"Import Intelligence Training Class"

The Kindergarten school in Dantu where our classes were held.

There were always, and still are, many places that I want to visit. I am now spending my second summer in Jiangsu Province mainly because I was a bit lazy this year and joining the group of teachers contracted to provide cultural exchange experiences with Chinese english teachers was a bit of an effortless way to travel. Although we are provided a stipend, accommodation, food and sightseeing, technically we are not working. Since I need to plan lessons, wake up every morning and go to school it does in fact feel like I am working!
The visiting teachers come from Canada, Australia and the US and are contracted by the province's education bureau to exchange cultural information, methodology, and provide the teachers of english with the opportunity to practice their conversational skills. English is taught in most schools here from grade 3 on but mainly through the use of tapes and writing excercises. Many of the teachers have had very little contact with foriegners and therefore not much opportunity to speak English. In many of the cities and towns outside of Shanghai and Beijing the presence of foriegners is a novelty and we will often have children and teenagers practicing their skills by saying, "Hello! Where are you from?"

Since I am spending four weeks in total, two in Dantu and two in the city of Gayou, with these teachers decided to share a summary of the experience that was sent to me by one of the participants in my first placement. Front, as he called himself, could sum up the two weeks with a little more flair than me and besides, he makes me sound so good that I'm not sure he was actually writing about me! (and before you ask, no I didn't bribe him)

Happy training, Harvest gaining

高桥中学 谭华峰
Two weeks' Import Intelligence Training Class for Middle School English Teachers has passed. I felt very happy about the training and gained a lot from it .
Our teacher, Terry, comes from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is a very kind and learned lady. During the training, she tried her best to help us learn about as much she did in her work in Canada as she could. She is not only our teacher, but our friend as well .
In her classes, Terry told us many things about Canada, including symbolic things, family life, food, fun and games, celebrations about holidays, education, language learning and so on. These made me more familiar with the life that Canadians are having .
In her classes, Terry taught us many strategies of teaching as well as class activities in learning the English language. She participated in our activities, listened to our ideas and thoughts, advised us on how to organize teaching and learning activities in efficient ways, discussed with us the differences in life, education, culture and so on between China and western countries, asked all of us to have a good preparation of a symbolic things in China and presented to the whole class orally.
In her classes,Terry encouraged all of us to open our mouths speaking English as often and bravely as possible.She hoped that we all the trained teachers would express what we thought actively instead of being afraid of making mistakes in pronunciation or grammar. She said that language is just a tool for people to communicate with each other. We don't need to focus on the words, the syntax or the grammar too much, but the topic itself we are talking about. Terry is a good example for me to follow because of her encouraging words, smile and acceptance to her students. Never saying no to a student is really a nice teaching way.

Terry is hard-working. Before class starts, she got everything ready for it. In class, she put all her effort into the contents she taught us, and she even sang or danced if necessary. After the training day ended, she was the last one to leave, putting everything where they were and made some teaching materials for the next day's work.
Terry is high-quality in personality. She is sincere. She does everything honestly and equally. She doesn't cheat in doing anything. She behaves quite well both in class and out of class. She is grateful. Every day, I drove her to the Conference Center for lunch,"Thank you" could always be heard when getting into and out of my car. What a lady with a grateful heart! She always shows us the "positive energy". She believes everyone and everything around us is nice and good. She is my model. On the last day of our training, before she left our classroom for the last time, she put all the waste and rubbish together and threw them into the waste basket. "I won't leave anything messy or useless in the classroom, or others will have to spend much time tidying and cleaning them" she said. I was greatly shocked about her behaviour and words! This is my dear teacher, Terry! This is what I hope to be, a teacher not only teaching the students how to get knowledge, but also educating my students how to be a person full of stong responsibility!
Thank you,Terry! It is you who stimulate my mind of being a responsible teacher! It is you who make me know that how important it is for a teacher to guide his students pass "positive energy" to others and the society ! It is the Import Intelligence Training Class that brings me more than I can get only about knowledge!

I'm sure that some of you who know me are laughing hysterically at some of the comments, especially when it comes to singing and dancing! Not exactly my fortay but I did give it a go!

My class in Dantu.

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The Ghost Town of Dantu

My first placement this summer was in a small district, Dantu, which means red bandit. I was told that Dantu was one of the infamous Ghost Cities of China; being of an age that had watched numerous old western movies I had visions of broken down shacks and tumbleweeds but in the case of China, the term is a label which, in the West, has become synonomous with at best, poor planning, and at worst, grand scale corruption. Ghost Cities are a phenomenon of the Chinese revitalization scheme which began in the late '70s whereby entire cities, with complete infrastructures were erected but never populated. According to Western media, this was a huge metropolitan experiment, with a pricetag of roughly $500 billlion US, which failed on a grand scale and is an indication that perhaps the current leap forward was doomed to failure. "The ghost city of Dantu has been mostly empty for over a decade,"Business Insider reported in 2010. "In most neighborhoods of Dantu, there are no cars, no signs of life," reported the Daily Mail. (http://www.vagabondjourney.com/china-ghost-city-dantu/)

On the streets of Dantu

A fellow teacher with China Connections had also told us that Dantu was a deserted area with absolutely no people and if we wanted to have any social interaction or shopping we would need to travel to nearby Zhenjiang, the larger metropolitan area located next the the Yangstze. She had been assigned to this district in 2011. I was looking forward to actually having first hand experience with a city such as Dantu, and envisoned myself walking through deserted buildings and streets with my camera ready to record the tangible effects of this social experiment!

