Freaky weather and Game Shows

I have been in Shanghai for over three months now and to say it has been an interesting experience would not even come close to doing it justice. This has been more then an "interesting" experience, this has been nothing short of an 3 month out of body experience. There are just so many things that are overwhelmingly different from what I'm accustomed to, that it has nearly numbed my senses altogether and nothing can surprise me anymore.

This past weekend I had another once in a lifetime happening that will stay with me for a long time...I was on a Chinese dating game show. Just to put an image in your head for what it was like...It was a weird mix between the NewlyWed Game and a Looney Toons Cartoon. Chinese TV is extremely odd.
Now that you have that image, let me go back and explain exactly what happened. The show is called "I Love You," but it is pronounced with the Chinese way of saying the words. So it actually sounds like "I Rohu Ou" The hosts were this chinese bald guy with glasses in a white sequined suit with two girls who were also is cheesy sequined barbie doll dresses.
My friend was the actual contestant on the show and myself and two other guys were his "entourage" sitting behind him making him look good. There were also two other groups of Chinese guys who were our competition. On the other side of the stage there were three groups of girls who did the typical chinese girl thing, giggle a lot with their hands over their mouth and look shy. The whole show took about 3 hours to film and there is way to much to talk about but I'll just give you the rundown of some of the odder things.

1. The girls had to guess whose wallet belonged to whom by riffling through it.
2. The Lichi Challege - The guys had to pick up the girls and do squats while naming off as many fruits as they could think of.
3. The girls had to make turtle soup and the guys had to guess who made each soup. They even showed the video of the girls killing the turtles. The ASPCA would throw a fit.
   
4. Apparently we were supposed to have a chant memorized to yell. All the chinese groups did, we didn't so we looked ridiculous
   
5. The host looked like an odd combination of Mr. Clean and a turtle.
   
6. There were cartoon sound effects going on the entire time they were filming. Like weird bells and whistles, springs, beeps, honks, and every other sound effect that was ever used in loony toons. Not exactly sure why, but I think they think it's cute.
7. There was a guy in a giant panda suit that would run in and out randomly for no apparent reason at all.

It's really something that I have to explain in person, and I will when I come home for Christmas.

The weather has also been really strange this last week. It was freezing last week, then it went back up into the 60's and low 70's for about 4 days...now it's freezing again. China's weather is playing with my emotions.

Things Ezra has learned...

1. The number 8 is extremely lucky and you actually have to pay extra for it to be in your telephone number.
2. It is also lucky to have really long mole hairs....and really disgusting
3. Electric blankets might be the best thing ever invented...ever.
4. I got an amazing haircut for roughly $.80 cents. Gotta love China.
5. Gie Yo!!!! (spelled wrong) is what you yell to cheer somebody on. It literally means "Add Oil!"
   
6. I'm extremely excited to come home in 2 weeks.

See you all soon.

Love,
Ezra

warm, warm, warm.....COLD!!!!

Holy geeze it's cold!

The temperature dropped from 28 degrees Celsius one day this week to 4 degrees Celsius and rainy the next day. For those of you who don't understand Celsius (and don't worry, I don't either and still convert it to Fahrenheit through google, I'm so American) that's about 80 degrees to 40 degrees in the span of 24 hours. There was a huge cold front that blew down from Mongolia and winter came right along with it. And to top it all off, as a result of this extreme weather change, there is a huge smog cloud that has settled over all of Shanghai. I haven't seen the sun in about a week and a half.

But it's not all bad, my contract with Okiki Elementary School was coming to an end December 1st, so I went job hunting again and oh man did I bag a big one if you'll pardon the hunting analogy. (I'm so Perry County-ian)
Starting January 1st, I am going to be the new branding co-manager for all of Asia for Concho Y Torro. Concha Y Torro is the number one wine company from Chile and the number seven wine company in the world. I'm not exactly positive what all the finer details of the jobs entail, but I know I will be doing a lot of traveling around Asia. This includes all over China, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, most of the Stans, Mongolia, Russia, and maybe India. I was also told that one of my new big projects would be to try and set up some sort of connection to sell our wine to the troops in Afghanistan which so far no other wine company has been able to accomplish yet.

I have to take this with a grain of salt however. Even though the job was technically offered to me, I have to complete a presentation over Skype to a gentleman in the UK who approves all the funding to the Asian branch to make sure that I'm competent for this position. The presentation is on a hypothetical marketing problem that is to be given to me this weekend. I'm sure I'll do fine, but if you're reading this, visit this website and knock on the screen. Thanks.

I'm planning on coming home for Christmas on December 12th, so I'll see everybody soon.

Ezra has learned that...

1. Gas water heaters don't work very well. I hate room temperature showers. Especially when the room temperature in my apartment is 50 degrees.
2. Chinese people love to do this weird thing to their fruit that include drying it out and putting this weird type of sugar on it that makes it taste awful.
3. The school I'm working at doesn't want me to leave and the principal actually pleaded with me to stay. That made me feel good and bad all at the same time.
4. Haircuts range from $1.00 dollar to $100.00 dollars depending on where you go. And how nice the hair parlor looks from the outside doesn't determine the price. The $100.00 dollar one was hole-in-the-wall barber.
5. Space heaters stink.
6. Foot massage parlors are AMAZING!!!!! I'm investing in them when I get back to the U.S. I was a little weirded out at first, but trust me, WORTH IT!
   

Love,
Ezra

What's new...

