TCB (Nicki)

(This post was originally written on August 27.)

Within our first 24 hours of having arrived in Shanghai we had found an apartment, signed a lease and opened bank accounts. Over the next few days, we moved from our hotel into the apartment, visited our school for the first time and met the amazing staff we’d been in communication with, registered at the local police station, set up internet access in our home, and went shopping to buy bedding, towels, and dishes for the apartment. 

Over the weekend we got to catch up with old friends of mine. It turns out that my friend Angela, who was briefly my language partner in Taiwan before she moved to Shanghai for graduate school, lives in Jing’an, just around the corner from where we were staying. We met her at the entrance of the subway and then walked a bit farther north to the French Concession, an area of Jing’an that’s really popular with foreigners. She took us to dinner at her favorite restaurant, and then we walked around the tree-lined streets, ducking our heads in shops, and taking a look at all the hip bars, restaurants, and coffee shops. We were all feeling a little thirsty, so we stopped in a cozy Italian restaurant that had an extensive drink list. The heat had me so exhausted and thirsty that I opted for a cold, non-alcoholic drink, and I’m so glad I did, because I’m STILL thinking about how delicious it was. I ordered a sparkling water beverage made with strawberry puree and basil, and Mike had sparkling lemonade. We walked around a bit more, and then headed back to the hotel for a good night’s rest. 

Sunday morning was a little hectic as we rushed around town trying to find a bank that would allow us to withdraw the amount of money needed to pay 3-months’ rent plus a 1-month deposit to our landlord, but in the end we were rewarded with enough downtime to enjoy a delicious curry lunch in a food eatery near our hotel. We went back to the hotel and (accidentally) took naps before meeting my friends Emily and Ben at their home in Pudong. Emily and Ben are two of my favorite people. I met Emily on the first day of teacher training in Hsinchu, Taiwan in the fall of 2010. She and I were the most talkative, enthusiastic people in the class, and quickly bonded. We found that we would both be teaching at the same school branch in Taipei, and there we met Ben, a tall, handsome Kiwi (New Zealand native). Emily and Ben started dating and she and I would talk about all things love-related on Friday nights after classes ended at 8pm, usually over a bottle of wine. She and I and the three other teachers were all very close, so we would spend a lot of Friday nights together.

When I moved back home for graduate school, Ben left to continue his travels around Asia, but soon he found himself back in Taiwan to be with Emily. They got engaged and they moved to Nanjing, China, where they began expanding American Eagle schools into China. They got married in March 2014, and Emily had asked me to be a bridesmaid, but my teaching schedule wouldn’t allow me to make the journey to either Taiwan or New Zealand for their double ceremonies. Sadly, she and Ben were unable to attend our wedding as they had just flown out to the States to visit her sister and her new baby. Emily has since given birth to a beautiful baby girl named Chloe, and Mike and I had the pleasure of meeting her and her awesome parents last Sunday at their house for dinner. It was so strange to be together again in China and to feel like no time had passed at all even as we talked about how our lifestyles have changed. It meant everything to me to see them, and Mike and I had to race out the door when we realized the last subway train would soon be arriving.  

On Wednesday I started a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate course that I need in order to obtain “Foreign Expert” status and, ultimately, a work visa. It takes me about an hour to get there by subway, so I leave around 7:30am and usually make it home by 6:00pm. Many of the other teachers travel from other parts of the country to attend the course, so we have classes on Saturday and Sunday to make their trip to Shanghai as efficient as possible. I just finished my practicum today, and I was very pleased with my Little Blue Truck lesson. I received positive feedback from the co-teacher present, and most importantly, the students were engaged. It has been a bit draining being in class all day and then coming home to do reading and homework, so I was very happy that my planning paid off and I can rest a little easier for the rest of the course. We have class tomorrow, I have Monday off since the other students will be doing their practicum, and then we have a cultural lesson on Tuesday followed by our final exam.

