July 7th - And we are off to Rugao!

Day 10 of the Adventure – Orientation in the Morning; Travel to Rugao in the Afternoon - a BIG day!!

We began the day with breakfast and nerves, knowing that our day was beginning in Nanjing, but ending in the various cities where we would be teaching for the next two weeks.  At breakfast, as excited as we were for the orientation and finally taking the mystery out of knowing what our host city and teaching situation was going to be like, we were sooooo sad to be splitting up our tour group.  Nancy and Theresa, with whom we three (DeAnn, Lisa, and Linda) had had our countless adventures, were going to be staying in Nanjing to teach, while we three were heading to Rugao.  The gang of five was going to experience a partial separation.  We had grown to love them and so appreciate their companionship; it was hard to imagine going on Adventure: Phase Two without them.  So breakfast was a little bittersweet.  It’d be two more weeks before we’d be together for breakfast again, post teaching, back in Shanghai.  During breakfast we eyed our two new companions, sitting across the room, Kay and Diana, wondering how we’d all mesh.  Our experience with Nancy and Theresa was going to be a hard act to follow.  We had little time to ponder this as we quickly pulled ourselves together, packing up in the hotel rooms, preparing for the opening ceremony and leaving.  Packed to go, we headed back down to the huge conference room for the opening ceremony.

The opening ceremony turned out to be a semi-formal affair, with folk dressed, as suggested, in the nicest thing they’d brought with them to China. There were rows and rows of tables with teacher name tags facing the front of the room where there was a huge banner welcoming all of us under which there was a long table where the speakers sat: the director of the Jiangsu Province Teacher Training Division, our representative for the United States (our ever smiling Gloria Juedemann), the Canadian representative, the director of JESIE, and a Chinese translator.  Whereas it could have been pretty tedious listening to all sorts of long speeches that were then translated either from Chinese to English or from English to Chinese, all in all, things clipped along rather quickly, and listening to the translations was rather interesting…kind of novel.  One bit of humorous advice we were given by one of the Chinese speakers was that the date printed on food in China is not the food’s expiration date, as it is in the States, but rather, its date of production.  (Good to know.)  He also gave us a little geography lesson, letting us know that Jiangsu Province is located at the Yangtze River delta and its population is over 7.8 million.  2013 is the 10^th year of the Teachers Training Program.  One hundred twenty teachers of English were being sent to thirty-two municipalities and counties and fifty-seven training sites, which would result in over four thousand Chinese teachers being trained (most of them from the countryside).  We were also given a little more history, letting us know that Nanjing had been China’s capital for six dynasties, and was still a very influential city with a deep sense of history. While the ceremony wasn’t all that long, it felt quite auspicious.  The gathering wrapped up with us being instructed to find the folk in charge of us for the next two weeks. 

Gloria and Charles had introduced Bobby to our little group before everyone had been seated.  They were thoroughly excited to see Bobby again.  Gloria and Charles had done a teaching stint in Rugao just last year, during which they’d spent time with Bobby.  It didn’t take us long to understand why they were so happy to see him again and were also happy for us.  After a huge group photo and checking out of the hotel, we were soon in yet another minivan, making our way from Nanjing to Rugao, with Bobby and Mr. Zhou (his boss, driector of the training program for Rugao Teachers College, who speaks little to no English).  It took little time to discern that Bobby was supremely warm and friendly, enthusiastic about working with us, and full of information in terms of his place of employment and China.  He quickly became our “go to” man.

On the ride to Rugao, Bobby gave us a bit about the lay of the land: that we’d each have about 30 students, all of whom were elementary school teachers.  A few of the teachers had been students of his (though Bobby is a young man) at Rugao Normal Teachers College, where the summer workshop is held in Rugao.  Anna, whom we’d meet shortly, was our other “go to” person.  She’s the director of the foreign language programs at Rugao Normal Teachers College, and a woman among few others in such a position at her school.  (She also turned out to be absolutely awesome.)  Bobby continued on to say that we’d be staying at a hotel not too far from the school and we’d be able to walk to school each morning.  (This was already excellent news, as we’d heard of other situations where teachers were reliant upon being shuttled or taking a bus each morning. Being able to walk offered us more freedom.)  We’d each have a Chinese assistant in our classroom who’d be there to jump in and take care of whatever was needed, like copies, computer help, translations as needed, etc.  We’d eat breakfast at the hotel, and have lunch and most dinners in the dining facility at the school. 

