Sunday was a workday.  In the previous post you will understand why.  So, naturally, I didn’t have to work. 🙂  Instead, I decided to partake in the gloriously sunny, blue-sky day and head to the Art District with my friend Jun Ning.  (Remember from the bike ride?)  We met at Sanyuanqiao subway station to board our bus.  It takes a while to get to 798 so we had some good chatting time.  There’s not much to write about 798 so I’ll just share pictures with you.  It was a really great day in the sun!

Near the entrance of 798

Brick Iron

Galleries are in German-style warehouse buildings (formerly for factories). Designed like this to let in the most light. But the windows face north so that the light casts fewer shadows. Each 'room' in the building curves upward and then slants downward. The windows are in the slant.

Jun Ning and I figured out that these were here for you to stand in and have your picture taken. Then we had a grand time laughing with the other Chinese people who were taking part in this!

There was an abundance of graffiti. A lot of it was really cool.

I took many more pictures but I’ll keep it brief on here.  Stay tuned for the next blog update!  I’ll be leaving this weekend to go to Ningxia Province to do some camping in the desert.  Oh, and there will be some camel riding also! 😉

I decided to buy a new bike.  After riding the really awesome bike not once, but two times and realizing the potential power one has with this sort of bike, I felt the need to have my own awesome bike!

One of the veteran teachers came with me and another teacher because we both wanted new bikes.  His Chinese skills were exactly what we needed to get a good price.  After trying out a few different bikes–some better than others–we both settled on bikes that we wanted.  During the bargaining, two other Chinese people came up to our ‘conversation’ with the bike lady and wanted to ride the bike I had chosen.  Now, a strategy for bargaining is not looking too interested in the object being purchased.  If the seller knows you want it badly enough, he or she will try to get a higher price from you.  This was difficult because I really liked this bike.  So, the veteran teacher told me to not look interested and to let the other guy ride it.  He then asked if they had more than one. 🙂  A thought popped into my mind that maybe these two people were actually employees of the bike place and were ‘playing’ us by pretending they wanted the same bike so that we would end up paying more.  In the end, they were actually just getting in on the bargaining so that they could get the best price also!  It was funny to watch. 

In China, a shiny new bike screams, “steal me!”  I should know this lesson well because of the incident from last year which will not be brought up again. 🙁  So, a way to combat theft in this country is to make something that is beautiful and shiny and new look like it is not beautiful and shiny and new.  After we purchased the bikes, the other teacher spray painted them and rubbed dirt in the wet spray paint.  It was a little sad to watch but also very entertaining.  We were drawing quite a crowd with this display.  Below are photos of the shiny new bike before and after the paint job. Enjoy!

The shiny new bike before it was defiled. It was a shame too because I really love red!

During the paint job.

...more during...

...after. He was pretty proud of the paint job!

Final product. Still looks new. Hopefully that won't be a problem...

In the midst of changing jobs…again…there still stands some time to explore and have fun.

Yesterday was “Mid-Autumn Festival” in China and what that means is three days off!  Although I’ve had quite a bit of free time the way it is, the past two days have been pretty great!

Let me explain something about holidays in China.  They don’t actually take a break.  Holiday time is for resting and enjoying oneself away from the stresses of work.  Well, here in China, we don’t roll that way.  For example:  say a holiday falls on a Wednesday (like this one).  Instead of taking the holiday by itself and enjoying the one day off, let’s have three days off!  Woo hoo! 🙂  But…wait…we can’t possibly take that much time off work so let’s rearrange the week.  Let’s move Thursday to Saturday and Friday to Sunday.  That way, we still get our work time in but have three days off in a row.  (What they don’t understand is that now they will work seven days in a row.)  WHAT?!?  I will never understand this.  This, my friends, is country-wide.  There are not many exceptions.  It’s this way for EVERY holiday that doesn’t fall on a weekend.  Somethings aren’t meant to be understood.

With that being said, I’ll tell you what I did on the first two days of my three days off. 

