I woke up around eleven this morning and was checking my email when the doorbell rang. It was my landlord and my neighbors from downstairs, along with their elderly parents. I suspected correctly that this was about the water leak discovered in my kitchen sink yesterday evening, but it still seemed like an excessive delegation (then again, the Chinese love a good delegation). After the guy who works at the front gate of my apartment complex rang my doorbell yesterday to tell me that water was dripping into the apartment underneath us, my landlord and the repairman were over here in a flash, changing hoses and even pulling out the entire kitchen sink. They replaced the faucet, but apparently there's still a problem and they'll be back tomorrow morning.
The previous day wasn't exactly free of complications either. My friend Huw and I headed back to my new favorite place in Nanjing, the communist bridge, and arrived there after dark. We wandered through the vegetable patches to the water's edge, and were picking our way back when I saw a hole in a fence that looked like it would let us through. I went to step towards it and glug! my left leg was sunk up to my waist in something viscous. I pulled myself out, not sure what exactly had happened and got a whiff of the sludge covering my jeans, shoes, and part of my sweater. I had fallen into a vat of manure used to fertilize the fields. With nothing to do but laugh, I took off my pants and "washed" my shoes in the silty Yangtze, proceeding out the park gate in my boxers. Huw went to a store and got some plastic bags and baby wipes, while I was subjected to even more stares than usual as I stood by the side of the street. We got a cab and I tossed most of my clothes in the trunk. Still, the driver said, "It really stinks in here!" I told him what happened and apologized. He laughed, but then became serious and said, "I'm going to have to clean my cab! No one's going to want to ride in it!" Trying to mitigate the smell, I took off my shirt and held it out the window. When we got back to my apartment I gave him a 50 yuan note for the 20 yuan ride, and he immediately got out with a tiny bottle of cleaner and headed for the trunk.
Aside from these adventures, life continues as normal. My students never fail to amuse and impress. The prize for this week goes to a seven-year-old in my second grade oral class. We were practicing the construction "I like x but I don't like y." She said, "I like daddy long legs but I don't like dirt." Runner-up goes to, "I like tiramisu but I don't like coffee." Also of note were responses following the general pattern of, "I don't like Michael but I like bananas," as well as the suck-up variant, "I don't like Michael but I like teacher."
But middle school is still my favorite. This week I was teaching them the difference between "make" and "let" since they're expressed by the same verb in Chinese, rang. The question was, "What do your parents make you do?" and I heard one kid jokingly shout, "Make love!" This had them laughing of course, but I decided to make them repeat it, since some kids didn't hear. "My parents make me make love" (if only this were true!). At the end of the class, I said, "Bye! Have a good week," they said, "It will be a bad week. Every day is bad for us. But your class is fun." I don't think I have any idea what their lives are like, but all indications suggest that they are swamped by schoolwork.
Even in elementary school, they have no time to do anything but go to school and do homework. There is a small restaurant near my house that I have started to frequent. The food is simple but cheap and good, and they owner is very friendly. I went into the restaurant at 8:30 last week for a late dinner, and I was the only customer. The owner was sitting at one of the tables, dictating a passage to his eight-year-old daughter and giving her hints at the characters she didn't know (for the record, she's way past me in terms of character knowledge). A young Chinese couple came into the restaurant and the woman said to me, "Look at this guy running his restaurant and helping his daughter with her homework. The lives of Chinese men are very hard!" I wasn't sure how to reply, especially since she seemed to express a certain perverse joy at the fact that men's lives were difficult, while hers was relatively easy. What really struck me, though, was that when I walked past the restaurant to use the payphone two hours later at 11 o'clock, the daughter was still at the table working on her homework.
I think the schools realize what they're demanding of the kids is nearly impossible. Between every few classes, calm music comes over the PA and a woman's voice counts "One two three four, two two three four..." The kids know the drill, and sit at their desks quietly massaging their eyes for five minutes. But despite all of this, they still managed to be sweet, diligent, and adorable, though I certainly can't say I envy their lives.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Tomb Sweeping Holiday
I had Friday off this week for the Tomb Sweeping Holiday. I didn't hear much about the traditions of the holiday itself from pretty much anyone; instead it was all descriptions of how much time off or overtime pay one gets, which I guess is a testament to how little free time most Chinese workers have. I did see people who couldn't actually visit their ancestors' graves in person burning fake money and other things on the side of the street, though.
I took advantage of the break to do a little sight-seeing in Nanjing, taking a two hour walk to the northern part of town to check out the Yangtze river bridge built in 1968. At the time it was a huge engineering feat and a triumph for the Communist Party. I don't have any photos, as I foolishly forgot to charge my camera battery before setting out, but I'm sure I'll be back there sometime and I'll get some photos for you then. The bridge itself is a huge steel trestle, with enormous concrete ramps leading up to it both for cars and trains. There is a park around the base of the bridge on the Nanjing side, and I hopped over the park wall to get to the bank of the river itself. Between the wall of the park and the edge of the water, there is a strip of land maybe about 100 meters wide, where people were tending to the vegetables they had planted and kids were running around with sticks. It is certainly not the kind of place you'd see farming taking place in the U.S., and I wonder whether these people own the land, or whether they grow vegetables as a sort of hobby or supplemental income.
After sitting and watching the barges going up and down the river while trains rumbled over the bridge, I climbed back into the park and struck up a conversation with a gaggle of young female tour guides who had no clients, apparently because of the holiday. They told me that the bridge was built during the Great Leap Forward when steel was hard to come by. Mao made people melt down their rice bowls to provide building materials for the bridge. They also told me about the large number of people who jump off the bridge (this was confirmed by my roommate's boyfriend, a Nanjing native, who laughed when I said I had gone there, saying that it's known for its suicide rate), as well as the retired old men who take it upon themselves to patrol the bridge trying to spot and dissuade jumpers and the soldiers who scan the roadway with binoculars attempting to do the same. Despite all of the efforts aimed at preventing suicide, though, the girls told me that there had been one two days before.