We learned that Bobby wasn’t originally from Rugao, but moved there to teach at the teachers college.  He was married and had a little two-year-old girl.  [Maybe Bobby gave us this bit of information in the context of talking about his daughter, and that is that often times in naming a female child in China, parents will use the name of a plant or flower “to praise the woman.”]  Because their apartment was being remodeled, he and his wife and daughter were living with his in-laws.  Bobby seemed to really like Rugao, though, and reminded us of the information we’d gleaned from our internet reading: that Rugao’s history started back in 441 and that it is known for its bonsai and centenarians (ranked 6^th in the world for people living over a hundred!).  We also learned that “bonsai” is a Japanese word and that the same term in Chinese translates as “potted landscape” (the preferred term in China, to be sure).  We also learned that a potted landscape can be either a tree (thoughtfully pruned) or a potted rock formation/arrangement.  So, we were on our way to Rugao, the land of milk and honey, fish and rice, with a population of 1,400,000 - - pretty small by Chinese standards.

Bobby gave us a smattering of information ranging from the fact that most elementary school classes in China are about 50-60 students and that there are currently 242 million students in primary and middle schools in China learning English (what!?).  Classes are generally 45 minutes long, with students having three morning classes and two in the afternoon.  School usually starts at 8:00 or so.  We asked about extracurricular activities, and Bobby said that most of those kinds of activities are done during summer vacations, though parents do sign their children up for after school classes; these classes are generally not associated with the school, though.  For most students, there is a long afternoon break, where students either eat lunch at school and then have time to study, play, or relax, or when they live close enough, go home and have lunch.  Here he commented that it’s a “belief” in China that cats have nine lives because they take naps, and if people want to have long lives, they should do the same.  [How true we’d already found this to be, as so many shops were closed and the streets less jam-packed during the noon hours - - the hottest part of the day, when it makes good sense just to sleep.]  In terms of students learning Chinese language, all schools are taught in Mandarin, as there are so many dialects.  Mandarin is the common denominator.  Where the characters in the various dialects are the same, the pronunciation might be different.

Although it really wasn’t a horribly long trip to Rugao (2 hours or so), after the van ride and the excitement of the morning, we were wiped out.  Nonetheless, meeting our hosts and dinner awaited us.  As we made our way into Rugao, it seemed kind of industrial-park-like on its outskirts.  But as we got farther on, deeper into the city proper, there was more activity, as well as more greenery.  And the bikes and motorcycles whizzed by.  Once we started seeing pedestrian traffic, though, it did seem that the pace here in Rugao was a bit slower.  There seemed to be the same bustle but not quite as much hustle as there’d been in Nanjing.  Then again, it was a Sunday evening.  Our hotel was oddly oriented, with its lobby on the third floor and a second floor restaurant.  Our bags were unloaded and taken up to our fourth floor rooms, while we made a stop with Bobby in the lobby to take care of checking in, showing our passports, and getting tickets for breakfast the next morning.  When we made it up to our rooms, there was such a desire to flop down on the bed and call it a night, or to start unpacking in order to get things ready for tomorrow’s first day of school.  We won’t even talk about how lovely the rooms were.  Instead, we had to quickly head back downstairs to convene for dinner.  We took the van the short route down the street that we’d be walking in the days to come and pulled in through the black iron gates of the college, as the man in the security guard booth rolled them open for us.  

