Worst Kept Secrets

You know, I’ve had this domain in my possession for a while, and I’ve been thinking about it and thinking about it, determined to make this The Best Blog Ever. As a result, I’ve completely stalled out. So I’m going to lift all the pressure and just throw up some pictures of Chinese snowpeople.

I didn’t know that it snowed in Nanjing, but it’s been coming down nonstop ever since Friday. Snow is GREAT for a Chinese city - most of the time it’s really loud here, between the traffic, the construction, and the, oh, six million or so people that live here, and the snow muffle effect is an incredibly welcome change of pace. Not to mention that it’s putting just about everyone in a good mood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many snowmen in my life. Not just in people’s front yards, either. It seems like the majority of shops in the neighborhood have at least one parked outside. They’ve got props, like cigarettes, fezzes, brooms, and jewelry, and a lot of the creators steered away from more traditional face-making materials like carrots and buttons, opting instead for trash (and there’s so much of it here, it’s really pretty refreshing to see it used in a creative way). I like the Chinese-style snow structure, too - most of them are little snowpile people, and I think they’re adorable.

Anyway, my name’s Anne, if you don’t know me (and if you don’t, let’s be honest; this probably isn’t worth your time), and that’s me up there. I’m standing on Hankou Lu in Nanjing, which is in the Jiangsu Province of China, which is very far away from where I started out (Harrison, Arkansas).

I’ve been living in Nanjing for almost exactly three months, and I’m still not entirely sure how I got here. I was rocking some early-twenties malaise in Fayetteville, Arkansas, when an old friend planted the idea of tearing up roots and moving halfway around the world in my head. I’m twenty-five years old, and that sounded like a good idea. So I succeeded in making a major life decision (and if you know me and my decision-making abilities, you understand that this was sort of miraculous) and moved to freaking China. I now work at a sort of English boot camp for Chinese kids hoping to study abroad. We teach English, business, computer science, and math, plus IELTS, TOEFL, and stuff like that. I’m an English teacher, and if you want a fun drag naked across coals, try stepping off a plane and almost immediately in front of fifteen Chinese teenagers, charged with teaching a foreign language. But it’s getting easier, and I’m pretty proud of myself for doing something that actually required a little bit of guts.

The old friend mentioned earlier got me this job, which is pretty amazing, considering this place consists of mostly career ESL teachers and a fresh off the boat twenty-something from Arkansas isn’t exactly the standard hire model. Also, that old friend has a name (Chris), and I like him a lot.

I mean, a LOT.

I’ve had a pretty easy transition into China. First of all, I live in Nanjing, which I’ve heard is about the cushiest Chinese city you can live in. My school is very near Nanjing University, which has a huge foreign student population. This means that I have all kinds of access to western amenities, English menus, and a daily life that doesn’t involve being stared at and followed all the time. And I have a toilet you can actually sit on, although my attitude toward squatters has softened considerably now that I’ve got a good system for using them. I have to go ahead and disrobe to pee, but I figured out if I slip off one shoe, remove one leg from my pants, and immediately step back down on the shoe, I can pee without having accidents and also without having to touch the urine-soaked bathroom floor. Good times.

Second, I knew people here, which WOW has that made a difference. I actually don’t advise anyone to move anywhere where Chris, Leif, and Lily don’t live, because those three have made this so smooth, easy, and fun that I almost feel guilty. Leif and Lily are sitting on a beach somewhere in the Philippines right now, while Chris and I are getting increasingly snowed in.

Which is actually fine by me - I am loving this. It’s hard for me to see snow and not be in a really good mood, even if it means that I stay inside more and that god knows how many people are dying on the roads even as I speak. Ever seen traffic in China? It’s a free for all. I’ve seen a number of bicyclists get creamed, and at first it was pretty upsetting, but now I’ve gotten in the habit of calmly waiting to see if the guy stands back up and then moving on. I’m terrified of what icy streets are going to do to the drivers, most of whom seem to view cars as really big toys, complete with a HORN! Which makes NOISE! It always kind of makes me smile when I see somebody driving down an empty street, honking purely for the sake of honking.

I’m a little freaked out about writing about China, because I don’t know the first thing about this place. I knew when I moved here that I didn’t know anything about China, I just had no idea how huge the amount of knowledge I’m lacking is. I just want to state for the record that I am not an expert here, and that I don’t pretend to have any kind of authoritative voice on what it’s like to live in China. But I guess I do know considerably more than I did three months ago, and I’m actually having a really good time being clueless, illiterate, and overwhelmed.

Just in case you missed it: be sure to note the exaggerated expression of childlike wonder in the above photograph.