Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Quick note to ease any fears for my safety based on my hotel story...
The hotel is gross. Incredibly gross, in fact. But it's not a dangerous place. The hookers likely work at the kareoke place, so they're not parading down the streets (not like my neighbourhood in Ottawa!). The rooms are filthy and smelly, but not unsafe. Honest! I just thought it would be an interesting story to share.
That's not the only story I have to share about Chaozhou. In the next installment, I think I'll tell you about the weekly bus ride...
zA
The hotel is gross. Incredibly gross, in fact. But it's not a dangerous place. The hookers likely work at the kareoke place, so they're not parading down the streets (not like my neighbourhood in Ottawa!). The rooms are filthy and smelly, but not unsafe. Honest! I just thought it would be an interesting story to share.
That's not the only story I have to share about Chaozhou. In the next installment, I think I'll tell you about the weekly bus ride...
I just got back from Chaozhou on Saturday, and already it's time to start getting ready to go back. (Throw in Halloween party preparations and regular lesson plans, and you've got one tired and frazzled Jen in China...)
Since I spend so much time in Chaozhou, I thought I'd talk a little bit about it for the next few weeks. First off, I want to tell you about the hotel we live in for two nights a week... The one thing it has going for it is that it's close to the school - we can literally roll out of bed at 8:20 and be on time for our 8:30 classes. (We've only done it twice, I swear!)
Anyway, this hotel is nasty. (At 100 yuan a night, roughly $20 Canadian, it sure ain't the Ritz.) The rooms are small, and the walls are thin. The windows are there only to keep bugs out, and they do a half-assed job at that. We can hear every little noise outside, including, but not limited to: motorcycle and car alarms, horns honking, bicycle bells, the workers in the factory across the alley chatting and laughing, men horking up their lungs and spitting them on the street, hookers hocking their wares (in the parking lot and in the hotel halls), bad kareoke singers belting out heartfelt tunes at full volume, and cats in the heat of passion.
The carpets are covered in cigarette burns and unidentifiable stains - but it's probably best that we don't know what those stains are. The rooms themselves smell like mold, body odor, stale cigarette smoke, and whatever aroma happens to be drifing in from the street. The A/C, when it's working, just mixes up these smells and blows them around the room for us.
The bathrooms are disgusting. The shower curtains are covered in grey and green mold, the floors littered with hair, and often the sink and/or toilet is leaking. Once, upon arrival, I lifted the toilet lid, removing the "Disinfected" label first, to discover a rather large puddle of urine on the back of the seat. How the hell it got there in the first place, I'll never know; how the cleaners missed it while they were "disinfecting" the bathroom is beyond me...
The beds are quite interesting. They're rock hard, but not as hard as the pillows. The blankets are rough, the bedspreads threadbare, the sheets have holes throughout, and usually Denice or I can find at least one "mystery" stain on at least one of the sheets. (We usually know what the "mystery" stains are - we just prefer to live in denial. It's better that way.) A few weeks ago, while preparing for bed, I pulled back my blanket and found a lone pubic hair on the top sheet. (We had only arrived that afternoon, and this was the first time I had lifted the blankets, so I was pretty sure that it didn't belong to me.) However, this past Friday morning I won the "Most Unexpected-slash-Disgusting Surprise" award...
On Thursday night, I was exhausted from a day of screaming children and a night class with the teachers we work with. I retired quite early, read for a while, and went to sleep. It is important to note that this week, since it's getting cooler, I slept under the sheet, blanket, and bedspread (in the summer we usually just balled the bedspreads up and threw them in a corner). I slept well, since after four months of this I'm getting used to the rock-hard bed and pillows, the smells, and the noises - well, that, and I was exhausted.
I awoke Friday morning, reluctantly, and sat up. The left corner of the bedspread had moved during the night, and in my sleepy haze I was sure I saw something at the foot of the bed. I grabbed my glasses for a closer look... and found a two-thirds empty package of condoms on my bed. (It could have been much worse, I know - I could have found the contents of the two-thirds empty package in my bed...)
