Words, Pictures, Interaction: First Week of Teaching

4/9/2014

I have successfully gone through training and am on the job full time this week. Today is my third day, and my supervisor has said she thinks I am doing well. It is a change from working totally with computers in graphic design, and a welcome change from teaching children to teaching adults. The other teachers are nice and the Chinese tutors, who teach the first levels of the courses, are friendly. I have been assigned one to teach me Chinese, so I am looking forward to being able to understand more of my environment. It's not like living in Europe, where there are common words between the languages. And besides the language barrier, there is the alphabet barrier on top of that!

The school is in a mall in the Songjian District of Shanghai. It is about an hour's ride by subway from downtown. My apartment is actually part of the mall, it is two doors down from one of the main entrances. There are restaurants and a Tesco in the mall, which is sort of like a Walmart in the US. I am sort of in an enclosed environment with everything I need.

I am still getting settled in here, trying to figure out how the appliances work with all the buttons labeled in Chinese characters. I got the internet connection in my apartment a couple days ago, and the landlady came to help me figure out how the A/C-heaters work. I think she has been practicing her English so she can communicate with me. Last night she said, "I can speak Japanese, but not English."--in English, mind you. I told her she was doing very well. Better than my Chinese, and I am in her country! People here are often apologetic for not speaking English, which is a new experience for me.

It is cold here in at night right now and comfortable during the day. I like the spring weather, but it is nice to have heat when you need it. So things are getting more comfortable in my apartment. I went downtown to the IKEA and bought a comfortable desk chair and a mattress, since all that is in the apartment is a box springs on the bed. I guess this is normal here? I 'm not sure actually, but that is how the hotel bed was also. It makes my back hurt, and I will be very glad when the mattress is delivered on Saturday.

I think I love the people of Shanghai, they have all been kind to me (except a taxi driver I when I couldn't tell him where I wanted to go?) and I feel very safe in the City. Like the whole city is my home. The people remind me of Peru, where I grew up, they have some of the same facial features of the tribal people where my parents worked with, high cheek bones and oriental features. Sometimes I almost feel like I am back there.

There have been so many new experiences here every day. I want to remember all of them, but if I don't write them down they become everyday life and I forget the uniqueness of them. I have taken some pictures, but I am still figuring out how to download them to my computer. Figuring out a new phone that has a lot of the directions in Chinese is a challenge! So for now, here is the view from my apartment.