I'm still here.

I work for a school directly now and we've finished a school year.

This was me at one point trying to find an apartment in China:

I was legit considering living in a hotel because of this. I posted on WeChat explaining the situation and the secondhand embarrassment my local acquaintances experienced moved two in particular to step in and help me find a place to stay.

I didn't want to talk to the school's HR because she was hounding me about why I didnt have a Chinese girlfriend. She asked with her whole chest during the interview if I was changing jobs because of a woman.

Even as a fluent Chinese speaker, going to those housing agencies and watching them call up landlords and explain to them that a foreigner wants to rent, only to overhear the landlord asking "white? or black?" was never not embarrassing.

Everyone was all "dial 123456 and report them!" Tried that. I was all automated prompts which then lead to an app I had to download but then couldn't use because I didn't have a Chinese ID. No surprise, honestly, but was worth the shot I guess? (A lot of institutions are designed on purpose to be exhausting. You can know this in a place like China because they'll tell you straight up: If you wanna complain about is, dial this number. Good luck lol)

It was only luck that the person who reached out to help me was the random gym trainer who added my WeChat after searching for a place to workout literally 2 days prior.

Fast forward to now. School's out. Typical shenanigans: students making accidentally racist microaggressions. One kid commented that "it doesn't look right having a teacher who should be a rapper or basketball player; I don't think you're professional and can't take you seriously." And after the whole apartment malarkey, I could only give him a look, shrug my shoulders, chuckle at his inbred ignorance and keep teaching. Too tired to give the you-probably-haven't-learned-this-about-yourself-yet-but-you're-racist talk. It's 2020something, I'm saving my energy.

I'm just here to save up to leave. That's all. I now have friends in a different country and I'm working to collaberate with their career endeavors more intensively.

I'll be out of here soon enough. Just need to get a few things in order.

Part 2 of my modern avatar au, The Gaang (part 1)

Haida News!

Today we will share the final part of Haida’s foreign teacher, Tony’s traveling experience to China. 

Quarantine: 

Once arrived at the hotel, they will slowly assign people to their rooms. This will take a while. Unfortunately, all information is given in Chinese. I did feel a little lost, but after contacting Haida, they helped with all the necessary arrangements as making sure there was a room and that food was taken care off.While in quarantine, you will have to take and upload your temperature in the morning and in the afternoon. The hotel will provide a thermometer. Apart from the temperature, hotel staff will come by once a day/every 48h for a throat swab for COVID-testing. There is a breakfast delivered every morning between 08:00 and 08:30. This usually consists of 1 boiled egg, porridge, breads, some vegetables and either peanuts or corn. The lunch is delivered around 12:00 and the dinner will be delivered around 17:30. This will contain soup, a cup of white rice and different Chinese dishes (vegetables and meats/fish). It’s very comparable to the food that is served at schools during lunch time. You can leave thrash outside of your door and this will be picked up every morning. After the mandatory quarantine (7-days), there is still 3 days of home monitoring to do. For us this means that we have to stay in a different hotel for the home monitoring phase. The hotel will call you the day before at which time you can check-out. While checking out, the hotel will provide you with a release letter, this one is important, so make sure you pick it up. From here it was also possible to start collecting your regular health-codes through AliPay. The hotel will arrange transportation from one location to the other for all that need to do the home-monitoring. Here, once again Haida helped me out perfectly with the room and food arrangements. Same things apply. Food will be delivered at comparable times, temperature and covid checks will be done. After those 10 days, your health-code will be changed to Green and you should be free to do as you please. A huge thanks to Haida for their extended support, quickness and information during the whole quarantine period! They were always prepared to handle my questions and arranging things with the hotels when there were doubts/issues. I appreciate it a ton!

The quarantine policy in China is less strict now. Haida will help more and more foreign teachers enter China to work. If you are interested in teaching positions in China, feel free to contact Haida.

oh so do u think when stede learned zheng conquered china he was having war flashbacks to "we'll go somewhere they'll never find us. we'll go to china" bc i think he was.

WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS!?

