tastes and smells

After two of perhaps the most humid days I’ve experienced, I just remind myself it is actually probably really healthy, right? I am sweating all the toxins out of my system. I sweat, so much in fact, that I don’t think my sweat stinks anymore. Is this content inappropriate? Should I not talk about sweating and stinking? Regardless, I think my sweat probably does still stink – it is more likely that I am just used to smelling my sweat, so I don’t notice it anymore.
Any comments or questions about sweat? I’d love to hear ‘em.

So. I am slowly getting to know the city of Chongqing. It really is big. I know I have written that like a million times, but it is a really, really big city. There are districts and business areas and buses and monorails and taxis and bridges and tunnels and mountains and rivers and skyscrapers and underpasses and overpasses and people and people and more people. So many people. An unbelievable amount of people. Friday night, my friend Jason and I decided we would try to make brownies. Jason inherited very nice sized toaster oven (really it is more like a convection oven, and I think you could probably fit a turkey in it if you wanted to) and you all know I would hardly pass up an opportunity to bake. So we needed butter for the brownies, which is not an easy thing to come by in China. We decided to check the regular “Chinese” supermarket and if they didn’t have it, we would walk to the Metro stop and shop. Who knew that Friday nights around 8 are a time when what I believe to be every other person in Chongqing goes to the supermarket. The only comparison I could come up with is the time I worked at Dunn Bros. the night of Thanksgiving midnight madness. Some of you may know what I am referring to – going to the supermarket revived symptoms of the post-traumatic stress disorder I developed as a result of that fateful night. Anyone who was out that night in Albertville might understand what living in China is like.

Tonight I attended a dinner with 3 other PCVs serving in Chongqing and a group of about 30 Americans who are in China for a trip with the National Geographic Expedition. We were invited to have dinner with group by their leader, Bill, who was the Country Director for Peace Corps China from 1993 (the program’s first year) to 1999. I was pretty excited because it was a free meal for us and bound to be some great banquet-style Chinese food. The four us amongst the group and chatted with the travelers, who are here for a 3 week whirlwind tour of China. It was a wonderful evening. I enjoyed talking with Americans – although I see other PCVs on a regular basis, it was great to have some new perspectives not affiliated with the PC.

More significantly, I realized as we ate and talked that I have learned A LOT in the last 3 months. Table manners, types of food, language, and just everyday life were all things we talked about, all things they had questions about. As I ate I realized I have picked up so many Chinese habits (eating out of my bowl instead of off my plate, eating w/chopsticks right from all the dishes, spitting out the bones on the plate [I know that sounds disgusting, sorry]) and I was doing it all absentmindedly. It wasn’t until the travelers asked why I was doing what I was doing that I realized it. Maybe that seems insignificant, but it was really crazy to me. Creepy and exciting at the same time. In the end, I am extremely happy that I went to the dinner. It has given me an entirely new perspective of my experiences so far. Now that I think about it, I guess you could qualify it as a mild form of reverse culture shock. Weird.

Again, I hope you are all doing well. Enjoy the wonderful fall weather of Minnesota/Wisconsin or wherever you are. And just think of me, the sweat-hog of Chongqing.

a little bit of everything

My first full week of class is behind me. It was a long week. I am scheduled to have 7 sections of Oral English. Most Chinese classes are actually two 45 minute class periods with a 10 minute break in between. So I technically teach roughly 14 hours per week. However, 3 of my sections are freshman English majors, who do not actually begin class until the end of September because of military training. So I have yet to meet the freshman. The other four classes consist of non-English majors, 3 sections from the College of Economics and Trade, and 1 from the College of Mechanical Engineering. The Econ/trade students were wonderful, and I am very excited to get to know them better. (one section gave me quite the welcoming – I walked in the room and one of them stood up and shouted, “ I must say, thank you, our teacher!” and then everyone else stood up and applauded.) The engineering students are also very polite, but their interest in learning English is not very high because they don’t really need to know English for their career. The reason they sign up for the class is that they are required to take a national exam for English that basically gives them a special endorsement for their resume. And getting a good job in China is extremely difficult, so anything they can do to improve their score helps.

