Things are looking up, somewhat.

On the weekend, rae and I did a demo class for a new franchise way out in the suburbs. It was the standard fare of giving a class with an exagerated enthusiasm. The point is to make them like me so that they sign up. By the time they realise I am not going to be their teacher it is too late, they have already paid their money. Anyway there we met a guy who had studied and worked in Canada for four years. He was similar to Max in that he was an open-minded Chinese person. Patriotic, but not mindlessly so. He reaffirmed my faith in humanity and of the inteligence of the Chinese upper class, the ones who see the world beyond the propaganda.

Just now, I am having an msn conversation with roger. He is repeating all of the "China must rule the world" shit that made me hate this place to begin with. Now, I know that he is a special case, but it is really upseting.

I am happy that Rae and I are planning on getting the fuck out of here, if only for a short time. I don't think I could ever love this country. I am starting to wonder if I can like it. It will take a lot more people like Max and a lot fewer people like roger if I will.

Marc

Continualy struck by the greyness of it all...

The air, the roads, the buildings, the hutongs, people's clothes and faces... it is all just different shades of grey. What I would give for one Vancouver sunset from my window...

The sky turns orange and purple over the flickering lights of Kits and the black shiluette of Vancouver Island. Or a walk around Coal Harbour. The blue water reflecting the blue sky with the green of the forested mountains beconing me from the other side... Perhaps there is still some snow on the mountain tops...

I can not live like this forever.

I am starting to see cracks form in my relationship with Rae. With Rae's return to Vancouver fast approaching, it is not something that either of us can avoid thinking about. At the same time, I can see that she does not enjoy spending time with me and other English speakers, like my roommate. She did not seem to enjoy the meal we had with Vincent's French friends, even though we spent the vast majority of the night speaking English. This is a problem for me because I am a social person and as such I like to go out, to talk to people, to see friends, etc... As much as I love Rae and enjoy her company, I can not let her have me all to herself.

I know less now about what to do than I did one, three or six months ago. With each passing day, we both grow more attached but the inevitable also grows closer. If we stay together, what is the use? So see eachother again in one year, when I will have to go away again? But, if we do break up... I don't even want to think about that... is there some other way? The only thing I know I can do is try to get as much out of our life together now while we are together.

I find myself fearing Chinese power. I fear a war. I have a hard time talking to Chinese people because they all have the same narrow nationalist ideas. This makes it much more difficult for me to want to study the language or learn anything more about the culture, let alone make friends. I don't want to hear that "China has a long history" again from people who are completely ignorant of the history of other parts of the world. I don't want to hear anyone else say that they love their country without ever having seen anything else. Maybe people here should see the countries they hate like Japan and America before saying anything bad about them. I think I liked this country more before I spoke the language... Communism and nationalism are truly terrifying things.

Marc

The air today was terrible. I don't even think the visibility was one kilometer. My lungs feel as if I have been smoking, I get tired easily, I can't imagine why the air can be this bad.

All of us in the apartment seem to have fallen into a decent schedual. We are all working afternoons/evenings and we are all working enough to keep us happy. The way it usually goes is that we come home (the order in which we come home depends on the day, although Rae is always last) have a drink of some Chinese alcohol, which is actually pretty good once you go up market from that horrible Er guo tou stuff, talk about life here, then go down to the restaurant for some food and more drinks before we come back up to talk some more and go to bed around 1. The restaurant we go to is one of the nicer ones in our somewhat shabby neighbourhood. It is the one that used to have an English speaking waitress. The food is good and reasonably priced, but I think the most important thing is that it is clean and has good air conditioning.
Since we have fallen into this rythm, the relations between the roommates has gotten better. We all seem to get along, if only because we are the only people that any of us actually hangs out with.

