Monday, March 31, 2008
Birthday Video
This is just a little treat for the 3 people who actually read the blog. It's a video from Josh's birthday dinner - unfortunately, you can't hear the Chinese people singing very well because a loud American (me) is belting out the song. Listen at the end for the "make a wish" part, it always makes me laugh a little bit.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday's Embarrassing Moments - in which I confuse a funeral for a party
Well, it's crazy to think that another week has gone by. I always intend to write down my funny stories as they happen, but it seems like something else always gets in the way (usually tv shows or video games, as it so happens.) But last week I did have a couple of funny things happen to me that deserve mention.
It all started on Tuesday. I woke up and went to the market to buy pork (which I said to Kyle, and he has made fun of me since then for saying that.) On the way, I passed this huge procession that took up the whole street: people marching playing instruments, big colorful signs, music, floats, everything you can think of. It had stopped up the traffic for at least a mile. I watched it as I walked, because I had to follow the same road, and I wondered what holiday was being observed (my belief that it was a holiday was strengthened by the fact that we have a few days off school this coming week.) I bought food and came back home, and then I headed up to teach my class.
All the students were sitting quietly at their desks. That had never happened before. I thought, "Gee, maybe this is what a professor sees when he walks into a room." Usually half the kids are out on the balcony, and everyone is talking, and it ends up taking several minutes to get them quiet enough that I can start class. But this time, they were dead quiet. I said, "Wow, you're all so quiet today." A few students said, "Good morning," but that was it. Then another Chinese professor poked his head in the classroom and started saying something. I checked my schedule because I was certain that I had walked into the wrong class, when all of the sudden one girl said, "We have exams." I was so embarrassed that I walked out of the room without my water bottle and without my umbrella, and another girl had to run out of her exam and bring me the umbrella.
I called David and he told me that I wasn't teaching on Tuesday or Wednesday, which was nice enough. So I went home. We ate lunch that day with Lee, who invited us to dinner. Now, it's important to know that Lee was not hosting the dinner, nor was he related to the people hosting the dinner. He just took it upon himself to invite us.
So after English Corner we met him at the restaurant (Grand Fortune Hotel again.) There was a whole family there celebrating something, and we got thrust right into the middle of it. That's an awkward enough situation, but when you don't speak the language and you stand out like a sore thumb, it gets to be almost terrible. Then Lee started telling me (in a very loud whisper) all the social gaffes I was committing. Such terrible things as sitting down too early after a toast, and not toasting other people enough. I realized that he had invited us there to show us off and that we were embarrassing him. Needless to say it made me very angry. I did embarrass myself quite a bit, though, especially when I toasted people, because the waitress kept filling my glass to the brim, so I spilled apple juice over everything (not just once, but several times.) I didn't really want to talk to Lee after that night was over. Actually, come to think of it, I haven't spoken to him since that night.
As for the parade I had seen and the holiday - turns out it was a funeral. I asked one of the students about it. Now, that would have been a moderately embarrassing blunder except for the fact that the week before, at English Corner, I had asked about another "party" and it had also been a funeral. So my advice is, unless you are specifically told it is a party, assume it is a funeral, because it's impossible to distinguish the two by sight alone (maybe I need an a Chinese sense for these things.)
I can't think of much else to say - oh, except my embarrassment on Friday night when I found out that all the movies I had been "buying" were actually rentals. Now, it took about 15 minutes of loud shouting in Chinese and elaborate gestures for them to convey this to me, but I did finally figure it out. When I took a couple of them back yesterday, I got some money back, so I guess we had to leave a deposit - maybe they've had this problem with foreigners before. The nice part is that it only costs us 1 or 2 yuan to rent a movie, which makes it possible for us to rent movies like Doom and not feel like I overpaid.
Well, that's enough for now. I'll try to think up some funny stuff for next time.
It all started on Tuesday. I woke up and went to the market to buy pork (which I said to Kyle, and he has made fun of me since then for saying that.) On the way, I passed this huge procession that took up the whole street: people marching playing instruments, big colorful signs, music, floats, everything you can think of. It had stopped up the traffic for at least a mile. I watched it as I walked, because I had to follow the same road, and I wondered what holiday was being observed (my belief that it was a holiday was strengthened by the fact that we have a few days off school this coming week.) I bought food and came back home, and then I headed up to teach my class.
