Goodbye for now China!

So this is it. I head off tomorrow to meet up with Kristen in Thai gau (Thailand to those who can't speak Mandarin). Its been a long, hard (that sounds dirty) couple of weeks, but I am finally finished marking the last of my 267 exams. I have packed up the place into vacuum bags and set out the dehumidifying desiccant packs (Jinshitan has 98% humidity for most of the summer and mold is a real problem), cleaned out the fridge and packed my bags.

The last few weeks have been a blur. I have been working on creating curriculum documents for the new program that I am in charge of next year. Who would have thought that four months into my teaching career I would be coming up with the theoretical and practical basis for a locally developed course? Pretty sweet, but tiring considering I still have had to teach a full course load and mark, mark, mark. I have over 260 students, and they were all finishing review papers, essays and handing in late homework assignments... oh and writing final exams. In any case it has been extremely busy.

We have also had to deal with some pretty extreme weather over the last couple of weeks. Not only has it been stiflingly hot, but we also got to experience our first typhoon. It actually may only have been a named storm, but the students all called it a typhoon (Meike or Meile was the storms name apparently). It rained for 24 hours straight. HARD. In fact it rained so hard that a retaining wall that was holding up a cliff beside the Junior high campus collapsed, bringing down tonnes of dirt and concrete and fence. Luckily it happened at night, and it hit a part of the building that is rarely used. As far as I know there has been no structural damage but neither has there been any sign of a cleanup attempt. In fact no one has even roped the area off. They are too busy putting in grass ( in the winter they take away all the grass on campus to store it in greenhouses and bring it back... now).

We have been given a bunch of things by teachers to lazy or slow to sell off their gently used appliances and items. Lamps, ovens, a dryer, vacuum, clothes racks, spices... you name it, people dumped it ( and we are really grateful! All the new toys are wonderful... and way cheaper than having to go shopping for them- THANKS TEACHERS!).

One of the things we have picked up are two bikes. I have been out on the bike a lot recently because it has been so nice out and it has been a real treat to have some added mobility. Unfortunately I had a run in with a crazy taxi driver who tried to overtake a kelp truck (yes a truck hauling kelp to the market). For some reason he chose to overtake on the shoulder, where I happened to be riding. Like all drivers in China he was relying on his echolocation- his horn was going off in repeated beeps and blares- so I knew he was coming for some time. Unfortunately the curb was about two feet high so there was nothing I could do except jump off my bike as fast as I could. Needless to say I was halfway off the bike when his rear panel hit my pedal and handle bars and sent me for a little spill. Not damage to me besides a scraped arm and a bruised knee. The bike... well the pedal busted off and the handlebar got a little mangled, but all in all it survived relatively unscathed. Trusting to the old maxim of "get back on the horse as soon as you can" I jumped back on the bike and took off on an hour bike ride along the beach.

I also had a chance to go out for dinner with the High School Principal and his lovely wife. We went to a hole in the wall restaurant (one of my favourites: it serves mashed potatoes with cilantro, chili and gravy... along with donkey dumplings and "race dog") with the only other Canadians still in Jinshitan. It was great to hang out with "the authority figure" in a more relaxed setting as he is someone I actually really enjoy talking to. His wife is an absolute gem as well, and one of the sweetest people we have met here.

To cap off this last blog entry of the first six months in China... some observations:

1- Things that are ostensibly food are really not meant to be eaten despite their avouched nutritive properties.

2- Never, ever will we attempt to drive in China.

3- Every time you think you have found the dirtiest washroom, you are always surprised by an even more putrid one.

4- China is not a place for the question "why?"

5- When speaking Mandarin, it is best to be forceful and bluster your way through any attempted phrase... in any case you won't be understood by your intended recipient, but you might impress them with your manner.

These four months have been a shock, an adventure, a challenge, an eye opener, a hell of a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. There have been a few times when we have been so frustrated that there was shouting, fewer times when tears were shed, and a few times when we wanted to pack it in and call it quits. But there have also been times that have been magical, that have been exciting and interesting and strange all rolled up into one. And so, even though we are leaving China for a few months, we will be back to do it again for one more year....