Self-Realizations – LEARNING TO FLY

Why I Miss China

When I got back from my travels, some of my friends and family asked me which country I preferred the most from the ones I visited. It’s such a tough question because all of them have aspects that make them special. New Zealand has the mountains and the friendly people, Australia has the beaches, but also the outback, which is unlike anything I have ever seen, and Singapore has a stunning skyline, and so much diversity. For some reason though, China seems to be the country I miss most. Every few weeks, I catch myself reminiscing about my time there.

Chicken feet are so popular in China. I don’t miss those though!

When I told one of my friends that I missed China the most, she asked me why. WHY? I hadn’t thought about it. On the spot, I told her it was because of the people…they are so humble, so hospitable, and so hard-working. This one time, for example, I was out for supper at a very small hole-in-the-wall kind of restaurant, and really needed to go to the bathroom. There was no washroom in the restaurant though, so the owner walked me down the street and let me use the one in her home.

Another time, I went out for some dumplings, and as I was getting ready to pay, the waiter informed me that the family at the table beside me had already covered my bill. Of course, this was all communicated to me with hand gestures because I could hardly understand what was being said in mandarin. I really needed to make sure that I was reading the situation properly and wasn’t going to walk out without paying! That wasn’t the only situation in which people offered to pay for me.

This picture quality isn’t great…but this person, who was my tour guide, deserves a special mention. When I was in LangZhong, I didn’t understand anything, and I was in one of the greatest ancient cities in China so I wanted to learn! I splurged on a tour guide, and she ended up spending two extra hours with me at no extra cost! We went for lunch together where she showed me traditional foods from LangZhong, and although I wanted to treat her, she beat me to it and treated me! I gave her a big tip at the end as a thank you, but then she went and bought me snacks with that tip money for my train ride home!

In terms of the hard-work, all the street vendors next to my school spent close to 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, working at their stall. Also, my students don’t know how hard they have it. Their schedule is PACKED with classes, yet they still fit in a bunch of extra-curriculars. Most of my students were so driven to learn new skills, and to excel at what they do. And they have the discipline to do it. I was truly in awe at how hard-working, disciplined, and respectful my students were. With 1.3 billion people with that attitude, it’s no surprise that China is becoming a super power.

This was one of my favorite street vendors! I picked up my breakfast from him and his mom every morning on the way to class! I have not been able to find dumplings and bao zi that are as delicious as theirs.

Another one of the vendors I visited regularly! He made a kind of Chinese sandwich. I sometimes crave it.

During the Dragon Boat Festival Holiday, my Chinese teacher invited me out with her husband and her parents. We hung out together, drinking tea and munching on sunflower seeds. Her parents did not speak a word of English, so there was lots of translation going on. It was so nice of my Chinese teacher to include me in her family that day.

So, the people of course influence the experience that a person has when they visit a country. I hope I have demonstrated in some ways what makes the Chinese people so great. I still keep in touch with many of my students through WeChat, so it could also be why I miss the place…I developed some real connections. When I think about China though, I very rarely think about my time at the school; I am usually reminiscing about a weekend trip I took. All the trips I took were on my own, except for when Mom visited me for my last two weeks. These are all the cities I travelled to: Dujiangyan, Qingcheng, Xingwen, Pengshan, Yibin, ChengDu (my home base), LangZhong, Chongqing, Kangding, Guilin (with mom), Xi’an (with mom), Shanghai (with mom), Beijing (with mom), Zhujiajiaozhen (with mom).

Navigating Downtown Yibin

Although Beijing and Shanghai are a little more tourist friendly, my home base of ChengDu, and many of the cities I travelled to weren’t as much. Very few people spoke any English, which made the culture shock stronger. But that’s what made it fun!! I enjoyed trying to use the broken mandarin I was learning from my mandarin lessons. And it’s amazing the connection that can be made between two people even if they cannot fully understand each other. A hand gesture and a smile suffices.

