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Syndicate DisOrientated
OED adj. confused (someone) so that that they have lost their bearings.
n. Inept escapades of a dropout English journo trapped in the Far East. An eighteen-month evasion from reality.
29 September 2003
Just come back from an interesting class: was helping a student read an article from a Western newspaper in which the terms 'Orwellian' and 'Big Brother' came up. Did a bit of explanation, but spoke to one of them later who had read 1984 and said it had been a popular book in the late '80s. Quite surprising: they don't know much about us, but we don't know much about them either.
Not many tales of swinging Shanghai nightlife this time round since I've been a bit of a saddo and have stayed in most nights. Plus last weekend was a washout. There's a week-long national holiday starting on 1 October, so the university authorities decided that lessons set for Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th October should be moved forward to Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th. If anyone with a philosophy degree out there can work up a logic matrix for this one, I'd be interested in seeing it. Effectively I've had to teach some of my classes three times in an eight-day period and others only once.
Not many tales of swinging Shanghai nightlife this time round since I've been a bit of a saddo and have stayed in most nights. Plus last weekend was a washout. There's a week-long national holiday starting on 1 October, so the university authorities decided that lessons set for Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th October should be moved forward to Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th. If anyone with a philosophy degree out there can work up a logic matrix for this one, I'd be interested in seeing it. Effectively I've had to teach some of my classes three times in an eight-day period and others only once.
26 September 2003
Each class I take ranges from 20 to 55 students, and I'm beginning to pick out a few individual characters. There's one group that has two very tall and lanky students which makes them easy to remember. Another has two quite butch young ladies, Betty and Jessie: Betty tends to turn up in the lipstick and denim skirts while Jessie has cropped hair, one earring and wears the trousers. Poor lass actually took the trouble to explain to me that she wasn't a boy first time I met her, and I didn't have the heart to tell her what Jessie means in Scottish parlance. Betty's actually a real born leader type and I think she will go a long way, if I don't fail her for criticizing my interpretation of China's environment policy.
Another class of about 45 has a guy who sits at the back and somehow manages to be incredibly disruptive without even saying or doing anything. In fact he doesn't even move. He's pretty tall with long hair, looks a bit older than the rest of them and has a permanent 'badass' look about him. All the other students are clearly scared of this bloke and he makes me nervous too. A real kind of James Dean character. Shall have to watch him like a hawk.
Finally there's the class with the 'gang of four'. There's one girl who straight up boasted about her party membership, her mate the basketball captain and another whose daddy is a four-star general. Then finally there's Beryl the Peril, otherwise known as Snoopy, who thoroughly worries me. She's extremely bright, even capable of cracking jokes in English which is quite impressive. She's also very good-looking, assertive and a real attention seeker. I'd asked the class to write down some things they wanted to know about the course etc. and she wrote 1. How do you like Chinese girls? and 2. Do you think of us as children, students or friends? Poor lamb has evidently already fallen in love with me, and who could blame her. I will have to do my utmost to keep this jailbait girlie at arm's length.
Another class of about 45 has a guy who sits at the back and somehow manages to be incredibly disruptive without even saying or doing anything. In fact he doesn't even move. He's pretty tall with long hair, looks a bit older than the rest of them and has a permanent 'badass' look about him. All the other students are clearly scared of this bloke and he makes me nervous too. A real kind of James Dean character. Shall have to watch him like a hawk.
Finally there's the class with the 'gang of four'. There's one girl who straight up boasted about her party membership, her mate the basketball captain and another whose daddy is a four-star general. Then finally there's Beryl the Peril, otherwise known as Snoopy, who thoroughly worries me. She's extremely bright, even capable of cracking jokes in English which is quite impressive. She's also very good-looking, assertive and a real attention seeker. I'd asked the class to write down some things they wanted to know about the course etc. and she wrote 1. How do you like Chinese girls? and 2. Do you think of us as children, students or friends? Poor lamb has evidently already fallen in love with me, and who could blame her. I will have to do my utmost to keep this jailbait girlie at arm's length.
25 September 2003
Work schedule doesn't swing into full effect until 8 October, but I've started to encounter my freshers (60% of my busy schedule is teaching spoken English to 1st years, the rest is 'Newspaper Reading' for 2nd years - this much I have figured out.) Until now, the freshers have been doing compulsory military training. Yep, that's right. Take well over a million 18-year-olds in the PRC as a whole and turn them into soldiers in 10 days. Can't be done.
