Back in China

Hi Guys,

Well, here is our first official post of the 2009-2010 school year in Shanghai, China. Sorry it's taken a little while, but after arriving here we found, to our chagrin, that tons of sites have been blocked in China: blogger, twitter, you tube, facebook... to name a few. We felt completely cut off from the world! But now thanks to the computer expertise of friends of friends, we've hacked thru that firewall and are back in business!

So... updates: We've been here for a week now and it's taken that long to settle in, get groceries, do an Ikea-run for missing household items, unpack boxes and suitcases, etc. We are still not completely over our jet-lag yet which is strange, especially for me, b/c I usually don't struggle with it much at all. I'm still waking up around 4am though and getting really tired by 8pm. I'm sure it'll all sort itself out soon enough though.

As most of you know, the reason we had to move apartments is b/c the school has built a new campus in another part of the city and we wanted to be within walking distance to it. We had a tour of the new campus a couple days ago and it's like a RESORT!! It is seriously SOOO nice! I'm trying to attach pics here as I write this, but sadly it doesn't seem to be happening... another time.

In addition to a new school, we also have new staff from Canada. Last year was the first year of our program so we only had grade 10s and therefore only had 48 students and 4 Canadian staff. This year we have 121 kids in grades 10 and 11, and 7 Canadian staff. Two of the new staff (Ash and Erika) are about the same age as Andrew and I and we've been having loads of fun together already. Ash just finished up with being a semi-pro tennis player so he has tons of knowledge in fitness and training. The 4 of us have already been down at the track a couple times doing interval training... trying to increase our fitness... lots of fun!

Some of you have been asking about our new apartment: it's way nicer and way bigger than last year's. The outside hallway area looks kinda ghetto, but once you get inside it's all good. It has 2 bedrooms, a huge bathroom, and the kitchen is twice the size of our one last year.... yippeee! It was such a pain last year, but no more of that now. Our living room is as big as a dance hall, so I'm gonna have to sign Andrew and I up for ballroom dancing or something... we definitely have the room to practice! Again, I'll try to attach the pics soon... it's just soooo slow right now.

As for school, it starts tomorrow (Sept 1st) so this is our last day "off"... I'm gonna try to brush up on my Chinese online today as it's slipped a bit over the summer. Andrew is busy practicing guitar at the moment... he's keen to play more shows this year. We are also doing the worship music for a friend's wedding at our church in 3 weeks... will be fun!

For those of you who would like to call us, our phone number again is 604.248.5191 but for some reason it's not working yet... we're still trying to iron out the wrinkles on that.

Okay, I will try again later to post the pictures of our apartment and our school. If it doesn't work, you'll just have to come see it yourself in person!

Back to China We Go!

Hi Everyone,

This is a quickie last-minute post to say good-bye and thanks for a great summer! It's now Friday afternoon and we have just returned to North Van from a great week at Barnabas Family Camp on Keats Island with my (Corinna's) family. It was a total blast and very relaxing as we played tennis, went waterskiing, wakeboarding, kayaking, sailing, and spent lots of time with my family. Plus we had awesome sunny weather, which is useful when sleeping in a tent.

We are flying back to Shanghai this Sunday morning (August 24th). Our boss booked us on Air Canada, which I'm a wee bit nervous about after hearing plenty of horror stories about their service, etc recently. O well... it's only a 12-hour flight... what can go that wrong?

The picture above is from earlier this month when we went to Andrew's cousin's wedding in Iowa. It was such a great time, and nice for me to meet all the extended Nairns from South Africa whom I'd never met before.

Just a heads up that Blogger is still blocked in China (so my sources tell me), so this blog may not be updated all that often. If that's the case, I'll try to send email updates instead, or look for another free blog provider that's NOT blocked there. I will keep you posted.

