interviews

Today was another interesting day at school. Yes, it’s Saturday, and yes, classes have finished. Wednesday was a wonderful end to the semester (I bought in mini-M&Ms for my 6th graders), and after school we ended up going to Andrew’s for a pot-luck and to watch some American Idol and Grey’s Anatomy. Stuff like that almost makes you forget you’re in Shanghai.

Proctoring exams has been pretty uneventful, although yesterday was a mildly exciting day because I want to the fabric market. I’m having a cashmere coat made—navy blue with green lining. It’s only 550 rmb, which is about $71. Not bad, considering how many hundreds of dollars I’ve seen cashmere coats advertised for in catalogs. And it’s being custom-made!

Today, however, I had promised my services to the administration. Today was the day that the school gave tests/interviews to prospective students, and 2 weeks ago one of my administrators approached me about being one of the interviewers. For some reason, even though it was going to be on Saturday, I liked the idea so I agreed. I guess I haven’t been doing too much that’s exciting on Saturdays anyway, so I saw it as a way to be at least slightly productive with my time.

So I showed up in the high school building at 1pm, and my boss explained what I was going to be doing. Each of the new students would come in with a completed English test and a cover-sheet that each interviewer for the different subjects would write on. All I had to do was talk to them, look over their test, and determine whether I thought they should be in Native, non-native, or ESL English.

While we were waiting for the students to start arriving, I sat with my administrator and chatted for a while. It was interesting, because one of the first things he asked me was “do you drink?” I was rather taken aback by the question, and didn’t know how to answer it. Did I look hungover? I’d only had half a glass of wine last night! So I just said “um…sometimes” and waited for him to continue. He pointed to his mug full of tea and started talking about how it’s just a habit of his to drink tea all day long because it’s very healthy, and once you’re thirsty you’re already dehydrated. So…he was referring to whether or not I drink tea or water or coffee? It was weird.

Then he asked me whether or not I’m happy here, which I honestly answered in the affirmative. Ok, yeah there are a lot of things here that bug the shit out of me, but I’m not decidedly unhappy. I miss people/places at home, but I’d say that this is a good experience. The next question, of course, was “are you going to stay next year?” I thought it would be a bad idea to start explaining my law school plans, so I was diplomatic and said “I don’t know.” Apparently the contract renewal deadline is March 31. I wonder how many people are actually going to stay.

The interviews themselves were actually really enjoyable. I mostly just asked the students where they’re from, what their favorite subject is, why they’re living in Shanghai, what they like to do after school, etc. There was a cute little girl from Plymouth, Michigan that I wanted to talk to longer, but we only had about 3 to 5 minutes per student.

When it started winding down, my administrator took me to the finance room to get paid, and he made a big deal about the fact that what I was getting paid for the day was a secret and how I wasn’t supposed to tell him how much, just whether it was more or less than I expected. 700 rmb for 3 hours of work was definitely more than I expected-- $30 an hour.

The thing is, it wasn’t even the money that I liked about it, although it certainly didn’t hurt. When my two administrators asked what I thought about the interviewing process, I honestly told them that I really liked it. I don’t know, I guess one thing that I learned from canvassing for those two summers is that I really enjoy talking to people, and that it’s something that I’m good at. I enjoy hearing people’s stories, making them feel comfortable, asking them questions, and just interacting with them in general. I guess it’s funny that I hate using the telephone to call people I don’t know, but I will ring a random person’s doorbell and talk to them on their front porch for half an hour.

I don’t really know how that translates to my chosen career path (remind me what that is again?), except that no matter what I’m doing, it had better not be sitting in a room somewhere by myself filing papers or just writing. I guess it’s something important to think about.

just a few observations

well, tomorrow is the last day of classes in the semester. how is it then possible that we still have another week and a half that we are obligated to be here? i don't know. ask China.

