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Published: September 24th 2014
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At work with my boss Lewis our Teacher Coordinator. Hello all,
I am very sorry that this has taken so long to write.
I have been very busy in China, and we are having a great time.
First I will explain a little of what our life is like here.
Well, we have our own apartment. It is pretty nice, and big with two bedrooms, a living rooms, an office, bathroom and kitchen. We are enjoying living on our own, and cooking meals sometimes and relaxing at home. We do have a little cockroach problem, but Alden has called a Vendetta against them and we have armed ourselves with Cockroach powder to put an end to them!
Working at our respective schools has been really great too. The York Community which includes 5 schools and 60 Foreign teachers is a really fun and social environment.
I work for a smaller school called Pingdong which is the newest school. We are only 5 foreign teachers, of which all of whom are from the UK except me. It makes for a fun atmosphere although I admit that at times I find the various accents hard to understand.
I enjoy all my classes, and
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My co-workers Ryan and Mik. to finally be teaching. I have four classes, 1 kinder who are very cute. Two juniors who are between 7-10 years old and one senior who are 11-14.
York has so many teaching materials, and great curriculum and books that make it easy to develop lesson plans and teach. I enjoy going to work, and I look forward to getting another class probably in October to have my teaching load up to 5 classes which I think is a nice amount.
Alden is at a bigger school classed Xi-hu, they have 17 teachers and it is the oldest York School. The atmosphere there is much busier than at Pingdong. Alden has five classes, and he is enjoying teaching as well.
We work on Wednesday and Thursday 4-9, Fridays 2-9, and Saturday and Sundays 8:30-5. As York is an extracurricular school students go to improve their English. The draw is that they will be taught by foreign teachers.
We have Mondays and Tuesdays off which is nice because we can actually go out shopping and do errands without having the big lines of the Chinese weekends.
The teaching development and support at York is great. And
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At the supermarket, where you can buy live fish, crabs, frogs, and turtles! as a bonus we go out with fellow teachers a couple times a week and have a lot of fun.
I will now explain a little about the culture we have experienced so far in Fuzhou.
As some of you know, I had some stomach issues when I first arrived in China. I was sick for a couple of days. I was taken to the clinic by one of our Admin people, and so I have firsthand experience of the Chinese medical system.
I was hooked up to an IV for the first time. Apparently this is standard procedure in China. I did feel load better afterwards because I was dehydrated from a night of puking, unable to keep down much of anything. After I was given pills to take twice a day.
Warm water is also a common remedy in China. Anyways, Chinese medicine worked because I felt better the next day.
Chinese people have interesting ideas on personal hygiene as well.
You can sometimes see babies shitting and peeing in the street because some Chinese people do not want their children to be sitting in their own urine and feces.
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Mooncakes for the Moon Festival. Also, the state of some of my student’s teeth are quite appalling. This is because they are baby teeth so some parents don’t care about taking care of them because they fall out anyway.
China is always interesting! J
Also, the stigma that Chinese people are polite is very wrong. The Chinese are loud, and some have very rude habits such as spitting on the street is quite common. Also pushing and shoving can happen. Especially at the supermarket when trying to get your veggies weighed, people will but in front of you. So if you were polite and waiting your turn you would wait for a very very long time.
But, the people are very friendly and we feel very safe here. There is a little crime and the streets are clean due to the vast amounts of street cleaners that look to have a pretty hard life.
The city is more modern then we expected, and there is a thriving Consumer Middle Class, and so this city does not lack for malls and outlets.
We have noticed empty apartment buildings while new apartment buildings are being built. We think this
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Chicken feet... yum! :p People dont like eating the CHicken breast so me and Alden get them for cheep. is due to corruption, and dealings between the government and contracting companies.
The people seem happy though, and proud of their country.
The food is pretty amazing and cheap. So myself and Alden go out with coworkers for lunch almost every day, and sometimes go out for diner. There are some bars that give free beer to foreigners because apparently we are a draw to Chinese customers to watch crazy Foreigners, drink, dance and have fun.
Last night, me and Alden went to a hot pot place where we got to pick are live seafood from tanks and boil it alive at our table. One of the shrimp tried to get away but jumping out of its serving platter but it didn’t survive. It was an amazing meal. After we went to Xi-hu park which is a beautiful spot around a lake, at night it is lit up and there are free dance classes going on and ta-chi so we danced under the stars.
After this week, we have ten days off which we plan to stay in Fuzhou and see more of the cultural and historical sites, as so far we have had only been
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a nice sunny day in Fuzhou shopping and various malls and grocery stores.
I have joined a gym with all kinds of exercise classes, so I will go with fellow colleagues in order to keep fit.
We also are busy with Chinese lessons. We have free lessons once a week at Alden’s school, and I am also doing a language exchange with a women at my school where I am teaching her French and she is teaching me Chinese.
The grammar in Chinese is easy, but the pronunciation and the tones are quite difficult. I find the challenge fun though.
Alden has started giving VIP lessons which are private lessons with students once a week outside of York School. He makes 40$ an hour doing that which is really good, and he enjoys doing them.
We fell really lucky to be here in a beautiful and relatively unpolluted part of China (the sky is blue here!) working for a great school. We are making friends with our coworkers and frankly we can’t imagine it getting any better.
We look forward to the next couple of months when we will start to explore some other parts of China. We
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The Admin Coordinator of my school Felicia, In the background is Lenna one of my Assistant teachers in my class that translates for me if needed. will probably be sent to Hong Kong in October to get our resident cards for the weekend. The trip will be free as the school covers it so that should be nice. We also plan on visiting parts of the Fujian province where Fuzhou is located. Xiamen is supposed to be very nice so we plan on spending a weekend there one of these days. Bigger places on the list include Beijing and Taiwan.
We are happy living in China, and are already considering staying here another year.
Lots of love!
-Rebecca & Alden
p.s I promise the next blog will be sonner than the first! :P
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Patricia Purdy
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Lovely to get an update our beautiful girl. Sooo happy you and Alden are well now, and happy, and enjoying every moment of your adventure in China. Sad for us with Thanksgiving coming close that you won't be with us, but expect you will not be the only one as so many of your are into another phase of your lives. Monique and Morgan are coming from Whitehorse however, which is fabulous. Love you both - Go Go Grammie, but come back one day when I am still here.