Although I was often very well-prepared for my trips by printing out maps, bus schedules, and words in Chinese that I would need to use, and could show to people, unforeseen circumstances do happen. But the challenge of trying to figure a way out when you don’t speak the language is thrilling! I spent a good 2-3 minutes one time trying to ask someone if they could take my picture. I tried to say it in mandarin, but that failed. And then I tried to hand gesture, but the person wasn’t getting it. Finally, they did, and it becomes an exciting moment after all that work! This other time, I was in a metro station looking at a metro map, confused about which stop I was at. I turned to the guy beside me, also looking at the map, and asked him where we were, in Chinese. He answered back to me: “no speak English”. But I wasn’t speaking English!!! So I just kept repeating the same sentence to him and finally he understood that I was speaking some broken version of Chinese!

Some of my most memorable moments involved negotiating with tuk-tuk drivers. One of my first Chinese lessons was about how to negotiate prices in mandarin: how to say something is too expensive, and asking for a lower price. That served me well countless times. I once negotiated down a tuk-tuk driver from 50 yuan to 20 yuan. That’s more than half the price!

Mom’s first tuk tuk experience! We managed to negotiate the price of this tuk-tuk driver down also!

It’s such a thrilling feeling when you are managing to adapt, and navigate your way through a country with such different customs, and a language than you can’t read, write, or speak (hardly)! It makes you feel like you can take on anything! I believe that it’s the challenge of the language barrier and culture shock, and the thrill of navigating it that makes me miss China so much. I miss that excitement. I look forward to my next trip out there! In the meantime, below are a few pictures of some great moments!

In this blog post, I didn’t mention that China is also very beautiful. Look at the landscapes it has to offer! This is at the top of a lookout point in Guilin!

Met this girl in Kangding. Both of us were waiting in line to eat at a popular sit-down restaurant in the city. We decided to eat together! Her English was pretty good. She had an adventurous spirit, and was stopping off in the city on her way to her next destination where she was WWOOFing for a few months! Turns out she was at the same hostel as I was too!

I can’t remember if this was Beijing or Shanghai…mom and I were so hungry, and it was late…not much was open around our hotel. We found this one place, but we could not read the menu. There were pictures of different food plates on the walls of the restaurant, so we went and took pictures of the pictures of food that looked good to us. At the cash, we showed them our pictures and that’s how we ordered!

Top of the Shanghai Tower, 3rd highest building in the world! Thanks for visiting me mom 🙂

School Feels Right

School feels right for the first time ever. Looking back at high school, CEGEP and my undergraduate degree, I struggle to remember a moment when I truly enjoyed school. Yes, I appreciated the social aspect that came of it, such as friends and parties, but sitting in class and completing homework was always a drag.

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but over the past 2 years though, I’ve changed. I know it because I feel it, oddly enough. I’ve become curious about the world and have started to question things.

While in China, I started an opinion journal. On the front page, I listed different topics that I felt I should develop an opinion on – one that I could defend with facts from research. The rest of the journal is filled with notes from the literature I’ve read. Some of these topics are:

Capitalism – is it a good or bad system?
Impact of AI in our future – helpful or destructive? This also leads to the question: can we solve environmental problems with technology?
Canada’s C-16 bill – do I agree with it, or does it infringe on freedom of speech?
How should we regulate immigration?
Is the welfare system sustainable or is there a better way of doing it, like universal basic income or negative income tax?
How should guns be regulated?
Should Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies be allowed to delete someone’s post, or does that compromise freedom of speech? Where do you draw the line?

I’m so thankful that one of the other foreign teachers that was with me in China was also reflecting on these topics. To be honest, many of them are actually on my list because of him. He was always interesting to listen to because he had a much more conservative perspective compared to thoughts I had been used to hearing, coming from an environmental science background, which tends to the left on the political spectrum. His viewpoint was extremely well formulated too, which led to good debates, but also to some frustrating moments for me! Sometimes, he would come up with an argument that left me speechless, even though I knew I didn’t agree with it. So, I’d sleep on it, do some research, and get back to him on another day.

Although I’ve spent some time thinking about most of these topics briefly, I have yet to form a solid opinion on many of them. And over my last semester at school, the list has just gotten longer. Some of the questions that have been discussed in class are:

Should teachers be giving their opinion in class?
How do we get the population to decrease their use of plastic goods?
How do I feel about the Trans-Mountain pipeline and the carbon tax?

