End of week one!

Tuesday 27^th August

Sorting out the residency and work permit, needed to open bank accounts and also remain in the country.  This was fairly straight forward for most of us.  A member of the school with good English came to do most of the work and we mostly sat around in case something needed to be explained.  A very hot day in the taxi, had a Starbucks iced teas, UK prices.  I’ve noticed that fresh veg and food is very cheap, but anything processed quickly reached UK prices.  If you cook everything from scratch, you can eat for next to nothing.

I’d heard about the pollution and today it was especially bad.  Downloaded an App called ‘Airvisual’ which scores pollution locally, this was at the level you’d want protection and that’s why Chinese people are often seen wearing masks over their mouths.  The pollution is likely to be frequently as bad or worse as we go into winter, it really is quite grim.

Most of the day was written off to these jobs and I got one lesson in at the end with Y12.  The police staff processing the residency were very friendly to the point of joking with us, not what I expected!

Wednesday 28^th August

First normal school day, three lessons but still working mostly off the whiteboard.  Fortunately I’m doing recap work from previous years to see what they already know as I’m only familiar with AQA and OCR GCSEs and A-level, respectively.  In the evening though, played Dungeons and Dragons again with the group and had plenty of beers.  Thank god this is a weekly fixture.

Thursday 29^th August

My timetable is a bit uneven, I have a single lesson this Thursday, but four next Thursday on the fortnightly timetable. I spent a lot of the day trying to plan out a lesson schedule for the year and preparing A-level lessons for the next few classes.

Two hour lunch breaks lend themselves to enacting out, to day we tried a pizza place.  The Chinese are fond of fruit on their pizzas, but what I especially like are the thing bases on some which are more like a tortilla wrap. Tasty and crispy but not too filling for the middle of the day.

Friday 30^th August

A four lesson day, two Y11 followed by two Y12.  Morning went well, but a few kids asking me questions took up a chunk of a mere 40 minute lunch.  Shorter of Fridays so children can leave early travel home for the weekends.  Halfway into the first Y12 lesson the laptop died, again, so again was reduced to working all off the whiteboard at short notice with barely any resources. Kids were good about it, probably used to it, but on one hand the school wants A* grades and Oxbridge candidates, and on the other we don’t have the most basic resources like reliable computers and printing.  That they maintain such good results is a credit to students and staff to cope with such barriers.  Many kids must have been going home this weekend, there must have been hundreds of bags lined up outside.

Got a new timetable for next week, lessons are more evenly distributed, but I’ve also swapped around a couple of classes, but still teaching Y11 and Y12 so won’t disrupt my plans too much.

In the evening had dinner with some friends to celebrate getting through all the hoops of work permit, visa, permits, housing and residency.  Negotiating these systems without an effective interpreter would have been, impossible...  Was surprised to find the school still open past 10 when taking a short cut on the way home, and looks incredible lit up at night. 

A New Term

Friday 23^rd August

Last day to prepare any school work before the start of term, again mostly left to get on with my own things. Sorted out the first lessons for Monday, just a recap of Y10 work before we get into new topics.  The pupils here appear to have plenty of class time and are capable to digesting a lot of work.  A quick run down of lessons had me finishing GCSE by Christmas, so I decided to pack out the year with some recap work at the start, a few more assessments and some practical lessons to space things out somewhat.

In the evening several of us new teachers met up with some other expats in the Tianjin area to go out to a Korean BBQ place.  There are approximately 70 of us in the shared WeChat group, but Tianjin in a large place... The first of us was introduced to the group simply by one of the current members spotting them as foreigners in the street and inviting them to join.  We’re all outsiders here, and if you don’t make those connections, you’ll probably find it very lonely.

I’m told the Korean BBQ is a thing you can do in the UK, but it was still a new thing for me.  The meat was excellent, with spices and onions wrapped in a lettuce leaf and awkwardly stuffed in your mouth.

