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Hello Friends!

So, now I’m safely placed out here in Shenyang.
It’s a very very big city, the 4th biggest one in China I’ve been told. So that is definetly nice.
I’m supposed to have a internet connection in my room, and I did have one for a brief evening. But in the moment of writing, there’s none.-so if this is late you know why.

When I first arrived here, I was ready for filling out forms, getting instructions and atleast information.
But they just gave me my apartment (on campus) and told me to relax. And naturally, so I did.
The next day we met up at 13:30 to go shopping for things we needed. That was nice, there were quite a few things missing in my opinion. (trash can etc)

But still no information. So we just met up with the rest of the gang placed around the city. We are 11 people all together, and except for me and a German girl called Regina we are all british. (there’s one british girl in the apartment next to mine)

Finally, on Monday, we had a meeting with the vice principal of our school. The school itself is awesome. This is a school that focuses spesificly on language. I have the first junior highschool grade, wich is four classes. I have them all once every day for four days. (three days off in other words, Thursday and the weekends!)
They gave us a book and a lot of information I craved before we went off to prepeare our first lesson and later on celebrate Petes birthday.

The gang

The birthday boy and his significant other.

The celebration was very nice, allthough I was thinking about my first class a lot. Each class is 50 kids between 12-13.
I had no clue what their english levels were.

Right now I’ve had three out of four classes today, and the results have varied. My lessonplan was too short, and I had to improvise a lot the first lesson. Second lesson went quite well, and the third one was a bit difficult, because there’s a huge gap in the english skill of the students in that class.

So, for my last one, better structure and speak slower. (it’s hard to define, they need to get used to english speakers at their natural pace, at the same time they need to understand what’s going on as well.)

I’ll figure it out sooner or later though, no one’s an expert at their first day. (not me atleast..!)

But, there’s a lot of things to be psyched about now!
I have my own apartment. This is a first for me, it’s really just me in here!
So I’ve put up things I like on the walls, inpacked everything and washed the bathroom as best I can as it wasn’t that clean when I arrived.

I’m finally getting in touch with someone closer to native here.
There’s a japanese teacher on my floor, who is really nice. Hes english isn’t the best, but it’s better than my japanese.. and he’s very helpful.
In addition there’s a few chinese english teachers here.
(they use chinese people to explain grammar etc, we are here most for pronunciation and listening skills among the students)
I just talked to one for about 15 minutes after lunch, and he agreed to meet me to check out downdown. We also have a contact named Rice, who does is best to make sure we enjoy ourselves. That’s really nice, he agreed to teach me chinese chess (or something like that) next week. (I have the whole week off as my students are all in their yearly one week military camp)

I will also start up with proper chinese lessons next week. So that’ll be nice.

So, mixed feelings, this is definetly a challenge. I hope I’ll be able to do a good job, and that the students will learn as much as possible.
I do by the way, have an address now. I mind you, whatever someone might send me will have to be sent back when I go home, so please don’t send me random gifts. (It’s a really nice thought, and I appreciate that, but I really don’t earn much here, and I have enough clothes etc I need to send back already)

CHINA
SHENYANG
110179
Northeast Yucai Foreign language school.
HENNING RODTWITT

I was told that would do it, but don’t send anything particulary valuable before I have confirmed it a 100%...!
(this is china, and for some reason, simple matters like this do get lost in translation)

PS:

Check out our local café;
Starcocks Buffee XD

By the way, classes rocked today.
It's awesome here, I can do this for a few months!

Hi again!

So, the teachers course is coming to an end.
It’s becoming more and more of an every day life here, so there’s not too much for me to write about.
But ofcourse, everyday life also has plenty of higlights.

The most important thing in my career life was probably TP.-Teaching Practice.
We were placed in groups of 6 people, and we all recieved 4 x 30 min to teach over five days. (one day off in other words)
We got a class of 11 students between 11 and 13, even though we were supposed to have 14 year olds I think.
The explanation is as always “this is China”, and we dealt with it okay I think.
It’s very nice to actually have a class when you make lesson plans (a plan where you plan out lessons), as we got to know them and their level it got easyer and easyer for every day.
It was a great week.
I handled them very well, both when I ran out of material and when I ran out of time.
My planning skills ofcourse still need practice, but that will come once I start teaching I’m sure.

