RECAP 10/25: There Must Be 50 Ways to Get Run Over

First off, an apology to my readers for failing to post for such a long while. Hopefully the length of this post will help to balance that out.

Expo-sition:
This year, Shanghai hosted the World Expo, the modern extention of the World's Fair. Countries from all over the world participated, building towering pavillions of fanciful design for visitors to gawk at (and, oh yeah, go inside and learn about the countries who built the pavillions). Perhaps you've heard about this world-famous event? Perhaps not, If you've been living in America. If, on the other hand, you've set foot in China anytime in the past few years, you've probably had Expo-related news and advertisements blasted in your ears and/or face. Seriously, the new stations here will take a break from the real news to say "Hey, gosh, isn't the Expo amazing?" "Why yes it is, John. That's quite an insightful point, and it really speaks to the awesomeness of China. Now let's turn to our panel of people who think the Expo is all that." Heck, even back in 2008, when I was touring my family around China, Shanghai was already plastered with Expo slogans, as well as images of the cute little cartoon mascot of the Shanghai Expo, Haibao. There was even a boat trolling back and forth in front of the Bund with an enormous LED billboard trying to get people into the Expo spirit.

So, with all this positive publicity being beamed into my brain, you might imagine that I'd have concocted a plan to get there before it closes [NOTE: Closed at the end of October]. On the contrary, in my eyes, the Expo was primarily "that one event that probably made it impossible to get the right kind of visa," so I was very much looking forward to its end. This thought was still floating through my mind at the Tokyo-Narita airport, as I was waiting to board my flight to Shanghai, when I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged man (Not the Thailand vacation, Laos marriage proposal guy). This guy was going to Shanghai to see some important tennis match--He was really into tennis--and was planning on catching the Expo while he was there. He asked me, "So, are you going to the Expo?" Not wanting to sound offputting, I answered with the non-commital "Maybe". He quickly responded, "Oh, well, the tickets are already sold out, so it's not like you could go if you haven't already bought them." This struck me as a rather dickheaded thing to say, but I resisted the urge to strike him and opted for a fake smile and more smalltalk instead.

Once in China, as the principal and her translator were driving me to my hotel, I caught a glimpse of the Expo park at night, and I expected that to be the full extent of my Expo experience. So, you can imagine I was somewhat surprised when Coco, the head teacher at the school, asked me if I was interested in going to the Expo on my first weekend. I was ambivalent about the offer, but it seemed like the sort of thing I'd be glad to have gone to, if only so that I could say I went. (Also, some small justice against condescending comments made by a certain tennis-obsessed middle-aged gentleman.) So, I agreed.

On Monday morning, I was wishing I hadn't. After a long week of working, I started the first day of my weekend by getting up at 5:30 so that I could get ready and catch a cab to the train station. Bleary eyed and apple in hand, I stumbled down the street toward a busy intersection where I could hopefully catch a cab quickly. Hopefully. By the way, have I mentioned that cab service sucks here? Yes I have, but I'll say it again: It's really hard to get a cab here! For about half an hour, I was standing at that busy intersection flailing my foreigner arm about, trying to hail a cab. No luck--every cab was either already filled or I was unlucky enough to be on the wrong corner of the intersection as it blazed past. About 30 minutes before my train left, I was feeling pretty nervous. Suddenly, a black unmarked car pulled up, and a man leaned out and asked if I wanted a ride. I knew this was a "black taxi", an unauthorized competitor to the taxi company (Hilariously, all black cabs are actually black, and they are similar enough in make/model that you can instantly pick them out.), but I pushed my anxiety aside and hopped in. To the train station!

Chinese Driving--An Aside:
To the casual observer, it may appear that people in China drive like goddamn maniacs. I, too, had this impression the first time I came to China. Horns blaring, taxis crazily weaving through traffic, people constantly cutting each other (and pedestrians) off--It all gives the impression of chaos and anarchy. But once the culture shock wears off, you begin to see an orderliness to it all. Horns, for instance: In the US of A, honking a horn can only mean "Emergency! Emergency! There's an emergency going on!" or, more commonly, "F@%# YOU!!!". In China, on the other hand, the horn is a very flexible tool for communicating with those around you. It can be a friendly "Passing on the left!", alerting pedestrians or slower vehicles to the presence of a vehicle approaching from behind. It can be a more business-like "If we continue on our present courses at our present speeds, a collision will occur. Please rectify the situation." Also, it can be a totally rude "Move, asshole. I can't run this red light with your fat ass crossing the street.", as I recently found out.