Alas, it would seem that either western media reports, often relying on satellite imagery, are highly exaggerated or three years has made all the difference. As we entered Dantu, our guide, Millie, informed us that Dantu was indeed a new District but it was obvious that it was far from "deserted" and not exactly what I would consider a Ghost Town!

Our little store that we go to daily.

Many buildings are still being erected with scaffolding and builders in plain view. Although it is true that the conjestion and traffic of cities such as Shanghai and Beijing is non existent there are people, cars, shops, and businesses thriving in Dantu. There are shops, rent a bike stands, a mall and a very large square in front of the Dantu convention centre in which we stayed. Families gather in the square nightly where stalls and games are set up for children; groups of line dancers are scattered throughout the park as well as some mainly older individuals making slow moving gestures which is the hallmark of Tai Chi. Where-ever I have travelled in China, each evening, someone brings out a boom box and starts playing music and a flash mob of line dancers seem to miraculously appear. This can occur in a park, a mall or just on the side walk. You can't go for a stroll in Dantu in the evening without tripping over a line dancer.
I can't help but wondering if my visit to this reportedly oldest example of a ghost town in China is indicative of the others. I guess the only wasy to truly discover the truth is to visit!

Clearly inhabited buildings in Dantu

Stores and shops in Dantu

Outside the mall in Dantu.

Relaxing in the Dantu Square

Not many ghosts here!

Butcher/Produce shop in Dantu

Family eating outside their shop in Dantu

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Imodium is a My New Best Friend

My lack of postings is an indication of the challenging time I have had in the last two weeks. My stay in Dantu was enlightening to say the least. I usually brag about my stamina and my ability to face all adversity with humour but lets just say I am very glad to have moved on!

I have always been very lucky in regards to health issues when travelling and I guess I just came to expect that I had super powers which helped me to avoid the very common intestinal complaints suffered by many who venture to foriegn lands. Alas, Dantu proved to be my Kryptonite.
It all started with a very nasty blister which developed after wearing a new pair of shoes and partaking in an evening of unabandoned dancing at the clubs of 1912. The first day in Dantu, I begin limping and noticed that the blister had broken open and the surrounding area had become an ominous and worrisome red. I soldiered on, but couldn't help but wonder if I was allowing all sorts of foriegn microbes to enter my bloodstream through the open sore. When standing started to become painful I hobbled off to try to find some sort of pharmacy in the hopes of obtaining a tube of Polysporin. I found a shop with a cross and all sorts of medicinal like products and asked the girl, with my Google translator, for an antibiotic cream but she didn't seem to grasp my meaning until I lifted my foot up and showed her my ankle which was now oozing some nasty looking green pus. She grimaced a bit and started a long explanation in Chinese (didn't help me much) and walked to a cabinet. She lifted out a red bottle with a little set of tweezers attached. This didn't look like any antibiotic cream I knew of but she pointed at my foot and at the bottle so, being in quite a bit of pain, I decided it was better then nothing and she was wearing a white smocky thing so she did look quite medical!

Our dining area.

When I returned to my hotel room, I opened the bottle which contained a bunch of little cotton balls soaked in some type of orange liquid. I used the handy tweezers to extract one and dabbed it all around my ankle. I seem to recall that when I was a very clutzy child and had scrapes or cuts that a similar looking product was also put on my many contusions so I felt confident I wasn't putting a substance on my skin that was going to cause my foot to eventually need amputation or anything. Sure enough after three days of having an orange ankle the wound started to clear up and I am happy to say I now just have a small scar! Unfortunately, this is when my stomach started to revolt.

Tried to survive with Rice Porridge

The food at our accommodation was a little worrisome right from the start. The hotel did have one hall of very nice, clean rooms which were used for people visiting the hotel just to eat, but on our first day we were escorted past these rooms and down a hall with garbage strewn around, past the kitchen, which definitely looked like it wouldn't pass any health or cleanliness inspections to a room which seemed to be the staff's lounge when we weren't eating. We were then served a variety of foods which the chef seemed to think Western foriegners would appreciate...a form of poutine which consisted of french fries covered in sweet and sour sauce and raw onions amongst other things. A series of bland and greasy dishes were set before us. We tried to be polite and nibble a bit but by the third day we were starving so we left the table and went to a nearby shop for a container of pot noodles and beer. Our lack of appetite must have been worrisome because at our next meal, our helper person, Millie, showed up and there was a very long discussion, in front of us, with the Chef and kitchen staff. We tried to tell them that we liked the Chinese food and lots of vegetables. At the next few meals the dishes were served and the Chef would stand behind us smoking a cigarette and flicking ashes onto the floor, while we ate, watching intently to see if we were aptly appreciating the delicacies he put before us. A little unnerving to say the least. Unfortunately the food was greasy, cold and often unidentifiable. Since we wanted to be polite, we gave it a valiant effort.

