Life in Ningbo

Vacation is over and I’m back in Ningbo, enjoying my daily routine.   I thought I would share a little information about what normal life is like for me. 

This is my apartment:

There are two bedrooms, a nice kitchen and bathroom, a huge living room, and a small sun room for laundry.  I am on the 6^th floor, unfortunately with no elevator, but the stairs are good exercise! 

My apartment is very conveniently located.  It takes 10 minutes to bike to work and 20 minutes to downtown.  There is also a bus stop just across the street where I can catch buses every 15 minutes to these places on rainy days.  I am in the middle of a complex of 6-floor apartment buildings that spans an entire city block.  That makes it very quiet and safe.  There are three entrances with gates that are staffed 24 hours a day.  I have everything I need on a day to day basis within a 5 minute walk: street food, a hairdresser, my bank branch, a pharmacy, two bike shops, three major grocery stores, a gym, a cinema, H&M, Marks and Spencer, and a Starbucks!  

I almost always go across the street to get an egg pancake for breakfast.  A man with a bike cart is there from about 6:00-9:00am.  He has a coal fire griddle on his cart where he ladles some batter and spreads it out thinly like a crepe.  Then he breaks an egg and sprinkles green onion.  Flip!  Now it’s time for sauces and smoked chicken.  He wraps it up and places it in a thin plastic bag.  I walk about 20 yards to another food stand where they make you tiao – a long piece of fried dough, and da bing – a piece of flatbread cooked with lard and onions.  They have a clay oven with a coal fire where they stick the pieces of dough to the side.  One side cooks from the heat of the oven, the other from the open fire.  Delicious!  There is also a fruit stand where I can get fresh oranges or strawberries.  For lunch my standard fare is pulled noodles at one of the Xinjiang restaurants.   There you can watch dough being pulled and twisted like salt water taffy and then suddenly transformed into noodles by being separated through the chef’s fingers.  The fresh noodles are dipped into a huge vat of boiling water and then are sent to the kitchen to be stir fried with vegetables and a little beef.  I rarely cook at home because the street food is cheap and delicious, but I do have oatmeal on hand which serves me well when I get off work late and don’t have the energy to go out. 

Speaking of work…  My job plays a very nominal part in my China experience.  I appreciate it, however, because it is a visa and a paycheck.  I work at a Disney English center (one of three in Ningbo) where parents bring children from ages 2-12 to learn English from native speakers.  All of the Disney principles apply: putting on a show, guest service, attention to detail, and building brand image.  It’s hard for me not to sound a little cynical when talking about Disney.  I don’t find much meaning or fulfillment there.  My lessons are planned for me, I am teaching wealthy students, and I am a piece of Disney’s overall marketing strategy to increase brand loyalty for their theme parks (particularly the one that is being built in Shanghai).  Overall, I can’t complain though.  I have a clean, happy work environment, spend time with adorable children, work for a reputable, fair company, and got my TEFL-C certificate from Columbia.  Also, my schedule is wonderful.  I work long days on the weekend (8-12 hours), but on weekdays I don’t work until 1:30pm.  I get Wednesday and Thursday off each week.  I also have great co-workers (3 out of the 4 foreign trainers at our center are former Peace Corps volunteers!).  I came to Disney with the expectation that it would be a job – a way to live in China and nothing more.  It is exactly that.  I don’t worry about work when I’m home and I have no intention to advance with Disney.  Someday I’d like to have a job that I really care about, but for now, while learning Chinese and adjusting to a new culture, Disney is working out just fine. 

When I’m not at work or home there are several places where I’m likely to be.  One of those is the gym across the street.  They have daily yoga classes (on some days up to three classes!) and my schedule allows me to attend about 4 times a week.  I really love listening to the Chinese instructors.  Their voices are so soothing they seem to lull us into flexibility.  On the days when I can’t do yoga, I have found a really amazing place to go jogging.  The heart of downtown Ningbo is the intersection of three rivers.  All along the river banks, the city has built parks and pedestrian zones.  I have a 5km route where I never have to cross a street or deal with traffic!  Plus, the scenery is beautiful!  When I get tired of noodles and dumplings, there are several foreign restaurants where I’ve become a regular.  Thai, Indian, and Greek are my favorites.  I eat at the Greek restaurant exactly once a week and I always order the same thing: hummus and tzatziki.  It helps fulfill my craving for Bulgarian yogurt.  On Wednesdays I also have an individual two hour Chinese class.  My teacher’s name is YoYo and we are getting along well! 

So far I have experienced Ningbo weather from December – March.  We have had three brief dustings of snow and a fair amount of rain and cold, but overall it’s been a very mild and pleasant winter.  There were a handful of days in January that were 65 degrees and sunny!  Now that it’s spring, the beautiful days are even more frequent.  I know we will pay later for the weather we enjoyed in the winter though.  Every Ningbo resident shares horror stories of the humidity and mosquitoes in the summer.  

Flowering trees outside my apartment