In China the value of friendship is measured by how much Baijiu you can drink.

So there I was. In a t-shirt and cargo shorts in arguably the nicest private dining room I’d seen since I got china, watching my Waiban frantically order food. I had remembered to take off my hat, and put down my hair…never mind that I put it back up 5 minutes later, after deciding it resembled more of a Christmas tree than a hairstyle. People began to enter. First was a head teacher, then a teacher from the power and energy department, then some officials from the school, and finally the party officials from the government foreign affairs office. At their entrance everyone stood and therefore so did i. Observation was going to be my best tool in this I could already tell, only 3 of the people spoke decent English. This was indeed my first “holy crap I’m in china” moment, then TO MY GREAT RELIEF, in walked Tyler; My fellow teacher and sort of Chinese speaking partner in crime. Between him and what I could remember from online research I do not believe I made any major faux pas. At first I did not drink baijiu with anyone but was then pretty much coerced by the teacher from the power and energy department. It wasn’t that bad but I have no idea how the rest of the people were taking upwards of 10 shots of it. Though about five minutes later it was obviously having quite the effect, especially on the vice president of the foreign affairs office from our school lmao, he was crazy. So after countless toasts, blessings, and presenting gifts to the directors from the government foreign affairs office the almost nightmare was over. What started out horrifying had turned out fine, though the drinking and nervous atmosphere really made me desire a shower O_o

Moving Day!

So last night was the last hurrah for everyone to be here in Shijiazhuang. Sadly I slept through dinner with our director Kirk but awoke to noise that was obviously my group partying in the hallway (which reminds me I still haven't blogged about my lunch with the Chinese officials? now how did I forget that!). Henceforth I went to investigate. Upon entering I was greeted by Sean with a bottle of baijiu, some terrible Chinese "vodka", and a Tsingtao. Gotta love friendly drunks. I got my first karaoke experience courtesy of the KTV in the basement of the hotel. We were only there for about 15 minutes but it was still fun. After this some of us headed out to Mazzo. I was inside for 5 minutes before I left feeling like I had experienced a mild seizure. Outside I found Kirk and some other people. It was a nice relaxing night, plus I got hear some of what other people were expecting from this experience and what they were planning on doing afterwards.

Woke up this morning with quite the headache -_- now realizing I could've had a use for that 500 count bottle of aspirin I bought freshman year but never finished off. Tyler and I were greeted by Li Wei (our Waiban) nearly an hour early in the breakfast room, seriously? Luckily I packed before heading down for food. 

Now, up until this point I felt pretty comfortable in China. The first two days I just spent touring Beijing, after that everywhere I went I knew Kirk was just a taxi away so no real panic. Before being picked up by Li (I think this is his family name, but it’s more comfortable than just calling him Wei, so I’m sticking with Li...) I thought hey, this guy knows I’ve never been to china before surely he'll be helpful and understanding. From what I had learned all of our Waiban's had arranged time to take us to get cell phones and show us our apartments and really just talk about contracts and stuff today, well I was wrong. Tyler (the other Drake teacher) and I got downstairs to a van that Li was apparently borrowing from someone (?) and really up until this point I not met a single person who had not been at least somewhat helpful with my luggage but this was too much for him I guess. I loaded my two giant bags in the back then climbed into the van to help Tyler get his stuff in...Cause I literally commandeered the whole trunk of the van lol. We were off...to what I thought was going to be our medical exams, but no Li had a lunch appointment first. So we spent a good 20-30 minutes sitting in the van outside the restaurant...then we were off again, but not to the exams instead to my apartment. Once again I received no assistance from Li with my baggage (all 2 carry on and 2 50lb rollers), in fact he even told Tyler he should wait in the van. Well thankfully for me Tyler had manners enough to help. I’m on the fourth floor, and no there isn’t an elevator but they also aren’t very common in china anyway. Now, I knew not to expect much but I was not expecting this. The living room, bed room, and office are good but it soon deteriorates. In fact I’m certain I will be renovating the bathroom at some point in the next 10 months. If nothing else a fresh coat of protectant on the wall (I think that's a giant colony of mold on the bottom of the walls but I haven't really gotten up the courage to investigate).

After a once over and some paper signing we were off, no not to our exams, to the police department. Frantically Li gathered our passports and ran in. Five minutes later he ran out, now even more frustrated. He didn't seem to want to answer our questions and after prompting him for the 3rd time about cell phones he informed us we could get our own and he had important things to do. After this is was decided we were not going to have exams until the next morning at 9am, he would meet us at the hospital, the name of which he wrote down for us so we could get a taxi in the morning. He left us at Tyler's apartment, and so Tyler and I set off to find my apartment. Which turns out is only a 20 minute walk but we wandered around for about an hour and a half. Luckily he speaks some Chinese and was able to ask for directions. So now it's cleanin time bitches!

My First Saturday in China

So after the first day of Chinese language lessons our director sent us on a mission to team up into groups of four, find dinner and haggle for a t-shirt costing no more than 5kuai. All of this sounded fairly easy and so my group members and I set out on an adventure. 

I have never in my life, had such a hard time finding a questionable t-shirt vendor in a country where street markets are so common.

