Commencement and my new apartment

Monday we officially became Peace Corps Volunteers after our swearing-in ceremony!!!  We are now part of the China 18 team. It felt like graduation all over again- speeches and then running around taking tons of pictures with my friends. I’m really going to miss everyone but I’m glad we had a fun last day together.

My university supervisor/contact person, Kerry, came to the ceremony.  He waited for me to say all my goodbyes and give all my hugs (which took a while because there are so many awesome people in our group!), and then we packed up my stuff in his car and we drove to Jiangyou, my home for the next two years.  Monday evening and Tuesday I spent with Kerry doing errands in town: shopping for groceries and stuff for the apartment, getting registered at the local police department, getting a haircut (more on that later)…

He also helped me get my shower and toilet fixed.  It’s really funny about the shower because the cord on the new shower head is not as long as the previous one so the water doesn’t come out very high, and I have to bend my knees in order to rinse my hair under the shower head. I guess the plus side is that I will have strong thighs from having to squat in my shower! 

The toilet I had at first flushed but you had to lift the lid off the water tank and pull a string, which was kind of gross. I feel like when that’s happened at my parents’ house a plumber can fix it without replacing the toilet, but yesterday there was a box outside my apartment with my brand new toilet! I’m not complaining though because I don’t have to pay for it and now I have a shiny new one. 

Everything in the apartment was rather dirty when I got here, just from being unused for the past few months since the previous volunteer vacated the apartment.  The bathtub had nasty white residue and the sink had black gunk.  But with some bathroom cleaner and a handy sponge, they are clean now!  I’m taking advantage of this free time before teaching starts to clean everything.  I feel that maybe I am being a little OCD about cleaning every surface but I know that once teaching starts I will be very busy and I won’t be able to clean as often.  Plus I kind of enjoy it, because it’s making my home nicer.  I don’t know if the previous volunteer got lazy or just didn’t care anymore, because some of the stuff that grossed me out when I first got here has been defeated once I gave it a good scrub. 

Another quirk in my apartment is washer/dryer.  To fill the washer, I have to hook up a plastic pipe to the sink faucet and turn on the water which then fills it. Then once the cycle is complete, I have to turn a dial to indicate that the machine should empty the water… which unfortunately causes it to drain out of a hose onto the floor!  I was able to aim the hose at the Chinese toilet which is basically a porcelain hole in the ground so it all went down the hole, but I had to stand there with the hose for about ten minutes for all that water to drain out.  The clothes don’t get wrung in the washer so you pull them out and they are dripping wet. The dryer can only be set for up to five minutes at a time, and after letting it run two cycles, I gave up and just put everything on hangers.  Luckily clothes dry fast because of the heat.  I had to hang all my clothes at my Chengdu host family’s house, too, so that’s nothing new, but at least their washer wrings out the clothes first.  Oh and when I was hanging up my clothes, the shirt I was wearing got really wet.  I am just grateful to have a washer at all (I know one volunteer who was just given a washboard and a bucket!)  Let’s just say that washing clothes will be an adventure!!

Oh yeah, my haircut yesterday was the best haircut experience I’ve ever had! First I lay down on this bed and the hairdresser washed my hair with warm water and massaged my hair with shampoo for a good fifteen minutes.  Ahh it was so relaxing I almost fell asleep!  He cut my hair and then spent about ten minutes drying it in a way that the ends curled in.  Then he had a coworker take a picture of us, and said that anytime I need a haircut, I can go back there and get it for free!  Foreigner discount, cha-ching!!

Pictures of my apartment to come. I realize now that I should have taken some before pictures so you could see all the dirt and gunk but you’ll just have to take my word for it.  Just know it was pretty gross.

Festina Lente

The title of this post is Latin and it means "make haste slowly."  It is something our Program Manager, Alissa, told us yesterday during a session about American culture and the different ways that foreigners adapt to a new culture.  Her explanation of this quote can be summarized as follows: don't worry about being so good at your work that you miss out on all the experiences on the way.  She also said some wise things like: be humble; have fun; don't be too serious; be open; and be patient.