Sorry.

I haven't updated my blog in about two weeks now. Sorry. I got myself into a routine that unfortunately left out blogging. But I'm starting a new routine this week that will allot more time for getting online and being in more contact with friends and family back home.

So, since we've been apart for so long, and I have been in China for almost 3 months now, let's discuss "What's new?"

Two weeks ago I went to the zoo with my preschool class. It was a pretty typical zoo with some atypical occurrences. There is one part of the zoo where the tour guide takes you in a van through the animal enclosures to let you get an up close view of the animals in their habitat. There are Jurassic Park gates enclosing each animal to ensure that they stay from each other. For example, to ensure such things that the lions don't get in with the bears, and the tigers don't get in with the adorable little spider monkeys. Well, the gates didn't work. As our bus was going through the gates, a cheetah got into the gazelle enclosure and we got an ultra rare showing of watch the jeep chase the cheetah out of gazelle land.

Also, they actually encourage people to throw food at the chimpanzee, just as long as it's not self prepared, which could make the animal sick. I watched for 15 minutes and the ape really had a thing for cookies and gatorade. It was kind of cruel how people threw food at this chimp, but he didn't really seem to mind as you can see. He's actually holding his hand out and asking for more.

Overall, it was an extremely fun day and my kids really seemed to enjoy themselves.

My apartment in starting to come together nicely. I've pretty much devoted my last 1.5 paychecks to getting furniture, internet, paying utilities, cooking stuff, food, and everything else that would make an apartment more then just 4 walls and a ceiling. Now that I'm pretty much all settled my next paycheck goes exclusively to Christmas gifts for friends and family back home.

Like I said, I'm starting a new routine and I am going to be touching on a lot more topics in the postings to come. (Food, restaurants, clothing, shops, weather, and other cultural tidbits)

Things Ezra has learned...

1. It's extremely rude to say bathroom. You ask for the xi xo che (hand washing room).
2. My Chinese name is Gao Fei. Given to me by my Chinese teachers for two reasons. It literally means Fly High, because I'm so tall. And also, when you say it, it sounds like Goofy and apparently I remind them of Goofy when I'm playing with the children...
3. How annoyed I get when someone stands in the middle of the escalator rather than on one side to let people pass.
4. There is this tiny apple that looks like a crab apple that people absolutely love here. I'm not a fan.
5. Persimmon's are gross. They're like the mutant child between a tomato and an overripe peach.
6. People will push, shove, yell and pretty much do everything except draw blood to get that last seat on the metro train.
7. Gun ownership is illegal in China.
8. If my mom could see me riding a bike through the city, it would probably give her a heart attack seeing how close other bikes and cars actually get to you.
   

Talk to you very soon.

Love,
Ezra

Halloween

Well, it's Halloween weekend and you know what that means.....nothing really. China doesn't really celebrate Halloween and anyone over the age of 23 has no idea at all what is is. I've had to explain what a Jack-O-Lantern is about 10 different times. (Surprisingly, it's a neat origin story, look it up). The only people who really celebrate Halloween are the Expats (Expatriots= non natives). So there are only a few places where you can dress up and go out.

I do however have to dress up for school. We have a Halloween celebration today and we've been preparing for it all week, i.e decorating the school, making costumes for the kids, making trick or treating boxes, etc. And I have blisters all over my fingers from operating a tiny pair of scissors that were designed for 3 year-olds. Apparently we don't have a pair of normal scissors in the whole school, just the kinds that won't cut your skin....or anything else for that matter.
But it should be a fun day however.
I'm either going as
1) A giant nerd. Very easy costume.
2) Yao Ming. I found his jersey in a store.
3) Tide detergent comes in enormous bags over here, so I might cut arm holes and a head hole, wear it, and just wave at everyone. I'd be a Tidal Wave.

My apartment is starting to come together very nicely. I have an amazing couch now that doesn't have a metal spear aimed at my spine under the cushions like my old couch. Plus I got a really nice fish tank. No fish yet, just a fish tank. Which brings me to my next little adventure.

I went to the pet market also know as Hell for anyone in the ASPCA. I felt so bad for a lot of the animals there. Cute puppies are in tiny cages stacked on top of each other. Walls upon walls of birds cramped into small cages. They didn't have any cats however which made me a little nervous because there was a chwar salesmen (meat on a stick) outside.

I'll update my blog again this weekend and take you on an exclusive, behind the scenes look at my overly expensive, under-ly square footed apartment.

Also, I took a picture of the Napoleon Dynamite guy that I work with. The best part was, when I took his picture, he said "You better not be putting this up on some Napoleon Dynamite Website." Technically I'm not....haha.


Things Ezra has learned...
1. The Shanghai-nese equivalent of the middle finger.
2. If someone calls you a multi-colored wolf. It's an insult, not a compliment. It means you get around a lot. (Oh the stuff you learn on the street)
3. There's a guy who rips the tails off of scorpions in this giant bin right outside my apartment for a local restaurant. Bravest man I've ever met. Gonna see if he will let me try.
4. Badminton is cool. (From what I'm told).
5. My Mandarin is getting a lot better, I was actually somewhat able to communicate with the China Tele-com guy who came to set up my email.
6. Everyone can be bribed with a pack of cigarettes or 50 RMB. Cigarettes are cheaper. I got the moving guys to carry up my couch to the third floor for me who were only supposed to drive.

Till this weekend...
Love,
Ezra

Apartment Shopping Triumph!

