A Very Exciting Week

It has been an interesting week for me in Yancheng.

My students are slowly starting to warm up to me in
the class room. I say slowly, because I have taken to
bribing them with sweets & snacks to get them to talk.
This has been somewhat effective, but, of course, has
created a precedent which now cannot be undone. My
snacks bill will be quite high by the time I leave
here.

The Freshman arrived at the college last Friday and
have 10 days of military training. This means that
every spare inch of space in the college grounds is
taken up with young adults in fatigues marching and
chanting "Yi, er, san ..." (1,2,3). The poor things
start early in the morning and go all day. It is 10
days straight, including the weekend. They are usually
pretty excited to see me walking to my classes and
even more excited when I wave and call out "hello" or
"ni hao". I stopped and had a chat to a group of them
today, and told them that if they are in any of my
classes, I hope they will talk to me as much in class
as they are talking to me today!

I had to go to the post office twice this week to
collect parcels. That was very exciting. I received 2
care packages. Thanks Cate & Lindy. The items are
already being put to good use. I especially love the
tea towels from Lindy and the marshmallows from Cate.
I think Cate was concerned about the toilet situation
over here, but I assure you that toilet paper is in
abundant supply at the supermarket - you just don't
flush it down the bowl! I also received a postcard
from Sarah in Tanzania, a book which Mum express
posted to me and my 2 bags with winter clothing, which
I sent before I left Oz. Some much excitement for 1
week!

I also purchased a printer this week. The main purpose
was to print out handouts for my classes without
having to walk a mile to the print/copy office on
campus and try, ineffectively, to communicate my needs
to the print office staff. However, it is also handy
for printing photos and pictures off the net to make
my apartment more cosy. Two of my students, Aaron &
Allan, helped me purchase the printer. It is a colour
HP inkjet. It cost 320 Yuan, which is about $65. I
think it will be worth the investment, even if I have
to leave it here for the next foreign teacher.

On Friday, I found out that a new foreign teacher from
America would be arriving in Yancheng the next day. I
was told that he was a young American from San
Franscisco. I nearly dropped dead from the excitement
of it all! Another caucasion (I assumed) to take some
of the limelight away from me.

On Saturday, 3 of my students came over to take me to
Century Park, which is a large park on the outskirts
of the city. It is a lovely park set on a canal, but
certainly not like the parks we have in Australia. I
took my travel frisbee with me, but, unfortunately,
there were no large grassy areas suitable for throwing
it around. We had a play on the paddle boats instead.

After the park, the students took me to a famous
dumpling restaurant in the downtown area. I like the
dumplings, but my bowels seem to have a pretty quick
reaction to them! (Perhaps Cate's toilet paper will
come in handy afeterall!) I have not yet had to brave
a public toilet, other than in the new teacher's
building at the college. I think, in future, I will
have to stick to the dumpling restaurant closer to my apartment.

On Saturday afternoon, I came back to my apartment to
check the score in the AFL grand final. I got onto the
Lions website, and lo & behold, there was a link to a
live radio broadcast from MMM in Melbourne. So I got
to listen to the game live, even if I did have to put
up with the tosser Sam Newman in the commentary team.
It was just before half time when I linked to the
radio broadcast and I was very excited (again!).
However, by the end of the 3rd quarter, things were
not looking good for a 4th straight premiership.
Nonetheless, the Lions can be proud of themselves. It
is no mean feat to win 3 in a row and get into the
final for a 4th straight year.

After the game, I headed downtown to meet the other
Yancheng foreigners. Most of the same suspects as last
week were there and a few others who were sick last
week. Bev is an older Canadian lady and Piers is a
young Australian boy from Melbourne. I am not sure of
his age, but I would say early-mid 20's. This is his
first time out of home and he has only been here 4
weeks, like me. However, he speaks Chinese, so he can communicate with
the locals. He is a fairly typical young Aussie bloke, who likes his
footy and his VB. Very left in in his politics and not afraid to shout
it out to anyone who will listen, and also expects everyone to have the
same opinion as him. Apparently, he won't be going back to Australia if
Howard gets back in, but might give it another go if Latham does.

