Diary Entries for the Week of September 23, 2001 Monday 09/24/01 Okay this is a new week.  I woke up determined to make it a better week than last week.  I may need a little help but I also know that my help is ever-present.  Today I was taken back into town by Grace my FAO.  This time I was to go to the Public Security Bureau (PSB) to get my "Foreign Expert Certificate" this is supposed to entitle me to specials in China. It was myself, Tony and Betty, Phil and David.  David and Phil and I were wondering why the other two were going since they did not have their hospital part completed here in China.  Phil and I were trying to understand if we were going to have to go to the hospital and wait while the couple did the physical part.  The answer was yes.  I guess you can say this was dual-purpose trip.  If the couple did the medical portion then we would all go to the PSB and be certified. Well you know what they say about the best-laid plans.   The Australian couple did not want to have the blood taken.  They were willing to go through the rest for the second time but said "no way" to the blood part.  I understand where they are coming from.  Been there done that, gave in.  They had it all done in their country per China's request and to have to do it again!  They were just standing their ground.  So we all loaded up in the van and left the hospital.   Oh, I neglected to mention that we had picked up two additional people on the way out of the school gate so we knew we were destined for more stops than just the PSB and the Hospital.  The two teachers that came with us had to be taken to a building to drop off some computer tests to be graded.  At least that is what we were told.  They got off of the bus and carried a large green bag into a security building and then came back about 15 minutes later.  Meanwhile the rest of us just sat in the van and talked.  I felt really bad for Grace.  Her job is not easy and I was also sad because I like the Australian couple and I would be sorry to see them leave.  So Phil and David and I chatted around the tension. After the two teachers came back we headed for the PSB.  But, by this time two of us had to use a restroom and we were starving.  The PSB happens to be across the street from the Zhengzhou 999 Hotel and since it caters to foreigner we decided to try our luck there. Nice bathrooms, but as usual bring your own tissue.  A couple of us wanted to get rooms here so that we could walk around the city.  (We have the week of 10/1/01 to 10/7/01 off)  The room rate is higher since it is National Holiday and also Mid Autumn Festival at the same time.  They want 368 RMB, which is about 46 US dollars. Too high. We want cheaper.  We are trying to live within our Chinese salary.  So we will keep looking. Then we walked across to the PSB building.  It was wonderfully air-conditioned and had deep leather furniture to sit in.  We all felt back into the luxury of furniture that is not hard and can hold an average American male comfortably.  There were tall potted palms and clean air.  I may be going on and on about this but I never appreciated a waiting room as much as I do now.  In fact we didn't wait long enough in my opinion.  The next time I have to sit in a waiting room in America I will appreciate it. The only complaint I had was that the cleaning lady insisted on mopping the floor and with it our shoes.  I had to sit on my feet in order to avoid having them mopped.   The lady behind the desk talked with Grace and as usual we were clueless as to what was being discussed.    The purpose for our visit was to have a talk with the PSB who are basically the Chinese police they want to look at you and talk with you to determine you are fit for Chinese society.  But this didn't happen.   Soooo…. Then we are really starving.  And Phil suggested we try some fast food.  KFC or McDonalds are the two biggest although they have Schloteskys' Deli and Subway's in some other cities oh and Popeye's.   We ended up at KFC.  It was clean and cool and quiet.  You learn to appreciate this after coming in from the hustle, bustle and dust of the street.   One of the cashier understood English, so we ordered and the food tasted just like Atlanta.  The price was 18 RMB, which would be about 2 or 3 US dollars.  This is expensive for China.  My dinner in a cafeteria or small restaurant is at maximum 2 RMB which is only about a quarter.  Fast Food is Fast food.  I do have to say that they must use fewer preservatives because I never even got indigestion.  If I eat Junk in the U.S. this will guarantee an stomach upset.  So something is different.  Then we had to walk to find the driver, who had gone to have lunch himself.  During the walk I spotted a VCD store and made a run for it.  I am not joking.   When we go on these trips Grace is very serious about not letting us wander around.  She is in affect responsible for us and tries to keep things under control. But this was too good to be true so I darted in and hollered behind me were I was going.  It worked and everyone followed me.  I was able to buy 3 movies.  The problem is that just tonight I realized that they did not have the English Subtitles.  Grace had assured me that I would be able to listen to these.  NOT.    AARGH!!!   If you buy a cheap VCD then it has Chinese subtitles and English voice.  These Cheap ones are only good for 3 to 4 viewings.  If you buy a good quality VCD then you can watch it for 10 years but it is Chinese dubbed with no English subtitles.  For those of you not familiar with VCD's they are disks that look like CD's but have movies.  China does not use VHS cassettes for their movies. Tuesday 09/25/01 Today was a good day.  