On Changsha

This weekend was unlike any that I have experienced thus far in China as it was the first one that was spent mostly with westerners. I received an email sometime last week from someone I went to school with at WSU, Kimberly. She and I had a class or two together and we have been emailing the same professor, Dr. Robert Staab, one of the best professors at WSU. She sent me an email and it turned out that we also had a friend in common, Clare from England, who is teaching in her program here in Chenzhou.
Clair had phoned me a couple of days after I discovered all of this information and wanted to drop in and watch some DVD's here at my flat. When we met up, she mentioned that she was going to be off of work for the next four days and wondered if I would like to travel somewhere with her in that period of time. I agreed as my schedule was also quite open for the next couple of days. After talking about the small world phenomena that Kimberly and I went to school with each other, we decided to take off to Changsha.
We went into town that evening and bought a couple of tickets to go to the provincial capital the next afternoon. Buying train tickets is always a challenge in the smaller cities because there is not anyone at the ticket counter who speaks English, so we always try to get people to come with us to buy the tickets. This time however, we were going to attempt to do it on our own as Clare is getting very good at speaking the language and writing the characters. We did not get the chance to practice, however. Close to the train station, two of my students boarded the bus and offered to assist us in purchasing the tickets, which we were happy to have them do. The line at the station was a long one as they always are in the evenings--there are only two windows open when during the day, there are about 8. We spent the time speaking to these students who speak English pretty well and enjoy the evening. It would seemingly be the last night of the warm summer like weather that I have grown so used to while here.
After about 40 minutes of standing in line, we were on our way. We did not book return tickets, which turned out to be lucky.
The next morning, I awoke to find it raining and dark outside. I quickly made some coffee and set out to prepare for my journey. I found packing easy as it was a short trip--just a pair of shorts, some summer shirts and a change of undoes and I was on my way. The weather was still warm, so there was seemingly no need for any pants or warm clothes. Big mistake.
The weather has changed quite a lot in the last couple of days--the temperature is much colder than before and it rained through most of my trip to Changsha. I was cold most of the weekend, but it was still quite bearable. I was the only one with shorts on, however.
The trip to Changsha was long, but not unbearable. The train system in China is interesting. The trains, depending on if they originate from your destination or if they are coming from somewhere else are almost always crowded, but not as crowded as I thought when I read about them in the travel books. There are usually standing only tickets, but the ticket agents do not seem to book these for westerners. The seating in the seated cars is basically two wider seats facing each other with one small table on one side and two small seats facing two seats on the other side. Cramped, but not uncomfortable. I am a big guy and I fit quite nicely. If the train originates in your destination, which it did in my case, then the train is pretty clean. It does get beyond dirty in a short period of time. People generally create a huge mess in a short period of time. People eat their own food in mass on the train, so there are shells and garbage that quickly pile up on the floors. Smoking is not as much of an issue as I thought it would be-the majority of smoking occurs on the link between the train cars--these are considered to be the smoking lounges and I am usually seated in the middle of the train.
The train, like most other modes of distance travel, loves to play Chinese music at the beginning of the journey and the end. It is not as bad as the bus, which plays music constantly during the entire time you are on board. Thank god for my ipod.
The other thing about the train is the constant service by the attendants. Small little iron pushcarts are pushed through the aisles with people shouting what they are selling -- beer, smokes, sodas, nuts, and noodles in one cart, fruits of all kinds in another cart--and then the dinner carts. The dinner carts range from light snacks of chicken feet in hot sauce to large bowls of at one time hot food. If this is ordered, you will pay a high price for a little food which even the Chinese do not seem to appreciate that much at all.
Clare and I stuck to the things we brought. Cheese from Guinness with the best crackers I have found--shallot crackers with a hint of pepper--delicious. We also had some nice strawberry yogurt and a good batch of other little snacks, so we were able to not have to go for any of the overpriced train food.
The other interesting feature on the train is that the attendants also come through in the middle of the trip with a bull horn to sell you some socks. Yes, socks. The entire demonstration seems to be too get you to buy the socks just to stop them from yelling in the fastest Chinese to buy the socks. As they are shouting about how good these particular socks are, they actually open up a pack of them and stretch them out as far as they will go while shouting what would appear to be that these socks stretch as far as they can go and still go back into the same shape that you bought them in!
I still wasn't sold.
They then proceed to have one person stretch them slightly, while the other person bashed the sock, mid-air, with a steel pick brush. The bull horn informer continued as they committed sock abuse, but there were no tears and the sock looked good as new.