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated my blog, but I've gone an entire week without internet outside of work; which has to be some sort of personal record or something. Seriously I don't know how people survived and didn't die of boredom before the mid-90's.

I still technically don't have internet. Right now I am sitting in a Starbucks taking advantage of their free wifi and trying to ignore the little Barista glaring at me because I didn't buy any coffee.

Big news! Just when all hope was lost and it looked like I would be couch surfing for my time in China, I found a great apartment. It's in an amazing location near stores, gyms, supermarkets and given its location, it is surprisingly affordable. Granted, I had to go buy everything to fill it up...appliances, utensils, decor, better furnishings, etc. But hey, I'm in China. I pretty much furnished my entire apartment for around $150.00. Now all I need is the INTERNET!!!!

Most of the stuff I got for my apartment is in this place called Old-Town where there are thousands of shops that will all continually try to undercut each other in price while trying to jack up the price to screw over the tall white guy. My new favorite game is pitting two adjacent shop owners against each other while they fight over me. (Well, my money). I went with a couple other native teachers from my school and one of the shop owners actually asked her "Hey! You Chinese! Why you helping the la-wei? (Derogatory term for whites).

Two purchases I'm excited for today are an electric bike for $100 which is going to make my life soooo much easier. Goodbye 30 minute walks to meet people, hello 5 minute bike ride. And also a big fish tank. I always get depressed living alone, but with fish, I'll be depressed with an animal that doesn't care I'm depressed. :-)

Work is going great. We have an entire week devoted to Halloween coming up, even though it is very hard to explain to the natives. For example, I literally spent 30 minutes trying to explain what gravestones were to a crowd of Asian teaching assistants.

I also got tickets from one my my teaching assistants to go to the ATP Tennis Masters in Shanghai! I got to see Raphael Nadal play which was pretty cool. 95% of the people cheered against him and the remaining 5% were teenage girls. No joke, some girl actually yelled "ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME!" I fell out of my chair laughing. Professional tennis is the library of sports. You're in this ENORMOUS arena filled with thousands of people, and it is absolutely silent. It's strangely eerie.

My vocabulary is expanding everyday. I discovered a new podcast called ChinesePod which is great to listen to on the metro to work and learn new common words and phrases.

Things I've learned....

1. The word for "That" is "Nigga." I haven't seen too many black people in China...
2. Chinese T.V. is the strangest thing I've ever seen. It's like everything is done by amateur high school film crews.
3. They really need to open up a big orthodontist clinic in Shanghai.
4. I have a Chinese Name now. It's Gao Fei. Translated: Fly High.
   
5. I need to watch more soccer. It's the only sport anyone ever talks about, and I know didly squat about all the teams.
6. 2/3rds of all Chinese girls don't shave their armpits...that's 3 million sets of unshaved girl armpits in the city, and none of them wear deodorant. Yeah, I did the math

Love,
Ezra

Apartment Shopping Blues

I think the title of this blog basically speaks for itself. The only thing harder then looking for an apartment, is looking for an apartment in a foreign country where you barely speak the language.

I've been in China about 6 weeks now and I have a pretty good vocabulary given the fact that I didn't speak any mandarin before I touched down here. I can speak with cab drivers, order in a restaurant, find the nearest bathroom, sing nursery rhymes (from school), and ask people to talk slower. The hardest part is getting the grammar right. I know the words that go into the sentence, but I always put them in the wrong order. For example, if I wanted to say say "Do you know where the restaurant is?" I would actually say in mandarin ... "You, restaurant, where is?"

Anywhoo, my language difficulties aside, as you read I have been apartment hunting. During the holiday, I have been meeting with agents to find a place to live. Agents basically act as an intermediary between landlords with vacant apartments and apartment hunters. And just when I thought I would never find a place to live, an agent that I met two weeks ago called me out of the blue and showed me a really nice apartment. Nice being a relative term.

For 3,000 RMB in Jing'an Temple, I get a bedroom, balcony, large living room, kitchen, and bathroom; a pretty good price given the size and how the Jing'an Temple area is one hopping place. All I need now is my paycheck which I receive on Thursday(finally!) and I'm moving straight in. One of the downsides, there is absolutely nothing in terms of kitchenware, sheets, bathroom essentials, and everything else that makes this place more then just four walls and a roof.

First paycheck = rent for three months;
Second paycheck which I get in three weeks = turning my apartment into a bachelor pad. :-) Just kidding Mom. It's going towards spoons and everything else I need.

I mailed out a bunch of stuff a couple days ago too. So everybody cross you fingers things don't get lost and keep your eyes on the mailboxes.

Love,
Ezra

Awesome Day! Dead Camera!!

So I had an amazing day yesterday, and I wasn't able to record any of it!

Yesterday I decided to go to the Science and Technology Museum and see what all this hype is about. I grab my camera from my desk just in case there are some photo opps and the battery seems to be working fine at my apartment. After awkwardly ordering one general admission ticket in Chinese and getting inside, there are so many awesome things to take pictures of I was worried about filling up my 8GB card. That's a lot of pictures, I know. So when I turn on my camera to take a picture of a Robot man playing the piano, THE CAMERA DIES!!! Then to top it all off, after the museum my one friend called me asking if I wanted to go to Old-Town. Old town is a section of Shanghai where all the building are from before Shanghai started to get modernize itself and they all still look like stereotypical Chinese houses with the curved roofs. I'll show you a picture...oh wait...MY CAMERA DIED!!! Old town is littered with thousands of tiny shops where you bargain the little old ladies down to 1/5 of their asking price. I've never had so much fun haggling for stuff that I have no intention of buying. i.e. I haggled a giant 500 lbs rose quartz sphere down from 10,000 Quai, to 2,000 Quai. Just getting the practice in.

