However before i knew it, my short sleep was over and I was
up again. I lost my mp3 and had my brother and mum searching frantically – it
had fallen into a bag on the floor. The taxi arrived and I gave everyone super
big hugs. I adore my family, I hate goodbyes, this was a horribly sad mix. I
got my bus and napped for a couple hours before getting my first flight to
Brussels. Here I was able to check in a heavier bag unloading some of the stuff
from hand luggage. My next flight to Beijing was with Hainan airlines. My next
flight to shanghai had be changed to 10 minutes sooner – and although I have to
check in again, I was assured that someone would help me and it was completely
possible – Hainan airlines is a Chinese company, so was able to practise a bit,
unfortunately no vegetarian options, but could help myself to juice and snacs
from the back – the tv was also mainly Chinese – music games and shows with
only some western movies and shows. I slept on and off as I was so exhausted.
And before landing I informed the girl of my dilemma, she told me she’d inform
the captian and other cabin crew – she must have forgot, no one helped. I kept
asking and people just told me I had to go through visa control, pick up my
luggage go through customs and then go to the 2 terminal. I asked repeatedly
each step of the way, I got no transfer, my bag took a long time to arrive, I
had to run from T1 to T2, cutting my shulders with all the luggage and hitting
a Chinese lady en route. The journey was meant to be a 10 minute walk I did it
in 2, hyperventaliating I was directed from desk to desk until being told I had
missed final check in by 10 minutes. At the Hainan airlines desk I was told I
could wait 24 hours until the next flight and they refund the ticket or buy a
new one and contact the company I booked with. The new flight cost over a 3rd
of what I paid for the original flight – 1300RMB! I was panicking contacting
friends as I didn’t know when id be able to get another and get a new flight.
But I got one for 10am. To shanghai Hongqiao. Even with the screaming child
behind me I literally passed out for an hour as soon as I sat down. The metro
took 30 minutes. I paid for my dorm – turns out im back in my old room. And
went to sleep for a couple of hours. I really needed it! I later met Rebeka and
Jimena and tried to rest.
The next day I met Kat and we organised our classes, this
time we are in A3-2. I got my luggage from storage (5 bags since 10th
july only 125rmb!) and started to unpack. Went to some teaching interviews, got
some stuff for my room and started trying to go over hsk4 words. I soon had a
roommate – german with Vietnamese heritage – her boyfriend is the same, they’ve
been traveling and he’s here until Tuesday so I directed them to our local
favourite hostel – rock and wood and gave them some tips for shanghai. She’s
called Nhi and he’s called Ti.
Had some
issues using the internet for one of the days as it was a Tibetan occasion
marking china’s takeover – or as the Chinese phrased it – helping the tibetians
leave their peasant like lifestyle to help bring them into a more modernised
culture…..sure.
They also then had a holiday from the 3rd –
marking the Chinese victory of WWII marking the withdrawal of the Japanese
troops from china. Not the best w
ay to extend the hand of friendship but…its
china. The military display in Beijing for the parade was awing and powerful.
Read some horrid stories about the japanese misuse of the Chinese woman and how
only around 30 survived the forced sex slavery of this period and how no
compensation has been given. They believe that they are finally marking this as
a public holiday after 70 years as if they wait any longer no one may still be
alive. Its odd how these communist countries show their remembrance of these
occasions with so much military parades etc. whereas in most European countries
we have religious remembrance services, moments of silence and laying of
wreaths for the dead.
Hung out in Rebeka’s new shared apartment on changing road.
Its so nice – they even have a pool, but of course theres a fee. Spent some
time chilling at the different parks and reflecting on life and decisions,
peaceful but I hate having too much time on my hands. On the Saturday night,
melihia, kat and I went to perrys for shisha, caught up and were dancing (they
really need some new music. Listen to the graffiti Perry’s) it was going fine
until some asshole was swirling his beer around and soaked all the girls on the
dancefloor. Mood ruined we were home before midnight.
Monday 7th September – Wednesday
16th
First day into
classes, now in A3, the texts are so much harder and with no tones. We have 2
teachers 1 for speaking, listening and comprehensive. The listening teacher is
cute and bubbly with attitude, she wont take shit, she looks and seems so
young, guess she has to be like that, she’s a good teacher and hopefully I will
improve with her. Speaking teacher is also really nice and explains well.
However the comprehensive teacher is the oldest, strict and rushes through
everything, she marks harshly. We have her class the most of course! Lots of
Asians in the class. However there Koreans Chinese isn’t so amazing, .
