Thoughts, Toilets, Food, Students.

This post is going to be a collection of some thoughts and observations that I have had recently.

This was written in my Saturday morning spot, Starbucks. For the time I have been in China, I have drank more Starbucks than I have in my entire life so far. There is one more drink on their menu that I would like to try (the strawberry coconut frappuccino) – that’s how often I’ve been here. I like to get something different each time. The other day I got a popcorn frappuccino – it wasn’t bad. I’m (was) currently sipping on a hazelnut mocha frappuccino. It’s hitting the spot and is helping the fact that I have forgotten my headphones at the apartment. I’m also thrown off by the fact that they rearranged their seating area. So instead of working in my usual corner by the doors, I’m on a bench near the counter.

In all ways, China has been teaching me how to become more flexible with my expectations and assumptions. The best is to expect that nothing will go right and hope for the best. No. Actually the best I’ve come to now learn is to not have any expectations, literally don’t care and don’t put a strenuous amount of effort forward and you will not care when things will naturally and always change (I’m not surprised anymore). The less you care (obviously I care, I’m not a monster, but don’t care so much that it stresses you out) the less things you will have to worry about. Really. Just go with it. It’s weird at first and sometimes you feel distant, but I’m more relaxed which enables me to roll successfully with the punches. Of course, always have a back-up plan. For teaching, I have back up activities that I can pull out from my sleeve in a few seconds. For living in China, if all else fails, I have the strength of my body and the power of my own two legs to get me to where I need to go. One thing you can expect in China is to walk a lot. I’ve bought two new pairs of walking shoes since I’ve been here.

 

 

Toilets. I can’t believe I haven’t written about the washroom situation yet. Toilets in China are not toilets, they are troughs on the floor and you squat. They are not supplied with toilet paper or soap. It’s quite an experience. We all seem to judge a place by the quality of their bathrooms. If you have to go, you’re gunna go and put up with what’s available. Although, it is very unpleasant when there is pee on the floor and you have to step in it in order to go. Toilet paper is also not allowed to be flushed (we found out the hard way), so after you use your own toilet paper that you have brought, you have to put it in a garbage can that is basically next to your nose while you squat. Lovely. However, my apartment is blessed with a version of a western toilet. So, I have at least one safe place to pee. It now sometimes feels weird to use a western toilet. If a place has a western toilet, the seat if often dirty because other people stand on it and squat, like they don’t know how to use it. There are instruction signs in those stalls.

During my first few days in China, we all had workshops. The company building has 2 washrooms: a girl’s with squat toilets and a boy’s with a western toilet. I distinctly remember one of the head honchos saying that we were welcome to use the boy’s washroom. He probably only said that to be nice and figured we’d use the girl’s washroom anyway. Well. Let me tell you, that boy’s washroom is now “boy’s and Stephanie”. I always use that one and have had people knock on the door (chill, it’s obviously occupied) and have seen puzzled looks on people’s faces when I walk out. Don’t care. It’s a single stall washroom. We all go. It happens. It really shouldn’t matter who uses what washroom.

The washroom situation in general just does not make sense. (Heads up, I’m going to talk about bowel movements now.) The women’s washroom has squat toilets, but the men’s washroom has western toilets (from what I’ve seen). (From what I assume) Females prefer to pee and poop sitting down, while males are fine with standing to pee and sitting to poop. So why on earth do the females have to squat for both bowel movements, but the males have the chance to sit to do both if they wanted?! The toilets installments should really be switched.

I’m telling you about bowel movements because it is helpful to know if you plan on travelling, and because they are natural body reactions that everyone does so why keep hush hush and pretend like you don’t.

Now, for a more in-depth chat about bowel movements. The food here is different and my eating habits have changed a bit. I eat a lot of white rice with vegetables, oatmeal, toast, fruit, and eggs. That is basically all I eat. (I’m so sick of rice). Anyways, I would say my bowel movements have been quite normal. The only early on shock to the system was not having any dairy which caused a lack of bowel movements. Some people experienced the opposite. I would say that I have been lucky and only have had a few close calls of finding a washroom in time because I have eaten something greasy. (I’m a little nervous to return to my western diet when I get back home). A general rule to follow here though, especially for girls is to always bring more toilet paper than you think you need. Even if you just need to pee, the squatting position your body is in makes it easier for your body to flush everything else out. There is a good chance, you’ll also poop.

 

 

Food. Besides a few comments here and there, I realized that I haven’t talked about food a lot. I do want to take some time and write about specifically things that I eat because I am a vegetarian. Before coming to China, I received a lot of warnings and people wished me luck. They said by the end of it, I’d cave in and eat meat because it is easier. That’s not happening. I have been a vegetarian for 9 years now and think it is stupid to stop just because finding food will be difficult. All the important things are difficult. Leading up to my arrival, I was very nervous about what I was going to eat. I prepared for the worse. On the plane ride for one of the meals, there were only meat options. I’m not the type of vegetarian to pick out the meat from my stir-fry – the whole dish is contaminated. So, I skipped that meal on the plane. The first 2 weeks in China was difficult and people didn’t seem to understand my dietary concerns. White rice became what everyone fed me. The Chinese cook with pork oil and use meat broths in their vegetable dishes. My coordinator made a note for me, which I show in restaurants, which says “I don’t eat meat. No meat at all. No meat broth. No meat sauce. No sliced meat”. I have learned that no meat is may rou and vegetable is su. Some people laugh. It is difficult and I sometimes feel like a burden when I go out to eat with friends because I am the only one. We have to pick and choose restaurants based on their vegetable options.

