Post #1 - from Shanghai

Hi.
I arrived a couple of weeks ago and slammed into the wall of culture shock.  Fuzzy-headed with jet-lag, I figured out the basics at work, got settled into a pretty shocking apartment (the "hotel" complex of high rises on the school grounds), purchased a old scooter, figured out how to come and go to the nearest town, how to get supplies, and, most of all, how to connect to the outer world via Internet. 

At this point I have a cord that runs from the next apartment into mine (through the AC pipe hole - and that has given me temperamental and intermittent basic Internet.  The school's connection is slightly better, and so I took windows of opportunity to write quick messages home and abroad - I was desperate to stay in touch! 

I decided that a blog would be a fun way to let interested folk know what is going on over here.  But, as China blocks Google I could not access Blogger (and being a techno-phobe, it was what I thought was "do-able for me). I have finally gotten sorted out with a vpn, and bingo - I am sitting in a café creating this modest little blog....I guess what I do is alert people on my contact list to the existence of Karen in Cathay, and they (you) can choose or not to have a look - I think you get alerts or something when I post a new...er....posting.  I will probably write quite a few in short order here to catch up about the school, the teaching experience, and first events in the settling-in process.

 

 OK -- here is a picture of the front of the school grounds.  Impressive?  Let me tell you that this was a holiday park and is mostly such a dilapidated site that at times and in places I think I am wandering around a Twilight Zone set....There are wild dogs and cats living in the abandoned buildings,  That is my little scooter out front there.  But the staff is great, the principal too, works hard to help the newbies settle, and the locals are friendly.

Town (which I had had described to me as a little village) is about the size of Nanaimo is about a 10 min bus or scooter ride away - has crazy building sites and broken roads everywhere.  Many new buildings have been built, but they are shells and uninhabited...And the driving - honestly, you have to laugh as almost anything goes.  There is another littler place also nearby that has more of the very rustic store-fronts and open cafes - all knee-deep in rubble.  Dirt cheap, though, and again, friendly locals.

I have been lucky enough to hook up with a young (first year) Taiwanese-Canadian teacher called Benson (the butler)  whose language skills have saved me innumerable times.  He is a fun lad and I seem to crack him up, so we are a good pair.  At the moment we are in Shanghai taking a few days of the week Mid-Autumn holiday away from Hell-Hole Hotel. we came by bus with a long-time teacher who knows the "Shanghai ropes".   My plan, which as you can see is working, was to get a blog going, and to do some school work in the relative luxury of a hotel.  Saying that, when we entered the tiled hallway to the elevator today there was a big black cockroach right in the middle of the room...

More on what we've done Shanghai-wise coming up....  KAREN