see the courtyard on the 8th floor of our building.
I saw Dave only a handful of times after the move and was not too upset about that.
Pictures of our second apartment.
After the first night in the new apartment I was sitting in the office at work when Dave walks in. He said about one sentence if that then drops a note on the desk in front of me. I no longer have the note but it basically called both Patrick and I ignorant, disrespectful, unappreciative, and homophobes among other things. He also made comments about how we left the apartment a mess when we moved. I went about my morning going to classes and dodging running children in the hallway. During one of my hour breaks Dave walked into the teachers' lounge. I seized the opportunity to get some things straight. I looked at him and said, "Dave, I need to tell you something. Patrick and I are not the same person. You cannot keep blaming me for things that he did." I then started to walk out the door to get my daily "Egg McMuffin". He began telling me that I am indecent because I allowed him to sweep dirt and trash into a pile in the middle of the living room. I calmly responded with: "I am not Patrick's maid or mother or wife or caretaker. I am not Patrick." I then closed the door and walked down the stairs to go outside. I reached the bottom of the steps and found Dave behind me yelling at me about how I am disrespectful and should respect him because he respects me. He was yelling at me in front of students and parents who were arriving for class. I calmly looked at him and said, "Dave, I'm not going to argue with you in front of these parents and children." I started walking off but Dave continued to follow me and yell at me. I finally turned around, looked him right in the face, and told him to "Fuck off." This must have worked because he left me alone so I could go get my "Egg McMuffin".
Now these Egg McMuffins were the highlight of my morning. A street vendor had a sort of bar-b-que looking contraption with a skillet on the top. He would fry an egg then stick it in the middle of a flakey pita-looking pocket. Even without the greasy egg in the middle, the bread was delicious! Whenever I would go to this man's shop all I had to do was hold up a finger to tell him how many I wanted and he knew exactly what to do. You can't beat that delicious breakfast for about $0.25!
The new apartment was great! Not only was the apartment great but the people were easy to live with as well. We lived in a huge building with elevators! Our apartment was on the 20th floor out of 25. The apartments were set up similar to a suite. Once you got to our floor you would unlock our front door. But then there was a small hallway with three more doors. These doors lead to the actual apartments. Patrick ended up living with a nice 19 year old guy named Dan and I ended up with a nice early-twenties girl named Elizabeth. My apartment was quite small but it sure beat living with Dave. The floors were clean for the most part, there wasn't a horrible mystery smell in the kitchen or bathroom, and we had gas for our stove! The best part is that I had an actual bedroom now! I even had a closet! The view from my room was quite nice. I had a large half circle window that I could see the TV tower from and I could see the courtyard on the 8th floor of our building.
I saw Dave only a handful of times after the move and was not too upset about that.
Pictures of our second apartment.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The Roommate
When you meet someone new, both parties, generally speaking, try their darnedest to be nice to each other. This was the case with our roommate Dave. He seemed to be very nice and we were all getting along quite well. This changed a couple weeks after moving in.
I usually got up for work at about 6:30 and immediately got into the shower. One morning as I was walking to the bathroom completely naked except for my towel a strange person walks out of the bathroom. Dave had started bringing guys home from the gay bar. He never asked us if it was okay if someone stayed over. I didn't have a problem with it but I wasn't not able to lock my room in case one of these guys decided to rifle through my belongings.
He would constantly invite us out to dinner with his friends. Now, this is a nice gesture but none of his friends spoke English and we don't speak much Chinese at all. During the dinners we had a semi-good time but we were always then invited to these people's houses which I wasn't up for. Eventually I got tired of having dinner with older men that I didn't speak the same language as and thanked Dave for the invite but that I would have to pass. He immediately started getting cranky with me about how I can only experience the culture if I hang out with locals and on and on and on. I appreciated the invites but I didn't sign up for Dave to be my life coach or political science teacher.
