Author: edebock

If it’s Friday, this must be the Black Dog

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Until fairly recently, I would never have imagined that I’d someday be a resident of the People’s Republic of China but we received our Residence Permits today! They’re valid until July 31st.

Life has pretty much settled into routine and classes are going well. On Friday afternoons, I have a class that ends at 4:50 p.m. and Richard has one that starts at 6:00. That gives us just over an hour for supper; not enough time to go home and barely enough time to eat out. That’s when we go to the Black Dog.

We have no idea what the restaurant’s real name is but it was dubbed the Black Dog by one of our fellow teachers because the owner’s black cocker spaniel is often there. Cats and dogs in restaurants are not uncommon here.

Like many restaurants in the area, the Black Dog is tiny with just four tables and sixteen chairs. The red metal tabletops are badly scratched. When we arrived today, a group of men were playing cards at one of them. As they got up to leave, one of them grabbed a broom and swept up the cigarette butts that they’d left on the cement floor.

Though it may not sound like the place you’d choose to go out for dinner every Friday, it definitely meets our needs. It’s one of the closest places for us to walk to, the owner greets us at the door each week and the food is delicious. Perhaps the greatest draw for us though is the fact that the extensive menu has been translated into English and the school provided us with a copy. We choose what we’re going to have for supper on Thursday evening or Friday morning so that we can order as soon as we arrive. We usually share a meat dish and a vegetable dish and we each have a bowl of rice.

Our favourite vegetable dish so far is called Three fresh vegetables (potato, eggplant, green bean) in the menu but the green beans are actually green pepper! Broccoli with mashed garlic was also delicious as was tonight’s Eggplant with soy sauce. Since we’ve been eating a lot of pork, chicken and shrimp, we try to choose other kinds of meat when we eat at the Black Dog. Fried mutton with Chinese onion was pretty good but we learned today that ordering the Braised mackerel wasn’t such a good idea. There was nothing wrong with it. In fact, it was quite tasty but it took a little while to prepare and we weren’t sure we’d have enough time to eat it. That might have had something to do with the fact that when we ordered it, one of the fellows from the kitchen left the restaurant, rode off on his bicycle and returned a little while later with the fish in a bag! He’d obviously rushed off to the market to buy it. At least we knew it would be fresh. Within about ten minutes of his return, it was on our table and even though we had to pick out the tiny bones, we were done in time for Richard to get back to school before his class was due to begin.

The Black Dog menu has plenty of options to choose from but there are several items that we probably won’t try. We’ve eaten jellyfish before and don’t like the texture so we won’t bother with the Cucumber with jellyfish, the Chinese cabbage with jellyfish or the Mature vinegar with jellyfish. Besides, I have no idea what the difference between mature and immature vinegar might be! I’m not attracted by the Cucumber with pig ear or the Chinese onion with pig ear either. I’ll also avoid the Sauteed silk worm with chili and the Spicy pig intestines. After all, my stomach doesn’t do well with spicy foods. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

An electrician’s nightmare

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Our apartment building is very old. I have no idea how long it’s been standing here but it’s clear that the original wiring wasn’t designed to handle the number of electrical appliances and gadgets that are part of everyday life today even in China. We’ve only been here for four weeks but I’ve long since lost count of the number of times we’ve tripped the breaker.

That’s right. THE breaker. Until yesterday, there was only one of them for the entire apartment. Granted, it isn’t big. Just three little rooms plus the bathroom but there are way too many things in here that use electricity for one circuit to handle the demand.

There are wires and cords snaking all over the place. I haven’t begun to figure out what they’re all for or where they go. Some of the switches and plug-ins have obviously been added over the years as they’re simply shoved into rough holes in the wall and the wiring, rather than being inside the wall, is on the outside!

Last Saturday evening while Richard was in class, I started to smell something odd. It had that tell-tale hot wiring smell but I couldn’t locate the source. I’d had a shower and had left the heat lamps in the bathroom on to dry it out so I wondered if they were the problem. I mentioned it to Richard when he got home but by then, he couldn’t smell anything so we didn’t give it another thought until the following morning.