We’ve also finished all of our assignments. I had to redo a few, because me and a friend co-operated. (we were supposed to have classes of 60 min. And to make the assignments easier, we could use lesson plans from our TP. In other words, we needed both our halfs to make a complete lesson, wich from both of us would end up as two identical lessons)
I was quite frustrated that they told us this the day before the deadline, when I thought everything was ready.
I did redo them though, and passed valiantly with two “barely acceptables”.

My grades are up and down so far, but in the end a pass is a pass.-and I’m still not here to become a great teacher in four weeks.

On the social side, we’ve been having hoodles of fun. On Saturday we all went to a rollerdisco. With all the british people here we also needed to dress up.
For british people, that (for some reason) means we all had to dress up as girls.

Myself and Pete.

A very good night, I’ve found more people like me; who prefer talking over noisy annoying music when socializing. (talking over shouting) So we’ve been hanging out in “foodstreet” at nighttime, a street right by here where they sell all kinds of streetfoods and beer.

I still haven’t recieved my placement, even though I might be heading there already on Friday.
Hopefully I’ll have it by tomorrow, or even tonight if I’m lucky..

On Saturday though, we were supposed to have a community interraction day. From Japan I’m used to that being us actually talking to locals.
Here it basicly meant that we entertain the locals.
By putting us in an obstacle course.

We were divided into teams, from wich to contestants had to get up on one of those mechanical bulls. If both last 20 seconds, both could enter the obstacle course. (if only one or none, the one with the longest time could go)

Me on the bull fighting for honor and glory!

I represented my team with pride, and I won against my team-mate with my grand 7 seconds.

My time all together wasn’t as good sadly. It was horribly tiring. We had to run up a air-castle slide covered in very VERY slippery soapy water twice..
I made the whole thing in 1:10. The winning time was 50 seconds I think. I came in 5th or something, not that bad with over 10 teams, but still no medal.

Myself running on the matrasses on the way to the soapy castle.

Anyways, those are my higlights.
As this is our last week together there’s a lot of going out at night and planning to meet up again later on.
We are planning a grand trip to England and Wales, and one back in Norway for our English friends.
So this is a great experience in many ways, I really hope I come to an allright school.
Time will show!

Oh, by the way!
Photos of my room!

Michelle checking out a movie and Morgan chilling on the bed here..

Our well organized and clean desk.

So, it’s been a few weeks here now.
I’m starting to get used to the life at this hotel. (yeah, it turned out to be a hotel)

I was quite suprised with how different the food is here compared to Japan. People get sick all the time, and I barely eat from the restaurant here anymore. At the same time they tell us it’s probably better than the food we can expect at the schools we’ll get placed at.
Everything is soaked in oil or deepfried so bad we don’t really know what it is we’re eating. And sometimes it’s just not fresh at all.

So there’s been quite a few pizzas and McDonalds visits. Yesterday we went to a korean restaurant though, that was very nice. And they had dog on the menu. It felt like an accomplishment to finally see that myself. (but no, I did not try it..!)
I had a great day all together. On Monday our teaching practice begins, and I need a new wardrobe to look acceptable. I got two shirts, pants and shoes for about 200Yuan, or 180kr.-and that was in a somewhat expensive store, I didn’t feel like the markets as it’s a hassle in comparison.

Myself, and a british couple (Trish (I think) and Peter) at the korean place.

Later on we were hanging out in Harbin city. It’s very cool culturally, they have a guy standing on the 3rd floor or so playing the saxophone in the mainstreet. (a lot of shows and stuff going on as well.. and not to mention the olympics on big screens everywhere.)
We ended up in a “beertent”, huge markets where they sell beer and food. It’s great, we are all definetly coming back. There was a lady walking around selling tissues and garlic. After a few beers we ended up with a game where the garlic went around the table, on peoples heads. It had to be kept there until the “bearer” felt he/she was one with the garlic. Then it could be passed on. If it’s dropped on the floor, whoever dropped it needed to do a dance.
Everyone randomly went along, the inventers (myself and a englishman named Peter) were amazed how easily most people accepted the garlic on their head for 5-10 minutes.
Goodiegoodie joyfun.

