Mainland China, here I come!

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Maaike

Today I am leaving Hong Kong and flying to Yantai to start the real adventure. My holiday in Hong Kong has been great, but I guess it’s time to go back to the real world now. :D

I’m flying to Yantai late tonight, and I will be picked up from the airport by my boss, the owner of the language school where I will be working. I’ve heard from one of the other teachers that works there that I will be staying at her apartment for a while until they find an apartment for me. I have no idea how long that is going to take, but I’m hoping it won’t be too long… It would be nice to have my own place after sleeping at other people’s places for a few weeks. :D I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with the girl for a few weeks, and she seems nice, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. But it’s always nicer to have your own place, so I can properly settle in.

I’m starting work on Monday, but I have no idea yet who or what exactly I will be teaching and at what times, so I’m hoping to find out more about that this weekend! It’s all a big question mark at this point, but I kind of like that. If you don’t really know anything you don’t really have any expectations either, so you can’t get too disappointed!

I’m a little nervous about the whole thing at the moment, but I think that’s mostly caused by the fact that I will have to make my way to Shenzhen before flying to Yantai. Shenzhen is in mainland China, right across the border from Hong Kong, so I will have to go through immigration before getting to the airport. Immigration stuff always makes me nervous, I don’t know why! There were no direct flights from Hong Kong to Yantai, so it was easier to fly from Shenzhen. I’m sure everything will be fine, but these things are always a bit nerve-wracking!

Anyway, so my next post will be from Yantai. I have no idea when and how I will have access to the internet, but as soon as I’ve got everything set up I will make sure to report. :D

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Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Maaike

Happy Year of the Dragon everyone! Chinese New Year goes on for a few days and so far I haven’t noticed that much of it, apart from the city being kind of quiet as all the shops are closed, and a lot of decorations everywhere. Tonight we’re going to watch the fireworks though, so that should make it feel more like a new year’s party. :D

So far Hong Kong has been amazing. I’ve been here for a week now, staying with my friend L. and her husband, and they’ve been going out of their way to make me feel welcome. L. and I have visited quite a few things already: we’ve gone to the Peak, wandered around several districts, had a lot of wonderful Chinese food, etc. Some of the highlights so far were a visit to Sai Kung, a village outside the main city where they have a nice boulevard and very relaxed atmosphere. We had a great lunch and some ice cream there, and it was just a lovely afternoon. Yesterday we went to the Chi Lin Nunnery, which was also a great experience. It has a wonderful temple and garden, very well kept, and very peaceful. We have also watched a lot of Korean soapseries and spent a lot of time catching up.

Priyanka Chopra and Shahrukh Khan on stage

Another highlight was a trip to Macau with my friend S., who also lives in HK. We’ve known each other as penpals and online for 15 years, but we had never actually met, so it was already great to finally meet her in real life. Then she came up with the idea to go to Macau and see the Zee Cine Awards (a Bollywood award show), which made the whole experience even better. I also got the chance to walk around in the old Portuguese part of Macau for a few hours, which was very interesting. Before the award show started we were at the red carpet for a while and I got to see Shahrukh Khan from up close, which was supercool. :D The award show was presented by Shahrukh and Priyanka Chopra and they did a few performances inbetween the handing out of awards. It was a pretty good show and I enjoyed it! Macau is such a strange place though; you have the old Portuguese part which is a World Heritage site and has many interesting things to see and it’s lovely. On the other side you have the massive casinos, which are like Las Vegas, but on crack. It’s pretty crazy!

I haven’t been taking many pictures, by the way, because the weather has been overcast and foggy and you just can’t take any nice pictures with conditions like that. :D

Anyway, so we are now moving from the Year of the Rabbit into the Year of the Dragon. In Chinese astrology, the Year of the Dragon is a year of big and exciting new projects. It’s a year in which to forget about being careful and moving forward slowly, this is the year to move ahead at lightning speed. The dragon cannot be tamed and will provide everyone with more energy than they ever had. It is the year of starting new businesses and earning lots of money. The Year of the Dragon is regarded as a good year to have children, get married or start something new. It is a year of new beginnings and untameable energy. Everything that will happen, will be big. Good things will not just be good, they will be fantastic. Bad things, however, will not just be bad, they will be disastrous, so it is a year in which you have to be careful not to overdo things. Lots of new possibilities will open up, but you have to make sure not to loose your head amidst the craziness. Sounds like it will be a pretty exciting year. :D

