Hairdressing is a universal language...

Having short hair is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it takes me all of five minutes to wash it, dry it and style it (if I'm in a rush that is – takes me slightly longer than that on a school day when I haven't woken up properly and I'm banging round my room trying to find my hairdryer...), but on the downside, that also means that it needs cut fairly frequently.

The last time I got my hair cut was the day before I left for China. And although I did my best to ignore the dark roots that were starting to creep in, and the fact that instead of sticking out in all directions when I sprayed it, my hair hung limply down and refused to be coaxed into any kind of style, in the end I had to admit it to myself – I was going to have to have a Chinese haircut.

I don't know why I was so nervous – I think I was just scared in case I walked into the hairdressers, mimed getting a haircut, and ended up having it all shaved off and the stubble dyed pink or something (because trust me, with my luck, something like that is perfectly possible). But armed with my trusty Mandarin phrasebook and a photo of the hair style I wanted, I decided just to go for it.

I went to a new hairdressers that had literally only been open a few days – when we first arrived in China, I remember seeing the blank shop and a few days later, it had been transformed into a shiny, glittery hairdressers. I was slightly put off by the fact that there are always two or three members of staff hanging round the door waiting to jump up and eagerly usher people inside, but I simply took out my phrasebook, pointed to the phrase 'I want a haircut' and I was shown indoors, trying my best to ignore all the stares I was attracting from staff and customers alike. I was sat down in a chair and luckily, there was a woman who spoke basic English – I told her I wanted my hair shorter and showed her the photo I had. She nodded and told me to wait and, while I was waiting, a young guy with blonde-y/orangey hair gave me a copy of the Chinese version of 'Now!' magazine and a carton of pear juice.

Soon afterwards, I was whisked to a back room where the same guy washed my hair for me (poor bloke – he kept asking me questions, which I assumed was something to do with the water temperature, but all I could do was nod and smile at him). I was then led back out to the front of the shop – the man who was going to cut my hair attempted to ask me some questions in Chinese, but to my shame, all I could do was smile and pray the woman who could speak English would reappear soon. Luckily she did, and it turns out the man was asking me whether I wanted my hair dyed too (in the photo I brought with me, the model's hair was blonde) – I said no, and the woman said 'Oh, but this is a very beautiful colour' – and although it would be cheaper to get my hair dyed here instead of at home (£28 to get your hair dyed here!), at this point in time I was quite poor, so I had to decline.

The man who cut my hair did a very good job. A couple of times he asked to see the photo I had again, and I noticed that quite a few members of staff kept walking slowly past and staring (or stopping altogether and staring). In fact, one guy told me my hair was 'very cool' and another woman said I looked beautiful! Once the man had finished cutting my hair, he mimed taking a photo of me - I had no problem with that, so he got the guy with the orange/blonde hair (bless him, he was so embarrassed! I don't know why though, it wasn't like he was the one who was having his photo taken!) to take photos of me on his iPhone, while the man mimed cutting my hair from different angles! It really was very surreal....

Anyway, once the impromptu photo shoot was over, the woman who could speak a bit of English and my hairdresser took me over to the till so I could pay. The woman then walked me out of the shop, asking me if I liked it, and then (almost pleading) she said 'you come here again, yes?!' I said I would, definitely, and I meant it. It only cost me 38 yuan (£3.80) to get my hair cut, and I was treated like a star! I think hairdressers in England have a lot to live up to – if only more of them would proclaim that their customers were beautiful and cool and take photos of them – I'm sure they'd get a lot more trade! The best thing though is that now whenever I walk past, everyone inside the shop smiles and waves at me, and if they're outside, they say hello (or 'ni hao') too!

This incident occurred a few weeks ago now and, once again, I'm starting to notice my hair is getting floppier everyday, which can only mean one thing – I'm going to have to go and get my hair cut again. I'm going to try and hold out for a couple more weeks, and then I was thinking of surprising my new best friends by going in and not only asking for a haircut, but asking them to dye it as well!! Watch this space, no doubt getting your hair dyed in China will be a bit of an adventure too...

