Saturday part II - The Guangzhou Museum

The museum is a four story building on the highest hill in the Yuexiu Park(see part one). The building is quite simple.

As you get higher in the building you get closer to modern times. All the items in the museum were found in Guangzdong province. Surprisingly, many of the items were found since 1990

I will not attempt to make believe I remember many of the descriptions, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

One of the older items is the clay ox cart.

The royal river barge is various types of jade.

The egrets and the cherry blossoms are two very large room dividers.

Western influence is seen in modern times with the radio from Germany and the phonograph from the United States.

Finally is a city view from the top floor balcony. Unfortunately this is as close as we have come to a sunny day.

St. Germain

Second week of classes are over and we are getting into a rhythm. Tonight we celebrated with western food and drink. No Mickey D for us, we found a French restaurant, St. Germain, down the street. It was a pleasure to order in French rather than pointing at pictures. Let me whet your appetite.

Marsha had pumpkin soup and breast of goose with roasted potatoes and squash. I had lobster bisque and rack of lamb with roasted potatoes and Julian vegetables. We both enjoyed a French cabernet and poached pear in wine and chocolate sauce with a fruit sorbet. While not world class, the food was significantly over US average. Total cost with tax and tip (there is no tax or tip) 327 Yuan (43 USD). I bet we go back to the restaurant again! Next time we get to eat the bread.

Overall our experience is quite positive. The apartment is sufficient. Most problems are handled in a fairly efficient manner. [Sometimes we have to ask multiple times and/or say we need the item for better health.] The main negative is the air quality. It is poor and does limit my activity. Hopefully my body will get used to it over time.

Freezing (retry)

During the first week we were here, the temperature reached 25-28 degrees Centigrade (77-82F) every day. Each day was very humid and with occasional rain. Coming from Chicago we were very hot and sticky, while some locals were wearing light coats.

Two days ago a cold front came through this area. Now, at 3 PM local, it is 11C (51F) and misty. Not a problem if you are in a heated apartment, but there is no heater here. So I just wrote my lesson plan wearing a sweater and a blanket. Too bad I don't have my gloves. [I know, next week I will hope for cool weather again.]

They have a different set of weather warnings. They have separate warnings for temperature falling, rain and lightening. The color range is: yellow, blue and black. For rain, yellow is heavy rain, blue is some flooding and black is major flooding (stay home if at all possible). Not sure what the temperature range is, but we qualified for a blue, a yellow rain and a yellow lightening warning. The warnings show on the top left of the TV, no break-in warnings.

Trip to the Zoo

On Sunday we took our first adventure on our own. With the help of a neighbor, a young person on the street, another one on the bus and an elderly person, we successfully took the city bus to the zoo. It is so close to our apartment, we walked back rather than trying to figure out which bus to take and which stop to get off.

The bus: On a Sunday morning around 11 AM, it was still standing room on the bus. The cost of the bus is 2 yuan (27 cents USD) each. Marsha liked the low hanging straps. I thought they were a little low. It is unusual being one of the taller people. Marsha is about average height. The bus is clean, modern and air conditioned.

The Zoo: The entrance is a bit hidden from the street. After going down an alley, thru a group of merchants, you reach the ticket seller. The cost is 20 yuan a person, more than the cost of lunch. On a warm and dry day the zoo had a nice crowd. As in the States most of the adults had small children with them. The second largest group was young couples. We did not see any other whites in the zoo.

Near the entrance are a group of fun statues and a garden. Marsha particularly liked the life size Gia Pet (above).

More fun than the animals is watching the children. They have a gold fish pond where the kids use nets to catch goldfish. Then they take them home in plastic bags.

Then there is an area where you can get your picture taken feeding the monkeys.

And finally an area to get your picture taken with the animals. We turned down the snake and the monkeys. This was more our speed.

