Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in nopantsinchina's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, November 16th, 2004
1:37 pm	The Chinese Lunch There is a tradition in China of going out for lunch, getting shit-faced, and afterwards trying to continue on with your day. Today I have wholeheartedly embraced this tradition. I have two classes this afternoon, one starting in 25 minutes, and I just got back from a big celebration, Chinese style. Qin Da Zhong's (read dramatis personae) daughter was 100 days old today, so there's a big party where everyone he's ever met is invited. Much beer is consumed, and we all try to function normally afterwards. This is a fairly common event in China, although they usually don't have as good an excuse for the drinking. Every day you can find civil servants walking down the street after lunch, plastered, going back to their cushy civil service jobs. That's the life, I tell you. A full day of bribes, drinking, and then trying to be useful afterwards. Now I need to get ready for class. The kids should have a blast today. My hot water has been fixed, so I've showered and shaved and everything is happy in Stevenland again. The phone should be taken care of today, so no worries there either. If there are I'll just have to chew someone out again. Everything working at the same time is the impossible dream. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 12th, 2004
2:09 pm	My last few days. Well, the last few days have been somewhat interesting. My musing about days off actually came through, and I've had no class since Tuesday. Immediately I made plans to go to Pizza Hut in Changsha. I'll speak more of that later. The first day I had off I had to go and take some medical exams so I could get my residence permit. After five months here I'm still not entirely legal. It's crazy. So they took some blood, my blood pressure, x-rays, an ECG, and an ultrasound. It's a boy! My test results should be in today, but I don't really care. I'm either healthy and I stay, or I'm not and I go back to Canada. My hot water has been out all week. I was able to take a shower on Monday night, but not since. This sucks a lot. I'm a filthy, scruffy mess. Cici said she'd call someone to fix it, but as of yet nobody has come. I'm of a mind to call her up right now and give her a piece of my mind. I'll finish this first, though. I'll be able to shower tonight, but shaving is a no-go until my hot water is good again. I look as ragged as I ever did during exams. The second I got a few days off the weather turned cold and rainy, and it's stayed that way since. It's like a cosmic joke. So the entire time off I've been talking to American Scott about going to Pizza Hut in Changsha. He said Friday was good, and I've been mentioning this/dreaming about this ever since. Yesterday night, though, he tells me he has to teach a class this morning and can't make it. Canadian Scott quickly filled me with whiskey before a bloodbath ensued. Now my only chance of getting pizza is to get Sunday off, but it doesn't seem very promising to me. Tomorrow I'm back to the old grind. My kids are all finished their exams, so it's business as usual. Now I have to think of something to teach them. Hot damn. Current Mood: I want some fucking pizza, yo. Current Music: Bush - Machinehead (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
11:07 pm	Witty Anecdotes Of course, having been in China for five months I have a world of witty anecdotes just waiting to be told. Unfortunately it's not so easy as that. These anecdotes need context, cultural knowledge, and for me to remember them. It makes it hard to perform on command, if you know what I'm saying. Every once in a while I get gold like the random dinner on Thursday, but mostly the strange experiences here are small, everyday things that I've stopped paying attention to by now. Some examples: 1) Chinese people have a habit of spitting. And when I say spitting I mean wrenching up the flegm right from the tip of their toes and horking it out in one nasty loogie. The sound this makes, as you might guess, is atrocious. The worst is when a small, delicate looking woman shocks the shit out of you by horking up the nastiest loog you've ever seen or heard. 2) There is a delicacy here called tou dou fu. This literally translates to smelly tofu. Why do they call it that? Here's a little story. The first time I encountered it I was walking down the street and I thought someone had taken a dump right in the middle of the sidewalk. Then as I walked closer I thought they'd shit all over my face. Then I realised the smell was coming from this nasty looking black tofu that the Chinese people were eating with relish. They insist it tastes good, even if it smells bad. I've tasted it, and I beg to differ. It tastes quite a bit like it smells, and that's really not a good thing. 