Greetings to all! It’s been about a week and a half since we traveled to the future here in Shenzhen, China. What makes this the future, you ask? Besides the obvious time warp on the 16-hour flight (prefaced by the 1.5 hours sitting on delay) and the International Date Line, here you can do literally everything with your phone, mostly on one app called WeChat. So everybody is on their phones all the time, but ironically enough, the internet is censored by the “Great Firewall”. Clearly, there are ways out, hence you’re reading this now, perhaps on social media banned by Chinese government. The school has been so helpful in getting us settled in, with getting this unrestricted internet (mostly Jim’s research), phone service, bottled water delivered, a local bank account (to pay with through WeChat) and connect with other international teachers. They even organized a field trip to IKEA to add to our basic furnishings provided in our apartments from the school. Walking tours of a few key areas were also offered. With all of this support and the help of our phones, you could say we are experiencing a smooth transition thus far, even being drenched and constantly “glistening” thanks to the tropical humidity. Our minimal Chinese is serving us fine so far and with the help of our smartphones, we’re getting by. We plan to purposefully engage and improve our language skills.
When you enter a new culture, your eyesight can be your best asset. It is essential to watch what locals do to learn appropriate behavior and operations. Two particular instances we’ve experienced with looking so far is when shopping for eggs in the grocery store and when crossing the street. (Insert why did the chicken cross the road joke here). So we were shopping for packaged eggs so we knew what the price was and we thought we knew what we were buying.
For those of you interested in my teaching job, more to come next week as I get my schedule and more details myself! In the meantime, the school provides a teacher bus since my campus is 16 km from our apartment that picks us up and takes us back on a schedule, so that means no staying late, the work has to be done electronically or the next day. I have a whole classroom to use stocked with manipulatives, supplies and resources AND floor-to-ceiling windows lined with palm plants outside. We fill out an online request for resources and these can be fulfilled in anywhere from 2 hours to 2 weeks depending on the material, but this team can find the best local deal.
Love your egg story, and I, too, am curious about the vegetarian eggs. And crazy that they look like real eggs? Next photo opp: Comparison between fake and real eggs. 🙂
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
No products in the cart.
3 Comments
I love this! Can’t wait to hear more as your time allows!
I couldn’t help but wonder….well, what do the vegetarian eggs have on them?? vegetables?
Do they have shells, too, just because? How interesting!