How, in the name of all things pure, did that happen?! How do you make a bed without noticing that there's a package of condoms in the blankets? It scares me. I always knew the rooms were less than ideal, and even less than clean most of the time, but this! This defies all logic. I was a chambermaid once - I know how these beds are meant to be made. They do not include complimentary condoms! (If you're going to leave someone condoms in the blankets, though, shouldn't you leave an entire three-pack, not just the wrappers? That's just good business.)
Every week in Chaozhou is an adventure - there are just some adventures I could do without.
zA
Since I spend so much time in Chaozhou, I thought I'd talk a little bit about it for the next few weeks. First off, I want to tell you about the hotel we live in for two nights a week... The one thing it has going for it is that it's close to the school - we can literally roll out of bed at 8:20 and be on time for our 8:30 classes. (We've only done it twice, I swear!)
Anyway, this hotel is nasty. (At 100 yuan a night, roughly $20 Canadian, it sure ain't the Ritz.) The rooms are small, and the walls are thin. The windows are there only to keep bugs out, and they do a half-assed job at that. We can hear every little noise outside, including, but not limited to: motorcycle and car alarms, horns honking, bicycle bells, the workers in the factory across the alley chatting and laughing, men horking up their lungs and spitting them on the street, hookers hocking their wares (in the parking lot and in the hotel halls), bad kareoke singers belting out heartfelt tunes at full volume, and cats in the heat of passion.
The carpets are covered in cigarette burns and unidentifiable stains - but it's probably best that we don't know what those stains are. The rooms themselves smell like mold, body odor, stale cigarette smoke, and whatever aroma happens to be drifing in from the street. The A/C, when it's working, just mixes up these smells and blows them around the room for us.
The bathrooms are disgusting. The shower curtains are covered in grey and green mold, the floors littered with hair, and often the sink and/or toilet is leaking. Once, upon arrival, I lifted the toilet lid, removing the "Disinfected" label first, to discover a rather large puddle of urine on the back of the seat. How the hell it got there in the first place, I'll never know; how the cleaners missed it while they were "disinfecting" the bathroom is beyond me...
The beds are quite interesting. They're rock hard, but not as hard as the pillows. The blankets are rough, the bedspreads threadbare, the sheets have holes throughout, and usually Denice or I can find at least one "mystery" stain on at least one of the sheets. (We usually know what the "mystery" stains are - we just prefer to live in denial. It's better that way.) A few weeks ago, while preparing for bed, I pulled back my blanket and found a lone pubic hair on the top sheet. (We had only arrived that afternoon, and this was the first time I had lifted the blankets, so I was pretty sure that it didn't belong to me.) However, this past Friday morning I won the "Most Unexpected-slash-Disgusting Surprise" award...
On Thursday night, I was exhausted from a day of screaming children and a night class with the teachers we work with. I retired quite early, read for a while, and went to sleep. It is important to note that this week, since it's getting cooler, I slept under the sheet, blanket, and bedspread (in the summer we usually just balled the bedspreads up and threw them in a corner). I slept well, since after four months of this I'm getting used to the rock-hard bed and pillows, the smells, and the noises - well, that, and I was exhausted.
I awoke Friday morning, reluctantly, and sat up. The left corner of the bedspread had moved during the night, and in my sleepy haze I was sure I saw something at the foot of the bed. I grabbed my glasses for a closer look... and found a two-thirds empty package of condoms on my bed. (It could have been much worse, I know - I could have found the contents of the two-thirds empty package in my bed...)
How, in the name of all things pure, did that happen?! How do you make a bed without noticing that there's a package of condoms in the blankets? It scares me. I always knew the rooms were less than ideal, and even less than clean most of the time, but this! This defies all logic. I was a chambermaid once - I know how these beds are meant to be made. They do not include complimentary condoms! (If you're going to leave someone condoms in the blankets, though, shouldn't you leave an entire three-pack, not just the wrappers? That's just good business.)
Every week in Chaozhou is an adventure - there are just some adventures I could do without.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Long time no blog...
Work is keeping me wildly busy - seems like we just get back from Chaozhou and then we have to turn around, pack our bags, and go back again! Sigh... Even my day off this week was spent at the kitchen table, preparing lesson plans and materials.
We're having a (belated) Halloween party for our Shantou students on November 2, so we're squeezing those preparations in between lesson planning and teaching. Halloween is not a well-known holiday here, so trying to find supplies and costume items has been challenging...
