Orientation continues at a blindingly fast pace, and I have had little time to write. I still struggle with the balance between going out and experiencing versus documenting at my ideal amount. So far, I have almost unanimously gone out to gain experiences rather than staying the apartment to write.
Yesterday’s training joined forces with the rest of the people from the Marshall Program, who came to our campus for a few key sessions. After orientation ended for the day, we all loaded up onto a tour bus and headed down to Pudong for a banquet and a cruise. The location of the banquet was right below the Pearl Tower, which might be one of the most impressive feats of architecture I have seen in person.
Devon and I sat in the very front seat of the bus, where we had a clear view of the entire drive to Pudong. The view was amazing, as it was much higher than that of a taxi and I was able to get an even better appreciation for the infrastructure of this gigantic city. Toward the beginning of the drive, I pulled out my camera to take a picture of our metro station and found out that it was totally out of battery. I was pretty pissed, but then I remembered something that my mentor here at the school advised me when talking to me about getting along in China; control what you can control, let the rest roll off you. So, I quickly let it go, and just made sure some of the others were getting the pictures I wanted. Haha.
The banquet was pretty awesome. The food was great, and the beer just kept coming. We all shared twelve dishes or more. A few of my favorites were the scallops, the a beef dish, and a really tasty tofu. They served us a plate of 1,000 year old eggs, but I was not quite ready to try them, so I passed on that. I figure I have ten months. Can’t have all the food fun in the first few days . . .
After we stuffed ourselves to oblivion, we took a huge group picture, and then headed out to the dock to board the cruise that took us around the banks the Haungpu River. We saw the skyline of Pudong and the Bund. I really wish I had pictures to augment this post, because I still do not have the time to go into detailed description of what everything looks, sounds, smells like here in Shanghai. The views from the cruise might have been beyond the descriptive capacity of words anyway.
As a little challenge, the leaders of the orientation only reserved the bus to take us to the banquet. We were responsible to find our own ways back home. The group I was with decided after the cruise that we were not ready to call it a night, and that we might as well make use of the free transportation to downtown and go do some sightseeing. We were a little restricted because we didn’t have a map, a guidebook, or a phrase book, so we thought we would play it safe and attempt to go to People’s Square, which is the largest tourist attraction in Shanghai. We walked to the nearest metro station from the Pearl Tower, and then took line 1 to the People’s Square station.
Turns out that the specific exit you use when leave any metro station is very important, as it can change your direction and orientation drastically. Apparently we used the wrong exit because we could not, even after some serious searching, find People’s Square. So, instead, we ended up walking. And we just kept walking. The goal in mind was a bar, but we could find no such thing. We probably walked for at least twelve city blocks, or for about an hour or more. We stopped at a fruit stand finally and pieced together our best collective attempt at a question concerning direction. The woman working the stand said she didn’t know, but pointed us in a direction which we had no good reason not to follow.
We ended up in what must have been the Chinese equivalent of Chinatown, only for Japan. So, we ended up in Japantown, and saw a sign that said “CoffeePub” and considering our absolute lack of other options, decided to check it out. I was a little concerned by the fact that the windows were blocked with white drapes, and I was soon to find out how legitimate my concern was.
I think the formal phrase for the type of bar we ended up in is “Conversation bar” where patrons (mostly male) pay for company. Just like our first night out into the city, this experience also deserves a description of which I have not the time to give, but will be putting it on my list of stories to expand for later.
In a nutshell, we drank, the women talked to the men in the group, and we sang karaoke. The night ended up being a lot more expensive than we had originally anticipated having been quoted at 15 kuai a beer, but the entertainment of the awkward yet awesome situation was worth the difference between the price of my beer and the price I was actually asked to pay. I am not sure the last time I laughed so hard, and it only got funnier in the cab ride back.
We made it back to school by 12am, I was asleep by 12:30am, and then I was up by 5:45 when by boys in the dorms that face my bedroom window started their military drills.
I suppose I could spend a little bit of time describing the complicated schedule I posted yesterday. This semester I will be teaching four classes (two English, two History) which meet for a combined 17 hours a week. For my English classes, I will be teaching non-native students, meaning that English is not their primary or even, perhaps, their secondary language. Their skills may be quite good, however, because ESL is actually the lowest level of language proficiency here at the school, and I am about a step and a half above that.
One of my classes is a world history class, and spans from ancient to modern times using one of the thickest books I have ever seen. I teach this class at a 9th grade level. My second history class is what I am most excited about, as it is world history of the 20th century at 11th grade level, which is the highest level I teach and the subject closests to my degree in sociology.
As for my English classes, one is 9th grade and one is 10th grade. In the beginning, I didn’t really know what to think about my schedule, but one of the veteran teachers helped me pick out the positives. For example, I don’t have any classes Monday morning or Friday afternoon. This will allow me to get a lot of work done before the weekend, and then recover and re-organize appropriately after the weekend.
My classes are a little larger than I was expecting, each with over twenty students. In all, I have 90 students. I literally have no idea how I am going to learn their names, and distinguish their faces, but I know that all I can really do is take it one day at a time.
We have one more day of orientation left, and then we have the weekend to prepare ourselves for our first classes Monday. Sometimes, I think about getting up in front of the class for a little too long and get nervous, but I find if I really don’t think about it that much, or only think about it in limited ways, I have very little nervousness or concern. I need to spend the next few days arousing within myself the mentality of a teacher. It was not so long ago that I was a student, so it is a pretty big jump.
That is about it for now. I am hoping to have a relaxed weekend, but that is unlikely to happen. I would like to be able to write a few detailed documentations of some of my experiences here in Shanghai, so I will try and make some time for that in between all of my various teaching preparations.
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That's the Chinese impression of Japanese businessmen, they come to China to work and spend all of their evenings in expensive, less than reputable clubs. I have a Shanghainese acquaintance who works for a Japanese company and my wife says his wife is very unlucky because her husband has to spend so much time "out on the town".
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