Lunch: Half way through the zoo, we stopped for lunch in an airconditioned restaurant. Obviously the most expensive place to eat in the zoo. No English menus, no English speaking staff and a very limited menu with no pictures. What to do? The next table had 7-8 different dishes on it for a three generation family. I got up pointed at an egg dish. The middle generation at the table knew some English. He helped us tell the waiter we wanted one egg dish with two bowls of rice. As happened to us in France, when he did not like the waiter's service, he told him to bring our rice right after the eggs. Also some kids around 8-9 walked over to our table to practice their English. Overall, a fun experience. The last picture is one piece of leftover real egg foo young with flower on cucumber.

Week 1, Survival

We have survived our first week in our apartment and first week of teaching. The students are attentive and seem bright. They have more problem with my New York accent than they do with Marsha’s mid-westernized accent. But since the Visa Consulate may have a different accent it is a good experience for the students.

In my class on verbal communications I need to encourage the students to participate. Volunteers are few. When called on, they all try. Too often the student who is called is asking the student next to them, what does he want? (in Chinese). They need encouragement to speak loud enough for the entire class to hear them. In my first class I gave them a basic demographic analysis of the United States. While I did not know (before I prepared the class) that Houston and Philadelphia are the 4th and 5th largest cities in the States, I was surprised that they did not know the 4th and 5th largest cities in China. BTW Guangzhou is third. In general, there basic geographical knowledge was no better than a NYC student (e.g. knowing there are NY, NJ, FL and CA).

Of interest is they have similar problems with illegal immigrants as we do. Their illegal immigrants are people from the rural areas. As in the States, employers like illegal immigrants. They work for less and do the jobs than legal citizens will not do. (Yeah, not at below market wages.) In China, they charge illegals more for K-12 education than they do citizens of the city. They also have issues on health care and pensions for illegals. Like in the States some of the illegals have been here for 20+ years, while others only stay for a year or two to get enough money for a better life in their villages.

Suburban spread is also occurring in Guangzhou. The city is extending the Metro into the outskirts (which they call downtown). Middle class families are moving out to larger homes and buying personal automobiles. They don’t know the trap they are falling into. This is a new phenomenon for China.

I will end with a couple of pictures.
The students:



The teachers who are taking our class.

The Basics of Life

Our first week in China has been devoted to figuring how to live in a foreign country where neither one of us speak the language. The accomplishments of the week are pretty impressive.
We have:
1. met our hosts
2. setup an apartment
3. opened a bank account
4. taught our first class (Mel: mine is really tomorrow)

Today's post will look at setting up the apartment.

Kitchen: The kitchen is very small by American standards. So small the refrigerator is in the living room and the washing machine is out on the patio. The sink only has cold water. But after you wash your dishes, you put them into an electric sanitizer, which gets them hot enough to kill any germs.

A two burner propane gas stove is our main cooking devise. We do have a microwave in the second bedroom. Since everything is cooked in the pot (wok), they don't see a need for more. We bought a sauce pan, as Marsha and I do not like the same cereal for breakfast, all other food from omelets to dinner are cooked in the pot. Rice is cooked separately in an electric ricer, the same type that is found in the States. When we are not using it, we store the ricer in the living room on top of the refrigerator. Our final cooking vessel is our tea kettle, which they call a steamer.

The last item in the kitchen is the water "cooler". All drinking and cooking water comes from the cooler.

You learn to keep things neat, as there would be no room to work if everything does not have its spot. The water is delivered to the ground floor. Each bottle weights 45 lbs. When we need more, we need to have Davy order it.

Laundry: We have a washing machine. But there is no dry or even wringer. The process is a little more difficult than in the States. After washing, Marsha does the first wringing, I do the second. After putting it on hangers, I put it on a long pole and hang it from a pole on the roof of the patio. Drying the clothing in a humid environment is a challenge. Marsha asked one of her students, Yu-Mi (pronouced you-me), how to get it dry. Her answer, hang it for two days, then put in in front of a fan. Our experience, she is correct.

Bathroom: A single sink, western toilet and the whole room is a shower. The hot water tank is at the top of the picture. I think it is electric.