Chinese Poutine!

Kitchen where our food was prepared

Typical breakfast

By the third day my stomach began making some very odd noises after each meal and I was experiencing ominous cramps which would be so severe that I would need to hold on to the nearest piece of furniture for support until it passed. By the fifth day I was chewing imodium like candy and spending much of my spare time on the toilet. I decided that it was best to just try to eat rice and went out to buy a bunch of bananas to avoid scurvy but despite my best efforts my gastrointestinal nightmare continued for my entire two weeks in Dantu. Ah, the joys of visiting foriegn countries!

Thank goodness for pot noodles!

Food preparation on the streets of Dantu.

Street food in Dantu

A family eating in Dantu

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This is Not the Hilton

Despite becoming culturally immersed in the nightlife of Nanjing until the wee hours, my teaching partner for the next two weeks, and I, were quite proud of our upbeat and chipper attitude as we made our way to our new accommodations the next morning. Actually, we were probably not at our best but we did try to be cheery and engage our host in some witty repertoire about how China compares with Canada but alas, we must have been pretty boring since Millie spent most of the one hour car ride to Dantu quietly snoring in the back seat.
Now, when I am travelling I am not really a Diva about my accommodations and, probably due to my thrifty, some might even say "cheap", attitude, I have stayed in some very unusual and even sketchy places. Most of these I have booked myself and if they turn out to be uninhabitable (large bugs, malodorous aroma, loud and/or ominous noises of unknown origins) then I can simply refuse to stay there and find other digs. I recall booking a room in Myrtle Beach before the days of the internet and TripAdvisor and entering a "3 star" accommodation with cobwebs, live loose electrical wiring, the sound of what was probably an enormous family of rats and very large cockroaches (I might be exaggerating but my memory recalls something in the range of three inches). After taking one step through the door, following as the agent unchained the metal grate over it, I turned around, walked out and headed to the reception to find something in the "5 star" range.

A little DIY wouldn't go amiss!

For our stay in Jiangsu our accommodations are arranged by the hosting district - a district being loosely synonymous with municipality. We are told that we will be staying in a "Chinese" 3 star hotel which means that there will be a bed, an ensuite toilet and shower/bath, and air conditioning. I suppose our new home met these basic requirements and indeed, from the outside and the lobby area, appeared to be quite luxurious by Asian standards but as we alit from the elevator onto the third floor Andrea and I exchanged a look that said, "Uh oh..."

The floor in our dining area.

The smell of urine and stale cigarettes was the first thing to hit us, nay overwhelm us, and we unconsciously took a step back into the elevator rather than forward. The hall ahead was dark and dingy with only two or three flickering working light bulbs, probably to prevent us from seeing the torn wallpaper piteously stuck back up with packing tape or the large stains on the carpeting which may have been caused by someone relieving themselves. We have seen small children squatting, wherever they stand, when nature calls; in fact, clothing for infants and toddlers is designed conveniently split in the appropriate area to facilitate the practice.

Not sure what made this mark on the headboard.

The actual room is large with a small refrigerator, kettle, and two single beds. The beds in China are very firm but these beds are so hard that I did pull the sheet up to see if I was sleeping on a mattress or a four by eight piece of plywood. The carpeting is covered in stains and cigarette burns since it is common practice to drop hot butts, even on carpeting, and grinding them with your feet to put them out. The headboards have large black stains and the wallpaper is torn and taped, but not well enough to hide the mildew growing beneath. The hot water is somewhat sketchy so my morning fun is predicting whether I will have steaming hot water, in which case I will spend a luxurious amount of time lathering and washing my hair, or if the water is tepid at best my ablutions consist of a quick wash of the vital bits! There is air conditioning but even after turning it off, it seems to continue to blast so here I sit, typing this missive while wearing long pants, socks, and a hoody even though it is about 33 Celsius when I step out into the hallway. I have company in my room, in the form of hundreds of little mosquitos but I am trying to get rid of the infestation with this handy little device I have only seen in China which plugs into an outlet and emits some particularly noxious substance rendering the little b#$%#^#s dead and hopefully not causing the human in the room any irreversible unknown health effects!

Andrea trying to keep warm.

I do have a kettle, green tea, and four very nice silk comforters (two are being used to soften the mattress and two to protect me from the cold) so there are some positives. One must look on the bright side of life after all!
I also don't want to give the impression that this is typical of accommodation in China. Both Andrea and I have stayed at very wonderful chain hotels and B and B type places throughout China which have been immaculate and very comfortable. This just doesn't happen to be one of them!

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