Tell Me Again Why I'm Here?

Sometimes I start to really miss everything that was once familiar. I miss my friends in California, I miss family, I miss California itself, I miss France. I wonder what I’m doing here. And then I do something like plan a casual weekend trip to Nanjing, or take kung fu, or see how happy a student is seeing their improvement. And then I’m like, “oh yeah. That’s why.”

I haven’t had a complete “Screw China” day, as we fondly call them here (though we’re not as polite). A day where I just sit in my apartment the whole day, eat chocolate, and cry. …Well, I’ve done that minus the crying. That’s a different thing, though – sometimes I just enjoy having a me day. I’ve had moments, yes… the breakdown in Beijing where I walked back to the hostel sobbing, or Tuesday when I went to the bank and ended up spending half an hour sitting there because my pin number wasn’t working. My fellows can also laugh as they recall my snaps where I say a completely innocent thing with a vengeance – “I know what tamago means!” or when a waiter comes over to take our order, “Just give us five minutes!” (The latter has become a pet peeve – you sit down, they hand you a menu, and then stand there pen to paper staring at you.) But as a whole, I’m loving China.

Someone said to me after I came here – “why are you teaching in China? Why can’t you just stay here with people you know?” So I make sure to do plenty of things that I can’t just do in the US. For example, I’m taking kung fu. I just started, and I’ve still got the syndrome where my arms just kind of do what they want, but it’s pretty legit to do all our exercises with our teacher yelling at us in Mandarin. Plus… I’m learning kung fu. In China. The Mandarin is proceeding a little bit more slowly; I haven’t yet gotten a tutor, but it’s on my “To-do” list. As well as buy a bunch of stuff… But I’m still working on my online course sort of thing. I’ve improved, though – I can successfully guide a taxi driver or buy buns from the guy on the corner. Anything past that and I blink, smile cutely, and just say “wo bu dong” – I don’t understand. I’ll get there.

I’m still working on exploring Shanghai. I don’t go downtown very often, and there are quite a few parts of the city I haven’t seen yet. I know I need to expand from the French Concession, but it’s just so wonderful there. Lauren and I have our routine where on Saturdays we meet up, we get massages, we get dinner, we get chocolate. Even on the weekdays now, we’re starting to go out more… something my wallet really doesn’t appreciate. We always say that “ugh, we’ve spent so much money – this week will be a Baise week!” But then we still go out. Though I finally used my stove! For noodles and mac and cheese, but at least now I know. The mac and cheese was sent lovingly by my father, along with some amazing Halloween candy and my “USC” gift that received many giggles at the post office (on both sides of the ocean).

Teaching is going well. This past week was midterms week – which means that I just had to stand there and watch kids for a couple of days, then suddenly I have a hundred tests to grade. Joy. Though I’ve at least got the teaching routine down, which is nice. It’s definitely not my life passion, but I do love working with kids this age. I really enjoy walking down the hallway and giving high fives to my students. Even going into long rants describing small grammatical details is kinda fun.

The weather in Shanghai is still confusing me. It’ll be nice and warm, perfect weather; then for a couple of days it’ll be freezing, and I’ll be shivering in my cashmere coat; then the next few days (such as right now) it’ll be so hot and humid I just lie on my bed. It’s November, Shanghai. Can it not be 80 and humid, please? I mean, on Halloween it was all foggy and rainy.

Other interesting things: there’s a fake DVD store next to campus and I buy stuff there waaaay too much. A big group of us watched Game 7 of the World Series in a pub last weekend; a different group of us had huddled around a couple of laptops with Gameday and the radio stream, listening to Game 6 the day before. I’m unsure on if I’m going to run the Wall Marathon in May, leaning towards not. It’s a lot more money than I thought it would be, and since it’s on a regular weekend we’d only be up there for a day. In addition, I looked at the course and it’s only about three km on the actual wall… so, we’ll see.

Travel news – I’m going to Nanjing next weekend! Lauren and I had wanted to go to Chengdu to see the Panda Breeding Center and hold a panda in our laps, but prices have gone up since we procrastinated and the panda’s too big to sit in your lap now. So we’re going to Nanjing instead, which is only a couple hours away by train. It’ll be nice to get away from Shanghai for a couple of days, as well as meet people I don’t work with. Then next month for Christmas, I’m going to JAPAN! I’m super excited to see my brother, see Tokyo, have a good time.

That’s all that’s really happening. At some point I’m sure I’ll do a deep, insightful post on Chinese culture… but that’s for another day. Peace out, miss y’all.