One night Dave asked if he could have some friends over for some drinks. Patrick and I said fine but that we had to work in the morning so him and his friends would have to be quiet after we went to bed. After about 30 minutes of me trying to sleep I went to Dave and asked him again if they could keep it down. I finally passed out from exhaustion. I woke up to find beer bottles everywhere, my Coke half way gone, and cigarette butts in a bowl on the coffee table (Patrick and I didn't smoke in the living room because Dave didn't like the smell of cigarettes. I guess smoke doesn't smell so bad when you are trying to please your friends and let them smoke in the living room.)
Patrick and I dealt with all that stuff but the following was the straw that broke the camel's back:
After the toilet cleaning Patrick and I decided to hire a maid. We still had not tackled the bathroom and after the toilet we had no intention of cleaning anymore for fear of what we might find. We talked to Dave about getting a maid and he said that would be fine with him as long as it was only 15 yuan an hour. So we started setting up the process of getting a maid. Apparently maids don't like cleaning foreigners' apartments so it was difficult to get one for us. Finally, one day we were told that a maid would be coming to our apartment. We told Dave and asked him if he would be willing to hang out at home for a few hours so that the place could get cleaned since both Patrick and I worked. He said no problem. We planned on the maid being there for 2 hours.
The night before the maid was to come Patrick and I wrote a "to-do" list for the maid and wrote a letter to Dave explaining that if it ended up being more than 15 yuan per hour we would pay the difference and he wouldn't have to worry about it. We left the note on his bed so we would be sure that he saw it when he finally got home.
After work the next day Patrick and I walked into our apartment hoping to find a clean house. That was not the case. Nothing at all had been done. Patrick immediately called Dave to find out what had happened. Apparently, the maid was an hour late getting to our place and when she finally got there and Dave opened the door there was not one maid but two. They talked about prices and Dave found out that it wasn't going to be 15 yuan per hour. According to Dave, the two ladies wanted 20 per hour and wouldn't stay for anything less than 3 hours. So the price went from 15 yuan per hour for one maid to 20 yuan per hour for two maids. To me that sounded like a deal. Dave didn't agree. He sent them away. We had been trying for weeks to get a maid and in about 10 minutes Dave had gotten rid of them.
That was the last straw. There were a couple of other teachers that would soon be moving so we called the manager and asked if we could move into their apartment. We could no longer live with someone that didn't respect our wishes and was constantly changing his story about everything. We started smoking in the living room and about a week later we moved to our new apartment.
I usually got up for work at about 6:30 and immediately got into the shower. One morning as I was walking to the bathroom completely naked except for my towel a strange person walks out of the bathroom. Dave had started bringing guys home from the gay bar. He never asked us if it was okay if someone stayed over. I didn't have a problem with it but I wasn't not able to lock my room in case one of these guys decided to rifle through my belongings.
He would constantly invite us out to dinner with his friends. Now, this is a nice gesture but none of his friends spoke English and we don't speak much Chinese at all. During the dinners we had a semi-good time but we were always then invited to these people's houses which I wasn't up for. Eventually I got tired of having dinner with older men that I didn't speak the same language as and thanked Dave for the invite but that I would have to pass. He immediately started getting cranky with me about how I can only experience the culture if I hang out with locals and on and on and on. I appreciated the invites but I didn't sign up for Dave to be my life coach or political science teacher.
One night Dave asked if he could have some friends over for some drinks. Patrick and I said fine but that we had to work in the morning so him and his friends would have to be quiet after we went to bed. After about 30 minutes of me trying to sleep I went to Dave and asked him again if they could keep it down. I finally passed out from exhaustion. I woke up to find beer bottles everywhere, my Coke half way gone, and cigarette butts in a bowl on the coffee table (Patrick and I didn't smoke in the living room because Dave didn't like the smell of cigarettes. I guess smoke doesn't smell so bad when you are trying to please your friends and let them smoke in the living room.)
