Trip to the Philippines! Going to church.

After not having slept for a good couple days, I slept wonderfully through the night. I was excited to go to church today in a real church building!

(By way of note, while I was in Hong Kong, I bought a new phone [Galaxy Nexus]. I have loved playing with the phone, and while the camera on the phone is not the best, it is still quite good. What's more is that any picture I take using my phone automatically uploads and is super easy to post here on Blogger. That being the case, I will mostly just be showing images with commentary. Hope you are OK living without my often sarcastic or snarky remarks, but with my limited time, this is a better way for me to show what I have been doing.)

This is the view I woke up to. Needless to say, it did not take me long to fall in love with Baguio, Philippines.

Arbee and Jazmine decided to go to church with us today!

Panoramic view from my window.

Loida grabbing the first flower she sees upon leaving the house. 

Arbee smiling

I told him to smile big!

It has rained every day I have been here so far.

Loida ready for dinner.

Rain.

This is a note that Jasmine wrote to me. Probably the sweetest note I have ever received from a girl (I suppose technically it was from both Arbee and Jazmine though). It came folded somewhat like a crude paper airplane and this is what it says: "Open - From: Arbee and Jazmine. Directed by Arbee and Jazmine. | We love you so much. Open. Your handsome. Tito Mckey. I love my family and tito Mckey. From: Jazmine and Arbee. | I love you!

Tito means uncle.
Also of note, I am usually saddened when people spell my name McKey (after me telling them how to correctly spell it), but when a 5 and 6 year old boy and girl spell it that way, I think it is quite endearing (and a bit impressive!)

Church was great. It was nice to talk to missionaries and be in a real church building. After church we all went home to eat lunch and relax for the rest of the day.

Trip to the Philippines! Hong Kong to the Philippines.

The original weekend plan was this: go to Hong Kong, meet my girlfriend there; we would both apply for our work visas. A day after getting our work visas, we would return to China and live happily ever after.

After living in China for more than a second, you realize that things never really go as planned. On Wednesday I rushed to the foreign affairs office to apply for my visa a second time (I did it the previous week just to be told my documents were outdated). This time I was told I was missing a document. I assured the girl I had everything and showed her all my documents.

In despair I went to the nearest place with Wi-Fi (my only way of communication in Hong Kong) only to receive a message that my girlfriend would have to remain in the Philippines. Double ouch. Talked to my boss. Found out that I did in fact have the correct documents but I showed the girl the wrong ones. Yay. I could not return to the office because it was already closed, so I would have to remain in Hong Kong an extra day.

Me having done a lot of traveling for a visa just to be rejected started feeling bad for myself but feeling much worse for my girlfriend who had been rejected no less than 5 times at this point (and who had to do much more traveling than me in order to get rejected). I asked my boss if I could go to the Philippines to visit my girlfriend since I had the next week off for the Chinese national holiday. He said probably not. Then probably. Then stuff happened and I am in the Philippines! Woot!

I spent the next couple days in Hong Kong arranging plane tickets for the Philippines and trying to find some clothes I could wear for the next week (being smart and a light packer I decided all I needed for an overnight trip was two pairs of shorts and two t-shirts. I had no idea my overnight trip would turn out to be a week and a half long).

On Friday night I went to the airport. Spent the night there, then flew out Saturday morning. After waiting for about an hour to go through immigration, I was finally able to walk on Philippine soil (or at least asphalt).

After meeting up with my girlfriend, we took a jeepney, then took the 5 hour bus ride to her house. Between nap sessions in the bus, I was able to look at the countryside and be thrilled looking at a country that had green everywhere and little to no pollution to block my view.

Yay for the Philippines!

Going to Hong Kong for a visa

View of Hong Kong island from Kowloon.

Recently me and Loida had to go to Hong Kong to get tourist visas for China. Not really sure why... but our company paid for it, so I didn't really mind. Loida had to go back home to the Philippines so she was just there for the first day.

The first day was a long one. We left our apartments about 5:00 in the morning and took a taxi to a hotel with a shuttle bus. We ended up taking another taxi to the airport because the shuttle didn't leave for another 30 minutes. From the Zhengzhou airport we flew to Shenzhen, China (very pleasant flight I must add. One of the nicest I have had in a long while). From the Shenzhen airport we took a bus to the border. Shenzhen seemed like a completely different place to me from the rest of China. I hardly saw any scooters. The air was really clear too. It was so weird.

