Our lovely apartment

The four of us spent over ten hours cleaning the apartment that our school gave us.

I'm still completely livid about the situation. All I'll say is that Chinese people have very, very different clenliness standards than we do.




Yeah, we were left with a gazzilion dirty dishes. But these dishes weren't in the sink when we moved in. They were in the cupboards - totally filthy and covered with grease and dead bugs.



The floors were shockingly bad. I swear, this photo doesn't capture how bad it reall was





The top of our microwave



I know what you're thinking, why didn't you pay a chinese cleaning lady two-dollars an hour to clean this? WE TRIED!! The bitch did a completely pathetic job - she literally was doing nothing (NOTHING) and refused to use the cleaning supplies that be bought. We showed her how to scrub the floors with a scrub-brush and SHE REFUSED. We had her leave.

How can someone so small smell that bad?

I’m getting less and less intimidated by these girls

Chinese girls are obviously gorgeous. They’re perfectly thin, have amazing skin, beautiful thick hair and stunning brown eyes. But…. they stink. And, they’re hairy.


It's rare to see a Chinese girl that shaves her legs in our city. It’s so weird to look down at the legs of a super hot Chinese girl and see inch-long leg hair. And armpits – they don’t shave those either, which makes Nelly and I hypothesize that these girls don’t shave in other places either.


And their voices…. To think I used to think that my sorority was annoying! HA! Now those bitches seem like sedated executives during a board meeting. I admit, Chinese girls don’t sound quite as much like screaming-hyenas as Thai girls, but it’s still god-awful. We’re absolutely sure that they’re unable to communicate with each other without GIGGLING HISTARICALLY between every sentence. Half the high piched sounds they use are probably only detected by dogs. What’s that? You think that I’m describing pre-teen Chinese girls? No –I’m talking about the girls at the bars and the 24-30 year olds that I work with!!!


It’s really, really hot in the gungadong provence. I mean, really hot. Like 95 degrees hot. And Chinese people (girls too) don’t wear deodorant. They stink, and not just a little. We’ve all stopped teasing Nelly about Russians being stinky. Now we stereotype all Chinese people as smelling terrible – BECAUSE THEY DO!!!!!!!!

FACEBOOK

$@!# &*% CHINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

China, FOR WHATEVER REASON has blocked facebook AND youtube AND blogspot AND Huffington Post. Our new friend, Albert, got us a proxy that worked three times and is now completely useless. Until yesterday, it had literally been three weeks since I’ve used facebook BUT I still try the proxy every single day!! Addictions take a long time to get over…

I’m in Macau right now so that’s the only reason that I’m able to post this entry.

So, like I was saying, China blocks everything on the internet. Can you believe that they’ve blocked Wikipedia’s “China” page?! I can look at other countries’ pages, but not China’s. WTF!!! Thank god China hasn’t blocked all of Wikipedia – I’d literally …… I don’t even know….. fuck. And of course, if you google “tiananmen square,” EVERYTHING is blocked. Tibet too.

Naming future world leaders

This is way too much responsibility for me!!

Most Chinese people (well, actually all ASIAN people) have an “English name” that they use when talking to whities that are too lazy to learn how to pronounce a name in Chinese. Thai people chose their own English names so they ALL end up with retarded names like, “Car,” “Milk,” “Beer,” ”Mint.” Chinese people aren’t totally morons and they have a real, live, western person give them their name. Chinese people actually consider it very important to have REAL, legitimate-sounding English names.

So far, these are my favorite names that I’ve used. PLEASE let me know if you have any great suggestions.

Mark
James
Daniel
Lily
Cassie

Nelly and I want to “name” a kid McLovin SO BAD. But we’ve refrained – so far.

Mei Guanxi… I mean may guan chee, I mean… fuck.

September 16th, 2009

We just had our first Chinese lesson today. Oh. My. God. I feel like I should just give up now. I can only get two out of the five tones right and pinyin………….. this is going to be a long ten months.

On a less depressing note, my boss just gave me my Chinese name today. I’m so excited!!!!! It’s Ma Lei (“Ma Lee”). It’s really pretty and I can actually pronounce it!!

"What did you say? I don’t speak sputnik.”