On the at home we went into a cake shop and I got what can be described as a very soft, sweet jam sandwich topped with eggy custard, delicious.

Saturday 24^th August

I’m still a bit restless in the mornings for having a lie in, maybe its the hard bed, and went other to colleagues’ (I should say friends now) flat to play games in the afternoon. We mostly played the Fantasy Flight Lord of the Rings game.  Like their other games there’s a campaign to work through, we lost both but will no doubt press on for another game sometime soon as everyone enjoyed the system.  Times flies, the last of us didn’t leave until 2am.

Sunday 25^th August

It was always going to be a write off as we had to be in school for the afternoon.  Killed time in the morning, put on a suit and walked over to the school, the meeting was two hours.  We largely got lectured about our medical insurance (just emailing the presentation would have done, it was far too much to read take in) and then a talk from an official about regulations for foreigners. I hoped this would be rather more useful than it was.  Instead of going through common day to day cultural/legal mistakes that foreigners should avoid, they chose to go through the documentation for various administrative matters, so I didn’t feel much better informed and will just have to stick to doing what I hope seems reasonable.

Monday 26^th August

First day of school was a mixed start. Booted up the laptop first thing, all looked good for my lesson.  We all went out to see the flag raising and opening ceremony.  We stood for the national anthem, had a series of speeches in Chinese, much of it was lost on us, it was surprisingly hot and humid for 8am.  When I went back inside I found again my laptop has suffered blue screen of death, taking my lesson materials with it.  Ideal for the first lesson of the year, only 15 minutes away, I hastily wrote down the key points of my Y10 recap lesson, grabbed some whiteboard markers and made the best of it by keeping them drawing and writing things to see what they could remember.  The pupils here are delightful, if anything I’m hoping they will talk a little more as they are very quiet!

Popped out for lunch to a Korean restaurant, and had a fried chicken dish. The luxury of having a lunch period long enough to eat out!  UK schools barely give you the time to cram the food down.

Another surprise, I headed for my afternoon class (pens in hand, still no laptop) and arriving 5 minutes early saw the classroom was full of pupils at their desks.  It wasn’t another class as I first thought, it was MY class that had arrived, sat down and set themselves up before me.  This is something you will NEVER see in the UK, likely they wouldn’t even be allowed into a classroom alone anyway but the motivation to do this is not something I’ve seen before in anything but a minority.

When I got home I couldn’t get into the flat.  As if I hadn’t had enough ups and downs in the day now I was locked out of my own home.  Then after a bit, I realised I was in the wrong building and currently had my key in some stranger’s door.  All these buildings look identical, inside and out...

The evening I tried making something more authentic, of course I ended up making far more than I could eat but even with the lack of correct ingredients I was happy with it.  What I have noticed is that processed foods of any sort are fairly costly in local terms, crisps, cakes, pots of noodles, etc, but raw vegetables are far cheaper than the UK.  Recipe attached...

https://thewoksoflife.com/shanghai-cai-fan-rice-salted-pork-greens/

A break before school...

Monday 19^th August

So I had two days off before school was to start their introduction days.  I didn’t do much on Monday, taking a bit of time to sort out the flat a bit and made another small trip to Walmart just for a few food items.  So it was my plan to call this blog ‘they don’t have cheese here’ and for the most part they don’t.  I had to scour the shop but eventually found a fridge with a single type of real cheese available.  There was a range of processed cheese slices, and some expensive butter costing equivalent £5-8 a block!

Tuesday 20^th August

Tuesday I took a walk to the Florentia shopping centre near by, was a 40 minute walk mostly down a cycle path but fairly scenic, and kept me off the path running directly along the road, a six lane carriage way.  Along the way I saw a guy making a brush from twigs to sweep the road.  If you’re going to ask someone to sweep something the size of a motorway you could at least give them a broom.

The shopping centre was sort of Italian styled, looks nice but was 95% designer labels, Gucci, Prada, etc.  Expensive, and no interest to me, no DVD/media shops, book shops or anything other than premium clothes, shoes, handbags, perfume with a Starbucks or Costa I between.

