I am not an animal!!! (Courtney)

That's right folks, I am not an animal...and today proved that. After having spent the last two months feeling somewhat like a leper, having basically not been involved in a conversation that didn't include Marcus or Mr Pan, today was a very very pleasant change. And why do you ask? Well today we met people. Real bonefide people, who weren't talking to us because they were forced to, but because they actually wanted to! The last couple of months have been bizarre and often disheartening as we have attempted and failed to make friends. We keep telling ourselves that we will meet people and do normal things, but as the weeks tick by we have been starting to think that maybe it wont happen. I've always made friends at work, and normally very good friends, and it's been worrying that we haven't been able to do that so far here. You can't help but think that it is you, that somehow you are the problem. Am I too shy? Not approachable? Am I just so uncool and boring that no one actually wants to get to know me? Logically we know why people have been slow to approach us, and that is mostly to do with a little thing called English. It's why we are in China and it's the main reason why we aren't making any friends. But even though we know that there is a huge language barrier and that as a whole the Chinese are very reserved, it is still difficult and has often made us feel not very welcome.

So today we had what could only but be described as a huge breakthrough on the people/friends front. And I have to admit I'm not only feeling a whole lot better...but also kinda zonked from so much socialising! So I'll start at the start...

Through Barb, a family friend of Marcus who we saw in Shanghai, we were given the details of a young Chinese guy named Josh. Coincidentally he lives in Wuxi. It was only once Marcus emailed him though that we realised he lives about 500 metres away from the school! Small world. So we have been meaning to catch up with him, but inbetween Suzhou, illnesses and each of our own availabilities we hadn't yet managed it. But during the week we arranged to catch up tonight at a coffee house down the road for dinner. Excellent! We have also been in contact with Abby and Matt who stumbled upon our blog on the internet. They are a NZ couple working in Wuxi. Abby and I had a great chat on the phone during the week and organised to catch up this afternoon. So all of a sudden we go from having no playdates, to two in one day!

Friday night rolls around and Mr Pan calls. Turns out the education something or other of Wuxi has decided to hold Chinese Language and Culture classes every Sunday morning for all its foreign teachers. Class starts at 9am and goes until 12. Whilst the time might not be great - nothing like a 9am class on a Sunday! - it was the perfect opportunity to not only get to learn some language, but also meet some people. I tell Mr Pan we will definately go and he organises the school driver to take us just for today. As of next week we will be navigating the bus at an ungodly hour. So once we had the information, I looked up the site of the school the classes were being held at, which is one of Wuxi's International Schools. Who should I see on the website but Abby! So on Saturday I let her know that hey, I think we will be at your school tomorrow! So we decide to catch up after that, her partner Matt coming to join us.

So suddenly we have 3 playdates! Instant friends! We get up this morning, bright and early. Last night as I set my alarm I thought I'll set it for 7:45 as the driver was picking us up at 8:30. Then I think to myself hmm, maybe I should makeit 7:30 to be on the safe side. Bloody good thing I did, as the driver rocked up just after 8am. This happens so often, where we are told one time, and then something completely different happens. Marcus manages to explain that we need 10 minutes, which we spend frantically racing around the house finding paper and pens, shoes etc.

What to do whilst I wait for those pesky foreign teachers? I'll have a shave! Here's our school driver waiting for us downstairs...multitasking.

Anyhoo, the class was great. Sadly not many students, but many many Chinese teachers. The chinese teachers are there to learn different teaching methods, but it made it somewhat awkward when asked to repeat something or answer a question! Anyhoo, there were about 8 foreign teachers there, one being Abby. We also met a couple of guys from the UK who teach at a middle school close to us. We learnt today that Tianyi (where we teach) is one of the best/most prestigious schools in Wuxi (god only knows why they hired us) and that the school where the English guys teach is basically our rival school. They were both lovely guys, and seeing as though they live close we plan on catching up with them soon. We will arrange something next week with them, I think Mike is keen to have us over for dinner. It would also be good to pick their brains considering we teach the same year levels at very similar schools. He loves it and has been here for 3 years, so getting some teaching tips off him will be great. So the class was really good, run by a teacher from one of the universities. I think he is just doing the introduction class then the other teachers will take over, so who knows if the quality of the class will deteriorate but we will keep going. We learnt all manner of things and did lots of pronunciation which was great as a refresher from when we started learning Mandarin, and also quite embarrassing as every time I was asked to pronounce something or answer a question I invariably got it wrong or had no idea where we were up to.

