Winter in the morning and summer in the afternoon

The weather here has taken a cold snap and it's now around minus 2 at night. I have made all the necessary Chinese purchases - warm pyjamas, wrist to ankle thermal underwear and a long red padded down coat. The strange thing is that by the afternoon it can hit the 20s and it's t-shirt weather again. As my interpreter says, "For you it's winter in the morning and summer in the afternoon." It is indeed!
At the start of this week, I went on an interesting day trip round the rural north of the county to visit half a dozen schools which had "special features." What this means is that the government has given the school a substantial amount of money and they had often chosen to spend it on prettying up the exterior of the school with fountains, ponds, gardens etc. Nothing wrong with that per se, but then you walk into a dirty, bare cramped classroom with 80 kids sitting on broken stools and can't help wanting to tell the proud headmaster that the money could have been better spent. I managed to restrain myself though, and waited till I got back to school to tactfully put my views to my own school.



View of front of one of the "special feature" schools





Not all of the schools spent the cash on pure decoration. One school had built a library and one had built a "psychological room" to help students with emotional difficulties. Great idea! The problem was that these rooms were beautiful and were kept beautiful by not letting any students into them. So far, I have seen quite a few science labs, computer suites, libraries, sports areas etc and NOT ONCE have I ever seen any children using them.
"psychological room" - unused but beautiful!


A few schools however, put the money directly into benefiting the kids. I visited a very remote school (two hours along a dusty track up a mountain) for children of migrant workers. This means the parents have gone to the city to find work and have left the children alone so the school puts them up in dorms and feeds and educates them. I have seen some pretty gruesome dorms already and as the migrant school is for the poorest children, I expected the worst. However, the school leaders had spent the money on very practical things - the dorms and dining hall - and, for China, these were fantastic.

The dorms of migrant workers children. It looks unlived in, I know, but that's just instilling in the kids a sense of Chinese discipline - the
kids sleep two to a bed as well.




















Me and two of the migrant workers children. They were very shy as most of them had never left the mountains before and were probably wondering why a strange white woman was wandering around their school...

The reason that we were visiting all these schools is because my school, Longju Middle School has also been given money and the headmaster, Mr Yao, wants to see how best to spend it. Let's hope I can subtly influence him less for show and more towards the practical!

school pics

Me playing colour game
Me observing class
Me in my office

Me facilitating a Grade 7 teacher meeting
Grade 7 classroom block as seen from my office

School life...

In terms of daily life, things are pretty settled here in Danfeng but the school situation isn't quite as straight forward. The staff are friendly (in a smile -at-me-as-they-pass way) and the management seems happy to trust that I know what I'm doing and leave me to it, but I'm finding that (like teachers everywhere) there's a lot of complaining from the general staff that they're too busy for new things and that the things I'm suggesting won't work. It's a bit depressing, especially since I'm following VSO's 'go slow' approach and the things I'm suggesting aren't really going to take any time or effort on the part of the teachers - that's supposed to come later!!
My daily routine is -
6.50 - get up and get ready for work
7.45 - meet my translator outside my building and do the 5/10 minute walk to work together
( I love the walk as I like watching the stall holders setting up their vegetable/plastic container/cloth stalls on rickety tables and those with permanent shops sweeping down the pavement outside with bunches of twigs. I also love watching the old folk exercising in the newly built town square. It's always a kind of slow Tai Chi movement but some days they use fans, some days bits of red material and some days giant fans. So cool!)
8.00 - weave my way through a playground of 3000 students all simultaneously doing morning exercises to instructions through a loud speaker (check out 'my videos' section of my blog to watch the exercises)
11.30 - home for lunch and the toilet (as I try my hardest not to use the female staff toilets. It's not just the stink and filth but that there are no cubicles, just a row of pits where everyone can watch everyone else and from which female students are not banned - on one horrific day, I went to the toilet and just as I crouched down between 2 other female staff, half a dozen 14 year olds came in and of course just stood and stared at me. Still gives me the shudders!)
1.45 - meet Zhao Man (my translator) outside the building again and walk back to work
2.00 - back in the office
5.10 - the day is finished for me - but not for the kids. They're back at 6.30 and study till 8.40. They also start way before me and have to be at school for 6.30. Luckily, VSO specifies that volunteers follow a reasonable Western working week!
I know I haven't said anything about WHAT I'm actually doing at work yet but no need to rush - I can keep that for another post...

My life in China so far

My first Chinese wedding. The bride and groom were very welcoming, even though they had no idea who I was or what I was doing there!






The happy wedding chefs (the bridegroom's neighbours!)


The wedding feast which generally tasted good but the dish with the chopsticks in is pig's ear (too much cartilege!)


Danfeng municipal government built a new fountain to celebrate China's 60th National Day. When I arrived, there was nothing there. Six days later, they'd built a square and a fountain.

