48. Oldies and Haircuts

Most often days spent in China you see quite peculiar sights. Members of the older generation provide me with most of them. Their quest for good health in old age is admirable but also frankly quite comical.

In broad daylight, you will see grand dads and grandmums walking down the street clapping their hands rhythmically with their step or swinging their arms around beating their chest and back (no word of a lie). I’m laughing as I write this imagining my grandparents doing this down the Wiltshire High Streets. They often produce quite a beat which allows you to beatbox no trouble.

Other recreational activities for the old from what I have noticed consist of napping in front of the sofa (quite common there), picking up their grandchildren from school (necessity for a functional family) and evening group dances.

The latter is quite a thing to behold. A real Only in China thing. This nightly ritual probably starts with a few grannies throwing some shapes to the music, but is soon joined by as many grannies and the odd grandpa or out of tune Westerner. The participants always seem to know the step routine and there is barely much of a mutter through out the dances.

The silence of course changed when Tom and I got involved a few weeks back. There was mild laughter at our dance inability, then there was a bit of a roar when Tom took his shoes off for better agility and then people went skitz when I decided a kick in the backside of one's brother should be the final piece of that particular routine.

One further point of praise is the oldies choice of fashion. Most of the time its standard wear, but then you get the oldies with possibly no perception of what a New York Yankees cap entails, or a Playboy jacket or even a Adidas Impossible Is Nothing T-Shirt gets me.

Honestly I love the oldies here. They don’t give a monkey. I like their lifestyle that is probably not full of riches as I’m guessing they missed out on the Shanghai boom. But going from my privates grandparents they always seem happy!

A way to distinguish old people other than their crazy walking or mad dress sense is their grey hair colour which sticks out on a sea of black tops!

Haircuts are ridiculously cheap out here. Its criminal really that I’ve only had three since arriving. Probably for the mixed bag I’ve received, from an included back massage, to what was essentially a bowl, to my latest ‘professional salon’ do for what was £4.

Hairstyles are really what Chinese people use to distinguish themselves if that is what they crave. Not many people will dye as it usually goes ginger. Most of the people who decide to style their hair are usually young cool male types, the pretty girls or the middle aged woman who are clearly having a mid life crisis!

One style that you don’t really see that much of is the schoolboy classic, the Quiff. I think because Chinese people have quite a lot of forehead. Their hair must start a few centrimetres back from my set of locks. The hot weather has ended up making my hair look like a steep cliff on my head and it without doubt gets a few students in a bit of a stitch as they try to stifle their need to tell me of my hair.

Kid: Teacher, teacher your hair is so.....

Me: Good?

Kid: <laughter>

I also would like to add for the lads that a Chinese girl who cuts her hair short raises her hot rating by a good two bars. FACT!

I’m feeling reflective as I’m on the train back from my penultimate lesson with Katy. My crazy, tree climbing 7 year old private. I won’t miss the long one hour commute it took to reach her humble abode, but I will her family who have been truly accommodating and even took me out for pizza last Friday.

Having said that Tom is back from his travels on Sunday so I now find myself with 8 more precious free hours to spend with Big T next week.

I imagine some of those will be spent him telling me about his trip around China. I have to say it makes me green with envy listening to my brothers story as he annihilates every part of this country.

But then again no one deserves it more and I am mighty proud of my little bro!

47. Movie Makers

Wow. Iron Man 3. Its really been received here in China like no other film since moving here. Children in my classes pick Iron Man as their team name, draw pictures of him and ask if we can watch the DVD, that is already out thanks to those nifty pirates.

Succumbing to advertisement and boredom, I went to watch it last week. On the most part it was decent. But  quite extraordinarily near the end of the film there were two stupendously irrelevant scenes that consist of quite simply Chinese actors. Its totally ridiculous. I felt cheated to be honest. The dialogue between the characters was all in Chinese as they act out a needless scene.

Interesting article here that talks about this buttering up of China by Hollywood.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jordanzakarin/how-hollywoods-obsession-with-china-may-change-movies-foreve

Me I just feel Chinese aren’t surely that gullible to go to a movie because of one irrelevant scene. But judging by the euphoria maybe they are.

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Two other films watched recently had a bit of an affect me also. 