Besides the more creative use of the horn in China, drivers here also have a very fluid, logical, and elegant method of changing lanes, passing, and avoiding collisions. In many ways, it resembles the way people hold and gain position when waiting in line (e.g., at the checkout counter): Cars position themselves in ways that subtly block each other's paths, thus securing position in a lane. Cars also tend to maintain a close to constant speed, with collisions being avoided by violating this condition as minimally as possible. This greatly assists in crossing the street, as you can expect there will not be erratic changes in speed or course. Not everyone, of course, comes to have such a rosy view of Chinese driving as I. Some less enthusiastic foreigners might describe lane changing and street crossing in simpler terms: Chicken & Frogger.

In any event, I do have an appreciation for this kind of driving, and I was rather bummed out when I returned to America. Crossing on a red light in the US rarely saves you time. More often than not, it just causes drivers to make dangerous, abrupt, and illogical changes in their speed and course, as well as honking/cursing at you. So, when I returned to China, I was looking forward to the aggressive, confident drivers. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed by what I saw in the first couple weeks. The roads of Shanghai seemed roughly comparable to the roads of an average American city. Had China changed? Was I too used to it to notice? Or was it merely that Shanghai drivers were westernized pansy asses?

Back to the Story:
The driver of the black cab put all my fears about the state of Chinese driving to rest. Never have I been on a more awesome taxi ride. This god among cab drivers, this highlander of the road, not only got me to the train station in 15 minutes flat (through heavy traffic), but he also pulled off several maneuvers I had never before witnessed:
1. In China, buses are kings of the road. They are much bigger than whatever you're driving, so you really don't want to get hit by one. Also, they accelerate/decelerate much more slowly that anything else, so there are some collisions they couldn't avoid if they wanted to. My cab driver, however, was not one to be intimidated by such trivial factors. When a bus tried to change lanes in front of us (and, in terms of how far it got in, I would have said it succeeded in securing a spot), he used his horn and accelerator kungfu to cause the bus to pull back into its lane. I was floored, and so was the accelerator, once a hole in traffic opened up.
2. At one point, we were in the right turn lane, behind a slower driver. My driver passed the guy in front of us during the right turn.          0_o       Wow.

The roller coaster ride had come to stop; we were at the train station. The driver had to drop me off a little farther away than a real taxi would have, because, you know, what he's doing isn't technically legal, so, he couldn't be seen as my hired ride, only as my good 朋友(friend) giving me a lift to the train station. I payed and thanked him and sprinted off towards the train station. Inside, I figured out my gate, went through the security checkpoint, and searched for Coco. She was not there. Less than 15 minutes until departure... Suddenly, my phone was ringing. Coco too had had difficulty getting a cab and was just now coming into the station. We met up and hurried over to to the ticket checking station.

I pulled out the tickets Coco had given me the day before and eyed the electronic turnstyles apprehensively. Coco said something like, "Can I see the tickets?", grabbed one, and went through the turnstyle. I stared blankly. In my hand, I held the remaining ticket, which was clearly for the return trip. Had Coco just taken my ticket? Why? She looked expectantly at me, as if to say, "Why aren't you coming?". I stumbled up to the turnstyle and tried to get through with my return ticket. Needless to say, it was super not effective. Coco leaned back over the turnstyle, and I tried to explain what was going on, although to be honest, I wasn't really sure. At this point, there were a lot of angry Chinese people behind me trying to get through. Also, the security guard at the turnstyles was not looking pleased. Coco waved him over while swapping our tickets. The guard took a look at "my" ticket and let me through the side gate. A bunch of frustrated Chinese people tried to rush through behind me, resulting in a lot of yelling by the security guard. We ran up the stairs and boarded the train about 30 seconds before the doors closed.

During the 20 minute ride to Shanghai, Coco and I tried to work out what had happened. Apparently, Coco had bought three sets of tickets: one for me, one for her, and one for her husband (who was not with us, but I later found out he works in Shanghai, and the tickets were for the commute). She had mistakenly divided the tickets amongst the three of us, giving two of the tickets to Shanghai to her husband. When we arrived at the Shanghai station, she went through the exit turnstyle with our single ticket, and I ran through before it closed. Phew! Good thing all the ticket mess ups were finally over.

Or not. We took the subway to the Expo park, where we found out that our Expo tickets had some problem, the nature of which I am still not totally clear on. It had to do with the convertability of dates and ticket types and whatnot. In any event, the ruling was, we could get in after 4pm, but no sooner. So, we tried to devise a plan for what we would do in the meantime. Coco suggested we go to the museum of science and technology, or something like that. I wasn't particularly hot on the idea, but I didn't have any better suggestions, so to the museum we went.