I often feel overwhelmed by how much knowledge and information is out there to learn. It’s especially overwhelming because I need to catch up on everything I’ve missed during all my years of ignorance! Imagine all the knowledge I would have, if I cared enough to absorb everything I had learned in school previously!

This is why school is different this time. I realize how lucky I am to be sitting in class listening to people who are experts in their field, who have influenced government policies with their research, and who even get called up by media outlets for their comments on environmental decisions.

Not thrilled about the way this poor urban tree is being managed…surrounded by gravel following construction.

And although I study environmental resource management, it’s impossible to make resource management decisions without taking politics, economics, and social well-being into consideration. In-class discussions therefore integrate all those topics. My classmates come from a wide variety of backgrounds too, which creates for an interesting dynamic and exposes me to a variety of different perspectives. Of course, some have studied environmental science, but others have business, economics, or education degrees. Some of them have even worked in the oil and gas industry for several years! During this one class, each student had to share which aspect of “management” interested them. Responses ranged from park management and forest management, to waste management, to foreign investment management.

As many of you reading this probably already know, Halifax is definitely not my favourite city. Whenever I’m feeling down about my current location, I’ll just have to remind myself that for once, school feels right.

**School for Resource and Environmental Studies Society**

Friend or Friendly? Teacher Struggles

First off, I would like to give props to all the teachers out there. It’s impossible to know the difficulties of being a teacher unless you stand in front of a classroom and teach…not just for one lesson, that’s easy. I mean, for a semester, or a year.

For someone who has never taught seriously before, I think I’m doing quite well. The biggest challenge I am facing at the moment is how to draw a line between being a friend, and a teacher. This is the kind of struggle that arises when teaching a group of students for a semester or a year, not just one class…

At the beginning of the semester, a few students asked me for my “wechat” and expressed interest in hanging out with me outside of class. Wechat is a Chinese social media platform that everyone uses. It has a newsfeed, where students post their thoughts and pictures. It has chat and phone calls, such as facebook messenger, but the advantage of wechat is that you can also pay with it, and the money is removed from your bank account directly. I was skeptical about adding them, fearing that it would cloud the boundary between friend and teacher. In North America, or at least in my experience, teachers and students don’t ever become friends during the semester. The relationship is strictly school…

However, the other foreign teacher, who has been at this school for 3 years, explained to me that in China it is not “weird” for students and teachers to hang out together outside of class. Still, I was unsure.

But this happened at the beginning of the semester…now I’m 10 weeks in, and of course, over these 10 weeks, I have gotten to know my students a little bit better. And I like them and WANT to be friends with them, not just a teacher. Half of me thinks that I should be more serious about the teacher/student boundary, but the other half of me is thinking: “well I’m only here for 5 months, this isn’t a long term thing, so who really cares about the boundary between teacher and friend…you’re here to learn the culture too, not just to teach…”

At the bus stop with students. Got photobombed by a street cleaner.

Last weekend, I played ping pong and badminton with some students from my business class. That same business class invited the other foreign teacher and I to their class barbecue and game day, which was also last weekend, on Sunday. They had asked us to plan a game for them, and we decided on organizing a relay race, which included apple bobbing, hopping on one foot, crabwalking and many other slightly crazy things. The relay race required lots of props, and the other foreign teacher and I had to meet with some of the students over the weekend to coordinate everything. Some of the students came to collect some of the game materials at my apartment. On barbecue day, I took the bus with some students from the class to get to the destination, and at the end of the event, some students gave the other foreign teacher and I a lift back to school. I have a couple of my students as friends on facebook now.

Let’s just say, it definitely felt a little strange to hand that same class their midterm exam on Monday morning…

On the midterm exam, I included a bonus question worth 1 point, where I asked students for their feedback: what can I do better as a teacher, what do they want to see more of, etc?

I’ve only read the replies of 40 students so far, and most people say that they enjoy the class very much, because I find ways to make learning fun and I’m always smiling, apparently. A couple of people mentioned that I should become stricter and punish students, such as when they arrive late to class. Not many students said this, there were only a handful, but these comments have been consuming my thoughts incessantly for the past few days.