Josh and I get into an argument at a minimum of five times a day. Whereas Brandon and Nelly’s fights only happen once a month, IF WE’RE LUCKY! And when they do…. Oh my god – we just die laughing!!! There's so many more funny lines but this is all Josh and I can remember....

B: “Why don’t you drive your own ass home? Oh wait, you don’t have a car. And if you did, it wouldn’t have a title”

N: What’s that? I can’t hear what you’re saying through your lisp!

B: Like I care what you think!!!! You can’t even speak English! I have a bigger IQ than you, I have more money than you…… but you know what I don’t have more of? Zits. Exactly how many zits do you have on your face?? Why don’t you eat some potatos and cabbage.

N: Whatever! I’m fine with being Russian because it means that I’m skinny UNLIKE AMERICANS!! Do you want another hamburger?

B: Go have some vodka!

N: Do you want some fries?

B: Why don’t you go date your rich ex-boyfriends again. He gave you his credit card and look, you have nothing to show for it!! Why? It’s called fiscal responsibility. You have none!!

N: And you do? What the hell do you have?

B: A college education!!

N: And what did that get you?? A job at a car dealership?

B: Yeah, and a Multiple Entry Visa. (Nelly can’t get a multiple entry visa because she doesn’t have a degree)

N: What’s that? I can’t hear past the stds on your face!

B: What’s that? I can’t hear past the acne on your face. You know, when you get those bumps on your crotch, it’s not called acne, it’s called herpes.

N: At least I can see my crotch!! When was the last time you could see past your stomach?!?

Smoking is cool!!

September 8th, 2009

Tomorrow is my first day teaching in China. My students are 2-8 years old (I KNOW!!) and I have to give each of them a work book that has multiple pictures that show cartoon characters smoking.

In China, cigarettes are cool. Really, really, really cool. Avoiding cigarette smoke outside of my apartment is impossible. Men light-up in packed elevators, taxi drivers smoke while they drive, people smoke on the bus, in the mall, in grocery stores and of course, in every single restaurant. I honestly don’t think that Chinese men are capable of having a meal without simultaneously sucking on a cigarette. You’d think you’d be safe from smoke in a doctor’s office or hospital, right? Nope! Smoking is allowed there too. GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to the BBC, three quarters of all Chinese men are smokers. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a huge understatement. I’ve asked the Chinese girls at my school about this statistic. They agree with me that ALL men in China are smokers. In fact, they were beyond shocked when Brandon and Josh told them that they never smoke.

China is the world's largest tobacco producer and consumer. And why not? Did you know that cigarettes aren’t bad for you?!?! Surveys show that 2/3 of Chinese people think smoking does little or no harm, 60% think it does not cause lung cancer and 96% do not know that it causes heart disease. Sounds good, right? It gets better: Chinese cigarettes are cheap. The average pack costs 30-50 cents (usd).
There is some good news: women don’t smoke! According to the BBC, only 4% of Chinese women are smokers. Apparently smoking is considered “slutty” and is “only something that bad girls do.” Sweet! I like this double standard!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06123/686910-294.stm#ixzz0QfaRY1Oh
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/216998.stm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159290.php

Our terrible, rotten, no-good FIRST DAY OF WORK

What a clusterfuck!

Our contract states that our first day of training will be Monday September 1st so we asked Ken (our living advisor) what time we would be picked up from school: “Don’t worry! Monday is your day off!” Cool. So on the 1st we slept in and were still laying around in our sweats when we got a call from Allen (our trainer) telling us that we need to be at the Foshan Campus (which is a half hour away by car) by 2:30 which happens to be in two hours. To make it even worse, he said that the driver (who is supposed to drive us everywhere according to our contracts) is not available to pick us up and we need to take not one, but TWO buses. Alen speaks AWFUL english so OF COURSE we barely understood the directions that he gave us. We don’t know where the bus stop is, we don’t know where “the bridge” is that we need to get off at and we don’t know where the Walmart is that we need to transfer buses at. PANIC!!! We run downstairs and order food from the muslim restaurant, shove it down our throats and run back upstairs. Josh turns the key of our front door and POP – the entire lock comes out of the piece of shit door. We’re completely locked out. Can we call the school to tell them that we’re going to be late? Of course not because the phone that the school gave us has no minutes on it and is thus, completely useless. Long story short, Brandon picked the lock but it took a half hour. When we got into our apartment we only had twenty minutes to get ready (to allow for one hour of transit time) and we only have one bathroom.