We found one tiny store on the "walking street" last night that had Halloween items, so we loaded up. I drew quite a crowd trying on witch hats. I ignored it for a while, until the perfect hat was found, then turned and waved to the crowd, asking them, with body language and a few Chinese words, if they liked my hat. Most of them fled the scene immediately, some said nothing at all, and others smiled and nodded their approval. Denice and I stopped for a fruit drink a while later, and were drawing crowds again - so I took my hat out of my bag, put it on my head, and carried on with our conversation as if there was nothing unusual about me wearing a black, plastic hat with fake black hair attached, drinking a fruit drink on the walking street. (I figured, "Hey! If they're going to stare, I might as well give them something more interesting to stare at than the two Giant Canadian Women drinking fruit drinks!" If I'd been in a bad, "Stop looking at me!" kind of mood, I likely would have done nothing of the sort.) Denice starting pulling out some of our other purchases: plastic snakes and rats, skeletons... together, we gave them a good show. If we'd charged money, we'd have made a fortune.
On a more technical note, our Internet is being tempermental again; my apologies to those of you expecting a response to your email. We're hoping it will be back to normal soon. (Speaking of emails, did any of you Corel writers get that giant email I sent you about a month ago?)
On a happy note, our new foreign teacher will be arriving next week - young guy from Ottawa, who's been in northern China since March. This means, on an even happier note, that David will soon be moving out! And that means that we will only have to put up with him at work. (I know I haven't said much about David here before, but I cannot express how thrilled we are about this. David gives new meaning to the expression "Roommate From Hell," as well as "Colleague From Hell." When he is gone, I will tell you all about him, at length. You will not believe that he is a real person - he's a living example of the whole "Truth is stranger than fiction" cliche.)
And now, I must go to school. I have pictures to draw, materials to dig out, and oral exam questions to prepare... When I'm all caught up on that, maybe I'll finally be able to get all caught up with my blog! (Fingers crossed!)
zA
Work is keeping me wildly busy - seems like we just get back from Chaozhou and then we have to turn around, pack our bags, and go back again! Sigh... Even my day off this week was spent at the kitchen table, preparing lesson plans and materials.
We're having a (belated) Halloween party for our Shantou students on November 2, so we're squeezing those preparations in between lesson planning and teaching. Halloween is not a well-known holiday here, so trying to find supplies and costume items has been challenging...
We found one tiny store on the "walking street" last night that had Halloween items, so we loaded up. I drew quite a crowd trying on witch hats. I ignored it for a while, until the perfect hat was found, then turned and waved to the crowd, asking them, with body language and a few Chinese words, if they liked my hat. Most of them fled the scene immediately, some said nothing at all, and others smiled and nodded their approval. Denice and I stopped for a fruit drink a while later, and were drawing crowds again - so I took my hat out of my bag, put it on my head, and carried on with our conversation as if there was nothing unusual about me wearing a black, plastic hat with fake black hair attached, drinking a fruit drink on the walking street. (I figured, "Hey! If they're going to stare, I might as well give them something more interesting to stare at than the two Giant Canadian Women drinking fruit drinks!" If I'd been in a bad, "Stop looking at me!" kind of mood, I likely would have done nothing of the sort.) Denice starting pulling out some of our other purchases: plastic snakes and rats, skeletons... together, we gave them a good show. If we'd charged money, we'd have made a fortune.
On a more technical note, our Internet is being tempermental again; my apologies to those of you expecting a response to your email. We're hoping it will be back to normal soon. (Speaking of emails, did any of you Corel writers get that giant email I sent you about a month ago?)
On a happy note, our new foreign teacher will be arriving next week - young guy from Ottawa, who's been in northern China since March. This means, on an even happier note, that David will soon be moving out! And that means that we will only have to put up with him at work. (I know I haven't said much about David here before, but I cannot express how thrilled we are about this. David gives new meaning to the expression "Roommate From Hell," as well as "Colleague From Hell." When he is gone, I will tell you all about him, at length. You will not believe that he is a real person - he's a living example of the whole "Truth is stranger than fiction" cliche.)