I'll definitely be going back to both of those places to take pictures and just because they were both amazing places to spend the day.

Since I didn't take any pictures. But here is a list of mental snapshots that I took of some of the cooler things I saw in the museum

1. I crossed a thin bamboo bridge over an artificial rainforest.
2. I wandered through an actual batcave.
3. There was a stone forest filled with giant insects
4. I got to see what germs looked like if they were the size of your dog
5. People were allowed to ride a bike on a tight rope.
6. I went into a haunted mansion wearing these headphones that demonstrated how scary dolby surround sound really is.
7. There was an arachnid room filled with giant 50 foot spider replicas. Felt like I was in Harry Potter.
8. They had lifelike human robots doing some of the coolest things. They could....
a. ...beat you in an archery contest
b. ...play any sheet music on the piano that you put in front of them
c. ...paint a caricature of yourself
d. ...play five people in majong at the same time and win
e. ...identify any object from the smell that you hold under its nose.
9. You could bike or fly in a virtual reality room. (I would have done this but the line was way too long)


Things I've learned today...

1. Cards are a spectator sport. Two people will play in the street and all of the sudden, 30 people will be around them watching.
2. Everyone loves to squat here. People would rather squat than sit down. I blame it on the in-ground toilets.
3. I found the cloth market and I can get a custom-made suit form only about $95.00.
4. Always charge your camera before going anywhere :-(
5. I want a musical, archery, painting robot.

Love,
Ezra

Almost the holiday...

Tomorrow is my last day of school before my 8 day holiday. The holiday is the Lunar Festival and also the 60th anniversary of the founding the the People's Party. So everyone here is super patriotic right now and flags have shown up all around the city overnight. There is supposed to be a huge fireworks display tomorrow night over Pu River (Big river that runs through Shanghai). And you know that the Chinese are known for their fireworks...so I'm excited.

Things to do over the vacation...
1. Go to some landmark/museum every day
2. Stockpile food because apparently supermarkets close down like every other store
3. Talk to my agent and find a new place to live
4. Try to conserve money.
5. Take as many pictures as possible.(That's for you mom). :-)

Tonight I'm going to an all I can eat hot-pot Japanese Restaurant for 88 quai and then out to my first KTV place.
In case you don't know, KTV stands for Karaoke-TV and from what I understand, they are immensely popular here in Shanghai and some of them can be immensely shady as well. Places for men to meet "women of the night." My friends and I are going to a not-so-shady one however and I've been warming up my singing voice all day.

Things I've learned today...

1. The kids and I play a new game. It's called "Let's hit Ezra below the belt with large blocks, then giggle and run away." It's a long name for a game I know, but then again, the game was long...and painful.
2. High fives are international and ageless. A baby high-fived me today.
3. It's very rude to try to humbly refuse gifts. One of the students parents bought me a really nice expensive fountain pen.
4. People don't really believe in lines here. Everyone just kind of crowds around what they're trying to get to and jumping to the front may be rude, but no one really says anything about it.
5. Most of the people here have there natural Chinese names, but they also have English names. Their English Names aren't at all related to their Chinese name. I had a parent today ask me to think up a good English name for her son. I'm thinking Maximus.

Love,
Ezra

Happy One Month Anniversary

I have officially been in China now for exactly one month. It's weird the way time passes here. Truth be told, I hated it here the first couple weeks, but once my I adjusted (to the smells in particular), the last two weeks have absolutely flown by.

Let me elaborate on the smells if I may. I don't notice it anymore, but there was such a wide range of odd foreign smells that drifted by my nose as I walked down the street that it was enough to delight me, confuse me, and disgust me all within the span of about one city block. It would go from garbage smell, to roasting chicken, to garbage, to flowers, to garbage, to some odd other food smell, to B.O (which coincidentally, smells a lot like garbage.)

I know I haven't updated in a week but it has been a pretty uneventful, rainy, humdrum week. So I decided to just comment on some random things about my life here. For starters, I do indeed use chopsticks for every meal. It was pretty hard at first and my hand would spontaneously cramp up during a meal. But apparently I was going about using them all wrong

Chopsticks(quatse) are used for picking up big things, and shoveling everything else right into your mouth, something I'm still not used to. 75% of the time, I have no idea what I'm eating, but it tastes semi-ok. So ignorance may not be bliss, but ignorance certainly is edible...most of the time. I do however eat white rice with almost every meal. It makes people feel fuller and eat less.

October 1st-8th is the moon festival. This is sort of like the Chinese Independence Day and the entire country basically shuts down. I have this entire time off to not spend money so I can afford a place to live after I'm done house-sitting. This autumn festival also marks the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, so security is extremely tight everywhere. What this means for me is that the government has shut down all of my internet proxies so I can't get onto blogger, facebook, youtube, or basically any other site that really matters.

One last thing, I hate rainy days in China. Let me start by stating the obvious...there are A LOT of TINY people here. HOWEVER, when it rains they all carry umbrellas which makes them all exactly 6'7", my height. None of them can see me however because of their umbrellas block their view up and they're all packed so closely together. So whenever it rains, I get smacked in the face with about 1000 umbrellas. I eventually wised up and started using my own umbrella as a homemade shield to protect me from others rather than the rain.

