Last week was, over all, an average week. Classes went pretty well, I think. I mentioned that we were doing disabilities in class, and I expected some hilarious sentences. I did get some good examples of disablities like "can't smile" and "doesn't have hair," which were hilarious, but on the whole the students did a really good job. For part of the lesson we talked about famous people that had disabilities, and they knew a lot of famous Westerners like Beethoven, Stephen Hawking, Helen Keller, etc. that had disabilities. I think that overall they did a good job. In the key classes, which have the best students, we talked a little about Milton's "Sonnet XIX" on blindness and about his disability. Oh, in the other classes I did a poem by Shel Silverstein about confusing an anteater with an aunt-eater, but no one got it, so I think they might not have enjoyed it as much as I did.
Another important update - I mentioned the mouse in our apartment. Well, he did disappear after we put out the poison (although he ate four out of the five piles of poison, so either it was incredibly delicious or incredibly slow-acting.) I thought that maybe our problems with him were over. However, this morning I woke up to find our kitchen flooded- at least an inch of water over all the floor. Fortunately it's set down a little bit from the hallway, so the water stayed in the kitchen, but it still wasn't a great sight. I got as much of the water mopped up as I could, and then I checked the drain. Now, we knew the drain wasn't working very well (the sink has a little hose that goes into a hole in the floor, so we could see the "pipes.") I pulled out the rubber hose and checked it, and it was working fine, so I figured that our drain was clogged further in and that the other apartments all used the same main drain, so our kitchen was flooding. I don't even know if that makes sense, but it sounded good to me. I thought I'd poke around down there with a wire hanger and see if I could dislodge whatever was blocking the drain (I assumed it was food, since there's no such thing as a garbage disposal.)
After a minute of pushing and pulling with the hanger, I pulled out a dark clump of (what I thought was) moldy food. I pushed it to one side and continued to poke around, but I couldn't find anything else. Then I noticed that the mold had a tail. Yes, yes, it was the mouse. Disgusting, of course. I picked it up using a plastic glove as a bag and put it in a trash bag, which we need to take up to the school dumpster today. As Charlie says on "It's Always Sunny," cleaning out the rat traps "takes an emotional toll." Regardless, I'm glad to know it's dead, and I hope it didn't have time to reproduce before it died. The drain is, unfortunately, still clogged, so David said he'd send the repairman over today.
On another note, yesterday was the English competition. Overall, I think it was good, although it wasn't the best experience of my time in China. We sat outside on the "playground," a.k.a. the huge dirt plaza in the middle of the school, under the burning hot sun. Jane, the vice-principal, lent us her umbrella for some shade, which was nice, and the school did provide bottled water, but still it was unpleasantly hot. Anyway, I ended up having a good time. The students had to give a prepared introduction and a recitation and then talk impromptu about another topic. They all did surprisingly well (especially my students, I'd like to add. It did help, of course, that my students were the oldest ones and have had the most time to learn English.) Some of the highlights were: a Senior 1 student (Josh's grade) came out screaming "We will rock you"; a student saying that many people were afraid of sharks after seeing the movie "Jews" (at least, that's how he pronounced it); a student holding up a piece of candy and saying how "sweet and friendly" it looked; numerous students beginning their speech by saying how they were "confidence" about giving their speech; and last, a student, on being asked to describe her English teacher, said he was "short, fat, and very clever."
Afterwards we were treated to dinner in the school cafeteria with some of the other English teachers, and it was actually pretty nice. The food wasn't that great, but it was ok, and some people actually spoke English to us, so it was an improvement. When we had finished eating, we were told that we could "go have a rest," because they wanted to stay and drink and "talk in Chinese, which you don't understand." It might have been the most interesting way that I've ever been asked to leave a dinner (I don't think I've ever been asked to leave before, but maybe I've just forgotten.)
