Author: edebock

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!

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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.

More than an adventure!

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In spite of the fact that we had to have complete medical check-ups before we could apply for our Chinese working visas, we had to repeat the process this week. The visas got us into the country but now that we’re here, we have to apply for resident’s permits. That requires another medical.

I wasn’t too concerned. After all, we’d just been declared healthy. This would just be another adventure and an opportunity to see an aspect of Chinese life that we might not otherwise see. Little did I know!

Early Wednesday morning we met Teresa (one of the school’s delightful Chinese employees) who had arranged for the school driver to take the three of us to the health centre. I didn’t have any classes that morning and another teacher would cover Richard’s. The health centre was a spacious and modern looking facility with the specific purpose of providing health checks and documents to foreigners as well as locals applying to go overseas. It ran very efficiently. We went from cubicle to cubicle giving urine at the first one, blood at the second one, having a chest x-ray done at the third, and so on. The only test that didn’t duplicate what had been done in Canada before our departure was an ultrasound and that’s when the excitement began!

The technician had hardly started moving the wand over my abdomen when she erupted in a flow of rapid questions and comments directed at Teresa who did her best to translate for me. Did I know that I had growths on my liver? Why hadn’t this been detected in Canada?

Needless to say, I was shocked! What in the world was going on and what would it mean? Of course, the worst case scenarios are the ones that immediately come to mind. Would we be on the next plane back to Canada? Did I have cancer?

Apparently there were two spots. One was immediately declared non-threatening but the other one was considered suspicious. Pictures were printed and we were told that I would have to go to the hospital for a CT scan. Only then would we know whether or not I could remain in the country. The final procedure before we left the facility was a blood pressure test. I can only imagine that mine was sky high at that moment but nothing was said!

The drive back to the school was a blur as I sat in the back seat and contemplated the future. Ridiculous thoughts bounced around in my mind. Surely I hadn’t come all the way to China only to leave again without even seeing the Great Wall!

Over the next day and a half, I ended up making not one but three trips to the main university hospital in downtown Dalian! Thank goodness, Teresa was with me every moment of the way. She is very young and had never dealt with anything like this before but she was both efficient and reassuring. After coming home for lunch on Wednesday, I again met her at the school and we set off for the hospital by bus. On the way out of the apartment, the magnetic cross on the fridge beside the door caught my eye. Given to us as a gift just before we left for Japan in 2008, it reads "Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10" That verse became my mantra over the next couple of days and gave me great peace.

At the hospital, we sat in an overcrowded and noisy waiting room for about an hour until my name was called. We saw a lady doctor who looked at the ultrasound photos and immediately concurred with the initial conclusion. One spot was nothing to worry about but the other one would require a closer look. She also explained that a regular CT scan wouldn’t show anything more than the ultrasound had. I would need to be injected with something before the scan was done.

Both Teresa and the doctor, who spoke no English, were worried about whether or not Teresa’s ability to translate all of this was adequate. Since they wanted to ensure that I understood what was being suggested, we were sent to see a younger doctor who spoke reasonably good English. We were able to get in to see him almost immediately and he repeated exactly what Teresa had already told me. He also told us that Richard would have to return to the hospital with us to give written permission for me to have the procedure done! We have since learned that this is common practice here. Regardless of gender or age, no one can have a medical procedure done without the signed permission of a family member. Teresa and our other Chinese colleagues were very surprised to learn that in Canada I would be able to sign my own consent!

Early Thursday morning, the driver took us back to the hospital. We met briefly with the same English speaking doctor, signed the consent forms, purchased the medication that I would be injected with and made arrangements to have the procedure done at 2:30 that afternoon! Again, Richard would have to be there with me. We discovered that one of the reasons that the hospital was so terribly crowded was that everyone, inpatient or outpatient, had to have at least one family member there to help take care of them. We even saw one elderly man, obviously too weak to walk, being carried down the corridor on the back of a younger man, presumably his son.

After returning to school to teach our morning classes we went back to the hospital for the scan, this time by taxi. When it was done, Teresa was given a form to bring back the following afternoon at which time she would be able to pick up the results. No privacy of information rules here to slow things down!

