After meeting one of my coworkers I asked her, "What do you like to do on the weekends?" She responded with, "I'm also new here." I took this to mean she didn't know what there was to do around here so I just asked if she liked to go out dancing, go to a bar, do KTV (karaoke), or go out to dinner with friends. To this she responded, "I'm new so I should work on my lesson plans." I said I understood this... "But later in the semester, when you're settled in and you don't have as much work, what do you like to do?" This was not a fruitful conversation, it was more like a "who's on first" conversation. Yesterday I met another 外教 (foreign teacher) she's the Russian teacher and she was so excited to see me - a foreign girl. She reaffirmed my fears - Qinhuangdao is pretty boring. Yeah sure, I'm in China! So everything's new and different, everything's an experience. But when it's nine at night and your options are walk around the dark streets as the stores are closing alone and sitting in your apartment alone... China's really not that interesting.
Qinhuangdao has some amazing sites, I mean the Great Wall of China is in this city. We have beaches so famous that the military comes here to vacations. I also read about a garden that's one of the oldest in all of China. The soccer games for the olympics were held here. I'm a few hours from Beijing. These things are pretty cool. But they all take time and navigation skills (that I don't currently have). At the end of the night you want to go to a bar and meet some people, but they just dont' do that here.
At least I met another person who's as bored as I am and we'll be able to go out and do things. But I still don't understand the Chinese mentality, it's all workworkwork. Most days I don't have class till after lunch but I'm still expected to get to my office at 9 in the morning to "prepare" till 11:30 which is lunch. Then I go to lunch and can go back to my room (for a nap). I have to stay in the building till the end of the day then I can go get dinner.
So if you've been thinking to yourself "She's been writing an awful lot of blog posts..." now you know why! I HAVE NOTHING TO DO ALLLL DAY. You think your job is bad? Yesterday my computer gave out, so I had NO WAY to even pretend I was working on lesson plans, yet at my desk I continued to have to sit. I even got a note on my desk today, reminding me that I'm suposed to be here. The note says this time is called 坐班. 坐 literally means sit and 班 means classroom, but you know the funny thing? I looked it up on google translate and the translation it gave was "imprisoned" I think that's more accurate.
I've heard that a lot of 外教s just sit around and play computer games...
So, yes. All of our stereotypes about Chinese people being amazing workers are true. The students sit in school from 7 till 10 and so do the teachers. They are constantly working. But for what? America might be a lazy country but we thrive on efficiency. We want to get our work done so we can live but in China, as far as I can see - their work is their life. It's a cultural difference and I don't mean to look down on it. It's impressive! Seeing all my colleagues sitting there for hours - working on lesson plans. But for what? Sometimes culture is difficult to understand from an outside point of view.
Want to learn more about Qinhuangdao? Checkout this website my friends made. (There are even some pictures of me on there!) http://qhdconnect.spruz.com/
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