First was the Jack Black hit School of Rock, a Chinese friend came round to watch it with me. It was just as funny as I remember it. Then it got to a scene with the Chinese kid telling Mr Schneebly that ‘He wasn’t cool’ and has no friends, added to this he plays the keyboard in the band.

All a little stereotypical wouldn’t you say. It reminded me of mine own perception of Chinese folk before coming out here. I felt embarrassed after because Chinese people do have dreams to visit England, and to see them portrayed in this light is completely disheartening.

Finally got round to watch One Flew Over A Cuckoo’s Nest and it rustled my feathers a little also. The cow Nurse Ratched treats the mental patients terribly. That same day I’d been in a class and a student was having trouble with the project I’d assigned when I went over to help the teacher came over and warned me that the kid was mentally disabled and he wasn’t worth my bother. I was only covering in this school so it was my only meeting. The teachers innocuous comment cheesed me off a little especially after the two summers I'd spent with Summit Camp teaching mentally challenged kids.

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Here was a child getting left behind. Talking to a student recently I asked them about the quantity of their homework. He said that you can choose not to do it but the teacher will treat you as a ghost by not considering you in class anymore.

There is a great fear amongst the students of failure. As mentioned in a previous blog, students will go to long lengths to be ready for GaoKao the final examination. I would really love to know the biggest factor to where there motivation is coming from. From themselves (INTRINSIC), their parents(EXTRINSIC) or society?

I believe that the Chinese education scheme as much as it has its faults. Lack of freetime, creativity and fairly narrow. The children are pushed to the limit and work hard but quite simply there is no other choice.

I honestly think I would have benefited in a Chinese education. I’m so indecisive most the time and I think being overloaded with work leads you to prioritise it.

Chinese educational methods are questionable, but I think also admirable.

46. TRI A new sport

A Far Cry from home

Tom after a week in Shanghai decided to head up to Beijing on a little adventure, with flatmate Sean also going on his travels to Thailand, I for the first time had the flat all to myself. After a week of late nights and early mornings I was exhausted.

However instead of sleep, approximately 12 hours of uninterrupted Far Cry 3 on the XBOX commenced.

Tom had left around 7pm on the Thursday I awoke from my island, stealth work slumber around 3pm on the Friday and met up with Darren to hand over some flashcards.

Darren’s suggestion

Over at Darren’s he suggested a game of tennis after each of our privates. I like tennis and  there was a court out in the garden part that looked up on the apartment blocks surrounding it.

Four hours later we were ready to play. In the mean time we'd both had private classes, bought rackets, waited for floodlights to come on and finally had told this incredibly hungry hooker who hung by the court that we had no proverbial food to give. She was strangely insistent though.

It was a magnificent arena to play. The apartments produced a perfect backdrop and allowed our cries to be echoed into the night air.

However, the court was clearly susceptible to rain, and as this un-seasonal weather descended the court soon turned into a muddy ice rink.

Alas, we played on with our TESCO’s finest rackets and balls and played out a set. A 6-2 score line proving that I still had it.

TRI this game out

I’ve been brought up on sport. England after all is the birthplace of most of the popular worldwide games nowadays.

However today I was to play a game that had a following of nationalities all around the world and was started up here in Shanghai.

The game is called TRI. It claims to be the first sport where three teams contest against each other at the same time on the same pitch.

The pitch itself is ring donut shaped. The aim of the game is to defend your lacrosse like net from attackers on either team whilst score in either of the other teams goals.

 The ball which you play with is the most bizarre. It’s an elongated American football pretty much. Its impossible to spin pass it. An Aussie Rules direct pass is the way to go and to shoot you toss the ball from behind your head.

The goal itself is 5 metres outside this pitch and you must throw the ball into it without going out of play. You are allowed to jump and throw it in mid air though.

Here they are on Facebook if you want to take a look

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-TRI-Federation/311913588822343?fref=ts

Jeremiah, who is spearheading the marketing, branding as well as production of equipment, invited me down. He wasn’t there when I arrived at the training ground, but I got to know a few of the people. I’ve got to say it was a bit of a motley crew with an array of different sizes and nationalities.

When the game started, which was basically a race into the centre circle, we only had 9 overall players (3 on each team). My first contact was to my knee as a Samoan at full speed ran into me with the ball. I’m not sure who came off worse but I was struggling. 