3) These fuckers will smoke anywhere. They smoke on the bus, they smoke in stores, the drivers smoke in the taxis, they smoke in the hospitals... What? Yeah, that's right. They smoke in the damn hospitals. I had a doctor looking at me with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. What the fuck? Are they looking to kill off some of the population with lung cancer? 4) They procrastinate. You think I procrastinate? I look like Mr. Punctual compared to these guys. My Hong Kong story back in the first entry is a great example of doing things at the last minute. On that note, it's been almost a month since I was in Hong Kong and they still haven't finished my paperwork. The woman in Hong Kong very nicely told me to get my residence permit in 30 days or I'd have to come back again. Still no residence permit. I'll beat the living shit out of those fuckers if I have to repeat that trip. It sucked the first time, and I'm sure it'd suck the second time. Maybe I'll stay there if they send me back. So what's on tap for next week? I'm going to have to talking to Cici (sigh) about a bunch of things, including the paperwork and my hot water. I don't like having it work "occasionally" or "if I'm lucky". If I want to take a shower before class I damn well want my hot water to work. Otherwise I'm going to take it out on my kids, and then later on Cici, and nobody wants that. There are few things that annoy me more than having to go to class filthy. And then when I come home my hot water magically turns on. Fuck that shit. My kids all have some big tests coming up. I'm not sure if they're midterms or what, but they're all worried about them and studying hard. With any luck I'll get a couple of days off as they clearly have more important things to do. Speaking of that, another story comes to mind. I mentioned in my last entry that Friday is my really bad day. Well, my two morning classes were cancelled (which I found out by going to them). The first one was the nice kind of cancellation. When I arrived their homeroom teacher nicely asked me if she could use my time for remedial math. In Chinese, of course. When I'd muddled through that I happily ceded her my time. When I went to my second class (my worst class) only six people were in the room. I asked why and it turned out they were all at medical exams. So I followed my kids (at a run) to the place they were being tested and killed the period there. I took the eye exam and it turns out that my eyes are great! The lack of morning work made my afternoon seem that much shorter, so the rest of the day was a breeze. On that note I should probably study some Chinese, maybe do a little reading, and get off the computer for a little while. It'll turn you into a brainless zombie, you know. Current Mood: Calm blue ocean, baby. Current Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Aeroplane (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 4th, 2004
10:11 pm	A Surreal Experience Well, it was a pretty interesting day. Long, but interesting. I have three classes on Thursdays, but they're good classes. Tomorrow is my lousy day. I have four classes and all but one suck ass. Everything was going well, and I was just hanging out in my apartment before dinner when American Scott came over. He told me that there was a dinner happening and a lot of foreigners were going to be there. Now, one of Cara's first lessons was that there's no such thing as a free dinner. They always want something from you. Four foreign teachers from Yueyang and three from Hua Rong (a small town an hour out of Yueyang) were treated to dinner by the headmaster of an English school that I hadn't met before. Cara used to work in Hua Rong, so I had met one of the teachers before, a Nigerian named Sunday. There were two new teachers there, too. A Chicagoan named Hope and a Michigander named something or other. The Yueyang posse was the two Scotts, a Nigerian named Peters, and myself. We had dinner, they made the standard pitch to get us to work at their school, and then the Hua Rong contingent begged off to go home. This is where the insanity started. The headmaster of the English school insisted that the four of us take a look at his school. Take a look. Such innocuous words. It turned out that we were paraded in front of a dozen classes, where we shook hands, took pictures, and generally riled the students right up. One girl grabbed my ass when the were taking a picture of us. I said to American Scott, "This girl is grabbing my ass." He took a look and said, "Yup. She is." That's the kind of night it was. After a couple of classes like that I just started to say anything to the kids. Whatever came into my mind. It's safe because none of them speak English well enough to understand when I'm speaking quickly. They would have been