Ni hao Kaifeng!
I’ve found myself living in Asia, yet again. I don’t know whether it’s the wage, the people or just my love for jumping in the deep end with blinders on that brought me back here, but here I am. This time, I’m in Kaifeng, Henan Province, China. This city has heaps of history; at one point it was the capital of China - but probably hundreds of years ago, it’s really run down these days. (Can you tell I’m a history buff?) I am teaching at Henan University, one of the oldest universities in China, so I’m told. I’ve been here for little more than twenty-four hours, so I have yet to explore the campus. I spent yesterday walking around the city, exploring markets where clothing, house wares, electronics and anything else you can imagine is sold. I wandered so far, that getting home proved to be a challenge. The tuk-tuk driver had to ask at least twenty different people where to take me (even though I presented her with a Chinese address), it became a community affair: where to bring the foreign girl. First impressions? Well, for one, Kaifeng is nothing like Taipei. It’s very provincial here and so there are very few foreigners. On any given day in Taipei, I would likely see over thirty foreigners walking around. I’m told that in Kaifeng, there are probably less than fifty foreigners, total. Last night, I met four of them. Goods are very cheap here, but there is no cheese. Milk is not refrigerated and has something called UHC in it.
I’m living in a hotel room across from the university. I’m told there are eight other teachers here; I’ve met one, Bill. My supervisor, Kirsty, is a lovely woman. We had lunch yesterday and she explained that my two classes have been severely disadvantaged as their initial teacher fell ill. They’ve had five substitutes already and they have only just finished their fourth week of class. One student wrote four names and a question mark under the “Teacher’s Name” section of one of his assignments. Head Office in Melbourne was not pleased to hear that. I am so excited to dive in to teaching once again. In Taiwan I taught kindergarten through to senior high school. Now, onto the challenge of university students!
At first, I figured I’d have absolutely no social life here in Kaifeng. Coming from Melbourne where new friendships were blooming and summer was just peeking around the corner, I prepared myself for a whole lot of aimless walking around. But then, a friend from Taipei informed me that one of our mutual friends, Mike, now lives in Kaifeng! (I’m continually amazed by how small the world can seem.) So last night, after the receptionist gave me a tutorial on how to use my phone (in Chinese) I hammered out Mike’s mobile. Turns out he literally lives across the street! Funny that I happened to know one of the fifty foreigners that lives here! Mike invited me to the only dance club in the city, he was leaving in fifteen minutes. I was tired and jetlagged but have learned in the past that you’ve got to take advantage of opportunities to make friends whenever they come up in Asia. So off I went, with Mike and some of his friends to this club. It turned out to be a hilarious and really fun night. We were treated like celebrities with free alcohol, free food and VIP seating. It’s funny how they parade foreigners around sometimes like, “if they come here, you should too!” The music was pretty good, and the establishment in general was really great for where we are. Every time we started dancing, the DJ would put on really tacky English dance music remixes like, “Last Christmas” and “Country Roads.”
One annoying thing about living in China is the censorship. I can’t access Facebook, my blog or YouTube and sometimes the internet in general just stops working (though this might be due to my helplessness with computers). Since I’ve got all this spare time now that I would normally spend on Facebook, I’ve decided to start a six-week blog challenge (inspired by the movie I saw on the plane, Julie, Julia). Of course, this “blog” challenge will be done in the form of emails since I can’t access my blog. I’m going to update everyday with funny things that happened and observations, etc… This is also, in part, to get me writing again. I was so busy in Melbourne that I put writing on the back burner for a while. I will try my best to make the posts short, as I tend to be very long-winded. Now, I don’t want to send everyone an email a day and get reported as spam (or even just annoy the hell out of you); but, I do know that there are many of you who would like to receive the six-week challenge.
SO, please email me back if you would like to receive a short China-update daily. Remember, it will only be for six-weeks and I promise to make it as funny as possible (though, Kaifeng will most likely do that work for me!) Everyone who emails me will be put on the email list and if you start to lose interest, just email me to take you off. I promise not to sell you anything, just to give you something to smile about every day.