There’s an older finnish guy who was very interested in northern Ireland when I
joined his group, he’s a bit odd but nice, he likes “crazy art” there’s a
non-plussed German guy who joined us because he couldn’t be bothered with the
teachers he’d been given, he hasn’t been to class much. The Russian girl
Mashang (a friend of Jimena’s) finally only joined today. I nearly died when I
say luomi last week; thank goodness he isn’t in our class! Sumu is also with
him, I’ve also spotted the old Korean guy, fufudun and Margarete about. We have
ninji again, and lina, meliah and kat are with me, and then there’s the odd
American from Philadelphia, he wore sparkly silver metal jeans on the first
day, bleached hair, looks a tad albino, odd Wechat photos and openly talks
about his love of anime. He died his hair and odd grey today. There an old
Korean woman and man. 2 people from Laos, the girl has a strong Laos accent and
little to no English along with the Korean girls. Another Mongolian girl (their
language looks more like Russian than Chinese its different), we are still
missing someone with a man like jiuchifan – just eat dinner….odd eh!
Started some
lessons teaching, in a school in Pudong, and some lessons with two identical
twin boys aged 6 who have lived for a while in the UK. They talk so much,
especially about Minecraft. Good thing I know a lot about it as my brother
played. One of the boys in older class in the school (max age 6) is apparently
a biter and wee cute Elmo, draws really good, he was drawing haomao jingcha 好猫警察, a Chinese kids
program about a cat police officer, super cute and he was good at it (I
recognised him from watching an episode once in class) one of the workers there
is a girl who has an Australian accent, but is in fact originally from brazil,
moved to Peru at 5, then Australia at 18, got a residence permit for there due
to her amazing grades, has been traveling and has spent over a year now in
shanghai teaching, loving it. But I fully believed she was Australian with the
accent! Apparently there the second largest ethnic group after Chinese is
Korean – after the natives of course... strange eh!
Nhi’s boyfriend
left on the Tuesday, we get on really well, it’s weird sometimes some of the German
and Vietnamese words some like Chinese ones! No wonder the German and the
Asians are so good at learning the language. She started her culture class, she was told
that they won’t learn about china after the 30’s as although it’s not, not
allowed, its taboo. Haha. Started to plan a trip for the national holiday but it’s
hard, prices are skyrocketing in price for flights, and Jimena can’t join, nor Lina
for Taiwan as they need a visa in advance! So unfair and stupid. Weather isn’t
as good this year, it’s not as hot and it’s often overcast/rainy whereas it was
warm until the end of October last year.
The designer frau Ana, a German designer keeps
postponing our meeting, it’s so annoying, however peony rice finally got in
contact and want to offer me an internship with Alfred Angelo and perhaps able
to pay woo hoop – so need to find out information on that.
Been watching a bit
of a kungfu movie in speaking class 功夫 a Stephen crow film, its good, the fight scenes are good with a lot of
humour. It’s good for reading and listening too.
Taught an adult class on Monday – just a brief meet and greet, they
are all trying to impress me even with their English being so bad, pointing out
who is married and also asking if:
“you like chinese?”
“Chinese what exactly, Chinese food?”
“yes food”
-“haha he means
Chinese men”
Theres to be 7 of
them, most in their 20s, one if actually kind of cute but hes married – haha
maybe im starting to get a touch of the yellow fever after all! One showed me
some cool magic tricks. I think I will really enjoy this class.
I’ve Been drowning
in homework. Its going to be tough when I start working as well. Oh well – no
pain no gain eh!
I really like my
listening teacher - Tingli 听力and speaking 口语 however are intensive
reading teacher goes fast, we barely can take notes down let alone pictures at
times and she piles on the homework. We get dictation with her and she always
sets us hard work. Surprisingly many in the class aren’t that good. Speaking
and reading is poor. I’m getting on a bit better in the listening and speaking
classes I think (hope) which is good as these are the areas I most need to
improve. We got told of a trip to Beijing if you got picked to be a model,
Lina, Melia and I signed upMelia and I got in
and on the Wednesday spent the day with 20 other girls practising walking, it’s
not a sure thing they have to go through the 1st round before they
can go to Beijing, however I wasn’t tall enough and Melia wasn’t a definite for
either, so after a pointless hour and a Half of learning to walk like a model
with tall girls – some with haughty I’m better than you expressions on their
faces, and others with brows drawn on so thick I could barely see their eyes –
we were able to leave, an interesting experience to say the least, at least I
can say I know how to do a catwalk walk now and hold a correct posture, but the
woman told us in Chinese and I understood the majority which was good practise.