All the students were sitting quietly at their desks. That had never happened before. I thought, "Gee, maybe this is what a professor sees when he walks into a room." Usually half the kids are out on the balcony, and everyone is talking, and it ends up taking several minutes to get them quiet enough that I can start class. But this time, they were dead quiet. I said, "Wow, you're all so quiet today." A few students said, "Good morning," but that was it. Then another Chinese professor poked his head in the classroom and started saying something. I checked my schedule because I was certain that I had walked into the wrong class, when all of the sudden one girl said, "We have exams." I was so embarrassed that I walked out of the room without my water bottle and without my umbrella, and another girl had to run out of her exam and bring me the umbrella.
I called David and he told me that I wasn't teaching on Tuesday or Wednesday, which was nice enough. So I went home. We ate lunch that day with Lee, who invited us to dinner. Now, it's important to know that Lee was not hosting the dinner, nor was he related to the people hosting the dinner. He just took it upon himself to invite us.
So after English Corner we met him at the restaurant (Grand Fortune Hotel again.) There was a whole family there celebrating something, and we got thrust right into the middle of it. That's an awkward enough situation, but when you don't speak the language and you stand out like a sore thumb, it gets to be almost terrible. Then Lee started telling me (in a very loud whisper) all the social gaffes I was committing. Such terrible things as sitting down too early after a toast, and not toasting other people enough. I realized that he had invited us there to show us off and that we were embarrassing him. Needless to say it made me very angry. I did embarrass myself quite a bit, though, especially when I toasted people, because the waitress kept filling my glass to the brim, so I spilled apple juice over everything (not just once, but several times.) I didn't really want to talk to Lee after that night was over. Actually, come to think of it, I haven't spoken to him since that night.
As for the parade I had seen and the holiday - turns out it was a funeral. I asked one of the students about it. Now, that would have been a moderately embarrassing blunder except for the fact that the week before, at English Corner, I had asked about another "party" and it had also been a funeral. So my advice is, unless you are specifically told it is a party, assume it is a funeral, because it's impossible to distinguish the two by sight alone (maybe I need an a Chinese sense for these things.)
I can't think of much else to say - oh, except my embarrassment on Friday night when I found out that all the movies I had been "buying" were actually rentals. Now, it took about 15 minutes of loud shouting in Chinese and elaborate gestures for them to convey this to me, but I did finally figure it out. When I took a couple of them back yesterday, I got some money back, so I guess we had to leave a deposit - maybe they've had this problem with foreigners before. The nice part is that it only costs us 1 or 2 yuan to rent a movie, which makes it possible for us to rent movies like Doom and not feel like I overpaid.
Well, that's enough for now. I'll try to think up some funny stuff for next time.
Monday, March 24, 2008
A Late Follow-Up / Another Week
Well, this is an incredibly late follow-up to last weeks post about the birthday trip. I'll try to do Sunday justice, but I may have forgotten some of the nitty gritty details. We woke up to a phone call from our F.A.O David, who was calling to tell us that we weren't going to Moon Cave because it was too rainy. That was fine by us - we didn't really want to go that much anyway. So we called home on Skype and talked to the family, we had a nice conversation, and then we started doing stuff around the house. A little while later we got another phone call from David in which he told us that we were going to Moon Cave because the school had loaned us the car (and driver) for the day. This may require a side-note: I can't remember if I already mentioned that being the driver of a car is a profession in itself. In any case, it is a job in China, and Mr. Tam (or Tang, I don't really know how to say it or transcribe it), is the school's on-call driver. So we went to lunch at Grand Fortune Hotel with David, his son Eric, and Mr. Tam/Tang. The food was very good.
After lunch we had a "rest," because apparently China has an equivalent to the siesta (at least for the schools and teachers. I don't think the rest of the country takes two hours after lunch, but all the students do.) We went back up after our rest and met up with David and Mr. Tang/Tam, and then we drove out to Moon Cave. It was another great driving experience in the city, but once we got out into the country everything calmed down. The landscape was beautiful. I'm going to put up some pictures of the cave, countryside, etc. in a while, so check the pictures later.
We arrived at Moon Cave, which isn't much of a cave, and wandered around. It was a very beautiful part of the world. We found out that Dao Xian is the hometown of an ancient philosopher (lived about a thousand years ago), whose name I can't remember. Anyway, apparently we were close to where he had grown up, so we drove over to see the place. On the way, though, we stopped at another cave.
