Your first day in China

August 2010.

After drinking myself and smoking myself stupid a few nights prior I stepped into London Heathrow, ready to begin a year of culture, education, and away from the demons of alcohol and cigarettes, as I had the idea firmly cemented into my head that Chinese people don't drink.


After passing through Customs, realising that I was slightly nervous about flying solo for the first time ever, I saw something wonderful; Duty free cigarettes. Having never seen such prices before, I bought 200 Davidoff and 200 Dunhill topleaf, not for myself, but rather, gifts for Chinese people who would surely wonder at the exclusivity of Foreign cigarettes (in retrospect, this was the one thing that I did get right)

I was shown to my seat by some pretty young Chinese stewardess, and remember wondering just how uncomfortable an 11 hour flight with a constant erection would be. This thought was promptly interrupted by someone reclining their chair into my face.

After eight hours, I was toying with the idea of just running to the toilet and smacking one out, but was too nervous to ask the man next to me to get out of his seat so I could pass (I have still to this day, never in my life, had anything other than an isle seat right in the middle of the plane) and so I tried to enjoy the in flight movie. I don't remember what it was so I doubt I enjoyed it. The plane food was bitchin' though.


Eventually we touch down in Shanghai, and someone tells me I should have filled in a landing card. I was pretty certain that security would beat me in a closed off room somewhere, but instead, they just handed me an arrival card and pen.  An hour or two of confusion later, I was told that my connecting flight actually took off on the airport on the other side of town.


I was directed to a bus, and in my panic, offered the driver a cigarette (it was a dunhill) he smoked with me, and didn't speak a word of English which I found thoroughly offensive. How can my driver be so insolent as to not learn my language. Maybe the airport forgot to tell him of my visit.

I got on the bus, not entirely sure whether it was taking me to the right place, but aware that my flight left in two hours. the sun set, and I realised that Shanghai is a much more beautiful city in the dark.  After arriving at the airport, I saw a white man smoking outside, and thought 'screw it' unsheathing a dunhill topleaf from its crimson prison. My no smoking plan had lasted less than a day.  I spoke to him for a while. He was Russian, and assured me, that I would have a wonderful time in China. I guess the apprehension showed on my face, which I imagine to look a lot like The Scream.

My connecting flight was delayed by 4 hours, and so I found a little bar and ordered a bottle of Sing Dow. My no drinking lasted less than 24 hours. 

Four bottles and 2 packets of Dunhill top leaf later, I boarded my flight, and shortly after landed in Nanchang. My first thought was 'isn't night time meant to be cold?' as the 2am heat started to tan me. An innofensive Chinese man was waiting for me at the airport, and shepherded me into a taxi. He handed me some keys and tried to convince me to sleep over and over again. I pretended to sleep as I heard him speak in whispered Chinese to the driver.

Eventually the taxi came to a stop. I looked out of the window through one eye, and noticed that I was in what looked like a construction site, and at that point, it all became clear. They were going to kill me and harvest my organs. I held the set of keys in between my knuckles, ready to go down with a fight, and at that moment, the car started again. Just a wrong turn.

30 minutwes later, I was dropped off at my new apartment. It was too big for one person, and way too hot for anything human. I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, certain of the huge mistake I'd made. I wanted to cry, and even more, I wanted to sleep. The last thing I remember thinking before I fell asleep was 'I haven't done a shit in 36 hours'


The end.

Great story James and all the others. I'll have to write mine soon. It'll be just as wordy but I'm not sure if it'll be as interesting

Yeah, nice one James - I liked the 'organ harvesting' mini freakout bit.  That first long cab ride into seemingly the middle of nowhere can be a real 'WTF have I gotten into?' moment.

I see James was kind enough to edit out the part where they came the next night and took his kidneys.

Call me when you get back to DG.

And call ME when you get back on-topic.

Sorry, Boss. I should have communicated that by PM.  

And this post, too.  I'll try to behave now.

In a vain attempt to get back on topic - I know I made many, many mistakes in my first days in China - all out of innocence, not out of rebellious nature.

I actually have three anniversaries.

