Hiatus, and a return

I'm not exactly sure where I should begin, since it's hard to think that there's been a clear beginning or end in the midst of this start to this new school year. It seems more like a melding of a million moments that are crammed together in one big collective experience. Maybe it's because I just finished The Time Traveler's Wife (awesome read, by the way), a book all about how malleable and changeable time is when looking at is from afar. So maybe it's best to start from now and work my way backwards...

The past few days have been spent recovering from a solid but tiring trip to the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai. I missed out on a trip here last year due to a lack of time and money (a guy can only see so many Chinese cities on a fixed budget), but it remained at the top of my list this year. Seoul is still tops for my next week-long vacay (probably in May). But being back home is nice, too. I spent last night out for dinner with out with a bunch of teachers at a local noodle house and have tried to tackle the daunting mountain of marking I have from before the holidays. I cooked a massive and delicious pasta meal the other night for myself which was accompanied by some amazing roasted potatoes and squash. It was like the anti-Atkins plan. And man, I was in the biggest food coma you could possibly imagine.

Shanghai is pretty much the perfect city if you're into food, shopping and cultural activities. From strolling The Bund area near the Huangpu River which bisects the central area of the city, to taking in 6 stories of market shopping and haggling with some of the funniest shopkeepers imaginable, to eating food from anyplace in the world (in the span of a week, I ate amazing Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Canadian and Texan-style foods), to taking short day trips to Suzhou and Huangzhou (pronounced something similar to SooJoe and HungJoe resepectively) and strolling around one of the busiest pedestrian streets in the world. I hung out with my buddy Mr. Samland (who's teaching there this year) along with some both new and old friends from the Maple Leaf family. Got some hockey jerseys, some new shoes, a few new 15rmb ($2.40) silk ties and a multiple bellies full of amazing cuisine you can imagine. Am I talking about food a lot? I guess so. Must be the end of the school day. Anywho, I had a blast and can't wait to go back. 

My brain wants to stop thinking, so for the timebeing, here are a couple entries from my iPod notepad that I "jot" things down when my real journal is nowhere to be found. The first and last ones indulge a bit more of my poetic side, but hopefully it won't make anyone run for the hills...

Sept. 23 (Dalian)

The invasive but refreshing tingle of raindrops on my neck makes my body convulse in a shiver as I suck the cool, wet air deep into my lungs. It's like the rain pulls all the haze from the sky and smears it in a brown paste over the land, just as the windows are muddled into an opaque blur of fog and condensation. It's like the steam on a shower door but smeared with the dust of rural China which sticks to everything it touches.

Sept. 25 (Dalian)

Such a strange couple of days in Jinshitan. First, a free ride to the Qinggui (LRT) from a local worker who picked me up as a sort of good luck deed for the celebration of China's Mid-Autumn Festival. Then, got my picture taken with two girls on the train home after school yesterday. Ahh... China.

Sept. 28 (Shanghai)

In the past 5 minutes I've almost been run over by two bicycles, saw a child free-peeing in the street, got my picture taken by at least 3 strangers, and saw a dog happily walking down the street in a sweater... a "Hello, Kitty" sweater.

This morning (Dalian)

I can't see more than 20 feet in front of the car. The fog is like cement and makes for an ominous start to my Thursday. I keep thinking that it's a perfect day for ghosts or men in dark hoods, lurking in alleyways and doing secret business unbeknownst to the general populace. Our driver seems perfectly content to bomb through this mess like it's any other day, even though we have little warning of what will suddenly spring out of the dark mist ahead. The fog is sticking to the windows like paint, and I attempt to focus my brain on the soundwaves moving into my ears... if I keep looking out the front windshield, I think of myself hurtling through it when we crash and burn in some sketchy wreckage. I search out my seatbelt in vain... these taxis don't provide access to rear-seat belts. So I lean my head back and let the beat take me to a different place... one that doesn't include my life flashing before my eyes.

Much China love, all...

T

Adjustments

10 things that I had to re-adjust to since coming back to China:

1) Chinese men smoking in urinal stalls beside me INSIDE a mall.

2) Chinese men smoking pretty much everywhere and, in an oblivious way, blowing smoke nearly into your mouth.

3) Watching parents hold their children over garbage cans, bushes or gutters so the kids can evacuate themselves, well, anywhere.

4) Realizing that the man driving my motorcycle "taxi" might not have a driver's license and might not be sober. These are harrowing 6 minute stints, my friends.

5) Realizing that taking a normal taxi into Dalian to go dancing at 10:30pm on a Saturday means I'm taking my life into my hands as the driver's speedometer nears 140kms and is winding through traffic like it's the F1 circuit.
6) Remembering that there's often 2 possible products you can receive when you ask: the legal and legit product, and a knockoff. The difference can be as simple as a holographic decal versus a photocopied decal that, to the uninitiated eye, would be totally unnoticeable. As long as you're dealing with reasonably honest people, though, the difference exists in the price.

