February 3rd
I came to China with a job to teach English and, fortunately, signed with an agency that helps ease the landing. A soft place to land is never a bad thing when you’re suddenly an outsider in a country of 1.4 billion people. A handful of other new teachers have just arrived too, and today, I met up with a couple of them.
In the morning, I walked to a massive shopping mall with two British girls—a place so big it feels like its own city. We wandered for hours, getting lost more times than we’d like to admit, drifting between stores and spending plenty of time admiring all the plush animals. It wasn’t about shopping, but more about exploring the area, getting to know each other, and talking through our mix of nerves and excitement about the jobs we are about to start.
Later in the evening, we met up with a few more new teachers and ventured to a night market—small, local, and packed with exactly the kind of food stalls you want in a place like this. We split off, stopping at different vendors to grab whatever caught our eye. I went for veggie dumplings—or at least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe they were. They had mushrooms, spring onions, and some other unidentifiable veggies, but whatever they were, they were fantastic. A few of us squatted at a plastic table off to the side, eating our steaming food and watching the market move around us.
Dessert was a few streets over, in a little dessert shop specializing in fruit soups. Red bean, coconut milk with mango, bowls of tiny tapioca pearls. I split a black sesame soup with another girl and although it was thick, gray, and unappetizing to look at, it was sweet, nutty, and very satisfying to slurp down.
We wrapped up the night at a little dive bar doubling as a karaoke spot. We played cards, sipped Chinese beers, and enjoyed the fact that for the first time since landing here, we didn’t feel entirely like strangers.