Kind of. After riding the subway some more, we arrived at the museum... which was closed. Because it was a Monday? Something like that. Coco was feeling kind of frazzled by this time; I was actually finding it pretty amusing. She said, "Oh, what a black Monday." The expression made sense to me, but I couldn't say I'd ever heard it before. In fact, I think I've only ever heard of "Black Friday", which has a completely different meaning, so I took a couple of minutes trying to explain the bizarre spectacle of capitalism that comes right after Thanksgiving, as well as my own Black Friday experience as a cashier at Office Max. [Slight tangent: Jie, when I worked at Office Max on Black Friday, your dad came in and bought a printer or something at like 6:30 in the morning. Also, it was clear he had just rolled out of bed, judging from his hair. I guess I told you that already, like when it happened, but hey, just thought of it again. And you know, now that I think of it, I think like 80% of the times I've seen your Dad, he looks like that, and more often than not is wearing awesome pajamas.]

We walked to the nearest KFC and plotted our next move. Coco pulled out the bag of snacks she had brought along, and we ate hard boiled eggs and potato chips as we mulled over the possibilities. We finally settled on the Oriental Pearl, which is that big spaceship-looking building in Pudong (across from the Bund). Before we left, I bought a Pepsi, partly because I needed the caffeine and partly because I felt a bit rude to sit around in a KFC and eat hard boiled eggs. While I was checking out, I noticed that country music was playing on the speakers. Blech.

Back on the subway, and we were heading to Pudong. At this point, I became particularly fixated on/annoyed with a peculiarity of the subway system. There's a stop called Century Avenue. The Chinese says "Century" too (世纪), but for some strange reason, the voice that says "Your next stop is..." seems to say "Central Avenue". The first few times, I thought I was just hearing unclearly, but on this third subway trip, I became pretty damn sure that's what they were saying. WHY?

The Oriental Pearl towered above us. We tried to get some pictures with it, but at that distance, it was kind of difficult to fit most of the person and most of the building into the same photograph. Also, it became clear that I know how to take pictures better than Coco does. Sorry, Coco. We stood in line for a bit and got our tickets. There were various options, and it remains unclear to me how we made the decision we did. Throughout the entire day, Coco asked me a lot of questions about what I wanted to do, and I did a terrible job figuring out when I was supposed to let her choose and when I was supposed to actually offer up a candid opinion. I basically managed to do the opposite every time. Oh well.

Inside the building, a lot of standing in lines was in order, about 10-20 minutes on each of the floors we stopped on. This was pretty tiresome, but at least on the first floor, there was some amusement to be had while waiting in line. Similar to airports, there was a maze-like thing you had to go through as you waited in line. This one happened to be made of metal, and it only had a top rail. One bored toddler decided he had had enough of waiting in line, and he took off, running around unimpeded by the rails (which were several inches over his head). His dad tried his best to give chase but was slowed down significantly by the crab-walk gait that the rails necessitated he adopt. I thought this was pretty hilarious, and I don't think I was alone. Finally, some other person in line managed to grab the kid, allowing Dad to catch up.

I won't bore you with the rest of the Oriental Pearl experience. Suffice it to say that we had about 20 minutes of cool views, free entrance to a very boring museum, and a lot of waiting in line. There was this especially entertaining observation deck, though. It was partly open to the air, and you stood on glass and could look down. Many visitors, including Coco, were scared to walk out on the glass, but they took heart upon seeing the more brave souls getting goofy pictures taken of themselves standing "on air". (I was one such soul, and unfortunately, the pictures look really, really dumb.) We took a little break again at the very end, before we were going to go back to the Expo. As we were sitting there, giving our backs and legs a rest, I made the mistake of trying to explain my comps and my BIRC internship to Coco. I don't know how the topic came up (totally not my fault), but the decision to explain it was perhaps not my best one of the day. I have a pretty low success rate in explaining singular value decomposition and natural language processing to native English speakers, as it is. Sigh.

Finally, we were at the Expo, and--with no further ticket mishaps--we were in the Expo. We had settled on going to Section E (which is basically the lamest of the sections) based on the rationale that the lines would be shortest. I think this was a wise decision: Even in Section E, there were some very intimidating lines that we elected not to brave. These included the Coca-Cola pavillion and the Chinese Petroleum pavillion. [Perhaps the astute reader has noted that Coca-Cola and Chinese Petroleum are not actually countries. The writer welcomes the reader to Section E.] We did, however, make it to three pavillions (and ate dinner in between): The Korean Business pavillion, the Chinese Aviation pavillion, and this one pavillion that had to do with Shanghai and the future and energy or something. Basically it just had a lot of pretty flashing lights. Also, there was one building I don't think we went into that had a really impressive exterior. It was covered in little mirrors which could tilt about in the wind. The effect was to make the building's exterior look liquid, which I thought was awesome. As it got darker, they also started projecting stuff up onto the mirrors, which added another dimension to the effect.

