Oh God!

Sunday 30^th August

OH GOD. Oh my actual god.

No really, oh god.

*deep breaths*

*some more deep breaths*

OK. Laura, Steph and I have arrived in Handan, Heibei. We are decidedly not in Kansas anymore, Toto!

Let’s start with the train journey. West Beijing Train station is mental! It’s HUGE! We had a lady to take us to the platform and put us on the train, and thank goodness for it. The train was absolutely packed, so our tiny, tiny lady led the way and we plunged into a sea of people – sardines was no word for it! She threw some people out of seats, helped us shove our mountains of baggage under the seats and up on the luggage rack. Then she scrambled off the train and we were left to it. It was a four and a half hour journey (easy!) we were sat opposite a really nice lady and her husband who was bossing everyone around and who offered us food (boiled eggs, buns with chocolate in the middle and a sort of a milk drink in a bag which tasted of malted milk biscuits) and a woman with a baby. Babies in China don’t wear nappies, no no. They have trousers with open backs and their mothers let them wee on the floors of trains (where people’s bags are...) and catch their poo in bags like dogs. Mostly.

We met a couple of guys who were getting off at Handan too (who carried our bags off the train in fact) and were met by Ms Wang (Swallow) on the platform. Swallow is lovely, Handan seems cool from what we saw driving through, our apartment is...basic. Very basic. It’s also filthy, full of mossies, and one of the beds (the one with the horsehair “mattress”) is broken so Laura and I are sharing the double bed for the moment. It’s in sort of a back street alley too, which is very intimidating for three nervous newcomers, but very safe according to Swallow. Apparently it’s a really convenient neighbourhood too, but even such upsides as the toilet being Western or the knowledge that so many people in the world would call this luxury aren’t enough to overcome the negatives at this time of night. I can do this though. I can. I’m brave as a lion me, and everything’s worse in the dark.

Monday 30^th August

Today was a much better day. After a good cry first thing in the morning, Swallow came over to take us out to lunch with the other English teachers who are with Handan Lilac Education Authority. She took one look at our woeful faces and promised us a new apartment on the spot. Tom, one of the other teachers, is moving out so the three of us are going to share his place. Places that rent for three on less than a year’s contract are hard to come by apparently, which is why we’re in this dive for the time being.

We went for lunch at a hotpot fish restaurant and met the principal, Tammy, her friend Sunny and Andy, Tom, Dan and Kan the other English teachers. The food was cooked in front of us in a big hot dish sunk into the table, and was mostly really tasty but something of a shock to see live fish dumped into the boiling hot pan. After the meal Tom, Dan and Kan went off to teach and Andy and Swallow took us to buy Chinese sim cards and explain a bit more of Handan life to us. After that we went to the supermarket to stock up on loo roll and the wherewithal for breakfast then sat in the park desperately avoiding going ‘home’. The guys had invited us out in the evening to play pool, so after the shortest possible turnaround time in our hovel, we met Andy (who lives nearby and, fortunately, is pretty fluent in Mandarin) and got a taxi to the pool bar. After a few rounds, we were all invited to eat out with a group of locals who the others had met the night before, so we piled off into some taxis and had our first introduction to Chinese drinking culture. We ordered some food using the helpful pictures and out came the Baijio; the local spirit of choice. Before any individual toasting could happen, we all had to drink together three times. Chivalry meant that we didn’t have to down ours, fortunately, so I pretty much got away with just smelling mine. Then came the beer, and then the dice drinking games. I won quite a few rounds of those, but only because I had Tom telling me what to say and when to bluff. And there was the single most disgusting toilet I have ever, EVER had to use, apparently though it’s not as bad as some the guys have seen in restaurants.

All in all, it was a really fun evening which is just as well. This place is going to be hard. The three of us stick out a mile here (and not just because of the good looks!!) there are about 8million people in Handan, and less than 100 Westerners most of whom are male, so we get stares wherever we go and even children taking photos. I’m going to be teaching Kindergarten, which is actually pretty much my worst nightmare. What doesn’t kill me eh... one day at a time, this is only day two after all. Hopefully once we move into a decent place and manage to wash some clothes and it gets less oppressively muggy I’ll be able to enjoy myself a bit more. At the moment I’ve been thrown back on my mental ropes and remembering I’m British is becoming my mainstay; thanks for the surprisingly good advice, Dad!

