CCTV9

We've probably mentioned CCTV9 before. It's the English language television channel. It's horrendous. I really mean that, it's horrible.

Here's an example...

This is from a show called Dialogue. They get random whities on to talk about deep issues, mostly so they can say grand things about China.

What makes a champion? Not you buddy.

Honestly, what was he thinking??

The Post Office (Courtney)

Yesterday we headed into the city to do two things - one being have some dinner with Abby, and the other to go to the post office. We've bundled up a whole lot of stuff that we have bought whilst here and decided it was time to send it home.

The post office, I think is without doubt, one of the most frustrating experiences you can have in China. There are daily frustrations, but the post office really gets to me. It is an exhausting process and we knew yesterday when we headed off with two bags full of stuff that we were in for a long haul.

First you head to one counter to buy boxes. I swear the guy just makes up the price as he goes along, as I've never paid the same amount for a box. You then make your way over to the actual service counter. This is can be a primal free for all, and you need to hold your ground with elbows out to actually get to the counter and then stay at the front of the counter. People basically just push and shove and the counter staff end up serving about 5 people at once, I have no idea how they keep track of what they are doing.

We got to the counter and held our ground and somehow managed to get the undivided attention of one of the guys. The guys who work here generally look about the age of our students. We've had varying levels of success. The first time I went to the post office, the girl looked at my stuff, I told her where I wanted to send it, she looked at me, said no and then walked away. No explanation, just wouldn't serve me. So I had to find someone else to help, which means going through the whole push and shove process again.

Next time, we had one of the guys, who had about as much personality as a dead fish. He was so ridiculously thorough with the items we wanted to send we started to assume he thought we were drug dealers or something. Then last time when we went to the post office, we got a young girl who didn't really look at very much. Which was a god send as we had a million little things all wrapped up and I didn't fancy unwrapping them etc.

There's a point to note - don't bother wrapping anything before going to a Chinese post office because they are just going to rip through everything anyway! We saw this happen to a girl yesterday who arrived with a very carefully wrapped present. It certainly looked worse for wear by the time it got into the postage box.

So yesterday, we got Mr Personality. Seriously, can't crack a smile from this guy. We had two full bags of things (Don't worry mum, the boxes are going to take 2 months so we'll be home to collect them by the time they arrive!) and I had wrapped up most stuff in bubble wrap so it has some chance of survival. Of course, everything was pulled to pieces. What's great about this though, is he just kind of then makes a pitiful attempt at putting the bubble wrap back around the item then tosses it into the box. I'm like, here, you do the looking, I'll do the packing!! We had a number of fragile items and as he looks at them he's like "this is not good, broken." And we are saying, no they wont break, because we will wrap them up properly. He keeps going on about them being broken, we continue with they will be fine, let's just wrap them properly.

We had one thing that we weren't allowed to send...yup, as you can see below, it was a Hello Kitty cutlery set that I had bought for May because I thought it was cute. The reason for not being able to send this is that she is "famous" and therefore some sort of Chinese brand. We still aren't exactly sure why she couldn't be sent, but we needed some special ticket (like it was a bloody antique to certify where it had come from) and as we didn't have the ticket, Hello Kitty had to return home with us.

We finally get everything inspected and packed into the two boxes. The boxes get sealed up, THEN you have to fill out the customs declaration and mailing info. We have so many things in those boxes I can't remember what's even in them, so fill out the customs thing and hope for the best. The forms are 6 sheets in total, all one behind the other, so you have to write so hard that you almost rip the top sheet of paper so that the impression will be left behind on the last page. We fill out our address, my parents address, all the items, how much they cost, an alternative address incase our parcel can't be delivered etc etc. It's a long time, and that's before we even start writing on the boxes.

Then the young guy has to type all of this information into the computer, of course he can't make out all my writing, so I have to spell everything out to him then give him detailed descriptions as to what each thing was. Even though he saw everything before it was boxed up. He then can't understand why we are sending both boxes to the same address, but soon gets over this. We finally seem to be done, we've paid, the boxes have been stamped. This had taken a solid hour to get to this point. He walks the first box over to the wall where the other boxes are.....and just tosses it onto the ground. We look at him and say "THAT is how things get broken."

