44. School Life: 1984

A Warm Welcome

I’ve scrapped the extra metro change to Yili Road recently, instead taking the bus from Hongqiao Lu. If the bus arrives on time, it cuts about 15 minutes off my journey and saves the walk as well.

Therefore yesterday I arrived to school almost 40 minutes early. It was so worthwhile as well.

As I approached the school ‘gates’ (basically, a sliding barrier) I heard a cry run out.

‘Attention!’.

I walked through the gates to a small corridor of primary school students.

In unison they belted out ‘ Good morning Teacher’

I a little flustered replied ‘Good Morning’ as they bowed.

Felt like an absolute champion!

1984

I’ve spotted George Orwell’s novel in the hands of two students now. One where the book was translated into Chinese and another where it kept its original text.

It would be interesting to see if any of the book about a suppressed nation is edited. It would be rather apt.

These sightings followed a week after Housemate Sean, Zoe and I went on a TIMEOUT SHANGHAI walk titled ‘Hidden French Concession’.

Our first stop was a hidden away café called 1984. It earned the name as they had literally every different published copy of the book on one shelf.

We continued on the walk after a coffee and came to a Poster Propaganda museum, situated in the basement of a random set of flats. The posters were quite striking portraying the Chinese as strong men benefiting from Mao’s changes of the 1950-1970’s. In some instances the English person was portrayed as a snivelling weed. I haven’t seen such propaganda pictures since Source work of Punch comics in school History classes.

Exam time

Students are getting quite anxious for the upcoming mid-term test. Examinations are a big deal in China, probably more so than in any other country in the world.

Hard academic work is a built in ethos of which the culmination is GaoKao.

GaoKao has been said to be the most stringent of tests. The two days that it falls on grip the nation as roads are cordoned off as the students take these exams which many believe decides the path of their life.

I’ve read most of the final year is simply just one big cramming session for these exams which bleeds the students of any creative juices.

As I write this a middle school student is reciting this passage about a ‘Farmer who lives in a hut’. Her teacher, one of my colleagues in this school, is holding the book. What the hell is being tested here. Test of memory more than anything else.

Anyway I have my own test tomorrow. HSK Level 1 baby. As per usual I will be doing my last minute cramming on the train to the exam. As tonight Game of Thrones has my undivided attention.

43. Errrr Yuk.

An Education

It’s a beautiful 26 degrees day in Shanghai, but I find myself in a very unfamiliar place. 

I am in the Shanghai library. 

I was in the area and having got my library card last week I decided to give the place a browse.

I’m undecided over this place. All the books in the foreign section are course related, like economics, biology, physics, etc. Anyway I picked one book out of the economic section, titled Is economic growth sustainable, and two books out of sociology, World Regional Urban Development and Ways of Living and gave them a read.

I was reading the latter on a free table that had taken me a while to find, when a couple approached the girl claimed I was sitting in her hubbys seat.

 To my utter surprise I stood my ground ‘Wo xianzai zuo zheli’ I stated. They only had a mouse mat to claim the boy was sitting there anyway. So the girl despite her ‘We like to sit together’ pleas sat in the seat next to me and the boy jogged on.

I then got all-British puffed out my cheeks and packed my books giving the boy a steely glance as he returned to ‘his’ seat. I want to keep up relations after all.

This place is not even that packed; people just get a table and just pass out on it. Ridiculous.

I soon found another table, checked with the girl leaving, who had not passed out, that it was cool before planting and carrying on my education of things other than China.

May sound change but it felt great to read some essay, reference filled work. Learnt a few facts like China has 89 cities with over 1 million people and Shanghai is over 2000 years old.

No such Yuk

Before the library I’d had a private lesson with my oldest student, Yuk. Yes that’s his English or Chinese name.

I usually get along quite well with Yuk. But basically Yuk was not in my good books today. It didn't help that he lived up to his name by burping throughout the lesson.

Now I will tell you the story of why he was originally in the book but I fear I will sound like a dick so I must say now we are on good terms.

So it stemmed from Monday night where my captain asked for a few extra players. I asked Yuk. He said Yes. Then the captain said we had too many, from which I texted Yuk to say Sorry mate, maybe another time.

He had in these lessons told me how he loved football, he played in the centre of the park, pulled the strings etc. I was thinking big things. 