I have my Asia anniversary, counting my time in South Korea for 5 months in late 2000, early 2001. South Korea to me was like my "boot camp". Do I have what it takes to live in an alien culture, eat weird food, use strange money and adapt? I met some good Korean people, but by and large, the people were not helpful, indifferent and a few even hostile towards foreigners. But I liked my independence and I loved the food. But that job wanted me to work 6 days/over 40 hours a week, and by and large, the children were fucking monsters (Chinese kids are a lot better) literally. They were mean, rude, insolent, VIOLENT, spoiled. My teaching partner was a miserable, asshole of a young man named Allen who hated foreigners and was of no help on how to teach the kids. He was also as ass kisser to the supervisor and would coyly spy on me, he was good at it, you can see him off the corner of your eye as he is peaking at you. I had to work at 9AM and did not get home until 6PM, with little kids in the morning (including a class of 8 little boys who would not be afraid of the worst school in Compton) plus kids in the afternoon who went to our school after being in their school all day. They knew that we did not have much power over them, and they took advantage of it.

A humorous thing about Koreans is the importance of marriage. I made friends with a manager of a convenience store who was a kind, nice man. I came by to say goodbye, and told him that there was a possibility that I may return in 6 months, and he told me not to come back until I was married. Youre 33, why aren't you married. I did the "yeah, yeah, Ok. OK.," bit and said goodbye. 9 months later, I got married. I wish I had that guy's e-mail and sent him pictures. I wish the guy told me "Don't come back until you hit the lottery" and nine months later I buy him a Cadillac.

Loved the food. One thing in Korea I love were the chicken and beer restarants. That's what they sold, chicken and beer. Not KFC shit either, and one sat on long tables with the baskets of fresh hot fried chicken, kimshee and a pitcher of OB Beer. Kamsaneedah! Also, Korean women are beautiful, if you like the real Oriental look. Latly, I loved a Korean alchol called Makgeolli, which was a milky rice wine that was so good and was so fun to drink. Happy drunk time. There was a dude who owned a bookstore on top of Hooker Hill in Itaewon who turned me on to that. My local shopkeeper was shocked when he saw me buy it.

Korea was also the last place I have been to a movie theater, around Jan. of 2001 with my first and only Korean date. Liked the girl, talked with her a few times and asked her out. Had some Korean food and then saw "Castaway" with Tom Hanks (2 hours I will never get back), I walked the girl home, pecked her on the cheek and that was it. She told me that she would see me again, but she blew me off and I never saw her again. Hurt my feelings for a bit, but no big deal. If we fell in love, I would be living in Korea now. No thanks.

Left the school, without seeing anything but a bit of Seoul and not much else. I was only home for 7 weeks, did not want to live in the USA and wanted to get back to Asia, so I did. I was looking for ESL jobs in South America, Japan and Taiwan. Some ditz woman from Japan called me about 3 AM wanting to interview me, but we did not click. A school in Chile was interested but wanted me, but wanted me to come down there for an interview. Someone in Taiwan wanted to know if I was interested in China and I said at the time, hell no, China is commie. So I decided on an offer from Taiwan and off I went again and remembering on the plane seeing my city from the air which I have seen many times before, thinking that I am not coming home for a long, long time. My mother lovingly told me not to come back in a year. Man up and make something of this.

Then there is my anniversary of leaving the USA, which is 10 years this April 19th. I have not gotten back home since then. I pretty much mark my time from that period. First, I went to Taiwan. Since some of our Chinese friends consider that place a part of China, this is the first place I have been in China.

I remember being stuck at the airport on arrival and somehow eventually getting picked up (it's been so long, I have forgotten.) First we went to Taoyuan, which is a really funky place. I was put up in this cheap hostel pretty much inhabited by English teachers and whatnot, and it had a small bar on the first floor. The guy who ran it spoke some English and was more than likely homosexual. I think his name was Kenny, so let's call him that. I would sit in his little hole in the wall place and noticed the foreigners coming in, mostly with their little cliques and whatnot. I did learn "Ni Hao" and "Xie Xie"

I had jetlag hard this trip and basically was up all night and sleeping all day. Because of this, I turned down a tour of Taipei, which I know sort of regret. The second night I was there, I was very hungry and wanted some food, and out I went. Found a so called "foreigner" bar, and it was packed. I wasn't there to party or drink, I just wanted food at the moment. Got a basic bar burger and fries. Waited for food, food came.

