It’s been a time of job offers, disappointments, decisions, thinking, new decisions and some Chinese adventures. My plan when I came here was to stay longer than that the six months program. So I started  looking for jobs before and found a few, foreign teachers are really appreciated, and needed, here. But many of the schools wanted either native speakers or teachers older then me. But I found a few I applied for. The only one who answered seemed really like, it was in Hubei where they have nice nature and less pollution. But it turned out I needed a bachelor degree which I don’t… But at the time it didn’t really matter because a Chinese man in London found me online and wanted me to move to London to teach his daughter English for a year. At first I couldn’t believe it was true, everything seemed so good: I would get enough money to take me through university, I would even get a bonus after a year, I would be able to travel home for important things, friends and family would be able to visit me more easily and I could even continue scouting.

Well, sometimes in life when things seems to good to be true they are… I started to get suspicious when i got told I needed a visa (I’m a EU-citizen and shouldn’t need a visa to work in UK) and that I had pay a deposit of 1700 GBP. After the British consulate in Guangzhou told me that 1: I didn’t need a visa to work in UK and 2: they would never ask anyone to pay a deposit like that, I realised it was a fraud and they tried to get my money and maybe personal information. I’m not sure I’ve ever been that angry before! I made some plans with family and friends before I realised it was fake and to have all that taken away like that was really hard! I was really pissed off for a couple of days before I decided not to let that bring me down and destroy my time in China. But even though I started to right away to make new plans I had lost some of my motivation to stay here.

I got other job offers but most of them came with the same problems, I needed either a bachelor degree or a working visa in China which it’s very hard for me to get since I’m not 22 and don’t have a university education. One reason for staying was to explore another part of China but the only visa I could get would’ve required me to visit Hong Kong once a month to get a new one which is kind of hard if I would’ve a job in central or in the north of China. Then i got another offer that i knew was true and that was really good. This time it was in Malaysia in a university where they wanted a English teacher to assist in their lessons and activities so that they would be exposed to ”real English” (thank you!). The payment was way better than what I have here and it also included living, activities and a round-way flight ticket between China and Malaysia. It was a hard decision but finally I decided to go back to Sweden even though I would like to stay here (or move to Malaysia) for several reasons, my older sister is getting married and my younger will graduate, I need to get some money for university and so on. And well, I found out soon after that they required a university degree for that school too so I feel certain that I made the right choice. Even though I will China a lot it will be nice to come home and then I can do something like this again later.

Enough about decisions, here is a story about what might happen when you work in a Chinese school. One day some time ago I came to my building for my first lesson of the day only to discover an empty classroom. I checked my schedule, the time on both my watch, my phone and the classroom clock and everything was correct except that my students were nowhere to be found! After a quick look around I realised that ALL classrooms were empty, so were the teachers office on every floor! I was confused to say the least but finally I found one of the English teachers who told me that my whole grade had a sports day which one told me… So instead of going back to bed which was my first thought I went to the sports field where all my students (and about 400 others) were running, jumping etc. It was really fun to see, many of them are really talented and many of them seemed both surprised and happy to see me there, soon I had my own fanclub gathered around me. I also got many questions and ”Wows!” about my camera with the zoom lens attached. Here are some pictures from that day:

So you never know what will happen in China, that is something I’ve learned here. When TTC placed me in the south I was told that ”it will be really warm even in winter” ”Nice, you won’t need any extra clothes” ”It will warmer than your summer” etc etc. So we got pretty surprised when is suddenly turned really cold one day. From wearing T-shirts and maybe a sweater after sunset I suddenly found myself wearing three-four layers of cloth including jacket and still freezing! And the worst part was that it’s cold everywhere! It’s not much warmer in our apartment than outside (in fact one weekend I opened the windows and realised that it was warmer outside with the sun), the classrooms in school are not heated in any way so I’ve been teaching in a thick winter jacket these past few weeks…

But at the moment I’m really warm and that is because I’m sitting 16 floors up in a five star hotel in Zhuhai with heated rooms and warm beds. So how did I end up here? Well, last week I got some visitors from Sweden, half of my family which is wonderful! So they lived in my apartment for some days and now we’ve been in Zhuhai for about four days (even though I had to go back home to work one day) and we’re living completely different from what I’m used to since I’ve lived in cheapest hostel available during travels. For the first time in a long time I have a big soft bed and a warm and nice shower! And the food… Let’s just say it’s gooood!