It was a very simple message and was only a small part of the entire presentation, but it really hit a chord with me because it was exactly what I needed to hear.  As it gets closer to the time when we all go to our sites and begin teaching, I have been questioning whether I will make a good teacher.  Our TEFL trainer asked us to send to create a semester plan, lesson plan, and a rubric, all of which will be useful for us, but I think some of us were stressed out because he gave us a deadline (Friday night- tomorrow- by midnight).  Also tomorrow is our language exam (Peace Corps wants us to be at intermediate low before we go to our sites.  It’s also our last day with our host families, which means we have to say goodbye and pack up.  This weekend will be the last few days we volunteers can spend together as well.  In short, we have a lot on our minds and there is a lot of pressure on us to do a good job.  Personally, the worst of the pressure comes from me because I am such a perfectionist and I will do my best at whatever I have to do, especially if it’s something that other people will see.  I found that during model school I spent so much time preparing each lesson. 

Basically I was feeling super stressed and doubtful.  These words were therefore very meaningful to me.  I did not join the Peace Corps to be stressed out and working all the time. I want to develop relationships with local people and do fun things with them, all the while learning about their culture and sharing about my culture.  Plus, as foreign teachers we are actually expected to be “fun” teachers and some schools don’t take their foreign teachers very seriously.  This is a learning process.  I may be teaching at a university but that doesn’t mean I have to be a professor or expert.  I think also I was trying too hard to conform to other teachers: I download lesson plans and semester plans off the internet and find myself mimicking them just because I feel that as an experienced teacher, they know what they’re doing much more than I do. 

Today however I worked on all my TEFL stuff and finished all those pieces in about 4 hours.  What helped me a lot was closing the other people’s materials and just brainstorming the things I am interested in.  That made it much more exciting and I felt productive and proud with my results.  Then I just organized it in a logical manner and then varied the way the students will practice what they learn.  This was for my Listening class, by the way.  Some of the topics I am most excited about are: having the students listen to a Dr. Seuss poem and identifying the made up words, listening to an audio book of one chapter from Harry Potter and summarizing what they hear and guessing what will happen next, and what I called a ‘craft dictation’ (basically two students will sit back to back and one will read off a list of instructions on how to make something and the other student will make it based solely on what they hear. I’m going to do that around Christmas time and have them make snowflakes).  Those were all my own ideas and I think they’re pretty awesome, if I do say so!!!

Of course, this isn’t the end of my planning. I know that once I get started I will have to make adjustments based on my students’ levels.  But at least I have a general idea of what I want to do this semester.  After tomorrow, all 70-something of the new PC China volunteers will move back to the hotel we were at the first week. We have sessions all day Saturday and Sunday, but come night the time is ours.  We are going to live up our last few days together! Then Monday we have a ceremony when we officially swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers and agree to accept all the responsibilities and challenges that come with that.

Every day I will try to remember Festina Lente.  I am looking forward to many great experiences!

Winding down

I can’t believe it but Pre Service Training (PST) is beginning to come to an end.  This is our last week together and next Monday we will swear in officially as Peace Corps Volunteers.  Soon after we will depart for our respective sites and head off to the next stage of our PC experience.  Today during a session we were asked to write our expectations, in terms of hardships, how we will deal, and hopes.

                The hardships I expect are: dealing with pollution and not being able to see sun or blue skies very often; getting used to being seen as a celebrity status by Chinese people who have never seen a foreigner in person before (“celebrity status”); learning how to win favor from the authority figures at the school (it’s called “guanxi” or relationship. If you have good guanxi with important people, they will help you. If you don’t, it can be very hard to get things done); last minute notice to give lectures or performances in front of many people; artificial relationships because of language barriers and cultural differences; not being able to speak freely; learning to be indirect; appliances in my apartment breaking or not working (when I visited my new apartment during my site visit, I found that the AC/Heater, land line phone, toilet, and water in the shower are all broken or dysfunctional); loneliness; having a hard time connecting or relating with people; being misunderstood; getting people to see me for who I am and not just as a foreigner who speaks  English (so many parents push- literally- their kids to talk to me and the other PCVs just so they can practice their English). 

