Katie D in China

Women's Club

2011-11-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

Women’s Club
Women’s club (and men’s club) is an important secondary project that Peace Corps volunteers undertake around the world. Women’s issues (I will focus mainly on women’s groups since I have started one myself) are prevalent in all countries throughout the world, including developed nations like our own. The reason we put so much emphasis on these women’s groups in the developing countries where we work is simply because there is a lack of education and voice concerning these issues in these countries. The concept of the free, strong, and independent woman is hard to find. In many parts of the world women are confined to the house. Their duties are limited to housework, raising children, and pleasing their husbands. An understanding of health concerns, like STIs, menstruation, pregnancy, and healthy weight gain and loss, are not discussed openly. Pressures from society, family, and self are ever prevalent in these women’s’ lives without a means of escape. Thus, I have undertaken this secondary project during my service in China.
I have mentioned in a previous blog my reasons for starting the club, as well as topics that my students wish to cover. Since that initial blog and initial meeting, I have had 3 more meetings. The introductory meeting was followed by a meeting focused on the topic of fear. I realized that many of the issues the students mentioned in my initial inquiry came down to the problem of fear. Fear to speak up, lack of confidence, fears about the future, finding a boyfriend, etc. So what better place to start than at the bottom?
I decided to follow another volunteer’s practice and start every meeting with the high points of the week (this volunteer did highs and lows, but I have found that negativity and only looking at the bad plagues my students, so I only want them to focus on the positive in their lives. It may seem unrealistic, but I guarantee the negatives will always be there, so I don’t need to put any more attention to that). I gave each girl a paper and told them to write down their fears (either in Chinese or English. It didn’t matter because no one was going to look at it). When they finished they put it in their pockets.
Then I asked them some questions to make them think, but weren’t intended to be answered (what is fear? What does it mean to be afraid? Why do we have fear? What makes us afraid? How can fear damage our lives?).
Next I read from an article I found online: what is stopping you from getting what you want in life? Your friends? Your family? A sense that failure—or success—might change your life and maybe that will make you feel uncomfortable? A sense that the people around you might disapprove of you aiming for what you want, or succeeding or failing? Whatever the reason it comes down to fear.
We also talked about how to overcome fear. I wrote down 7 suggestions that I mashed together from various websites (1. Identify the fear; 2. Take small steps; 3. Lean on friends; 4. Be positive; 5. See failure or rejection in a new light; 6. Be in the now; 7. Find motivation). Then we looked at some motivational quotes (nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood; many of our fears are paper-tissue thin and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them; to conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom; fear cannot take what we do not give it; the only thing we have to fear is fear itself; fear cuts deeper than swords; you block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith; if we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living; the greatest barrier too success is the fear of failure).
I asked the girls to make a poster to motivate themselves to overcome their fears. They were to write one motivational quote that I taught them, and words (in Chinese or English) that can motivate them to overcome their fears. When they had finished I asked them to follow me to the kitchen, take out the paper that they wrote their fears on and burn it. I explained that the smoke was carrying their fears away, and in the future when they find themselves becoming afraid, they should remember this moment and of their fears going away.
Afterwards we watched a scary movie for fun, and also because it was the week before Halloween.
Meeting 4: The topic of the fourth meeting was dreams. I am one of those persons who think that anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard at it. Of course I am speaking of realistic dreams. Marrying a rich doctor might not be so realistic, but marrying a person who loves you for who you are is realistic. That being said I asked the girls to write down their dreams for the future. Then we had a discussion about what keeps us from our dreams? How can we achieve our dreams? I realized that the advice I had given them for overcoming our fears can also be applied to achieving our dreams, we just had to change the wording. Then I shared a poem by Langston Hughes with them
Dreams
BY
Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
And two quotes. ‘Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you will land amongst the starts.” And one by Walt Disney “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” To top off the evening I taught them PB&J sandwiches and watched an inspirational movie about realizing your dreams, called Soul Surfer. It recounts the true story of a young surfer, Bethany Hamilton. She had her arm bitten off by a shark, survived, and later courageously overcame her difficulties to achieve her dreams of becoming a professional surfer. Based on their faces and reactions, the girls were definitely inspired. I told them that if she can, they can, too.
Tonight I will have my 5th meeting. The topic is “how to get along with others.” For some this is an issue many Chinese face. In my opinion it is a result of the concept of “face” and being indirect with others. If we are incapable of directly talking to others about the things that annoy us, then we cannot move forward from this. I will begin the night with asking if they sometimes find it difficult to get along with others. When is it difficult to get along? Who is it easy to get along well with? Then I will give them some suggestions. With Mary’s help I came up with a list of suggestions on how to get along with others.
-be considerate
-walk a mile in their shoes
-be friendly (say hello, ask about their day). You don't need to talk long, keep it simple
-don't get angry. express your feelings and work together to find a solution
-respect peoples' difference
-be open minded, share ideas, don't be stubborn, your idea might not be the best idea
-find something you both have in common
-don't judge a book by its cover
-you won't be friends with everyone but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be polite and friendly
-everyone doesn’t have to do everything with you (find someone who wants to do that activity with you and don’t be angry at those that don’t)
-don’t laugh at people
-be open to change
-remember small things about them (name, hometown, etc). things to let them know you care

Some of these may seem obvious, but most of my students will never consider the above as a way of dealing, or managing their relationships with others. I will also have them try to look more closely at themselves and identify three behavior patterns that most impede their ability to get along well with others. What would they wish to do to change that behavior?

Lastly we will go over several different scenarios that deal with other people. I will ask them what they think are some solutions.

Scenarios: (based on Mary and my observations we came up with these scenarios)
• You want to study in your dormitory, but your roommates are playing games. What should you do?
• One of your classmates is very shy and doesn’t talk to the other students much. What should you do?
• You are at a party with your friends and there are some people you don’t know. What should you do?
• You go to eat in the dining room by yourself. You see some other students eating alone. What should you do?
• You are walking to class and you see a student you don’t know drop something. What should you do?
• You meet a student at Mary’s house that you never met before and you get along well. What’s the next step?
• You get good grades on your English writing, but one of your classmates always gets bad grades. What should you do?
• One of your roommates is always very messy but you like a clean room. How should you talk to her?
• You aren’t good friends with one of your roommates. How can you still get along?
• One of your roommates doesn’t have a lot of money. Everyone else wants to go out for a nice meal, but it is too expensive for this girl. What can you do?

To end the night we will watch the movie Stepmom which is a good example of people who overcome their grievances with each other and are able to get along.
If you have done a similar group or some life skills training I would welcome any advice.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

This year’s Halloween party was pretty different compared to last year’s. During the week I invited students over to my house to watch scary movies, which was both fun, and funny. Some of them weren’t frightened at all, while others were cowering behind their friends. The weekend before Halloween I visited a fellow volunteer, Joel, in Deyang. It was my first visit to Joel’s, but it sure took a lot to get there. That city is only 1-1.5 hours away from my site, so I thought it would be pretty easy to get there. Well, after my Friday afternoon class I packed my bag and went downtown to catch a bus to find out I missed the last bus by 15 minutes! I decided I would go to the next city (Mianyang) and try and get a bus from Mianyang to Deyang, thinking there would be a lot since they were only 45 minutes between them, but no. So then I went to the train station because there are always trains between Jiangyou and Chengdu that stop off in Deyang. Well just my luck, there aren’t any! So I had to go all the way back to Jiangyou. I took one of the first buses back in the morning.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. Friday I had developed a small bump along my jawline. I thought it was a muscle spasm or insect bite. Saturday morning it was causing me extreme pain (especially to eat) and that side of my face was quite swollen. I decided to go ahead to Deyang anyways. The day was mostly okay, though I couldn’t really eat anything. It was nice to see some of my friends (you can check out the pictures I put on my windows site). That evening was the main party. We all dressed up. I was a panda, and Leo was a panda killer. It started out fun, until I developed a fever around 8:30 or 9 and went to sleep. The next morning I called the PC doctor who wanted me to come in, so Leo and I took the bus to Chengdu. Turns out I had a bacterial infection of my salivary gland. I wish that on no one! I had to take 2 different antibiotics for 10 days. I took 1 pill 2xs a day, and the second pill I took 3 pills 3xs a day. I also had to drink mass amounts of water or risk suffering heartburn that could kill a person! The medicine also left me extremely tired and dizzy, which was not great since at the end of the week there was a teachers’ sports meet that had me performing a dance, jump roping, sack race, relay race and tug-of-war. I will try to find pictures of the dance, since we did spend two weeks practicing for it.
Anyways, it also turns out that the medicine I was taking is also used to treat anthrax, which I found mildly amusing.
Halloween day, or rather night, Mary and I held a party for some students. It was nice, and I think they had a good time, despite my pain and lack of energy. We watched Thriller, read a children’s story about Halloween, had a mummy wrap, bobbed for apples, played pin the nose on the pumpkin, hit a pumpkin piñata (that I hastily constructed during the week before), carved bell peppers and watched a scary movie. I had forgotten my scary movies at Joel’s, but Leo had the original Halloween on his computer, which we watched. I didn’t require the students to dress up like I did last year, because it would have taken too much energy, but I think they definitely had fun and learned more about this holiday.
So, unfortunately Halloween wasn’t the most fun for me this year. I am crossing my fingers that I have no ailments during Thanksgiving (which happens to be my favorite holiday)

PPS and a Peace Corps Audit

2011-10-23T05:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to Chengdu for a meeting about a group called PPS (professional peer support). We are a small group of volunteers that are seeking to make the job of teaching easier in China for volunteers. Some volunteers don’t have a strong background, or much experience teaching, especially English as a foreign language. And in reality, regardless of your teaching experience, the experience of teaching in China is far different than teaching in America or even in many other countries. So we work identifying ways to make it easier and better to teach in China.
We are working towards providing resources for volunteers, including games, activities, lesson plans, tests, syllabi, and full curriculums. These are provided by any volunteer, and the group works to standardize them, and putting them online for easy access. The second objective is developing a newsletter that has practical advice for volunteers. The third is to connect the volunteers and their Chinese colleagues; to provide an opportunity for dialogue about the different teaching methodologies, and to learn from each other. There are many things that we are working on and trying to get the kinks out. Our purpose of meeting in Chengdu was to gain staff support (check!), work out our objectives (check!) and make it sustainable (1/2 check). Individual members also have a few objectives of their own that they are working towards. Lindsay and Dina in Gansu are working on no technology activities. Hunter and Chelsea in Sichuan are working on a teacher training video. And my far reaching goal is to develop an oral English video curriculum. Each video would cover vocabulary and idioms for a particular topic with a short listening quiz at the end. I will enlist the help of my students in creating this video. Time will tell if this gets developed or not, now it is just a goal.
But while I was in Chengdu, I happened to have the chance to help audit Peace Corps China. The inspector general for the Peace Corps organization is in China for 4 weeks to audit PC China. One part is individual interviews with volunteers. The interview takes about 2 hours for each volunteer. Mine took 1.5 hours because my answers were very succinct. The purpose is to see the efficiency of the program and where staff and leaders can make changes. He will also visit some sites to see how they are operating and to see about the safety and living conditions of the volunteers. The Inspector General said that each PC country should be audited every 7 years, but due to the lack of budget, their office is getting to China after 11 years of being away. There is a lot of statistics and precise measurement done with this kind of auditing, and he said that around February the final report will be posted online (I am guessing the PC website) for anyone to see. It was an interesting interview and what’s more, he brought candy from America! So nice. I think he knows what we like, since he said he served from ‘96-‘98 in the Ivory Coast. Anyways, keep an eye out for the report, and I hope the report will be able educate that Congressman who is trying to get the PC China program shut down.
This is completely irrelevant to this post, but I didn’t want to start another post to describe last week. Last week we had no gas. Okay, what does this mean? It means: no cooking and no hot showers. One day I took a cold shower, but the weather is colder now so I thought I would never stop shivering after that. The cooking I didn’t mind as much, except that the vegetables in my fridge were going to waste. But the showering was the problem. It wasn’t just my apartment, it was the whole school. SO throughout the week we saw more and more pimpled faces, more and more smelly students. Thankfully the gas leak was fixed and we are back to having gas. But Mary and I were worried for a bit. Nobody had any idea when the gas was going to be fixed. Awful. Oh and thankfully, the gas came back on the day Mary and I were having Kerry and Eliam over for dinner (I made pizza and she made roasted veggies and a pear bread). Okay, that’s all. Really.

Starting a Women's Group

2011-10-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

As I think I have mentioned previously, this semester is turning out to be much more interesting, exciting, and overall better than last year. I feel more comfortable, relaxed, and willing to try new things. This year I made three plans for secondary projects. One has started, the second is on its way, and the third, I hope, is around the corner but meeting some road blocks.
The one that has started is my women’s club. Many young female volunteers choose to start women’s clubs. In China, we have found that many of our young college students lack confidence in themselves, are confused about their future, want to learn and seek more independence from their parents, and most of all, want to learn about boys. Volunteers approach their women’s groups in many different ways. There is no right way to start a women’s group and no good number of women to join. One volunteer does activities with her group to foster confidence building, such as learning self-defense, how-to-volunteer, meditation, and more. A previous volunteer did small group discussions. I plan to combine the two ideas.
The last week in September I had an interest meeting, to explain my ideas for the group and to ask the girls to fill out an application. About 15-17 girls showed up for the meeting and about 12 applications were returned to me. In the application I asked the girls several questions, but I will just highlight two. 1. What are some issues facing women today? 2. What are some topics you would like to discuss?
Their answers:
1. Inequality between men and women; freedom (not depending on men; supporting themselves, independence); achieving the top position in the government, companies, and in the family; looks, beauty; political status; balance of family and career; pressures to have a boyfriend; job pressures
2. How to get along well with others; beauty; successful women; building confidence; how to have a happy life; boys, sex; the female body; health;
I had my first meeting a week ago. About 30 girls showed up! I was shocked. They all piled into my apartment. There weren’t enough chairs! So I put out a blanket and some of us sat on the floor. At the first meeting, we did 3 icebreaker activities
• Candy introductions (each color represents something they should talk about; i.e. white-hobbies, green-dream vacation, red-your best memory, etc.)
• Never have I ever (everyone has up 5 fingers. Each girl says something they have never done. If you have done this, you should put down one finger. The girl with the most fingers up (you can say she is the winner or some people say the loser because they haven’t done much. But I always choose to say winner since it is more positive).
• This reminds me of… (I had a bag of ordinary things and the girls took one out and said what it reminded her of)
Next I reintroduced the idea of the group, saying that we can make it what we want, and this is about them and not me, so I will choose topics and activities that interest them most. Then we made apple bread together and spent the rest of the evening chatting. I also asked the girls which day is best for them. ½ said Mondays and ½ said Thursdays. So from now on I will have 2 meetings a week, and occasionally the whole group will get together for activities on the weekend, such as shopping, hiking, travelling, etc.
This upcoming week the topic I chose is fear. I will wait to see how it goes before I write about it. But if you have any advice about a women’s group (activities, topics, games, etc.) please email and let me know. I would welcome any advice since this is my first time to do this.

My traumatic trip to the hospital

2011-10-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

This semester has brought with it a few challenges. The first and most traumatic was the removal of one of my wisdom teeth. Before I joined Peace Corps I was required to have a dental screening. During that the dentist could not or could barely see my wisdom teeth on the X-ray. One year later, one of them is pushing up against the adjacent tooth causing a pocket of bacteria to form and terrible pain to follow. After an assessment at the dentist, in which they (without any oral numbing gel) cut open my gum and poured saline in to clean the bacteria out we took x-rays and it was decided that the tooth needed to be removed (and the sooner the better). Luckily, the first week of October there is a holiday in China, the perfect time to have the surgery. I had to cancel my Friday classes to come into Chengdu to go to the dental hospital. This was my first experience, ever, to have any surgery, let alone in a foreign, developing country…so I was nervous, to say the least. Then, everyone seemed uninformed about my condition. I sit down in the dental chair and the dentist starts pointing to the upper left corner of my mouth. I point to the lower left corner. He points to the upper left corner. Then the Peace Corps doctor (a Chinese doctor that works for Peace Corps) tells me that the dentist is saying the upper left should be removed. Now the upper left has breached the surface but it isn’t necessary to remove. I told her that the lower left is causing the problems. I understand enough of the dentist’s Chinese to know that he is saying the he can’t see anything. I then explain that the tooth is under my gum, thus you cannot see it. Then they say they need to have an x-ray. I said we already had x-rays (I assumed the PC doctor had a copy from the dentist, but no).
So I am waiting for the results of my x-rays and I hear the PC doctor talking about me on the phone. When she hangs up, she said she just called the dentist and confirmed what I had said about my tooth. The x-ray was further confirmation. The words the PC doctor say after that really hone in on the moment “it’s a lot more serious than I thought.”
You can start to imagine my feelings at this point. Utter terror. Nobody seemed to have a clue what was the matter with me, I am having surgery in a developing country where I can barely speak the language, and then…”you should sign this waiver (that’s all in Chinese and I cannot read) that says in case you have nerve damage or something like this, the hospital is not liable.” Well this waiver, that I indeed signed, had a lot more written on it than just nerve damage (by the way, I didn’t realize nerve damage was a potential hazard for wisdom tooth removal). So now all these horribly frightening scenarios are going through my mind.
Then, the chair they put me on has spots of blood, and the sink next to the chair is covered in blood from the previous patient. I am mortified by this. But my attention is quickly turned away by the arrival of a 12 year old giving me a shot. Okay she wasn’t actually 12 but she looked young to me, fresh out of medical school I assume or possibly even a student (since this school was affiliated with the medical university). Nobody bothers putting oral numbing cream in my mouth before jabbing this 3 inch long needle into my gum and cheek. But it seems she was new to this because after the 3rd jab the actual doctor comes and takes it out of her hand and shoves it down hard 2xs into my mouth. Ouch!

Start of New School Year

2011-09-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have learned something about myself I think I would rather not have ever learned. It all started on a normal day. It was cloudy, warm, and peaceful—a perfect afternoon for a jog through the countryside, or so I thought. At first everything seemed normal, but they were there. Waiting. I didn’t think they would cause me any trouble; I could just run on by minding my own business, and they could keep on doing whatever it is they do. But they wouldn’t let me go. They stood in my path. A gang of them. Fierce, stubborn and angry. They blocked my path. There was nowhere else to go. There was only one way back to the school…and it was through them. I took all the courage and energy I could muster, found a small opening near them, and sprinted through with them honking and snapping their orange mouths after me. That’s right. This year I have discovered….I am afraid of geese. But these geese are relentless. They puff themselves up big, make a line almost impenetrable, and bore through into my soul. Twice they have tried to attack me, and never is there a friendly farmer around to protect me. It’s become my reality—how to avoid running into the geese. I feel like a wimpy kid trying to avoid the neighborhood bully on the playground. But I have decided to live with my embarrassment and fear rather than face my aggressors. I have since found a path to avoid them. At least the ducks are still afraid of me! (actually that is quite a funny story. I was running and ahead of me were some ducks in the bushes. When they heard me approach, they jumped a mile high and went sprinting as fast as their little webbed feet could carry them, peeing and pooping as they scurried away. My conclusions: 1. Ducks don’t run very fast; 2. I never thought I would ever scare the poop out of something. It is a strange feeling—sad, empowering, and funny all at the same time).
Other than the terrifying geese, my second year teaching in China has started out better than the first. I am already familiar with the school, some teachers, and my students from last year, so it was a matter of starting where I left off. Last year, I was stared at constantly and didn’t know anyone or where anything was. This year I have had students jumping out from corners screaming my name, giving me near heart failure, so that they can say “Hi! How was your summer?! I missed you!” Very sweet, but I wish they would find a calmer way to greet me.
This year is also different because Janice and Mark are gone, but replaced by Jiangyou’s 2nd Peace Corps volunteer. I mentioned her briefly in my last blog, but have since gotten to know her a bit better. She is very kind. I spent the first week showing her around, taking her to Wal-Mart, and filling her in on the things-to-know. It’s weird being in that position. I feel like I haven’t been here long enough to be the senior foreigner at the school, but I guess I am. Her personality is the opposite of mine, which complements things nicely. Whereas I am more quiet and shy around people when I first meet them, she is very outgoing and loud. She likes big crowds and thinks the more the merrier. I like small intimate crowds. She sends her students to me to for sports and I send my students to her to learn American cooking and to get more grammar help (I know some grammar very well, but in other areas I have learned I am very weak at explanations). So it works out really nicely. One thing I appreciate about Mary is her willingness to speak up about things. I tend to let things go too easily, but she will ask more questions and persist to get things done. I hope some of this trait can rub off on me by the end of the year.
Mary and I plan to work on 3 secondary projects together. The first is the English Resource Center. I have written to Darien Book Aid (a wonderful organization that sends books out to those that need it most. They send books to schools in the US, other US groups, and US groups working abroad) and this organization has already sent me a package of books weighing 20 pounds. I have also been working on a Peace Corps grant to get money to really jump start the Resource Center. So that plus the books Janice left and the ones my mom brought with her will make a decent size resource room. I am currently just waiting for the school to provide a space. Once I get the room, it should be a matter of days before it is up and running with students borrowing resources and coming for English help. Depending on the size of the room, Mary and I hope to have office hours there and possibly to host clubs there. But that is in the making, so stay tuned!
Next, Mary is helping me with English Corner. We had our first English Corner of the year last week, and the turnout was better than anything last year. I think Mary did a better job of advertising and encouraging her students to attend than the other foreign teachers did last year. At one point I think we had nearly 90 students show up. The ending number was around 70 students. It was crazy, but the students seemed to have enjoyed it. Since it was the first one, we just played some games and focused on the students having fun. Hopefully students will continue to join during the rest of the semester. I will have to rely on Mary’s strong vocal cords during future English Corners because my voice was strained. I had to drink a lot of tea afterwards to recover it. I should find my rape/storm whistle or whatever the purpose is of the whistle Peace Corps gave us.
The last thing Mary and I are working on together are the monthly teacher potluck dinners that I started last year. Mary immediately took to the idea of reaching out to the teachers, as well as the students. This year there are a lot more new teachers, many of whom are English teachers. Mary and I have been working hard to meet and introduce ourselves to them. Last weekend we had our first potluck at my house. There weren’t as many teachers as we had hoped, but there were 4 new people. A few couldn’t make it at the last minute but hope to join in next time. It was an interesting potluck, though. First, Mary was quite late because her stuffed peppers were taking longer to cook than she anticipated. So we were all chatting while we waited. There was one male teacher who came with two female teachers. He is an art teacher and new to the school. His contribution was beer and snacks, which I thought was humorous. Almost every time I invite a male colleague to a potluck, they bring beer. Anyways, the “interesting” part was when one teacher, who brought her 5 year old son along, let her son drink some beer. It took all my will-power not to say something. I told Mary later, and she said she might slyly bring it up in the future. Anyways, as you can imagine I was shocked. Everyone else just laughed at the concept of this 5 year old drinking beer, and the male teacher even toasted him! Later I asked Vivi if this was a common occurrence in China, and she assured me that it wasn’t but that she thought the beer didn’t have much alcohol in it and it was more like drinking juice. Since Vivi is my good friend I had no issues telling her my opinion about that statement. Anyways, regardless of this, the potluck went okay, and I hope that more teachers are able to participate in the future. The next one will be in October, and we are thinking of having a barbecue on the roof of our apartment building (should the weather be nice). Maybe with a Halloween theme?
Other than these secondary projects, I have a few which I plan to start on my own. The first is a women’s group. Many of the women in China (not only girls) haven’t much idea about women’s health or women’s issues. I hope to bring these up in an intimate women’s group. I have already had some success speaking with small groups of students about issues they face, as well as women’s concerns and women’s health topics. This Friday I will have an interest meeting, but I plan to have an application and only choose 15-20 girls. I want something small where the girls can get to know each other and feel comfortable discussing various issues and topics that they most want to discuss. The application will consist of 6 questions:
1. Why are you interested in joining a woman’s group?
2. What are some challenges facing women today?
3. How do you feel about being a woman?
4. Who do you think is the greatest woman (or women). Why?
5. What are some topics you would like to discuss in a women’s group? What are some activities you might want to do?
6. What is a good day and time for you to meet for a women’s group?
Based on their answers I will choose the girls. The ideas I hope to cover are health, stress relief and pressures facing women, international women’s issues, and more. And the activities I am thinking of doing are watching films and having discussions, reading articles and discussing, doing sports together, having a young man as a guest speaker or several young men, and more
The next idea for a secondary project is having a culture club. Many students are interested in the culture of western countries, but they have limited opportunities to study it. This club will be open to anyone who wants to come. I am waiting for Kerry to find me a room that I can use regularly, which also has technology (so that I can use PPT and videos). I will take into consideration topics that students want to talk about, but the topics I have considered thus far are: school, holidays, etiquette, dating, marriage, and more.
Other than that, many teachers and students have been interested in running with me in the afternoons, so I have been going to the track every afternoon that I have free time to run with those that want to run. Also I have been trying to be more active in doing activities and inviting students over. It is my goal to do something with all of my students, but we shall see. I have been having groups of students over to watch movies, which is the easiest and most relaxing thing to do. Also students have come over to play cards, cook, and show me things on the internet (mainly their pictures).
My first of the semesterweekend, Mary and I both had students come over to my house to eat. It was the Mid-Autumn Festival (which meant that I had tons and tons of delicious moon cakes from students and friends) and many students couldn’t go home. So we invited a small group of our students to share lunch with us. First we went shopping together downtown. Then her students cooked at her house, while my students cooked at mine. Then everyone met at my house to eat and play cards. It was really nice for the students to interact like that, since there isn’t much mixing of departments. Most of Mary’s students are in the preschool department, while most of mine are in the English department.
That weekend was also Teacher’s Day. Last year there was a performance. This year there was no performance, but the school gave all of the teachers cooking oil. Also some school leaders took Mary and me out for a banquet one weekday evening. That was interesting. It consisted of a lot of drinking, a lot of smoking, and a wee bit of throwing up. What?! Yeah, all Chinese banquets have drinking—that’s a given, but this year we took it up a notch. After most of the leaders were drunk, they decided to smoke. Last year I was saved by the fact that there was a baby in the room (Janice and Mark’s son), but this year with no baby, the smoking was brought back. Imagine a small room with no ventilation and 9 lit cigarettes. I thought I was going to be sick. They also insisted that I take one. Well I took it and let them light it and immediately proceeded to put it down. No one seemed to be offended that I didn’t smoke it. Some tried to push me to take another or to smoke it, but Mary helped to stand behind me that I didn’t want it. I help her that she doesn’t want to drink, and she helps me that I don’t want to smoke. Anyways, it was fine and like any other banquet, minus the smoking and minus our waiban throwing up in the corner and in the hall. Oh what a night! And Mary’s first banquet, at that.
I seem to have forgotten something. Oh yeah, my classes. My schedule this year is as follows:
Monday 905-1045 and culture club
Tuesday 905-1045 and 130-215
Wednesdays 905-1045, 1105-1150, 130-215, and 320-405. And English corner 530-630
Thursdays 905-1045, 1105-1150 and 130-215 and women’s club
Fridays 1105-1150 and 225-405
I am mostly teaching second year English majors this year, which gives me the opportunity for more interesting things in class since their level is a bit higher.
My syllabus:
Grade distribution:
30% notebook (new words/ phrases, listening practice, homework/class work)
35% Test 1
35% Test 2

Expectations:
1. Every week you need to bring a notebook and pen and write down the new words, homework, and activities.
2. You must participate and attend every class. If you miss class, you must do the homework and write the new words from the class you missed (ask your classmate)
3. You must participate in class and help your classmates

Weekly Schedule
Week1: syllabus/class information
Week2: Group assignments
Week3: structure of a conversation/ expressing opinions
Week4: conversation topic 1: hobbies
Week5: conversation topic 2: entertainment
Week6: conversation topic 3: health
Week7: conversation topic 4: dating
Week8: conversation topic 5: travel
Week9: conversation topic 6: stereotypes/gender roles
Week 10: conversation topic 7: dreams
Week 11: conversation topic 8: environment
Week 12 and 13: Test 1 (part 1: listening: week 12; part 2: speaking week 13)
Week14: telling a story
Week 15 and 16: Test 2
Week17 and 18: interviews; evaluations; review

Classes are good so far, but it is only the third week.
And last, but not least, (drumroll please) I have an impacted wisdom tooth! Yay! So next month I will take a trip into Chengdu to have it removed. I am super excited. If you didn’t know I have never had a wisdom tooth removed. I am quite a bit nervous, but, thankfully, Leo should be there that weekend to help take care of me. I have no idea what is in store for me. Any helpful advice?

Summer Part 4: Chengdu

2011-09-11T13:25:00.001-07:00

Exhausted, slightly disoriented, we arrive in Chengdu just in time for me to check into the hotel room Peace Corps has saved for me, grab lunch, and get to a meeting. Post meeting, I discover that I have checked into the wrong hotel, and must take all my stuff to a completely different hotel. No worries. After a good night’s sleep, I, along with Wendy, another volunteer, give a talk to the newest Peace Corps China volunteers about a subgroup within Peace Corps China called PPS (professional peer support), which focuses on giving teaching assistance to volunteers (by way of lesson plan ideas, activity ideas, Power Points, assessment, and other items associated with teaching). It went fine. The best part of this was that I got to meet my site mate. This year another Peace Corps volunteer will join me in Jiangyou. I was curious to meet her and find out about her. We ended up having a quick lunch and we mainly discussed Jiangyou and the school, so I don’t know much about her yet. Here is what I do know. Her name is Mary. She is 50 years old, and was an English teacher in Korea for 8 years. She has her degrees in elementary education, early childhood education, and special education. She enjoys cooking and baking. She is from the Tampa area and is Catholic. So already we have a lot in common. She seemed nice and a bit spunky. She wants to help me with the English Resource Center I plan to develop further this year, and help me host potlucks and dinners that I did last year for the teachers that live on campus. So I am sure this year I will mention more about Mary in my blog, but for now that’s all I know.
Leo also joined me in Chengdu, and during this time he was able to attend a speech/gathering with Vice President Joe Biden. Did you know that Joe Biden went to China recently? Apparently Joe Biden is doing an Asian circuit. He was in Beijing meeting with Chinese officials and decided to stop off in Chengdu for a day or two before leaving for Mongolia. All of the new China 17 volunteers were able to attend, but only 3 volunteers from my group. Leo was one of the lucky 3 chosen. Leo said the speech was good, but almost entirely directed at the Chinese officials that were there. In case you aren’t aware, China isn’t very happy with America right now, mainly due to the debt crisis we are in. America being in economic crisis affects the rest of the world, especially China (who has the 2nd largest economy in the world right now). Anyways, Biden did say thanks for the volunteers and what we are doing over here, but it is too bad that he couldn’t spend more time with the volunteers. After the speech most of the volunteers were able to shake his hand, but that’s about it. Apparently security was really tight. Nobody knew where it was going to be located until right before, no one could bring their cell phones or cameras, and you weren’t allowed to leave the room once you’d entered. But Leo thought the Vice President did a nice job with his speech, which is good.
So now I am back in Jiangyou, and trying to catch up on work and readjust to life here. My first evening back was good because I got together immediately with my two friends Sharon and Vivi plus I was exhausted. But Monday and Tuesday were difficult. It was so quiet and lonely. I had to keep music or a TV show on to block out the silence. After 2 months of being with someone constantly it was weird to be by myself again. Now it is Thursday and I have been busy responding to emails, lesson planning, posting pictures, writing this blog, and other things, so I think I have adjusted myself to life here again. Once classes start I will be busy again and probably will miss these moments alone that I am having now, but that time will come. Classes begin on September 5th. I have no idea who or what I am teaching, but I have a general idea, and I think my lesson plans should fit in well with what and who I think I will be teaching, but I shall know soon enough.
Wow, over a year has passed. Looking back on it I feel I have done so much, grown so much, and seen so much. I am curious and excitedly awaiting to see what this second year will bring. I am sure some days will go slowly and seem monotonous, but most days will probably go by too quickly and will seem all new and fascinating. I am excited to meet my new students, see my old students and friends again, and to introduce Mary to this warm and inviting community. I am anticipating the secondary projects I plan to start this year (a Woman’s club, Culture Club, English Resource Center, and English Corner). I am hoping that I can improve as a teacher, learn and grow from the mistakes I made last year and will inevitably make this year. And I am interested to see where life takes me. What things will I experience? What will I see, taste, feel? What struggles will I face? What will the future hold? I guess we will all have to wait and see.

Summer part 3: language study

2011-09-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

Immediately after summer project Leo and I hopped a train to Lijiang in Yunnan Province (just south of Sichuan). It is one of the most beautiful provinces in China—the sky always being blue, the air fresh and unpolluted, and the weather spring like almost all year.
Lijiang is located on a mountain at a higher altitude, I think 3000 meters or maybe 3000 feet. It was pretty high. The first couple of days I had a little trouble breathing, but by the third day it was easier. The weather was amazing, though. In Dazhou it was humid and in the 90s F then in Lijiang I needed a sweater in order to be comfortable.
Leo and I joined our good friends Katie and Richy (remember from our Vietnam trip in the winter?) and two other volunteers (Kate, who teaches in Guizhou Province, south of Sichuan, and Aftan, who teaches north of Sichuan in Gansu Province) for two weeks of Chinese language study. It was…a bit of an adventure, to say the least. Getting there was a nightmare. Leo and I took two 8 hour nightmarish bus rides. The first was from Yibin to Kunming (the capital of Yunnan). For some reason there were no trains going from Yibin to Kunming. The train was long, hot, cramped, and stifling. We were so relieved to arrive in Kunming. We spent one night of recovery in a hostel, and planned to take, what we thought, was a short bus ride to Lijiang. Well, no. It was another 8 hour bus ride, in a hot, cramped bus with a crazy driver that was speeding around the mountain passes. At first I thought we might die. Then I was too nauseous to even think. Why I didn’t bring the Dramamine my parents brought me from America, I have no idea, but I was quite sick after that bus ride. But, alas, we arrived. It was a cute little school on the edge of the old city (a nice touristy area of Lijiang with old stone-paved streets, shops, pedestrian walkways, and other touristy things of interest). Lijiang is a favorite place for Chinese people to vacation. Many of my Chinese friends that have been there say it’s the best place they have ever been, and those that haven’t gone dream of going. It is nice. There are many things to do, and see. There are fun mountains to climb. The Tiger Leaping Gorge is only a day trip away, too. Most foreigners would say that Dali (4 hours south) is much better. It is quieter, more relaxing, peaceful and easier to navigate. I much prefer Dali to Lijiang. Dali was Leo, Katie, Richy and my first stop during the winter vacation.
Anyways, so we were all in Lijiang to study. I said the school was cute. That’s about it. It was a brand new school and they had very little experience teaching foreigners, particularly foreigners in our situation. What situation might that be, Katie? Well, the fact that we have been in China for one year and have a fairly decent speaking vocabulary, and even better listening comprehension, but a limited knowledge of characters (i.e. reading and writing). Katie, Richy and Leo have a better character vocabulary, so they were put in one class together. Aftan, Kate, and I have nearly none, so we were put in class together. Kate, Aftan, and my teacher (Stephen) was willing to listen and adapt the teaching to meet our needs, however he just graduated from university and didn’t really know how to teach. Leo, Katie and Richy’s teacher was accustomed to teaching Chinese students Chinese and was less willing to adapt her lessons, but was quite knowledgeable about Chinese grammar, pronunciation, and everything Chinese (but she didn’t know any English and could only explain these concepts in Chinese). The other issue plaguing our language study was that the teachers didn’t know how to teach a multilevel class. Katie, Richy and Leo are all at completely different levels. Also I ended up joining their class the last 2 days because Kate and Aftan left early and it was a bit of a struggle to understand all the grammar points she was making. Both teachers were very nice and willing to help us, but not being used to our Chinese studying methods, found it a bit difficult teaching. But how do you teach people that can speak and listen at an intermediate level, but read and write at a beginner’s level? How do you teach a class with 2 intermediate-high level students and one advanced student? It is a conundrum, but a situation that all foreign English teachers face in China. Every English class in China is multileveled because it is easy enough to pass to the next level not having learned anything. Oh and this isn’t a problem, just funny. Katie, Richy and Leo’s teacher laughed nonstop. For some reason she thought everything was funny. I don’t think I have ever met anyone that laughs as much as this woman laughed.
Problem two facing us during language study was that the volunteer that planned everything for us (the pricing, the classes, etc.) had something come up and wasn’t able to come. Then when we arrived there was a big misunderstanding about the pricing. The one volunteer told us the price would be one thing, and the people at the school said another. The issue with the pricing is that Peace Corps will only reimburse us a certain amount of money for summer language study, so naturally we wanted the pricing to fall under that umbrella. Everything ended up okay in the end. We ended up paying more than the volunteer originally said we would, but less than too much.
It wasn’t all bad. We got to spend two weeks in a great city, and practice our Chinese. It also motivated us to study so that, hopefully, all of us return back to our sites and study up on our Chinese regularly. During the two weeks we spent nearly every afternoon in a restaurant drinking coffee and studying Chinese. It was quite perfect actually. We also had some fascinating adventures while we were there. One night we decided we wanted to eat western food. Katie remembered that there was a hostel with decent prices (called Mama Naxi—Naxi is a minority people in China that mostly live in Yunnan. The Naxi people are a matriarchal society, with the women running the businesses, calling the shots, and leading, while the men follow. Anyways the owner of the hostel is the sweetest old Naxi woman who calls herself Mama Naxi). So we meander our ways through the confusing old streets of Lijiang Old Town and find ourselves at the doorstep of Mama Naxi’s greeted by two little dogs. The food was amazing and cheap, but that wasn’t all. The night we decided to go to Mama Naxi’s for dinner also happened to be the night of her grandson’s 17th birthday, and guess what? We were on the guest list! She insisted that we stay and sing happy birthday to her grandson and join in the festivities, so we did. There was a big cake, and lots of fruit. I wonder if it is strange that her grandson celebrates his birthday with a bunch of random foreigners that he doesn’t know, but he was sweet. I think his grandmother particularly liked us (maybe because we could speak Chinese) because she kept taking pictures of us with her grandson.
Our favorite restaurant to go in Lijiang, which we visited at least 5 times, was a little Korean restaurant. Katie and Richy had lived in Korea for 1 year prior to joining Peace Corps and insisted Korean food was really good. Well they weren’t lying. It was better than good. There was one dish served in a hot pot with rice, vegetables, meat, one egg, and hot sauce. It is sizzling when it arrives, and you stir it so that the egg, and vegetables cook together by the heat of the rice and bowl. Then there is another dish which was a cold soup with barley noodles, cucumbers, a boiled egg, watermelon in a spicy vinegar broth. Maybe it sounds weird, but it was amazing. It is so fresh. Chinese food can be really oily, but the Korean food wasn’t oily at all. Another reason we frequented this restaurant was because there was the cutest little white dog that the owners kept. His name in Chinese is “xiao bai gou” or “little white dog.” He was so cute. The 2nd to last time we came to the restaurant, she offered to let Leo keep it. As tempting as that was, we had to say no.
My last food story for this trip. One afternoon Katie, Richy, Leo, and I are just wandering around the Old town, stopping here and there to check things out, then all of a sudden I see a sign! A sign?? A sign. What kind of sign? A sign for pizza. Yes, there, on the edge of Old town, there was a pizza restaurant. But that's not all. The pizza was cheap. The cheapest pizza price we’ve ever seen in China. So what else could we do, but stop and eat some pizza. It was mediocre at best, but amazing.
One morning Leo and I were taking a jog and we happened across this magnificent hidden lake. It was obvious that it was just for the local crowd because of its location. Later that day we returned with Katie and Richy. In the morning there was no one there. We thought it might be a great place to study and get fresh air, rather than another restaurant. However, when we get there it is packed with Chinese people (mostly men) swimming. It is the local swimming hole. If only we had known and brought our bathing suits. Well that isn’t going to stop Leo and Richy, who jump in and race each other to the other side. Meanwhile Katie and I set up a nice area for us to relax and study, with the few snacks we brought along from the bakery. It might have been a nice area for us to relax if it weren’t for the creeper that started walking back and forth behind us. At first we thought nothing of it, just some middle aged Chinese man walking around. But then we suddenly realize he is in his underwear, and they aren’t exactly hugging him where they should be hugging him. We keep a mind to just stare straight in front of us and not pay him any attention, since it is obvious that is what he was craving. That doesn’t seem to be working out for him, though, so he start stretching and waving his arms, and proceeds to sprawl out on a nearby bench to stretch. Out of the corner of my eye I see that he has taken his manhood out of his underwear and pointed it in our direction! I don’t make any moves that I have noticed (I am wearing sunglasses, so that is easy enough to manage), and notify Katie of what is happening to our right. Without looking around she picks up her phone and calls Richy and tells him that he and Leo need to return, which they quickly do. The fact that Katie took out her phone scared the creeper enough so that he was gone by the time the boys returned. Gross.
After language study ended, Leo, Katie, Richy and I stayed two extra nights in Lijiang while we waited for Richy’s sister and fiancé to arrive. Remember Mama Naxi? Well we ended up staying at her hostel. It was decent, but remember that I was saying that I was having stomach issues? Apparently when my stomach hurts during the night I have a tendency to talk in my sleep, or so my friends told me. One night Katie said she woke up because she heard a Chinese woman in our room, but when she looked around she didn’t see any Chinese woman. Instead she saw me, talking with perfect Chinese. She said I was saying “qing zuo” or “please sit.” I wonder how it is I can have good pronunciation in my sleep, but when awake, my Chinese pronunciation is terrible. Any guesses? There was also the funniest teenage Chinese boy working at the hostel that talked to us one night. We ended up giving him an English name (Lee Young—it resembled the sound of his Chinese name, which coincidentally enough was Lijiang. Anyways it turned out he was a Bai minority (fyi, there are 56 recorded minorities in China, and in actuality there are even more that the government doesn’t recognize) and in school his name is Lijiang. He doesn’t go by his given Bai name.). Anyways, this Lee Young wanted to know how to say love lines in English so that he could say them to foreign girls he sees. So Leo wrote down “You are more beautiful than a flower, and also the moon.” This was good enough for him. Then this Korean girl that we had gotten to know from the Korean café next door (another prime study spot), came into the hostel and was hanging out with us, and Lee Young proceeded to interrogate her on how to say hello and I love you in Korean. Funny, funny boy.
Leo and I left Lijiang a little earlier since I had to be back in Chengdu to give a talk to the new volunteers. Since it was such a long trip back, we stopped overnight in Dali. If only we could have stayed longer! But the next morning we left for Kunming and our 18 hour overnight hard seat train ride to Chengdu. That’s right. 18 hours, overnight, on a hard seat. It was uncomfortable. At most I slept 5 hours, but we made it. It wasn’t unbearable.

