Sunday, July 11, 2010
Shenzhen, China
We have received many hour-by-hour schedules of our activities. We keep receiving them because they keep changing. Often, they change before we get a new schedule. This morning at 8:30, we gathered in the lobby to get on our bus to go to a tea ceremony. At 8:40, with no bus in sight, Beth (one of our program directors) put in a call and found out we were not to leave until 9:30, because we were now going somewhere closer. I was happy to take the extra time to do some yoga in my room.
So, originally on our schedule as a tea ceremony, sparking images of gongs, wooden gates, or at least cucumber sandwiches and a variety of tea, we arrived at an office-looking building with an arch made of twisted pink saran wrap in the lobby for a dim sum lunch. We took the elevator to the 2nd floor and entered a room full of fish tanks.
The dining room looked a lot like Emerald in San Diego, but fancier. Our table was right next to a window into the kitchen, where we watched a cook split open a durian fruit. Many of our group also jumped up to peer at baby pigs cut in half on the range, and their were about five cooked ducks displayed near the top of the kitchen window as well. Rather than the “I’ll have one of these, not one of those,” picking from the carts and trays circling the restaurant that I’d experienced before, a pre-selected assortment of things arrived on the spinning tray in the middle of our table. I’m trying to be really good about tasting a lot of things, but this lunch wasn’t a huge challenge in that department. Most things were fried or boiled rice dough, including fried dough wrapped in boiled dough. There were also several kinds of sautéed and marinated greens, like bok choy or broccoli rabe sorts of vegetables, which were very welcome after all that dough. I did have the first thing on this trip that I was actively sorry I bit into: a fried durian ball that I did not like the taste of at all.
It was certainly a nice lunch, but it was a bit of a letdown on the exciting new experience scale.
We returned to school in the afternoon to set up our classrooms, but most of our materials were still not available. Then the families came to an orientation that did not go as we had expected. Luckily, teachers are usually pretty good at making things up on the spur of the moment.
Then we had a meeting where I was flabbergasted to learn that many in our group wanted to use stickers or treats or star-counting systems to encourage student participation. Our program has a stated goal of education for a sustainable future, which I love. That is a goal of Xara as well. But at Xara we worked really hard to have educational strategies that were consistent with that goal. This program does not really have consistent educational strategies yet. It’s still in development, which is fine, but a little uncomfortable when it’s been stated that we’re here to teach exciting American methods, but then it’s not totally clear which methods those are. Or maybe they are not the methods I would choose first, as a progressive educator. I feel pretty strongly that extrinsic motivators are not consistent with education for a sustainable future. Some teachers tried to make the argument that it was just practical, doing what works. Creating long-term problems with short-term rewards, I would be happy to tell anyone who will listen. A number of other teachers did tell me privately later they also agreed.
This evening, my roommate Patti and I finally made it to Walmart! Most of the rest of our group has been there nearly every day since we arrived, but we held out. It was crowded! It was two stories! There were live fish in tanks downstairs! (So you could pull out fish with your bare hands and take it home to cook!) The grocery aisle was labeled “Dry Droceries.” (Yes. With a D.) There were food demonstrations in the housewares area. There was a whole aisle of just chopsticks! There was a DIY craft fair just outside! Where I got a backpack vest! They did not have blue painter’s tape. They did have fountain pens, and a lot of gel in tubes to eat. The greeters wore pastel green jumpsuits. Many people sat around reading in the book area. On the floor, leaning against the shelves—seriously engrossed. We bought some school supplies, bottled water and some mystery flavored yogurt, but I was so bedazzled, I left the yogurt at the checkstand, which we discovered only after we’d arrived back at our hotel.
Walmart is right next to the Garden City Mall food court area. We almost gave in and got French fries at McDonald’s, but, convinced by the heat, decided to try the fruity drink place instead. I had pineapple with yogurt and glutinous rice balls. I thought the rice balls might be sort of like boba. They were smaller, and sweeter, and mushier, but same concept. The pineapple juice and regular (not frozen) yogurt were in layers.
I know this is very common, but it’s always funny how, no matter what you think of places like McDonald’s and Walmart at home, they become totally fascinating when you are traveling internationally. It’s interesting to see something familiar in a new light, as well as having a little piece of home in a new place.
This post pretty much skips the first week I have been in China, but I figure I need to start getting something on here. I will try to point out when things are out of order.