After taking off down a half demolished alley we still hadn't found a vendor with t-shirts. Underwear, toilets, and shoes seemed to be very common but no t-shirts. After rounding a corner near Main Street we finally came by one, but it became immediately clear we were not getting any t-shirt for less than 5kuai lol. We haggled with the woman for about 10 minutes after which we had gotten her down to 20kuai for 4 t-shirts but we said no and walked out onto the main street. We soon returned, realizing she may have been the only T-shirt street vendor. She then raised her price to 20kuai for 1 shirt, and turned back onto the alley-way. We still had some time to kill because one of our group members was partaking in Ramadan and couldn't eat till the sun set. He was the only one brave enough to approach the pool stick wielding Chinese woman near the outdoor jimmy rigged pool tables, and thus we soon became great local entertainment.

After what was easily the longest game of pool I've ever played, and a stroll back down the alley it was dinner time! We ended up in a nice looking restaurant, which coincidentally was a hot pot! Which means there were also pictures of the food...which is handy when you don't speak Chinese...

It took a total of 5 waiters to take our order, and while it seemed like a hassle it was sure entertaining for them. They had seated us at the front table, a spectacle for everyone to behold, westerners trying to eat a meal in china. The cashier woman was especially entertained, she openly laughed and took pictures but I didn't really mind.

All in all I gotta say I still think we got the best bargain, free pool in a demolished Chinese ally-way. That experience is gunna be hard to top.

First Day in China

I have never used the expression FML so many times in one day. I woke up at 3am on the 16th to drive into San Antonio to depart, I arrived on the 17th at about 5pm in the airport and thought I had adequately prepared myself for my first day in china...SO NOT PREPARED. I had no problems in the airport but the second I stepped on the arrivals area I was totally lost, and I'm sure looked like the easiest scam ever.

Mistake #1: Accepting help from seemingly well dressed very insistent strangers
The second I started down the sidewalk looking for the taxi queue area I was approached by a professional looking man who spoke some broken English. I said "taxi" he said "free airport shuttle". I had printed directions to my hotel from the airport in Chinese from google.com/cn and he read them and nodded. I followed him a few minutes then spotted a group of taxis. After waiting about 10 minutes for this "free shuttle" I decided I probably needed to figure out how to take taxis anyway and I really just wanted to go to bed, so I headed over to them. I handed them my piece of paper with the directions and the group of 5 Chinese men took a couple of minutes I'm guessing to discuss where it was (it was only 13-15 minutes from the airport right off the expressway). After they came to a consensus the guy with the paper looked at me, I asked how much USD, he apparently didn't understand this so I said U.S. and showed him a dollar bill, and he said $100. I laughed and said $20, by the look on his face I think he didn't expect I was going to haggle with him. We continued to haggle until I got him down to $25, which I think was still rather high but whatever. I agreed and the men put my bags in the back of one of the taxis. At just this  moment the man from earlier who was with the "free airport shuttle" rushed up and began yelling at the taxi driver, of course I had NO idea what was going on lol so I just played on my phone.

Mistake #2: Letting myself be pushed around
When they stopped yelling the taxi took my bags out of the car and the shuttle guy led me back to the curb, after which a very old white shuttle pulled up that said "100% perfect airport shuttle" on the side though I could barely read it from the weathering. I got in this thing greeted the driver and in a few moments we were off. I was following where he was going on the English version of my directions and was not really paying attention to what we were passing...and therefore didn't realize we had passed the Days Hotel and had turned off down a backstreet further down. In an enclave there was the entrance to a hotel, which did actually look like the only picture I had been able to find online of the outside of the Days Hotel. A bellhop helped me get my bags to the front desk at which I encountered an associate who spoke NO English. I said I had a reservation and pointed to the Chinese translation in my phrase book. She looked at me funny and asked for my passport. I handed her my passport and watched her fill out a little piece of paper, after which she photocopied my passport and handed me a carbon copy of what she had written down. She handed a key to the bellhop and he escorted me to the room. Upon entering I noticed an intense smell of smoke. I really didn't care I just wanted to sleep.

  

After settling in my luggage I began to explore the room. The DVD player had no parts inside, the sheets were stained, it was definitely not a western mattress, and the full length mirror was clearly half caulked into what used to be the doorway of a two room suite. I walked into the bathroom with some surprise, the whole bathroom was the shower, and had apparently not been cleaned in a while. This all seemed strange but I overlooked this and took a sleeping pill and laid down on the non-stained side of the bed. Two hours later I awoke much more calm and conscious. I began to really scrutinize, having worked in a Days Inn owned hotel I know firsthand how they brand EVERYTHING, from the towels to pens in the room. I saw none of this in the room and for the first time it had dawned on me, I was definitely in the wrong hotel. I grabbed my backpack, my hotel directions, and my phrasebook and headed downstairs. I eventually came across a bellhop who understood what I was trying to convey and immediately flagged a man over, with whom I negotiated a $5 price to take me all the way to the front desk of the hotel on the paper. I was skeptical when I got in the car with him seeing no displayed taxi license or meter, turns out he was just the friend of the bellhop lol but he got me there. I was fortunate for the rest of the night my next taxi driver was very kind though he didn't speak a word of English, the phrase book/dictionary really came in handy. He successfully got me a refund at the first hotel and got me and my bags back to the Days Hotel, where the rooming situation looked much more like what I had seen online and THEY HAD INTERNET. After over 24 hours of travel I had finally arrived lol.