homework? 我做了！

As an assignment for our business class Kirsti and I attempted to go to a trade show last week, only to find it being torn down at 4pm on a Friday. Finding it impossible to do our homework we returned to our favorite deli to drink away our despair.

On take two, Sherry and I attempted to attend the Shanghai Hortioflorex Trade Show.  We made it... sort of.  It seemed that by the time we got there, at  2 pm on a Saturday, it was about over.  Amongst the plants, flower arrangements, pots and nutrients were forklifts, ladders and boxes.  Given my two experiences, I am not sure if this constant chaos is a regular part of trade shows, a Chinese custom, or just poor form.  We were able to talk to a few business people who were ready to leave the hazardous show room.


We needed some proof that unlike our other assignments, this was not fabricated.

 

Ahhh got to love the Dutch and their tulips

Plastics

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中国奴孩子

No one wants to work on a Saturday.  There wasn't much left of the trade show when we arrived.

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No one wan

Too young to sell

What do all these parents have in common?  Children who are too old to be single.  I walked around People's Park in Shanghai and admired the ads for available bachelors and bachelorettes. Much to my relief, the youngest advertisement I saw was for someone born in 1987.  That gives me one more year to get my shit together.  Men, start forming a line now.




Mom, if you ever decide to pimp me out please attach my ad to a Dior bag.


Too old, too short.  Chinamen, you put a picture on your resume for your future employer but none for your future wife?

Should I stay or should I go?

Don't answer this mom.

I have stood at every end of the spectrum on this debate.  There were times where I definitely wanted to leave (the entire month of January, everytime I set foot into my 11th grade math class) and also times I was set on staying (when I first arrived, during some of my Chinese classes, when students say "thank you", while enjoying my baked pasta in the park this weekend).  So my personal answer whether I should stay or go depends on the week.

If I stay (there will be trouble)...

I would only want to work at Jin Cai.  I am not interested in getting acclimated at another school or moving my things to another city (exception: Hong Kong- although I haven't applied for a single teaching job there).  I don't fit the mold of someone meant to be a career teacher but I know that I can do it.  I have most of my materials saved and I know next year I WILL be a better teacher with putting in much less effort. I feel like I need to stay just to show how much I can improve. I would get a raise, more of a say in what classes I teach and the luxury of a planned curriculum thanks to my awesome note saving organizational skills. On the downside, the hours and most of my students suck.  B level. The most enjoyable ones are the seniors and they will be long gone (actually many are staying in Shanghai and already asked to hang out- haha).

If I go.... go where?

Should I start a new life (again)? The entire lesser developed world awaits me. I say lesser developed because they are much more likely to give a visa to someone based on the fact that they speak English since the developed world improved second language education long before- thus my need to apply for an Italian passport.  It seems like Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East offer the best pay for foreign teachers.  I will not be going there.  It's not that I am not interested in living there its just that my primary objective has always been to learn the language.  That said, I would like to go somewhere Spanish speaking.  Ideally, I'd be in Buenos Aires eating steak and maybe even salsa dancing.  I am fairly sure I could reach near native level Spanish if I lived in Latin America for six or more months... in a place not over populated with English speakers (goodbye cosmopolitan oasis Buenos Aires).  So when I happened to see a job posting for a school in southern (the safer part of) Mexico I decided to apply. Fear not, the flight home from Mexico is a quarter the length and half the price of flying from Shanghai!

However...

Mommy and friends want  me in the USA.  My mom has settled for anywhere in the USA (she rightly assumes I will want to stay on the east coast) while my friends are each trying to lure me to their new hometowns.

In a way a lot of my friends here cannot relate, I feel like I have been away from home for five years, not one.  When I left, my puppy was, well, a puppy.  He was younger than me... and now he is my daddy's age.  He grew a generation! In the time I've been gone my brother graduated two (almost three) schools, my cousins became teenagers, dad's neared his retirement and mom learned to use and iPhone.  This is all kind of crazy to me.  The good news is it seems life has gotten better for everyone (except maybe pup, I mean he got castrated) but I still wish I was there for all the birthdays, snowstorms and CHRISTMASES.  In other good news, the majority of Mexicans believe in God and have a long Christmas holiday.

So the current breakdown is: 30% New York, 30% Miami 30% Mexico and 10% tossup.

	My best friend Mickey the Maltese says "why have you abandoned me? woof!".  No seriously he said that.  He emails me.

Who's the boss? I AM.

Since Chinamen lie and my reserved ticket to Phuket doubled in price over night, I have that instead of spending my money on the beach, I will spend it paying people to do my homework.  When I told my mother this, I thought she would question my academic integrity and I jumped to saying that my professor actually recommended we hire research assistants.  However, she was not scolding me.  She was pleased that I "am a boss".

Frenchie's Research Consultancy. Employees: Three... make that two.  I posted an ad on Echinacities.com looking for a research assistant.  Three of my classmates saw the ad, they made comments, but were not at all eager to do extra homework. Anyways, I actually got almost 20 responses! It was fun to read through resumes.  Interestingly, few Chinese people submitted a cover letter.  I just got emails with no text in the body and a resume attached. They did not hear back from me.  I also head from some foreigners such as one former fraternity president who speaks Spanish and studies Chinese right behind my apartment (we should get in touch... for drinks-- would it be weird if I paid him after?).