Before setting off for the bridge, I had lunch at a restaurant near my apartment that I had never been to. Despite the fact that it's an average restaurant, it seems to have been founded with a romantic theme in mind. Both the sign on the outside and the walls and tables on the inside are decorated with hearts and silhouettes of cupid. The Saturday afternoon clientele was just like any other restaurant, consisting mostly of groups of businessmen. While I was waiting for my food, I noticed a bizarre poster hanging on the wall:
有间餐厅
我想带你坐泰坦尼克
可惜我只有一张船票
我想带你去。。。有间餐厅
因为我有固定号码
（restaurant's phone number)
You Jian Restaurant
I wanted to take you on the Titanic
Unfortunately I only have one ticket
So I'll take you to . . . the You Jian Restaurant
Because I have the exact number
(restaurant's phone number)
It's probably a good thing the object of the guy's affections missed out on that Titanic trip, even though the consolation prize was a little lame. I said to the waitress, "That poster's pretty weird. Maybe the Titanic is romantic, but there's a pretty big disadvantage to going on it." She replied, "Think of it however you want." I'm not sure what to make of that reply.
I took advantage of the break to do a little sight-seeing in Nanjing, taking a two hour walk to the northern part of town to check out the Yangtze river bridge built in 1968. At the time it was a huge engineering feat and a triumph for the Communist Party. I don't have any photos, as I foolishly forgot to charge my camera battery before setting out, but I'm sure I'll be back there sometime and I'll get some photos for you then. The bridge itself is a huge steel trestle, with enormous concrete ramps leading up to it both for cars and trains. There is a park around the base of the bridge on the Nanjing side, and I hopped over the park wall to get to the bank of the river itself. Between the wall of the park and the edge of the water, there is a strip of land maybe about 100 meters wide, where people were tending to the vegetables they had planted and kids were running around with sticks. It is certainly not the kind of place you'd see farming taking place in the U.S., and I wonder whether these people own the land, or whether they grow vegetables as a sort of hobby or supplemental income.
After sitting and watching the barges going up and down the river while trains rumbled over the bridge, I climbed back into the park and struck up a conversation with a gaggle of young female tour guides who had no clients, apparently because of the holiday. They told me that the bridge was built during the Great Leap Forward when steel was hard to come by. Mao made people melt down their rice bowls to provide building materials for the bridge. They also told me about the large number of people who jump off the bridge (this was confirmed by my roommate's boyfriend, a Nanjing native, who laughed when I said I had gone there, saying that it's known for its suicide rate), as well as the retired old men who take it upon themselves to patrol the bridge trying to spot and dissuade jumpers and the soldiers who scan the roadway with binoculars attempting to do the same. Despite all of the efforts aimed at preventing suicide, though, the girls told me that there had been one two days before.
Before setting off for the bridge, I had lunch at a restaurant near my apartment that I had never been to. Despite the fact that it's an average restaurant, it seems to have been founded with a romantic theme in mind. Both the sign on the outside and the walls and tables on the inside are decorated with hearts and silhouettes of cupid. The Saturday afternoon clientele was just like any other restaurant, consisting mostly of groups of businessmen. While I was waiting for my food, I noticed a bizarre poster hanging on the wall:
有间餐厅
我想带你坐泰坦尼克
可惜我只有一张船票
我想带你去。。。有间餐厅
因为我有固定号码
（restaurant's phone number)
You Jian Restaurant
I wanted to take you on the Titanic
Unfortunately I only have one ticket
So I'll take you to . . . the You Jian Restaurant
Because I have the exact number
(restaurant's phone number)
It's probably a good thing the object of the guy's affections missed out on that Titanic trip, even though the consolation prize was a little lame. I said to the waitress, "That poster's pretty weird. Maybe the Titanic is romantic, but there's a pretty big disadvantage to going on it." She replied, "Think of it however you want." I'm not sure what to make of that reply.
Friday, March 28, 2008
I'm still here
I apologize for my long absence from my blog. A lot of interesting and stressful things have been happening here, including but not limited to being busted by the cops for riding my friend's motor scooter without a license plate (the plate costs about $700 and the fine when you get caught is about $30), negotiating with my landlord who, apparently like everyone in China, has ties both to the government and to the company I work for, and trying to appease the parents of my less motivated students.
But mostly everything has been continuing as usual. I was afraid that my second graders didn't know how to read, but when I said, "Just go slowly and look at one word at a time," most of them managed to complete the exercise I assigned. They've also managed to get a good grasp on "There is a pencil case under the desk" and the concept of pairs of things. Here is a picture of two of my better students, Amelia, possibly my favorite, on the left, and Rain on the right:
Last week I was teaching my especially noisy class of fifth graders about American geography, and when we got to Washington they all started laughing. Luckily my fellow teachers had warned me that Chinese kids think "Washington" sounds like "Wo xin teng" meaning "my heart hurts." The Chinese name for Washington is Hua sheng dun which comes without any such connotations. After class, when their Chinese homeroom teacher was berating them for being so noisy, I couldn't resist saying, in Chinese, "When you talk in class, my heart hurts." I'm afraid my joking may have rendered the discipline ineffective, but I guess we'll see next week.
My middle schoolers continue to take the cake when it comes to amusing statements, though. Last week I gave them the following riddle, which was apparently used in some Stanford study:
The next period, the goofy kid in the back of the class raised his hand and said, "Medicine to kill mice." The combination of this ingenious and absurd answer with the grin on the student's face while he said it caused me to start laughing uncontrollably, which only made the class laugh more.
