jvd213inBeijing2008

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”
- Chinese proverb

“His hair was perfect.” – Warren Zevon

January 10, 2008: 6:01 pm

Chinese word of the day:
baijiu – fire water

I’m seriously going to get fat over here! Just got home from a short day over at the Wang Jing campus and sitting down with some leftovers to write another entry. I’m getting damn good with the chopsticks now, and I even managed to wolf down a huge dish of fried rice with seafood and chili without using a fork or spoon even once! So far, the best thing I’ve tried is the gongbao doufu, a dish similar to kungpao chicken, except the chicken is replaced with these tasty cubes of crispy beancurd. Who would’ve ever thought that this meat and potatoes guy would be raving about a weird vegetarian dish, huh?

The last two days have been pretty intensive with the training, and tomorrow morning I’ll be teaching a “mock” elective class about the mystical Amazon pink river dolphins to Baz, Jasmine, and the Director of Studies. Lots of you guys responded to my first couple of entries with a bunch of questions, so I’ll try to address them as much as possible.

We started our training on Tuesday morning, spending most of the day with Amy Lin, the Director of Real Life English’s parent company, World Link Education. She spent about an hour introducing herself and getting to know the three of us, before moving on to explain the structure of the company, and detailing exactly whom it is we are now employed by. We had a really big lunch over at a delicious restaurant called Pete’s, where we had our first Western meal in China, because Baz and Jasmine have both been experiencing some really bad bouts with the bubble gut and mud butt. I ordered a pie with ham and green peppers, and they had some cheese quesadillas (which Baz hilariously botched the pronunciation of), and they shared a bacon pie of their own. I ate all of mine and some of theirs, too (Chinese meals are made for sharing, and it’s common practice to just shove your chopsticks into someone else’s plate), and I took home all the leftovers to scroff down later in the evening. After lunch, we went over some “teaching theory,” and we ended up cutting out around 5 o’clock. That night, we hung out at the apartment again with some Tsing Tao (the most popular brand of beer), and watched a couple episodes of “House”, before tucking out rather early.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up at 4:00 am yet again, but was able to pass back out on the couch for a couple more hours, before heading back over to the school. In the morning we picked up from the previous afternoon, and finished discussing the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teaching methods that we’ll be using in the classroom. At 2 o’clock, we took the shuttle bus over to the SOHO campus for the first time. The SOHO district is right in the heart of the city, and has a much more metropolitan feel. The whole city looks like one big building site, due to the constant construction and renovations, lots of which are in preparation for the Games in August.

At the SOHO campus, we joined our first “teacher’s meeting”, where we had the opportunity to meet all the other teachers, and went over some nick-naks about some of the recent activities the school has been doing, and learning about a mentoring program that a [50-something] teacher named “Coach” is in charge of. He was actually very pleased that they finally had an artist in the bunch, and got all excited about a prospective program where I would be working with the small children to paint some pictures that would be sold in stores around the city, with the profits going to assist the mentoring of some impoverished children in the South [of China].

At the meeting, everybody kept laughing about the hazing that would take place later in the night, with an event called “Chwar,” that all the teachers go to every Wednesday night. In the afternoon we went over the different types of classes we’ll be teaching (core classes and electives), and talked over the process of lesson planning, and the importance of being prepared when you enter the classroom. After that, the three of us split up and did some peer observations, where we sat in on other teachers’ classes to get a feel of exactly how things work. If it sounds like they’re gearing up to throw us to the wolves, you’re right on the money, because we found out that our first day of teaching will begin on Sunday of this week!

With the long day finally over (10 am – 8 pm), a sweet American teacher named Anna took us back to her apartment so we could wait for the other teachers to finish their late classes, and we sat around looking at all the incredible photos she had taken over the course of the last year. She told us a bunch of places to go for sightseeing and touristy stuff, and when the best time is to do everything. It was really exciting to see all the places that I’m looking forward to going, like the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and other countries like Tibet and Vietnam. At around 9:30, her other two roommates showed up (a Minnesotan and a Brit), and I was jealous that they had the opportunity to change clothes before we went out. By 10:00, we were all geared up and ready to set out, and we followed them over to the restaurant where the really fun stuff finally got started.

On our way, we ventured down one of the hutongs, one of the many narrow alleyways, and I stopped in a little smoke shop to purchase my first pack of authentic Chinese cigarettes (sorry Mom, but they’re practically free over here, 2-4 RMB!). I had been told by the smokers (almost everyone) not to get the Marlboro Lights, because the ones over here are manufactured in Vietnam, and they are the worse tasting variety in the whole country.