Once at the border, we walked across and went through customs, then took the metro in Hong Kong. Our goal was getting to church, so we took the metro to the closest station to it. Church was wonderful even though we were an hour late. It just so happened that the time we went at was when a Filipino branch met. Convenient for Loida. She was able to talk to others in Tagalog. As for me; besides the missionaries, I was the only guy there, and the only non-Filipino. Kind of weird. Travel to the other end of China and feel like I am in the Philippines.

Going up the elevator for church. The building had chapels on the 1st, 2nd and 6th floors.

The church building was wonderful. We were told that it was the second most expensive building the LDS church has built (the conference center being the most expensive). Property cost I am quite sure is the reason it is so expensive. It was a wonderful building to be in! At times I could pretend I was in Utah because the design and interior is very similar to all the other church buildings being built.

After church, we stayed to eat dinner with the rest of the branch. We had a great time talking to people and were just happy to be in an actual church building.

Not sure what a bunch of Cantonese speaking Elders were doing with a handful of Filipino ladies for dinner.... perhaps missionary work has changed some. 

This was a member missionary who really didn't want to be dancing. If it looks like he is on the verge of tears, I think that is because he probably was.

After dinner, we walked around to see some of Hong Kong (up to this point, we really had not seen anything since we went straight to church). Hong Kong was so nice. People seemed very friendly, and most people spoke English quite well. The city was relatively clean. The non-smoking sections actually didn't have people smoking (I was surprised however to see so many women smoking in Hong Kong). It is also a place definitely catered to tourists.

On the Hong Kong island looking out to Kowloon.

After walking around for a bit, we had to go back near the church so that Loida could take a bus to the airport. I went and looked for a cheap place to spend the night.

The LDS church building at night. The second most expensive church building in the world (or so I was told).

The street right in front of the church. The church was conveniently across the street from the place I needed to go to get my visa.

After walking around for a long time and trying to avoid all the tourist traps, I finally realized that I would either have to stay in an expensive hotel, or just let one of the Indian guys show me a place. About every 30 seconds I got approached by an Indian man who would ask if I either wanted a watch or tailored suit. I just told them I wanted a place to stay and they hooked me up with the right guy.

This was the room I ended up staying in. Didn't need two beds, but they didn't have a single room. 

The place I stayed at was one of the many places in a large complex called the Chungking Mansions. I totally felt like I was living in a mansion.....  Right.... Basically the entire block was run by Indians. So... first Filipinos, then Indians... I never really felt like I was in China. The block had a very unique culture to it. People from everywhere. Seems that Indians and Pakistanis were the most common, followed by Africans, then Asians, then westerners. I had an interesting experience on one of my elevator rides. Here is the dialog:

Chinese lady to other Asian Couple (In Chinese): What part of mainland China are you from?
Asian Couple (In universal language): (Blank Stare)
Me (In English): She is asking what part of China you are from.
Asian Couple (in English): Oh, we are from South Korea.
Me (in Chinese): They are South Korean.
Chinese lady to other Asian Couple (In Chinese): Oh; my bad. I thought you were Chinese because of the way you look.

I didn't bother to translate that last part. The Chinese lady never actually looked at me; not sure if she realized that I was the only non-Asian in the elevator at the time. It was interesting being in a place so diverse.

After the first night, I went to get my visa renewed. After that I didn't do much of anything because I didn't really know what to do in Hong Kong (my company told me just a day prior that I would be going to Hong Kong, so I didn't really have time to get ready). I spent much of the day reading about Hong Kong and avoiding tourist traps. Oh. And looking for 7-11s. I bought a Slurpee from every single 7-11 I saw with a Slurpee machine (sadly, it seems that only about 35% of the 7-11s there had Slurpee machines).

The Hong Kong island.

Hong Kong has cool looking buildings.

More cool looking buildings.

Hong Kong and China flag. 

LDS church building.

Inside the church seemed much like the church would in Utah.

View from the church window.

Soccer in China

I had no idea that the city I live in has a professional soccer team until a friend recently asked if I wanted to go. I said sure mostly because I think it is good to do anything once. Personally, I have never really liked live sports that much (not even BYU football. I know. For shame). I prefer watching on TV (for too many obvious reasons I won't even bother listing them). Anyhow. I went to my first pro soccer game! Yay! (Let me try that again...) <sarcasm>Yay!</sarcasm>

I rode my bike there to avoid traffic (and because riding a bike is awesome). Once at the stadium, I realized my mistake. It was a crowded sporting event. Crowded in China is basically beyond crowded. At the ticket counter, I waited for my friends to arrive. It was crazy! Just getting into the game was pandemonium  They would not let you bring anything in, so I saw people arguing about horns that they bought on the street just minutes prior. I saw other people trying to chug down their remaining drink before they went into the stadium. They closed all the gates but one, so people getting in was like cattle going through the cattle gates.