There's certainly more I'd like to relate here, but it'll have to wait for another time. In the meantime, a few photos. The first one is my bedroom:
This one gives some indication of Chinese building standards. Note that the Chinese writing above the door says "Emergency exit," not just "exit" as in the English:
And finally, one more bizarre sign from the many that populate Nanjing:
But mostly everything has been continuing as usual. I was afraid that my second graders didn't know how to read, but when I said, "Just go slowly and look at one word at a time," most of them managed to complete the exercise I assigned. They've also managed to get a good grasp on "There is a pencil case under the desk" and the concept of pairs of things. Here is a picture of two of my better students, Amelia, possibly my favorite, on the left, and Rain on the right:
Last week I was teaching my especially noisy class of fifth graders about American geography, and when we got to Washington they all started laughing. Luckily my fellow teachers had warned me that Chinese kids think "Washington" sounds like "Wo xin teng" meaning "my heart hurts." The Chinese name for Washington is Hua sheng dun which comes without any such connotations. After class, when their Chinese homeroom teacher was berating them for being so noisy, I couldn't resist saying, in Chinese, "When you talk in class, my heart hurts." I'm afraid my joking may have rendered the discipline ineffective, but I guess we'll see next week.
My middle schoolers continue to take the cake when it comes to amusing statements, though. Last week I gave them the following riddle, which was apparently used in some Stanford study:
I didn't use those last two lines, partially for political reasons and partially because I thought it made the riddle too easy. None of them could come up with the answer I was looking for (think about it) in class, although I heard one kid say to his friend on the way out of the classroom "sex." I told them to tell me next week and if any of them got it, I'd give them a prize. Well they certainly thought about it, going to their dictionaries for ideas. When I got to class this week, one kid suggested "ore." He gave a valiant defense of his answer, "Some poor countries have ore, and rich countries need it to make things. You find it in holes, and you can't eat it."
The poor have it
The rich need it
A hole is full of it
If you eat it you will die
[It's greater than God and more evil than the devil]
The next period, the goofy kid in the back of the class raised his hand and said, "Medicine to kill mice." The combination of this ingenious and absurd answer with the grin on the student's face while he said it caused me to start laughing uncontrollably, which only made the class laugh more.
There's certainly more I'd like to relate here, but it'll have to wait for another time. In the meantime, a few photos. The first one is my bedroom:
This one gives some indication of Chinese building standards. Note that the Chinese writing above the door says "Emergency exit," not just "exit" as in the English:
And finally, one more bizarre sign from the many that populate Nanjing:
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Einstein and Advertising
There are a number of hilariously mistranslated signs around Nanjing, and often when I see them I don't have my camera handy to record it. For example, there's a cafe not too far from my apartment called "Space Time Coffee Trajectory." I just can't get over the name, especially since it's an average Chinese coffee place. One amusing sign I did manage to capture is below. Two androgynous (mostly because the one on the right, whom I have been assured is a famous male actor, is wearing earrings) hikers are out for a walk on the mountain one sunny day when what should appear but a pile of disproportionately sized electronics! Our ambiguously-gendered protagonists are clearly thrilled.
Another week of teaching is almost done, and yet again my middle schoolers provide the most amusing stories. During class I had the students talk in groups, and I noticed one boy just sitting by himself.
Me: Why don't you work with them? (pointing to girls behind him)
Him: They're girls!
Me: What, you can't talk to girls?
Him: Maybe when I'm older.
Me: Okay, how about them (pointing to some nearby boys)
Him: They're girls, too!
Me: Okay, who do you want to work with?
Him: Him! (pointing to a boy at the back of the class)
After this exchange, he ran off and sat on the other boy's lap for the rest of the group work. Certainly not what would happen in an American middle school. The school, view from across the main courtyard:
I did an activity with the middle schoolers where I wrote some questions on the board and had them decide whether it was appropriate to ask each one to someone they had just met in China and in the U.S. I was surprised when I got to the last question "How much money do you make?" and the students unanimously responded that it was not okay to ask this question to a stranger in China. I asked them, "Then why do so many Chinese people ask me how much money I make right when I meet them?" They seemed shocked to hear that this happened to me and offered several explanations: "Maybe they are thieves." "Maybe you are a foreigner" (yes, I am...) "Some people are very impolite" "Maybe they want to show that you are friends" (interesting...).
I continue to enjoy my middle school teaching the most, but I've started to get to know the second graders in my private Cambridge textbook class, and they're incredibly cute. I'll get some pictures soon. And for the record, the kid I named Matt decided he wanted to change his name to Sky. "I even know how to write it," he told me in Chinese. I couldn't argue with that...
Another week of teaching is almost done, and yet again my middle schoolers provide the most amusing stories. During class I had the students talk in groups, and I noticed one boy just sitting by himself.Me: Why don't you work with them? (pointing to girls behind him)
Him: They're girls!
Me: What, you can't talk to girls?
Him: Maybe when I'm older.
Me: Okay, how about them (pointing to some nearby boys)
Him: They're girls, too!
Me: Okay, who do you want to work with?
Him: Him! (pointing to a boy at the back of the class)
After this exchange, he ran off and sat on the other boy's lap for the rest of the group work. Certainly not what would happen in an American middle school. The school, view from across the main courtyard:
I did an activity with the middle schoolers where I wrote some questions on the board and had them decide whether it was appropriate to ask each one to someone they had just met in China and in the U.S. I was surprised when I got to the last question "How much money do you make?" and the students unanimously responded that it was not okay to ask this question to a stranger in China. I asked them, "Then why do so many Chinese people ask me how much money I make right when I meet them?" They seemed shocked to hear that this happened to me and offered several explanations: "Maybe they are thieves." "Maybe you are a foreigner" (yes, I am...) "Some people are very impolite" "Maybe they want to show that you are friends" (interesting...).
