This was a fantastic week because my good buddy Bryan came all the way to China to visit Laura and I!
Once again, even the same tired old crap that I do in Foshan seemed fun. We went to some great restaurants and treated Bryan to the night market experience. A great memory I will always have is absolutely destroying a whole pot full of crayfish together.
It was a good week for Bryan to come as well since, surprise!, we had very little to do at school this week. We managed to give him a pretty good tour of the school on Friday, though. I wanted him to come to one of my classes and "test" the kids' English skills on a new person, but it didn't come to pass.
With his coming and now going, Laura and I no longer have any visitors coming this year. On the one hand, it's exciting because we're so close to being done, but on the other hand it is a little depressing. All of our visitors this year have really helped us get through some tough months, and Bryan was no exception. It's already halfway through the month of June over here! Time flies when you're having fun, and having company is a great way to have a good time.
We ended the week with a trip to Hong Kong. I was really excited to go back and to experience all the wonderful things HK has to offer. I was also hoping to experience some new things, and we managed to do both!
Just like the trip to Manila, this weekend was largely about food. Sure, we took Bryan to all of the major sights in Hong Kong (we did the boat ride, the walk of stars, and the top of Victoria Peak), but snack time was where it was at!
The highlight of the weekend was my very first ever Dim Sum experience. After waiting this long, I decided I wanted to do it right. We went to Tim Ho Wan, a Michellan Starred restaurant on Kowloon island. I can safely say it was the best Dim Sum I've ever had, but that would undermine just how delicious it was. The pork buns alone were worth the trip. Hell, the pork buns were worth this entire year in China.
This weekend also marks the first time that I ever used AirBNB. Brybry swears by it, but it was new to me. It, too, was fantastic. Staying in a real lived-in home is so much better than a hotel or a hostel. Cheaper and more personable than a hotel, but much quieter and less smelly than a hostel. I think I found my new favorite way to travel!
Aside from the Pork Buns and the Mountain Peak, there is not too much else to note about the weekend. We just enjoyed each other's company and wandered around the vibrant and awesome city. Another cool restaurant was Bao Wow, a place that made Eastern/Western fusion "Bao sandwiches" based loosely on the Baozi steamed buns of China. Amazing!
The bus ride to HK was a lot more interesting than the bus ride back. On the ride toward HK we ended up sitting next to some very chatty Hong Kong citizens who work in Foshan during the week. Their English was perfect and they wanted to learn all about us. It is always really great chatting with friendly and warm people in China, because it is so unexpected. Everyone has different experiences, obviously, and most of our coworkers love how "friendly the Chinese are", but for Laura and I the experience has been largely the opposite. Most people ignore us unless they want to gape and take pictures, and a lot of people are very rude. Friendliness goes a long way toward making me feel good in Asia, and it was a very nice bus ride.
We were sad to see Bryan go, but he had to return to the USA and go back to earning his PhD in something or another, and we had to go back to work.
I've been very active this past week since Laura was a wonderful girlfriend and bought me a new pair of shoes! It has been really great being able to run again and not be in constant pain from the flat and holey shoes of yesteryear. Laura bought them online and then had them shipped to Bryan in Boston, who then was nice enough to schlep them all the way to China. What a pal.
It is always a bummer to come back to the mainland after a weekend in Hong Kong, but this weekend it was especially hard. The knowledge that I have just one month left before I'm back in Hong Kong and boarding a plane out of China is constantly on my mind. Time is moving so slowly! I know I should enjoy the time that we have left, and savor the few things that I truly love here (like night markets), but I'm so very ready to take the next step of my life.
To make matters slightly worse, our next trip was very unceremoniously cancelled at the last minute. The weekend of the 19th was supposed to be a train trip to Xiamen city in Fujian province. I was very excited to see the famous Tulou round houses of Fujian and also the beautiful coastline of Xiamen. Unfortunately, even though we booked the train tickets through a travel agent over 2 months ago, she emailed us on June 5 to tell us that she forgot to buy the tickets, and that they were all now sold out. Luckily she gave us our money back, but she told us of her mistake way too late for us to re-book anywhere. Once again, the weekend of the 19th is a nation-wide holiday in China, so there are over 1 Billion people buying train and plane tickets and going to all of the scenic places in the country.