                I know that teaching will be hard for me, especially the first semester.  I came into Peace Corps with no teaching experience at all. Now I can say I have two weeks of experience, from when we taught model school with interested students.  I am worried about creating semester plans and lesson plans: making a plan for one day is easy but how do I gear each individual lesson toward the big picture, semester goals and objectives?

                I am also going to really miss the other PCVs.  We have gotten pretty close over the past two months, and we have a lot of fun together, especially when we go out on weekends.

                However, I have several strategies that I hope will help me cope.  I will try to stay positive and have a good attitude, which shouldn’t be too hard because I always do that anyway.  I will try to find the good in every situation.  I will take time for myself to do the things I enjoy.  I will get to know my students outside of class (hiking, biking, art projects, etc.).  I will stay in touch with the other PCVs and visit some of them at their sites.  I will also try to be patient, polite, and gracious when dealing with the Chinese faculty and staff even if I don’t understand why do what they do. 

                I hope to become less self-conscious and more confident.  I will learn how to make do with the limited resources I have.  I hope to get a better idea of what I want to do with my future.  I hope to take up Chinese activities and hobbies, like mahjong, calligraphy, tai chi, etc. 

                Overall, I am very excited about going to site and getting settled.  I am looking forward to teaching and learning how to be a better teacher.  I have a lot of positive thoughts about what is to come, although I know to expect the unexpected at every turn and not get too complacent.  

Random thoughts on Chinese and languages

While studying Spanish, I was always amused by the use of borrowed English words, or Spanish-afied English words.  It was usually technological words, like fax, mp3, computer (computadora), Xerox, etc.  Today I learned a fun example of a fun borrowed English word used by Chinese people.  First of all, to ask how someone is, you say, “Ni hao le ma?” (which more directly translates to, “Are you good?”). Today I learned that Chinese people will often also say, “Ni okay le ma?” 

I love it. That’s totally going to be added to the list of my most commonly used Chinese words (others include, xie xie/ thank you, dui bu qi/ excuse me or sorry, ni hao/ hello, zai jian/ goodbye, etc.)

Another thing that’s interesting is that one way of forming a question is by simply adding “ma” to the end of a statement.  So to change, “You like eating” (“Ni xihuan chi fan”) to a question you would simply say, “Ni xihuan chi fan ma”?  It has gotten to the point where if I am asking a someone a question in English (a non “wh” question- who, what, where, etc.), I will sometimes add “ma” to the end of a statement without intending to (and sometimes just for fun).  You are going home, ma?  You are full, ma?  Etc.

Another thing is that because of my limited Chinese ability, and especially my inability to understand what I hear (my ting bu dong, if you recall what I mentioned in a previous post), often I will interject a random sentence into my host parents’ conversations.  I can’t tell when they finish discussing a topic so I just jump whenever there’s a pause.  Tonight at dinner they were talking about something and out of nowhere I held out my wrist to my host mom to show her the bracelet I was wearing and explain that I bought it yesterday at Jin Li Road (an ancient road that is now a tourist site with a lot of shops).  She said something in response and then returned to talking to my host dad in Chinese, and I realized I must sound pretty silly to them sometimes.  I’m just taking any opportunity to practice so I search my brain for random things that I know how to talk about, and spit out a sentence just for the pride of having said a sentence correctly in Chinese.  I find it rather amusing.

You find it amusing, ma?

Chengdu Night Life

For those of you that know how much I love dancing and clubbing, you will not be surprised that the other volunteers and I have taken advantage of the nightlife in Chengdu.  Every weekend, we go to one of our favorite areas and dance in the clubs or chill in the bars.  The clubs here are really awesome: most of the floor space is taken up by small tables but there is a small stage where people can go and dance.  Many times the stage is empty when we arrive and then once we start dancing, Chinese people will come up and dance with us!  That’s how we do it, bringing the party!!  Then every half hour or so, they clear the stage floor and there are some crazy dance performances by club employees.  You are guaranteed to be entertained and also to see some crazy costumes!  