This cave doesn't have a name that I can recall, but it's famous locally because during World War II the Chinese villagers took refuge from 3 Japanese soldiers inside of it. I don't think they knew that there were only three soldiers because the soldiers ended up smoking the cave and killing over 500 of the villagers. David (who uses the phrase "too many" to mean "lots") told us that "If the villagers had fought back, there would have been too many survivors." I had to take a moment to myself to keep from laughing when he said that.
The cave itself, though, was amazing. It had the most beautiful rock formations and stalactites - really an incredible place. They had great names for everything. Apparently the Chinese don't think that we Americans have much imagination, because David kept quizzing me on what I thought the rocks looked like before he would tell me the actual name. I would usually get it wrong (for example, I thought the phoenix rock looked like a dragon, which turned out to be a very stupid mistake). However, I did guess the turtle rock correctly, and David was very happy for me.
The cave was mostly vertical, and we climbed up on brick stairs with rusted iron handrails (not a reassuring thing to see when we were so high up). The story is that the villagers who had been trapped by the Japanese climbed up out of the cave on their own, and we saw the opening at the top where they escaped. I don't think I could have done it without the aid of those poorly-designed stairs.
Ok, this post is getting long. After the cave we went and saw a shrine to the philosopher, built where he had originally founded his college (over a thousand years ago.) It was very cool, but I didn't take pictures because I didn't know how appropriate that would be.
We went back to town and headed straight for dinner. A lot of Chinese English teachers were there, and the food was good. Among the more interesting dishes that I tasted (and liked) were - mutton, moss, and bamboo shoots. There was also tofu that looked like the most delicious flan, and I was incredibly disappointed when I ate it (even though I already knew it wasn't flan.) Oh, and I tried goose, but I wasn't crazy about it. I had had a bad headache throughout the day, though, and by the end of dinner I was ready to die, mostly because we were in a private dining room and every man in China smokes like a chimney, and the cigarettes smell about 10 times worse than they do in America. It was like my own miniature version of Hell (for some reason with a Chinese theme). It was very kind of the teachers to take us out to eat, though, and so I shouldn't complain.
And that concludes the birthday extravaganza. Last week passed pretty uneventfully. I learned how to cook some good food finally, so that means we can start eating at home, and we successfully navigated the open-air market where they sell pig-tails as a specific "cut" of meat. Pork is by far the cheapest meat (well, for Americans at least, since we don't usually eat dog, etc.) and beef is the most expensive. English Corner continues to be like a scene from Jaws - the students crowd around us like sharks smelling fresh blood. They're so friendly, though. On Thursday a girl brought English / Chinese copies of Robinson Crusoe and Anna Karenina. I haven't met that many people in America who have read Anna Karenina, and here I find a Chinese girl in a small town who has an English-Chinese copy of a Russian classic. Sort of strange.
Well, that's enough for now. I'll try to think of something fun to tell you about next time.
Oh, a quick side-story. My lesson last week was on civil rights, and I asked the students to come up with a list of civil rights they had in China. One girl's answer was very specific:
"In China, no one has the right to shoot a panda."
After lunch we had a "rest," because apparently China has an equivalent to the siesta (at least for the schools and teachers. I don't think the rest of the country takes two hours after lunch, but all the students do.) We went back up after our rest and met up with David and Mr. Tang/Tam, and then we drove out to Moon Cave. It was another great driving experience in the city, but once we got out into the country everything calmed down. The landscape was beautiful. I'm going to put up some pictures of the cave, countryside, etc. in a while, so check the pictures later.
We arrived at Moon Cave, which isn't much of a cave, and wandered around. It was a very beautiful part of the world. We found out that Dao Xian is the hometown of an ancient philosopher (lived about a thousand years ago), whose name I can't remember. Anyway, apparently we were close to where he had grown up, so we drove over to see the place. On the way, though, we stopped at another cave.
This cave doesn't have a name that I can recall, but it's famous locally because during World War II the Chinese villagers took refuge from 3 Japanese soldiers inside of it. I don't think they knew that there were only three soldiers because the soldiers ended up smoking the cave and killing over 500 of the villagers. David (who uses the phrase "too many" to mean "lots") told us that "If the villagers had fought back, there would have been too many survivors." I had to take a moment to myself to keep from laughing when he said that.