Some time later, we were back in the Shanghai train station, looking for our gate. When we got there, I was introduced to Coco's husband who was going back to Kunshan after work. Coco's husband is really great. He also was a computer science major, and he works as a software developer for a game company. We talked about a lot of stuff on the train ride back. I had way more success explaining SVD to him; not the details of course, but he understood the basic idea of using some kind of matrix-math to pick a matrix that was (mostly) consistent with the observed data, as well as the utility of that in terms of movie recommendation. We also talked about Starcraft II, which we both thought was a great topic of conversation, but which Coco rolled her eyes at. When we got back to Kunshan, Coco and he insisted that I must be really hungry (and I was), so they took me out to a 饺子 (dumpling) restaurant. I forget the name, but it's one of those big chains that I've been to before. Then they hailed a cab for me, and we parted ways. I slept well that night and dreamt of a line-free world.

The Oriental Pearl

More tall buildings

Coco gets a chance to be tall.

The Bund, from above

Really, really dumb?

This actually looks pretty cool.

Ain't globalization great?

You can see the mirrory building in the center of the photo.

The giant LED Coke bottle

Me inside of the building of lights

-Peter

RECAP 10/21-10/24: Vignettes of Week 1

Finally:
I finally sucked it up and asked a coworker where the Lotus supercenter was. Because of all the hassle Lotus had caused me, I walked there immediately after work (even though it was closed by then), just to prove a point. I'm not sure what that point was. But in any event, I know how to get there now.

Running:
On Thursday, I prepared and gave a demo for K1C. Given the experience of Wednesday's classes, I was very happy to have the extra preparation from doing a demo, especially for a class of Kindergarteners--the age group I feel most ill prepared to teach. When I gave the demo, Coco had mostly positive things to say about it. My games involved a fair amount of running, which she thought was a stellar idea ("If you don't tire them out, they'll tire you out.") And on Friday, when I actually taught the class, it also seemed to go fine. Afterwards, however, I asked my coteacher what she thought. "Too much running." Umm. Can't win all the time.

Michael Jordan, et al.:
I <3 S4D. Or maybe it's S4A. (There's only one S4 class, and about half of the class materials are labelled one way and half the other.) In any event, they're great at English, very funny, and an absolute joy to teach. The class clown is this kid named Jordan. Whenever I say, "Hello, Jordan." or "How you doing, Jordan?", he responds "Michael Jordan!". Expect stories about this class.

Elephant:
When I'm hanging out in the office, preparing lesson plans, students will occasionally just wander in, sometimes with good reason, sometimes just because. One just-becauser was a boy from--I would soon learn--S1C. His English name? Angus. Now, you might have thought I would have had difficulty maintaining my composure after hearing that name, but actually, based on his slurred delivery, I initially thought he said his name was "Triangle", so "Angus" seemed pretty normal in comparison. When I taught S1C for the first time (Note: The S means they're older; the 1 means they're bad at English.), I was delighted to see a familiar face among the students. This delight did not last very long. Angus is almost totally unwilling to participate in any activities that actually involve speaking English (i.e., almost all of them). When we were going through some flashcards, he fixated on the word "elephant". Every question I asked after that was met with a loud, immediate response of "Elephant!". Sigh.....  [ NOTE: According to WolframAlpha, the estimated most common age for a person with the name "Angus" is 62, and about half of all Anguses are over 80. ]

To Salad or Not To Salad:
At my school, we have something called "communication books" in which the teachers give feedback to the students and their parents. Ideally, it works something like this: If you are teaching the second period of a class, then in the last 10 minutes, you give them a miniquiz, and while they are doing it, you fill out comm. books and hand them out before class ends. Let me tell you, we do not live in a perfect world. If I could send a message back in time to myself, it would be a primer on doing comm. books in an efficient, sanity-preserving, and correct manner, including all of the variations between teachers and sections.

In one particular communication-book snafu, I looked up at the clock and realized I had only 8 minutes before class was over. I decided I really needed to do comm. books, so I handed out the miniquizzes. Or rather, I tried to do so, only to discover that they were not in the classroom. So, I sprinted downstairs to the office, grabbed them, came back up, and found out that we were a couple short. Then in the last five minutes, I desperately scribbled in comm. books, all the while trying to answer questions about the miniquiz (including those from distressed miniquiz-less students). When I finally finished the comm. books, I just wanted everyone to leave and not make their parents wait. Instead, the students worked furiously to complete their miniquizzes. When I had finally managed to shoo them all out, I let out a great big sigh and walked down to the office. I flipped through the miniquizzes, many of which were incomplete or riddled with errors. It was at this point that a student named Bill totally made my day: In response to a prompt of "like, salad", he created the sentence "No, I can't salad." Yessssss.