During orientation week way back in the beginning of July, we went to a really cool club called Muse, which is where we were first introduced to Chinese clubs and their unique performances.  Near Muse there are several other clubs, and we went to one last Friday and I stayed their dancing with a few other friends until about 3:30 in the morning!!  Also near there is LanTown, a really chill bar with couches and a foosball table.  Another area we call the Hub. It’s got an American bar which has delicious French fries and life-changing banana caramel French toast.  Right next door are two clubs, the best of which is Jellyfish.  The great thing is that our favorite places are close to my training site, Sichuan University, so it’s really easy for me to get there and home again by taxi or bike.  The PCTs at the other training sites have a little bit more of a journey, but that doesn’t stop them from coming out.  

There are some other places we have been to.  The Rainbow Bar is also very chill and they have drums and guitars that patrons can play if they choose.  There are also several bars by the river which are pretty cool.  

LanTown

LanTown

LanTown

I don't remember the name of this club but it's the one I was at until 4 AM. An example of the crazy costumes of the performers!!

It’s great after a busy week of training to decompress with my friends by dancing the night away or hanging out at a bar!

Since the beginning of July, I have been in Chengdu with all the other PCTs for Chinese language, TEFL, and safety and security training.  I spent this past week in Jiangyou, which will be my home for the next two years.  It’s in the same province (Sichuan) and only two hours north of Chengdu by bus.  It is still a city but much smaller than Chengdu, and near my university there is so much GREEN: hills, farms, trees, etc.  My apartment is on the campus of my university, which is called Sichuan Preschool Educators College.  It’s a pretty small campus. I walked around with the Peace Corps volunteer, Mary, who has been there for a year. She is a China 17, meaning she is part of the 17^th group to come to China with the Peace Corps. I am a China 18.  It seems like you can get almost anywhere on campus within 15 minutes, or at least what I saw of it.  Katie, a China 16 who this year finished her two years in the Peace Corps, had set up an English corner in a classroom near the art department, and there are tons of books on teaching English, kids’ books, and novels in English, as well as several drawers of DVDs. I am also living in the apartment she lived in, and she left me a bunch of clothes, baking supplies, an electric blanket, a hair dryer, and some cleaning supplies.

 A little information about the college: it is a three year school, and most of the students who go there are somewhat low-level in English, because pretty much the only people who become preschool and kindergarten teachers are those who failed the gaokao, which is the university entrance exam.  I have heard that classes may be unexpectedly cancelled for student dance and song performances. Sometimes teachers take part in the performances.  Mary tells me that I have quite a bit of flexibility in terms of what and how I teach.  My classes will be Reading and Listening but how I teach the students is up to me, and having the students watch movies or listen to music in class is totally acceptable.  I can also incorporate art projects especially ones that they could use with their future students.  Students will probably ask me to go hiking, and Mary often has students over to bake yummy things.  Plus there is a huge art department on campus and I may be able to take classes for free.   I feel like I couldn’t ask for a more perfect placement!!! It sounds like I will be able to do all the things I love with my students: dancing, singing, baking, art and crafts…. It’s too good to be true!!  I’m sure there will be a lot of challenges but I will maintain sanity with all those good things. 