Day 1

Remember last year’s journey around the 4th Ring Road? Well, a friend of mine wanted to bike around the 3rd Ring Road on Wednesday.  This journey is a bit shorter (30 miles instead of 42ish).  I was excited to go for a long bike ride again.  So, two other foreign teachers, one Chinese friend, and I set out to conquer the 3rd Ring.  We all decided that this shouldn’t take long at all. Boy, were we wrong!  We began around 10:30 am when we finally arrived at the 3rd Ring.  (It’s not too far from my home, but keep in mind that we are north of the 4th Ring.)  We barely got started on the journey when one of us wanted to stop for something to drink and a snack because he hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast.  Well, we couldn’t possibly let him bike 30+ miles on an empty stomach.  While we were waiting outside the 7-11 (yes, they have those in China) we witnessed a fist-fight.  Someone had gotten into an accident (we think) with another person and the one person wanted to drive away. So the other guy stood in front of the car to keep him from moving….etc, etc.  It was mildly humorous and highly entertaining.  (yes, I know I shouldn’t be entertained by this)  After we were finished taking some pictures we were finally on our way…for real this time.  A little while later (like 5 minutes) we stopped again.  This time at a bike guy’s cart to get oil on a couple of chains, a seat raised, and a tension rod tightened.  After this is what I like to refer to as our REAL starting time.  We did pretty well until we got to the eastern side of the city and the traffic stopped.  I’ll admit, it is WAY better to be on a bike than in a car at times like this, but this particular traffic jam was ridiculous.  We couldn’t even bike between some of the cars. 

This was taken after traffic had let up quite a bit. We weren't sure why the traffic was so bad since no one had to work that day. Maybe everyone decided to go to the same place! See how there are four solid lanes of traffic (and up ahead 5)? I'm pretty sure there are only 3 actual lanes on this road. They identify the bad drivers in the city with blue license plates!

After the massive traffic back up, we found ourselves in the CBD: Central Business District.  This part of ‘town’ is in Chaoyang District and is where the rich foreigners live and is also the location of the US Embassy.  A beautiful part of town with lots of green space and bad drivers.

This is the CCTV building in the Business district. It's very cool looking. I would not want to be a window washer for this building. What you don't see in this picture (actually, you can a little) is the building right next to it that still bears the fire damage from Chinese New Years fireworks gone awry. That was a year and a half ago. 🙂

When we got about half way around the ring, my Chinese friend, Jun Ning, asked if she and I could switch bikes.  I had borrowed another friend’s bike so that she could use my bike for the trip.  This other bike was a bit high for both of us but had sweet gears and made the biking really easy.  So, we switched bikes for the rest of the trip.  Below is what she looked like when we switched. 🙂

Jun Ning. Afraid. 🙂 She really was a vision. She had on purple pants, a blue t-shirt with a bike on it, a yellow sweatshirt over it and bright bluish-turquoise shoes! Jun Ning just graduated from medical school and is waiting to hear the results of her certification test. She is also a believer!

Other sights on the journey included:

Make sure you aren't using your exploding car

The bike I was riding. This was an accident. Notice the ground is in focus and the bike is not.

McDonald's delivery guy. This is actually a very common scene. They are some of very few people who wear helmets.

Three bikers after surviving the traffic jam.

Team 3rd Ring at the beginning of the journey!

The Fearsome Foursome at the end of the journey!

Day 2

On Thursday, I visited the beautiful city of Tianjin.  If you remember, I went there last year during my spring festival break to visit my friend Gretl and to meet her family.  See that guy in the picture above?  Last year, he made it his goal to get his Chinese driver’s license. He did this and now wants to drive at every opportunity.  🙂  He decided to rent a van to do a road trip for the National Holiday coming up in about a week.  However, it’s cheaper per day if you rent the van for the whole month.  So, he asked if anyone wanted to go to Tianjin to visit Gretl.  I was in.  We left at about 7:30 am and after a few missed exits, a couple turn-arounds, and two re-routes (thankfully we had GPS on an iPhone) we arrived at the correct neighborhood.  Now, a little about Chinese apartment complexes.  There is no rhyme or reason to how they number the buildings.  If there is, it is not obvious to the average person.  We were searching and searching for building 18.  We had 20. We had 15, 14, 17, 19.  Where was 18?  Eventually, after much asking, (I no longer need to practice that phrase) we found the right building and the correct door. 🙂  We were greeted by warm smiles and hugs!  Gretl’s parents, aunt, uncle and cousin, and her grandma were all there to have lunch with us.  Before lunch we played Ma Jiang.  The tile game that I mentioned the last time I visited.  We were treated to a delicious lunch and then we got into the van to explore the city.  Now, this van is unlike any vehicle you’ve ridden in.  Okay, maybe not.  I must say, our driver (see again the picture above) did a great job.  To be a successful driver in China you have to drive agressively and just Go!  You are better off if you don’t pay attention to what is going on behind you.  If someone hits you from behind it’s their fault.  🙂 

We had a good day exploring the city with friends and an exciting (albeit bumpy and nerve-racking) ride back to Beijing.  Below are a couple of pictures from Tianjin.

