T.G.I.F. – Culture Week

This week has been mainly a week of culture training. We finished up most of our teaching practical’s last week (week 2) and we had an instructor come in for cultural training. She did a really good job. It was very practical and very helpful as to what’s going on around us and how that affects us. She actually came with the same organization as I am 26 years ago. So she has been here for a long time and experienced much of it.

One thing I thought was interesting that if you’re from a foreign country and you come into America, you live there, you work there, you learn the language, you adapt to the culture you become… an American. If you come to china, live here, work here, learn the language, adapt to the culture you become… a foreigner whose still in China. No matter how long you’ve been here you’re always a guest. It brings up many interesting points of how we interact. I’d like to share those with you on perhaps another post. Maybe on a day when there’s not as much interesting things to write about will I share those. As I learned today though, “There’s never nothing that happens in China.”
We finished up our training this morning and have been enjoying some restful time this afternoon before our commissioning ceremony tonight. All teachers from all throughout China have made it in now. The full time people often go home during the summer for support and R&R. We’ll all meet at the big office and have our commissioning ceremony which involves some singing, vertical thinking, and just dedication. Afterwards… ice cream!
We did get to eat at a western restraint on Wednesday night and I got some ice cream (milkshake)! We ate at “Peter’s Tex-Mex.” Oh it was soo good. They had pancakes and tacos and milkshakes and oohhhh. It was good. WAIT! The absolute best part was FREE WATER! OHHH FREE WATER! There’s no such thing in China. It’s such an awesome thing we have in America when we go out to eat that you can get water for free! Most of the time, we even get ice in America! It was the best thing, especially after we had walked around for 5/6 hours at the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square (pictures and stories to come later). Most of the time in China if you get water, it’s usually hot water (like tea, minus the tea.) They think that the temperature of the water should match the temperature outside – so hot water in the summer, cold water in the winter. “It will help keep you healthier.” I appreciate the thought, but I really enjoy a cold glass of water on a hot day.
Right now, we have the afternoon off (Friday afternoon for us, Friday early morning for you) and we are packing up. We’ll send out our luggage tomorrow morning by railroad, and our team leaves Sunday morning at 5a.m. to head to our school! I’m very excited about that. I love the community we have here, but I’m really ready to get going and get started. I think most of my fellow teachers feel the same way. I try to update every two days or so, but the next few days will be very, very busy getting to our school on Sunday afternoon. Unpacking, seeing the school, getting paperwork filled out and ID’s made and all before classes start on Wednesday. Oh, and between Sunday and Wednesday we need to find out what classes we’re teaching and what the curriculum is and all of that stuff. Haha. Apparently, as North Americans we highly value planning ahead and are all about information. Other parts of the world don’t make plans way head of time and usually the foreign teachers are the last to know. So if you would like to remember all of us in traveling this weekend, we’re headed to our schools and need to find out what exactly we’re doing. They said the next few weeks will be much more intense than these last few so… Lace up your shoes, we’ll be hitting the ground running. Also, that our team could really support each other – as guys we have a tendency to try to do it ourselves and be very independent and are more susceptible to things.

Thanks for hanging in and reading this all. Sorry for making it so long. I’ll work on being more concise. Love you all.