Eventually we got in and went to our seats. The tickets were 30 元 for one of the common tickets (about $5). I stood up the whole game because everyone in front of me was standing and because our seats were pretty nasty. The more expensive seats on the section next to us were completely empty. I don't think they have figured out a good pricing system yet. Most people were crowded together, with huge empty sections of the stadium.

Within the first three minutes of arriving, our team scored a goal. That was about the only exciting thing we saw. I would have to say watching soccer is akin to watching a meteor shower. You wait and wait for something to happen, and when it does, it is really cool. The problem is that it does not happen very often. One big difference though is that when you watch a meteor shower, you usually enjoy the company and atmosphere. You are not usually crowded out buy a bunch of men screaming and smoking cigarettes. Plus, meteor showers are free. I guess in China the sky is too polluted to see stars most days, so you might as well go see a soccer game.

We were team red. Jian Ye I believe. I like the pictures of the generals in the background. In the top right corner, you can see to the left the crowded section, and to the right the more expensive section.

On the bike ride over I saw the Bole man. Yay for bananas!

This is my favorite hatr care organtzaion.

The Swiss Sightseeing Medical Association

To be clear; I have no idea what the Swiss Sightseeing Medical Association is. I was recently however the spokesman (or something like that) for the company.

It is apparently quite common for Chinese companies to hire foreigners to basically pose as a company member or representative. This supposedly gives the company the illusion of being more international or mainstream. Such an occasion recently happened to me.

I first went into an interview, to see if I was foreign (white, old, gullible) enough to do the job. They had a dress code for me. Suit and Asian looking dress shoes. I have neither. They said they would somehow give me the stuff and that they had a script for me. I was not to read the script, but memorize the content and give it in my own words. They were going to give me the script the next day so that I would have time to prepare.

I didn't actually receive the script until I was in the taxi on the way to the event. The script was in Chinese. Once I was actually in the hotel where they had the event, I got an English version. I had to spend the time I was in the hotel trying to translate it into English that didn't make me laugh.

It seemed to be a big event. They had a lot of models there and dancing performances and such. It seems that almost all the people in attendance were very wealthy women in their 30s-50s. Everyone was dressed up real fancy like. Gathering from the script they gave me, the company sold medical equipment or something of the sort.

Eventually they told me it was my turn to speak... I really had no idea what I was supposed to do, but I got on the stage and they all applauded and handed me a nice bouquet of flowers (which I was sadly not able to keep). After they introduced me, I gave my speech in English and had someone to the side translate in Chinese.

The stage where I gave the speech.

After I gave my speech, I thought I was done, but they kept me on for a while. Eventually, they had me hand out a bunch of certificates and shake a bunch of hands and pose for the camera. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those pictures. But I am sure they are filled with cheesy goodness.

Me with everyone who received an award.

Too bad I didn't get to keep the suit. 

I got a new job! Two more years in China!

Well; the title of this post says it all. I just signed a new contract and have begun work with a new job. China owns me for another two years.

Here is some history into that decision:

A few months ago there was a new girl that started coming to church with us. She had just moved from Singapore and is working here as an English teacher. I didn't think much of it at the time because I wasn't planning on staying in China anyhow, but as time progressed and as she talked more and more about her job, I realized that she had a great job that I would really enjoy. She works with a company from Singapore called Smart Learners and teaches English to first graders.

I have always thought I would enjoy teaching elementary school and Asian kids are totally the cutest, so I thought that this would be a fun job. After talking to her about the job, I decided that I would at least apply for it to see if I was interested and if I could even get the job.

The interview process was interesting enough. I was told when and where to meet. Google maps told me it would take two hours to get there, so I went a bit earlier than that just to be on the safe side. Turns out that the place only took about an hour to get to. I decided to just chill nearby and read a book for about an hour. When it came time for me to go in for the interview, I realized that none of the buildings were actually numbered and I really didn't know which building I was supposed to go into. So I called the guy who would be interviewing me only to find out that he gave me the wrong number. Yikes.