I continue to enjoy my middle school teaching the most, but I've started to get to know the second graders in my private Cambridge textbook class, and they're incredibly cute. I'll get some pictures soon. And for the record, the kid I named Matt decided he wanted to change his name to Sky. "I even know how to write it," he told me in Chinese. I couldn't argue with that...
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
On Names
This morning my alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. I shivered my way to the shower and got some wonton soup at the only place on my street that served breakfast at 6:15. I grabbed a taxi and headed off to four classes in a row of middle school students. I had been warned by the other teachers that middle school students were quiet and didn't like to speak in class, but I found them easier to relate to and control than my elementary schoolers. The tongue twisters went over pretty well, perhaps the most pedagogically effective being "six thick thistle sticks" given the difficulty most of the world has with the English th sound.
Every Chinese student of English receives an English name at some point in their career, just as I was given a Chinese name in my first week of study. Having an English name is an important way to relate to the language, but some of the names they end up with are truly mystifying. I've met young Chinese people about my age who have names like Enya, Chopin, Ghost, Devil, and Shadow. The woman who gave me my job here is Echo. People frequently don't know how to pronounce their own name correctly, which further adds to the confusion. I always wondered how kids ended up with such strange names, but Shannon, my fellow teacher, cleared things up a bit for me the other day.
She came back from class, reporting that she had named kids Hunter and Thompson, Jack and Daniel, Marilyn and Manson. One student, after being given the name Jack, had responded "jacket," which she decided to make official. I thought she was taking the privilege of naming kids, something that people normally only get to do with their own, a little too lightly, especially since many of them will end up keeping their new names into adulthood. In the few instances when I've gotten to give my kids names, I've tried to stick to pretty common ones, and I've started naming the kids after my friends. I've already got a Matt and a Nick, but when I tried to name a kid Benny, he rejected it since it sounded too much like ben, the Chinese word for stupid. Maybe I'll start taking photos of the kids I've named after people I know, so you can see what kind of damage is being wrought with your names. I guess they can always change them later...
Every Chinese student of English receives an English name at some point in their career, just as I was given a Chinese name in my first week of study. Having an English name is an important way to relate to the language, but some of the names they end up with are truly mystifying. I've met young Chinese people about my age who have names like Enya, Chopin, Ghost, Devil, and Shadow. The woman who gave me my job here is Echo. People frequently don't know how to pronounce their own name correctly, which further adds to the confusion. I always wondered how kids ended up with such strange names, but Shannon, my fellow teacher, cleared things up a bit for me the other day.
She came back from class, reporting that she had named kids Hunter and Thompson, Jack and Daniel, Marilyn and Manson. One student, after being given the name Jack, had responded "jacket," which she decided to make official. I thought she was taking the privilege of naming kids, something that people normally only get to do with their own, a little too lightly, especially since many of them will end up keeping their new names into adulthood. In the few instances when I've gotten to give my kids names, I've tried to stick to pretty common ones, and I've started naming the kids after my friends. I've already got a Matt and a Nick, but when I tried to name a kid Benny, he rejected it since it sounded too much like ben, the Chinese word for stupid. Maybe I'll start taking photos of the kids I've named after people I know, so you can see what kind of damage is being wrought with your names. I guess they can always change them later...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
If I lived in China, I'd have some Chinese children
Thanks, Emily, for the song quoted in the title of this post. It pretty accurately describes my life at the moment, even though I have no Chinese children of my own (yet. I've been carefully heeding the advice many of you gave me before I left). It goes something like this:
They're not just Chinese in the sense that they're from China. Even at their young age -- eight, most of them -- they've begun to demonstrate well-known Chinese cultural tendencies. For example, the obsession with mingxiao or "name schools". During the ten minute break in my private after-school English class, Albert, one of the students, asked me, in Chinese, "Do you go to Harvard?" I replied in Chinese, "No, I go to Yelu Daxue," continuing in English, "Can you say it in English, 'Yale.'" He promptly repeated "yellow" and ran off to tell his friends, "The teacher is from Yale."
Aside from demonstrating the age at which the importance of going to a good school is impressed upon Chinese children, it showed me the extent to which the company I am working for uses my background as a marketing tool. On Friday morning last week, I was summoned to the company's office to "interview some adult students and determine their English level." It turned out that the meeting was with some young employees of China Mobile who worked at the airport and needed English to help their foriegn "VIPs" with their flights. As it turned out, I wasn't actually asked to interview them, I was merely required to be present at the meeting where JESIE, my company, pitched their English training to China Mobile. Of course, my background wasn't omitted from my introduction.
I find all of this fuss particularly ridiculous since two and a half years at Yelu, as well as whatever aptitude landed me there, has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability as a teacher. I've gotten over my nervousness since last week, but I still have a long way to go before I'm effective at getting the students to learn the material. It's nice to be working hard at something so different from studying, and I hope I'll get better as time goes on.
In the meantime, I've been settling in to my life here in Nanjing. The other teachers in the program are certainly a set of characters, and I've been enjoying getting to know them. The head teacher is Val, a 33-year-old Lithuanian guy, former Baltic sea oil pipeline quality control manager and published Russian language poet. There's Karl, a somewhat distant Iowan who is a great teacher and a funny guy, Shannon, self-proclaimed "ex-ghetto punk" Canadian, and Huw, a half-Welsh former nerd whose Chinese girlfriend's mother takes them to video arcades together. I'm living with a 20-year-old Australian girl named Melissa, whose bizarre set of Australianisms hasn't yet ceased to amuse me. Who knew a duvet was actually called a duna?