Corkscrewed:
On Sunday night after work, I decided to stop in a corner grocery store to look for salt (I make myself a fried egg every morning as part of my breakfast.). On the way from the spice shelf to the checkout, I came across a rack of wine bottles. After eyeing them for a minute, I thought to myself, "Oh what the hell, I survived the first week, didn't I? I should treat myself." I then selected a brand based entirely on its low price and the preponderance of Europeans in their TV commercials, and I proceeded to the checkout. I strolled back to my apartment with a grin on my face, a bottle of wine in my hand, and a sense of exhausted fulfillment in my heart for a week well(?) done. Once back in my apartment, however, it dawned upon me that I actually have no corkscrew [ NOTE: I have one now. ]. A lesser man would have given up then and there. But Peter Nelson is not one to be outdone by a mere bottle. No sir. In my infinite resourcefulness, I decided to use my metal chopsticks to pound the cork into the bottle, with the plan of storing the wine I didn't drink in an empty water bottle. The plan worked perfectly, with the minor exception that I sprayed wine all over myself and everything in the kitchen.

-Peter

RECAP 10/19-10/20: Liftoff!

Failed Pigrimage Pt. 1:
Early Tuesday afternoon, before work, I decided to retrace my steps to the Lotus Supermart. Turns out that north and south are opposites of each other. Instead of finding Lotus, I ended up back where my coworkers and I ate dinner on Monday. Not too bad of an outcome--based on the previous trip with all the bus stops, I had assumed it was ridiculously far away; actually it's like a 20 minute walk.

Two Years in a Day:
At work, I got to watch some classes, including a section of very cute kindergarteners. After class, I was getting settled into the teachers' office, when Coco informed me that I would have to prepare a lesson for S3B (one of the class sections) and demo it in a couple hours for her and Jane. Yikes! This first lesson plan was absolutely nerve-wracking and felt like it took forever to finish. My brain was going in all sorts of directions, and I generally felt like I was going to mess something up. When the time actually came to demo it, I scrambled to assemble my flashcards, ascended the stairs, went into the classroom, and proceeded to teach. It turned out to be a lot of fun: Jane and Coco played the roles of students to a T. They'd mess up the pronunciation or start talking with one another, and I'd have to correct or chastise them. The comedic aspect of this definitely relaxed me a lot, and I taught very naturally, which Jane actually commented on. Then, while I was still in a state of post-compliment euphoria, Coco offered up enough suggestions to merit a complete rewrite of my lesson plan. Thankfully, this turned out to be great, as it made the lesson much more appropriate for the English level students I'd actually be teaching it to (Turns out they're pretty good at English). Right as I was heading back downstairs to prepare Wednesday's other lesson plans, Jane said something along the lines of "Oh, Peter, your teaching is good. But since you're so young, I don't want any of the parents to hold that against you. So, if anyone asks, you're 24." Um, ok, will do. Amazing how time flies after college.

Failed Pilgrimage Pt. 2:
Ok, if jogging south, then west, then south didn't work, then naturally north-east-north will do the trick, right? Turns out no. Turns out north-west-north was what I was going for. But on that Wednesday afternoon, I didn't know that. So I got some excercise in and discovered a much more boring area of town. If you're ever interested in looking at the office buildings for a plastics manufacturing company, you know who to ask. There was one funny moment during this little escapade, though. One set of traffic lights seemed to be stuck in one direction, and (strangely for China) everyone was just sitting there waiting for the lights to change. After waiting a minute at the crosswalk for a green, I thought "fuck it" and just crossed. Afterwards, the drivers all decided to do the same. I'd like to think it was because they didn't want to be shown up by a 老外. The world may never know.

The Real World:
My first real day of work was exhausting. I taught K1B, JIE, and S3B. After the first two classes, I thought I might keel over right then. I had been underprepared; the classes were somewhat hectic; and my voice was totally shot by the end of it. As I ascended the stairs the third and final time, I was filled with a sense of impending doom. What mishap would befall me now? Much to my surprise, S3B was fantastic! The super preparation of demoing a lesson plan and modifying it according to suggestions from the teacher of that class worked wonders. Furthermore, the kids' English was really quite good, and they really got into all the activities. I came down the stairs with an enormous grin plastered on my face, and I left work with a deep sense of satisfaction. My voice was still shot though.

-Peter

RECAP 10/17-10/18: SIM卡 and Spicy Duck Legs

The next morning, Jennifer picked me up on her motorbike and took me on a trip to the local Lotus supercenter. From the outside, the "supercenter" looked neither super nor like a center of any kind. Rather, it looked as if Jennifer had decided to take a shortcut through a construction site. Nonetheless, I was suddenly ordered to dismount; we then walked the moped over an abrupt change in the elevation of the concrete, parked it, and followed a stream of people past the scaffolding and into the building. Inside, surprisingly, was a mall that could aptly be described by the word "supercenter". We wandered over to the China Mobile kiosk, and I got a SIM card, or rather, Jennifer got one for me while I stood around uselessly. Having no cellphone to put this small (but valuable) chip in, Jennifer folded up one of the brochures into a cute little envelope. SIM-card-bearing improvised envelope in hand, we bid the tardis-mall adieu. When riding back to my apartment, Jennifer explained/showed me the route between my place of residence and this mini-mecca of consumer goods. It seemed quite simple at the time, but replicating this pilgrimage later turned out to be challenging.