So now I have met 5 other Australians in Yancheng and
we outnumber the other nationalities, with the kiwis
coming a close 2nd with 4 of them.


On Sunday, I went with Annie and Gony (the Phillipino
teachers) to the bazaar to buy some necessary
household appliances.


When I got back to the apartment, I ran into the new
foreign teacher and so I invited him in. He is 22,
caucasion, from Washington DC. He has just finished
college and this is his first job so he is a bit
nervous. However, he studied Chinese literature and
can speak Mandarin Chinese quite fluently, so he is
already a step ahead of me.

Last night, all the foreign teachers attended a
banquet to welcome us to Yancheng and to celebrate the mid-Autumn
festival (which is tomorrow) and the national day (Friday). It was
attended by the heads of the foreign affairs office, the deans of the
English and Chinese departments, the party secretary and the
Vice-President of the school. The food and drink was in abundance. Just
when you thought the food was finished, another dish would be brought
out. And there seems to be no order to the food delivery. Sweet dishes
came out half way through the banquet, and the main, signature dishes
after the sweets. The last dish was a soup/porridge thing. Nothing too
strange - except for snails (very popular in Yancheng) and century eggs
(boiled duck eggs which have been buried for a long time). The eggs are
black and grey and do not look particulalry appertising, but tasted ok.
There were lots of tofu and vegetable dishes, as well as spring rolls,
vegetable triangles, fried pumpkin, crumbed beef, Peking duck, pork
stew, spicy chicken and sweet & sour whole fish.

And the drinks were plentiful too. Red wine, which was
weak but ok and a very potent rice wine (50% alcohol
content). The toasts were endless and you were
expected to skull the entire glass with each toast. I
tried sipping but got told I must do Gan Bei -
"bottoms up". I insisted, if I was required to drain
my glass each time, that I go back to the weak red
wine rather than the potent rice wine. I was
constantly being offered cigarettes as well. The whole
banquet room was covered in a haze of smoke. All the
foreign teachers except for Denzel and I partook in
the smoking. Denzel was not very happy with the
smoking, but you have to get used to it in China I am
afraid.

The new American foreign teacher was put on the table
with the Korean teachers (who speak Chinese) and other
Chinese speakers. Poor boy. He was downing those
drinks and dragging on cigarettes like a madman. (He
told me today that he rarely drinks and does not
smoke! I told him to just say no, but he says it is
harder for a man to say no than a woman. He is
probably right).

Anyway, it was quite a good evening. A bit
uncomfortable at first, but things lightened up once
the alcohol started flowing. I was seated next to the Vice-President,
who turned out to be reasonably entertaining.

At the end of the evening, which was over by 9:00pm
(started at 5:00pm), all the foreign teachers were
given a box of "moon cakes" to celebrate the
mid-autumn or "moon" festival, which is tomorrow. I
have tried "moon cakes" already and cannot say they
appeal to me. Some of them have nuts in them, some
seaweed (!), others with quite unidentifiable
substances. I think I might give my box of moon cakes
to my students' family as a gift.

After my classes this morning, I met Max (the new
American foreign teacher) and took him on a tour of
the school. I have been here 4 weeks, so I am an old
hand now! He does not have to start classes until
after the national day holiday.

Speaking of which, national day is this Friday and
there is a 1 week holiday. Two of my students have
invited me to visit their home towns. One town is 45
minutes from here by bus and I am going for a day trip
on Friday. The other is 2 hours by train and I will go
for a couple of days. This student also invited me to
go to Nanjing with her friends, but, unfortunately,
the friend's grandmother is sick so we cannot go to
Nanjing. Instead, we will go to Huangshan which is a
famous mountain in An Hui province. So it looks like I
will be away for most of the holiday, which is great.

Not that you can really call it a "holiday", as we
have to make up the classes that are missed during the
next weekend!

Anyway, that brings you up to date. Hope everyone is
well and happy. I know you might find it strange that
I got so excited about some of things that happened
this week, but hey, you try living in Yancheng, having
no communication skills, and being the only caucasion
at your school, and just see what you get excited
about!

Love Meagan