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Less than 24 hours until lift off

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Maaike

I have just checked in online for my flights tomorrow, and I’m now packing some last things into my backpack… It’s hard to believe the time has finally come to fly to China, after waiting for such a long time. I had my goodbye party last night and everything has been arranged (well, I think so anyway!). My boarding pass has been printed and is in my bag, and the only thing left to do is drop off a box of things that didn’t fit in my backpack at the post office, which I will do tomorrow morning. And then I have to unplug my laptop, put it in my bag and go to the airport.

I think it’s finally starting to sink in that I am moving to China tomorrow. In the past months I have just done all the things that needed to be done to prepare for this move, but it always remained a bit of a vague notion that I was actually going to move to a strange country on the other side of the world. But now with everything I do I think “this is the last time I’m doing this before moving to China”, it’s suddenly becoming real. And I’m finally getting really excited about it! Also a bit sad, ’cause it’s hard saying goodbye and knowing that I will not see a lot of people for at least a year, but I am also really, really excited. I cannot wait to go to the airport and get the adventure started!

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All Systems Go!

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Maaike

Yesterday I finally received my entry visa for China, which was quite the relief! The application process was very short (especially because I paid extra to get the visa as soon as possible), but I had to wait for a long time before I had all the supporting documents needed to be able to apply for the visa. I was getting really nervous about it, especially as my plan was to fly mid-January! But, now it’s all sorted and I’m ready to go. I’ve booked my ticket, and I’m flying to Hong Kong on the 16th of January, and then on to Yantai on the 27th.

Now that it is finally 100% sure that I will be going I have also gone into overdrive arranging stuff. Most of the things I had already taken care of, but there’s a few little details that still need to be sorted out. Mostly boring stuff, like insurance (major pain!), but also trying to figure out what I will bring with me to China. I can bring 23 kg in both checked and hand baggage, so that’s 46 kg in total. I won’t be bringing that much though, as I have to carry it myself. :D Still, it’s good to know I can take quite a lot of hand baggage as well! Maybe I’ll put all the heavy stuff in my carry on (it has wheels!), and everything else in my backpack?

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Time flies…

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Maaike

Holy shit, what just happened? It’s mid-December already! Only one month left until my intended departure date.

So what have I been up to? Mostly work. My current job has kept me very busy over the past months as we just got past a peak period in the year. Things have quieted down a bit now though, so I can focus on leaving. Which is really strange. I’ve been doing a lot of deleting of e-mails and shredding of old files and making documents for my colleagues with as much information as possible. I already had my official goodbye lunch last week, but I have two informal dinners with some colleagues (the fun ones!) still coming up. Next week is my last week in the office. As it’s the week before Christmas a lot of people are taking time off, so there is a good chance I will be alone in the office on my last day. I’ll probably have to turn off the lights and lock the door myself when I leave. It sounds a bit sad perhaps, but I actually think it’s quite nice. I hate having to leave in a flurry of goodbyes and well wishes, as then you can’t really focus on the moment. And I always like focusing on the moment. :D

The weirdest thing about leaving my job is the fact that this whole China thing still could blow up, as I don’t have my visa yet. I’ve been collecting documents and have sent everything to my employer there, and now I’m waiting for the invitation letter from the Chinese authorities. Once I get it, I will need to take it to the embassy to apply for my visa, and then hopefully get the visa a few days later. I don’t really expect anything to go wrong at this point, but it could! So I haven’t actually bought a ticket yet. Which makes the whole thing even weirder, as I don’t have a specific departure date and time yet! Somehow my head just cannot handle the fact that I don’t have a specific time to look forward to, and refuses to accept the fact I’m leaving. Especially as, technically, it could not happen. In a case like that I don’t like to get too excited about something, just in case it all falls through. I hate getting really excited about something and then not getting it, so I’m always overly cautious about things. Except that I’ve had to quit my current job on time to be able to leave in a week (3 months notice!). So that’s a little scary!

