The first two weeks

Where do I start.  Today is 2 weeks since I arrived in China.  And what a few weeks it has been. Overwhelmingly positive I would have to say

For the first 10 days I had no email or google and really felt quite bereft and like "China is a LONG was from Australia".  Baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google, but generally I'm not able to use the it because nearly everything is in Chinese - duh!  I was able to skype my family and Peter just to let them know that I’d arrived and everything was going well.  But I did feel isolated.  There were so many things I wanted to check out and I couldn’t access google.  I wanted to download photos for classes but I couldn’t access google images.  Back to normal now.  And Jessica at work is teaching me the joys of Taobao.  (Online shopping like you wouldn't believe)  

So here are some of my first impressions.

• You go all day here only seeing Chinese people.  I come to work and the expat teaching staff are the only people I've seen who aren't Chinese.     This provides never-ending entertainment for local people who look at you as a curiosity as you walk down the street.  I just smile and say “nihao”  (hello)  and 9 out of 10 people smile back.  Little kids just look at you fascinated. I went to the park yesterday and was followed around by 2 women who were council workers raking up leaves.  They were lovely, explaining in Chinese what statues and different things were.  And when someone doesn't understand, of course you speak louder!!  A man joined us and another woman.  Felt a bit like the Pied Piper, collecting people as we went.  

• This is a different world to living in Laos and Luang Prabang.  In LPB local people may not speak much English, but it is a town which is set up for and makes it's living out of tourists.  So  if you want to go somewhere, you can usually work it out with the tuk tuk drivers and they will take you there.  People on the street here seem to have no English..  LPB is small, you can walk and not get lost.  Here I stick closer to home at present because I couldn't even say in Chinese the name of my community, or the street where it is.  On my phone I have photos of the sign for the street I  live in and the entry gate for my community.  So if I get lost, I can show this to a taxi driver.  There is no way I could negotiate a bus station yet.  I'll work on that for next weekend because I'd like to go to Suzhou, the "silk capital".    Also because there are no visible foreigners or tourists, you do feel isolated from the rest of the world.  And everything is BIG.

• Chinese people have been so helpful and friendly - everyone - people in the street, the staff at WEBi where I work, the man who delivers the water.    Lots of sign language and a great app on my phone where you write something in English and it translates into Chinese and vice versa.       

• Common brands of cars here are Mercedes, Audi and VW.  Even in the community where I live. 

• I have been forced into the 21st century and now own my first smart phone.  Will I ever learn to love it????  I think not, but time will tell.  
• I have also joined WeChat - the Chines equivalent of Facebook, but I really don't care that someone I work with has bought a new appliance.  WeChat is part of work.  Instead of email, things at work are communicated via WeChat.  I feel so old sometimes.  
• Kids here go to school from 6.30 in the morning until 5.30 in the evening.   And then there is homework in the evenings.  And extra curricular activities like english language lessons.
• I start Mandarin lessons this week. Free, provided by the school.   Really looking forward to that.  
• Of all the students I teach, only 1 lives in a house. Everyone lives in apartments

• There is no litter in Yixing and it is safe to walk home in the dark.
• Most students are only children.  A few have a little babybrother or sister.

• Supermarkets here have my 2 favourite foods - brown rice and oats, so Marg is a happy girl.

• My faithful little camera has "given up the ghost" so I can't add photos to my blog at present.  And it hasn't yet proved possible to download photos from my phone to computer.  
• I'm surprised at how many signs and goods in the supermarket have English written underneath.  Some products even come from Australia.  You know this by the kangaroo featured prominently on the packaging.
• Technology here seems so advanced and just part of everyday life.  People are forever scanning their code thingy to make contact with people or pay for things etc.  Taobao is an online shopping conglomerate that "everyone" uses.  You don't buy shoes in a shop, you do it online.  Often the staff had things delivered to WEBi and so will show off their latest purchase.  The 11th of the 11th was  a day when "everyone" in China shops online and there are big sales.  .  I read how many millions of dollars was spent this year and couldn't comprehend it. The average spend per person in this province was something like $15,000.

• Spent lots of my spare time in the first days cleaning my apartment.  It was just so grotty and now it feels so much better. My favourite place to hang out was the HUGE supermarket nearby.  Numerous trips to get cleaning products, doona, towels, kitchen things, iron and the many many things you need when setting up a home.  Ive never done it before from scratch.There are lots of staff who are there to help - explaining how appliances work and finding things for you.  Most are so helpful, laughing and having a joke even though we don't know what the other is saying.    While I was weighing out some brown rice, one of the ladies was smiling and going through my trolley to check out what the foreigner was buying.