Day Tripping: DanYang, Jiangsu Province

After talking with a recruiter on the phone and several emails, we headed out to check out another city where we were being offered teaching positions. DanYang, is on the same train line that Kunshan is on but it took about an hour and a half on the D train this time. The time actually goes quickly on the trains because the seats are comfortable with much more leg room than an airplane, for example. A food cart server comes by every ten minutes or so and the toilets are western style, which Jenn says our readers will appreciate! I could write a whole post on the toilets in this country, but let's just say that most toilets we have experienced here are not western style, instead there is a 'canal' that you straddle and you can figure out the rest. It is also critical that we carry tissue and/or toilet paper with us at all times. There are sinks for washing but rarely any soap and even more scarce are paper towels...:)

So we headed off to DanYang and this time our recruiter was better organized and she actually gave me a contact at the school, the Vice-Principle, Mr. Wang. If we could give him a call and let him know we were coming, she said, and we could find the school, we could interview with Mr. Wang and also see the school - we were excited! I dialed the number she gave me and of course it did not go through. Tried several times, no luck. But we decided to see the city and go by the school and maybe with some luck we could at least see the campus. We headed to the biggest hotel after leaving the station and this time we were given an English map of the city! After a delicious meal of beef in black bean sauce, pork dumplings, egg friend rice and exchanging language phrases with our six servers, we headed off to explore the city.

Eating has turned into an adventure of its own here in China. Most restaurants have pictures that look like they were taken in the early 70's, they are shiny and the colors are unusually saturated making them look surreal. But we try to pick something and in the process we usually end up using our Mandarin book and pointing to Fried Rice, Pork, etc. In an instant, instead of being irritating and receiving less attention from the wait staff - exactly the opposite happens. As soon as we try to speak Mandarin and order, we are mobbed by servers, sometimes as many as four or five will listen and watch us order, then talk amongst themselves in rapid fire Chinese until they figure out what we want. If they can not figure it out one will run off and return with the local English expert, who usually speaks very, very little English, but turns out to be more helpful. All six servers will smile and stand around our table debating and trying to do their best to figure out what we want to eat and nobody leaves until we have it written down and we agree with xie xiea (Thank You, in Mandarin). This is so different than what happens in the states, or most other countries when someone can't speak the language - they are usually met with irritation and in the states they are simply forgotten about until they eventually give up and leave. Not here! We are so impressed with the politeness and genuine concern from almost everyone we meet it makes interacting with the Chinese a real pleasure, albeit a bit frustrating and nerve-wracking sometimes.

DanYang turned out to be a pleasant, clean city not much bigger than Kunshan, but with an additional 1/2 a million people (population is about 3million, vs. the 2.5million in Kunshan). The weather was still cold, about 39 degrees, but we found a nice coffee shop, an incredible bakery, and made our way around easily taking in side streets, stalls, bridges, and the feel of the city was good. Again, we did not see one non-Asian so we garnered a good share of stares but the Chinese are polite and they never, ever frown or act as if they are not happy we are in their city. They simply look at us because we are so different, and mother's will even point us out to their children, but then we smile at them and they both grin and wave. After hours of walking around, we saw a few sights and then grabbed a taxi and went to the school.

The school system in China is complex, and too much to go into in this post, but the DanYang Sr. High School is what we in the states consider a college really. It is a large campus with a park in the front with a lake, rockery, pagodas for relaxing, flowers everywhere and the school itself consists of many buildings, library, teacher apartments, etc. Students pay to come to this school and the competition is fierce; the better your grades the less you pay. Over 90% of students go on to university from this high school. There is a security building at the front but we just mentioned Mr. Wang and they let us through with no problem. Even though we hadn't talked with Mr. Wang we thought we would walk around and maybe we would find someone to talk too. We walked around admiring the campus and within a few minutes a man walked up behind us and said hello. He was Mr. Tang, the Dean of Foreign Affairs and he took us to Mr. Wang. More good luck. I apologized that we could not reach him on the phone but they waved it off and stopped what they were doing and chatted with us for over an hour. We sat and talked and answered questions and we got to know each other and everything is looking good.

Mr. Tang gave us a guided tour of the campus and we said goodbye and headed back to the rail station and headed home after a long day in another new city. It turns out that even though this is our favorite city so far, we took no pictures all day...will have to go back and take some to show you what the city/school is like.

Coming up next, another day trip, this time further North to Zhenjian, Jiangsu Province...