Things I've learned...

1. They can take your temperature by shooting a laser at your forehead.(They do this before letting kids into the school)
2. The ball pit at my school is off limits because apparently it is a breeding ground for H1N1 and foot and mouth disease. (We've had 3 cases of H1N1 in the school during the 2 weeks I've been there. A little unsettling).
3. All the cashiers bow to me after I check out. (Not sure if I should bow back?)
4. Everyone looks at you strange if you say "Bless You" after they sneeze.
5. I saw an item in the grocery store that was called "Priceless." I'm not sure what it was, but it cost 150 RMB.
6. The motion for "come here" is actually your hand turned upside down and waving it like you're shooing them away.
7. The worst insult you can ever say is "Wo gwo won ba da" (wrong spelling). But it means..."Your sperm moves as slow as a turtle." From what I've heard, you can get punched by everyone around you if you even mutter this. Weird, I know.

Miss you all lots.

Love,
Ezra

Beautiful Day

There was a blue sky today. I never thought that I would consider a blue sky a luxury. Or grass. Sidewalks just aren't the same to walk barefoot on as grass is.
But there was a blue sky today, no smog. So it was a good day.

I decided to just go out exploring today for a few hours. It's cheap, I learn a lot, and it's exercise all rolled into one.

While wandering, I saw the Shanghai Museum in the distance and figured that was a good a place as any to spend the day; try to learn about some Chinese heritage. On my way toward the Museum, I had to go into this tunnel to go under the highway. However, it wasn't just one straight tunnel that went under the highway, it had a whole bunch of twists and turns as well as other little tunnels jutting off of it.

Somehow, I stumbled into this micro-museum/hallway which was a recreation of China in the 1930's. I'm not exactly sure why it was there, but it was and I was pretty much the only person there looking around. I'm not sure if it was even open. Sort of like a weird land of the lost moment. Walking through a tunnel and ending up almost 8 decades ago.

After making in through this bizzaro-world hallway, I finally came up on the other side of the highway. Which is odd because I must have walked a mile in what I thought was the right direction, only to come back up on the other side of the road 100 feet from where I started.

For as big as the Shanghai Museum is on the outside, it is relatively small on the inside. Rather than walk around to all the exhibits by myself, I rented a little headset that would explain all the objects to me in a elderly British accent. I was still by myself technically, but it made me feel a little better and was educational. There were four floors in this museum with three large rooms on each floor. Some of the rooms included the ancient pottery room, jade antiquities, evolution of Chinese currency, evolution of calligraphy, ancient religious figures, and old ornate furniture. I would have to say that my favorite rooms were the pottery, religious figures, and jade rooms.

Some of the pieces that I saw in the pottery and jade rooms were so small and so detailed that it was completely incomprehensible to me how the craftsmen and artists could have achieved such beautiful works of art with non-modern tools. And some of the religious figures and statues were so lifelike that it was a little eerie. However, for as many realistic recreations there were, there were just as many goofy looking statues. And both realistic and goofy exhibits were far outnumbered by the number of lions, dragons, and phoenix's that seemed to find themselves on every piece of pottery and painting.


Overall, it was a very educational, but more importantly, fun day.

Things I learned today...

1. People use just as many umbrellas when it's sunny as they do when it's rainy.
2. Pillows used to be made of stone until around 1800.
3. The Chinese people used to use shells as currency. After that they used daggers as currency before finally switching to something a little smaller and less deadly.
4. You have to pay for toilet paper out of a vending machine in some public bathrooms.
5. Try to find a way to cross the highway above ground rather than taking a spooky wormhole tunnel beneath it.

Love,
Ezra

Heading back to School

I just complete my second full day of teaching 2-3 year old Chinese children and I have this wierd feeling in the back of my head that it's going to get very repetitive.

Let me first describe to you the school. It's called Okiki and it's where children come to learn before they go to Elementary School. There are about 300 kids and 4 levels. Pre-nursery (where I teach), nursery, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten. There are 20 kids in my class, but I have three Chinese aids that help me throughout the day. They are a God-send because none of the children really speak English yet, unlike the 5-6 year old kindergarten class who speak fluent English. It's so unfair.

So it seems the only reason I'm around is to talk as much as possible so the kids hear the English words and start to associate it with what I'm trying to describe to them. But let's face it, they're 2-3 year olds who don't have an attention span to give to someone who speaks their own language. To someone who doesn't speak their language, I'm basically a giant jungle gym that makes funny noises.



These two pictures pretty much sum up the reactions I get from the kids. Happy or confused.





There are a few other non-Chinese teachers there but they're all from Canada or the UK. And there is this one guy who looks like Napoleon Dynamite's twin. I thought he made himself look like it on purpose, but that is just naturally how he looks and acts. I'll try and sneak a picture sometime when he's not looking.

I hope everyone is doing great back in PA and I just want you to know that my thoughts dwell on you all a lot.

Love,
Ezra

The Good, The Bad, and the Chinese

The last couple of days have been filled with a lot of highs, a lot of lows, and as always, a lot of Chinese people.

The Good....

