Becca’s in China

So this week in Social Studies I had to teach the kids how to read a world map.  So in this tireless search for materials that were useable, I ran into this piece of work.  I laughed pretty hard over it - so it might be a little bit funny, hope you enjoy it:

I have decided that Taiwanese Mom’s are some of the best in the world. 

I tutor a taiwanese boy a few days a week and not only do I get paid - BUT - I also get, conversation, hot tea, a phone call to the taxi company…and she invited me to stay for dinner tonight.

How awesome is that?!

Completely unrelated note, on my taxi ride home the driver asked me in English if I spoke Chinese…interesting.

This week has been getting colder and colder and I think the idea of Winter is finally starting to settle into Shanghai.  With that said my heater is on and I finally gave in and bought myself a winter jacket. 

The metro also has a new fashion statement, which is the face mask.  While you see them all over the news in the U.S. it is completely different to be sitting down in the metro and look around and your surrounded by them.  Even better is that they just aren’t white, instead they are quite fashionable and come in a range of colors and sizes.  They come with cartoon characters on them, their plaid, they have crystals on them, name brands - think of anything and it is probably printed on one of these things.  However, even with all of that I just don’t think I could bring myself to wear one - I’m just not that cool.

Yesterday’s mission was a complete failure, I found the Yamaha electric store in town and I went down there looking at their silent electric cello’s.  Unfourtantley they want almost twice as much money for them here versus in the states.  So even though I desperately want an instrument in my hand, I just can’t bring myself to spend that much money on one.  Instead I’m going to keep searching with the hopes that a miracle will occur and I will have a cello in my possession soon. 

Other than that I had the most awkward experience when coming back to my hotel last night.  After getting dinner I rode my bike home in the cold and parked it as normal and after waving hi to the security guards that helped me out with my bike I bought a bottle of water and headed inside.  When walking up the walkway to my apartment what did I looked up and what did I see?  My hotel lobby was full of monks, and I’m not talking about 5 - there really was probably about 25.  For some sort of reason this made me incredibly uncomfortable and as I walked into my hotel literally everyone stopped and looked up at me.  So here I am holding my pizza and a bottle of water with a bunch of Buddist Monks staring at me. 

Can you imagine how I felt?

Here’s an update in the form of photographs on my life in Shanghai - enjoy!

Button Necklaces!

Jalin and I on Halloween - Chinese people don't do dress up!

Oh the baby eggs...

I have now offically discovered that are actually a few good Chinese men in China! 

In the past two weeks somehow Sasha’s tired died and having no real way of getting it over to the metro station (and also no real time) I had been borrowing Liza’s bike to make up for this incovient problem in my life.  Well after again being sick all weekend, I decided that I should at least try and get some food and see if I could figure out if the bike people at the metro station could in fact fix my bike or not.  So after a few text messages I got the message I needed in characters to show the owners, packed my bookbag up, and headed out. 

However, once getting into the parking lot of the convience store in front of my hotel there were two guys (hotel guards) and a taxi driver.  All at once they started talking to me and pointing at my bike wheel.  I just kept replying that I was going to the metro station and that I have no idea what they’re saying.  Normally when you do this eventually they will leave you alone.  These guys did not, and instead two of them drove off.  I tried to walk off, but the other guy stopped me and started talking to me again in Mandarin.  So I stopped, waitied, and one of the guys showed back up and started talking to me again.  Once realizing on their end that I really had no idea what was going on all we could do was laugh at the situation. 

So I finally caved in and called Jalin asking her to act as a translator.  Laughing she immedatley agreed and then I handed the phone to one of the guys.  They talked for a few minutes and then he gave the phone back to me.  Turns out they went and called a bike guy and he was going to ride over and fix the inner tube for me in the parking lot.  How incredibly awesome is that!  Honestly I was a little stunned that these guys would be willing to help me.  After waiting for a few minutes indeed a guy rolled up on his scooter, popped the inner tube out, patched it, and slid that sucker right back in.  20 RMB later my bike was as good as new. 

All I could say was thank you to the guys who helped me.

It’s nice to know that random acts of kindness still exist in the world.