Luckily, I eventually did make it to the interview. I was really quite impressed with everything. The company seemed to have organization and structure that I have missed since being here in China. Up until now, I have been teaching at a university and have found that very little of what goes on seems to make sense; disorganization is something that you learn to deal with very quick.

The interview went well; I even did a part of it in Chinese, which really didn't go that well, but apparently was good enough. A few weeks after the interview, I was asked to go to the school to teach a trial lesson to the students. I was instructed that the students only knew very basic English and that I would be teaching a lesson on the words "go straight," "turn left," and "turn right." I must admit that I was quite nervous because I was given 20 minutes to teach just a few words. I figured they must not know how to say much, so I planned very basic things for my lesson.

When I walked into the classroom I was happy to see all the excited faces. I was nervous to teach, but was to observe the actual teacher for 20 minutes before it would be my turn. When the teacher taught, he didn't use a single word of Chinese. Nothing. Not a word. Not only that, but he put up paragraphs for the students to read and they were reading it without a problem. Most of the students could read better than some of my college students. I was blown away. Their English was great! Now the problem was that I had planned a lesson for a class with a much more basic level. The lesson went well enough and I had a great time! I had been so used to teaching university students that it became odd for me when the kids would raise their hands to answer a question, or offer to volunteer to help me (in fact, I usually got too many students to volunteer). The kids were incredibly cute and I was smiling the entire time. It was great to see how good their English is and how eager they were to participate.

Well; earlier this week, I signed the contract. This means that....

• I am going to be staying in China for two more years. The company does however offer to help fly me home twice a year. 
• I will be teaching less hours, but earning about four times as much. My salary will be a decent salary (possibly even comparable to the starting salary of elementary teachers in Utah, but I am not really sure how much they make). 
• I get to teach kids! I will be teaching the second grade. I found out that I will actually end up teaching the class I did the trial teaching for.
• The company I work for will provide me with free housing, phone costs and insurance. This means that the only thing I am really going to be paying for is food. Food is cheap. I will be able to save up or invest almost all of the money I make here.
• I will be having a roommate from Singapore. Hopefully that should help out my Chinese significantly. Just found out he is 54 years old. Interesting. It has been a long time since I was the younger roommate (long time as in I don't know if I have ever been the younger roommate). 

While I am very much missing home and family and mountains and not pollution, I am happy and excited to stay in China a bit longer. I have been having a wonderful time here and been meeting great people. China is full of great people and I am happy that I will now be able to work with kids. I have already started doing some projects with the kids and have really enjoyed it. 

I am excited for my new job.

An (un)amusement park in China

Usually I like to post on the different adventures I have in China. Today I would like to post about an unadventure I recently had with my friends here in Zhengzhou.

Near the bus stop, we saw a sign for an "amusement" park that opened three days previous. We were excited since we knew it would not be too crowded because it just opened and because school was just finishing up for finals so there would not be too many students going. The amusement park is the Fanta World amusement park just outside of the city of Zhengzhou.

We decided we would go on a Monday and avoid almost all possibilities of having a crowd there.  I should have know the curse of Monday would follow us everywhere we went that day.

The first thing that went wrong was meeting up with our Chinese friend Mark. We decided to meet him at one of the bus stops. We got on the bus first so we could meet up with him and just call him when we got to his stop. Unfortunately, the maker in the bus that told us what stop we were on was off by one, so we called him early and he got on a bus before we ever arrived. Once we figured out the problem, we called him again so that he could get off the bus; wait for us some more, then get back on again. Eventually we did catch up with Mark, and we successfully navigated with our first bus. We missed the second bus by seconds, which meant that we had to wait for another 20 minutes for the next bus to arrive.

It was apparent upon entering the second bus that our experience would not be any better than the first. After a few of us got on the bus and paid our money, the bus driver got angry and grabbed one of us. Apparently this bus was three times as expensive and we needed to pay more money (not a problem; there is probably a better way to tell us this rather than grabbing and yelling at us though). The rest of the bus ride was spent listening to the bus driver yell at everyone to get in the back of the bus. The worst part of the trip was the end. The bus route ended at the amusement park. Since we had not been there before, we were not exactly sure when to get off but just figured that we would get off at the end of the route. There was a stop a couple blocks away from the amusement park entrance. A few people got off there, but most people on the bus waited to be dropped off in front of the entrance. The problem was that the bus didn't go to the entrance, instead it went to a bus station about a mile away. Why the bus driver told no one on the bus this information is beyond me. Everyone on the bus looked a bit bewildered as we were going toward the bus station (we were definitely not the only ones who didn't really know what was going on).

