English Festival?

A while ago, all the foreign English teachers received an email saying that we were to give a speech as part of the “English Festival” (I use quotations because I am not convinced it was really a festival, nor did it utilize/celebrate English as its name indicates). We were told to give our speech about something related to learning English or to Western culture. I gave my speech about intellectual property, as it is something I am interested in as well as something that I think will be of incredible importance in China in the future. In retrospect, I probably ought to have picked a subject more relevant and entertaining to my students (who were essentially the only people to attend) but I think they learned something, which is always good. Of course, as usual, my speech did not take place where the email said it would be, but I was told the morning of about the change via text message. When I got there I was a bit surprised, as I expected there to be a professor or two from the department, and maybe someone to give an introduction or some sort of ceremonial fanfare (which is quite popular here). No dice. Just a classroom, with mostly my students, one of whom I had to ask to make sure I was in the right place and everything was as planned. Well, apparently the planning was to put me in a room with a computer and projector and a lot of my students. The lack of organization wasn’t really a big deal; my students were all pretty awed by my shirt and tie (I wear jeans and a polo to class). As I said, I think a few people learned from the speech, and all of them got in some great English listening practice. On a side note, I warned Danthemanstan (who was to give a speech the next week) about the location confusion. He double-checked with the English department, who reassured him the original plan was correct. He then received a last minute text telling him that, (gasp); it was actually where I suggested.

My next obligation for the “English Festival” was to judge a competition. I was sent a text message a few hours before it began saying it had been moved to the next day. No big surprise there. Unfortunately, I was busy the next day, so thus couldn’t attend. I have given up feeling sorry or guilty when I can’t attend the impromptu events. I love helping my students: I voluntarily attend English corner every week, and have on a few occasions agreed to help with activities that I knew would not be too enjoyable. I have even put on the Foreign Language School uniform for every intra-faculty sports competition. But, unlike all the students and many of the professors at this school, I am unwilling to sit patiently beside my cell phone at all hours in case someone on campus wants a foreign teacher to immediately appear somewhere. Hilariously, Amy attended the opening ceremony for this ‘English Festival’ by accident when she walked by it one afternoon. The students complained that none of the foreign teachers were there (besides her cameo). Of course, a simple email or text message a few days in advance would have assured the attendance of some, if not all of us. Make plans. Stick to them. It’s a pretty simple concept (in my opinion), but it’s almost comedic how hard of a time our sub-par university has grasping this concept.

Enter the second event that I was signed up to judge for the “Festival”. Of course 45 minutes before it was to begin I received a text saying it was delayed. Then about two hours later I was told to show up an hour later, with an emphasis that I should be on time. I was. The event started thirty minutes late. The translation of its title in Chinese was essentially ‘many cultures displayed in the street’ or a culture fair. It turned out to be fairly accurate. Essentially, there were five or six groups told to give a performance representing a country/culture (performances are really big in China). The performances were given on a cheap red carpet laid out in front of some tables in the plaza in front of the library. Danthemanstan and I were judges, along with three Chinese teachers. The performances, introductions, and scorecards were all given in Chinese. The teacher next to us helped out by telling us to “give score”. With the help of my student in the audience, I was able to figure out the (pretty much useless) categories, and where to write the final score. A few of the performances were pretty good (visually, my Chinese is miles away from understanding what they said) and showed a lot of student effort. The performance for America consisted of a bad dance to an old hip-hop song. I was very disappointed. Apparently that’s all the group could come up to display the most widespread and identifiable culture in the world. The most disappointing thing though, was that our scorecards were collected about one third of the way through the last group’s performance. Which turned out to be the best of all of them, but I was only able to score a third of it, so they didn’t fare so well. They represented Japan, and even made sushi for us. Given the Chinese people’s quiet (but ubiquitous) disdain for Japan, Danthemanstan and I found the sketchy scorecard collection only too ironic.

I know this has been a pretty long post describing a not too interesting “English Festival”, but I think it is perfectly symbolic of the pretty dismal situation my students deal with. This activity (and almost all others) was put on by the student union, which isn’t required, but strongly encouraged, and required for any positive recommendations for jobs or graduate school. It is run quite poorly. The seniors all have internships or jobs, so they don’t help. The juniors have the heaviest course load at the school, so very few of them help. Therefore, it’s led by the sophomores, but many of them have become disillusioned, so only some help. Thus, the freshmen do all the legwork and a fair amount of the planning, despite having no experience and little knowledge about how the school works. But they must put on all the activities, or receive bad marks on their non-scholastic report card (yes this school keeps them, and a messy dorm room does constitute a demerit). These report cards do actually come into play when job and grad school considerations are made. So the students, (freshmen and some sophomores) put lots of effort into planning and executing various activities, but receive little attention and no commendation for doing so. I felt really bad for some of the students, who obviously spent lots of time planning their activity, as a thrown together PA system drowned them out, most of the crowd was chatting-including the teachers judging, one of the judges took a phone call during their performance (this is actually pretty common here), and two of the judges shouldn’t have even been there (as we don’t speak the language in which they were performing). Yet the students resiliently kept at it, knowing they had to do it. I have tried to encourage some of my students to effect some change in the student union or on campus, but they say it’s useless. I pretty much believe them, 5,000 years of feudal, imperial, and then authoritarian rule along with a very traditional culture don’t really facilitate change. I tell them I hope when they become teachers and administrators they’ll remember to eliminate some of the more futile aspects of their college life. I hope they do, but for now I just compliment them on their positive attitude and great work ethic.