YoYo was downstairs in the hotel waiting for me, and she kindly bought me breakfast, though I really wasn't sure what it was and whether I liked it, but she made me eat all of it. It included two tea eggs, that is, eggs marinated in soy sauce and bay leaves for around two days, again with another vegetable baozi, and soy milk, a very traditional Chinese breakfast. I was beginning to understand that Chinese cuisine didn't really have 'breakfast' in the same sense as the West where we generally have different types of food according to the type of day, for example, cereal or eggs on toast in the morning, while fish and chips, lasagne or pies would be served for dinner. From my limited experience in China, they would eat the same food for breakfast as what they would during the rest of the day.
She walked me over to a 'secret' passage in the shopping mall underground, and got the lift to floor 4F on the way to the centre. She introduced me to Andy, who was a rather handsome Italian. The centre was modern, with small glass cubicles with a table that seated up to five people and a computer for lessons. It had two larger rooms that would fit around 30 people comfortably, which I assumed were for larger classes, a sofa area with a computer, which seemed to be a more 'informal' set up, closeby was a separate area for learning online with four rows of four computers each.
I was introduced to an American, also expat called 'Dan' who had been working in the Centre for the last two years, followed by Chris, a female local teacher working there for seven years, who was leaving the company to teach IELTS at another centre, another Chris Yu, who was also new and had been teaching for a few months after studying hospitality in France, finally, Ivy, who had finished studying in the US and was another local teacher.
The office was at the back of the centre, and one large room with computers, printers, lockers and cabinets, shared between the Chinese sales team and the foreign teaching team, indeed, a truly international office space. The Chinese staff at the back of the room shouted 'it's a girl!' because the other staff were all men, they were happy to finally have a foreign girl in the office. Andy asked me to sit next to him at his computer desk, which I was pleased with. I looked over at Chris's schedule, the teacher who was leaving, and just saw 27 class times, and remember looking totally overwhelmed. This was my first real job, and I had no idea how a schedule worked, and 27 seemed like a lot-I hope I wouldn't be expected to do that many.
Andy had been working on my schedule, and I noticed that I had around eight classes booked for the next week, all being simple 'observation', and was somewhat relieved that I wouldn't actually be teaching anyone, but also overwhelmed by the fact I was starting so soon.
I still didn't have a phone, as Andy was asking about my WeChat. I was reluctant to buy a phone, as in the UK, I really didn't need one, and I hadn't been interested in mobile phones since my first phone in primary school at around 11years old. There was just no real 'need' at that time in the UK to have a mobile phone.....so why bother in China? what was the point? who would message me? I had no friends, so didn't see the big deal.
Andy said that in China I wouldn't survive without a phone, explaining that I really needed WeChat in order to communicate with people, for work, mostly. So YoYo took me to the Vivo mobile phone shop just next to the centre where I bought whatever phone was the cheapest, because I was on a budget, and didn't know how much everything else would be, e.g. an apartment. So I bought my first phone for 800RMB, and got myself set up with WeChat, as well as Alipay which was the method of payment in China, and made sense since Hangzhou is the home of Alibaba. Andy helped me to create an Alipay account and put in my bank card details, which generated a QR code and was scanned whenever I needed to pay for anything. The technology was impressive, the Uk was still using cash, the physical Debit and Credit Card. What about security? There seemed to be no real security mechanism with Alipay, just a QR code. Everyone used it, so it must be safe.
WeChat was my next technological epiphany. I added the WeChat ID's that had been given to me and realised that I could add all these friends from far away. I also joined all the WeChat groups I was missing from my fellow newcomers in Shanghai, realising how many nights out I missed while there. At the bottom of my WeChat was a tab called 'moments' where people could post pictures, or messages for their contacts to see. It was also possible to 'hide' moments from certain contacts too. Other functions were possible, including to also pay for things using WeChat pay, to buy train tickets, call a taxi. Basically, it was an APP that had everything, it was Facebook, Uber, a Bank Card, a transportation service, even paying water and gas and electric bills too. WeChat is one of the driving forces behind the swift development of China, as it meant that all business was conducted via WeChat, with the plumber, hairdresser, boiler man, even your boss and colleagues on this one platform, it meant that business could be carried out 24 hours a day 7 days a week, with your boss having access to you after working hours. This also meant that boundaries would be an issue, when is the 'switch off' time. If WeChat was required in order to pay for anything then looking at your WeChat on everyday of the week was necessary, and so seeing those messages from the boss outside working hours would be unavoidable.
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