I saw them arrive at the campus the other day and it was pitiful. A convoy of green army trucks and coaches disgorged their passengers at the foot of my office building and instead of debussing and forming up in an disciplined squad they milled around, laughed and chatted. They'd been kitted out in bright nylon camouflage uniforms that honest to God looked like Action Man playsuits you'd buy at Woolworths and they were wearing TRAINERS for Pete's sake. There were about 10 to 15 exasperated junior NCOs and officers desperately trying to keep order but failing miserably. Don't know what they did to deserve that duty... Honestly, if this is the largest standing army in the world we have nothing to worry about.
I saw them arrive at the campus the other day and it was pitiful. A convoy of green army trucks and coaches disgorged their passengers at the foot of my office building and instead of debussing and forming up in an disciplined squad they milled around, laughed and chatted. They'd been kitted out in bright nylon camouflage uniforms that honest to God looked like Action Man playsuits you'd buy at Woolworths and they were wearing TRAINERS for Pete's sake. There were about 10 to 15 exasperated junior NCOs and officers desperately trying to keep order but failing miserably. Don't know what they did to deserve that duty... Honestly, if this is the largest standing army in the world we have nothing to worry about.
20 September 2003
Also took a day trip to Hangzhou a couple of hours out of Shanghai. Very jolly day out apart from the Costa del Construction on one side of the city's famous lake which spoilt things a bit, plus the grown woman we were sharing a tour boat with who insisted on playing her recently-purchased swanee whistle at full volume as we cruised around the picturesque oriental water gardens etc. Felt like sticking that where the sun don't, I can tell you.Getting home again that day something of a trauma. Took a while to find a taxi, and intellectual Steve, bless him, while directing the cabbie pointed out the wrong train station on the map. We were left in smelly downtown Hangzhou with only half an hour to get to the right station. The problem was compounded by the fact that no taxis would pick us up from there, despite frantic standing in the middle of the traffic and waving. There was evidently some kind of Mafia operation going on and we were on the wrong patch. Eventually hired a minibus for an extorted price and got back to the station, caught the train - which terminated in a different station in smelly downtown Shanghai, just after the Metro had stopped running. Oh joy.
Less exciting was lunch with the Vice President of the University, who admittedly was a charming and pleasant enough guy, quite youngish too, early 40s I’d guess. I had quite an honourable position next to him at the table and kept conversation going as best I could between mouthfuls of cold jellyfish and fried ice-cream, but was fighting a losing battle. Also unexciting was Wednesday’s national teachers’ day (not nearly enough adulation from the students) and Thursday’s mid-Autumn festival. Having been presented by Fortnum and Mason-style hampers of ‘mooncakes’ by the VP, Joe, Libby and I set out to immerse ourselves in the festivities but couldn’t find much going on. Mooncakes kind of sickly things and the ‘traditional’ sort had boiled eggyolk in the middle, which didn’t go down too well.
14 September 2003
Apart from the occasional Sunday night helping out the graduate students with their 'English corner' (last night I raised the topic of beer which kept the conversation going for over an hour until suddenly someone started asking about Western suicide rates, which seriously unnerved me) I've made it to a footie match. My accommodation is just down the road from Hong Kou stadium, Shanghai's answer to Highbury, and a few of us managed to get some tout tickets and watched a warm up match between Shanghai SVC and some second division side from Peru. Quite entertaining, especially the punch up after 15 minutes which saw two red cards, and watching the crowd with all the drums and stuff just like in Europe except noisier.
13 September 2003
For my part have taken a few Chinese lessons laid on by the university but the total immersion technique isn’t really working for me – there’s no English going on at all during the lessons. Most of the time have been repeating weird noises in attempt to master the phonetics. Am trying to organise a personal tutor from among the grad students instead.
And have also attempted to have some fun, too. Last Friday was taken out to a ‘hotpot’ restaurant by one of the helpers from the orientation week – he lives on a campus nearby. The system is that loads of raw food shows up and you chuck it into a bubbling vat of soup embedded in the middle of the table, warmed by a Calorgas cylinder below. Pretty good fare, must be said, until the powercut when chopstick usage became even more impractical.
Afterwards set off with Steve to check out Shanghai nitelife. Looked in place called ‘Shanghai Cat bar’, the title of which should have been ample warning to us. Inside was a gaggle of sex kittens by the bar plus a Gareth-Gates-alike singer belting out ‘Rivers of Babylon’ like a Siamese with a stick up its bum. Made the ultimate mistake of letting my eyes linger on a tall bird with hotpants. She wanders over and promptly envelops me, despite my attempts to ignore her. With this bint leaning on one shoulder and squawking at me and Gareth Gates yelling into the other ear I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable, so politely decline her request to buy her a drink. ‘Why you sorry,’ she wails as I make my exit, ‘Why you SORRRRRYYYY?????’ Apologies, darling, not interested.
