"Wow, I wish I got paid to read books all day"

is one of those ridiculous, random statements that people who have no clue what librarians do all day are likely to make. Usually, there is a tinge of jealousy to it. And like most jealousies, it has different sources. Sometimes, it is said with a touch of venom : "Wow, I wish I was paid to read books all day...(because unlike you, I actually work for my paycheque)" and sometimes with a hint of wistfulness : "Wow, I wish I was paid to read books all day...(how can I get that gig because it's pretty close to my idea of heaven)" Sadly, I always have to correct these people. I, too, wish I was paid to sit around and read all day.

However, if I was in the mood to get under the skin of those who think I do nothing vbut relax all day, I might be tempted to say that I do, in fact, get paid to surf the internet and play on computers.

The library here still has very few books, 326 currently in the system with probably another 400 or 500 to go, so I spend the majority of my time searching for ways to supplement this. I look into books to order. I try to figure out how to order them. I do some cataloguing. And I've been working on a way to set up a website to supplement our lack of resources. We still only have roughly 170 students, a small minority of whom are above a "Dick and Jane" literacy level. I spend maybe 10 minutes a day checking books in and out; the rest of my time interacting with them is spent yelling at them to start surfing in English. Information literacy instruction of any kind will only come when they have a rudimentary level of literacy.

So. Lot's of computer time. Not a lot to do otherwise, which isn't to say that I'm not working alot, just that I'm mostly on computer. The reason I bring this up is that we've been having power outages in the area. This really hadn't affected my professionally too much. Usually, they happen at night, and worse comes to worst, I have to close down early because the library suddenly becomes pitch black. However, the city turns the heat on tomorrow (fingers crossed) and there has been all kinds of mojo to get this in place. And that involved turning the power off for the last few days.

There's been the usual lack of running water, no shower, dirty dishes, unflushed toilet nonsense, but in some strange way that I'm not sure I'm happy about, I think I'm adjusting to this. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that I had absolutely NOTHING to do. I shelved a few books Monday morning, and that was that. I couldn't really close the library. People actually do read, and the last thing I want to do is discourage the kids from taking out books, but I really had no other reason to be here. Well, that and the fact that it's currently warmer in the library than it is in my apartment. So, if only for a day and a half, I did it. I lived the dream.
I got paid to read.

And let me tell you...it was pretty damn cool.

Information seeking behaviour

dictates that we first go for information to our peers. We trust people most like us, who are in the know or who have experienced what we are looking to find out, to inform us best. Failing that, we look for people who we do not know, but who are also, in their own way, experts. This can take the form or an agency, an organization, or internet support groups. Only when have we exhausted the human resource do we turn to print.

Many aspects about living in Shenyang have brought this to the forefront of my mind. Certainly, professionally, I feel completely lost. My personal resources to the South have been helpful, but on occasion the information I've received has been confusing to the point of being almost a hindrance. Help from outside China has certainly been wonderful (Jay! Linda! Thank you!) but cannot necessarily speak to the specifics of my situation. The great firewall, too, has been a thorn in my side. However, more that professionally, where I have found this lack of information most, has been personally.

I may have mentioned (repeatedly) that we're pretty isolated out here. The school is extremely remote. We are a complete novelty here; while it happens less and less as people get used to us, the first few weeks here involved people almost getting into traffic accidents as they turned to stare at the strange pasty faces that had appeared in their village. Some of us are learning a bit of Chinese better than the rest of us, but we still aren't able to communicate well with a population, both in the village and in the city, that almost universally only speaks Mandarin. Do a quick search on Shenyang through Google...or Altavista...or Clusty...or.... You now know what I know about Shenyang, ie. very little. And guidebooks also are not a wealth of help.

Now, we have roughly 20 people in the middle of nowhere, who have lived, worked and socialized exclusively with each other for two months. We need some outside stimuli before we start turning lord of the flies on each other. But, to review, in a city with 7 million people, we have no one, no groups, no internet and no print guides telling us where we might find people we can communicate with. What would you do?