I still wasn't sold.
Then, to make it all seem like it is too good of a deal and everyone would want one, they place one set at each table and continue to speak about the greatness of the socks! As amazed as I was about the great sock hunt, I still wasn't sold.
disappointed especially at us for being Westerner's who obviously came to china because of the great deals to be had, the man with the bull horn gave us a dirty look and moved on. I continued to journal and Clare had an attempt at a nap.
Nearly five hours later, we arrived to a rainy and cold Changsha. It felt like winters in Seattle--hard, cold wind pelting rain diagonally across my face. It felt good to be out of my element, but being tossed into these elements was a bit much.
I thought briefly to myself that this is the perfect recipe for another round of illness--after all, I did have the last week off from anything major, so I am due for something like the common cold, right?
Luckily, we didn't have to wait long at all for Kimberly to finish off her daily teaching. Clair called her and we set off on the tour d' Changsha. I was surprised to actually remembering seeing Kimberly around the campus and I am still sure that she is good friends with one of my friends, but I can't seem to pin it down. It was great to see someone even vaguely familiar and throughout the weekend we would have side conversations about this in Washington that the other people didn't know about (although there were some other WorldTeach people that were from the U of Washington --who are going to lose the apple cup again this year, I promise--as well as some people from UPS, but they still didn't have the ultimate Washington college experience) so it was particularly nice to spend some time with her and the other teachers.
Upon our arrival on Friday, we went out for some food, which as always, ordering food is a constant challenge, even when you point out the food you think you have ordered, you seem to never get the same thing. We ordered dumplings that were supposed to be vegetarian and they may have been, but they tasted like pork and didnt look to be 100% vege. We also ordered some squash, which turned out to be spicy cucumbers with slightly too much vinegar or a vinegar like substance, some pork ribs which were a great surprise as they were meaty arrangements with the meat simply falling off the bone--yum. In all, way too much food, but it was really quite nice to hang out and talk about cougar football and life in Pullman. We tried to place each other in life, which was accomplished quite well--but I am still stumped as to exactly who I remember her hanging out with--this happens alot. We had class together, she went to one of the Middle Eastern Pride nights--wat up Munchiez? and she inquired about "Outdoorsmen" the great flick about drunken Olympics-- I think we might need to do a Chinese version of this while we are here. We will get a bunch of Chinese people wasted and make them do wired Olympic style things.
I think my personal favorite would be the high heeled pointy shoes 100meter hurdles!
Anyway, I digress.
Following dinner, we journeyed to one of the many coffee houses in China that have never been set up by a westerner--like most other things in China, the Chinese western coffee's is a poor replica of reality--and you pay a lot of money to get close to the real thing. I paid 60rmb for two cappucino coffees, which were nothing more than Nescafe and whipped cream. Awful--but it is more about the experience than anything else--and sitting around chatting about the world was a lot of fun as well.
Soon after, another teacher, from UNC, arrived. Eddie is a nice guy in a bad situation in another town. He was the first of many horror stories that I have heard about, but it was the first in person that I was able to listen to and ask questions about. With most of the stories that you hear from people that are bad, they are usually questionable people with questionable attititudes. Eddie, however, is the man. Although he is clearly having a strange time on his own in the depths of Hunan life, he keeps a good idea about it and keeps his chin up as he works his way through the weirdness that is Hunan.
Let me tell you this now-- I HAVE IT GOOD HERE. Sure, my kids appear a bit aloof at times and they dont have much access to good information and are simple people in general, but they aren't what's going on in the middle schools. My students have done well enough in English to actually be accepted into the English program at a University in their province, and that is saying that they care. Most of the teachers that I spoke with from World Teach have similar issues, but Eddie's kids seem to be directly from the Asian side of hell.
First problem with kids in middle school--they stay in one room for the whole year. They don't go to different rooms for different classes, the teachers come into their class and present and then leave and the next teacher comes in.
I would not do well in this environment--and I didn't when I was a kid, so I can see why he has some of the challenges he does.
Most of the kids he teaches have no ability or desire to go to college, so this is another issue. If you don't think you are ever going to really need to use English, then why pay attention to the lesson? My kids really think they are going to all be translators, so they love to work on whatever I throw at them.
oops, I have taken a little too long with this post--it is time for another round of English corner with my students--so I will post more later--because there is much, much more to tell....