Now we had to walk just over a mile to get to the amusement park itself. Yay. Being the middle of summer didn't help in this regard either. Once we got to the park it was obvious that it had barely opened. For living in an overcrowded city in the middle of Zhengzhou, it was interesting to go to an amusement park and see very few people there.

This was on the way to the entrance. You probably can't tell from the photo, but everyone here is skipping with excitement to get to the amusement park. Not too many people. 

Once we got to the gate, we payed our fee. It was 200 RMB (just over $30 dollars). Not too bad for a good amusement park (this was not) but pretty expensive for China.

It seems that they tried to copy the style of Disneyland. They even had a nice pink castle. The streets were empty, as were the shops. The fountains were only trickling. The palm trees are fake. Yay for grand openings.

Loida's expression pretty much describes how most of us felt. This is after being in the park for the total of five minutes. It didn't really get any better.

This was the nice pink castle. Disneylandarific!

After we got in the park, we realized that we never got a map of the place. Looking around for just a couple minutes though we realized that we really didn't need a map. You can see the whole park. It is about the size of a few residential blocks in America. Not too big. We were saddened to not seeing anything too fantastic.

This was the second biggest roller coaster. Sadly, there were only two roller coasters. This is not much smaller than the biggest roller coaster. 

They had an upside building. It looked like an almost exact copy of the upside down building in Orlando Florida (though I don't think that one has a fake dinosaur sticking his head through the window.

This was the first ride we went on (and one of five non kid rides open). It did not succeed in thrilling us, but it did get most of us a bit sick. It was saddening going on this ride actually. This is when we fully understood how small the amusement park actually was.

After we went on our first ride, we went to go on another ride. I went with a couple of guys while we waited for the rest of our group to show up. We were happy to be the only people in line. The attendants let us right up and then we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. It was only after the rest of our group arrived that they told us they would not run the ride because it had just started sprinkling. I have been to Six Flags before and gone on rides in the middle of the rain, so I was a bit surprised that a little drizzle was enough to shut down an entire amusement park. I went on the total a four rides that day. Aside from rides, we were told that they had shows (didn't see any). They did have some 4D attractions. This is where you get in a little car and you see a movie with 3D glasses on. Woot. It is basically like watching a 90s computer game, only you have 3D glasses on. One ride actually let you shoot things. It had a little kid cannon gun and you could shoot beach balls.

This was waiting for a ride that turned out to be a big screen and we took a virtual tour through the world (FYI, the Statue of Liberty is apparently next to the Golden Gate Bridge)

These are the amusement park mascots. They are called Dubi.

After we went on a few rides and 4D shows, we had basically done everything. It was not yet noon. We went back to the main entrance to grab some lunch. We tried going to some of the restaurants and shops, but every time we saw something that looked good, they would always say that they did not have it yet. Not sure why it was listed or on the menu if they didn't have it. So went life at this amusement park. They were apparently also out of fun.

There were about as many people trying to get out of the park as there were trying to get in.

This was the last ride I went on.

Wooo. It gets you wet.

Waiting is fun (they didn't want to get wet)

I wore my poncho backward to avoid getting my face wet. I am basically a genius. 

Yay! We left the park.

With the fun rides closed (all two of them) we really could not handle much more of the park, so we decided to go home just after noon. The bus ride was much better on the way home (so we thought....).
Everything started out quite nicely. We were able to get on the bus without having to wait, and we even got to sit down (a rare treat in Chinese buses). Everything was going along smoothly until the guy behind me decided to pour out his tea in the middle of the bus, splattering some of it on my leg. It is pretty common to see people do that here; dump a drink or just litter in the middle of the bus. The problem was that it wasn't tea at all. What was actually happening was that apparently the guy sitting behind me had a little too many beers and the spinning rides were a bit much for him to handle. The beer (and other things) had to be released. I moved up to the front of the bus at this point. Sacrificing my seat for an area that smelled slightly better (and by slightly better I mean terrible). Eventually with the starting and stopping of the bus, vomit was everywhere on the back half of the bus. A few other people got up to get out of the vomit path and still others just rearranged their shoes as to avoid any contact.


What a day. Just goes to show; sometimes it pays to be cheap. I learned my lesson. If I think it is too much money, it probably is.  

Decals on a car. Pretty tricky eh?

The ride home.