My school (teachers and students) performing in the town square for National Day.

Child with bread - more interested in watching me than the National Day celebrations.


A girl from my school at the National Day celebrations.

Lovely looking dried fruit at a market in Xi'an.

Food market in Xi'an - I'm not sure how appetising it looks to an outside eye but I had my worst meal in China here...

Finally part of the world again!

My flat in Danfeng

Finally, after almost six weeks in China, I’ve got my internet problems sorted out and I should now have regular access to my blog and facebook (at £6 a month to my UK proxy server.) It’s well worth it, though, as I also have access to BBCiplayer and ITVplayer, which means I can now watch the X-factor and see the Christmas Dr Who!!)

Anyway, it’s impossible now to go back to fill in the last month’s experiences so instead I’ll pick out a few highlights in photo form and give the basics in writing of how things are in general. I’ve settled well into Danfeng. I love my flat (small but private – though a kitchen sink would be a plus!) and I like the town a lot. It has far more available food and clothing than I was expecting. I can get almost everything here for daily life (except decent bread – sob!) and in Xi’an, which is 3-4 hours away by bus, I can get books in English (limited choice of course.) One thing that I can’t get at all in China is magazines – I’m missing Delicious and Good Food mags already!

People here are friendly and, as I’m the first white person EVER to stay in Danfeng, they’re pretty curious. The stares are slowly becoming fewer though, at least in the few streets that I use every day (from my flat to the school and to the one supermarket!) I also have a few “friends” which makes me feel part of the town;

- the baker who I buy bread from and gives me a daily monologue in Chinese that I can’t understand a word of

- the hairdresser down the road who sits on a stool outside her shop as she never seems to have any customers but smiles at me every time I go past

- the old, old man who seems to be the foreman of a building site (though I’ve never actually see him do any work) and who keeps beckoning me over – which so far I’ve chickened out of!

I also have two little friends - Han Liang (6) and his big sister Han Yue (8) who appear at my front door every few days with a present for me. Sometimes it’s homemade biscuits, sometimes fruit or nuts and last night it was an omelette in a carrier bag! They won’t take anything from me though, and run away as soon as they’ve given me the present.

I’ve lots more to say, but will keep how my school is for another time.

Oh, and for the buddies who love me, my address is

VSO Kirsten Gould

Longju Middle School, Dan Feng

SHAANXI

陕西省丹凤县龙驹中学,726200

China

Should you have the desire to send me a xmas card/birthday card/Delicious magazine ;-) just copy, paste, print it out and stick it on the front of the envelope!

I am now a Beijinger

Although I’ve been in China for quite a few days now, the Great Firewall is not letting me access either my blog or facebook (sob!). Hopefully, I can fix that when I get to my village but for now I’ve asked my sister to post this up for me. I can still get email and am also sent any comments posted on my blog through yahoo.
Anyway – I’m loving Beijing. It’s a much cleaner and calmer city than I was expecting. When I took the subway to work during rush hour on Monday morning, you would never know that 23 million people were doing the same thing.
The VSO Chinese office staff are great – we all went out for a banquet lunch together on the first day and they’ve all been taking time to chat and answer questions.
On Tuesday, I had my first Chinese lesson here and as the level was too easy, I said I would just practice alone. However, VSO have found me a private tutor and I had my first 3 hour lesson with her today. After a bit of dialogue practicing asking for directions and finding my way about, we went out into the streets for a real life practice and it was hilarious. She would be walking beside me hissing in Chinese, “Ask him how to get to the nearest subway station,” and when I did, she would be standing right behind me (clearly a local) so our victim would be looking at us both suspiciously while answering my halting Mandarin. Once when I asked, “Can you tell me which number bus to get to Jianguomin?” the guy gave me a very strange look and said, “The bus timetable’s right behind you.” Oops!
Yesterday, I took the afternoon off and went to Tian’an’men Square. It was great just to have the chance to wander around on my own, taking photos and people-watching. Once I get to my placement, I can hopefully post some pics. I wandered up to but not into the Forbidden City and also went into Mao’s Mausoleum which was very interesting although I won’t explain why here (on a public site.)
On Saturday, I’m heading out of the city to visit the Great Wall. Soooo looking forward to it!

One day to go!

I've now said goodbye to Edinburgh and moved out of my flat. I'm back home with my parents in Fife for the final two nights. I finally feel that I've done everything I can do before I go. All the packing, all the cleaning, all the many,many telephone calls to various companies to cancel things...
So far, I have two big bags to check in and two fairly big bags to carry on. My job for tomorrow is to try to whittle things down a bit. ;-)
Today I got some details from the Beijing Office about my in-country training. The two weeks are a nice mix of cultural awareness, VSO training and language skills. Plus, next weekend I get to pay a visit to the Great Wall! Can't wait!