At 7:30 this morning I woke up to the sounds of someone screaming "Hey, can I come in?!" I went back to sleep. This little anecdote brings up an interesting point. The Chinese have no concept of "Sleeping-in"; they don't do it. I think they wake up at 6:30 in the morning, every morning. Even on Saturdays and Sundays. I think the same person came around at 10:00. Same results.
I'm going to grow a beard. For two reasons: one because I can't wait to have another physical feature that further sets me apart from the crowd and makes me stand out from everyone else on the street; two because shaving every day is killing my face.
I also am gaining weight. Today for breakfast I had four mooncakes and an oatmeal cream pie. Yesterday I ate a whole loaf of chocolate bread, on top of three square meals and half a liter of orange juice. I'm eating like it's nobody's business. At this rate I'll look like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof when I get back. Tradition! Yada, yada, yada.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
Friday, September 28, 2007
The greatest vacation that never was
So I have the next week off from class (it's weird, in China Thanksgiving break is in the first week of October, except it's not Thanksgiving break, it's national Holiday. I'm not sure just what that is). Haley and I were planning to go to Xi'an for a couple of days and see four friends that leave in Yichang. Xi'an is one of four hundred ancient capitols of China, but I'm pretty sure it is one of the oldest. It takes about 24 hours on a bus to get to Xi'an, and it's also the home of the terracotta soldiers, but that's not really important now, because plans for Xi'an have fallen through.
Our waiban casually reminded us that we agreed to go to a "meeting of the foreigners" thrown by the city government on Sunday night, making a trip to Xi'an a lot less realistic. Now this "foreigner meeting" is enticing to me for a couple of reasons. I am 99% sure I know of every foreigner in this city. There are eight of us: five Americans, one Japanese, one Australian and his Brazilian wife. And we all teach at our respective universities. Now I wanted to go to this meeting on the off chance that there is some Canadian hiding in a sewer on the other side of town. Discovering another foreigner would make my month, especially if they were close to my age, but that's probably not going to happen. I can imagine the meeting being Haley and I and a couple of Chinese officials. Our American friends didn't agree to go and have already left town. The Australian and his wife have probably done the same. Kazusan might be there, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll keep you up to date on how it goes.
It looks like I'll be spending a lot longer in Enshi for this next week than I had hoped. Which means guarenteed daily blog posts! The inspection has ended, and I avoided the wrath of any state inspectors. Now, I get to relax for a week. Even if it is in my apartment. I'm sad. Wasn't expecting that. I was starting to look forward to travelling. What is happening to me?
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens"
(actually it's the afternoon in America, I hope everyone is having a good lunch)
Our waiban casually reminded us that we agreed to go to a "meeting of the foreigners" thrown by the city government on Sunday night, making a trip to Xi'an a lot less realistic. Now this "foreigner meeting" is enticing to me for a couple of reasons. I am 99% sure I know of every foreigner in this city. There are eight of us: five Americans, one Japanese, one Australian and his Brazilian wife. And we all teach at our respective universities. Now I wanted to go to this meeting on the off chance that there is some Canadian hiding in a sewer on the other side of town. Discovering another foreigner would make my month, especially if they were close to my age, but that's probably not going to happen. I can imagine the meeting being Haley and I and a couple of Chinese officials. Our American friends didn't agree to go and have already left town. The Australian and his wife have probably done the same. Kazusan might be there, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll keep you up to date on how it goes.
It looks like I'll be spending a lot longer in Enshi for this next week than I had hoped. Which means guarenteed daily blog posts! The inspection has ended, and I avoided the wrath of any state inspectors. Now, I get to relax for a week. Even if it is in my apartment. I'm sad. Wasn't expecting that. I was starting to look forward to travelling. What is happening to me?
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens"
(actually it's the afternoon in America, I hope everyone is having a good lunch)
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
One month?