Took one bite on my burger and tasted/noticed that it included a fried egg. I started to complain aloud "Who the hell/fuck put this damn egg.................." and then I realized that the two really went together "mmmmm...never mind!"

That night or the next, I went into a disco near the bar. I sat at the bar and started ordering drinks, and after about an hour or so of a couple of drinks, I was pretty much hammered and wanted to leave and left a tip. The bartenders did not have a clue and were chasing me down to give me my money back. I didn't know no one tipped here (and very happy to find out).

Spent about 2 months in Xinchu at some private school shithole called "David's English". Sorry to say, I and my supervisor did not like each other from day one. They told me that I had to buy a motorcycle to go to outside jobs. Now, I would of walked out the door, but I was gulliable to that, and came from a country where everyone drove. Then they wanted to withhold my first month's pay as a deposit, when they paid absolutely nothing at that point, no flight ticket, I had to pay 100% for housing. The only thing they paid for was the cost of the visa. I made a fuss about that, because I was already low on funds as it was. Had a tough time in Taiwan because after buying that stupid bike and renting a room (not an apt, a sleeping room with no mattress) for three months, I had almost no money and was basically living hand to mouth and sneaking in to company cafeterias for free dinner.

The job was for adult students, and I was very clueless on how to do the job. I only taught kids in Korea, but I sucked there and was losing students. I felt bad because I was trying hard and wanted to succeed so I can have some money to be able to enjoy Taiwan a bit more. But I could not succeed there. It sucked and messed up my disposition, I hated the job, hated the supervisor, hated where I lived and basically hated fucking Taiwan.

I love children and have taught kids as young as three. "David's" farmed me out to a kindergarten. Problem was, I was so hungover, I could barely move, and here I am down here with these little kids. I remember breaking a long wooden ruler by accident (I wasn't mad and think I was trying to be entertaining). Then because I was so thirtsty from being hungover, I asked for a glass of water. I get the water and the shit was HOT. As in coffee hot. I got really annoyed about that. WHO THE FUCK DRINKS HOT WATER ON A SUMMER'S DAY! That did it.

I wrecked my motorbike and broke my arm and hurt my face (no bones broke, thank God, but I looked like Mike Tyson tied me to a tree and bashed my face). I left Hsinchu and went to Gaoshung in the south. Got farmed to a school owned by a couple. Wife sees my ugly face and doesn't want to hire me, the man gives me a try, but I did look like shit and they gave me a room in an apartment with a male and a female and the bathroom was fucking disgusting. After a few days, the male owner fired me, but he was really sad about it and liked me, but his bitch wife made him. Had to go to my recruiter, who was mad at me for losing to jobs in a space of 2 months told me that I was going to China. I thought, cool, I'm sick of Taiwan.

Get to the airport, broke as a motherfucker, and buy a ticket to HK. Went through immigration and was told that my tourist visa expired. David's gave a me another stamp and told them they were mistaken, but they weren't and they took about 1000 NT or $30 from me as a fine. But then, you must understand, this was more or less my last $30 bucks. Taiwan stamped something ugly on my passport telling me to stay away for a year and sent me to HK, which led to me explaining to the supervisor there what the hell happened.

My recuiter in Hangzhou sent a guy down named Ray Hung, who undoubtably is the biggest Chinese asshole by far. (For the record, I love Chinese people, am married to a Chinese, and find them to be kind people). After a few nervous hours in the HK airport, and after buying a China L visa, I had maybe, literally $20 on me. I had no cell phone. Finally we hooked up and he told me to take the bus acros to Shenzhen. This was my first time in the PRC.

Lastly, there is my P.R.C. anniversary.

I knew very little about China before I came. When I lived in Korea, I expressed a desire to travel there and I did want to see it. However, I thought it was going to be really strict, Communist, with soldiers on every corner, with secret police and spies. I thought the country would be very poor and backward. Basically, I was prepared for North Korea.

