Hello hello hello

Hello hello helllo! To all who check this blog and find few new posts...be of good cheer! A small storm is brewing but is not to be released until my return from a small farm near the town of Hunchun in the Jilin Province. I leave there today for retreat, for small mountains, for fresh air untainted by exhaust of too many taxis honking and too many construction workers constructing, for the the farm where my father has been working the past couple of years. No, I will not see my father, he works from afar but I will meet colleagues of his and new friends of mine.
I do promise to be posting about my most interesting and delightful (though tiring) students and several other random but welcome adventures of mine. So rest in anticipation dear friends!

Oh! And a belated very happy Mid Autumn Day (Tuesday the 25 of Sept) to all you who appreciate the lunar calendar! Yeah Moon Cakes!

A blog for Josh

Ah this blog. I have been neglecting it. I feel like my brain and inspiration are getting sucked into a giant vacuum, thus the blog has suffered. My students are numerous but great. Sweet, eager to learn, but so many names and faces. New names, new faces, new words, new sounds. Culture shock does not have to come in the form of strange food, strange customs, strange living arrangements – instead it has come in the form of a classroom, which is an entirely different world that exists all over the world and I admit my utter ignorance of such a place. I will talk in depth about the classroom soon, when I have the words.

I have been having severe sleeping trouble. This can be attributed to stress, overdose of good strong green and jasmine tea and my inability to stop thinking, ever. Yet, it is more than that. A long-distance relationship. Somehow those words do brutal injustice to what is the struggle and difficulty of living, separated by land, water and time, from the person you feel most connected. How can it be described, knowing that other piece of yourself hurts and you cannot sit by their side? How can you communicate sympathy and support with words typed inside a text box or said across an echo-ey phone line?

Chinese is a difficult language but there are teachers and books and rules. The language of love across rivers, mountains, oceans, wind, and time is harder. It is more illusive. When you cannot communicate it breaks the heart and the body cannot rest because everything feels out of place.

When I write, I try to speak to a group. To find words and connections that make sense to a larger crowd than just myself. This experience however, is only my own. Being away from Josh, from someone whom I have learned and grown with in the past year, is more difficult for me then being in China and teaching, though I have never done either.

So this blog today is a gift. A 'silent' admission to you, Joshua Daniel Wiens. I will see you when you get here and hopefully I will sleep a couple nights before then.

The Grand Tour

It is a special privilege you know, to be totally out of synch with everybody else, to be unable to speak or listen, to be the 'foreign teacher.' So privileged, in fact, that it merits us to be formally introduced, given decorous gifts and then carted around to partake the campus of HIT and Harbin city sights.

Friday morning, for some unknown reason, we met Guodong in the downstairs lobby at 7:40. Why so early? No one could figure it out but there we all sat in the white van at 7:40 sharp, proceeded to wait 15 mins and then drove approximately 2 minutes to arrive at our first destination of the main building (more or less a 5 minute walk away). We were ushered into a lovely conference room, photographed like celebrities, given gifts and formally welcomed. We then spent a mildly interesting time learning about the history of HIT.

In the early 1900's Harbin was a small sleepy town in Northern China, jolted awake to industry by the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. HIT was founded at that time by the Russians to study railway engineering and other such fields. The first president was Russian and so were most of the small graduating class. Later it was handed over to Chinese guidance, expect for the period during the Japanese occupation. Today an expanded HIT boasts of being of the top ten universities in China with campuses in three different provinces of China. (Guodong said the other two places but I missed them, apologies!) Of course, the focus remains focused on technology but they also have departments for different languages, alas there are no International Development, Politics or Art in general majors at HIT. Languages like French, Russian, Japanese and English are studied for the purpose of basically going into business with a multi-national or becoming a professor. An interesting note; being a professor in China is regarded as a most prestigious office and this job is prized above most professions. I find this refreshing and want to pass on their love and respect to the many teachers in Canada and the US that suffer from lack of appreciation.

