Vacation week

Well, I am off to experience what promises to be quite an experience. I am leaving in a few minutes to get on the train to HuangShan, where David and I are heading first for our vacation. October 1 celebrates the 59th birthday of the People's Republic of China; which means that we have a week vacation for national day. The train ride alone promises to be an experience because it is a standing only train. We have heard it will be absolutely packed and not exactly comfortable. But I am not sure that anyone with whom I have talked has actually ridden this variety of train, so after tonight/tomorrow I will be able to tell some of my Chinese friends about their own country.

I had a nice tutoring session tonight with April, one of my students. Well, I call her April, but her real name is Yang JingYuan. As you can tell, April rolls off my tongue a little better. On Friday night, after a tutoring session with Yang Jing, another one of my students, she invited me to dinner. We walked a little ways down the road outside of the university. Once inside, I enjoyed some wonderful niu rou la mien, or beef and noodles, served with cilantro in a delicious broth. It is a very popular dish in China. The dinner was made even more enjoyable by the owner's kid, and some of his friends. They were probably 6 or 7, and apparently don't see too many foreigners. So they kept coming up to me and staring, maybe saying "hello" and running away. Jing taught me how to ask what one's name is, and I was able to get a response from one of the kids. The awe was not limited to the kids though, an older man at the next table also got in his share of staring; as well as announcing the presence of the foreigner to most of the people who entered the restaurant, and he seemed to be egging on the kids to try to talk to me. It's just a little different to be looked at with so much awe or wonder. I didn't feel like an animal in a zoo or a freak at all, it's understandable in a nation which was closed off to the world until 28 years ago and is 92% racially homogenous. Well, it's time to take a taxi to the train station and most definitely give up the American 3 foot personal space bubble.

Train station mayhem

A few updates and observations from the last few days. First of all, continued kindness and helpfulness from the Chinese people, I will note a few examples later. Favorite t-shirt of the last few days is definitely a green t-shirt with white writing; it started out very well "Save the earth," but then followed underneath with "it's the only planet with chocolate." I am sure I know a few American girls, as well as apparently one Chinese, who agree. And then of course, it's great to walk by a guy dribbling his basketball, trying to look cool, while rocking his shirt which says simply "waffle." Although I have been exposed to the ludicrous English t-shirts in Spain (where they are also very fashionable) I think China takes the cake on frequency of absurdity.

As I had mentioned, I am the proud owner of a second (or third or fourth) hand bicycle. I had a basket installed and even took it for a 5Y ($.73) tune up to the local bike repairman (his shop is a bike pulled trailer). But then, the other day I parked it outside of the academic building where I was teaching to find it gone after class. So, later that day I called Teddy, our all knowing, always helpful advisor. He called security and told me where he thought they had moved it. The tire was locked to the body, so movable, but not rideable. Apparently bikes must be parked in a parking garage or the painted zones. I looked quickly that night, but didn't find it. But, I did not lose faith, and looked yesterday to find it, for some reason it was located in the sixth row, or six rows further the logical place where I would have relocated it, but nonetheless, I happily rode to class today (and parked within the yellow lines).

Yesterday I discovered the first disadvantage of being a foreigner. I went with Teddy to go get some postcards from the post office. To diverge, this is a perfect note of how helpful Teddy is. I asked him where a store is at which I could get postcards. Instead of telling me, he walks over to the campus post office and tells the workers what I need. Back to the story, when we arrive the lady discusses something with Teddy, and he asks me if I have 18Y. Apparently I didn't pay enough for the package I mailed Jane (my sister) for her birthday. I payed what I was told to, but some additional costs came when it was mailed. So, I handed over the money, thinking of the 0.001% chance something like this could ever happen in the US.

***Note: I always complain about long blogs by other people, so feel free to take a break and visit theonion.com for your daily news****

How many strangers have asked for you photo in the last few days? Well, I would answer with three or four. The other day, as David and I were eating in the cafeteria, two girls approached and asked to take their pictures with us. We of course obliged, and I even gave the classic Asian peace sign in a few of the pictures. Not a minute or two later the girls from the table next to us asked to do the same. Of course all the Chinese students have camera phones.