I don’t remember exactly what we were doing but the breaker tripped again and this time, when Richard went out to the landing at the top of the stairs to switch it on again, the smell was very strong and the circuit box was hot inside! There was also a flash when he flipped the switch. Definitely not a good sign!

Though it was her day off, Richard called Wendy, the girl from the school office who handles things to do with teacher apartments. She rounded up the landlord and they came over to take a look. By then, the circuit box had cooled off and the landlord couldn’t find anything wrong. Just be careful not to use too many electrical things at once was all that they could suggest! When we mentioned the situation to our supervising teacher, his response was “Well this is China. That’s just the way things are.”

It didn’t take long to determine that those answers simply wouldn’t do! On Tuesday evening I was blow drying my hair when the breaker tripped and we were plunged into darkness. A little later on, when Richard was in the shower and we had the heating unit in the bedroom turned on because the apartment is chilly in the evening, the breaker went for a second time. Grabbing our tiny flashlight, I made my way out to the hall to flip the switch. It was hot again and it smelled terrible so when we arrived at school yesterday morning, Richard explained to the office staff that we were living in a fire trap and that something had to be done about it.

At noon, we went off to enjoy a home cooked meal at one of my student’s grandmother’s place and when we got home, the guts of the circuit box had been changed. We now have a double breaker! It’s too early to know for sure if that will solve the problem but it’s been over 24 hours and we haven’t tripped it yet.

Now, if we could just get them to install fire extinguishers on the landings, we might feel even safer! Never mind. This is China; not quite third world anymore but definitely not what we’re used to either!

 

Fountain of youth

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I think I’ve discovered the fountain of youth! Everyday as I walk across the university campus to school and back, I’m surrounded by literally thousands of students moving from class to class. They exude such energy that I am invigorated by simply being in their presence.

The 12 to 15 minute walk is a fitness program in and of itself and should also help us retain our youthfulness. We begin by descending 67 stairs from our fifth storey apartment to the ground level (there’s no elevator) then walk across the north campus to busy Huanghe Road. Crossing the pedestrian overpass to the south campus involves 35 steps up and another 35 down the other side followed by 6 more stairs down to the south gate. After walking across the south campus to our building, we climb another 48 stairs to the third floor where our office and some of our classrooms are located. Four times a week, I continue on up to the sixth floor where I teach my university classes. That involves climbing 72 more stairs! We often make this trip to school and back twice in the same day. I’m definitely thankful for the time I spent on the treadmill before we came to China and expect to be even more fit by the time we leave!

As a young person, I always thought my teachers looked old but the students here invariably guess that we’re much younger than we really are. Until they hear that we have several grandchildren, they always think that I must be in my 40s or perhaps my early 50s. How can I not love these kids?

I’m no better at guessing the ages of people here but I do know that people our age in China grew up in the aftermath of war and under the repressive regime of Chairman Mao. Life has not been easy for them and apparently it shows on their faces. Perhaps those who appear to be elderly are only my age.

According to the most recent estimates that I could find online (2012), life expectancy in China is approximately 6.5 years less than in Canada and until fairly recently the discrepancy was much greater. At present, a Canadian man can expect to live almost 79 years while a Chinese man’s life expectancy is a little less than 73. Women in Canada have a life expectancy of slightly over 84 years while a Chinese woman can expect to live until shortly after her 77th birthday. Perhaps the fountain of youth is really the country in which we live. How fortunate we are to be Canadian!

In spite of the facts and figures, however, I still like to think that my present feelings of youthfulness are the result of soaking up energy from the students who surround me. They are my fountain of youth!

Coffee by the sea

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China is traditionally a country of tea drinkers. According to the English language newspaper, China Daily, annual coffee consumption in this country is 3 to 4 cups per person compared to 240 cups worldwide. The majority of older adults don’t drink it at all and it isn’t available in most restaurants. Western-style coffee shops are quickly catching on with the younger crowd, however, who enjoy the aroma and the ambiance of places like Starbucks.

