Thursday, May 24, 2012 - Going to Dalian

• You know that feeling you get when you feel like you’re being ripped off
• I have that feeling in spades right now
• The Chinese cell phone cost as much as an American phone and I don’t know how to use it-I don’t even know my own number
• I'd asked somebody if I could call their phone and ask for the caller ID but I don't know how and besides, it's not like anyone is going to call me anyway
• Then for breakfast this morning I went down to a hutong and got 10 dumplings for 5 yuan
• I could have sworn he said 4 yuan but I think when I pulled out my wallet he must have been thinking “cha-ching"

• • I just need to get better at negotiation because if not I’m going to be taken for a ride (even though those dumplings were actually pretty good)
• But then I felt better when looking for lunch( and after trying to tell this 5’2” old woman that I didn’t need a hotel for the night in Beijing because I’m going to be on a train)  I found a street where everyone sells the exact quantity of dumplings for 5 yuan
• I actually breathed a heavy sigh of relief like “AHHHHH” and that made the lady look at me funny 
• Although I don’t know if I’m eating them right
• They give them to you in a plastic bag and I just stuck my hand in there and popped them in my mouth like popcorn
• The only reason why I was self-conscious about it was that I was sitting on a ledge on the sidewalk eating them and up pulls this car with a Chinese family of 3 and they all look at me with their mouth open for a good 10 seconds
• I’d like to think that they were looking at me to say, “Wow, what a good looking foreigner” but it was more likely the fact that they were looking at me thinking, “Those dirty Americans trying to gentrify us
• Teach for China Personality Test
• I apparently have an ISTJ personality type
• My favorite question was: Please rate yourself on the following statement, “I always think before I speak”
• Actually, I’m kind of a loose cannon when it comes to these things
• 33% introverted
• moderately expressed introvert
• 1% Sensing
• slightly expressed sensing personality 
• 1% Thinking
• slightly expressed thinking personality 
• 56% Judging
• moderately expressed judging personality
• The summary of my personality is given at: http://keirsey.com/4temps/inspector.aspx
• The one word that best describes Inspectors is superdependable.
• Inspectors (as much as ten percent of the general population) are the true guardians of institutions.
• Inspectors will see to it that goods are examined and schedules are kept, that resources will be up to standards and delivered when and where they are supposed to be. And they would prefer that everyone be this dependable
• Also, because Inspectors usually make their inspections without much flourish or fanfare, the dedication they bring to their work can go unnoticed and unappreciated.
• Inspectors are still highly sociable, and are likely to be involved in community service organizations, such as Sunday School, Little League, or Boy and Girl Scouting, that transmit traditional values to the young
• Generally speaking, Inspectors are not comfortable with anything that gets too fancy. Their words tend to be plain and down-to-earth, not showy or high-flown; their clothes are often simple and conservative rather than of the latest fashion; and their home and work environments are usually neat, orderly, and traditional, rather than trendy or ostentatious
• I got TESOL certified!
• I woke up at 6:00 this morning with the plan being that I would spend all afternoon  up until the time I checked out of the “good enough” hotel at 2 pm
• Well I didn’t get started until 9:30 am because some dip changed the community password because I guess he or she just wanted all of the education materials to themselves
• I literally called the place (American TOSEL Institute) 5 times from 6:30 AM-9:30 AM and never got a ring so I just did a google search of the guy’s name who ran it and I found a different office number than the one he provided to us TFC fellows and sure enough his secretary answered that one
• He was awesome and changed the password about 2 minutes after I called him
• Then I was well on my way to become certified as a TESOL teacher
• I learned all about how beating children is not the right way to correct grammatical mistakes
• And then finally came the test
• I could have skipped the entire 2 hours I spent studying the material and answering the questions out of common sense
• Is the phrase, “I like your jacket” a compliment or a request?
• I don’t think it was made for native English speakers
• I’m not going to go native
• I don’t mind sitting on the floor and the Chinese do, so when I sat down to type out some e-mails because I didn’t want to sit next to anybody in the overcrowded waiting halls, I got a few nasty looks
• I did notice that anyone I saw on the floor was usually destitute with the exception of one rather pretty woman (maybe a hooker?)
• I’m also not a fan of the audible spitting
• Everytime I hear someone go *HUCKKKK” I automatically think, “oh boy they’re going to aim for the white guy”
• Luckily they just spit on the ground and that’s fine, I’m going to go ahead and say that hopefully my chance for catching tuberculosis right now is pretty slim
•  Plus I love eating chicken like a Neanderthal
• I bought a piece of chicken at the train station and boy was it good
• I did feel pretty self-conscious though because I ate it in a corner  with my back turned to people which probably looked suspicious but it was my way of trying to be respectful

• Still trying to figure out how to take a train
• I got to the train station fine and dandy, it was trying to find the right waiting hall to sit in for the train that made me look suspicious
• I probably walked around the two story building that was the Beijing Railway Station for about two hours just to make sure I was sitting in the right area
• But I was carrying around a big black umbrella and if there’s one type of people you don’t expect crazy antics from, it’s people with umbrellas
• I did manage to find the right train to Dalian all by myself though so at least I didn’t have to run around with a panicked look on my face like 20% of the people in that railway station
• I did find a group of people willing to practice speaking Chinese with me
• It was two young guys in their late teens and an older guy in his 40’s that were half practicing/hal teasing me for about an hour in Chinese
• I say half-teasing because I did understand the phrase, “This guy is going to die without an interpreter” which made me feel proud and a little scared all at the same time
• The conversation part didn’t go as well as I hoped, so I broke out a notebook and we ended up writing in Chinese to each other
• That point came when the older guy kept asking me some question in Chinese for a good 3 minutes and I gave up, broke out the notebook, and found out he was trying to ask me how old I was
• It’s strange because if someone asked me that in America I would have instantly thought, “Oh man this guy must be a predator” but for some reason it was chill with this guy