Once back at my apartment, we gave 王磊 a call, and he came over and fixed more stuff. Basically at this point, I am able to use all my appliances. 王磊 was very apologetic that not everything had been set up ahead of time; I was not really bothered by the delay. Jennifer, however, seized upon his apologetic attitude and playfully teased 老王 the whole while he was trying to figure out my washing machine. I found the scene of a 30 year old man fumbling around with o-rings, hoses, and a screwdriver while a girl my age stood over him asking why he hadn't washed the outside surfaces of the windows of my 9th-story apartment to be pretty amusing.

That evening, Coco came over and we rode the bus to a downtown area. There, I set out to find an ATM that would accept my card and give me some moneys. Unfortunately, I had to try about five different banks before I succeeded. Some of the ATMs turned out to be broken; others were just outside my network. The most frustrating ATM was this one that would tell me my balance and then promptly spit out my card. After doing battle with the evil robot teller machines, we met up with Coco's cousin. Then we called up Sarah, another teacher at the school, and we all went out for dinner. On the way to the restaurant, we bought some snacks from a small shop: some fried chicken bits and chopped pickled spicy duck legs. The duck legs turned out to be awesome--although the amount of meat on each chunk was small, they had a nice flavor, as well as a spicyness that left your lips burning for more. Once in the restaurant, we ordered some dishes, including a specialty of the restaurant (or the area?): sour-vegetable fish. I'm not sure if I liked it or not, but it was definitely the most interesting dish we ordered. If I had eaten more, perhaps I would have formed a more solid opinion, but I find that eating fish in China is a giant pain in the ass because of the number of little bones (鱼刺) that accidentally get left in the meat.

After dinner, I took a taxi home, which turned out to be quite bothersome to hail. Every time a cab saw us and realized he would have to spend 5 seconds turning around in the side-alley, he would let off the brakes, hit the gas, and cruise on by. We solved this problem by crossing the street, even though it meant the cab I got into had to turn around anyways in order to go towards my apartment. Sigh. I think the Kunshan taxi bureaucracy must be quite fierce, because there always seem to be a far greater number of people attempting to hail cabs than there are cabs to pick them up. Oh free market, why have you forsaken me? But dramatic monologues aside, I got home just fine and promptly went to bed.

-Peter

RECAP 10/16: A Place For My Stuff & A Pile Of Rocks

The next morning, Jane picked me up at the hotel. I checked out, and we started the drive to Kunshan. As we exited the city and entered the Jiangsu countryside, she commented on the relative advantages and disadvantages of Shanghai and Kunshan. Shanghai is expensive, exciting, and culturally not much different from any other major world city. Kunshan is cheaper, more relaxed, and has a more distinctive local culture. Also, pointy roofs. Jane has a foot in both of these cities, neither of which she is a native of. Two days a week she spends at her house in Shanghai with her family, and five days a week she spends in Kunshan, working at the school and living in her apartment. When I was at the branch in Shanghai, Coco had told me that Jane was a very successful woman, being both the principal of the Kunshan branch and one of the CEOs of the Shanghai company that owns and administers the chain of schools in the region. That she picked me up at the airport and has driven me around so much makes me feel somewhat more important than I actually am.

As we pulled into Kunshan, Jane futilely attempted to orient me in my new town of residence. Apparently, there are some roads that are important, and I should remember their names and relative locations. I managed to remember that they have to do with rivers, and they are made of concrete. Also, buildings on either side and cars driving on them. Right before we rounded the corner onto 白塘路, the street on which the school is located [NOTE: I am totally cheating by using geographical information I have since acquired], we passed a temple. Through the gates, we saw people dancing, firecrackers going off, and a cloth dragon flying around the courtyard. Jane commented that I was lucky, as she had never seen such a gathering at the temple before.

We parked in front of the school and went inside. There, I was introduced to the teachers and staff members who I will be working with, and I was shown around the building. Then we hopped back in the car, along with Jennifer--Jane's secretary. A couple blocks down the street (unfortunately for vehicularly deprived, blocks here are long), we stopped at my shiny new apartment. I found the interior of the apartment clean, attractive, and well furnished. I have a washing machine, an air conditioner, a TV, a big bed (with a very hard mattress), a shower, a refrigerator, and a range. Jane and Jennifer attempted to explain the details of rent, on which I am still not entirely clear (rather, I am still skeptical that the situation is as awesome as it sounds). The rent is about 1800RMB, if I understood correctly, which they think is expensive, but which I think is spectacular, since my housing stipend is 2000RMB. Utilities will probably be a few hundred RMB, which I'm fine with. Anyways, I'm happy with situation as I understand it, and, regardless of my opinion or the course of future events, I'm here for at least 3 months, since that's when my employers get the equivalent of the security deposit back.