The recent surge in coffee consumption has pushed up the demand for coffee beans and led to a rapidly increasing number of coffee plantations in the southern China province of Yunnan. Fields that once grew corn now produce coffee, a much more lucrative crop. In addition to providing for local consumption, coffee is also becoming an important export.

Tasty is a chain of bakeries that also serve as coffee shops. Like their counterparts, they serve mochas, lattes, caramel machiattos and a variety of other hot and cold drinks. It didn’t take us long to find the Tasty that’s within easy walking distance of here. With it’s comfy couches and laid back atmosphere, it’s a great place for us to meet with students to relax and visit and it doesn’t take much to convince my poor coffee addicted husband to stop in for a treat on our way to the supermarket across the street! Since coffee makers and filters are hard to come by, he’s making do with instant coffee at home.

On Sunday, we were invited by two of our students to a coffee shop much further from home. It’s located in a quaint seaside area of Dalian called Fisherman’s Wharf. Most of our students are from fairly well-to-do families but Sissi’s is obviously wealthier than most. She has her own car which made getting there easy.

It was a cool, misty afternoon. When we arrived, the coffee shop was full so we walked around and enjoyed the sights for a bit before going back and finding a table. Time flew by as we sat and chatted. By the time we left, the lighthouse, unlike any I’d ever seen before, was lit up and it’s warning light flashing.

In addition to providing a great place to visit and serving delicious beverages, western-style coffee shops in China have something else going for them; western-style bathrooms! If you read my earlier post about bathrooms, you know that most public washrooms in China have squat toilets. It’s always a delight to find one that has a western-style one. When I went to the bathroom on Sunday afternoon, I was thankful that I’ve been carrying my camera in my purse wherever I go. Otherwise, I couldn’t have shared the hilarious sign in the bathroom with you! I can’t read Chinese but the message is unmistakable!

Things are different here!

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We’ve spent quite a bit of time in Asia over the past few years. As a result, we haven’t really experienced culture shock since arriving in China but there have definitely been some surprises. In no particular order, here are a few random differences that we’ve noticed so far.

  • Waking up in the middle of a densely populated city and hearing a rooster crow! We haven’t figured out where the rooster resides but we did see a chicken wandering beside the street one day. I wonder if it ended up in someone’s cooking pot?
  • Two or more girls walking arm in arm or holding hands. This is extremely common amongst women of all ages and is nothing more than a sign of friendship. I quite like it.
  • Spitting! Everywhere. All the time. That I don’t like! The spitting itself is bad enough but it’s the loud hawking up of phlegm that precedes the shot that really gets me. I have to constantly remind myself that these people (men and women) aren’t being intentionally rude or gross. This is simply an accepted practice in their culture. I must admit to giving the man who nearly hit my shoe at the street market on Sunday morning a very dirty look though!
  • Using paste to attach a stamp to an envelope. I still chuckle when I think of the expression on the face of the post office clerk when I licked the back of a stamp the first time we mailed something! He hastily pointed to the pot of paste and the worn out brush that I was supposed to use to apply it to my stamps. I’ve been careful to do it the right way ever since even though it doesn’t work half as well as licking the stamp!
  • Toilet paper without a cardboard core. You can buy it with the core but it isn’t as common and since we have nothing to hang the roll on, it isn’t needed. Also, when the roll gets small it fits easily into a coat pocket or purse which is very handy considering the fact that toilet paper isn’t provided in public bathrooms including the ones at the school.
  • People burning stuff whenever and wherever they choose. I was about to hang some towels out to dry one morning last week when I noticed a group of men burning a large pile of trash directly below our window. The fire smouldered all day while the towels dried indoors!
  • I’m not sure what the law says but in practice, pedestrians DO NOT have the right away in Dalian and since parking on the sidewalks is commonplace, one needs to be constantly vigilant while walking. We take our life in our hands each time we cross a street!
  • The city employs an army of street sweepers. Dressed in green and yellow, they use straw brooms to sweep the gutters and gather up the ever present garbage. Their efforts seem somewhat futile as people think nothing of throwing more trash on the ground.
  • In an environment where cleanliness doesn’t seem to be a priority, who would have expected to find scented kleenex? I’m not sure if all the tissues here are perfumed but the ones we bought have a lovely lavender scent! Richard doesn’t particularly care for them but I think they’re great. He may suggest that we look for unscented ones next time but since we can’t read the labels, he could be out of luck!
  • Many of the vehicles on the road are made by North American, European or Japanese manufacturers and look just like the ones we’d see at home but some are also manufactured by Chinese companies. It’s the three wheeled ones that make me giggle every time I see one! They look like Mr. Bean should be behind the wheel!