The cave itself, though, was amazing. It had the most beautiful rock formations and stalactites - really an incredible place. They had great names for everything. Apparently the Chinese don't think that we Americans have much imagination, because David kept quizzing me on what I thought the rocks looked like before he would tell me the actual name. I would usually get it wrong (for example, I thought the phoenix rock looked like a dragon, which turned out to be a very stupid mistake). However, I did guess the turtle rock correctly, and David was very happy for me.
The cave was mostly vertical, and we climbed up on brick stairs with rusted iron handrails (not a reassuring thing to see when we were so high up). The story is that the villagers who had been trapped by the Japanese climbed up out of the cave on their own, and we saw the opening at the top where they escaped. I don't think I could have done it without the aid of those poorly-designed stairs.
Ok, this post is getting long. After the cave we went and saw a shrine to the philosopher, built where he had originally founded his college (over a thousand years ago.) It was very cool, but I didn't take pictures because I didn't know how appropriate that would be.
We went back to town and headed straight for dinner. A lot of Chinese English teachers were there, and the food was good. Among the more interesting dishes that I tasted (and liked) were - mutton, moss, and bamboo shoots. There was also tofu that looked like the most delicious flan, and I was incredibly disappointed when I ate it (even though I already knew it wasn't flan.) Oh, and I tried goose, but I wasn't crazy about it. I had had a bad headache throughout the day, though, and by the end of dinner I was ready to die, mostly because we were in a private dining room and every man in China smokes like a chimney, and the cigarettes smell about 10 times worse than they do in America. It was like my own miniature version of Hell (for some reason with a Chinese theme). It was very kind of the teachers to take us out to eat, though, and so I shouldn't complain.
And that concludes the birthday extravaganza. Last week passed pretty uneventfully. I learned how to cook some good food finally, so that means we can start eating at home, and we successfully navigated the open-air market where they sell pig-tails as a specific "cut" of meat. Pork is by far the cheapest meat (well, for Americans at least, since we don't usually eat dog, etc.) and beef is the most expensive. English Corner continues to be like a scene from Jaws - the students crowd around us like sharks smelling fresh blood. They're so friendly, though. On Thursday a girl brought English / Chinese copies of Robinson Crusoe and Anna Karenina. I haven't met that many people in America who have read Anna Karenina, and here I find a Chinese girl in a small town who has an English-Chinese copy of a Russian classic. Sort of strange.
Well, that's enough for now. I'll try to think of something fun to tell you about next time.
Oh, a quick side-story. My lesson last week was on civil rights, and I asked the students to come up with a list of civil rights they had in China. One girl's answer was very specific:
"In China, no one has the right to shoot a panda."
Monday, March 17, 2008
Birthday Weekend Extravaganza
Well, the last couple of days have proved that I really don't know much about China. It all started with me inviting a few people to dinner for Josh's birthday.
Now, a sidenote is that I'm still not sure whether birthdays are really this important in China, or if they think that Americans think birthdays are this important. It might be like their view of cake: Chinese people are convinced that Americans eat large helpings of cake daily, especially for breakfast. Anyway, I'm just not sure, so I can't tell you whether this experience was normal or not.
The important part is that I invited people to dinner for Josh's birthday. Unfortunately, two of the people don't get along, so I had to plan two separate things (one on Saturday and one on Sunday, which brings me to another tangent, the point that only Americans have weekends in China, the other teachers and the students all work 7 days a week, and I think some people resent the fact that Josh and I have two days off every week).
Friday night we just hung out at the apartment. We've been watching "The 4400," which I found on DVD here, and we've been reading a couple of different books, so it was fine. Saturday morning one of the Chinese English teachers came over because he had questions about an exam he had to take (which is apparently part of being a teacher in China). I was told that it was an English exam. When he showed up, it turned out that it was a statistics examination written in English. It took me the better part of 30 minutes to explain that even though I know English, I haven't taken a statistics class in almost 8 years.
Our friend left, determined to find the answers to his exam online (cheating is perfectly acceptable here, it doesn't really have a moral value attached to it). Josh and I spent the rest of the day cleaning, mopping, etc. We had invited the two Canadian girls from another high school over, and so we didn't want to look like slobs. Also, I had to wash all the dishes, because whoever lived here last had just stuck them in the dish sanitizer without washing them (a sanitizer is pretty cool; you wash the dishes by hand, but then throw them in the sanitizer to make sure they're disinfected, because all the dishwashing is done with cold water.) Lots of preparation and work.