Crazy days and even crazier nights...

I really can't believe how fast the time is going here! I keep thinking, 'oh, I better write a super quick blog post so I don't forget what's been happening', but then the days just all seem to blend together and I never get round to it!

Anyway, enough of that. I've been at my school for nearly three weeks now, and it's been a bit of a learning curve to say the least. Firstly, you know that one assistant I said could speak English? Well, she's quit. So communication in the classroom is...interesting to say the least. Whenever a child starts gabbling away to me in Chinese, I simply say 'yes' and then walk away...hopefully they're not asking me anything too important...on the plus side, the other teachers seem to be warming up to us more now - one of them threw a ball at me today (not deliberately trying to knock me out or anything btw, we were playing a game with the students) and there's another teacher who does her best to speak English to me to explain things, which I'm so grateful for. So there may be hope yet that I might get to make friends with them! Although one of them keeps asking me while I smile all the time...even when I'm not looking at her...and I'm like, but I don't, do I?! It's very odd...I don't know how smiling would offend anyone!

We had an 'open house' day today, where all the parents came in just to watch our english lessons being taught - great. On the plus side though, the lessons were only 20 minutes instead of an hour, and strangely, even though I despise giving presentations and would do anything to get out of doing them at uni/work, being at the front of a classroom with 25 kids and god know how many parents filming me, it really didn't bother me that much. Who would have thought it! On the downside, that meant that for the rest of the day, the Chinese teachers had to put up with masses of crying/screaming children when the parents went home - I didn't envy them one bit! We had to do a normal lesson in the afternoon, but as only half the class was there (the others had gone home early with their parents), we just played games and got to know them all a bit better, and it was actually kinda nice!

Oh yeah, and one of my kids is now proudly called Frodo. Whoops.

I've also been on my first night out in Beijing! Let me tell you something - Chinese clubs are simply mental. When we walked in, we saw a guy in a robe (which covered his face btw) doing a dance on a stage with lasers...and every hour after that, a different act would pop up somewhere randomly in the club (mainly by our table though, come to think of it!) - we had rappers, and singers, and a dance group that were dressed entirely in black, but had neon stripes on their outfits, and the lights would flash as they danced. In this particular club, you got shown to a table, and you'd get a huge bowl of free fruit! And that's as well as free whiskey - well, I say whiskey, it wasn't really whiskey - it was a really weak/fake whiskey mixed with apple juice....and you drank it in shots...so so random! But it was a really good night, and that weird whiskey stuff can get you nicely tipsy if you drink enough of it! Oh yeah, and on a minor note - a Chinese girl kinda came on to me...y'know, as you do...my other Chinese friends can't agreed on whether it was because I'm foreign and she simply wanted to be friends (though there is a VERY fine line between over-friendliness and just being plain creepy), or if she actually was a lesbian....

Think that's all my news for now - we have tomorrow and Friday off, hooray! But it does mean that we have to work Sunday to make up for it :(. Hopefully I'll be going to check out some more Beijing sights, though I might give the nightclubs a miss for now  - I'll keep you posted!

Zaijian!

Beijing, baby!

Hello all,

I haven't had much chance to update this blog in a while, because we've been so busy! This post will just be a quick summary of what we've all been up to this past week (assuming I can remember everything that is...):

We spent the last week in Harbin, which is in the north of China - it is a lovely city and the weather was good - not too hot and not too cold (although apparently it's so cold in winter, people have to wear face masks!!). We finished off our TEFL course - passed with no problems which I'm very happy about :) - although it is still very weird that I could walk out of the door right now and teach English!...which actually, if you think about it, is exactly what I will be doing....hmm...