1. I finally got a full time job! I'm working 40 hours a week taking care of 20, 2-3 year-old kids. It's not as bad as it sounds because fortunately they're past the diaper changing stage. Plus I have three other teachers in the room with me who speak Chinese, plus a maid who comes in and out every 15 minutes to serve meals and clean up. Basically, the only reason I get paid 15,000 Quai a month is to literally talk to the kids so they get used to hearing English and start to associate it with things. A little boring, but eh, it pays the bills.
2. The room has a play mat of a city and it's called Tian'anmen Square....made me laugh.
3. My teachers have made it their mission to teach me as much Chinese as possible. The 2-3 year olds are the only ones learning from the kids songs.
4. I might have been booked by a modeling agency to get paid 800 RMB this Friday. The agent said I'm a lot better looking than the other guys, but I can't make it to the casting with the clothing company tomorrow because of school. So I just gave the agency my pictures and maybe they'll call me. Who knows.
   

The Bad...

1. I'm getting kicked out of my awesome awesome apartment at the end of the month. Apparently, my roommate is a diplomat, so she holds diplomatic immunity to prevent the police and other officials from entering our apartment. But with me in the house, the police can use me as an excuse and come raid our apartment which the Luxembourg Consulate does not want to happen. So I have to find a worse place to live for more money, ugh. I'm not even sure why the police would want to raid the consulate of one of the smallest countries in the world. Oh well.
2. I have to commute to work 40 minutes through the most crowded metro stations in the city. I am literally walking in crowds of thousands of Chinese in a small metro station.
3. I don't get paid till October 13th, which means I'll be living very sparingly for the next few weeks.

The Chinese...

1. There are a lot of them.
2. They don't wear hats for some reason. 20 million people in the city, 20 of which wear hats I noticed.
3. If you're over the age of 70 and a man, you don't wear a shirt in public....and no one thinks it's strange.
4. There is a woman at 7 am every morning who has one of the juiciest, nasaliest, spit whorks I've ever heard in my life. I don't even need to set my alarm anymore.

Love Ezra

2 Weeks in,...

I've officially been in China for over 2 1/2 weeks and I've been constantly bombarded with different realizations.

Realizing college is over and I'm not back after the summer (still feels like summer to me.)
Realizing that I am at the farthest point possible away from home.
Realizing that I need a more substantial income coming from something besides tutoring if I am going to be staying here in China.
Realizing that I should have stocked up on Deet before I came.

I think that 2 weeks is about the period when most people get homesick, but I just have to keep trying to stay productive and as bad as it sounds, not think about all my friends back home and all the other things that I miss.

So, now that the sappy stuff is out of the way...onto what I've been doing the last couple days.

Saturday, I took the subway out to this really remote area on the other side of Pudong river to an area where a subway stop that basically had no business being where it was. When I walked out, there was nothing around besides dirt, a few old buildings, dogs, and this subway station. It was definitely not somewhere people had a reason to go to, so why there was a subway station there was beyond me. However, the reason I was there was because I heard about this huge warehouse that had thousands of pieces of furniture and other old knickknacks. It was basically a huge auction house that after people passed away, all their stuff came to a place like this. This includes their heirlooms and some really old neat cultural Chinese stuff.
The only bad thing about this place is that it was huge and it was easy to get lost in plus this was the place where every single misquito in the world is born. A man came over and gave me this weird sweet smelling herbal stuff to wipe on my arms and legs to keep the bugs away, but I think all it did was attract them to me more and away from him. Anyway, needless to say my arms and legs looked like brail after I left. I didn't really get anything, just explored for a few hours, but it is somewhere I definitely going to visit again before I leave China.

I did get an old turtle compass that has the zodiac characters on it and some really neat symbols on the inside. Not sure what they are, but I'll try to find out.

Yesterday, my roommate and I had a housewarming party for me which was nice. It was basically a pot luck lunch/dinner. We were supposed to start at 2:00, but people just sort of came in and out all day and it eventually lasted until 2:00 a.m. with a constant table of food because of people showing up at different times and bringing huge dishes culinary creations.

Also, another first yesterday, I had my first food allergy. It was very mild, but I ate some Chinese spice that made my entire body turn red and blotchy, and it gave me a severe headache, but 20 minutes later it was gone. Really weird...

I have a couple job offers again, but I am think I'm being too picky and I think I'm just gonna do the teaching English job for Shane that all my friends are doing. Currently I'm tutoring Calculus, trigonometry, matrices, and Russian History to these Indian girls who go to University and I am struggling to remain just a little smarter than them in all these subjects. Strictly because it's been about 5-6 years since I learned these mathematical principles myself.

Goals for this week, 1) Get a job, 2) Go to three museums, 3) Start running again. (Some Chinese food is very very unhealthy and very very contributory to love handles)

Things I've learned....

1. Men grow their finger nails out disgustingly long to show their hierarchy status. Apparently, people who don't have to do do manual labor have longer nails, which means that they are economical elite.
2. This breakfast food that I thought was healthy that I ate everyday is one of the most unhealthy foods in the country. It's a ball of dough with meat inside. They deep fry it in oil, then prepare it to make it look healthier....sneaky....
3. Always kiss on the left cheek first when doing a European greeting. This German girl I was introduced to went to the left, I went to the right, and we got to know each other really well...
4. Starbucks is my new American Embassy.
5. I miss home.
6. Apparently, you have to register with the police department within 24 hours of landing in China. I had a very interesting conversation with some cops outside my apartment at 8am this weekend.
7. Even though the amount of money you spend on day-to-day things is less, it was far outweighed by the amount of day-to-day things on which you have to spend. i.e. food, transportation, supplies.