Summer part 2: summer project

2011-09-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

Saying goodbye to my parents was difficult, but easier than the first time. I didn’t have time to dwell on their departure anyways because the next phase of my summer was upon me. Summer project. Summer project consists of volunteers teaching teachers in various rural locations in our provinces. Since I live and work in Sichuan province, my summer project was also in Sichuan. There were 4 cities in Sichuan for summer project, and Peace Corps staff split us into groups of 5-6 for each city to teach for 2 weeks. I, along with Leo, Joel, Tamarae, Aaron, and Warren, were chosen to go to Dazhou. Dazhou is a relatively small city (in terms of China) with a population of, maybe 600,000 people (we could never get a sure number). The city is in northeastern Sichuan, bordering the municipality of Chongqing.
Living: we all had our own rooms in the same hall of a school “hotel.” I put it in quotes because it was like a hotel, but just one separate floor of a dormitory. So it was a one hall hotel. It was really nice having our own rooms and a floor to ourselves, especially since we were spending a great amount of time each day lesson planning together. The only downside was that we were not allotted keys. Multiple times a day we had to knock on the first door in the hall (which was the apartment of this lady and her family). This lady would then go around and open our doors for us. At least four times a day this lady had to open the doors for us (after class, after lunch, after an activity, after dinner). But apparently the school thought this was a better system than having individual keys, and as long as she didn’t mind us knocking on her apartment door several times a day, it was fine with us.
Teaching: We each had our own class of about 50 primary and middle school English teachers in the Dazhou community. Most of the teachers were from the rural countryside (some never having left Sichuan province). Some of them were fresh from college, never having taught before, while others have been teaching longer than I have been alive. All of them were required to attend the two week training session by their schools. Some had no background in English and could barely say anything to me in English. Others had taught other subjects, but their school decided they would teach English the following year. Most of the young teachers were really energetic and interested in being there and getting information, while, and I don’t blame them, most of the older teachers stopped attending classes by the middle of the first week, or if they did come to class did not participate. It was frustrating at times dealing with teachers that didn’t want to be taught, but there wasn’t anything I could really do about it. All of us tried our best to make it interesting and worthwhile for them. We spent hours every day formulating our lessons, and preparing materials and PPTs. I tried not to get too frustrated with those uninterested because there were always a group that was really engaged and every day stayed after class to ask questions and copy our PPTs.
In the mornings we taught our own classes for 3 hours. The six of us volunteers decided that we would lesson plan together and have the same basic outline of the lesson, but that we could each decide on our activities and teaching style on our own. Joel, Leo, and I did extra lesson planning together and our lessons mirrored each other. At the end of the first week, Joel’s projector stopped working and he asked if his class could join with mine and we could team teach. It turns out that Joel and I have similar teaching methods and we taught really well together. Our students really liked the vibe of the class with us together, and after that we taught every lesson together.
In the afternoons we gave team lectures (so two of us would give a lecture together). The first 3 days I lectured with Warren on the American classroom. Then the last 2 days of the first week I lectured with Aaron and Tamarae on technology in the classroom. The second week I lectured the first 3 days with Leo on Chinglish and body gestures (Chinglish is the botched English that many of our students speak—common errors that they make as a result of direct translations; example: Happy Everyday, I very like you; I ever went there; etc.). The 2nd to last day we all lectured the same topic (creativity in the classroom) because the last day of lectures were cancelled.
What we were trying to accomplish through summer project was giving the teachers real things that they can take back with them to the classroom and use with their students. One issue that is facing China, and that China’s Ministry of Education hopes to change with the help of Peace Corps, is that Chinese students study English from primary school through high school and even into college, and most of them cannot speak English. How can that be? Well because they focus entirely on reading, writing and grammar. Most of their teachers don’t speak English to them, and some of them can’t even speak English themselves. As a result, students can’t understand spoken English very well and have difficulty in speaking English. If I write a word on the board my students all know it, but if I say it they are confused. I remember one time I said a word to a Chinese friend of mine, and she wasn’t sure what I was saying so she asked me to spell it. Once I had spelled it, she immediately knew the word. Her response was, “oh that’s how you say that word. I never knew.” Wow! So you see the dilemma? So during summer project we focused on giving these teachers useful speaking and listening activities that they might integrate into their classroom and give their students more practice with these two skills. I just hope they actually do.
Activities: No Chinese teacher trainee program is complete without activities. Every other day we had a different activity to take part in with the teacher trainees. The first was like a meet and greet. All of the teacher trainees, school staff, and volunteers got together for snacks and drinks and getting to know each other. Not one of the volunteers was able to eat anything. It was a drinking, toasting, and picture taking extravaganza. I can’t think of a hobby Chinese people love more than taking pictures. It started with my class calling me over to have a toast with them. Then my class pulled the other volunteers over. Then they wanted to have a class picture. Then everyone pulled out their cameras and cell phones and wanted individual pictures. By the end my cheeks hurt so much I could barely open my mouth. But that wasn’t the end. One goofy teacher from my class started this dancing activity (I think he might have been a bit drunk at this point), but anyways he had this really complicated dancing game that he got us all involved in. The meet and greet was fun, but extremely exhausting.
Activity two was an evening at a local water park followed by a hotpot dinner. Only a few teachers came since this activity cost money. It was really fun, though. Oh I forgot to mention earlier that the school officials gave us this senior student that worked in the foreign affairs office to help us during our two weeks with whatever we needed. She was sweet, and her English was good. She was really innocent and hadn’t done very much in her life, so the first thing we got her to do was go down these water slides. The water park isn’t anything like you would see in the States. Even the smallest water park in the States is at least twice the size as this one, but it was still fun. There were 3 water slides, and they could only operate two at a time since there were only 2 lifeguards working at the time. There was also this wave pool, and then the craziest thing of all. At one point while we are in the wave pool these 3 girls in a sexy outfit get on the stage at the back of the wave pool and start dancing. It was one of the most random things I have ever seen, but moderately entertaining.
When the water park closed around 7, we walked around the corner to this Communist Hot Pot Restaurant. Literally, the theme and name of the restaurant was communist hot pot. It was pretty good hot pot. None of the teachers joined us for hot pot, so Susie asked what kinds of foods we might want in the hot pot. One of the biggest issues I have with hot pot is that they always put weird foods inside, like blood, stomach, neck, river eels, etc. but this hot pot wasn’t bad since we chose mostly vegetables and meat that we are more accustomed to eating (i.e. the muscle portion of the animal).
Activity three was supposed to be a mountain climbing adventure on our one day off teaching, but most of us respectfully declined since we were spending all of our lunch break and evenings lesson planning. We were hoping to spend the day off catching up and getting ahead on our lesson and lecture plans so that we didn’t have to exhaust ourselves during the week.
Activity four was a Ping-Pong competition! Woah! All of us, but Aaron, got out on the first round. Everyone that participated got a prize, though. Those that were eliminated in the first round got umbrellas, and those eliminated in the 2nd round received nice mugs, and the winner got a knife set I think. Many teachers didn’t participate because it turns out that participating cost quite a bit of an entrance fee.
The fifth activity was a BBQ. BBQs in China aren’t like barbeques in the States. In China, you go to a restaurant and the food is cooked BBQ style and brought to you. It was nice, though. We ate a really good fish dish, and many teachers came and we all ate, drank, and took many more pictures together. The best part was that one teacher brought his daughter with him and she was one of the cutest babies any of us had ever seen. She kept blowing us kisses. Then we started a game with her in which we copied whatever she was doing (if she put her hand on her head, we put our hands on our heads), anyways she found this hilarious and kept playing the game over and over. She was too cute.

The last activity was a banquet. We all went to a nice buffet restaurant and ate and drank and took more pictures. Seeing the trend? It was a nice way to say goodbye to everyone, and a nice way to wrap up our two weeks in Dazhou. It would have been even nicer if I could have managed to eat more than I did. The entire 2nd week I was sick with some weird stomach issues. Never in my life have I had as many stomach ailments as I have had in China. Oh well, it was also fun for us because Leo decided to announce to everyone that it was Tamarae’s birthday (which it was a couple of days later), and the students surprised her with a cake, party hat, and a round of Happy Birthday. It was pretty funny.

Oh and we decided to add our own little activity into the mix for our own enjoyment…a water balloon fight. We had taken a trip to Wal-Mart to buy supplies for our lectures and lessons, and what did we find? Water balloons. Of course we had to buy them. So we had the best water balloon fight ever! Well maybe not ever, but it was quite fun. During our 2nd week teaching in Dazhou there was simultaneously a kids’ soccer camp. When the kids heard the shouting and laughter they ran down from their dorms, and stared at us. They didn’t join in the water balloon frenzy, but when our water balloon supply was exhausted we involved them in a game of keep away. I don’t know that they’d played that before, but they seemed to enjoy it. Us foreigners and Susie were on one team, and all the kids were on another. Unfortunately for them, our energies were depleted a lot faster than theirs, and we returned to our rooms while they still ran around.
Summer Project ended up being an okay time. We 6 got to know each other a bit better than we did before, had a good time in a new city, got to know some really nice Chinese people, and hopefully made some sort of difference. I doubt any of us will be back to Dazhou anytime soon, but one never knows. One teacher did ask if Leo and I would give a lecture at his school. I said maybe, so we shall see if an email comes our way during the semester.

Summer part 1: end of the semester, parents’ visit

2011-09-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

It is surprising to think that I have already finished my first year teaching in China. Some days it seems I have just arrived, and that I still haven’t any clue about China. Other days I feel as if I have been here a while and I am quite familiar with Chinese customs. The end of the semester brought with it a few changes. We all had to say goodbye to Janice, Mark and Charlie as they were returning to life back in Canada. It was difficult to say goodbye to them since they were a big part in my feeling acclimated to life in Jiangyou, but they were just one chapter in the open book of my life. One chapter closed and another one yet to be started.
Unfortunately my parents never were able to meet the Bergens, since they left prior to my parents’ arrival. The day before my parents’ arrival I busied myself cleaning, buying extra pillows, extra towels, extra mugs, and other conveniences that I had neglected to buy during the course of the year. I was quite nervous about them coming. I was worried that they would find it boring and uncomfortable living in my apartment. The night they are expected to arrive I am sitting, anxiously awaiting the time I would have to leave with my school official to pick them up in the neighboring city, when I receive a call from an unfamiliar number. I answer it and hear the sound of my mother’s voice. I am quite taken aback by this, and then become concerned as I hear the worry in her voice. It seems that their flight from the States to Beijing was late in arriving, so they missed their connecting flight into Mianyang. They would have to stay the night in Beijing and take another flight the next morning. Naturally this really concerns me, since my parents aren’t familiar with the country or the language. Luckily, they are in Beijing where enough people speak English, but I am still worried about their safety, as well as getting ripped off.
However everything works out fine. They are able to arrive safely into my city the following morning, and get settled into my apartment. They tell me an interesting tale about how the toilet in the hotel didn’t work properly and how they had to navigate their way in the dark to get to their bedroom because there were no light switches. This actually wasn’t the case at all, but they were unfamiliar with the Chinese method of preserving electricity by placing your hotel room key in the wall in order to activate the electricity in the room. The toilet, however, sounded similar to the toilet in my apartment (the flushing button just needs to be held for a while).
During my parents stay in Jiangyou, my mom was brave enough to give a lecture on preschool education in America to nearly 100 students and teachers. Everyone thought she did a good job and she was able to answer all of the questions they normally ask me but am unable to answer (since I don’t have any background or experience in preschool education). My parents were also kind enough to go to our weekly English corner, which had closer to 40-50 students attend this time. My dad talked about life in India, as well as immigrating to the US and taking the TOEFL exam (something many Chinese students are interested in taking), and my mom talked briefly about multiculturalism in the US.
The most interesting time in Jiangyou was taking a day trip to a temple in Mianyang. It is a gorgeous temple by the roadside that I have passed several times. Every time I see it I have told myself I must visit it. It was nice to have the chance to visit it with my parents. While meandering through the temple one elderly Chinese man started talking to my dad. My mom and I were slightly ahead when I realized what was happening. My dad looked very confused and was trying to tell the man that he couldn’t speak Chinese. I walked over and asked the Chinese man what he wanted. He wanted to know where my father was from, as well as where we were from and what we were all doing in China, and whether or not we all liked China (the usual conversation with strangers in China). When I mentioned that my dad was from India he became very excited and said over and over “hao pengyou” or “good friends.” This surprised me a bit since I know that India and China have a bit of a rivalry, but it is nice to know that the average Chinese person likes their neighbors to the west.
So time in Jiangyou was filled with lectures, travels around the city (including Wal-Mart) and dinners with friends and students. Everyone, obviously, liked my parents and was happy that they had the chance to meet them. Hopefully now my parents have a better idea about my life in China, so that when I mention a certain person or place they can say “oh yeah! I remember that.”
After a stressful last day trying to get my students to sign their names to their role sheets so that I could turn my grades in, we were off on a train to Chengdu. Taking a train is the most convenient method of travel from my city to the provincial capital, but can sometimes be a hassle. Typically for such a short train ride, I don’t have any issues. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case when I was travelling with my parents. The train was really crowded and there were two really old people in the seats my mom and I were supposed to have. I just told my mom to sit somewhere else because they weren’t moving after I asked once. But at the next stop this man gets on that is supposed to be sitting in the seat my mom is currently occupying and he gets really angry and starts yelling at us. I tell the man that the old people in front of us are sitting in our seats and he can tell them to move first. He doesn’t want to hear us and just yells again. Well my mom and I don’t appreciate his attitude, which is obvious in any language, so we choose to ignore him. He eventually gives up and finds somewhere else to go.
Chengdu was a nice trip, minus the torrential downpour one night. I think the nicest area we went was Jinli Street. Jinli Street was an old street full of shops, knickknacks and other things of interest (so basically really touristy, but still nice). In Chengdu my parents also met many people. Our 2nd day in Chengdu I had to go to the Peace Corps Office to help the medical staff tape a skit teaching about STIs with a few other volunteers. I played the part of the doctor in the skit, fyi. It turns out the STI skit was nixed in the end, but that’s a story for another day. Anyways, while there my parents were able to meet some of the staff, and the other volunteers that were helping with the skit.
We also had a night out with my host parents. My sweet boyfriend Leo also joined us, which made everything easier since he can speak Chinese far better than I can. I was hoping with Leo’s help to bridge the gap between my parents and my host parents. It turns out my host dad just wanted to chat with Leo the whole night, whereas Leo just wanted to chat with my parents. In the end Leo succumbed to talking with my host dad, occasionally translating between my host dad and parents, while I translated back and forth between my parents and my host mom. It was nice, though. My parents were able to experience the famous Sichuan hotpot. My dad seemed to like it, since he really likes spicy food. We had a scare at one point when my dad ate something that might have had shrimp in it (which he is seriously allergic to), but nothing happened, so whew. The frustrating part of that evening, though I should have foreseen this, was that my host parents ended up treating us to dinner. My intention, and my parents’ intention, was to treat my host parents. This is one frustrating aspect of Chinese culture. Sometimes it can be impossible to treat Chinese people to anything. They always want to do the treating. I argued with them for a while, but then I gave in and let them pay. They insisted that because it was China that they should pay, and when they visit us in America that we can pay. We agreed, however it is hard to say if we will ever see them in America, though nothing is impossible.
Leo was frustrated that he didn’t get a chance to really get to know my parents, so the next day we all went together to the Panda Research Base. We got there a little later than we should have, because the lazy pandas were just sleeping. Basically fat pandas lie on their backs for 23 hours of the day, and maybe move around 1 hour (usually in the early morning). I might be exaggerating a little, but I don’t think so. One volunteer that lives near the panda base said that one time he went to see them and saw one panda poop lying down, and then didn’t move! He just sat in his own poop! I can’t figure out why these lazy animals are the face of China. I can’t understand either why we are bothering to keep them alive. I will probably get kicked out of China for saying all this against pandas, but come on, Darwin’s survival of the fittest. We are going against nature and natural selection here with these pandas. They are incapable of breeding on their own. Almost all pandas have to be artificially inseminated. I think that’s nature saying that they shouldn’t exist anymore. Am I right? Okay, enough about pandas, or at least the fat ones. Did you know that there is such a thing as red pandas?! They are much more interesting than the fat pandas. They move around, they climb trees, apparently they fight each other, and they have tails. Much more interesting. Actually I am not sure why they are called pandas, since they look more like raccoons than anything else. But there were more of them and they were a lot more active than the other pandas. They actually look somewhat like ewoks (remember from Star Wars?). Anyways, check out my pictures at windows live so you can see the red pandas. I also had a couple of pictures of fat baby pandas, which are actually cute.
The best part of my trip with my parents was Beijing. Blue skies, no stress, people that can actually speak Mandarin—it was great! In Beijing we were typical tourists, hitting all of the major tourist spots, Tiananmen, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and The Great Wall. My favorite part was The Great Wall. We took a tour group there, since it is pretty difficult to get there. It really blows your mind. The Wall goes on forever! The air is so fresh, and the views spectacular. The surprising part was the steepness of the Wall. You have to hold on tight! At one point I slipped and slid for a good 2 or 3 meters. Since we were with a tour we had about an hour to visit, but that was adequate. I wanted to see if I could reach this tower, so I ran off ahead, while my parents took it slowly and enjoyed the view and the experience of actually being on The Great Wall. I think one highlight for my dad was that there were 3 Indian men on the tour with us. They became fast friends and were joking and laughing about India, missing eating with your hands, struggling to use chopsticks, and the differences between China and India.
Now I am not one for shopping, but the shopping in Beijing was much better than any of the shops that I have seen elsewhere. Leo, who lived in Beijing for a year, suggested we try and visit Beijing’s famous hutongs (or alleyways). Beijing is full of old alleyways, many of them that are filled with interesting shops, restaurants, and cafes. We couldn’t find the ones that were the most famous, and no one seemed to be able to tell us how to get there. Frustrated and just about ready to give up going to these alleyways, a nice young man from America (but has been living in Beijing the past 3 years) saw us looking confused and came over to see if he could help us. He suggested a completely different alleyway but said it is easy to get to and that most people are familiar with the street and can point us in the right direction. We managed to get to it, and it was worth it. We just walked around and looked in the shops. My mom found a nice scarf, and my dad bought some stamps.
During my parents visit I realized that I find it very stressful to have other people rely on me for directions, communication, and decision making. The communication aspect of it is fine, but my directional skills are poor in any country and any language and I am also quite inept at making decisions. I much prefer to be the follower rather than a leader, but the world is made up of leaders and followers. If everyone was a leader, we would have even more wars than we already have, and if everyone was a follower than nothing would get accomplished, right?
If my parents were in China longer there were a couple of other places I would prefer to have taken them; places that are much more relaxing, a little less touristy and busy, but equally interesting to visit, but this possibly being their only opportunity in China, we had to see the typical sights (Chengdu and Beijing). If you want to hear more about the trip, feel free to ask my parents (especially my mom who kept a journal with her during the trip). Also check out the pictures (especially the ones of the Wall)

Teachng about Invitations

2011-04-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

The weather this week has been quite nice and I have spent most days walking with my friend Zhang Ju (Allie) who is leaving at the end of this month to live with her husband in a neighboring city, since they are having a baby. It is quite common in China for husbands and wives to live in different cities. This is the case for many teachers in my college, because it’s difficult to find decent jobs in the same city. So in the spirit of her leaving, and because she finds walking relieves her pregnancy nausea, we have been walking in the afternoons and enjoying the beautiful spring weather and flowers. It is quite amazing. I had no idea that weather affected my mood so much. I guess in Florida where it is warmer and sunnier than in China I didn’t notice.
This week I have been teaching my lower-level students about inviting—how to make an invitation and to accept and refuse the invitation. I started class by asking the question, ‘If you could invite any 4 people (dead, alive, famous, not famous or even not real) who would you invite and why? I invited Harry Potter. My students invited: Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson, Premier Wen Jiabao, President Obama (because he is so handsome, many say), President Hu Jintao, some famous Chinese singers and actors, their best friend, their parents and siblings, and two invited me! Next I discussed with the students some structures for giving an invitation. They were: ‘would you like to…; are you busy…; what are you doing…; do you want to…with me? and a few others. In a few classes when I was giving hypothetical examples, such as ‘Would you like to eat dinner with me?’ the entire class would answer ‘yes!’ which always threw me off a bit (and make me laugh). In one class, though, it was particularly amusing and well, rather awkward. They, like other classes, answered my hypothetical examples. When I asked ‘are you busy…’ they said yes. I decided to go with it since they seemed rather lively and talkative today, which isn’t always the case, so I asked ‘oh, why are you busy? What are you doing?’ One student trying to be funny replied ‘sleeping.’ This is a favorite answer amongst Chinese students. If you ask them what their hobbies are, they will likely include sleeping in the list. Years of hard work in grade school has left them exhausted in college. Anyways, I then went on to the next structure and asked “what are you doing for the holiday?” they all answered ‘sleeping’ this time. I responded that it seems they all like sleeping very much, which resounded in a round of giggles. Then the next structure is where it gets interesting. I started to say ‘do you want to…with me’ and this student, trying to be funny, said ‘sleep!’ my face turned crimson and I quickly said you cannot say that. This is when it becomes awkward. I realized that they didn’t know what was wrong with that…um…invitation, so I wrote xingjiao (the Chinese word for sex) on the board. There was a moment of silence while the students figured out the pinyin (the roman characterization of Chinese since I cannot write in Hanzi—Chinese characters) followed by gasps and giggles. As strange as that moment was, it made my day.
So, on Monday this week I had two visitors which was very exciting since that doesn’t happen often (Jiangyou is a bit out of the way). Two other Peace Corps volunteers, Angel and Gareth, stopped by just for the day. Gareth volunteers in Chongqing but she is doing a special teacher-training program and just teaches winters and summers when teachers aren’t in class. She uses the time in-between, when the rest of us teach, to help the Peace Corps with things and manages different programs. She had been visiting other volunteers to work out some of these programs—including a “Green English Curriculum” which was started by volunteers a few years ago, but is being revamped and enhanced by Gareth and Erin (another volunteer in Chongqing). It is a curriculum that focuses on the environment while at the same time furthering English language ability. A few other volunteers have been helping with edits and adding low-level and icebreaker activities (including me). Other volunteers have been working with a resource account where volunteers can post their golden lessons and activities for other volunteers to see. We are trying hard to not ‘reinvent the wheel’ but it seems to have taken China 14 and 15 volunteers for this to come about and we China 16s are furthering the idea. In a few years we hope that future volunteers can spend most of their time on developing relationships and secondary projects, instead of lesson planning.
Getting back to Gareth and Angel, Gareth was visiting Angel about some Peace Corps project and they decided to stop by on Monday since Angel didn’t have class. It was great. They watched my 11 am class and gave me wonderful feedback and advice, which I used later that day. Then as we were heading to lunch we ran into Teacher Wang who insisted we eat in the Teachers’ Dining Room, which I do everyday and it is free. Since Gareth and Angel aren’t teachers at the school, I insisted it was not appropriate and we would eat outside of the school. But he insisted harder and we all went inside. He joined us, as did Zhang Ju. They were all so excited to meet these other foreigners, and kept asking me later in the week when they might return and whether other friends of mine might visit. Gareth and Angel said they felt so welcome, which is one reason why I really like the school I teach at.
I must apologize that this is short, but the weather is much too nice for me to sit inside this Saturday and write a blog. Happy Easter!

Thinking ahead to next year

2011-04-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

This week all of the English Major teachers and students are gone doing observations. I didn’t realize that they are the majority of people I hang out with here in Jiangyou. So Monday afternoon I had some time and I couldn’t think what to do, also because most of my students are practicing dancing all day for a school dance competition that will take place later this week. That or they are practicing for the sports meet that is at the end of April or various exams that are approaching. Either way I didn’t know what to do with the free time. Just as I was about to dial up Eliam, who wasn’t working today and also is alone this week since Kerry is with the other English teachers observing at other universities, Media stops by. She has brought me homemade yogurt, which was quite good. She also came to discuss her concerns about teaching her students. She feels that the textbook is required and necessary for passing their national collegiate exams (which are necessary for graduation), but unrealistic for their futures as preschool teachers. I honestly didn’t have much advice. I suggested that she try and mold the two together and utilize the idea of homework in order to maximize what little class time we are all given to teach these students. It’s a frustrating reality and I am just beginning to understand the surface of the system here and how to work around it in a way that most benefits my students.
I have begun planning for next school year even with this term is only half-finished. I am trying to develop a years worth of teaching in 45 minute brackets that can further both my students’ English ability of listening and speaking, while enhancing their teaching knowledge since I have learned that there are no real teaching methodology courses that the students take prior to being sent into the classroom after two years in college. My plan so far is to focus my first semester on developing their oral English skills by focusing on problem areas I may notice in the first week through a writing assignment; giving them real-world conversation practice; and offering many opportunities to listen and speak—with me doing very little talking. I have realized that they are taught many new vocabulary words, assigned much reading and writing, and have grammar and translation beaten into them. However, they are not given much time to speak, utilize their new knowledge, and learn real-world English (like colloquialisms, idioms and slangs). Knowing this now, I can focus my lessons to offer the students this kind of English study experience.
The second semester I have decided to focus entirely on teaching. I will directly teach the students English children’s songs, games, and stories. I will ask them to learn these and practice teaching them in groups. I figure it is still listening and speaking English, but with more relevance to their future careers. I just wish I had realized this earlier. Making these plans makes me excited and eager for the next school year. I really want to take next year to reflect and improve my abilities as a teacher. Teachers reading this, if any suggestions, comments or ideas will be much appreciated. ?

Tomb Sweeping Festival

2011-04-10T15:58:00.001-07:00

The past few weeks have been a bit strange—schedule-wise. Two weeks ago the preschool education students returned to their homes to observe teachers in local preschools, while the teachers in the preschool department observed other teachers at different universities around Sichuan.
The weekend my students went home I went for a short visit to Yibin. There were 3 new foreigners at Leo’s university. Two were young guys from Canada and England and were a part of a teaching abroad program, called Latitudes. Latitudes is a program within the British Commonwealth nations. They will be in Yibin for this semester teaching in various capacities. The third was a foreign exchange student from South Carolina studying martial arts? I was a bit confused with her business in Yibin. She returned home this week. Anyways it was fun to meet them, and more of Leo and Chris’ Chinese friends, one of whom had the English name Tony Potter. He is the only Chinese person I know that gave himself an English last name. Most just have English first names. He chose it because he is a big Harry Potter fan, which I think, is pretty cool. Another student and her friend invited us to have dinner at her mom’s who cooked us a very delicious meal. Very kind people. And another friend of Leo’s is from Tibet, a tourism major with great English, and he gave me a beautiful bracelet from Tibet before I returned to Jiangyou. It was a great weekend and I was sad to leave, but I teach one class in the English department and they are having a midterm. I am sure they were also sad to see me return. I didn’t think their midterm was very difficult. Most students did very well. They were divided into groups of three and given five minutes to read. Then, they had to discuss the article together for five minutes to express and support their opinions. I let them choose the article topic they wanted to read since it is easier to discuss something you find interesting. The choices were: the differences between Chinese and American parenting, the conflict in Libya (which none chose), eating insects as a way to combat world hunger, equality for women in sports, a champion chess player, child labor, and modern pirates (which students also didn’t choose).
I was hoping a week off teaching would give me some time to relax, but instead a pipe in my bathroom decided to leak. The process of it getting fixed took all week and all of my patience. But luckily I was leaving on Saturday to spend the weekend with my host family for the Tomb Sweeping Festival.
The Tomb Sweeping Festival, which is Qing Ming Jie in Chinese (the direct translation actually being Clear and Bright) is a day for people to go outside and enjoy the springtime. It is also the day that families visit the graves of their ancestors and to clean it, lay flowers and food (like fruits and cakes) and burn incense and fake money (traditionally viewed as being used by the deceased in the afterlife).
My host family isn’t traditional, so we didn’t do any of this, and instead just relaxed. As always traveling was an interesting experience. My friend Sharon, who was visiting her parents in Chengdu the same weekend, and I decided to take the same train. At the station we ran into two students who were taking the train but a half hour after us. We boarded the train, and after sitting on the train in the Jiangyou station for one hour I receive a call from the students asking if we had left yet. After I confirmed her assumption that we hadn’t left yet she told me that there was a blockage on the track and if we were interested in joining them to be reimbursed and take the bus. Um…yeah. Luckily these students were with me when we arrived in Chengdu and they could explain my location to my host parents who were picking me up, as they don’t speak English, and well my Chinese isn’t the greatest. Later when I was trying to return to Jiangyou my host parents were helping me buy the tickets. My host mom admitted that she’d never bought a ticket before and didn’t quite know what to do, but that her husband’s friend was helping us. Well the next day they drive me to the station maybe 20 minutes before my train is leaving and I still don’t have my ticket, but then this guy walks up to the car and hands my host dad the ticket and he gives him some money. It all felt similar to a scalping deal to me, but with train tickets. Then when I get into the station after the security check I see the guards ushering everyone into a line. I get in line wondering what was going on. When I get closer I see that everyone is handing their IDs to the person at the counter. I quickly recall that Peace Corps sent us all an email telling us that the Chengdu rail station is now checking IDs and that we need to carry our passports if we are traveling by train. I panic because I didn’t bring my passport with me from Jiangyou! When I was getting closer to the counter I started checking my surroundings and praying for my brain to work harder. A man two in front of me fumbles over his bag and I make like I am assisting and just hide behind him and his luggage and speed walk directly onto my train which had already started boarding. I didn’t look back and as far as I know no one looked up. Whew! But major mental note for next time!
But between the train rides, or one train ride and one bus ride, was a fun time with my host parents. I made them banana bread in Jiangyou and they were so impressed that my host mom decided she wanted me to teach her. So, the next day I go with them to buy a toaster oven and ingredients and together we made apple bread. It turned out surprisingly well considering they didn’t have any measuring tools and I just had to guess. I wrote down the recipes for banana, apple, and strawberry bread (the last I haven’t tried myself but it shouldn’t be very difficult) and I said that the next time I visited that I would teach them to make cookies.
That weekend they also treated me to Beijing roast duck which is really good, but also quite expensive. It is sliced roast duck dipped in a tangy sauce and rolled in a thin pancake with sliced cucumbers and onions. Being with them during the weekend re-inspired me to study Chinese. I enjoy speaking with them in Chinese because they are patient, understanding and they try hard to understand my Chinese even though my pronunciation is poor. Frequently I feel discouraged from speaking Chinese because many don’t understand when I speak, or think it’s funny when I try. So it was nice to be with people who are so encouraging.
I returned to Jiangyou and taught for two days. Next week the English majors are doing their observations in schools and their teachers are visiting other universities in Sichuan Province.
On a different note the last two English Corners went pretty well. I led the first and I had the students play hot potato. If the ball stopped on them they had two choices. They could answer a question that I asked or they might ask anyone in the group one question. The questions and answers were interesting. I asked one student if she could have any job in the world what would she want to do. Her answer was to open a milk tea stand, something that exists in almost every corner in China. Then one student wanted my opinion on the war in Libya. My answer was quite general. I just said that I think war isn’t good because it causes many innocent people to die but that if the citizens of the country seek our help, then we must help.
After this we played a game in which I placed a sticky note on every student’s back and they had to guess what it was based on what others said about it. The stickers included a person’s name, an object, or a place. They had lots of fun with this game.
The next week Janice and I led. First we played charades. Janice and I were surprised to see how culturally variant this game can be. For example one paper said washing clothes. In America we would mime putting the clothes in the wash, adding detergent, turning it on and then maybe putting it in a dryer and folding it later, but instead I mimed doing it by hand which is more common with the students and many poorer families in China.
Then we played that game where we tell a story as a group with one person starting it and the next continuing it until someone decides to end it. This took a lot of prep and explaining, but once they understood they did a great job with it. The biggest obstacle was that they were so concerned with their sentence that sometimes they did not listen very carefully to the sentence preceding theirs as a result their sentence didn’t make sense.
This week Janice, Mark and I had dinner together one night and we had an epiphany of sorts. We were discussing something that I can’t remember now and Mark makes the comment, “well it’s a free country.” A phrase we’ve all said many times, especially as children. After saying it, though, Mark stops. Janice and I look at him curiously, and he says, “Oh, I guess it isn’t a free country.” Imagine that.
The best thing about this week, though, was the weekend’s weather. The sun came out. Both Saturday and Sunday I sat outside and read. It was amazing. I didn’t have a coat on and my body absorbed vitamin D. A genuine miracle! I just hope this wonderful lasts.

Tongue Twisters and St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

Can you say these five tongue twisters five times really fast?

1. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains

2. How much wood would a wood-chuck chuck if a wood-chuck could chuck wood?

3. She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

4. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?
If Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
5. Betty Botter bought a bit of butter.
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter
And made her batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter makes better batter.
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better
Well I didn’t make my students say them five times really fast, but I did have them practice tongue twisters this week. It was exhausting to teach, so I have learned, but the students really enjoyed learning them and saying them. Also it was good pronunciation practice for them. Which of these do you find to be the most difficult to say? My students found Peter Piper to be the most difficult, whereas I thought the seashell one was particularly challenging.

I just remembered that the 2nd week of this semester I did this really interesting activity with my English majors for small talk practice. I gave half the students a sheet with some good small talk topics and the other half of the class had to converse with them for about 2 minutes and then they switched to the next person like speed dating. It worked really well and the students got into it and were talking more than usual which is awesome!

Okay back to this week….I forgot to collect the homework until my Tuesday afternoon classes so I made many mental and physical notes the rest of the week to collect it and to remember to collect the next week. The homework was to write a paragraph about a woman (any woman: famous or not). The results were mixed. Some did a really good job and put forth effort and others did a sloppy rushed job or copied from the internet (hey, similar to American middle and high school students!). The students wrote about different women, but the most common was their mother. Others included their sister, aunt, grandmother, cousin, friend, and teacher. Then we had Wu Zetian (the only woman empress in Chinese history during the Tang dynasty), Marilyn Monroe, Helen Keller, Deng Xiao Ping’s wife, a famous Chinese singer named Cai Yi Lin, Princess Diana, Doris Lessing, Qiu Jin who was a famous Chinese revolutionary, Kim Yu Na an olympic figure skater, Jolin Tsai a famous Chinese singer, Kathryn Bigelow, Marie Curie, Edith Cowell, Barbie Hse who is a Taiwanese singer and actress, Anne Enright, Liu Yi Fei (Chinese actress), and Lady Gaga. I should note that most of those that wrote about famous women were the ones that copied. Then we had some confused souls who wrote about their father, brother or a famous man. Oh and one wrote about me; how flattering!

I have copied a couple that stood out: (I have written it exactly, including errors and such)
“A Small Pig”
Maybe you’ll guess, small pig? Woman? What? I’ll tell you, she is a youngest sister of mine. We name her small pig. She is only one year old. She is very smart, but so far, she can only say “mom.” She has many cute actions, but I can’t use English to impress those. So I decide to use my own actions to impress her cute actions.

I am curious if she is going to show me this next week. Hmm…

My Mother
In my heard, my mother is a hard-working woman. Once my mother talked about her life to me. When she was young she had to be working hard for a good life because there was little food to eat, more than there was no time to play at that time. For her, eating enough was her biggest wish. At Spring Festival she could have a good meal and wear beatyful clothes. It was a wonderful time. But now with the sociaty developing, my mother is also more relaxed. What’s more she has more playing time. She feels very happy. I’m very happy.

Chines women worker living in a very tough condition. They have to work harder every day, wake up early and sleep in the dark of the night. Many labors from Sichuan or Jiangxi Province migarated to other places to find a job for their living! All they want is a little money to support their family. Sometimes they never can go back home during the Spring Festival. We could have more pities on them. They are gentle and simple. They can give all that they have. I respect them very much.

My Mother
My mother is a ordinary farmer live in a small village. She is very warm. She is not tall but can do some things. My mother never studied so she can’t read and write. However she can do anything with much hard work. My mother loves everyone in my family. She hardly quarrels with each one of us. She treats us equally and friendly. My mother does most housework at home and she can cook very nicely. I love and am inspired by my mother because my mother is ordinary but not poor.

There were more that were equally as moving as these, but I couldn’t type them all out. Thursday was English Corner and I have found that many students are really stressed because in a few weeks they will take a week off of school to visit the preschools and primary schools in their hometowns. Many have never stepped into a school since leaving it and have no idea what to do. I decided that rather than practice discussions in English that Janice and I could give the students a few practical activities for their futures in the classroom. So, we taught them telephone, Red light Green light, Mother May I, What time is it Mr. Wolf, and a mixture of storytelling and hot potato which Janice did. Janice read from a picture book (from the Little Critter collection) and asked them to pay attention to details. Then we played hot potato, and when it landed in their hands they had to answer a question that Janice and I posed about the story. After English Corner some students returned with me to my apartment to check out some books, a few also asked me some English language questions.

Friday afternoon I had a nice visit in Mianyang with another volunteer, Angel, and bought some baking items at the Wal-Mart there since I have plans to teach some teachers and students baking this term.

Saturday was my day for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. I invited some teachers to have a green food potluck at my house and 5 teachers and two sons came. I had green rice, green eggs and green juice, as well as goodie bags with green snacks for everyone. Janice lent me her food dye and the Chinese teachers thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was a relaxing and enjoyable time and afterwards they left a mass amount of leftovers even though I insisted I was one person. After cleaning I played Ping-Pong (I am getting some mad skills so if anyone wants to play me in a year and a half…). Then went running with Vivi. More and more students and teachers want to run and play sports with the weather slowly getting warmer, which is great since I enjoy outdoor activities much more than indoor. Then in the evening a few students came by to play cards. I taught them Uno, spoons, and Egyptian Rat Screw. They in turn taught me Stupid Turtle and Landlord. I will try and improve and teach everyone when I return. I like Stupid Turtle. It’s easy and fun.

Sunday at noon I had the brilliant idea to invite students over to eat the leftovers with me. It was almost a success. I still have some but I have plans for that too. Rice pudding anyone?

But, alas, with all of these activities this weekend I have neglected my work, and so another week has gone by.