Anyway, if all goes according to plan I will be flying to Hong Kong in three weeks, spend two weeks with my friend who lives there, and then fly on to Yantai to start work on the 30th. Fingers crossed things will go according to plan!

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I have a job!

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Maaike

Big news: I have found a job in China! After the interview I mentioned in my last blogpost I had another Skype interview with a second school. I asked for e-mail addresses from current teachers at both schools (apparently that’s common practice when trying to find an ESL job in China) and I spent about two weeks e-mailing back and forth with those teachers. In the end I decided to go for a small private language school in Yantai. The teacher I was talking to via e-mail was very enthusiastic and Yantai seems like a nice place to live. So I accepted the job there, and I start January 30th!

It’s quite an odd notion to have found a job in a place I’d never heard of before, in a country I’ve never been to, but I guess a lot is possible with a little help from the internet!

The internet is also very helpful when trying to get an idea of the place where I will end up. I saw on Google Maps that Yantai is a coastal city, and that there are a lot of Korean restaurants, a shopping mall and a KFC in the area where the school is located. Wikipedia has been able to tell me a bit about the city and its history. The city has its own website as well, even with some English content. And, there even is a website geared towards expats living in Yantai! At least I’m getting some idea of what it’s like to live in Yantai and it’s no longer a complete black hole. :D

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The board is set, the pieces are moving

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Maaike

If you can guess where the quote in the title comes from, I’ll give you cookies.

Even though it still seems to be quite early for someone wanting to start work in January, I have now officially started looking for a job in China. Two days ago I’ve sent out four applications and I already had two positive responses, one of which I just had a Skype interview with. I think it went okay, it’s always really hard to tell. I’m quite pleased with how I did, it was a nice conversation and I had a fairly intelligent answer to the interviewer’s questions. It was a short interview, only a little over 15 minutes, but the connection was quite bad, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad sign. :D I’m glad it’s over though, I always get rather worked up about these things and I slept quite badly last night. I’m tired already and my day hasn’t even started yet! Guess I’ll be drinking lots of coffee today… They promised to send me the e-mail addresses of one or two of their teachers so I can speak to them and ask more questions, and they said if I’m still interested after that, we would take it from there. A bit vague, but positive, right?

The other positive response came in just as I was doing the interview and is also quite promising. I’m rather charmed by the text of the e-mail, they said “I’m very impressived of your resume. As you said you are new to the ESL field, but I do believe you are very potential to be a qualified ESL/English teacher after I read your resume. It just by time!” Cute, no? :D

So, all in all I’m off to a good start, I think! The school I talked to today sounds really promising, so it would be great if that would come through, but even if it doesn’t it seems it would not be so difficult to find something else, especially considering my actual preferred starting date is still months away!

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Learning Chinese, part 1

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Maaike

A quick update! With regards to the TEFL course, I’ve finished everything except for two specialist certificates, “Teaching with Limited Resources” and “Teaching Large Classes”. I have started both and only have to finish the final assignments. But I’m dragging my feet… As usual I’ve done all the fun questions first and now I’m stuck with the not-so-fun ones. I’ve got about two weeks left, and that should be plenty of time, if only I could just get myself to focus and DO IT (instead of updating my blog!).

I’ve been putting off learning Chinese until I finish my TEFL course, as I think it would be too much to do both at the same time. But now that I’ve almost finished the course I’ve been looking at different methods of learning Chinese. I expect very few people in China will be able to speak English, so to be able to get around in China and to live my daily life there, I will need to be able to speak some basic Chinese, preferably before I actually go there. I’ve spent this weekend reading a website by an Irish guy, Fluent in 3 Months, which has proven to be quite inspirational! I don’t expect to be fluent in Chinese in 3 months, but he’s got some interesting ideas about language learning that I’m keen to try.