 

Always a teacher!

/ edebock / 5 Comments

As much as Richard and I have been enjoying retirement for the past few years, we’re definitely having fun being back in the classroom this term. The job isn’t exactly what we expected but in some ways, I think its even better than what we anticipated.

We were hired to teach at the School of Continuing Education at Liaoning Normal University where all of the students are required to take one year of English. They have the option of taking it from a Chinese professor during their regular school day or they can pay extra to take it from us. We teach our university level classes during the evenings and on Saturday mornings.

I have two university classes with 27 to 30 students in each one. Teaching a foreign language to that many students at once is difficult but student motivation is probably a bigger factor in whether or not they succeed. Since attendance accounts for 50% of their final mark, working hard in class isn’t a high priority for many of them. Add to that the fact that, on most days, they come to a two hour class at 6:30 p.m. after having been in school since 8:00 a.m. I can hardly blame them for not being overly enthusiastic!

My university classes are very different from one another. One is made up entirely of students who are art, music and phys ed majors. In spite of the fact that they started learning English in third grade, their knowledge of the language is weak and prying spoken English out of them is like pulling teeth. The other class is made up of academic students who have a much higher level of English. The majority of them are somewhat fluent and they participate well in class discussions.

There are only twelve students in Richard’s university class but their level of English is more varied which presents different challenges in teaching them. Instead of a second university class, Richard spends two evenings a week teaching a class that has become fondly known as the Munchkins. This is a new course made up of 11 and 12 year olds who participated in an English camp put on by our school last summer. The camp was such a success that the parents, who are obviously very keen on having their children learn English, asked for a continuing class for them. Thus the Munchkin class came into being last fall. As a well seasoned grade 5 teacher, Richard was the obvious choice to teach them this term.

We also have two small classes of high school graduates who are spending a year in English immersion in preparation for going to college in Canada or the US. In order to qualify to do that, they must achieve a high score on the very rigourous IELTS (International English Language Testing System) test which is made up of four components; reading, writing, listening and speaking. Richard teaches Reading and a course known as Pronunciation and Idioms to the 7 students in Class B while I teach Reading and North American Geography to the 5 students who make up Class A.

Class A is without a doubt my favourite part of the job. These kids, who range in age from 17 to 23, are absolutely delightful. They are the ones who are eagerly taking advantage of every opportunity to spend time with us outside class soaking up the language and trying to learn as much as they can about our lifestyle and culture. In addition to being our students, they are quickly becoming our friends.

Though it may sound as if we’re very busy and though we do have classes at various times between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. five days a week, our actual time in the classroom is equal to approximately a half-time teaching assignment in Canada. There’s preparation and some evaluation on top of that, of course, but all in all it’s a pretty sweet retirement project!

(Pictured below: our first meal with some of my A students. Known as hot pot, we cooked various meats, tofu and greens in the steaming broth in the centre of the table. It was delicious! The young Caucasian gal is Courtney, the only young teacher on our staff of six. The rest are golden oldies like us.)

Sunday afternoon in Zhongshan Park

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Our students are encouraged to spend time with us outside class so that they can practice using their English in a variety of different situations. One of my classes has taken this to heart and we’ve already been out for several meals and activities with some of them. Last night I taught one of the girls the expression “win-win situation” because it is exactly that. They have the opportunity to develop their language skills while we get to experience things we’d otherwise having difficulty accessing because of our lack of knowledge of the language and the culture.