Second Semester Syllabus

2011-03-12T17:04:00.001-08:00

Freshmen syllabus
Week 1: introduction, information cards
Week 2: group assignments, greetings
Hw: greet a foreign teacher once during the week and record their response

Week 3: International Women’s Day lesson
Hw: write a paragraph about women or about a woman that you know and admire
Week 4: introducing yourself and others
Hw: practice introducing yourself and your roommates to other students
Week 5: small talk
Week 6: small talk
Hw: make a list of appropriate an inappropriate small talk topics
Week 7: inviting others out
Hw: invite a classmate out to do something and prepare for midterm
Week 8: midterm: Group role plays (greet, introduce yourself and others, make small talk and invite others out)
Week 9: midterm: Group role plays (greet, introduce yourself and others, make small talk and invite others out)
Week 10: transitions within conversations, conversation practice
Hw: prepare 1 topic to discuss within your small group that you find interesting to introduce to your group, include 5 questions and 5 new words that you can teach your group that are related to this topic
Week 11: transitions within conversations, conversation practice
Week 12: expressing opinions/ point-of-view
Hw: write a paragraph using the opinion/point-of-view statements
Week 13: expressing opinions/ point-of-view
Week 14: stereotypes
Group Hw: each group researches the stereotypes for a different country and present it to the class the next week
Week 15: stereotypes
Hw: study for final
Week 16: final: conversation between two students about a topic/article
Week 17: final: conversation between two students about a topic/article
Week 18: final: conversation between two students about a topic/article
Grades:
Attendance/Journal- 25% (journal is written in at the beginning of every class and checked every 4-6 weeks)
Homework-25% (is explained at the end of every class and is due the next week unless I say otherwise)
Midterm: 20%
Final-30%
And my English majors:
English majors Syllabus:
* This syllabus can change at any time during the semester. If it does I will inform you of changes in class
Week 1: introduction, information cards, greetings
Hw: greet a foreign teacher once during the week and record their response
Week 2: group assignment/explanation; introducing yourself, small talk, inviting others out
Group Hw: make two dialogues with your group one with appropriate small talk and one with inappropriate small talk and be prepared to present in the class
Week 3: International Women’s Day lessons
Hw: write a paragraph about women or about one woman you know and admire
Week 4: transitions within a conversation, conversation practice/ English Children’s songs
Week 5: expressing opinions/ point-of-view
Hw: study for midterm
Week 6: midterm exam: conversation between two students about a topic/article.
Week 7: midterm exam: conversation between two students about a topic/article
Week 8: explaining (expository), introduce speeches
Hw: work on speech
Week 9: explaining (expository), introduce speeches
Hw: work on speech
Week 10: individual speeches (3 minutes, expository)
Week 11: stereotypes
Week 12: advertisements/ English children’s games (indoor)
Group hw: create a product and advertisement for it
Week 13: campaigning/ English children’s games (indoor)
Hw: group campaign/ persuasive speech
Week 14: persuasion
Hw: group campaign/ persuasive speech

Week 15: persuasion
Hw: group campaign/ persuasive speech

Week 16: final: group persuasive speeches/campaigns presentations

Week 17: superlatives

Week 18: toasting and impromptu speeches/end-of-term party (superlatives awards)

Grades:
Attendance/Journal- 25% (journal is written in at the beginning of every class and checked every 4-6 weeks)
Homework-25% (is explained at the end of every class and is due the next week unless I say otherwise)
Midterm: 20%
Final-30%

I think I have a better flow and structure this time around and I hope it goes well this term. I am a bit more confident and a bit more prepared for teaching and what I can expect this term. I have organized my student information for every class, with Chinese and English name, student number, email, phone number and hobbies (hobbies because one goal I have this semester is to have more interaction with my students). I have put my students into set mixed level groups for the entire term and they must choose a group leader. Other group roles are secretary, encourager and English police to make sure everyone is speaking English. I am looking forward to this semester and I am hoping the weather warms up soon.

Back in China

2011-03-12T17:03:00.001-08:00

The Return to China

At the airport we were sad to leave the delicious food and warm weather and to return to China. The good news was that we were having training and would see many friends again. In-service Training (IST) lasted 2 weeks in Chengdu. We stayed in a hotel near Sichuan University Campus which is where the PC China office is located. Every day from 830-5 we had teacher training, information, and Chinese lessons. There was also a visit from Rob Gifford, former NPR Beijing correspondent and currently London correspondent and also the author of the book China Road. The vice-president of Sichuan University also came to talk to us about the Chinese education system and the Ministry of Education’s push for reform, of which we are apart. It was a good transition between vacation and getting back to site and teaching. I was able to get some much needed work done during this time to get the ball rolling for the semester. I was getting slightly more motivated and excited to return to teaching after such a long vacation.

Back at my site I have an overwhelming feeling of lack of motivation, but I am quickly slapped back into things when I start my teaching on Monday. I am teaching the same students with the exception of one class that I will only be teaching for 2 weeks and then they are off to practice teach. For that class I am just teaching them useful things they can use in their classrooms, such as English Children’s Songs and games. The songs are the same that I taught Vivi’s class last semester. The games are: duck, duck goose; simon says; red light green light; red rover; hangman; I spy; Pictionary; charades; jeopardy; Bingo; and board competitions. For my freshmen non-English majors:
In other news, my Chinese friend/colleague Allie told me that she is pregnant and due in September. Very exciting. It is also interesting to learn what Chinese woman can and cannot do when they are pregnant. They cannot do any sports. They cannot carry their cell phones. They must eat eggs. That’s all I’ve learned so far but I am sure to learn more the bigger Allie gets.

Sorry it was such a long time between posts but I will try and be more regular now that I have returned to my site. Oh and check out the pictures from Yunnan and Vietnam on the Windows Live Account.

International Women's Day

2011-03-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

March 8 was International Women’s Day and I have decided to center my lessons on it. My world wise school letter (my correspondence with a classroom in America) also focuses on it. The following is my letter to that classroom:

Dear Students,

Next week is International Women’s Day on March 8. Many countries around the world are celebrating and honoring women on this day and making efforts to encourage equality, independence, and leadership amongst today’s women. There are still countries in the world today that do not let woman have jobs, will arrange marriages for women and not let them choose their husbands, and will not let woman speak out and have a voice in the community.
Can you imagine a world in which women aren’t permitted to speak in front of men, cannot defend themselves against domestic violence because the police are corrupt and will not do anything, or cannot divorce their husbands for fear of never seeing their children again? How does this compare with the United States? Women in the United States can vote, run for president and be the CEO of a company, but in your opinion are men and women truly equal in America? Why or why not?

China is a growing country both economically and politically. The country has the second largest economy after the United States, but women and men are still far from equal. My observation is that female students are sometimes punished for things while their male classmates are not. Many of my female Chinese friends believe that their main purpose in life is to get married and have children and many girls that pursue ambitious careers or majors (like engineering, computer science, or politics) are shunned. Some of my students tell me that their parents sent them to this college to find a husband because many in-laws and men find teachers to make good wives because they can care for children. I asked my students if they ever thought that a woman could be the president of China and they said “no, never”.

In my classes this week I am challenging my students to think about women, equality, and leadership in different ways. I want to extend this on to you. Next week we can compare your answers with the answers my students gave.

First my lesson has my students finishing the sentence: “100 years from now women will…”

Next my students will answer ten questions:

1. Would you prefer a man supervisor or a woman supervisor?
2. Would you prefer a man or woman doctor?
3. Do you think that there are some sports/activities that are just for men or just for women? What sports/activities?
4. Would you want your child to have a man or woman teacher?
5. Do you think it is easier to be a man or a woman?
6. Do you think it is easier to be a mother or a father?
7. Do you think it is a good thing for a woman to be president of the United States?
8. Do you think little boys and girls should be treated differently?
9. Do you think women should stay at home and take care of children?
10. Are there jobs that are just for men and just for women? What are they?

After each group has discussed their answers, I will ask each group to think about an influential woman in Chinese history. Then I will hand each group an article about an influential woman in the world. The women are: Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gertrude B. Elion, Helen Keller, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Theresa, and Jane Goodall. Do you know all of these women? Can you think of any other influential women in the United States and in the world? The students must create a poster and present this woman to the class and explain what year she lived, what she accomplished, and how she has changed the way women live today.

Finally the students will write a paragraph either about women, in general, or about one inspiring woman. In your next letter to me you can write a paragraph about an inspiring woman that you know and maybe I can share it with my students.

I look forward to reading your letters. Happy International Women’s Day!

Sincerely,

Katie D’Souza
Peace Corps China 16

In my classes this week the responses were…mixed. For completion of the sentence students said women will be more beautiful, stronger, and more independent, equal with me, more confident, taller, more powerful, and have more freedom.

The answers for the discussion questions varied. More students preferred a male supervisor because they are brave, confident, calm, careful and handsome. Those that selected woman supervisor said because it would be easier to communicate with them (keep in mind that the majority of my students are girls).

It was 50/50 on the doctor question. They chose a female doctor because of comfort and because they are kind but chose male doctors because they are smart and careful and handsome.
Almost every student said that there were sports and activities just for men (basketball, football, wrestling and boxing) and just for women (ballet, badminton, volleyball, and shopping).
The majority of students preferred a woman teacher for their child because they are more caring and like mothers.

It was divided between whether it is easier to be a man or a woman. They said it was difficult to be a man because they have much responsibility and pressure but that women must do many things in their families and homes. I would say that most said both were difficult, though.
The majority of students said that it is easier to be a father because the mother must care for the children, give birth to children, clean the house and cook the meals and the father just has to make money.
Some students said that it would be good to have a woman president of the US because she can help the women but those that chose no said it was because woman didn’t have the sense of responsibility or care.

Most students said that boys and girls should be treated differently because their genders are different and boys must be taught to be brave, like sports, and be confident and girls must be taught to be gentle and kind.
For the next question I think every student either said no that women should not stay at home and watch the kids, that the responsibility must be shared, or that the woman should just do what she likes.

During the entire lesson and discussion I didn’t say anything and tried my best not to change my facial expression but this was rather difficult on this next question. Are there jobs that are just for men and just for women? Some students said no, some said yes and one group almost made me drop my jaw when they said yes, jobs for women are secretary, nurse and teacher and jobs for men are high technology jobs and jobs with much responsibility. Later when the students were creating posters for influential women I gave that group Marie Curie. Maybe that changed one of their minds. Secretary, nurse and teacher…you’ve got to be kidding. I had a discussion with one of the leaders from Peace Corps China and she said that China for women is about equal with women in the US in the 1950s.

But moving on from that interesting lesson, I did receive a flower, glass, and office decorations from students on Women’s Day which was very nice. The school gave all women teachers the afternoon off which disappointed me because I like teaching and I didn’t get to do my woman’s day lesson with two classes, but I did spend the afternoon talking and walking with a Chinese teacher friend of mine. It was a rather sad and frustrating conversation for me because she was telling me that she was feeling all of this pressure from family, friends and society to date and get married. She is only 26! I wish she didn’t have these feelings. She is incredibly smart and together but she lacks so much confidence and having these pressures certainly doesn’t build her confidence any higher.

On another note, a different teacher told me that he and his wife are getting divorced and he has already moved out of his house and into the same apartment building as me. He started the conversation asking me about divorce in the US and whether there were many. I said truthfully that it is about 50% at which time he informed me of his current issue. I felt sorry for him but more importantly for his 13 year old daughter. It is interesting how comfortable the Chinese feel discussing their issues with foreigners. I think it’s because we can take their secrets and such with us when we inevitably return to our countries.

The strangest thing occurred to me this week. I gained super strength and super vision after having a run-in with an electrical cord. Obviously that’s not true but I did manage to give myself a mild electric shock which was a rather strange feeling that coerced through my body. I was plugging in my water purifier after cleaning it and not realizing that the other end of the cord was still in the outlet I was plugging the cord into a wet socket. BZZ! Anyways I am fine. Just another interesting day in the life of Katie.

Friday I watched The Pianist with two teachers. If you haven’t seen it you should. It is the true story of this Polish Jewish pianist during the Nazi invasion of Poland. While watching it I was shocked at how little they knew about the sufferings of the Jews by the Nazis. They continually asked me questions like why are they doing that? Where are they taking them? Katie, what is going to happen to them? I am very glad I watched it with them rather than if they’d watched it alone and never had their questions answered. It wasn’t that they didn’t know anything. They were aware of the concentration camps and that they targeted the Jews, but they didn’t grasp the details. I was thinking again about this and how I definitely need to do something for Holocaust Memorial Day and then I asked myself how many Americans know Chinese history or understand the sufferings they endured at the hands of the Japanese? How much knowledge do Americans have of the sufferings endured in all other nonwestern countries? I was thinking how little do these Chinese teachers know of the Holocaust when I should be thinking how little we all know. My education rarely touched on African, Middle Eastern, and Asian literature, history and culture—why?

And to wrap-up my week I spent a good part of this weekend making my apartment the cleanest it’s ever been. I scrubbed, moved things around, organized, and put my blood sweat and tears into making my apartment look sparkling, minus the blood and tears. The tears almost came, but I kept them under. I added photographs to my website but then I realized that the pictures will not show the hard work I endured, but you’ll just have to take my word on it.

Winter Travels

2011-03-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

The last week of classes I gave my students an evaluation they had to fill out about me. Some students took it seriously and had real suggestions for topics such as, speaking loudly and slowly, having more group activities, and teaching about things they can use when they practice teach in the preschool. However some students had suggestions that were rather less helpful like: I like your smile, show us movies (in my technology-less classrooms), and my all-time favorite “I wish the teacher (you) would have a different hairstyle.” I had no idea my hair was affecting your learning so much. Why of course I will change my hair immediately! (Insert rolling of the eyes). I also gave finals. For the freshmen they had to prepare a conversation about going on a trip with a group and my English majors had individual interview with me. I wish I had done interviews earlier because some of the students were a lot lower level than I thought. I definitely learned more about teaching and really hope I can make some necessary improvements for the following term. I was all ready to depart for my travels after putting my grades together to hand into the office when I realized one was missing! One of my students never took their final. I contacted that student and said that she had until Friday to take the exam. She never took it and I failed her. And that ends my first semester teaching in China.

My winter travel began in Yibin where the four of us met up in Leo’s place since it was the easiest and most direct route into Yunnan province which is just south of China. We had to stay in Yunnan because it was in the capital city (Kunming) that we could visit the Vietnamese consulate and obtain a visa. First we went into Kunming and immediately went to the consulate where we ran into two China 15s who were also heading there. They asked us about our photographs for the visa, and so we immediately turned around and left to find a place to take our pictures because we completely forgot—thanks Charlie and the other 15 whose name I don’t know. When we returned there was this young Danish boy behind us in line who was picking his visa and passport up but he had misplaced his receipt and told us that they weren’t giving his passport back to him. We said if he still can’t find it that he should contact his embassy. Anyways we knew to keep the receipts safe, so the two guys gave it to me and Katie to hold. Oh yeah, I was travelling with Leo, Katie and Richy.

So all of our Chinese friends had been telling us that Kunming is the “spring city” because it is warm all year. Well we are walking around shivering and Katie says “I think there’s ashes falling.” Well ashes turned out to be snow!! We arrived in Kunming at a time when it was the coldest in 50 years. Great! We were trying to escape cold but instead it was following us. During this tiem it was colder in Kunming than in our sites.

Anyways we decided to leave Kunming for a few days while the visas were processed. We went to this wonderful quaint city in Yunnan called Dali. It was a typical tourist town and was filled with quite a few expats that maybe didn’t jive well in their own countries because these people seemed like lifers. The weather was still chilly but not cold and we spent the time biking and relaxing and indulging in western style food (which is expensive in China). A few days later the visas were ready and we return to Kunming, pick them up and head to the bus station to take an overnight bus to the border crossing. After meeting the Danish boy Katie was desperately trying to remember what the Danish word for sprinkles was since, she and Richy had previously been there. Anyways when we got to the bus station guess who we see? The Dane from the consulate! I run over and say “hey you got the passport!” Do you know the Danish word for sprinkles?” He was slightly flummoxed by my ludicrous question, stumbled over his words to say no and hurried away. There wasn’t enough room on any of the buses that night so we bought for the next day and took a taxi back to the hostel. The taxi driver was the nicest lady we met that the guys struck up a conversation with her. At one point I looked at her driver’s id and it was a picture of a man. I think she was driving her husband’s taxi! But she was probably a better driver anyways.

We returned to the hostel where there was the cutest puppy; Katie fed it some butter and Richy put it his jacket to keep warm because it was shivering so much. We contemplated stealing it but thought it might be difficult at the border crossing.

Okay—overnight bus…never take one if you can help it! It was frightening. Very shaky. I maybe slept 2 of the 17 or so hours we were on it. But we arrived safely and that’s all that matters. At one point when we were first starting this guy came around and was asking everyone for 5 Yuan but wasn’t explaining why. Richy and Leo told us not to pay until he explained and until the Chinese passengers paid incase this was a scam. It ended up being because they had to redirect the route because the original route had snow on the road and we had to pass through an extra toll. Through this experience we met two Dutch boys who didn’t speak any Chinese, so we helped them out. They’d later follow us to Hanoi.

When we arrived in Lao Cai it was too early to cross the border, so we found a place to eat breakfast and chill until the border opened. Here we met a man who was willing to exchange our RMB for Vietnamese dong. We were crossing on a Sunday and there wouldn’t be any banks open and they also don’t give a good exchange rate for RMB apparently. Btw, US dollars can be used in Vietnam, but after 6 months in China we didn’t have any.

Okay so we walked across the border between China and Vietnam and then took a train to the capital of Hanoi. Thanks to the French influence as soon as we entered the country everyone was trying to sell us fresh baguettes which were awesome. This one boy on the train was particularly persistent even though we already had bread and kept getting in Leo’s space. In China we always take a "hard seat" on a day trip train which is the cheapest ticket but this seat is soft compared with Vietnamese hard seats which were just wooden benches and an 8 hr train ride turned into 12. But it was okay. We shared the experience with the 2 Dutch boys. They said that they had finished high school and their mandatory year in military and decided to travel a bit of the world before heading to university and continuing their life. We met many Europeans like that. Their lives are so different than Americans. First they all have socialized medicine, second many of them have socialized education, and three they all speak English fluently. How many Americans are fluent in 2 languages?

Moving on the Dutch boys came in handy because they knew of a cheap hostel, though they were rich and weren’t as concerned with money as we were. After Vietnam they were heading to New Zealand and were going to buy a car to use down there. Wow, must be nice.

Hanoi was nice. Vietnam is definitely poorer than China, though. We just walked around and visited some museums and such. It was a bit difficult at first with the language barrier but we studied on the train (hello, goodbye, what is this, how much, where is the bathroom, thanks, can it be cheaper, and the numbers 1-10, 100, and 1000). Vietnam is well known for selling copied books, so Leo and Richy bargained for a Vietnamese phrase book in Hanoi. They were very tough bargainers. When we left we said bye to the man and he said “I don’t like you!” since they bought the book for so cheap. But the fact is that he wouldn’t have sold it if he wasn’t making a profit. He just found a group of foreigners he couldn’t rip off is all.

In Hanoi we saw the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh which was strange. It looked like he was sleeping/not real. You must walk through quietly and cannot have your hands in your pockets and must have no electronics. Katie and Richy are trying to make their way through their communist leaders. They have already seen Mao and Lenin. They said Lenin looked the most real, but that is most likely because the Russians are the best at body preservation and actually China and Vietnam send their leaders to Russia to get refurbished or whatever it is called. In Hanoi we first tried the amazing Vietnamese coffee. I wasn’t a coffee drinker before but Vietnam convert anyone over. It is dark and strong and drunk from a small cup. At the bottom of the cup they pour sweetened condensed milk which ties everything together for a nice smooth taste. We also ate comforting warm pho which is best described as noodle soup but better. It has fresh vegetables, noodles, and meat.

Since Vietnam is such a small country we made our way through the entire country. Next we wanted to see Hailong Bay but every brochure made it look like the Asian Cancun which wasn’t what we wanted. So we hop on the frightening overnight train and we are headed to quaint but touristy Hoi An. What’s wrong with this train? Roaches and uncontrollable shaking, but here’s a bit of excitement for ya…our Danish friend from Kunming is back! And he brought two friends with him that he picked up along the way. So five minutes into the train ride and we get a knock on the door and see three European guys and a bottle of vodka because they want to hang. It is Sam, aka Sprinkles as we nicknamed him earlier since we hadn’t had formal introductions, a Scotsman whose name escapes me at this time, and the Swede. Sam it turns out is 19, finished high school and decided to travel a bit on his own before venturing into university life. The Scotsman is 24 and works in Japan and rather hyperactive. And the Swede is 30 decided to take a break and travel a bit and got caught up with these youngsters as he called them. We became closest with the Swede after it was figured that the Danish boy and the Scots were looking to meet some nice girls and Katie and me accompanied by two guys wasn’t enough of a hint that we were taken so they had a try. Discouraged they returned early to their beds and we stayed up with the Swede who made us jealous with all of the many wonderful things their queen does for them, including a free college education which includes money for room and board. We also thoroughly enjoyed listening to his English, particularly of the “j” sound which for him came out as the “y” sound for example, when he mentioned yumping on the train. It was delightful to hear. We took our separate ways and we started the next adventure in Hue.

Hue was a nice city in Vietnam but it rained almost nonstop, so we didn’t last long there. We visited a few historical sites, one being the prison that the French colonialists used to hold the Vietnamese that were opposing them. The treatment of the Vietnamese by the French was terrible, as almost every colonialist is to the people they invade. Later during the American-Vietnam War we were told the American pilots that were shot down were kept there under much better conditions. One such soldier was John McCain whose picture we saw on the wall of the museum.

While we were there, though, some other interesting things transpired.
The first was this small restaurant that we just decided on a whim to choose and it turned out to be an internationally known restaurant that was featured on the TV show Globetrekkers and was also featured in Lonely Planet. It was famous because, well obviously the food was amazing! We ate spring rolls that you roll yourself, hot sweet banana pancakes with warm chocolate sauce drizzled over it, and the local beers. This brings me to the second reason for the fame and that is the owner, an older hearing impaired man, had invented the coolest bottle opener ever. It is simply a wooden stick with a screw sticking out the end. Why is this cool? Well imagine 6 bottles lined up in a row with 6 of these simple bottle openers resting along the caps’ edge and this Vietnamese man karate chopping them all open at once. Get ready to be jealous. We ended up returning because the food was delicious, the owner sweet as can be, and most importantly was that it was warm and got us out of the rain. We started off ordering coffee, then we ordered food, beer, more food, and coffee again—we pretty much stayed in his restaurant half the day. This being the case, he took a liking to us and gave each of us a bottle opener for free! I can just see your eyes glistening green with envy. But no worries, when I return to the US in the summer of 2012, you can all have a go with the infamous bottle opener. When we eventually left his cozy abode we were accosted by this man who insisted he treat us to a beer. He wanted to chat with Americans. We hesitated and then decided to agree but be wary. He talked with us of how he had been with the South Vietnamese army during the war and as a result he was given a low job when the North won. He then said he wanted to pray for us at his temple and needed wine to offer at the statue of the god of I forget. It isn’t the god of I forget I just forget what he said. Anyways he convinces us to buy this expensive wine and we will never know if he really prayed or not or whether we were scammed. We would prefer the first but it was difficult to say either way. Naturally this became our topic of conversation the remainder of the trip in Hue.

Next we boarded a day bus (thank you) headed to the quaint but touristy city of Hoi An. In Hoi An we stayed at a cute hotel complete with mosquito nets, free bikes and middle-aged Vietnamese women who kept slapping my butt and pinching Katie A’s cheeks. We hit up the free bikes every day and rode into and around town. We also biked to the nearby beach which was too chilly for swimming but nice for relaxing and listening to the breaking of the waves. Hoi An is famous for their tailored clothing stores. Every other shop you could have something made for you, even full suits. How did we know this? Why the Swede told us! That’s right. Once more we ran into Sprinkles the Dane and his new faithful companion the Swede, but this time the Scotsman has returned to his job in Japan and they’ve picked up another European fellow. We just said hi and they told us of their adventures since we’d last parted ways in the train station at Hue and it was goodbye at last. Or was it?

Part of the adventure in Hoi An included a trip to a nearby city called My Son. My Son was a place in the jungles of Vietnam where there were some ruins and artifacts. Along the way we stopped in this small village and bought Vietnam’s amazing ban mi which are baguette sandwiches with pate that is sold everywhere in the country. When we got to My Son we had ourselves a picnic with the ban mi, oranges and peanut butter and crackers that Katie A and I prepared. It was pretty awesome. At one point the boys decided to lead us on a trek through the jungle which was probably a terrible idea since we aren’t experts on Vietnam’s plants, insects, and wildlife and were most likely risking some sort of disease or attack by venomous creature. But don’t worry moms and Peace Corps medical office—we made it there and back in one piece. Honestly I think Leo and Richie were hoping we’d see a tiger. (rolling of eyes and a sigh, followed by a grin because they are just so goofy you cannot help but enjoy their jest for adventure). On the way back we stopped at a roadside street vendor and ate some pancake things which consist of egg, flour shrimp, and then we wrap it in fresh greens and a spring roll wrap and dip in a spicy sauce. She kept bringing us more and more and we couldn’t stop eating it was so savory. So Hoi An became the first experience we’d had thus far of decent warmth, no rain, and a relaxing atmosphere of reading, biking, and sitting at a beach. We didn’t want to leave but we had high hopes of our continued journey south. We wanted sun, we wanted a beach we could swim in, and if it wasn’t too much to ask we really wanted a tan.

We vowed we’d never ride another overnight bus but this is exactly how we ended up travelling to the next stop—Nha Trang, a mid-sized city with a beach. But being on an overnight bus wasn’t bad enough that when we arrived (late due to traffic) the hotel informed us our reservations had been cancelled. We managed to get in but later. The next day we went next door where we had a cheaper stay and just as nice living space. This second day we hit the beach. It was pleasant and warm. The waves were high and strong, though, so Katie A and I opted to create sand creatures (sea turtle and bird) while Leo and Richy braved the water. They insisted we have a try so we stepped in a bit. Leo tried to encourage me to swim rather than just stand but instead I turned and ran back up. Despite being a native Floridian, I am not the best at swimming.

There was a middle aged Vietnamese woman with fruit sitting next to Katie A and Richy when we walked up. When we got close she asks roughly looking at Leo, “are you Leo?” He hesitated and said, “um…ya.” She then picks up a large knife and in the toughest voice she can muster she says, “You give me money or I cut off your banana and make you lady-man.” Appalled by this Leo takes a few steps back and manages to exclaim, “What?!” It turns out that while we were in the water this fruit seller approaches Katie and Richy. In response to her request for them to purchase the fruit Richy says that he didn’t have any money, but that Leo had all of the money. So she was ready when he returned. She kept telling Leo “I kill you! No no I love you. Buy my fruit! I cut off your banana! No money no honey!” This phrase no money no honey is heard throughout Vietnam and unfortunately has to do with the prostitution business in Vietnam which is wide and easily spotted. But in order to save Leo’s banana and because we actually wanted fruit we bought some from the best fruit seller in Vietnam or at least the scariest.

We thought Nha Trang was just good for the beach and great Indian food we enjoyed one night, but oh were we wrong. Thanks to Leo’s research and boyish excitement for arcades and water parks we enjoyed a full day at this really amazing island next to Nha Trang. We took the longest cable car over water to this island owned by a fancy resort and with one ticket we enjoyed a water park (lazy river, slides, wave pool), amusement park (merry-go-round, swings which made us all nauseous, small roller coaster), arcade complete with bumper cars and a riding bull, and an aquarium (with sea turtle, sharks, sting rays and fish). It is the best kept secret in Nha Trang. It wasn’t Disney or anything but was quite enjoyable. It was slightly dangerous considering it is a third world country and they haven’t the same codes as in America but nevertheless we didn’t get too injured from it—just Leo and Richy had their backs slightly cut and rubbed too hard by a steep slide and Richy and I got our throats smashed in a water slide, but it was all in the spirit of fun and well, Peace Corps medical staff never warned us of the dangers of water parks in Vietnam, so really we couldn’t have possibly known. Diarrhea, malaria, STDs? Check. Water parks? I think you forgot it in the medical handbook Peace Corps.

Last but not least is the great city of Ho Chi Minh (aka Saigon). It was a bustling city especially this near TET which is the Vietnamese equivalent of Spring Festival or Lunar New Year. The difference is that this year in Vietnam is the year of the Cat whereas China it is the year of the Rabbit and China doesn’t even have a cat on the calendar. For TET, every Vietnamese family will buy beautiful, bold and somewhat expensive flowers, so throughout Ho Chi Minh we saw these brilliantly colored flower markets with orchids, lilies, tulips, dragon fruit and more. Ho Chi Minh also had a huge indoor market with everything from paintings and coffee to knockoff purses and perfume. It was hectic and exciting. Walking through the aisles we were shouted at and pulled towards every corner shop. Everyone had a mission. Mine was to get something for Janice and Mark who gave me money before leaving. Katie A was trying to find a cardigan. Richy wanted coffee. And Leo was trying to track down the items that his sister asked him to try and find. But we worked together as a team and gave each other good bargaining tips and tried to buy together in the hopes of price reduction. It was successful, though slightly difficult when some sellers weren’t in bargaining moods—and by afternoon when it is mid 90s I can’t blame them. We heard that it’s best to arrive in the morning because you can get a good deal because it is considered bad luck for the whole day if you don’t make your first sale.

While in Ho Chi Minh we also took a short boat ride around the river in the city. We picked a great time because it was right as the sun was setting. After that we continued the trend of our entire trip by using the toilets in the nicest hotels we passed. Is this strange? They are the cleanest and they smell nice. In one we visited in Hanoi there were towels to dry the hands rather than paper. Fancy.

During our time in Ho Chi Minh we visited a few museums. The most notable was the War Museum. Outside were many weapons, bombs, and fighter jets and helicopters. Then there was a dedication to the Tiger Cages which was a horror prison used by both the French and South Vietnamese. The prisoners were tortured beyond any scope of reason. The tactics of which are too gruesome to mention but if you are curious I am sure you can find it online. Inside the museum were pictures depicting the atrocities of war.

Great Scott! Is that Sprinkles I see leaving the War Museum?! By golly it is. But this indeed would be the last we’d see of him since our adventure ends in Ho Chi Minh and we are to return to China the following day. Alas, we didn’t even get to say goodbye.

All in all Vietnam was great. The coffee, bread, ban mi, pho, pancakes, spring rolls, and banana pancakes are amazing. The people are friendly, slightly crazy women, and fun. The weather is mostly perfect all year. If you have the chance to visit Vietnam, I’d say you wouldn’t regret it. But I am not sure if I am biased after 7 months in China. Food for thought.

2010-12-21T03:48:00.001-08:00

I forgot to mention one thing about the Thanksgiving weekend. I travelled with Angel from Mianyang to Neijiang. This was quite the experience and I am surprised I had forgotten it until now. The bus we were taking is supposed to leave at 9am, so we get there about 8:40. Angel asked an attendant where the bus to Neijiang is, since we didn’t know the characters for Neijiang. The attendant told us to wait a bit since the bus wasn’t there yet. We wait and then it is 8:50 and we get a bit nervous thinking the bus should definitely be there by now. Then all of a sudden we hear that the bus to Neijiang is leaving, so Angel runs over to see what is going on and they tell him the bus that has been in front of us this whole time is in fact the bus we should be on! So we load our things and get on, but the bus is packed and there is only one seat. Angel tells me to sit and I said that we can switch at the half-way mark of this 5 hour bus trip. But then this lady gets on and tells Angel to follow her off the bus. When he gets off, the bus I am on starts pulling out! I start to say wait but it doesn’t look as if they are going to wait for me. I sit back down and Angel has sent me a text to stay on the bus because they are putting him on a different bus and if things get too weird try and meet up in Chengdu at the North Bus Station—I say okay but am really hoping this doesn’t happen because I always get a bit lost in Chengdu. We travel for a bit on the bus and then the bus pulls off on the side of the road and the driver tells me to get out. I was starting to get really nervous but then I saw Angel was standing on the side of the road too. As long as we are stuck in the same boat together I figured things couldn’t be too bad. So what happens is this- lady that first took Angel off of the bus flagged down a bus for us and three Chinese people and we all got on and made it to Neijiang. Just have to have fairht and trust. That is one thing I have learned about China. If you let someone know where you want to go you will make it there, even if it’s not the way you originally thought.

For example I took the train to Mianyang the day before leaving for Neijiang and I mentioned to these nice Hunan people sitting next to me that I was getting off in Mianyang and they told me when to get off the train. They were also trying to force this teenage girl to practice her English with me which completely appalled her. Instead I practiced my Chinese with them.

Back at school there was a hip-hop dance competition between our school and 9 other colleges. It was quite interesting. I had a few laughs watching it as the boys were trying to be gangsta and the girls were trying to be sexy—with ripping their shirts off and pretending to fire guns. Some of the dancing was actually impressive—though far short of So You Think You Can Dance. Our school got first and second place, which wasn’t surprising considering how much time is spent dancing here.

One evening I was asked to teach a group of students to make fruit salad. I said it wasn’t difficult—just cut up some fruit and put it in a bowl. But the main reason was that the students wanted to communicate with a foreigner. And also they meant Waldorf salad. I came and said that I think Waldorf salad isn’t eaten that much by westerners I know, and that I didn’t think it was tasty; so we should just cut the fruit and put it in the bowl, but if the students want to try waldorf later I would write the recipe on the board. When I first came into the classroom I was slightly overwhelmed because it was a large group and they were just waiting for me to "do something". Finally the students settled on me singing a song to start. The Chinese have this bad habit of treating foreigners like they are circus performers. Anyway I taught them two children’s songs (head shoulders knees and toes and If you’re happy and you know it). Then I let them ask me questions. At one point Janice came into the back and I made her join me at the front, but she left as soon as we started making the fruit salad. I showed them but said it really doesn’t matter what fruit you include and how it is cut up. Afterwards we played some games. The first game was that you were asked some questions by a ‘host’ and you had to answer quickly without using pronouns or saying um. It was rather difficult. It was all in Chinese but I still participated but they had to ask me the questions slowly and I responded even slower. If you used one of the pronouns you had to do a performance of some sort—song, dance or something else. Then we played another game that was a mixture of hot potato and truth or dare. If the ‘potato’ stopped on you then you must answer a question without using any pronouns and if you did then you must choose truth or dare. I used a pronoun on my turn and I chose dare and they made me do a dance, so I did the I’m a little teapot dance. When it was time to go back I discovered that I had been spending my evening with the English Club. I had no idea that there was an English Club. It is a student-led group that is interested in English and improving their English skills and knowledge of English speaking countries.

The next week there were several sports competitions, including ping pong and volleyball. I was asked to participate in the volleyball match. I am terrible at volleyball but it seemed I wasn’t the only one and anyways I was filling a space. It wasn’t very much fun since I don’t like volleyball but I was being apart of the department which was good. Our department won, but we won out of the losers. It was just for fun, though. In the middle of the game Kerry asks me if I am going to watch a movie that evening at Janice and Marks. Since I had made Skype plans with someone I said no. He said oh well then I should tell you now that the leaders said that you must be finished teaching this week and have exams next week and turn your grades in before Christmas. Well last I had heard we were to finish at the end of December and I had already made plans for exams taking two weeks and told my classes that day this. So I had to change my plans and track down the students I had already told my original plans to and give them the new plans. Apparently this happens every year and every semester. I can’t understand why they cannot figure out the dates earlier than they do. Oh well. I will make a mental note of this for next semester.

Lunch can sometimes be quite interesting. This time Kerry turns to me and starts asking me all these questions about Christmas trees. Is it true that you put real trees in your house? What kind of trees do you use? What do you do with the tree after Christmas? Do the trees in the school or the trees at the mountain we went to (more than a month ago) look more like Christmas trees? It turned out that Kerry had this crazy idea to go to the nearby mountain and cut down a tree to bring to his house for Christmas and then to keep it on his porch for the rest of the year. This is not a good idea—so us three foreigners thought. Luckily it didn’t work as he hoped and he bought an artificial tree. Actually his home was

Thanksgiving

2010-12-05T05:46:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday and this year proved to be no disappointment. Thirty-five Peace Corps volunteers, a crazy guy from Singapore with a hyper Chinese freshmen, an energetic Kiwi, a Danish guy, tons of delicious food and all of the beer from the little convenient store down on campus and you have the recipe for a good Thanksgiving in China. Many of the volunteers in Sichuan and Chongqing met in Southern Sichuan to celebrate the holiday. The volunteers in Chengdu found a real turkey and cranberry sauce at the foreign store (rarities in China), and the rest of us brought and cooked a massive feast. Many great cooks succeeded in making stuffing, cornbread, pumpkin pie, Dutch apple pie, macaroni and cheese, more stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple sauce, tuna noodle casserole, cakes, dumplings, corn, green bean casserole and I am probably forgetting something. I made banana bread and chocolate peanut butter cookies which I must say turned out surprisingly well in my little toaster oven. Since there were so many of us and just two volunteers in small apartments we all stayed in a hostel on campus. It was…pretty gross, but the company made up for it. While we were there a few of us visited a Buddhist temple that was around a 1000 years old. It turned out to be quite nice and this lady came from nowhere and gave the three of us standing together a lesson on Buddhism and Buddhist necklaces. There was also a fierce dog behind a door that all too much made me think of the three-headed dog from Harry Potter. I thought it was going to break down the door. Another kind man working at the temple opened a closed section of the temple for us foreigners which was rather nice.

This Thanksgiving experience also included us visiting a club. It was fun to watch these middle-aged Chinese men dancing on a stage and even more fun to watch some of our guys follow them and attempt their dance moves which involved much flailing of the arms and high kicks. Returning from the club to the hostel my friends and I witnessed a street fight. Not as dangerous as it sounds. It was on the other side of the road, and these two men chase this taxi and start kicking it. The cab slams on its breaks and about 7 Chinese men pour out of it and start yelling at the group of men on the street. The 2 women are trying to calm the men down. Then they start slapping and kicking each other and that’s about it. It was rather anticlimactic.

Back in Jiangyou there was an art festival all week. The students had been preparing all month with dancing, singing and drawing. Janice made a smart comment to say that if the college devoted as much time and money into academics as it did performing the school would be really good. Regardless the artwork and dancing were fantastic. I missed the musical show. I wish I had taken pictures of the students’ art which were quite talented and worthy of sale but this is annual so I will just catch it next year.

I missed the musical show because I told a student that I would have dinner with her. This student is a senior high school student that has taken to me. Before I went to dinner I ran with a freshmen student that speaks English quite well. But before we started running she said that she would be joining me and Lisa for dinner that night. I was surprised because I couldn’t figure out how she might have known Lisa (it turns out that Whitley was talking with another student about me and Lisa overheard and approached her about me and they formed a friendship based off their mutual acquaintanceship with me). I was pleased by this because Lisa speaks almost no English. During dinner Whitley translated that Lisa has been having a terrible time with her roommates. Apparently they smoke all the time in their room, stay up to really late hours, never study, and have put indecent photos of another roommate on the internet. Lisa wanted to know if she could live with me. She can’t of course but I told her she can come over to study or get away. Lisa had also started practicing her English by chatting with this American man on msn and wanted my opinion about the conversations she had with him because she was feeling a bit weird about it. I read through it and, yes, this man is a creepy and inappropriate man and I told her not to talk with him anymore. Then she was worried that he’d be able to find her since he said he was coming to China next year but I assured her that he wouldn’t be able to as long as she doesn’t give him her address and that even if he did that I would protect her at school and her dad can protect her at home. Whitley and Lisa came over for dinner Sunday evening which made Lisa almost flip with excitement. Janice and Mark said when they first came to the school the parents of their students thought they were lying when they said they had foreign teachers, and a few of the students that I talk with still have this issue. One student made me talk with her mom on the phone because she didn’t believe that she was sitting in the home of a foreigner. Funny.

Better news this week is that one of the girls in my running club passed her running exam in p.e! She was quite nervous about it since she had already failed it previously but in running club I had everyone run a fast 800 meters (which is their PE test) and I quickly discovered why she kept failing. She was going out really fast and then crashing the second lap. With my advice she was able to get through it. Funny that across the world I am still coaching.

This past weekend I went to Mianyang to have an early Christmas celebration at Angel’s. When I was at the bus station catching a bus to Mianyang a young Chinese woman approached me and asked where I was going. I told her and asked where she was going—which was the same as me. Then she wanted to know if I was Chinese. When I said I was American she said oh I can speak English! For the rest of the trip I chatted in English with twenty-three year old (same as me) Mia who works in administration in Jiangyou but whose family is in Mianyang. I told her that we can hang out sometime in Jiangyou since she just moved there and still doesn’t know many people there.

The Christmas gathering was nice and small. It consisted of all the foreign teachers at their college and one Chinese teacher. Three of us were Peace Corps, one was a Peace Corps volunteer a few years back but returned as a paid foreign teacher, another was just an American that came to teach, and the last foreign teacher was an Austrian woman that teaches German at the school. The Austrian woman said she was disappointed in my drinking ability and that I should train before going drinking with her again. I cannot compete with an Austrian! Maybe if I harness my Irish background. We were only joking with each other of course. The food was good and Angel gave us all small gifts which was incredibly nice. It was nice to have the celebration as an opener to the season. I did have one interesting conversation with a Chinese teacher that was with us. Jeff, Angel’s site mate, and I were talking with her about foster care in America earlier that evening. She had some more questions concerning the system. I gave her both scenarios of good foster homes and bad ones. In Tallahassee it is a bit nicer than in Chicago where Jeff is from. Foster kids get swept under the rug far too often but I think it is more so in places like Chicago, New York and Detroit. She said that it was nice that we have the system even if sometimes it fails because there is nothing like that in China.