School wise, things have been winding down. The children are absolutely dead on their feet every single day now. I can't say that I blame them. The school system in this country is so intense, it's a wonder that the kids are able to accomplish it. They have school from mid August until mid July every single year. During the school year, they have class 5.5 days a week (including Sunday afternoons) from 7am until 9pm. Yes, they get a month off in February, and yes they get a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day, but it's clear when you look into the faces of these children that they are completely exhausted. It makes teaching hard because participation drops off, and even the best-behaved children become antsy, cranky, and disruptive.
Yes, we can compare test scores between China and the USA and see that China does better on things like Math, but I have to wonder if it is worth it. The cost is that these kids do not get any sort of childhood to enjoy and have fun, and that they are tired and miserable a large chunk of the time. And what is the benefit? They get *slightly* higher scores compared to other nations, but really the higher scores are not commensurate with the significant increase in the amount of time and effort that gets put into the system. They are working harder, yes, but not more efficiently. A lot of knowledge and learning is lost due to poor attentional skills and exhaustion.
This is not to say that the US is way better. We clearly have a LOT wrong with our school systems, that goes without saying. We could and definitely look toward other countries for ideas on how to improve our system, and we can even learn a lot from China, but I'm not sure that total emulation of their system is a good thing. We (and our kids) should work smarter, not just harder.
The weekend after HK, Laura and I took the FSOT. The FSOT is a test that is part of the application process to become a US Diplomat. While we were in Vietnam (way back in February already!) we met a man who is a current US Diplomat, and he spent some time telling us about the career. It is something that we were both very interested in, and one that we have been researching for a while.
The test is just a first step, and it's a difficult one. The Foreign Service department has one of the most difficult selection processes in the entire government. Apparently it is more difficult to get into the FSO program than it is to get into Harvard!
I can't talk about the test too much for confidentiality reasons, but it was challenging. I think I did well, however. The test took place at the US Embassy in Guangzhou. Laura and I kept saying to each other that it was nice to be back on US soil again. The grounds of the Embassy were really nice. It would have been nice to hang out there for a while, but obviously we had to be escorted out after taking the test.
Results on the test, and the news of whether or not we will get to move on to the next round of interviews, are at least 5 weeks away. I'll keep everyone posted.
My decision to pursue this career comes from one of the biggest things I have learned about myself this year. Even though China has had it's ups and downs, and has largely been disappointing, I have learned how much I love to travel. Traveling is something that is in my blood, and learning about other cultures and ways of life are just as important. A career like one in the Foreign Service would be a great chance to continue doing this and to make a decent living, while also being able to make a difference in the lives of a lot of people who need help.
But it's a long road, and a long way off. The future remains uncertain. For now I just have to keep working at this school and finish off the contract I agreed to.
Bring on the last month.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Week 45: The Rains of Foshan-mere, or, Chill-a in Manila
Okay I forgot to update for like 4 weeks again. Whoops! Instead of cramming 4 weeks of updates in one post, I'm going to subdivide these by each week. Here is what we did the last week of May!
In Foshan, May continued to be really rainy. Just inches and inches of rain every day. Luckily, the end of May was also significantly hotter than the beginning of the month!
If you like being too hot and ALSO too wet, I really recommend Foshan Springs (TM).
School is beginning to wind down. We still have a month left, sure, but at the same time we only have a month left! Remember what elementary school was like during the last month? Well it's like that here in China too. The teachers and kids are all sort of "done", and there are even more side activities and even fewer structured classes. It's making work a lot more fun, and everyone is excited for the summer.
One example of less-than-serious activities is that the children have been making dumplings in the courtyard. It has been a lot of fun watching the students learn how to make traditional Chinese foods, and it was even more fun getting in on the action.
Sure, it was kind of gross watching how none of the 1000 kids washed their hands, how they dropped food on the ground and put it back on the pan, and how sweaty they all were. It was 100 degrees and they were all outside in the sun with their rather-too-heavy school uniforms on.
Oh well, what the heck. It's China. If I'm not eating someone else's dirty sweat and hairs, then I'm not eating at all. The dumplings were pretty tasty too as long as I didn't think about them too much.
On Friday, there was a big celebration for "National Children's Day". They turned the entire school into a carnival with bouncy castles and games. Each of the foreign teachers were assigned to a station to help out.
I was given the "softball" station, which worked like the classic carnie game where you have to knock over milk bottles. It was the hottest day of the year so far (and also it didn't rain for once!), and we were all dying in the heat and the sun.
But it was still a lot of fun watching the little kids having a blast. They all got stamps on a page for winning the various games, and they were able to exchange the stamps for seriously big prizes at the end of the day (Legos!).