Right now it’s only about 30 minutes left of this year and I guess I should say about something about that. 2013 has been a interesting year, it started of in a bad way but it turned much better with Bråvalla musical festival, a family trip to Iceland and then this trip to China which is the single best thing that ever happened to me, I’ve learned so much about other countries/cultures and of course about myself, I hope that I won’t lose these changes I’ve felt when I go back. I’ve also got an even bigger appetite to discover other countries and parts of the world! I’m certain that 2014 will bring on new adventures and that many nice things will happen and I can only hope that it will change me as much as this year has!

Here I present some ”guest posts” from my mother and sister, they are in Swedish so unless so speak our beautiful language you can either guess or use Google translate:

Elisabet:

Gästbloggare Lisa

Sitter på 16:e våningen i Zhuhai på hotell Bamboo plaza. Vi hittade ett rum som tog 4 personer

Zhuhai, just nu njuter vi av att det inte var det billigaste i stan. Utsikt över Pärlbukten som har sin

början mellan Hongkong och Macao, vi är bara en km från gränsen till Macao.

Vår resa började den 22 december klockan 13.45 från Tyresö och vi landade slutligen i

Guangzhou den 23 klockan 22.00. Där stod Jonatan och väntade på oss, en fin återförening! Men

så mager han hade blivit!!!

Vi hittade en taxi som tog oss till Sanxian, en resa på drygt 2 timmar. Nästan framme tog

chauffören upp något svart och bjöd Jonatan på, som artigt tackade men inte åt, tur var det!

Chauffören började harkla sig, blev stirrig och körde helt plötsligt som en tok.

Vi kom till lägenheten vid halv ett, då hade vi rest ca 27 timmar…. Lite trötta men glada att vara

framme.

På julafton jobbade Jonatan några timmar och vi mötte upp honom vid skolan vid lunch. Intressant

att äta i hans matsal, det var en gigantisk utspisning. Utan att ha gjort lumpen gick associationerna

till militären… Plåtbleck med ris och sedan en och annan identifierbar sörja… Visst gott, annat

mindre smakligt.

Sedan gick vi hem och firade julafton i solen på balkongen, julklappar, pepparkakor och godis.

På kvällen åkte vi till staden Zhongshan en timma bort och åt middag med Jonatans vänner, en

multinationell middag med folk från Europa, Australien, USA i Kina… Och så åt vi italienskt.

Dagarna efter har vi gjort Sanxian, Zhongshan, ett spa där vi fick massage och nu alltså i ny stad

där vi stannar till den 1 januari då vi tre åker till Hongkong för att flyga hem den 2, medan Jonatan

åker ”hem” för att jobba sin sista vecka.

Kina är mycket intressant, både trevligt och fullständigt hänsynslöst, bilden på näthinnan av

mannen som påkörd och orörlig ligger mitt på en hårt trafikerad väg utan att någon bryr sig sitter

som en tagg…

Och jag vet en sak… Jag gillar att åtminstone tro att jag vet vad jag äter…..

Rebecka

Jag har sett och upplevt mycket dom här dagarna I Kina. Det har varit spännande att se hur människorna lever och bor beroende på om dom är fattiga eller rika, Det sorgliga är att se alla tiggare som går runt på gatorna och på bilvägarna för att överleva. Jag tycker att det har varit lärorikt och jag har fått en ny bild av hur människor behandlar varandra särskilt dom som man inte känner, Vi har besökt många vackra platser och parker som visar hur det gamla Kina såg ut och de nya Kina. Maten har också varit en ny upplevelse, jag har provat nya maträtter, vissa har varit goda och andra inte.

So to end this post I’ll write about my plans for my last weeks in China. Now I have five days off from school and after that I only have one more week of teaching (I will really miss my students!). Then we will visit Macau for one day and Hong Kong for a week where I finally can see the second Hobbit movie! Then I’ll go to Beijing for about 2.5 week to celebrate the Chinese new year, I really don’t wanna miss that! So I’ll leave China on the 7th of February. Then I’ll probably start to work almost right away.

Here are some more pictures as usual, I can’t write a post without some pictures. These are mostly from Zhuhai with some from a show my students h ad . Happy New Year to both new and old friends!!

