China Day 2: Job offer on a street, Chinese coffee and English

29^th of September

Job offer

The most amazing thing what happened on my second day in China was a job offer on a street. It was something really unexpected, something what I had used to happen in my last days in Egypt when people just kept calling to me and asking to teach English. Now a similar thing happened in Tomoko’s student campus. First, a lady started waving and smiling to my side when we were walking on the opposite side of the street. My first thought was that it cannot be for me. How come she knows me? But then she crossed the street, and came directly to me and started speaking very fast:

-          There’s a nice job. It’s really interesting. You will really enjoy it. You will work in the student’s centre with foreign students..(and in her enthusiastic way of talking she seemed to be going on and on with her speech)

-          Well, I am really happy to receive this job offer. I would be interested, but I am sorry, am just a tourist here for a short time.

-          Ohhh..and her smile abated..and her enthusiastic grimace turned into a little disappointment…

Poor lady, though the feeling was nice to be caught on a street with a decent job offer.

Apart from the sudden luck on the street the Day 2 looked like this:

From Coffee to English

Qianmen

I got my Chinese sim card with speaking no Chinese and being understood by a sales person who didn’t speak any English. In fact, she didn’t understand what I wanted in the beginning and just gave me a wrong card, but in the end another customer helped to handle the situation. Later on, I went to Qianmen subway station where I had arranged a meeting with Tomoko. Before we met there I had some time to explore the local Qianmen area. I was amazed by music on the street and the red decorations everywhere. Yes, I forgot to mention that I arrived in China in the time of national holidays and this explains the thrilled atmosphere. I took a cup of coffee at Starbucks and was surprised how expensive it was compared to other daily prices in China. The price didn’t affect my happy moment though as I was finally feeling freedom: no rush for the classes, no Egyptian buses, no care about how much everything costs. Finally, I was enjoying the money I had saved and deserved!

But back to the topic: American coffee which was the cheapest one cost me 22 Chinese RMB which was about 2,50 euros. In the end I found out that Chinese people don’t drink coffee that much or if they drink it’s usually black coffee, that’s why in some other cafés I couldn’t even order coffee with milk and sugar as they simply didn’t have those ingredients with coffee. Probably you can guess what they usually drink – yes, it’s tea, all kinds and tastes.

Once I have started the topic of coffee (indeed very important to me as coffee addict), I would also like to add my experience in McDonald’s. For sure, coffee was cheaper there: 7-10 RMB, but what was surprising that even in McDonald’s they couldn’t understand English. I was ordering coffee with milk and they didn’t understand what I want. So, this takes us to another issue: the low English level in China which is a problem for a tourist…I was even considering my English teaching to be more useful in China than Egypt where I was already an experienced teacher for several months.

After I met Tomoko in the mentioned Qianmen station, our daily plan looked like this:

Tiananmen square 

Lots of people, amazing videos and the feeling of a big, endless space.

Tiananmen

Going to Tomoko’s dormitory

The place of active recruitment especially for foreign looking blondes. J

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

It was one of my favorite spots in Beijing. We reached the temple by dusk and when we entered the park we were trying to see it from different places. It was there, standing as something high and powerful, something you want to worship. I got so much energy just by looking at it there at dusk and seeing the blue lighted temple. No wonder, why it is in UNESCO World’s Heritage. No wonder, why it’s called “The Temple of Heaven”. This is how you feel when you are there! Like in Heaven!

Dinner: noodles soup