Sometimes when I'm teaching, if I notice that a boy and girl are talking too much to each other and therefore distracting me, I like to joke around and call them out on it. "Steven, do you have a crush on Lynn? Do you like her?" and then they get a little embarrassed, the whole class laughs, and hopefully they stop talking. However, last week, after joking around like this with one student, he (for the 2nd or 3rd time) said something about me in Korean, the other Korean students started laughing, and they translated it into Chinese so that the whole class could laugh too. Needless to say, I was unimpressed. I was furious. I get so sick of these bratty, spoiled, rich kids feeling like they can say whatever they want to their teachers (even if it isn't in English). Maybe it's especially worse that it wasn't in English because I had to hear another Korean student say "oh he said something very mean about you!" and then refuse to translate for me. So, I got angry at the whole class, made them do work silently for the rest of class, and talked to the kid's class teacher. She told me she would call his mom.

The next morning, his class teacher told me that he was very sorry, that his mom said she was very sorry for his behavior, and apparently she told her that he likes me a lot, and that he mentions me at home frequently. Of course that makes me wonder what it is that he says about me (and what my students in general might be saying about me at home to their parents, because I don't really remember what I said about my teachers at that age). But anyway, his class teacher continued telling me that my student had even written me an apology letter and that she told him he was going to have to read it in front of the class. She handed me the letter, which I read, and asked me if it was ok and if he should read it in front of the class. It was actually a very nice letter, since he is one of my best students. I told her he didn't need to read it in front of the class, because I think that is really taking it a step too far. If he had treated another student badly, I might have made him do it, but I know that deep down he's a good kid and wanted to spare him further embarrassment. I didn't mention the letter in class, but (of course) some of his classmates had found out about it and asked me why i wasn't making him read it out loud. I simply said 'I don't think he needs to' and they proceeded to tell me how kind I am. Well, I guess that's nice.

In other news, I taught the same class the word “mule” today and what it means. They could not stop laughing at the way it is pronounced (unless I was saying it weird??). I wanted to say “I want to laugh at a lot of the sounds that come out of your mouth, but I don’t!” but of course, being the more mature one in a classroom full of 6th graders, I kept my mouth shut. Seriously though, mule? How did I not realize that this was a funny word?

Just counting down the days now to Roel coming, and then Mike and Thailand. It’s all happening so soon!

i am a movie star

I am falling dangerously behind on this thing and have decided that if I don’t catch up soon, I’m going to stop doing it altogether, which would be an unfortunate thing.

New Year’s Eve was nothing spectacular, so you’re not missing out on some awesome post about it. A group of us went out for all-you-can-eat-and-drink sushi. 150 rmb and all the sushi, sashimi, beer, plum wine, sake, etc you want. That’s less than $20. That is something I am seriously going to miss when I come home. I am obsessed with sashimi. After dinner we went to a party at an apartment of a friend of a friend, did the countdown, and then I came home and talked on the phone/went to bed. Woohoo 2007.

January 2 was far more interesting. My friend Ken had texted me the previous day, asking me if I wanted to be an extra in the upcoming Ang Lee movie, which they are apparently shooting in Shanghai. I obviously wasn’t about to say no, because I’ve always wanted to be in a movie and Ang Lee is an awesome director. So then this Chinese guy calls me and asks me some questions about my appearance, including ‘you aren’t fat, are you?’. I sent him a picture and told him I was coming.

So…we left campus at 5:15 am. When we got to the film studio, they took us (me, Ken, Lisa, and this German guy named Peter were the 4 foreign extras) on a bus to the shooting location about 40 minutes outside of Shanghai. By the way, the guy had told me to bring a warm coat in case we were waiting around outside at all. It was about 40 degrees and raining.

So we got there and Lisa and I were immediately sent to wardrobe. The clothes they gave Lisa fit her perfectly, but they gave me a dress to put on that didn’t fit quite as well. I buttoned it without a problem, but I guess they didn’t like that it was a little tight across the chest. The women told me to take off my bra and gave me a little tank top to wear instead (this tank top was TINY), and looked at me and said “still too big.” Well it’s rare that that’s ever been a problem. So anyway, they’re looking at me and decide that the top buttons should be moved so that it buttons differently and is less tight across the chest. I didn’t think it was a big deal.