The day I returned I met with Jane and her roommates to shop for cooking items because they were coming over to cook. They made dumplings, a soup, two vegetable dishes and a tofu dish. It was very good but there was so much food! Jane, Danny and I just helped fold the dumplings because we didn’t know how to cook the foods and were just in the way in the kitchen. After eating Jane and Danny did the dishes. They wouldn’t let me help with anything! When things were cleaned we watched a movie. It was quite relaxing. I continued to work on my knitting. Yes my knitting. I used to knit in college but stopped. It is quite popular here and I have picked it back up. I am currently working on a scarf. While I am here I want to try and get better and attempt things that aren’t squares—like hats and gloves, but we’ll see how into it I get. My students can only do scarves. Janice is the one I need to ask if I want to try something more difficult—she actually cast on for me because I’d forgotten that necessary step.

It is weird for me to think that this semester is almost over. In two weeks I will begin to give finals and at the end of this month I will turn my grades in for my first semester teaching in China. I have begun to reflect on my teaching and have made note of some big improvements that I need to make. I am going to ask my students to evaluate my teaching and we’ll see how it goes. Chinese students don’t like to say anything negative about their teachers, but hopefully I can convince them of the importance of evaluating my teaching.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and things are looking merrier these days!

1st Birthday in China and 1 Busy Week

2010-11-24T03:43:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I took my good friend Vivi out for dinner since she was leaving Wednesday for a little over a week to visit Nanjing, the former capital of China (near Shanghai), to attend some meetings concerning preschool education, along with her husband who is studying for his PhD in education at a university in Chongqing. When we finished dinner I decided to accompany her to see to her students. Vivi is a head teacher for about 125 students. As a head teacher it is her responsibility to see to the needs of the students, to grant them leave, and to notify their parents should they miss school. The students must also sit for evening class on Wednesdays and Sundays at 7pm and Vivi must take roll, give announcements, and occasionally lecture on some topic. So you can imagine she is quite busy. On this occasion I decided to accompany her since I had nothing else to do and Vivi said the students would be teaching about some things, including Thanksgiving. The students led each other in songs, discussions, and gave a short performance. The entire meeting was in Chinese, of course, so I did my best to listen and pick out words here and there and figure out what was going on. At the end of the meeting I was getting drowsy, maybe, and was paying less attention to what was being said, so I missed when I was introduced, but soon realized when Vivi elbowed me and I glanced up to see over a hundred students looking at me. It seemed that they wanted me to come up and say something, which I did. I gave them a short lesson about Thanksgiving in America and what my family does on the holiday. It was certainly a surprise, but I know most of her students which made it okay.

Monday one of my students gave me a birthday present. When I got home I opened it and it was…wait, what is this? It was green and something to wear, but I couldn’t figure it out. I decided to wait and ask Eliam when she came over to teach me Chinese this afternoon, but she didn’t know either! Together we figured out that it was a stylish scarf that hung loosely on my neck. It was very pretty once I knew what it was. My tutoring went okay and afterwards I awkwardly asked Eliam how much she might like to be paid, but she said she would prefer it if I taught her English and American teaching methods as a return for her teaching me Chinese. Yes, that I can do and I am glad I don’t have to deal with paying a friend money. After my lesson Media asked if I would like to accompany her to buy vegetables downtown and then she made both of us dinner. She said she wasn’t a good cook, but I thought it was delicious (spicy green peppers with dried pork, a green leafy vegetable cooked with garlic, and porridge—watery rice (I like it, though many foreigners don’t). While eating we came on the topic of the Chinese zodiac and who knew—we are both rabbits (which really excited Media). This means as much to me as being a Scorpio, which is nothing.

Tuesday Vivi invited Allie and me for dinner (lotus roots, eggs and tomatoes, fried potatoes, and a green leafy vegetable and tofu, and rice). Vivi invited me to listen to a speaker earlier that day and we were planning on going after dinner to the library. As we were leaving, though, Vivi said it was a student singing contest. I said okay. The conversation that follows is rather interesting and worth mentioning:
Vivi: what’s it called the person that comments on a performance?
Me: a judge?
Vivi: yeah! A judge.
Me: so who is the judge for this contest?
Vivi: um…we are
Me: what?!
Vivi: okay, let’s hurry; we’re late!
Then she grabbed my arm and we rushed to a library classroom where Vivi, me and two music teachers proceeded to judge 37 student singers. Vivi and I were wholly unqualified, but her students asked her and then asked if I would since there might be some students singing English songs. Well there were 3 English songs out of 37, but at least Vivi didn’t really know what she was doing either. After the contest a student flagged me down because she wants to be my friend. So my newest friend is Whitley, a student of Kerry’s from Chengdu who likes running and is just slightly goofy (the latter two sound like me a bit. Haha!). Later on Friday morning she ran me down on the track when I was running to give me some instant coffee—maybe she knew it was my birthday.

So I am often taken aback by this juxtaposition of old and new in China. Pedi-cabs maneuvering around BMWs, horse and ox pulling carts down the road next to construction trucks, and meat sellers with their pigs’ feet hanging from hooks outside the new mall. This week I was slightly amazed to see a farmer strolling down the road beside the school leading his massive pig with just a slight swish of his stick while I stood inside my tiled apartment having just finished my lunch. Life here is certainly fascinating. I hope I do not soon lose that feeling of astonishment of living in China.

Thursday I was pleasantly surprised to see the results of a homework assignment that I gave my sophomore classes. Last week we had discussed the topic of TV and computer, and I asked the students to create a 5 minute mini TV show and the results were quite entertaining. I wasn’t sure what they might come up with and I was very impressed with their creativity and the time they put into the assignment. There was a talk show, talent show, and dating show. The dating show was probably the funniest. There were 5 female contestants, the host, and one "guy" (it’s an all female class). First the women introduced themselves and why they were on the show. Then 'Peter' came on and introduced himself and why he was on the show. Then the host asked the women to decide if they liked him (which they did by putting their water bottles down for no or kept it up for yes). One girl put hers down and the host asked why and she said because he was too old. Then the girls were allowed to ask Peter a question. After the questions they could choose again yes or no (two more said no and gave reasons). Then Peter could ask the girls a question. In the end Peter chose between the two remaining girls. Then the rest of the class who were the audience shouted kiss kiss kiss! So they pretended to kiss and the host wrapped up the show.

Thursday afternoon I went to watch a jump rope contest after two students told me about it. It was really fun to watch so I took pictures. Then I went with one student to join two teachers playing Ping-Pong. They let me try for a bit, and I wasn’t as bad as I thought I might be. I wasn’t good or even okay—I was pretty terrible, actually, but I thought I wasn’t even going to be able to hit the ball which I did. When 5:30 rolled around this student and I went over to the center of the school for English Corner. Instead of having an icebreaker activity I had some questions to ask the students that my correspondence class ( a middle school class) in America had asked me this week but to which I didn’t know the answers. The following are their unique questions with my students’ answers:

1. Do you do Kung-Fu? A. No. Every student said no, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t do it in China. Many of the students at my school prefer dance to kung-fu. Kung-Fu is taught at the school, but it is an extremely serious and disciplined sport. Media told me that in order to be able to major in Kung-Fu you must start at an early age and continue throughout your school years. She remembers that the Kung-Fu students in her middle school had to rise at 5am and do Kung-Fu before school and these students were very limber and could lift their legs above their heads while standing.
2. Do you listen to hip-hop? All said yes
3. Who are some famous artists in China? Jay Chou (the most famous amongst students), Jorin, Lee Hom
4. Are there gangs in China? If so, what is the name of a gang? ‘of course’ was a student’s answer. They gave two names: Chen Shui Bian and Li Hung Zhi
5. Do you play any online games against people from other countries? Yes. AU
6. Do you celebrate anything like Thanksgiving in China? No
7. How old must you be to drive in China? 18
8. Any famous American artists travel to China to perform? They couldn’t think of any, and I’m sure that those that do probably only perform in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
9. Are their any Chinese rappers? Yes, Pan Wei Bo

When they had so kindly answered these American middle school students’ questions the Chinese English language students split into 5 groups with a student leader and practiced their oral English. Every group was doing well except one that kept speaking Chinese every time I went over to see them. I kept trying to get them to speak more but I realized that it was their student-leader who is a bit shy, so I will remember this and put more outgoing students in her group to further the conversation along.

Friday, nothing special. Just kidding! It was my birthday! All morning I received messages from my fellow volunteers and students wishing me happy birthday, and many emails from friends and family back home saying happy birthday (thanks!). At lunch Kerry informed me that the school found me a TV and some students brought it to my apartment later, so now I can have students over to watch movies, which is great! And Mark and Janice had an extra DVD player that they said usually works, which I took back to my apartment along with a few movies I borrowed to watch with some students tonight. Friday afternoon I went running with Jane who apparently failed her running exam in PE and wanted me to help her improve. While I was heading to the track hundreds of students were pouring out—mostly my freshmen students. There was a sports game day at the field and they were participating. Two students ran up and gave me some balloons. Jane saw me wandering around amidst the crowd and called me over. First we played badminton with her two friends. I said I wasn’t any good because I hadn’t played since I was a child in Miami, but it turns out I have a natural talent for it. Then we ran a few laps, rested and ran some more. The PE test requirement is to run 800 meters in under 4 minutes which Jane couldn’t manage, so we just ran distance. When we were leaving a freshmen student of mine ran up to give me a card she made for me. It said Happy Birthday (in Chinese), then had a painting of a panda with a poem that she wrote:
I am a lovely Panda.
Im very popular in China.
I have good luck, happiness, and so on.
I have the world’s good things.
Now I give them to you!
Because I hope you’ll be the happiest person in the world!

Yours sincerely,
Yang Li
And she was so nervous writing it she said that she wrote the wrong month, but I still thought it was lovely. After running Jane and her friends and I went to dinner at a restaurant by the school gate which they treated me to on account of my birthday. Then I ran to a shop to buy some soda and snacks for the students coming over to watch a movie. About 7 students came over and we watched 27 Dresses and ate snacks. It was relaxing and fun. They also brought some snacks and a cake for me and some mittens as a gift! Very nice. As usual they cleaned everything up within the blink of an eye when the movie finished and they left quickly since they were tired and didn’t want to impose, but I enjoy the company of these students very much so it was no bother.

I find it just slightly irritating that the track cannot keep the same hours every week. I woke early, but not too early, Saturday morning for a jog and it was closed. Later I went at 5:30 and indeed it was open, but it closed soon after. Oh well! Now I know.

After my not-running, Sharon stopped by to use my internet and to chat. It turns out that on Friday she was observed by the dean of the department, since she is a new teacher, and he gave her a bad review. She said she was heartbroken over it yesterday, but then with some consideration she has come to terms with it. Some of his qualms over her teaching didn’t make a lot of sense to either of us, actually (i.e. she walks around the classroom too much; he didn’t think she was prepared (when really she was but her computer was having issues—however I must side a bit with the dean on this because I never assume technology will work and always have a plan B (thank you Dr. Froelich for that sound advice). We’ve touched this issue before and really her heart desires to return to school to earn her PhD and to work in a university (preferably in Chengdu where her family lives). If I hadn’t mentioned this before I teach at a junior college, so I don’t think anyone working at this school has their PhD, though several have masters. Like I tell everyone, both in China and America, the most important thing is to be happy (not money or a good job) but happiness in waking up and going to a job you enjoy or feeling satisfaction in your accomplishments. I suppose for some this is easier said than done.

Saturday afternoon I went with a student to lunch and then walking which was pleasant. Then I answered the myriad of letters that I received from my correspondence school in the States. That took forever! After my short evening jog I hurried back because Jane and her friends were coming over to see a movie. It was 5 girls this time. We watched half of Eat, Pray, Love before the movie stopped working because of a huge scratch in it. Since it was too late to start another film, two girls played chess and I taught the rest ERS and spoons, which they liked. We also enjoyed the cake that the students brought for me yesterday, but we forgot to eat. It looked great, tasted so-so, and later hurt my stomach. This explains why the Chinese do not eat many baked items. So the movie was great before it stopped (you should see it if you haven’t) and it was really cool for the girls to see other parts of the world, the culture, and the foods they eat. They loved seeing all of the delicious Italian foods—as did I. I taught them a little about the other countries that were represented on the movie (Italy and India—we didn’t reach the Bali section, but I know nothing about Bali anyways).

Sunday was the big party. Well I am not sure big is a good description, but it was the teachers potluck/ joint birthday party for Kerry, Media and me. I had no idea how many teachers were planning to come, but I was hoping for at least 7 and we had 8 so it was quite nice. Everyone brought food and I provided drinks, snacks and fun. Fun? Yes, I taught everyone beer pong! It was very funny. Later Kerry taught us a Chinese drinking game. Kerry drank quite a bit, but most of us shied away. Janice had a cake that she bought, and it tasted a bit like angel food cake with a whipped topping. We also had gifts. I gave Kerry a picture frame with a picture of himself in it that I took before and I gave Media a mug with candy. Media gave me hand cream because she knows my hands crack terribly from using the chalk, Allie gave me some sleeve protectors to wear over my sleeves to protect it from dirt, and Janice and Mark gave me a hand warmer and bookmark. It was really nice but when they left it was double-time cleaning because Monday my site manager, China country director for Peace Corps, and a person from the US Embassy in Beijing were visiting me!

The visit went well. Mark Lambert from the embassy was extremely nice and Bonnie (country director—i.e. head of China PC program), and Wang Laoshi (site manager—i.e. head of Sichuan volunteers) were very nice as always. They came to my house at 10, we talked and I showed them my apartment, a little of the school, and my office, and at 11 they observed one of my classes. After my class we accompanied Kerry, the dean of the foreign affairs office at the school (very nice man), and the president. They took us to the nicest hotel in Jiangyou and the food was okay but we sat outside because the weather was really nice. When we were leaving Mr. Lambert gave me the nicest compliment which was to say that he was impressed with what I have done thus far and that I make him proud to be an American. WOW! And he knew everything, too including that I taught the teachers beer pong (which while walking to the car on the way to the restaurant Kerry decided to ask me in front of them if I was hung over from last night. No Kerry! But apparently he was a bit. Haha! Mr. Lambert and Wang Laoshi laughed but Bonnie is very serious, so…she didn’t think it was funny) and that I am a proud Seminole and Southern! He respected the southern pride since he said his mom was from Alabama, but as an Oregon alum he couldn’t appreciate the Seminoles. And he didn’t seem at all offended when I teased him about the US Embassy in Beijing stating that the pollution in Beijing has gotten “crazy bad!” Well anyways, another interesting week of life in China has gone by and I welcome the start of another.

The following is an email I sent to the Peace Corps China Country Director thanking her for her visit.

Hi Bonnie,

Thank you for coming to visit me in Jiangyou. I hope it was a nice trip for you. I wish I could have shown you more of the school, but I understand that time is limited. I wanted to share with you a conversation that took place this afternoon. In the evening I asked a student from the class that I had missed today to join me in playing pingpong. Later when we were walking I apologized again for missing class. She said that it is okay; that she understands, but that we meet only once-a-week so she finds the time with me very precious since it is so limited. She also said that she was surprised when she came to this school that there were foreign teachers because the school is not good and she thinks that foreign teachers must only go to the better universities. She said that it made her very excited to think that a foreigner might teach her. This brings me to one last point, which is a conversation that I had with the Canadian teacher about a month ago in which she said that solely because we are teaching at this college we have improved our students' chances of getting employed by quite a lot. Our students can go into a job interview and just mention that they had a foreign teacher in their college and this will impress the employer enough to possibly offer them the job. So, I know I mentioned this morning about wanting the "Peace Corps experience," but I sincerly see my purpose of being at this college and in China more and more clearly with each student and teacher I meet, as well as the more I learn about this unique country. I hope all of our volunteers can see the impact they are having in their schools like I have begun to see this semester. Thank you for this opportunity and especially thank you for whoever decided that Sichuan Preschool Educator's College was a good choice for me because they hit the nail on the head.

I hope you had a nice trip back to Jiangyou, and you are welcome in Jiangyou anytime. I was wondering about one more thing, and that is if I can have the email address of your friend Mark Lambert so that I may personally thank him for visiting Jiangyou. It meant a lot to me, my counterpart (Kerry Long), and the school that you and Mr.Lambert could make the trip out to Jiangyou. Kerry and I discussed that we were both rather nervous about the two of you visiting because we hoped that we could impress you both. I know the school felt the same way as they were very particular about where they would take us to lunch. If I cannot have his email, please share with him my gratitude and appreciation.

Take care,

Katie D'Souza

First week of November 2010

2010-11-14T12:17:00.000-08:00

I am a bit behind on blogging and I need to go back more than a week to the Friday before last. On this day I first went running with a student of mine. It was the first time that I had hung out with this student outside of class and I found it really nice to get to know her better. We talked of various things that were interesting (like the Chinese educational system), since she is one of the more advanced speakers of English in my class. After running and dinner I went back to my apartment because another student and her friends were coming over to play English games. Jane wondered how many of her friends could come and I said there was no limit, so about 12 girls came over. I taught them chess and they picked up very quickly. I am not a very good chess player, so it came as no surprise when I was beat. To save a little face I should mention how I guided them against making bad moves and it was more like a draw than a full on win. But nevertheless I was impressed with their quick learning of the game and their ability to strategize. But the best part of the evening was when my friend back home came on Skype to meet the students. The girls were so excited to meet an American guy and actually it was the first thing they brought up when they came over at 6:30 (when will we meet your friend?). I should have foreseen the questions they might ask and warned my friend. Most of the girls crowded around my laptop in my office and were quite giggly. It basically went: ‘you are so handsome! You have beautiful eyebrows! You look very cool! Do you have a girlfriend? What do you think of Chinese women?’ Then...’is that your dog? What’s your dog’s name? Can we see your dog?’ Then they introduced themselves to him one-by-one. I found the entire experience quite funny. They of course welcomed him to China as they are all very friendly Chinese girls. So if any of you want to get on Skype and meet some students, let me know. Keep in mind that with the east coast during daylights savings time there is a 13 hour difference.
Saturday I got up early to go with Kerry and about 30 of his students to a nearby mountain to go hiking. I thought it was just slightly cold and wore a light coat but as seems to be normal in Sichuan it got progressively colder during the day and I was shivering by the end. The experience can be summed up in one word—random. It was a random mountain in the middle of nowhere. First we took the bus from the school and got off at the wrong stop and walked. Then we hailed 3 random buses going by and got dropped off at a random street. We walked through some farmers’ fields until we came to a random path that appeared out of nowhere. We walked for almost an hour up steep slippery rocks and at the top was a random Buddhist temple. This is where we stopped and ate snacks. Supposedly Li Bai the poet was inspired at this mountain so Kerry did some teaching about Li Bai. One of Kerry’s former students was randomly at this mountain, too and there was a reunion. The way down was interesting due to the steepness (during this time I slipped and crashed to the ground). The students gasped and said be careful. Kerry laughed and said he wished he had his camera. Thanks Kerry.) After walking down it a bit we found a different less dangerous way down. We needed to ask a few farmers for directions throughout but we made it back. Walking back I was able to practice my Chinese with the students a bit which is nice. When we were waiting at the bus station Kerry called me over to a meat stand to show me something. Did you ever wonder what happened to all of the chicken feet in America since Americans don’t eat it? Well for the Tyson chicken company they freeze it and ship it to China apparently because that was what Kerry showed me: a Tyson brand bag of frozen chicken feet straight from the Arizona company.
Later that night I was chatting with my parents on Skype when I get a text from this senior high student that I have been helping with English. This student’s English skills are very low so I usually cannot understand her texts. This one said teacher help. I sent a message back to say maybe tomorrow I can help, thinking that for some reason she needs English help at 8:30 at night. She then tries to call but I reject it and message her to say I am speaking with my parents. She then sends a message saying help over and over. Thinking maybe it is serious I end the call with my parents and call her back. I cannot understand and she is speaking mostly Chinese and is in near hysterics. I hear the words bad student and KTV (which are karaoke bars in China) and I became nervous. What is going on? I tell her in Chinese to call her Chinese teacher because I cannot understand but she insists that she cannot. I try my friend downstairs to see if she can talk with this student but she is busy. The student comes over and is freaking out about what I am not sure. I call Kerry and say there is a distressed student at my house and she doesn’t speak much English. He talks with her about 5 minutes and then tells me that she might stay with me for a bit but doesn’t tell me why or what’s going on. When I turn around the girl is in tears. I comfort her and calm her down while she cries and speaks in Chinese and English to say what’s wrong which I still can’t understand. At one point she says that her mother doesn’t love her and I am like a mother to her and I am her best friend and she loves me. What?! Anyways she leaves about 10:45. The next day I ask Kerry and he said it was a dispute between her and a classmate. Really? Yes.
Well the next day in the afternoon I agreed to help her with English which I did and have done several times since. I also tutored two of her classmates with no English ability the next weekend. And no means no. we started with hello. How are you? My name is…
But also that Sunday I went to my friend Allies house to make and eat dumplings with her, Vivi and a dance teacher. It was fun and reminded me of making dumplings with my host mom and her friend in Chengdu. It also gave me more Chinese practice. I might get better at the language yet!
Monday evening I…bought a rice cooker! It was very exciting. Well exciting is not the word but it was really nice and now my life is just a bit easier. I went with Media which was more to chat with her than that I needed assistance. I have learned the ways of the supermarket and don’t feel like I need help, but the company is nice. That evening Vivi told me that there was to be a broadcast film about AIDS. Seriously? For those that don’t know sex education in China is…nonexistent. Naturally I was curious so I went to see. It was difficult to read the English subtitles beneath but the video taught these college students about AIDS in what appeared to be a musical. Interesting. They were showing a movie afterwards so many students were there to see it.
Wednesday we had English corner because Janice’s brother was visiting and this day was better for them. The English Corner centered around Canada and Janice’s brother which was a really great opportunity for the students to learn more about Canada and to speak with a native speaker who was not their teacher. After English Corner I went out to dinner with Vivi to a restaurant by the school gate owned by the mother of a dance teacher at the school. The food was delicious, the restaurant clean, and his mother was so nice. I am definitely going to return there. Also there was the cutest boy maybe 4 years old who kept walking up to me and saying hello. It was very cute. When we finished dinner I went with Vivi to see her class that she is the head teacher for (about 125 students). I began teaching them English Children’s songs since they will all be preschool teachers when they graduate. I taught them: Old McDonald, Two versions of 5 Little Monkeys, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, The Wheels on the Bus, I like to eat Apples and Bananas, the Hokey Pokey, The More we get Together, Bingo, Two versions of the Days of the Week song, The Eensy Weensy Spider, if you’re happy and you know it, Mary had a little lamb, Shake my sillies out, Ten Fingers, Five little ducks, and Teddy Bear. My voice was hoarse by the end. They knew a few before like The More we get Together. Their favorites were Five little ducks, Adam’s Family Days of the week, the wheels on the bus and the hokey pokey. I plan to teach it again to other classes since it is really good for future teachers to have these songs. And anyways it is fun to teach.
Thursday night there was a school performance that resembled a chorus concert. The songs were about the history of China. It was good. I sat with some students in the back who explained the songs to me. Some of my students were in it, as were Vivi and Kerry. It was also a competition. There were 4 third place winners and they each got 300 Yuan (our department was in this category). There were 2 second places with winning 400 Yuan and 1 first place winner with 500 Yuan. Our department leader used the money to take the teachers that performed out to a nice dinner on Friday. It was disappointing that Janice’s brother didn’t get to see a typical performance with dancing and curious costumes.
Friday morning a student of Kerry that I met last weekend wanted to chat with me. First I edited her speech but then the real reason came out which was that she was thinking of breaking up with her boyfriend and wanted my advice. This is a bigger issue for them then it is for us because they do not casually date and do not date often. I basically said whatever makes her happy but think it over a week or so before making a decision she might later regret making. She seemed to already have made up her mind but you all don’t want to hear the woes of an 18 year old anyways.
All during the day Friday I was getting messages from students wishing me happy birthday. I kept saying thanks though I was confused. Finally I told a student that it wasn’t my birthday until next week and why did students think my birthday was this week. It turns out that when Kerry signed me up with QQ he put my birthday as November 12 instead of November 19. So in China I guess I will celebrate the same birthday as my dad because it might be too confusing to change it now maybe I can change it in the summer and students won’t remember the different days. But a really exciting thing happened Friday morning and that was my host mom and later my host brother from Chengdu called to say Happy Birthday and that my host parents will visit me in Jiangyou sometime in a couple of weeks. Very exciting.
Friday was the last night that Janice’s brother would be in Jiangyou so Janice and Mark treated the English teachers to hotpot and KTV. There were maybe 8 of us for dinner but more stopped in for KTV. I sang some Lady Gaga (Just Dance) with her brother, Madonna’s Vogue was my solo debut, and Allie asked me to sing a duet with her of Celine Dion’s My Heart will Go On ( a favorite in China). Overall it seems that the westerners prefer to be silly and sing fast and upbeat songs and the Chinese take it seriously and sing slower songs. It was fun. The teachers celebrating the performance stopped in and got their own room. The men had been drinking quite a bit it seemed before getting to KTV. We left at 10:45 and at this time I was happy to be a foreigner because Vivi and Sharon had to stay until the leader of the department decided to leave, though they wanted to stay. I was tired and not held to the same expectations and thus left with Janice and Mark and the teachers not in our department.
Saturday I tutored some students in the morning in English and then a student came by to chat with me about some issues she is having and then a teacher brought me some soup (which I found to be stomach churning but I ate it anyways because she was watching me eat it) and sat down to chat about some things. I remember when I was first starting college I was at a crossroad , in which I considered getting a degree in psychology and later a masters in counseling, but then I chose teaching because teachers sometimes need to be a counseling ear for students. Nowhere is this more true than in China. These students seem to find me to be a better listener than their friends or Chinese teachers. Other empathetic foreign teachers also have this experience. I wonder if it is because we can take their secrets with us back home and maybe we come across as more understanding or willing to listen because we have such different experiences. Either way I don’t mind being a ready ear for my students and fellow teachers. I find this aspect of my Peace Corps experience to be quite rewarding.
I will end this blog entry with a poem I wrote for the Sichuan Rice Paper, an electronic newspaper put together by Sichuan volunteers and distributed once a semester. The editors, Obi and Leo, are also volunteers. The paper consists of anything under the sun, from essays to poems and recipes to advice. It will come out maybe in December. But below is my poem about being a foreign (waiguoren) teacher in China.

Woes of a Waiguoren
A series of limericks
By Katie D’Souza

There once was a Waiguoren named Mike
Peace Corps wouldn’t let him ride a motorbike
So he walked all day
And his students asked if he wanted to play
So it was with Mike because the other teachers, Mike, they didn’t seem to like

This is about a foreigner named Jane
Who thought she was just very plain
But the Chinese stare whenever she goes
Maybe she doesn’t wear enough glitter and bows
She thinks sometimes being foreign is such a pain

This is the laowai story of Ben
Who had a student who called herself Pen
Everyday in class Pen would giggle and turn red
Until one day Ben made a bad joke about a panda being dead
And soon Pen found a foreigner with whom to giggle named Ken

Last, but not least, was the waijiao called Kay
Whose own English seemed to get worse everyday
She spoke Chinglish with her students in and out of class
And heard Sichuanhua wherever she passed
So that Kay might need an English tutor by May

*laowai is a polite title for a foreigner. And waijiao means foreign teacher.

Halloween

2010-11-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

Monday Janice, Mark, and I hosted a Halloween party at my house for some students and teachers and it was so much fun. It was the first time any of them had celebrated the holiday and it was fun to watch their reactions to the games and festivities. The evening started with Mark scaring the girls as they came to my house. The students entered my darkened apartment to the sounds of Michael Jackson’s Thriller to help set the mood. Once all of the students had arrived everyone introduced their costumes in a “fashion show.” Two students were dead people, one a children’s talk show host, another a rabbit, a witch, a rich person, and a student. Janice was a butterfly holding Charlie as a puppy. Mark was a TV star and I was Li Bai the poet. I started the evening carrying a cheap bottle of baijiu until it slipped from my belt and shattered on the floor filling my apartment with the stench of strong liquor. Why the alcohol? Because Li Bai was known to be a drunk. Mark and I chose a winner of the costume contest (the witch) and her prize was…instant noodles.
Next we played ‘pin-the-nose on the pumpkin’ which was my variation of ‘pin-the-tail on the donkey.’ This game caused an eruption of stifled giggles as the students meandered all over my apartment blindfolded. Following this fun activity we bowled. I had partially filled bottles of water at one end of my apartment and using Mark’s soccer ball the students attempted to bowl. Then came the real fun. Trick-or-treating. Janice and I sought some teachers that lived on campus to hand out candy (Kerry, Vivi, and Media). We taught the girls the trick-or-treat song “Trick-or-Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat” which they chanted at each door. The teachers had just as much laughter and joy as the girls, with Kerry choosing to scare them and Media handing out some fruit that she bought. The last apartment was Mark and Janice’s (Mark detoured the trick-or-treating and went home to hand out candy) and then we headed back to my place with the teachers to have the second half of the party.
For the second half I read everyone an Arthur book on Halloween so that they could better understand the holiday. Then we had a piñata so nicely made into a pumpkin by Janice. She made it extra strong so that everyone was sure to have a few swings at it. During the party there were plenty of snacks of peanuts, sunflower seeds (two must-haves at all Chinese parties), pumpkin seeds, oranges (which I drew faces on), cookies (one homemade by Janice and which resembled fingers), dried fruit, bananas, lollipops made to look like ghosts, coke, juice, and the favorite of Mark, Janice and me…hot apple cider! It wasn’t the greatest cider—just apple juice and cinnamon but it tasted great to us.
After the piñata was destroyed I brought out the bell peppers. For what? Why for carving, of course. It is rather difficult to find pumpkins like we have in China. They have pumpkins, but they look different and aren’t good for carving. It would also be a bit expensive to buy multiple whole ones. Instead I got a bell pepper for everyone to carve. The teachers were appalled that I was wasting perfectly good peppers, so I told them that they could take them home and cook with them if they preferred which many of them did. The students made really nice carved peppers and Janice had tea candles for them to put in them and we turned the lights out and it was a beautiful site. Be sure to check out the pictures at Windows Live.
We finished the evening by me telling a story in which they had to touch weird items but I said it was body parts. They found it rather strange but after a bit they got into it. I added the story to the end of this blog entry and the items I used. When the party was over the students helped to pick up the trash and Janice stayed to help a bit more since the next day the Peace Corps doctor was coming to visit and would be coming to my apartment!
Dr. Gao came by around noon Tuesday to see me. First my apartment, which was clean. But it turns out that she was mainly looking to see that I kept my medicine in a clean, dry area. Check! That my water filter was working. Check! That my fire/CO2 alarm was in a proper location. Bu hao! (not good). I had to move it to a different location. Then she proceeded to ask me some questions to gauge my physical and mental well-being. I seemed to have checked out there, too. One question she asked was “on a scale from 1-10 how would you rate your happiness level in Jiangyou. 1 is depressed, 10 is content.” I said 9. Later she said she was surprised how happy I am here. I’m not sure what that means.
When we finished the questioning and viewing the apartment section of the visit we met Kerry and Eliam to have lunch downtown courtesy of the college. I thought it was going to be a little lunch, but no. It was a really nice lunch with tons of delicious food. We had some time to kill before the tour of the Jiangyou People’s Hospital so we drove around Jiangyou and I saw places I had yet to see. The tour was boring for everyone but Dr.Gao. Basically she got a layout of the facilities and determined whether it met basic standards. If there is anything seriously wrong with me I will go to Chengdu, but for emergencies or lab tests I will go to the hospital in Jiangyou—let’s hope I never do, though.
Other things this week…there was this student that kept texting me constantly (how she got my number I do not know) and her English was atrocious. I got that she wanted me to help her and her friends with their English, so I said fine meet me at my office. They met me and I took them to my apartment to look at some English books. I had them read a Berenstein Bear book which they struggled through and then they borrowed some English books with Chinese translation in it. At one point I was wondering what was wrong with these students that were extremely hyper and fidgety. One question found me my answer: “How old are you?” “we are 15” well that explains a lot, but it doesn’t explain how the 15 year old middle school students that go to this college got my phone number. Oh wait, I gave it to them! Nevermind.
So this week and next week are midterms for my two sophomore classes. They are all so nervous! I have been getting texts and messages on QQ since I gave them the rubric last week. The first class mostly did well. A few did terribly but I am going to give them a makeup of sorts in which I ask them a some questions and they answer and if they can then I will increase the grade some. Because I believe the students were just very nervous or didn’t understand the directions. The rest of the class ranged from 70-100 with most students earning around 80. They were asked to speak with a partner about a trip they will go in the future. They must ask and answer questions, use at least two idioms correctly, and cover the topics discussed in class (transportation, packing, reservations, directions, different meals, and restaurants). The second half of the semester for the sophomores will cover the theme of fun (sports, TV, computers, parties, holidays, music and movies). I have yet to decide on a final. The freshmen will only get through the travel theme and their final will be the midterm of the sophomores.
And we had the second English corner this week. The student-leaders chose topics from this book that I borrowed from the Peace Corps library called Conversation Inspirations. They chose three topics: 1. what is an ideal age to get married. (Answers were around 25-30, as soon as possible, and I don’t want to get married); 2. What is the best way to discipline a child (answers were across-the-board on this from beat them to well I will treat my child like a friend with respect and discuss the mistake with them); and 3. What was your favorite toy as a child (most of them were in Chinese so not sure. One girl said she only had one toy. And many said they like bears or wished they had a bear). The time in English corner certainly gives me a chance to learn more about my students and China.
Also this week a student stopped by the office and asked me how she should interview for a job. She was seeking a part-time job teaching English at a preschool. I said she should mention how she will teach the kids. She then asked how she should teach them. I suggested making it very engaging and to sing songs. She said she didn’t know any English children’s songs, so of course right there in the office I taught her some. I taught her “head shoulders knees and toes,” 2 different five little monkeys songs and the hokey pokey. What was funny to me was that during this time not one teacher looked up from his/her desk while I was singing and dancing in the office with this student. It made me smile. I figured that they either didn’t notice or what was more likely that they have grown accustomed to the strange new foreign teacher (me) and decided this was just one more odd thing I decided to do. But I didn’t realize the students didn’t know any children’s songs in English, so I think I will have a lecture on it before the end of the semester since all of my students are preschool and primary school teachers-to-be. So if you have any suggestions of songs I can teach the students please send me an email. I would love to hear what some of your favorite songs were from childhood—namely those that teach something.
Finally, I am now the proud owner of a washing machine! Well I don’t own it, the school does, but it is in my apartment and I can now was my clothes and sheets in it for the next two years which is very exciting. That is just one more thing I can check from my list. I imagine it will take me the entire first year to get my house set up. The next thing to do is figure out the heater in my bedroom which I will try to accomplish this weekend.

Last week October 2010

2010-10-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

Monday and Wednesday this past week there were no classes since we taught Mondays and Wednesdays classes on Saturday and Sunday. Of course this made little sense to me since we weren’t teaching the freshmen at this time, but that’s what it was and now those freshmen classes can just be a bit behind. During these days off I spent some time with some students. One student has become my stalker or something because she calls or texts me everyday and almost every time I leave my apartment I run into her—I don’t have this with any of my other students. Her English is pretty low and she is dedicated to trying to improve it which I admire. I visited her dorm to meet her roommates who spoke even less English, but this gave me an opportunity to practice my Chinese a bit. Before I left they wanted to take a picture with me and to get my autograph. Well, they didn’t say autograph but they wanted me to write my name in their books which seems very much like signing a yearbook to me.
The other students I met up with were some of my freshmen. I visited their dorm and one wanted to know how she might improve her reading ability in English. I suggested reading lower level English books, but they are limited to what they have available so I suggested that they accompany me back to my apartment to take a look at the English library. They were really just excited to see the foreign teacher’s apartment and ended up not taking any books. So we played some cards, they looked at just about everything in my home, they asked me to sing some Celine Dion (My Heart Will Go On), and they wrapped up the afternoon by checking their QQs on my computer since they do not have computers readily available to them. They also took some pictures of me, but this time I got a picture of them, too.
This week there was also a school performance to welcome the new students. I sat with Janice and Mark during the show and we commented on it throughout, which made it more interesting to see. As usual there was singing, dancing and interesting costumes. One notable performance was very Chinese we decided. First three students dressed as pandas rolled out across the dark stage, then when the lights came on many girls ran out with what seemed like pom-poms and they all danced (the pandas even had these little tails which was very funny). About half-way through the performance this one girl comes out in a salsa dancing outfit and dances to Shakira. When she finished the pandas and pom-pom girls came back out to finish the act with more tail shaking action. There were a few piano acts (some good), terrible break dancing, calligraphy, and a wedding show. What’s a wedding show? Basically some students in wedding dresses and tuxes came out with their hair and make-up all done up and modeled. Two of the girls in this show were my students and one of the guys was the boyfriend of another of my students so it was interesting to see. The show had a very Christmas show feel to it or so Janice and I felt due to the decorations, the piano acts, and the cold.
Oh the cold! Maybe Tuesday this week it started out a little cold and got progressively colder throughout the day and the week. I am now wearing my winter jacket, Vivi bought me a scarf to wear (as an early birthday present), and a student bought me some gloves. And oh what gloves they are! They are bright blue and pink with smiley faces on the fingers, and a giant stuffed Hello Kitty on the back of each hand which makes it impossible for me to stick my hands in my pockets. Since she got them for me I must wear them but that doesn’t I cannot lie when I say that I am awaiting her graduation so I no longer must wear them. Vivi’s scarf is more my style, but of course she knows me better than my students do. It is brown and red plaid. Oh and the funny thing is that I brought gloves and a scarf with me from the states; I was just waiting for it to get a bit colder before I took them out. Oh well. It is only in the low 50s or high 40s but it feels much colder because it is damp, there’s no sunshine, and there is little escaping it because none of the buildings are heated. I can heat my living room but not enough to take my coat off and I am still figuring out my bedroom. For now I just wear a lot of clothes to bed and wrap myself like a cocoon in my blanket. I am not the only one, though. It is nice to see the status of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers on Skype so I know I am not the only one dealing with cold. It is worse for my friends north of me in Gansu where it is started snowing this week. In Gansu the buildings have heat, but, according to a friend, they have yet to turn it on—I suppose to conserve electricity. My waiban said that this winter is supposed to be the coldest in a century. I really hope his sources are not good. I can only wait and see. I don’t know how the students deal with the cold—their dorms are without heat and usually their windows are open to dry their laundry.
Speaking of laundry, my washing machine has never worked, but I managed to inform Kerry and he was trying to get it fixed this week. It turns out that the machine cannot be fixed, so the school was trying to find one not in use in the school and couldn’t. What does this mean? The school has to get a new one! I cannot believe how lucky I am. I will have to wait another bit, but at least this guarantees me a working machine in the future and for the rest of my service. Very cool.
This weekend I am teaching again and not teaching Monday and Tuesday so the students cannot participate in the demonstrations that are on the weekends. Apparently the demonstrations have continued to grow against the Japanese because other volunteers are also teaching this weekend as a result of it. This only changes the Halloween party to Monday, otherwise I am getting used to teaching Saturdays and Sundays.
Lastly I had a strange cultural lesson this week. I was taking a walk with my stalker and she asked when I would eat dinner. I said I wasn’t sure and asked when she would have hers. She also said she wasn’t sure. So I said we could just eat together and maybe her roommates might want to come if they hadn’t eaten yet. Of course they wanted to eat outside the school gate which they could only do in my, a teachers, company since the schools is in lockdown with the demonstrations. I went with six of them to a restaurant (that later made us all sick but that’s not related to this tale). At the end they were waiting for me to pay. What?! I only brought enough to pay for maybe half with expectations to just pay for myself. I became so embarrassed that my face turned bright red (later I ran into Vivi and Allie—another teacher—and they laughed and asked if I drank alcohol during dinner). I tried to ask my stalker to pay half which she did (and later I paid her back) but to keep it between us (which she didn’t). I told her it wasn’t in my culture for this to happen and maybe I didn’t understand Chinese customs. Well others I talked with also didn’t think this was Chinese culture but that maybe the students assumed I would pay because I was a “rich” foreigner. There is a misunderstanding of what it means to be a volunteer in China. Students and teachers are always shocked when they hear that the school doesn’t pay me but isn’t that what a volunteer is, I ask. Oh well, just one of many weird moments I will undoubtedly have these next two years in China.

