Advertisement
Published: September 10th 2007
karaoke room
not so great pic of the karaoke room, lol.Wow, so our internet really isn't working at all now and a million things have happened in the last few days that wanted to write about..and of course can't remember at now, lol..but I'll try. Well, on Friday after eating dinner at "our" restaurant where we ate either lunch or dinner each day last week, and hanging out here, at the internet cafe for awhile..we went out to find the bar where all the foreigners hangout. With the help of facebook (some guy saw that I was coming to teach here and wrote to me that that where they usually hangout) and the fact that their one of the only signs in english...we found it. A pretty tiny bar full of of random foreigners, lol. Steve asked this English guy if he was a teacher and it ends up that he is, and he's already been living in this city for a year which is cool. He works at a place that just has English classes for people to take, but he said that he knows the group of Amerians that taught at our school last year through CIEE. He introduced us to some other people there, almost all of whom
are here for business. Lots of germans, and a Brazilian guy that we talked to for a while. there were also a few drunk Chinese teachers who we could barely understand but were trying to talk to us so that was pretty funny. We stayed there basically all night and then spent most of Saturday laying around the apt.
Saturday night, well actually at 5:15pm, lol..we went to the teacher's banquet on the top floor of the cafeteria at our school which is basically like a restaurant. All the teachers were there and the principal talked for a little and then they brought out food for about an hour straight, lol. Very traditional Chinese food though, including stomach, liver, every size fish you can imagine, chicken feet, breaded whole crabs that were impossible to eat with chopsticks, duck tongue, and a million other strange things. I passed on the liver, stomach, and chicken feet, even though I've probably eaten the first 2 at some point without knowing it, lol..but we all agreed to taste the duck tongue after Mickey (the Chinese guy that took us to the doctor) told us that its a specialty here, and that its really
expensie and only eaten for special occasions. So yes, I did eat duck tongue, lol..pretty gross still to think about but it actually didn't taste bad, and the texture wasn't very tongue-like either, lol. During the dinner teachers went from table to table toasting everyone, which was pretty funny cause you have to stand here when you toast so we were basically up and down the whole meal..then at 6:45 everyone stood up left. it was the weirdest thing, lol..only here would a dinner be called for 5:15-6:45 and actually be at that time exactly.
The rest of the night just got weirder though, lol. On our way back to the apt. some of the school administrators & teachers motioned for us to get in a car and come with them somewhere. We had no idea where we were going, and the driver was totally drunk from all of those toasts but we didn't really have a choice so we went. Luckily it was only a 2 min car ride (but i still sat in the front seat ready to grab the wheel if I had too, lol). We got to this building and went in still no
idea where we were. It seemed kind of like a movie theater until we went upstairs and there were hallways with rooms numbered (H25, H26, etc.) and flat screen tv's on the walls playing music videos. They took us to a room and the guy that had drove us left. It was soo random, a small room with 2 sofas, a big tv, 2 microphones, and a karaoke song machine thing..barely any room to even stand. Then the Chinese teachers came and moved to a slightly bigger room..still pretty tight though. The guys that work there started bringing tea, beer, sunflower seeds, watermelon, and tomatoes and people started picking songs. There were some songs in English including Stevie Wonder, YMCA, and Backstreet Boys, but most were slow Chinese songs. Oh, and I forgot to mention there were 2 tambourines and 2 maracas in the room also, lol. We stayed there for 4 hours!! from 7-11pm we sat around and took turns singing, LOL it was hilarious..and definitely an authentic Chinese experience, lol.
Sunday (yesterday) I came here in the morning and then decided to try to buy a printer since I really need to have visuals being that many
of my students don't understand a word I'm saying, lol. Candice was trying to call people, and Steve and Drew had already gone out out when I got back so I went on my first adventure alone. I had a student ask the guard at school to write down the name of the school in Chinese for me so I would be able to show a cab driver to back. Then I took a cab to the RT-Mart (or Bah ren fa, in Chinese). I walked around a bit and took some videos and pics as everyone stared at me so you can see what it looks like here. I then went to the store and with the help of my phrase book was able to buy a printer and get a battery for my watch. On the way out I noticed that people were giving there reciepts in and getting prizes back..there's always a big crowd there but we never stopped to figure it out. I waited or awhile and when it was my turn the lady just said no, lol..so i left. When I went to install the printer program it said that it was too old and
walking street
lots of random stores, clothes, food, books, cellphones, and a kind of strane department store couldn't work for windows vista..so I asked Angela (did I mention that there's a Chinese English teach named Angela that lives in my building? well there is, lol) to help me install it on the comuter that they gave us which is in Chinese. She said that the prizes are probably if you have a membership card so we'll have to get them next time. The printer worked but on the computer but then Drew said that I should be able to just plug it in..so I did and it worked after all that! lol
Hmmm..so many things to tell about i could probably keep writing for hours but just quickly:
-We discovered 2 more places to eat across the street from us. One has actual chicken & fish sandwiches with ketchup and no bones, which is rare here. The other is this tiny little garage type place where we each got a big bowl of noodles and broth for $0.53 total!! thats for 3 people, lol..and we were so full, lol. (definitely going there for lunch a lot, lol)
-The tv shows are hilarous. I watched some show the other day where little kids, probably 10 yrs
old, were making these crazy huge food sculptures..and of course it was a competition, lol.
-I'm doing stuff with family vocabulary this week, which so far is going pretty well. I broke them up into groups which seems to help control them a little, and I showed them pics of everyone and taught them Abba, Bubbie, and Zaida which was funny. It's still pretty hard cause they don't stop talking and I have no idea what their talking about, lol. I'm going to bring my camera with me tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to take some pics of my cute kids! One of them gave me an envelope with my name on it when I walked into the room today, and it was a card for teacher's day..lol, really cute. I've gotten some other drawings and a paper crane so I'm going to try to find a bulletin board to put up in my apt.
-Today I went on an adventure to the bank which was pretty crazy. Well, I was able to figure out where it was and what to do, but it was soo crowded and I had to wait 45 min there. Oh and
walking street
not really sure what was going on here, some kind of promotional display..maybe of makeup or something..lol then ont he way out...they were closed so they lock the main doors and you have to fit through this tiny crack, lol..i barely made it, lol.
-Last, we've talked to some people about getting some basic Chinese lessons so hopefully that'll work out. I had to go to Mickey's office for a sec. today and discovered this whole other part of the school where kids who are studying to pass a test to go to college in Canada are. They never saw me before so were all crowding around me and saying hello, and asking if I was their teacher. I also found out out that Angela works with them though, so I think I'm going to ask her if she could help me get a group of them together who want to practice their English with me, and who will help me with some Chinese. Cause it would also be nice to be able to actually talk to some of the students in school, since it takes a lot of of creaivity and effort just to ask my kids what subject they have next or something like that.
k, well thats the latest update from Zhanjiagang
walking street
flowers and a recycling thing (john-ja-gong)
check out these pics of the walking street, and of my cab ride 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.192s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 10; qc: 56; dbt: 0.1079s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
mom
non-member comment
great blogging!
Thanks for all the info, sounds great. we're so excited to read every detail!! You're a globetrekker! We love you