Dropped raw eggs, children screaming, and grading papers - yup it was your average Wednesday.  Other than that today was just full of completely awkward moments for me.  Running into people, deja vu’ on the subway, after dinner drama - and then getting a really bad headache.  It was at least warmer today than it was yesterday which made the day at least a little bit easier to deal with. 

Tonight in honor of not having Taiji due to Master Wong having to be absent we decided to head into the city for some Mexican food.  Cantina Agave is a saving grace in Shanghai…it’s still weird though, because it’s Mexican Food - but it’s still from China so the meat is cooked like it is from a Chinese restaurant.  However, you have to make the best of what is given to you and I’ll take a place of rice and beans any day. 

After dinner we ran into these three guys who were carting around monkey’s on leashes.  After doing tricks and taking pictures with a few of my friends I gave one of the monkey’s a Jao, which he immediately put into his mouth and then ran off with.  At one point one tried to crawl onto me, and I’m sorry as much as I want to play with a monkey - I definitely don’t want to play with a dirty Shanghai street monkey.

Heading back towards the subway I took Parker over to a smoke shop to look at cigars, and he totally got us kicked out!  I couldn’t believe it.  While he deserved it for what he said I am still amazed by how the shop owner handled it.  He was so mean and straight forward, it felt like being back in the states for a hot second. 

It just goes to show you no matter what country you in - always assume that people can understand English, so watch what you say.

I have decided that children write the best stories/reports on the planet.  Everytime I read them I always end up laughing, because I’m too serious and these guys are all nothing but silly.  One of my favorite reports recently is where I asked my kids to write me 3-4 sentences about their favorite animal and what it likes to eat - this was one of the responses:

My favorite animal is a Shark.  It eats fish.  It also eats people.  If you see a shark you should swim away!

Honestly I gave the kid a star because I was so impressed by this paper.  Also the illustration was of a shark swimming after a fish who was swimming after a person. 

The same thing happened this afternoon when I was tutoring a kid this afternoon.  He practiced giving his oral book report so that I could check for any mispronunciations.  In the report along with giving the book details there was an “In my opinion,” section where he was asked exactly that.  He started this section by saying: “My mom forced me to read this book, so I would not suggest it to others…”  Between the mix of exhaustion and confusion I just started to laugh a little bit.   After he finished giving his presentation I asked him if he liked making people laugh - his response what no.  Again, this is just the innocence of children. 

Later on in our session he asked me if I liked music, and how much - this I was a bit confused by.  Responding that I liked music a lot, he asked how much a person has to like something to draw it on themselves.  Then it hit me, he was referring to the tatoo on my hand.  That’s when I told him that I liked music so much that I had this note drawn on six years ago - his response: “…WOW, where can I find a marker like that!”  

Also to serve as an update, over half of the eggs are broken.  Looks like giving raw eggs to first graders was a bad idea…

This month’s theme at school is “Appreciation,” so in leiu of that, Ms. Lui decided that our first graders should take care of a raw egg for a week.  Each egg has its own little plastic cup filled with shredded paper, and has a name plate on the front with said egg and students name on it.  Every night the students have to take their eggs home and then bring them back the next day, also the students must take their eggs from class to class for the week.  If their eggs break, they are a “loser,” according to Ms. Gu. 

Now I understand that this is technically a cool idea - but my kids are 6.  Guess how long it took for the first egg to break? …….. No lie, about 30 seconds after one of my first graders received it.  My kids however did come up with some cool names for their eggs including: Sonic, RE, Chole, Rosa, Saralye, and Kobe Bryant!

Other than that nothing exciting happened today, it was just another Monday.  However, Shanghai has landed itself into a dreadful cold state.  It’s so cold…the kind of cold that just stings as it hits your skin and sinks into your bones and won’t release you.  Today at school most of my kids wore their jackets, and the Chinese teachers left the windows open.  So I rode my bike to school in the cold, sat in my classroom in the cold, the food at lunch was cold by the time it hit my table, and then it only got colder as the day progressed. 

This is not a good sign for winter I’m sure.  I just have to keep thinking in my head that at least it’s not the mountains, so I won’t have to worry about snow and digging my car out to get to rehearsal in time.  Instead I just have to worry about my neverending cold cup of coffee, stellar.