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Published: March 1st 2008
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I am sitting in the staff room of the school waiting for other teachers to arrive and the day to begin. Hence my first ability to use the internet for any period of time! There is wireless in all the staffrooms of the school. So here's a little update for now. I'll put up some pics as soon as I get a chance and have time to organize a bit more..Needless to say we have been busy here. And as I say below, there is next to no English in this area at all. It is the real China!! We have already learned some Mandarin...for survival purposes. Talk about immersion!! For some reason, I can't access my blog that I started before I left...maybe they don't like the title chinacanuck..I have no idea. Internet works in mysterious ways here. Anyway, I have found this site and will try to add some news every day or so once we are settled in.
The first couple of days in China have been eventful. The principal of the school, Craig, and his wife, Wendy, picked us up at the airport in Wuhan Friday evening and drove us to our new apartment.
It is larger and more modern than the one we left in Princeton. The furniture that comes with it is much better than what we sold before we left Canada! It is located in a huge gated community of apartment buildings that are all five or six stories high. The other teachers live in the same area but are spread out throughout the community. After we had moved our stuff up four flights of stairs into our apartment, we were beered and dined at a restaurant at the end of the block from where we live. Let's just say that the food has been incredible since we first stepped onto JAL Airlines. We were treated to amazing meals on the plane and seemed to have been eating nonstop since we left home and have yet to cook a meal!
We did not see another foreigner once we left Japan and flew on to Qingdao, China where we caught our connecting flight to Wuhan after a three hour layover. We were the only westerners in the Qingdao airport. I have to admit I have never been in this situation where English suddenly disappears never to be seen or
heard again! On the flight from Qingdao to Wuhan we sat beside a young Chinese architect who spoke very little English but nevertheless we managed to communicate and carry on a conversation. He was very friendly and explained that his office was in Qingdao but his job took him to various places.
The people we have run into have been extremely friendly and courteous despite the fact that we don't understand a word the other is saying. We managed to pick up a few items at the local grocery store by a combination of guessing and looking at the pictures on the boxes! Some multinational items are familiar by the color and brands but they are few and far between. The city of Wuhan is actually a combination of three cities; Wu Chang, Han Yang, and Han Kou. So far we have only seen parts of Wu Chang which is where our apartment and school is located. On Saturday morning, we ran into a teacher in a shop nearby who is now fluent enough in Mandarin after five years in China, that she got the local clerk to write out instructions on a little piece of cardboard
for us to give to the taxi driver to say we wanted to go to Carrefour, a large brand new western style shopping mall, to start picking up stuff we needed. It is a ten or fifteen minute trip and costs about $2 by cab. After the first trip, we decided that driving here is out of the question for now!
Of course, this first shopping trip was an event. Despite the fact that English is not spoken or understood by anybody, a couple of female clerks laughed along with us as we attempted to find stuff and communicate using our trusty little Mandarin-English dictionary that has become a godsend everywhere we go, and lots of hand gestures. They went out of their way to help us find the bedding we needed with lots of chuckles along the way. On our second venture to the mall today, we were standing looking blankly at a wall lined with what we knew was cleaning products but had no idea what was what. Again, a woman came along and started pointing and handing us stuff once she realized what we were looking for. With lots of sign language and nods
we managed to get what we needed. I was very impressed today since I was able to tell the taxi driver how to get us back home without using our little instruction card! I guess I am finally pronouncing the location properly.
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