Today we were supposed to go visit some caves nearby which have an underground lake that you can go across. Unfortunately (not really) it was raining today, so we'll stay home--although we will have to go out to eat, since we have a kitchen that is flooded and has decomposing mouse bits all over. We do, apparently, have a holiday this week. We may end up going to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. I'm not sure if we will - it's a 7-hour bus ride, and we don't really know anything about it, but it might be worth it just to get out of the house. Plus it has a Wal-Mart, so, way to go Sam Walton.
All right, I believe that's all for today. Oh, I almost forgot my other story. Twice this week I've been surprised to find animal heads where I least expected them. First, I was at the supermarket buying pork, and it's just all spread out on a metal slab and you just pick up the chunk that you want and have them weigh it. Well, I reached out, grabbed one, and realized that there was a whole pile of skinned pigs' heads looking up at me (eyes and teeth included.) That was pretty gross, but then yesterday at dinner I was helping myself to the mushroom and duck soup when I came across a big bone. Turns out it was the bill of the duck, with the whole head still attached. Also very gross.
Ok, enough. I'll tell you what we end up doing with our holidays. Oh, and I found out I have exams next week, so that means an extra day or two off. Not for Josh, unfortunately.
Take care.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Picnics
Well, I'm trying to be better about putting stuff up here, so I decided I would write about our weekend. It was actually a pretty good weekend, all things considered. After I wrote on Friday, we had our Chinese lessons with Monica and came back home. I can't really remember what we did that night; I'm pretty sure we just hung out at the apartment, which was fine.
Saturday I got up and went to the market, bought some food, and came back. We cleaned my apartment, which desperately needed it, and had some lunch, went to the store. All sorts of boring things. We ran up to the grocery store that afternoon, but it turns out I didn't need to go after all. One of the English teachers, Joy, called me and invited us to dinner. So we went and met up with her and another English teacher named Peng Guin. Both of them are really young - Guin is probably 22 or 23, and Joy might be a few years older than me. We went to the market with them and bought some food to cook, which was pretty fun, and then we went back to Guin's apartment and started cooking. It turns out that Guin's girlfriend lives next door to Josh, and she came over too, so we ended up having a few people there. And it was so fun! None of the weird awkwardness that we usually feel around Lee, or the poorly-masked irritation that David shows whenever he's around us. Sort of like - and here's the amazing part - they actually wanted to talk to us and be around us.
Well dinner was good, and we came back home and watched some Alias. We had agreed to go on a picnic with Guin and Joy and Haiyen (Guin's girlfriend) on Sunday. So we got up and about 10:30 we met up with them at the school - plus 5 students from some of my classes. We got on a bus, went about 20 minutes outside of town to a river, got onto a tiny, rickety boat, and crossed over to the other side.
We found some rocks, built an impromptu stove, started a fire, and cooked dumplings and noodles. It was so good! I was so impressed at how well the students did with everything. The food was good, the company was good, the scenery was amazing. The whole thing was great. About an hour after we got there, another 8 or 10 students arrived. Now, the interesting thing is that these students only have about 4 hours free every week - on Sunday afternoon. So the students (and teachers) who had gone with us in the morning had had to ask for leave from their classes. They are kept insanely busy, so it was pretty cool that they wanted to go do something with us (with such little spare time.)
After we ate, we walked around and explored. It was really fun, and we had some hilarious moments. One thing is that the students are so eager to give us things. For example, during our brief time on the picnic, I was given a clump of weeds that one girl had pulled out of the ground and washed off, several stones of varying shapes and sizes, a whole bag of bamboo shoots, and several floral arrangements (all made on the spur-of-the-moment.) The two funniest moments of the day, as far as I can remember, were: a) a girl holding out a white, flat rock and saying, "Here, it's a hamburger, you can have it." (I threw it away later) and b) a whole herd of cows eating most of the bamboo shoots that we had gathered while we were playing on the river (everyone was so sad, but it was hilarious to me.) I just asked Josh about his funniest moments and he said hamburger rock and Mr. Peng almost getting crushed by a rock. The last one requires some more explanation. We spent quite a bit of time skipping rocks on the river, which was fun, but Mr. Peng loved to sneak up on people and throw a huge rock into the water by them, thus soaking them. When he went down to the water later, a bunch of students threw rocks near him, splashing him, but one girl threw a huge rock so close that I swear it missed him by about an inch. It was hilarious, mostly because no one seemed that worried by it (except me.)