A week of huai le

2010-10-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

So this past week had some interesting things occur—well, interesting to me. First it was a week of huai le (broken) like my water purifier and fire/CO2 detector (I’m more concerned with the latter). Sunday I was carelessly peeling an apple with a knife (because I either peel fruit and vegetables, boil them, or scrub them with soap—for an apple I think peeling is the best way to go). Well I sliced my finger and blood started going everywhere. I quickly ran to get my handy-dandy Peace Corps Medical kit and let it explode all over my bed in an effort to find something to constrict the blood flow. Two bandages and medical tape later I felt good about blood not being able to seep through. It actually was not a bad cut, but the next day I took the bandages off and it was still bleeding. I sent the medical office a casual email inquiring about stitches in the hopes that they wouldn’t get concerned and call me. Of course they are good doctors and nurses and so I received a call. It did not require stitches like I thought, but I have come to take a little extra care here since I do not want anything weird to happen to me in China. And I certainly never want to have to go to a hospital here if I can help it.
Then this week I have been sick with a head cold. I had some interesting cure suggestions from my students and fellow teachers, including drink something hot, wear more clothes and the general take care. I guess there isn’t as much advice for colds as, let’s say pregnancy. Janice told me all the interesting advice and care her students and fellow teachers took with regards to her pregnancy last year. One, her fridge was full of eggs. All of her students brought her eggs since, supposedly, she should eat a lot of eggs during her pregnancy. They also gave her lots of sugar. Whenever she went out her students would never let her carry anything and would say what she should and shouldn’t eat for the health of her baby. After she had her son they gave her different foods that she should eat after having a baby to bring good health and return of a good body. Very interesting. I am glad that I will not have to deal with that here. I don’t know what Janice did with all of those eggs!
So I am not sure how much of this has made it over to Western news sources, but there have been some extra bad feelings with regards to Japan over here. As you all know the relations between China and Japan are not good. Recently, though, there have been some territorial disputes between the two countries. In response to this there have been some student protests/demonstrations in Chengdu and Mianyang. Students have been in marching the streets and they destroyed a store that sold Japanese products smashed anything that is from a Japanese company (like Toyota, Nikon, etc.) and got into a few brawls with police leaving several injured. The demonstrations have been more pronounced in Chengdu than Mianyang, but my school was concerned the students might do something they shouldn’t, so they put it in lockdown. The students have not been allowed to leave the school all week. This past weekend we had classes so the students were forced to remain on campus. But every student I’ve talked with has no intention of demonstrating. Many are irritated by Japan, but they were not considering doing anything to anger the police. And one student I talked with was seeing it my way in that these students aren’t hurting Japan, but are hurting Chinese people by destroying their shops and belongings. The excitement of it has already died down, at least over here (not sure about Chengdu).
This week I was able to visit the primary school with Vivi and it was a whole different world than the preschool. It looked like my high school. There was no playground. It was five stories and enclosed. We watched one first grade class that took place in a lecture hall. The students were engaged during their math lesson but it was just so different than a western first grade class. Plus there were maybe 50 kids in the class. We did chat with some first grade students who were very energetic and quite willing to engage us in conversation. Vivi asked them what time the school day ended and they could not come to a consensus, though they’d been in school for about two months. Some said 4:30, another 4:40, and still a third said 5. It just made us laugh.
Another day I received a package from home which was really exciting! My parents sent me some books for students, hot chocolate and chili packets for the approaching cold weather, videos about preschool in the US for Vivi and a dog calendar for Kerry. Kerry loves dogs! When I gave him the calendar he was so excited and started showing everyone in the office the pictures. It was so funny.
Besides giving a gift and receiving some from my lovely parents, I received some meat this week. Yes, meat. One of my students went to Mianyang to visit her mother in the hospital and brought me back a bag of cooked meat that is apparently special for Mianyang. I also received some dried meat from Media after her trip to her family’s home in a different province when she went to honor her father in the one year anniversary of his passing.
One thing that was rather interesting when I met up with Media was something she told me about the teacher standards in China with regards to health. She was on her way to get some medical tests done in order to obtain her teaching certificate. What kinds of medical tests I wanted to know. Blood tests, chest x-rays, no facial or physical abnormalities, and no diseases. These are some of the guidelines for teaching in China.
Speaking of teaching in China, there is a student who has attached herself to me. Her name is Xu Fanya and she messages and calls me, I think, everyday. I see her almost every time that I step foot from my apartment. Her English is very poor I am afraid to say, but she is motivated to improve. She is also very sweet and I often go walking with her so she can practice her English with me. One evening as we were walking another student who I do not know says Hello Katie. I ask her if she wants to join us, which she does. This student’s name is Jane and her English is very good. More than this, she is actually an interesting person who pays attention to the news and is informed and curious (she asked me what the difference was between using no more vs. not more and I had no idea—any ideas back home?) I really enjoyed chatting with Jane and we have made plans to play badminton one day soon. Is it bad that I prefer to hang out with some students over others? I never turn down a student that wants to talk with me, but I enjoy my time with some more than others. I think that’s only human.
On a similar note about teaching I also had my second Chinese tutoring lesson. We covered more about food, but Eliam left some books and I copied all of the vocabulary I didn’t know so that I could study later. I mostly prefer to study vocabulary alone, but I seek Eliam’s assistance in pronunciation and correct sentence structure. Hopefully in the coming weeks we can speak more Chinese and practice my listening and speaking.
Later this week Janice and I had the first English Corner. Since it was the first one we led it instead of the student leaders. There were maybe 50 students that came, but we are expecting these numbers to multiply in the coming weeks. Since it was the first meeting and we were interested in getting students interested in returning we simply played some icebreaker games. First, as students were coming we played telephone, which was hilarious. I made the first sentence intentionally long (the red balloon floated over the purple elephant on the green grass). It ended completely wrong. Then we had the students introduce themselves. Later since there were more students we split into two groups and played again. This time I chose a student to make the sentence. The sentence, which was wrong at the end but not by too much, was ‘he’s just not that into you’ because the student had recently seen the movie. The next activity we paired the students and they had to talk about themselves until they found three things in common with each other (and they were not allowed to use obvious things like we are both from Sichuan—where 99% of the English students are from). The last activity was “I am going on a picnic” in which we were again in two groups and each person had to say what they were bringing to a picnic that started with the first letter of their name (i.e. my name is Katie and I am bringing a kite). The next student must say the name and item of the people before her. So the last person must say every persons name and item. This last one was a bit difficult for some and Janice and I could see some of the better English speakers (like Vienna and Jane) getting annoyed with some of the students whose English was not as proficient, which if they are to become teachers they need to learn how to deal with.
During English Corner there was a small earthquake (maybe 4. something), but I missed it! I mean that I didn’t feel the earth shake. I was too preoccupied with what I was instructing the students, but Jane had stopped me to say there was an earthquake. At first I didn’t believe her but then I saw students pouring out of their dorm, so I knew it was true. I wonder how often earthquakes occur in Sichuan. I just hope there is no repeat of the 2008 earthquake that happened in Sichuan. This reminds me of when I had dinner with a student of mine this week named Monica and she was talking about the year 2012. Many Chinese students believe that the world will end at that time because of this movie. Monica said she was 50/50 about it. I said I didn’t care.
Other than English Corner we have also set up an English library in my apartment. Janice and Mark had all of these books in their apartment from their organization and they were in desperate need of space. Their organization agreed that they could donate the books, but we found out that it is very inconvenient for students to borrow books from the library. The desire was for students to be able to read English books at their own pace and to be able to take them as they wanted, so that is where my apartment came in. My office space is now a makeshift library for students and teachers to come and borrow books. The library is divided into fiction, nonfiction, magazines, English help, teaching resources, music (for piano practice), and movies/games. As I am writing this three teachers and a student came by to have a look and they all left with at least one book. I have no limits on how many books the students/teachers can take, but I ask them to leave their name, number, book title and date they checked out the book. They can keep the book until the end of the semester and must return it then. The library will be open Fridays 1:30-4:30, but if there is another time the student/teacher wants to come by they can just call ahead to be sure that I am home. I think this will be a good thing.
And the last thing to occur was that Vivi had never seen American money until I showed her some. I happened to have a one, five, ten, twenty, quarter, and dime. Strangely enough I had no pennies. I let Vivi keep a dollar and a quarter, and I also showed her the other contents in my wallet—the most intriguing to her being my library card. It turns out that there are no public libraries in China. Vivi was shocked that we are able to borrow books for free in America. She was also surprised when I said that there were really no limits to how many or how long one could borrow a book. She said it makes her all the more interested in visiting America in the future. But I think that eventually China will adopt the public library concept. Maybe. All I know is that my life and childhood would have been drastically different without public libraries.

Military Training

2010-10-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

YI ER SAN SI! (One two three four!) This is what I have heard all day every day since Saturday and will continue to hear until next Friday. I first hear it at around 6:45 in the morning along with a steady rhythm of marching feet making their way around campus until 9 at night when the students sing their patriotic military chants. This is compulsory Chinese military training. In China students are required to have two weeks of military training the first year of middle school, first year of high school, and first year of college. So currently at this college that I teach at every freshman is decked out from head-to-foot in camouflage and is taking directions from a handful of young male soldiers. But what is happening around me is probably not what comes to mind when you think military training. These students are not learning military tactics nor are they doing difficult military maneuvers, and actually these students are not even brandishing anything close to a weapon (though my friend Vivi said that when she did her military training in her undergrad they were allowed to fire ten shots from an automatic rifle—she says hers went everywhere other than the intended target). No, these students are practicing marching, saluting, turning, chanting, doing tasks in unison, taking commands, and squatting. The purpose is to teach the students discipline, hard work, teamwork, and obedience. Some students really enjoy this experience (usually they have a gentle soldier leading them), whereas others get on QQ in the evening and tell me how miserably tired they are and how much they do not like their leader. I am sure they will all gain something from this experience, though what I am not sure.
Due to the military training my days have almost limited free time since 12 of the 16 hours I teach in a week are freshmen classes and they are not in class during their training. Luckily, though, I have found work for me to do (mostly I am catching up on my laziness that I have had with studying Chinese during September, which was studying…nothing). I have also managed to plan my lessons for the rest of this semester which ends the first week in January. Ambitious? More like a preventative to boredom which is a slow killer amongst our species.
I have also managed to start pillaging my way through Janice’s book collection. My current repertoire of books to read consists of only Chinese fiction and nonfiction. I yearn to indulge myself in as much Chinese culture, history, and politics as I can in order to better serve and understand this world in which I now live. Currently on the reading agenda include two Pearl S. Buck books (but alas we do not have The Good Earth), one Anchee Min book (Katherine—what a coincidence that the book is about a foreign English teacher named Katherine, though this teacher is nothing like me), China Road (nonfiction about this guy’s travels throughout China), and an Amy Tan book (The Bonesetter’s Daughter—and if you have never read The Joy Luck Club, please do). I am hoping that these books can take me into November at least. All of those literature classes at FSU turned me into a speed-reader.
Although I wasn’t teaching very many classes my week did consist of some interesting events. On Monday I gave my students some discussion questions and they really got into it, which is really pleasing for a teacher. The question that they particularly liked was ‘describe the qualities that make a perfect husband/wife.’ In the afternoon I had my first tutoring session with Eliam. We basically decided on my goals for learning Chinese. She assessed my needs and my ability. We practiced my pronunciation and she gave me cards with fruits and vegetables on them to study (which I did. Go ahead and ask me any fruit or vegetable and I will probably know it). Afterwards she joined me to play basketball with two students. One of the students was the girl that I met on the train to Yibin. I taught them the games Horse and Around-the-World. It was fun.

On Tuesday I went for a walk with one of my students named Vienna. She bought me a present when she was on vacation during National Day in Yunnan Province and said that it is supposed to bing my love and a bopyfriend. Haha! I will post some pictures. She also got a similar one for Mark and Janice, but theirs is supposed to bring them a happy family life. While we were walking I received two calls. One was from a student and the other was from another volunteer. Vienna, whose English skills are one of the better in this college, could not stop laughing when I was on the phone with the student. Apparently my face showed much confusion and I was speaking quite deliberately and slowly, as opposed to when I was talking with the other volunteer and I spoke at a normal speed. She found it interesting, to say the least, how I spoke differently with students and with native speakers. During the walk she also told me about how this 50 something year old Russian man was talking with her in Yunnan. She thought it was nice and a good way for her to practice English. At the end of their conversation he asked for her number and she gave it to him. But then she said it became weird and he would message her all the time and say how beautiful he thought Chinese women are, etc. She was struggling to find the word to describe him and said “he’s a p…p,” and I offered “pervert?” And yes, this was the word she was looking for, and based on her description, I would have to agree, so I told her she should be careful and not to answer his messages any longer. What kind of 50 year old man asks a 20 year old for her number? Finally she asked me why I don’t go out with students very much. I realized she was right, so during November I am going to make more of an effort to hang out with students during free time.
On Tuesday afternoon I had my running club, but when I got out there I saw that Mark was trying to get a soccer game started but few students had come. Well not many students came to running club, so I rounded those students up and signaled to a few students on the track to join soccer. Mark had asked all of his classes during the day to play soccer and only a few showed. Later he asked his classes why they didn’t come and they said that they didn’t know how to play. Exasperated he told them that was the point in playing—so they could learn. The following week a few more showed up, but still very few. It takes time. They get really nervous for some reason to join in sports with us. Well when we were about to start our game we noticed we were one player short. I noticed a girl leaving the basketball court. I ran over and asked her in Chinese if she spoke English. She said yes in English. I then asked her if she wanted to play soccer. She became really flustered, so I asked her again in Chinese if she wanted to play soccer. She was trying to find the words in English to say that she couldn’t, but became rather distraught about the whole thing and walked away banging her fist against her head. I think this might be the last time I try to engage a student I don’t know in English. I think she was really embarrassed about her English skills, but she had to have noticed my Chinese skills were equally appalling. But in the end we managed a small game and Mark taught them how to kick better. Towards the end of the game, two students came by to give Mark and me a present from their vacation during National Day. Mine was a green bean cookie that was the most dry, oddly flavored cookie I have ever eaten in my life, but it was very sweet of the student to give me.
Wednesday afternoon Mark and I met Kerry and invited some students to play Frisbee. We started with passing it around and teaching them, including Kerry, the basics. Then I decided to teach them all ultimate. They all had a lot of fun with ultimate and I saw them getting more and more into it, and a little more aggressive and competitive (which is awesome, since this is rarely displayed amongst Chinese girls). Then I guess because some people were getting tired Kerry decided to teach us all a frisbee drill. Well, everyone was confused. His game/drill made no sense. I would explain it but I can’t because it didn’t make any sense. I think he might have lost a little face, but we all tried to do his game. We went back to ultimate a bit more, then tossed it around before everyone had to disperse. Kerry plans to teach the game to some teachers, and hopefully we can all play again.
In the evening Vivi invited me to help her judge some students her were interviewing for a temporary English teaching position at a local middle school. The permanent teacher became pregnant and I guess there are no substitute teachers. The interview consisted of the students giving a mini English lesson in front of us and their classmates. 10 students participated and Vivi and I judged. After they all went, with varying abilities in English and teaching, Vivi asked me to give them all some feedback on their teaching. I thought it would have been better one-on-one, but she asked and the students said it was okay in front of everyone. Then Vivi and I discussed who the best was, but we had already come to the same decision. We had both picked the same person, so there was no need for discussion. This student had both good English and teaching ability. And what is funny is that this student will make more money than I make in a month. I am not complaining because, as a volunteer I get as much as I need, it’s just funny.
On Thursday afternoon I went with Vivi to visit a preschool in town. We just observed the class, and I took some pictures which I posted online. There are not any big differences with their prek and ours, except class size and length of time they are there in the day.
On Friday evening I had dinner with Janice, Mark and some students that we asked to lead English Corner which is starting the following week. We just discussed when (Thursdays 530-630), who (any students), what (discussions and icebreaker activities), and how to get students to come (poster). Janice and I agreed to do the first English Corner and to lead all the opening icebreakers and the students would lead small group discussions.
On Saturday I went on a picnic with some teachers, but a Chinese picnic is not like a Western picnic. First we hiked two hours to a nearby mountain, and then the men got huge stones to cradle the pot and wood for the fire. Next some water was brought to a boil and Kerry made a soup on the mountain. It was a lot of fun; the soup was good, and the environment pleasant. Janice also taught the Chinese about roasting marshmallows, but I think the westerners were the only ones who enjoyed them. The men bet cards, and the children fought over candy, while Mark, Janice and I secretly threw our chicken feet snack in the woods (as Mark so nicely put that the woods hold all secrets). At one point Kerry mentioned to me that he was hung over. Well I had to explain that unless he went out drinking last night he was in fact not hung over, but that he could possibly be a bit tipsy from the one beer Mark gave him. He said, oh then I am not hung over. No Kerry, you were not hung over. The pictures online can better describe the festivities I think.
Other news, Peace Corps was mentioned on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130550616). The BBC has an entire section of its website devoted to China which if you want to know anything about Modern China you should check it out (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/asia_pacific/2004/china/default.stm). It has anything you might ever want to know about China.
And most importantly, Peace Corps Niger has lost one of its volunteers. Please keep Stephanie Chance and her family in your thoughts during this difficult time. They are unsure of the exact cause of death but believe it to be natural. She was in her late twenties, and started her service the same time as me.

National Holiday

2010-10-12T03:49:00.000-07:00

October 1 is the National Holiday in China, which is the introduction of the Communist Party in China and the founding of The People’s Republic of China. In honor of this holiday all schools and government workers had a week off. The college cancelled classes Thursday afternoon and Friday so that students could have a head start on travelling because this holiday is one of the busiest for travelling. The train stations and bus stations were packed with people heading home or out to the country to relax or into the city for fun. The trains themselves were full with many people standing and squished on the seats. I waited until Saturday morning to travel and I took a train because it was cheaper and I thought more convenient. Luckily, though, my ticket included a seat. I was hoping to leave Friday but the tickets were sold when I went to buy them, but some students were sweet enough to buy them for me and I paid them back and taught them chess.
My train was for 756 Saturday morning and it arrived in Chengdu at 1136. I then had another train at 1236 and I arrived at my final destination at 8 Saturday night. For those who did not do the math while reading, that’s 12 hours! 12 long and uncomfortable hours on a train. From Jiangyou to Chengdu was an okay and fairly quick ride. One person talked to me for a short time. She asked if I was from a particular region in China and I said no, that I am American. She was surprised to hear that I was American and asked me if I spoke Chinese. I said I only spoke a little and that’s where the conversation stopped.
From Chengdu to Yibin, however, the story is a little different. I was smushed in the corner with a woman across from me that kept putting her putrid shoeless feet on my seat so that the rotting smell that erupted from between her toes wafted up to my nose throughout the majority of the trip. Besides that there was a young girl of maybe three sitting behind me that was attempting to spit on me for half the ride. I desperately looked in my Chinese-English dictionary for the word spit so that I could tell the mother of this child what an awful brat she was being, but alas it could not be found and I dealt.
I’ll admit, the train was not all wretched. During half the ride to Yibin there were two university students from Chengdu sitting next to me that practiced their English with me and taught me some Chinese characters. Then during the second half (after these girls had gotten off) I heard “hello Katie” and it was a student from my college! It was actually one of Vivi’s students. She had bought me a drink and then sat with me the rest of the trip. Her English was rather poor and she was really shy, but she was very sweet and tried hard to communicate. Another great thing was that she told the smelly feet lady to put her nasty odorous feet back into her shoes (well…I’m sure she didn’t say it like that). When I got off the train I called my friend Leo to say I had gotten off the train only to hear him say “I hope you meant to say bus.” But no I was not smart enough to take the bus this time, so neither of us knew where I was. Just then this lovely student walks by with her brother and asks if I found my friend (who I was still on the phone with). I ended up handing the student my phone and the two of them talked in Chinese a bit and the student helped get me into a taxi and to the place I needed to be.
Yibin was great—well worth the miserable train ride to get there. Along with me, also came Katie, Richy, and Amy from Chongqing on their 3.5 hour bus ride. We spent the time catching up, relaxing, and visiting Leo’s site along with his site mate Chris and their new Chinese friend/student Alex who spoke phenomenal English for someone whose major was not English. It was a time of laughter, good conversations, and interesting discussions (especially with this Chinese student who had all of these interesting ideas about what America and Americans are like. I blame media). We saw a mountain, ate famous Yibin food called ran mian, saw where the Yangtze River formed (although this became a source of controversy throughout our trip with Alex and Richy claiming it wasn’t true), inhaled polluted air, and enjoyed a banquet with Leo and Chris’ waiban (in which he held back trying to get us foreigners drunk. He had been lectured in previous years by our former medical officer on not getting us pcvs drunk). Overall it was a pleasant trip and we were all sorry to say goodbye. The way back I took a bus straight from Yibin to Mianyang and another bus to Jiangyou. It took 6 hours. 6 hours! That’s half as long, but the price was twice as much. I think I will just use my money wisely and take the bus from now on because that is a bit ridiculous. Oh and I heard that many of you happy readers were worried about my passport. I guess I was a little vague in my last post because Kerry had returned the passport to me before I left so I had my passport during my travels. No worries!
During the remainder of the holiday I scrubbed and scrubbed my apartment, made my bathroom nicer, and bought a comforter for my bed so my apartment is so much nicer than it was before. I will wait until next month to do more to it and then I might post new pictures of my progress. So until my next China adventure unfolds…

Week 5 in Jiangyou

2010-10-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Sharon came over to talk about boys. It is so interesting how the emotional maturity level of Chinese differs from that of westerners. They are not immature by any means (actually in some regards they are more mature than Western youth), but because the Chinese spent so much of their youth behind books and so little time entering into social relationships (particularly with those of the opposite sex) they tend to act a lot younger than Westerners of the same age. So picture this 26 year old woman blushing uncontrollably while she tells me about this man that she has had a crush on for years and how I am the first person that she has ever told. Very interesting.

Sunday I taught all day or I was supposed to teach all day. After going to my third class that day where there were no students I got more than a little confused. I texted my waiban, who informed me he was in another city and had no idea why my students were missing from class, but he was nice enough to call the dean of the department that my students are in and discovered that Freshmen Preschool Education Classes 1-5 and 12 will not be in class on Sunday and Monday and Freshmen Preschool Education classes 6-11 will not be in class on Tuesday and Wednesday because they will be doing observations in a kinderschool during these days. Good to know, especially because all of the freshmen classes that I teach are in the Preschool Education department. Oh well. Sunday night I had a gander at one of the tv/movies websites that one of my students told me about and I watched Disney’s Peter Pan (oh reminiscences). It was quite pleasant, and, oh, the website also had the trailer for the new Harry Potter movie which comes out on my birthday! I am super excited even though I won’t be able to see it.

Monday I went with Kerry to Mianyang to get my visa sorted out. Well the officer working on it had never dealt with a volunteer visa before and didn’t know what to do. We ended up leaving (without my passport, which makes me a bit nervous) and this guy would discuss it with his superior. As long as everything works out, I really don’t care, but I cannot help feeling nervous at the fact that I don’t have a renewed visa yet (which expires September 30) and now I am without my passport. When we got back to the school Kerry and I had dinner, in which he ordered something that was like a spicy French fry (which was amazing!). Then Janice came over in the evening and brought me….cinnamon rolls! She is absolutely amazing. We are also scheming about a Halloween party to throw together. We are just not sure if it should be a teacher get-together or a student get-together.

Tuesday morning I went to go by my train tickets for my weekend trip during National Holiday this weekend. Sharon was nice enough to write everything out for me in Chinese, but when I got to the train station I discovered that all tickets were sold except for ones leaving Thursday morning when I have class or arriving at my destination very late which I didn’t want. Later two of Vivi’s students (Emma and Anna) bought me a ticket for a different day. These two girls are also in my running club and came over to my apartment after the club so I could pay them back and I taught them chess, which they found very interesting once they started picking up on the rules. Other things that happened today include a bird careening into the window of my classroom as I was teaching which scared the living daylights out of me. The bird was okay except for a few feathers it lost.

Tuesday evening was running club, but only two students showed up—faithful Anna and Emma, who didn’t even really want to run, only talk. After Janice left the girls came to my apartment so I could give them the money for the train ticket they bought for me earlier. They were so funny! They were in awe of being invited into my apartment since they said they’d never been in a teacher’s home before. When they sat down Emma pointed to my chess set and asked what it was, so I taught them chess. It was quite fun. They picked up on the rules fairly quickly, and when one made a mistake the other yelled at her in Chinese like best friends do. That evening I watched Whip It (Drew Barrymore’s roller derby movie) on a website a student suggested. Quite a relaxing close to the evening.

Wednesday I taught all day on a wonderfully sunny day with blue skies—such rare sight in Sichuan. I took a leisurely walk after lunch to soak in some vitamin D, and ran into a student of mine that told me I should take care to watch the sun. It will be a battle that I will fight all two years I am here—I know you care Chinese women, but I like the sun. I will not hide under an umbrella when the sun is out. I like being tan and not pale-skinned. I will not succumb to your ideas of feminine beauty. I may even venture forth to sit in the grass on a particularly sunny day and let the soft rays of the sun envelope me in its warmth and comfort of turning my skin brown. Okay I am done with my ranting about the sun, which has since disappeared today behind the typical dismal cloudiness which is Sichuan Province. Wednesday afternoon I went with Sharon and Janice to shop and pay my landline phone bill (which I cannot pay until next week). In the Mall-Mart (yes, Mall-Mart I did not misspell it) I found…canola oil! I was shocked. Canola oil in Jiangyou. It’s absurd. It came in only a large size, but I bought it and it will last me probably all two years that I am here since I will only use it for baking.

So in case you were interested, the following are a list of items that cannot be found in Jiangyou: (some of these items I can find at a bigger city like Mianyang or Chengdu, and some I cannot find anywhere in China, except maybe cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, which I labeled with an *)

• peanut butter comes and goes in Jiangyou, and many times when it is available it has chocolate swirls in it
• all-purpose flour* (there is flour in Mianyang and Chengdu, but not all-purpose)
• hand sanitizer
• fabric softener*
• potato masher (if I really want to, an IKEA opened in Chengdu where I can buy it)
• Spices (some avail. In Mianyang)
• Butter
• Cheese
• Hot chocolate sometimes (always in Mianyang)
• Ground beef (I think this could be all of China. There’s beef, of course, but not ground)
• Turkey
• Ground chicken
• Tampons (pretty sure all of China)
• Deodorant (Mianyang has a spray on type)
• Chocolate chip pieces for baking (*I think)
• Sprinkles*
• Applesauce*
• Different kinds of noodles, like macaroni
• Rolls*
• Bacon (Mianyang stocks this)
• Many kinds of bread

That is all I know of right now. Most of these don’t even matter to me, like when do I ever eat bacon in the States. It’s just interesting. Next time I will do a list of things found in China that are not found in the US.

Thursday I just had two morning classes since the afternoon classes were cancelled for the holiday. After my 11:00 class two of my students approached me and asked if they could ask me a question. I said of course, anything. They looked at each other and I thought, oh boy what are they going to ask me. Their question was: “If Mickey’s girlfriend is Minnie, who is Donald’s girlfriend?” It took every ounce of internal strength I had not to laugh, and I responded quite seriously “Daisy Duck.” Oh my students make me laugh. They often say things to me that really make me laugh, but most of them are errors in English and I soon forget them. in the afternoon I went shopping with Janice which was a bit of a mistake because it was the first day of the holiday, so the store was packed! I was looking for sugar and peanut butter. I got the sugar, but the peanut butter I got my first week in Jiangyou seems to no longer be for sale, instead I found a Chinese version called peanut sauce. I decided I would be brave; the worst that could happen is I throw it all back up. After shopping Janice loaded me up on some books from her library which should last me at least until the end of October since there were 6 of them, all about China which I am trying to learn more and more about. I find that the more I learn about China, the less I really actually do know of this mysterious country.

Friday…success! I succeeded in baking for the first time in my brand new toaster oven delicious chocolate peanut butter cookies! I of course tested the cookies out on myself before offering some to Janice and Mark and taking some to my friends in Yibin. Okay so they are not the greatest cookies, but they are cookies nonetheless and they are alright. I think they would have been a bit better if I had peanut butter with the chocolate swirls which is what I planned to buy instead of the mysterious Chinese peanut sauce. Next time.

Other things for Friday include me meeting Vivi’s husband! I ran into her on my way back from the market downtown, and she was waiting for him at the bus stop by the school. I had dinner with them and another teacher that evening to celebrate the National Day. There was a special on TV with live performances that depicted China. The special program took place in Shanghai and was put on for many dignitaries from around the world as a part of this year’s World Expo which has been in Shanghai and will finish sometime this month. The program was interesting and reminded me of programs that we have in the States during the New Year celebrations.

Hopefully my blogs do not bore you, but if you have any questions about me, China, Peace Corps China, or Peace Corps in general do not hesitate to shoot me an email (katied3461@hotmail.com)—that is what I am here for, to bridge the gaps between two cultures.

week 4

2010-09-25T05:52:00.001-07:00

Sunday:

Today I taught my first Thursday classes for next week because Wednesday thru Friday are cancelled for the Mid-Autumn Festival. It was a dreadfully hot and humid day. The Chinese describe this kind of uncharacteristic heat out of season as “The Tiger in the Autumn.” Believe me, it fits. My first class that morning was acting out my own sentiments—they all had their heads down on the desks when I walked in. Despite that it was Sunday, excruciatingly humid, and sweat was cascading down my back and forehead I did my best to get the students energized for learning English. It was an informative lesson. I became aware that this freshmen classes’ English level was lower than I had originally assessed, but I took it slowly and we all got through the lesson on transportation. 45 minutes is a frustratingly short period of time to teach these students. I realized that the 45 minute freshmen classes will learn less than half of what my second year students will learn this semester and I find that really irritating, especially considering how much practice these students need. Nevertheless I will do my darndest to help these students improve.

My second class on Sunday was my small class. An activity that went exceptionally well was giving the students different pictures that I had of my family and friends. They then had to create a story about the picture explaining who the people were (describe them and give them names), what they were doing in the picture, where they are (including the time of year, is it a holiday or party), and the relationships of the people in the picture to one another. It was so funny for me to hear the students describe these pictures of my family and friends (like he is dating her), and the students did a great job with their oral English. I wanted the students to focus a lot on describing, as well as working on getting their pronouns correct (Chinese English speakers often mistake she/he and him/her—which is very confusing for native speakers to hear). This activity is going down in my great activities folder along with my guess the item activity during my packing lesson. The picture activity took a while, though, and I ended up scraping half my lesson—to be picked back up next time we meet after the holiday.

Sunday afternoon I looked at pictures of Vivi’s family and friends which was nice to get to know her more. And then I got my water distiller to work! It was so exciting! So now I have clean drinking water all the time that is free!

Monday:

Another terribly hot and humid day in Jiangyou. Got to the office and the power was out—which is not uncommon. Usually once a day the power goes out. But the bad thing about this was the elevator had stopped running with people in it and we were all sweating profusely in the office without the AC working. A positive thing in the morning was that Vivi gave me a mooncake in celebration for the Mid-Autumn Festival (aka Moon Festival) which is this Wednesday. Later on I tried it and it was good. Some people do not care for the mooncakes, but I rather like them. They are a dense cake filled with meat, fruit, or flowers usually. The sweeter ones tend to be better in my opinion.

My first class on Monday was a freshmen class that I hadn’t met yet. I walked in to oohs and ahhs and several students taking pictures of me with their cell phone cameras—foreign teachers are like movie stars over here. I am sure that for some of my students I am the first foreigner that they have ever met.

More than half of my students for my second freshmen class that day were missing. They were apparently dancing or something like that. It was difficult to say where they were because the student that told me where they were had very poor English.

For my sophomore class Media (another Chinese English teacher) observed me. She said that she was having trouble engaging her students and getting them to participate, so she wanted to see what I do in my classes. She took lots of notes—which made me a bit nervous, and then we debriefed afterwards. She may try some of my teaching methods in the future is what she said.

At 7 that night all of the students were having performances to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. I went to Vivi’s class celebration because I was performing with Vivi and Jaime (an art teacher at the school). They sang and then I said a part of a Chinese poem about the moon. The party was incredibly fun, exciting, and festive for the students. The students sang, did skits, danced, one girl did an amazing yoga demonstration (and then did a mini lesson for the audience—us), and one group of girls sang a song to a girl from their dorm who had just failed her computer exam. The song caused some tears to fall. Very sweet. Chinese people are very encouraging of others. When they forget their lines when singing the audience would always pitch in to help—no one laughs or ridicules. There were also two contests during the night. One involved popping balloons and answering questions and the other had baijiu (strong liquor) involved. Very interesting.

The start was also worth mentioning. The students had placed desks and chairs in the front for any teachers that came to watch, and they gave us all juice boxes and snacks. The students also had drinks and snacks. For all solo singers we would give them one snack to show our appreciation—I gave one girl a lollipop per Vivi’s suggestion.

The second notable thing was when Janice, Mark and Charlie came. They got a standing ovation. Everyone loves adorable Charlie. But poor Charlie (in this Tiger in the autumn) developed a heat rash, so I started fanning him with my paper until this sweet student brought me a real fan—so the rash soon disappeared. They didn’t stay long, though, for Charlie’s sake.

At the end of the celebration the students brought out 3 gigantic mooncakes and had me, Vivi, and Jamie do the honors of cutting it. Two boys stepped in to help me and Vivi finish cutting because of the thickness of the cake—much appreciated. And it was devoured in minutes by students. They made sure the teachers got some. It was delicious, too. Very sweet.

The students were cleaning up everything when we left and singing a bit since they had rented the sound equipment and were getting their full moneys worth.

Tuesday:

The morning brought a wretched storm. The humidity that built up for days released its fury in deafening claps of thunder and close range lightning bolts accompanied by furious winds and downpours. I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I eventually left for the office and was greeted with mooncakes galore from students and other teachers. While in the office I took out the Tallahassee Democrat to look for articles to read to my students, and two teachers came over curious. One article was about the Tallahassee Museum of Natural History and I mentioned that I used to volunteer there to teach the public about animals. One teacher said she loved animals and was actually a vegan (really rare in China) and a member of PETA. She asked me if I was also a vegetarian. I said no. She asked why I ate meat if I loved animals so much, so I explained to her about the circle of life theory. She told me that some students on campus had a Vegetarian Culture Organization which she sponsors. They were planning a vegan picnic on the 23rd. Later she told me about a good website for watching TV: www.suprememasterstv.com. Interesting. I immediately emailed another volunteer that I know that is a diehard vegan, so that she could visit my school and maybe be a guest speaker for the club.

Tuesday evening Janice and I went to running club, but it turned out that the track was closed for the holiday. So we went to buy some Chinese barbecue (which is nothing like our bbq). We got barbecue veggies and Mark made rice. Janice also paid and got us some bubble tea. We ate, played a few card games, then watched Balls of Fury. Janice and Mark have a nice collection of DVDs and a DVD player in their apartment. To top it all off Mark and I both enjoined a cold Heineken that he’d bought when they were in Chengdu earlier in the month. Interesting about watching Balls of Fury, if anyone hasn’t seen it there is Chinese in it and this one guy would always translate. The interesting thing was that we were watching and this little girl spoke Chinese and then the guy translated and we all looked at each other and then said “that’s not what she said.” Very interesting. She didn’t say anything bad, but it was interesting that the translation was incorrect. It makes me want to learn more Chinese, which is good since I have been unmotivated.

Wednesday:

Wednesday morning at 8 I went with Vivi and another teacher named Sharon to nearby mountain (Douchuan Mountain). It was great and relaxing. Unfortunately part of the mountain was under some construction so we didn’t see about half of it. There are pictures on the Windows Live account. Check it out! When we got back to Jiangyou we had dinner (I paid since Sharon bought the snacks). Then we went shopping at the market, which was packed and crazy. The mooncakes were now ½ off since Mid-Autumn Festival was that day, so everyone was loading up. I got some to try as well. It was a long but pleasant way to spend the first day of the holidays. It was also incredibly cool which was awesome!

Thursday:

Thursday was great. I spent the entire day inside reading, sleeping and relaxing. I can’t do that too often, but every now and then is okay. Thursday evening Media invited me over to her apartment for some Guizhou (another province where she is from) tea and to chat. It was nice and I got to know her a bit better.

Friday:

Friday morning I headed over to Mianyang on the bus. I spent the whole cold and rainy day there with Angel, Joel, and a returned Peace Corps volunteer turned contract teacher Tom. It was nice to get away for a bit, and I was able to pick up a new keyboard (since the one on my laptop is broken) and a small toaster oven! I am super excited to begin baking things. I am hoping to bake cookies, although all-purpose flour really does not exist in China. I picked up the oven, along with some cinnamon, curry powder, some soup packets, and a high-gluten flour (which I am going to test for cookies) at Super Wal-Mart in Mianyang. It was similar and yet different from the Wal-Marts back home. It was interesting. I got a steal on the oven, too along with a two year warranty. It was great having Tom around who could speak Chinese and enjoyed bargaining—something which I hate. Angel cooked us all a nice stir-fry and his sitemate (a China 15) named Jeff came over. It was nice, but I was looking forward to returning to Jiangyou the next day. It was nice that I didn’t have to teach on Saturday, so I could get some things done. Tomorrow, though, I teach and thus ends another week in Jiangyou.

*Oh and I beat the difficult level in Spider Solitaire this week—I am so proud of myself!

week 3 in Jiangyou

2010-09-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

So this week started out fairly boring since I was told the freshmen would have orientation on Monday and Tuesday (which would mean me only teaching a double period on Monday and nothing on Tuesday). On Tuesday I had my first running club. I was really excited about the prospect of it. Only two students came out this time, though. One of Vivi’s male students said he was going to and then left before 5. Hopefully as the word gets out about it more students will come. Janice decided she wanted to join, and Eliam participated in the warm-up and cool-down. We only did about 2 miles, but it was probably all the girls could have handled, especially when one shows up in jeans and a cute shirt with converses. I asked the two girls what was the most they had ever run, and they said 2 laps (which is 800 meters or ½ a mile). I said what about during high school? But they said only two laps ever was the most they had run because during high school and junior school they focused only on studying. Crazy! Eliam also took pictures of us per the request of Kerry who wanted to put it on the school’s website.

I was hoping to go to dinner with some of the students after, but they had already eaten. Janice invited me to have their trial run of tacos which I considered, but don’t want to intrude too much on their lives. On the way home, though, I ran into Media who told me about the weird schedule we are about to embark on for the next month. I couldn’t quite understand, so hopefully Kerry or Vivi can explain it to me later, but from what I could gather is that one day of class is cancelled and will be made up this Sunday (hopefully not me because I am planning on going to Mianyang Sunday). Then next Wednesday thru Sunday is mid-Autumn festival and we will have a break. Then we come back and teach Monday thru Thursday and then we have a week off for National Holiday. When we return from National Holiday the freshmen have military training for two weeks. Wow! All I want to know is when I actually teach.

So Wednesday I was really excited to be teaching my first class of freshmen. It was my long day and I was excited to actually have something to do. I would be teaching almost the entire day from 9-4. So I got to my class right around 855 and there were no students present. I thought maybe students arrive a bit later to class in the morning. When 905 came, I began to panic thinking that I had the wrong classroom. I quickly texted Kerry and asked him if he knew what was going on. Then I started to call Vivi, but remembered that she had class in the morning and hung up. I then called Kerry and he answered and told me that all of the preschool education freshmen had a meeting in the auditorium and so none of the teachers were teaching today and sorry that he forgot to tell me. Well first a wave of relief washed over me knowing that I was not late to my class, but then the anger and frustration came moments later. I texted Janice to see if she was free (because I wanted to vent) but she never responded, which was good because I was able to take a few deep breaths, got my computer and went to the office. Just in case all of my classes today were not actually cancelled and there was more miscommunication, I went to my 10 classroom. There were some students inside, but just to take a rest not to be taught. There were no students at my 1105 class, but when I went to take a look at my 130 class there were 56 students sitting inside. I waited and then this Chinese man came and started talking to me in Chinese. Then he went into the classroom and talked with the students. I was wondering if he was their teacher, but then I distinctly heard him ask them what class it was and they answered English. Then I was thinking, this must be my class. So then the Chinese man came back out and started talking to me in Chinese again. I asked him if I was to teach these students and he said yes. Okay then. Luckily I had my notes with me and one small piece of chalk (as there was no chalk in the classroom). So I taught. I thought maybe the classes in the afternoon were not cancelled, but then my 320 class also had no students. I was very confused by the end of the day. I went by Janice and Mark’s and indulged in a little chat with other foreign teachers and borrowed two books from them for pleasure reading (Wild Swans which is about 3 generations of Chinese women and their struggles and The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency of which I am sure many of you are familiar). I later asked my counterpart about the confusion and the only thing he could offer was that it would probably be normal tomorrow. I hope so. I would hate to accidentally miss one of my classes. I went to the track in the afternoon just to walk since I ran in the morning before school, but a student and teacher invited me to run with them, so I did. I really like both this teacher and student. Both are sweet, and the student communicates well in English.

Thursday I a class of freshmen in the morning, and it was rather interesting. When the bell rang for the start of class one student stood and said loudly “All stand” and all of the students stood and said ‘Good morning Teacher.” I was so taken back by this, but recovered enough to tell them they could sit back down. I really hope they don’t do that again. The class had mixed levels but were much lower than my second year students. After lunch Kerry told me that my afternoon classes would be cancelled because the students in that department had a speech contest in the afternoon. Just to be sure I went anyways but it was indeed missing students when I went by. So I went to the office and I just mentioned offhand to Vivi that I had heard that some teachers are teaching Sunday and I was wondering how they knew if they were. She said that it was on the bulletin board. Well the bulletin board is written in Chinese characters, so Vivi wrote the information down for me and I will be teaching Sunday, so no trip to Mianyang for me this weekend which I am disappointed about, but that’s life.