To illustrate the lack of care for parcels here, check out the photo below which is a care package my mum sent us. What the heck happened to this thing?? It took only 2 weeks to arrive, so obviously came by air, and it looks as though people have played football with it!!! It will be very interesting to see what state our packages are in by the time they get to Australia.

Food and stuff (Courtney)

First, a big Happy Birthday and Happy Father's Day (and Easter and Christmas!) to my dad for Monday! We hope you have a great day and will be home soon to celebrate xxxxx

Now below, we have some random images of food and stuff from the glorious land of red.

China has a great new scheme of paying for plastic bags (why has this been so difficult to put into place in Australia?) As of the start of July, there was seemingly no more free plastic bags. Sadly, there is no incentive to not buy a plastic bag, as they cost about 2 cents generally. The "green" bag does seem to be catching on though, which I think is great. I actually saw an elderly man with a safeway bag recently?? Where did he get that? What I don't get though, is the prolification of plastic bags on odd items. For example, you go to the supermarket or a clothing store and you have to pay for a bag. Yet, if you go to a bakery or a fast food outlet, it seems they are doing their bit to make up for the other places. Everything comes in a plastic bag, as you can see above, even take away drinks come in plastic bags! We went to the movies ages ago, and they put our cardboard box of popcorn in a bag! We recently bought 4 donuts from a bakery. There were 5 bags in total! Where is the logic in this?

Above is some sort of bakery item. China is literally infested with bakeries, there are, without even thinking about actual numbers, at least 8 within a 10 minute walk the school. What amazes us though, is that for all of the products in the bakery, about 95% of them taste the same. We do however have these "green" cakes that we particularly like. The above is not one of them. We saw this green monstrosity in a new bakery and thought we would give it a go. Well, mass disappointment ensued once we had cut it in half only to discover the outer layer was pretty much rubber and it was full of beans. Beans have no place in a cake.

Above is some throat medicine we have used whilst in China. This stuff rocks, it's this thick syrup for your throat. What I love is the list of ingredients, it could not have a more unique list of ingredients.

And lastly, a giant grasshopper we found on the stairs outside our apartment. This guy was the size of a hand. Tell me he wouldn't look good on a stick being bbq-ed!

Ah, kiddies...(Courtney)

So, almost week one down, three more to go. As Marcus has been saying, we have been back to teaching this week and lordie do you forget how tiring it can be!

This time round we are just teaching Senior 1 and Gifted 1, so about 4 classes less a week, yet still our rosters are spread across all days and at all times! But alas, this is not a problem. So far the Senior kids have been very manageable, I think in part to their English abilities being higher and also we as teachers have improved and know how to run a class from the very beginning this time. The kids seem happier to interact (there has been no mass giggle outbursts so far, which is a miracle in itself) and are a lot more confident in speaking. I've asked lots of them questions and there has been no major dramas in getting answers. They speak clearer and louder, which makes for a much easier class.

Of course, the gifted kiddies are just adorable as always, and it is when I think about them that I feel guilty for leaving in a few weeks time. I know the Seniors enjoy interacting with us but the gifted kids are just rapt to have us there, and it's hard to know we will be leaving them so soon in. We really will miss teaching their classes as they are just such a highlight of the week! Seriously, I think I could do any crappy job if I had 40 minutes of playtime with all these kids once a week. They have all been given English names by their teacher, so next week I am going to have them make some name plates so I can learn all their names. I expect there to be some interesting ones as always, especially when one of the little girls introduced herself as "Jason". We may have to have a bit of a chat about that.

We've been playing this True/False "game" with the classes this week (preface something as a game and it gets instant attention) which involves them learning things about us by guessing whether what we say is true or false. Then they do it in groups about themselves, then I ask them to tell me something about them so I can learn about them too. The gifted kids were hysterical at this because they are sooo competitive. And some are also very matter of fact. I had one boy stand up and say very succinctly "I like to read, build model aeroplanes and play chess." This was false, I guessed true. Then another little tacker said "I am 13 years old". Again I said true. Well, he was stoked as it was false, and he made quite the point of rubbing it in my face!! They make me laugh so much.