I also saw a temple here. There pretty much like the ones in Japan.. :p

The teaching is working out as well. It’s a LOT more responsibility than I ever imagined. I’m really not sure if I’m cut out to do this, I thought we were going to help out or so. It turns out, if we end up at the right school, we pretty mutch need to make a small curriculum and teach it to them. After one month of studying I don’t feel up for that task. I hope wherever I do get sent atleast has a book the students work with or something I can use as guidance.

But I’m going to do my best, and if worst comes to worst I can jump out whenever I want. The part I payed for (the class) is over at the end of this month, so there’s no loss moneywise either. (and I still get a diploma that I passed.-unless I fail miserably ofcourse.)

Anyways, short update today. My days are mostly hanging out with friends here, studying and sleeping. A LOT of cool people here, and I love my roommate.
Hope everything is allright at home!

PS:
I HAD to share this sign.
As they don't seem to really fix things here, there's a lot of warningsigns all over the place.
This one says "caution; wet floor" (I think).

Just look at the character XD

Now I am in Harbin, in the north of China.
For three days I’ve been travelling, so no time for laundry. In the hotel we are living in, the beds are nice. But, there has only been water for one day so far, and it was cold. Suposively we will have water again tomorrow, this time warm AND cold. But no one knows for sure.
My biggest distress is that I’m really running out of clean clothes. I’m going out huting for a coin laundry tonight, but I doubt I’ll find any.-I did not see any earlyer.

Butbut, let’s take the trip so far from the beginning.
First of all, I arrived in the airport in Hong Kong. There was no one there to greet me, so I was rather stressed. I couldn’t figure out how to call anyone on the payphones either, but I finally managed to call through skype, as I found internet there.
The guy who was supposed to pick me up was just 90minutes late.

An english dude named Ed came along half an hour later, and we got placed in a hostel in Hong Kong for the day, because a group of about eight people got stuck there because of visa problems.-and the plan was for us to leave as a group the day after.
Hong Kong was extremely commercial, and there were people trying to sell us stuff all the time.-particulary indians (as in people from india?) for some reason.

But I had a nice day, I got to see “the walk of stars”, wich is a pavement with the signature and sometimes handprints of chinese celeberties. I did not see Stephen Chow for some reason though, something I find to be a bit weird.
Anyways, the next day we had to hang out for three and a half hours before we would get picked up and head for China.-as we had to check out at twelve in the morning, and we left at 3:30.

At about 3:50 the guy (from here on Solaro) came along, and the visas for the people who were waiting were done wrong, so they had to come back after one day with the group in China, so that they could get a correct one. (the one they got could not be extended)

I feel sorry for them, but there’s not really mutch I can do.

We arrived around 11 PM, and had dinner. They bought us lots of beer, wich was a great contrast to the WCI attitude.
I finally got to bed at 1AM though, and had about five hours of sleep before we had to leave for harbin.
Because of the olympics, we won’t get to go to Beijing, and see the great wall. Therefore they showed us an attractionpark, where they had minis of all of Chinas biggest sights. We had to stay in small groups, and I got to see about half the park all in all. A waste of time if you ask me, and a bit weird to wish to control us there, when they do not mind participants staying out in bars all night as long as they’re home for breakfast. (I didn’t meet my room-mate before breakfast because he was out all night)

Anyways, our flight was very delayed, but we finally made it on. It was very strange, the plane made a stop on the way. Everyone had to get off, and those of us who were going further all got a re-boarding pass, and returned to our seats after about 10min inside the terminal.

We finally made it to the hotel at about 2AM, and it very nice with a bed.-finally!
My room-mate is really nice, he is English and named Morgan.

The program has been interesting so far, but very poorly organized at times. The classes conscerning how to teach are done by great teacers. But I don’t know wether or not I’m just going to improvise when I get a class of if they’ll give me a curricilum to follow.
It seems like stuff like that is individual from school to school, but no one seems to really know.

