Back in the B...

... well, for another few hours anyway. I spent the last two-and-a-bit weeks here after having returned home (where I'll be settling again due to family reasons) gathering my stuff, saying goodbye to my friends, and generally easing this chapter of my life towards its end. It's been a hectic two weeks, trying to reduce my life here to 20 kilos of luggage, meeting all the important people, and getting in all the different foods for the last time. Over the last few days we've had Baozi, Jiaozi, Sichuan, Hotpot, and on Saturday me, my former colleagues and about 25 of my students had a gathering over a Korean barbecue (and lots of Soju...!)

This morning will be the last one spent in our lovely apartment as my flight back is this afternoon. I'm arriving into Frankfurt tonight and will be starting my new job there tomorrow (hectic!) At the end of the month the job and I will move down to Düsseldorf, near home, and the cycle will close. From teacher to recruiter, Asia to Europe and from Baozi back to Brötchen. Himself will follow me a week later, and once he's found his German job we'll be living the life over in the Dorf as if nothing ever happened. (Before we do that, though, he'll have to sort out the trouble with our landlord over our early departure and our 5000 RMB deposit... we're thinking of selling the flat's TV if he doesn't budge, any takers?!)

This will be my last post from this side of the world, though post-Chinese reminiscence will follow. Til then, bye bye Beijing!

Bis dann,

Nadine

From Baozi to Brötchen...

It's been quiet here lately, I know. For a while now I haven't really been happy with my life in Beijing- my job was starting to get on my nerves, and I was starting to get on the bad side of the culture shock (you know, in the beginning it's all amazement, then enthusiasm, then you start to hate everything). So I began to look for a new job and tried to be as tolerant and open-minded as possible in the meantime. The presence of Himself (who'd moved over end of last year) and our gorgeous apartment were a big help. I kept postponing the next post to when I'd found a new job, or when I'd had the next wave of awe, or simply to whenever I'd feel like writing. Towards the end of May the teaching job became unbearable as I'd realised it simply wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life (and, at age 27, I felt and feel that now is the time to settle for a definite career path). So I quit my job, with my last day being the 25th of June, and went on a mission to find that new challenge, preferably before my notice and working visa would run out. "Quite the risk, that", I hear you say, and it's something that I was fully aware of. By the end of the second week of June I'd done a couple of interviews and felt pretty confident that I'd be all set come the end of the month.

I was reasonably pleased with myself: Not only had I set up a bit of a life in Beijing, had made a nest with my man, but I'd also taken my life into my own hands and sourced another opportunity in this not-so-easy job market (if you're a "foreigner", anyway).

That was all well and good, until the day that changed everything. On the morning of Wednesday, the 18th, I decided that before going to work I'd have a quick look at my emails, something I rarely do. By the end of the day I was on a plane back to Germany, having said goodbye to my colleagues, friends and life in Beijing over the phone, email and Facebook only.

Without going into too much detail, someone in my close family had been admitted to a psychiatric clinic in a serious condition. While of course I was terribly upset and guilty at not having been around to see the signs, I expected to have to stay for a few weeks, maybe a month or two until the patient is better and it's safe to leave if I'd only be in touch regularly. In the ten or so days I've been here, however, it has slowly emerged that things will under no circumstance be as quick as that and that we'll find ourselves visiting the hospital for another while before the person can even be taken home to start therapy there.

With this, my Chinese adventure has come to a very abrupt and painful end, and there's not much I can do about it. I'm looking for jobs in the vicinity of my hometown, and Himself (who has just started a new job himself, back in Beijing) will move back over here with me by the end of the year at the latest.

While I'm looking forward to settling back in and finding a job and being there for my family, I also very much regret leaving Beijing and all the great people I've met there behind. For as much as the place might have been getting on my nerves lately, I'm anything but finished with Beijing, or China. There's so many places yet to see, and so much to try out, but that will all have to wait until sometime in the future.
For if I've learned one thing from the people of China, it's that family comes first.

Unfortunately this will also mean the conclusion of this blog. I've still got some stuff on my camera, some stories to tell, and there's a few lists to be made as well, so there'll be a bit more at least.

For now, thank you very much for following the blog for as long as you have and see you soon for the conclusion!

Bis dann,

Nadine

Oh, and PS: Weed, Marihuana, Pot, or whatever is NOT cool. It's not harmless, and it's not something you can control. It can cause severe psychosis, including hallucinations and paranoia. Yes, you've heard all of that before. Before you light up next time though, think of your family. Imagine them sitting next to you on a hospital park bench in complete despair trying to explain your birth date to you. Or your name.