Before I had much of a chance to look around, Jane insisted that we go buy stuff for my apartment. In retrospect, it would have made shopping easier if I had insisted that I actually be able to catalogue the existing furnishings in my apartment. A short drive and another failed orienteering lesson later, we arrived at RT-Mart, which appears to be the Chinese equivalent of Walmart. There, we bought bedding, shower stuff, cooking things, and cleaning supplies... I think. It was a bit of a whirlwind tour of the store, since Jane was running around like a maniac. Never have I ever seen someone get so excited about low prices. She was like a kid in a candy store: Jane would pick something up, hand it to me to look at, and then see a cheaper version on a different shelf, sprint off to get it, and forcibly swap it with the item in my hand. I guess I should be grateful, since this shopping spree is going to come out of my first paycheck. After we checked out, we took the receipts over to this strange machine, where you entered your receipt number and smacked a button and won a prize, the value of which varied, presumably at random. Jane won a 5RMB coupon or something. The women suggested that perhaps I was luckier and should try on the second receipt. I got the same coupon. Getting something for "free" based on your "luck"--This struck me as being a genius marketing tool, specially attuned to the Chinese psyche.

Back at my apartment, we met up with 王磊(= Wang2 Lei3), a friendly guy who is somehow associated with the apartment company. I was quickly impressed by what an awesome guy he was. Not only did he get some of the (new but not yet functional) appliances in my apartment working, he also wants me to be his 外国朋友(= wai4guo2 peng2you = foreign friend), and he definitely has the friendliness and patience necessary for that to happen. Oh, and the character for his given name is totally awesome. It's like a pile of rocks (石 = shi2 = rock). After that, I don't remember what happened. I guess it was really boring. Anyhows, here are some pictures I took recently of my aparment. Enjoy!:

The view from my balcony window.
The buildings seen here are basically identical to mine.

Another View

My incredibly clean room.

My couch in the living room. I think it's missing cushions.

The TV in my living room. It gets one English-language channel:
CCTV News, which makes Fox looks fair and balanced.

Kitchen. 'Nuf said.

A view out my living room window, overlooking the street
that goes from my apartment to the school.

-Peter

RECAP 10/14-10/15: Go East, Young Man

My time is Shanghai is a bit of a blur I'm afraid, so your vivid imaginations will have to supply some of the imagery. The morning after I checked into the hotel, I wandered around the neighborhood looking for something to eat. I ended up going to a cafeteria-style restaurant where you point at various prepared dishes, the workers put them on a tray, and you check out at the register. Not very ambitious, but I got to eat. In the early afternoon, Jane picked me up--no May. On the one hand, I'm flattered that Jane considers my Chinese good enough to obviate the need for a translator. On the other hand, no beautiful translator. Such is life. We went out for lunch and then walked to (one of) the Shanghai location(s) of the school I will work for.

There, I met Coco in person, one of my future coworkers who I had previously talked to in the Skype interview. Also, I met Colin, the foreign worker's liason or something like that. After Colin explained some things about the school (and brewed me a cup of real coffee!), I was able to sit in some classes, which was really fun. There was this girl in one of the classes named "Yoyo" (yes, really) who, from the perspective of learning English, was a pretty bad student. She was shy and quiet in class and hesitant to speak. During the break though, she figured out that I spoke Chinese and her eyes lit up, a goofy grin spreading across her 4 year old face. She shouldered past the other kids who were quietly gawking at me and commenced a jovial interrogation of your favorite laowai at a distance of about 3 inches from his face. She was greatly assisted by the fact that yours truly was sitting about 6 inches off the ground, in a plastic chair clearly intended for people under the age of 5.

Afterwards, Jane took me back to the hotel, but not before orienting me. It turns out the school is just up the road from my hotel, and the place we ate lunch is in this big mall right next to the school. Ok, mental map modified. Around noonish the next day, I made use of this newly acquired information and walked over to the mall. For lunch I ate some delicious 石锅拌饭, a Korean dish consisting of a bed of rice topped with various vegetables, a freshly cracked egg, and some ssamjang (or whatever that sauce is), all served in a super-hot stone bowl. After you mix it all up, the heat from the bowl cooks the egg, and you're good to go. Sweet, tangy, mildly spicy deliciousness. 5 stars. After more bumming around around the mall, I made my way over to the school and watched some more classes. One specific class was particularly instructive in a "what not to do" way. Lessons learned: Don't be a pushover; Don't say "Please be good; it's parents' day."; and Don't direct your attention away from the class and ask your coteacher "What do you think we should do now?". In the evening, I walked back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

-Peter

RECAP 10/12-10/13: Leaving on a Jet Plane

I wake up at the crack of 4am, and my mom and I hop in the car. We get to the MSP airport no problem, and I begin my check in. When going through the whole, "scan this, swipe that, answer these questions on a touchscreen" bit, I answer the question "Are you going to Tokyo-Narita?" in the affirmative. This question is ambiguous, as it is not clear whether they are asking if it is my final destination or if it is merely a place I will be going as part of my trip. As later events will make clear, I make the wrong choice. The immediate consequence is that the Tokyo-Shanghai leg of my trip doesn't show up on the touch screen, but--no worries--my boarding pass prints out just fine.