What else? I am settling in my apartment. I am still trying to decide/decipher what I need to buy and what I want to buy. Peace Corps gives us a “settling in” allowance, and technically we can spend it on whatever we want, but we do have to tell them what we buy and they determine if it is a necessity or luxury. The main problem, I guess, is that there is just so much available in China. The consumer choice is shocking. Well, not really shocking – it is basically like the U.S. It is just not what I had expected. I think most of my allowance is going to end up going towards things/equipment for my kitchen (pots, pans, olive oil, etc.) Probably my guiltiest pleasure so far was the black peppercorn grinder I bought at the Metro station. I couldn’t resist it! And yesterday I went and bought one of those 4 RMB (which would exchange to roughly 75 cents) baguettes and dipped it in olive oil and freshly ground black pepper! It was heavenly! But, rest assured, I am practicing Chinese cooking too.

Some other exciting things – the department of Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) asked me to provide come tutoring classes for the staff of the office on American culture. It is basically an informal class/discussion group for the staff to practice their English (which is all ready fantastic) and to learn/ask questions about the U.S. I was really nervous for it because it was attended by the head of the department, along with about 10 others. But I became oddly at ease when I arrived at the office and they led me to the conference room where they have pictures and items from all their partner universities and there on the wall was a pennant from St. Cloud State University. I could hardly believe it – of the thousands of universities I could have ended up at in China, I get the one with the SCSU connection. Random!

The session went well, and now we will meet every week for 2 hours and I will prepare questions/ideas having to do with an aspect of American culture. The group chose “sports” for next week’s topic, which I am hardly qualified to discuss – anyone who reads this with at least some interest in American sports culture and wants to give me some input, it would greatly appreciated! I was relieved when it was over and I wanted to spend the rest of the week working on my course outlines for the semester. And then my phone rang.

It was the FAO again, this time wondering if I would be willing to judge a speech competition the next day (Friday). So when the time came I headed to the building where the competition would be held and met a few teachers from the Foreign Language Department. They took me to the classroom and when I walked in everyone stopped what they were doing, stared, and gasped. I just smiled and then noticed a table for the judges with nametags, my name in front of the middle seat. After a special introduction from MC, I listened to the 25 contestants give their prepared speeches for the competition, which is actually a qualifying round for a national television competition. During one of the first couple of speakers, my counterpart leaned over and whispered, “By the way, when the students are finished speaking, they would like it if you could stand up and give a speech and make comments about their performance.” Yikes! We had been warned repeatedly during PST in Chengdu that things like this would happen, I just didn’t expect it to happen my first week at site!

So, the students finished, I stood up and thanked them for inviting me and told them they were very impressive. It was very brief. It was completely overwhelming. Thinking that my job was done, I sat down, glad that my first impromptu speech in China was over. The students that made it to the final round gave their impromptu speech and soon the contest was done. I had forgotten about the giving of awards. As the winners were announced, it was also announced that I would be presenting the certificates to the 1st place winners. And then came the pictures. And then the students presented me with a token gift for taking part in their competition. And then came the inevitable question, “How tall are you?”

Oh, China.

After the competition, the FAO held a special dinner for all the foreign teachers in honor of the Mid-Autumn festival, which is celebrated this weekend. Consequently, I figured out today that we don’t have classes on Monday due to this very festival. Better I find out today than Monday, right?

Swearing-In and First days

Hello everyone!

Well, I can finally say that I am a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was officially sworn in as a PCV on Wed., Sept. 3rd by the director of the Peace Corps. Director Tschetter came to Chengdu especially for the occasion, and I was glad to meet him. It was quite an eventful week, and I am still in a major transition period, or at least that is how I am feeling. Last weekend we moved out of our host family’s apartment and into a hotel in downtown Chengdu. We had a few more days of training and then the swearing-in ceremony. The ceremony took place the mid-morning and by the late afternoon I was on a train headed for my site in Chongqing. It was completely overwhelming with all the commotion, transporting tons of luggage, and trying to say goodbye to all the other trainees (now volunteers) I have spent the last 2 months getting to know. Because of the vastness of China, most of us probably won’t see each other again until the middle or end of January when we have our “in-service training.”