A whole year in China.

In fact, it's been a year and just over three months now since I stepped off the plane and began my new life. Lots of things have changed since- my professional situation, my diet, my views...
A reflective review of my 15 months here and how they have affected me and who I am is definitely in order. However, I'm feeling a bit lazy so that won't happen for now. Instead, how about something a little more lighthearted - funny names!

To make things easier for their international teachers, friends and business partners, many Chinese people choose an English name (and vice versa- my Chinese name is 娜娜 Nana ). They name themselves, and there are no regulations or limitations as to what kind of name they can choose. Many people base their name on the sound of their Chinese name (for instance, a girl I know called Jie named herself Jennifer), others chose a name that reflects their (desired) personality traits (thus this young man at our school named himself Earnest, as he likes to think he's very hardworking.) Others go for the name of a famous person, or a character from a TV series (all these American shows are insanely popular here), while others still come up with their very unique ideas of what constitutes a name. Hilarity ensues.

The following is a list of names that some of our students have given themselves. WARNING: Cringeworthy stuff ahead!

Tonic (A Schweppes drinker, perhaps...)

Summit

Beer (Got the right idea!)

Benz (How chav!)

Bin (He quickly changed it when he learned what this transcription of his Chinese name means in English. He now calls himself King. Hmmm...)

Candy, Cherry, Angel - all very popular choices, and the poor things have no clue that they're all hooker names!

Kitty (Yes, that's a reference to that white toy cat. A former colleague of mine insists that he once taught a girl who was actually called Hello Kitty)

Schofield, Serena, Phoebe - did I say they love these TV shows?!

Johnson (Just what isthat a reference to...?)

Nanny - another phonemic transcription as her career aspirations are definitely higher than her name might suggest.

Swift

Coffey - named after the character from that awfully sappy Green Mile movie. That said, I am grateful not to have met any Forrest Gumps so far.

Lemon

Snowy, Snow - a translation of their Chinese names, no doubt.

Warrior - ooooookaaaaaaaaaaaay...

Sword

Season (Which one, she didn't say.)

Hart (This guy has said to me, "Hi, my name is Hart, because I'm very hardworking." Ehm...)

Pharrell (Yes, that is inspired by that rapper.)


But my favourites have to be...


Cloris (Did she mean Doris?)

Seleven - This girl proudly explained to me just how much she loves 711... true story!

Titi - I did explain the meaning to her, and she said she didn't mind, she loved the sound of it. Some people just don't want to be helped.

Google (?!)

Zebra (?! ?!)


Amused? Shocked? Confused? Now you've got something of an idea of what it's like teaching English in China.

Have a nice day!

Bis dann

Nadine

Oh Spring, where art thou?

It's Monday, 30th March, my day off. I'm sitting at home, wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by piles of used tissues and pouring hot water into myself. Central heating was turned off last week, and our cozy apartment's temperature has dropped by an estimated 30 degrees. At least! I've gotten a bit of a cold just from sitting on the couch in the evenings. It's a farce at this stage, really- we're coming into April, and the temperature's kind of hanging in just above zero. My crazy friend and I recently went to Chaoyang Park to look for the first signs of spring. We ran around the empty park shouting, 春天，您在哪里？ (Chuntian, nin zai nali?) Spring, where art thou? And while he didn't exactly show his face then, we could feel the early signs of the season in the soft rays of sunshine and in the comparatively warm air. It must have been around ten or twelve degrees then. That was three weeks ago, and it's been progressively colder ever since.

Is it the same where you are? I've read reports on European weather behaving just as strangely- is Spring hiding from the crisis, or what?

Anyway, Friday night now-Beijing employee Himself treated me to a nice meal near his new office. We went to this lovely vegetarian place in the Holiday Inn Lido, the name of which escapes me. And, while vegetarian in Europe would probably mean something like mushroom risotto, veggie lassagna or chickpea mash, in China vegetarian restaurants serve so-called meat imitation dishes. That's right, on the menu you'll see all the familiar courses such as Beijing Roast Duck, Gung Bao Chicken and Hangzhou fish, except that none of them contain any duck, chicken or fish. Not that you'd know, anyway- these dishes recreate the smell, taste, colour, shape and texture of meat and fish with dazzling accuracy. I had this thing that looked, smelled, felt and tasted like a German Mettwurst, and our "sweet-sour-bitter-spicy fish" didn't only exuberate precisely those flavours, but looked and tasted exactly like (filleted) fish. (Of course, both were really doufu, but you sure couldn't tell the difference!) Now personally I'm not a massive fan of all the notion that vegetarians need to be given something that at least looks like meat (I never even bought any of these Quorn products when I was living in Ireland). My stance is that we (vegetarians) know what we want and get what we need, and I think that in vegetarian cooking, the vegetables should speak for themselves. That said, the food was genuinely delicious! It was so nice, in fact, that I even felt a little guilty for breaking my vegetarian vows as there were moments when I simply couldn't believe that I really wasn't eating a dead creature.