Also funny, was today walking to my afternoon class. A number of Senior 2 kids were making their way across to the science building, so I was saying hello to a number of my old students. A group of about 6 boys walked past and they all yelled out hello and waved to me. I really liked these guys, they were so cheeky, but they actually participated. I could rely on them to answer questions, and a couple of them would even volunteer to read or come up the front. This is a miracle in the Senior classes because they are all so awkward and self-conscious, but these kids enjoyed being the centre of attention. So as I passed them, I hear one scream out to me "Teacher, you are soooo sexy!!!" Right across the courtyard!! I laughed so much, turned back and gave them a wave which made them all fall about with laughter.

I like that some of them have that confidence and know that we are easy going and they can have a laugh with us. There is no way they would ever say something like that to their Chinese teachers!!!

Well, so far so good. (Marcus)

Midway through the first week of our return to teaching and overall - so far so good.

I think we both forgot just how deceptively tiring teaching can be as we're both absolutely exhausted. Courtney's getting better - almost over her flu type virus and we're both in quite good moods. The anticipation of returning to Australia is slowly building in our minds and the students so far have turned out to be really quite pleasant.

Today I had my first class of the new 'gifted' kids and as usual they were adorable. The gifted kids if you cannot remember are the younger students - around 11-12 years old and they're smart(not simple!) As soon as I entered the classroom I was mobbed by them,

"Who are you?"
"What's your name?"
"Where are you from?"

Then at the end of class the usual...

"What's your telephone number?"
"Do you use a cellphone?"
"When will we see you again?"

They're just so damned cute! Cute and innocent and like kids before they descend into puberty, absolutely brimming with confidence.

I have three more classes for the week and then I think we'll hit TGI's for a western meal and some alcohol because you know, we still haven't celebrated coming home yet!

Oh by the way (Marcus)

And we thought we had it bad over summer with mosquitoes...

I was reading over on Wuxilife, the local expat forum around here, someone was looking for the contact details for some exterminators because they are having 'issues' with rats. 'Issues' being, they are living on the 27th floor and are having to put out rat-traps every single night, killing at least 1-2 rats per night.

Now rat's aren't just an annoyance, they're disgusting disease-carrying vermin. I could not think of anything worse than having a plague of them in our building - give me mass mosquitoes any day!

Then again, how the hell are they getting up to the 27th floor? They must have superb climbing skills....

Speaking of rats, when we were walking through Lijiang at night, I glanced into one store and all the women in it suddenly sprang to the back of the shop. I saw a rat scurry across - movie-style. A man then attempted and failed to slay it with a broom-handle. Ahh rats...

Thank god it's over!!!! (Marcus)

Well day 1 of teaching has come and gone and as the title of this post says..thank god! The anticipation of getting back in there in front of 55ish kids is just hardcore! We were both nervous as hell again - something we haven't really felt since we first arrived here and were truly dropped in the deep end of teaching.

It had been around 2 months since we have taught properly - long enough to almost completely forget how it was, long enough to take you back to square one. Walking into that classroom today took me right back to the start, BUT...this time round we had the leg up on the children.

Why?

Well today was their first day of school proper. Yeah they have been here prior, doing their cadet marching and various other classroom style things, but today was the start of the actual semester. These kids are new to this campus and their class make-ups are likewise, new. Of course there'll be new friends and so on in there, but not the clusters of 'cool kids' like we had when we first started here.

When we first started teaching, we were the newcomers. Not just to the school - it being the middle of their school year, but to the teaching role period. With absolutely no training we had to step in front of these classes of kids who had already had half a year to get to know each other and somehow still appear confident!

So while today was nerve-wracking, it only took around 2-3 minutes tops to settle down and get into things. The kids were all bright-eyed and attentive and their english was surprisingly better than we expected. These are possibly from a younger age-group than the ones previous(well they would be) and possibly started learning english a good year or two earlier.

There have been changes in Chinese schooling over the past few years in that students are by and large starting to learn english from a younger age. It is possible these new students are from that line - or it's possible these classes today were just flukey good! Either way, it is so good to get the first day over and done with. It's like day one of any job - the worst day.

I only had one class today to Courtney's two. Tomorrow we both have three, yay! At least the weather has cooled quite considerably.

And on that note - yes, it came the end of August/start of September and there's been literally an almost 10-15 degree change in the weather. It's now actually very pleasant. There is still a degree of humidity but it is much much much better. Our summer of hellish weather is thankfully over.

In China, today is day 1 of Autumn, whilst in Australia it's day 1 of Spring. We are happy that when we return home in early October, it will be just starting to warm up for us...ah sometimes you can win em all.