This guy: one of my favourite students. Makes me laugh every class.

It’s true; I don’t ever punish my students… When some of them are late, I write it down on my attendance sheet, and this will affect their attendance grade, but I still greet them at the door with a smile. Honestly, I really could not care less if some students are late. Heck, I am someone who is always running late….

And at the moment, I am having this inner debate about what kind of teacher I want to be. This should have been decided at the beginning of the semester, but oh well, rookie mistake. Do I want to be the teacher that stops students from talking, playing on their phones and doing other work? Or do I want to be the teacher that ignores those things because if they don’t listen, it’s their problem, not mine?

Posing with the other foreign teacher, from South Africa.

Since my students are between the ages of 19 and 22, I don’t think I should baby them. If they choose to play on their cellphones, it won’t be my problem if they get a bad grade…at this point, they should know the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, if everyone started playing games on their cellphone, class would never be productive.

And how about talking in class? Sometimes I hear some chit chat, but I am unsure if it’s students who are asking their neighbour for help about something I just said. Those students are trying to understand, and I certainly don’t want to penalize those who try. Moreover, I don’t want my students to become afraid of opening their mouths, because I enjoy in-class, spontaneous banter. It makes it more fun for everyone, including myself.

Barbecuing on a hot summer day. 33 Celsius

Today, I had a video chat with one of my best friends, Alyssa, who is a teacher and she gave me great insight on how she disciplines her students. She explained that discipline is something that gets easier over time. She has become stricter, because she learned that she has to be, if she wants students who listen in class. All of this reminds me of when I used to referee ringette, but also when I worked at Lufa Farms. When I first started reffing, I hated calling penalties, but the lack of doing so made the game more aggressive, and the coaches became more difficult to handle. I gained better control of the game when I disciplined the players and called penalties, right from the beginning of the first period. At Lufa, I used to hate penalizing my suppliers. However, this made my job more chaotic, because they often sent products that had quality issues or did not respect Lufa Farms’ standards. It wasn’t until I started giving them fines for bad quality products that their deliveries suddenly took a turn for the better. It’s quite sad that people take advantage of leniency that way. And I hate disciplining people!!

I don’t think I will drastically change my teaching method. When I give the students back their exams, I will review it with them and I will probably casually ask them why some of them think I should be stricter. Based on their reply, I’m hoping that I can explain to them that they are now 19 years old and they should know what is right versus wrong, and respectful versus not respectful. I should not have to discipline them at their age.

Hopefully word will also get around that I gave one student 0% for cheating and I failed two other students for talking during the test.

Yes, I may be fun, but I’m also serious.

Wwoofing in New Zealand: Lessons

I started writing this blog post at the beginning of December 2017 on a rainy day in Franz Josef, New Zealand. I got side tracked, but after a long conversation with my grandparents and parents about my wwoofing experiences, I have been inspired to continue writing, here in Australia. This article is dedicated specifically to my mom, who is very unimpressed by wwoofing. This will hopefully shed a positive light on it. I am being extremely unspecific with the names and locations of my wwoof hosts in case they would rather not be mentioned online!

Over my trip throughout New Zealand, I wwoofed at 4 different locations totalling 23 nights. I spent 11 nights at an arboretum near Hamilton, on the North island, 3 nights at Hinemoa Point, in Rotorua, also on the North island, 5 nights in the Upper Moutere, in the northern part of the South Island and 4 nights in Punakaiki, on the western coast of the South island. I estimate that wwoofing for that amount of time has saved me a total of approximately 800-1000 dollars because I did not need to spend money on food or accommodation.

Wild West Coast of South Island, New Zealand

It’s safe to say that wwoofing was not always what I expected. I reckon that in order to be able to get the best experience from wwoofing that you possibly can, it’s better to stay with a host for more than 2 weeks. Wwoofing is valuable not only for the skills that you acquire, but also for the relationship that you develop with the hosts. However, it takes at least 2-3 nights to get comfortable in a new environment and for the hosts to get comfortable with their new guest. So, staying with hosts for 4-5 days for most of my stays meant that I was leaving my hosts just as I was just getting comfortable with them! Of course, some I connected with faster than others.

