Every Day is an Adventure

Every morning I wake up at about 7:20. This gives me about 15 minutes to be fully prepared before heading out the door. I walk for a few minutes and take subway line 2, to 7, to 1, to 5 with roughly five minute transfer walk in between. Then I exit the metro, walk another fifteen minutes, and arrive at work an hour and a a half later. I do this twice a day, every day. Why you ask? Because I wanted the city but my company wanted the suburbs. Luckily I utilize this time to read, practice Chinese, play games, or sleep. One day I instead of my usual time passers, I decided to bring a camera to highlight some of the interesting things I see on my daily commute. 

These are x-ray machines that you're supposed to place your bags in. Most people ignore them and the security guards don't seem to care.

TVs in the metro stations. There are also smaller versions in the trains.

Too much reflection to fully express this picture. This right here I would consider the normal amount of people for a train. Seats fully taken with a lot of people standing.

Had to be sneaky for this. For 66% less than a taxi fare, these guys will give you rides on their motorcycles to work. They generally drive like maniacs. Took me several months but I finally took a ride. 

I think the irony of this picture is lost in the small size. The background says no dumping into the water.

It's interesting where you find houses in China. This road is completely full of factories except for this house, if you can even call it that. If you look close enough a kid is peeing on the street.

If you're a Shanghai resident than you can use these bikes. Being a resident of a city isn't quite the same in the United States. I'm not sure of the exact requirements but of the 22 million people living in China, 9 million are not residents. 

One of the paths I walk along to work.

Input the Engineer, Output the English Teacher

It all began with a request from my boss to assist in leading an English discussion for one hour three days a week. I didn’t really think much of it at first, just going in to the discussion, speaking when I was required to and not much more. One day I saw a list of what everyone was in charge of leading and I saw my name and another coworker as the leaders for English discussion. About this point it dawned on me that even though I was an intern, I was not being treated as such. I was being given a great opportunity to be a leader while other interns are busy getting coffee or delivering mail. Always feeling that I possessed unrefined leadership, I took this chance and ran with it. 

It started small with the introduction of two or three new slang words and phrases every English discussion. Feeling that I was not utilizing my English to the fullest extent to help them, I pushed on. Next came the introduction of a very useful word game that occupied one of the three days a week. Not content with the setup of the other two days of English discussion I set out to change them as well. Monday became topic day where we would discuss a topic such as travel, movies, and sports. Friday became news with a discussion of one or two topics each week. Content with the state of the English discussion, I sat back and went with the flow. 

With maybe a week of calm, I got a request to setup the game I made within another group. Upon completion of that I was then requested to join their English discussion permanently. A week later another group asked me to assist with their discussion. Within the same week I was asked by my boss to visit a factory in another city once a week to lead discussion and be available to answer English technical questions. Within two weeks I went from leading one English discussion to a schedule filled five days a week with four different groups. 

I never thought that I would have the potential for being a teacher but this experience has taught me otherwise. Patience for people learning things was pretty much non existent six months ago but now I am much more patient and understanding. In time I’ve watched their English transform a great deal. When I first arrived I had to talk very slow but gradually over time I’ve increased my rate almost to the point of where it was before China. The most rewarding moment though is when I hear the slang I’ve introduced in English discussion outside of the discussion when we’re just sitting at our desks talking while we work. While I can’t that teaching is where my career path lies, it has been a great experience to improve leadership and get my feet wet in an area I would have otherwise not experienced.

Battle of the Firewall

It's been tough trying to post these last few days since the program I use to connect to Blogger, Facebook, Youtube, etc has been giving me problems. I finally bit the bullet and purchased a program with a monthly fee that is much more stable. Blog posts should occur more often now. 

Wo bu ming bai ni!