THEY WENT TO CHINNAAA YALL 😭😭 (x)

Our Flag Means Death/The Amber Spyglass

Season 2:

Gif by @chrrispine

Rewatching S1 and S2 and it struck me again how much Ed has desperately wanted to stop being Blackbeard for such a long time. He's quick to jump on anything that leads to not having to be Blackbeard anymore.

When we meet him, he feels trapped. He doesn't see any way out. Treading water, waiting to drown. The only retirement pirates get is death. Keep your guard up, continue the violence and toxic masculinity until you meet your inevitable violent death. And he wouldn't be too upset if that inevitable violent death comes sooner rather than later and not have to be Blackbeard anymore. In his darker moments, he's actively trying to hasten that inevitable end. Even Izzy, who isn't exactly known for his emotional intelligence, could see that Ed hasn't wanted to be Blackbeard for years.

And he's down for anything that means he doesn't have to be Blackbeard anymore. He learns about retirement and comes up with a plan to kill Stede and take his identity so he can retire. He half assedly holds onto that plan for weeks, even though he really doesn't want to kill Stede, because he really does want to leave Blackbeard behind. They can run away to China, get new identities and leave their old lives behind. That makes Stede kind of panicky, but for Ed it's a selling point. He can be a fisherman and live a simple, quiet life.

Folding socks at the privateering academy is better than being Blackbeard. Being on probation on the Revenge is better than being Blackbeard.

He fantasizes about being anything but Blackbeard. He's Stede. He's an accountant. He owns a restaurant. He owns an inn.

Did he need to learn that being Blackbeard doesn't make him unlovable? Learn to not hate himself for being Blackbeard even if he ends up having to do it again? Yeah. But please let him put all that down and live somewhere that he's not under constant threat of death. Let him run a shitty inn with his boyfriend where they spend more time decorating and doing improv than actually running an inn.

it’s so funny that ricky was like “i’m a MINOR PRINCE.” as if zheng, the conquerer of CHINA and pirate QUEEN, would be intimidated by that??? baby didn’t do his research before he threw that little tidbit into the chat and it shows

#ofmdmermay day 7: lighthouse

ur supposed to avoid lighthouses ☹️☹️ so u don’t crack up on the rocks ☹️☹️

Ngl, I made the questionable decision of putting my entire phone on shuffle yesterday bc I'm trying to find a good song to vibe with while writing a short fic to recover my OFMD muse and I was hit by some psychic damage when it turned on the Descendants soudntrack's "What's My Name" and I lost about five minutes to my brain imagining an OFMD Descendants AU. (Ed is Uma, Izzy is Harry, Fang or Ivan is Gil, while the Rotten Four is a bit more nebulous and really depends on who you ship with who, but to me I just really want Jim, Archie, and Olu to be a thing so sort accordingly as you will, all I'm sure of is that Lucius is the world's sassiest Jay stand in with absolutely no idea who his parent would be)

All of which to say is: your hyperfixation from six years ago is always ready to bitch slap you in the face. Always be vigilant if you don't want that, or embrace it if you want to feel high without needing to take anything

Home stretch.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I've been in with the same company for years working for waaay less that what's apparently normal (I get lots of weird looks when I talk about my workload and salary?? like...) Now I'm getting ready to quit and go with a school directly.

I'm scared. I don't know who to trust really. I turned in my cv. The department head thought it was good. We did the interview. Tons of landmines there, but everything faired well.

(I've not signed anything yet, but they're asking for me work permit and residence permit? Is this normal?)

I'm getting a high school job. It all started when I sent a message to the company about extremely inconveniencing everything has been here. They offered to make adjustments. The adjustment was literally changing a literature course to academic writing... which meant even more work than what I was doing with the literature course, if no change at all.

The other option was to have me moved to a school where I'd teach 19 groups of students, 40 students per group... reading and writing...

One assignment would finish me.

I don't trust their judgement, and I'm not willing to turn a job that encompasses all my majors into glorified babysitting. Those local teachers suffer no foolishness when it comes to teaching language, and unfortunately the reality of too many foreign teachers is either deliberate foolishness or them being made fools of due to miscommunications and negligence from all sides.