Computers: They have set-up our Ethernet. Unfortunately they have had no experience with Vista operating system. On Marsha's XP computer things are working a bit better. We still are having problems with interactive programs, e.g. Skype. Sometimes we are surprised and it works. Also we lose Internet conductivity every once and a while. Today it is working better. Hopefully this is a new trend. Here is Marsha working in the den.

Living room: We have a wood couch and side chair left by a previous resident. Unfortunately only 1/3 of the couch has a cushion and none of the chair. The TV is a brand new flat screen with cable. We get two English language stations, the World from Hong Kong and English (that's its name) from Guangzhou. On other channels a movie might be in English with Chinese subtitles. The craziest one I saw was a Japanese movie dubbed in English with Chinese subtitles. The rest of the living room is different from the States, we have a kitchen table with fold up stools and a refrigerator.

Shopping: We have reached the point were we can successfully shop on our own. It is bad enough shopping in a new supermarket in the States. Imagine shopping were you cannot read most of the labels. Surprisingly some have English on them. Yesterday we successfully purchased: eggs, milk, meat, BBQ, produce, tea cups, soup ladle and Lay's potato chips.

Marsha added: Some items were harder than others. We found an English label on wine vinegar but we wanted plain vinegar. Everything else around it was only in Chinese and double the price. So we looked on the translator for vinegar, found the Chinese characters and realized that the items next to it were vinegar, but we checked with a clerk who was nearby anyway. We pointed to the translator and then to the item. He indicated we were correct by giving us a thumbs up!

Too bad we had to carry it all to our fourth story walk up!

First day of class

I (Marsha) am teaching two classes, management and statistics. While I was told I would be teaching six days a week, it turns out that I am teaching 2 days a week, for three hours each class. We are living in Foreign Expert Building on the Dongfeng campus. But we are teaching on the Longdong campus. There are five campuses for this University.
The management class is on Tuesday night (6:15 – 8:50 pm) with a half hour ride by shuttle bus to home. Unfortunately, to arrive in time for class, I have to take the only bus that stops at 5 schools, thus taking a full hour. All other rides will be a half hour. The statistics class is during the afternoon from 2:15 – 5:00 pm. There are two scheduled breaks for about 5 minutes each. A bell rings to let you know when to take the break. This is quite different from GSU where I usually give 1 break of about 15 minutes when we finish a segment.
Yu-Mi, one of my students, came to the apartment to show me the way to school. She lives at the Longdong campus where I am teaching. We had an hour on the bus to talk. She pointed out several other universities along the route. Guangzhou is a very large city with many universities. She had many questions about Governors State University and Chicago.
There were 12 students in the class. There are supposed to be three additional students who are faculty but they had a meeting that evening, so they did not come. The students are very receptive. In fact one of the students asked me to give written assignments with presentations. He heard that it was customary at foreign schools to have assignments including reports and presentations. And he wants the experience. I don’t think the other students are quite as ambitious.
Previously I was told not to give homework because they are already taking a full schedule and not to give exams. However, Professor Yi who is in charge of the program wants me to give an exam so that they will experience an American style exam. Next week is their final exams, and then they will have more time. However, they still have to write the final thesis of their four year program so I don’t know how much work I should give them. This course is not for credit.
This first night, I told them a little of my background and then asked for theirs. About ¼ of them are majoring in International Trade and Economics. We have one English major in the class, one majoring in Chemical Engineering, several in Accounting and Finance. While I have been told that they are timid and would be hesitant about talking in class, they seemed to like the chance to participate. Many of them are soft spoken, but I think they just are not as comfortable speaking in English. Similar to my many classes through out the years, some students are more willing to participate then others. I don’t see a difference. I will try to encourage all to participate.
I took everyone’s picture with their name on the blackboard. Hopefully this will help me learn their names faster. I had those who did not already have English names choose them. I will ask them if it is OK to post their pictures on my album of China. If it is OK, then I will post them in a couple of days.
Tomorrow I teach Statistics. It will be the same students, but in the afternoon.