Patrick and I dealt with all that stuff but the following was the straw that broke the camel's back:
After the toilet cleaning Patrick and I decided to hire a maid. We still had not tackled the bathroom and after the toilet we had no intention of cleaning anymore for fear of what we might find. We talked to Dave about getting a maid and he said that would be fine with him as long as it was only 15 yuan an hour. So we started setting up the process of getting a maid. Apparently maids don't like cleaning foreigners' apartments so it was difficult to get one for us. Finally, one day we were told that a maid would be coming to our apartment. We told Dave and asked him if he would be willing to hang out at home for a few hours so that the place could get cleaned since both Patrick and I worked. He said no problem. We planned on the maid being there for 2 hours.
The night before the maid was to come Patrick and I wrote a "to-do" list for the maid and wrote a letter to Dave explaining that if it ended up being more than 15 yuan per hour we would pay the difference and he wouldn't have to worry about it. We left the note on his bed so we would be sure that he saw it when he finally got home.
After work the next day Patrick and I walked into our apartment hoping to find a clean house. That was not the case. Nothing at all had been done. Patrick immediately called Dave to find out what had happened. Apparently, the maid was an hour late getting to our place and when she finally got there and Dave opened the door there was not one maid but two. They talked about prices and Dave found out that it wasn't going to be 15 yuan per hour. According to Dave, the two ladies wanted 20 per hour and wouldn't stay for anything less than 3 hours. So the price went from 15 yuan per hour for one maid to 20 yuan per hour for two maids. To me that sounded like a deal. Dave didn't agree. He sent them away. We had been trying for weeks to get a maid and in about 10 minutes Dave had gotten rid of them.
That was the last straw. There were a couple of other teachers that would soon be moving so we called the manager and asked if we could move into their apartment. We could no longer live with someone that didn't respect our wishes and was constantly changing his story about everything. We started smoking in the living room and about a week later we moved to our new apartment.
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Field Trip from Hell
A couple weeks into the summer semester the school decided to have two days of field trips. I was scheduled to go all of the first day but not the second day since that was my day off. Instead of my typical "promo hours" on Friday they had set me up with a help session (I sit at the school waiting for students to show up for tutoring). I convinced the manager to drop my help sessions on Friday morning in exchange for going on the morning part of the field trip on the second day.
The following is part of an email I sent to friends and family explaining the field trip:
We were still scheduled to work and had to go to school in the morning but instead of teaching we were herded on to buses with about 160 kids. Yesterday we all went to the Xuzhou museum where we saw clay pots and whatnot from 60,000 to 40,000 years ago. We also saw a huge jade tomb from 8 AD. It was interesting but it is hard to imagine that stuff is really that old. I don't believe it myself especially when the museum is free and smells of mildew. Just my opinion though... After that we went to the lake (which has the cleanest water in all of Xuzhou) and walked around aimlessly then took some pictures.After they decided that we had enough pictures taken we went back to town near the school and had lunch. A typical Chinese lunch with about 8 people at a table and a lazy susan in the middle holding about 12 different dishes. All the foreign teachers were put together at one table with two unfortunate Chinese kids. Those kids were horrible! We named one of them Lunchbox because he was extremely rude and every time a new dish would come he would spin the lazy susan so the dish was in front of him. He would shovel the food from the dish to his plate, bowl, part of the table, his mouth, and his hands. Eventually we all started grabbing the lazy susan and spinning the new food away from him so we could get some food and he wouldn't eat it all.After that we went to the aquarium. We spent a good 10 minutes herding the kids across the 1/4 mile long bridge to the aquarium and another 30 minutes waiting for our tour guide who never arrived before we just walked through the aquarium by ourselves which took about 10 minutes. Most of our day was spend herding children and counting them millions of times to make sure we weren't missing any.The worst part of that day was that one of my favorite students, Jimmy, had a bathroom accident and had to go home early. He is always so much fun to be around. He's 9 years old and is just the cutest little thing in the world! On the way back to school one of my favorite C3s, Emily, sat next to me on the bus. Half way to the school she passed out in my lap. When we arrived at school I woke her up and she looked so embarrassed that she had fallen asleep on her foreign teacher. She was just too cute!