For the last few weeks, a small group of us have been hitting the various bars listed on the 'tourist map' handed out by the Holiday Inn. Over three separate nights, we have started at one bar and found it either completely empty of people at all (on a Friday night! the horror!) or populated only with Chinese peoples. We have a drink, and then move on to the next bar. If we're lucky, we run into a Westerner - usually an older business man who spends a month or so every year in the city, and we follow a tip they give us to somewhere that turns out to be equally unsatisfying. To say it has been an exercise in frustration is an overstatement. Hope is an intensely powerful thing and as the nights have progressed, and we've become more and more depressed, we've moved faster and faster from bar to bar to nightclub to nightclub, desperately wanting the next one to be the one that would be that Shangri-la of western life. And, inevitably the nights have ended with us in a ridiculously camp techno club at 3am, making the best of the situation. The experience, possibly more than the lack of steady water or power or heat or professional issues, has been completely demoralizing. Stockholm syndrome like, we've become a pretty tight group, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that the realization that none of us might not have anyone else to empathize, socialize or generally break us out of our insular world a little bit, has become truly a depressing reality.

Last night, though, we hit gold. Following a lead from a local English-speaking Chinese friend, we went to a bar where...and I cannot fully express how much this meant...there were Westerners. Who live here. And are in the know. After slowly becoming convinced that the 20 of populated the entire Shenyang ex-patriot community, we were suddenly talking to people who a) weren't us, b) had an incredible wealth of insider information, c) provided us with hope that there were even more people out there in this situation, and d) were a really great group of people to talk to. And so, information-seeking behavior asserts itself. Through a person in the know, we were able to find a place where we found the truly best source of information - a peer group.

And, as an added bonus, I've got a lead on possibly the only bakery in Shenyang that sells real bread! In fact, I'm off to track it down now.

Process for ordering newspapers in China

UPDATE : The post office man came back. Apparently, they don't receive a few titles I had asked for. List was revised, and the post office man left again. No idea when he'll re-appear.

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Step 1. Get a list of available titles from Dalian school.

Step 2. Ask school secretary to contact post office, which is where newspapers apparently are ordered from.

Step 3. Repeat step 2.

Step 4. Repeat step 2.

Step 5. Find out that man from post office will be coming in the next few days to discuss subscriptions.

Step 6. Repeat step 2.

Step 7. Repeat step 2.

Step 8. Man from post office arrives. Show him list of newspapers you would like. Receive information that he will go away, check prices and return later.

Step 9. Repeat step 2.

Step 10. Repeat step 2.

Step 11. Man from post office comes back. Prices and titles are all in Chinese.

Step 12. Have secretary translate to ensure that list is correct. It is.

Step 13. List is given back to post office employee and taken away.

This is as far as I have gotten in the process. I have no idea when the papers may show up, how I pay or what my next step is. Anyone want to venture a guess, though?

Oh, okay...Just one more autograph...

For Canadian Library Month, the CLA is suggesting that one possible Special Topic Day activities could be Celebrity Librarian's Day...where celebrity librarians greet the public.

I've been working in libraries for quite awhile now, and I have to say that, outside of the rather insular library world, I can't think of too many librarians who I would classify as 'celebrity'. Actually, even within the library world, aside from maybe Jason Hammond, no one really stands out as Paris Hilton-esque.

Is there something I've been missing?

Trying...

Canadian Thanksgiving was on Monday, and several of the teachers (myself included) headed downtown to a major hotel, where we had arranged for a proper turkey dinner. Over the course of the meal, my table began talking about what we are thankful for. Having had a fairly bumpy few months, the answers were fairly facetious...

"I'm thankful that the water is turned on between 6am and 7am and not 4am and 5am."

