Random Thoughts

I am spending the morning working in my hotel room so I thought I would catch up my notes a bit..

 

Hotel Room

The hotel I am staying at is the Jinjiang Inn – It is considered the only hotel in this part of town. Min even knew it. Its kind of like a Best Western.  The bed is rock hard – which is okay with me.   The mattress is very thin like 5 inches thick.. That must be good because they show it on all the advertisements in the hotel.  The bathroom has a walk in shower with a rain shower head and a detachable shower head.  There is a little fridge (about ½ the size of an office fridge at work). There is also a small chair and ottoman. It has broadband access.

 

 

Snack foods

So I have been trying some snack foods while here..  here are few:

KaoMoGuoBa – toasted bread with herbs.  I really like this.  It is kind of savory with just a touch of sweet.   I thought the package looked pretty.

 

Cake – I had a little package of cake that tasted like pineapple upside down cake.  It was okay.

 

 Green Box – supposedly bitter tea – it was really sweet.

Nutri-express – a smoothie like thing that they sell everywhere.  It does not need to be refrigerated.

 

Receipts

So at dinner at black beauty, Mary Beth was able to scratch the receipt to figure out if she had won money. She won 100 rmb!   The reason for this for the government to check what the restaurant is charging and to encourage people to keep the receipt and put it with their taxes.

 

They can reduce their income tax by turning in food receipts.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/240136.htm

 

 

Cabs

I still have not completely figured out the cabs. There are two colors and I am not supposed to take the green ones. We often have cabs outside our hotel, but many seem to not want to take us to the school because its very close.   It costs about 12 rmb  ($1.75) to go to the school by cab.

 

Most people take a cab to the subway but others take the cabs all the way into town.  Min and I did a combo – taking a cab to subway to in, and then a cab back (because we were coming back late).  Even the most expensive cab ride I have taken was about 90 rmb or 13 us dollars.

 

None of the cabbies speak English at all so I have to everything written down in order to ask them to take me there. A little dangerous but I still have the cell phone from the school in case I have a problem.

 

 

SMIC School.  This school is really interesting.  It has only been here about 9 years but it's a complex of maybe 20 buildings it seems.    They teach K-12.   They have wonderful buildings, everything is really clean.   They have a large track and field area too. 

 

Its really very impressive – probably one of the largest school areas I have ever been that was K-12.   On the weekend the building was not heated and was likely colder than it was outside.  Each room has a heater in it that is in the back the room.

For technology they have a large tv's posted in the front corner of the room, but if they want to show a dvd they must hook up a dvd player they can get from IT.  Most people do not use them.

 

They also have a MMC- Mobile Media Cart – which they can go around and show with a small projector. It is not ideal and they all want smartboards bad.  Chris is at a different school and he has a smartboard and his overall technology is a bit better. I should mention he is a tech teacher though – so it makes sense.

 

I really think this school is quite impressive. They have many of their students come to them from the US and other countries and many go to ivy league schools in the US.   They have the same problems that are in the US – there is a universality of the experience. Much more than I expected.

 

The arrangement of teachers in this program are really exceptional. They are such bright and interesting people with such varied life experiences. These students are so lucky that this school has hired in the way they have.  Even though many are not formally trained as teachers, they do things above and beyond to help these students learn. For example, the kindergarten teacher uses Adobe Illustrator to make them coloring sheets that are relevant to their lives! Wow..

 

 

Illiteracy – and the overwhelming of Chinese characters

 

I am gaining perspective on what it it must be like to be illiterate in the US..  I am so overwhelmed by the Chinese characters!!!! They are everywhere and I can't make sense of them.  My friends and students who speak Chinese – I am jealous – they can get around and communicate.   I am trying hard to rely on gestures and looks and am getting better at it..

 

I could only imagine what it would be like to be living here full time as a new teacher – really overwhelming.

 

Misconceptions

 

I feel a little sheepish about the misconceptions I had about China. 

·      First I expected it to feel really gray and oppressive, so far what I have seen it is fine and average.

·      I thought the government owned all the apartments – but they have landlords like everyone else but they don't have superintendents like we do.. they do have repair people they can call.

·      Given the government censorship of the internet, I expected to feel like all information was blocked.  There seems to be many ways around it and in general, I feel more watched in NYC than here.

I am sure I will have more to share….  But I have been reminded this is the most modern city in China – I need to keep that in mind.

 

Btw.. I meant to post this earlier .. but Min and I talked about housing.. in Shanghai apartments are about 2000 dollars per square foot.. YIKES..