I am alive!

I would like to apologize to all of my awaiting fans. I just finally got internet in my room on Thursday, and therefore was not able to post any updates before now. I don’t know if anyone is actually reading this, but I’ll go ahead and update anyway. At least I’ll read it... maybe.

So, as you have probably guessed by now, I arrived in China safe and sound. The flight wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated. I mean, it was still 25 hours of travel, but somewhere around the time when I was eating in- flight meals at 2 am and realizing that my entire 15 hour flight from LA to Beijing took place completely in the dark, time stopped making sense. We got into Beijing at 4am, lost everyone who’d been on our flight, and walked the entire length of the giant (and really quite beautiful) Beijing airport without seeing a single soul. This was quite odd. Really, the only miserable part of the trip was the 7 hour layover waiting for our flight to Zhengzhou. But I made it!

And now a bit about my accommodations. The school that I am working for has multiple campuses throughout the city. I am living and working at the Zhengzhou Foreign Language Middle School, which is located in downtown Zhengzhou. Three other foreign (i.e. American) teachers that live at this campus with me, while there are six foreign teachers located at the campus in the High Tech Development Zone. We each have our own apartments, which are nice, but feel a lot like dorms. The high tech campus has a much nicer campus. Though it's a trade off, as my apartment was equipped with a brand new computer and flat screen tv, so I can’t really complain. Unfortunately all the channels are in Chinese (shocking) and the internet has such heavy censorship that I can’t even actually access this blog without a little help. I also have a brand new washing machine, which I have yet to figure out how to work. My life would really be much easier if I could only speak and read Mandarin.

China is amusing in its dichotomy. My apartment has a brand new flat screen TV, but the plumbing in my kitchen is nothing but a plastic tube that stretches from underneath my sink to a hole the wall. It constantly falls out and dumps the kitchen waste water onto my floor. This is not my favorite thing. At least things are cheap. Dinner for 8-9 people generally runs around 115 RMB or so. This comes out to roughly $2 a person. These are not small meals either, usually we order about 5-6 dishes along with rice and noodles. Also, the food is awesome. My favorite is a delicious eggplant dish. I eat it a lot because so far it's the only food I know how to say. That and tofu. The food is nothing like Chinese food in the states, though you do get unexpected surprises like chicken heads or cake sprinkles on the top of your dish (though I’m pretty sure the sprinkles were a special add on because we were American).

I’ve only been here a week and I feel like I’ve got so much to say. I guess I’ll just touch on the major points. Point one, being a white person here is like being a celebrity. Maybe not in the best of ways. People openly stare, they point, they grab their children and shout, they try to touch you, they take your picture, but they do call you beautiful all of the time (and this is not creepy men but small children and women), which is really an esteem booster. But they are also quite blunt. Some of the other foreign teachers have told me that their students often ask them in class why they are fat, or if they have any plans to lose weight. Not so subtle, these Chinese.

Point two. The kids here work like crazy. Part of this is because my school is the top school in the province. It’s the school that all of the party members send their children to (hence, why they can afford to hire 10 foreign teachers from the United States). Anywho, the students start school at about 7 am, and generally have classes until about 7 at night. Though they do get a three hour lunch and mandatory siesta, which is nice. I was expecting to have class this week, but it turns out that my grade was sent off to military training this week, so I didn’t have to teach. Apparently this is common, and the children attend a boot-camp like training for a week at the beginning of the year to prepare them for the rigors of the school year ahead. Whatever, I got the week off.

Hmm, I have so much more to say, but I’ll spare you. Instead, I’ll leave you with this one last thought: ass-less chaps. People here do not use diapers for their young children. Instead, they put them in "split-pants" (pants that are split at the crotch, in case you didn't catch that) which, sorry to be crude, are nothing more than baby ass-less chaps. This way, when a baby or young child needs to potty, they will just go spread eagle in the middle of the sidewalk, and their attentive parent will lay some newspaper beneath them. They do this even for tiny infants, though I don’t understand how that could be effective. Needless to say, I’ve seen much more baby-butt than I’d ever imagined I’d see in just a week in China.

I hope everything is well at home. I am doing well. We’ve got some big plans for the weekend including my first KTV experience (karaoke) followed by a trip to a club called Baby Body (where I hear there are fire-breathers). Should be interesting...

Hello all, and welcome!

As you may have guessed from my most creative title, I am moving to China! Tomorrow.
For those of you who don't know, I'm going there to teach conversational English to 6-7th graders (I think) for ten months. And, in answer to the most common questions that arise when people first hear this information: no, I have never been to China before; no, I don't speak Mandarin Chinese or any Chinese dialect for that matter; no, I have no formal training as a teacher, no, I have no idea what I am doing, and yes, I realize that I just broke a number of rules of punctuation in that sentence, but I don't care.

I don't have much to say yet, but wanted to let you know it is here that I'll be posting updates of my trials and tribulations. I think this is better than attempting to send out mass emails to people who might not give a damn. So check back regularly, and hopefully I'll have something interesting to say to make it worth your while.

However, I hope to still hear from all of you, so be sure to email, write, call (once I figure out how to make that work) or whatever you prefer. I don't intend for this to be a substitute for that, I just figured this was the easiest way to keep people who are interested informed.

I guess that's about all I have to say. Tomorrow I start the 25 hour treck across the globe. Wish me luck.