Chinese is unlike any other language I’ve ever learned and I think my usual methods of learning a language are not going to work very well. Usually, when I start a language, I try to learn a lot of vocabulary and read about grammar rules. Considering the fact that I don’t actually speak anything apart from Dutch and English, it seems about time I change my methods. I’m very much a visual learner (I need to see things written down to be able to remember them) and very shy in using a new language (even after all those years of studying Finnish, I still freak out if I have to do something as simple as ordering a coffee), so just reading is perfect for me and my preferred way of learning. I tend to be able to read a new language quite fast, but speaking it is a whole other ballgame. As Chinese is quite foreign when it comes to pronunciation and pitch, it’s very important to do a lot of listening exercises though, and being able to read the language will do nothing for my skills at speaking it. So, I’ve downloaded a couple of audio-based language learning programs, a couple of lessons through Pimsleur, and a couple of lessons through Earworms. I did the first unit of Pimsleur this morning and it seemed to work quite well, though I immediately found that the words I had seen before, in print, were the ones I remembered a lot better, which was to be expected. So I went out to the bookstore and also got the Lonely Planet phrasebook (including an audio CD) to learn the most important phrases. This is going to be a whole new approach to me, as I usually prefer a more grammar driven way of learning. That hasn’t really gotten me speaking any languages though, so we’ll see how this new method goes!

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Written Chinese for world peace

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Maaike

This morning I was at the gym* and suddenly it dawned on me that I could learn written Chinese without actually learning any spoken Chinese. So far I have been hesitant about learning to write Chinese. Learning to speak Chinese is daunting enough already, and I thought it might just too ambitious to learn both. I didn’t really get the point of written Chinese anyway, I mean, 1000s of characters just to be able to write? How inefficient! Why not just use an alphabet? So much easier, if you ask me. You’d only need to learn about 25 symbols, plus some diacritics and voilá, you can write Chinese. Easy as pie (well, if you’re any good at baking pies, of course).

But this morning I had an epiphany. The main advantage of written Chinese is that you don’t actually have to learn the spoken language. There is no connection between the spoken and the written language, like there is with an alphabet. An alphabet symbolizes sounds or syllables, and uses those as building blocks for words. Chinese characters (as far as I’m aware anyway) have no relation to sounds, just to the meaning of the word. Which means you don’t need to know the actual word in Chinese, but you will understand the concept from the written character. This is one reason why the Chinese are not likely to give up their “complicated” way of writing, as it’s the only way that people from all over China, who speak many completely different languages, can communicate with each other. So if I would learn at least a couple of Chinese characters, I could actually communicate with Chinese people without speaking a word of Chinese. How awesome is that? And then I thought, what if the whole world would just learn Chinese characters, we could all communicate with each other in writing, without speaking each other’s language! It’s like a secret code, how exciting! According to what I’ve read, you only need to know about a 1000 characters to be able to understand 90% of written Chinese. I think that’s quite reasonable. You could learn two new characters every day for a year and a half, and you’d be able to understand pretty much everything. Not bad, eh? A lot less effort than learning to speak a new language. I daresay there are very few languages you can learn for 90% within a year and a half with only 15 minutes a day. This could totally work!

*I always get my best ideas at the gym. Maybe I should go more often?

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Empty pages waiting to be filled

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Maaike

passports

My old and new passport


Yesterday I went to pick up my new passport. My old passport was expiring in January so even though I could’ve waited a bit to renew my old passport, it had to be done before leaving for China. So to at least have the idea I’m doing something to prepare for China, I decided to renew my passport now. Thankfully, they let me keep my old passport, as I’m really quite attached to it. In the past 4,5 years, my trusty old passport has taken me to Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the US, Thailand, Cambodia, South Korea, India and Croatia. Plus countries within the EU that don’t give me a stamp. My old passport looks quite battered compared to the bright and shiny new one, especially with the holes in it. I’m thankful they do that though, as without the holes I would not be allowed to keep my old passport and that would’ve made me very sad! I have a huge emotional attachment to my passport, as it’s what enables me to go places and to enter foreign countries. It’s my ticket to anywhere and it’s a trusty old friend.

My new passport I still have to get used to. It’s so shiny and new, with lots of empty pages. It’s obviously not yet used and it has a new number I have to memorize. It’s like a new friend that you’ve only just met, and you think your life together is going to be quite exciting, but it just hasn’t started yet. I trust we will have many adventures together though, and its very first stamp will probably be Chinese, the mark of a great new expedition.

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