I don't want to be a part of that.

I don't want to be like these other international teachers I've worked with who can just whistle gleefully up and down the halls, not a care in the world because they understand zero of the Chinese being spoken around them, about them, over them and near them.

They don't catch any of the nuances, the passive aggressive remarks, the pervasive mistrust, the draconian outlooks, the robotic sentiments, none of that. They get the filtered English. They get to "guess" the tone through missing words and misplaced expressions.

It's a clown show.

I know it seems like I always have a bunch of negative stuff to say... and that... is absolutely true 🤣. The most I've done about it in 8 years and this now: quit the company and sign up with a school directly.

We'll see how it all turns out.

The worst that could happen is the company could get all vindictive and bully me out of trying to get a release letter even if I follow the contract exactly. Despite all the positive comments they've given me before, they could already flip script and turn hostile. Or the new school could be lying about everything. They could be a nightmare of an arrangement a troupe of foreign faces with no presence at the school beyond being just faces.

But I'm going to focus only on what I know is true: the likes me, they're very much looking forward to working with me, they're eager to have me around....

(... trying desperately not to jinx anything 😭😭)

Rather this is fear or intuition telling me to just run to the hills [elsewhere] will be a matter of time, I suppose.

In season two, it’s established that Stede doesn’t know what China is.

Which is hilarious because in season one Ed proposed the two run away to China.

So Stede agreed to run away to China with Ed, despite not know what China is.

Haida News!

As the new term begins and things get back on track, Haida in Shenzhen branch caught up with Sam, our new foreign teacher, to hear what he has to say about Shenzhen and Haida.

Q: What have been the positive experiences so far in Shenzhen?

A: I’ve been in Shenzhen for over a month now and have already had a lot of positive experiences. I love exploring new places, so I’ve really enjoyed walking around Shenzhen, especially the many parks which have some spectacular views over the city. Meeting new people has also been really cool. Shenzhen is a city full of people from all over China, and also all over the world, so it has been really interesting getting to know all different kinds of people. My Mandarin isn’t the best, but thankfully lots of people here are very helpful and willing to help me practice.

Q: How do you feel Haida have been when facing difficulties with the transition to China?

A: Before I found Haida, I was having trouble getting into China but the company was extremely helpful and efficient in assisting me getting a visa and other documents required to enter the country. They were with me every step of the way before I left the UK and continued to always be there to help me while I traveled via Hong Kong into Shenzhen. It was quite a stressful time for me but in the end everything went smoothly. While I was in quarantine in Shenzhen, the company helped me communicate with the hotel staff and were waiting for me after checkout. I can’t imagine how tough it would have been without Haida’s support. Since leaving quarantine, the staff at Haida have been really welcoming and supportive and, so far, I couldn’t be happier with my experience.

Q: What are your first impressions compared to life back home?

A: This is my second time in China so I had an idea of what to expect but there are still lots of things to get used to. Firstly, the size of the city is crazy and there are so many people. It’s a fantastic place for people who like the hustle and bustle of a lively city. It feels so alive when you go for a walk in the evening: there are people playing music, dancing on the street, eating, hanging out, and exercising. I can’t believe how safe it feels walking around late at night. And there are shops everywhere! It’s amazing how many places there are to eat, which makes it super difficult to decide where to go, but thankfully the food is really good at most of the places I’ve been to. Another thing is the bikes and mopeds absolutely everywhere!

Here is the first part of the interview with Sam. We will share the rest part next week. Haida works with schools in Shenzhen and Hangzhou. Feel free to contract Haida if you are interested in the teaching positions in Shenzhen or Hangzhou.

HK inherited his love of pranks from Yao. However as a child he wasn't very good at them. They would be poorly set up and obvious traps.

Like, he once tried to prank call Arthur and ask if his fridge was running. He was a giggling mess the whole phone call and Arthur could hear him making the call in the next room over.

Despite this, Yao and Arthur would 'fall for them' them every time because they loved how happy it made him.

Edward Teach is the gay man version of a U-haul lesbian.