You have to appreciate a culture’s rules when they are written the way they often are here. As we were traveling on the bus from teaching we were able to see the “rules” posted near the exit door. The English translation for ‘No Smoking’ was my favorite. It reads, “Cherish the hygiene on the bus. No Smoking”. What a pleasant way to state a rule. It made me think of a road sign we saw last spring in Missouri, “Drive Friendly”, a request that could definitely be of use in this city.
An unexpected day off on Friday due to a national holiday to honor the dead allowed us to check out a bus route Kathy will be using next week as she travels to the restaurant we’re associated with to teach English. Hopefully I, (Steve), will be able to join her on Friday mornings, not for the teaching particularly, but as a chance to work in a different location and also enjoy a great cup of coffee. Next week marks the beginning of my teaching the trainees in our program. After working on the curriculum for the past couple of months I’m anxious to see how it all works out.
We walked to a new mall on Friday evening to eat at the first ‘Papa John’s’ pizza restaurant in town. The first two floors of the mall were primarily clothing stores with international designer clothes that were far beyond our price range. The top floor was all restaurants that were very busy. Papa John’s was so busy that there was a long waiting list. However, all was not lost, as there was also a Dairy Queen in the mall and we enjoyed a pre-dinner dessert, (shouldn’t desserts always be first?). As the DQ is in China we could have opted for the Green or Black Tea Blizzards, but chose the Georgia-Mud instead.
On Saturday our neighbor asked us if we would like to be introduced to some of the town. We agreed and had a wonderful time. He and his wife “introduced” us to shopping places, parks, government buildings, and a local smoothie restaurant. The number of new buildings and the unique architecture was one impression from that journey. Another was the wonderful warmth and kindness of the people.
One of our responsibilities is to meet with our group of trainees once a week. During that time Kathy meets with the 5 girls and I meet with the 4 boys. With the help of an interpreter we try to get an understanding of how things are going, what problems they are having and what we can do to help them. We’re kind of feeling like “Mom and Pop” with this group of 18-32 year olds who are far away from their homes. One of the young men shared with me that he had worked in a restaurant for 16 months and had some experience. Upon questioning it turned out that he had worked 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, (no time off), for the equivalent of 28 cents an hour. One wonders how he feels working in a city where Audis, Mercedes, and BMW’s are common place and it’s not unusual to spot Maseratis, Porsches, Bentley’s and an occasional Rolls Royce.