And now, I must go to school. I have pictures to draw, materials to dig out, and oral exam questions to prepare... When I'm all caught up on that, maybe I'll finally be able to get all caught up with my blog! (Fingers crossed!)
Monday, October 06, 2003
The Xiamen/Gulang Yu photos are being uploaded as I type. Yahoo is still up, but I took the link to the Ofoto album down (causing problems). If you want to see that album, drop me an email and I'll send you the link.
Rambling stories are on their way...
zA
Rambling stories are on their way...
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Hey!
Just got back from our quick trip to Xiamen and Gulang Island. I'm tired, my body aches from all sorts of walking and climbing and being pushed around by anxious tourists on the ferry, but all in all, I had a blast! I am currently downloading the 187 photos I kept - I'll upload the best ones tomorrow. Also, I'll ramble at length about the trip before I have to go back to work on Wednesday. Right now, though, I'm in my pj's and getting ready to crash in front of the TV for a while. (Denice bought a bunch of DVDs on our trip, so we're set for the evening!)
zA
Just got back from our quick trip to Xiamen and Gulang Island. I'm tired, my body aches from all sorts of walking and climbing and being pushed around by anxious tourists on the ferry, but all in all, I had a blast! I am currently downloading the 187 photos I kept - I'll upload the best ones tomorrow. Also, I'll ramble at length about the trip before I have to go back to work on Wednesday. Right now, though, I'm in my pj's and getting ready to crash in front of the TV for a while. (Denice bought a bunch of DVDs on our trip, so we're set for the evening!)
Thursday, October 02, 2003
Quick note to say that the "comments" are back up. Apparently there was an issue with the Blogspeak server... but everything is okay now.
zA
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Today, October 1, is National Day. It's holiday time! I get a week off school, and we're going travelling on the weekend. In preparation for our trip, Denice and I went to Wal-Mart for some groceries and other supplies. What a mistake!
I have never seen so many people. I know, this is China and there are a lot of people here, and I've been to Wal-Mart on a Saturday night in the past and vowed to never do it again because of the crowds... but this was unbelievable. We could barely walk, there were so many people. It was like Ikea on a Saturday, only about 50 times worse.
Not only did this make it hard to get anywhere or buy anything, but it also meant that the usual staring, pointing, once-overs, peering into our cart to see what we're buying, "HALLLOO!"-ing, and giggling was mulitiplied by 50. It was unreal. 9 times out of 10 I'm okay with it; I can pretend that it's not happening. But that 10th time, boy, watch out! I'm a Giant Canadian Woman, and I'm far from happy.
At one point, people were actually stopped at the end of our check-out line, watching our purchases going through. Denice took my camera and snapped a photo, thinking they would get embarassed and go away. They didn't. In fact, the flash seemed to attract more people! (I didn't realize I was in the photo - check it out! You can see how impressed I look.) I also took a couple of pictures of the wall-to-wall people on the escalators. Notice the staring...
Sorry. I just needed to vent. Today was one of those "10th" times... By the time we got home, we were sweaty, grumpy, and ready for bed. Which is where I'm heading now. Good night!
zA
I have never seen so many people. I know, this is China and there are a lot of people here, and I've been to Wal-Mart on a Saturday night in the past and vowed to never do it again because of the crowds... but this was unbelievable. We could barely walk, there were so many people. It was like Ikea on a Saturday, only about 50 times worse.
Not only did this make it hard to get anywhere or buy anything, but it also meant that the usual staring, pointing, once-overs, peering into our cart to see what we're buying, "HALLLOO!"-ing, and giggling was mulitiplied by 50. It was unreal. 9 times out of 10 I'm okay with it; I can pretend that it's not happening. But that 10th time, boy, watch out! I'm a Giant Canadian Woman, and I'm far from happy.
At one point, people were actually stopped at the end of our check-out line, watching our purchases going through. Denice took my camera and snapped a photo, thinking they would get embarassed and go away. They didn't. In fact, the flash seemed to attract more people! (I didn't realize I was in the photo - check it out! You can see how impressed I look.) I also took a couple of pictures of the wall-to-wall people on the escalators. Notice the staring...
Sorry. I just needed to vent. Today was one of those "10th" times... By the time we got home, we were sweaty, grumpy, and ready for bed. Which is where I'm heading now. Good night!