Our program was split up so we did our TEFL course for two days, had a day off, and then had two days of culture classes, while the other half of us did their TEFL course. The culture classes were good - I really enjoyed doing calligraphy (dunno if the teacher was very impressed with our efforts though...but apparently it does take a lifetime to master, so I guess we shouldn't feel too bad :P), tai chi was good although we did get stared at a lot by the Chinese university students, and learning Mandarin was ok - it was hard, but at least I guess it'll come in handy (providing of course, all I want to buy is a mango - that's the only word I can remember right now....)

We got back to Beijing on Thursday night - we couldn't wait to get back as it turned out we were finding out our placements that night instead of the next day! And it turns out that I've been placed in Beijing!

I'm pretty happy because I asked for the North, so the weather here shouldn't be too bad (not as cold as Harbin at least). I know I'll never lack for things to do, and if I don't have wifi in my accommodation, at least I can just find a cafe and use the wifi there instead! Plus, Beijing has amazing transport links to the rest of the country, so it'll be easy for me to go and visit people and vice versa. The only downsides are that I haven't been placed with anyone I've become really close to over the past few weeks - I am looking forward to meeting more new people, but at the same time, I am going to miss everyone I've met so far! The other big thing I'm not too sure about is the pollution - we've been lucky the last few days with blue skies and sunshine, but the smog here can be appalling. I already feel like I have a scratchy throat and I've only been here a few days! Ah well, at least I'll never complain about pollution/traffic/people whenever I visit London again....

So that's all for now. Going to go and check out now, and wait downstairs for my school contact to come and pick me up - exciting times! I just hope they're not expecting me to start teaching tomorrow morning - I have NO idea what I should do for a first lesson, so I'd like some time to prepare!

Until next time - zaijian!

x

Zaijian Shanghai, Ni hao Beijing!

Today I have to say goodbye to Shanghai, as we make our way up to Beijing to meet up with the rest of the TTC interns. We'll only be there for today, before travelling up to Harbin tomorrow, to complete the rest of our TEFL course. Not looking forward to the trip there though - we're flying up to Beijing, but I know I'm going to have to pay excess baggage fees...let's hope it's not too expensive! (Although it probably will be...)

Thoughts on Shanghai? It is a lovely city and I've really enjoyed my time here, but tbh, I'm ready to move on. It's far FAR to hot and humid (although apparently Beijing had 94% humidity yesterday! Eek!) and being a simple country girl from the north of England where it's sunny about 3 days of the year, it's just too much for me to handle. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that Shanghai is quite an expensive city....here's hoping I'm right and Beijing/Harbin will be cheaper!

Will update you all soon, once I get wifi again :)

Zaijian!

x

Shanghai Adventures Part Two...

Continued from last post...

Sunday

We decided to take it fairly easy on Sunday (as we only got up at 12.30pm...) so we walked down to People's Square, which was okay, but I don't know whether we actually managed to explore all of it, as there was a main road running through what we thought was the square, and we got confused....after that, we took a trip to the Yuyuan Gardens. Initially we got a bit lost when we emerged from the subway, but we persevered and we finally found it. Unfortunately, it was 4.45pm by the time we got there and as it cost 30 yuan to get into the gardens and they closed at 5pm, we decided not to bother going in. But all around the gardens is a beautiful bazaar, filled with all these kitschy shops where you can buy all these typical Chinese souvenirs, such as fortune cats, or having your name painted in Mandarin on a scroll...it was pretty cool! We ended up having Chinese tea in a tea house which was awesome - the tea was so refreshing – nothing like the herbal tea we have back in England! The only downside was a man hacking up spit every five seconds on the table behind us....I don't know whether I'm ever going to get used to that noise.

