Yesterday I discovered how small this city really is. Not literally of course, 10 million people is still pretty dang big. I actually came across a discussion on an internet site that I frequent. It turned out to be a few people discussing teaching in China, “hey, that’s me!” I thought. Intrigued I read through it, this person lived way down south and had been in the country for a month or so. I kept reading. Came across a message from another member, “…I live in Xi’an…” was the part that really caught my eye. Holy shit, this dude lives in Xi’an too? I must meet this goon. Exchanged phone numbers with the guy, found out his name is Dwayne, and agreed to meet up at Papa John’s pizza near the large Wild Goose Pagoda the next day.
Archive for October, 2009
People, Pizza, and Live Music
October 30th, 2009Medical & Mental Exams
October 26th, 2009Today, after nearly 2 months on the job, I finally had to take my required “aptitude” test and physical examination. It seemed to me that they sure waiting a long time to do this, I thought it should’ve been done, oh… I don’t know, the first week I was here! Oh well.
I met the Foreign Teacher coordinator, Shen Pingde, at 8:30 AM for a ride to the hospital where I’d take my physical. After driving for about an hour, we finally arrived at the hospital. Fortunately, the hospital wasn’t very busy, I was able to start my physical almost immediately. Being in a Chinese hospital is interesting, it’s not much different than an American hospital except for maybe a little less “sterile” feeling. The signs in Chinese and “Chinglish” (Chinese directly translated to English) we’re probably the most entertaining part. A blood sample, an ECG, a chest X-ray, measuring height and weight, and blood pressure test and I was done. In and out in under an hour.
The aptitude test, is actually an official government test, and must be taken through an official government website. I have to register and the test results are available to any school in China. This wouldn’t be so bad if the test was actually legitimate, but in reality it was actually pretty ridiculous. A multiple choice opinion test, a knowledge test, and a short essay. Granted I think it was to prove that you can actually read, write and think in English, it was a bit difficult because the test was obviously written for native speakers, by a non-native speaker. The questions and answers were riddled with Chinglish, not to mention vague and unnecessary. How the hell do I know who the author of some random book about teaching is? What’s that book about? No clue. What’s 81+819+62+(7*7)-150 equal to? Like I’m gonna work that out, I’m sure the Google calculator will though. Then, there’s the essay, “Do you think that the World Cup can help to promote world peace?” Uh, sure? I know most countries care about soccer (except for the USA, of course) in fact they typically care, A LOT. So perhaps the World Cup will keep people from shooting at each other for a couple weeks while they’re glued to the TV, if that is technically world peace, then yes, the World Cup promotes world peace.
I don’t like the fact that this kind of test result will preclude me to any school in China I wish to go to. Judging by what Shen Pingde said about it, which was pretty much that I had to do it because the government says so, and not that my school cares. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about it really. The test can be retaken every 6 months, but if it’s the same as the first test (with different questions) I’m sure it’ll be just as ridiculous as the first time around.
Weekend Trip: Guanshan Grasslands
October 26th, 2009At the end of this week, the 31st to be exact, I will have been in China for 2 months. The last two months have been a lot of fun and a good learning experience, but I just don’t feel like I’ve seen enough of China yet! So this past weekend Jinfei and I decided to take another trip, this time to the Guanshan Grasslands.
The trip to the grassland was pretty interesting in and of itself. It began with a bus ride to the bus station at 7 AM on Saturday morning. A pretty uneventful ride, and an empty-ish bus so I could sit for the 45 minutes. After arriving at the bus station and figuring out where to buy the tickets we purchased a pair of tickets to Baoji, another city in Shaanxi about 2.5 hours away. It was a nice ride on a double-decker bus, and I was happy because I came pretty close to finishing Dan Brown’s newest book, The Lost Symbol, on audio-book.
It was already 11 AM when we finally arrived in Baoji, now we needed to find the local bus station, and get some lunch. A bowl of dao xiao mien later we were walking along the same road where the bus station was supposed to be, and not finding it. We were a bit frustrated. Jinfei decided she wanted to buy a cooked sweet potato from a street vendor, while she was making her purchase I glanced around, taking it all in. What did I find right behind our exact location? The bus station entrance. It looked just like one of the dozens of shops lining the street, nearly hidden, the only thing giving it away were people walking in and out with what looked like luggage in their hands. Jinfei was impressed by me finding it and asked “How did you know where it was?! You’re so smart!”. Honestly, her being impressed is probably warranted, you see, I can barely read Chinese, I can’t tell the difference between the characters for bus station and, well much of anything, they usually just look different on the outside. Ten minutes later, about 1 PM, we’re on another bus to the much smaller town of Long Xian only 55km from the Guanshan Grasslands.
