Language Barriers

Language barriers: They're challenging. They're frustrating.  They're a part of daily life.  They're incredibly hilarious.

The other day I walked into dining hall 2 hoping and praying I would find one or two of my students to sit with.  This did not happen.  Feeling dejected, I decided to go order food and hopefully find someone to eat with after.  On my way to order 羊肉菠菜粉丝 (yang rou bo cai fen si, or Lamb, Spinach, and noodle soup, my new favorite food.) some students saw me and yelled "hello!!"  I excitedly turned to look at them, realized I didn't know them, made an awkward attempt to say something, and was waved on to order food.  While I was waiting for my delicious meal, one of the girls came up to me, said something in Chinese, and motioned to their table.  I figured that they were saving the table for me to sit at, and would leave once I came with my food.

Boy, was I wrong.

The next hour was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.  I had a Chinese, English, Chinese, English, Chinglish conversation with these students as I ate.  One of the girls, Yang Le, speaks virtually zero English.  She is a short, energetic, tomboyish girl who loves to play basketball.  She frequently shouted to several passing friends (in Chinese) "Hey, do you speak English, come translate."  Her friend, Pang Zi Jiao, finally worked up the courage to speak in English and served as a kind of translator for everything.  We established that I speak and understand yi dian dian (a little) Chinese.  We talked about their major, their hometowns, and what they do for fun.  They taught me the Chinese names for things, their own Chinese names, and I helped with their English.  They all told me "we will be best friends", "we should play basketball together, or go shopping", and "call us".  We parted with the promise to get together sometime soon.

Today I sent a message to Pang Zi Jiao asking if we could all have dinner together.  She replied "ok, we class over about 4:40, we can have dinner together at 5:00, see you at that time..at er shitang [dining hall 2]".  I showed up at the dining hall and saw Yang Le and someone I had never met before.  I soon realized that it would just be the two of us.  Her friend, Star, was given the role of translator.  I asked where Pang Zi Jiao was.  Apparently she had an interview. Okay. Round 2 of Yang Le yelling to random passersby to speak English with me.  As I ate another bowl of 羊肉菠菜粉丝 I was quizzed on my new Chinese vocab, and we had a strange, disjointed, conversation.  For about 10 minutes they tried to tell me about some "activity" that was happening tomorrow.  Finally, I figured out that at noon tomorrow we will get together and write things we want to say down, whatever that means.  I'll hopefully let you know.

In spite of, or because of, the huge language barrier between all of us, I'm so excited to see how this friendship develops.  It will certainly be filled with extreme confusion and a lot of hilarity.

Taxis

Audrey, Melanie, and I stood on the side of the road after being rejected by the 3rd taxi driver in a row.  Either they actually weren't going in the direction of our school, they didn't want to go all the way across the city, or they didn't want to put up with the foreigners.  We were all a little annoyed.  Whatever their reason, I was feeling pretty dejected about not getting a cab, and was wondering if we would ever get back home.  I envisioned us walking for miles until we found a bus number that looked familiar or some taxi driver took pity on us.  Luckily my vision never came to be realized.  Melanie and Audrey waved down a cab that already had a passenger. 

When the taxi pulled up, the girl in the front seat squealed with delight and said hello.  I told the driver our desired destination and he pulled over so we could get in.  We were super excited, but not as excited as the preexisting passenger.  I had thought she was one of Melanie and Audrey's students.  As it turns out, she doesn't even go to our school.  She struck up a conversation with me in Chinese and slowly started to use more and more English with the three of us.  She beamed and giggled with excitement the whole time as she shared about what she is studying, where she is from, and who is in her family.  We also exchanged phone numbers.  At one point the driver stopped to let her off at her stop but she told him to keep driving because she was so happy and wanted to talk with the foreigners more, so we drove around for a while.  She was so adorable, and repeatedly told the driver how she was so happy.  Eventually, though, she did have to go to her destination, so she took a picture of us and promised to call. 

After she left the taxi I told Mel and Audrey that "we probably just made her day."
They replied, "she just made ours."

It's so true.  It's amazing how the littlest thing can completely change your outlook.

Here's a text message I received from our new friend:
"I am extremely pleased to meet you, I hope we can keep in touch in future.  I believe my speaking will make a progress when we see next time.  Enjoy yourself in every aspects :-)"

Friends, I hope you too will enjoy yourself in every aspects! :)

Meet My Team

Maybe this isn't the best way for you to meet my teammates, but on the other hand, maybe this is the best way for you to meet my teammates.

Here are the 5 amazing women I get to work and live with this year, from left to right in the video:
Audrey, Cathy, Lora, Melanie, and Adrienne.

Prepare yourself. This video kind of sums up our team dynamic.  Here's I Am a Hotdog. 
Music composed and directed by the lovely Audrey, our team's vegetarian.

Some Days

Some days in China it's fun being the foreigner. 
Some days it isn't.
Some days it takes 2 and a half hours to open up a bank account.
Some days all of the Chinese customers are shouting at the employees because they are only being helped at two lanes instead of 4 because the foreigners are taking up two.
Some days you get off at a bus stop to change buses only to discover that the bus you're looking for doesn't stop there.
Some days you ask 3 different people where the 218 bus is and follow their directions only to discover it doesn't exist.
Some days you take another bus and end up at a stop which isn't where you thought it would be.
Some days you finally give up on buses and take a taxi to your original destination, the Metro supermarket.
Some days you go in to Metro to get a card (think BJs) only to discover they only give out cards Monday through Friday.
Some days you laugh hysterically because otherwise you'd cry.
Some days the nice Chinese lady lets you shop anyways.
Some days none of the doors in the bathroom close.
Some days you pay way more than you wanted on a huge block of cheese because that was the whole reason you went to the store and you would probably cry if you left without it.
Some days you're so tired, and your taxi driver has an accent, so you can't even attempt a small conversation.
Some days you get to the copy shop only to discover you didn't put an important document on the flash drive to print.
Some days all of this happens in one day.