Our friend (Lee) came over and we went shopping for all the stuff we needed to cook dinner, and then we met the Canadian girls and went back to our apartment (we hadn't planned for one of the girls to be vegetarian, but she was really nice and I guess there were enough vegetables for her to eat that she wasn't starved). Lee showed us how to cook this great beef dish with garlic and peppers, and we sat down and started eating (note, pictures of all this will be up today I hope).
The food was great. When we finished, we opened up the cake that we had gotten for Josh. It was huge - we still have half of it crammed in our tiny refrigerator. But the best part was the two pandas on top (made by hand out of frosting). Anyway, the cake was very good (for China), and I ate more than my share. We threw in a movie called "A Good Year." Made by Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe as the star. It sounded promising for a romantic comedy. Anyway, it was terribly boring, although it looked well-made at least. The girls and Lee left when it was about half-over, and then Josh and I cleaned up. I ended up reading for a couple of hours and finished Brandon Sanderson's Well of Ascension.
Now, that may sound like a fairly reasonable Birthday Extravaganza - and it was. I was perfectly happy with that. I assumed that Sunday would just be a nice dinner, and then we'd be all done. I had no idea what was in store for us. I'll go ahead and post about Sunday a little later (or maybe tomorrow) because I'm tired of typing.
Side note - After trying to learn the first verse of the Jackson 5's ABC / 123 song, the kids absolutely refused to do it anymore (even though it had been their idea) and insisted on teaching us about China and the Chinese language. I learned about the 4 famous Beauties of China, one of whom was apparently incredibly fat.
Now, a sidenote is that I'm still not sure whether birthdays are really this important in China, or if they think that Americans think birthdays are this important. It might be like their view of cake: Chinese people are convinced that Americans eat large helpings of cake daily, especially for breakfast. Anyway, I'm just not sure, so I can't tell you whether this experience was normal or not.
The important part is that I invited people to dinner for Josh's birthday. Unfortunately, two of the people don't get along, so I had to plan two separate things (one on Saturday and one on Sunday, which brings me to another tangent, the point that only Americans have weekends in China, the other teachers and the students all work 7 days a week, and I think some people resent the fact that Josh and I have two days off every week).
Friday night we just hung out at the apartment. We've been watching "The 4400," which I found on DVD here, and we've been reading a couple of different books, so it was fine. Saturday morning one of the Chinese English teachers came over because he had questions about an exam he had to take (which is apparently part of being a teacher in China). I was told that it was an English exam. When he showed up, it turned out that it was a statistics examination written in English. It took me the better part of 30 minutes to explain that even though I know English, I haven't taken a statistics class in almost 8 years.
Our friend left, determined to find the answers to his exam online (cheating is perfectly acceptable here, it doesn't really have a moral value attached to it). Josh and I spent the rest of the day cleaning, mopping, etc. We had invited the two Canadian girls from another high school over, and so we didn't want to look like slobs. Also, I had to wash all the dishes, because whoever lived here last had just stuck them in the dish sanitizer without washing them (a sanitizer is pretty cool; you wash the dishes by hand, but then throw them in the sanitizer to make sure they're disinfected, because all the dishwashing is done with cold water.) Lots of preparation and work.
Our friend (Lee) came over and we went shopping for all the stuff we needed to cook dinner, and then we met the Canadian girls and went back to our apartment (we hadn't planned for one of the girls to be vegetarian, but she was really nice and I guess there were enough vegetables for her to eat that she wasn't starved). Lee showed us how to cook this great beef dish with garlic and peppers, and we sat down and started eating (note, pictures of all this will be up today I hope).
The food was great. When we finished, we opened up the cake that we had gotten for Josh. It was huge - we still have half of it crammed in our tiny refrigerator. But the best part was the two pandas on top (made by hand out of frosting). Anyway, the cake was very good (for China), and I ate more than my share. We threw in a movie called "A Good Year." Made by Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe as the star. It sounded promising for a romantic comedy. Anyway, it was terribly boring, although it looked well-made at least. The girls and Lee left when it was about half-over, and then Josh and I cleaned up. I ended up reading for a couple of hours and finished Brandon Sanderson's Well of Ascension.
Now, that may sound like a fairly reasonable Birthday Extravaganza - and it was. I was perfectly happy with that. I assumed that Sunday would just be a nice dinner, and then we'd be all done. I had no idea what was in store for us. I'll go ahead and post about Sunday a little later (or maybe tomorrow) because I'm tired of typing.