7) Knowing that the foreigner population here is often negatively labelled because of idiotic (and sometimes really young) Russian tourists who assault women and assume that China has no rules or standards.

8) Understanding the foreigner community I live with/in is a VERY small place sometimes and is, in itself, a massive rumour mill and gossip factory. Word travels fast.

9) The idea the world at large can be an insanely small place when, in one day, you get a facebook message from an old schoolmate who knows two of your new coworkers and you learn that a current coworker happens to be close friends with a past teaching friend/acquaintance from the Okanagan. So weird.

10) That even with the small community around me, I'm with some of the most fantastic people in the world. And I live a charmed life amongst them.

Did I mention that I'm off to Shanghai for a week of holidays as of Sunday? Yup. Charmed. Life.

T

Brevity (just an idea to share)

Something that came up via a Facebook post last week... sayings by me...

"Karma is a Venn diagram. Moreso than a T-Chart."

T

I am currently...

... eating 1/4 of a watermelon. Yes. 25%. In one sitting. For a snack.

You may ask, "WHY?" You may also ask, "Where will he put it all??" (Actually, you shouldn't probably ask this if we've met. One of my favourite sports is eating).

Answer:

It was nearly 30 degrees today and humid as all get-out. I had both my PE blocks at the end of the day, and between organizing and participating in both dodgeball and ultimate frisbee in the smoggy sunshine, I think I nearly sweated off about 10 pounds. I've already sucked down 2 litres of water and I'm pretty sure (WARNING: TOO MUCH INFORMATION COMING) my urine still looks more like paint than water. I also played nearly an hour of basketball against the boys high school team (only 5 teachers showed up, no substitutions, a total of 2-2 minute breaks, full court, 12 minute quarters, after teaching 2 PE blocks), a game I haven't played competitively since I quit my high school team in... GRADE 10! Still, I managed to drop two fantastic jump shots and was Steve Nash-esque with about 6 assists in our VICTORY over the young bucks, who had 20 GUYS and changed lines EVERY 4 MINUTES! Not bad for a group of old dudes who nearly caused a monsoon of sweat after the game finished (I was wringing out my shirt).

Yes, I noticed the overuse of the CAPS lock. I felt like this entry needed some emphasis.

Life has been tiring, and I'm already behind on my work because of my post-work fatigue. But the kids are all coming around and there's no shortage of fun... only a shortage of money. At least, for the first couple of months, anyway. One difficult-to-swallow fact about China (or, at least, the suburb of Dalian I live in) is that the landlords require you to pay for at least 6 months, but most often an entire year... up front. As you can imagine, when you're required to pay more than $4000 up front for a year for rent and you're making less than that a month (which doesn't include any extra costs of living or loan costs back home, of which I have... many), it causes some stress. I've been keeping it on the cheap lately and will continue to do so as much as possible. However, when November comes, fun will be plentiful as will the money, since I'll pay all my costs (including my utilities) over two months and be paid by then. Or, most of it at least. There might be some lingering $$ to pay in November. But I'm not too worried. Then the more aggressive attempts to pay off loans/credit cards will commence.

Anywho, I'm off to dinner with a sort of Wednesday night supper group (which I may have mentioned... just a group of friends who live in town) in about an hour and want to polish off both my marking and my watermelon before that. So, until again friends, keep livin' your big dreams, wherever these rants find you. Much love from the east side of the Liaoning Peninsula and the coast of the Yellow Sea....

T

Too funny to not share

Last year, I did a small writing assignment with my grade 9 classes where they had to come up with environmentally-conscious superheros and write a story about it. As a joke, as we were brainstorming traits and listing examples of superheroes, I jokingly put "SuperMrak" on the board, and drew a guy on the board with a big "M" on his shirt. Having a pretty good relationship with my kids, a bunch of them thought this was funny and called me "SuperMrak" the rest of the year.

In my English classes recently, one of my old grade 9s who is now one of my English 10 students brought up my old moniker of SuperMrak as I polled the class on their favourite superheroes. Laughing, I thought I'd test out my relationship with my PE 11 boys. 

At the end of yesterday's class, after demonstrating my Ultimate Frisbee prowess and after showing up some of the basketball players earlier in the week (one lucky streak in shooting is all I needed), I brought the boys in to end the class like a team by putting their hands together in a circle. I said to them, "On three, we need to cheer something because this was an excellent class!" A few of the boys threw out lame ideas, so I said, "Okay! On three, we're gonna say 'SuperMrak!'" They laughed at this, I smiled and laughed along, and some groaned. But when I yelled, "1! 2! 3!", every one of my PE 11 boys shouted, "Super Mrak!!"

These are the priceless moments that make teaching worthwhile. We even did it again today! :) Maybe this is cocky or arrogant or over the top, but I don't care. Life is good.

T

Wednesdays sometimes feel endless...

... but can still remain satisfying.