"I'm thankful that I haven't had a nervous breakdown yet."
"I'm thankful that beer is so cheap."
"I'm thankful that my apartment isn't as bad as yours."
"I'm thankful that I haven't gotten seriously ill yet."
"I'm thankful that I haven't gone postal."
"I'm thankful that I haven't been hit while crossing the road."
"I'm thankful that my ceiling hasn't fallen down on me yet."

... you get the picture.

Certainly, there remains a lot to complain about. I've been thinking about it a bit over the last few days, though, and it occurred to me that there must be a few things that I am really and truly thankful for.

My first few attempts were, I think, just half-hearted efforts to put a good spin on a bad situation. I can try telling myself that the fact that my hair is starting to turn to dreadlocks from lack of showering is a good thing, but, really I've never liked dreadlocks, never wanted them and never will. Experimental hairstyles resulting from poor hygiene are not something I'm really thankful for. Similarly, I can try telling myself that it's a blessing to be experiencing living on a waterless, cold compound in the middle of Nowhere, China, but the reality is, I'm not. It's great to have experienced it. The continuation of it really kind of sucks.

Still, there's got to be something keeping me here, right? What follows is a list of things I really am thankful for.

1. The incredible professional opportunity that being here affords me. How many of you have started ordering from scratch? How many of you have ordered your own furniture? From the carpenter? In Chinese? Set up a web portal? Set up a catalogue? Trained volunteers? All of the above?

Bring on any interview question you can think of. I not only have an example or an opinion on the subject, but I can probably talk your ear off.

2. Much as it's a mixed blessing, I really like the size of the school right now. There are very few students and I know all of the staff very well; the fact that we all currently live with in a minute of each other and are all suffering through this together creates a really unique bond. Myself, three other teachers and two of the students made moon cakes in the cafeteria last weekend. Sure, the only working oven on campus were the teachers teeny, tiny ones. Still, it was a lot of fun. It's unlikely that it would have happened in a working cafeteria at a school with dozens of teachers and hundreds of students.

3. By extension, I'm thankful for the time I get to spend with these kids. They're an incredible insight into modern China, the culture, and the future. They're also fascinating examples of normal teenagehood. And as individuals, some of them are just pretty damn cool.

4. I'll admit it. I'm thankful that pirated DVDs are really cheap. By extension, I'm thankful for Prison Break, Grey's Anatomy, Veronica Mars, 24, Lost and the first few seasons of Six Feet Under which are coming my way very soon.

5. Along those lines, I'm also very thankful for the fact that there are frequent flights to Beijing, and that they are very cheap.

6. I'm thankful that my friends and family have thus far been tolerant with the fact that I'm almost never in touch, either by phone or email. (Incidentally, there's a rumour that we'll have internet in our apartments by tomorrow evening. I've been hearing that it would be in on Friday every week I've been here, but this rumour seems to hold a little more weight. So, with a little luck, I'll have responded to everyone and Skyped a few more by Monday. Hell, I may start updating this more regularly.)

Now that I'm on a roll, I could probably go on...but I think I'll stop at what feels like a Chinese library miracle.

7. The city of Shenyang, so I'm told, turns the heat on in November. I've heard both November 1st and November 15th and believe me when I say I hope it's the former. This is because it is already quite cold. For reasons that I've yet to understand, all of the doors to the school seem to be perpetually open, letting in all kinds of critters who are seeking warmth. The school itself stretches from East to West, and faces North and South. Those who are unfortunate enough to spend their time in the North facing rooms are already layering up pretty heavily. The library, however, faces South. Not only that, but the entire large South wall is window. While everyone else is freezing, I am still in cool summer clothing. And for this, above everything else, I am really truly beyond words thankful.

What doesn't kill you....

I'm back from Beijing. Aside from the pollution, which is substantial, I can't imagine anyone having much negative to say about it. It's beautiful, it's cultured and cosmopolitan, the history is palpable. The shopping is amazing. The touristy sites are incredible. We were able to go to the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, and - a highlight- Tianamen Square on October 1st; the Chinese equivalent of being on the Mall in Washington on July 4th. Life is all about perspective, though, isn't it? As much as I hate to admit it, the history was far less important to me than the creature comforts :

1) the hotel beds were soft. Really soft. Chinese television advertisements show tanks rolling over mattresses. I'm not sure why this is a draw, but I'm pretty sure the one I have could hold it's own against an entire fleet.