Side note - After trying to learn the first verse of the Jackson 5's ABC / 123 song, the kids absolutely refused to do it anymore (even though it had been their idea) and insisted on teaching us about China and the Chinese language. I learned about the 4 famous Beauties of China, one of whom was apparently incredibly fat.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Respect / Michael Jackson (again)
Well, I'd like to be the first to tell you that all the rumors that Chinese students are incredibly respectful is a bunch of bull-plop. 3 or 4 of my classes are terrible! And this is coming after my experience as a sub. Now, I haven't had any really bad encounters with students yet, but I can see that a few are on the horizon (I think that I'm going to have to make examples of a few students to get the rest back in line.) The problem is the language barrier - the bad students just pretend not to understand me. For example, in one class I asked two disruptive students to leave the room (there isn't a principal or an office or anything like that). They just sat there and stared at me until someone translated for me. Then one tried to haul the other one out bodily. I ended up letting them stay because it was like a comedy of errors.
Today half of my classes made fun of my laugh. Ok, I know that my laugh sounds funny, and by now I'm pretty used to other people's reactions. But this was like a circus show, it was ridiculous. It wasn't a big deal except for the fact that I couldn't get one of the classes to settle down after that. Don't worry - I got my chance to laugh at them. Some of the attention desperate kids were showing these karate moves as they explained something about the Olympics, and I was so surprised that I started laughing in the middle of class. Fortunately, now I know that they've never heard an American laugh before, so I'm going to control myself from now on.
Tonight is English Corner again. I sort of dread it because, unlike the classes, I can't just teach something and then give them stuff to work on. Instead I have to be a one-man show for an hour (usually Josh and I split up so that we don't have to cram all the kids into one area.) Well, after Tuesday's experience with Michael Jackson, I decided not to give up too easily. Tonight I found a nice little YouTube video with the lyrics for the Jackson 5 ABC song. They said they wanted to learn a song, so I hope this works. Of course, it doesn't help that the internet is so slow right now that I still haven't been able to download the whole song.
All right, I've still got stuff to do before English Corner at 6:00, so I'm gonna go. I know, I still haven't put up the other stuff, but I'll do my best. I am planning on taking more pictures, too, but it's been so rainy that I don't think it's worth it right now.
Today half of my classes made fun of my laugh. Ok, I know that my laugh sounds funny, and by now I'm pretty used to other people's reactions. But this was like a circus show, it was ridiculous. It wasn't a big deal except for the fact that I couldn't get one of the classes to settle down after that. Don't worry - I got my chance to laugh at them. Some of the attention desperate kids were showing these karate moves as they explained something about the Olympics, and I was so surprised that I started laughing in the middle of class. Fortunately, now I know that they've never heard an American laugh before, so I'm going to control myself from now on.
Tonight is English Corner again. I sort of dread it because, unlike the classes, I can't just teach something and then give them stuff to work on. Instead I have to be a one-man show for an hour (usually Josh and I split up so that we don't have to cram all the kids into one area.) Well, after Tuesday's experience with Michael Jackson, I decided not to give up too easily. Tonight I found a nice little YouTube video with the lyrics for the Jackson 5 ABC song. They said they wanted to learn a song, so I hope this works. Of course, it doesn't help that the internet is so slow right now that I still haven't been able to download the whole song.
All right, I've still got stuff to do before English Corner at 6:00, so I'm gonna go. I know, I still haven't put up the other stuff, but I'll do my best. I am planning on taking more pictures, too, but it's been so rainy that I don't think it's worth it right now.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Yesterday's Stories
For some reason, yesterday was full of hilarious stories. It all started off with my lesson plan - this week we are working on expressing opinions. Most of the students have done a good job with this. After a warm-up and an introduction to the lesson, I usually get them to write a few sentences that are opinions, and I walk around the room and help them as I go. I got about halfway around the room when I stopped and read this one girl's practice opinion. It read:
"I wish that China could be the master of the world."
Chairman Mao would be proud indeed!
Another opinion was that:
"I believe that China will beat the U.S.A. in basketball."
I tried to joke around with the students and say, "No, no. I don't want China to win." They just stared back at me, so finally I added, "But maybe America will lose. After all - you have Yao Ming." By the way, they worship Yao Ming here. They also expect me to know all their other Olympic athletes' names. I don't know how to tell them that I don't even know America's Olympic athletes' names, let alone China's.