I got a bike this weekend, which is an excellent way to get around. In addition to giving me a healthy dose of exercise, it allows me to get places much faster and more conveniently than I could on the bus. It's the best of both worlds: fast, but not prone to getting stuck in traffic. It's also free from the fear of being run over that comes with city biking in the US. There are bike lanes separated by fences on most major streets, and drivers are used to dodging the array of motor scooters, pedestrians, and bicycles that are prone to erratic behavior.
Tomorrow: 7:30 a.m. middle school. I think I'm going to teach them some tongue-twisters. We'll see how that goes over...
If I lived in China, I'd have some Chinese Children
If I lived in India, they'd still be Chinese children
No matter what I do, they're Chinese through and through
They're not just Chinese in the sense that they're from China. Even at their young age -- eight, most of them -- they've begun to demonstrate well-known Chinese cultural tendencies. For example, the obsession with mingxiao or "name schools". During the ten minute break in my private after-school English class, Albert, one of the students, asked me, in Chinese, "Do you go to Harvard?" I replied in Chinese, "No, I go to Yelu Daxue," continuing in English, "Can you say it in English, 'Yale.'" He promptly repeated "yellow" and ran off to tell his friends, "The teacher is from Yale."
Aside from demonstrating the age at which the importance of going to a good school is impressed upon Chinese children, it showed me the extent to which the company I am working for uses my background as a marketing tool. On Friday morning last week, I was summoned to the company's office to "interview some adult students and determine their English level." It turned out that the meeting was with some young employees of China Mobile who worked at the airport and needed English to help their foriegn "VIPs" with their flights. As it turned out, I wasn't actually asked to interview them, I was merely required to be present at the meeting where JESIE, my company, pitched their English training to China Mobile. Of course, my background wasn't omitted from my introduction.
I find all of this fuss particularly ridiculous since two and a half years at Yelu, as well as whatever aptitude landed me there, has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability as a teacher. I've gotten over my nervousness since last week, but I still have a long way to go before I'm effective at getting the students to learn the material. It's nice to be working hard at something so different from studying, and I hope I'll get better as time goes on.
In the meantime, I've been settling in to my life here in Nanjing. The other teachers in the program are certainly a set of characters, and I've been enjoying getting to know them. The head teacher is Val, a 33-year-old Lithuanian guy, former Baltic sea oil pipeline quality control manager and published Russian language poet. There's Karl, a somewhat distant Iowan who is a great teacher and a funny guy, Shannon, self-proclaimed "ex-ghetto punk" Canadian, and Huw, a half-Welsh former nerd whose Chinese girlfriend's mother takes them to video arcades together. I'm living with a 20-year-old Australian girl named Melissa, whose bizarre set of Australianisms hasn't yet ceased to amuse me. Who knew a duvet was actually called a duna?
I got a bike this weekend, which is an excellent way to get around. In addition to giving me a healthy dose of exercise, it allows me to get places much faster and more conveniently than I could on the bus. It's the best of both worlds: fast, but not prone to getting stuck in traffic. It's also free from the fear of being run over that comes with city biking in the US. There are bike lanes separated by fences on most major streets, and drivers are used to dodging the array of motor scooters, pedestrians, and bicycles that are prone to erratic behavior.
Tomorrow: 7:30 a.m. middle school. I think I'm going to teach them some tongue-twisters. We'll see how that goes over...
Thursday, February 21, 2008
山姆老师 -- Teacher Sam
It's been a while since my last post, and I've been quite busy. I know you're all anxious to hear about my teaching, but let me first bring you up to date about what I've been up to since I left Wuhan on Friday night.
After an uncomfortable nine-hour overnight bus ride, I arrived in Nanjing, my new home, early on Saturday morning. Echo, the woman who had been discussing the teaching job with me, brought me to the hostel where I stayed for the weekend. On Saturday, some of her family friends took me around Nanjing, a mother, introduced to me as Miss Yang, and her daughter Gege. I liked them a lot: they were patient with me, carefully explaining any Chinese words I didn't understand, as well as very smart and knowledgeable about all sorts of Chinese culture.
We went to the park surrounding Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum, where I was surprised to see wax models of Nationalist soldiers from World War II, as well as a burial ground that apparently contained the bodies of about 1000 of these soldiers. I guess this is a testament to the lingering respect that all Chinese people have for their countrymen who suffered under the Japanese. The park was quite nice, and we climbed a nine-story pagoda.
Monday morning I went in to the office, signed my contract, moved in to my apartment, and watched two classes taught by other teachers. Tuesday morning it was my turn to teach. So much for the week of training they said I would have. When offering me the teaching job, Echo also said that my classes would be based on a by all accounts very good Cambridge ESL textbook. That's true of a quarter of my classes, but the rest are what they call "oral English," meaning that there is no textbook or real curriculum. On Monday night I was left to prepare lessons I would present the next day with no real guidance.
Teaching on Tuesday was mixed. My first class was second grade, and I was pretty nervous despite the fact that the 50 (yes, fifty) faces staring at me were cute Chinese 8 year olds. Class was chaotic but not bad. They especially liked playing telephone, the last kid in the row running up to the front, trying to be the first one to whisper the original phrase to me. My fifth grade oral class went less well, since the material I had prepared was too easy for them and they quickly got bored.