Summer 2009 Update

Hello Everyone,

Just checking in to write a quick blog post here. Summer has been terrific so far. We have fit so much in already: mini golfing, swimming, eating amazing food that our moms have made, hiking, haircuts, etc. It's been so nice to be with our families and see some friends.

We've also been taking care of loads of stuff that just "needs to get done". For example, we recently found out that our renters are moving back to Australia, so we need to find new tenants for Sept 1st. It sounds simple but there lots of little things that need to be done for that to happen. Lots of running around.

We also have a long list of things to buy that you can't get in China. It's ironic b/c lots of these things say "Made in China" on them, but you can't get them there. I guess they're made especially for North America and get shipped straight over. We brought an empty suitcase along just for this and it's filling up nicely. Our Visa cards, which have been resting peacefully in our wallets for most of the year in China, have definitely gotten a work-out in the past couple weeks!

One thing we hadn't counted on is how busy our "holiday" would be. I feel like I've just been running around from place to place, seeing people, buying things, taking care of stuff like renters, Dr's appointments, the seamstress, getting the car back on the road, etc... not a lot of down time. We've had a few days of rest, but not many... I guess that's what Osoyoos will be for next week!

Also, I had this vision before coming back to Canada that this summer would be spent seeing all of our friends multiple times... but in actuality it's turing out that it's a tight squeeze just to fit each friend in ONCE... can you believe it??! I guess we could do more, but our families are most important to us, so we want to "charge up" on plenty of time with them.

One weird thing about this summer so far has been NOT having cel phones. We've had them for SO many years now that I feel like a bit of an amputee not having one. It makes us really have to plan things well and stick to meeting someone at "Davie and Denman at 3pm" and not be able to call and say we're running late, lost, canceling, etc! It's working for now.

The other strange thing is that this is the FIRST summer in probably 12 years that both Andrew and I haven't had summer jobs... and it's very nice! We're total slackers as you can see!

Lunch with the Rhodes

At Molsen Lake with Julia and Nicola

Mini-golfing at Castle Fun Park with Julia and Nicola

At the Mission Abbey with my parents... a view of the Valley and Fraser River behind us

Making lunch at Oma Hiller's last week

Playing on the Worship Team at our church again- we missed it this past year!

Biking at Spanish Banks on Canada Day with the Nairn Crew! Fun times!

We're Back!!

Hi Everyone,

Just to let you all know (if you didn't already), that we are back in Vancouver... and if you also didn't know, that we have signed a contract to go back to China for another year at the end of August.  Also, the reason for the lengthy blog hiatus is that China has blocked the blogger website for the past couple months (due to the 20-year anniversary of the Tianamen Square incident), so I couldn't post anything (or read anyone else's blogs which I was almost more upset about!) during that time.  I sure don't like being cut off from home in any way!

Anyways, enough about that... now onto our summer so far (if you're at all interested).  We got back two days ago (June 28th) and went straight from the airport to the Nairn's (Andrew's parents) for a big welcome home BBQ... my family was also there, along with my grandparents, which was great... SOOO nice to see everyone.  It was so kind of everyone to make such an effort on our behalves and we really felt welcomed home!

Since Monday we have been super busy getting our life back on track... things like getting our car started again (which proved to be NO simple task), Andrew's passport renewed, checking on our tenants, etc.  We have a LONGGGG list of stuff that needs to get done before we can really relax for the summer.

Being back in Canada has been fantastic so far!  I think the biggest "adjustment" I've had to make so far is that of being able to drink water from the taps again.  In China I was so incredibly careful to NEVER drink from the tap (b/c you'd end up in hospital!), and now I find myself instinctively looking around for the jug of filtered water every time I'm thirsty, or even just to brush my teeth.  It almost feels "sinful" to drink from the tap here!  But I'll get used to it I'm sure.  It's a good adjustment to have to make.