2) people spoke English. Beijing is still China and most people speak Chinese, but there was still enough English knowledge that we were able to figure out where we wanted to go, get from place A to place B, order meals, shop, buy tickets, etc. I cannot describe how incredible this is. In Shenyang, I rarely go anywhere that I do not know of specifically. Want to buy some cds? Don't know where a good music shop is? Well, then, you're out of luck unless you're fluent in Mandarin. Want to go somewhere you've already been? Say, a bank? Better make sure you have their business card with the address written in Chinese characters. Otherwise, good luck getting a cab to go there 'cause your whole month of Mandarin isn't going to cut it. Want to order food? Forget what their menu says...you're not that good at reading the characters yet. Better make sure you have a book with translations. That way, you can point at dishes that sound good until you and the waiter agree on something that you want, and they can make.

3) they still drive like crazy people in Beijing, but only crazy like your embarrassing Aunt May. In Shenyang, they're certifiable. Here, I keep my eyes closed and sit in the back...in Beijing, I ride with my eyes open. It was a nice experience.

4) the highlight, though, was the food. Since I've gotten here, I've eaten Chinese food. Almost exclusively. Shenyang has a Pizza Hut, a few McDonald's and KFC's and one Subway (that I've seen). I've eaten at all of these, but, as I may have mentioned, I don't get into the city very often. I shop for vegetables and tofu at the local market, what is sold there is grown locally. I have two propane burners. Consequently, even at home, I cook Chinese food. The two local restaurants that we've scoped out as being hygienic are a hot pot place, and a traditional Chinese food place. The big 'Western' store in town carries a few things (hello coffee grinds!) but the range of Western foods isn't extensive and, really, Ritz crackers only go so far.

There were 8 of us from Shenyang in Beijing this week, staying at 3 different hotels. And there were two differing camps in terms of eating. One camp thought that it would be a waste to go to Beijing and not sample the Peking duck, the various street foods, the excellent Cantonese and Szechuan foods available. The other camp thought it would be a waste to not take advantage of the cosmopolitan nature of the city and eat anything other than Chinese food. If you've met me, you can probably guess which camp I was in...

Yup. I've had Chinese food for a month. I only seem to cook Chinese food for myself. I will eat Chinese food until my next break which is in January(!). Honestly, that's a whole lot of Chinese food. Think about your own eating habits for a second. Have you had Italian food lately? Chinese food? Maybe gone out for Vietnamese? Or Cajun? Or Mexican? Bet you haven't eaten the exact same flavours, textures, vegetables for three months straight. So...damn right I took the opportunity to have Mexican food. The opportunity to have Indian food. The opportunity to have Thai food. The opportunity to have Greek food. The opportunity to have brie cheese. Or cheese of any kind. Or bread that doesn't taste like sponge cake. Or a Caesar salad (and, seriously, if you're ever in Beijing, check out Paul's Steak and Eggs!)

It was extremely hard to come home. I'm a city girl, and the bigger the better. The rural life doesn't suit me, and never will. Beijing is much more my style. But, again, it's all about perspective. On our last night in Beijing, I and some of my traveling companions went out for coffee and dessert. We started talking to the waitress; in conversation, we mentioned that we were from Shenyang and how much different and wonderful Beijing was. None of us were looking forward to returning home. But, the waitress had a very different viewpoint. She was very impressed with us. She said she finds it very annoying that people come to China, settle in Beijing, get comfortable and never leave; yet they feel that they 'know' China. And, she's right. I didn't choose it; to be honest, I'm not sure, given full disclosure, that I would choose it, but I'm getting an experience that is priceless.