As I walked through the courtyard of my apartment complex, I could hear the plucking of some sort of Chinese zither wafting down from the windows of a 5th floor apartment near mine. Finally a breeze finds my oily face, rescuing me from the discomfort of a day full of teaching PE and battling the Dongbei humidity that seems to be filling the sky right now. My mind's empty of all the stress and anxiety from my teaching day after filling myself with spicy hotpot and assaulting the restaurant air with conversation with friends. It's Wednesday night and I was invited the past few weeks to participate in the Wednesday night "dinner club", which isn't so much a club as 6 or 7 people getting together at different restaurants all over town to celebrate hump day in the best fashion possible: around food. If you know me at all, you know this adds up to near perfection for me. I'm so happy with food in my gut.

For those of you who have never had Chinese hotpot, it's a really popular style of eating that is similar to the idea of fondu: you have a boiling pot of spiced and flavoured water in front of you, order a whole assortment of thinly sliced/shaved raw meats and tofus and vegetables, and cook them communally to share amongst the hotpot goers around the table. Added to this is generally a self-made sauce usually consisting of sesame or peanut sauce garnished with an assortment of chili pastes, fish sauces, oils and fresh things like cilantro, garlic, ginger and baby chilis which the diners mix together to make, well, one of the most delicious things in China. Sooo good. I ate this often with my friends last year, the girls from the ESL office who kept me sane while trying to inhabit this terribly foreign country.

Nights like these make life worth living. My favourite way to spend social time is around food and drink. I haven't found a better way to share burdens and get to know people. And it seems like every culture around the world has their own version of this communal dining and eating, often with families. Here in China, it's the same... people don't go to hotpot on their own. They go with friends and families and for celebrations. And what better thing to celebrate than to surviving spending a whole day with hundreds of teenagers?

It's also nice to have these more quiet, contented nights, especially after having the crazy fun of this past Saturday night's "Newbie Bash". You'll have to message me personally if you want the rundown on the crazy stories that may have involved some swimming in the Yellow Sea, some bad karaoke, and a lot of amazingly "Chinafied" outfits put together by the ladies of our teaching staff. I'll just say that crimped hair made more than one appearance... that should give ya'll a hint!

My night is already winding down at 8pm... my 5:20am alarm comes quite quickly in the morning, so I'm trying to discipline myself into hitting the hay early after a bit of reading. I still have some preparation to do for tomorrow, but I'll manage. Until another night, mes amis. From six stories above the Yellow Sea...

T

The second first week

The two week mark of being back in China hit me today. The school year fatigue has started to set in, but more because of weekend hijinx than anything to do with the students. But it's nice that it's finally a quiet night outside my windows. The fireworks don't seem to be booming tonight, and with some slightly clear skies this afternoon, it's not unbearably muggy in my apartment. It is, however, a much more beautiful place because of the 42" plasma TV that is now sitting in front of me, hooked up to my computer! I made a deal with the landlord and covered part of the purchase, so I now have the capability of hosting some movie nights as well as some Sunday morning Hockey Night in Canada get togethers! Should be excellent, and I already have a couple people willing to take up space on my couch on Sunday mornings! There's reason for the excitement: I've never enjoyed the pleasure of a nice, big TV in my house, well, ever. I've already got the surround sound worked out. Amazing.

Life in China is settling down. It's still nuts and weird and is still all the things I came to expect last year... In the past week, I saw a small herd of cows walking down the highway without any visible people with them, have taken motorcycle taxis pretty much everywhere, and went for a run which included sightings of a UFO, a statue of a golden child riding a flying bull, and "statues" (if you can call them that) of animated corn cobs with hair and toothy smiles, all in the same park within 10 minutes. I've experienced more humidity than any other time in my life, a torrential downpour which partially flooded my kitchen and storage area, had firework shrapnel fly onto my patio because they were exploding so close to my windows, shot bottle rockets off the top floor of a friends apartment and had food that involved huge pieces of boiled beef tendon. Did I mention singing Bon Jovi at karaoke last night? No? Oh. It happened. 

I've said it before: This is China.

I seem to be feeling ridiculously happy about the start of my second year here. Already I've had a tonne of fun with my friends from last year and have met/hung out with a tonne of people who are either new or who I haven't gotten to know in previous outings. So much has been put behind me now and it seems like a fun year of adventure is ahead. I'm still uncertain as to where my week of holidays at the end of the month will take me, but it looks like it'll be either Seoul, South Korea or it might be Shanghai. Seoul might be a bit pricey, although I have a contact there that offered up a piece of carpet for me to sleep on, and since S. Korea has been at the top of my list since summer, we'll have to see.

I still have some work to do tonight, so I'm going to have to sign off. Thanks to those people who still stop by to participate in my fun, vicarious as it may seem. To help please the crowd, I've attached a couple of pictures for enjoyment. The first is a shot from my apartment balcony, and the next is from some of the weekend fun (we put on a classic Habs-Nordiques hockey game at Darren's place, Darren and I had a hockey fight, and I was able to get a picture just as Quebec scored a goal. Perfect.). Much love from the Chinafied side of the world...

T