Cultural Differences Set In

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Wow! It has been cold, but not as cold as the midwest I am sure. Anyways, we started our job last Thursday after our training. The training consisted of 2 hours shadowing with another teacher. Pretty ridiculous, but we don't have a lot of
clout here I guess. Maybe just a cultural difference.

Anyways, we are teaching adults. They are usually wealthy it seems. Most people can't afford English lessons. Our students are very ambitious. This makes them easy to teach. However, they aren't afraid to give negative/positive feedback. I guess it is a relief. They don't know enough English to know the difference in being tactful or tactless. I suppose it is fine. They tell us what is on their mind.

Our school is very disorganized. We have an office and a school. They are a block away from each other. Not very convenient. Our office is one large room with about 20 cubicles in it. Our company, GEM, has rented out 4 of these cubicles. We have 8 teachers, so this is obviously a problem. We also have a copier, but it never works--kind of like Chinese Office Space if you
can imagine. Our school consists of 3 classrooms in a large building, on the 4th floor. None of it is very nice. OH well!!! We are making the best of it. The students are great for the most part.

Their are 4 levels of students, A B C D. D is the most advanced. Some of the topics we have taught are--- idioms, pronouns, adjectives, relative clauses, feelings, Intelligence, tourism, love, directions, etc. Some topics are very interesting, others aren't. I had a discussion with my class about love---a really fun and easy topic. Others, like metaphors and idioms--are very difficult for them to understand.

The teachers we have met are-- a middle aged couple from Texas and 2 24 year old males from Canada. Everyone is very kind. They are willing to help us out with anything. We also have an administration office with 4 or 5 Chinese women about our age. Some of them speak good English, others are not so good. They are also a good resource for us. When we take a taxi home, we have to show him on a piece of paper where we live. Chinese characters are impossible. We can kind of say
the bus stop next to where we live, but if they don't know that we are telling them that this is a bus stop, then it is useless. There is a big mall next to our apartment, so sometimes we can see it from a 1/2 mile away. Then, we just sort of point and hope he takes us to the right place.

We have met some great people it seems. We went out on Thursday night with one of the Canadians, Chris. He took us to an Irish pub. It was 100 RMB ($12) for all you could drink. This is actually kind of expensive in my mind. At the supermarket, a 1 liter domestic beer costs 5 RMB (70 cents). At bars, they usually cost 20-25 RMB ($3-4). Oh well. We met a lot of nice people
at this bar. It was a place where all the expats gathered. Most of us were teachers, but some were relocated from their home country to China--in this case, they probably worked for a large, multi-national company.

The Irish pub is owned 1/2 by and Irishman, and 1/2 by a very young, influential Chinese man. He lived in Ireland for 8 years. I think he was around 30 years old. I had a 20 minute conversation with him while I was in the bar. It was very interesting to hear how business is ran in China. Everything is very corrupt. You can bribe about anyone for anything.

The Irish pub is on one of the bar streets. Lee, the young owner, was mad about the bar operation. He had many other businesses. Anyways, I asked him why he was mad. He said---the bar doesn't make any money. If I charge 20 for a beer, the bar down the street will undercut me and will charge 15. Then I feel like I need to lower my prices to stay competitive. It is
horrible, we should all agree on prices so the fierce competition doesn't happen----

I don't know if this is a trait of communism or not, but it definitely isn't Capitalism. It is called price fixing, and is illegal where we are from. It goes against every Capitalistic--a free market-where people can do what they want to compete (relatively
speaking). If they want to undercut you and lose money themselves, by all means, they can.

We had a great experience at the supermarket. There equivalent of a Super WalMart is Auchan. This store is huge, and ridiculously busy. If you think that Wal-Mart is busy, think again. Auchan is ridiculous. And we went there on a Wednesday night. The weekends, i have heard, are off limits because it is even worse. There isn't a word for "excuse me" in Chinese. People don't say anything, they just ram into your cart if they want to get by. The people using fork lifts do not yield to the patron. They are their to do a job, and they will do it despite how many stubbed toes they cause.

The seafood section of the market was very interesting. They have tanks of live fish swimming around. You simply tell the attendant what you would like, and he just scoops it up and puts it in a bag--live. It is hard to concentrate when you are in
the cookie aisle when you have someone next to you who has 2 large catfish jumping around in a sack in their cart. Crazy.

Auchan has a "western food" section. It is pretty expensive though. Ely and I needed a fix of familiar food, so we indulged and purchased ingredients for pasta. We also picked up a Bordeaux for $10. It is much more expensive for us to cook ourselves. It doesn't seem like restaurant prices are inflated as much as in the US. The only reason I can see for us to
cook at home is if we need something familiar, or if we feel like cooking something healthy. I haven't seen the nutritional facts of what we have been eating, but I am sure that they can't be good. Next to our school, there is a great dumpling place. The dumplings are boiled with meat inside. For 1 order (6 dumplings), it cost 4 RMB (50 cents). THis is an extremely cheap meal
and might not be too unhealthy.

Last night, we went out to Harry's Bar. THis is a famous expat hot spot. It was a great time. Once again, we met interesting and kind people from all around the world--Germany, UK, Ireland. We have gotten names and numbers of around 8 people who want to hang out again and said to call if we need any help. It was a lot of fun just to make some connections.

Harry's has a band that plays every night. They are from the Philippines. Apparently, Filipinos have a stronghold on the entertainment market in China. Many people last night said that they are 'the Philippines most popular export to China.' You rarely see Chinese bands. Apparently the Philippine's is much more westernized, and their English is much better.

The band was ridiculous. They could sing anything, from Johnny Cash to James Blunt. The range of the lead singer's voice was fantastic. He would change his voice for each song so that he could sounded exactly like the person who's song he was covering.

On the break, a drunk and wealthy Chinese/German man was giving me a hard time. I had been talking to him about music--telling him that I was a singer/guitar player and that hearing this music made me excited to go home and play. This man got up earlier and sang with the band. He sang "What a Wonderful WOrld and made himself sound like the raspy Louis Armstrong. It was very good. Anyways, while the band was on break, he was pushing me up on the stage so that I could sing
a song. This was a sure mistake. I had drank 5-6 beers and wasn't in tip/top shape. Let's just say it is difficult to remember lyrics of songs when you are put on the spot. They handed me a guitar, turned on the spotlight, and I was off with it. Yikes-----not so good. I improvised as best I could, but regret the decision in the first place. Oh well, It was just for fun. I don't think I made a complete fool of myself, but the crowd wasn't begging for more.

THis is a long email, so I will wrap it up with 2 questions. I can't seem to think of the answers myself, so I leave it up to you.

1. Why don't Americans use Celsius and the metric system? It is going to take Ely and I a while to get used to Celsius and KM, liters, etc. Doesn't everyone else in the world use our system?

2. Why do we call it American football? couldn't we have just left football (soccer) the same and came up with another name for American football. During my research at the Irish Pub, this drives the English, Scots, and Irish crazy.

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Photos

Nightime in Suzhou
Quite pretty. Everything is lit up always. It reminds me of Vegas.

Nightime in Suzhou
Quite pretty. Everything is lit up always. It reminds me of Vegas.

Pretty Trees
The government has lots of money to spend. Here is an example. The green-lit trees run parallel to the street. They really are beautiful.