The one class I did attend in the afternoon was my favorite class because it is my small class. So do remember my question box that I keep in the class? It is a box that I keep available for the students to put questions in that they might be too nervous to ask in class. My Monday class put some good comments in like ‘you talk too fast; could I write bigger on the board’ things like that. Thursday my class had put some questions/comments in that were a bit different, they said:
• How will you spend the National Holiday?
• You looks thin. Do you like to teach us ? (Janice said that her students told her once that they were surprised she was thin because they thought all westerners were supposed to be fat)
• You have beautiful eyes and voice
• You looks like a Chinese!
So that was interesting and also made me laugh.

Thursday afternoon Vivi invited me to go with her to the Chinese speech contest for the students in our department (whatever department that may be). It was unlike any speech contest I have ever been to. The students recited famous speeches and most of their speeches were set to dramatic music. Vivi even said that this one student probably would have gotten a better score if she had added music to her speech. So it seemed that they were judging the students on their ability to speak standard Chinese and speak in an engaging and powerful manner. All students come from backgrounds with strong dialects, mostly Sichuan, and being able to speak Mandarin well is a valued trait. It was rather interesting. I understood very little, but I got to see some students that I know compete, which was nice.

Okay, so you are probably wondering why I am teaching Sunday, right? Next week is Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival) and we have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off. So this Sunday we are making up Thursday’s classes and next Saturday we are making up Friday’s classes and next Sunday we are making up Wednesday’s classes. I know it really isn’t a holiday, is it? Then from the afternoon of August 30th to October 1-8 there are no classes for the National Holiday and we will be making up the Thursday and Friday classes the Saturday and Sunday following National Holiday on the 9th and 10th of October. A little confusing, but that’s China. All of the universities do this.

Currently this Friday I am sitting in the office and 9 of my students are talking to me on QQ and one of my students is talking to me in person. It is nice but a little overwhelming.

Friday evening I went with two teachers shopping. They bought me dinner which was this delicious street vendor bread and spicy vegetables. I bought some peanuts from the funniest street vendor for Saturday’s potluck. When we walked up he looked at me and yelled excitedly “Hello! How may I help you?” Vivi thinks he was really excited to meet a foreigner. His English was as many as a few phrases, but his enthusiasm was great. He wanted to overcharge me, but the two teachers I was with told him that I was a volunteer, so he gave me a good price on the condition that I return. I said okay, and probably will knowing that he will give me a fair price in the future.

Saturday I spent the entire morning cleaning in preparation for the potluck I was hosting for teachers that live on campus. What I was planning to make took longer than I had anticipated and caused too much smoke to cloud my apartment, so things changed a bit. I was making potato pancakes and filling them with ground pork. I made a few, which were delicious, before just putting the mashed potatoes and cooked meat into two separate bowls instead. Janice and Mark brought fruit salad, biscuits, and a small cake. The Chinese teachers brought some other delicious dishes, but I didn’t know their names. A total of 6 people came. I was hoping for a few more, but it was nice. Kerry called in the morning to say that the school needed him to go to Mianyang and that he couldn’t come, but that he wanted to host the next one. I hope it turns into a monthly gathering.

Busy weekend

2010-09-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday I went shopping in the morning with Vivi again. I think it will likely be a regular thing, unless one of us is busy or out-of-town. This time, however, we stopped at her bank to see about something that I wasn’t quite sure about. It seems that in China employers will give employees a certain amount of money to help them save for a house. When Vivi explained it to me it seemed similar to how employers in the States will provide health insurance to their employees. Houses in China are so expensive to own. Of course the prices range from city to city, but in general the average person in China will not likely own a home due to the high cost.
After the bank we got some lunch. Vivi had wanted me to try this special food in Jiangyou called feipan. I said sure. Well it probably would have been fine except that she decided to look up the translation for what I was about to eat…pig’s large intestine. So obviously it weirded me out to be eating the large intestine of an animal, but I ate it anyways. It was a bit rubbery with an okay taste, but not a good aftertaste. Everything else we ate was fine. Next Vivi wanted to look at clothes. I think I have mentioned that the supermarkets in China are multi-leveled with usually the bottom level devoted to food, and the next levels with clothes, electronics, and house wares. We had a look around. She tried on some clothes, so I tried on something, too. I was more curious to see what my size was in China. The sales attendant guessed my size for the dress. It was cute, but way too short for my comfort level. Chinese women like to wear short skirts and dresses (almost like they are dressing themselves up how you might dress a doll). Anyways, they determined my size based on my height and not my waist which was interesting. So the dress was a little big in the waist area, but I suppose it fit my height. So I know enough Chinese to know when someone is talking about me, and also I have enough intuition to know in languages I don’t know. I found out later that the sales attendants were asking Vivi about me. Apparently they didn’t think I was American, but thought I came from this specific region in China where the women have bigger eyes, higher noses, and are a bit taller. I realized that I have the perfect look for a foreigner going into China. At first glance or with a quick look the Chinese do not think I am a foreigner because I have the dark hair, similar skin (minus the freckles) and similar body frame. But if they look again or go up to talk with me they can tell by my face that I am not Chinese and will not likely try talking to me in Chinese. Therefore, it is nice. I am not stared at going down the street like many of my fellow volunteers are, especially those that are really tall, blond haired, or African American. I am also not expected to know Chinese like the Asian American volunteers (which is difficult for those Asian Americans that are not of Chinese descent or do not speak Chinese at all).
Later in the afternoon I went to hang out with Janice and Mark. We just chatted and played Scrabble. They are such a nice couple. They always have lots of advice and information for me that is priceless. I should really take a notebook when I go over and take notes on what they have to say. They said that most of the information they give me was told to them from other volunteers in their organization, and I replied that we are all just keeping the cycle going because I will in turn tell the next Peace Corps Volunteer that comes to Jiangyou. Mark replied that we foreigners have to stick together. Though we laughed at this, it is very true in many ways. Well I left their house a bit loaded up. When they found out I didn’t have any glasses, they searched through boxes and found me some, then gave me some measuring spoons they weren’t using, and then gave me some banana bread Janice had baked. So nice.
Sunday morning I went to the hometown of Li Bai (the poet) with a new teacher in the school named Media. She had been in 2002 and wanted to see the difference since the earthquake. The touristy attraction of Li Bai’s hometown was destroyed by the earthquake, and they were in the process of rebuilding (making the ticket price half-price). It was a nice trip. There wasn’t much to see because they really had just started rebuilding, but I got to know this teacher a lot better and, boy, does she love to talk. I would put it at 90-10 talking time, which was fine with me. A lot of times I don’t know what to say. The only thing that made me laugh at first, and as the day progressed just started to annoy me was how she had to point out and describe EVERYTHING to me, and not just once. She would point to something and tell me what it was, like bamboo (several times). I had to watch myself to not give a sarcastic response when she would point to a picture of a cloud and tell me that it was a cloud. Really? A cloud? No kidding.
When we left the hometown, we went back to downtown Jiangyou and had some lunch. I think we were both famished because we devoured the lunch. And then she was so sweet; she paid for both of us. I did the Chinese thing and tried to fight her over the bill, but she persisted. I told her that I would pay for her next time. Then she got the receipt and won 5 yuan. At some restaurants you get the bill and it has a scratch off section on the bottom and you might be able to win some money back. I must really bring some luck to Jiangyou because Kerry won every time we were out to eat during my site visit and Media said that this was the first time she had ever won. When we finished eating we went for a walk in Li Bai park downtown (the one Eliam had taken me to during site visit). Normally I am the one with the worst sense of direction, but good thing I know a little bit more about Jiangyou than Media or we might still be wandering around downtown Jiangyou. She had us wandering around until I finally took over and got us to the park, and then again to the correct bus stop. What was really strange was that she wouldn’t ask for directions. We took an unofficial taxi to the hometown of Li Bai because Media didn’t know the bus route, and then on the way back we were walking to try and find one and she wouldn’t just ask. I finally told her she ought to ask, and I almost asked for her, although I wouldn’t have been able to understand a word they told me in response (I just know how to ask in Chinese. The answer is the difficult part). Anyways, so while we were wandering around we walked by this military camp and I was thinking “oh boy, where are you taking me? I don’t want to be detained or something or come across something they don’t want foreigners to see.” So I tried to look as Chinese as possible. Good thing I was wearing this shirt that everyone says is very Chinese looking. I also tried to make myself shorter. I bet I blended in well.
In the end I got back at about 4 in the afternoon, so a very long day. Next week the freshmen start, and I will be very busy! Wish me luck, but I guess I bring my own luck here in Jiangyou.

National Teacher Day

2010-09-10T08:54:00.001-07:00

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last post was when I was walking with one of the Chinese teachers in the evening she started talking to me about Peace Corps volunteers. She said that she really liked Peace Corps teachers. She remembered one Peace Corps teacher that she had at Sichuan Normal University a few years back named James. She remembered how James taught them about poetry and writing, how he would sit on his desk, how he would walk around the room, and how he would always bring a briefcase to school with him like he was a businessman. She remembered his enthusiasm with teaching and how comfortable he felt in the classroom. He was middle-aged. She said that she finds herself mimicking his teaching methods—like walking around the classroom. I found this a good refresher into why I am here. This teacher made such an impact on his students during this service in the Peace Corps that they still remember this teacher and think his teaching style is worth replicating in their own teaching.
Thursday I taught (my favorite class. Shh! Well I can’t really say that anyways because I have not started teaching the freshmen yet). Anyways, it went really well. I took the advice from my Monday class and spoke slower, and put more on the board for clarity. It is just so much easier to teach a class of 20 versus 40+. Maybe over time the universities will come to realize that the students can learn more and better in a smaller classroom, especially for language classes. For a good part of the day I worked on organizing my pictures for China on my computer. It will take some time to do. At lunch Wan Laoshi asked me about caring for dogs, since he just adopted two. I explained to him about what dogs should and shouldn’t eat. We practiced for a little bit in the afternoon, and then I finally got to run! I hadn’t really run all week and I was aching to. Running, even more than my apartment, is my time to relax and get away. I can put myself in the moment and rhythm of my run and not hear or think about anything. It is blissful, and yesterday was gorgeous! The sky was a bright blue with no clouds in sight, the sun was shining brightly, and I could clearly make out the mountains in the distance (even the crevices in them).
In the evening of Thursday I decided to try my luck cooking again. I decided to boil some sweet corn, which was ever so sweet and delicious. I ate one and saved the others for another day. Then I cut up a sweet onion, eggplant, and tomatoes to fry up. The gas stove heats up so much faster than the electric stoves back home. I am not quite sure when I should add the different ingredients. Anyways, it smelt okay, tasted okay, but then five bites into the dish I threw it all back up. It was kind of disgusting. I have never given myself food poisoning before. I felt okay afterwards, but I decided not to try and eat anything else—just in case. Maybe I need some cooking lessons. I might ask my students or fellow teachers to teach me how to cook.

Friday. I knew Friday would be different when I woke up to the sound of my cell phone beeping me a message. It was from one of my students saying “Happy Teachers Day, Katie!” Since I had been sleeping I didn’t register this as from my student, and responded with “Thank you! Happy Teachers’ Day to you too.” Wishing her a Happy Teacher’s Day didn’t make any sense. That morning I could also hear the morning announcements blaring across the school grounds. I don’t know if it was extra loud this particular morning in celebration of Teachers’ Day or if I was just more awake to hear it, regardless I was awake and the sun was shining extra brightly for us teachers this morning. As I was walking to the office I noticed colorful flags stuck in the grounds and banners depicting school activities surrounding the garden area. The outdoor performance area was filled with student artwork, and there were many students bustling around. I was not sure if this also was for Teacher’s Day or if it was in preparation for the freshmen that would be arriving this weekend. Either way, it provided a festive environment. When I got to my office it was to gifts on my desk! Vivi’s sweet students had given me a cactus for my office with what looked like a Valentine’s Day card that read “Katie: You have been a qualified teachers and even better friend. Thank you for all that you have done! –Preschool English Education class two grade two.” There were also cards from both classes that I have. My Monday class gave me a card that also looked like a Valentine’s Day card that said: “Dear Katie: We are very glad to have you as our teacher. We are more thankful than we can express. May you all wishes come true. Happy Teacher’s Day. Sincerely, Class 4.” And my Thursday class had a card that didn’t look like a Valentine’s card and read: “Dear Katie, Today is Teachers’ Day. Wishing you a happy Teacher’s Day! Your students: Sophie, Cindy, Mickey, Faye, Ava, Peggy, Amanda, Sophia, Nancy, Demi, Money, Vienna, Vivian, Wendy, Sancy, Angela, Chanel, Eric, Joey, Singly, Ruby, Senlina.” I should also note that I wrote these verbatim. I also received a leather-bound notebook from I am not sure who. The inside cover had a note written in Chinese characters.
Sitting in the office, I could feel the excitement in the day. It is a wonderful day for teachers, filled with gifts, happiness, and excitement (especially for this afternoon’s performance). I had many students of Vivi’s wish me a Happy Teacher’s Day. One wanted to know why I wasn’t on QQ last night because she wanted to chat with me. I told her I would try to be on more often. Then Kerry came in and gave me my full teaching schedule, which is as follows: Monday 1105-1150 (grade 1 class 8), 130-215 (grade 1 class 1), 225-405 (grade 2 class 4); Tuesday 1105-1150 (grade 1 class 6), 130-215 (grade 1 class 5), 320-405 (grade 1 class 7); Wednesday 905-950 (grade 1 class 10), 1000-1045 (grade 1 class 2), 1105-1150 (grade 1 class 4), 130-215 (grade 1 class 3), 320-405 (grade 1, class 12); Thursday 1000-1045 (grade 1 class 9), 1105-1150 and 130-215 (grade 2 class 2), 320-405 (grade 1 class 11). And no classes on Fridays! I am not sure how I am going to manage to teach oral English for only 45 minutes once a week. I’m not sure what kind of improvements they expect from these students, but that is not enough class time for such a class. Oh well, I will just try my best.
After lunch, in which Wang Laoshi asked me to teach him English profanity (he already knew most of them, and I didn’t teach him the ones he was missing. I just said “oh, that’s it”), I went with the other female teachers in our performance to go downtown to get our make-up done. We went to this little beauty shop and the attendants did all of our makeup. Mine was done by the only guy in the shop, and well…you will just have to see the pictures when I put them up, but when I left I had the attention of everybody in Jiangyou with the crazy makeup and giant sequined flower pinned to my hair. When we got back we quickly dressed and went to the auditorium. I was told numerous times by many different people that I needed to make sure to pretend to sing during the performance. Maybe the fact that I don’t speak Chinese automatically makes me incompetent, I don’t know. It went well, though. I wasn’t nervous, thanks to whoever’s brilliant idea it was to have us prerecord our voices. Many people, including Mark and Janice (truthful individuals) said they couldn’t tell that we weren’t actually singing live. So yay for us! I watched the rest of the performances before scrubbing my skin raw of the makeup (the eyeliner still remaining after three washes). I saw that they were filming the program, so hopefully I can get it to you all somehow.
When the show was over and my face mostly clean, I went to give Mark and Janice the cactus that Vivi’s students had given to all of the teachers. Kerry gave me theirs to give to them because I guess he figures I see them more often. I was stopped at least three different times on the 500 meter walk from the office where the cactus was to their apartment to have people tell me that I did a wonderful job singing. I think they must have confused me with someone else. Visiting Mark and Janice was nice, although it was only for a moment because I had to meet Vivi to go downtown to the celebration dinner. All of the teachers in our department were going out for a celebratory dinner in honor of Teacher’s Day. It was great food and really nice to go out to a nicer restaurant. Charlie (Janice and Mark’s 2 month old) was the life of the party, and I must say he is a mighty cute baby. He slept for most of the dinner, but woke up at the end to the pleasure of all. Vivi, Janice, and I chose our seats carefully. Two of the tables were drinking walnut milk and the other table (with only men) were drinking beer and baijiu. Mark ended up at the baijiu table, but when we left he said he only had one glass of each. I usually do whatever the other women do because that will be what is acceptable, and from what I can tell from the two times I have gone out with the teachers is that the women do not drink alcohol at all, so while I in Jiangyou I will do the same. During dinner I was often referred to as a’jiao which was who the song was about that we sang. A’jiao means beautiful girl, but they were calling me that because it was the part of the song that I sang, and it was what they were trying to make me into (I was the a’jiao of the performance). Very funny.
When we got back to the school, Vivi, another teacher, and I walked around a bit. I went to the one teacher’s apartment and had a look at her wedding pictures. The Chinese take their wedding pictures before their actual ceremony in their wedding outfits. It is usually a big deal and the photos sometimes tell a story about the couple. Hers were really nice and in two bound books. I asked her where her husband was and she said he worked as a teacher in Mianyang. Vivi’s husband is working on his doctoral degree in Chongqing. I find it interesting that they can just live apart for such long periods of time. I mean, they work in completely different cities. Mianyang isn’t too far from Jiangyou, but you would have to take a long distance bus to get there. Interesting. I once asked Vivi if she missed her husband, and she said sometimes especially when there are problems around the house. Very interesting. But I guess it works for them. I know eventually they will want to live and work in the same city, but they are okay with not doing it for now.
That is all for now, and who knows what tomorrow will bring, so stay tuned!

This and That

2010-09-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

One thing I forgot to mention about Tuesday which was quite humorous was that when I was talking with Suri (the Chinese student who stopped me while I was running) she asked me about my family. She became rather interested when I mentioned that I have two brothers, and then really excited when I mentioned that one of them was 24 (almost). She was rather saddened when I mentioned he had a girlfriend, so watch out Richard, these Chinese girls are coming for you!
Okay, so today we had some power outages in the morning, but they didn’t last long. I also successfully made some scrambled eggs for myself for breakfast (no spontaneous fires) and it was rather delicious, not as good as I could make in the States, but it would do.
While I was at the office I chatted with some students on QQ. One of the students said she would be taking an exam in December and was really worried about her English. Not sure how much I can help her in only a few months, but we can try. In the Chinese universities the students must take an exam in order to earn their degrees. The English exams are broken down into different levels, so she was most likely taking one of these level tests. They are rather difficult, and from what I have seen from the average student in Jiangyou versus students from schools in Chengdu, it will be a bit of a challenge for my students.
Around 10am Vivi asks me if I want to go to the library and get a library card. I said sure, wondering if there were even English books. Well oh were there English books. There was a great, albeit small, collection of novels in English. The novels ranged from classics, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain novels, Dracula, and The Awakening (many more, too) to easy reads like Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Lonely Planet Guides (minus the one for China which is banned), and almost all of the British versions of…Harry Potter. Oh yeah, I think I will never be bored on a weekend again. I am looking forward to getting my library card—which will take some time because I need some sort of identification number and a 1”x 1” photo of myself. Oh this is so exciting, though. I wonder if Janice and Mark know about this gem.
After lunch we recorded our voices again (and for the last time, I think). I was doing alright singing by myself in my apartment, but I get really nervous singing in front of others, and my voice definitely cracked a couple of times in the recording. However, two of the teachers told me that my voice was very sweet, kind of like I have a child’s voice. I’m not sure if this was a compliment or not, but I took it as such. Then they told me that I should do my hair up nice for Friday. They decided it would be best if I wore it down and they would ask the dance teacher to make me some flowers to put in my hair.
After lunch I observed Vivi’s preschool education class. It was almost all in Chinese, although she added some English words into the lesson to catch the students’ attention, as well as for extra practice since they are also required to learn English. She has 50 students in her class and her class is broken into three 45 minute sessions (very long). Vivi was also clever enough to get a hands-free microphone that she uses to teach in order to save her voice. She also has a very sweet, soft voice that is probably difficult to project in such a large class. I could tell that Vivi really enjoys teaching from her facial expressions and her interactions with the students. She is a traditional Chinese teacher in that she stands at the front of the class and delivers her lecture, although at one point the students did have a discussion and she walked around (just walked around, but didn’t interact. I could tell she felt a little unused to this, so I thought that maybe she got the walking around idea from my class). But it mostly ran from her lecture, the students taking notes, her asking questions, and students answering (either in unison, which always throws me off here, or with one student standing up to answer, which also throws me off. I always tell students that they can remain in their seats to answer a simple question, but this is how their classes have been run from a very young age). Her students were very engaged with her lesson. She would challenge them with some questions, told some funny stories (maybe, like I said it was in Chinese), and read a short passage from a story she got while we were at the library. One thing I found very interesting about her lesson was that she taught them almost everything she had asked me about during the week and last week in the office. She taught them the difference between pedagogue, pedagogy, and education. She taught them about the American Early Childhood Education format that we went over the other day. It was a little surprising to me. So maybe I am making a difference here.
During one of the breaks I talked with one of her students. One thing I asked him was if he had travelled to any other city outside of Sichuan. He hadn’t. I have noticed that with many Chinese people, and not just students. It seems that many are confined to their province for most, if not all, of their lives. Also, I am aware that Chinese schools do not teach too much about cultures and history of other countries, nor do their news stations cover a lot of world news. I found this sad, but what I found even sadder was my reflection on our own country. When I thought about it I realized that our education also lacks this. This egocentrism in our country can be found within the classroom, as well as in the media. Look at the newspapers and see how little is devoted to world news. When do our schools focus on Asian, African, or Latin American cultures, histories, or literatures? They don’t, unless it is an advanced class (like AP). Our schools are mainly concerned with American or European culture, history, and literature. Why do you think this is? Yes I am going to make you ponder a bit while reading my blog. Just think about it for a moment, and comment below if you think you have a good answer to this query.

After Vivi’s class we hurried home to change for our dress rehearsal. I donned my blue polyester dress and silver shoes and made my way to the auditorium. So it turned out we were not the only ones practicing, but that is was a full run of the entire program with all 10 acts going through. We are the fourth act. The acts were mainly singing and dancing. Some were teachers only, others were students only, and still others, like ours, incorporated both students and teachers. The act went fine, although we are now aware of a few minor adjustments we need to make before Friday. The recording earlier is the official one that I heard blare out over the audience of waiting performers (complete with cracking voices and all. I think my amazing dance moves distract from the horrendous noises coming from the loudspeaker, though). When we finished our act, some of us decided to hang out and watch all of the others. I really hope that someone video records this and I can get a copy because it is worth watching. Later Vivi and I had dinner outside of the school, this time with me paying. We ate a type of dumpling.
Next we went for a walk with another teacher. While walking we made our way over to the track and Vivi said something about the playground. I used this opportunity to explain that English speakers call it a track or a field, and not a playground (which is what children go to). This came as a surprise to Vivi. Every Chinese person I have met have called it the playground, and then seem confused if I refer to the track. This has bothered me for some time, and I finally got to correct it. Later I heard Vivi explaining this to another teacher, which is wonderful! Spread the word! I may leave an impact yet! Anyways, we walked until Vivi had to go watch her students. Students are required to study in the evenings and teachers take turns watching over them. I went with her to the library, and then met up with another teacher (whose name escapes me) who I walked and talked with some. I really enjoyed chatting with this teacher. Her English vocabulary was really good, although her fluency was not as good. But because her vocabulary was high we were able to talk about higher level things, such as teaching philosophies, literature and travel. It was an engaging discussion which I have not had with another Chinese teacher yet. And it turns out that she lives right below me!
So I might have some on-campus teachers over to my apartment some time to play cards, since that is really all I have to offer in terms of entertainment. I guess I could teach them charades. But that is all for today. Tomorrow I teach, and hopefully find out the rest of my teaching schedule since freshmen start on Monday.

Call Me Anytime

2010-09-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning I headed to the office to work. I didn’t get too much done, though (which is okay because I am actually ahead in lesson planning for right now). Vivi had a few questions she wanted to ask me concerning preschool education in the United States (how does it work, what ages does it include, etc.). I told her as much as I knew about preschool education which comes mainly from my mom (who taught in the preschool for many years). I eventually went to the Florida State University website (my alma mater) to look up information that it had related to Early Childhood Education. Vivi found all of this really useful, so I emailed her the link to the website, so she could peruse at her leisure. Vivi is hoping to get her doctoral degree in Early Childhood Education. Her husband is currently a doctoral student in some kind of education over in neighboring Chongqing Municipality (where we have many volunteers serving). Vivi also talked with me about films with the subject of teaching or teachers. She mentioned two that she really liked (Little Red Flowers (a Chinese movie, which I might go over to her house to see sometime), Les Choristes (a very famous French movie), and (I think it is called) The Front of the Class (an American film about Tourettes Syndrome). She asked me for some other movies about teaching, but of course I blanked on all the great ones like The Dead Poet’s Society, Freedom Writers, and Finding Forester (along with many other great and inspirational movies about teaching). We might have some movie nights when we watch these together, which would be awesome (bring on the popcorn!).
That same morning a couple of Vivi’s students chatted with me about preschool education (which is what Vivi teaches). Oh that reminds me that on my way to the office, I was stopped by a teacher I had never met before. She was also a teacher in the preschool education department and focused on the psychology behind preschool education (which is very important). Her English was a little poor, but she was extremely nice. Okay back to her students. They were very sweet. We also talked about Florida. I happened to have had a tourist magazine on my desk called Lake Country which was about the lake areas of Florida (yes a little random), so they perused it and asked me some questions here and there. In the end I gave them my phone number, like I end up giving to almost every student and teacher I speak with and told them they can talk with me whenever they would like.
At lunch it was just Wan Laoshi and I eating because Kerry went with Janice and Mark to take Charlie to get some vaccines in Chengdu (there are some western doctors in Chengdu. They said the one they were going to take Charlie to is from Michigan). Wan Laoshi asked me about a grammar point (which was difficult to answer without actually seeing the sentence itself, so I hope I answered correctly) and about the difference between elder and older. Apparently many Chinese teachers think elder is to be used when referring to someone close to you (like a brother) and older should be used when speaking about a more distant relation (like a cousin). Well I corrected this, however I could not give him a good definition of elder (for one, I rarely if ever use the word elder). This came up, by the way, when I mentioned that I had two older brothers. He wanted to know if they were my brothers with the same parent (i.e not my cousins). I said that Americans do not speak of cousins as our brothers and sisters, so if someone mentions his or her brother it would always be in reference to his or her brother with the same parent. See in China because of the one child policy the words brother, sister, aunt, and uncle no longer have the same meaning. Since children do not have brothers or sisters, they have begun to call their cousins ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ (which is extremely confusing for foreigners. I just assume none of the people mentioned are really brothers and sisters, but cousins or friends of the family). Also because parents do not have siblings there are no aunts and uncles, so cousins and friends of the family are referred to as aunt and uncle. Actually, it is common to show any older person respect and closeness by calling them Aunt or Uncle. I have actually been called Aunt before. Interesting, no? Also, China recently changed its one child policy so that if a husband and wife were both single children in their family they can have two children, but if either the husband or the wife had a sibling then they can only have one child. Was I able to make that clear? I hope so.
After lunch I met the other teachers in the performance to record our voices. What? Yes, record our voices. It is actually better this way. They have decided to record our voices ahead of time and at the actual performance on Friday afternoon to lip-sync to the recording. Well this turned out to be no easy feat (for me especially). First we were all too quiet, so we moved closer to the microphone the second time (they also informed me that I just needed to sing louder). Then, I was singing off key, but it really isn’t easy when I have some Chinese lady hitting me on the shoulder while I am supposed to be singing a solo in front of everyone and I could be the one to mess it up so that we have to start over again! It was a little stressful. I think I would have been okay, really, if this Chinese lady would have stopped hitting me. I couldn’t figure out why she was hitting me anyways. I think she was trying to give me the beat or something. I don’t know. We eventually left, and are going to try and record tomorrow.
I decided to take a walk to ease my stress that I felt during the recording session, so I took a different route through the farmers’ homes and fields. It was very relaxing. At one point I closed my eyes and could hear the slight rustle of the rice blowing in the wind all around me and feel the sun wrap its arms around my skin in glorious warmth. Very pleasant. Today the sky was actually a beautiful blue, and all of the Chinese women had their umbrellas out to protect them against tans (Chinese women like the white skin) and one old Chinese woman farmer asked me where my umbrella was and told me I should have an umbrella. I just smiled and said thank you, but the female teachers at the school are learning that the American women like the dark skin. I really just like the feel of the sun on my skin.
After my walk, which ended in me sweating actually because it was a rather warm day, I went to visit Eliam (Kerry’s wife) because it was her day off. We chatted a little and played Chinese checkers (she won, but it was very close). She had the door of her apartment open to let in some air, and some students walked by, doubled-back upon seeing me, and came inside. They were very sweet and talked with us for a while. Their English was rather poor, and so they asked if I could tutor them because they were taking some college level exams this year. I said of course they may call me or chat with me on QQ anytime. (QQ is like facebook). Before leaving I asked Eliam if she would be my Chinese tutor. She didn’t think that she would be good, but I assured her that I would like her to be my tutor because I can understand her Chinese very well. Hopefully it can work out because Eliam’s weekend is actually Monday and Tuesday (she works Saturdays and Sundays). I will have to see what my full teaching schedule is like (once the freshmen start next week) before I can be sure that she can be my tutor. I told her maybe 2 hours a week would be okay, and also if she could teach me some Sichuan dialect as well. Eliam is from Sichuan. Almost all of the teachers and students in the school (and certainly all of the fruit/veggie vendors, store and restaurant owners, and pretty much anyone else in Jiangyou) are from Sichuan and thus speak Sichuan dialect. It would be very useful to speak Sichuan dialect. It is not too different from standard Mandarin, but it can be difficult for some people not from Sichuan to understand. I feel like Sichuan dialect is mainly a mumbled version of Mandarin, with a few words that are completely different. Eliam also left me with a small mooncake (for the Moon Festival which is later this month) and I ate it later. Every mooncake is filled with something different (some are filled with a sweet bean paste and some are filled with meat). It is really hit or miss with the mooncakes. This one was pretty good. I have the feeling I will be eating a few more mooncakes by the end of this month. Oh, and the Moon Festival celebrates the moon. It is also a time for lovers to look at the moon together (I don’t know). Chinese culture is centered a lot around the moon, including their calendar (Lunar Calendar), so the moon is very important in China, although the Moon Festival is not a big holiday.
So, upon leaving Eliam’s I went to buy some more water (because I haven’t put together the water distiller, yet. I really should get on that so I can save some money and drink clean water because even the bottled waters still have some heavy metals in them, or so we’ve been told). Anyways, I was on my way home to change for my first running club meeting when I received a call asking me why I wasn’t at the rehearsal for our performance. I said I didn’t know we had rehearsal. Well anyways, so I rushed my way around the entire school very confused as to where everyone was. I went to the recording studio. No one was there. Then Vivi called and said they were in the Art Hall and she would be waiting for me outside. I took this to mean the Art Building, but when I went there, Vivi wasn’t there. So I went inside, and no one was in there. I asked a student what building I was in, and she said the Art Building. I was very confused, so I called Vivi back. Well it turns out when she says Art Hall she really means Auditorium. So I made it, albeit late. We had practice with the umbrella dancers again, and this time the department head was there to watch and see how we were doing. Vivi asked a student to cancel my running club, since we ended up being there until 6. I was a little sad about this. I was looking forward to running club today, but we can start next week. Oh and during the rehearsal they decided to add a little dance routine to my solo part. So now, while lip-syncing my prerecorded solo, I will be moving my arms around in a fluid, rhythmic motion. I really hope they get this whole thing on video so that I can post it to the blog! Also some students joined our little singing group, other than the three that were included from the beginning. They said that they would like to practice English with me. I told them that they could talk to me anytime. I said that maybe the group of them could have dinner with me sometime and we could talk in English. They liked this idea very much, and I am always looking for people to have dinner with. Oh and they ended up realizing that the mistake was theirs about my being late to practice. I am sure they must have mentioned it (just in Chinese only). So I made sure I was clear on practice times tomorrow. So we are recording again after lunch, and then we have a dress rehearsal at 4 (remember the blue dress and silver shoes I mentioned earlier?). The men are wearing white button-up shirts and black pants.
I decided to head over to track for a run, even though the students were not there (especially because I missed running yesterday when we went to hotpot after practice and my legs were itching to run). I ran about a mile before I was stopped by one girl named Suri. She ran one loop with me and almost died, even though I was barely running. So she asked me to stop, which I did and I walked with her and her friend a little. Then she asked if I wanted to eat dinner with them. I said sure. They wanted to eat in the students’ dining hall, so I ran ahead to grab my card for the student dining hall from my apartment (stopped momentarily by Hu Laoshi, which I didn’t mind because he is just so nice. He is in charge of the library at the school, and was on his way to take his maybe 5 year old son to play at the field. His English is really limited but he tries which means a lot. He told me his English name that he was given in high school was Murphy and I could call him that if I want). I said goodbye to him and met the girls at the dining hall, which was closing shortly. The friend didn’t eat, and Suri just ate some porridge. All that was given to me by the lunch ladies was rice, cooked lettuce and bell peppers, and some sliced potatoes. Suri suggested that I shouldn’t eat the potatoes because they didn’t look right. I took her advice on this, and ate only lettuce, bell peppers, and rice. So basically I am really hungry right now at 9pm that I am writing. Anyways, after dinner, they showed me their dorm room. It consists of 4 bunk beds (but where the bottom bunk should be is instead a desk). There is also a little bathroom (no shower. The shower is a communal one) with probably a squat toilet and a sink (I didn’t have a good look). Their laundry was hanging in this section. Next we went to go practice the piano, but Suri left soon after we got there (which I thought was a little strange). So her friend and I chatted, and she taught me a little on the piano, but she didn’t feel much like playing. The students all take music, pe, and dance (or so this is what she told me), which I thought interesting. At about 815 I told her that I should leave, but that she could call me anytime.
So today’s theme is…you can call me anytime.

Jiangyou Week 2

2010-09-07T03:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday was one of the most boring days I have ever had. It was really rainy all day and not many people around campus were doing anything. I was one of them. I managed to do more cleaning in my apartment (including my baseboards which was in much needed of some scrubbing), wrote an email to my World Wise School teacher at Fairview Middle School in Tallahassee, wrote some emails, started putting together the list of Sichuan 16 volunteers (a little difficult since some have yet to email me their contact information), reorganized myself after one week of classes (throwing out a lot of the unnecessary bulk of paper the Peace Corps gave us), and attempted and failed to put together my water distiller (I have yet to give up for the chance to have free clean drinking water). After this myriad of activities I was at a loss as to what to do. So I attempted to try and win at the hardest level of Spider Solitaire (also failing) and tried to find television episodes that I could watch online. I could only manage to find short clips of two of my favorite shows (Dirty Jobs and Cash Cab). The only shows that I was able to watch full episodes of were CBS Evening News and 48 Hours Mystery. Which I did.
Oh the reason I am organizing contact information for the Sichuan 16 volunteers is because it is nice for everyone to have since we will all be working in the same province for the next two years, will be doing summer project together, and just in case something happens with their landlines and I (the deputy warden) or Angel (warden) need to contact the other volunteers in our province we have another means of doing so. Also I asked each of the volunteers to include their birthdays because it is nice to receive at least an email on one’s birthday. Or so I think it is.
So I decided that I am going to take Mark and Janice up on their offer to lend me some of the books from their small library in their apartment. I didn’t realize I would be so bored on Sunday, so hopefully having some books available to read will help alleviate this in case I am not doing anything with another teacher or students on a particular weekend, like this past Sunday.
Other than doing nothing on Sunday, I decided to try my hand at cooking in my apartment (since I now have a knife, spoon, and spatula for cooking, as well as a pot and pan). I bought some oil and rice down at the school gate, but decided to opt out of the rice and try something simple, like fanqie jidan (eggs and tomatoes). Well it turned out not to be simple at all because I couldn’t quite figure out how to work the gas stove. First I turned one burner on and flames came out, so I put my pan on, and then added a little oil. Next I put in my sliced tomatoes and giant flames shot out around the pan! When I mean giant, I mean a good 2 feet in the air! Thank heavens my face was no where near the pan or I might have burnt the freckles right off of my face. So I quickly turned off the stove and the flames went away. I decided to try again, but then the flames never came back on. I could hear the gas working, but no fire. I tried the other burner and the same thing. I tried a few times and finally the second burner turned on for me to cook the eggs. So the first meal I cooked in China was burnt tomatoes and eggs. It wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t good. Of course I ate it anyways.

I was happy when Monday morning rolled around because I knew that I would be busy for most of the day. I spent the morning in the office, explained the difference between complement and compliment to a teacher, and chatted with a student of mine on qq. QQ is most like facebook in the States. It is a social network that EVERYONE Chinese person is on. If you are cool in China then you have a QQ account. I wouldn’t be surprised if even Hu had a qq account—that is how popular it is. Well now I have one, so my students can chat with me whenever we are both online. It is good practice for them to chat in English and also in a low stress environment.
During lunch I had my table mate Wan Laoshi ask me questions about the Peace Corps. All of the teachers think it is so strange that the school doesn’t pay me to teach there. They are very impressed that I would come to China to teach in their school for free. He was asking me about how I signed up for Peace Corps, what the application is like, and other questions concerning it. It was a nice little chat.
At 225 my second week of teaching officially started. I was observed during my lesson by two Chinese teachers, which made me a little more nervous than usual. It went okay, though. I started the class by having them get into groups of five to share their family crests that they had made last week. I went around and listened to their discussions. Then I gave them a listening exercise in which I read a short article about Bicycling. I had four questions on the board that I went over beforehand. I read the passage three times. The first time I read it at a pace I would read in America, then I read it again much slower, and the last time I read it through quickly. They were able to answer all of the questions correctly. My hope is that by the end of the semester, or at least by the end of the year I will only have to read it through twice. Their test to receive a degree requires them to listen to a passage and to answer questions about it, so this is a nice little practice for them. After this I introduced the day’s topic of transportation. Each week I will cover a new topic that is under a larger theme. The first theme is travel with, I believe, four weeks devoted to it. First I covered some new vocabulary associated with travel. Then the students practiced using the new vocabulary by talking with the person next to them about when they used one method of transportation, where they were going, and why they were taking that type of transportation. Next I covered a grammar point which was the use of prepositions (mainly in terms of transportation, as in one gets in and out of a car/taxi. And one gets on and off a bus, train, or plane). Then the students turned to the person next to them and told them a short story using the prepositions (ex. Yesterday I got in my car and drove to school. Once at school, I got out of my car and went in my classroom). So they were extremely short stories, but I wanted them to practice using the prepositions a little. Then we took a 10 minute break, and afterwards I covered some idioms associated with travel (i.e. backseat driver, road rage, hit the road). For the remainder of class I had the students get into groups of 5 and create a commercial for any product but the rules were that everyone had to speak and they needed to use at least one idiom, one preposition, and one new vocabulary word. About half of the groups got to go before the Christmas bells rang for the end of class, and only about half of those half understood my directions in their entirety.
So what are the Christmas bells to which I refer? Well the college has bells that ring for the start and end of class, but they are not normal bells. They are a matchup of about 5 different Christmas songs. The first time I heard it I thought it was someone’s cell phone going off, but then I kept hearing it and realized it was a bell for the students and teachers. Then I thought I was crazy to think that the bell was a mixture of Christmas songs. But no, I ran this idea by Mark and Janice, who laughed and said oh yes, that is indeed what the bell is. So there we have it. I am lucky enough to hear Christmas music all day long and all year long. Yay me.
Okay, so back to my class. I have a question/comment box that I keep at the front of the class in case students want to say something but may be too embarrassed to say it in front of the class or in front of me. Well today I had three notes in it! I was so happy that they were using it. Two of the notes said that I was talking too fast (really really good to know) and one of them also said that I should be louder. So next time I know. I think that I am trying to pack too much into a lesson, and will have to see about cutting a part out. It all just seems so important to me! The problem, to me, is that 90 minutes once-a-week is not nearly enough time for an oral language class. We ought to be meeting 90 minutes three times a week in order for the students to really benefit. Oh well, nothing I can really do about that. The third note wanted me to teach more about my culture. I will try my best, however I am not teaching a culture class but an oral practice class.
So after class ended at 405 I had singing practice with the other teachers for Friday’s performance, and it got a little more intense than before. There are apparently going to be student umbrella dancers dancing along with our singing. Basically there are about 7 girls doing a dance using Chinese umbrellas. It will certainly be very nice. But then we had a routine to include with our singing. I start out standing behind one umbrella girl, along with 4 other singers. Two singers walk out from behind the dancers to sing their two lines. Then the next two come out to sing their lines. Then all of the singers come to the front at a part that we all sing together. Then my solo is up and the umbrella dancers scurry in front of me while I sing at the center. Then I return to the line while a boy moves in front for his two lines. Then we split men and women and we sing a few lines separately, then together. Next the men move around behind us, and we alternate singing men, half of the women, men, half of the women. Then we sing the last two lines together. At the conclusion of the song we form the shape of the crescent moon on stage with the umbrella dancers on either side of us. Are you confused? Try figuring this out when people are giving you directions in Chinese. I think it will be nice. I’m sure we will have at least one more practice this week before the performance. The whole ordeal was rather funny. There was a lot of Chinese yelling back and forth, a lot of pushing and pulling me around to where I needed to stand, and lots of confusion (and not only me).
Rehearsal ended at 6 and most of us went out to eat together at hotpot. It was actually really good. I was worried when they said hotpot because the last time hotpot and I were not friends. This one was all fish, not very spicy, and it tasted good. The men sat on one side of the table and drank beer, while the women sat on the other side and drank walnut milk. There was lots of toasting going around the table which was highly entertaining. So it turns out that most of the teachers are not English teachers, and thus cannot speak much English at all which was nice because I got to practice some of my Chinese that has lain dormant for about two weeks. At one point I stood up and gave a speech in Chinese. I said that I was happy in Jiangyou. I think that you all are good people. I think you are my friends. Hopefully that increased my guanxi with the other teachers. One teacher told me that he thought America was an excellent country, so I hope he was telling the truth. At the end of the dinner I was wondering about paying, but it turns out that each department gets a certain allotment of funds for things, which is what our meal came out of. I went back to the university with Vivi and another teacher in an unofficial taxi (which was just a lady with her car). This is really the best way to go once the bus stops running at about 730 or 8 in the evening. Taxis are usually only downtown, and these unofficial taxis usually just go back and forth from the university to anywhere else in the city. The restaurant we ate at was not in the downtown area, so we wouldn’t have seen an official taxi. When we got back to the university Vivi, the other teacher, and I decided to go for a walk. Well a walk was us walking maybe 5 minutes to the music building. Vivi was learning how to play the piano from another teacher and wanted to practice. There are individual rooms for practicing the piano at the music building, so that many people can play at one time. Vivi told me that it costs 40 yuan for the year for students to practice only once a week, whereas teachers can use the facilities as much as they want. I listened to her play and played a few small pieces of songs that I know from memory. It was a nice evening well spent with a few mosquito souvenirs to show for it.

