A Single-serving Kind of Day

“Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends.” - Fight Club 1.

Going to Thailand was a last minute decision. School had let out and I spent a week relaxing and tying up the loose ends of the semester. I had one trip planned for the summer, Beijing, but that wasn't until July 13^th. I had a few weeks before that was to happen so I started trying to figure out places I wanted to go. It started as a few days in Hong Kong then after a bit of researching it transformed into 9 days in Thailand. It took a few days for my indecisive self to choose Ao Nang in the Krabi Province. The pictures of the area looked beautiful with huge and colorful rock faces and crisp blue watered beaches. It's also a popular place for rock climbing, which was on my list of things to do. I decided on spending a week there then staying in Bangkok for a day and a half.

Fantastic Views

My plane was to leave at 8:30 in the morning. I needed to be at the airport around 6:30 but unfortunately the shuttle from Shoaxing to Hangzhou Airport wouldn't get me there on time. Rather than staying the night in Hangzhou Airport (like Nick, Peter, and I did for our Harbin trip, more about that in a later post), I found a cheap hotel close to the airport with a shuttle.

First Leg: Hangzhou to Hong Kong

Single-serving potato omelet, fruit, and a danish

As I said previously, the plane was suppose to leave at 8:30. This didn't happen and our flight was delayed an hour and fifteen minutes because the gate wouldn't pull away from the plane. This wouldn't have been to much of an inconvenience but there was a chance that I would miss the second leg of my flight. The flight wasn't too bad around two hours and some minutes. I spent most of the plane ride watching Inception and trying to tune out the ruckus my fellow passengers where causing.

Second Leg: Hong Kong to Bangkok

Single-serving chicken, vegetable, and rice with a roll

The second leg of the trip was scheduled to leave at 12:05 and our boarding time began just as the plane landed in Hong Kong. Luckily, they had crew members waiting for those of us with transfer flights and took us directly to the gate. Hong Kong to Bangkok took around two and a half hours. This flight was a bit quieter and more relaxing.

Layover: Bangkok

Subway 6 inch ham and cheese and a Krispy Kreme Doughnut

I had a couple hour layover in Bangkok airport. In that time I had to go through customs which, I've always hated thanks to crossing the border in Detroit. Most of the time when crossing over to Windsor or back, the border patrol would be overly aggressive and about half the time would search my car. Getting into Thailand was easier than that. I filled out the immigration form, handed it and my passport to the border patrol guard, which he then looked over and mumbled one question to me, “When are you leaving?” I replied and was quickly on my way to check in for my next flight.

My gate at Bangkok Airport

One thing I was not expecting as I was wandering through the Domestic Terminal was a food court that would send me into culture shock. Living in China for eleven months straight, I hadn't had as many options for food and was constantly surrounded by people speaking Mandarin. Walking through the food court my mind shut down, there were options that I hadn't seen in a very long time and to top it all off, the most common language spoken was English. I must have looked lost because all I could do for about ten minutes was walk back and forth looking like I was in a daze. It was also nice to eat something that wasn't single-serving and isn't something I can easily obtain. That Krispy Kreme Doughnut was amazing.

Third Leg: Bangkok to Krabi

Single-serving Hodgepodge including coleslaw, a form of Thai bologna, bread, and a piece of cake

My third plane left around 5:10 in the afternoon. This was the shortest of my flights lasting around an hour and ten minutes. We flew over the east coast of Thailand which offered some beautiful views of some of the islands around there. When we landed, it was raining. They parked the plane on the tarmac and pulled a bus up. We all disembarked and got onto the bus. Once it was fully loaded, it took us a total of twenty-five yards to the door of the terminal, which was hilariously pointless. It wasn't even raining that hard.

Fourth Leg: Krabi Airport to Glur Hostel, Ao Nang

Single-serving friends: German backpackers

Krabi Airport has buses that will take you directly to where you're staying. From the airport to my hostel was another forty minutes. It was dark so there wasn't a lot to see aside from how their restaurants and bars where set up around the road. I chatted with some German backpackers about Ao Nang and what we knew about it, places to go, things to do, etc. I finally arrived at my hostel around 8:30 at night.

After a full day of flights, airport security checks, single-serving meals, and single-serving friends I was pretty exhausted. I checked into my hostel and met a few of the other people who were staying in my dorm. I was pretty excited to see what the rest of the trip was going to hold for me.

1. Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Twentieth Century Fox, 1999. Fiction Film

Dog Days of Summer

I knew that it would get hot here in Shaoxing but didn't think it was possible for it to be over 100 degrees for more than a week. The heat is incredible, at times making me feel as if I'm wrapped in a wool blanket standing next to a fire. It's stifling. And it doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon. Weather predictions have this record heat-wave moving well into next week at times getting as hot as 105 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 40.5 Celsius).

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Campus has been, for the most part, empty since early July. The semester ended June 21^st and slowly the students and foreign teachers made their departures. I, along with a handful of others, decided to stick around. Summer here is polar opposite of what it is during the school year. During the school year, the campus is almost it's own little town, with restaurants open within walking distance and on campus Kwik-E-Marts that offer up everything but the almighty Slurpee. But with the end of the school year, nearly everything closes up. 

A few shops remain open, which is nice for quick purchases, but more often than not we have to head into town where they have Wal-Mart and AuChan. There are also plenty of small mom and pop sort of restaurants we can eat at. In the heat, this can be a bit of a chore and cost some money, especially when you have to wait for a bus or taxi in the hot sun. But luckily, a few of us have E-Bikes (a friend is letting me use her's while she's back in the States) making it much easier to get around the city.

Check back soon for more small stories about my travels.

In the Adjacent Building

I learned pretty quickly that you never know what you're going to see while in China. One day while I was at the mall, I looked up to find a baby squatting in the middle of it trying to take a dump. Another day while on the bus, the driver pulled over randomly just to get out and relieve himself. Yes, there seems to be a theme of public defecation here in China. Luckily not all the strange things I've seen revolve around that.
Late one night, my friend and I were walking up the stairs in our dormitory when something strange caught our attention. In an adjacent apartment building, a man had left his blinds open. Through those open blinds all we witnessed was his head, rocking back and forth.
We marked it as odd, but continued up the stairs where top part of his torso was revealed. He was shirtless. Then we noticed the odd grin of satisfaction on his face. We made our assumptions. This guy was in the middle of “something.” As we walked to the fourth floor, that “something” turned out to be a hilarious moment that I won't forget.
The man was alone, in the middle of his apartment, in black boxer briefs, hula-hooping! It was probably the last thing that we expected this man to be doing. We stood, in shock, before we took a step back and busted out into uncontrollable laughter. This man wasn't just hula-hooping, he was going at it in full force, round and round and round! It didn't matter whether he was alone (which we were both sure he was) or partaking in some freaky foreplay, but that man became an instant legend in my journey here in China.

My First Class

On Monday the 10th of September I received my teaching schedule. Much to my surprise, it was all in Chinese. I just stared. One of the Chinese teachers came by and, luckily, helped me translate it. It wasn't a bad schedule except for the fact that I was teaching at the new campus, which was a forty minute bus ride from where I lived. It was something that I was expecting but still wasn't too happy about. It meant that my mornings got even earlier. The school held a meeting for new foreign teachers where we discussed what an introductory class should be like and how to conduct ourselves as a teachers. It was a helpful meeting that put some of my fears at ease. Though, I was still hardly prepared for my fist day of class.

My first day was on Wednesday the 12th of September. I had two classes that morning, one from 8:10 to 9:45 and another from 10:00 to 11:35. Surprisingly, I slept well that night so I woke up and felt great and ready to start something way different than anything I had done back home. The only nervous qualm I had was making sure I got on the campus to campus bus and finding my classroom before class started. I don't know why I was worried, it worked out very easily. It was a comfortable bus ride and gave me time to listen to all the things I wanted to listen to (podcasts and audiobooks).
The director of foreign Teachers came to the new campus and personally showed me to my classroom. It was a nice because I was convinced that my classroom didn't actually exist. Everyone from the new campus, never heard of a building 4. But it was there, barely.
When we were walking up the stairs to the classroom, I felt like they had just finished the building. Literally just finished minutes before I got there. There was a thick layer of construction dust coating everything. To make my theory seem more legitimate, the floor was covered in used construction materials. I shrugged it off. Even though I've only been here a month, I knew what this place was like. This was normal.