Pictures of day one.
The second day we planned to go to the zoo. I was really excited but had to keep in mind that the word "habitat" doesn't translate. We get to the zoo. There are huge colorful statues everywhere. I thought, okay, it won't be so bad... Well apparently it isn't just a zoo. It is a zoo/amusement park/meditation hill/hiking trail/etc. All the colorful statues were for the happy amusement park (and possibly to soften the harshness of the "zoo"). We get into the "zoo" and the first animals I see are skin and bones bears in a huge concrete pit. Next we see the area where they have a circus show type thing. This is yet another huge concrete pit. In the pit along with ladders and balls and see-saws for the tricks are tigers in pens. One of the pens had two tigers in it and they were obviously cramped in there together. We continue on. Next is a row of foul smelling pens about 7'x10' with individual animals in them. In one of these pens is a three legged raccoon of some sort. Next to it is a porcupine that couldn't walk without limping. Next to that was some sort of dog with half its hair missing. In it's little house you could see what had happened to all its hair as it was laying all over the place. The poor little thing was so sick or hot or something that it had begun tearing all its hair out. I'm not going to lie. I cried. Not just because of the dog but all of it put together. I had seen three tiny areas of the zoo and just couldn't help it. These animals are being abused. There was a pen of geese not 10 feet from the pond. They couldn't get to the pond though. They were all crammed in this little pen with no water for them to play in. I had pretty much given up on looking at things until Patrick finds me and tells me about how just up ahead there is a cage with vultures in it and what looks to be a dead bald eagle in the water. I go up with him and see the vultures but I didn't see a bald eagle in the water. Turns out the eagle is alive and walking around the cage now. He won't be living for long though as he has a huge bloody, dirty gash on one of its wings. The cut looked pretty new and pretty infected. Because I am supposed to be entertaining these children I went and looked at the disgustingly thin tigers and then followed them to the monkey house. It was a typical monkey house but without the ropes and tree limbs. You go up stairs and look down into a concrete pit with a pond in it. The first thing I see is a bunch of trash in the water. I then see a baboon looking animal walk into the water and start picking up the garbage to try to eat it. The water is disgusting. I go to take some pictures and one of the bigger kids grabs my arm and brings me to another part of the wall and proceeds to show me his empty Sprite bottle and to look at the baboon down in the pit. He then tells me to throw the bottle down in the water. I sternly say no and he turns around and starts pitching trash at the monkey thing. It was horrible. One of Pat's kids sprayed one of the monkeys with juice or pop or something and Pat smacked him on the head and yelled at him loudly with a lot of swear words. All the kids got the message. My group did not see the tiger and bear show. From the sound of it, it was a typical zoo animal show except when the animals didn't do their tricks they got hit in the face with sticks. I was never so happy to leave a zoo and I don't particularly like zoos. I wanted to go today because I wanted to see what a Chinese zoo was like; I suppose I found out.
Pictures of day two.