And as for the title of the blog, one of David's students, Jin, who is a very good English speaker, was gracious enough to help me buy some train tickets for next week. Next week is national day, or July 4th for China, so we have the week off. So we initially went downtown to get the tickets to one of two locations, (both mutually accessible by bus). We went there first because it is closer and generally less crowded. No tickets, so I had Jin ask about three other cities near where we are headed (about 8-10 hours away). No tickets. None, I guess I kind of underestimated the busyness of travel during this week (there is only one other holiday like it). I should have gotten the point on Monday, when I went with Steve to see if we could take a trip to Hong Kong (no tickets), so I'll head there another time. (Note, Steve also volunteered his time to meet me at the ticket office and try to buy tickets). But I really didn't think that the demand would be so great for the relatively small cities/towns which we have refocused our efforts towards. So, Jin accompanied me to the train station. She of course could have been doing other things: sleeping, studying, hanging out with friends, etc. But, she was eager to help and likes the English practice (with me, not the ticket vendors). The train station featured 15 lines of maybe 50 or so people. Jin predicted over an hour to get to the window. I said 40 minutes. About 1 hour and 5 minutes later Jin proved to be correct. But tickets we successfully purchased. Standing room only. I don't know what a standing room only train looks like, or how it functions, but this Sunday promises to be an adventure different from any one upon which I have yet embarked.

My classes are still going well, learning what does and does not work and trying to improve so that the students are more active and learning more. I have about half of my students now saying 'what's up' when seeing me around campus instead of 'hello.' And, just like at a Tulsa bar, I had my entire class singing "Friends in Low Places" tonight. They enjoyed listening to American music, and liked singing as a variant on oral English, but apparently I didn't make any Garth Brooks converts. I think they will see the light "When the Thunder Rolls" though.

Dorm Life: Chinese Style

The other night, with some of the students met at English corner (see previous post) David and I went to see one of the dormitories. We have heard a good amount about the stark difference in living conditions between dorms here and in the US. I remember my guide at orientation in Shanghai, Jerry, talking about how she went home every night for dinner. I was shocked, but then she explained that with five roommates in very close quarters, it was nice to be able to go back to her home and spend time with her parents, or just alone in her room. The general set-up in most universities is eight boys to a room and six girls, sometimes only four. So I was stoked to see what dorm life entailed. I found out quickly: not too much. I will do my best to describe the rooms, and the next time we go to hang out with XingXin and his roomies, I will make sure to take some pictures. The room is probably 16' by 18' and houses 8 guys. There are four sets of wooden bunks which are built into the walls. No mattresses, no pads, they sleep on top of a razor thin type of bamboo strip "pad" which sits right on top of the beds. There might be three feet of space on the floor between the bunks. Other than that, there is one large table, which serves as a desk, built in shelves on the wall (each guy gets about a 2' by 2' cube) and then another built in shelf which has eight cubbies for shower/bathroom items. The shower is of course located in another building. But the guys were happy to see us, and hung out an chatted for a good while. The main event was the computer and very nice monitor, which served for videogaming (a favorite hobby of Chinese students, along with sleeping). All of the guys kind of just accepted that this is how it is, and they made the best of it. It was a very fraternity-like atmosphere (no girls allowed in the dorm) so they were all just hanging out in their underwear, telling jokes, and excited to practice English. I was somewhat surprised, but very impressed and almost inspired, by the positive attitudes and camaraderie among the roommates. I guess when it's close quarters like that, it's always best to smile and laugh.

English Corner

On Thursday night, I went on over to English corner. I was not sure of what to expect, just that David had heard from one of his students that there was an English corner on Thursday at 6:30. English corner is a widely used term in China (and maybe other places) to refer to a gathering of English language enthusiasts to practice their English. So I met David and Bryan just across the plaza from our apartments in a little garden area with some benches. There were but three or four people there at that time, but the crowd gathered over the next half hour and we moved over to an area with more benches and sat down and began talking. I spent most of the night talking with a small group, which included 4 girls who were juniors majoring in English, as well as a couple others, an automotive engineering major, a computer science major, international trade, and a man who graduated from the university a few years ago and works as an engineer at a water treatment facility. Apparently there are usually not any native speakers there, and last semester only one of the foreign teachers came regularly. It was an incredibly enjoyable experience. I did do most of the talking, as they were full of questions, and I do have a tendency to be somewhat long-winded. But I did my best to ask questions, but aside from the English majors, most of the others only gave fairly short answers. We talked about all sorts of things: future plans, the American college student's lifestyle, compared educational systems, touched on the ensuing election (I was disappointed none of them had heard of Ralph Nader...but then again I might get the same blank stares at an American university). I taught them a few pieces of the American vernacular, "hanging out", "what's up" and when they asked why I didn't go to Starbucks I told them it was "bullshit American marketing". As you might guess, I had to explain this phrase. One funny thing that has happened a few times is people's surprise that I can use chop sticks. At about 7:30, when I realized we would be there for awhile, I went and grabbed some noodles to go. Upon returning, twice a person was amazed I could use chop sticks. I'm thinking 'how else am I supposed to eat?' because it's not like a fork, knife and spoon are offered at every restaurant. We ended up being there for three hours, which, in my opinion was time well spent. There's nothing to better educate one about another culture than honest, open dialogue.