The other thing is that I've been going for runs every morning here in North Vancouver... if anyone knows North Van they'll know that it is ALL hills... and steep ones at that.  Although I've been working out at the gym all year in China, I guess it's still not the same as the real hills.  Anyways, I am limping around town like an old grandma now... especially whenever I go down stairs or hills.  I think I'll give the running a rest tomorrow to let my muscles chill out.  

Alrighty... we are being summoned for dinner now so I must go (nice to be living with Andrew's mum... a super cook!).

Hopefully I'll be able to keep you updated on our summer as we go along, and even more hopefully China will have un-blocked blogger by the time we get back so this blog doesn't have to die!

~Corinna

Starving Students?

The past couple nights Andrew and I have had Parent Teacher Interviews at school... 4 hours on both Tues and Wed AFTER teaching all day... needless to say, we are VERY glad that they're done with for now!!

The cool thing about it was that almost 100% of the parents came out, which would NEVER happen in Canada. Also, the students came along with their parents, so they could hear exactly what was being said about them. Here are some of the highlights:

The funniest quote came from a mother, who when she found out that her son was getting a B in my class, turned to him, gave him a little smack on the head with his report card, and threatened him with "No A, no food for you!" I tried to keep a straight face, but just couldn't pull it off... I burst out laughing. I'm not sure if she was serious or not, but the kid looked a little scared!

As most of the parents don't speak English, the interviews were all done through a translator (which takes a little getting used to- you have to remember to keep your sentances short and pause every couple sentances to make sure that everything you just said actually makes it into the translation). Anyways, one dad told me that he thought his son's English was very poor. So I asked him "Do you speak any English?" (of course he didn't understand this so it went thru the translator). "No" was the answer to my question (surprise, surprise). Most of the parents are pretty quick on the draw, but this man didn't seem to see the blatant irony in his statement!

6 more weeks of classes before exams, and 7.5 weeks till we fly home for the summer. Can't wait!

Winner!

Those of you who read this blog regularily will remember my post from a couple weeks ago... the one where I bought the moldy feta cheese and then put my receipt in the draw box for chocolates.

Well, last week I got a phone call with very happy news: I was one of the winners! They told me in broken English where I could go to claim my prize, so this weekend Andrew and I set out to do that... getting there was an adventure, as we communicating to the "customer service" people that I had won chocolates. After quite some time of miming a draw box and getting out translating books, they finally worked out why I was there and happily gave me a big gift-wrapped box of chocolates... turns out they were all individually flavoured bars with cool names (see the pic above)... so delicious. Now I just have to make sure I don't eat them all at once!

Crazy School Trip

Yesterday we had the joy/frustration of going on another trip with our school.  I say "joy" b/c it was nice being away from our regular teaching schedule, but "frustration" b/c we spent 6 hours on the bus getting there and back thru Shanghai rush-hour.  Man, we might as well have flown back to Bali in that time!  

The trip was to a town a couple hours out of Shanghai called Suzhou (pronounced "Soo-jo")-first to a famous mountain (more of a hill if you're from BC!), and then to an amusement park.  It was incredible how clean the air seemed for only being a couple hours away from the Shanger.  It was so nice and refreshing (literally!).  Also, it was one of the rare times we've seen trees, leaves, and grass in the past 8 months, so definitely a big treat!  

The amusement park was kinda like Disneyland, but since it was a Wednesday it was SO empty... just our 9 busloads of school kids were there... all the kids were let loose and were just told when to be back at the buses... the whole thing was super organized by the Chinese staff with kids marching to busses with corresponding numbers in their hands, a megaphone-man leading the whole procession.  Once at the park, the kids were in groups with student-leaders who had to text their teachers every couple of hours and account for everyone in their group... no one was left behind this way.  Very efficient... another thing that would NEVER happen in a Canadian high school!

This is the front of the park... lion-riding, our new favorite.  

Water feature at the entrance.  You could walk underneath the spray but the water was all manky so I came back out.

This was some random dive-display... like something you'd see at the PNE... all these divers jumped off very scary heights and did cool tricks.  Check out how high the middle ladder goes.