And have also attempted to have some fun, too. Last Friday was taken out to a ‘hotpot’ restaurant by one of the helpers from the orientation week – he lives on a campus nearby. The system is that loads of raw food shows up and you chuck it into a bubbling vat of soup embedded in the middle of the table, warmed by a Calorgas cylinder below. Pretty good fare, must be said, until the powercut when chopstick usage became even more impractical.
Afterwards set off with Steve to check out Shanghai nitelife. Looked in place called ‘Shanghai Cat bar’, the title of which should have been ample warning to us. Inside was a gaggle of sex kittens by the bar plus a Gareth-Gates-alike singer belting out ‘Rivers of Babylon’ like a Siamese with a stick up its bum. Made the ultimate mistake of letting my eyes linger on a tall bird with hotpants. She wanders over and promptly envelops me, despite my attempts to ignore her. With this bint leaning on one shoulder and squawking at me and Gareth Gates yelling into the other ear I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable, so politely decline her request to buy her a drink. ‘Why you sorry,’ she wails as I make my exit, ‘Why you SORRRRRYYYY?????’ Apologies, darling, not interested.
10 September 2003
Also got my teaching schedule – only about 12.5 hrs per week plus preparation time, so I’ve got a few hours on my hands to write a novel etc. though being the only Brit means that I’ve got the short straw when it comes to routines – two evenings ending at 8.30 and one morning starting at 8.00. Classes don’t all start straight away either since the freshers are doing intensive military training as all good future accountants should. Took my first couple of classes in ‘Newspaper Reading’ this week. The students did well to hide their disappointment that I’m not from the US. About 50 students per class yet 95 percent female. Most of them are pretty minging and look like they are 12 years old - though the handful of supermodel types all sit at the front, which is kind of distracting. Don’t worry, my hands are remaining firmly OFF.
Some of them seem quite cosmopolitan and are very interested in Western newspapers and journalism etc. while others, some of whom hail from Inner Mongolia etc. (yeah, for real), don’t seem interested at all. Standard of English is OK, and they seem to like asking personal questions eg. ‘what do you think of Chinese women’, ‘why did you REALLY come here, I don’t think you’re interested in our miserable country’. And, of course, there’s the misfit, some kid with a wispy little beard calling himself ‘Dinosaur’. He asked me to tell the class ‘my most cherished memory’ and then hung around at the end telling me all about his love of literature and his aching artistic heart and stuff.
Some of them seem quite cosmopolitan and are very interested in Western newspapers and journalism etc. while others, some of whom hail from Inner Mongolia etc. (yeah, for real), don’t seem interested at all. Standard of English is OK, and they seem to like asking personal questions eg. ‘what do you think of Chinese women’, ‘why did you REALLY come here, I don’t think you’re interested in our miserable country’. And, of course, there’s the misfit, some kid with a wispy little beard calling himself ‘Dinosaur’. He asked me to tell the class ‘my most cherished memory’ and then hung around at the end telling me all about his love of literature and his aching artistic heart and stuff.
04 September 2003
Wang Yifeng, or Jeff, the Waiban, also saw to fixing the problems with my cathedral-sized room, or at least giving the impression. There’s no shower pressure so the fully functional shower head was replaced with another one that broke. The washing machine kept flooding the kitchen so it was moved 15 inches to one side. It still floods but I think that after I’ve got the maid to mop the floor a few more times they’ll get the message. At least the telly got replaced so I can watch tedious English language reports about China (and premiership football) to my heart’s content. I’ve also got the Internet working here so anyone who’s downloaded MSN messenger I’d be happy to chat. So far, cockroach and I have been getting on well despite my original disdain, and he hasn’t been bothering me so much as those naughty Cambodian cockroach scamps did back in May.
03 September 2003
So, after orientation week, what have I been doing? Not much. I’ve met most of the other western teachers now – mainly Americans. There’s a couple called Joe and Libby; a pretty intense self appointed member of the ‘intelligentsia’, Steve, who seems to want to work for 20 hours a day; an elderly New Yorker named Jim; another older chap who we strongly suspect is a kiddy fiddler; a girl called Erin who’s just got here so don’t know much yet; and a Romanian, Simona. So not too isolated by my lack of Chinese abilities,
It took a few days for the university authorities to acknowledge my presence but spent the time shopping for household items, orienting myself etc. Finally the ‘waiban’ (who administrates the foreigners) showed up and handed me 5000 notes in a brown paper envelope. Excellent.
It took a few days for the university authorities to acknowledge my presence but spent the time shopping for household items, orienting myself etc. Finally the ‘waiban’ (who administrates the foreigners) showed up and handed me 5000 notes in a brown paper envelope. Excellent.
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