We ended up having enough bamboo shoots (even after the cow incident) to still take some home and cook them. Oh, one last story - as we were leaving, we saw a cow that was giving birth (and we had the right angle to see all of the "business district.") Anyway, the funny thing is that one girl leaned over to me and, in all seriousness, said, "It's sleeping." It was quite an experience. That night Guin and Haiyen came over, and we peeled and cleaned the bamboo. My first time doing that! Then they showed us how to cook it, which was pretty easy, and we had a really nice dinner.
Well, I'm afraid there's not much more to say. Oh, I can already tell that I'll have some golden stories after this week. Our lesson is on talking about disability, so the students have some hilarious comments. Two that I liked today were: "He can't write because his hand is broken down," and "I think that the worst disability would be not being able to watch T.V." Keep in mind that we'd already covered things like blindness, deafness, paralysis, etc.
Ok, enough for now. I'll let you know if I think of any more funny stories. Oh, and check our pictures, because in the next day or so I promise I'll put up a picture of the mousetrap we bought. I think it was left over from the Cold War.
Saturday I got up and went to the market, bought some food, and came back. We cleaned my apartment, which desperately needed it, and had some lunch, went to the store. All sorts of boring things. We ran up to the grocery store that afternoon, but it turns out I didn't need to go after all. One of the English teachers, Joy, called me and invited us to dinner. So we went and met up with her and another English teacher named Peng Guin. Both of them are really young - Guin is probably 22 or 23, and Joy might be a few years older than me. We went to the market with them and bought some food to cook, which was pretty fun, and then we went back to Guin's apartment and started cooking. It turns out that Guin's girlfriend lives next door to Josh, and she came over too, so we ended up having a few people there. And it was so fun! None of the weird awkwardness that we usually feel around Lee, or the poorly-masked irritation that David shows whenever he's around us. Sort of like - and here's the amazing part - they actually wanted to talk to us and be around us.
Well dinner was good, and we came back home and watched some Alias. We had agreed to go on a picnic with Guin and Joy and Haiyen (Guin's girlfriend) on Sunday. So we got up and about 10:30 we met up with them at the school - plus 5 students from some of my classes. We got on a bus, went about 20 minutes outside of town to a river, got onto a tiny, rickety boat, and crossed over to the other side.
We found some rocks, built an impromptu stove, started a fire, and cooked dumplings and noodles. It was so good! I was so impressed at how well the students did with everything. The food was good, the company was good, the scenery was amazing. The whole thing was great. About an hour after we got there, another 8 or 10 students arrived. Now, the interesting thing is that these students only have about 4 hours free every week - on Sunday afternoon. So the students (and teachers) who had gone with us in the morning had had to ask for leave from their classes. They are kept insanely busy, so it was pretty cool that they wanted to go do something with us (with such little spare time.)
After we ate, we walked around and explored. It was really fun, and we had some hilarious moments. One thing is that the students are so eager to give us things. For example, during our brief time on the picnic, I was given a clump of weeds that one girl had pulled out of the ground and washed off, several stones of varying shapes and sizes, a whole bag of bamboo shoots, and several floral arrangements (all made on the spur-of-the-moment.) The two funniest moments of the day, as far as I can remember, were: a) a girl holding out a white, flat rock and saying, "Here, it's a hamburger, you can have it." (I threw it away later) and b) a whole herd of cows eating most of the bamboo shoots that we had gathered while we were playing on the river (everyone was so sad, but it was hilarious to me.) I just asked Josh about his funniest moments and he said hamburger rock and Mr. Peng almost getting crushed by a rock. The last one requires some more explanation. We spent quite a bit of time skipping rocks on the river, which was fun, but Mr. Peng loved to sneak up on people and throw a huge rock into the water by them, thus soaking them. When he went down to the water later, a bunch of students threw rocks near him, splashing him, but one girl threw a huge rock so close that I swear it missed him by about an inch. It was hilarious, mostly because no one seemed that worried by it (except me.)