SOMEHOW, we made it out of the house at 1:30, caught our first bus, found the transfer spot and even caught the second bus. On the second bus, we apparently missed the bridge that we were supposed to get off at because we wound up at the bus garage and were stuck walking a mile back to the main road. It took about twenty minutes but we finally caught a taxi. We’re f’ing LATE on our very first day so you can imagine how stressed out we are as we run up the stairs of our school. “We’re here for the training meeting! We’re so, sooo, sooo sorry we’re late!!!” Dave: “What meeting?”

OF COURSE, Alen told us to go to the wrong campus. The campus that we were supposed to meet at is the one that’s super close to our apartment in Nanhai. FUCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!

When we finally arrived at the Nanhai campus, Allen just said, “sorry for that.”

Ohhhh, and it was soooooooo important that we showed up for training which just ended up consisting of Allen handing us the employee guide (which we already had) and asking if we had questions. Did they reimburse us the 35 rmb for the busses and taxies? Nope!!

“Medical Testing”

Our school (along with all Chinese schools that hire western expats) requires a medical test to make sure that we won’t die before our contracts end. Here’s some of the highlights:

1) Our pee cups were dirty and looked like they were only rinsed out after the last people used them. Mine still had someone else’s name partially written on it.

2) One of the doctors asked Nelly if she was married and gave her his number. Awesome!!!!!

3) The nurses were wearing the same thin plastic gloves that fast food employees wear and they don’t change them in between patients. The girl that drew my blood had a red splatter across one of her gloves. Lovely. I probably have hepatitis now.

4) Doctors smoke cigarettes in the office. I’m not kidding.

5) For our chest x-rays, I was the only one given a lead apron to go around my waste. It’s funny because I’m the only one in the group that doesn’t care about protecting my repro-parts!

6) We were told that we needed to wear formal business wear for the day of our test. We showed up in suites and everyone else from our school (including the guy that told us to dress up) wore shorts, tee shirts and flip flops. Sweet.

Nee-how China!!

August 26th, 2009

We're here!!!! Foshan, China. I'm not sure where to start.... I think we're really lucky that we showed up a few days before school starts because we're getting to meet all the teachers that taught last year before they leave in a few days. Everyone's telling us ALL the gossip about the school and about all the bullshit that they had to deal with everyday. We know that all Chinese schools dick teachers around so nothing has been toooooo surprising yet.

Day 1: We took a 2-hour ferry from Hong Kong to Shunde. My favorite part was when we were about to dock and about 20 people got up and stood by the door. The staff must have asked them to sit down 100 times and they flat out refused. The staff asked over and over and over again and the people just turned their backs on them and looked out the window!! Crazy Chinese people!!

My first impression of mainland China involved shoving. Lots of shoving. As we got off the ferry and entered the immigration building, we were being shoved into walls, stepped on and elbowed in the ribs over and over again. It was ruthless! I laughed so hard! Picture a billion year old, 4’ 8” tall Chinese grandma shoving Brandon into a wall - hilarious!!!!!

After we got through immigration we met our school's "living advisor," Ken, who is SO WEIRD!!!!! He keeps blatantly lying to us about stuff in our contracts and he's so weird about never looking us in the eye. He stairs over our shoulder - it reminds me of someone with a lazy eye but he doesn't have one. The weirdest thing that he did was when we unloaded all of our bags he said "is anyone missing something?" We said "ummmmmmm.... what did you find?" -- he wouldn't tell us - he said that he wouldn't give us the "item" unless we knew what it was. WHAT?!? We obviously hadn't unpacked so we didn't know if we dropped anything!!! We got lucky because brandon caught a look at what he was hiding and it was Nelly's MP3 player!! Then, he didn't believe us that it was Nelly’s. Long story short, we got it back but it was still SO WEIRD!!!!!!! Who does that? We told all the other teachers about what Ken did and they thought it was totally typical and they all had their own stories about him.