Of course, they move 2 of the buttons while I’m standing there, still wearing the dress. The woman then looks at it and decides that no, that doesn’t look better. After watching her spend all this time moving the buttons, she rips them off and asks me to take of the dress. She then proceeds to move every single button on the dress while I stood there wearing a tiny tank top, nylons, and a underskirt thing. In an unheated room. Did I mention that? No heat. I would also like to point out the fact that I was an extra. She was moving all of the buttons so that my dress would look ‘perfect,’ as if I was actually going to be seen.

After the dress ordeal, they sent me to get my hair and makeup done, again in an unheated room. Finally, we were shuffled outside to the set, where I did get to see Ang Lee. The scene was a street in Hong Kong. I guess they were filming a scene inside a tailor’s shop, and needed some people to be passersby on the street outside. There were 4 of us foreigners, and maybe 15 Chinese extras. For about an hour and a half, we stood outside, practicing our walk from one side of the set to the other. I’m not kidding. We just walked. We must have done it 20 or more times. And guess what. They weren’t even filming out the window of the shop, to actually see the people walking by. There was a mirror in the shop, in which you could see the people walking by. Sort of. So I’ll probably just be an out of focus blob. Good thing they spent half an hour fixing my dress.

At about 10:30 am, it was time for a tea break. We went and sat down, waiting for them to call us again. It was still raining, 40 degrees (or less?) and we were wearing thin dresses and thin shoes and nylons. We had our jackets, but after continually taking them off for the scene, we were chilled to the bone. We continued waiting in the cold by the time it was time for lunch. We took our lunch to a small room that had a heat lamp, next to where we’d gotten our costumes, and stood around the heat lamp and ate our lunch. We went into another room when we were finished, and just sat. And waited. I texted Mike continually, just waiting to be called again. We couldn’t change our clothes in case they actually would call us.

They never called us again. We ended up being there for 12 hours, made 550 rmb, and were only used for an hour and a half. I got home, ate some fried rice, and passed out watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (also directed by Ang Lee) at like 8 pm, still freezing cold.

Being in a movie isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Hong Kong!

I’m writing this entry way later than I should have. I know that. For some reason I just don’t like writing on Microsoft Word. I guess Word just reminds me so much of writing horrible papers for school, so I never really think that doing anything on it would be fun. In my defense, the earthquake in Taiwan totally messed up the internet for all of mainland China by disrupting a lot of cables that run under the ocean, so I’ve hardly been able to check my email since Christmas, let alone access the blogger website.

Anyway. Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone. I’m sort of in awe.

First, Christmas. Shannon, Kerry, Hayley, and I took the trip to Hong Kong that I hadn’t been excited about at all. My excitement was further lessened when I realized we were going to have to leave campus at like 5:30 in the morning to get to the airport with enough time. We got to the airport bright and early. Good thing, because our flight was delayed 3 hours. It was so delayed that once we were on the plane, we waited another hour on the runway and they fed us a meal to keep us quiet.

Because of our early start and the immense amount of waiting, by the time we got to Hong Kong we were exhausted. However, we noticed the huge difference between Shanghai and Hong Kong right away—the airport was clean! It smelled like good food instead of stale air! We got on the airport express train to take it to Hong Kong Island (where our hotel was), and that was clean too! People were polite! Everything was in English. There were hills and mountains! We were all sort of taken aback. That first night we just went out for some sushi at a Japanese restaurant on Lan Kuai Fang (I don’t know Cantonese, I probably spelled that wrong), which is this awesome area of restaurants and bars, most of which have open air seating and where the whole area becomes a pedestrian area (no cars) after 7:00pm (I think).