My students started to arrive in class and talked amongst themselves for a while. I look through the book and some of the notes I had taken and before I knew it, it was time for class to start. I stood up and greeted them.
“Good morning!”
They replied very loudly and excited, “Good morning!”
I introduced myself, “I'm Corey, I'm going to be your teacher for this class.”
They began whispering between one another and giggling as they repeated my name in hushed tones.
“C-O-R-E-Y.”
Few got their notebooks and wrote my name. I started to tell them about who I was and where I was from. That teaching was something new to me and I was excited to be able to help them get a grasp of the English language. I talked for a while and thought that its taking up a good chunk of time. I looked at the time. It had only been 5 minutes, I had 85 more to go. 'Okay,' I thought to myself, 'whenever I meet someone from another country, I have tons of questions about what it's like. Maybe if I let them ask me questions about me and my life in the U.S., we could have a solid discussion.' I was dead wrong.
“Um, okay, well, does anyone have any questions for me?”
They were dead silent accompanied by blank stares.
“Don't be shy.”
Still, they blankly stared, looking over at one another and whispering. The weight of the class began to fall on me. I started to feel like I was making an ass out of myself. This went on for a few minutes. No one spoke. I tried to pry something out of them, anything at this point. Still, nothing. I checked the time and checked my notes and decided to move onto the next activity.
“Okay, well,” deep breath, “let's go around the room and get to know one another. I want to know who you are. What you do for fun, how you spend your free time. Anything, so I'm going to give you five minutes to come up with 3 things about yourself that you want to share with me and the class.”
I thought, 'this should eat up some time, people love to talk about themselves.' I gave them their five minutes then ask if they were ready to start. I wondered, 'why am I still asking questions?'
I had the students stand up, introduce themselves with their name and had them tell me the three things they wanted to share with the class. There wasn't a whole lot of variety in their answers. They liked computer games, their hometown was very beautiful, they liked shopping, they liked their friends, they liked to eat, they liked to sleep. Some spoke very softly and were hard to understand, but I didn't care. They were talking and keeping this class from being a complete disaster.
Next thing I knew, we were done. All the students had spoken. I checked the time again and let them have a five minute break. While they did their thing, I started freaking out internally. I still had 45 minutes with these kids. I sent a quick text to a fellow teacher.
'Do I need to teach the whole period today? It's like pulling teeth...'
He replied, 'It's up to you. I just have them ask me a question or tell me something about themselves, that will kill time.'
It was looking like I was going to have to pry really hard to get these students to talk. As the break wound down, I flipped through my notes and realized that there was only one thing left on my list of things to do. I needed to explain what the course was going to be like for them. This was hard for me because I didn't have a clear idea of that.
So, I just made vague generalizations about what we were going to do and learn. How the activities were going to work. How participation in the class and attendance can affect their grade. Different classroom rules about talking out of turn and cell phone use (which is a huge problem). I tried to make the course explanation last as long as I possibly could. I could only stall for so long.
Once again, I stood in front of the class as they stared, “Any questions?” I took a pause, “You can ask about me, about America, what ever you want.” Another long silence.
Finally one brave student raised his hand, “Do you have a girlfriend?” The class giggled the way a freshman in high school giggles when they tell a friend about their crush.
“No, I don't have a girlfriend,” I said with a little smile.
Once again, they giggled then, silence. It took a little bit of time before the same guy raised his hand. “What is your hometown like?”
I started to try and explain Detroit to my students, without making it seem like a city riddled with problems. I realized a good comparison. Comparing Shaoxing to Detroit. “Well,” I started, “Detroit is a much smaller city than Shaoxing. The area that I come from doesn't have as many people as you have here. We don't have a good public transportation system.” I looked at some of the students. They looked puzzled. “Buses. We don't have a lot of busses, so we have to drive anywhere we want to go. So if we want to go to a sporting event or the movies we have to drive.” I needed to keep going. “One of best parts of Detroit are its sport teams. Do you know what ice hockey is?” A few shook their heads, the rest looked at me like I should have be on a street corner ranting incoherently. I began to explain Ice Hockey, “It's a bunch of guys who use blades on their feet to skate on the ice and they use sticks to push a rubber, um, puck into the other teams net.” They stared. “Anyway our hockey team is the Detroit Red Wings and they're my favorite team.” I remembered that they love basketball in China so I switched gears. “We also have the Detroit Pistons basketball team.” They didn't stir. They asked me a few more questions that just leads to the same thing over and over again.
Then, the same guy as the first two questions asked me, “Can you sing us a song?”
I had a feeling like this was coming (other teachers told me that this happened regularly) but I still had the thought, 'What the ...?'
“Um, what kind of song do you want me to sing? I'm a little teapot?”
“Any song, just sing.”
I was nervous as hell to begin with, so being asked to sing on top of it is just making my head go blank on songs, even 'Little Teapot.' So I grabbed my phone and started flipping through the songs I have. Bruce Springsteen? No they wouldn't appreciate it. Childish Gambino? Unfortunately, no. I'm about to do Foo Fighters but grew uncomfortable when I remember that I didn't have the vocal range of Dave Grohl. KO? Metric? Of Monsters and Men? Then I came across The Black Keys. 'Okay, Gold on the Ceiling.'
I looked at the group, “Have you guys heard of the band called The Black Keys?”
Once again I wondered, 'Why was I still asking them questions?'
“Well they're a band from America and I like them. I'm going to sing you Gold on the Ceiling.” I pushed play on my phone and started dancing, “I'm going to dance too.”
They're giggling and quietly chatting as I started to find the right vocal pitch.

