photos

Hey everyone,

It's time for moon cakes! The giant ad for moon cakes on the photo here is all around Tianjin (and I daresay, China) because the Autumn Festival is about to begin. It's all about families meeting again and eating Moon cakes of which there are different varieties, some of them even heavier and sweeter than others. This work week does not end on Friday (although for many it never does); people work the weekend too, but they have a whole week's holiday after! Millions are travelling through the country to visit their hometowns, families and eat moon cakes all week through.

Before I forget, thanks for your reactions. Unfortunately, I can't read them (at least up till now). So if you want to tell me something please send me an email (misslebrun@hotmail.com). And that goes for the hyvers, too. I can't even send messages on Facebook sometimes, but it seems to work occasionally, if only accidentally.

And now for the rest of the report: I live in the district called Hebei, close to the Ziya river and the jin gang bridge. This red bridge is jin gang qiao:

There are dozens of bridges here as the rivers flow through the whole city.

I have met some nice people in Ali Baba's, the underground cafe for foreigners here, and at a Tianjin expats coffee meeting. So far, I've met people from Uzbekistan, Georgia, South-Africa, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, one guy stereotypically and funnily called Jan (yes, from Holland), Cote d'Ivoire, England, the USA, Canada, Norway, Russia. Seriously, the only culture shock I've experienced so far was walking into Ali Baba's and seeing all the non-Chinese faces there.

I've mostly gone around the city with my colleague Michael (or Muzafer) and with Yufeng, a Chinese architect who spent some years working in Washington. Yufeng took us to the major bookstore; although he is new to Tianjin too, it does help that he speaks and reads fluent Mandarin ;) We also visited the Tianjin Museum together, where we saw an exhibit of Buddhist artefacts discovered in 1987 after a pagoda collapsed.

Muzafer and Yufeng in front of the Tianjin Museum.

We went dancing in New York, which is close to Ali Baba's and therefore filled with "lao wai", which means something like 'old foreigners'--which is a nickname for us waiguoren (foreigners). It was very late before I came home-- I believe it was around 5:20 or so- and just as amazed to see the market being built up as the people building were surprised to see me. I laughed my ass off.

Contrasts are huge here: shiny new buildings, poverty, wealth and dirt go very well together here. Everything screams that China is growing at top speed. This time, mainly pictures of modern landscapes. I hope to overcome my shyness about taking pictures of people living their daily lives soon, because that's what I really want to show you. People, as my mother wisely says, are strange things. She is right. People are strange things, and therefore most interesting.

Until then,

zai jian!

big hug to all of you (share it nicely ;-) )

smells and smiles

Hey!
I'm sitting in an internet cafe, trying to type while my fingers slide off the greasy keys. But hey, i'm used to the dirt (everywhere!) now and that includes the smell of pee which is especially present in school hallways. I hope I've already built some sort of resistance against everything a person could possibly catch.
I live in an apartment close by a market where I do my shopping every day, and where the sales people have by now gotten used to me walking around. Not so much every other person here, though. I don't know whether I've already told you this, but walking around here as a non-Chinese person is an experience in itself. And I'm not talking about the possibility of suddenly hearing fireworks (especially on Sundays when everyone seems to be getting married) or crossing a big street when there are no traffic rules except 'I come first and you'd better jump when I honk'.
I'm talking about the staring, the pointing, the mouths falling open, the 'hello!' calling followed by giggles. It seems that here, most people aren't used to having Western-looking people around. The other day when I was walking home, a group of children playing suddenly fell silent, their mouths falling open into perfectly O-shaped holes, gasping at the sight of me and nudging each other. The bravest girl said something to me (I think it was a question) but I could barely say that I don't speak Chinese- Wo bu jiang Zhongwen. Sometimes it's annoying, but it's funny too.... really, you'd think I'm an alien with three heads and a long white beard shouting obscenities in Marsian or something by the way people look at me.
But also, they are generally very nice (excepting the guy screaming in my hallway two days ago). Although I can't really communicate in Chinese yet I just speak English or Dutch to them and we have whole conversations that way; I just point at say, the bread rolls and say 'three' (san) and they start asking questions I can't answer -which I tell them in English- but a confusing though extremely funny conversation like this always ends in smiles on both sides and a friendly goodbye.
I teach at two primary schools (grade 3, age 7 to 10 in one class!) and at a kindergarten that belongs to Owen, the company I work for. The difference in level between the children and the classes is ashtonishing-- I think it has a lot to do with how much time was previously invested in learning English by their Chinese teachers. The classes are big-sometimes more than 40 students- but the kids are funny and generally eager to learn. I'll see how it goes... The day I started teaching (10th sep) was national Teacher's Day and I got cards and a flower from some students, especially for the foreign teacher, so cute!
Yesterday we (my colleague Michael-his Uzbek name is Muzafer-, our bosses Mr and Mrs Jang and collegue Suki) went to a famous expat bar in town called Ali Baba's. It wasn't China. It was an international colony with people from all over the world, and it was shocking to see all those non-Chinese faces suddenly, and speak English, or French (with the Africans) or German (yes, I spoke German, Pia, with a Turk--- see what being an expat brings you to...;))

OK, this is it for now, let's see if I can get this stuff posted. Note for those who read my blog on hyves: Het is vrijwel onmogelijk voor me om op hyves te komen, dus als je me iets wilt laten weten kun je dat beter per mail doen: misslebrun@hotmail.com.

THanks you all, miss you all, bisous!

Anne.

PS for the girlfriends: I got a haircut!
PPS for everyone: will hopefully be able to post photos soon, and yes that profile photo on blogspot did go funny when I put it on there... I don't usually look that stretched horizontally.

I'm here!

Hello Everyone,

just a quick post.... I'm here, in Tianjin that is, and it is swelteringly hot! I expect to get my apartment soon, the collegues are very nice people and I have already met another foreign colleague by the name of Michael, who is a very nice guy from uzbekistan. That's it for now, as i'm sitting in somebody else's office, using their computer....

kisses!
Anne.