2010-09-05T06:21:00.000-07:00

Herbie is officially gone. Herbie was what I named that grasshopper-like insect that stayed in my apartment for one week. Name thanks to my friend Amy. Let me backtrack for a moment and we shall get back to Herbie.

Thursday I had my second class. It was a ridiculously small class. I was shocked to find only 19 faces staring up at me when I walked into the classroom. And they are a wonderful 19 bunch of girls. There are no boys in the class, and all of my students will become teachers in the primary school. Their English skills vary from better than most of their teachers to not understanding most of the words that I say. One girl, Sophie, is the one with English skills exceeding the skills of the English teachers I have met on campus, except maybe two teachers (one of who studied in Australia for two years). She is a pleasant girl who often acted as though she were the only one I was actually talking to in the class. She would nod her head in agreement, furrow her brow at confusing moments, and answer every question I posed aloud to the class. I could also tell that she had taken ownership of this class, and would make sure that everyone understood what was required of them. Very sweet, and very outgoing. I passed her on campus on Friday and she nearly shouted my name as to be heard.
I should explain the ownership of the class a little more, excuse my digression. In China, including in the universities, the same students sit for all the same classes throughout their education. So the same 40 students that I teach for Oral English Janice might also have for Culture, and Kerry might also have for grammar. The students also all have a head teacher that they must report to throughout the year. So if the student’s grades are slipping, if they must miss some school, if any other problems come up they must report these to their head teachers. The students also have a specific night study time in which they must report to a classroom to study for a few hours one evening. Their head teacher will also report, take roll, and stay with them during the study time should the students have any questions. The students will also live with the members of their class. The students all live about 8 to a dorm room with a communal bathroom, laundry facility in the dorm. The 8 students will also be their classmates. So the educational system in China has a lot of dependency, communal, shared life experiences. Students are rarely alone. I rarely see one student walking alone, rather they are always accompanied by a friend.
Back to the class. I taught the class with the same lesson plan I had for my Monday class. Since I will only be teaching Listening and Speaking, I will just use the same plans for all of my classes. Because the class was smaller, though, I found that the lesson went better than the class did on Monday. The class on Monday did not go poorly (except for one section when the students completely misunderstood my directions, but this was clarified and the students successfully did the activity), but having the smaller class made the lesson smoother, made me able to listen and talk with my students more, and made giving directions simpler.
The rest of the day on Thursday passed with me in the office, until a rather putrid, chemical smell started seeping into the office. After several minutes of smelling this, Kerry (who sits behind me) stated that it is best if we left because the smell was not good to inhale. I couldn’t agree more, and several other teachers got up to leave when we did. The building is still in the process of being finished (something that Kerry and I both agree should have been completed over the summer holiday before students and teachers returned). The building is often filled with workers doing woodwork, electrical work, and various other items needed for a building to operate effectively. It will likely be another month before it is completed. There are a couple of other buildings on campus that might be done in a month or two (so I am told). But I am happy to report that the office space now has internet access as of Wednesday. It is very convenient for the office to have internet. I mainly lesson plan during the day in the office, and sometimes have wanted the internet to look something up, and now I can say that I can. This really is posh corps. (Posh Corps is the nickname for Peace Corps China because it is not the walk a mile to the school house, wash your clothes outside, no internet access kind of Peace Corps that is found in other countries). However, Peace Corps China has difficulties that no other country faces, in terms of our responsibilities, expectations, work, and relationship with host country nationals. Every country in the Peace Corps has its own hardships, whether this is more physical or more mental.
Once again I am back from a side note. Also during the week I have had practice for next Friday’s performance for National Teachers Day. September 10 is National Teachers Day in China and our school is having a performance night. All of the departments are doing some sort of act for the event. The English department is singing a song which is about a moon. I agreed to participate to sing along with the other teachers. Well, sometimes I have trouble understanding Chinese people when they speak English to me (sometimes key points are left out or whatnot). So this occurred around Wednesday when a group of my female colleagues started talking to one another and then asked me if I could sing or something. I said yes I am excited to sing with you all. It turns out that they were asking me to sing a two line solo from the song. Oh boy. So now I am singing a solo. I practiced with another teacher, and first I was pronouncing the words incorrectly. I improved my pronunciation, and then I wasn’t in tune. They told me I should practice. Maybe I shouldn’t sing actually is what I am thinking. I mentioned this on Saturday to Vivi, and she responded that I should just try my best and also that a boy would be singing the lines with me. Okay, but I still think it is their loss to have me sing.
Fridays seem to be a bit more relaxing on campus. Most teachers were out of the office most of the day, and there was no singing practice in the afternoon. In the evening, Janice and Mark invited me to come over to their house. It was rather nice. We just talked about various things, mostly in relation to the university. They told me the first time they met me that they were really excited when they heard that another foreign teacher was coming to the school after being the only foreigners at the school (and likely the entire city) for a year and a half. They said it would be nice to speak to another native speaker of English every now and then. I didn’t quite realize what she meant until I came over on Friday. I was able to speak at a normal speed and to use phrases or slang without having to explain my meaning. So, we most likely will not spend a lot of time together, but the time we do spend will be nice I am sure. It is also nice to go over different aspects of the university with them that they now understand (sort of) and can help to navigate me through some parts (like turning in grades, explaining the make-up of the school, etc.) I can also bounce some ideas off of them, for example I mentioned to Janice about having a potluck with the other teachers that live on campus one evening and she thought it was also a great idea. So hopefully it will come through because I think it would be fun and a good chance to get to know the other teachers on campus.
Side note. The make-up of the school deserves some attention. The school is made up of two parts. One is the university and the other part is a high school. This made no sense to me for the longest time and is now becoming more clear since speaking to Janice and Mark and later to Vivi. The school has about 500 -600 high school students that go to school here. If they finish high school at the school then they will automatically be accepted into the university. That being said, the students that come from the high school usually have the lowest English ability (or so said by Janice and Mark who have taught both students). All of the other students that enter the university must take the college entrance exam which is extremely difficult in China. The high school students that study at this university do not have to take the exam, but are just let in, so there is no assessment of their abilities. The university is extremely small and this is a way for it to add more students. The school cannot take students from other provinces because of how small it is, only large schools like Sichuan University or Sichuan Normal University are able to take students from other provinces (the small schools may not). So all of the students from my university are from Sichuan only. But now it makes more sense why I was eating dinner with 16 year olds one day, or running into 14 year olds. Everything is clearing up. Just a note, I do not teach any of the high school students. I will only be teaching the university students during my two years here.
So that was Friday, Saturday morning I went with Vivi to go shopping downtown. It was quite productive. I was able to buy a ladle, vegetable knife, spatula, an extra towel and hand towel, and some groceries that included vegetables for cooking! So I am almost set to begin cooking. I still need to buy rice and oil which I can pick up at the stores near the school gate. I still have much to get, but I am in no rush to get them. It is a little bit of a hassle to buy things downtown, so I only get a little at a time. After we finished shopping and we were on the number 16 bus back towards the university I heard “Hi Katie” come from a seat on the bus. It was one of my students! At the next stop some students got on and said hello to Vivi. She said that you cannot go downtown without running into at least one of your students. I think this is kind of nice. It made me happy to see one of my students, although I must admit that I didn’t recognize her. I should hopefully get better about names and faces in the coming weeks. When we got off of the bus near the school one of Vivi’s students were there with I think her mom and they greeted us and then gave us both a small watermelon! We politely refused, and then took them. Very sweet. Later Vivi invited me to have lunch at her apartment. It was nice. I watched some of the news at her house and was surprised by what was going on (hurricane in North Carolina, earthquake in New Zealand, something about the leader of South Korea) and realized that I should read the news more (and did that later that evening). Her lunch was delicious with tofu, some vegetable that I wasn’t sure about, boiled tomatoes, and this egg fluff thing. Not sure. Then we went for a walk around campus and I showed her my apartment. I should say that my apartment is a lot nicer than hers which makes me feel a little bad. Her apartment is very small and she also said that when she first came to teach her that they handed her the key and there was nothing in her apartment (no fridge, no chairs. No washing machine. I think there was a bed). So everything she had to get. I feel much appreciation for the many things the school gave me in my apartment (including a washing machine (which will be fixed at some point, but no big deal-I’ve just been washing by hand which probably does a better cleaning job than the old washing machine anyways), a fridge, couch, coffee tables, desk, chairs). They treat their foreign teachers better than their own teachers in terms of apartment amenities.
This brings me back to Herbie. Herbie was sitting on the couch when we came in and Vivi was startled and asked why I hadn’t removed him. I said that I had tried but that he wouldn’t budge. She insisted I try, so I got the broom and tried to sweep him away, at which point he flew half-way across the room. Yes, I also didn’t know he could fly. She said if she were me that she would step on him. I told her that I cannot do that, but that he is really harmless and I will just ignore him. Later that evening Herbie crossed the line. He went into my room when I was going to go to sleep. Well I couldn’t have that. He was making all sorts of strange night noises that bugs make. I got up and he happened to be near the door to my balcony, and I was (with some difficulty) able to sweep him out of the door. So Herbie is gone. Not far, though, because this morning when I woke up he was still sitting where I left him on the balcony, like a poor, helpless, wet dog begging his owner to let him back in after having an accident in the house. Well too bad for you Herbie. Good riddance!
Once Vivi left, I just relaxed. For some reason I was completely exhausted and ended up falling asleep for a few hours in the late afternoon. It might have something to do with moving to a new place only a week ago. Just a guess.
Later I went to go by some water in the convenience store outside of the school gate and I was greeted with a terrible site. There was a dog lying dead in the road and another dog was smelling and pawing it. It was awful. And everyone kept walking by, and I kept thinking “How can they walk by?” But then I bought my water and walked by. There was nothing anyone could do. It was really sad. Luckily I never got close enough to it. I am sure that will not be the last dog I see in that condition. There are tons of dogs, mostly stray or farmers’ dogs running around the school gate. I suppose it is a matter of life here, but that didn’t make it any easier to see.
Now today is Sunday and I am behind on work because of my sleepy self on Saturday. I am off to do some cleaning, emailing for World Wise Schools (a program that connects classrooms in the States with volunteers), emailing my students the syllabus, and I am going to attempt to put together the water distiller the Peace Corps Medical Office gave to every volunteer (now that I was emailed the directions in English). I wish you all well and many happy wins for FSU!

settling in at Jiangyou

2010-09-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

The last few days in Jiangyou are a bit of a blur but I know day 2 began with workers coming over to fix my hot water. So yay! I have hot water now. Next thing to be fixed will hopefully be the washing machine. Once the workers left Kerry took me to get a cell phone. I still am unclear a little about how it works which seemed to frustrate Kerry a bit. It is very different from cell phone services in the States. I paid an upfront cost of 410 yuan which from what Kerry was saying included the phone and 20 yuan each month for 18 months. If I go over this amount each month then I should go in and pay the extra. If I do not use up the 20 yuan each month it does not roll over into the next one. I will see what happens in a month and figure it out from there, but at least I can scratch it from my list of things to do. I also got a really cool screwdriver tool out of the deal by signing up. That may or may not come in handy, but I still thought it was cool.

Also Kerry informed me in the morning that the teaching schedule still has some problems, but that I will be teaching one class tomorrow from 225-405. It is a listening and speaking class of 2nd year students. He will let me know where the classroom is tomorrow morning. He will also let me know the rest of my teaching schedule then. From what I understand, though, this is my only class of 2nd year students. The rest of my students are 1st year students which means that I do not begin teaching them until September 13. All first year university students in China have mandatory military training in the beginning of their first semester. I shall see.

Well a little later this week I found out I will be teaching another class of 2nd year students listening and speaking. I am glad to be teaching a little bit and not have to wait for two weeks. I have been staying fairly busy actually considering I am not doing any teaching. I have been doing a lot of lesson planning. I have a general plan for the semester, and have been working on the details of the lesson plans the past two days and hope to have the entire semester’s lesson plans completed by the end of next week before I start teaching freshmen. The main reason that I have been doing so much lesson planning is because it gives me something to do in my office space. Each department in the university has a large room office space divided into little cubicles. It is a really nice way for me to get to know some other teachers. I have been making an effort to go there and do lesson planning, so that I can sometimes chat with another teacher. It seems to be working because occasionally someone comes over (sometimes to say hello and sometimes to ask me an English related question). The first English related question was easy; the teacher wanted me to explain the difference between pedagogue, pedagogy, and education. The second question, though, I failed as a native speaker of English. Well, kind of. Not many native speakers of English probably know the etymology of the word pedagogue. She wanted me to break down the word parts, their meaning and origin for peda. I told her I would look it up and get back to her, although if I were to wager a guess I would assume that peda is derived from Greek origins. So pause for a moment whilst I look up this word and the meaning of its parts. Okay, so its origins stem from Latin, Greek and Middle English, the latest coming from Greek. I think this means I win. What I win exactly I am not sure. Anyways, pedo comes from child and agogos from leader. I am sure all of you were just dying to know this.

Moving on, Monday’s class went well. I didn’t really teach them. It was more an introduction to the course, who I am, me assessing them, and what they could expect from this class this semester. There were 3 boys and 38 girls in the class. Remember that this is a school for future primary school teachers. Also, in general around China, girls are typically more likely to be English majors than boys are. So first I introduced myself and that I was a volunteer. Then I split them into 8 groups to discuss amongst each other why they were taking an English course, what was the purpose of studying English. Basically I wanted them to look at the big picture of why they were even taking an English course. Why did China see the need for students to study English? Then we discussed aloud. The students responses were:
1. because it is a popular language
2. some said they were interested in it
3. in order to get a job
4. some wanted to live in an English speaking country
5. to learn the culture of English speaking countries
6. to talk with foreigners
7. to watch foreign movies
8. because it is a useful language
9. because I am an English major (simply put)
10. it will make the future better for me
11. to improve myself
12. to be proud of myself
13. it is a challenge
14. to teach foreigners Chinese
Next I had them take a survey that I made up on to see what their strengths and weaknesses are in English, as well as their confidence level in using the language. The answers were pretty mixed, but much like I expected them to be. Students usually feel more comfortable using Chinese around their classmates and Chinese teachers than foreign teachers. Students find reading and writing English easier than listening, speaking, and grammar. This is natural for any second language. The order of Second Language Acquisition is Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking last. The order of first language acquisition is listening, speaking, reading, and writing last. Then they did a quick multiple intelligence survey so I could gauge where the majority of the students are in terms of learning styles.
Then they had a break and I talked with the teacher next door to me who was also having a break. Then we did a tea party activity in which they are supposed to find a new partner and discuss with each other a topic that I assigned. I only did 3 of the 5 topics. They were really confused about the activity at first and one girl (Monica) just blurted out "we do not understand." I appreciated this openness in Monica very much. Usually Chinese students are too shy to voice their confusion. So I changed the activity a little so that it was less confusing, and they did alright with it. I did the activity so that I could walk around and listen to the students’ abilities at speaking English (which were quite mixed). Then we went over what we are going to do during the semester and the class rules and my questions box (which they thought was really funny). The question box is just a box that I have available in case students have any questions but they do not want to ask in front of their classmates or do not want to acknowledge their confusion to me, then they can just drop their questions in the box and I will answer it later.
For the last bit of class they worked on a family crest activity which we will have to finish next week. This was just an introductory activity for me to get to know them and for them to practice speaking.
I am going to do the same thing for my Thursday class since it is the same subject. I am teaching from 1105-1150 and then we break for lunch and I resume teaching from 130-215.

Moving on, I met the Canadians on Tuesday. Kerry gave Janice (the lady Canadian) my cell number and she called me Tuesday morning to introduce herself and to see if I wanted to accompany her and her husband to downtown to go shopping. I wanted to get out of the house and meet them, so I said yes. I ended up buying a few things (a pot, a pan, peanut butter-which I lost my only spoon and so I have been using a chopstick to take my peanut butter out of the jar until I can get another spoon. Oh and there was no normal peanut butter at the store, so instead I have peanut butter with swirls of some sort of chocolate sauce. Also bread, some fruit for my counterpart, raid, and soap to clean my clothes by hand since my washing machine is still broken). The great thing about going was that I was able to see what was available, as well as how things operated. It was really helpful to go with them. It was also nice speaking to native speakers. They are a very nice couple with an adorable 6 week old son named Charlie. They have been in Jiangyou for 1.5 years and will likely stay only this year and then return to Canada. They have not decided for sure what they would like to do, it depends on Charlie. Later Janice texted me to invite me to dinner, but I already had plans to eat with Vivi one of my Chinese colleagues. I liked the Canadians, but I do not think I will spend too much time with them because of why I am here in the Peace Corps. The PC didn’t send me to China to meet Canadians. But Mark, the male Canadian, gave Kerry a Frisbee and Kerry and I talked about starting an Ultimate Frisbee team which I told Mark he should join.
So Monday I had dinner by myself outside of the school and not many people talked with me. The next day I had two dinner invites and several people talked with me. I have been trying to make the effort to stay out of my apartment all day (to walk around, eat in the teachers dining hall, stay in the office, etc.) and it seems to be paying off. I am going running with Vivi tomorrow evening, as well. I also went to Vivi’s apartment after dinner to watch some TV with her and another Chinese teacher came by so I was able to practice my Chinese since she was not an English teacher and couldn’t speak any English.
So another thing, I have signed up to participate in a performance of September 10 for National Teachers Day. All of the departments are doing some sort of performance and the English department is singing this beautiful Chinese song. I get to wear this blue dress, and I am not sure yet because I get confused here often in China, but I might be singing two lines on my own which is a little scary. I don’t even know the words yet because when we practiced today the song was only in Chinese characters. Kerry promised he would translate the song into pinyin for me, which would be good. Thursday afternoon we are practicing again, so we shall see. I seem to take more risks here in China, maybe because I still sometimes feel like I am living in a dream and this is not actually happening (which would be very sad if it did turn out that I was in a coma and in my comatose state I am writing in a blog).
Okay, so I have been getting into the good habit of running every afternoon around the track. I just take my ipod out with me and do some laps. It is really relaxing to just be in a rhythm for maybe 30 minutes in my day. Monday after running, I was leaving and three girls stop me to take a picture with me on their cell phones. I would think this strange except this is not the first time this has happened to me or another volunteer in China. Foreigners, especially those present in smaller towns, are like running into Brad Pitt at the supermarket (rare and exciting, and taking a picture seems only natural). I don’t know why some people get offended; I just think it’s funny. So on Tuesday I had been running for a while and three young girls decided to stop me and talk with me. They were 15, 14, and 10 and most likely the children of some of the teachers. They wanted to know if I played basketball. I told them I would. Well playing basketball to them meant trying to interfere in the boys’ game that was going on at the time. Well the men were nice enough to toss me the ball. I made 2 of the 3 shots I tried. Then I just sat down and chatted some with the girls. They spoke no English, so it was a good time for me to practice my Chinese on very patient girls. Wednesday they were at the track, but I was late because of singing practice with the English department. I hope they didn’t want to shoot hoops with me. Maybe they will be there again and we can try our hands at some basketball. I don’t think they would care if I was terrible. Oh and the day I went to have dinner with Vivi this little 4 year old boy ran up to me, said something in Chinese and then started holding my hand. Oh my heart! He was just so cute! He then ran off. Vivi said that what he said was hold my hand. He just wanted me to hold his hand for a little bit. It was just too cute. So if nothing else, at least the children seem to really like me.
So basically I will talk with anyone. On my first day I might have mentioned my dinner with the 16 year old girls. Okay, I should note that it is extremely difficult to tell ages here in China. The university students look like high school students, and some teachers look like university students. Also most university students act the same age as middle and high school students in the US and some of the women in their 20s act like high school and undergraduate students. It can be very confusing. I enjoy talking with anyone who will talk with me though. I was walking once and Hu Laoshi (this nice man from the library) stopped to talk with me for a little bit. He knew very little English, but we managed with a mixture of Chinese and English to have a good 5 minute conversation. What is really funny is when I meet someone for the first time, but they already seem to know everything about me, and yet I do not even know this person’s name. Oh and for the next two years it seems I will be known as Kitty. I guess I do not enunciate my name well enough. But anyways, when I say my name it is followed with some giggles and an occasional meow. I don’t even bother to correct them. When they say it, it sounds like Katie to me. I talk with teachers in the dining hall, walking around school after lunch or dinner, in the office, and next to my classroom. The teachers dining hall is interesting. There is a mad rush in at 1150 and most are done eating by 1215. crazy. The food is okay. It is Sichuan food, but not as good as in the restaurant because the cooks are making mass amounts of it. I still eat it. It’s not bad and even better than that is that it is free!
My office space (sorry to jump around) is a little blue cubicle space. Kerry is behind me and Vivi is next to me. I have all of my teaching resource books there, some magazines, stickers, pens and pencils, picture of my training site, a month header that says September (which I will change every month) and a bowl with snacks for me and my colleagues (mainly my colleagues since dry tofu is in there now, which is okay but not my first choice for snack). There is also supposed to be internet available which will be nice.
One night this week I had to go over to Kerry’s to register for my foreign teachers’ certificate. It was an interesting ordeal. He was having a little difficulty translating and obviously I couldn’t read the Chinese characters. So the first question had to do with my schooling. Well Kerry was asking me about high school, which I didn’t think was relevant, but of course I answered. Well high school in the US is different than high school in China so a lot of the questions don’t make sense (like, I did not have a major in high school. I also didn’t have a head teacher). So we sort of made up the parts in the high school section. Then there were questions pertaining to my talents, how I would describe my character, what are my hobbies. How this is relevant to me teaching in China I may never know. Afterwards, though, Kerry and Eliam helped me to sign up for a QQ account which is similar to facebook but for the Chinese. It is the best way for me to keep in contact with my students and for them to practice their English with me online. So everyone gets a number for signing on to QQ, and supposedly I have a good number is what they told me. There are a lot of 0s, 6s, and 9s. I haven’t downloaded the information onto my computer next, but I feel a little more Chinese just for having QQ.
So in the hotel in Chengdu I apparently left my retainer and mouth guard, so I was slightly panicky the first day. I couldn’t imagine not wearing my retainer and mouth guard for 2 years. My jaw would be in mass amounts of pain by the end of my service. But they were able to recover it! So my program manager will bring it to me during her site visit sometime in October, November, or December. I can wait a few months, just not two years. Also most things in my apartment are now fixed! Just the washing machine (which I have just washed clothes by hand, no big deal) and the TV which I don’t really want fixed because it will encourage bad habits of sitting in front of the TV. So once I get a knife, a new spoon, and some food I can begin to cook!
I would really like to have a potluck with the teachers that live on campus. I wonder if they could open the dining hall during dinner time for us to use. Maybe I will ask Kerry.
And last, but certainly not least, a giant spider came out at me while I was taking a shower on Monday. It was the size of my palm. I screamed, literally, jumped out of the shower and started spraying it with water. Well the water didn’t kill it, so I started releasing soap onto it. This didn’t kill it either, so I ran and got my bleach and started spraying bleach on it. This did it for the spider. So I brutally murdered a spider. I hope this was a lesson to his friends not to come.
But at least I am not having as difficult a time as my friends Katie and Richy. Their apartment has giant spiders, roaches, and bedbugs. I feel so bad for them. I went ahead and put down the Raid even though I haven’t seen a roach yet, just to be careful. Bedbugs, I already know I do not have (thank heavens). I can deal with a lot of things, but bugs are a lot to handle.
I will try to keep everyone posted and also post links to my fellow volunteers’ blogs, so you can read some more about China if you would like. In the meantime, though, my site training manager in Chengdu found a link to my news interview on Chinese television. So have a look! It is me with my friend Leo. He also was interviewed, although for some reason they cut him off. I have no idea why.
http://v.ku6.com/show/EGeHFKmNf4Quitac.html

first full day in Jiangyou

2010-09-01T04:36:00.000-07:00

I think today could be one of the most interesting and funny days of my life. This was my first full day in Jiangyou and it was quite eventful. It started at 730 when I woke up. My counterpart had informed me the day before that we would meet for breakfast at 830, so I figured that this would give me plenty of time in the morning to do the things that I needed to do. Well at 745 he calls and says he will meet me in 10 minutes by the school gate. I said okay.

Meeting him for breakfast apparently means that he will show me where I can buy some food for breakfast. I think I could have managed this one on my own; however it was nice of him to show me. So then I decide that I have some time to clean a little and send some emails. I changed into my cleaning clothes, turned on the computer, ate half of my breakfast and then my counterpart called. He said that the president of the university would like to introduce me to the other teachers in the school and he would meet me in 5 minutes. I said okay.

We went to the teachers dining hall for the faculty meeting. It was unlike any faculty meeting I have ever been to. It was noisy, some teachers were eating snacks, and it started with a roll call. Next I was introduced and I just stood where I was and waved. Many teachers were craning their necks to get a good look at me. Then he introduced some of the other new teachers, non foreigners, to the school. I would have liked to have to met some of the other teachers and chatted with them afterwards, but just then my counterpart said that we should go and meet the dean of the English department. I said okay.

Together we walked over to the administrative building to the 5th floor, and the dean was not there. Kerry called and it turned out that he was chatting with the president of the university. I couldn’t help but think that we were just there. However the dean said I needed to pick out my desk area. The office space is a large room with cubicle style office spaces. I really like the idea of this because it means I will have a better chance of getting to know some of the other teachers. So I picked my cubicle space, a little randomly actually. Then Kerry said he would meet me for lunch at 1150 and give me my teaching schedule. I said okay.

Not many minutes after I arrived at my apartment that Kerry called and said that he knew what I would be teaching. Two weeks ago he said I would teach 14 hours of oral English and American/British culture. At this phone call he said I would be teaching intensive reading and one class of writing. He then said he would be there in 5 minutes with a student for me to meet. I said okay.

Kerry and the student, English name is Linda, came by. Kerry stayed for a second and then said Linda and I could talk. Well this turned out to be really awkward, but also very informative. She was a second year English major, and her English was not very good (this was the informative and awkward part). I am glad that I was able to talk with her some.

Next I went to lunch at the teachers dining hall. Teachers eat for free everyday at 1150. I was thinking that this would be a good way to get to know some of the teachers—that I could sit with a different teacher each day and talk. Well that will not be the case since the seats are assigned. I am sitting with the two Canadian teachers, Kerry, and another English teacher who studied for 2 years in Australia. The Canadians apparently do not eat in the cafeteria much, so it seems I will just get to know Kerry and the other teacher well. The other teacher is very nice and his English is good. He did most of the talking, which was fine with me. Also, the teaching schedule was still not available, so Kerry said he would call me in the afternoon with it.

After lunch I decided to walk around campus some and get my face out and around. I was hoping to maybe talk with some teachers. This wasn’t the case. I was able to say hello and many people saw me, so it is one step in the right direction to forming Chinese relationships. I didn’t walk long because I wanted to get back to my apartment in case Kerry called with my teaching schedule. So in the afternoon I just wrote on my blog, emailed, and chatted with a few pcv friends of mine.

In the late afternoon Kerry came by with some workers to work on the hot water heater which has been broken (along with several other things). It turned out the hot water problem was more serious than anticipated, so it would have to wait until the next day. They did, however, bring me a new burner for cooking and my shower was fixed. Next Kerry took me to get the textbooks for the classes I would likely teach because the teaching schedule wasn’t finalized yet. The library director was a really nice man and said I could borrow some Chinese language books if I wanted for personal use. So the way it works is that I check out the books for 2 years. I do not need to return them until the end of my service.

After the library Kerry said to meet him for dinner at the student dining hall at 530. Meeting him for dinner was also like meeting him for breakfast because when I showed up he had a container to take the food to go, whereas I could eat in the cafeteria. The cafeteria was really bare, but there were some girls sitting and eating. I thought they might be students, so I joined them. Upon engaging them in conversation I soon found out that they were not students but were 16 year old girls I was sharing my meal with. They were very shy around me, and then when they were done eating they waited for me. I used every Chinese word I could think of to tell them that they could leave, which eventually they did.

I decided to walk around the community after dinner since it was only 6 and I didn’t feel like sitting in my apartment. So I left the gates of the school and meandered around. At one point I meandered over behind the school and noticed that the gate to the track was open. I had yet to see the gate of the track open from inside the school, so I thought I might have a look. Well I looked myself almost into the mouth of a vicious guard dog that was watching the gate. I was literally about 1 foot away from its mouth. Scary stuff.

At this point my interest in meandering was lost, and I made my way back to the school where I ran into Linda and her friend. They are very sweet girls, and it makes me excited to meet my students soon. We talked for a little bit and they giggled a lot. I should include here that university students in China have the maturity level of middle school students in the states (giggling, walking in groups of no less than 3, meeting boys for the first time, etc.). This is because of the focus given to education during their childhood. Basically they spend all of their time devoted to school and are not allowed to date at all before university, and thus the childhood they have is quite different than that in the States. American students are culturally expected to mature a lot faster than our friends in China.

Since I was already outside of the school I decided to buy a few needed items, including a mop, floor mat for the cement floor in my room, Tupperware container (in case I, too, choose to take my food to go), milk, hangars, and some bread. After I took these to my apartment, I took the trash out and decided to walk around the university some more. I returned when it was dark and I realized that I had not emailed Kerry my resume which I needed to do. Every day more and more gets added to my to-do list. I am quite alright with this because it keeps me busy and focused. My day ended with skype, writing on my blog, and chatting with friends. I think I would be quite lonely if I was not able to chat with my fellow volunteers. It is wonderful, meaningful, and important to talk with my parents and friends in the US, but my friends in the Peace Corps can sympathize and share stories about their experiences which makes my own easier.

Officially a volunteer!

2010-09-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in just one week. First I moved out of my host family’s house. It was weird and sad. I had gotten to know this family very well and now would be leaving them. My host parents gave me a going away present of a photo album and coffee. The photo album is beautiful and they signed a note to me which my host brother translated. It reads that I hope all of your days in China are happy ones. This home is always yours, and we wish that you will come to visit. I almost cried. The coffee I handed out to my friends since I don’t drink coffee. I gave my host parents a letter that I wrote in Chinese characters. It took me almost 2 hours to write about 5 sentences. I said “Thank you. I learned a lot. I learned how to make dumplings and to play mah jong. I liked your cooking. I was happy in your home.” I also wrote my host brother a much longer letter in English thanking him for all that he taught me and for showing me such hospitality. I gave him some advice for going to America (which he left today) and to keep in touch with me should he need anything or just to say hello. So on Tuesday I moved out of my host family and into a hotel. It was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. It was in the middle of Chengdu where most westerners stay, so it was an entirely new experience in Chengdu for us. We would go to restaurants nearby and the people working there would speak English to us. They wouldn’t even let us speak Chinese. Anyways, so Tuesday thru Thursday night were filled with last minute sessions on various things, Peace Corps giving us more and more stuff, and parties to get in as much time with each other as possible before going on our own. The last day was difficult, but we will all see each other again in December for IST. Hopefully everyone has a wonderful semester. It is still weird though, that we have all spent so much time with each other for 2 months—who knew that people could get so close in such a short amount of time. I feel as though I have known my fellow China 16s for years, not just 2 months. I know some of us will be able to visit during the weekends. It may be a month before I make the trip over to see other people. I need to be sure to get comfortable in Jiangyou before I take a trip. I can only visit my friends in Sichuan and Chongqing because those that are in Gansu and Guizhou are just too far away.

But back to the last week. On Thursday we practiced our swearing-in ceremony which we all thought was ridiculous until we realized that we were a bit confused. The practice was mainly for the picture. It is a bit of a feat to squeeze in 88 volunteers and 4 dignitaries. We needed to practice so that our guests wouldn’t have to stand around while we situated ourselves. The ceremony was Friday morning and we had someone from the US embassy to swear us in. His name was Robert Goldberg and he is the Charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Beijing. There were also two other individuals there to talk with us. So we started by standing when the dignitaries came in, then he said a few words. Next we stood up and swore and oath to defend the constitution against all enemies both domestic and foreign, etc. etc. Afterwards the floor was opened to questions regarding Peace Corps China and the Foreign Service. The government encourages Peace Corps volunteers to consider a career in the Foreign Service upon completion of the Peace Corps, and many do. I think about 5 people asked questions and all of them received a detailed answer. The questions referred to Foreign Service, Why Peace Corps China, and the Shanghai expo. Following this we took a picture and went down to the banquet hall to meet our counterparts and to have a ceremony and lunch. Along the way, Alissa our Program leader, asked me and Leo to speak to the Chinese press. So the press person for the US embassy took us over to meet several reporters from the Chinese news stations. There were about 5 TV reporters there from both local and national news stations. It was kind of surreal to have all of these microphones and cameras in our faces. They asked us simple questions about who we were, what we were doing here, if we could introduce ourselves in Chinese (which we did), and if we liked China. It was extremely difficult to hear the reporters, so I don’t know if they always talk this quietly or if they felt nervous talking with foreigners which many Chinese do. It was interesting. As we were walking away one more stopped us and the press relations guy from the embassy said No their ceremony is starting, but we did a quick interview anyways because it didn’t really matter to us. The ceremony itself was nice. Alissa started everything off, then our country director Bonnie welcomed everyone and then individually introduced each of the guest speakers. The entire program was in both English and Chinese. The guests included: Robert Goldberg (Charge d’Affaires), Gregory May (acting US consul general), Yang Meng (deputy secretary general of Chinese educational association for international exchange), andTan Xin (deputy director general of foreign affairs department of Sichuan province). Robert Goldberg was the guest speaker. There were also speeches by Yang Meng, Li Xiaojiang (Dean of the English department of Longnan Teachers College in Gansu province, a school that has a history of Peace Corps volunteers), and two China 16s. Next there was a slide show of pictures from our PST. And one training site wrote and sang a song to close the ceremony which was hilarious. It was off of the 12 days of Christmas, but was the 12 days of PST. I might ask someone to email it to me. Mainly the volunteers got most of the puns, but it was still enjoyable for the rest of the crowd.

After the ceremony we had lunch. My stomach had been hurting for the whole day, since lunch the day before. I think I ate something bad, so I didn’t really partake in the delicious food that was served (both Western and Chinese food). So our counterparts then left us to get our bags together and get ready to leave. Most of us were leaving right after the ceremony, so we just brought our bags down and prepared to ship out. I think we all hugged each other at least 5 times. Eventually I, too, brought my belongings down (with the help of Leo, thank you) because 2 suitcases, a laptop case, backpack, and water purifier were too much for me to carry alone. And then I was off to Jiangyou with my counterpart and his wife. The drive took about 2 hours, so we shaved off 30 minutes by not taking a bus or train. We arrived and I got the key to my apartment.

Well then Kerry, my counterpart, started looking at things and noticed that the gas didn’t work, hot water was broken, air conditioning in my room was missing the remote (a key component), the toilet doesn’t flush well, the sink sometimes leaks, and water wasn’t coming out of my shower. So…he called someone about the gas. They couldn’t fix it, so I assume they will come back sometime this weekend to have a look at it. But we left to get some dinner and to buy some necessary items to tie me over into the next day. We went to dinner at this little restaurant that had several varieties of rice and rice porridge that you chose from and then ordered different dishes. It was good. I was able to eat most of what I normally do, although my stomach was starting to hurt towards the end of the meal. Then we went shopping and I bought sheets, a pillow, this thing that goes between the sheets and mattress, trash can, trash bags, toilet bowl cleaner, bleach, sponge, dish washing soap, dish washing rags, towel, hangars, toilet paper, and laundry detergent (although I don’t think my washing machine is working right now, I will have to ask my counterpart later). Then I came back home and started cleaning. My apartment is so dirty. I liken it to a frat house. I still have much to do, but I quit at one point because I was tired and listened to music, emailed, and chatted with another volunteer who was also online at the time.

This morning I woke around 730. My counterpart said we would meet for breakfast around 830, so I figured that gave me time to wake up and go about my morning routine. Well I only got through half of the things that I wanted to do in the morning before I got a call at 745 to say that I should meet him by the gate of the university at 8. So I did, but breakfast was just him showing me where I could buy food. I really could have done that on my own, but I appreciate his concern. I bought some milk and a sweet roll. It was okay. So then I went into this little shop to buy a few more things that I needed, like body soap, conditioner, toilet bowl brush, another trash can for the bathroom, bleach for my produce (we were told to wash it with a little bleach), a hand towel and some water. I still need a lot more things, but I will get them in time. Next on the list is a mop, floor rug, actual food, pots and pans, and some other things I am sure I haven’t realized that I need yet. Anyways, so I got back to my apartment, did the morning exercises I didn’t have a chance to do before, and was going to start cleaning when I got a call from Kerry that said he would be at my apartment in 5 minutes to take me to a department meeting. Okay. So I went to my first department meeting, sort of. We met in the dining hall and it was so noisy and bustling. Teachers were excitedly greeting each other after long vacations. There snacks, people on cell phones, basically nothing like I have seen in the states. The meeting started with a roll call of all the teachers, also a little different. Then the president spoke and introduced me. I just stood up and waived. Everyone was craning to get a look at me. Then he introduced all of the other new teachers (all of them Chinese). Then Kerry said we should leave to meet the dean of the foreign language department. I thought that was strange since the president of the university was still speaking. I guess we didn’t really have to be there, but I hope it didn’t leave a bad impression of me. I would have liked to have stayed and maybe met some of the other teachers. I met a couple, but it was difficult to hear one another over the bustling of the crowd. But, anyways, we left and went to the department where the dean wasn’t there. He was talking with the president, but he asked Kerry to have me pick out a cubicle, which I did, and to give me my teaching schedule which Kerry said he would do later. Then we went back to our apartments and Kerry said he would meet me for lunch at the teacher’s dining hall at 11:50. So now I am just emailing and blogging, and not getting into my cleaning clothes because I am afraid if I do I will just have to change again. Maybe I will leave cleaning to at night when I don’t have to worry about getting a call to come away.

So the next week is sure to be quite busy, which I am excited about. I think if it was really slow and I didn’t really have anything to do I might get sad or lonely here. I am curious to know when I am going to start teaching because I have heard mixed things. I heard Monday, but then I also heard the following Monday. I suppose I will see later today. I kind of hope it is this Monday, so I can go ahead and get started. One really wonderful thing is the view from my apartment. It is beautiful with rice patties, trees, and mountains. There are no clear blue skies, as I am still in Sichuan where this is rare, but the greenery is wonderful. I will send pictures after I have finished cleaning. I should be able to write more, so I hope no one gets too bored with my blogs!