The bus ride from Baoji to Long Xian was a much more interesting ride. The first hour or so was pretty typical, I actually slept for an hour or so. I was awoken from my nap because I could nearly fell out of my seat, I passed it off as some erratic driving. Then I crushed Jinfei in her seat and half a second later nearly fell out of my seat again, I was awake now. We we’re careening around corners, passing big trucks and people on their gas-powered rickshaws, all while going up a mountain. Actually looking out the window this didn’t look as bad as I had thought. On the way down the other side of the mountain we we’re again flying around corners, passing trucks left and right. This bus driver either had a death wish or he had driven this road a few times. I hoped it was the latter. Near the bottom there was a line of trucks along the right side of the road, I figured there was some kind of traffic jam in this narrow road, so what do we do? Pass it on the left. Well that had worked well for the whole trip so far, but not this time.
Windows 7 Launch Party
October 26th, 2009
Last Thursday, October 22nd, was the launch of Microsoft’s newest operating system, Window 7. Microsoft came up with a promotion that they thought might get more people excited about Windows 7, have a launch parties at your homes! The videos are rather humorous, they show a very broad demographic of a young woman, a middle-aged soccer mom, an older lady, a middle-aged guy, and a young black guy. Hardly the people you would envision hanging out and having a party together. But hey, they’re celebrating the Windows 7 release! Call the neighbors, it’s heeeeeere!
My friends and I are big enough nerds that this seemed like a great idea. A great idea to sit around, drink beer, and talk about computers and stuff, kinda like normal. Well, except that I’m in China, and they’re in America. My buddy Evan, a self-professed nerd, fellow Electrical Engineer, and tech nut, scored himself a Windows 7 launch party kit. It was decked out with streamers, napkins, some promotional materials, and a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate signed by Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer. This kit was received early so that you could play with Windows 7 and tell all your friends and neighbors how wonderful it was! Well if you’re tech-savvy at all, you’ve probably been running a Windows 7 release candidate copy on your computer for months now. I have been running Windows 7 since the beta came out… like February.
Apparently Evan went all out for the party and even got his girlfriend to bake a cake and frost it like the Windws orb logo! We had even talked about having the first online streaming launch party ever*! The night came and I sent Evan a message on Twitter, “Get on Skype! I’m here for the party!” Five minutes later and I was in the middle of the party on Evan’s tv, 3000 miles around the world. It was fun, I was able to talk to a few people that I hadn’t had much chance to talk to, give the dozen or so friends of mine a tour of my apartment (including my 3 toilets), and enjoy shooting the shit with them. The only thing I missed out on was the beer, it’s not that I don’t have any, I just didn’t really feel like drinking any since it was still 10 AM! The nerdery was off the chart as we enjoyed our Windows 7 launch party. Great idea Microsoft!
My view of the party
*Well probably not ever, in fact I’m sure someone’s already done it, but it was a first for us!
Day Trip: Weiyang Lake
October 19th, 2009It was such a beautiful fall day today so Jinfei and I decided to take a day trip to Weiyang Lake, only a few kilometers away from school. Since it was so close I wanted to take a “beng beng che” or gas-powered rickshaw, It was an exciting, albeit a bit bumpy, ride. Upon arrival, I discovered that it was actually an amusement park built around the lake. Not exactly the nicest amusement park, in fact, there were many dilapidated rides that no longer functioned, along with games and attractions that had seen better days.
It was to be expected, but didn’t bother me too much. I didn’t come there to go on rides, I just wanted to walk around the lake, and relax in the beautiful weather. We did, however, decide that a few rides were in order, like go-karts! I let Jinfei drive, it was her first time. We ended up crashing twice in the first lap, but once she got the hang of it we made a second lap without issue.
After go-karting and relaxing on the swings it was time to take a paddle-boat out on the lake. After all, what’s a visit to a lake without a little boating? I was a little worried at first that the wind coming across the lake would cause us to capsize, but it turned out that the trike-style paddle boat was pretty solid.
Photos!
October 17th, 2009
I know what you’ve all been waiting for…
Photos!
Click the Photos link in the green navigation bar above to take you to my photo gallery. I’ll be updating the gallery often with many, many photos.
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