Orienting

The “Orient” is a historical term for the East, in relation to Europe, the “Occident.” Of course the Chinese did not think of themselves as being in the east; they considered themselves as the center of the civilized world. In fact, the mandarin word for China is zhongguo 中国 which literally translates to “middle kingdom.” 

The etymology of the word “orientation” comes from the medieval practice of building cathedrals so that the apse, the part of the building that contained the altar, would be on the eastern side (hence orient). I suppose if they screwed up and got it the other way around the architects would shrug and say, “Well, occidents happen.” (source credit for this stolen bad pun)

Nearly one month into our stay in China we are still in orienting. In addition to our battery of medical tests and immigration hoops to jump through we had to sit through a presentation from the school’s lawyer on laws and regulations of the country. He began the meeting by announcing that he tried to make this an engaging and funny presentation, and then proceeded to give the most boring talk I’ve ever sat through. To his credit, his PPT did have some snazzy transitions from one slide to the next. The highlight of the talk for me was when he announced that it is illegal for foreigners to travel in Tibet without a tour group. To reinforce the importance of this, the lawyer shared the story of how a German classmate of his decided to travel by himself to Tibet, and surely enough, he was never heard from again (PPT screen wipe and fade to next slide)! 

After our two week faculty training we launched right into the student arrival and orientation period. On move-in day the grade 12 students threw a huge welcome party in which they hung out by the gate of the school blasting music, dancing, waving flags, and generally making UWC Changshu seem like the greatest place in the world. Once the shuttle bus bringing the new students arrives, the seniors run alongside the bus, wave signs, and give huge hugs to the “firsties.” This would be an overwhelming scene for anyone on a normal day, so imagine how you would feel if you were a nervous sixteen years old who had just left your family to fly around the world for boarding school. One jetlagged girl even burst into tears (of either joy or exhaustion) when she arrived. As luck would have it we were also visited by university admissions reps from Vassar and Carleton Colleges that same day, so we got the students to give them the same super hyped welcome. Universities go way out of their way to visit us, give information sessions, and interview our students in large part because of that special atmosphere. 

Watch this video of welcome day 2019 to get an idea of what I’m talking about:  https://v.qq.com/x/page/z0918b768jw.html (scroll down for video)

So while the students are getting settled in, Alex and I are working like crazy to adjust to our new lives and schedules. Working at a boarding school means the work day can easily become 12+ hours long. Because I am both part of the college counseling office and a Head of House (HoH), a typical day for me could include spending the morning in the counseling office, hosting university visitors on campus in the afternoon, and then leading a residential house meeting at 9:00pm. Because of my HoH duties I will not be counseling students applying to schools this fall, but I will start working with the juniors in the spring. Alex on the other hand has been thrown into the deep end (and is swimming like a champ) working right away with a full counseling slate of 41 students. On top of our jobs we have been running around helping out at endless orientation events to prepare the students for the year. Needless to say, we are both ready for September 1st when the school year kicks off and we will begin an actual timetable and routine. 

And to end this text-heavy blog, here are some photos from our local supermarket that made me smile. Alex and I tried (unsuccessfully) to find bread that wasn’t filled with sugar. We did however find whipped-cream dogs:

And who doesn’t love pork floss on their rolls?

Then there are the ubiquitous “weird” flavors for familiar items: seaweed pringles and prawn fries, mmm.

Excessive packaging and plastic abound, as in these individually wrapped fruits.

Cuteness is everything. Gotta love a cantaloupe that’s happy to see me!

This fried-squid-on-a-stick/Spongebob Squarepants hybrid is what nightmares are made of. I’m fairly sure this is the kraken that killed Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean 2. We must kill it with fire.

It’s not all weird though! Here is Alex going vertical on a soup dumpling — we are on a quest to eat them until we look like dumplings ourselves at our wedding next summer.

Blogging is not the most timely way to keep folks updated on my life here, but I enjoy doing it and will try to keep posting when I can find some time from this hectic boarding school life. I also love getting emails at ramiejacobson@gmail.com if you want to say hi or send me updates from your end. Once September comes I’ll be faster to reply and set up Skype chats with anyone willing!

Back to China: the more things change, the more they stay the same

Welcome back to the blog! For those who haven’t heard the news, Alex and I left our jobs at Harvard to work at the United World College (UWC) high school in Changshu, China as university counselors, and in my case, as the head of one of the residential dormitories. The UWC system is made up of 18 schools around the world working towards the goal of “making education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.” Our school in Changshu is comprised of about 50% Chinese citizens from every province of China and 50% of students coming from 100 countries and a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. For those interested in learning more about the school check out this video:

Alex and I landed in Shanghai airport almost six years to the day from when I first came to China. An expat who has lived here for decades once told me he has stayed in China so long because every five years the country changes so much it feels like a new place. In some respects my first week back in China reflected this. Since I left in 2015, there have been some serious changes to daily life. Mobile payments through apps like “AliPay” and “Wechat Pay” have proliferated to the point where you don’t need physical cash for almost anything anymore. Nearly every restaurant and store allows you to pay by just scanning a QR code with your phone that is connected to your bank account. In fact, when we tried to purchase some household essentials from a mall in our first few days the checkout lady could not accept our cash and we had to ask the person behind us in line to pay with her phone. Yingzhi (aka Grace), the university counseling office assistant, told me that when she visited the US this summer she felt it was behind China technologically as everyone was using credit cards or cash to pay for things rather than using their phones. 