Since I was suppose to be going to Phuket next weekend (RIP beach vacation) I wanted to do research this weekend and I took the first two candidates with good resumes who were available. My assistants were suppose to collect 100 surveys and compensated two kuai (30 cents) a survey.  I must suck as an employer because one quit after twenty minutes. 

These are usually the kind of days that piss me off... you know, days in China... bad employees and bad airplane ticket selling men who won't let you go to Phuket for less than your month's salary. But as I right to you from an outside table at Cest La Vie Cafe right on Nanjing Xi Lu life is good. It doesn't hurt that I have a DUNKIN DONUTS(!!!!) coffee in hand and I am waiting on my baked pasta mmmmmm!

Yes that is ketchup on top.  At least they got the coffee right.

Sing us a song you're the copy man

Fact: Christmas never ends in Asia.

 

I established this theory two months and the evidence holds true.

Yesterday I finally ventured back to my gym.  I was on a long hiatus since the weather got decent (I won't say nice, not with all the pollution and RADIATION) and I have been running outside.  Guess what song was playing as I strolled into the locker room.  The Christmas Song (Chesnuts roasting on an open fire).  Instrumental.  Kenny G style.

Further evidence from the week of April 11 (15 weeks after Christmas?) comes from the multi-talented Huang Laoshi.  JCID school has a very strange way of operating.  One case is that the entire school operates on just one printer.  If it breaks, as it often does, well I guess those kids aren't having a quiz today after all (you come into the classroom greeted like a hero but leave feeling stupid because its pretty hard to plan a calc lesson off cuff).  Thankfully we have Huang Laoshi, the most cheerful and multitalented person I have met in China. Although he speaks minimal english beyond the words "copy? and "how many?" he was once heard saying "Long live the People's Republic of China" in perfectly accented English.  Legend has it Huang Laoshi used to be the music teacher.  I am not sure if this is true or how/why he got demoted to copy man.  His current job responsibilities include taking the one copy that we are allowed to print from the ink jet printer and make copies on the larger photo-copy machines.  What he actually does 95% of the time varies.  Sometimes he is playing pool on the computer, sometimes he's in the hallways playing piano, erdu (a Chinese instrument) or most recently accordion.  I feel as though the accordion is extremely out of place in China.  Furthermore, his song selection is even more strange.  Yesterday he was playing Yankee Doodle and today Jingle Bells, furthering my educated theory that Chirstmas never ends in China.  In Huang Laoshi's words, "American? 对吗?"  

 

 We no longer have Christmas or religious or seasonal songs.  Jingle Bells has been reclassified as an American song (and it sounds great on the accordion).

Greeked

There's a reason why sorority recruitment is the longest week of the year.  It isn't the extended hours spent making name tags and hanging decorations in the suite.  Its one week of artificial pleasantries.  The theme of recruitment is ELE, "Everybody Loves Everybody".  I love sister-with-the-weird-social-skills who is pouring drinks in the kitchen, I love our advisors who have never said no to a social plan (cough cough I wish), and I even love the loud Latin girls upstairs who insist on doing step dancing while we are in chapter.  ELE. 

Well, the last eight months that I have been living in China have all been a politely posised ELE scenario and now, I am tired. Events from the last week make me think that the game is changing.  First, a very good night in Hong Kong was laid to ruin when conversation turned to mocking my intelligence in front of strangers.  As I always say, I have a memory like an elephant.  I don't forget. Not even the half a bottle of Chinese Absolute vodka will make me forget.  Then the follow up: I woke up this morning to one roommate yelling through the apartment to another at 9am.  They were heading out to go to Hangzhou, a city an hour south where some of our friends live. Hm I hung out with everyone the day before.  I live with the two of you.  I am wake since you can't leave quietly.  Was I invited? No. Strike 3? The Hangzhou crew comes back in time to tell me about their trip at trivia and not include me yet again in their plans to go drinking after.

Fool me once. shame on you.
Fool me twice shame on me
Fool me three time? FUCK YOU.

I am trained in the art of recruitment and you just lost your bid. Its over.

I used my recruitment "turn a smile into a conversation" skills when I made a new friend yesterday.  This is going to sound strange but I was just picking up my mid-morning cocktails (Japanese wine in a can- so good) when I heard a friendly "bon jour!".  I felt just like Belle.  She seemed lost, for mistaken me as French, and she hurriedly questioning how long I have been here.  After being here just 3 days, she found my eight months in shanghai to be unimaginable.  I knew we had to be friends so I invited her to brunch with me. Of course I didn't know the girls were cooking up a storm and I felt bad for inviting another guest. I tend to make good judgments about people and I hope she earned her mail with her pro-American attitude and stories about how she faked speaking Chinese in an interview in order to get her job at the French consulate in Shanghai.

After brunch I went home and did homework (BLAH) and then met other new friends for an amaaaaazzzingly tasty dinner. There were friends of friends at the dinner and guess what... three are ADPis!!!! It was so cool to meet sisters in China!  We made jokes, gave (secret) handshakes, and gave each other the call throughout the night. This was probably the most comfortable and at home I felt in a long time. 

I am still kinda in the dumps because my job sucks, my classes are a waste of time and money and I haven't made any real friend in eight months.  I remember that I chose to be here and my amazing friends back home keep reminding me of how lucky I am to be living this experience.  I am thankful for everyone's support.  I know it seems like this is Francesca's complaints about China blog but, despite all these cultural differences that I am still getting used to, I am happy here.  I don't regret coming here (I might regret doing this STUPID masters program). My days here are limited and I will be oh so happy to return to my family and beautiful friends :)