After 3 hours of what I found to be hard study we were starving!! Matt was waiting for us so we caught a bus back to where they live to grab some lunch. Abby and Matt live in an apartment closer to the city, directly opposite a Carrefour (big French supermarket). Underneath the Carrefour is a large food court type place which is where we ate. It was good! Just like any food court the world over, but it had really great chinese food and just a nice atmosphere to it. What we wouldn't give to live near something like that - so nice and easy to get to and eat at! For when you don't feel like wading through the difficulty that can be ordering and getting a good meal (ie - not chicken heads or the like) something like that food court would just be a god send. So we happily wiled away some time there before heading to the Kempinsky. The Kempinsky is the swishest hotel in Wuxi, we had heard about yet and yes it is pretty flash!! It's a little way out of town but I don't think that concerns the people who stay there because they clearly have enough money for endless taxis and drivers! We went there purely to check out a "deli" they have, which supposedly serves all manner of yummy things. The walk there was funny, past a large park with people going about their Sunday recreational activities. And the most popular thing here seemed to be roller skates! Yup, there was a street lined with stores with roller skates for hire and there were people everywhere. It is very tempting to go back and have an afternoon of madness trying to remember how to rollerskate!! (It's been a good 14 years I would think...) I wanted to take some photos on the way back but it was bucketing down. Anyhow, we ended up in a German bar and had a couple of beers. Matt and Abby are great and it was wonderful just to sit and have a chat with people that stretched to well beyond polite chit chat. I'm looking forward to seeing them again. Matt often works on Saturdays, so Abby and I will try and fit in some catch ups..it is great to know you not only have met some nice people, but you can see them to go shopping or whatever! Matt's boss and his wife joined us and they were great too, good senses of humour. She actually helped us out with writing down the address of our school. Ever since moving here we have tried unsuccessfully to get our address just written on a piece of paper to show taxi drivers. We have an incredibly embarrassing photo of ourselves infront of one of the school monuments, with chinese characters printed on it, which we had assumed was our address. When we catch cabs we show it to the driver (as no one ever understands our chinese!) and a little bit of us dies each time as we hand over with mortification this cheesy photo. So we now have our address written down, and turns out the photo not only had our address...but also our names and that we were from Australia!! Oh the shame of it all...

Once we said our goodbyes we caught a cab back to school. It's very funny when it rains around here. Suddenly the streets turn into a kaleidescope of colour as every scooter and bike rider suddenly whip out their rain ponchos of every colour you could imagine. They have these great ponchos - similar to the good old garbage bag variety you see at the football - that are like a cape, they fit over their heads and most of the scooter! As soon as it rains the streets are transformed and it becomes poncho land. We then headed to the coffee house to catch up with Josh. Josh was great too, a really lovely guy with fantastic English. He seems to be very intelligent and switched on and was really great to talk to. We covered a lot of subjects and he gave us some helpful hints about Wuxi and different perspectives on things we experience here. It's always good to get that local kind of view, as things from an outside perspective are always so different from how the locals see things. He is originally from Chengdu, which we plan on visiting during our holidays so he can hook us up with some family contacts there! He and his wife are expecting their first child later in the year, and I hope we can get to know them better.

So all in all it's been a busy and great day! It feels like such a relief to have met some people and for them to actually like us...thankfully my fears that we had become heathens goes unfounded. Hopefully now going forward we will continue to feel more settled here and really start to enjoy our free time more. Having some additional company in a strange land has been much needed, so hopefully the circle continues to grow!

And finally, whilst driving home from the other campus here is a fine example of some of the crazy stuff we see on the roads here. An entire truck full of workers. At least they are wearing hard hats?!