There aren't too many days here where I am able to feel like I 100% made the right decision to come to China. Even on days that are pretty good, I am confronted with doubt. Where would I be if I had stayed in the US and gotten a "real job"?
Children's Day was definitely a day where I had no regrets. I am so glad I'm here and so lucky I get to experience thousands of joyous children throwing beanbags at bottles of water in exchange for knockoff Legos.
With the end of the workweek came the end of June. All of the children in China got June 1 off of school as part of the Children's day celebration, so we got the day off too. Not content to just sit around in our bug ridden, mildewy apartment, Laura and I hopped on a plane and went to the Philippines.
We were happy to be accompanied on our trip with our good buddy Leon. He's a good travel companion, and we had a lot of fun. Unfortunately we only had time to go to Manila since it was just a three day weekend. Despite the truncated trip, I still think we got a good taste of the country and the culture of the Philippines, and we did manage to take a quick day trip outside of the city.
The biggest highlights of Manila, for me, was the food and the people. I still like Chinese food but I am SO sick of it! Filipino food was such a refreshing and delicious change of pace, I couldn't get enough of it.
Some of my favorite dishes that we got to try included chicharons (deep fried pig or chicken skin), lechon (crispy fried pork belly), sisig (deep fried pork face and potatoes), and buko pie (apple pie-style dish but with coconut instead). I probably gained five pounds over the weekend, and I still think about a lot of these dishes almost 3 weeks later. Sure, there was plenty of western food available too, but the Filipino food was where it was at.
Manila also had a ton of fast food chains. One of the major "gifts" that the US has left on the Philippines is a huge love of cheap and corporate fast food. In addition to all of the McDonalds and Pizza Huts, the Philippines have tons of their own chains. Jolly Bee is probably the biggest. There was a Jolly Bee on almost every corner of the city.
The people, too, were great. I'm not sure if it was just because of the fact that English is the official language of the company, and therefore much easier to communicate, but the Filipinos were really nice to be around. We had lots of conversations with locals at 7-11s or riding in Jeepneys, and everyone was much more smiley and polite than anything I have experienced in China.
Outside of the food and the people, Manila did not have a ton to offer. There was a pretty nice "oldtown" area that is full of Spanish colonial buildings and churches. This is where we spent most of the first afternoon. It is a big, dirty city with a lot of terrifyingly drastic poverty. Manila has definitely usurped Phnom Penh as the poorest place I have ever been. The poverty here was a lot more desperate and, frankly, a little bit scary. Nothing bad happened, but there were a few close calls this past weekend.
The worst area was definitely Binondo. Binondo is famous for being "the world's first Chinatown", so we kind of wanted to check it out. Big mistake. There was nothing there but slums and nearly naked children running in the streets. There was a lot of begging going on in Manila too.
Another shocking thing, for me, was the pollution. Manila wasn't as smoggy as China, but it was much more polluted. The river that runs through the city doesn't even run at all. It was almost completely solid and completely black. It was so sad and gross to see. The Philippines are some of the most beautiful islands on the planet, and here in the middle of the biggest island is some of the worst active polluting I have ever seen.
Despite these sad parts, it was still a very enjoyable weekend. The hostel that we stayed at was in the suburbs and was absolutely gorgeous. We had a built-in pool and some really friendly staff. The beds were comfortable, even though sleeping ended up being a challenge due to the insane heat. The Philippines are, somehow, way hotter than China or even the mainland of Southeast Asia. I couldn't believe it. So many times this year I have said to myself "surely this is the hottest and most sweaty place on Earth". I have been wrong every single time. I can't imagine what the middle east and west Africa are like....
Our first evening in the city we went to a famous restaurant called "The Aristocrat", and it was very enjoyable. After a delicious lechon and barbecue chicken dinner, we mosied down the street toward a bar area. While we enjoyed some of the local brew (San Miguel! Yummmm), the craziest rain storm of my life started. We ended up stranded in the bar for several hours as the entire city started to flood. We could see outside the windows that the water was very quickly rushing up to meet us. The rain eventually stopped, but Leon and Laura and I started worrying that the bar would flood. If it had rained for even a few more minutes, I think it would have. We banded together with the rest of the Filipino bar patrons, though, and spent the night eating Chicharones and singing Karaoke.
The second day we hopped a bus and left the city for the Batangas region. We trekked to the world's smallest active volcano, and enjoyed the "wilderness" a little bit. The countryside of Luzon island is really beautiful and, heat or no, was a great way to spend a day. True to expectations, the countryside was quieter, cleaner, and even more friendly. We had a delicious lunch at a mom and pop style place that overlooked the volcano before hiring a guy and a motorcycle to take us to the top of the nearest mountain.