The VCD player I bought works, the movies work if you speak Chinese and on Thursday, Jane one of the Chinese teacher is taking me downtown to purchase cheap movies that I can understand.  Hallelujah.  The student can't leave the campus M-TH.  I shouldn't say that because if they don't have class they are permitted to leave.  But they have such rigorous schedules I hate to bug them during the week. The students are starting to loosen up a little and will now stop and talk with me as I walk through the campus.  They are a little more confident of their English when they realize that 1.  I am not critical of it and  2. I speak slow and simply. Today I teach an Extensive Reading Class from 10 to 12 and I have a quite a few who insist on talking during the class.  With a class of 60+ students and open windows and doors it is not easy to make myself heard.  The use of a microphone was not a success.  I sounded like I was talking in an elevator or steel box.  So the students have to be fairly quite when I talk.  Not dead silent but quiet. I must have asked for quiet 4 times, all to no avail.  I have talked with several other Chinese teachers and this is not a problem in any of the Chinese teachers classes. Their Chinese instructors basically lecture and they listen.   I know that they do it because I am a foreigner.  Well after saying "QUIET, PLEASE BE QUIET, SILENCE, STOP TALKING, I finally got them to be quiet.  At that time I told them that if I caught them talking again I would have them removed from the class and sent to the Deans' office.  It is really hard to know whether or not they get what I am saying.  I also told them that they don't have to pay attention but they can't talk.  I find in each class that at least one student a day falls asleep. Some students read the paper and other magazines, some study for other classes.  Basically, they do what they please.  I told them that if they want to read, sleep etc in class they can but their grade would of course show their actions. Wednesday 09/26/01 Today was fairly easy.  I have one class on Wednesday.  They are seniors and for the most part fairly cooperative.  I do have a few jabber jaws in this class also.  This class is always late so I decided to come 10 minutes later to give them time to get in.  Because sometimes if they see you have started class they will peek in the window and then leave.  Well this backfired.  They left before I got there.  Oh well. Thursday 09/27/01 Okay this is my free day.  Jane the teacher who was to help me buy CD's was right on time and we left at 9:00 a.m.  The bus for town leaves from right outside of the college gates.  You take the bus to one station and then catch a bus to the city area.  Well I was not aware that Jane didn't really know where she was going.  Shirley the gatekeeper had told me that she gave Jane the names of some shops where I can buy cheap VCD's.   So we get off of the bus and she starts turning around like where to go and asks me if I knew the names of the shops Shirley suggested.   Like I would know.  NOT.  Anyway, then she called her brother who had to call us back.   We walked and walked and she looked and I looked and could not find where he had said to go.  So I then  said enough, I didn't want her to have to spend the whole day looking for vcd's and she had a class that afternoon.  I told her that I wanted to go to the Bank of China because I need to exchange some money.  You can only exchange money at certain locations.  She does not know where one is so we catch the number one bus and end up in the city center.  I asked her to ask someone.  She calls her brother.   By this time I was feeling very sorry for her because she looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown.  At this point it really didn't matter.  Getting movies is not a crisis. Finally after about an hour and a half, we went into this store and it had millions of VCD's on 2 levels.  But the problem was they were all Chinese made and in Chinese.  I had her ask one girl who ran a small VCD stand on the corner where could I find ones with English.  The girl said that all of the pirated VCD's had been put away.  The government was cracking down on pirated VCD's because of the upcoming National Day holiday. {This is our 4th of July}  The only VCD's that are in English that you can buy here are pirated so I guess the government wants to look good for the holiday.  That was settled and all I wanted to do was go to the bank. I said Jane let's catch a taxi.  Taxi drivers know where everything is.  She asked this taxi and he took us directly to the bank.   It was kind of funny because the little taxi drove us right up onto the sidewalk and let us out right at the banks door.   After dealing with the money.  I noticed that we were on the same street where I had purchased the ill fated Chinese VCD's last week.  I asked Jane to please go in and ask about their return policy.  Yeah!  I can return the unopened ones and at least get music CD's.  And it was very interesting.  I met a one of us in the store.  For those of you who don't know what I mean.  I mean I ran into a brother.  It was so funny he is traveling through china and is having a good time.  Then I had to hurry off because we really needed to go.  This proves to me that WE our everywhere.  In the middle of an obscure Chinese town I found one and also when I was in Europe. When I was in Europe I was coming down from the top of Mt. Blanc in a ski lift and there sitting off to the right was another brother having a cup of coffee.  He was from Michigan and traveling alone just like me.  Blacks are beginning to travel more and more.  I hope that more single black women will begin to do this also. It was almost noon and I knew that the cafeterias would be closed. So I said let's grab something in town.  She didn't want to do this. So I said well let's go back to the school.  