I arrived at my site pretty late at night on Wednesday. I put together a short list of things that happened within my first 24 hours:
First day at site:
• Woke up at 6 am to the campus wide siren/alarm
• The only English speaking TV channel doesn’t work – but that’s okay because I should watch the Chinese channels to practice my listening.
• My shower head broke off when I picked it up
• No hot water (that was fixed by the next day)
• Gas took a while to turn on because it hasn’t been used in awhile
• I prepped for my first class. Went to the classroom with my counterpart because he wanted to show me how to use the computer. Not one student shows up. Turns out the students just assumed because I missed the first two sections of the class, I wouldn’t be there.
• My counterpart wanted to walk me home. I needed to stop at the store on campus. So part of getting to know my counterpart was he and I choosing the best kind of toilet paper.
• When I got back to my apartment, I could not for the life of me get the door open. Called a waiban’s (the waiban is the office for international affairs/foreign teachers) assistant to help me. He sent a worker to help. It was the small guy who came to fix my shower earlier in the day.

I guess you could say it has been a little bit of an adventure so far. I went shopping today for food and some things for my apartment, which has been fruitful. I figured out that there is a place that is right around the corner from my building that sells French baguettes!! I think I will be very happy here!

As I said in my post about my site visit, Chongqing Technology and Business University is beautiful and I am glad to be placed here. Even though I am living a city that feels like Manhattan, it is nice to come back to a campus where there are plenty of trees and mountain trails for hiking.
I will be sure to add more about my site as I learn more – everyday holds new discoveries at this point.

I begin teaching this week – wish me luck!

Site Visit: Viva la Vida

I’ve decided to make Coldplay’s latest song “Viva la Vida” the theme song of my PST (pre-service training), if not my whole PC experience. If you haven’t heard it yet, I highly recommend going to iTunes and downloading it immediately.

Chongqing – a new home for the next two years. A metropolis. The city is huge and there are people everywhere! If you can manage to find your way to the downtown part of the city, surrounded by giant skyscrapers and major department stores, you could easily imagine yourself in any major Western city – Chicago, New York, whatever!

Chongqing is sometimes called the mountain city, as it is surrounded by hills and mountains. The city streets are also very hilly, which makes for some pretty intense taxi rides (really any experience in a car in China is one where I have murmured many a prayer). The university I will be teaching at (Chongqing Technology and Business University) is about a 15 minute taxi ride from the city center and is nestled in the hills below one of the mountains. The campus is beautiful and definitely takes advantage of their great location. There are hiking trails up the mountain that lead to teahouses and scenic overlooks that help you really envision the vastness of the city.

I was met at the train station by one of the members of the Foreign Language Department and was taken back to the campus. I was shown my apartment that I’ll be living in for the next two years (pictures still to come). The apartment is very spacious and welcoming (and there is a Western toilet!). There is a kitchen, bathroom, a balcony area to do laundry, a living area (and the university was kind enough to provide a TV and DVD player), and two bedrooms. That means plenty of space for all the visitors I expect to see (just let me know when you want to come, so I can make sure to be ready for you!)

I met with several members of the faculty I will be working with including the dean of the Foreign Language department, my teaching counterpart (a host country national who will be teaching courses similar to mine), and some deputies of the Foreign Lang. Dept. Everyone was incredibly welcoming and helpful. I am extremely excited to start the school year! There are actually about 10 foreign teachers at CTBU (only 2 of us are PCVs and the rest are all paid and from all over the world) and we all teach a couple sections of Oral English to English majors (I get to teach the freshman!) and then we all take classes of upperclassmen students who are non-English majors. Apparently every university requires that every student (regardless of their major) must pass a certain English exam in order to graduate. I think they might be able to graduate without the test, but it sounds like every employer in China asks for the results of the test, so if they don’t take it, they will have a difficult time finding a job. I have 2 sections of Oral English from the School of Economics/Business and 2 from the school of Mechanical Engineering. So 7 classes total, and each of them only meets once a week. There rest of the week I will office hours, English corner (an informal setting where essentially anyone who is interested can come converse with a native speaker), and whatever I decide to do for my secondary project.

Because everyone was away for their summer vacation, the university was pretty empty. I am looking forward to returning at the beginning of September and meeting my students and all the other teachers. It was all very exciting, and although I am excited to be back in Chengdu with my host family and the other trainees, I am anxious to get started teaching and I think it is going to be difficult to focus during these last two weeks of PST. We have our language proficiency interview coming up this week and I am terrified. We must manage 30 minutes of conversation with a native Chinese speaker and I am really concerned about my abilities. If we don’t pass this week, we have to get a tutor at our site and then try again in January during IST (in-service training). Wish me luck!