As soon as we walked in to the tiny little eatery, we were immediately greeted by all of the teachers and staff, who passed us some beers and gave us a big welcome “cheers”. It didn’t take long for the booze to really start flowing, and we were forced to drink shots of the Chinese drink called baijiu, which might as well be paint thinner in a glass. In reality, it’s actually a 100 plus proof fiery grain liquor that is consumed by the natives like Vodka is in Russia. Some of the teachers said that they had already sworn not to ever touch the stuff again, but I think over the course of the night, I had six or seven shots of the deadly clear substance.

Finally meeting everyone proper was really comforting, and it was great to see that these guys are all pretty good partiers, and even more awesome to get around and talk to everyone on a much more personal level. Of course, it is also pretty nice that a couple of the girls are serious hotties, and I’m already crushing on one of them a little bit already (uh oh!). At one point in the night, I heard someone behind me saying to someone else, “Look at Jared,” and when I turned round, she goes, “You’re really in your element, huh?” to which I could only reply, “You bet your sweet ass”. I was bouncing off the walls all night. In the photo I’ve included here, you’ll notice who is already in the front of the pack and cheesing like a rock star!

One of the coolest guys I’ve met so far, C.J., the head teacher over at the SOHO campus (who is into Argento, Fulci, Lynch, and Lovecraft, which automatically makes you awesome), announced late in the night that he and his girlfriend had gotten engaged earlier that week when they were out on their holiday, so the drinking got cranked up to a whole new level, with more and more baijiu being passed around. At around 2 am, everyone started filtering out, so since we knew that we had to be back at the school bright and early, we tuckered out and headed back to our apartments.

This morning, fairly hungover after some (in my opinion) very impressive alcohol intake, I got up at 7:30 am, and could hear Baz hurling in his bathroom (the Brits are total lightweights! I never want to hear “Americans can’t hold their liquor” ever again!). He decided he was too sick to get up and go in (which I thought was a very, very dumb decision), and when I got to the school I was amused to see that everyone was stumbling around in a hangover haze, but then much less amused when the Director of Studies gave them all shit for trying to kill us with all the devilish fire water.

Today, we went hardcore into the specifics of classroom etiquette, do’s and don’ts, and talked a lot about the concept of “face”, which is generally the most important thing to know when trying to relate to the Chinese culture. It is exactly what it sounds like, and it was stressed over and over again that we never, ever, never, want to put a Chinese person in a situation where they will lose “face” in front of another Chinese.

Later in the afternoon, we went over the policy for doing and filing our paperwork, and did our placement tests for our Chinese classes, which I handed back without a single answer (I know quite a few phrases now, but have no clue when it comes to the characters). We finished up fairly early, leaving the school about 3:30, and we got a cab back to Baoxing Yuan (the name of our apartment buildings). I invited some of the cuties over to our apartment tonight, so I’m going to head down shortly to go by the grocer and pick up some booze and snacky poofs, and see if I can find some good cleaning supplies, since the dust collects in our place about an inch thick each day (we keep the windows open because of the heat, which is controlled by the government in every building in the entire city – Welcome to Communism – and the pollution is so insane that it leaves a residue on absolutely everything over here). It’s actually a pretty unhealthy environment, and I realize now that the fog I spoke of in my earlier post is actually the thick smog which permeates the air, so I want to get some good vitamins and stuff, too, just so that my immune system stays strong and battles whatever weird bugs I might ingest by breathing in all the crap and eating all the crazy food. I also want to get some clothes shopping done in the next day or two, and since everything is so freaking cheap, I’m hoping to cop some sweet threads from a tailor that one of the other teachers referred me to. It’s totally annoying having to take my earrings in and out every morning, but I’m sort of reveling in the fact that I might just be the best dressed guy in all of Beijing (and by the way, I got my first couple of “shout outs” from some Chinese girls today! I might end up with Yellow Fever after all!).

Needless to say, yet again, but I’m really having an amazing time, and I absolutely love this city. It’s actually much more “livable” than I originally anticipated, so I just have to be careful about not getting apathetic with my Chinese lessons once they get started. Lots of people here speak English, albeit some, very poorly, and I’ve already got a decent sense of what I’m going to need to learn to get myself around on my own.

Anywhoo, I miss you guys a ton, and like I told some folks in my emails this afternoon, I get all choked up and watery-eyed whenever I think about how much I love you all (and that’s not even to mention how much I miss my wittle doggy! Go play with him if you get a chance!) Hope I’ve answered most of your inquiries, and keep all the questions coming, because it really makes me feel cared for. Hopefully in the coming weeks, I’ll get bold enough to venture out a little more, and will have some more interesting stuff to fill you in about. Time to get going, now, so I’ll get some more posts and pics up soon. In the meantime, take care of yourselves!

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