I had Wednesday off to observe and receive advice from the other teachers, and my classes today went somewhat better. Teaching is certainly harder than I had expected. Little kids are a tough audience, getting bored quickly and requiring constant changes of activities. It's a nice challenge, though, and much different from anything I've done before. I just have one class tomorrow, and then the weekend off to prepare for a full week next week. Stay tuned for more on teaching, as well as Nanjing and my living situation...
After an uncomfortable nine-hour overnight bus ride, I arrived in Nanjing, my new home, early on Saturday morning. Echo, the woman who had been discussing the teaching job with me, brought me to the hostel where I stayed for the weekend. On Saturday, some of her family friends took me around Nanjing, a mother, introduced to me as Miss Yang, and her daughter Gege. I liked them a lot: they were patient with me, carefully explaining any Chinese words I didn't understand, as well as very smart and knowledgeable about all sorts of Chinese culture.
We went to the park surrounding Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum, where I was surprised to see wax models of Nationalist soldiers from World War II, as well as a burial ground that apparently contained the bodies of about 1000 of these soldiers. I guess this is a testament to the lingering respect that all Chinese people have for their countrymen who suffered under the Japanese. The park was quite nice, and we climbed a nine-story pagoda.
Monday morning I went in to the office, signed my contract, moved in to my apartment, and watched two classes taught by other teachers. Tuesday morning it was my turn to teach. So much for the week of training they said I would have. When offering me the teaching job, Echo also said that my classes would be based on a by all accounts very good Cambridge ESL textbook. That's true of a quarter of my classes, but the rest are what they call "oral English," meaning that there is no textbook or real curriculum. On Monday night I was left to prepare lessons I would present the next day with no real guidance.Teaching on Tuesday was mixed. My first class was second grade, and I was pretty nervous despite the fact that the 50 (yes, fifty) faces staring at me were cute Chinese 8 year olds. Class was chaotic but not bad. They especially liked playing telephone, the last kid in the row running up to the front, trying to be the first one to whisper the original phrase to me. My fifth grade oral class went less well, since the material I had prepared was too easy for them and they quickly got bored.
I had Wednesday off to observe and receive advice from the other teachers, and my classes today went somewhat better. Teaching is certainly harder than I had expected. Little kids are a tough audience, getting bored quickly and requiring constant changes of activities. It's a nice challenge, though, and much different from anything I've done before. I just have one class tomorrow, and then the weekend off to prepare for a full week next week. Stay tuned for more on teaching, as well as Nanjing and my living situation...
Friday, February 15, 2008
From a momentarily working computer
I've arrived in Wuhan, the city that used to be three cities (and is consequently huge and sprawling). I arrived last night after a four hour bus ride from the place where the boat dropped me off.
The boat ride was certainly an experience, not so much for the scenery (though it wasn't bad), or the tourist attractions along the way, but for the interactions with vacationing Chinese families. I shared my third-class cabin with a retired Chinese couple, who acted like my surrogate grandparents for the duration of the journey. They would make sure I woke up for the sights (at which we often arrived at six in the morning), tell me not to walk around in my socks, and give me tea when I was feeling sick. They were full of all sorts of Chinese theories, telling me that the reason I didn't feel good was that I had eaten fruit before noodles in the morning.
I was initially hesitant to eat in the slightly overpriced restaurant on the boat, but during my first meal there, eating by myself, I was beckoned over to a table where a family of ten or so Beijing people were eating. They ordered me food, gave me baijiu (Chinese rice liquor) and complained when I didn't drink it all. The next afternoon, I was invited to have lunch with a family whose two kids -- an 11 year old boy and a 9 year old girl -- had taken a liking to me. The kids were very sweet, despite their endless questions about how much money I made and how much my things cost. I think they were about the same age as the kids I'll be teaching, which made me excited to start. By the end of the trip, I couldn't have a meal without being conflicted about which of my new friends I should sit with.
And now, photos. The first one is the family I just mentioned, minus son:
The boat:
Some cartoons at the monastery in Chengdu explaining basic principles of Buddhism. I really like these...
Chengdu, city of the color blind man's nightmare:
Also at the monastery in Chendu:
A red panda at the Chendu panda center (this one's for you, Adrian):
Understand panda, understand life -- the video:
That's all for now. Tomorrow I arrive in Nanjing and start my teaching job, so much of interest will certainly follow...
The boat ride was certainly an experience, not so much for the scenery (though it wasn't bad), or the tourist attractions along the way, but for the interactions with vacationing Chinese families. I shared my third-class cabin with a retired Chinese couple, who acted like my surrogate grandparents for the duration of the journey. They would make sure I woke up for the sights (at which we often arrived at six in the morning), tell me not to walk around in my socks, and give me tea when I was feeling sick. They were full of all sorts of Chinese theories, telling me that the reason I didn't feel good was that I had eaten fruit before noodles in the morning.
I was initially hesitant to eat in the slightly overpriced restaurant on the boat, but during my first meal there, eating by myself, I was beckoned over to a table where a family of ten or so Beijing people were eating. They ordered me food, gave me baijiu (Chinese rice liquor) and complained when I didn't drink it all. The next afternoon, I was invited to have lunch with a family whose two kids -- an 11 year old boy and a 9 year old girl -- had taken a liking to me. The kids were very sweet, despite their endless questions about how much money I made and how much my things cost. I think they were about the same age as the kids I'll be teaching, which made me excited to start. By the end of the trip, I couldn't have a meal without being conflicted about which of my new friends I should sit with.
And now, photos. The first one is the family I just mentioned, minus son:
The boat:
Some cartoons at the monastery in Chengdu explaining basic principles of Buddhism. I really like these...