Yesterday was a perfect example. We met Vicky, a native of Dalian, for lunch at a restaurant near her home and experienced spring pancakes for the first time. Spring pancakes are essentially small, thin tortillas that you wrap a variety of stir fried foods in. A little bit messy but very delicious.

Afterward, we walked to Zhongshan Park together. The focal point of the park is an old Buddhist temple. Having seen many of these in other Asian countries we could easily imagine its original splendour but unfortunately, it’s in a sad state of disrepair and people were scattered about the steps and plaza selling a variety of rather junky looking wares.

Behind the temple is what could easily be a beautiful park. Vicky was embarrassed by its unkempt appearance but I could easily imagine how much better it will look when the bare trees burst out in leaf. It was the vibrancy of the many people enjoying the park that delighted me however! Clusters of men gathered around poker games while one group played a form of checkers. Musicians playing a variety of traditional and modern instruments played in different spots throughout the park and on a wide open plaza overlooked by a bronze statue of Sun Yat-Sen, a revolutionary leader of the early 1900s who became known as the founding father of Nationalist China, people were dancing! We stopped to watch and particularly admired one very graceful couple. When the man noticed us watching, he left his partner and approached us. Extending his hand, he asked me to dance and dance I did! The steps were new to me but he was a skilled leader and I soon picked up on the routine. What fun! Richard and I love to dance so on Vicky’s urging, we took to the dance floor together when my Chinese partner returned to his lady.

Moving on, we came upon what at first appeared to be a children’s playground. Upon looking more closely, however, we realized that it was actually a collection of exercise equipment for adults. Of course, I had to try out a few pieces! We also enjoyed watching a man working out on the parallel bars. His routine made my 20+ push ups each morning look quite pathetic!

After leaving the park, we took a bus to a shopping mall where we’d arranged to meet a fellow teacher and a couple more students. We relaxed and chatted for an hour or more in a lovely coffee shop before walking to another restaurant for supper. Three more students joined us there. There were now nine of us and seated in a private room around a circular table, we enjoyed another feast and more visiting before finally making our way home.

It was definitely a winning day!

Linda, Kate and Cheryl

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The first thing a student does when they enrol in one of our English courses is adopt an English name. I’m not completely comfortable with the idea of asking them to give up such an integral part of their identity as their real name but it certainly does make life easier for us. Many of their Chinese names are virtually impossible for us to pronounce. I’m going to have a hard enough time remembering everyone’s English names let alone trying to learn those!

Though most of the students choose fairly traditional names, there are some unusual ones as well. I have a Dragon in one of my classes and Richard teaches a girl who calls herself Memory.

We came on staff at the beginning of the second semester so most of our students already had English names but a few new ones have enrolled this term. At the beginning of last night’s class, one of the office staff showed up at the classroom door with two new recruits. Please help them choose English names, she asked.

Richard and I always had trouble choosing girls’ names. We could have named several sons without any difficulty but, in both cases, it took us the better part of nine months to choose names for our daughters. I didn’t have nine months last night! Twenty-five other students were waiting expectantly for class to begin and I had two beautiful young girls to name!

I looked at their Chinese names, hoping to come up with something remotely similar. Written in Pinyin (the system used to write Chinese words using the Roman alphabet), the first girl was called Liiiao. I suggested Lee, Leah, Lynn or Linda. She chose my sister’s name, Linda. Yuqing was more difficult. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of a single English name that was anywhere close to that so I started reciting the first names that came to mind that weren’t already on the class list. She chose Kate. At some point, perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to explain to her that Kate is the name of a popular English princess. I think she’d like that.