Okay so just to add. I just got a call from Kerry to talk with me about my teaching schedule. Remember two weeks ago when I went on my site visit he told me that I would be teaching oral English and culture of America and British English? Well now I will be teaching 5 classes of Intensive Reading and one writing class. I just said okay, whatever the school needs. So… this changes things a little. I will have to read back up on my Intensive reading notes because foreign teachers do not typically teach intensive reading but rather extensive reading. Mei Guanxi. No problem. Lol. More news to come, but maybe not in the next two minutes. Lol.

words of advice

2010-09-01T04:34:00.000-07:00

Sunday I met set up for some of us to meet to play Frisbee, but it turned out that those of us that could come did not have a Frisbee. So…we just walked around, exercised a little, and talked. Oh well. It’s always nice to see other volunteers. My host brother and his friend came. My host brother is always teaching me different things about Chinese culture that I wouldn’t otherwise learn. It’s too bad that I don’t write them down, and then end up forgetting half of what he says. Let’s see if I can remember some of them: he always starts with “do you want to know why” and I always answer “yes” or “please tell me”

• When toasting always toast the oldest first and the youngest last.
• In ancient China one was considered of great importance if they had more steps leading up to their door than others and if their door was larger
• Putting your hands together and shaking them means that you wish the person good luck and wealth
• Mao Zedong said that you should study first and date later (I am obviously paraphrasing). But this is why Chinese adolescents do not begin to form relationships until they get to the university level, and also why they seem so young, innocent, and childish compared to Western students of the same age
• Chinese believe that eating the organs of an animal will increase the strength of that organ in oneself. For example, if I ate the eyeballs of a fish then it means that my eyes will be stronger
• One must never step on the door frame of a Buddhist temple
• It is good manners to toast everyone at your party
• It is polite to leave food in the dishes that your host makes because it indicates that they had more than enough food to feed you, which is the sign of a good host ( this is the complete opposite in America in which the host is most pleased if there is no food left because it indicates that her guests enjoyed the food)
• You should eat fruit before you go to bed because it calms you down, except for litchi which fires your brain up
• It is good luck to put the new year sign meaning luck upset down on your door and to keep the new year’s decorations up all year
• This next one I take with a grain of salt: Chongqing people are very rude. And his dad told me why Gansu and Guizhou provinces are not good. Lol. I think they are just really proud to be Sichuanese. I must agree that Sichuan province is a great place to be, although I am sure all of the other provinces are good as well.
• For the reason why the news focuses on people’s personal issues, like divorce, two women fighting on the streets over something ridiculous, an overweight child, etc. is that I have to understand that I am in China now. This was one of the best advice I have gotten so far. It is kind of funny, but very true. I cannot compare the US and China because they are two different cultures. What seems strange in America isn’t here, and what seems strange in China isn’t in America. But on a side note he said that he also thought what we happened to be watching at the time (which was a woman yelling at her husband over something) was too personal to be on the news
• Chinese can download any movies or music they want for free on various websites. So jealous. Lol.
• Jackie Chan is not good at Kung Fu. They still like him though
• Chinese love badmitton, basketball, and soccer
• You should take care to watch your bag
• If you are ever lost always trust the old people if there are no police around, they are generally good
• Tai chi is for old people
• One of my host brother’s classmates told him that there were cannibals in Zambia. I don’t know if his classmate was joking or not but I am glad that I had first hand knowledge to dispel this myth. So not only am I increasing America’s reputation in China, I also seem to be furthering Zambia’s.
• Taking a cold shower is not good because it doesn’t allow for the holes in my skin (he probably was referring to pores) to open up.

That is all I can remember. Maybe I will remember more later, or just learn some new things from the Chinese that I will meet in Jiangyou.

this and that

2010-08-21T22:23:00.001-07:00

So what have I been up to since the last time that I wrote? Well, and this is kind of random, I taught my host brother and mother the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. How? We were having breakfast last Sunday morning and we had toast on the table. I saw that there was a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly and I thought, hmm…I wonder if they have ever put the two together like we have in America. Of course I asked, and they hadn’t! So I informed my host brother that they were missing out on a delicious lunchtime delicacy in America. He followed me as I prepared my own, and no surprise here…he loved it! A few days later I saw my host mom making herself a PB&J. Crazy. They taught me how to make dumplings, and in return I left them the knowledge of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

One afternoon a few of us had some beers and talked about politics. It was great. I love getting into and listening to deep conversations. Sometimes the conversation was over my head, but I enjoyed listening and learning from those that knew a lot about the topic. We mainly discussed the failures of the American political system and our views on how to improve it. I just want to mention that probably 95% of Peace Corps volunteers anywhere have socialist ideologies, and thus that is where our conversation leaned heavily. I should say that often in the afternoons when we have some time we like to have a beer and talk about things. It is really nice and relaxing. Last week sometime though I opted out of the beer and went for the ice cream instead, which appealed to some others who also went and got some ice cream. Ice cream in China is a little different than ice cream in the US. It tends to be sweetened with different flavors, like corn, red beans, dates, green beans, etc. All are good, though, just different. I enjoyed the vanilla ice cream, and red bean variety.

On Friday of this week we had our host family appreciation night. It was really fun. It was set up like a banquet in a restaurant. The tables had both American and Chinese flags on them and everyone looked spiffy in their new Chinese clothes that we had made. So a digression. A few weeks ago we had Chinese outfits made. We went to a tailor shop with our teachers, picked a design and some fabric, and got measured. Two weeks later we returned, tried them on, paid and left. It was an interesting experience that I might try again. Most of the girls’ clothes were too big, like in the sense that we couldn’t even find each others’ waists under the fabric, and the clothes had to be fixed. But look at the pictures from the event and you can see the beautiful clothes. I just got a jacket because I can wear it back in the states. I don’t think I would wear a traditional Chinese dress in the states, I think I would be too uncomfortable. It wasn’t expensive either. It was 180 yuan. And the conversion is 6.8 yuan to the dollar, so you math people can figure out how much I paid exactly in US dollars for a personally made outfit. Also my host mom started to teach me a dance that we could perform together at the banquet, but we never had enough time to practice. It was pretty amazing I’m not going to lie. Basically it mimicked the movements of the crane. Anyways my host brother ended up playing his clarinet and harmonica at the banquet. He started to think about not doing it and I told him he didn’t have to, but then my site manager introduced that he would, and so he had to. He did an excellent job though. He is quite talented. We also had Jill, a volunteer, sing Chinese and English songs. All of our host families got excited when she sang in Chinese. Fred emceed. Lindsey gave a speech in Chinese and English. Stephen and Sky put together a slide show of all of our pictures, which I will put online once I get it from Stephen. And wonderful Caroline made sure everything was good. They gave certificates to all of our host families and a flower. I gave my host mom some flowers I bought earlier in the day and I wrote out the character thank you. She really liked it.

Saturday I took my language proficiency interview. It was an oral test, obviously because I cannot read or write in Chinese, with an unknown tester. The test was to last 15 minutes, with a 5 minute warm-up conversation, 5 minute role play, and a 5 minute wrap-up. My test ended up lasting 25 minutes. The key with this test is to make sure to ask questions back to the interviewer. At one point I realized that I hadn’t done this and almost panicked, but then was able to ask some questions back. My role play was “imagine that you bought a gift for your mom for her birthday and then you found out your sister had bought the same gift. Go to the store and negotiate a return of the gift and give the shopkeeper a good reason for you returning it.” Well I blanked on any good ideas for a gift, and ended up trying to return flowers which makes things more difficult than it needs to be. It ended up being okay, but I don’t think I showed my full potential in vocabulary knowledge. I asked the tester at the end how she thought I did and she said I need work on my vocabulary. Well that seems obvious to me since I have only been studying the language for a month and a half, but that’s okay. I think my structure was okay, and I hope my pronunciation was okay as well. I will find out where I place before I swear in. they have to review the tape that I was recorded on to get a specific placement. I need to place at intermediate low. If we don’t place at intermediate low it is not a big deal it just means that you are required to have a tutor, but I want to have tutor anyways so no worries. I have no doubt that I achieved intermediate low though. I am just curious now to see where I do place. My goal, which is not too lofty I don’t think, is to achieve an advanced middle level by the time I leave China. It is not impossible, I just need to be sure to put the time into studying and communicating once I get to my site.

Other than testing on Saturday, it was also my host brother’s going away party. The party was all day at a tea house and it was for the family of my host brother. I went in the morning, then his cousin took me to school, and then my host brother and mom picked me back up after to go back. I think the fact that he is leaving in a week is starting to hit the family and my host brother. I can tell that he is getting nervous, though he doesn’t really say anything. I try to give him some advice and encouragement. I know he will do fine, but there is going to be a bit of an adjustment. Luckily he does have a cousin that lives in the same area. I plan to keep in contact with him while he is away, and would like for him to visit the Sunshine State when I return in two years. I think all of you would really like him.

I really should write on my blog daily since it is obvious that I am forgetting some things that have happened. Everything seems to happen really fast here. I cannot believe that I have been in China for almost two months and that Tuesday I am moving out of my home stay and into a hotel, swearing in and moving to Jiangyou on Friday. One good thing about moving to Jiangyou is that I can finally start to get settled after living out of a suitcase for two months.

Oh I remember something that I didn’t mention. Sometime last week I had delicious food at a Muslim restaurant with Katie, Richy and Amy. It was like our mouths were in a different country altogether. I ate rice with cumin lamb. It was amazing. Richy had the same thing and Katie had noodles with cumin lamb. I don’t remember what Amy had. The people were really nice too. The owner could speak a little English and his Mandarin was really easy to understand, probably because it was his second language. It seems that it is much easier to understand people when their second language is Mandarin versus it being their first. For example, I was on my way to the flower market with Katie, Richy and Sky for a language field trip and we needed to ask directions. We asked this man, but it turned out he was just visiting Chengdu as well and thus didn’t know his way around. But we got into a conversation with him and found out that he was from Shanghai (where they don’t speak Mandarin). We decided that was why we could understand him, because he spoke like us.

Oh and another thing about eating at the Muslim restaurant, there was the cutest kitten sitting in the restaurant and it came over to say hello to us at one point and we all freaked out. Why? Because the Peace Corps has scarred us for life here in China to be scared of all animals and most people. Almost every week they have bombarded us with information about rabies and people stealing from us. It’s really a wonder we haven’t gone completely crazy. Literally all of us are scared to be anywhere near a dog or cat. So thumbs up Peace Corps medical office on achieving your goal of making us scared of domestic animals in China. So when this cute innocent kitten came over to say hello to us and beg for food, we all pulled our legs up and yelled rabies! Kind of funny. We all laughed about it later.

There have been some bad rain storms here in Sichuan that caused a lot of flooding and some bridges to collapse. One train that was heading to Jiangyou was on a bridge that collapsed and one car ended up in the river. No one was hurt because the car slid slowly into the river and everyone was able to get out safely. Oh and don’t worry, I am not taking the train to Jiangyou next week. My waiban and counterpart teacher are picking me up in a van with all of my belongings.

Well that is all for now that I can think of. If I remember more I will write up on it later. But be sure to check out my pictures at http://cid-f6f210c0e2b65421.photos.live.com/. I try to add more every time I get new ones.

Love and miss everyone!

Chinese wedding

2010-08-07T23:29:00.003-07:00

Saturday morning my host family and I wake up at 6 in the morning, and drive to the home of the bride and groom. Basically I have no idea what was happening during this entire morning adventure. Since my host family was apart of the wedding party they were doing a lot to help prepare for the wedding itself. So my host dad rented a nice car to take the bride and groom to the wedding. So we picked up the car and driver and had it taken to get flowers put on it at the flower shop. Then we had balloons put on all the cars that would be behind the bride and groom’s car, which included my host family’s car. Next we did a lot of waiting. The tradition in China is that the groom is to go and collect the bride from her house. I found out later that we were just waiting for her to prepare: get dressed, put on make-up, and get her hair done by her friend. So then the bride, groom, and the best man and bride’s maid (not quite the same as in America) pile into the rental car. They are mainly there to assist the bride and groom on whatever, namely holding things, opening doors, etc.). The best man was my host brother. Okay, so then we all drive to a nice hotel. This is where the wedding is to take place. Oh I forgot that at one point while we were all waiting for the bride to ready herself, we stopped and had noodles for breakfast at a nearby restaurant.

So then all of the guests while waiting for other guests to arrive go down to a tea room to drink tea and play mah jong or cards. At one point, my host brother’s cousin who is staying with me during the day so I don’t get lost or confused, invites me to go to the main floor. She doesn’t speak hardly any English, so I just followed along the entire day not really sure what was going on. Anyways, we arrive on the main floor and I see that the bride and groom are greeting the guests as they walk in. The song that we play at the end of the wedding ceremony is playing in the background. Lewis, my host brother, is holding a tray of cigarettes and red matches. The bride’s maid is holding what looks like miniscule gift boxes. So when a guest comes in the groom shakes his hand, Lewis gives the man two cigarettes, the bride lights one of them, and the bride’s maid gives the woman two gift boxes (which I found out contained candy). Giving two items is to indicate that the couple is now two, and it is a sign of good favor in a marriage.

After several hours of mah jong, we all go into the restaurant part of the hotel. There is a sign that says wedding, a cake, and some champagne glasses. It basically looks like the set-up for a reception. We are all sitting around and drinking juice, and the bride, groom, Lewis, and bride’s maid process in together. The bride and groom go to the stage at the front. There is a young man on the side that is announcing something so that everyone hears. I believe he is announcing some wedding vow or something because at one point the bride and groom take a microphone and say one sentence. Then they exchange rings. After this the bride and groom are given some glasses and we all toast to them and drink. Next the bride and groom present some flowers to the groom’s parents. Then the groom’s father gives a speech. Then we all start eating. The room fills up with the smell of cigarettes and bai jiu (a strong liquor in China). The bride and groom, and the mother and father each go around to all of the tables and toast everyone. After everyone has eaten more than we could ever eat, we all leave and go across the street to a place to play mah jong and cards and drink tea. We stay here until about 6 or 630 and then go back to the hotel to eat dinner, which most people just pick at. My host family and I left around 7 or so, congratulated the bride and groom, and then went to say hello to my host mom’s college classmates who were having a reunion. Then we went home. WOW. That was the longest wedding celebration I have ever been to. It was really interesting and fun, but the fumes from the cigarettes were really starting to make me sick after so long. I took some pictures of the wedding day, and are posting them to the Windows Live account. Oh and we didn’t even eat the cake, which I found to be a little disappointing. The cake is one of my favorite parts of a wedding. Lol. The children enjoyed putting their faces and fingers into it, though, which was really funny and adorable.

A week in Jiangyou

2010-08-07T23:29:00.002-07:00

So all of this week I have been visiting the site of my future volunteer endeavors. In two weeks I will make myself permanent at Jiangyou in Northern Sichuan. This is the birthplace of Libai, one of the most famous poets in China. The town today is rather small (maybe 500,000) people- remember this is China. The town is mainly comprised of farmers and there is a lot of construction. The university in which I will be teaching is located on the outskirts of Jiangyou, maybe a 15 minute public bus ride into the downtown area. Oh, and the university I will be teaching at is Sichuan Preschool Educators College. The students I will teach will graduate and teach in primary schools, and mostly kindergarten. Most of my students will be girls. There are four student dormitories, and only one is for boys. There are a total of 4000-4500 students that will be attending school this term. I will be teaching Oral English and American/British Culture. I will have a total of 14 hours of teaching this semester. There are two other foreign teachers at this university. They are a married couple from Canada. They will be returning to the university, about the same time as I will, with their newborn son. They have been teaching at this university for a couple of years. The campus itself is small. I could probably jog around it in 15 minutes at most. Outside of the campus are farmers and some convenient stores that were built for students’ needs. The campus is silent except for cicadas making their noises and the shouts of neighbors to one another. There are two housing buildings for teachers. I will be in building one on the fourth floor. There is a track/soccer field, swimming pool, 10 classroom buildings, a library, a performance art center, administrative building, staff dining hall (with free lunch for teachers at 11:50!!), student dining hall, drivers’ education building, and lots of green space. It is a really nice and peaceful university.

Most everything I will need I will have to go downtown to get. I take the number 16 bus into downtown. It is the only bus number that goes across the railroad tracks and into the neighborhood of the university. I like this. It makes it really difficult to get lost, which many of you know I am quite susceptible towards. This is much different than Chengdu which has a multitude of buses that range upwards of number 500 something. The main shopping center is called Mall Mart. Here I can look at expensive clothes if I so choose and electronics, but most importantly there is a large grocery store on the bottom level where I will get most of my staples that I can’t pick up at the convenient stores near the university gate. The rest of downtown Jiangyou is made up of shops, restaurants, and markets. You can take a pedicab to get around, walk, take the bus, or take your bicycle. It really is rather small. I could probably bike around the city in an hour or two. I plan to get a bike once I get settled. My counterpart teacher says that he and the Canadians like to bike, and I need to fit in, right? Lol. It is also quite convenient to have a bike to get around rather than wait up to 20 minutes for bus 16 to arrive.

From what I witnessed this week, the people of Jiangyou are really laid back, proud of being from the same town as Libai, and very nice. Some are curious of me, of course. My counterpart Kerry made a joke about why the store would write the word SALE when I was probably the only foreigner in town to read the sign. So, being one of 3 foreigners makes people curious. I would be too. Oh there might be other foreigners, but I know for sure of 3. Me and the Canadians.

I will be uploading pictures of Jiangyou throughout my first semester, so that by January you might be able to see the whole town on my Windows Live account.

So what did I do this week? Monday I left Chengdu by train at 11 am (my host mom and brother here drove me to the train station, which is about an hour and a half from their apartment). It was my first experience on a train, and it wasn’t bad. There was a very cute 3 year old girl sitting in front of me making faces at me. It was very typical of a 3 year old, and very cute. I arrived in Jiangyou around 2, and my counterpart Kerry picked me up. A counterpart is a Chinese teacher in the English department that I can assist me in anything that I may need. Kerry, which is his English name, is also my waiban (foreign teachers office) representative, and he was my host during my stay. This made me feel as though I was walking on egg shells the entire week. At every moment of the day I was trying to impress this man and his wife, and show them that the Peace Corps is a good program to have at their school. This is the first time the Peace Corps has sent a volunteer to this site, so I am trying to make a good impression. So we went back to his apartment, and we chatted and looked at each others pictures to help break the ice. In the evening we walked around the university and I saw my first star in China. There were three visible stars in the sky, and I was mesmerized. In case I haven’t mentioned this yet, stars and the moon are rare sites to see, at least in Sichuan.

Tuesday I met the dean of the foreign teachers department, who incidentally does not speak any English. I also met the vice president of the university. The president was away on business. We also had a look at my apartment. It was really big. I was surprised. It was a lot bigger than my counterparts apartment. There are three bedrooms, a living area, dining area, kitchen, and bathroom. I have a couch, desk, tv, bed, western toilet, and some dishes. I don’t have any sheets, I didn’t see any pots, and I don’t have a table to eat at. But other than that, everything is nice. I will see more of what is needed once I move in. Later we took a bus to downtown, had lunch, saw the market and set up my Bank of China account so that the Peace Corps can deposit my monthly stipend, so that I can eat and pay my landline phone bill. The phone is there for emergencies, since cell phones are not as reliable). In the evening I met some of the other teachers at the university and played some Chinese checkers. Kerry does not have a tv in his house. It was destroyed during the 2008 earthquake, and he never got another one, so we did a lot of talking, playing games, and sitting in silence.
Wednesday I had breakfast of beef noodles with Kerry’s wife Eliam because he was tutoring in the morning. Then we went to Libai park to walk around. We had lunch and tea, and played cards. I taught them ERS and blackjack. Oh I forgot to mention that I also taught my host brother and his dad ERS and they LOVED it. It was so funny. Anyways, during lunch Kerry gave this cat some chicken and the bone from the chicken got lodged in the cat’s mouth. It was obviously in pain, and couldn’t get the bone out. I thought the cat was going to die, and Kerry found this whole thing funny. It mad me so mad. I wanted to help the cat, but the Peace Corps scared the living daylights out of us about rabies in China. But then Kerry came to the rescue and saved the cat. I have pictures to prove it. For dinner we ate food from Guizhou province which is where Kerry is from. Kerry is from the Miao minority group in China. Both him and Eliam come from poor rural farming backgrounds, but went to university and got out of that life. A lot of the students that Peace Corps focuses on teaching are from these rural backgrounds. Anyways, later that evening we played Chinese chess and cards.

Okay so around Wednesday I just got really tired of being in Jiangyou. Kerry has this bad habit of basically quizzing me on English the entire time I was in Jiangyou. This is not an exaggeration either. All day it was: what is this, have you heard this phrase, can you use it in a sentence, let me tell you how much I know about English. I was just getting rather irritated and tired about it. I started wishing to go back home to Chengdu. Then I thought, oh no, that’s not good. My host family has been way too nice to me, for me to be wishing to return home to Chengdu. But that was exactly what I was doing. Wishing to return to the comfort of my host family in Chengdu. I knew I was lucky to have the host family I do in Chengdu, but I didn’t realize how lucky I was until I left.

Thursday Eliam and I walked around the downtown area, and I saw some of the damage from the earthquake and a beautiful park area by the river. Later that afternoon I met the convenience store owner by the university gate. She was a student of Kerry’s. I bought Eliam some chocolate. That evening I took Eliam and Kerry out to eat to show them my appreciation.

Friday we took a pedicab around the downtown area, had lunch, and took a bus back to Chengdu. So in Chengdu when I arrived I had to go to the bathroom so bad, but bathrooms seem to be quite rare in China in public areas. Kerry said to take the number 1 bus and then switch to number 56. So I took the number 1. There was this Buddhist monk on the bus who captured a dragonfly that was hovering around the bus and released it out of the window. I thought this was a very Buddhist monk thing to do. Anyways, so somewhere along the line I got confused about where to switch the buses. Kerry said to call when I got into Chengdu, and I tried but the number wasn’t connecting. Having to use the bathroom, unable to speak Chinese, completely at a loss for where I was in Chengdu, I almost cried. But of course crying solves nothing, so I eventually found a taxi and told him where to head back and eventually got back to my host family’s house. A little tired, a little stressed, but relieved.

Okay so my host family’s home phone kept ringing, but I didn’t pick it up because it is not my home, and I don’t speak Chinese anyways to get a message. Well then my host mom’s cell rang, and the number looked familiar so I picked it up and it was Kerry. I was supposed to call him when I got into Chengdu, but the number wasn’t working. Then my host family said they had spoken with him, so I assumed that they called back to let him know I was in Chengdu safe, but they hadn’t, so he was calling now at 9:45 at night to see if I was okay. I hope this doesn’t leave a bad impression of me in his mind. AH!! I stress myself out so much. I will have to try really hard when I go back to Jiangyou in two weeks, just to make sure of that he doesn’t think ill of me or the Peace Corps.

Anyways, tomorrow I am going to my first, and maybe only, wedding in China. This is a family member of my host family. I will post pictures maybe Sunday from the wedding. That’s all for now. The next couple of weeks are going to be really busy. This week is my last week at my host family, and the week after is my last week in Chengdu. So sad, but exciting all the same.

Oh I forgot to mention that Kerry asked if I go to church in America. I said that I do. He said he knew of a church in Jiangyou that he could show me. I was really excited to see. So we went…to a mosque. I didn’t bother explaining that a mosque is not the same thing as a church. Lol. Oh well.

2010-08-07T23:29:00.001-07:00

One thing I forgot to mention about the KTV, was that I had first gone back to my host family’s house to see if it was okay to spend the afternoon at KTV. So whenever I got to the area where the KTV was, all of the other volunteers were already inside. I had no idea where this place was, so I started wandering around hoping that something would jump out at me. I knew roughly where it was, but I didn’t know exactly. So I went into one place that looked like a KTV, but it was really dark and quiet, so I immediately left. Then I asked someone (in Chinese obviously) where the KTV was. She answered that it was across from where we were at the time. So I walked over there to a KTV and went inside. I started looking around and trying doors, and nothing. I stopped and talked with a bartender and said that I was looking for my friends who went to KTV, and that they were Americans. He seemed really confused, but tried to help me. I eventually left, and wandered into a third KTV looking place, and saw someone working there. Again I said that I was looking for my friends and had he seen any Americans. This guy did! And he proceeded to direct me to my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. It was such a relief to see everyone, I did the sign of the cross. But it was a good adventure for trying out my Chinese. Survival Chinese at its best.

Okay, so this morning I went with my host brother to (are you ready for this Chris Kehoe?) an anime convention. We went with his best friend, stood in line for 3 hours, and walked around inside for maybe one. It was crazy, and quite interesting. I let my host brother have full control over my camera so he could take lots of pictures of his favorite characters and things. There were a lot of people dressed up, various comics being sold, and many other items for sale (including figurines, shirts, buttons, cards, etc.). I’ve never been to an anime convention in the States, but I am sure it is similar. I have included my host brother’s pictures, as well as pictures from Tianfu square which is the center of Chengdu. It was an interesting morning.

Then, probably because I am super tired right now, the plastic toilet paper roll slipped out of my hands and landed in the drain of the squat toilet in the bathroom I use. I have yet to figure out how to get it out, and will embarrassingly have to confront someone in my host family to explain that there is a plastic toilet roll in the toilet. Lovely.

My site announcement!!

2010-08-07T03:32:00.000-07:00

Okay so the last week has been one of the most exciting and fun weeks of my life. First of all on Tuesday I invited my host brother to play ultimate Frisbee with me and a few other volunteers. It was so much and a great time to get outside and run around. My host brother loved it! Maybe we can spread the awesome game into China (if you are unfamiliar with ultimate Frisbee, it is best to ask someone who plays in the States because it can be difficult to describe over the computer). Anyways, he wanted to know when would be the next time we would play and that his dad might come too. His parents came to watch us play and they were so cute. They were the stereotypical soccer parents in America, with their umbrella in the rain and jumping up and down whenever their son got the Frisbee or their son’s team scored. It was wonderful. All of the volunteers love my host family, and if you met them you would love them too. They are such wonderful people- China and America alike. Oh and I think we tied.

I forgot to mention last Friday that I went out to eat with my host family and friends. We went to this restaurant kind of far away. Of the many things we enjoyed there, included were frog and snail. I actually liked the frog, although there wasn’t much meat on it, and the snail was interesting. I can’t say I will be enjoying snail anytime soon. It was also difficult to eat and my host dad helped me a couple of times. It was fun, but very hot. Oh that reminds me that it had been very hot here in Chengdu (even hotter in Chongqing-those poor people) and so the electricity was going out all over the city because people were running their air conditioning more. You cannot run your air conditioning all day here because it uses up too much electricity. Btw the temperature in Chengdu is about the same as Florida, and Chongqing the same as a really hot day in Tallahassee (107 a lot of days).

Okay so the big news this week was my site placement! I am going to… (insert drum roll) Jiangyou in Sichuan Province. It is about 2.45 hours by train away from where I am now in Chengdu. It is apparently the site of where the most famous poet in China lived (will find out the name later) and is a vacation spot for many Sichuan people. It is a new site for Peace Corps (in other words there has never been a volunteer there before). I will also be the only volunteer at the site. But no worries, the next closest volunteer is 30-40 minutes away by bus in Miangyou. There are also 3 other foreign teachers at the university I will be teaching at (a Canadian and two Mennonites. I know, Mennonites. Strange.) I will be teaching at Sichuan Preschool Educators College. My students will all be future primary and kindergarten teachers. How cool is that? I am just super excited. I will be leaving Monday for a site visit and will stay until Friday or early Saturday morning. I am hoping to get back a little early because my host family wants me to go to the wedding of an extended family member with them on Saturday. Luckily I am not too far away. I am looking into taking the bus back which is a little more expensive but an hour faster. I need to talk with my wai ban (foreign affairs office at the university which deals with foreign teachers only) to see about getting back earlier than expected. We shall see. I leave Monday at 11.11 am by train.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention. There are about 23 other China 16 (my year) volunteers that will also be in Sichuan for service. Every province needs someone called a warden that is in charge in case something serious happens and the volunteers need to be evacuated from the region. The only two evacuation procedures that have ever occurred in Peace Corps China that I can think of are: the 2008 earthquake and the SARS outbreak. Why am I telling you this? Because yours truly is deputy warden or the assistant warden. The main warden is Angel, a transfer volunteer from Bulgaria who is also my nearest site mate. So Angel and I have decided that we are going to be the best of friends by the end of Peace Corps. He has already asked me if I play tennis. I told him I would certainly try. So anyways, this means that Angel is in charge in the case of an emergency, and I am there to assist, or if need be to take over in the instance that Angel cannot fulfill his duty as warden. Angel was the warden in Bulgaria, so I have no worries. Our job is to call everyone in our province to make sure they are safe and to be the communication between headquarters and our volunteers. Also in the circumstance of an evacuation, we are to ensure that the plan laid out by Peace Corps is followed out, or in case the Peace Corps cannot be notified in time, to be sure that everyone gets out safely.

Other exciting things: we had a banquet practice session with our language teachers. What does this mean you ask? Well banquets in China are a big deal. Many times we might be pressured to drink, commit to something, or make an unplanned speech or toast. This was a time for us to practice so that we do not offend our colleagues, dean, or the president of the university that we will be teaching at, and also to allow us a comfortable environment to practice so that we do not make a full out of ourselves. It was fun, and hey, a good free lunch.

Also a group of volunteers as I tried our hand at KTV, the craze among adults in China. It is basically a karaoke bar. The cool thing about karaoke in China is that you get your own room for you and your friends, so you are not making a full out of yourself in front of strangers, but just your good friends. I sang Avril Lavigne (a much loved icon in China among students) and A Whole New World from Aladdin. I also tried my hand at some Lady Gaga, although I don’t really listen to her (much to the dismay, I am sure, from some of my fellow volunteers), and well since I didn’t know the song very well it was difficult to sing to, but everyone joined in to sing it. It was awesome, and I hope there is KTV in Jiangyou, and me and my new Chinese friends there can go visit. If not, Chengdu is not too far away with many volunteers who might be willing to let out a tune and have a nice cold Chinese Snow beer (one of the few really cold beverages in China).

I have added pictures from my trip to beautiful Leshan, and will be adding some more pictures soon of my language class, a trip to a famous street in Chengdu that I can’t remember right now, and a few others.

I will be without a computer for the week I am in Jiangyou, but will be sure to fill everyone in on my week long adventure when I get back, both in words and pictures.

Once again, if there is something you are dying to know about China or have some preconceived notions about life in China, shoot me an email and I will be more than happy to locate the answer for you.

And last, but certainly not least, I now have access to my blog!!! Thank you China 15 Micah for your awesomeness!

2nd Week Model School

2010-07-28T05:07:00.000-07:00

This week I have been teaching the little kids with Beth. There are 24 children aged 4-12. Yeah, a bit on the crazy side. How do you teach 24 kids of varying levels of English and varying age levels? Good question. I don’t know how other people would do it, but this is how Beth and I have managed for the last three days:

Day 1: We had no idea what we were up against. We were under the impression that the students were of a really low level and didn’t know much English—including the alphabet. So, the alphabet is an essential part of any language, so that is where we began. Oh was that totally wrong. The children knew their ABCs backwards and forwards. They were completely bored with our lessons pertaining to the alphabet. They had fun with a couple of the songs and games we incorporated into our lesson (namely musical chairs with the alphabet). But we soon found out that most of the students were at a much higher level than we anticipated, so it was back to the drawing board for the two foreign teachers.

Day 2: Day 2 was much better than Day 1. The kids were engaged and, better yet, learning. We continued with the idea of the alphabet, but took it a step higher and had them thinking of words that started with each letter of the alphabet. They had a lot of fun thinking of as many English words as they could for each letter of the alphabet. We also started on numbers. One activity they really loved was a math competition. I had two students come up to the board, and I said two numbers to add together, and whoever added them the fastest and wrote the number on the board got to stay up while the other person sat down. This was a good test of their listening skills, since I was orally saying the English numbers. Their math skills are certainly quite high; they were much faster at adding than I am AND the numbers were in their second language!

Day 3: Day 3 also went really well. We continued our lesson on numbers. We played Bingo, which they loved! It was so cute to see them get really excited whenever a number they had was called. What was also really funny to see was how quiet the students got when I started to say “And…the next number is…” There was so much tense anticipation for the next number. I gave them all stickers when they got Bingo. At the end of class I read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I don’t know whether they understood everything that was going on in the story, but they were really engaged with it.

Everyday we start class by singing a days of the week song set to the Adam’s family theme song “There’s Sunday, then there’s Monday. There’s Tuesday, then there’s Wednesday, there’s Thursday, then there’s Friday, and then there’s Saturday. Days of the week (snap snap), days of the week (snap snap), days of the week days of the week days of the week (snap snap). Next we sing an alphabet sound song “Who let the A out?” Instead of singing the letters, the kids are singing the sounds the letters make (this is hard to replicate on the computer, but you can figure it out). The last song is there favorite: Head, shoulders, knees, and toes. They love when we get faster and faster.

We also sing “5 Little Monkeys” but a bit different, and it has hand motions, which they like. It’s “5 little monkeys swinging in the tree, teasing Mr. Alligator ‘you can’t catch me,’ along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be, and…SNAP goes Mr. Alligator under that tree. 4 little monkeys…” Also whenever the SNAP part comes up I get up close to two of the kids and clap my hands really loud near them. They think this is so funny.

Thursday we are going to discuss shapes/colors and Friday the months of the year/holidays. Friday is the last day of Model School, so we are also going to invite their parents to come the last 30 minutes for a party/presentation of the songs they learned during the week.

Overall it has been a good experience, but really tiring.

link to pictures

2010-07-24T06:39:00.001-07:00

http://cid-f6f210c0e2b65421.skydrive.live.com/home.aspx

Model School 2nd Lesson

2010-07-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

My second day teaching in Model School was Wednesday. I was doing my lesson on modes of transportation. I started off by asking the students questions about what they had covered the day before with Ms. Cross. They were able to answer most of my questions.

Then I switched in to asking them about modes of transportation and whether they could give me any examples. Their examples included: plane, car, bus, bike, train, horse, camel. I said that travelling very far on camel would probably not be very fun. Next I showed them the pictures that I had drawn of different types of transportation, explaining the ones that they didn’t know. The transportation I covered was car, bus, train, plane, taxi, bike, cruise/ship, sailboat, and RV. The RV was the only one I really had to explain.

Next I had them stand up, come to the front of the room, and put their backs to me. I put sticky-notes on each of their backs with a different type of transportation written on it. They were to go around and ask each other questions about what kind of transportation was on their back. They were not allowed to ask “what is on my back?” but rather to ask more probing questions, like “how many wheels does my transportation have?” or “can my transportation go in the air?” Once they figured it out then they could take the sticky-note off of their backs and hold it. Once every one had discovered their transportation, I had them go around and find the person that matched theirs and sit with them.

Next in pairs or groups of three, they had to describe in as much detail as possible the transportation on their sticky-notes. After that they had to come up with as many scenarios as they could for using that type of transportation, tying in Beth’s lesson from yesterday (reasons/types of travel). When they were done, I called them to the front by transportation to present to the class their descriptions and scenarios. To get the students to practice their listening skills, I asked questions about each groups’ presentation (specifics/ ideas that were not presented) and if they offered up a suggestion I threw them a small piece of candy that I had bought before class. When that was done, the students had their 10 minute break.

Back from break, I had the students rejoin with their transportation group to come up with 3 reasons that their type of transportation was really good, and 2 reasons that it was better than another type of transportation. I presented this activity as a debate. To explain the concept of a debate, I used the idea of chocolate versus ice cream, which they thought was funny. I told the students that the best group would get some prize candy. The groups did a good job with this activity, and I told them that they could all have candy on the way out of class.

Afterwards, I switched to talking about idiomatic expressions that pertained to travel/transportation. I first asked them if they knew what an idiom or idiomatic expression was. Some looked confused, some looked as if they had heard the word before but couldn’t remember what it meant. I explained the meaning, and then asked if they had ever heard an English idiom. One boy (who I think has been to America) whispered “knuckle sandwich.” I was very pleased, and explained what a knuckle sandwich was to the rest of the class, as well as black eye, and one more that I can’t remember right now, but the students thought was funny (if I remember I will put it up). Then I asked if they could think of any Chinese idioms, or phrases in Chinese that a foreigner might say that means something to them, but something completely different to a Chinese person (and which would cause them to laugh at the foreigner). They were thinking, and couldn’t think of anything on the spot, so I offered one. I said that I had heard that eating doufu (tofu) means something different to a Chinese person than it means to a foreigner. As soon as I said eating doufu, the class erupted in giggles (particularly the girls). When someone asks what you had for lunch, and you respond that you had doufu it is slang in China to mean that you were making out with someone during lunch. Luckily I knew this one from my TEFL trainer who literally ate doufu and crackers for lunch every day, and didn’t realize why people were laughing until a colleague of hers at the university mentioned the idiomatic meaning.

Anyways, I then turned their attention to the 5 idiomatic expressions on the board: “backseat driver;” “fender bender;” “hit the road;” “on the homestretch;” and “road rage.” I asked the students to draw a picture of what they thought each of the idioms meant. I first gave an example of thinking what “on the homestretch” might mean by drawing a stretched out house. The students came up with some creative suggestions about what each of the idioms might mean (like backseat driver as someone who has control of the car from the back; hit the road means using a jackhammer on the road). I then explained what each of them meant. I had a piece of paper with the idiom, its definition, and a sentence using it. I would read out either the definition or the sentence and have various students do the other part. After, I came up with different scenarios and asked the students which idiom applied. They got them all right. I originally wanted to split them into 5 groups, give each group and idiom, and have them create a commercial (about anything) but incorporate the idiom into the commercial. But I ran out of time, and actually ran over time. The nice thing about Chinese students is that they didn’t complain, start packing up, looking at the clock or interrupt me to remind me of the time. They are such sweet kids (I say kids, even though they are in college).

Anyways I thought it went well on the whole. There is definite need of improvement, so I am looking forward to hearing the other evaluations.

The first person who evaluated me was the site manager at Sichuan Normal University Main Campus. She observed me the first half of my lesson, from yesterdays review until the descriptions/scenarios of each transportation group work. Her observations of me are as follows:

Constructive/advice: I talked a little too slowly; I should correct the students’ on their grammar mistakes at the end of class; should tell students to speak up when they are presenting to the class; and some misunderstanding with the word ‘scenario.’
Positive: she thought the students were engaged; the students did most of the talking; I taught as though I had been teaching for years, even though I have only taught officially for one semester; I praised the students well.

The second person to evaluate me was our TEFL trainer. She observed me the second half of the class, from the debate through the discussion of idiomatic expressions. Her observations of me were good and fair. She had a few recommendations for when I teach at my site in the future. Her advice is golden since she is finishing up her 2 years with the Peace Corps this August.

That’s all for that. Next Monday Beth and I will be teaching the primary school children. I will probably be very tired at the end of every day next week, but I think it should be fun. I will miss the college students I was with, though. Friday I went by to say goodbye and got a picture with them, and one student asked if he could give me a hug. They are all so sweet!

Other adventures? Not too many that I can think of. I did go swimming with my host brother and his best friend twice now. We went to a public swimming pool that is Olympic size in length, but only about 5 feet deep. It’s fun, but so crowded. There are so many people swimming or splashing around. Some swimming vertically and some horizontally. You always have to watch out for other people in your way, which is especially difficult for someone like me who can barely swim. Oh it was also my first experience with a communal shower. First time it was really weird, second time not so much.

Also my host mom is a PE teacher (think I mentioned this already) and students have to pass a PE test in order to advance from middle school (I think that is what was explained to me). So the mom has been tutoring a middle school girl in PE, I believe once a week. The first time the dad, their son, and I just watched from the stands. This time my host brother said he wanted to exercise, so I joined in. First we both just jogged around the track. Oh I forgot to mention that we meet the student at one of Sichuan University’s tracks. On the track are many people: guys playing soccer; babies walking around followed closely by parents or grandparents; children riding their bicycles or skateboards, walking, throwing a ball around; women and older people walking around the track, and more. It is very busy. So after we ran about 3600 meters (a little over 2 miles), we joined the mom in her class. Mostly what we were doing were squat jumps. As a result, today I can barely walk down the stairs and I wince every time I use a squat toilet. In other words, I am so sore.

Oh, and last thing…on Thursday we learned about air and water pollution in China. The 5 major air pollutants in China are: ground level ozone (which consists of VOCs and nitrogen oxide—no I do not know what VOCs are, although they did mention that in the session); particulate matter (like dust, dirt, and other construction debris); sulfur dioxide (the result of which is acid rain); and carbon dioxide (more common in winter and on busy roads). There is also an inversion problem here (not quite sure what this means, but I wrote it down in my notes from Thursday, so it must have been important).

The provinces with the most problematic air are: Shanxi, Gansu (only the capital Lanzhou—Peace Corps volunteers here); Hunan; Henan; Chongqing Municipality (Peace Corps volunteers here); and Sichuan (obviously Peace Corps volunteers here; this is where I am currently). Lanzhou and Chongqing are two of the worst places in all of China, as a result all volunteers from this two regions are issued air purifiers that must be used for breathing for at least 8 hours a day. I also learned about some very polluted cities in America—some the equivalent to China (Pittsburgh and Los Angeles are two that were named).

But that’s all. Until next time. Have a good day today!