When I get groceries, my bag consists of: noodle bowls, bread, peanut butter, fruit, vegetables, eggs, and oatmeal. For the first two weeks, I ate oatmeal; I now switch it up time to time with rice. The main substance of my diet is white rice, noodle bowls, and oatmeal. 3 months of eating the same thing is torture. I never want to eat these things again.

My school provides us with lunches and that’s great, but the vegetarian option for me is white rice, mushrooms (which I hate), and a vegetable that the Chinese call greens (which I don’t like, although I have tried). If I’m very lucky, I’ll get potatoes or a very garlicy bowl of green beans. Our food is served to us on a metal platter and is done behind a window so I can’t really point to tell them that I don’t want mushrooms, etc. On the platter there are 4 sections. I get 1 section of rice and often 1 section of mushrooms, and 2 sections of greens. I actually waste a lot of the food which makes me feel bad, but I can’t communicate with them how much I do or don’t want. Something I learned, which makes me feel better, is that all the thrown out food gets fed to the farm animals, so it’s not really wasted. Those poor pigs though are cannibals, but likely eat better than I do. I’m looking forward to having big family dinners when I return home. I would love carrots, squash, cranberry juice, cheese, cookies, muffins, and licorice.

 

 

To finish up this lengthy and random blog post, I want to talk about my students and my (yet again) change/new task. I have three mini student stories that I want to share with you.

First story is about my grade 6 student, Daniel. My grade 6’s are at a low level, but that doesn’t mean they are not smart. I was doing a reading activity with them and was going down the row to call upon students to read a section. When it came to Daniel’s turn, the other students groaned. I made a puzzling face and asked Daniel to read the slide, the other students said that he isn’t a good reader. If I was Daniel, I would’ve been embarrassed and sad that my classmates threw me under the bus, and also didn’t offer me support. Well. Ms. C wasn’t going to put up with that type of classroom environment. I simply said (something along the lines of ) “We come to school to learn. It’s ok if someone doesn’t know how to read. That’s what school is for – to learn and to make mistakes in the classroom so you can learn how to do it correctly”. The other students just sat there (either surprised at my come back, or sat silently because they didn’t understand, although I believe they understood). I then asked Daniel to read. He was silent. So, I read one word and he repeated it back. This continued until the section on the powerpoint slide was finished. Daniel sat down and we moved on to the next student. Since that moment in class, I have noticed 2 things. One – Daniel raises his hand more and always says hello to me in the hallways. Two – when a fellow classmate has issues speaking or says something incorrectly, the other students say it correctly for them and then that students repeats them. This makes me so happy to know that I may have completely changed (for the better) Daniel’s and his classmates’ perspective on making mistakes and learning.

My second story is about Tony. He is a little adorable boy in my grade 2 class. I don’t have much to say about Tony except for the fact that he is unbelievable smart for his age! I can tell that he really wants to learn and he puts in the extra effort to do so. Besides the fact that he wows me over with his cuteness and little voice, Tony is a strong student. It seems everything I teach, the night before he went over everything in the unit. This makes me happy, but is also very useful in the classroom because I can always count on Tony to contribute towards the class discussion and to help struggling students. We whizzes through the vocabulary and can define it all, use it in a sentence, and use actions if the words allows it. It amazes me. And remember Tony is in grade 2. Grade 2! Just leaves me speechless.

My third story is about my grade 7 student, Sally, who I use to tutor. I only had the privilege to meet with Sally for 3 weeks (in an adorable coffee shop) until her regular school allowed her to take an extra physics course which happened to be at the same time we would meet at. We tried to make our schedules work, but we couldn’t. What I want to tell you about specifically is what Sally told my coordinator when they were trying to work out times. My coordinator told me that she offered Sally another tutor since our scheduled didn’t work together anymore and Sally actually turned down the offer because she only wanted me as her tutor because she liked me so much! This made me feel really special and feel like I really left an impact on Sally’s English education. She is such a bright student. Even though here she is considered a grade 7 student, in my mind she was at a grade 9 level. I was able to challenge her and get her to explore English creatively and critically. It was a lot of fun and I felt like I was simply doing research with a friend out of pure interest instead of teaching a student.

Since I’ve stopped tutoring Sally, I have been working on a new task. My new task consists of editing news articles, curriculum books, and teacher guides that my company is going to publish. It’s a huge deal and I’m quite excited about it. The company already has a team of other professionals working on the material, but I am proof reading it, editing it, making sure it atheistically looks good, and making sure that it all makes sense for native English speakers. For anyone that doesn’t know me, I’ll tell you that this type of work is right up my ally. My major is in English. I love organizing things with sticky notes, colour coordination, and drawing attention to parts of the text by bolding, italicizing, and indenting. Big time OCD on this stuff. Also, because I am a current teacher, and everyone else working on it either isn’t, doesn’t have a teaching degree, and also haven’t taught the students that the material is being made for, my opinion and comments are extremely important (so I’m told, which really excites me). I never thought about doing this type of work, but I feel that this work really makes a difference! Coming soon in stores near you, curriculum, teacher guides, and textbooks, edited and worked on by yours truly!