I also expected my wwoof hosts to be more accommodating to a traveler’s needs. Except for my hosts in Punakaiki, who offered to drive me into town anytime I wanted, I was often forced to occupy myself on the farms during my afternoons off because I had no way of getting into town. The properties were always far away from any public transportation options. You can call me naïve to expect this, but I know that if I was hosting a traveler without a car, I would assume that sightseeing the nearby area was part of their plan and I would absolutely go out of my way and offer them some rides here and there to show them my city. Later on, however, I did come to appreciate some of the down time that those afternoons on the farms provided me. They gave me some time to unwind, write in my journal, read and reflect. I also now know that this is a point that I should address before arriving at my host’s place.

Now, on to the good stuff…the following is a brief summary of each of my wwoofing locations and how each of my hosts inspired me in some way.

Arboretum near hamilton

I stayed 11 nights here because I wanted to learn about trees, which I did! My hosts’ passion for trees reverberated on me. I spent my afternoons walking around the arboretum, learning how to identify native tree species with an identification booklet. I am so thankful at how willing my hosts were to answer all the questions I had and to share their knowledge with me. I spent over an hour at their dinner table every night and we would talk about anything and everything: Canadian politics (which a lot of it I had to Google, how shameful!), trees, the environment, family life, travelling. Shortly after they married, my hosts travelled from the UK all the way to Japan by vehicle in 1978, through countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. Even after having a family in his early 30s, my host decided to pursue his university studies. He was then one of the first-ever arboriculture consultants in New Zealand and up until recently, he was teaching at the local college. In the 1990s, my hosts bought an old quarry and have transformed it into a beautiful 17-hectare arboretum, with sculptures, walking paths and tree species from all over the world. They are currently working on getting the arboretum publicly funded.

My hosts at the Arboretum have taught me that it’s never too late to follow your dreams and if you really want something, you can make it happen.

Hinemoa Point

Despite having the comfiest bed I have stayed in since the beginning of my travels, this was one of my least preferred wwoofing experiences because I needed to do solo, repetitive work (taking weeds out of the garden). But there were good times as well…I admire my host’s spitfire personality. I have no doubt that this lady will live beyond 100 years old. On my second night at her place, I had booked a Maori experience tour. The tour advertises that they will give you a lift to and from your accommodation. Of course, because I was staying at a house, the workers from the Maori experience explained to me that I could not get picked up. Well, my host got involved. She made some calls and some visits and later texted me to inform me that I would be getting picked up and dropped off to and from her house. Free shuttle service for one person, can’t complain… Also, as of this summer, at the age of 78, she decided to convert part of her house into Air BNB bedrooms. She knows how to work an Ipad better than I can… good for her for keeping up with the times! Each night I was there, she welcomed a new set of guests. I met a couple from China, who gave me their contact information for when I go there, a couple from Kenya, who now live in London, who I am still briefly in touch with, and a couple from New Mexico, USA. We all sat together over the dinner table drinking tea and having discussions about the stupidity of US politics mostly.

This host told me that I wasn’t picking weeds fast enough and she could do it more efficiently than I was. Yes, that stung, but I learned that I need to add a little more spitfire to my personality and, just like the other hosts, that it’s never too late to start a new, challenging project, like Air BNB at the age of 78.

Upper Moutere

I thought I would be working in an olive grove, but because the hosts had recently added an extension to their house, I ended up developing my painting skills. Unfortunately, the host that would usually be working alongside me was out of town, so I was working solo, which I did not like very much. The contractors did provide some good company from time to time and gave me some good input, as did dad, who I would sometimes call in a panic, asking him why the filling wasn’t sanding easily. In the evenings, I would hang out with the daughter. We watched a lot of rom coms, which I was completely in the mood for. She is also a great artist and drew some henna on me! On my last day, I spent a few hours with her in the city: we hiked to the centre of New Zealand, grabbed ice cream and visited a museum. These hosts are inspirational in that they have lived in many different countries with their family. Their children were born in Abu Dhabi, Kenya and Isle of Man respectively. When they bought the olive grove, they knew nothing about olives…they just knew that they wanted to produce something on land. Interestingly, the wife is the one who runs the farm and the husband has the office job. The wife is the one who drives a pick-up truck, built the deck in front of their house and knows everything about tools. I’ve always been exposed to handy work being a man’s domain – I guess since dad does most of it back home. It’s cool to see it being done the other way around as well.