Security. Mom waits at the line to make sure I get through all right. I get flagged for no apparent reason and get the whole pat down. When I'm getting the magic detector wand waved over my person, I discover that everything in my pockets is in some way metallic (Note: gum wrappers). I am too tired to remember that my mom is out there looking at me, presumably a bit worried and confused. In any event, I'm not a terrorist, a drug runner, or any other kind of TSA bogeyman, so the security check is merely inconvenient and not a big deal. I go grab some starbucks and wait at the gate.

O'Hare. More waiting. I find a nice big seat at the gate and promptly fall asleep on my luggage. I wake up not to my travel alarm clock (which I have been carrying around in my pocket all day... umm maybe that's why I got flagged?) but rather to my name being blared over the loud speaker. I practically fall out of my seat and wobble over to the counter on my partially asleep legs. "Here's your new boarding pass sir [for the Tokyo-Shanghai leg of the trip]." Well thanks, I didn't know anything was wrong with my original one. Soon, we're on the plane, and we've set--metaphorical--sail for Tokyo. I manage to get more sleep and watch a bunch of movies. This leg of the flight is run by All-Nippon Airways, and I highly recommend it. Asian airlines always give you cool stuff like personal screens for watching movies, even when you're in coach. Having this on the 13 hour flight is highly desirable.

Tokyo-Narita. Wait, wait, wait. Fail at connecting to the Google free wireless hotspot. Go eat some kimchi fried rice and talk to this guy who just got back from Thailand. Apparently a friend of his attempted to set him up with her niece in Laos--a nice girl, I'm told--but he found the whole "Nice to meet you, me love you long time, green card please" arrangement too weird to take seriously. Good job, random dude. You've totally improved my image of middle-aged men who vacation in Thailand. Find big seat, sleep on luggage. Again, I wake up to my name blaring on the speakers. Except it's barely my name. It's maybe "Mistah Peeetoh Neduson" at best. Beset by a bone-chilling fear that I am about to miss my flight, I hobble post-haste to the counter. "Here is your boarding pass sir." Thanks. Thanks whoever designed that stupid touchscreen. Hope you didn't send my luggage to Africa.

Shanghai. Here at last!!!!! My totally suspicious visa gets me into the country with nothing more than a 谢谢 and a 不客气 being exchanged. I pick up my bag without a hitch, and customs is easy peasy: When I walk up to the guards and attempt to explain that I have food in my bag, they wave me through before I can say anything. Sometimes looking like a stupid laowai has its advantages. As soon as I exit customs, I find myself looking into a crowd of expectant people, holding up signs and smiling. Which one of them is the person I am looking for? A middle aged woman and a young woman wave at me and say "Peter?". Yes! Yes, I am Peter; please take me somewhere to sleep!

We are driving to the hotel. I've learned that both of the women are from Taiwan. The middle aged woman is named Jane, and she is the principal of the school. The young woman is named May (I think?), and she is here to translate for Jane. Also, she is gorgeous. But I digress. As we maneuver through the Shanghai traffic, glimpses of the Expo flying by, we talk. Jane is impressed by my Chinese. May is trying to teach me the incredibly simple--and, as she tells me, most important--phrase "You are beautiful" (你很漂亮 = ni3 hen3 piao4liang4, for the uninitiated). I'm not sure whether this is because her opinion of my Chinese is much lower than that of Jane, or whether she just likes having white guys tell her she is beautiful. In any event, we reach the hotel and Jane checks in for me. After I heroically defeat the confusing swipe-card lock on my room door (Actually, I fail to do this. Then May can't figure it out, and then she accidentally gets it to work. I like my version better.), the women say good night and leave.

Instead of hitting the hay, I go out in search of an ATM. I push through a gathering of food-carts selling various freshly-fried goodies and trek past housing developments with walls plastered in Expo slogans (with well-written English versions written below that strangely do not resemble the Chinese meaning) before I find a 24-hour ATM. Mercifully, my card works no problemo, and I meander back to the hotel with a fistful of RMB and a grin. Feeling exceptionally efficacious, I take a crack at getting my internet to work. It does. So does my proxy server. As a reward for my surprisingly successful day, I dick around on facebook for a bit before face-planting into my bed.

-Peter