Today, while Richard and I were in the office prepping for upcoming classes another new student arrived on the scene. Since she’ll be in one of Richard’s classes, he was given the honour of naming her. Having been privy to some of the names he suggested for our daughters in bygone years, I jumped in to help! Fortunately, there’s also a book in the office that includes a list of English names. Again, I suggested that we look for one that was somewhat similar to her Chinese name, Shuying. Richard suggested Cheryl which she quickly agreed to. I think she was beyond nervous and simply wanted to get the enrolment process over with! I hope she actually likes her name.

Perhaps before we leave here, I should turn the tables and ask my students to give me a Chinese name. I wonder what they’d choose?

The bathroom

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Foreign bathrooms fascinate me! If someone would finance the travel required to do my research, I think I’d write a book entitled Bathrooms of the World.

As is common in many parts of Asia, our bathroom is also a shower stall. We don’t have a bathtub and the shower isn’t a separate entity. You simply stand in the bathroom and the water goes everywhere! Most of it ends up going down the floor drain, of course, but the entire bathroom is wet after a shower. Rubber sandals sit outside the bathroom door to keep your feet dry when you enter.

The tank that’s attached to the wall above the toilet supplies hot water to both the bathroom sink and the shower but not the kitchen sink. We have to carry that from the bathroom. Fortunately, the kitchen sink is located just outside the bathroom door.

Squat toilets are still very prevalent in China but, thankfully, our apartment is equipped with a dual flush western style toilet. Most public buildings including our school are not. Toilet paper is not flushed; it goes into the little garbage can that sits beside the toilet and is carried out with the rest of the trash. This, too, is common in many parts of Asia.

One feature that I do like about our bathroom is the heat lamps! There are four of them and you can turn on either two or all four at once. They keep the bathroom warm while you shower and help it dry more quickly afterward. They’re also nice for those nighttime trips to the bathroom that are common at our age! Since we only heat the bedroom at night, venturing out to the bathroom is a chilly experience.

I do miss having a bathtub as I much prefer bathing to showering and there’s nothing more relaxing than a good soak. It would have been especially nice after this afternoon’s very long walk. We spent a couple of hours out in the sunshine exploring on foot.

We have to eat!

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Grocery shopping and meal preparation have been my biggest challenges since arriving in China. So far, with the exception of breakfasts, we’ve eaten most of our meals out but that becomes old fast especially when very few places have English menus and it’s always a guess what we’re going to end up with!

The university cafeteria is just around the corner from our apartment building and an easy place to pick up a quick lunch or supper but the meals there, though incredibly cheap, are heavy on rice or noodles and light on meat and vegetables. The same is true of many of the tiny restaurants in the neighbourhood. In order to ensure that we’re getting a healthy, balanced diet we’ve decided that we need to start doing more of our own cooking.

Grocery shopping here is a whole new experience. There’s a giant supermarket within walking distance or there’s the street just outside our window! Every morning before 7 o’clock, vendors spread out their wares and the street becomes a beehive of shoppers purchasing everything from fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood to clothing, shoes and household goods. It appears that on some days you can even have a comforter made right there on the street! By noon, everything is packed up and carted away until the following morning.

It was fairly easy to find some breakfast basics at the supermarket. Though we can’t read any labels, bread, yogurt and orange juice were easy to identify. With the exception of oatmeal, cereal doesn’t seem to exist though and fresh milk is nowhere to be found. We’ve bought eggs at both the supermarket and on the street.

Buying meat is clearly going to be my biggest difficulty. I could manage quite nicely as a near vegetarian especially considering some of the things we’ve seen for sale so far! Chicken feet are common as are pig feet! At least those we’re able to identify! We have no idea what some of the things we’ve seen are.

Nevertheless, we headed down to the street market this morning determined to find enough to make at least a couple of meals here at home. After much gesturing to indicate what we wanted and some moments of frustration as we tried to figure out how much we were supposed to pay for each item, we came back with fresh shrimp and a good looking chunk of meat that I’m pretty sure is pork. It could be beef though! We also purchased a variety of vegetables as well as oranges, rice, peanuts and a pair of knit gloves because mine were wearing out! Supper tonight was a shrimp stir-fry and rice.