However, Shenzhen was the total polar opposite of what I expected. Place was lit up like Las Vegas with people driving foreign cars and people with cell phones and nice clothes who were enjoying life eating KFC.

Ray Hung was an asshole and a swindler (he later cheated myself, his employer and others of money), but he did teach me chopsticks. And yes, he was a fucking asshole when he taught me. "What, you don't know how to use chopsticks yet? You lived in Korea, and don't know how, you eat hamburgers every day?" He also taught me not to stick my chopsticks in the rice and went apeshit when I did it. To his credit, he did introduce me to some of the fun life here, and like myself, like the drink.

When I was first in China, I was scared of the driving. I have been in some car accidents (thankfully minor) and have been hit by car in my life and the driving still scares me in the countryside, although I have a thick skin about it now.

I ended up in a city called Dongyang which is about 10 km east of Yiwu nearly in the center of Zhejiang Province and was there for a year in 2001-2002. This is where I met my beautiful Yong Fang. I have been in Zhejiang for 10 years and love it. Yes, there have been rocky moments, but I am much happier here than I was in the USA.

Finding my wife was circumstance............

If I did not drink that night and ride that bike, I would not have been hurt and would
have stayed in Taiwan.

This particular company got me, out of countless school recuiters in all of China.

I picked Dongyang only because the pay was better there than in Hangzhou, a city thankfully I did not know about because I would of picked Hangzhou and not of gone to Dongyang and found my Yong Fang.

Too long, but I am in Dongyang for Chinese New Years and have a lot of memories.

IMHO, Senor, that's the best piece you've ever written here. 

My first day in China was in Harbin city while a student in Harbin Institute of Technology（哈尔滨理工大学）
It was in 2000. I'll never forget that days. From this year on I was completely in love with China.the happiest time in my life...
Are there any folks here who studied in HaGongDa?

no but I have friends who teach there.

@Senor Boogie Woogie....
Thats a great post! Panoramic, Technicolour, Epic!

Really enjoyed reading it! 

I sent an email form an internet cafe, back in 2007, so don't need to rewrite it now. After this, for my first year, there were about equal parts good things and equal parts horror stories. Most of the positive things, other than about the other teachers or students, that I found to share in my first email were just me being optimistic and looking for the silver lining of the clouds (ex., liking an extremely ordinary and quite polluted city). After my first 6 months I summed my experience up rather well in saying that I was really glad I'd done the tour of duty, but I wouldn't do it again.

Anyway, here's my first email home after arriving in China, editing out the name of the city.

Hello people:
 
Before I tell you the grueling story of my first few days in [3rd tier city], and drop phrases like, "Dark night of the soul," I thought it would be best to let you know everything's OK now, and things are improving.
 
OK. It's been a bit rough, somewhat do to my tight schedule and immediate immersion in teaching with only a few hours to prepare for 5 classes (7 hours of teaching), but mostly due to the "god forsaken shithole" that is my apartment.
 
Before you think that I'm just not accustomed to the Chinese standard of living and hanker for Western amenities, note that the Western manager at my school said that if she had arrived and was given my apartment she would have, "freaked out". And I've subsequently visited one other teacher's (shared by two teachers)apartment which is vastly superior.
 
So, I arrived in [3rd tier city] Friday morning after a 12 hour overnight train ride. No problem there, really, except that unlike other trains I've taken the cars on this style of train collide with one another and thus jolt one about in one's tiny sleeper (three stacked). [3rd tier city] itself is actually quite to my tastes, and the air has been quite good!
 
But the "infernal cesspool" that I now call my home? What's wrong with it and why did it get to me? Well, let me again quote my Western manager at the school, who put it rather well. She said it looks like one of those places you want to visit just to see how other people live, but YOU wouldn't want to live there YOURSELF. I knew it was going to be bad when I saw the outside, which is exactly like the slums of Bangkok that one tries to take pictures of from the canals to show people the colorful clutter of the squalid conditions. You know, the crumbling old buildings with all the laundry hanging out the windows...
 