Sailing!

On Saturday afternoon, Dave and I headed into Shanghai by train. We spent the evening and night with Emily and Stephanie, two girls teaching in Shanghai, also with CIEE. They both teach 4-6 year olds, and their experiences have been just a bit different than mine. Whereas I try to keep my kids from texting during class, they struggle with reining in wildly dancing kids during song time or kids trying to lick hands during high-five time. But, darn, their students are so cute. But then again, I don't struggle with the licking. We had a good night out with a few of Stephanie's friends. We got up bright and early and headed on over to the meeting point for the bus to the lake. This was our first day with the Shanghai Boat and Yacht Club! Sunday was a race day, so there was a good chance that all the members had already reserved boats and arranged crews. But, luckily for both of us, there were a few generous sailors who made room for some inexperienced
onlookers. I was lucky enough to ride with Jaap, an older Dutch businessman in the dredging and construction business in Shanghai. He was a marvelous host. Also on the boat were Hanning (a fairly experienced German sailor) and Janet, a Chinese woman new to the club. We had a wonderful time, I learned a lot, and the early morning rain cleared into blue skies and fairly warm weather. We didn't fare so well in the race, partly due to the second buoy being snatched up by some of the local fisherman, so we (and a few other boats then at the front of the race) searched in vain for a non-existent buoy. But, Jaap didn't seem to concerned, and we all settled into the last place group and had some good sandwiches and a few beers. Jaap said this was much more important than the intra-club race. Towards the end, when we were in consistent wind and calm waters, Jaap let me take the helm, which was harder than it looked. It was a great day, we met lots of interesting and nice people, and I am looking forward to our next time out. We sailed on Dianshan Lake, which is just outside of Shanghai to the West.

In other news, I am now a proud owner of Changzhou bus pass, a dining hall card, and most exciting of all, a second hand Chinese bicycle. The first two were purchased with the help of Teddy, our advisor in the foreign affairs department (who is also working on a library card)! The latter was purchased with the assistance of Peter, one of Dave's students. I rode on the back of an electric scooter with him, and Dave rode Peter's bike over to the shop. We bought the bikes, and the owner even adjusted the seats for us. Peter folded his collapsable bike (which are all the rage in China) onto the back of the scooter and led us back on our new purchases. Just tonight I adventured onto the main street in front of the university and got supper at a delightful little restaurant. And yes, just so you know, I am doing all of my restaurant and dining hall ordering merely by pointing at an item (either on the menu or behind the counter) and then saying how many I would like. I haven't been hungry yet, so it works.

Class, Banquet, Doctor

I can now officially call myself a teacher, or maybe even a professor if I wanted to stretch it (I mean I do teach at a college). I taught five classes the past week. Four of them were to sophomore classes of English majors, and the other one was to sophomores as well, but I forgot to ask their major. In China the students are grouped together with other students of their major and they attend all classes together in the group. Thus all the students in each class all know each other well and have the same schedule. Oral English is the subject of all of my classes, which poses on fairly large challenge: getting the students to talk. The Chinese education system is based on the Confucian system of learning, which essentially means the instructor has all knowledge and students dutifully listen and obey in order to learn. In the US I think we use a mix of this and the Socratic method, with a little more weight toward the Socratic method. This along with the Chinese culture's strong aversion to 'losing face' or being embarrassed makes gettign volunteers to speak up very difficult. This, along with eliminating Chinese chit-chat will be my two main challenges. But my students were very fun, pretty attentive, encouraged, and many had quite good spoken English. Each class was sure to have a student to ask what I thought of Chinese girls (not the easiest question to answer in front of 30 or so 19-20 year old girls). The classes were full of hilarious (or odd) English names, but I hold back any judgment, as I went by Taquito (little taco) in most of my high school classes. I am excited to meet my 3 new classes next week (to make eight in total) and begin to get to know my students better.