The next day (Christmas eve), we took the sky rail (a suspended cable car) on Lantau Island up to the top of this big mountain to see the “largest bronze seated outdoor Buddha in the world.” Apparently the largest bronze standing-up outdoor Buddha is somewhere else. The experience was pretty cool, but I read that the Buddha was finished in 1993, so as Kerry so eloquently put it, it was like seeing a “McBuddha.” Everything was so new. It was pretty, yes, and interesting, sort of, but so touristy. Is there anything in China that is actually old? Because I’ve been here for almost 5 months and everything I’ve seen is “old.”

After seeing the mcbuddha, we went to an outlet mall for a while (I bought a skirt) and then went to the movies to see Casino Royale. Tickets weren’t that expensive, I think it was around $9 US, and since Hong Kong is way more expensive than Shanghai, I was surprised that movie tickets weren’t outrageous. At the movie theatre, I urged Shannon to use the handicapped bathroom, and when I used it after her, I was shocked to find that there was actually a handicapped person waiting for me to get out of the bathroom. I felt so guilty. I’m just so used to mainland China, where all the handicapped people are begging on the street. Just kidding. Kind of.

For dinner, we went to a Panera-type place a few doors down from the hotel, and I had a delicious tomato and mozzarella salad. It was pretty much the best thing I ate in Hong Kong. Oh, and there are 7-11s everywhere in Hong Kong. It was awesome. Shannon was feeling sort of sick that night so we went to 7-11 to get some snacks, and when we were leaving, a choir and band were singing/playing Christmas carols outside the church across the street. It was a nice Christmasy moment, since we didn’t really do anything else special for Christmas eve.

Christmas day, we took the Star Ferry across the bay to Kowloon Island. We pretty much just walked along the bay for a good chunk of the day, admiring the view of Hong Kong and did a little cosmetics shopping, since cosmetics are less expensive in Hong Kong than in Shanghai due to the huge taxes they have to pay on the mainland. We went to dinner at an irish pub (no joke) and I had a reuben sandwich for Christmas dinner. It was no beef Wellington, let me tell you. I was really missing the stuffed salmon and pierogi and latkes and cabbage and pear flan those couple of days. After dinner we went to try to see the light show and fireworks, but as I expected we were moving too slowly at dinner and missed it by like 2 minutes. I was so pissed. But the view of Hong Kong at night is really, really beautiful. After admiring the view for a while, we took the MTR (the mass transit railway, aka the subway) back to Hong Kong island and went back to Lan Kuai Fang to go to some bars. Suffice it to say that we took about a billion pictures and had a really, really fun time. It was way different from how I usually spend Christmas, but it was definitely a nice change of pace. It sort of didn’t feel like Christmas, which in a way is a good or bad thing.

We didn’t have much time on the 26 to do anything super special, so we just went to a random dim sum place near the hotel for lunch. I was satisfied, since that was the one thing I really wanted to do in Hong Kong. The food was good, but not spectacular. Maybe I’m just getting used to it, or maybe you just get what you pay for…but either way, Chinese food hasn’t really been impressing me much lately.

Coming back to Shanghai was such a let-down. The weather in Hong Kong had been 75 and sunny. On Christmas, we were sweating. We were walking around without jackets, surrounded by friendly people who spoke to us in English. At the dim sum restaurant, another patron came up to our table to help us order. She was so nice! All of our cab drivers spoke English, and one of them was joining us in lightheartedly making fun of Shanghai and the way the people there speak Mandarin. So when we arrived at the desolate, dirty, dated, depressing Shanghai Pudong airport, we were clearly unhappy. It’s always nice to come home to your own place and your own bed, but this time, there was a little less excitement. I guess I could say that part of my love for Hong Kong was due to the fact that I had such low expectations, but I don’t think that’s it. It really is an incredible city. For me, it’s the perfect blend of East and West, but then I wonder if that makes me a bad person for wanting Shanghai to be that westernized too. Or, not a bad person, but intolerant of Chinese culture. And Shanghai is definitely more westernized than most cities in China. It’s hard enough dealing with the differences here sometimes, so I can’t really imagine living somewhere more remote.

To anyone planning on visiting China: Hong Kong is a must. You could probably convince me to go with you! More about new year's, etc, later.