Super cool rollercoaster... I totally wanted to go on it but it cost almost 8 bucks for 1.5 minutes of fun, plus the ticket lady was on her lunch break so I couldn't buy one.

See what I mean when I said it looks like Disneyland?  Kind of...

Terry and I with Minnie Mouse and some other creature- we couldn't quite figure out who he was... maybe a knock-off version of Hello Kitty?

And the final picture... for those of you who have never travelled to Asia, let me enlighten you about the squatty potty.  It's a cheap toilet in the ground.  You squat above it (facing the door), and do your thing.  Then you step on the pedal behind it and it flushes... clean and simple.  Oh, and they don't supply toilet paper... it's always assumed on this side of the world that you'll bring your own... don't leave home without it!  I'm serious!  By the way, this is one of the cleaner versions... I've used MUCH worse here (sorry, no pics of that... don't want to scare you!)

In other news... the weather here has been amazing since about a week or two ago.  It's been about 20-22 degrees every day... warm enough for shorts or capris and a short-sleeved shirt, but not so hot and humid that you're sweating like a pig 24/7 (like it was in Sept/Oct).  Very comfortable.  I had some new clothes made at the fabric market (that's a whole other post!), for warmer weather, so I'm happy to be wearing those... again, pics to come.

This weekend is a long weekend here in China (Chinese Labour Day)... we get Fri, Sat, and Sun off (and don't even have to make it up by working next weekend... wow, they're getting generous!).  We have a bunch of errands to run tomorrow, plus our cel group.  On Sat we're gonna be going to the X-Games.  Sunday is church and relaxing...

Hope you're all well.  Only 8.5 weeks till we're home for the summer- YESSSS!

A Reminder

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder that we LOVE it when you call (604.248.5191), but please remember we are FIFTEEN hours ahead of Vancouver time (PST).

We have had some yahoo calling us at 6:30am on weekend mornings (can't figure out who it is), and a friend (who shall remain nameless) who called us at 1am a couple days ago.... not cool at ALL people... we NEED our sleep!

We will try to remember to turn our ringer off before bed, but please remember the time difference. An easy way to remember it is for you to change your am to pm (or vice versa), and add 3 hours. For example, if it's 6pm your Friday night, turn that into 6am, then add 3 hours, so that would be our 9am. That would be an okay time to call most weekend mornings. Andrew might be up (I won't!be!).

Thanks.

Scammed Again!

China just isn't too trust-worthy a place. I can't figure it out b/c in school they are taught really good morals, like honesty, kindness, respect, etc. This is all fine and dandy inside the school, but the minute you step out of the school gates, these morals just don't seem to be present in society. I guess in a country of 2 billion people everyone has to fight tooth and nail just to scrape by. There seems to be this mentality of "try to be #1... otherwise you'll end up being # 2,904,078"... this comes out in all kinds of facets: budging in lines at the supermarket checkout, bank, etc, pickpocketing, not stepping out of the way when you're clearly in someone's path, ripping people off, etc.

This came across yesterday again when I discovered I'd been duped by the grocery store. We are very fortunate to live close to an import grocery store where we can get lots of nice things... I try not to buy too much here b/c the prices of some of the things are WAY too crazy (eg- $12 Can for a box of cereal!). Once in a while it's a nice treat though... such it was recently with feta cheese (which costs about $10 Can for a small block). I LOVE feta cheese but never buy it here b/c of the absorbant price. However, last week I noticed there was a 2-for1 sale on feta cheese... I checked it out and noticed that the two packs of cheese were taped back-to-back with clear duct-tape... I tried to peel it off in the store so I could check the expiry dates on the back, but the tape was too strong. Seeing as this is an upscale kind of store, I decided in good faith that they wouldn't try to rip me off by selling me expired cheese (the package wasn't transparent, so I couldn't see the cheese).

