Wal-Mart

Sarah asked me today why I bothered to come all the way to China if I was just going to shop at Wal-Mart. I didn't actually have a good explanation for that. I guess because two other teachers were going with their kids, and because I needed some things and Wal-Mart is one stop shopping. It was marvelously chaotic, like Christmas, only people are more accustomed to such crowding and move smoothly through, almost never touching. The carts are smaller, the density of product presentation much higher, and the general appearance more spartan. But it's still Wal-Mart, with the yellow happy face, the picture of Sam Walton at the front of the store, and a big pyramid of photos of "servant leaders." Gotta love the Communist influence on Wal-Mart, of all corporations.

Sarah selected all her own clothes for this trip. I gave her a long lecture about modest clothes, which she dutifully obeyed, but I didn't give her an appropriate lecture about, shall we say, street conditions. People hack and spit in the streets, there are smells of open sewers, and there is mud everywhere. Sarah brought a pair of those trendy jeans that drag on the ground. Let's just say they're pretty gross, but she doesn't want to use bleach when she washes them.

Yes, we're doing our laundry by hand here, like everybody else. Sarah is taking it as well as could be expected. James doesn't care, because I'm doing his, for the most part.

Tomorrow school starts, and I've spent hours preparing. This is my first time teaching, and I'm very nervous. One of the experienced teachers today told me that my students would also be very nervous because they have probably never had a foreign teacher before. Sarah has been a great help to me, both technically, because she is much closer to the classroom than I am, and morally, because she keeps saying I can do it.