And the challenge begins!
I’ve found myself living in Asia, yet again. I don’t know whether it’s the wage, the people or just my love for jumping in the deep end with blinders on that brought me back here, but here I am. This time, I’m in Kaifeng, Henan Province, China. This city has heaps of history; at one point it was the capital of China - but probably hundreds of years ago, it’s really run down these days. (Can you tell I’m a history buff?) I am teaching at Henan University, one of the oldest universities in China, so I’m told. I’ve been here for little more than twenty-four hours, so I have yet to explore the campus. I spent yesterday walking around the city, exploring markets where clothing, house wares, electronics and anything else you can imagine is sold. I wandered so far, that getting home proved to be a challenge. The tuk-tuk driver had to ask at least twenty different people where to take me (even though I presented her with a Chinese address), it became a community affair: where to bring the foreign girl. First impressions? Well, for one, Kaifeng is nothing like Taipei. It’s very provincial here and so there are very few foreigners. On any given day in Taipei, I would likely see over thirty foreigners walking around. I’m told that in Kaifeng, there are probably less than fifty foreigners, total. Last night, I met four of them. Goods are very cheap here, but there is no cheese. Milk is not refrigerated and has something called UHC in it.
I’m living in a hotel room across from the university. I’m told there are eight other teachers here; I’ve met one, Bill. My supervisor, Kirsty, is a lovely woman. We had lunch yesterday and she explained that my two classes have been severely disadvantaged as their initial teacher fell ill. They’ve had five substitutes already and they have only just finished their fourth week of class. One student wrote four names and a question mark under the “Teacher’s Name” section of one of his assignments. Head Office in Melbourne was not pleased to hear that. I am so excited to dive in to teaching once again. In Taiwan I taught kindergarten through to senior high school. Now, onto the challenge of university students!
At first, I figured I’d have absolutely no social life here in Kaifeng. Coming from Melbourne where new friendships were blooming and summer was just peeking around the corner, I prepared myself for a whole lot of aimless walking around. But then, a friend from Taipei informed me that one of our mutual friends, Mike, now lives in Kaifeng! (I’m continually amazed by how small the world can seem.) So last night, after the receptionist gave me a tutorial on how to use my phone (in Chinese) I hammered out Mike’s mobile. Turns out he literally lives across the street! Funny that I happened to know one of the fifty foreigners that lives here! Mike invited me to the only dance club in the city, he was leaving in fifteen minutes. I was tired and jetlagged but have learned in the past that you’ve got to take advantage of opportunities to make friends whenever they come up in Asia. So off I went, with Mike and some of his friends to this club. It turned out to be a hilarious and really fun night. We were treated like celebrities with free alcohol, free food and VIP seating. It’s funny how they parade foreigners around sometimes like, “if they come here, you should too!” The music was pretty good, and the establishment in general was really great for where we are. Every time we started dancing, the DJ would put on really tacky English dance music remixes like, “Last Christmas” and “Country Roads.”
One annoying thing about living in China is the censorship. I can’t access Facebook, my blog or YouTube and sometimes the internet in general just stops working (though this might be due to my helplessness with computers). Since I’ve got all this spare time now that I would normally spend on Facebook, I’ve decided to start a six-week blog challenge (inspired by the movie I saw on the plane, Julie, Julia). Of course, this “blog” challenge will be done in the form of emails since I can’t access my blog. I’m going to update everyday with funny things that happened and observations, etc… This is also, in part, to get me writing again. I was so busy in Melbourne that I put writing on the back burner for a while. I will try my best to make the posts short, as I tend to be very long-winded. Now, I don’t want to send everyone an email a day and get reported as spam (or even just annoy the hell out of you); but, I do know that there are many of you who would like to receive the six-week challenge.
SO, please email me back if you would like to receive a short China-update daily. Remember, it will only be for six-weeks and I promise to make it as funny as possible (though, Kaifeng will most likely do that work for me!) Everyone who emails me will be put on the email list and if you start to lose interest, just email me to take you off. I promise not to sell you anything, just to give you something to smile about every day.
And the challenge begins!
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