We walked into what seemed to be a labyrinth of buildings and hallways, some old and some newer, through a small courtyard, and then through some sliding doors, into a room with a long table.  In front of many of the seats there were offerings of fruit, which looked delicious, but verboten.  Lovely cherries, grapes, and what we’d later learn was lychee.  It turned out to be the only fruit laid out that we could eat, since it had to be peeled.  Already, we were worried about offending.  Here they’d gone to all sorts of trouble to have for us a welcoming snack, but we hesitated to consume anything, having been warned against eating any unpeeled fruit while in China.  So far, we’d been pretty darn careful, eating melon (watermelon being the sign of the end of a meal) bananas and citrus only.  So, we eyed each other furtively, silently wondering what to do with the fruit…who was going to take the first bite. 

Well, just as DeAnn had enthusiastically volunteered to be our spokesperson for tomorrow’s opening ceremony with the students, she also made the leap to stick a cherry in her mouth.  Lisa mouthed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” and the rest of us sent out a silent, “Nooooooooooo.”  But there she was, taking one for the team, making us all not look like ingrates, AND enjoying a delicious looking cherry.  One of us piped up and asked about the lychee, for which we were rewarded with a lesson in how to peel it.  Delicious!  Too bad it doesn’t show up in American grocery stores; or maybe it does, and we’ve never noticed it before, since we didn’t know what it was.  The list of new grocery items we are going to be looking for once we return home is growing.  After the awkward food moment, we got on with introductions, and met Mr. Wong, the school’s president.  He was introduced by Bobby, who it became obvious was the official and unofficial translator.  Mr. Wong was rather grand in his introduction of himself and in welcoming us to his historical school. 

This was projected on the screen in the conference room.  No pressure!

Tried to snap a discreet photo upon exiting our official welcome meeting.  Note the mostly untouched fruit. :(

Rugao Normal Teachers College has over a hundred year history.  It was established in 1902 as a school for preparing kindergarten through primary school teachers, and is one of five thousand historical protected school sites in all China (which may not seem like that big of a deal, but let’s consider how old China is and how many schools there must be, and 1/5000 takes on more significance).  Later, as we walked to dinner, he’d take us by the walk of fame, where large captioned photographs of former school heads and accomplished faculty hung along an outside wall sheltered by a walkway awning.  Mr. Wong was very proud of his school’s history and its standing in the educational community.  He was also very proud of the school being a founding member in hosting English speaking teachers for the student summer institute and welcomed us heartily.  While we were still around the table, we were also introduced to Anna and Mr. Jung, Directors of the Foreign Language Dept., and also to our teacher assistants, Lydia (for DeAnn), Portia (for Kay), Annabelle (for Linda), Christina (for Lisa) and Bobby (who was not only right-hand-man to us all, but also assigned to Diana as her assistant).  Nervous and friendly smiles were exchanged as we got up to leave and head over to the dining hall.  Already it was dark, so though dinner was happening in the same complex, it felt like a long and complicated walk to get there.  We were so tired, and dinner was only just beginning.

Ok.  Much though we would have liked it not to have been, dinner was a long and protracted affair.  We ate in a small side room within the dining hall facility - - large round table, huge round lazy Susan.  Thankfully we’d had Gloria’s multiple admonishings to accepting beer from the onset, because if we had, we’d have been under the table with all the toasts and “bottoms up” that were proposed and made. What a tricky Chinese tradition to navigate.  And the food just kept coming and coming - - some of it quite familiar and even more tasty, along with other dishes completely unfamiliar and a little too exotic for anyone’s taste.  From shrimp, pork dumplings, and eggplant, to puffer fish, a dramatically filleted catfish called “squirrel fish,” bullfrog, snails, and…sparrows.  Yes, a large bowl of whole sparrows (head to tail, fried up crispy – a sight to behold).  Diana was the brave one to take one for the team, this time.  We all watched her as she crunched one little sparrow.  Later, Bobby admitted that he was not a sparrow eater himself.  We Americans weren’t the only ones to slight some of the more exotic offerings.  Dinner really did seem to last forever, with dishes getting more and more exotic as the night wore on, and us getting more and more anxious about getting to our rooms and looking at our teaching materials.  We had to teach in the morning, which seemed unimaginable, given how sleepy we were.  It had been a very long day.