We ended up having enough bamboo shoots (even after the cow incident) to still take some home and cook them. Oh, one last story - as we were leaving, we saw a cow that was giving birth (and we had the right angle to see all of the "business district.") Anyway, the funny thing is that one girl leaned over to me and, in all seriousness, said, "It's sleeping." It was quite an experience. That night Guin and Haiyen came over, and we peeled and cleaned the bamboo. My first time doing that! Then they showed us how to cook it, which was pretty easy, and we had a really nice dinner.
Well, I'm afraid there's not much more to say. Oh, I can already tell that I'll have some golden stories after this week. Our lesson is on talking about disability, so the students have some hilarious comments. Two that I liked today were: "He can't write because his hand is broken down," and "I think that the worst disability would be not being able to watch T.V." Keep in mind that we'd already covered things like blindness, deafness, paralysis, etc.
Ok, enough for now. I'll let you know if I think of any more funny stories. Oh, and check our pictures, because in the next day or so I promise I'll put up a picture of the mousetrap we bought. I think it was left over from the Cold War.
Friday, April 18, 2008
All Quiet on the Eastern Front
China is killing me. Well, not literally, unless I got the Hantavirus from the mouse living in my apartment, but it is certainly killing me mentally. I saw that I hadn't posted on this blog for three weeks, and there are plenty of reasons why.
After my last post, we had a national holiday. Qingming is sort of like Memorial Day; it's a chance to go home, pay respects to your ancestors, and have a big dinner with your family. It was also our chance to have a five day weekend and take a trip to Guilin.
The trip was really nice, and sort of an adventure in itself. We left at 6:00 AM on Friday the 4th (I think) and spent about 4 and a half hours traveling by bus. The bus conductors were really helpful, actually, and we made it to Yangshuo without any problems, although we did get nervous a few times about having missed a stop or something. It was nice to be back in Yangshuo. We stayed in a hotel with running hot water, something I've missed, and it even had a bathtub (which is pretty much unheard of for China.) We went out to a Western-style restaurant (I had a hamburger and Josh had the BLT) and we borrowed some books from Betts, and we looked at a used bookstore. It was a nice night.
Saturday we went to Guilin, and we handled the buses pretty well. We grabbed a taxi once we got there and went to the Prince's City, which is sort of like a city-within-a-city. It was amazing. We've put the pictures up on Picasa so that you can see, but I'll do a quick description. It's the ancient government center for the Guilin area, and it's built around a karst mountain in the middle of downtown Guilin. We looked around at all the old stuff, and then we climbed the karst and got to look out over all of Guilin (although we couldn't see far because of the pollution.) After our tour we tried to walk back to the bus station, got lost, and had to take a taxi back. We made it back to Yangshuo, had a good dinner, I bought a book, and then we went to bed. The next day, we came back to DaoXian (which required calling David on our cell phones to have him talk to the bus conductor to make sure we were on the right bus.) We made it back by about one in the afternoon.
I had gotten sick on our trip, so I crashed for the rest of Sunday. I was so glad that we had Monday and Tuesday off so that I had a chance to get back on my feet. We spent those two days just relaxing around the house. It got really hot, and we had all sorts of problems with our computer, but we managed to figure everything out. Classes went well last week, and then on Friday our Internet stopped working.