The mandarin classes are more or less useless. We have a girl who barely speaks english to teach us. She basicly reads up from the pamphlet, and has us repeat once or twice before she moves on, and explains in mandarin, mostly.
It was such an amazing contrast to how one should teach a language (as we were just tought by our teachers a bit earlyer) that I thought they were using it to show us how hard it is for our students if we do a poor job.
That wasn’t the case.
Thanks to complains, she was a bit better today, but it’s still not easy to hang on.
How about telling the class that there’s four tones in mandarin? Or how to read the alphabet so we’re not dependant on her telling us how to say things? (cause she says them a maximum of three times each)

They tell us it’s how they learn things in China, but I don’t really care.
Today we learned how to say “I am not a schoolgirl, I am a schoolboy” in Chinese. Or, that’s what she read to us.
I can probably try to memorize it later, but I just don’t see the use. We’re told to make the sentence “I am *insert nationality*”, allthough the natiolaities we’ve been tought so far is korean, english and amerikan. That covers ONE of the nationalities here.
It’s not very helpful, so I’m going to try to find a language course to put in my mp3 player. Ofcourse I do learn things in this class, but most of it is at this point completely useless to me.
After WCI I guess I just have to high standars.

With that said though, it’s a great experience. It’s far from what they made it look like online, but I’m getting an impression of the chinese culture.-and the food is good here.
I can’t wait to finish the class and start teaching. Hard as it seems at this point, I’m confident that (with the help of these teachers) I’ll make it by next month.

Wellwell, that’s about it for now.
Sorry, no pictures!

I’ll update later with new experiences.
I’ll be living here in Harbin out this month. The placement were supposively not decided yet after all, so I might not be sent as far north as I feared.
Making the best of things is an essential in any case, and it helps with positive people around me!

I hope everyone is okay at home!

UPDATE ON MY OWN:

Sooo, it’s hard to find the time and internet café to get this posted.
It’s been a lot of work with the school, and there’s usually something social going on. I’m generally tired, and so happy I have the chance for all this alone time (in comparison to the hostfamily life, wich is great, but sometimes a bit demanding.. it’s nice to just sit in my room and play PSP for a few hours if I feel like it) that I just have to make use of it here.
At the same time, the rest of my energy usually is dedicated to being social with my fellow students. They are a great bunch, and I’m having a lot of fun with them.

The mandarin lessons have gotten better, but there still rather useless. What is really nice is that we have “mandarin hour” from five to six every day. The problem is that that’s right after class (wich starts 08:45 in the morning) so it’s hard to find the energy. But I’ve been coming for the last 30min a few times, and it’s really rewarding. Chinese grammar seems simple enough, but remembring and pronouncing the words is very very hard for me.
But I’ll get there, I’m sure.

Today was tour day, but I got REALLY sick this morning. I’ve never been this sick in my life I think, it was horrible. I basicly used up an entire toilet roll in a few hours, and I could barely leave my bed for anything but toilet “brakes”.
So no tourday for me. I wanted to go, they were going to see a Tigerpark. Supposively one can pay them to feed a cow or chicken to the tigers while you watch. Rarely amusing fact, but personally I’d never watch. I am a meat eater, but killing for fun? Not my thing.

On the bright side, I got to watch a lot of scrubs (once I could stay awake in my bed) and finish my first assignement.
I feel confident that I can teach a class next month with the help of these wonderful teachers, but giving them this assignement makes me very nervous. They are a lot more demanding than an actual class I think. This is a good thing, in the sense that I have to learn how to do things by the book, but it’s hard in the sense that I have to pass this thing.
We’ll see how it turns out. If I fail the first one, they’ll give me another shot at it before it’s over and out. The dropoutrate is about 15% from last year. I’m horrible with grammar (I speak the language, but as I am a “that’s just the way it is” person myself when it comes to languages, I’ve barely paid any attention when they tought it to me in Norwegian, English, German and Japanese. It’s actually quite impressive I made it this far without such a basic knowledge now that I think about it.-at the same time, the native speakers never learned this. That’s weird I think, but on the other hand, it’s actually stranger that they teach it to us in Norwegian. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but that knowledge is to me as important as knowing why red is red. It’s red when you look at it, I don’t care why. (a rough example, but generally, that’s the way I feel about it. It’s red no matter how mutch you want to explain it)

Soo, tomorrow is a new day of challenges, and I praise God that I didn’t get sick on a class day. They require a 100% showup, and I don’t know how strict they are, but they were mentioning going to the hospital. I don’t like them, particulary as I am in China.
This is obviously from eating something bad, and I’m not the first one this has happened to, nor the only one today.