A dessert that these three made after lunch. This was an American-style dessert!

The beautiful Tianjin sunset

Much has changed since the last update! 🙂 

If you remember from my last update, I said I would be teaching at the Forestry University and the Mining University.  Well, only part of that is true.  The hours at the Mining University were mostly during the wrong times.  So the Mining University is out.  During my first day at the Forestry University (which includes an 8:00 – 9:50 class and a 3:40 – 5:30 class) I was taken out to lunch by Ms. Fan from Tsinghua University. (remember her? she was my Tsinghua boss last year.)  While this lunch date was being planned, I jokingly said to another teacher, ‘she’s going to offer me a job without Mr. Wang being involved.’ 🙂  Well, she did offer me a job for much more pay because we don’t have to go through the middle man (AKA Wang).  I was definitely skeptical at first.  Remember when I told you that Mr. Wang wanted me to teach 2nd grade?!  This new job is at that school but it is with 3rd – 6th grade.  In order for me to get this job I had to do a demonstration lesson….with 2nd grade! Yikes.  I guess you could say that I’m a bit afraid of 2nd graders.  They scare me.  Really.  Someone told me, ‘just sing songs with them.’  That’s great advice.  Do you know any songs that are easy and are about food/weather/appearance/etc.?   It was definitely a moment that does not need to be repeated and also affirmed my fear of teaching anything lower than 6th grade.  So, why the job?  Well, my schedule is very open now because I teach less for the same amount of money.  This gives me more time to spend in the WORD and with friends.  I’m also going to spend more time on my Chinese study.

As I write, I’m in the middle of my day at the Foresty University and I really like these students.  I’m trying to learn a little about them as people and not just have shallow conversations revolving around comparative/superlative/count nouns/non-count nouns/etc.  Since this is only their second week back in school, I decided to ask them about their class load.  They have almost no freedom when choosing their classes and they are stuck with the same group of people the entire day.  Sounds like grade school, eh? The only two classes that have different people are Chinese History and Basic Principles of Marxism. (both required classes)  They did say that a perk to those classes is that there are 180 students in the class so it is very easy to take a nap and not be noticed! 🙂 Ha!  I’m happy I have only 30 at a time.  I think a speaking class would be difficult with much more than that. 

Last week, I taught my first primary class in China.  I began my teaching at Tsinghua Primary School.  I don’t love it but I think the benefits from teaching there far outweigh the negatives.  The only difficult thing about teaching 6 identical classes during the day is remembering what you’ve taught them.  ‘Did we go over that already? No. Ok, must have been last class.’  Many of these students have pretty decent English.  Some of them have lived abroad which makes it easy to recruit for the FOC school!  At the primary school I’ll teach 4th grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade one week, and 6th grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade another week.  Their are 6 classes of 3rd graders at the school and I only get one class of them per week.  So, math people…that means that I get each 3rd grade class every 6 weeks! 🙂  I don’t want to think about how much the aren’t going to remember.  The day that I did my demo lesson was military training day for the 3rd-6th graders which is why I had to do a demonstration with 2nd grade.  The craziness of China continues. 🙂

B Studies have been going well so far.  It will be fun to teach with new people this year!  Making friends to bring to studies will be a little more difficult for me than last year because my students are not adults with free schedules.  I might have to become creative. 

Sorry for the quick, choppy, picture-less update.  I have to go back to school.  Someday I’ll get some pictures up! 🙂

GB!

There must be something about being from Wyoming…mountain state and state of coal mining!  🙂

Although I have only been back to China for about a week-and-a-half, it feels like much longer (like I didn’t even leave) but also much shorter.  I don’t know what to think of this new emotion. 😉 

Mr. Wang has been just as frustrating as he always is.  I asked him about a job since the Tsinghua thing wasn’t going to happen this semester.  He kept insisting on sending me to Sinopec (same place I taught first semester last year) but I kept saying no.  He does not understand that it is not worth my time to travel an hour one way for the pay that he gives (which is not much).  He keeps saying, ‘But you’ll only teach there for three and one half hours, Amber.’  Yes Mr. Wang. I know. I do not want to work for Sinopec an hour away.  I thought I had finally convinced him to stop asking me when he said, ‘Amber, I’m not trying to persuade you.’ Really, Mr. Wang? You’re not? Why do you keep asking me?  I told him that I wanted something close so that I don’t have to take the subway for an hour, and I wanted adults (or university students).  I understood that this limited my options.  But, living in the university district should have it’s advantages, right?  In the meantime, I looked for another boss to drive me crazy.