Sorry there aren't any pictures in this blog, but I'm going camera happy the next couple days, so get ready for a lot more pictures.

Love,
Ezra

I put the "work" in Networking

The last two days have been absolutely full of meeting new people along with some weird travel costs served with a side of oddities.

I should start this story by letting everyone know that I have currently been looking for a more stable job. Right now I am tutoring 3 kids and that's enough for food and travel costs, but not enough for a sustainable income. So a recruiter of Westerners gives me a call yesterday about some interested schools who are looking for teachers and asks me to come in and meet with him. I end up traveling go the school he is recruiting for instead of his office, which is on the exact opposite side of the city. Stupidly, I hop in a cab and give the address to his office not realizing it's on the other side of the city and the cab fares turns out to be a 30 minute cab ride for a whopping 140 Quai!!!! Then I realized that's only about $20.00 and that's how much it costs to ride a mile in a cab in NYC.

This recruiter tells me about a private English school and I go and interview with them later that day. Here's where the networking comes in. The Principal of the school is the very jolly 70 year old man who looks like he's 35 and before I leave, he likes me so much that he invites me to start playing Texas hold-em with him and his other principal friends. Plus the recruiter that I met earlier texts me after seeing how big I was and asks me if I want to join his rugby team!

Of course I haven't exercised in a couple months, so I say yes and go to their fitness practice last night that was on the roof of this skyscraper downtown. This giant ex-marine named "Angus" (That's his real name, I'm not kidding) runs us through an intense workout of sprints, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and very nearly throw-ups. Needless to say, I'm extremely sore today, but I met a bunch of pretty cool British guys who say "cheers" after everything, a New Zealand guy who wishes he was British, and a couple french guys who all the British guys make fun of. My new nickname is puberty because I'm the youngest guy on the team.


I also did a little bit of sightseeing yesterday. I went to the Jing an Temple which is one of the oldest religious sites in Shanghai. I found out a little information about it from walking around. Apparently it was destroyed during the cultural uprising in China and it's been under construction for about 30 years. Skyscrapers can be built up around it in under 3 weeks, but it takes 30 years to restore a medium sized temple. I felt really weird taking pictures of this place because there were people all around me praying.


There were a couple smoke statues where you purchase some sticks, light them on fire and pray as the smoke rose to heaven.

Some of the other things at the temple that were very intriguing were....
a parade of monks who would walk around playing music and praying,


a bunch of statues of Buddha and other deities, a giant 200 foot pillar with golden lions of them, and huge walls where people would hang little slips of paper to remember their loved ones. I guess that's why I haven't seen too many cemeteries. The temple really seemed to represent Shanghai, 5% original, 95% new.


Go ahead and visit my flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/41655931@N06/ to see all the pictures from the temple and my other pictures from around Shanghai.

What I've learned today....

1. Rugby guys are really athletic
2. All car windows are tinted here, never noticed that before.
3. There is a very disturbing market next to my apartment, more on that later.
4. About 1 in 10 people still wear masks over their faces, whether to protect from dust or disease
5. There are people dressed all in blue who just walk around and sweep up the streets with some of the most poorly crafted brooms I've ever seen. Just pretty much small sticks attached to a bigger stick.
6. People don't look away, even if you catch them staring at you. I got in a staring contest with a really old lady today on the subway...she won.
7. It always takes twice as long to get anywhere than how long you normally think it should take, and four times as long if you get lost, which I normally do.

Love,
Ezra

Getting Lost, Learning Lots

So it's been a couple days since I've updated this, but I've found that it can be quite difficult to routinely do something in a fairly un-routined schedule.....but I will try to get better.

So I have been extremely lucky to be in the situation that I'm in now. I have an awesome place with a maid for about $200.00 a month. That covers the utilities and the maid. And just recently I was lucky enough to get a bike. My roommate Jo has been in Shanghai for about 5 years and bought a bike to get around. She locked it up a couple years ago and lost the key, so her solution was to go out and buy a new bike. Jo told me if I could get the chain off, I could have a bike. So I went and bought some bolt cutters for $8.00 and got a new bike.

I decided to then take my bike on a little adventure by going out and exploring the city a little bit. I forgot however that the city is a little bit bigger than I thought and proceeded to get lost for about 6 hours. There are a lot of streets that are only one-way for bikes and I would repeatedly find myself in a crowd of 50 bikes and 10 seconds later after an intersection I would be the only bike on the road and people would be staring at me. Which brings me to my next point, since I'm white, I can apparently get away with anything.(Not that I'm going to try mom. :-)

So while getting lost, I stumbled into the People's Park which houses a ton of statues and people just lounging about. It was a great break for my butt which had been sitting on a tiny bike seat for 4 hours.

Also, babies don't ware diapers. They just kinda cut a hole in their pants and whenever "old faithful" is about to erupt, the parents just kind of hold the kid over the nearest trash can.



Onto the job situation. Originally I was going to be teaching business out in Nanchang which is about 3 hours by Maglev (Magnetic Levitation Train that can travel around 350 mph), but some people very familiar with China said that it was a much smarter move to stay in Shanghai. So that's what I'm going to do. Yesterday I interviewed with a company called Learn-First who organize private tutors for the people in Shanghai. It's only been one day, but they really like me and already set me up with 3 students. I'll let you know how that goes once I start on Monday.