Monday

Yesterday, we visited two museums – one was the Former Residence of Zhou Enlai, and the other was the Former Residence of Sun Yat-sen. Brief history lesson for you, folks (although I'm sure you're obviously already clued up about China's history anyway ;)....) - Zhou Enlai was the former Chinese Prime Minister during the 1960s and 70s, and is seen by many as one of China's greatest twentieth century leaders. He was a keen military strategist and was was a key figure in negotiations between the U.S and China in the 1970s. Sun Yat-sen on the other hand is seen as the forerunner of the Chinese democratic revolution, the founder of the Republic of China and a respected contributor to Chinese modern history....but I'm a bit annoyed at him right now, as we had to pay 20 yuan to get into his museum and then the whole bloody thing was in Mandarin. Not cool Sun Yat-sen...

Last night we went back to Hengshan Road, which was good – we weren't quite so late back this time, although the taxi woman we got to take us back to the hostel didn't understand English, so instead of dropping us off at East Nanjing Road, she dropped us off at the very start of Nanjing Road (West)...look it up, and you'll see how far away that is! After about 45 mins of walking, we finally admitted defeat and hailed another taxi, which took us to Shanxi Road, where our hostel is. Although my feet were on fire, it was still something to walk around Shanghai at night, and we saw some interesting sights, such as a security guard shaving his face while he was on duty, and a shop display full of entirely naked mannequins...weird just doesn't sum it up...

So that's all for now! Sorry for the uber-long post, I'll try not to leave ti so long between updates next time! Hopefully I'll be able to let you know I'm alive and well once we reach Harbin :).

Until then,

Zài jiàn!

Shanghai Adventures Part One...

Hello all!

Thought I'd give you all a quick update now, as we leave for Beijing tomorrow, and then it's on up to Harbin on Thursday, so not entirely sure when I'll be able to get on the internet again!

Finally seem to have gotten over my jet lag - apart from an occasional moment of dizziness, I think I'm ok :). The secret to beating it seems to be sleeping a lot and drinking Coke! Or maybe that's just wishful thinking....

Anyway, here's a brief overview of my Shanghai adventures for you :) - no photos I'm afraid, as the wifi in the hostel isn't great :(, but will try and upload them onto Facebook instead.

Thursday

Went to the Jing'an Temple, which is a Buddhist temple at the end/start of Nanjing Road. It was quite pretty, but because the weather was so hot and I was still suffering from jet lag, I couldn't really enjoy it.

Friday

Actually didn't do anything! Me and Kristen were ill (mine the result of jet lag, Kristen's was self inflicted, bless her) so we napped/lounged around the hostel, before going out for dinner (will explain more about the food here in a separate post) and then heading back to the hostel to watch a film. Not the most adventurous of days, but at least it meant we were refreshed for the next day!

Saturday

On Saturday we walked up Nanjing Road and visited the Bund. It was really interesting to see all the buildings, but I've got to admit, it was far too hot to be wandering around for long! We had to keep ducking inside air-conditioned shops, just to get away from the heat! We also went to see the Monument to the People's Heroes, which was just up the road. It's a monument in the shape of three rifles touching each other, and it was built to commemorate the revolutionary martyrs. We then took a trip through the 'sight-seeing' tunnel to the other side of the Bund. The tunnel was hilarious, it was basically all these different coloured flashing lights, but the voiceover kept saying things like 'space' and 'magma' when the lights changed...

Once we got out of the crazy tunnel, it was time to do something I've been looking forward to since we first arrived in Shanghai – we went up the Pearl Tower! It was pretty awesome I have to say – although the glass floor on one of the levels was a bit unnerving! Me and Kristen got asked to take a photo with this Chinese guy and his son, which was random, and then when we accidentally got separated for 2 minutes, another Chinese guy asked Kristen for a photo (not with him – just a photo of her!) and I met a Chinese girl called Hello...yup, no joke. She was very nice, although she did offer to hold our bags for us at one point while we took a photo...may have been completely innocent, but you never know! We went out for dinner (which wasn't very nice unfortunately) and then went out to Hengshan Road, which is the road where all the bars are. We ended getting back to the hostel at 4am, so needless to say, we were a bit worse for wear on Sunday!

Continued on next post...