poor, scarred children if they did understand. After about ten classes of that I was getting glassy eyed. Fortunately they ran out of students or I might have been doing that all night. There's no such thing as a free dinner, friends. On the bright side, I did get to meet a bunch of cool people, drink some beer, and speak English really quickly. That's what foreigners offer. Damn, though. Being paraded around like a novelty act gets old really quickly, but when you have company you can turn it into continuous amusement. With any luck I'll never get invited to do that again, but Chinese people seem to have no concept of when I'm behaving poorly. I can only imagine what sort of hijinx await me in the future. Current Mood: These are all the fucking same Current Music: Nerf Herder - Pantera Fans In Love (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
9:14 pm	Some more info Well, now that the broad overview is out of the way, let's get to more details. Dramatis Personae: The Chinese (many names I really don't know) Qin Da Bo - Friend and headmaster of the Bowen branch school where I lived (and still live on the weekends) Adopted father of my friend Cara. Cool guy, occasionally very scary. I'll usually refer to him as Mr. Qin (pronounced Chin). Speaks very little English. Qin Da Zhong - The younger brother of Mr. Qin and the headmaster of the main Bowen school. Often referred to by me as "that crazy guy". He has a new baby daughter that I had the pleasure of seeing in the hospital back in July. Speaks more English than his brother, but still not too much. Qin Yu Wei - Also known as Mike. The son of Mr. Qin. 15 years old, ridiculously charming, learning French from me. His English is really very good. Last summer he was attacked at school and stabbed in his eye. He wears a patch and he might not regain sight. It looks pretty creepy. Did this throw him off his stride? Oh no. The kid is ridiculous. Li Xiang - Also known as Uncle Li. One of Mr. Qin's old army buddies. Very cool guy. Really hot wife. Goofy looking son Li Sukai. The question must be asked, how did two such attractive people produce Li Sukai? The verdict is still out. Speaks no English at all. Mr. Feng - One of the assistant headmasters of Number 8 middle school. Seems a good guy, although I don't deal with him too much. Speaks a bit of English, comparable to Qin Da Zhong. Gao Si (Cici) - I strongly dislike this woman. At first she was alright. Her English is quite good, although she tries to hide the fact when she doesn't understand. That cause some annoying misunderstanding and a lot of shouting by me. This caused our relationship to deteriorate rapidly, although she is my first contact in case of anything going wrong. Occasionally I go around her and call Mr. Feng directly. Many Others - I have many students, some who are very good and that I like very much. Listing them all is a lot of work, though, so I'll introduce them when they come up. There are also many teachers that are pretty cool, but it's also a lot of work for people I don't have much to say about. The Foreigners Cara - A high school friend of mine who got me into this in the first place. The job prospects were lousy at home, my feet were itchy, and she opened the door to an entirely new experience for me. I likely drove her to distraction in my first couple of months here before I settled in a bit. People in a foreign country are annoying. She returned to New York at the end of my third month here (August). American Scott - Another teacher at Number 8 middle school, born and raised in Iowa. He's lived in New York City and Los Angeles, so he's not a farm boy. 46 years old. He's a pretty good guy, and I see him fairly often as I live one block over from him. He's been in China for a year and a half. Canadian Scott - Straight from the prairies of Saskatchewan comes Canadian Scott. He teaches at another school in town. He has a real toilet, of which I am endlessly jealous. Cool guy, a lot of fun to hang out with. He's been in China for just over one year. So those are some of the people I deal with on a daily basis (or used to deal with on a daily basis). Most are pretty cool, but there's a real culture gap at times. The key to not going insane (or more insane) here is learning to roll with the punches. They like to do things last minute, they like to do things unexpected, and they like to do things without informing you first. This wears thin after about five minutes, but there's nothing you can do to change it. The only way to mitigate the damage is to learn the language, and all that'll do is give you a bit more warning when something crazy is about to happen. Surprisingly enough my Chinese is better than both Scotts', but nowhere near the level of Cara's. I have another eight months or so to close that gap. It's really hard to wrap five months of China