Another funny thing that happened was the English Corner, which is sort of like a club for kids that really like learning English. The kids that come are always really fun, and we do it twice a week. It's actually sort of nice, but it's hard to come up with something a large group can do for an hour. Anyway, last night we did music videos, and the artist that THEY picked was Michael Jackson (who, by the way, is incredibly popular here. I am convinced that most 3rd world countries are operating about 20 years behind the U.S.A., and this is evidence.) Anyway, I've never seen someone be scared of the Thriller music video (especially when it is played on a sunny afternoon), but the girls kept screaming and gasping. I'm not sure they have anything like the horror genre of films here. After that we watched Billie Jean and Beat It.
The best part, though, was that I ran out of things to do, so I panicked and started telling them about Michael Jackson singing with the Jackson 5. One of the students (whose English name is Longer, by the way, and his best friend's name is Shorter), cut me off and said that he knew the story. He starts telling a story about how Michael Jackson's dad wouldn't let him learn how to play the piano, so one night, when he was three, he snuck into his sister's room and started playing. . . Sound familiar to anyone? Well, I thought to myself, that sounds like Mozart, but since I don't know anything about Michael Jackson, I'll let him keep going. Then another student, whose English name is Little Stone (and whose big brother's name is Big Stone), cut Longer off and said, "That's Mozart."
So what do I do? I say, "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure it happened to Michael Jackson too."
Ok, I had no idea what to say, but I had to do something. After that I told them it was time to go, because I didn't want to get myself into any more trouble.
After English Corner we went to try a "McDonald's- style" restaurant. We had to point to the value meal we wanted, which actually worked out rather well, until we got our food: Hamburger, fries, chicken nuggets. All pretty good, or at least decent. And then, to drink: Hot milk. Interesting combination. Fortunately I found peanut-butter / chocolate oreos in the supermarket and ate a whole pack (not a U.S. size pack, just so you know - only like 10 cookies) to compensate.
Ok, time to wrap this up. I promise I will tell some of the stuff about the flight next time.
"I wish that China could be the master of the world."
Chairman Mao would be proud indeed!
Another opinion was that:
"I believe that China will beat the U.S.A. in basketball."
I tried to joke around with the students and say, "No, no. I don't want China to win." They just stared back at me, so finally I added, "But maybe America will lose. After all - you have Yao Ming." By the way, they worship Yao Ming here. They also expect me to know all their other Olympic athletes' names. I don't know how to tell them that I don't even know America's Olympic athletes' names, let alone China's.
Another funny thing that happened was the English Corner, which is sort of like a club for kids that really like learning English. The kids that come are always really fun, and we do it twice a week. It's actually sort of nice, but it's hard to come up with something a large group can do for an hour. Anyway, last night we did music videos, and the artist that THEY picked was Michael Jackson (who, by the way, is incredibly popular here. I am convinced that most 3rd world countries are operating about 20 years behind the U.S.A., and this is evidence.) Anyway, I've never seen someone be scared of the Thriller music video (especially when it is played on a sunny afternoon), but the girls kept screaming and gasping. I'm not sure they have anything like the horror genre of films here. After that we watched Billie Jean and Beat It.
The best part, though, was that I ran out of things to do, so I panicked and started telling them about Michael Jackson singing with the Jackson 5. One of the students (whose English name is Longer, by the way, and his best friend's name is Shorter), cut me off and said that he knew the story. He starts telling a story about how Michael Jackson's dad wouldn't let him learn how to play the piano, so one night, when he was three, he snuck into his sister's room and started playing. . . Sound familiar to anyone? Well, I thought to myself, that sounds like Mozart, but since I don't know anything about Michael Jackson, I'll let him keep going. Then another student, whose English name is Little Stone (and whose big brother's name is Big Stone), cut Longer off and said, "That's Mozart."
So what do I do? I say, "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure it happened to Michael Jackson too."
Ok, I had no idea what to say, but I had to do something. After that I told them it was time to go, because I didn't want to get myself into any more trouble.
After English Corner we went to try a "McDonald's- style" restaurant. We had to point to the value meal we wanted, which actually worked out rather well, until we got our food: Hamburger, fries, chicken nuggets. All pretty good, or at least decent. And then, to drink: Hot milk. Interesting combination. Fortunately I found peanut-butter / chocolate oreos in the supermarket and ate a whole pack (not a U.S. size pack, just so you know - only like 10 cookies) to compensate.