Tuesday 31^st August

It took a while to sleep off the excesses of Monday night, but once we’d roused ourselves into action and successfully had a non-fried breakfast (yoghurt and dried fruit – it’s the way forward I think) we decided staying inside was not an option and seeing some more of Handan was a good plan. So off we wandered. We got nowhere fast, but at least discovered a road with nothing useful on it so we won’t go that way again! Swallow rang needing to meet us to get photos to give the police, so she came and found us and took us for some street food. It was big bowls of noodles with bamboo sprouts, veg and duck bones as stock. I really enjoyed it, but Steph found a pubic hair in hers and after that it was much less appetising! It’s definitely something to re-create, minus hairs, when we’ve got a decent kitchen.

Once we’d had our pictures taken, we found a KFC so that Steph could have a coffee and got the bus (oh how brave we felt!) to Tom’s apartment, which we’re going to move into. OH! It is palatial! (Especially compared to our dive) Skirting boards! Walls without holes! A fridge without mosquitoes! Tai Chi outside in the morning! Only two beds again, but right now I’d share with a gorilla if it meant getting out of here. Fortunately I’ve got Laura and Steph who are both more appealing than any number of gorillas. From Tom’s we went out for a meal with Andy, Tom, their Chinese friend Charlie and his friend whose name I have forgotten but was also very nice. They were all great and really helpful since we were so very nervous about classes starting on Wednesday. Kindergarten, seriously. I am not good with children, and oh my god, Kindergarten! They’re not even old enough to talk to properly in Chinese, let alone English! I’m going to have to download as much Sesame Street as I can find and try, think of games fit for rugrats and to remember that they can smell fear.

Wednesday 1^st September

K-day.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified...

I got a taxi to the school, which is about half an hour’s drive from the Pit, and got Swallow on the phone to explain to someone to walk me to the building because the taxi just dropped me in the middle of some blocks of tenements. I was directed to sit in an office for about ten minutes and given a cup of hot water to drink. One of the classroom assistants who had (minimal) English took me up the stairs to my first class. I counted the steps, one to twenty three – numbered in English on each step, to keep my head as I tried to suppress the nervous nausea that the bright colours, pictures of ‘kitty cat’s and the too small chairs was bringing on.

I know that a lot of people, and a lot of interns in the group, would be skipping with glee at the thought of just having to play with a bunch of kids. Not me though. I don’t mind children – they can’t help being small and young and not very interesting yet and I don’t hold it against them, but I’m really not good with kids that small (2 – 5yrs) and I definitely don’t know how to teach them. Hence the fear. I’ll adapt though, they are cute after all and this morning wasn’t an utter disaster. I had four half hour classes back to back, and since I had no idea what ages, class sizes, level of English etc they had (I’m still hazy about it) I hadn’t been able to prepare very well. Basically, it was a lot of ‘hello!’ at different volumes, different groups etc, ‘my name is Clare’ (turns out my name doesn’t travel very well!) and I am happy, I am sad. I sort of taught the littlest ones ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ too. Whirlwind. I think the first lot were the oldest and best at English and it gradually went down in age and ability, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’m back there tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be better prepared. God only knows what I’ll do as they haven’t got a book to refer to at that age so I am completely at sea, but at least the classroom assistants were reasonably helpful and I only have 8hrs teaching at the moment!

This afternoon I found the ‘Characteristic’ supermarket which stocks some western food. I’m alright with the rice and noodles etc so far, but Steph and Laura are struggling a bit more, so maybe that’ll be a comfort to them. I didn’t get anything there, ‘characteristic’ it may have been; expensive it definitely was. On the way back I walked through our local park, past the open air gym equipment! No offence to David Lloyds, but how much more fun being on an outdoor cross-trainer?! I might have to fight off the pensioners though. There’s always jogging too and since I get funny looks wherever I go, I might as well get some for exercising rather than just existing. One of these days I will have to get up early enough to experience Chinese park culture – so far I have Friday off, maybe then. We should be in the new place then too and I can be unpacked, shower properly and start to make this place feel like home, exercise included.