Meeting the other teachers has been great, and I’ve learned a lot from our co-trainers. They are both very experienced foreign instructors who have been leaving in China for the past seven years. There are only a few of us who can speak Chinese, and I’m the most fluent in the group, so I quickly became everybody’s best friend at lunch time. I’ve introduced the others to all of my favorite snacks and a few dishes that they will hopefully be able to keep in mind for the future when they’re on their own. Since many of us are spread out around China, we’ve all made offers to host each other in the future for the experience of traveling to other parts of the country. I’ve made new friends from Oklahoma, Maine, South Africa, and Cameroon, among many other places. We have such a fun mix of accents!

It’s good to be back in China. I guess I was a little nervous at first—it had been a decade since I’d been to the mainland. Everything seems much easier this time around. There are Family Marts (think of an immaculate version of 7-11) with cold water bottles and snacks in pretty much every subway station and around every corner, no smoking in restaurants (people usually abide by the signs), and the smartphone has revolutionized life in China. I have downloaded apps for navigation, Uber, the Chinese version of Uber that is maybe slightly cheaper, and my personal favorite, the equivalent of Yelp that allows you to order food and have it sent straight to your door. This is so helpful because we don’t always have the energy to go out and find a spot to eat at the end of the day, and even if we do, it’s hard to know what will be good. We’ve had some delicious meals in tiny six-table restaurants and a few disappointing ones in large, more glamorous looking restaurants. The ability to read reviews in key! And, all of these apps are in Chinese, so I feel pretty proud of myself for being able to navigate them all.

Perhaps my greatest confidence boost came this afternoon when I returned a call from our building manager. He asked if my husband was “ethnically Chinese too.” I told him that we were both American, to which he responded, “I know you have American passports, but where were you born?” I realized he thought that I was a 华裔, or an ethnic Chinese who has grown up outside of the country.  I sometimes flash back to living in Taiwan and think that my Chinese was probably at its best then. But then I think about my ability to explain baseball in Chinese to a bunch of ten-year old Chinese students and their Chinese teacher at camp this summer, or how I’ve successfully navigated signing a lease and dealing with a landlord (none of which I had to do in my previous trips to China), and I realize that I’m probably functioning at my highest now. All of the vocabulary I learned when teaching in Taiwan, all of the food names I learned, knowing how to get around and interact with different service providers—I’m getting through everything now because I’ve collected those experiences. I’m learning how to squeeze into small spaces in the packed subway cars during my morning commute, how to bend my knees and assume a surf-like stance in order to not lose balance when the train lurches forward. It really is amazing how you think it isn’t possible to fit any more people on the train and then a new wave comes and you’re suddenly very intimate with the people next to you. The subway commute is only necessary for a few more days until my TEFL class is through, and then we’ll be able to walk the short ten minutes to school. 

When I stepped out of our apartment this morning, the air was deliciously cool. The temperature had miraculously dropped about 20 degrees and a strong breeze was blowing. In just a few weeks, we’ve been told, the temperature will cool down for good. The new semester will start, and my days will be filled with Shakespeare, poetry, TOEFL prep, and I’ll have a whole new group of students to call my own. I’m ready!

First Impressions of Shanghai (Mike)

This post was written at the end of the day on August 24th. I wasn’t able to post it immediately after writing it because we hadn’t yet fully established internet access then, but the particular date is important because it marks my first day of navigating Shanghai without Nicki, who was attending a certification class throughout the day.

As many readers probably know, Nicki’s grasp of Chinese is exceptional, but I didn’t realize until this past week just how much she has mastered the language. Like most people who become fluent in a second language as adults, Nicki speaks Chinese with a bit of an accent. In her case, however, the accent is Taiwanese, not American or foreign at all. Indeed, taxi drivers have had trouble finding us after speaking with Nicki on the phone because they are convinced that she is a native Chinese speaker and have no idea that they should be looking for Americans. I don’t think I’ve met—I’m not even sure there exists—a person who has mastered a second language as much as Nicki has mastered Mandarin.

So, I’ve been relying on her almost entirely so far, not only to do heavy-duty things like opening bank accounts or discussing the terms of our apartment lease with our landlord, but even to get food at restaurants and to explain who we are to the guards at our school and apartment complex. Being on my own today was therefore a challenge.