into two posts. Many things here have to be seen to be believed. Instant celebrity isn't as cool as it looks. Chinese food is great, but a little variety wouldn't hurt. The mix of squalor and development boggle the mind. People are friendly, but incredibly direct. Teaching in a public middle school isn't the coolest thing I've ever done. In the private schools the kids were all there to learn English, I saw them every day (during the summer) or every week (right now), and they do homework and learn well. The kids at the middle school would rather be somewhere else once the novelty of having a foreign teacher wears off. Some classes are really good, but others are absolutely terrible (this is intentional. They group the good kids together). I have their textbook, but I don't teach from it because I'll step on their Chinese English teacher's toes. I have 13 classes, I see each once a week for 45 minutes, and they basically have no chance to learn anything from me. I'm here for show, I'm here for motivation, but mostly I'm here for the school's prestige. They raise the tuition to pay for me (between 5 and 7 times what a Chinese teacher makes, but still peanuts to me), but the students get very little out of it. It's a bad system, but there's nothing I can do about it. Trying to is a good way to burn out quickly. I can likely get into daily events now that I've cleared that backlog, but I won't start today. Now I'm going to hope that my dinner doesn't give me the shits and study a little bit of Chinese. Current Mood: I'm tilting windmills, fucker. Current Music: Thelonious Monk - Bag's Groove (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
11:56 pm	Here goes nothing I'm writing this weblog entirely due to peer pressure. "Evonne's in India and she has a weblog" "You're all the way in China! You should have a weblog!" "Blah blah blah blah blog." So here it is. And may God have mercy on your souls. I'm a little bit late to jump on this wagon. I'll start you off with a sketch of my time here so far. I've been away from home for 5 1/2 months, and in China for 5 of those months. My first 10 days were spent in Japan, which was a nice introduction to Asia and a good way to get over the jetlag. I visited my friend Dave who is teaching English in the lovely city of Fukushima and he ushered me into the world of rice and tonkatsu (fried, breaded pork). I travelled around on the bullet trains and we watched the whole first season of the West Wing on the rainy days. This Japanese experience was followed by a trip to Beijing. I booked myself on a tour, so I got to stay in nice hotels, eat nice meals, see the sites, and travel in a reasonably large group. There's nothing more interesting than going out drinking in Beijing with a group of rowdy young Australians. We ended up at a nightclub, several bars, up this street, down that street, and finally back to our rooms. Then I flew to Shanghai and did that tour with a smaller group of people (who were also in Beijing). A nice Chinese couple from Vancouver de facto adopted me for the length of my stay there, so the atmosphere was much different than that in Beijing. My last day in Shanghai was my birthday, so they let me use their phone card to call my parents. Nice people. This was followed by another flight to Changsha, where I met my friend Cara (who got me into this in the first place). I was amazed by her Chinese proficiency and by the lack of legroom on the bus to Yueyang (where I am now). My first month: Not the most pleasant experience of my life. In an alien country, speaking almost none of the language, catching all the diseases they get out of the way when they're 3. Not to mention the diarrhea. Absolute murder. My first month I had virtually no responsibility as I didn't start teaching until July. This is a good thing and a bad thing. I had time to settle in, which was good. But I was in everyone's hair, which was bad. I'm sure I drove everyone to distraction in that first month. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone wanted to kill me (more than they usually do) My second month: I start teaching class at Bowen Foreign Language Training School. Very few people in this town speak any English. Even a lot of the English teachers are sketchy at best. The headmaster of the school has to be one of the craziest people I've ever met. My friend Cara has sort of an adopted daughter relationship with his brother, so he was continually trying to get the same thing going with me. Adopted son, though. The problem is that he was constantly driving me crazy. He filled my classroom to capacity with kids who couldn't understand a word I was saying. I had the chance to test some beforehand, so the class wasn't a dead loss, but I wasn't happy with that crop at all. A month of that was enough to have me tearing my hair out. I had two