Mr. Armstrong, Max, and the Kai Fa Qu

Mr. Armstrong
Most of the students call me Mr. Armstrong. Every now and again, they call me Armstrong, forgetting the Mister, but as opposed to my days at Neumann, no one has called me Armstead yet. I have to admit it took some getting used, being called "Mister" on a consistent basis. But I am 30 now and teaching kids who were born in 1996 so I suppose it makes sense.

Teaching at the middle school has been a lot of fun. One of my concerns was that the kids' behavior would be terrible, but it's actually turned out to be opposite. Most of them are pretty good and I think they look forward to my class, not because it's English, but because I usually try to make it fun by throwing in some games. If they speak too much Chinese, I make them stand in front of the class and sing "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." I didn't know this song before last month, but apparently it's pretty big in England and the kids get a kick out of it so I use it.

Max
As for my Chinese, it is coming along. Making friends who don't speak English has proved to be as easy as I thought it would be. As opposed to Shanghai, you get a fair amout of stares from the locals on a daily basis. Most of the time, if I say anything, they're either too stunned to reply or they say "hello" and voila I've made a new friend. One of these new friends is a kid named Max.

During my second week here, I took the bus downtown to check out the city. On my way back to the Kai Fa Qu (the district where I live - more on that later), a young kid switched seats, sat next to me, and started talking. His English was pretty solid for his age and much better than my students at the middle school. He was also very curious about life in America and asked me questions like "Is it more interesting to live in America or China?" and "Which country has better food?"

I instantly wanted to help him as I realize it's probably a rare opportunity for kids around here to get the chance to talk with a native English speaker. So, I agreed to meet up with him and his mother the following Sunday night for dinner. They are from Inner Mongolia, where she studied English. As Max was growing up, she spoke English with him and he took a liking to it. Hence, his level is pretty good for a kid his age.

For the past six or seven Sundays now, I've met up with them and their friends. Max's friends are all girls and they get fired up when I tell Max I can't believe he has five girlfriends. Their English is also pretty good and every week, we go to a different one's home. In the pictures, you'll see some shots of us making dumplings for dinner one week.

Kai Fa Qu
Now, getting back to the Kai Fa Qu, which is where I live. Yantai's population is about 2 million (roughly 15% the size of Shanghai) and is divided up into five major districts, one of which is the Kai Fa Qu. Translated directly, it means "Development Zone" and I get the impression that (like areas of Shanghai) there wasn't much here 20 years ago. But now, within a five-minute walk, there are restaurants, malls and supermarkets. Like many parts of China, it's an area in transition and I'm glad to be a part of it.

January through March

Videos

A Tour of the New Place

This was my contribution to the madness every night. My colleague filmed this, but you can not see me lighting the firework that well.

And here are a few others, from the Chinese New Year....

Happy New Year

For those that remember the videos I posted last year around Chinese New Year, rest assured that the scene was similar this year in Yantai over the last few days. I do not have the cable to upload pictures and videos. It is in transit on the way to Yantai. So, if you want an idea of what the fireworks were like, check-out the blog post from last year.

To sum it up verbally, the fireworks have been pretty much non-stop for the past three days. On New Year's Eve, which was two days ago, my neighbor invited me to a local restaurant to eat dinner with his family - his wife, two daughters and their friends, and his parents-in-law. The only people drinking "yellow wine" at the table were me, him, and his father-in-law. I have no idea why the Chinese drink this stuff. It's basically the equivalent of sitting down to a steak dinner and drinking whiskey at the same time. I like steak and whiskey, but you have to separate the two, right?.

The food was terrific. There were about ten different dishes and among them were bluefish, broccoli, diced pork, and fried squid. I like the Chinese style of eating - a giant spinning glass on top of the table so you can grab a little bit of everything.

After dinner, we did what I had been waiting to do all night: Light some fireworks. Last year, I was only a witness to the mayhem. This year, thanks to the previous dwellers at my apartment, I would be a participant. When I moved in last week, I noticed a dozen red balls with funny Chinese writing in one of the closets. Each had a long thin fuse attached to the top and I couldn't wait to light them up to see what they did.

So, I walked across the street to the middle of a parking lot, lit the fuse and took off running. About ten seconds later, this thing exploded with a loud boom, sending green sparks across the street, while setting off about ten car alarms. Then I knew what I was dealing with. Essentially, these are the same fireworks you see around July 4th, but I don't have the piece that shoots them into the sky. Instead, I just light them on the ground.