                I stayed with a host family in Jiangyou, and they were very nice but didn’t speak any English except for the 13 year old son, Jerry. It was Jerry’s parents and grandparents, and there often cousin, aunts, and uncles coming in and out.  Plus they speak the Sichuan dialect which is pretty different from Mandarin, in that they use different words and also different pronunciation even of the words that are shared.  It was frustrating because many times when we all sat together, people in the family would say something to me really fast, and I would stare blankly at them. Sometimes I asked them to repeat but I felt like they got really frustrated with me for not understanding them.  So mostly I would just stare until they gave up.  Jerry was pretty oblivious and would often be playing on his phone or just not realizing that I kept saying ting bu dong, ting bu dong, which means I don’t understand (ting=listen, bu=don’t, and dong= understand). I would have to ask him directly to translate because it rarely occurred to him to come to my aid.  I think a lot of people get the idea that just because I can ask certain questions and say some sentences in Chinese that I am fluent or that I understand everything I hear. False! What I say is all I know.  I kept telling them that I only have been learning Chinese since July.  The worst part is that I could tell when they were talking about me, because they would either point or I’d hear them say, ting bu dong.  I wanted to say, I may not ting dong Chinese but I do ting dong “ting bu dong”!  I discovered, however, that they like playing card games and they loved Uno.  Thank goodness for that! We played many card games this week and it was a great icebreaker and time passer especially in the evening when the whole family was home and sitting around. I felt like they expected me to lead a discussion with them or entertain them somehow but I was completely at a loss at what to say after exhausting my few sentences of small talk in Chinese.  After the first night, I just would pull out my cards every night and it totally saved me.  We also watched a few movies this week (Real Steel and Kung Fu Panda 2) which I appreciated because it allowed me to just zone out.  I don’t want to give a bad impression of my experience because I did have a good week, but it was just frustrating sometimes.

                My time in Jiangyou really made me appreciate my Chengdu host family even more.  They are really patient with me when I speak Chinese and they don’t seem bothered by the fact I often forget words even if I hear them repeatedly.  As I’ve said before, they have hosted two other Americans (Peace Corps volunteers) so I think they understand American etiquette and behavior a little more than other people’s host families, and they understand that I don’t know very much Chinese at all. They let me have my space and don’t bother me if I am in my room working on stuff.  Plus I have my own bathroom. The bathroom at my Jiangyou host family was shared by everyone in the family, and the lock didn’t work so I was always concerned that someone would come in on me.  My Chengdu family is super low key and it’s just the host parents so I don’t have a bunch of people constantly staring at me or jabbering at me a mile a minute.  I definitely enjoyed my site visit in Jiangyou but I was really happy to be in Chengdu and with my host family here. I never thought I would miss this big city but it was great to be back in familiar territory. The night I got back (Friday) I hung out with PCTs.  We didn’t have class Saturday for once so we went clubbing and I didn’t get home until 4 in the morning. It was so great to see some of them again! I had missed everybody this past week.  I’m really going to miss the other volunteers but I think once I get back to site I will be pretty busy with teaching and preparing lessons so it will be ok.

After the last day of Model School, my awesome students took me, my co-teacher, Dan, and several of the other PC Trainees out to dinner. We then went to KTV (karaoke bar) and sang and danced in our own private room. It was pretty epic, and super generous of them to do that! They bought dinner and we helped pay for KTV. They know so many American songs! It was so fun, and was definitely a memorable night that I am so glad I got to be a part of. I will miss my students even though I only taught them for two weeks. They are really sweet and I wish we had more time to get to know each other!!! <3

Once again in my life I find myself needing to adjust my concept of productivity and time well-spent.  When I studied abroad in Mexico, this was a big challenge for me. Before then, I had always defined my time by how much I got done, and how many tasks I checked off my to-do list for the day. Everything changed during my time in Mexico because nothing is predictable, and you never get as much done as you want (if you are so naïve to think that you can get a lot done in Mexico!).  Stores are randomly closed throughout the day; if you see people you know it’s expected that you stop and talk with them for a while. There are always delays and it’s something that took me a while to get used to. But once I did, I totally fell in love with the Mexican way of thinking and living: what matters is the moment. Keep an eye on the future but don’t obsess about it. 