The rest of our tour was dry and most spent in the van with the soft spoken Guodong explaining each passing building to an increasingly uninterested bunch, I am sorry to say. So I will finish with one last point of interest; it is mandatory for every first year university student to go through two weeks of military training. On second campus we saw sidewalks full of camouflage clad young men and women practicing forming lines and standing straight with childlike nervousness and uncertainty. It appears to me an uncomfortable and unwise sort of union; education to military service, but it is in no way uncommon or unusual. (Mentally, I note it as something to examine if I ever decide to take up my small bachelor's thesis again for a masters.)

Teaching English

Tomorrow I will walk into a room full of 24 students and become a teacher. It is a bit of a deja vu experience for me because last Monday I thought would be my first day of teaching. In fact, I was totally prepared: powerpoint on flash drive, handouts copied and arranged in new clear plastic folder, and lack of sleep due to nervousness clearly painted on my anxious face. The department was very clear that we would begin September 3^rd, so there I was at 8AM Monday morning. Actually, I was early (a feat considering my usually close to late appearances) and had declared myself as teacher by spreading my stuff over the front desk and asking a student if they could please find the key to open the computer. (Remember, students often study in their classrooms.) Almost everyone vacated the room expect for one student who, speaking very little English, came up to my desk looking very confused. I asked him to locate his name on my class list, which he did reluctantly, all the time trying very hard to tell me something about Week 3. I, the very anxious to start class teacher, told him not to worry things would make sense soon.

Well, 8AM sort of came around and still I had no students. I was feeling a bit concerned about the only three students helping me to get the key to the computer, when one of the girls realized she was in the class next door (also an English class taught by Branson not me). I checked the room number on my list. Yes, room 115. Yes, that was the number above the door to the classroom. Then, hallelujah!, there was Miho in the next room! She noticed my confusion, plus the two students trying hard to explain something to me in fragmented English words, promptly came and spoke in Chinese with the students. "Oh Mya," she says, "the students say they have this class but on their schedule and on the board in front it says it does not start until next week, the 3^rd week." What? Oh bother. I thanked the students, told them I would figure it out and see them next week or something and went home to make some frantic calls.

Eventually, I did get in contact with Leslie and Guan (our liaisons with the graduates department) who literally patted me on the head, comforting me for my strange first day, and explained I actually did not start till Week 3. A mixed sort of relief: happy to be free to adjust a bit more but also upset I couldn't just get the first week over and done.

So, indeed, I have had the week to adjust and sleep a bit which has been a very good thing. I do have to work a week later in December, which does mean working over Christmas (though I get that one day off), but over all I appreciated my time. Honestly, I did not get half the things done I had hoped but I now have a bamboo plant in my living room and a working hot plate. I consider those accomplishments not to be taken lightly. J

And, tomorrow I will become a teacher. I am scared, frightened, excited and probably too confident for my own good. The lesson will be fairly easy, it is the names I am most concerned about.

I actually have a small rant I would like to share here (you can bear with me or just pretend I finished with the above paragraph): Ok, I do not want to give English names. That concept does not sit well with me and I have felt frustrated this week with all the talk of English names and bringing books to help people choose, and not letting students pick things like 'rainbow' or 'sky-bird.' Well why not!? But most of all, why are the names they have not good enough? What is an English name? How it is so different? Yes, of course it will be difficult to remember everyone's name, especially because Chinese pronunciation is very complicated for newbies. Bah! I am bad with names as it is and learning some 200 new student's names is going to be a bigger challenge than learning rudimentary Chinese, but I truly pledge to do so to my best abilities. OK. So maybe I am over-reacting but, unless a student is very insistent on using the name they choose for themselves in English, I will use their name given to them by their parents. (If anyone has any thoughts or advice on this for me PLEASE email me! I would appreciate the encouragement.)

Zaijiang! (Goodbye minus some accents for the pinyin). More Later!