Last night featured an absolutely wonderful banquet with members of the English department and the foreign affairs department. The food was amazing, the people were great, there was just one big problem. Baijiu. Look it up on the internet, and if it says anything but the worst liquor you will ever drink, then it's wrong. Baker, the government representative in the foreign languages department, and the person (I think) ultimately responsible for us being here, was the most gracious pourer of the baijiu, as well as full of toasts. The problem is, in China, when they toast, or ganbei it means to drink the rest of one's class, or "bottoms up" as Baker likes to say. Needless to say, plenty of baijiu and pijiu (beer) was drunk by all last night.

And this morning, when I got up at 7:45 for my doctor's appointment, I realized that I had way too much baijiu, way too much. But, I still went out to the car, where Teddy, our advisor was waiting and took the four of us new teachers to the center for foreign medical examinations. We made the best of the exam (which is required for the residence permit) by making light of the sometimes less than perfect translations on the signs. For example, instead of gauze pads, the instructions on the wall told us to put tampons on our arms after having blood taken. But, as a reward, Teddy took us to KFC after the 4 hour process was finished, and it was delicious. In the tradition of firsts, I did have my first ultrasound as part of the exam! And, no worries, I am not pregnant.

Monopoly and matriculation

Two fun and eventful happenings here in Changzhou on which to report. Last night, Steve, one of the English professors at the university hosted me, David, Bryan, and Clark (three of the other foreign teachers) to his home for dinner. It was delicious, amazing, delicious, plentiful, and delicious. His wife, Spring, is an excellent cook, if my description of the food did not make clear. We had noodles with vegetables, fried peanuts, steamed lima beans with pork, chicken and peanuts in a wonderful sauce (which is hard to explain because it was a new flavor for me), scrambled eggs with vegetables, shrimp and eggplant, and egg drop soup. Steve and Spring have an 11 year old son, Michael, who was quite entertaining, if sometimes a little shy with his English. But about halfway through dinner, he got up from the table to start counting the monopoly money. They received the game as a gift from a past foreign teacher, and not only does Michael really like it, he was pretty darn good at it as well. We didn't finish the game, but declared him the winner as there was little chance anyone could outdo his pile of cash and numerous hotel rents. I can't say enough to express how kind it was of Steve and Spring to host us, the food kept coming and the beer and tea never stopped flowing.
This morning was the matriculation ceremony for all of the freshmen. It was a very interesting experience. At all of the public universities, all of the freshmen go through military training for at least the first two weeks of school, (it's just the two weeks here). Thus, all of the students wear matching fatigues at the matriculation ceremony. So, a few thousand Chinese students were all crammed into the gym wearing matching uniforms. They did so with great order and maintained unbelievable quiet while filing in and out of the gym. I didn't get too much out of the ceremony, as it was almost all in Chinese. One speech was enjoyable though, as Bryan gave a short welcome speech in English on behalf of all the foreign teachers. Some people are sure to be proud back in Norman, as he wore his OU Sooners tie. One of the most striking things to me at the ceremony was seeing all of the students, seated on the floor and up in the balconies, all with black hair. I know this is normal of all Asians, but because they were all wearing matching uniforms, it really stuck out. It would be hard to replicate such a seen at a college in the US, and was much different than the fairly diverse student body I experienced at TU. Regardless, it was a very nice ceremony, and got me in the mood for my first day of class. Both of the pictures are from the matriculation ceremony.

Interesting happenings

The past few days have been very enjoyable here. We met a few of our colleagues/bosses in the foreign language department. They continued the Chinese people's streak of being wonderful hosts and very accommodating. I will be teaching eight different classes, all oral English, and all to sophomores. That starts on Monday, with a few of the classes starting the following week. The other night I took a motorcyle cab ride for the first time in my life. David was on the motorcycle is well. It was an adventure to say the least. We were able to witness Chinese traffic weaving first hand! I am also having a great time noticing and analyzing all the English language t-shirts which the students wear. Saw a girl with "Honey girl" at the top of the shirt, and "...with mustard" at the bottom. You decide. Also had a great time last night as one of the foreign teachers at another school, Bobby a Canadian, brought out about 15 girls (and 3 guys) from one of his classes. It was a wonderful cross-cultural experience, with lots of note passing at the restaurant when their spoken Chinese failed them. Well, I am off to dinner at Steve's house, one of the Chinese professors who works in the English department.