Chengdu, city of the color blind man's nightmare:
Also at the monastery in Chendu:
A red panda at the Chendu panda center (this one's for you, Adrian):
Understand panda, understand life -- the video:
That's all for now. Tomorrow I arrive in Nanjing and start my teaching job, so much of interest will certainly follow...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Death of a computer, birth of a panda
My computer got damaged when I plugged it into some questionable electricity in Chengdu, so I'm writing from an Internet Cafe (or wang ba) here in Chongqing.
I arrived in Chengdu on Thursday morning, where I tasted the notoriously spicy local food (it wasn't TOO bad), and relaxed in my hostel. The next day I headed off to the Buddhist monastery, where crowds of Chinese people flocked to buy incense and pray by the statues of dieties. Despite the crowds, the peaceful atmosphere of the monastery remained intact, especially in the tea garden, where I sipped a cup of flower-laden green tea. The Buddhism practiced to the visitors of the monastery was more superstition-based than what I'm used to; the visitors moved between statues and character inscriptions, rubbing first the relics and then themselves, presumably so that the good luck (or whatever it was) would stay with them. I didn't see too much meditating...
In the afternoon, I met up with Fei Fei, a friend of one of my friends from the hostel in Beiijing. She took me to another temple, where she explained to me some of the stories and legends that were depicted in the temple. The temple was very crowded, and served more as a tourist attraction than a holy place, as far as I could tell.
I also made it to the Chengdu Panda Base, home of 40 or so giant pandas. The brochure provided at the entrance said, "Understand panda, understand life." Seeing the pandas lounge around eating bamboo and falling asleep, I decided I was approaching life all wrong. How such a creature managed to evolve and stay extant for millions of years is beyond me. Maybe there's something in natural selection that favors cuteness. There was a hilarious video about panda breeding, the most striking part of which was seeing a panda give birth and then swat at its squealing pink baby lying helpless and tiny on the concrete floor. I have a bunch of cute pictures which I can't upload now. I'll try to get them in a few days.
After spending three days in Chengdu, I took the train to Chongqing yesterday. Chongqing was the nationalist capital of China during World War II, and I've heard rumors that it's the largest metropolitan area in China, with over 30 million people. It reminds me of San Francisco: hilly, with the main part crammed onto a little peninsula between two rivers. The two cities have similar weather, too: warm and rainy, with a heavy blanket of fog. I was planning to spend two days here and have some time for sightseeing, but complications with the river boat schedules mean that I'm leaving in a few short hours.
I'll be spending the next three days cruising down the Yangtze river, so there probably won't be any updates for at least that long. Be patient, photos of pandas await.
I arrived in Chengdu on Thursday morning, where I tasted the notoriously spicy local food (it wasn't TOO bad), and relaxed in my hostel. The next day I headed off to the Buddhist monastery, where crowds of Chinese people flocked to buy incense and pray by the statues of dieties. Despite the crowds, the peaceful atmosphere of the monastery remained intact, especially in the tea garden, where I sipped a cup of flower-laden green tea. The Buddhism practiced to the visitors of the monastery was more superstition-based than what I'm used to; the visitors moved between statues and character inscriptions, rubbing first the relics and then themselves, presumably so that the good luck (or whatever it was) would stay with them. I didn't see too much meditating...
In the afternoon, I met up with Fei Fei, a friend of one of my friends from the hostel in Beiijing. She took me to another temple, where she explained to me some of the stories and legends that were depicted in the temple. The temple was very crowded, and served more as a tourist attraction than a holy place, as far as I could tell.
I also made it to the Chengdu Panda Base, home of 40 or so giant pandas. The brochure provided at the entrance said, "Understand panda, understand life." Seeing the pandas lounge around eating bamboo and falling asleep, I decided I was approaching life all wrong. How such a creature managed to evolve and stay extant for millions of years is beyond me. Maybe there's something in natural selection that favors cuteness. There was a hilarious video about panda breeding, the most striking part of which was seeing a panda give birth and then swat at its squealing pink baby lying helpless and tiny on the concrete floor. I have a bunch of cute pictures which I can't upload now. I'll try to get them in a few days.
After spending three days in Chengdu, I took the train to Chongqing yesterday. Chongqing was the nationalist capital of China during World War II, and I've heard rumors that it's the largest metropolitan area in China, with over 30 million people. It reminds me of San Francisco: hilly, with the main part crammed onto a little peninsula between two rivers. The two cities have similar weather, too: warm and rainy, with a heavy blanket of fog. I was planning to spend two days here and have some time for sightseeing, but complications with the river boat schedules mean that I'm leaving in a few short hours.
I'll be spending the next three days cruising down the Yangtze river, so there probably won't be any updates for at least that long. Be patient, photos of pandas await.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Février en chine, quelle joie, quelle chance (or, Happy New Year!)
Yesterday was Chinese New Year, and I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, except a climax of the constant explosions of fireworks that had been going on since I got to Beijing (but more on that later). I decided I had seen all I needed to see in Beijing and stayed around the hostel hanging out with the other guests and employees. I helped them prepare some of the ingredients for the dumplings they were making (picture below), and later had my dumpling-stuffing ability mocked by everyone who worked at the hostel. It turned out all right in the end, since all of the dumplings turned out uniformly stuck-together and delicious.
After our dumpling feast, the stash of fireworks was brought out. We set them off in the small outdoor hallway of the hostel, filling it with smoke and distracting the owner’s three-year-old daughter from her fear of foreigners. Once the fireworks allocated for before midnight were exhausted, we retired to the common room. We started playing a drinking game that involved counting in Chinese and multiplication tables, neither of which is quite my strong suit. After the game was over, I hung out with the other guests at the hostel, who were from all over the world. There were guys from Finland, Germany, and Wales (he even spoke Welsh and had a Welsh name!), as well as a group of Canadians and a family from Slovenia. I was surprised there were no other Americans around, and I’m not exactly sure what that indicates.