Wednesday 21^st August

Found a shortcut to school to cut off a few more minutes, can reliably do the walk in 10 minutes.  There’s a lovely lake in the centre.

School went well, seems positive and reassuring. My fellow Chemistry teachers are yet to appear so I’m at a bit of a loose end still, just focusing on sorting the lessons immediately needed next week.  My big success was quickly discovering that fellow science staff are gamers of Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering.  I huge source of relief that I have people I will be able to keep doing these with, we played a game in the evening.  So sure was I that I would not meet anyone playing these on a staff of barely 30 that left all my cards and games behind in the UK.  Damn.  Maybe in a few months...

Thursday 22^nd August

Neither chemistry teacher will arrive in school before next week, so I’m very much left to my own devices, asking questions and generally finding out what you can’t do here.  Printing is likely impossible for the first month, I’ve no idea why that’s just how it is an no one seems to be able to do much other than shrug and laugh.  I think I’m just going to have to get used to this general disorganisation and lack of resources.

I managed to bugger up the school laptop given to me the day before by downloading some anti-virus software onto it which caused it to blue screen of death.  Still unclear as to the reasons, but just laugh and shrug, get a new one.  I got text books, and the content is largely the same, so that’s reassuring for teaching.

Tried another supermarket on the way home, found they have interesting flavours of crisps. I’ve never seen Cucumber flavour before, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was just weird and I couldn’t finish the bag.  Also had a cheap bottle of red wine made in this region.  Bloody awful.

Arrival

I’m five days into my move to a new job and life at an international school in China and only just feel I’m in a state of mind that I can write about the last few days. Safe to say the learning curve has been fairly steep up until Saturday when I finally settled into my flat and could breathe a sigh of relief.  I imagine most entries to this blog will be shorter than this but the longer I wait the more I will fall behind..

Wednesday 14^th August

After a 9-hour, mostly sleepless, flight I landed at about 8.30am. The meant I skipped the night and my body felt like it was about 1am upon landing but still having an entire day ahead to get through.  I got through security fairly easily with the visa I only received on Monday, and like most of this week a lot of things were going to be a last minute rush that you get swept along by.  Fortunately two teachers, a couple, had arrived shortly before me and they would be who I was going to rely upon for the next few days to keep my sanity as both had experience working abroad previously and would always be there for reassurance and confidence.  From what I can see, everyone who has joined the school has previous experience, I’m the only coming from the UK fresh.

First stop was at the school to sign for the 20,000rmb (approx £2,400) advance.  We stuff these huge bundles of notes into our bags and are dropped off at the hotel.

After this we ate in the hotel, first authentic meal in China.  I ordered a chicken dish and found out that chicken dishes in China typically are full of bones, and bone fragments which led to some very careful chewing and I’ll likely be cautious about these in future.  After that walked up the road to see absolutely nothing (typically the shops were the opposite direction from the one I took) and then met up with the others for an evening meal, and avoided the chicken...

Exhausted, I collapsed into bed, but jet lag kicked in big time when I woke up at 1am that night and stayed awake until 4.30am. 

Thursday 15^th August

After having barely any sleep the previous night and not actually having a night the day before, I felt like hell.  The breakfast was largely the food of the night before, noodles, various meat dumplings, meat filled pancakes, potato things - a variety of deep fried stodge.  I tried my best but that’s a big ask on your stomach first thing. The only drink available was hot water, not tea, coffee, juice or even cold water, and it was 35^oC outside. Strewth.