Batangas is also where I discovered Buko pie, my newest dessert-related obsession. I'm definitely going to have to make this for myself when I get back to the US and have access to a full kitchen.
Our final day in Manila was spent wandering around the downtown and business districts. Unlike Bonondo, this is the rich area. It was extremely nice, modern, and crazily expensive. We found a cheap little Mexican restaurant to hang out in for a while before our flight, though, and enjoyed some nachos and margaritas.
My final thought on Manila is that, just like a lot of the rest of Asia, the astounding poverty and the shocking riches live very closely side by side. Manila took it to a whole new level though. It is interesting to note that the Philippines was the first democracy in Asia, and is also the only Catholic nation. I don't want to get overly political here, because I'm not even sure what my point is. These are all pretty complex concepts, and it would be way too easy and simple (and wrong) to draw the conclusion that one just causes the other. Either way, it is something that was on my mind all weekend. The poverty was just so bad, and it was right next to some over the top malls and gigantic bank skyscrapers. Are these the things democracy and Catholicism stand for?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I'll ever know. They say "Travel broadens the mind", but really it's not that simple. I don't feel like my year abroad has made me smarter or wiser, but it has certainly made me much more unsure of everything I thought I knew.
In Foshan, May continued to be really rainy. Just inches and inches of rain every day. Luckily, the end of May was also significantly hotter than the beginning of the month!
If you like being too hot and ALSO too wet, I really recommend Foshan Springs (TM).
School is beginning to wind down. We still have a month left, sure, but at the same time we only have a month left! Remember what elementary school was like during the last month? Well it's like that here in China too. The teachers and kids are all sort of "done", and there are even more side activities and even fewer structured classes. It's making work a lot more fun, and everyone is excited for the summer.
One example of less-than-serious activities is that the children have been making dumplings in the courtyard. It has been a lot of fun watching the students learn how to make traditional Chinese foods, and it was even more fun getting in on the action.
Sure, it was kind of gross watching how none of the 1000 kids washed their hands, how they dropped food on the ground and put it back on the pan, and how sweaty they all were. It was 100 degrees and they were all outside in the sun with their rather-too-heavy school uniforms on.
Oh well, what the heck. It's China. If I'm not eating someone else's dirty sweat and hairs, then I'm not eating at all. The dumplings were pretty tasty too as long as I didn't think about them too much.
On Friday, there was a big celebration for "National Children's Day". They turned the entire school into a carnival with bouncy castles and games. Each of the foreign teachers were assigned to a station to help out.
I was given the "softball" station, which worked like the classic carnie game where you have to knock over milk bottles. It was the hottest day of the year so far (and also it didn't rain for once!), and we were all dying in the heat and the sun.
But it was still a lot of fun watching the little kids having a blast. They all got stamps on a page for winning the various games, and they were able to exchange the stamps for seriously big prizes at the end of the day (Legos!).
There aren't too many days here where I am able to feel like I 100% made the right decision to come to China. Even on days that are pretty good, I am confronted with doubt. Where would I be if I had stayed in the US and gotten a "real job"?
Children's Day was definitely a day where I had no regrets. I am so glad I'm here and so lucky I get to experience thousands of joyous children throwing beanbags at bottles of water in exchange for knockoff Legos.
With the end of the workweek came the end of June. All of the children in China got June 1 off of school as part of the Children's day celebration, so we got the day off too. Not content to just sit around in our bug ridden, mildewy apartment, Laura and I hopped on a plane and went to the Philippines.
We were happy to be accompanied on our trip with our good buddy Leon. He's a good travel companion, and we had a lot of fun. Unfortunately we only had time to go to Manila since it was just a three day weekend. Despite the truncated trip, I still think we got a good taste of the country and the culture of the Philippines, and we did manage to take a quick day trip outside of the city.
The biggest highlights of Manila, for me, was the food and the people. I still like Chinese food but I am SO sick of it! Filipino food was such a refreshing and delicious change of pace, I couldn't get enough of it.
Some of my favorite dishes that we got to try included chicharons (deep fried pig or chicken skin), lechon (crispy fried pork belly), sisig (deep fried pork face and potatoes), and buko pie (apple pie-style dish but with coconut instead). I probably gained five pounds over the weekend, and I still think about a lot of these dishes almost 3 weeks later. Sure, there was plenty of western food available too, but the Filipino food was where it was at.