Yesterday dawned bright and clear. I didn’t have a class until 4 o’clock in the afternoon but I planned to go a few minutes early to find out the test results. As I did my morning devotions, I came across Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." As I read that, I was filled with peace. I knew that regardless of what the scan showed, I was in his hands and I would be okay.

Fortunately, the news was good! The spot is one of two things and neither one is threatening. Teresa didn’t know the medical terms in English and to tell you the truth, I don’t really care what they are. They probably wouldn’t mean much to me anyway. All I needed to hear was that I had nothing to worry about!

Teresa will take the results of the CT scan back to the health facility on Monday and fully expects that the necessary documents will be issued so that we can apply for our resident’s permits.

An adventure? Yes, but much more than I bargained for! One thing we’re totally amazed by though is the speed at which all this took place. The process from ultrasound to final diagnosis, which would have taken weeks or months in Canada, took about 55 hours!

Laundry day

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In the corner of our bathroom, which measures 45 inches by 68 inches, stands the tiniest washing machine I have ever seen. As shown in the photo, it’s shorter than the pedestal sink that stands next to it! It might be small but it does the job. I did our first load of laundry this morning and everything came out clean.

Though considerably smaller, the machine is almost exactly like the one we had in Japan so it was easy to figure out how to use it. I just have to remember to place the end of the hose into the floor drain before I start it or there will be water everywhere! It even plays a little tune to tell me when its job is done.

The clothes dryer is a rack attached to the building just outside our bedroom window! I’ll use that for bedding, towels and larger items of clothing. As I hung the towels today, I feared that I might drop them into the alley below but fortunately that didn’t happen. I’m not going to take a chance on losing our more delicate items to a gust of wind so they hang in the multi-purpose computer/guest room. If you come to visit, however, I’ll make sure there’s nothing hanging over your bed while you’re here!

Since some of our dress clothes will need to be ironed, I brought our dual voltage travel iron with us and yesterday we purchased a little table top ironing board much like the one we carry in the travel trailer at home. We also bought a bag of Tide laundry detergent; the same brand we use at home. Though many things are very different here, others are surprisingly familiar!

The penthouse

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I love the fact that, after reading my last post, one of our friends dubbed our upper storey apartment "the penthouse". In spite of the 67 stairs that we have to climb to get here, I love our location. We’re on the very end of a long narrow building so we have windows on three sides which let in lots of light and allow us to look out in several directions.

The apartment is approximately 390 square feet and is made up of three rooms plus the bathroom. Take a close look at the picture of the kitchen. Can you see the stove? Sure you can! It’s right behind the electric kettle. That’s right! It’s a one burner hot plate! Though you can’t see them in the photo, we also have a microwave, a toaster, a rice cooker and a crock pot so cooking is possible. So far, though, we’ve been eating most of our meals out. Why not when there are lots of eating establishments within a few minutes walk and food is unbelievably cheap? For example, supper tonight cost less than $6 for the two of us!

The kitchen also has a small refrigerator and a water dispenser. Bottled water is essential here as the tap water isn’t safe to drink. I was delighted to learn that we could have an 18.9 L jug of water delivered to the door for $2! All we have to do is tell our school secretary when we need a new one and she takes care of ordering it for us.

Our main source of heat is a small hot water radiator in each room which is adequate to take the chill off but we’re thankful that the bed/sitting room also has a wall unit that provides both heat and air conditioning depending on the season. If you take another look at the picture of the kitchen, you’ll notice that the cupboard door below the kettle has been left open. That’s because the radiator is inside the cupboard! I’m assuming that the cupboard unit must be a more recent addition to the penthouse.

The third room is our computer/guest room. That’s right, though it can’t be seen in the photo, the computer room is also furnished with a double bed. If you’ve ever wanted to visit China, now’s your chance! The love seat in the bed/sitting room also folds out into a single bed so we can easily sleep three of you at once. Just let us know you’re coming because we’ll have to find some bedding for your beds!

Did you notice that in addition to being fully furnished, the apartment even came with plants? They were pretty dried out when we got here but with a bit of water and pruning, they’re looking much better now. My favourite is the Christmas cactus blooming on the kitchen window sill. They’re one of my favourite plants and I’ve often thought about buying one. I just didn’t realize that I would come all the way to China to get it!