Expat(s) in Mianyang

Yesterday, the girls and I decided to explore a little bit and see if we could find the bar that the British man from the day before had told me about. We found it easily enough, and it seems like a cool place so we’ll probably go back there. We’d already eaten dinner so we each ordered a pint of beer and talked with the owner. It was very early so there was not anyone else around.

I’ll take everything I heard from the owner (whose name, apparently, we never learned) with a grain of salt, but we learned a lot of very interesting things about Mianyang. Apparently, it’s actually one of the wealthiest cities in Sichuan. So much for our volunteer service…the school we’re working for is actually doing quite well. Part of the reason why Mianyang is doing so well (despite the earthquake of 2008) is because it is one of Chinese’s centers of technological development. In fact, Mianyang is the city in which China developed their atomic bomb.

The owner was curiously particular about life in China – he has his meals made specially (in other words, he doesn’t eat Chinese food), and he does not speak any Chinese. At all. Yet he’s lived here for a decade or so – and he hasn’t left the country in six year! Six years! Without speaking any Chinese…

He’s the first foreigner (other than the volunteers that traveled with me from Shanghai) I’ve encounter in Mianyang and I am very surprised that someone so resistant to, well, living the China life (if I can call it that), is living here. According to him, there are about 100 foreigners living in Mianyang, which has a total population of about 5.2 million Also, there aren’t really any Western tourists that come through here. No wonder I’ve only seen one other foreigner.

Anyways, it’s about time I give some visual representation of the Palace:

My bunk is on the bottom. Ricki's up top and every time she climbs up there the bunk sways precariously....it doesn't seem the most sturdy of contraptions, but it's held true so far.

We have no shelves or closets, so the empty bunk above Martha's bed is now a shelf.

My night table. Well, the only night table. Just bought those massive water guns today with Josh, and had an epic water fight in the park with a bunch of kids.

We don't have hot water or mattresses, yet we have two computers with internet. Strange. BTW, the book is a Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism. Dad passed it on to me and it's so good! Definitely recommended.

Our toilets. I think the photo speaks for itself.

Communal showers. Same as above.

Wide shot of the whole bathroom (except toilets). We will never be lacking in sinks, although I think about half of them are broken.

Mango the Waixingren on Display

So, I have a correction to make from the last post – we only teach three times a day (9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and 5:00 AM), which actually gives us a lot of free time.

Generally, my classes tend to be younger kids. Yesterday, I even had four year olds, who were really adorable but entirely not what I was expecting. The younger kids tend to be more challenging in some ways but also a lot of fun. Their teacher basically ran the class and I helped out. For instance, she would ask them to recite a line in English and if they got it right, they could come and give me a hug or a kiss on the cheek, which was really cute. Of course, they also liked calling me 外星人 (waixingren), which means alien. More commonly, kids tend to call me Mango because they have a hard time with the r (besides, Mango is an easy English word for them because the Chinese word is Manguo). Anyways, it’s a fun nickname.

I’ve been trying to avoid using too much Chinese with the students, because I feel like sometimes they know more English than they initially let on. However, I feel like they get more talkative with me and more confident with English once they see that I know some Chinese.

You know how I keep having very random experiences that sort of spring upon me when I’ve though I’d settled into a familiar routine in a place cut off from that sort of strangeness? Well, it happened again yesterday.

A woman accompanied by a little boy suddenly came into our room and walked up to me, asking me, “What’s your name?” I took off my headphones, clicked out of facebook chat, and answered, “Uhhh, Margaux.” She told me to follow her, without explaining why. I traded questioning looks with the others, before leaving the room silently.

I asked her as we waited for the elevator why she wanted me to follow her. Her English was not very good, so she explained in Chinese. I didn’t quite grasp what she was talking about.

We got to the entrance of the school, where registration takes place. It’s generally crowded by parents and kids, who wait in line to talk to the teachers staffing the computers they use to register students. The woman I’d be following gestured me towards one of the teachers, Candy, who I’d met before.

Candy explained they wanted me to just sit out in the front so that parents could see a foreigner was teaching at the school. Ironically, I was missing class in order to sit out there. I sat there for about an hour and a half, mostly just talking to Candy. Eventually, I was allowed to leave, but honestly, it was very strange…

Also, tried to play Left for Dead at an internet bar with Josh and Al. Failed miserably without anyone around to set up and lead the game…darn. On the way back though, we met a British expat whose been living in Mianyang for years now. He owns a restaurant bar close by (with burgers!!!), so I’ll probably be going there sometime soon.