Yesterday was the beginning of the olympics. We watced it in a bar, wich was nice. But that thing was so incredibly long that I ended up leaving after 40min, as no one was talking (the sound was too loud) and dear god it never ended. I also needed to work on my assignment and alone time with my PSP. (it might seem insignificant, but we all have our things to keep us relaxed)

The first night with a following day off was interesting. Determined NOT to go to a club (as we there to have; wery noisy (crappy) music, so no one can talk. I socialize to talk, not to sweat to random beats for hours) I stayed behind and waited for an english friend who were getting a massage. (normal one!)
It was nice, I was hanging out with the “30+” club” as they introduced themselevs as, and I had a good time. Later on I went to town with my english friend, as they told us they were all in a beer-tent, wich sounded good to me. When we got there, the beertent just closed. So we found a karaoke-bar, wich is also good to me.
But after one song, the stage transforms, the singer leaves and the blinking lights come on to a horrible remix of “stand by me”.

I imediatly left, thinking I’d reather pay for the taxi home by myself than stay there. (it equals to about 25 kr, 5 american dollars or 500Yen for the ride.-I’ve been getting to know the world finances with all these nationalities around me)
It ended pretty good though, I met our three teachers in the taxi line. They were sort of drunk, so it was fun talking to them in that condition.
Personally I’m trying not to drink at all, I don’t have the energy to waste, and so far there hasn’t been a correct mood for me to do it. (with that said I have had more than five beers at certain evenings, but that’s simply because people keep buying them to me..it’s too cheap here..!)

Well, I’m going to head out now, and hopefully post this. I figured out a way to find messenger on the chinese computers as well. They promised us internet in our rooms though, I can’t wait for that. (Hopefully it will actually happen.)

Anyways, sorry about the humongus update and especially no pictures. I’m just too tired for touristy attitudes, so I haven’t taken any yet. But no worries, it’ll come. I want to remember this time, even if it’s only with a few pictures.

Thanks for your patience, I hope all is well there home.
I miss you all, but this is a very good learning experience, and I am enjoying it!

So, I am currently at a internet cafe in Mito, along with my japanese room-mate, Yuki.
There`s a creepy man complaining whenever we talk to eachother, something that is freaking me a little bit out, but as we are at a internet cafe there`s enuogh to do online.

Anyways!
In two days, I am leaving for China. They sent me a mail back saying I can`t change my city, but that it`s not very cold where I`m going. There wasn`t snow last year for example.
So unless they`re exaggerating, things should be okay. I can live with minusdegrees.

This city is a very unique experience. My hostfamily is really taking on hosting as a profession it seems. When we arrived, there were already two chinese people living there. They were both awesome, and it turns out we live in a house next to the familys house.
One of them is studying japanese, and one is studying victimology. (how to help victims)
It really feels like summercamp. I don`t know how mutch interraction the hostfamily wants or expects, but I think it`s going okay.
I`m gone in two days anyways, so there`s not that much time anyways.

Sooo, there hasn`t been that much going on these last few days really.. Hostfamily day ended sweetly, we went to "mehico" (wich is how they actually do pronounce mexico, atleast closer than the more international interpitation) wich is a flamingo restaurant. I was hoping on flamingos walking around between the tables, (in the neko-cafe style) but they were in a cage in the middle.
Nevertheless enjoyable though.

The first day in Mito was a long but fun day.
We went to a police office, and got shown around. I really regret that we didn`t have more time to ask questions at the end, but it`s gotten quite freqent lately. That`s just the way it is with such a tight schedule.
Afterwards talk about this city, and an upcoming festival. In the end we got to be on a local TV channel. I`ve been that a lot of times both in Norway and here now, so it`s not really a big deal for me anymore. I was mainly focusing on the finishing touches on my PSP today.
We also had a nice discussion about nuclear energy, as we are visiting a nuclear plant tomorrow.
I can`t wait for that.

And with that (short for once!) update, we will talk more in China!
I hope you are doing okay at home, I think about all of you a lot.. Both friends and family.
Laters!