Plans

Have you ever had one of those days where you're frantically trying to get everything done and it's totally not possible so you are freaking out a little and maybe are a little bitter towards life?  Yeah, today was one of those days.  Actually, this weekend was one of those days. 

Friends, being a teacher is tiring.  If you're a teacher, you're nodding your head in agreement. 
Being a first-year teacher is even more exhausting. 
Teaching and living in a country where you barely speak the language calls for a daily nap (which, sadly, is not always possible).

Today after fellowship I took a much needed rest.  Upon awaking from my slumber, however, I was hit with all of the things that still needed to be done.  So I put on my proverbial working boots and rushed headlong into finishing up planning details for the week and preparing to go print things and then, my least favorite task, heading to the copy shop to explain in my poor Chinese how many of each paper I need (which since I teach 8 different classes of students and 3 different courses means a lot of different papers that need to be copied). 

As I trudged from the office I was mentally preparing myself for a lot of 'ma fan' (bother).  I crossed through the gardens between our building and the library and noticed a group of students.  Since I was on a mission I decided to circle around them to avoid as much as possible the awkward stares I get whenever I go anywhere in China.  As I skirted around and passed the group I heard "Hello!! Hello!  Hello teacher!!"  I figured I couldn't ignore an obvious greeting, so I said hello and struck up a conversation with a few of them.  One of these students was Thor.  (Please do your best to remove the image of the extremely strong, muscular Norse god from your mind and replace it with one of an average-looking young Chinese man.)  I discovered that these students gather in the gardens for a kind of club where they speak only English for that time. 

Students: "Teacher, please stay and talk with us and teach us a good English accent". 
Me: "I would love to, but I must go make many copies of these papers for my classes..."
Thor: "Would you like help?"
Me: "That would be great!!!!"

So, Thor and I journeyed to the copy shop together where he communicated all of the numbers of copies I needed and even counted as things were printed off to make sure they were right.  I thanked him multiple times for his help.  His response: "It is my pleasure.  This experience (to be able to talk in English with a native speaker) is very special for me."

On the way back from the copy shop, with him lugging my 480 copies, we exchanged phone numbers so he could reach me if he ever wanted to practice his English.

So today Thor got an affirming experience in practicing speaking English.  I got a ton of help and a reminder that I love Chinese students and I will gladly go through the occasional drudgery of planning to help them.  And I got a text message wishing me a "Happy Teacher's Day" 2 hours early.

I still have tons of work to do, but that's okay.

Welcome to 712

Here's a short video tour of my apartment so you have some idea of what it's like where I am living!  And, yes, 712 means I live on the 7th floor.  And, no, there is not an elevator.  I am, however, getting some pretty sweet calf muscles from the stairs!

Filmed by my lovely team leader, Adrienne. Enjoy!

VIDEO!!!


(FYI during that awkward pause between my living and bed rooms, I am attempting to get my ethernet cable out from under my door.)

The Little Things

“It's the little things in life that make us happy.” Though I don't think our life's Joy is built off of just little occurrences here and there, there is certainly truth to this statement when it comes to living in China. Doing the simplest tasks here are often the most rewarding and happiness-bringing experiences. For example:

~We didn't quite make it to the bus door the other night when we were trying to get off at our stop. In the heat of the moment as the doors were closing I yelled in Chinese that we wanted to get off. The bus driver stopped the bus and opened the doors. I still don't know how that happened because usually in the heat of the moment all Chinese leaves my brain.

~I did laundry in a washing machine yesterday. Though that may not seem very exciting it was huge to me. I spent all of this past month washing my clothes in a sink or the shower. They took days to dry, and I'm not actually sure if I got them clean or not. Yesterday I discovered the drain cover in my bathroom floor is removable and the drain hose from the washer can be put inside the drain (this would have been great to discover before I ran a bleach load to clean out the machine so my whole bathroom didn't flood...You win some, you lose some!). I then navigated the Chinese character-covered buttons, put in laundry soap, and washed some of my clothes. I got to hang them from a makeshift line in my bedroom where they merrily danced in front of my air conditioner.  They were dry by morning.  Success!!

~I ordered a new dish for myself last night. I had major struggles in eating it. It was taking me forever to eat even though I ate pretty much nonstop, and because of that my teammate and I got to meet, talk to, and eat with two Chinese students.

~There was a typhoon today.  I'm not joking.  My teammates and I walked across campus laughing hysterically as our umbrellas were turned sideways to stop the rain.  We got to our destination only to discover that our plans to get our residence permits were postponed.  So we watched a movie at 9 in the morning instead.

~We met a student today who was close to last year's team.  We ate dinner with him, and heard his story and some amazing jokes.  We then got to sing him happy birthday! 

As I am still adjusting (and will be all year) to living in China these little bubbles of happiness are a huge blessing!  

Also, obviously, my internet is now finally working.  Hooray!  Expect an apartment tour soon! 

Love from Harbin,

Erin