Ok, time to wrap this up. I promise I will tell some of the stuff about the flight next time.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Funny stories to get things started
Ok, so I originally titled this blog "Lies and Petty Vandalism," but I decided I didn't like it. The title is, however, totally true - my time (so far) of teaching English in China has been marked by lies and petty vandalism (ok, just in a joking way really.)
The lies started with the promise in the contract of "western-style" toilets in the hostel that we stayed at for training. Now, it may not seem like a big detail. But, check out this picture.
Shoilet of Shame
(I'm going to try and include pictures when I can, but if they're already on Picasa, I might just include links. This computer is too slow to do extra work.)
So, that was an unpleasant surprise. However, the lies did not stop there. We were told we were going to Yongzhou - we came to Dao Xian. We were told we were leaving at noon on Saturday. We left at 8 AM Sunday. And so on....you can see where I'm going with this.
The petty vandalism takes two different tracks: legal (or acceptable) and illegal (or unacceptable). Our experience here has been that it's ok to smoke, spit, or throw trash wherever you want. I'm counting all of those as petty vandalism, for the sake of the blog. They do have trashcans (or, as they're called here, trash boxes), but they seem to be for show only. The streets are covered with it - especially with the paper from fireworks, which people set off like every 5 minutes (the first time i saw all the red paper I thought it was flower petals, and I thought, "Wow, China has some real beauty here." Then I got closer.)
The unacceptable version of vandalism apparently consists of taking someone else's fruit. Story: We were driving to Dao Xian, and our F.A.O (foreign affairs officer) was explaining what the farmers grew in the area. They stopped the car in front of a huge grove of orange trees and he said, "Do you want to take one?" And I politely said no, and he insisted (maybe three times.) So I climbed across a ditch and he said, "Take, take, take." So I reached up, pulled one off, and he said, "No! No! You must not take." So I just dropped it on the ground (which makes it vandalism instead of theft, I hope.) He then proceeded to take pictures of us pretending to take fruit of the tree. Apparently that is all right.
Picture after my misdemeanor:
Remember - pretending is ok, but actually taking is not (even if someone says, "Take, take, take.") About a half an hour later he asked me if I still had the orange, and I have the strong feeling that he wished he had taken one too.
Ok, that's all I'm putting up for right now, as I have to go teach some classes. I have a couple of funny stories about the flight over and Hong Kong, but nothing great. Maybe I'll put those up this afternoon.
The lies started with the promise in the contract of "western-style" toilets in the hostel that we stayed at for training. Now, it may not seem like a big detail. But, check out this picture.
Shoilet of Shame
(I'm going to try and include pictures when I can, but if they're already on Picasa, I might just include links. This computer is too slow to do extra work.)
So, that was an unpleasant surprise. However, the lies did not stop there. We were told we were going to Yongzhou - we came to Dao Xian. We were told we were leaving at noon on Saturday. We left at 8 AM Sunday. And so on....you can see where I'm going with this.
The petty vandalism takes two different tracks: legal (or acceptable) and illegal (or unacceptable). Our experience here has been that it's ok to smoke, spit, or throw trash wherever you want. I'm counting all of those as petty vandalism, for the sake of the blog. They do have trashcans (or, as they're called here, trash boxes), but they seem to be for show only. The streets are covered with it - especially with the paper from fireworks, which people set off like every 5 minutes (the first time i saw all the red paper I thought it was flower petals, and I thought, "Wow, China has some real beauty here." Then I got closer.)
The unacceptable version of vandalism apparently consists of taking someone else's fruit. Story: We were driving to Dao Xian, and our F.A.O (foreign affairs officer) was explaining what the farmers grew in the area. They stopped the car in front of a huge grove of orange trees and he said, "Do you want to take one?" And I politely said no, and he insisted (maybe three times.) So I climbed across a ditch and he said, "Take, take, take." So I reached up, pulled one off, and he said, "No! No! You must not take." So I just dropped it on the ground (which makes it vandalism instead of theft, I hope.) He then proceeded to take pictures of us pretending to take fruit of the tree. Apparently that is all right.
Picture after my misdemeanor:
Remember - pretending is ok, but actually taking is not (even if someone says, "Take, take, take.") About a half an hour later he asked me if I still had the orange, and I have the strong feeling that he wished he had taken one too.
Ok, that's all I'm putting up for right now, as I have to go teach some classes. I have a couple of funny stories about the flight over and Hong Kong, but nothing great. Maybe I'll put those up this afternoon.
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