“Down in the waves
She screams again
Roar at the door
My mind can’t take much more
I could never drown in

They wanna get my…
They wanna get my
Gold on the ceiling...”

I got half way through the chorus when I decided that I was done embarrassing myself.

“I ain’t blind
Just a matter of time
Before you steal it
It’s alright
Ain’t no guard in my house...1”

I finished the chorus and grabbed my phone and turned it off.
“That's the song!” I may have thrown in a, “YAY,” in there as well.
They started to clap and cheer. Still, I felt almost defeated on the inside. I took a look at the time, again. We still had ten minutes together. I decided to be nice, offering up myself for one more question. A question didn't come. Once again, I really didn't know what I was expecting.
So I told them, “Well that's all we're going to do today. You guys can have the next few minutes to talk amongst yourselves. If you want to come and talk to me you can.”
They stared at me like they've done all class. So, I stared back. I nodded a few times and smiled, still they just sat and stared.
“Okay, any questions?”
This silence was literally killing me. It was so awkward. I looked down at my notes and list of names. I looked at the time again. Time just didn't seem to be moving. I looked back up. Still the same thing.
“You can talk to one another. Class is over. We will start with this book next week. Does every one have this book?” I held the book up. They looked at their books then back at me. A few shook their heads yes. “Okay, so next week, be ready to start.” I put the book down and looked around the class then back at the time. A few people started to talk.
'Thank God,' I thought to myself as the bell began ringing. I send the class off with a, “good bye,” which they repeat, loudly, as they walked out the door. 'Why couldn't they have been that loud when they were with me in class?' The classroom emptied and I stood in front of the room alone and thought, 'I wasn't expecting that.' I started to brainstorm ways to keep my next class busy and talkative for the next ninety minutes.

1 - "Gold on the Ceiling" written by Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney, and Brian Burtonand; performed by The Black Keys

En Route

Meanwhile, somewhere over the Arctic Circle, the realization kicks in, I'm on my way to China. I start to think about the past eight months and how everything lead to this point. Nine months ago I was hired into a job that I thought was going to be great. I found out that it wasn't entirely what I was told about during the interview. This was around the time my friend told me about the prospect of teaching English abroad. Soon, I was enrolled in a weekend Teaching English and a Foreign Language Certification class. At work, I quickly grew frustrated, and knew that it was time for a drastic change. I set a deadline for myself, I was going to be leaving Michigan by the latest August.
It took a month of weekend classes to become certified to teach. I started looking at different countries and schools and after multiple middle of the night interviews, I was offered a position to teach at the same university one of my best friends was teaching at. Then began the blitz of paperwork, doctors appointments, vaccinations, and thousands of questions to help prepare myself to travel halfway around the world. With every step I took, the thought would sink in a bit deeper. Even after I bought my plane ticket, the idea seemed more surreal than anything. But now six hours into the flight and nine more to go it hits me. I'm going to be the farthest from home that I can possibly get, in a world that I won't understand. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I don't know what to expect; but that's what an adventure is.