Anyway back to Monday, he went against what I said and came along to our football league match with a view to play. Originally he had said he would watch our game. But he came along and then went and put kit on!

I put myself in goal for this match so had no say on subs. We were 2-0 up against the team just above us in the league but a tidal wave of subs cost us any leadership/structure on the pitch. Without being harsh Yuk had a shocker, we conceded 4 goals in the 10 minutes he was on and lost the game 5-3.

Admittedly I was in goal and maybe should have had better communication but there was no defence. Literal shambles.

Anyway in the lesson today he ended up being 45 mins late. Ay kurumba! So in a fit of spite/ being a helpful teacher, I taught him every phrase/idiom you use on a football pitch from ‘on my head son’, to ‘get tight to him’, to ‘go on have a pop’ to ‘lets up the tempo lads’.

VeryCD

Since that football capitulation I haven’t felt myself. I became quite fatigued during the course of the week and ended up going to bed after my last lesson on Thursday at 4:40pm not to get out of bed till 3pm the next day.

In that time I watched 6 episodes of Walking Dead, and when I realised that the show was a bit slow I watched 4 episodes of Game of Thrones. I'm now on episode 8. These viewings were interspersed with sleep, lots of water and also The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

I have this incredible website to thank for this viewathon. VeryCD.com. Every TV show or recent film you would want to watch is on here. Amazingly its only available in China.

Perks of Being in China ay! 

42. Only in China

Again I'm typing on the subway, heading back from my private in deepest darkest Pudong. This time with someone looking over my shoulder. I'll try and control what I say.

 The fact is, that even if this private comes at the end of a day that started at 8:40 am, encompassing three different schools and seven separate classes I always come away from the private lesson very happy.

I think only a teacher on a peasantry pay can experience this feeling.

It was a regular day really but I decided to take note of things that make you utter the words 'Only in China'.

 a Durian sweet

My voice went in my third lesson, not a great start to the day. Afterwards I took refuge in the English department. My English colleague, Matt, noticing my throat problem reached into his drawer and pulled out two sweets he’d been given a while back.

I initially thought they were his, so in true British style, I put them in my mouth and ignored the horrible taste that I experienced. It was only when he told me they were offered to him a while back to help his throat. That I started to think about spitting it back out. He then added ‘ it tastes like gas’. He was pretty much spot on.

Durian the worst smelling fruit, as a sweet. Why China Why?

Please import Sherbet Lemons.

The worry

With the bird flu going down at the moment, there is a slight panic in Shanghai to avoid well, birds. It was not surprising therefore that for lunch, out of prawns, chicken legs and sweet and sour pork, it was the former googly eyed, hard shelled creature that was the popular choice on the menu. (Chicken and pork we are being advised to avoid).

It continued in my next school after lunch where the local Chinese teachers told me proudly the tea they were drinking would help prevent bird flu.

What a load of tods wallop. I hear my Grandpa saying.

Copy out a whole paragraph

As I waited in my second schools English department for my class to start, I read over a students who was working on one of the desks. He’d written quite a detailed piece about how manual workers were getting a better pay than ‘white collar’ business men, I was quite impressed to be honest as the kid was only about 12.

It was then that I looked over at another kid sitting three desks from him. Unbelievably his paragraph read the exact same as the previous kid.

Mindless copying about bizarre topics. Only in China.

Being asked the question if someone is a boy or a girl

I had three classes in this school. I’m a big fan of this school to be honest as you can have a native level conversation with the students and a lot of them will crowd the desk after the lesson is over to free talk.

Classic Only in China moment as one girl asks me whether I think her friend is a boy or a girl. What a horrible question! I knew it was a girl without hesitation, but that was only because I’d been wondering the same thing throughout that whole lesson and had finally come to a decision!

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I think Chinese students make fun out of their apparent likeness to each other by making a lot of incest jokes. This was apparent when I did a ‘Worst possible date’ for a Valentines day lesson. Most of the stories involved the girl/boy turning out to be your sister/brother.

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Peace posing

As the day grew to a close I spotted my last Only in China moment. 

While packing up his tools at a road construction site, a builder took out his camera to take a picture of his progress.