Then the celebration really started. Imagine 15 million people all lighting fireworks at once, mostly kinds that are outlawed in most of the world. We went up on the roof of the hostel to watch, and in every direction there were displays to match the best Fourth of July celebration you’ve ever seen. We walked around the streets, where firecrackers were setting off car alarms, and strangers offered to let us light up their fireworks. The streets were shrouded in smoke and covered with firecracker wrappers. Cars foolish enough to be on the road had to swerve around mortars that were about to explode. This morning, I even found bits of debris in my hair. No picture I took quite captured the moment, but hopefully you can get a feel from the expressions on people’s faces below (well not really, but they’re a nice bunch).
In the true fashion of a country with a labor surplus, the streets were completely clean by the time I headed off to the airport at six this morning. I’m in Chengdu now, which is in southwestern China. It’s warm but drizzly here, a nice change from the freezing cold of Beijing. I’ll be here for a couple of days before heading to Chongqing and (hopefully) a boat down the Yangzi.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Temple of Heaven, etc.
It's been a reasonably busy couple of days here, but that's not to say I haven't found time for at least ten hours of sleep at night, plus a nap during the day. Yesterday I went to the 798 art district to try and find my favorite Chinese band's new CD (see this post from last summer), but the music store was closed. The area was pretty interesting, though, consisting of a bunch of old industrial buildings turned into art galleries and other stores.
Today I went to the Temple of Heaven, which I missed last summer. It's the temple where the emperors used to pray for things like good harvests and pay respect to their ancestors. Like the Forbidden City, thankfully, it managed to escape the rebuilt touristy feel of the majority of Chinese historical landmarks.
Pretty nice, huh? There were some pretty interesting birds wandering around, too. Below is an example, but as you can see, I have neither the patience nor the camera of a nature photographer, so it's a little blurry.
Lest you think there is still even a pretense of Communism around here, check out the picture below. Even the plaque for the sacred Animal-Killing Pavilion has a corporate sponsor. The highlighted text says something like "Presented by Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Company."
But that's not the only interesting signage from today. Far from it! The next one was in front of the urinal in the bathroom. It could be more accurately translated as "One small step forward, one giant leap for culture." Who knew the Chinese had such knowledge of Neil Armstrong (or didn't know how to use urinals)?
The last picture was on a storefront, and appears to be advertising some sort of computer, maybe one to help you think about your thoughts. Whoa.
That's it for today. Thanks for all the great feedback so far!
Today I went to the Temple of Heaven, which I missed last summer. It's the temple where the emperors used to pray for things like good harvests and pay respect to their ancestors. Like the Forbidden City, thankfully, it managed to escape the rebuilt touristy feel of the majority of Chinese historical landmarks.
Pretty nice, huh? There were some pretty interesting birds wandering around, too. Below is an example, but as you can see, I have neither the patience nor the camera of a nature photographer, so it's a little blurry.
Lest you think there is still even a pretense of Communism around here, check out the picture below. Even the plaque for the sacred Animal-Killing Pavilion has a corporate sponsor. The highlighted text says something like "Presented by Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Company."
But that's not the only interesting signage from today. Far from it! The next one was in front of the urinal in the bathroom. It could be more accurately translated as "One small step forward, one giant leap for culture." Who knew the Chinese had such knowledge of Neil Armstrong (or didn't know how to use urinals)?
The last picture was on a storefront, and appears to be advertising some sort of computer, maybe one to help you think about your thoughts. Whoa.
That's it for today. Thanks for all the great feedback so far!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Why it is a good idea to stay at youth hostels
What does one do on one's first day back in Beijing? Revisit the majestic Forbidden city? Buy boatloads of fake clothing and DVDs? Hit up some of the tourist sites I missed last time around? More importantly, what does one do as a disgruntled former employee of a youth hostel who is back for a visit? The answer to both of these questions is not what you might expect: wash some cats!
That's right. This morning, right when I was about to set off for the Temple of Heaven, my one of my roommates in the hostel where I'm staying invited me to go ice skating. I figured there would be more time to see temples, so I set off with her. She had worked at the hostel last summer (and left on not such great terms), and wanted to stop by their other building and say hi. She decided their three white cats were in danger of turning black, so we gave them a bath in the sink. An hour with the hairdryer later, and we had three still-shivering cats, marginally whiter than before, considered the job finished, and set off for ice skating. It's really unfortunate I can't enhance this with a picture.
Which is to say, I'm here.
That's right. This morning, right when I was about to set off for the Temple of Heaven, my one of my roommates in the hostel where I'm staying invited me to go ice skating. I figured there would be more time to see temples, so I set off with her. She had worked at the hostel last summer (and left on not such great terms), and wanted to stop by their other building and say hi. She decided their three white cats were in danger of turning black, so we gave them a bath in the sink. An hour with the hairdryer later, and we had three still-shivering cats, marginally whiter than before, considered the job finished, and set off for ice skating. It's really unfortunate I can't enhance this with a picture.
Which is to say, I'm here.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
More travels means more blogging
I never thought this blog would be back so soon, but here it is. For those of you who don't know yet, I'm taking the semester off and heading back to China. I'll be teaching elementary school English in or around Nanjing, which is in southeastern China, just a few hours inland from Shanghai. I'm leaving Toledo (featured in the background of the photo at right) on January 31 and spending a couple weeks traveling before starting my teaching job.If you missed my blog last summer, all the posts are still here, in case you, for whatever reason, feel like reading them. I've added a "Subscribe by email" feature so you can receive new posts as emails when they're put up. It should be pretty self-explanatory, but let me know if it's not working right and I'll try to fix it.
That's it for now!
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