Manila also had a ton of fast food chains. One of the major "gifts" that the US has left on the Philippines is a huge love of cheap and corporate fast food. In addition to all of the McDonalds and Pizza Huts, the Philippines have tons of their own chains. Jolly Bee is probably the biggest. There was a Jolly Bee on almost every corner of the city.
The people, too, were great. I'm not sure if it was just because of the fact that English is the official language of the company, and therefore much easier to communicate, but the Filipinos were really nice to be around. We had lots of conversations with locals at 7-11s or riding in Jeepneys, and everyone was much more smiley and polite than anything I have experienced in China.
Outside of the food and the people, Manila did not have a ton to offer. There was a pretty nice "oldtown" area that is full of Spanish colonial buildings and churches. This is where we spent most of the first afternoon. It is a big, dirty city with a lot of terrifyingly drastic poverty. Manila has definitely usurped Phnom Penh as the poorest place I have ever been. The poverty here was a lot more desperate and, frankly, a little bit scary. Nothing bad happened, but there were a few close calls this past weekend.
The worst area was definitely Binondo. Binondo is famous for being "the world's first Chinatown", so we kind of wanted to check it out. Big mistake. There was nothing there but slums and nearly naked children running in the streets. There was a lot of begging going on in Manila too.
Another shocking thing, for me, was the pollution. Manila wasn't as smoggy as China, but it was much more polluted. The river that runs through the city doesn't even run at all. It was almost completely solid and completely black. It was so sad and gross to see. The Philippines are some of the most beautiful islands on the planet, and here in the middle of the biggest island is some of the worst active polluting I have ever seen.
Despite these sad parts, it was still a very enjoyable weekend. The hostel that we stayed at was in the suburbs and was absolutely gorgeous. We had a built-in pool and some really friendly staff. The beds were comfortable, even though sleeping ended up being a challenge due to the insane heat. The Philippines are, somehow, way hotter than China or even the mainland of Southeast Asia. I couldn't believe it. So many times this year I have said to myself "surely this is the hottest and most sweaty place on Earth". I have been wrong every single time. I can't imagine what the middle east and west Africa are like....
Our first evening in the city we went to a famous restaurant called "The Aristocrat", and it was very enjoyable. After a delicious lechon and barbecue chicken dinner, we mosied down the street toward a bar area. While we enjoyed some of the local brew (San Miguel! Yummmm), the craziest rain storm of my life started. We ended up stranded in the bar for several hours as the entire city started to flood. We could see outside the windows that the water was very quickly rushing up to meet us. The rain eventually stopped, but Leon and Laura and I started worrying that the bar would flood. If it had rained for even a few more minutes, I think it would have. We banded together with the rest of the Filipino bar patrons, though, and spent the night eating Chicharones and singing Karaoke.
The second day we hopped a bus and left the city for the Batangas region. We trekked to the world's smallest active volcano, and enjoyed the "wilderness" a little bit. The countryside of Luzon island is really beautiful and, heat or no, was a great way to spend a day. True to expectations, the countryside was quieter, cleaner, and even more friendly. We had a delicious lunch at a mom and pop style place that overlooked the volcano before hiring a guy and a motorcycle to take us to the top of the nearest mountain.
Batangas is also where I discovered Buko pie, my newest dessert-related obsession. I'm definitely going to have to make this for myself when I get back to the US and have access to a full kitchen.
Our final day in Manila was spent wandering around the downtown and business districts. Unlike Bonondo, this is the rich area. It was extremely nice, modern, and crazily expensive. We found a cheap little Mexican restaurant to hang out in for a while before our flight, though, and enjoyed some nachos and margaritas.
My final thought on Manila is that, just like a lot of the rest of Asia, the astounding poverty and the shocking riches live very closely side by side. Manila took it to a whole new level though. It is interesting to note that the Philippines was the first democracy in Asia, and is also the only Catholic nation. I don't want to get overly political here, because I'm not even sure what my point is. These are all pretty complex concepts, and it would be way too easy and simple (and wrong) to draw the conclusion that one just causes the other. Either way, it is something that was on my mind all weekend. The poverty was just so bad, and it was right next to some over the top malls and gigantic bank skyscrapers. Are these the things democracy and Catholicism stand for?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I'll ever know. They say "Travel broadens the mind", but really it's not that simple. I don't feel like my year abroad has made me smarter or wiser, but it has certainly made me much more unsure of everything I thought I knew.
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