Last week was the Chinese national day which meant a whole week off from work. Many of the people from our group had decided to go to Shanghai for the week to meet and catch up and we all looked forward to it. I was gonna fly there from Guangzhou, my closest bigger city. So in the morning I took the bus to Zhongshan to take a train to Guangzhou. That’s where I ran out of luck… I didn’t have much cash when I came to the train station but i didn’t think that would be a problem since I knew where to find a ATM. But the ATM seemed to have a bad day and I couldn’t get my cash so I tried a few others ATM:s with the same result, no money… And all of them gave my a error message in chinese characters, very helpful indeed…

Stranded in the middle of Zhongshan I had no other choice but to call my bank in Sweden but there was one small detail I didn’t consider, the time difference which meant I had to wait for almost an hour for them to open. At that time I was pretty stressed and worried about missing the flight. When they finally opened I had to argue for a while with them to make them unblock my card (and I had told them before I went to China that they shouldn’t block it). ”Yes, I am who I say I am” No, I can’t send you any papers, I’m in the middle of a chinese city” ”Well, I actually told you before that I should be here so not my fault” ”No, not later today, I need my money now” ”No, I still can’t send you any papers”

After I finally got my money I went to the train station but there the problems continued as I fell offer for racism for the first time in my life. I saw them sell train tickets for the next train to Chinese people but when I tried to buy a ticket they tried to sell my one for a train three hours later… Since I didn’t have any choice I bought that ticket but managed somehow to sneak aboard a earlier train (in your face!) and get to Guangzhou. But when I got there it was to late and the flight had already left. So instead I went to the train station but since it was National day and thousands of Chinese people travel they only had train tickets for three days later and they were quite expensive… So I went to the airport to see if I could get a new flight ticket but they were even more expensive…

Tired, hungry and angry after that day I sat down at the airport and searched online for a way to get to Shanghai. I found a train ticket for the next day and I started to look for a place to sleep. Hotels close to a airport is usually really expensive and it was to late to get to the hostel I knew about at the other end of the city. But then I had my first luck on the trip, one member of the airport staff started to talk to me and I told him my story and my problem so he just called a cheap hostel nearby and then said one of the airports cars would drive me there, that guy saved me from either losing a lot of money or sleeping at the train station. I wish I could thank him somehow!

So I got to the hostel and finally had dinner (the time was around 22) and started to hope that I would make it the next day.

But no…

When I came to the airport the next day I found out the I hadn’t bought a ticket, the site only took my money and tried to buy a ticket but there where no tickets available for me… So after cursing about my bad luck, I bought another ticket for the next day and actually got it in my hand this time…

I found another very cheap hostel for that night and the next day I went (again) to the train station and to the right place. The train was supposed to leave at 11 and by 12:30 I almost gave up all hope of making it. After a few more minutes they finally started to talk english in the speakers and they said that the train was delayed about 2.5 hours, yay!

Before the train came I made sure to have a good place in the queue so I would get a seat, I had bought the cheapest ticket possible. But then some funny guy decided to change the place for the train so instead of being among the first, I came aboard the train almost last so all the seat where gone…

After sitting on the floor for six hours (and every third minute someone wanted to walk pass me so I had to get up) I got a seat. Well, to be honest, half a seat but it was still better than the floor. After another two hours I got a seat for myself so I could sleep ”normally”. I can’t really say I sleep much, Chinese trains are not the best place to sleep. Around midnight when I finally started to fall asleep, someone tried to sell some toys and talked about them very loudly for over 15 minutes, if I hadn’t been so tired I would’ve knocked him to sleep…

I can’t really say I slept much that night but after ”waking up” I only had a few more hours to Shanghai. When I arrived in Shanghai (I still didn’t believe I would make it) I managed to get to the hostel without any misfortune at all and I finally got to meet my friends. That feeling was great, after three days of travel where I’d been chased by a angry cab driver, got screamed at for not speaking Chinese, frustration, disappointment and many extra expenses I had finally made it and I was very happy to meet everyone!

The hostel was nice with a really great breakfast, the best one I’ve eaten since I left Sweden! And Shanghai is a wonderful city, I’m happy I had been there before so I didn’t have to see everything important in three days, I could focus on the things I wanted to to. I took a trip to the old city where they have the best sushi place I’ve ever been to and of course the Bund, the area near the river across the financial district, look at the pictures!

