Morning: Survival Chinese lessons, followed by a lesson on cultural differences and adapting to life in China.
Lunch.
Afternoon: Free time/casual frisbee throwing in the afternoon. Wandered out to KFC for some egg tarts.
We walked through this really neat area - the Old Shanghai Quarter - on our way to dinner. It would have been nice if we had more time to explore it a little... but, still, I managed to get a few pictures in. By this point, some people in our group had started a little game of "I spy a Starbucks!"
Loads and loads of 'em... sometimes within viewing distance of each other, I think. I might be exaggerating some, but there are definitely more Starbucks in Beijing than I expected.
After dinner, we went on a little river cruise. Pretty pictures. Lots of rain. And gratitude for my raincoat:
After the cruise, we got the chance to explore Shanghai a little bit on our own before returning back to the Faculty Club. Went out with a group of people to a club (took the subway).
If you know me... you know how out of my element I am in a club.
But there I was. The bar manager approached me, wondering about all these foreigners... and I did my best to communicate with him.
Ah- a side note:
Wandering on our own, I got the first taste of something that would happen over and over again in my time here:
People hoping to communicate with the other foreigners would approach me first - despite the fact that a lot of the other CIEE teachers speak better Chinese than I do. When they realize that I'm having difficulty communicating, this conversation would ensue:
"Your Chinese is a little weird... Where are you from?"
"I am American."
"WHAT? Really? How can you be American? You look Chinese."
"I.. uh, well - see, my parents are Chinese, so I am Chinese."
"Ah, I see. What are you doing here?"
"Teaching English."
And so on. If a taxi driver is asking me questions, then.. he (or she) would take this moment to ask me about my salary here. That kind of information is culturally not considered to be private... so it's not considered rude to talk about your salary here. I knew this, growing up as a first generation Chinese American.
More about those little experiences to come.
Let's try and get orientation out of the way first, yeah?
Anyway, after all that... and while some people were dancing, a Chinese guy came up to me. He asked me... to ask another foreign teacher to dance with him.
Think about that for a moment.
"Excuse me, miss. Eh.. can you ask her to dance with me... for me?"
I stared back.
Pointed at the other teacher, who looked at me confused...ly. And shook my head.
"You can ask her yourself. She can speak Chinese."
I thought it was funny, so onto my blog it goes!
After that, of course, back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.
Day 4, here we come!
Hooray for awkwardness!
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