I lit off four more that night and two started small brush fires that I had to stomp out. Of course, everytime one went off, it just blended in with the scenery. For miles around, thousands of Yantainese were doing the same, with the crescendo arriving around midnight. Around 1am, the noise finally subsided enough to fall asleep. But that only lasted until 5:30. Yeah, that's right- 5:30 a.m.

Last night, on our way home from dinner, my colleague and I noticed a lull in the action. It was only 10 o'clock, but the madness had calmed. So, we fired off one of the red bad boys, jostling the neighborhood. Two blocks away, we heard a car alarm go off and laughed. After all, when in Rome, er, Yantai.....

Actually, not Catholic

I just edited the previous post to say "Christians" instead of Catholics. I confused the translation for the two words, which lead to my rare attendance at a non-Cathlolic mass this morning. In becoming friends with the family next door this week, they invited me to join them at mass.

At 8am, we met outside our building and caught a bus to the church. Within a minute of arriving, I knew it wasn't a Catholic mass. First off, the church was not named after a saint. Instead, it was named the Fulai Church. Second, there was a lot more singing than I'm used to and no priest. To kick things off, they opened their celebration with four consecutive songs. This was followed by a man in a suit giving a lecture and more singing. Fireworks and firecrackers rang outside, a sign of the ongoing New Year Celebration.

In between translating what I could in my mind, I began guessing which religion this was - Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Protestant? I am extremely unfamiliar with the other branches of Christianity. This seemed Baptist to me, solely for the reason of a guy in a suit lecturing.

I also learned the word for "pray," which we did a fair amount of over the two hour service. At one point, the congregation shook hands and briefly chatted with each other. It was a bit like the sign of peace, but lasted longer and occurred twice in five minutes. The woman beside me told me the things she appreciated in life, but the best I could do was smile and say "Thank you."

Towards the end, I correctly translated the phrase "If this is your first time attending our church, please come to the front." I joined a group of other first-timers and we were awarded with a CD and two small booklets, which I will spend the next six months translating. After the service, we were asked to complete an information card.

I gave them my name and number and explained to the pastor that I had never attended a service like this. It was then that I discovered they were Lutheran. When you know the language well, the distinction is clear. When you don't, well, that's just further confirmation that you're not in Kansas anymore.

Christians, Apartment Filth, and Other Observations from Yantai

Chinese New Year is tomorrow and my first week in Yantai is just about up. In disclaiming that surreal has become normal, the week was average by most accounts. I did not work and, therefore, did not have to wake up for anything in particular. I arrived on Monday night to a spacious but filthy apartment. The feeling of relief from arriving at the new apartment was replaced by disgust. I laid my head on the pillow and pulled a blanket over my legs, a sense of exhaustion waving over me. After a few minutes, another sense took over. Dust and must were surrounding me. I was sleeping on them, disrupting their months of stable serenity in the vacant apartment.

Over the course of the next two days, I washed everything – pillowcases, sofa cushions, towels, sheets…you name it. After the first load of laundry, which included the sofa cushions, I noticed the sofa was not actually the light grey I thought it was but a soft tan. I don’t remember the last time I mopped, dusted, and swept like this, probably because I never have. Each day I’d conquer a new room, replacing buckets of soap water after they turned black. In Shanghai, your “problem” of cleaning can be avoided by hiring a cleaning lady for $2 an hour. But, in Yantai, such practice is not customary. It’s one of the few subtle differences I noticed between the two towns.

It seems like there is a slower pace of life here. Maybe it is the fact that I didn’t have to work this week, but I doubt it. The people seem friendlier, more welcoming. The air - cleaner, colder and dryer than Shanghai - smells a bit more relaxed. And sometimes it smells like snow. Last winter, it snowed twice in Shanghai and they considered it a legendary season. This week, it’s snowed twice in Yantai. Granted, both brought less than an inch. But snow is snow and I am glad it’s regular again, expected.

A Sunday night sore throat morphed into a cold by Tuesday morning. Since I had the luxury of being able to relax, I let my body recover. Aside from cleaning, each day brought studying Chinese and watching the Wire, one of the most well-written shows I’ve ever seen. At some point, I also managed to sneak in a trip to the government building to handle visa formalities, my first chess game in eight years, three games of bowling, four games of pool, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I also made friends with the woman who runs the convenience store downstairs. She, in turn, introduced me to a family that lives in the next-door building. The father is from a different part of China, but the mother is from Yantai. She tells me her parents live across the street and I feel like I’m in South Philly for an instant. My new neighbors may not be Italian or Irish, but they are Christian.