After saying goodbye to all the friends again we flew home and everything went fine until I came to Guangzhou where it all started again…

They didn’t have any train tickets that would take me home in time for my lessons. I had to teach the same day, after not sleeping more then a few hours that night and many hours of travel. So I had to find a bus to Zhongshan and then from there I took a cab. But when I was close to the school, the cab driver didn’t slow down in time and we hit another car so we had to stand there for a while so they could argue and take a smoke… I finally made it to the school convinced that I should never travel in China again…. I started thinking afterwards, if the thing about Karma being for real, what had I done to deserve all this?? When I came back, my ”room mates” comment was: ”your travels are a disaster!” I can agree to that for now…

But I have to say it was worth it, I had a great time! Here are the pictures from Shanghai:

I’m now sitting in my office at school and will soon prepare some lessons, I’ve got my first extra job outside the school This weekend I will go to some other school and teach kids in the age of 8-12 and I have to find something fun for them to do. This job will probably be quite fun and it will give me some sweet extra cash

I have also started to think about the spring and what to do. I’m almost certain that I won’t return to Sweden for now but I don’t know what I want to do here. I really like this school so staying here is one option but I could also find another school which would give me a lot more money so I could go travel later. Another alternative is to find some other kind of work here. I need to think more about this, I’ll return with my plans later when I know

But for now, goodbye and take care!

I’m finally back here on the blog!

It’s been happening so much here since my last post but I’ll try to cover the most of it!
The last days in Beijing we moved out from the university to another place an hour south of the city. It was a really nice place, even tough it was in the middle of nowhere…
It felt like a five-star hotel and everything was so luxury! The best part was the food, a Chinese buffet with fresh fruits and many delicious dishes!

One of the days we took a buss in the Beijing to do some last-minute exploring and went to the lama temple, a vegan restaurant and a quick visit to BUU again before heading back. On the way back our bus got hit by a car, my first Chinese traffic accident! It sounds worse than it is, the car barely touched us but we had to stay an hour at a bridge to wait for the police to show up, when they finally did we just drove a little bit away to get away from the bridge and then the drivers and the police talked for a while before we leave. But we played games, talked and had a ABBA-medley. The day after was the departure day when we had to split the group. Many of us were going south together but we left many others and the goodbyes were very sad
We had been living together for a month and got very close and then we had to leave many friends…

The train ride south was really an experience! About 20 hours on a hard bed, six beds in each ”room” and I had the upper bed so I had to do some climbing.
After 20 hours of card games, chasing the fruit wagon, discussing Irish politics, hitting my head while sitting up and not so much sleep we arrived at Guangzhou early in the morning. Tired, sweaty, hungry and in great need of a shower we meet with a person from our school, good first impression…

After another 2 hours with a bus we arrived in Zhongshan and finally got something to eat and could see our apartment.

Pictures will be up soon so you can see what it looks like around here. Now we have been living here for almost three weeks and it feels like very good, I really like my new home!
Our school is quite big, about 8000 students! I have junior one which means age 11-14 even though some are 10 or 15. Each week I have 20 different classes with 50-55 students/class = 1000-1100 students in total! I directly gave up learning all the names, with their Chinese names I will not remember them all, I’m happy enough to remember their faces… Some of them have english names, sometimes they choose their names themselves which they might regret later in life…

When I walked around in the classrooms the first week and ask for their names I had to use my poker face a lot…

Here’s some examples of their english names:

Beliber
King
Sky (the kid wants to be a pilot)
Peter Parker
Stone
Code smile
Cat
Candy
Jump
Tack (Swedish for thank you)
Devil
Crystal
Tracy and Zoe (two boys)
Jacket
Cruise
Dota
Castle
Single
Crazy Carlos

It’s not always easy not to laugh at them…
I have given some of my students English names and I had to stop myself from being mean and give them funny names.

But the best thing about the school is that I feel like a celebrity everywhere I go! I have to say ”Hello!” every other second and many kids stops me to talk to me, sometimes I can barely get out of the classroom after the lesson because of a horde of students wants to ask me questions, have my phone number (I don’t really want hundred of students to have my number…), tell me I’m tall and touch my arms… I love my students though, they are really nice and much more polite than Swedish students, when I ask them questions they stand up to answer and every morning they all stand up and bow to me!

It’s going to be hard to go back to Sweden where no one will turn around in the street to look at me…

Right now we have five days of because of the Moon festival (the Chinese people eat moon cakes, have dinner with the family and watch the moon) and we’re going to Guangzhou to celebrate it on Friday.

What else is there to say?
The heat here is the worst I’ve ever felt, it’s so hot and humid, only a quick walk feels like a Marathon!
So I’m looking forward to the winter which will be like Swedish spring

I hope the pictures will be up soon, until then take care and Happy Moon festival!