A fairly mundane photo. But his friend took it upon himself to place his fingers, just his fingers, into the photo in the peace sign as you can’t have a photo without someone making the peace sign.

Made me laugh. Oh China.

41. 6 Months In

I’m writing this on the subway back from my two nights a week private. It’s been a fairly regular day, leaving the house at 7:30-8:00 am to later get back around 9:00-10:00pm. Days in Shanghai are long. This place is absorbing. But what you do here is really what you make of it and you can do literally anything here and end up not really paying an arm and a leg for it. I love it.

Private work has taken up a bit of my last three months. I now teach private students on 5 separate occasions each week. It does seem like quite a lot but as I’ve said above the standard Shanghai day is so long that you can fit it in without much bother.
Private work has its benefits. You get cash in hand, the standard rate of 200 Yuan (£20 an hour) is certainly acceptable, you work to your own schedule, you get to see a student’s development and the student or the student’s family gives you an interesting outlook of China.

It’s my 6-month anniversary in this city. A poignant landmark as it marks the halfway stage in my current contract. Shanghai is in a current state of unrest as a bird flu epidemic has claimed a fifth life in the past week. As of yet I haven’t had any irregular bouts of clucking.

The flat is in a good state. We’ve had a recent addition to the lounge in the form of an Xbox 360 thanks mainly to a charitable donation from a fellow teacher who found he was playing it too much. To buy a game out here it costs the equivalent of 50p. No wonder Game went out of business.

The last three months I’ve been lucky enough to travel some parts of China. Memorable excursions were had to Nanjing, Huangshan and recently Hong Kong. My sister, Jessica was also welcomed to these shores over the Chinese New Year. T Wessely arrives herein one month’s time, so good times ahead.

A fellow teacher, Tom, has started up a 7-a-side football team. We play every Monday night and follow this with a beer and burger. It’s a pretty competitive league we play in and the night is fast becoming my favourite part of the week. Beckham’s arrival has got a few locals talking and with the amount of football pitches in Shanghai I’m surprised China still has a low FIFA ranking.

My Chinese progress has halted a little as I was not able to continue with the lessons as I did not have the time to. I have invested in books and I’m taking an exam in two weeks so the plan may be to get a tutor once a week.

Teaching here has done me well so far, you become more and more accustomed each passing day. But it can become a bit of a slog continuously preparing lessons. I have a number of future plans after this year, a Masters in Asian Studies, apply for a different job in China, apply for an international school job starting August 2014 in Shanghai, the plan all along was to go to South America and be part of Brazil. I’m still not closer to a field that I would like to do long term so I came to a decision that I want to be doing something which has the best location and the best pay.

 One thing is for sure I aim to be home for Christmas.

Thanks for reading my personal thoughts. The question really is what I am doing about it. This I think will be the objective of the next three months. 

40. Hong Kong

I don’t think I’ve planned a holiday so far in advance since the 18-months of  preparation/team bonding/ money raising mission that culminated in a fantastic KES expedition to Bolivia. There is a lot to be said about planning trips.

For Hong Kong or Xiang Gang as they call it in mainland China, I impressed myself how organised I was for the four days, having booked tickets and time off work a long way in advance. I was so stress free about the whole venture it came as a shock on my departure date that I would be leaving.

A train journey to HK takes 18 hours and covers over 1000 miles, you have to fill in departure papers and have your passport given the once over before boarding the train. I of course managed to board the train with only 5 minutes to spare. This may seem like a lot back home, but trains journeys here are big deals.

The border line (literal) stress that there was checking on to the train, quickly evaporated when I got into my 4 person dorm. The bed was surprisingly comfy for the price I paid, hence I didn’t really leave my bed for the rest of the journey and slept longer than I had ever before.

I soon reached my destination. Hong Kong has the balance absolutely perfect, it is the Financial Capital of the World but it was more than possible for a touring rugby team to have a good time. It had a magnificent skyline but also a dense greenery up upon the peak. Shanghai is probably the most similar to HK in Mainland China. But Hong Kong honestly felt like another world, and visiting it I felt I saw a completely different side to China.

They say ‘1 country, 2 systems’. On the day of my arrival, an online questionnaire had been published in the paper stating 92% of residents wanted to go back to British rule. Basically, it was a colony of Britain  but we gave it back to China in 1997 on the premise that no rules would be instated for the first fifty years. 2047 is fast approaching for a lot of the residents and some rules have already been on the sly instated for instance the school curriculum now puts a greater influence in learning Mandurin over English (Cantonese being their first language).