So anyways, last night I was cooking and planning to use the feta cheese (very exciting... sad, I know!). I sliced thru the tape with a knife and opened the first pack... the cheese was beige, slimy, and stinky and the expiry date on the back read Feb 7th, 2009 (more than 2 months ago)!! I was so mad! Fortunately, the second pack I opened was fine. So I guess they decided to tape an old pack to cheese to a fresh pack of cheese and promote it using a 2-for-1 deal.

I know some of you will say "just take it back with your receipt", but the dumb thing is that I left the receipt at the store that day. You see, there was a draw for chocolates... all you had to do was write your name and phone # on your receipt and put it in the box and you could win a box of delicious-ness. I totally put my receipt in that box!

O well... it's only 10 bucks, but it's the trickery that makes me mad... you just don't know who you can trust around here.

Love

Look what my nice husband got for me:  roses and my favorite flowers (freesias)... just because!  

I love him!  He's the best!

Easter

Alright... a little late on this post here, but I wanted to put up pics from our Easter. We were invited for a potluck lunch at our friend Anna's place (she's from the US). It was so much fun. We had lunch, dyed eggs (see the finished products above), then played a series of games including "draw an Easter bunny that represents you", 3-in-a-hat, and tossing the sticky Easter-egg-jelly-cut-outs onto the window to see if we could match up a whole Easter egg... sorry if that makes no sense- better explained in person.

Before lunch... not sure of the boys' names, but the girls from L-R are Bonnie, Anna, and Rachel

Dying Easter eggs... again, not sure of the boys' in the middle names, but Andrew and Bonnie L-R

The last game was tossing eggs off the 13th floor balcony, trying to land them on the neighboring building's rooftop (across the street)... Andrew and Bonnie were both successful!

At the end, we all piled into a cab and went to the Easter service at church... as you can tell from the picture, it was PACKED!! There were so many people that we could only get standing room at the back... guess that's a good problem!

Soccer!

A few weeks ago Ron (our principal) found out that there was gonna be a soccer tournament for BC Offshore Schools this past weekend, and that we were invited. Problem: we didn't have a soccer team! No problem- we created one! The tourney was on a Sat (this past one), and I was asked to coach the team (yay!)... however, I couldn't attend the tourney b/c of Alpha being on Saturdays... so I coached them for the past few weeks, and then Ron did the honors of actually taking them to the tournament.

There are a few boys in our class who are really into soccer, but we don't have a soccer pitch (or any grass for that matter) on our school's campus to practice on... the whole thing is one big concrete mass. Therefore, finding a place to practice was a challenge, but we managed. For starters, we found a park nearby with a semi-flat area to practice (but no real pitch or nets)... this worked until one of our guys took out an old man in a wheelchair (by accident)... that's when I figured we should move on. Next on the hit-list was the university across the street from our high school. Although the soccer pitch there is for students only, we decided to take our chances. Lunch time practices were great; afterschool practices were shut down by the guard, but we got enough play-time in.

The results from the tourney were 1-1, 2-0, and 7-0. So they kinda got smoked, but apparently all the guys they played against were older and bigger... they'll have to try again next year.

As you can see from the pics, this was not too professional... no shinguards, no soccer socks, no cleats... just runners and whatever shorts they had. Good thing we had matching tops made for them! The boys are keen to try again next year when they're older and bigger.

The past 2 weeks

Hey Guys,

First of all, sorry for my 2-week hiatus from blogger-land. Things have been hectic... mainly I've been sick-ish... same old cold/cough kicking my but that I've been stuggling with off and on for at least the past 4 years (thought I had it beat this year, but it just came later in the year instead). So I've been trying to get extra rest. Then we've been super busy with cel group, leading Alpha, church, Easter, friends, work, and the usual busy-ness of laundy, groceries, cleaning, etc. On top of that, both Andrew and I were being evaluated at work for the past few weeks, so I had to eliminate some distractions and make sure my lessons were bang-on (not that I usually do a crappy job, it's just when you know you're being watched you want to be a shining star!).