As I went up the stairs the first time I stepped around the piles of garbage and made my way to the sixth (top) floor. The outer door is something like a metal security gate that would keep the Terminator out for a quarter of a minute. The inner door requires a VERY delicate negotiation with a fussy key/lock interface that I'll write more about in the "dark night of the soul" section. Inside, well, the first glimpse looks like Ed and Nancy Keinholz had created one of their bleak installations about how humanity suffers in stultifying conditions (whether it's patients in mental hospitals, prostitutes, or retired individuals living over train stations).
 
The first thing one notices is the giant 2-way surveillance mirror. OK, it's not REALLY for surveillance, but looks exactly like every one of those things you've seen on TV. It's like a mirror, but bluish and dark, and it's really hard to NOT think there might be someone observing you from the other side. I've tried to lift it back and see behind but there's no way to do so. I'm assured it's just an ornament, though it would be impossible to bring it up the stairs, so, it must have been built into the place.
 
The couch beneath it, well, like EVERYTHING else in the apartment, needs the words, "poor excuse for a" in front of it. Partially covered with thin plastic, the "couch" itself is made of the cheapest materials imaginable -- I think the cushions are foam -- and, like most everything else, broken. All the lights are naked bulbs. Did I say there was no heat? There was no heat. And it was cold.
 
Let's get the bathroom over with. Some of you have been to the "Subway Bar" in Manhattan, and while it's not AS bad as the restroom there, it's in the same league. The lid to the toilet is on the floor. The plastic seat, discolored by perhaps decades of ageing, pivots at a rakishly stylish angle. There's an unpleasant biological aroma emanating from the drain, and a pool of standing water which I've discovered is permanent because the drain isn't at the lowest point of the floor. The toilet itself sports stains worthy of the aforementioned "Subway Bar". There's no mirror, anywhere, other than a little plastic number the chain-smoking, suspected alcoholic previous teacher left behind in one of the two bedrooms.
 
The bed is an old mattress sitting atop two mini bed things, as if someone took two cheap-as-money-can-buy children's beds, took off the mattresses, and then flung a full-sized mattress they'd found in the street on top of it and called it a day. There was no sheet. The single pillow had actual mold culture on it, of the black variety.
 
The wardrobe is the type of plastic zippered thing, which a flimsy aluminum frame, that one might see in a "99 cent store," only mine is at least 10 years old, and, like everything else, broken. The curtain is a paper roll-up-and-down thing with Snoopy and Woodstock, or whatever that bird's name was. The light in the ceiling doesn't work, and one must rely on the two-naked-bulb thing that's strung up on one of the walls. Everything is cold and damp and smells of cigarettes.
 
The top of the desk is split down the middle and one drawer is missing. All the chairs are of the cheapest variety, with spindly little metal legs and plastic-covered foam cushions.
 
The kitchen is tiny and it's safe to say I'll never use it. No cupboards, and, for that matter, no shelves anywhere. All food must sit on the counter. The sink only has cold water (there's no sink in the bathroom), and, I've been instructed, can't handle anything material going down the drain (which means one can't use it as a sink to clean dishes unless one's licked one's plate clean, literally). Otherwise, there's the plunger.
 
All windows haven't been washed in years.
 
I'd say that the overall effect is "depressing," but depression is an emotion, or emotional state, and this is VISCERAL. It's a bleak and desperate habitat, even by the standards of the apartment building as a whole. The apartment opposite mine, has nice furniture for example. I'll say this about my furniture, you couldn't sell it at any price. In fact, it may all have been acquired by rummaging through garbage. You'd have to pay someone to take it away though.
 
Also, apparently, the person they hired to clean that apartment before I arrived refused to clean the bathroom.
 
In comparison, other teachers have heavy wooden chairs, couches, and tables, and the wood has been rather elegantly rounded. I'm living less like a teacher, and more like a taxi driver, after he's been fired for ineptitude do to alcohol addiction and other vices, and has basically just given up and is trying to slowly drink himself to death. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that such a corpse had been removed minutes before my arrival.
 
So what is the general effect of finding one's self suddenly thrust into the skin of an apartment of the wretched? It sucks. It sucks hard.
 