Getting settled

The picture to the right is me on the HuangPu river with part of Shanghai in the background. The last few days have been filled with more moving in and getting oriented action. We went with Teddy, our advisor and got bus passes, so we can look like locals and just swipe our way onto the bus. We also spent quite a bit of time down at the ChinaMobile store getting cell phones and cell phone plans. Teddy was absolutely necessary at this point, and they fill out just a few more forms here when getting a cell phone plan in comparison with the US. But I am now a proud customer of the #1 cell phone provider in the world. Other than that, I am enjoying freedom from the US copyright laws and purchased a few DVDs at a shop downtown, paying less for 4 or 5 DVDs than the cost to rent just one from blockbuster. The second picture is of a pagoda on a little pond, which is about a block from my apartment. I pass it every day walking into the center of campus.

Pic from Shanghai

This is a picture of me, David, Ashley (a girl in our orientation group) and Jerry, our Chinese teacher and one of the two student volunteers. She was absolutely awesome!

Changzhou

I write this blog from Changzhou, which will be my home for the next year. It's a city with a population a little over 2 million and is about 100 miles NW of Shnaghai, in the Jiangsu province. We arrived on Saturday, were met at the train station by Teddy, who is our advisor in the International Affairs office of the university. I will be teaching at Jiangsu Teacher's University of Technology. There are four of us here from CIEE, and about 6-8 total English teachers from the US and Canada, as well as 5 or 6 German teachers (from Germany, naturally). Most of the foreign teachers live on the 14th floor of a hotel at the edge of campus. The university owns the floor and has converted them into apartments. But, I live over in the villas, which house the rest of the foreign teachers and many of the Chinese teachers and professors as well. My apartment is wonderful. It's huge (by American standards) which makes it like a mansion here. They treat the foreign teachers so well here, Teddy has been very helpful, very gracious, and I can tell he genuinely cares about my well being. The apartment is two bedroom, two bath, with a kitchen, living room, dining room, and laundry room on the ground floor. I have been to Wal Mart to get supplies for the apartment, to the bus terminal for a bus pass, and to the China Mobile store for a cell phone. Teddy has accompanied us on all these journeys, as doing it without a fluent Chinese would have been nearly impossible. So, I am getting myself settled and set up. I have been eating most meals over at the hotel, as Teddy arranged for us to have three days of meals there for free!! But dinner tonight was at a small restaurant on the street outside the front gate of the university. It is a Uighur restaurant, and the food is amazing a cheap. We went with Clark, an experienced teacher from Montana, and his Chinese is quite good, and thus we are all able to get what we want without any trouble. So far, my evaluation of Changzhou is superb. I am excited to begin teaching soon and to get to know the city better. The two pictures are of my apartment, it's the second building, the one which juts out in the picture. The other one is a large academic building, which is what the view looks like from my front door.

Shanghai wrap up

The last three days in Shanghai were absolutely wonderful. They were filled with even more generous hospitality from the people at CIEE. On Wednesday a group of us went to visit the YuYuan gardens, as well as one of the highly acclaimed dumpling restaurants. My college roommate David, who's here with me, and I went up to the register to order. Well, we certainly lacked the Chinese to order much of anything, and the workers had no or little English. They luckily flagged down a tour guide who was eating there with his client, and he ordered us what turned out to be an absolutely delicious feast of dumplings, soup, and egg rolls. Both Wednesday and Thursday had more English teaching sessions as well as Chinese class. One meal at the cafeteria was shared with a man named Lu. Who is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, and was visiting for a lecture. He was incredibly well spoken and very interesting (he did go to Cal-Berkeley). He told us of how his early education was broken apart by the Japanese invasion during WWII, but apparently he recovered enough to get into Berkeley. On Thursday we went for a river cruise on the HuangPu, which cuts through Shanghai. It was stunning, all of the skyscrapers are lit up and the city absolutely shines. On Thursday during an afternoon break a group of us went with Kerry, the other student volunteer to a local gym and played basketball. He is super cool and we had a great time. The farewell dinner on Friday night was a blast. The food was great, the waitress kept filling the wine glasses, and Kelvin, the CIEE advisor and Kerry and Jerry entertained us with karaoke. A few of us tried our hand with the English songs as well. It was a fitting end to a wonderful time with the CIEE crew.