Ni Hao! Hello! Here we are in China. Finally. We had been planning for our move since before we were married and so much has happened since then that its kind of hard to believe we have been living here for three crazy, exhausting, wonderful weeks.
Niyaz and I wanted to record our adventures in China and we figured writing a blog would be the best way to share our new life with you: our friends and family.
Some of you may be curious about the chosen title of our blog. Well, other than the obvious reference to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Niyaz and I chose this title because we were both born in the Chinese year of the tiger and out of all Chinese food, we love jiao zi (dumplings) the best. More specifically, we really love the juicey delicious pork and chive jiao zi. SOOO YUMMY! Seriously. They are amazing. We just came back from a trip to KaiFaQu (Dalian’s development zone) where we were able to properly satisfy our jiao zi craving. It’s a good thing dumplings take so much time to make and that we have yet to hire an ayi (a maid/cook that most foreigners get) otherwise I know we’d end up living off them and probably eventually start to resemble them.
We’ve been in the northeastern coastal city of Dalian for three weeks now. Actually, we are technically an hour east of the city in an old fishing town, now a national resort called Jinshitan—literally translated to “golden pebble beach.” Jinshitan is quiet and very cold in the winter, with the northern Siberian winds blowing down from the surrounding mountains. We’ve heard, and can imagine how beautiful it is in the spring and summer months, with lots of tourists streaming in to enjoy the beach, the trails and the amusement park.
We jumped right into teaching at the high school almost as soon as we arrived. The school is a Canadian-Chinese private high school with mostly Chinese—and a few foreign—students. Niyaz teaches mathematics on the boys’ campus and I teach communication skills on both the boys’ and the girls’ campuses. We were totally overwhelmed, exhausted, cold and stressed after the first week. By the second week, we were still cold, exhausted and stressed and now after our third week, we finally feel as if we are beginning to get used to things. It’s been rather difficult for me as this is my first time teaching, EVER. Luckily, I have Niyaz who has an education degree, practicum experience and the job of supporting husband. Plus, the teachers here are all very friendly and willing to collaborate with one another.
My main difficulty has been coming up with fun, creative, age-appropriate ways for my students to practice their English speaking and listening skills. I’ve been so exhausted everyday that I feel my creativity levels are practically non-existent. If anyone out there has game/activity ideas, please send them my way! I’ve talked with some of my fellow teachers who have awesome ideas but I know I will always be in need of new exciting things for my students to do.
Hmm. What else? Well, during our second weekend we were able to attend an Ayyam-i-Ha party with some KaiFaQu friends. It was such a wonderful night and Niyaz and I felt like we had found a new welcoming and loving family.
I kind of expected it would be hard for me to adjust living in China but the funny thing is, I have been so busy with work alone that I have not had time to really dwell on things. Other than our extremely cold first floor apartment and the fact that I do not speak the language, there really hasn’t been anything too hard to handle. :-) Life has been moving forward as normal. There are little things of course – like getting used to using a gas stove and trying not to freak out in the middle of the night (thinking we may have forgotten to shut off the gas valve) and getting used to taking less than 5 min showers before the hot water runs out.
Luckily we were able to find a new, warmer apartment and will be moving in this coming week! We are very excited and have been counting down the days. It will be so nice to have a real home, a place where we can finally feel settled. I think we’ve also had easier time adjusting due to the simple fact that we have each other. Not only is Niyaz fluent in the language, but it’s also been a blessing to have the support and be able to wake up together to fast during these weeks. Even though we are physically tired, we have definitely been feeling spiritually refreshed.
Oh, speaking of freaking out in the middle of the night, Niyaz and I thought we’d share a little story with you. Every evening during the first week of classes, we’d would come to our apartment, collapse on the bed and start laughing hysterically. I’m pretty sure it was due to exhaustion but we’d laugh about the crazy things that had happened during the day and about how we couldn’t really feel our legs after standing on them and running around for 8 hours straight.
Last week, in the middle of the night, I woke up disoriented and asked, “Niyaz, what time is it?” (thinking we were late getting up for the Fast) Niyaz responded, “You have to print out extra copies of the worksheets! There are two kinds of worksheets…” Half asleep and utterly confused I said, “What are you talking about? Niyaz, the time. What time is it?” (I did not have a cell phone near me). He again stated firmly that, “There are two kinds of worksheets; one has answers and the other doesn’t and you have to print the one with no answers.” By this time I was getting pretty frustrated, “The TIME. Stop being ridiculous! Do we have to get up?” Still the same crazy response from my husband. A few more frustrated minutes passed and he finally got it and said, “Oh, it’s only 2 am…” We then immediately fell back to sleep. The following day we both could not stop laughing about our confusing sleep-talk conversation. It’s crazy/sad/amusing that even in our subconscious state we cannot get away from worrying about our schedule and what we have to do for work.
And now we come to the end of this post. We promise there will be many more to come! This is mainly for our own benefit, but we’d like to close with a list of things we are looking forward to doing (which we will most likely end up writing about here):
Moving to our new apartment complex and meeting our neighbors, setting up our home (including internet), being able to Skype/blog/be in touch with people regularly, Asiyih seriously starting to learn Chinese, bonding with our students, befriending our fellow teachers, getting an oven so we can bake(!), buying a yogurt maker(!), exploring Jinshitan, KaiFaQu and Dalian, getting bikes, joining a tai chi group, finding an ayi and inviting our (hopefully) new friends and neighbors to our home.
Until next time! Zai Jian!
Much love, hugs and squishes,
Asiyih and Niyaz
The Two Tigers