After pacing back and forth for a while I went for a walk and bought a new pillow and case, flip flops to enable entrance and exit from the bathroom, and hangers. Then I went to a 3 o'clock meeting at the school in which the new teachers were briefly introduced to the existing teachers, and I picked up my stack of books. Now, the PEOPLE are all very nice and friendly. There's no problem with them. I sat in on two of one teacher's classes and she was quite good with the students.
 
When I got back to my place at around 9 p.m., with only a few hours left to plan 5 classes, I couldn't get in the interior finicky door. I couldn't even get the key all the way in. After struggling with it for about 15 minutes (and running across the way to flip on the timed light many times), I nicked some skin off a knuckle and began to do a good job of bleeding. After producing a further welt on my thumb, I eventually got the door open.
 
I wasn't inside for more than a few minutes before a stranger started pounding on the door. Thinking he was the landlord or building supervisor or whatever, I let him in to inspect, or whatever. He spoke no English. He immediately went to the bathroom, began fiddling with switches, and turn on the water faucet. Then he began barking at me in Chinese, a performance which lasted an exasperating 10 minutes or more before he saw my stack of books and realized I was a teacher, at which point he slapped me on the shoulder, shook my hand, and walked off.
 
Now it was near 10 o'clock, I was exhausted, and still had to pull 5 lessons out of my ass (two of them for 2 hour classes). The place was freezing, so I crawled under the covers with a pad of paper and stack of books and wracked my brain for ideas. Even under the covers I was shivering, and even shaking. Maybe the lack of sleep from the prior all-night train ride, the affront of my living conditions, and the stress of having to work all day the following day with barely an excuse for preparation, my left leg began to spasm until I calmed myself and got it under control. My hope's were only for "survival," a word that kept appearing in my consciousness.
 
Enter the "dark night of the soul" or slide into "the pit of despair". No alternative I kept on. I had that thought that, OK, think of this period as self-sacrifice, giving to the students and not worrying about my self. That temporary selfless mentality got me through most the lesson plans, and I left one for the early morning, setting the alarm to go off an hour and a half before classes began. If there is karma, I thought, I'll be storing it up. I've been waking up at around 4:30 because  of the jet lag, and that evening was no exception. So, I got to practice my emergency meditation techniques, which seem to work best when most needed. Just concentrate on breathing with no thinking. The body is calm. The mind calms and the body calms more...
 
OK, that was the worst of it.
 
I knew I had to go into my first class with positive energy and confidence, even if I was bleeding psychically on the inside, and, I pulled it off. I managed to clown with the students and actually be myself. The kids are extremely cute, especially the girls. And my lesson plans hatched in last-minute dread were at least adequate to the task.
 
The school has now provided me with a heater, and some sheets and blankets. I use the lid of the toilet as a stepping stone into the bathroom and otherwise have come up with ways to make my apartment sustain life without every little thing being exaggeratedly difficult. I moved one of the desks into the living room and rearranged things so I can work near the heater. I mopped the floor of the bathroom and scrubbed the toilet with dish detergent, opened all the windows, and am going to buy a new mop, broom and dustpan, and iron. This is to get me through the month. Word is that I can pick another apartment and the school will pay the first 600 yuan towards rent. [Note: they wouldn’t do this!]
 
All that said--sorry, but I wanted to share the horror--I think I made the right decision in coming here. I'd much rather teach the kids than pound out presentations for big corruption, I mean business. In my own defense, I think any of the other teachers would have reacted at least as bad to my apartment, not having my prior experience with living in challengingly modest circumstances (such as having to use a bucket of sawdust for a toilet).
 
My second day of classes also went quite well, and I've had some moments of happiness, such as when one of my little students (a contender for most cute) ran up to me outside my apartment (guess we're neighbors) and said, "hello". I get along quite well with the little ones, though I wouldn't necessarily have predicted that. They're so easy to like, and, appreciate my comfort with being silly.
 
So, right now I'm in an internet cafe with a Chinese friend I made. We had some coffee.
 
I already practiced Chinese today and knocked out a lesson plan for next weekend (note, I only work two days a week, so all my classes are crammed into those two days). I imagine things will get a lot easier now...
 