The following is part of an email I sent to friends and family explaining the field trip:
We were still scheduled to work and had to go to school in the morning but instead of teaching we were herded on to buses with about 160 kids. Yesterday we all went to the Xuzhou museum where we saw clay pots and whatnot from 60,000 to 40,000 years ago. We also saw a huge jade tomb from 8 AD. It was interesting but it is hard to imagine that stuff is really that old. I don't believe it myself especially when the museum is free and smells of mildew. Just my opinion though... After that we went to the lake (which has the cleanest water in all of Xuzhou) and walked around aimlessly then took some pictures.After they decided that we had enough pictures taken we went back to town near the school and had lunch. A typical Chinese lunch with about 8 people at a table and a lazy susan in the middle holding about 12 different dishes. All the foreign teachers were put together at one table with two unfortunate Chinese kids. Those kids were horrible! We named one of them Lunchbox because he was extremely rude and every time a new dish would come he would spin the lazy susan so the dish was in front of him. He would shovel the food from the dish to his plate, bowl, part of the table, his mouth, and his hands. Eventually we all started grabbing the lazy susan and spinning the new food away from him so we could get some food and he wouldn't eat it all.After that we went to the aquarium. We spent a good 10 minutes herding the kids across the 1/4 mile long bridge to the aquarium and another 30 minutes waiting for our tour guide who never arrived before we just walked through the aquarium by ourselves which took about 10 minutes. Most of our day was spend herding children and counting them millions of times to make sure we weren't missing any.The worst part of that day was that one of my favorite students, Jimmy, had a bathroom accident and had to go home early. He is always so much fun to be around. He's 9 years old and is just the cutest little thing in the world! On the way back to school one of my favorite C3s, Emily, sat next to me on the bus. Half way to the school she passed out in my lap. When we arrived at school I woke her up and she looked so embarrassed that she had fallen asleep on her foreign teacher. She was just too cute!
Pictures of day one.
The second day we planned to go to the zoo. I was really excited but had to keep in mind that the word "habitat" doesn't translate. We get to the zoo. There are huge colorful statues everywhere. I thought, okay, it won't be so bad... Well apparently it isn't just a zoo. It is a zoo/amusement park/meditation hill/hiking trail/etc. All the colorful statues were for the happy amusement park (and possibly to soften the harshness of the "zoo"). We get into the "zoo" and the first animals I see are skin and bones bears in a huge concrete pit. Next we see the area where they have a circus show type thing. This is yet another huge concrete pit. In the pit along with ladders and balls and see-saws for the tricks are tigers in pens. One of the pens had two tigers in it and they were obviously cramped in there together. We continue on. Next is a row of foul smelling pens about 7'x10' with individual animals in them. In one of these pens is a three legged raccoon of some sort. Next to it is a porcupine that couldn't walk without limping. Next to that was some sort of dog with half its hair missing. In it's little house you could see what had happened to all its hair as it was laying all over the place. The poor little thing was so sick or hot or something that it had begun tearing all its hair out. I'm not going to lie. I cried. Not just because of the dog but all of it put together. I had seen three tiny areas of the zoo and just couldn't help it. These animals are being abused. There was a pen of geese not 10 feet from the pond. They couldn't get to the pond though. They were all crammed in this little pen with no water for them to play in. I had pretty much given up on looking at things until Patrick finds me and tells me about how just up ahead there is a cage with vultures in it and what looks to be a dead bald eagle in the water. I go up with him and see the vultures but I didn't see a bald eagle in the water. Turns out the eagle is alive and walking around the cage now. He won't be living for long though as he has a huge bloody, dirty gash on one of its wings. The cut looked pretty new and pretty infected. Because I am supposed to be entertaining these children I went and looked at the disgustingly thin tigers and then followed them to the monkey house. It was a typical monkey house but without the ropes and tree limbs. You go up stairs and look down into a concrete pit with a pond in it. The first thing I see is a bunch of trash in the water. I then see a baboon looking animal walk into the water and start picking up the garbage to try to eat it. The water is disgusting. I go to take some pictures and one of the bigger kids grabs my arm and brings me to another part of the wall and proceeds to show me his empty Sprite bottle and to look at the baboon down in the pit. He then tells me to throw the bottle down in the water. I sternly say no and he turns around and starts pitching trash at the monkey thing. It was horrible. One of Pat's kids sprayed one of the monkeys with juice or pop or something and Pat smacked him on the head and yelled at him loudly with a lot of swear words. All the kids got the message. My group did not see the tiger and bear show. From the sound of it, it was a typical zoo animal show except when the animals didn't do their tricks they got hit in the face with sticks. I was never so happy to leave a zoo and I don't particularly like zoos. I wanted to go today because I wanted to see what a Chinese zoo was like; I suppose I found out.
Pictures of day two.
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