First job was viewing for flats, we split up and went to about half dozen each.  A guide from the school helped translate, sleep deprived and not having much of a clue I went along with it not knowing what was expected and hoping it would work out.  The whole area looks as the above photo, colossal towers for miles around.  First few flats were not in a good state, dirty and run down, there doesn’t seem to be a belief that flats should be tidy for people viewing them here, they clean them after you agree to take the place.  I saw flats as high as the 25^th floor but the novelty wore off fast.  Eventually I settled on a 2nd floor flat with a view out the window onto smaller houses opposite.  Also the cheapest flat at 2100rmb a month (barely £250) astonishing at the size of it.  You wouldn’t even know there were 20 floors above and that you weren’t in a two floor house yourself.  So they agree to clean up the walls and repair the hole in the ceiling, and I’m asked to sign a contract (all very reasonable) and pay the advance - six months rent (erm...).  This is normal, the school guide tells me, I hand over nearly 18,000rmb.  The vast majority of my advance gone.

After that we went out to get a phone as western phones simply don’t work in China, also I preferred to keep my UK phone and number. Then we set up a WiFi account for our new flats.  This took about 45 minutes, with passport being copied, documents to sign, photographs, etc.

Friday 16^th August

In the morning it was a trip to the medical centre on the far side of Beijing for the medical tests. Other than the ride itself, the longest bit was waiting for a ticket in the queue.  Once the tests started it was done in 20 minutes.  In no particular order you went into a series of rooms connected to the main waiting room, blood test, urine sample, x-ray, ECG, ultrasound, blood pressure/weight/height and eyesight (failed that for sure, I could barely see the chart). Remarkably fast and efficient.

In the afternoon we went to Walmart to buy essentials for our flats, bedding, cleaning things, kitchenware, etc.  After the trip to Walmart I was broke, and hadn’t really spent that much there.  I had barely 100rmb (£12) remaining and nothing to live off the rest of the month.  I contacted the school guide telling them that this was hopeless, at his advice I’d signed away the near entirety of the advance on the rent leaving me with nothing!  So he arranged the letting agent return a chunk of the money...

The combination of the lack of sleep and the constant stress of the situation as not knowing what was happing with money, the condition of the flat, and how all our mountain of stuff would be transported safely into the the flat (I had visions of it piled up on the pavement as I tried to carry bits in one at a time) was giving me terrible tension headaches.  The frustrations of things generally being somewhat confused and rushed was driving me up the wall and I was sure I was going to crack!

Saturday 17^th August

I have a small amount of the breakfast, the 5^th or 6^th fried meal is a struggle.  Then a taxi arrives to move us to our flats, one of the other teachers comes to help me move my stuff and then I return to help move theirs.  Then the agent returns to the flat bringing the money, no issue whatsoever.  Then I unpack.  True to their word, the flat has been cleaned very well, walls touched up and that hole in the ceiling plastered over.  Also a WiFi hub has arrived from somewhere and is already plugged in and flickering away.  I breathe a sigh of relief, suddenly everything has fallen into place.

Not a lot else happened that day.  We arranged a DiDi (Chinese Uber) to take us again to Walmart and we bought food.  Then dropped us back at the school to go our separate ways home. The bags were absurdly heavy, there has to be an easier way of doing this, but still, I’ll work out deliveries another time.  The best bit was going to the section with western food, getting a box of Cheerios and knowing that tomorrow my breakfast would be cereal with milk, some orange juice and a banana!

Sunday 18^th August

Our first chance to see the school properly.  All new teachers who have arrived so far assembled, along with some current staff and the principle, for introductions and a tour.  It’s nothing like any British school I have been to, might detail this in time but currently the school looks a bit of a building site and many things are remodelled for the new term.

After that we went to a restaurant popular with the school staff that does a range of both Chinese and western food.  Was so good to have simple things like bits of pizzas and cake again, but also spicy Chinese things too.

In the afternoon we went into Tianjin to see some of the more attractive parts.  I was desperate to buy a hat because the sun is so intense here but no luck.  We got some attention from the locals.  I’d been told that something people stare, but I’ve also seem the smile and wave, so the attention has been friendly.  A family asked some of us to pose with them for a group photo, I assume we are that much of a curiosity to them.

So that’s the first five days done, and I’m really looking forward to the next.

Oh, and they really don’t have cheese here.