Now introducing Ezra's.....What I've Learned Today.

What I've Learned Today.....

1. Spitting is a national pastime here.
2. There are little old men who walk around and who's sole pleasure in life is to pump up bike tires. I learned this when one of them ran at me at a stop light grabbing for my bike wheel. Thought he was mugging me.
3. The Metro is awesome. Clean, fast, efficient. Everything that American public transportation is not.
4. Lots of chinese girls are looking for "big American boyfriend." That's a story for another day.
5. I love dumplings.
6. There is thing here called long lasting milk which can be stored in warm temperatures for 6 months unopened. Don't know how they do it.
7. Cereal is the most expensive thing here and is probably gonna make me go bankrupt because I love it so much.
8. I miss everyone at home an unhealthy amount.
9. This store on the right made me laugh because there aren't too many of them if you get my drift.

Love,
Ezra

Edna and I

Sensory Overload

So it's been roughly 4 full days and I think i'm slowly starting to get a feel for things, slowly being the key word there. There is so much to take in around me that it is often hard to learn 30 different things at once. But, I'm going to do a quick little synopsis of my last few days.

Day 1....
After getting off the plane, I got through customs surprisingly easy. From the time I stepped off the plane, got my luggage, and was on a bus going into the city, it was only about 10 minutes. Which leads me up to the bus. I knew what bus I was taking and where I needed to get off, unfortunately I couldn't read the bus pass which was all in pinyin, so I just guessed. And fortunately I guessed right.
I met up with Edna, got everything situated for housing for the next couple days, and immediately she took me to dinner to meet a few more newbies to Shanghai that I would be able to band together with.

Day 2,3,4

These days were all very similar. I would get up, shower, get dressed, and follow Edna around like a duckling after her mother. She would lead me from street to street, introduce me to people who we would have lunch with, teach me all the essential words that I would need to have, and laugh at how innocent I was. aka: lu=road, xingdao=most popular in china.

Also, on the last night Edna was here, she took me out on a tour of a few of her favorite night clubs and I got to experience chwan(food on a stick) for the first time. Memo to self, never get the chicken when there is a line because they won't cook it long enough and you will get mild food poisoning. But according to the other expats, that happens to everyone the first time. Took a day, but I'm all better.

Edna left, but she introduced me to the Deputy Consul for Luxembourg. Her name is Jo, is 25, and offered me her spare room in her 4 story apartment with a maid for virtually no rent. She was telling me she needs more company than just her two cats.

OK.....Brief Rundown of the things I've learned and/or seen

1. No one uses seatbelts
2. No one uses headlights, daytime or nighttime
   
3. people are for the most part friendly and always willing to help
4. Don't get invited to a ceremonial tea party (it's a scam) (Don't worry mom, I didn't fall for it)
5. Never eat chwan outside a club at 1:00 a.m.
6. Network like crazy, you never know who can help you out here or who you can help.
7. Iphones are pretty much a necessity
8. Twitter is a way of life here
9. The way to tell the difference between a conversation and an argument is how many people are watching.
10. Food is only considered fresh if it still has the head on it. (InternationalEzra - Flickr.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/41655931@N06/3873508721/in/photostream/
11. I miss blue skies, clouds, and not having everything smell like a porterpotty.
    

I'm going to try and update this more often because there is so much here that I want people to experience with me.

Love,
Ezra

1. 
   
2. 
   

Finally here!

Ok. It's been a long couple of days, and I have a feeling the days are going to get longer once my translator crutch Edna leaves.

So..back to the beginning to fill everyone in.

I left home on Wednesday, got to the airport in Harrisburg and did all the typical airport-y things, luggage, security, play with my phone till the flight.
The flight to Chicago was only about 1 1/2 hours, even though it was only a 30 minute difference because of the time change.
When I got to O'Hare in Chicago, it was thundering and lightning, perfect flying conditions. Luckily my flight was just one gate over, so I didn't have to go far.
I thought the 15 hour flight was going to absolutely stink. Tall people and airplanes seldom go well together. However, I went up and talked to the woman at the counter and asked if there were any extra emergency row exit seats. She gave me a new ticket and when I got on the plane, I was the only one in that row! I overheard people saying they paid $95 more dollars for an extra 6 inches...I got an extra 6 feet for free.

The plane ride was actually really comfortable and kinda enjoyable, minus this 80 year-old-woman who came up to me and told me her life story for 2 hours. Apparently she worked as Ronald Reagan's secretary. That was the only interesting part of the story I assure you.

Well, I have to run, I'm going out with Edna tonight to meet some more people. You can never have too many friends here. I'll post again about the "Fun" that happened once I landed...those are sarcastic air quotes... i can't type in sarcastic font...

Love,
Ezra

12 Days and counting

Hello all.

Some very interested third parties thought it would be a good idea for me to document my journey into the East.

Currently there are twelve days till I leave. I have my passport, visa, insurance, job, plane ticket, and place to live once I arrive.

I'll be making around $900.00 USD a month. Plus I get free housing, insurance, and free return flight ticket. So I really don't have to worry if I go broke because apparently I have a free flight back to the states.

Which brings me back to my biggest concern....money. A couple friends in China said I shouldn't need to worry about money, but I still can't help being nervous. I spent all day crunching my finances and getting a rough budget together and I should be alright....I hope.

Next step...pack. I'll get back to you once I get closer to my 17 hour leg cramp, also known as my flight.

Love,
Ezra