Anthology: Train Ride to Suzhou, the Moulin Rouge, and Finally Getting to Teach

Here is an anthology of the rest of Danika's emails to us the first two weeks of her China trip. We got her set up on a VPN (Virtual Proxy Network) in order to work around China's blocking certain Internet sites. Once she could get on Facebook the long descriptive emails ceased! From that point on she would post pictures to Facebook and we used instant messenger or Skype to communicate. It's sort of sad; this day and age of technology does not lend itself well to documenting experiences like letters used to. At least we were able to capture some of her first impressions.


August 29, 2013

I don't have Northanger Abbey but I did bring a few other movies - Charlie's Angels, Newsies, The Holiday, and The Sandlot. Sorry, I needed to have those. They gave us money for our phones, and we're going to get those figured out today. Do I need a Chinese bank account? Our liaison said we were getting them today, but I don't think I'm going to get one. Yesterday was an interesting day leaving Beijing and trying to get situated in our Suzhou. The train ride was 8 hours, but it was pretty cool. They switched me from Kindergarten to teaching elementary school, which I'm glad about because it will be easier to communicate and get them to do things than the little kids. I just kept thinking about a whole class of Bradys and Camdens.....but elementary will be better haha. Our temporary liaison is a super cute college girl named Jane. She is so cute and she speaks English really well. Living situation....kind of a long story that I don't have time for right now. Long story short, 3 other girls, Jane, and I ended sleeping in a hotel last night instead of our apartments. This hotel is so nice, and the beds are SOFT and we have 2 FLUFFY PILLOWS. I slept so well! But hopefully we don't have to go back to that apartment because it was awful. Like kind of sketchy and unlivable. But things change at the last minute so maybe we won't be living there. But the good thing is I will be living with 2 other girls (as of now) so that is positive. From what I can tell, Suzhou is a little less crazy than Beijing. I want to get a VPN so you'll have to tell me how to do that. 

Train ride to Suzhou

August 31, 2013

We are still in that apartment, but I think we will just have to make it work. I think a lot of people have rough living situations too. We aren't getting internet for at least 2 more days so that sucks. We found a Tesco and and grocery store that have anything and everything we need. We are trying to go to church tomorrow, but apparently we are also finally going to our schools. We don't even know who our liaisons are yet. Suzhou is cleaner, quieter, less smell, and a little less crazy than Beijing. The air is also a lot better. We can actually see blue sky and clouds and the sun! We're just kind of playing everything by ear right now. We finally found a restaurant with wifi (we had to sit in the lobby of a super nice hotel to get internet today, but only for a little bit), but it's taken a while. The air conditioning in my room and also the washing machine both work really well. I might not email for a day or two because we don't have internet in our apartment, but just be patient. There is a cute bakery by us that is like the one in Beijing. Everyone is really nice so far. I didn't get a picture with Jane or our driver, Ding, but once we go to the schools I'm sure we will make Chinese friends. I just want to start teaching so I have some sort of structure of where I'm supposed to be. Right now it just seems like no one cares that we are here, but Jacob and Spencer told us all that it would seem really unorganized. They were right! It's nice to have my own room, even if everything is maroon-colored and it looks like the Moulin Rouge. Brentwood is going to seem like a castle in the sky compared to this. I found honey nut cheerios and milk! I have been craving that this whole time. They have everything here that I was told they wouldn't: deodorant, milk, cheese, yogurt, FROZEN yogurt, chocolate, everything. It's really not that bad. Well I have to eat my food so talk to you later. Love you, bye!