Also last night had a big dinner with the other teachers at a fancy restaurant courtesy of the owner of the school, who couldn't make it himself. Very nice, and delicious food. My fellow teachers are all much younger than me, though, and a few like to drink copious amounts of liquor well beyond my tolerance point, and they bonded over knowledge of elaborate drinking games I'd never heard of. I didn't join them at the night club. I'm using my age as an excuse to get out of that sort of thing. Unfortunately the other teacher I was friends with from the training, from New Jersey, went off to a different school, because we were both in the same color bar of the spectrum.
 
Hope you survived this email, and I'll end it on a couple positive notes. 1. [3rd tier city] is cool, and about exactly what I'd look for in a Chinese city. 2. I've finally started teaching, and, I'm very good at it already. So, now I at least have a new career I can pursue for a while, unless it was just beginners luck.
 
Now to go off and find some FOOD.
 
Zai jian.

Another classic in this great thread! Cold, damp and full of dread - I actually started shivering a bit just reading that one.

I can't remember my first day here as it was so long ago (1994), but I just remember everything being so big, so dirty,so hot, so humid, so many people. The roads seemed so wide.

I remember the dough bun cabs in Beijing, where everything on the road seemed to be yellow, where pollution was so heavy- until I came here to teach in 2008, I'd only every seen 3 clear days in Beijing out of about 40. I remember being amazed of the smell of here- not necessarily the pong (which was pretty heavy), but also the way a country just has it's own smell, a bit like when you go to your house after a long time of being away and remember that it has a particularly homely musk.

I remember EVERYBODY smoking, EVERYBODY spitting, and people coming and patting me on the head (I'm blonde), I remember people walking into objects while looking at me. I remember the old silk market, where it was just an outdoor market selling CDs and billions of Bolex watches (got myself a fair amount of those).

The cheap tack at the Temple of Heaven like rolling laughing Buddhas that emitted a psychotic laugh when you pushed them, and similarly terrifying pandas with green eyes that would robotically move when you clapped, and would stop when you clapped again.

Seeing car crashes for the first time with blood and people strewn around the road, seeing kids shit on the street, seeing almost every male dressed in white shirts, and Wangfujing Foreign Languages Bookshop only selling Mao, Liu, and Deng's theories, and selling posters of Marx.

Anyway, it's cheating a bit because that wasn't my first day, but my first week. But there we go.

This was an interesting thread, and I never posted; mostly because the memories are fairly depressing. However, enjoi's experiences have reminded me of it, a bit, and I think this is worth bumping, as I dare say there's a few new stories from the last couple of years.

I arrived at Ningbo airport. My school weren't there to meet me as promised. I wandered around, desperately fighting off the impulse to speak Spanish to the foreigners because I didn't speak a word of Chinese. (I still have this impulse. I still don't know how to shout 'watch out' in Chinese, and always want to yell 'cuidado', and I know that the correct Spanish would be tenga cuidado.

Anyway, on-topic thread, on-topic thread, eventually the DOS of the other EF school in Ningbo turned up with a couple of school managers. The DOS and I chatted in the back of the car into the city, and I realised to my horror that her knowledge of ESL was minimal.

We got to my flat, but if I remember correctly the lock wouldn't open, so we went off to a restaurant with some of the other foreign teachers. This would have been fine, but I was extremely sleep deprived and basically a zombie. I presume the other foreign teachers came to the conclusion that I was retarded, because after that meal they were really unfriendly. at some point I met the owner of the school. He greeted me like I was something disgusting he'd just found on the bottom of his shoe.

The next day they told me that because of swine flu, or whatever hysterical flu thing was going on in the summer of 2009, I had to be quarantined for a week. Nobody was allowed to visit me, so I was left on my own in a flat in a strange country, without being able to speak any Chinese, to survive for a week.

To be fair, this wasn't my first time living abroad, and I was able to cope fairly well.

After about 5 days, Carina, the DOS of the school I was to be based in, came back from holiday, and things started going very well.
By and large I've had some good times in China, but those first couple of days kind of sucked.