I ended up at this place called ‘New Channel English’.  This place appears to be super organized and with it.  They were so organized and ‘with it’ that they do their monthly, yes MONTHLY schedule, days in advance!  This is unheard of in China!  Unfortunately, I went there on September 1.  🙁  So, no job at New Channel until next month and that’s probably not going to happen. 

Randomly, the next day, I received a phone call from Sophia, former assistant of Mr. Wang.  She must have kept my number from her glory days of working for him!  She asked me if I was looking for a job.  How did she know? 🙂  We made plans to meet the next day to discuss the possibility of me teaching….middle school students….. 🙁  Well, that was a downer.  Mr. Wang called me later during the day and told me he had some university teaching for me to do.  So, I had a choice between middle school and university. Not really much of a choice.  (I do love middle school, but I love university more.)   I consulted another teacher.  She told me that the going rate for foreign English teachers is 30 元 more per hour than what Mr. Wang has been paying me.  Hmmm….. So, what should I do?   Being the chicken that I am, I sent Mr. Wang a text message (no phone call for me) asking him if he could pay me more.  (After all, he did tell me last semester that he would give me a raise and he never did.)  I did not receive a message back from him. 

I got another phone call from Mr. Wang telling me about this really awesome school (awesome to who?) right on the Tsinghua campus (super close to my home).  Grade 2!  No. Way.  ‘Mr. Wang, I don’t want to teach 2nd grade.’ ‘But, Amber, they are really good students.’ ‘Mr. Wang you already told me I could teach at the university.’ ‘I know but this school wants a woman.’ ‘Mr. Wang you don’t pay me enough.’ ‘I can’t afford to pay you more.’ Right.  I told him that that the going rate was much higher than what he was paying his teachers and that I would find a different job if he didn’t pay me more.  (How’s that for bargaining…it’s the ‘walking away’ technique. Sometimes it works…sometimes it doesn’t.)  He said, ‘okay, Amber, I will pay you more but you cannot tell the other teachers. Some of them already don’t get what you make.’  Okay. 

So, to make an already very long story short, (that phrase never makes sense) I’ll be teaching at the Forestry University (sophomores) and at the Mining University (post-graduates).  Along with my dear students (now 4th and 8th grade) at the FOC school. 

A little about the language:  大 = big， 学 = study.  So, 大学 = big study or “university” 🙂  (See the title if you are wondering where I’m going with this.)  业 = industry, 林 = forest (it even looks like a forest) 🙂  矿 = mine.  So, if you want to take the names of the schools literally they are: Forest Industry Big Study 🙂 and Mine Industry Big Study.  Mr. Wang must think I’m special to have come from Wyoming, land of lots of forests and also many coal mines.  I wonder if being from there will make me more interesting to my students…. I’ll let you know!  I’m looking forward to starting the university stuff on Monday. 

As I write, it is the end of a very long day which started with teaching.  My first day of teaching this year.  Weird that this is the start of my sixth year of teaching.  I taught two classes and before the second one started I was developing a rather painful headache.  Add that to my persisting sore throat (no thanks to you, Beijing air) and you have a recipe for teaching disaster.  Thankfully, my 8th graders were really great today.  I’m also thankful that the class was only two hours this afternoon.  I went home right after class, took some ibuprofen and went to bed.  A couple of hours later, my friend Gretl sent me a message telling me she was on the way over with the butter!  For supper we were making the difficult ‘macaroni and cheese’ (Gretl loves cheese–I think she’s part American) 😉 and then watching a movie!  Gretl just left for the night and I’m finishing up my writing before heading off to bed. 

Thanks for your continued pr-yers.  My job worked out, my first B study being back was amazing! (It ended up being mostly one-on-one and so great!) I’m slowly but surely regaining my health.  (Gotta love Chinese medicine!)  Life couldn’t really get much better.  (Remind me of that next week when I’m complaining about how annoyed I am about something Mr. Wang/etc. did.) 

Blessings on your long weekend! Be thankful for your work!