One cool thing that has happened this week is that one of my new students is one of the head guys at the China Development Bank. He is smart and professional and he treats me quite well. Also, unlike most of my other students, he seems to know what he wants to learn and why he wants to learn it. This is very fun for me because he seems to be genuninely interested in Western culture. Today I taught him a lot about nightlife and kept asking questions about the customs in North America. I think I gave him enough to satisfy him. Of course, the best thing about having him as a student is that if I can make a good impression on him, I know he could be very useful for me in finding a job.

Yesterday I found out that I was accepted at the Beijing Language University. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they are more experienced at teaching Chinese to foreigners, but on the other hand, there are going to be too many foreigners there. It might be like Singapore all over again which is not something I am really looking for right now. I think when the consulate officially notifies me of this, I will respond by asking if I can go to one of the other, more Chinese, univerisities.

Regardless of the university I go to, I have been thinking about doing a homestay with a Chinese family for the duration of my studies. Although it might be very restrictive on my lfestyle, and perhaps even not be very fun at all, just having a fully Chinese living environment will surely force me to speak more Chinese and will ultimately be helpful. A second alternative is to find an apartment with Chinese roommates. I think this would work best if I could find a way to get good roommates, or it could just be like living with a complete stranger. All I know is that right now I have to think about my options.

Marc

So, a new blog post. now I know that I have at least one reader so I will do it for his benefit as well as mine.

So, I am back from ping ding shan. the bus ride back was the worst experience I have had in China. First, we were not able to get a train ticket, so our boss got us a ticket on a "luxury" bus. it was terrible. The bus was a normal sized bus but instead of having 40 seats, it had more than 50. This meant that there was no leg room for anyone aside from those sitting in the front seat (me and Rae, Sean paid extra for that) . Also, there was no bus station. The bus went around on the shitty road picking up passengers. We did this for about 4 hours. At first, we had hope that we would get on the highway soon, but then, as the buss filled up and then went way over capacity, we lost all faith in the humanity of the bus driver and his helpers. Eventually, it got to the point where the whole isle was filled up with people and there were 11 people sitting on a bed thing that was the size of 4 or 6 seats. It was madness. On one side of me there were just so many people that I could not bear to watch. On the other side of me was Rae, who was very affected by this whole thing. The whole terrible ride took a total of 13 hours. We got back to Beijing exausted, but happy to be home.

When we got here we saw our new roommate, Paul. Paul is a cool guy who I have met a few times before through Gabe. He is an English major at UBC with one year left who is just here for the hell of it. We are getting along pretty well. I guess I will have to continue this later, becaue I have to go.

Marc

People from Henan are liars!

I should have listened to Carolynn and the countless Chinese people who warned me. My boss is a big liar. He has built his school and the whole promotional campaign around the school on the presence of foreign teachers. In the event, there will be no foreign teachers. My boss, Sean, has given up on trying to hire one. He is actually standing up the guy who thinks he will be the foreign teacher for this school. He is even turning me and rae into liars to all of the parents and kids we told that there would be a foreign teacher here. It turns out that the only reason we are here right now is so that parents and kids can see me as classes start.

Anyway, I guess now I have little choice. I can either call my boss a liar to his face and ask him to pay us now so that we can leave, or we can ride out the rest of the week lying to everyone we meet so that we can get paid again and avoid extreme embarassment on all sides. I think we will go the soft option, but not without some guilt.

Now, let me reflect on what has happened lately. The boss here, Sean called rae about a week and a half ago begging us to come back and help him. the first time we were here, we grew quite attached to him and this school. We felt as if we were a part of it, afterall, we were in all of the promotional material. So, as we were not overly busy we decided to come down as soon as we could.

When we got here, they had a whole big event planned for us. We were giving classes in front of McDonalds downtown for everyone who walked by. In addition, when we were not in class, Rae and the staff went around asking people if they wanted the chance to talk to a foreigner. Parents would all push thier kids into talking to me as a way of improving their English, and perhaps as a way of broadening their horizons. The next day, we got to work ready to do our best to help the school. For me this meant giving more demo classes to the kids who came in, but for Rae, it meant hanging out in the office and doing nothing. At the end of this day, Rae had a very bad feeling.

Have to go