I have to say, I’m glad I started this blog because I’m scared to think about where my English would be today without it. The people I interact with on a daily basis are Chinese, French, German, and Indian. Missing from this list are American, British, Australian, etc. Thankfully almost all of the people I interact with on a daily basis can speak English, but not all of them can speak it well. This leads to me greatly simplifying my grammar and vocabulary and slowing the rate at which I speak. After eight months here, I can only hope this blog and my limited interactions with my friends and family back home will be able to lessen the blow to my grasp of the English language.

P.S. the other day I was writing some stuff down and wrote “word” as “yord” and “check” as “chek.” …Uh oh.

America Town

Whenever I’m missing American food and want to pay four times the average price of a Chinese meal, I head to Munchies. This restaurant is about the closest you can come to American food without being in America. It’s got hamburgers, wraps, sandwiches, and Mexican. Not feeling too adventurous after my run in with Mexican food, I decided it would be best to stick to my friend’s suggestion of hamburgers which was a good one because they’re amazing. Sadly, my hamburger isn’t accompanied by the smells of barbeque, the sounds of football, and the sight of red, white, and blue but for now they are a good enough. (And no I didn’t get paid to write that.)

I went to China to become an Engineer and Came Back a Teacher

I think the best thing about China is that they don’t drink coffee and as a result I’m not in charge of coffee runs. The printer is also about two feet away so I’m not in charge of making copies of documents either. Thanks to being born in a native English speaking country, I’ve been given the chance to partake in some projects with a much larger role than a typical intern. One such project was being in charge of writing the final document for the standards of design for my engineering group. Outside of engineering, I’ve been picked to lead an English discussion three hours each week. By the time I finish my internship I’ll be qualified for ESL teaching positions. Sadly, not everything is positive but fortunately the negative isn’t so negative. Not being able to speak Chinese has led to me missing just about every word spoken in meetings except for the rare occasions where the presenter speaks English or one of my coworkers translates. Outside of meetings we sit in an open environment with four desks facing each other. I managed to get placed with the youngest and best English speaking people in my group so time spent outside meetings are generally pleasant. Overall, being a native English speaker in a Chinese company has led to many great experiences and opportunities that I would not have found in an equivalent American company. 

Speechless

A few days ago one of my coworkers passed by my desk and made a remark that my health bar was in fact unhealthy and he wouldn't eats such a thing. He stated that he didn't know what path the food took to get to its final form and that there could be contaminants. I responded that the same applies for all foods unless you watch them grow and that there are lots of chemicals used in producing food. After five minutes of back and forth attempts at each of us explaining our points with him talking about contaminants and me talking about chemicals, he turns to my other coworker and asks, "What does chemical mean?"

The English Corner

Can you tell the difference between "listen" and "hear"? I can't, but still managed to get picked as the resident English teacher at work. Two weeks ago, the idea of the English Corner, was first introduced to me. Two hours a week, after lunch, I would co-lead my colleagues in improving their English. With no proper training of any sort, I went into it the best I could. The first meeting went rather awkwardly with no real direction but each subsequent meeting has show great improvement. At first I didn't take initiative but quickly realized, as the native English speaker, the harder I try the more I can help them learn. To assist in advancing their English knowledge, this upcoming Thursday I'll be introducing the "American/Chinese Culture Exchange," where I introduce my coworkers to the likes of Caddyshack, The Terminator, and other fine works of art that America has to offer.

Playing hide and seek with the sun.

Shanghai is currently in the midst of monsoon season. Two weeks of almost non stop rain broken up by the occasional sunny day to get the humidity going strong. The somewhat blurry picture was shot during one of the first few days of monsoon season. The water is flowing ridiculously fast out of the gutters. If I didn't know any better I would have assumed that a pipe had burst and water was flowing from it. Luckily for me, I've got two things in my favor. First of all, the rain doesn't bother me too much and I rather enjoy it. Secondly and more importantly, the Chinese come prepared when it comes to these two weeks. Once the first drop hits the ground, the vendors are out and about selling umbrellas. Already a week in and surviving quite well, can't wait until the next season, dry and really really hot.