I  did not have a great first third partly due to my knee, unused to this new game and the hours of Far Cry had hampered my fitness. However we were winning! Thanks mainly to this English dude who despite his size was an absolute warrior. The scoring system is basically if you score you get +1 if you concede you get –1. The scores were something like +2, +1, -3.

In the second third, Jeremiah, who had arrived now, recruited some Chinese folk. The squads were now all full strength, 5 a side.

We had a strong third, keeping our lead and despite feeling absolutely exhausted, I was starting to get the hang of it. We led +2, -1, -1.

However in the break, an alliance was formed between the other two teams. How sick is that! However this meant that we now faced all 8 coming at our net. We had to hold on to possession and win possession by kicking the ball out and thus getting the kick off. However this meant that we would lose a player as 1 had to hold the ball as another kicked.

By the end of the game , the Samoan team had come back into it and had tied the match +1, +1, -2. We could have gone to a golden goal but instead went to a shootout.

This involved throwing the ball into the net from about 15 metres away. 1-1 after the first round, I was guilty of missing my one. However it came round to me on the sudden death second run through, and in true beginners luck style I struck the back of the net.

Honestly this game was quality. It has parallels with an array of sports, like rugby, basketball, Aussie rules, American football. It was no doubt physical but good camaraderie was shown by all players in this burgeoning sport.

The crazy thing is that there is a World Finals held on June 10^th consisting of 9 nations.

Pumped already!

45. Tom arriving into Shanghai

I am sitting, typing away here on the 91^st floor of the Financial World Trade Center. Perhaps to no great surprise I’m in a bar, incidentally the highest bar in the world.

Naturally I feel rather good about myself, mainly as I trekked across town to catch the Happy Hour and arrived here four minutes before its close.

 It’s been an eventful fortnight. Little brother Tom arrived and has been keen for a night out at any occasion possible.  In fact I’m waiting for him now to arrive, his enthusiasm towards Shanghai has been a welcome tonic from my Scrooge Like Self.

Park Life

It rains now. Restricting one from what is a spectacular view from this bar. But overall the sun has been out removing the gloominess of morning commutes. 

The warm weather coincided with some national holidays. This allowed some people to get together and head to the park.

Shanghai is not famed for its parks and general free space unlike the capital, Beijing. This being said the previous week Sean and I had found Gongqing Park and it honestly blew me away.

As well as showcasing180 acres of beautiful garden scenery, the park was kind of like a 90’s theme park. You were able to go on a ride in the park, any ride for about £1. Activities ranged from horseriding, to ferris wheels, to log flumes, to clay pigeon shooting, to big obstacle courses across swamps. My favourite activity was go karting where you paid for each lap. But the award for most unnecessary splendour was the rollercoaster. The amazing thing was that we didn’t queue up and were the only ones riding this colossal thing. The ride had a long spiral and 2 loop the loops, not to bad.

The national holiday the following week got 10 of us together including the newly arrived Tom at Gucun Park. Again, I left impressed. We had a decent BBQ, all the meat and other BBQ accessories were provided at an in-park shop.  It was convenient and affordable. A hallmark of Shanghai.

Days out with Tom

This should really be titled Nights Out Tom but I don’t want to turn this into a TrueLad post.

Had some epic days out though. Walking from Longhua Temple across the river to the Expo 2010 site where we found a great BMW showroom and a great public toilet.

We ventured around the Shanghai Zoo. It was pretty impressive how many animals were there. I’d heard some pretty bad reviews of it, possibly down to the Chinese kids or adults who would bang on the glass to try and get a response from the usually docile animal.

Summer Plans

To my relief, my bosses, Kevin and Wella, gave me the go ahead for my adventures this summer.

The plan is to finish teaching 14 June which coincides with the End of the School calendr year and head to Kathmandu, Nepal to meet up with my Dad and again with Tom.I’ve got 3 and a bit weeks off for that. I’m hoping to visit Tibet and possibly X’ian after the trek with the family in the Himalayas.

I will be back in Shanghai for July. But in August I will be setting off again on an already booked flight to Australia to see some Summit Camp friends and by that point escape the heat of the Shanghai summer.

So it is no surprise then that I’m feeling pretty good.

Gucun Park

Gongqing Park Ride!

T Wessely here

Me with a Panda

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.