Urban transportation has come a long way as well in the last few years. Uber is no longer available in the mainland but its Chinese equivalent called “DiDi” has made getting around just as easy. Another development has been the huge boom of bike share companies that allow users to rent dockless bikes and leave them wherever they want. In the span of a few years a number of bike share companies exploded in popularity and earned billion dollar valuations only to fall back to earth when competitors entered the market and users got tired of the low-quality bikes. There have been a number of interesting articles written about the mountains of stranded bikes that piled up in major urban areas. My friends in Guangzhou told me that many of the bikes are broken these days anyway and they have stopped using them. Changshu only has a traditional docked bike share system. 

And people thought the scooters in Cambridge were a problem

While some things in China have changed drastically many have stayed the same. People still stare at and take photos of foreigners, construction seems to be endless and infinite, and English words on t-shirts continue to befuddle and amuse me. 

These first two weeks in Changshu we have been going through orientation and immigration logistics with the other new faculty. First there was the requisite battery of health tests in which we went room to room in a hospital where questionably qualified doctors subjected us to every medical examination possible. The tests ranged from invasive — neither of us like blood or needles so we both nearly passed out at that portion. To unnecessary — I had the second ultrasound of my life and this time spoke enough Chinese to joke with the doctor about whether or not I was pregnant. To downright ridiculous — the eye doctor was conservatively 1000 years old and his device to cover one eye during the vision test was literally the lid of a Nescafe bottle on a stick. After testing my vision he went to enter my information into his computer and I had to point out to him that the photo of the patient on his screen was a Chinese man and that was not me. I should have been the one testing his vision! Afterwards Alex pointed out that the Chinese government now has enough samples and personal information to make a clone of us. Probably. 

There are 29 new members of staff at the school from 18 countries, so naturally anytime we leave the school it draws a crowd. During a day of exploring Changshu we were perpetually glad-handing local civic leaders and posing for official photos such as the one above (while having our picture unofficially snapped by random gawkers). One stop of the tour involved listening to a concert of small children playing a traditional seven-stringed instrument called a guqin. We were wondering what the equivalent attractions in the US would be where ten-year-olds perform for tourists. 

Next on our tour we were brought to a local pastry factory where we donned aprons and toque blanche, much to the delight of anyone with a camera. A fourth generation pastry chef from the factory instructed us “step-by-step” on how to make a local specialty called panxiangbing 盘香饼. I put “step-by-step” in quotation marks because he raced through the demonstration and I was hopelessly lost. Although mine didn’t look very pretty, both the scallion and the rose flavored pastries ended up being surprisingly tasty. 

The next day the school organized another trip to an essential destination for newly relocated expats: IKEA. Since I will be working as the Head of House for one of the residential dorms Alex and I were given a massive 2 bedroom/2.5 bathroom apartment on campus. Here is the view from outside our apartment:

Chinese pollution? Not so bad in the summer!

The apartment was furnished with some bare essentials and tacky pleather couches, so we had some serious shopping to do. I am sure I wrote about this years ago but it bears repeating: IKEAs in China are ridiculous places. Each showroom living area and bed was occupied by families watching TV, sleeping on beds, and generally acting like the model was their living space rather than a furniture store. I suppose many of them do not have air conditioning in their homes so IKEA is a pretty sweet spot in the 90+ degree heat and humidity of Jiangsu province. We are at the approximate latitude of Mobile, Alabama after all…

Other than the price tags you could be fooled into thinking this was their house 

Alex posing with our IKEA haul

We just finished the second week of orientation and are still adjusting to our new lives. In many ways working at this unique international school shelters us from many of the harder elements of living in China (the school is literally on an island). We have filtered water available to drink from faucets, the campus wifi goes through a VPN which lets us access sites like Facebook and Google that would otherwise be blocked by the Great Firewall, and our dining hall serves a (limited) range of familiar options like sandwiches and pizza in addition to a wider array of Chinese dishes. Sure, the pizza often has tuna on it and the sandwiches are literal mystery meat, but it’s still more than I expected!

It’s abundantly clear from this orientation that our life will be crazy busy for the next two years. Working here means going above and beyond the hours of a normal 9 to 5 as the expectation is that staff really get involved with co-curricular activities and contribute to the community. For example, the principal is not-so-subtly trying to recruit us to join the Dragon Boat racing team against the students.

Dragon boat practice

The fall is especially busy for the college counseling office since applications are mostly submitted by January. All this is to say that I do not know how often I will be able to update this blog, but I intend to at least add some quick stories and photos from time to time.

This blog mostly serves as a digital diary of my time abroad and a small way to stay in touch with friends and family. My email is ramiejacobson@gmail.com if you would like to send me any updates from YOUR life!