After much changing and discovering of no hostels online and entrance fees to mountains – Jimena and I made a final trip to the Train station to change and then buy more tickets for nation holiday next week GUO QING JIE 国庆节 looking forward to getting out and into some fresh clean air and having some fun. Trying to get more teaching sorted for after and hopefully will find out at the end of the week if I can intern for Alfred Angelo – though most likely not paid. We watched a bit of a Stephen Crow KongFu movie is class – so funny and the fight scenes are really cool! Good practise for reading and listening too of curse, so also got it from my teacher on my USB. We also did a cool lesson we were got to try so breathing exercises to strengthen the body qigong wei zengqiang 气功为增强
The twins on Friday would just not pay attention – they kept going on about being tired and just could not understand times! I’m tired too you know guys! They are odd – they nearly lick me, they sniff me and even though they are like 6 I think I’ve caught them looking in the general cleavage direction – WTF. Met Rosie- she’s borrowing my roommate’s card so she could chill at mine which is nice so good to catch up, she’s decided to leave.
Saturday morning I was zombie like leaving at 7.30. One small child cried in the 2nd class. Another wet himself. They changed him over break – within 25 minutes – he did it again – loudly, all over his new shorts, the seat and the floor. It was like a river. We ended class 5 minutes early. Embarrassing! A kid in the first class gave me a moon cake which was sweet! And found a good way of using up time – clips of films etc. and stopping to describe what the thing is in English – used frozen and some other Disney movies to describe appearances! More bad luck picked up the bike from the metro station – front tyre burst! Had to quickly get it fixed on Monday before work – had such a slow journey back – having already waited for a dick for the shuttle bus like Seth told me would arrive but no. I didn’t get back until 1.30!!! Got speaking of one of the other teachers at the place 0 she told me she could teach me Shanghainese – some words are super similar but others are crazy strange!
Think I’ll stick to the mandarin 普通话。 My Monday class was fun, they were so happy when I told them I liked mooncakes as they had a huge ass box to give me – a really fancy one!!! Sooo nice – and so difficult to bring home on the bike.
Id went with Rosie earlier(having skipped class and napped after the first one) to the fake market (practising Chinese of course, basically a speaking lesson) was Sooo awkward and hilarious, guy on the metro behind us in sweats got a boner by looking at us
Sunday I died because Saturday was such a crazy night and day! I had to leave super early at 7.30. The first lesson was ok – getting there for once on time with 10 minutes to spare. One of the kids in the older class gave me a moon cake – how sweet. During the break I got talking to one of the bosses – she was so supposed I can speak Chinese and talks away to me in Chinese and keeps telling me I’m so good and telling this to the parents she introduces to me – embarrassing! She also can speak Shanghainese and gave me a brief intro – explaining that a lot of it is the same but they there’s some words that are really different and sound so odd! Think i'll give it a miss thanks haha. The next class was a disaster – aged around 4-6. One kid cried the first 10 minutes and then got really hyper active after. Another boy peed himself and when we noticed we had break and he was changed into shorts – literally 20/25 minutes later he did it again – heavy and load of the chair, floor and new shorts. We cut class 5 minutes early….lord. I then waited for the bus that never came – only heading to the metro station at 12.20. When I got off and got on my bike I realised the front tire was burst – literally had the longest most agonising journey home. We found like no hostels for 3 of the places we are staying so we are not going to go to wuyishan so that’s another trip to the ticket office… we eventually went to lujiazui – the Pudong new area with the skyscrapers since Rosie hadn’t been before, it was nice, we then we to the bottle opener to see the view, there were lots of rich Chinese Americans attending a private wedding there – lucky for some! We went to the toilets in the place – THEY HAD STRAIGHTNERS – I straightened my hair in a public toilet!!! We didn’t visit the Disney store as there was a huge queue [seriously no joke, only in china - and this is why I will never visit the Disneyland unless there is a typhoon again haha. ]
Saw the worst fashion statement yet – a girl wearing a huge green tutu with a belt around it as a dress – we dubbed her the big apple of china – WHY?! Bought a bottle of vodka #(10glass) from Carrefour for 32rmb after 2 glasses it was hitting me. Got a taxi to Parham’s party – free flow beer so was drinking shandys. There was a cake fight – thanks to Parham. All the girls were so pissed and I was like serious…u had dark hair – u can see the chocolate in mine still haha.
we ended up befriending some random guy from Columbia who looked kind of Indian to me – his name was nelson - we ended up hanging with him and his older Indian looking friend and a Chinese guy who kept being touchy feely. They fed us rum, we got sick of it, they offered us vodka as we said we liked it, they picked expensive grey goose at 1160rmb a bottle, we had one and left we didn’t go to mine – we went to Jimena’s – we passed out in her bed and died, she slept in her roomies bed, Nhi couldn’t get into our room either so NO1 slept in ours haha. Crazy night. Death took over the next day. Crazy night was needed. Was worth it.
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