The Children's Palace - Mianyang

Friday evening, I arrived in Mianyang with the other volunteers. Two teachers from the Children's Palace (I'm not kidding - that's really the name of our school) came to meet us and they brought us over to the Palace. We are all living on one of the top floors of the school, and are perpetually serenaded by the concerts taking place in the auditorium next door (by perpetually I mean from 8:00 AM to about 5:00 PM every day). Our bathrooms are composed of four holes in the ground separated by three foot high walls (and without doors, so entirely visible from the entrance to the bathroom) and a very large communal shower with about eight shower heads. There's really cold water or just cold water, but it's so hot here that I don't mind it at all. My bunk is basically a comforter on top of a wooden board, but I find it strangely comfortable.

According to our schedules, we're supposed to teach four classes a day, at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM (each lasts an hour). The kids are usually either 6 - 8 or 9 - 11 years old. And we have to teach every day except for Mondays, which, honestly, is a little much. I don't know how the English teachers here manage to teach 6 days a week for eight hours a day. I think it's a little crazy. We're asking for weekends off (well, Sunday at least) because, when we signed up, they said we'd have the weekends free. After all, I do want to be able to make a trip or two to Chengdu!

Although I've loved teaching so far and the kids are a lot a fun, I have been a little frustrated with how patronizing the school is sometimes. We were told not to leave the school when we arrived, which I found a bit much. That and a few other things have just been hard for me to stand. I've explained to a few teachers that I've been in China for a year now and am pretty good at situating myself and getting around in unfamiliar places. They look at me in strange disbelief sometimes and don't seem very interested in what I've seen of China but there's not much I can do about that. I certainly don't assume I "know" China or anything else like that, but it's a little irritating that a long year of experience is just tossed aside so easily.

Anyways, other than that, I'm having a great time. The food is great, people are interesting, and the students are fun.

Shanghai Orientation

So, I've been in Shanghai a couple days and it's completely different from the rest of China. I went to the Bund, which is a bunch of really cool, modern skyscrapers. On the other side of the river, there are a bunch of old European buildings leftover from colonial times, which was really interesting to see. Yesterday, I went to one of the floors of the Pearl Tower and it was an amazing view! There's a floor made of glass there and you can walk all the way around the tower on it. One of the others and I actually laid down on it, looking downward, which gives you the sensation of falling...kind of scary.

However, I don't feel like I'm in China yet, which is a bit like how I felt at the beginning of the Xi'an semester while in Beijing. But whatever. I'll get to Mianyang soon! (today, actually!)

And I got to see Ellie (from the Fall semester in Yunnan) the day before yesterday, which was great. We went to the World Finance building for free champagne (it's funny, the building's actually is the shape of a bottle opener) and I told Ellie about it, but I didn't give her a lot of notice and, since we don't have cellphones to use at the time, I was thinking it would be unlikely for her to actually come. So we were just hanging out, dancing some, and suddenly I saw her face amidst the others, looking so excited! We got to talk and catch up, which was great, and we're both heading off to Sichuan, so I'll probably get to see more of her.

I've figured out that there are six of us here going on to Mianyang, which we still don't know much about. It'll be interesting to see how things turn out...

Crazy Moscow Airport and Shanghai Arrival

So I’ve arrived in Shanghai for the start of the GVI volunteer teaching program. I almost didn’t make the flight out of Paris (bit of a train mix-up) but everything worked out fine. I stopped in the Moscow airport on the way, and it was like being in a giant maze of liquor stores.

My plane reached Shanghai a little late, but that was okay. Someone from the program’s staff was waiting for me and I followed him to one of the other volunteers, Julia, who will be also be teaching in Sichuan (not everyone here is going to the same place apparently). We took a bus from the airport to the city.

On arrival to the center, the staff showed us to our flat, which is really nice actually. I also got to meet some of the other volunteers, who come from all over the world (USA, UK, Italy, Spain and a few other places), although only four of them (that I’ve met) will be going to the same place as me. There are supposed to be more arrivals tonight and tomorrow (many flights were delayed, apparently).

Anyways, had some really good dumplings for lunch (Chris, if you’re reading this, they were the dragon dumplings filled with broth – and soooo good! You were looking for those, weren’t you? :P). Also had a pretty good dinner, though the dishes are very sweet and not very spicy here. I look forward to getting Sichuan dishes when we leave.

I’m not particularly looking forward to all the orientation intro and language classes, but they’ll be over soon enough and I’ll be in Sichuan before I know it. Hopefully, I’ll get to see Ellie too, who should be here by now, I think…if only I had a SIM card! I’ll have to wait until Sichuan before I buy one.