[First published June 22, 2014] So there I was, standing in front of an enormous statue of the Qi emperor, with a municipal government translator holding an umbrella over me to shade my head from the sun, while also holding my purse for me so I wouldn't get tired, while 12 other people representing the television station and the local government looked on encouragingly, as the television director patiently but urgently repeated the nine Chinese words that I was supposed to learn on the spot to repeat enthusiastically while smiling at the camera.

How did this happen? I thought to myself. Why am I here with all these people looking at me and a director pleading with me like I'm a particularly dim-witted starlet?

Sometimes you can get a taste of what it feels like to be a celebrity just by being a foreigner in China. People stop and stare, some call out "hello," some want to take their picture with you, and some young people are frankly awestruck when you speak to them.  But for a few days in early June, we Zibo foreign teachers got to live the lives of TV celebrities...

[First published April 25, 2014] My first few weeks in Zibo were spent in a hotel near the campus.  The school generously allowed me a full week to get over my jet leg and find my feet.  I speak no Chinese, and the hotel staff didn't speak English, but this did not prevent us from conversing with each other, especially the intelligent young lady who served as the combination chambermaid/IT person for the hotel. She wouldn't let me take her picture, but she dealt patiently with my inability to get hot water out of the shower and my problems with the internet.

On my second day in Zibo I hopped into a taxi heading into town, planning to go to the only store I knew about, which was a Walmart. I assumed that the driver would understand me when I asked to be taken to the Walmart, but he didn't, and as we drove through town, he grew increasingly perturbed at having a passenger who couldn't communicate her destination. I now know the name of the road that we traveled along, but at the time I knew nothing. Fortunately I spotted a private English college so I asked the taxi driver to stop, thanked and paid him, and went to the college to introduce myself. The manager kindly gave me directions written in Chinese for my shopping destinations.

If you're asking why I wanted to go to a Walmart instead of say, a quaint farmer's market, the answer is that I was looking for breakfast food I could make in the hotel room with a kettle, and all I needed was some instant oatmeal, a bowl and a spoon.  I got my oatmeal -- corn-flavoured Quaker Instant oatmeal in fact. 

Oatmeal appears to be a popular breakfast choice in Zibo City, often prepared as a thin gruel. To this is often added walnut powder.  Or something called walnut powder that contains a lot of sugar. Walnuts themselves are relatively expensive.  For breakfast on the go, the hurried commuter can pick up a long stick of fried bread, the Chinese equivalent of a doughnut, from a bakery or a street vendor.  They look delicious but I haven't tried them. 

BTW I did force a tip on that taxi driver but that was the last time I've tipped anybody. They just don't tip here in China and when you try, they act confused and embarrassed. In fact, on more than one occasion, the taxi driver has rounded down the fare to the nearest half-yuan or yuan.

[First published April 28, 2014] Living in a foreign country means that every day you are confronted with a succession of little surprises, as you realize that procedures, routines, even hand gestures that you took for granted, are different in your new home. 

In Canada, when our government posts a safety notice or warning to the public, it's a sober, matter-of-fact pronouncement.

For example, below is a bilingual notice about radio frequency radiation.

Outside the hotel, another large sign offers family planning advice, while down the street, Smiley internet policeman warns underage patrons to stay out. (Or so I am told -- I am entirely reliant on my students and new friends to explain things to me.) 

[First published April 29, 2014] In contrast to the little smiley face cartoon characters who represent authority figures in Zibo, the architecture of public buildings is designed to impress and awe. The vocational institute where I work has three campuses and each campus features lavish use of public space, huge plazas, granite columns that wouldn't be out of place in Karnak, long flights of stairs and imposing (in one case cantilevered) buildings. At these temples of knowledge, the lone human being takes on ant-like proportions.
A former teacher told me that walking across the plaza is not fun in winter with a stiff breeze in your face. To be fair, there are also lots of trees and plantings on the campuses and even an ornamental lake at the South Campus.

It's not hard to spot government buildings in Zibo City. They are huge and often more architecturally interesting than the equivalent structure back home. Take the government buildings in the city where I used to live in Canada. Kelowna's school district headquarters, its City Hall, the college, and the auto insurance office, are one or two-storey buildings that have a sort of modular, semi-permanent look to them.  In China, an orgy of building means lots of new government buildings.