Sparrows

Squirrel Fish

Back at the hotel, though bed beckoned, we went about the business of figuring out what to do on the first day of school.  First we had the opening ceremony to get through.  We’d written up an introduction for our volunteer spokesperson DeAnn, in the car, and then each our own little intro.  Bobby, who had obviously drawn the short straw, had hotel duty with the Americans on our first night in Rugao. He had his homework cut out for him, too, in that he had to translate all that we’d written up in the car from English to Chinese, for tomorrow’s ceremony.  Yes, we’d had an opening event in Nanjing, but now we were in Rugao, and the college needed to have an assembly to kick things off.  Knowing that our first order of business was to stand up in front of 150 Chinese students and assistants didn’t create a calming effect as we were trying to re-familiarize ourselves with what we’d planned and packed for the first day of class.

It was kind of weird that we all adjourned to our individual rooms.  We’d been rooming together for the week plus of the tour and had become quite accustomed to comfortable silences between us, as well as consulting each other about the most mundane detail of critical importance.  So, it was kind of a lonely franticness we felt as we went about trying to settle in and plan for Day 1 of teaching.  Some of the things to figure out were getting on line in the hotel room.  That took a bit of consulting with each other (a.k.a., a little trip down the hall to help each other out) about how to get on line and use Astrill to get around China’s blocking of Google, our access to our blog, and other forbidden goodies.  And then there were the refrigerators.  They needed to be relocated from the closets and plugged in.  Oh, and here’s a big one…and quite clever:  All of the Chinese hotel rooms we’d been in, and this one was no exception, are rigged in such a way that the room key is needed to turn on the air-conditioning.  So, often one walks in and the room is warm.  You cool it off while you’re in it by putting the hotel key-card into a slot just inside the door to activate the electricity (lights, refrigerator, air-conditioning, etc.) and then it shuts off as you leave the room and take your key.  Nice little energy-saving situation, which seems to be pretty standard fare.  Too bad for anyone who wants to buy and keep yogurt in the fridge, though, since it warms up during the day.  Let’s say here, though, that we were quite well outfitted.  Really lovely hotel room with double beds, so we could sleep in one and spread lessons out on the other.  A good-sized bathroom and yes, a refrigerator!  We all, also, faced the street where we could see the traffic buzz by.  We were all sighing with a sense of relief and thankfulness.  We’d heard of a few situations that had landed teachers in less than desirable circumstance - - doable, but not enjoyable.  We were not only going to be quite comfortable (I’m jumping ahead here) but we would soon be informed that we could give our laundry to the hotel to be done. [Side note: and please forgive if this is in any way wrong to say, but the Chinese laundry did not disappoint.  Once we did get our laundry done, we all concur that our clothes were cleaner and crisper than when they were purchased - - arriving back in our hotel rooms folded and packaged in clear cellophane bags, carefully and individually tagged.  Really, it was quite amazing.] The unexpected joy!

After getting the basics situated, it was all about lesson planning - unpacking and looking at what we’d organized and planned so many days before.  The day of reckoning was upon us.  Reunited with our lesson plans, we wrote our morning messages on the big chart paper we’d lugged all the way to China.  We pulled out our morning meeting greetings, our list of goals, and activities galore.  How much would we need?  How much would we get through?  Had we brought enough or lugged entirely too much across the earth?  How much did they already know?  What would they expect of us?  What should our expectations of them be?  WHO were our students going to be?  We all went to bed with pre-game jitters.   

Below are just a few early pictures of what would soon become our much loved home away from home, the city of Rugao.

All of us (teachers, assistants, plus Anna) outside of the original entrance to the college.

Morning views from DeAnn's hotel room.

Two canals encircle Rugao.  We crossed both on our walks to and from school each day.

Just outside the college's original wall.

Our hotel.

Darling little man who was quite amused to see foreigners in his city.

Got such a kick out of watching this traffic cop each morning and afternoon.  No one seemed to pay one lick of attention to her!

These little dogs barked at us ferociously without fail each morning and evening.

This gentlemen put on quite the show one evening as he wrestled with a fish in the canal.

Up next - the fun really begins.  Teaching!!!