Okay, so enough with the excuses. Today I wanted to blog about an experience I've had over the past month or so. As many of you know, this year was my first time teaching sex ed (last semester). I went with the approach of teaching abstinence (not having sex before marriage), but also doing a safe sex lesson in conjunction with it. The reason is that I thought it's naive to think all kids are going to wait to have sex before marriage, and if they don't wait, I want them to be safe, seeing as there are SO many scary and disgusting STIs out there these days. I would hate to think that any of my students contracted an STI just b/c I was negligent as a teacher and didn't teach them about how to lower the risk. That being said, I did the full condom-on-the-banana demo. I've never had such a captive audience of students in 4 years... it was pretty funny!

Anyways, my "philosophy" on all this was recently challenged when I met another expat lady who was organizing a facilitator training course to teach a course called "No Apologies" which teaches abstinence to teens. She encouraged me to sign up and I said I'd look into it. Thinking I could use this course to supplement my current teaching model (abstinence PLUS safe sex), I was in the middle of registering for the facilitator training, when I noticed that I had to sign a pledge that I would teach ONLY abstinence and NOT the "plus safe sex" part. According to my "philosophy" (see above paragraph) I had a genuine problem with this, so I emailed the lady, explained my issue, and told her I wouldn't be enrolling in the facilitator training for this reason.

Thinking that was the end of it, I was surprised when she emailed me back a few days later, telling me she had emailed the organization who puts on the course (Focus on the Family) and forwarded my issue. They had replied with a lot attachments they recommended I read. Here is the excerpt that "got me":

"Many educators and organizations have ignored or soft-pedaled the idea of remaining sexually absitent until marriage because they feel that is is unrealistic. They assume that sexual activity among teenagers is inevitable, and that the most reasonable approach is to help them minimize its consequences. But this approach downgrades adolescents to the status of animals who cannot control their primal urges. Furthermore, the same assumption is never made by programs striving to eliminate tobacco, alcohol and drug use among young people." (eg- you don't tell a kid not to drink & drive, unless they're wearing a helmet which will make much safer!).

After thinking about all this, I decided to sign up for the facilitator training after all. It was pretty intense... 19 hours over 2 days (plus 4 hours commuting), but it was totally worth it. (The reason I had to take the training was that you're not really allowed to use the program unless you've been trained and certified in it). I came away with a much better understanding of the course, plus LOADS of resources, including a full curriculum book and workbooks for the students, plus a great Powerpoint presentation, plus a huge props list (lots of object lessons are done).

So the next hoop to jump thru was to get it approved by our school so that I could actually teach it here (assuming that we're staying on for another year in China which we're not 100% sure about yet, but are leaning towards). The course had to be approved by our Canadian principal, as well as the head of the international department, plus the Chinese principal... thankfully I got the green light yesterday, so I'm pretty happy! I'm excited to impact the lives in a super important and meaningful way next year!

Okay, just looking back over this I see it's become a novel of a post. That's enough for now... I'll try to post again soon with a bunch of recent pics... lots of those on our camera.

Hope you're all well.

By the way...

April Fool's!! I was totally just kidding; I am NOT pregnant!

Hope I gotcha!

Best Kept Secret in Shanghai

Guess what everyone? I'm pregnant! That's right... about 5 months along we figure. We'll be going to the doctor soon to find out for sure and get an estimated due date. Hopefully we'll be able to have Baby Nairn in Canada this summer and then bring her/him back to the Shanger with us next year... childcare is super cheap here, and we think it'll be good for him/her to learn Chinese off the nanny for a few years until we can afford to come home for good.

Sorry to be so informal about it and only tell everyone via our blog... we just couldn't decide who to tell first- Andrew's parents or mine, so we decided to just make it a race... whoever checks their email first will know first.