On Saturday morning, we went to our school to get our classrooms ready. Unfortunately, our materials were not available yet. I also found my room locked, just after we were assured that all of the rooms were open for us. Heather, next door to me, had been working in her room, but when she closed her door, she accidentally locked herself out. I jumped through her chest-height open window to get back in. Apparently it was a rather impressive feat. I’m sorry I didn’t have someone take a picture. Her art room had two ping pong tables and a drum set. My room was finally opened. It had not been cleaned at all, but I did have a huge stack of chairs. I arranged 25 in a semi-circle and then left with my fingers crossed that it would get cleaned before Sunday’s meet the kids and families orientation.
Susan, Nikki and I decided to take a ferry over to Macau. It turns out we did get multiple entry visas after all! Many others of our group also planned to go, but they were not ready to leave yet. Also, personally, I would rather travel with 3 people than with 20, so I was happy to get going.
Macau was transferred to China from Portugal in 1999, and like Hong Kong, you have to go through customs to get there from China. It both is and is not the same country. It also has its own currency.
Some people had told me not to bother going to Macau, that it was just like Las Vegas. I had also heard that it was definitely worth a day trip to see the contrasting cultures. As I prepared to go on this trip, this happened a lot. Every opinion I got as friends recounted their experiences in China was met by an equal and opposite reactions. Go to Macau, don’t bother, it’s horrible. There’s nowhere to visit near Shenzhen, or you could go here or here or here. You’ll love the food, you’ll hate the food.
From the ferry we took a free shuttle to the MGM Grand, which seemed to be near the downtown area. We looked for a restaurant with Portugese influence. We stopped at the first one we found, which was still basically on the strip area, but we were very hungry for lunch and it was quite good. I had steamed vegetables, all clearly recognizable, in a light garlic sauce. Susan had fried rice served in a pineapple. I would have liked to eat more of the pineapple, but it wasn’t served with the rice and didn’t really seem to be in the rice either. The menu indicated these were both Macanese dishes. They were different enough from what we’ve been eating that it was a nice change of pace.
So for the rest of the day, we walked and walked and walked. The buildings were great– giant Vegas-style casinos, pastel Mediterranean-style buildings, narrow Chinese streets. Many of the large apartment buildings had art deco style ironwork on their patios, windows and fences. There was a colorful temple (A-Ma), though we arrived too late to go inside it.
We took the last ferry back to Shekou (our suburb of Shenzhen) and arrived home with several more stamps on our passports.
There are many things I love about my iPad so far, but last night I fell asleep while reading and woke up when it hit me in the face. For that, I would have rather had a book.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
7am Taipai, Tawain
We lost Monday. At home right now, it’s 4:00 yesterday. We’re in the future, and it’s good, says one of my travelling companions.
On Sunday, July 4, I woke up anxious, which only got worse after Rebecca brought over chai to see me off. I drove in to Ocean Beach as a friend was just leaving, scoring the best parking spot ever right at the acrogreens. I had so much excess energy, I thought I might even go surfing. Of course I didn’t. After biking between Fiesta Island and OB, and flying at Ocean Beach (making progress on high hand to hands!), Jack drove me up to the Solana Beach train station, where I joined three other teachers heading to LAX en route to Shenzhen, China. I left him with vague instructions to keep the cat and the chickens alive until Kate and Monetta make it home from the Black Rock Desert, fiddled with my luggage, and started my journey.
Trains are a pretty relaxing way to travel anyway, but stress of the last few days became pretty irrelevant as we all agreed the teaching was great and all, but mostly we were excited about going to China. I tried not to think too much about the impending 14 hour plane flight.
We flew out of LAX about 2am, hoping to sleep most of the way. It was reasonably comfortable for having to stay in a seat for that long. I slept a lot, and also read a new book, an ethnographic study of the relationship between Burning Man and spirituality. Reading it while in what I feel I could now argue is another common form of liminoid space, the in-between world of airports and airplanes, felt appropriate.
As my first post, I mostly want to get something up. I hope to be more interesting in the future.
Welcome to Upsidedownandbackwards.com! In case you’re wondering about the name, well, Acroyoga is one of my favorite things to do. (acroyoga.org) In addition, in the last year, I gave up my tenure at San Diego City Schools, helped start the visionary school of my dreams (xaraschools.org), experienced the end of a ten-year relationship, and decided to leave Xara school and an amazing group of K-2 students. I’m currently in China for a month. After that, I have my 20-year high school reunion, jury duty, and them I’m planning to leave my home of the past 12 or so years for points unknown. So you’ll excuse me if I feel my life is kind of upside down and backwards right now. Though, as an acroyogi, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I also have some opinions about things, such as the current state of public education in the U.S., for which I think the upside down and backwards metaphor would be useful. I’ll get around to that eventually.