Walking to hotel to "steal" WiFi

Humorous Chinese sign

Just keep "clam"

September 1, 2013

Jacob is coming to our apartment to help us out tomorrow, and supposedly we are moving to a different apartment next week. We are still having some difficulties, but Jacob will sort everything out. We bought comforters and blankets for our beds so they aren't too bad. I just want to start teaching so that I have a purpose for being here, and we're not just sitting around doing nothing. We took the subway to church and it was super clean and nice. The meeting house is someone's mansion apartment. It is seriously so fancy. We met a lot of nice people that say we can have dinner with them and stuff so that will be good for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I used Danielle's phone to get on Facebook today after church, but it was super slow loading so all I saw really had time to see was that email about Garrett. But now we have a flash drive thing with internet so yeah. K I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Bye!


September 2, 2013

Brooke:

I have no other way to tell you this so....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! My people got in contact with Harry's people and he is coming to your birthday party. Zayn might be coming, but there's just no way to be sure at this point. Niall always crashes so be prepared for that as well. Have fun and be glad you don't live at the Moulin Rouge!

Mom:

Are you guys doing the race or whatever for Garrett in October? What even is it? I wish I could go. I would have you buy me a wristband or something and send it, but I'm pretty positive it would never make it here. I went to my school today. It's a cute school, and everyone was super nice. There are some younger girls and then the older lady teachers and they were exactly like they would be at an American school. I had lunch there and looked around by myself and then I sat there for about 2 hours doing nothing. They just didn't know what to do with me. But I have my own cubicle thing so that's cool. I'm teaching 4 classes a day, and they're all 3rd and 4th graders except one 2nd grade class a week. That's actually the age that I wanted to teach originally so I'm glad. They seem like they know pretty good English. I have a text book to teach out of which is good also. Anyway, the branch president with the fancy house asked me if I could teach his kids piano lessons! I just have to tell him my schedule, and they will pay me about $10 US dollars an hour and send their "driver" to pick me up. Fan-cy. They have three kids and they want each kid to have at least one lesson per week. I will die of happiness if I get to teach piano (easy) to American kids (fantastic) in their ballroom on their baby grand (dreamy). I'm going to email him today, and hopefully that works out. I need a VPN so how do I do that? I haven't taken any pictures of Suzhou yet, but I will eventually. 

"One of my very naughty 4th grade classes."

"Rainy day at my school"

September 4, 2013

So teaching is going pretty well so far. I have the perfect ages. I am celebrity status at that school. I literally spent 10 minutes signing autographs yesterday. There are 3 girls in one of my fourth grade classes who are my friends kind of. One of them lived in Chicago for 2 years so she can actually understand what I'm saying, and I love it. I'm teaching Seth's kids one lesson a week each at their school (not at the mansion) so that will be good to have them know what I'm talking about because they speak English. 

The Chinese kids do not have a good English language education. If I ask one of the fourth graders what their name is, they usually have no idea what I'm saying. All they know how to do is repeat what the teacher says, and I'm pretty sure they have no idea what it means. I have a textbook to teach out of, which is just having them repeat ridiculous dialogues that would never help them talk to an English speaker in real life. But for now I will keep using the book, but try to incorporate better ways to teach it. It's just hard to explain anything because they have no idea what I'm saying. Good thing there's a Chinese teacher in there with me to help translate. I showed the kids those postcards and our family picture on my computer and they loved them. We played head, shoulders, knees, and toes and we sang it slow, fast, loud, quiet, etc. and it was fun. It's nice that I don't have the same class twice in a week so I can just use the same lesson all week. I have it pretty good. My school is a three minute walk from our apartment, I only have four classes each day, my kids are pretty easy to teach, and the other teachers are really chill. Kenzie teaches 2 year olds for 2 hours every day and she hates it haha.

Eye exercises

And everyone else in our group has to commute pretty far, and all the ones teaching younger ages absolutely hate it. So I am very blessed. I teach my only second grade class today so I'll have to have a few more games up my sleeve. It's supposed to rain this weekend so I'm pumped. Well, I have to get "ready" (that's another great thing- I can look terrible and they still tell me I'm beautiful. I love China!) and do some other stuff so peace out. Let me know when/if you want to Skype, and we can try to figure out a time.