Well that started the wandering all over again.  Finally I said "let's take the number 603 bus and stop looking for the number one bus".  I only knew about the 603 buses because the FAO said it would take me to the hotel from the station.  I was really just playing a hunch.  But since she didn't know exactly where to catch the number one bus she agreed.  The bus took us part of the way and then she said let's get off, "this is where we can flag down the schools shuttle bus".  Well we basically were standing in the middle of the road with heavy traffic looking for the schools shuttle.  By the way this shuttle is not marked in any noticeable way.  You must recognize the Chinese characters for Shengda College.  We walked and, and after ˝ hour the bus came by and it was crowded but we managed to squeeze in.  I took a nap and then we were at the school.   I found out that Jane was new and also very young.  She just graduated. She has only been here three months.  She told me that she had to get permission to leave the campus and if I had to do the same.  I never even thought about having to ask.  It was my day off and I wanted to go somewhere.  I let my gatekeeper know for safety reasons.  But I never ask.   I thanked Jane profusely because she was willing to help me even though she was not quite sure of what to do.  That took courage. The bottom line is next time I will ask the person how much they know of the city we are going to and not just assume that they are familiar with a certain areas.  It was a learning experience for me, because every city and every bus is new to me right now.  I might has well have been in Beijing. This evening we had a meeting with the Dean's secretary and our FAO to tell us to be careful during the holiday and also to tell us to that we were expected to work this Saturday and Sunday to make up for the classes that would be missed the following week because of the holiday.  This did not go over well with some of the foreign teachers. I didn't appreciate such short notice, especially since we had all turned in a teaching plan and this would throw the plans off.  Fortunately I didn't have to say much because a few other teachers are more vocal.  Ms. Dung since she would get back to us. Friday 09/28/01 Well Ms. Dung held a meeting today and told us that we would not have to teach this weekend but we would make it up.  That is fair.  She also told us that we were expected at the Founders Day party.  This is the Founders 80th birthday.  Then the founder would take all of us foreigners out to dinner.  That was nice.  I have a beautiful initiation to keep as a souvenir. Saturday 09/29/01 It was raining all day today.  This is also the first day that I had to dress up.  I wanted to wear a dress but it was so cool.  I opted for a pantsuit. The hall was decorated very lovely.  Pictures of Founders' Birthday Party.  The speech was entirely in Chinese and I never understood a word.  The Chinese teachers at my table kept me smiling with their running commentary on the event.  They have type of drink here that is like Grape Juice with a little twist to it.  They call it wine (I think).  Anyway it is extremely sweet but tolerable.  Maybe it is like Boons Farm or Mad Dog.   It was funny because the banquet hall is up about 50 steep marble stairs and we were all wondering how the founder would make it.  He is in excellent health and made the climb with little more than a slight puff.  The event was actually quite fun.  They have these characters that they call Big Head Babies.  Keep in mind that this is a translation.  So it probably sounds better in Chinese.  Anyway these people in the costumes walk around and you have to guess who they are.  After the party I saw the costumes and decided to dress up.  So go see the pictures. After the party we all got into a school van and went into downtown Zhengzhou.  The restaurant was absolutely beautiful.  There was marble, oak and mahogany throughout.  The Koi fishpond was unbelievable.  The waitresses were in the traditional long red gown with the deep side slit.  The most amazing part of the decorations were the live flowers.  Everything from roses, to calla lilies, and exotics that I could not even name.  There was not a brown edge to any of them.  The linens and crystal and china were of the finest quality.  The food was beyond description.  We had chrysanthemum tea, chicken dishes, noodle dishes, no rice, eel, squid, all of the dishes sat on a turntable and it was rotated.  You take what you want and then the daisy wheel turns.  The founder was on my right and the Dean on my left so fortunately I did not have to fumble for food much of the time.  The problem is that you use chopsticks to secure your food and since others may be waiting you don't want to take too long.  The Chinese also have nice custom.  Whenever one of the gentlemen served my plate they used the opposite ends of their chopsticks.  Also you do not get regular size plates the plates are about 2.5 inches in diameter.  The plates were replaced at very frequent intervals.   And for those of you who really know me I have a habit of rating restrooms.  By the way I am not the only one in the world who does this! One of the travel websites that I read has a worldwide ranking of bathrooms.   The bathroom here was quite nice. It had the same wood as the rest of the restaurant.  It was co-ed, but once you went into your individual stall it was private.   The toilets were western and clean.  The only problem was as usual no toilet tissue.  Not to worry I have learned to carry my own.  There were individual combs in sealed packages etc to use if necessary.  I was really thankful for the combs after I caught a glimpse of my hair in the mirror.   Home