In any case, I hope for the children’s sake they don’t change their uniforms. While my students in Shanghai wear tracksuits which are stuck in the 90’s, the HK students were prepping the white shirt, school tie, grey trousers look. You really don’t appreciate our British style sometimes.

A list, a list, a list. I love lists and for Hong Kong it will be the top 5 fun things I did. As after all, it was a fun few days.

5. Raced up the mountain

Freddy Harris of Derwent Rugby fame kindly put me up in his Dad’s slick apartment. It was at the end of a 800 metre long elevator journey that took you from Downtown to what was called the Mid Levels.

At the end of each night, already rather sweaty from the night’s frivolities we would work our way up the hill. It often ended up in a race. Fun, fun, fun for some at least.

4. Gambling in Macau

Saying the country ‘Macau’ in mainland China you almost get a snigger following it. In China’s point of view, this ‘administrative region’ has the sole purpose of acting as a place for Chinese people to gamble AND BOY DO THEY.

A few facts about Macau. Macau smashes Las Vegas incasino revenue. Apparently 5 times more money is passed over the table than in Las Vegas. One of the main casino’s that greets you on the harbour, Sands, recouped its $ 235 million construction costs in only a year.

Every game for me was a high stake game.  Locals who didn’t even look that wealthy were throwing down hundreds like they were pennies.

Macau's famous egg tart

I really didn’t think in my financial state should have played, but in the spirit of Macau I got involved. After winning $100 HKD on roulette, I entered a Blackjack table, won another $400 HKD and pulled out while ahead, pretty happy. Freddy braved it for longer and his successes drew the attention of the old Chinese women slumped around him. As he kept winning the ladies would back him with more and more chips. He came out with a healthy profit. But the curse of the casino is that, you can always win more, and despite our successes we felt that way.

3. Model night in Lan Kwai Fong

Before Macau we had had a few nights in Hong Kong. The first night was a good one. It was the social start of the Rugby 7’s week-end and party people headed to a great little district called Lan Kwai Fong. There was bar after bar with the occasional kebab house. Entrance fees would be introduced the following day, so for this night we browsed lots of different places. From dark dingy local places, to mass singing of Daydream Believer in a Western bar, to bevving up in ‘Club’ 7/11, we eventually found our way to this club down a set of stairs.

The girls in here my goodness me, drink prices my goodness me. Every second girl was Russian and it was here where you saw first hand the spending of the filthy rich as champagne was brought pretty much continuously to this one table laden with beautiful looking women.

We did consider spending our casino winnings on champagne but decided against it.

2. Boat Party

The Shanghai Hairy Crabs for all their silky backs moves and rampaging pack are a social rugby team. This was exemplified by Fridays boat cruise.

The weather was cool and sunny. There were 30-40 guys and some girlfriends who took to the Hong Kong harbour in a boat laden with alcohol and barbequed meat.  The boat took us out next to this beach island in Hong Kong’s surrounding archipelago. This day was never going to be a bad one, dived, drank, ate all day and felt like T-Pain through out.

1. South Stand

The focus point of the whole week-end was the Hong Kong Sevens Rugby tournament, or more specifically the Saturday of it, in the South Stand. It really was the place to be at that moment.  Why? Because it was basically a giant party through out the day.

Rugby tournament, I’m not so sure, it was practically a drinking one from grabbing your seats at 9 am to finally stumbling your way home at around 7.

Everyone dressed up in fancy dress. Lance Armstrong cyclists was a popular theme, but there were flip flops, cavemen, clowns, domino’s, Christ name anything and there was probably one of them.

My lion one-sie that I wore for the occasion ended up drenched, in booze that had amounted from long arming one to many beers, and sweat, as it was a hot work in the sun all day.

My favourite moments were surfing on the chairs as Beach Boys played in the half way interval and then being involved in the largest Harlem shake to date. Serious fun.

I’ve never been anywhere really quite like Hong Kong. The opportunities are endless. It is a pleasant city and the people who live there know it. If you dream of a city, it will be probably quite similar to Hong Kong.