Of course, silly me didn't take any pictures, and I haven't been able to find any good pictures online. Just imagine the sliced portions of meat you get at your local Chinese, except made from Tofu.

I shall take a few photos next time though, as we're definitely going back. For now, our only souvenirs of the place remain the two wooden spoons that Himself nicked. Ah well.

Bis dann,

Nadine

Not a happy post.

So it happened again. Another desperately angry (lonely? disturbed?) teenager took out his rage on his fellow students, teachers, and three passersby. Sixteen people have died. Again. Young lives were ended before they had properly begun. Again. And again, people are shell-shocked, astonished at how this could have happened so close to home, in such a quaint little town as Winnenden near Stuttgart. As with the equally terrible 2002 incident in eastern Erfurt, my heart goes out to the pupils, teachers, friends, family and Winnenden citizens- they have my sincere sympathy. As with Erfurt, the search for answers is beginning- how could a 17-year old be filled with such hate as to go on such a bloody rampage? How will life in Winnenden go on? And, most importantly, how can these crimes be prevented? How can we make sure we'll never see these images of crying children, of roses being laid down outside a school, ever again?

The media are always a popular choice when it comes to casting the blame. All those terribly violent movies and computer games, and heavy metal music of course, leave our youth terribly depraved. Don't they? As I'm writing this, I'm reading the first article claiming 17-year old Tim enjoyed playing Counterstrike. Well done, WELT Online. Gotta ban'em all, those evil games. Don't we love those easy explanations.

Another popular related issue is the guns law. Now, in this regard, Germany certainly isn't anything like the US or somewhere like that. In order to legally own a weapon, one has to obtain a license by demonstrating sufficient knowledge on weapons, mental capability, and by buying a special insurance. This license is limited to a three-year term.

Most civilian weapon owners would have to be members of shooting clubs, hobby shooters who have obtained a license in order to be able to keep a firearm at home. In the Winnenden case, the boy's father was a member of a shooting club and owner of 16 (!) weapons. (How that is legal - or normal- I don't know, but that appears to be part of the investigation.) In Erfurt, 19-year old Robert Steinhäuser was a member of a club himself. After Erfurt, the minimum age for gun ownership was raised from 18 to 21. Now one could say, luckily there's not that many people in shooting clubs. One could even say it's a coincidence that those clubs played a role in both cases, and that either kid could have just gotten a gun off the street if he'd wanted. But, as a reverse conclusion, what if more people had a Waffenschein and legally had guns in their homes? Would we possibly have considerably more cases where their offspring finds the key to the secret cupboard and goes on a rampage? How many Tims and Roberts are really out there, so lonely and so frustrated that their dearest wish is to blow the heads off all those who bully them every day? How many schoolkids would simply love to show them all?

For the real problem if you ask me (and not just me, but rest assured most politicians won't be asking) lies within our rotten old school system. In a system where it's laughably easy to become a teacher, where becoming one is all about academic expertise and pedagogic aptitude is worth next to nothing, where teachers are un-fireable civil servants with a very comfortable payment structure and where "teacher" is a lazy job choice for many simply out of lack of a better option, are our children taught and looked after by capable, motivated and caring individuals? Do their teachers provide them with real-life advice, sufficient support and motivation? Do the teachers still care after a few years of doing the same thing, with no incentives to improve or change at all? Of course not! Being a pupil in Germany means intimidation instead of encouragement, constant judgement instead of fair evaluation and opportunities, and resignation where there should be extra effort. On a day-to-day basis. And I'm solely talking about teachers' treatment of students here- I haven't even mentioned the bullying. As long as there's a three-track system where children are put into categories of smart, not so smart and dumb as early as age 9, as long as any imbecile can become a teacher, and as long as going to school means fear and competition instead of community and perspectives, I'm giving us a few years before the next incident of this sort.

But shedding established systems and reforming dusty old structures hasn't been a strongpoint of any German government in ages. In the election year of 2009, this tragedy will surely be in the focus of many an eager politician. Unfortunately, I have a suspicion that any change we'll see will be limited to banning a few games, and perhaps a couple movies.

Real change? Nein danke.

Bis dann

Nadine