08-08-08

Friday is the first day of the Olympics, and the anticipation is about as heavy as the humidity. (I know that was lame, but adjusting to the tropical climate has probably been one of the more extreme parts of my culture shock.) Seriously though, the build up and excitement for the Olympics surprised me at first, but as I get know more about the Chinese people and their culture, I understand they are very proud and patriotic. The games are a source of great honor for the Chinese. There have been special TV programs featuring ceremony after ceremony all in regard to the Olympics and the pride of China.

The torch just came through Chengdu yesterday in the mid morning. There was relay throughout the downtown, and T-shirts and flags everywhere. We didn't go because of our scheduled training, but we watched a little on TV. Many of the people chosen to carry the torch were those who assisted with the earthquake relief. The earthquake greatly affected this entire area, and it is very common for our students to discuss bring it up in class. There have been several aftershocks since we've been here. Yesterday afternoon there was one that lasted several minutes. And a few weeks ago there was one that registered around 5.0 on the scale. That was in the middle of the night and I awoke as my bed was shaking. It was a little scary.

Other than the Olympics, there is not much else to share. Of course, there are everyday things that are new -- last week we figured out how to eat in the campus cafeteria, which is a pretty busy scene around noon time, and none of the staff speaks English. Nonetheless, I found my new favorite food -- jidanbei. Basically an egg pancake with green onions. Very tasty. And cheap (about 20 cents).

From what I can gather, I am relatively sure my host sister is taking me to her hometown this weekend. It is called Zigong, and is roughly 2 hours SE of Chengdu. Whenever I tell anyone (like my students)I am going there, they inevitably tell me about the dinosaur museum. So my next post will more than likely be all about that.
Hope everyone is well! Zaijian!

the end of the first month

I hope this post finds all of its readers happy and healthy! I am doing well; my main complaint is being really tired from all the training activity. I started teaching model school this week, and planning for that has been especially exhausting. We also still have Chinese language class everyday, and it feels like I have come to a major plateau in my learning. I hope to get over that soon, or else I will never pass my language interview at the end of August.

We are half way through the pre-service training, and in a couple weeks I will find out where I will be living and teaching for the next two years. I am a little anxious to find out, but I am sure everything will work itself out. I have gotten to know the other trainees very well over the past weeks, and I have made some wonderful new friends. Everyone has such different experiences, which makes for some very interesting conversation.

There aren’t any major adventures to share – but many small ones. Every day is some small adventure whether related to finding something for lunch, figuring out how to get around the city, or communicating with my host family.

Well, I have more lessons to plan, a self assessment on my training progress to complete, and my host sister just informed me that we are going to “Jinli” street, which for what I have read, is the ancient part of the city.

beginnings

I know it has taken me a little while to actually make a post on this blog – I apologize for that. It has been a very busy couple of weeks, and I am having a hard time deciding what to pick from to share.
I guess I’ll start with the beginning of it all – staging in Washington D.C. I met the rest of the China 14s (we are the 14th group to serve in China) and had an opportunity to meet with other RPCVs (returned Peace Corps Volunteers) who served in China in the years past. It was also a busy weekend of preparation and getting to know the group of new friends. There are people from all over the US with many different and fascinating experiences, including 14 people who have recently served in other Peace Corps programs. It has been especially interesting talking to them and listening to their comparisons of Peace Corps China to other programs.
We arrived in Chengdu on the 1st, very late at night. We spent the first week in a hotel going through some basic orientation information and beginning our language classes. Last Saturday we moved out of the hotel and in with our host families. That has probably been the most educational experience of them all. I am living with a host sister who is 26 and her parents in a beautiful apartment. My sister has some basic English skills, and with my very limited Chinese, we spend a lot of time trying to communicate through dictionaries, pantomimes, and, sometimes, Google translator.
This last week was exhausting, and considering what I have been hearing from China 13s (the group that came last year and will stay until next summer), things are only going to get even busier. Yesterday we took a field trip to a city called Leshan, which is about 2 hours south of Chengdu. We spent the morning observing the 13s who are in the middle of their summer teaching project, and then in the afternoon we went sightseeing. LeShan is the home of the largest Buddha in the world. It was an amazing sight! But it was well over 30 degrees Celsius and probably one of the most humid days I’ve ever experienced. We were all drenched in sweat by the end of the hike.

I hope everyone is doing well! I am definitely enjoying myself and I will try to post again soon!