The experience was mixed. My interactions with people were, for the most part, unsuccessful and even embarrassing. The exception was when I met with some colleagues at the school, but those conversations were in English, and I can presuppose a certain amount of sympathy when I do speak Chinese around them since they’re my coworkers and understand why I came to China without knowing the language.

When I tried to order a steamed bun from a local chain for lunch, I couldn’t hope to understand or respond to the cook’s questions; I think that the conclusion of our conversation was that they didn’t have any vegetarian options available. In any case, I walked away bunless. I did manage to get lunch at a café that had items in cases that customers could take themselves. Even in this place, however, I needed an assist from an English-speaking employee. When I ordered a coffee, I had to specify two things: that I wanted it American-style (i.e., drip coffee rather than espresso), and that I wanted it hot rather than cold. I managed the first in Chinese, but my language skills are nowhere close to being able to understand the Chinese-language question that the woman taking my order asked me. Furthermore, I hadn’t yet learned that rè is the Chinese word for ‘hot’. I know it now, though, and the coffee was good enough that I’ll go back to try again without relying on English.

Something similar occurred later. As I was entering our apartment building, a neighbor was walking in and had his hands full with several boxes. I held the door for him, and we had a basic conversation with stock phrases that I do know (“Nĭ hăo.” “Xiè xiè”, i.e., “Hello,” “thank you”). When we entered the elevator, I gestured that I would push the button he needed so that he didn’t have to put down his boxes. I couldn’t understand his response, though, because I hadn’t learned many number words yet. (It turns out that he needed floor 8, but I figured that out only by waving my hand over the buttons until he nodded.) Again, this motivated me to get to work learning new words, and I’m proud to say that I can now count to 10 in Chinese, but the event that provoked my numerical crash course was a bit embarrassing.

The silver lining of experiences like this is that they serve as anchors to remember the associated words. I’ll easily remember words like rè and bā (‘eight’) because I can recall these times when knowing them would have been useful.

Two other incidents were a bit more curious. Although Shanghai is very cosmopolitan, the area where we live and work doesn’t seem to have as many foreigners as the districts closer to the center of the city. In particular, we’re pretty sure that we’re the only non-Chinese residents of our neighborhood, and I’m not sure what our neighbors think about this.

At one point today, a man was waiting outside the elevator in our building as I was getting out of it. He looked at me and said something in Chinese, but I couldn’t understand him. He waved his hand and got in the elevator, and the tone of his speech and demeanor suggested that he wasn’t happy with me being there. Similarly, later in the day, I was walking along the street outside of our building and passed by a woman going in the opposite direction. At the exact moment we passed each other, she spat on the ground. It wasn’t in my direction, and the timing may have been a mere coincidence, but I have had trouble dismissing the gesture as something other than a deliberate expression of disapproval. Similarly, my encounter with the man at the elevator may have been totally benign—but I find that I can’t consistently think of it as such. I’ve been brainstorming ways to make clear to our neighbors that my presence here is legitimate, e.g., by carrying my keys somewhat conspicuously when walking outside so that I’m clearly on my way to lock or unlock our apartment’s front door. I also hope that, before long, word will spread that two perfectly decent Americans who are teaching at a local school have moved in (and one of them speaks impeccable Chinese). The high esteem in which teachers are held in China is admirable in itself and may also help us to ingratiate ourselves to the neighbors.

Of course, these kinds of hostile reactions are things that immigrants to the United States deal with all the time, and often without the kind of support network that I already have in Shanghai. When this thought struck me after my encounter with Elevator Man, I realized that I ought to be sensitive to this throughout my time in China, and it’s a theme to which I plan to return in future posts.

For now, though, it’s time to get to sleep so that I’ll be ready to finish preparing my syllabi tomorrow. My big Chinese challenge will be when the router we ordered gets delivered. I need to pay the carrier for the purchase when he or she arrives, so I can’t just wait for it to be dropped off at the door. It’ll be a good test of how well I can conduct a phone conversation in Chinese, and I’ll report back if anything interesting happens in the process.