China is the same way and it’s something that’s taking me a while to get back into.  Unpredictability is the norm especially living with a host family.  I never know what they have planned for me until the day of, and many times we go out to tea with their friends, and end up sitting for hours and hours. I have no control of where we go or when we leave.  Now I know to always bring my journal or Chinese notebook whenever I go out with them! Still, it can be frustrating after 3, 4, 5 hours of sitting, when I wanted to spend my weekend doing my own things. I like to spend time with my host family but my contribution to any conversation ends after a very short time, whereas they never seem to run out of things to talk about with their friends.  (At least in Mexico if I was out with people for a long time I could converse and meet new people!) I’ve learned that there is no reason why I have to sit with them like a zombie- I usually pull out my notebook and review some Chinese or wander around. I think my host parents understand that I like being with them, I just don’t have much I can say that they will understand. Our conversations are still so limited, even though I technically have learned a lot of Chinese by now. It’s all just small talk though.

                Today we actually went to a really cool place. It’s a departure point for people going rock climbing and backpacking.  Actually have no idea what it was, but we’re call it the jungle adventure place.  It was so beautiful and green!!! We ate at a place down the road.  It was a beautiful place to be, and it was so nice to get out of the city and the humidity! After lunch, we settled down at a table and after short time my attention started to wander and I got restless. There was a lovely creek, and I spent a long time walking through the water and jumping on the boulders like a frog.   I made friends with two little girls also playing in the creek, watched some women play mahjong, lay in a hammock, and took lots of pictures.  I kept wondering when we’d go home, but I also tried to just enjoy all the beauty and the fact that I am done with teaching for now (we just finished teaching at model school, which was the hardest part of training so far! It was so time consuming preparing all the lessons, and a little nerve wracking because I’ve never taught before so that was my first time). 

                I am grateful to have the time today with nothing to do to reflect on my time in China so far.  There’s nothing like sitting in beautiful nature for doing some good thinking!  I have come to the conclusion that I have been taking things to seriously these past few weeks. I just want to make a good impression on the Peace Corps staff and not fall behind in any of the work, but I think I’ve been worrying too much. I’ve broken down and cried in front of other trainees several times now because of model school and Chinese class.  I’m not a nervous wreck, I swear!  That’s pretty unusual for me, actually. Some of the other Peace Corps trainees still don’t understand my sense of humor- I think I come off as being really serious to some people so they totally don’t get when I am being sarcastic or joking (which is most of the time!).  While sitting on the boulders with my feet in the cold water today I realized I need to be happier, and not let things like the humidity and being constantly sweaty get me down so much!  I don’t want to give people the wrong impression of me.  I think because China is so different from anything I’ve ever done before and I’m not a fan of huge cities, maybe I’ve been a little reserved or on edge these past few weeks, and I really want to turn that around in these last few weeks of training before we all split up to our respective sites.

                I’m excited for site placement (we find out our home for the next two years this Thursday-eek!) but also sad because it means I will have to leave my friends.  I came into Peace Corps not knowing anyone and now I have so many good friends and I am not looking forward to having to say goodbye to them. The great thing is that we will be able to visit each other and see new places, and several of us want to travel in Southeast Asia.  Plus there will be trainings and summer projects together to look forward to, but nonetheless, the initial parting will be hard.  My life in China so far has been somewhat isolated and sheltered, and it’s about to get real in a few weeks. I will be on my own, potentially with people who have very little interaction with foreigners.

Me at the jungle adventure place

                All I can do now is think about today. What will come, will come and I know I will be able to handle whatever that is.  

The 80's called and they want their phone back!

I'd like to introduce you to the phone that I'm using during PreService Training. The story behind it is just that my host family has hosted two other volunteers so they've had this phone for.... a while.... They just added more money on it for me.  Let me tell you, if I had a dollar for every time someone got excited when the saw my phone, I would be rich now.  It is definitely the joke of my training site. It can only handle all caps, so people always give me a hard time for yelling at them when I send them a text message (hey at least it CAN send texts!!! You wouldn't think so from looking it.)  My joke is that I can never go anywhere without my purse because I need it just to hold my phone... it doesn't fit in my pockets.  It's okay though, I think it's hilarious. I'm just waiting for Marty McFly to show up in the Flying DeLorean and try to take it back from me!