Now, our Internet usually goes out at least once a day, so at first we weren't worried. By Sunday, however, I was getting irritated. We talked to David about getting it fixed, but he kept telling us that he couldn't do anything about it, so we kept hoping the school would get around to it. Today I decided I didn't want to wait anymore, so I called Buckland, and within an hour our Internet was working again. Granted, it only works on Josh's computer, but at least we can use it.
So China is killing me because I get so tired of running into these dead-end arguments with people, when the real problem is that I'm not going through the right channels, or I don't know the right strings to pull. Otherwise, things are fine. We are getting a little sick of the seven or eight recipes that I've managed to cobble together, so if you all have any recipes to send me, I would greatly appreciate them. Keep in mind, however, that we don't have access to a lot of ingredients.
Ok, time for some funny stories. This week I taught about international travel, and so part of the assignment was to brainstorm things that you would like to take with you. Most of the students came up with what you would expect, but one student came up with my favorite thing: a poster of Chairman Mao. I guess that might come in handy somewhere...
Also, apparently people earn commission in the soap and toilet paper departments of the grocery store, because every time Josh and I walk down those aisles, at least four women come up to us trying to sell us different soaps / toilet papers. We had two hilarious experiences. In the soap aisle one lady came up to us and (even though I was buying a bar of bath soap) shoved a bottle of liquid hand soap in my face. When I told her, "No, thank you," she rubbed one of her hands and said, "Hello" [pause] "beautiful." I'm not sure if I was beautiful, or if the soap would make my hands beautiful, or what exactly she was trying to convey.
Then, in the toilet paper aisle, we grabbed a 4-pack and we were trying to beat it out of there, but one lady stopped us, pointed to a massive pack of the cheapest stuff, and gave us a huge smile and thumbs-up. I have to give her credit-she was doing her best to sell that stuff to people that didn't speak her language, and she almost convinced me. The fact that it looked a little bit like sandpaper did deter me, however.
Oh, another funny thing. I think I've mentioned before that no one here has arm-hair, so people make a big deal about the fact that I do. Well, in class last week I was bending over a student's desk helping him with something, and while I was talking he just reached up and started stroking the hair on my arm. It was pretty disconcerting, but I took it in stride and just sort of finished what I was saying and beat it out of there.
Ok, last thing. The school recently purchased a new loudspeaker. How do I know? They use it all the time. They play it so loudly, in fact, that it is louder than our TV inside my apartment. When do they play it, you might ask? Oh, 6:30 AM. Every day. My sleep has been so screwed up.
Fortunately, the new loudspeaker has revolutionized the mandatory student exercise time. Usually the students would just line up in the courtyard and shuffle around. Thanks to this new loudspeaker, though, they have a brilliant exercise routine. I videotaped it so that everyone could enjoy it as much as I do. My favorite part is the punching.
(Yes, there is something creepy about a single man videotaping a bunch of high-school students from his window, trying not to be seen by anyone else. I'm fully aware of that.)
After my last post, we had a national holiday. Qingming is sort of like Memorial Day; it's a chance to go home, pay respects to your ancestors, and have a big dinner with your family. It was also our chance to have a five day weekend and take a trip to Guilin.
The trip was really nice, and sort of an adventure in itself. We left at 6:00 AM on Friday the 4th (I think) and spent about 4 and a half hours traveling by bus. The bus conductors were really helpful, actually, and we made it to Yangshuo without any problems, although we did get nervous a few times about having missed a stop or something. It was nice to be back in Yangshuo. We stayed in a hotel with running hot water, something I've missed, and it even had a bathtub (which is pretty much unheard of for China.) We went out to a Western-style restaurant (I had a hamburger and Josh had the BLT) and we borrowed some books from Betts, and we looked at a used bookstore. It was a nice night.
