Our first two weeks at the school.

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The school had allocated a teacher to act as our support teacher and translator. His Chinese name translates to Champion and I had already spoken to him via phone from Australia. He is a Grade 3 English teacher, 33 years old, married with a young daughter. Champion collected us in Wuhan and after packing all all suitcases into the minibus we left the city late in the afternoon and began the two hour drive to Guangshui, north of Wuhan and close to the border of the neighbouring province of Henan. We were very surprised at the high standard of the highway but were told that it was the main highway to Beijing. The four lanes did not however have a lot of traffic on them. Champion said that there were still not a lot of privately owned cars in the rural areas of China - people just couldn't afford them but the highways have been built with the future in mind. During the trip we passed through two toll booths, both time paying 40 yuan (about AUD $7).

We turned off the main highway, half an hour before arriving in Guangshui. This road was much smaller and we passed through a lot of smaller villages. All the houses were decorated with red banners on either side of the doors - they were decorated in gold script and are hung outside homes as part of the New Year celebrations. We passed through a larger town and Champion told us it was called Guangshui Town as apposed to Guangshui City where we'll be living. Guangshui is a county within Hubei province. He told us that the railway station which we'll use to go to Wuhan is in Guangshui Town. By now it was getting quite dark and we were both starting to feel very apprehensive.

David, the previous Australian teacher at the school, had sent me a photo of the school so I knew that it was large but when we both saw it we were stunnned. It is 6 years old and built on the edge of the city and loomed in the distance after Champion pointed it out. One side of the school consists of six apartment blocks, each 6 stories high where the teachers live. On the other side are the accommadtion blocks for the 4,000 students. They are segragated blocks - there are two for the girls and three for the boys. The other block is the canteen area. The students sleep 16 (yes 16) to a small room. Some of the single junior teachers also have small single rooms in these blocks. Between these blocks are the school classrooms - one block for each grade so three in total plus a large administration block with computer rooms and science laboratories. All the blocks are 6 stories high and none have lifts. In China only buildings with more then 6 stories are legally required to have lifts. Behind the classrooms is a large canteen building and small stadium, plus a lot of outdoor basketball courts. The whole school is walled in with security guards on the front gate - not to keep us in but they certainly keep the students in!

We dragged our suitcases (all 30 kgs each) up six flights of dark, cement stairs to our apartment. Champion lives in an apartment below us on the 4th floor. We were really cold and just wanted to go to bed by this stage. The apartment was enormous - four bedrooms, a large lounge/dining room, kitchen and bathroom with western toilet. And bitterly cold inside! There is a balcony off the lounge as well. All cement walls and tiled floors. Champion turned the heating on but didn't know anything else about how it worked. As all the instructions and dials were in Chinese we had no idea how to adjust the settings etc. Champion also didn't know how to turn our hot water system on! We found out next day that none of the Chinese teachers have heating or private hot water systems in their apartments which explained why Champion was no help with either of ours. From Australia he had told us 'he' would cook vegetables for us when we arrived but it appeared that his wife was out so could not cook for us! He said that we must go to the supermarket to buy food. Ten minutes after we arrived we found ourselves out on the main road in front of the school catching a local minibus to the supermarket to buy some groceries. The school minibus had left to pick up the headmaster from a party! By that time I was definitely feeling shellshocked and really not taking much in. An hour later with a few groceries we climbed the stairs again, said 'Goodnight' to Champion and closed the door! Our new life had begun....

No hot water, no heating, and feeling frozen, tired and scared I dumped the groceries on the table, made up the bed and crawled under the doona to spend a very long night. Next morning nothing had changed - it was still bitterly cold; I was even more tired and all I wanted to do was go home! Jerry thankfully was in slightly better spirits. Hot water hadn't magically appeared overnight so there was still no way we were having showers. We decided to explore the town and go back to the supermarket so walked to the main gate to catch a bus. At least we knew the fare etc after the previous evenings sortie into the shops. We pay 1 yuan (15 cents) each way on the bus - the bus route finishes and starts at the school and travels along the main street of the city. We have since discovered from various days out exploring that the city is long and narrow and really is only the long main road with about a block of infrastucture on either side of the road. There is always a bus waiting when you leave the school - dozens of them go backwards and forwards - they are the main vehicles on the local roads. The main shopping area is 6 kilmomteres from the school along a very wide cement road.

We explored the supermarket and decided that we would probably have to live on bananas and eggs as we didn't recognise much else that was for sale! Arriving back at the school we were told that we would have to start teaching on Friday (it was now Wednesday) - previously we had thought that we wouldn't be teaching until the end of the month. By now I was having panic attacks and all I wanted to do was to go home. I was suffering from culture shock and it was very scary and most unexpected. The town was much as we had been expecting - we had certainly seen many similar during our travels - but all I could think about is "What have we done!" I found out later it hits most people who come to teach in China but at the time it was very frightening. I started packing and rang Champion and told him I was going home. He was very kind and asked me to stay just for another couple of days to see how I felt - and then invited us to his apartment for how first Chinese meal with his family. The family were very kind, though Champion was the only person who spoke English. We nibbled on a bit of food - they placed a plate of french fries next to me which was kind. Everybody was using chopsticks, taking food straight off serving plates to their mouths. Nobody had their own plate of food and they were quite impressed that we could use chopsticks.

Returning to our apartment salvation arrived in the form of a phone call from Australia. David, the previous teacher here, rang to see how we were coping. He gave instuctions as to how to operate the heating and the hot water system and also told us how to get an English movie channel on the television. Things were looking up! Hot water certainly improved the situation but it was a few more days before the heating really kicked in and the apartment started to feel comfortably warm. It had started snowing lightly outside again. I made a mental note to leave written insrutions for the next tennants! Champion arrived with a laptop computer for us. Later that day we had more phone calls from Australia and my feelings of being so isolated started settling down. It was great to have a computer with broadband access - at least now we knew what was happening around the world and we could email family and friends whenever we wanted.

The school are paying us each 4300 yuan a month (about Aud $690) to teach up to 20 45 minute oral English lesson a week. We teach between 8.30am ands 5pm weekdays only and am not expected to spend any other time outside of our lessons at the school. They provide us with a free fully furnished apartment and free spring water (even the locals don't drink the water) and cover all our electricity and gas bills. We only pay for our telephone account. The laptop and broadband internet, as well as the one cable tv channel is also provided by the school. They also will refund our return airfares to Whuhan, 50% of which will be paid to us shortly - the remainder we get just prior to leaving the country. We are also each paid 1100 yuan travel expenses twice yearly and will be paid half pay each for our two months of holidays in July and August, when we plan on travelling and seeing a bit more of the country. Our Chinese medical insurance is also paid by the school but of course we took out a much more comprehensive travel insurance policy before we left Australia.

We don't know what the local teachers earn but have been told that the farmers nearby earn about 300 yuan a month. We have been buying lots of bits and pieces to make our life a bit more comfortable since we arrived in Guangshui (hot water bottles high on the list!) and have been living on less then a 100 yuan a day. Everything is very cheap - both in price and quality! As foreigners working in China we can legally exchange for foreign currency up to 70% of our income before we go home - hopefully we'll have at least our air fare refund to bring home. We will be seeing as much of the country as we can whilst here and will be living it up one weekend a month in a 5 star hotel in Wuhan.

We are much more settled now - 5th March - and have finished two weeks of teaching which went very well. Future diary entries will describe the Chinese education system (which is very tough) and a little of our daily life.

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