Sunday Morning - The Streets of Harbin

Take the elevator, 16 floors down, students get on, we all get off. Walk through the glass doors, around the corner and through the streets of HIT and surrounding neighborhood. A wooden cart filled with various fruit, some in piles, some in boxes neatly wrapped in netted foam and brought in from the south or farther. Another cart, stacks of corn and corn husks piled all around. A large boiling pot of steamed corn besides a pot of coals, a woman roasting corn, one by one on skewers. 2 yuan a roasted corn. 15 yuan for 10 peaches, now sliced and freezing in my little fridge. Stay on or close to the uneven dusty side walk, walking around each tree. The taxis, cars and buses heed their own call and not the signs on the road, nor the people skittering about. Signs everywhere in Chinese characters, I recognize a sign for water but the rest dart the concrete landscape like decoration and do not help me determine the within. The railroad tracks run a block from the HIT gates by my dorm. The train comes by; little guards in blue suits come out to ensure traffic, human and gas-powered, heed the lights and dropped post. A man in a skull cap, perhaps Muslim from western China, roasts skewers of all kinds of meat on the sidewalk in front of his shop. Here, an old man enjoys a trim from an impromptu corner barber while a anxious looking lady supervises. Here, a couple youths strip plastic off large white window frames. Stiff, serious faced ladies and gentlemen walk slowly about under both gentle willow leaves and sharp banging of the nearest high rise, less welcoming perhaps but currently faster growing. Mist, pervades to soften the noise and the dirt, for a moment there is hush. Even the, "ugh ugh ugh," of the wise women doing morning tai chi, is quieted. The black canal, loosing a few pieces of trash to a freshly clad young woman sweeping with a net, remains, as ever, black and unmoving. Every tree, thin or thick, painted with a white substance, create a manicured appearance and keep bugs off. Swooping small birds, brown and black, careen across the well-kept lawn, snatching at these unfortunate bugs left on the ground. It is a morning of tradition, yet a morning of tomorrow. Walking 'home,' I sense an unease that is not uncomfortable. An adjusting taking place at a rapid pace but not unwelcome. If these are the streets of Harbin, perhaps they are also a small face of China. I wonder.

Thus ends my Sunday morning walk. (I enjoyed it, did you?)

The Manhattan Market

Thursday Miho (Japanese teacher) was kind enough to take Yoko and I to the wholesale market called Manhattan. I must assure you, the pronunciation of Manhattan is an entirely different thing and it was only when I saw it written down that I realized. Sounds more like "Mahaadeen." In any case, the only resemblance to the New York island is that it is packed full of way too many of everything.

The first floor is the most random floor where you can purchase anything from soap to huge decorative furniture. Second floor mostly household items from window blinds to bathroom fixtures and third floor holds media devices, cookware and things like leather massage chairs and wrinkle free steamers for clothes. Large furniture like couches, wicker chairs and dining sets make the fourth floor much quieter. A good place to go for a bit of rest before taking on the first floor!

Thank goodness for Miho! She easily maneuvered us around (she speaks Chinese very well) and helped us to purchase a rice cooker, dish drainers and bright coloured shower curtains to enliven that drab sticky space. The difficulty is in the bargaining. One never accepts the first price but must always bargain down a bit to get to something more sane. This is the hardest part for me. I have listened and listen to the Chinese numbers but for some reason they are not sticking in my brain. Furthermore, trying to think of many numbers in a very short time, calculate the difference in $US so I have a vague idea of what I might be spending, WHILE trying to discern what is a good price and what is too high when even a DVD player is maybe stated at Yuan 200 (US 22 or so) proves to be very mind boggling. Mostly this is what happens: I stroll up and sort of point and remark about a lovely red skillet and within seconds someone is by my side rapidly speaking about the amazing qualities of said skillet (or something). I say something random in English and shake my head and rummage in my bag for piece of paper and pen, which in turn clues her in to finding some type of calculator. She punches in a number for the price of the skillet, which of course is very high since I do not speak Chinese and thereby am certainly a foreigner who does not know diddly squat and will pay an exorbitant amount. I punch something else in, very low and she looks at me like I am crazy and then puts down the calculator. Thus, I walk away in order to quickly get called back to a slightly lower price which I decline…the price gets lower…by this time I really only wanted to know the price of the lovely red skillet and I really do not have 100 some Yuan to pay for it. And so the saga continues. I must admit I have bought a few things I really didn't want already because I am a softy and I can't bear to say no when I can't explain why. Not expensive things but for instance, the kitchen now supports a very bright pink trashcan to remind me of my gullibility. Ha.