This host has taught me that I can still travel and live in a variety of countries with a family if I want to, that I should learn to do handy work on my own (dad, I’m not asking you to put up frames for me anymore) and just like the other hosts, that if you put your mind to something, you can make it happen, like they did when they bought the olive grove.

Looking Out from the Centre of New Zealand

Punakaiki

Outdoor Bathtub with Fire to Heat the Water

Last but not least because this place was one of my New Zealand highlights. I loved how remote the west coast of New Zealand was. I had trouble getting cell service on the farm, but it’s the first time I felt like I was truly on vacation. It always helps to disconnect. I’ll never forget taking a dip in the refreshing streams and swimming holes on their lush 220 acre property as well as bathing in their outdoor bathtub at night, under one of the most beautiful night skies I have ever seen. I have never met people who are as committed to a cause as these hosts – that cause being environmental conservation. In the 1990s, they bought land to prevent mining activity in the west coast forest and because of that, had to endure hate and harassment from much of the small local community that is Punakaiki (approx. 100 residents), so much so that their children needed to be homeschooled. Despite these difficulties, my hosts have not given up fighting for the cause that matters to them. They are very involved with Westland petrel conservation at the moment. Each time a petrel was found stranded on the side of the road, my hosts would bring it home and release it from a more suitable location for the petrel.

I currently don’t have a cause that I think I would fight for as much as them. Hopefully that will come. But, staying with them has made me more certain than ever about my path to study environmental sciences.

All of my wwoof hosts have been inspirational in some way, even if the work in itself was not always what I had expected, or what I enjoyed. All of them have pursued a dream they had, or are continuously pushing themselves to seek new goals. Very rarely in life do people live with another family for an extended period of time, helping them with tasks. It is a mind-opening experience to see how other families, outside our circle of family and friends, outside our own country even, do things differently because we are often so accustomed to our own habits that we don’t even think about it. This does, however, also make you appreciate the way your family does things as well ♥

These are some of the good things that wwoofing has brought me and why I have decided to wwoof in Australia as well!

Starting A Blog – My Biggest Concerns

1. Is this temporary excitement?

So, I’ve decided to start a blog (obviously). However, I did not pay the yearly membership for this without some serious consideration. I had to reflect deeply to figure out if it was just the idea of having a blog that interested me or if I would actually enjoy it. You see, I’ve noticed that sometimes I get all excited about the idea of something, but then when it comes to actually doing it, I don’t find it as alluring as I had initially thought. This happened when I decided to learn guitar. Now, my guitar is in the corner of my room, accumulating dust. The same thing happened with bagpipes…

Maybe I’m just not a musician, right? Well unfortunately I exhibited similar behaviour with yoga classes. I’m hoping, though, that I will write more than this one article on this blog.

2. I am not a photographer.

What’s a blog without pictures? It’s boring. I am not a big picture taker, though. I’m not really sure why: it could be because I don’t like attention to detail, which is necessary in order to take a jaw-dropping photograph. It could also be my way of rebelling against my generation’s obsession with taking pictures with the sole purpose of posting on social media. With my upcoming travel adventures though, I know that I need to make sure I take a decent amount of pictures, so I can flip through them years from now and relive the different experiences.

3. Will I kill the moment?

I don’t want every moment I experience to become about my blog. The last thing I want is to be looking at Uluru rock in the Australian Outback and think: “oooh this will be a perfect picture to post on my blog, people will love it!” or “hmm what can I write about this experience?” I need to make sure that I don’t feel a certain pressure to come up with content. Rather, everything that I write should flow out of me naturally.

So, there you have it: the 3 biggest concerns I had about starting a blog. I still decided to go through with it though, because life experience.