Saturday we went to Guilin, and we handled the buses pretty well. We grabbed a taxi once we got there and went to the Prince's City, which is sort of like a city-within-a-city. It was amazing. We've put the pictures up on Picasa so that you can see, but I'll do a quick description. It's the ancient government center for the Guilin area, and it's built around a karst mountain in the middle of downtown Guilin. We looked around at all the old stuff, and then we climbed the karst and got to look out over all of Guilin (although we couldn't see far because of the pollution.) After our tour we tried to walk back to the bus station, got lost, and had to take a taxi back. We made it back to Yangshuo, had a good dinner, I bought a book, and then we went to bed. The next day, we came back to DaoXian (which required calling David on our cell phones to have him talk to the bus conductor to make sure we were on the right bus.) We made it back by about one in the afternoon.
I had gotten sick on our trip, so I crashed for the rest of Sunday. I was so glad that we had Monday and Tuesday off so that I had a chance to get back on my feet. We spent those two days just relaxing around the house. It got really hot, and we had all sorts of problems with our computer, but we managed to figure everything out. Classes went well last week, and then on Friday our Internet stopped working.
Now, our Internet usually goes out at least once a day, so at first we weren't worried. By Sunday, however, I was getting irritated. We talked to David about getting it fixed, but he kept telling us that he couldn't do anything about it, so we kept hoping the school would get around to it. Today I decided I didn't want to wait anymore, so I called Buckland, and within an hour our Internet was working again. Granted, it only works on Josh's computer, but at least we can use it.
So China is killing me because I get so tired of running into these dead-end arguments with people, when the real problem is that I'm not going through the right channels, or I don't know the right strings to pull. Otherwise, things are fine. We are getting a little sick of the seven or eight recipes that I've managed to cobble together, so if you all have any recipes to send me, I would greatly appreciate them. Keep in mind, however, that we don't have access to a lot of ingredients.
Ok, time for some funny stories. This week I taught about international travel, and so part of the assignment was to brainstorm things that you would like to take with you. Most of the students came up with what you would expect, but one student came up with my favorite thing: a poster of Chairman Mao. I guess that might come in handy somewhere...
Also, apparently people earn commission in the soap and toilet paper departments of the grocery store, because every time Josh and I walk down those aisles, at least four women come up to us trying to sell us different soaps / toilet papers. We had two hilarious experiences. In the soap aisle one lady came up to us and (even though I was buying a bar of bath soap) shoved a bottle of liquid hand soap in my face. When I told her, "No, thank you," she rubbed one of her hands and said, "Hello" [pause] "beautiful." I'm not sure if I was beautiful, or if the soap would make my hands beautiful, or what exactly she was trying to convey.
Then, in the toilet paper aisle, we grabbed a 4-pack and we were trying to beat it out of there, but one lady stopped us, pointed to a massive pack of the cheapest stuff, and gave us a huge smile and thumbs-up. I have to give her credit-she was doing her best to sell that stuff to people that didn't speak her language, and she almost convinced me. The fact that it looked a little bit like sandpaper did deter me, however.
Oh, another funny thing. I think I've mentioned before that no one here has arm-hair, so people make a big deal about the fact that I do. Well, in class last week I was bending over a student's desk helping him with something, and while I was talking he just reached up and started stroking the hair on my arm. It was pretty disconcerting, but I took it in stride and just sort of finished what I was saying and beat it out of there.
Ok, last thing. The school recently purchased a new loudspeaker. How do I know? They use it all the time. They play it so loudly, in fact, that it is louder than our TV inside my apartment. When do they play it, you might ask? Oh, 6:30 AM. Every day. My sleep has been so screwed up.
Fortunately, the new loudspeaker has revolutionized the mandatory student exercise time. Usually the students would just line up in the courtyard and shuffle around. Thanks to this new loudspeaker, though, they have a brilliant exercise routine. I videotaped it so that everyone could enjoy it as much as I do. My favorite part is the punching.
(Yes, there is something creepy about a single man videotaping a bunch of high-school students from his window, trying not to be seen by anyone else. I'm fully aware of that.)
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