classes, one that was decent, one that was terrible. I had to fight tooth and nail to get a Chinese speaking assistant in the classes because my kids were so shitty. What a month. My third month: Many of the Chinese schoolkids only get one month off during the summer, so the disappeared back to their regular schools. My classes were reduced to 10 students each. That was beautiful. They were all really good, too. This would have been a great month, but the headmaster scheduled things very poorly and I ended up with nine hours of work a day, 7 days a week, with an hour commute. We were walking down the street from where we had lunch to the school, and I just ripped into him all the way. I was especially angry because he'd done something similar (but not as bad) the first month, and I cut him some slack but warned him not to do it again. At the same time there were negotiations going on between the headmaster's brother -- let's call him Mr. Qin -- and various schools in the area for who would get my services. At the end of the month Cara flew on back to America, leaving me alone in the wilderness. Months Four and Five- The winner? Yueyang Number 8 Middle school. I moved from where I was living (a school, but not the one I worked at) to an apartment on number 8's campus. The apartment isn't bad, except for the washroom. I'll get into that later, though. My schedule is exceptionally light during the week. I only have 13 classes which take 9 1/2 hours a week. On Tuesday morning I have a class for the teachers at Bowen school (at least they're trying to improve). On Saturday night I have a 2 hour class teaching more advanced English to some really good students. On Sunday I tutor Mr. Qin's son Mike for a couple of hours. In French. That's always fun. In the evening I have another advanced class, but not as advanced as the Saturday nighters. Yes, I have no days off. The food here in Hunan is fucking SPICY. You try eating a ton of spicy food and having diarrhea. And having to shit into a hole in the ground. Because toilets haven't been invented here. A porcelain hole. What a fucking mess. Can someone please explain to these people what a schedule is? Jesus Christ. Everything is done at the very last minute, usually with bribes of expensive cigarettes. They sent me to Hong Kong by train (13 hours each way), alone, to get my work visa changed. That was an adventure. And they gave me less than a day's notice. What the fuck? I was in Hong Kong for about 8 hours and then I had to get on the damn train again. I'm not sure whose idea that was, but the person was stupid. There are two foreign teachers here at number 8. The other is an American guy named Scott. We have a "helper" teacher. Her name is Cici. She's a fucking moron. She's the kind of person who is very assertive and pushy, but she doesn't have anything rattling around in that head of hers. So she just pisses everyone off. I can't even remember how many times I've torn a strip out of her, whether it was because she was sending me to Hong Kong with less than a day's notice, or because my pay was two weeks late, or just because she fucking irritates me every time I'm forced to talk to her. That's another thing. I may not be the most patient person in Canada, but everything is exaggerated here. Never in my life have I flown off the handle as easily as I do here. I'm very alone, I don't speak the language very well, and I'm being continually assailed by invincible stupidity. Maybe it's cultural, but how can a 5000 year old culture be so fucking stupid? It's not everyone, though, so I'll assume that I've just run into my fair share of morons. Still, I often end up shouting at people here for what I'd brush off at home. It's harder. My Chinese is coming along. Mandarin, of course. I can now speak broken Mandarin. I can generally get my ideas across, and I can usually understand others if they're not talking about anything too technical or speaking too quickly. I'm also learning to read it at the same time, although that's coming much more slowly. Still, slow and steady wins the race. Little kids in this town have never seen a foreigner before. They all point and stare and go "wai guo ren". That's foreigner to those in the know. They all know how to say hello, and they do so incessantly. It drives me crazy. That's why I eat so many of them. Also, it's not rude here to talk about a person in their hearing. It certainly does wear. Damn, that's all I can really think of right now. Have no doubt that there are volumes more, but I had a lot of backlog to unload. I'll try to mention more glaring stupidity in the future and give a better idea of what sort of relationships I've made. But right now I'm going to sleep. It's late here. Current Mood: I'm fuckin' bouncy, yo. Current Music: Britney Spears - Baby One More Time (2 Comments |Comment on this)