Our First Week in China

After a long and eventful trip from Peace River to Vancouver (via Valemont, Whistler, Parksville and Shawnigan Lake) we finally departed on Tuesday, August 18. along with about 20 eager and fresh faced teachers on Japan AirLines. With the time change, we arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon. We had a great overnight in Narita, a suburb of Tokyo where we wandered the streets and found an amazing temple (which we here are as plentiful as castles in Europe). But since it was our first, we were pretty impressed.

The next day we continued to Dalian where we were met by eager and friendly staff from Maple Leaf Schools. There was a truck that loaded our luggage and a bus for the people. We stopped at the'Metro' - a large Costco type of store in order to give people the opportunity to shop and shop we did. The hour trip to the school was interesting and overflowing with pillows, printers, ironing boards, and dozens of boxes and bags in the aisles and on laps. The apartments come with furniture, but nothing else so we are still trying to get supplied.

The town we are is called Jinshitan and it is very loosely connected to Dalian - about a one hour train ride. There are several other towns/cities in between the two - the largest which is called Kaifaju. Many teachers from the school live in Kaifaju because there are more facilites, shopping, restaurants, etc. The Jinshitan areas was a series of small fishing village, but becuse it is in the 'Restoration Zone', most of the area has been levelled and new apartments, hotels and businesses put up. Very sad for the local people. Many of the newbuildings are empty though, so it is quite unusual looking. This area is called the Jinshitan National Holiday Park, so many people own places and only come for a weekor so, but a lot seems to be overbuilding. The whole place will be different in a year. There is a large beach area where people swim and every night there is a large fireworks display from the amusement park nearby.


We have enjoyed most 'the village' where the local people live. There are many small shops that you can get anything you need in from hair cuts and dry cleaning to travel plans and massages ( a favourite of the women teachers). In the evening everyone eats outdoors using large barbeque type drums - food on sticks. We had the pleasure one evening on a walk to meet the driver of the buswho had taken us to Dalian that day. He invited us to sit and eat with them. Through a lot of pointing and laughing, we managed to teach each other a few words of Mandarin and English.

Gail's job has started out great. It involves working in the ESL department with a cohort of 3 other Canadians. Besides teaching some writing classes, the main responsibility is to give support to the Chinese ESL teachers and help them with integrating more 'Western' techinques into their teaching. There are about 20 ESl teachers for about 300 students (numbers are low this year).It has been great working with the Chinese teachers - they are so helpful and friendly. One fellow (Ryan) is going to help Rick buy a cell phone tomorrow. Without mandarin, it can be a duanting task to buy anything that involves technical terms.

RIck has finallly had a chance to meet with his team and determine his role and responsibilites as System Curriculum Coordinator. He will be visiting the other Maple Leaf Schools in China which will be another new adventure.

The main issue now is the that in less that a week, 1200 girls will arrive expecting dorms and class and they are not ready yet. Staff cannot get into the building to do any prep because it is still l under construction! The staff apartments are not finished yet, so any teacher that was scheduled to live in the new apartments are living in a hotel. Not ideal way to start school. The whole thing is a scramble, but construction is happening 24 hours a day, so everyone is keeping their fingers crossed!

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