Blogs from Zhejiang, China, Asia
May 24th 2012
Yes, you read the blog title correctly and no I didn't spell it wrong according to Student A. I really have enjoyed teaching this term and the following email conversations make me laugh, yet said for the education system in China for teaching English. This is a freshman at our school who has studied English for a minimum of seven years. Student: Dear Elyse, I want to make sure our English topic to do in the next week 2 ? Or Under the next week?Thank you Student A My response: Next week you can tell me your English topic if you already know what you want to talk about. I will not require the topic due until June 5th as many students were gone last night from class and I have no way to notify all ... read more
May 23rd 2012
Tuesday night, we all decided to head down to West Lake. About 10 of us took taxis down to West Lake to walk around and enjoy the lake at night. The lights of the buildings reflecting off the lake was beautiful. In addition to the scenery of the lake, they had a water show in the lake. It was so cool to watch. They had it choreographed out to 3 different songs. The first two songs were Chinese songs, but the third was "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic, which made all of us laugh that Titanic was so popular that they were even using the music from it over here. It made me think back to when Breanna and I went to see Titanic 3D in Ames at school and almost the entire theater ... read more
May 21st 2012
Today was pretty much business as usual, except for the fact that we had a birthday today! A few people went out to one of the cake shops near the school and bought a really nice birthday cake and we had a nice birthday celebration for him. In Chinese culture, birthdays are celebrated by eating noodles so for dinner we went to a place that served noodles (which I was very happy with). You get the long noodles to symbolize longevity of life. After dinner, we all came back and ate cake to celebrate his birthday and watched a movie. Since we are studying in China (and we all have a secret love of Disney movies), we decided that Mulan was quite an appropriate movie. We all hung out and had fun while trying not to ... read more
May 20th 2012
Well this weekend was a lot of fun! One of the Chinese students lives about an hour and a half away in Shaoxing, and her family invited us out to their house for the weekend. They sent a bus out to the university to pick us up and drive us out there, as well as drive us around for the weekend. We left Saturday morning around 9 o'clock and got there at about 10:30. Her family then took us to a really really fancy and expensive restaurant before paying for admission to a mountain full of waterfalls and trees. It was gorgeous. We spend almost all day there, and after that we went back to the hotel for about an hour before dinner. For dinner we went to another really fancy place where we all felt ... read more
May 18th 2012
Today we all woke up very early, (about 4:00 am here) and treked out to watch the sunrise over the mountains. We climbed up to the top of one of the mountains that is nearby the school and watched the sun over the horizon. It was very cloudy today and so it was hard to see and take pictures of, but it was still an absolutely beautiful sight! We're hopefuly gonna go up again another time when it's not so cloudy out, but it made us all really tired so we'll have to see when that happens.... read more
May 17th 2012
Well we finally got internet here at Zhejiang University. The problem is that many of the websites are blocked. After many proxy tries and fails, I was told that this website works in China, and so far it seems to work so thats good. Friday – We got to China around 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday and then took the 3 hour bus ride from Shanghai into Hangzhou. We arrived here after a long traffic filled ride and went to eat dinner pretty soon after getting our luggage into our dorms. After dinner that night, w were all exhausted because we hasn’t really slept much on the plane ride and went to bed around 8 or 9 Saturday – Professor Hong grew up in Hangzhou and his family still lives in this area, so he ... read more
May 3rd 2012
What better way than to make up a class (since we took off a week of school to go to Bali) than watch a movie and eat birthday cake? The students loved it off course and so did Pete & I. There were a few little hitches trying to get the cake and then serve it but it all worked out in the end. That evening I had invited friends from different parts of my "Chinese" life: foreign teachers from HDU, teachers from WXP & HDU and trainees from FESCO (my part time job.) We met at Burton Cafe and had a wonderful 3 hours of eating, drinking and enjoying conversation and everyone meeting new people. I even gave a birthday quiz, the teacher in me, since everyone at the party knew me for different periods ... read more
April 30th 2012
Since our return to China in September 2011 I have had to visit the Doctor more than I ever have in the past. The good thing is that medical costs are very cheap compared to the US. The downside is...well there are many downsides to the health care in China and that is probably why it is ranked 147th in the world. For one, many things are lost in translation when it comes to medical terms, symptoms and diagnosis. Second, there is no such thing as privacy in a Chinese clinic or hospital. We have found an amazing International Clinic in the East part of Hangzhou at Sir Run Run Shaw, but we live in the West part of this "small Chinese city". When I tell Chinese people this is a big city they disagree, but ... read more
April 30th 2012
There are many reasons why I LOATHE Chinese Banks and this weekend's events put me over the edge. So I had to share with all of you the many reasons why they make me cringe. All ICBC banks say English Services on the outside of each location but I haven't been in a SINGLE location that actually speaks English If you make one single mistake on a form you must start over Must do a check mark on the forms, X's not allowed (start over) Some forms have Chinese & English but others have Chinese Only...makes it difficult for those who can't read along with no English speaking employees to assist I couldn't take the money exchange form home to have a teacher translate for me so when I returned the form was complete....that would just ... read more
April 25th 2012
Wednesday, we participated in the International Day sponosored by the local government. There were 7 large tourist buses for Foreign guests to enjoy the sites around Hangzhou. We had an amazing time at the events we attended and even met a few new cool people that live here in Hangzhou. The day started at Qianwang Temple on West Lake with a display of many Chinese traditions and an "Official Opening Ceremony" with speeches from many high leveled government employees. The emcee was an American professor who teaches at Zhejiang University and is fluent in Chinese, he spoke in Chinese while the Chinese man translated it to English. Quite strange but that is very "China". All of the speeches given by the Party Members were in Chinese and translated to English for all 210 foreign guests (that ... read more