Added note: The rice cooker that Yoko and I bought ended up not working. It was quite a disappointment after we bought rice and some veggies, chopped them all up and then discovered our rice cooker only kept things warm and refused to cook anything. We waited awhile until our rice and veggies were just slightly warm but then gave up. I was worried about exchanging the thing since I did not receive any kind of receipt but when I arrived at the spot the lady quickly understood my gestures, we tried it out, it still didn't work so she promptly pulled out a new one and handed it to me (we tested it first of course). So hurrah! I was happy the rest of the day! Yesterday, then was Yoko and I's first meal in our apt. Such an achievement!

So we all know I have arrived but where did I arrive to and all that jazz?

Harbin Institute of Technology (or something that I only know how to say not spell out in Chinese) is a very large university with two campuses in Harbin. I live on the main campus with many buildings, cafeterias, and the continual sound of many more buildings being constructed. Moving forward and building seem to be two very important themes in China and they are evident hourly. (they are building right outside my apartment window at ALL hours – night does not deter this structure from springing up under some industrial sun that never sleeps). Yet, it is still a very nice campus. Lots of tall wispy willows, bushes and flowers decorate the streets. I live in a tall dormitory of 16 floors on the very top floor with four other English teachers and two Japanese teachers. The 15^th floor is the home of a few more foreign language teachers including four more English teachers (from US and Britain) and the three Russian teachers. The rest of the dorm is full of all the foreign students; from first years studying Chinese (mostly Russian and South Korean) to masters level from Iraq to Zimbabwe studying biotechnology or computer science…etc.

My apartment is a three room and bathroom affair of very tall ceilings. The whole place is freshly painted white and there are two large windows in both the living room and bedroom. It is truly a very nice apartment the only problem is the lack of smaller items. The kitchen included a microwave, a hot water heater and a refrigerator but there were no dishes, nothing to cook with or on, no rags, no drinking water. Supposedly, the apartment is supposed to include a hot plate for cooking and indeed, there is a hot plate. Does it work? No. Sigh. The bedroom has a lovely cabinet to hang clothes but no hangers. The bathroom is equipped with a nice tub and broken toilet seat but no shower curtain. Yes, it is one thing to have a space with a chair and a bed; it is another thing entirely to inhabit a home.

So, my friend Yoko and I (also facing the same dilemmas) have been slowly gathering pieces. We continually wonder, what things are important enough to buy even though I might only use them for one year? Thankfully, she is very happy to share things with me like a rice cooker…etc. Of course, as far as food, it is very easy and inexpensive to eat. The university cafeterias (of which there are three on this campus) are large and the food tastes fairly good (the teachers have a separate eating place). When I say inexpensive I mean that it is cheaper to eat there than to cook for yourself. A meal at the nice cafeteria in the cushy buffet place for teachers is about 8Yuan or $1US dollar. A normal meal might be 3Yuan or about 45US cents (roughly). Around and within the campus are also a plethora of restaurants, from western coffee shops (crazy!) to Korean and of course tons of Chinese. Paying more than 20yuan for a meal would be very pricey indeed (a little over $2US). The food has been wonderful and I will speak more about various restaurants in a later post or so (something to look forward to!).

Yes, this is my home now. I have two plates, chopsticks and some spoons. I found a lovely yellow bowl (see a later post about the market) and we figured out how to have drinking water delivered. Slowly, little by little, it will feel like home. The few books and pictures are on the shelves and I even have a few little plants on the windowsill given to me by the gracious Japanese prof, Miho. Hurrah! Harbin!