I don't know if you heard, but China and I celebrated our one month aniversary yesterday. I wouldn't say we are in love. Not yet, but I'm enjoying this relationship a lot more now than I was at two weeks when we almost broke up. It's easier to say "Wow, China and I only have nine months left together." Not to mention that next week I begin almost a week and half of vacation. It will be eight months before I realize it. This time is really flying by fast. Now that I have settled down, I can start to do some good work. Some random observances on why life here is so much more easier than life in the states:
1. There are little responsibilities. I don't have to worry about a car, I only work about five hours a day, and I live by myself with all the luxuries anyone could ask for (ok so the roaches get annoying, but I've also found that with no carpet and a broom, roaches slide across the floor like a hockey puck. Banishing them from my apartment has become fun).
2. Money is not a problem. Not at all, you can feed a family of four over here for a couple of American dollars a day. And I get subsidized well for doing absolutley nothing. Almost everything is dirt cheap. In fact, I can't believe I ever tore apart my car to find a four quarters so I could go to Wendy's and get a hamburger. There is no telling how much money those fatcats are making off the dollar menu. You should see the good food you can get over here for $.40.
I don't know how I'm going to adjust when I get back. It's nice not having to micromanage your bank account everytime you go the grocery store. It's so different from college, all the free time in the world, not a worry on your mind and no drama. But it's not home, and I won't forget that.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
1. There are little responsibilities. I don't have to worry about a car, I only work about five hours a day, and I live by myself with all the luxuries anyone could ask for (ok so the roaches get annoying, but I've also found that with no carpet and a broom, roaches slide across the floor like a hockey puck. Banishing them from my apartment has become fun).
2. Money is not a problem. Not at all, you can feed a family of four over here for a couple of American dollars a day. And I get subsidized well for doing absolutley nothing. Almost everything is dirt cheap. In fact, I can't believe I ever tore apart my car to find a four quarters so I could go to Wendy's and get a hamburger. There is no telling how much money those fatcats are making off the dollar menu. You should see the good food you can get over here for $.40.
I don't know how I'm going to adjust when I get back. It's nice not having to micromanage your bank account everytime you go the grocery store. It's so different from college, all the free time in the world, not a worry on your mind and no drama. But it's not home, and I won't forget that.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Cheating, Parties and Mid-Autumn Day
So this is going to be a massive blog post. For starters, today is mid-autumn day in China. It's a minor holiday, kind of like our Halloween. What do people do on mid-autumn day? Eat a big dinner with the family, eat mooncakes,--they're like pastries with fruit filling, not anything special but still pretty good--look at the moon and remember the story about the moon (so this pretty girl eats some medicine, becomes really lite, and flies to the moon with a white rabbit. That's pretty much the story. I'm not sure what the punch line is). It's a time to have fun. Which made today's classes really easy; yesterday, is another story.
So I have been telling yesterday's class for a week that there will be a Idiom, Proverb and Vocabulary quiz this week. At the start of class everyday, we have been covering one idiom and one proverb for that day. I explain each for five minutes and move on with the rest of the assignments. I told them last week that I would give a quiz today I also said before I started the quiz "No cheating, this means yada yada yada" I wish I had a youtube video of what happened after I started passing out the quizzes.
The class, after I had passed out THREE QUIZZES, started passing around dictionaries like it was a scrabble tournament. They didn't even look at the test before they began cheating. So many people were cheating, I couldn't even tell who wasn't cheating. I wrote down about twenty names of people I was going to fail , before I stopped the quiz and said that I wasn't going to grade it (that or fail the whole class), and it took ten minutes, after the class monitor explained it in CHINESE, for everyone to catch that I wasn't going to grade the quiz and they were wasting their time by finishing it. And even THEN the students got about %50 of the answers right (I feel like that teacher that gives an open book test and then one student fails it, except I gave an open book quiz yesterday and everyone failed, I think I maybe doing something wrong here). So that's my experience with giving a quiz on paper. Probably will never repeat that. Still have no idea what I am doing for a final.
But tonight I got to hang with one of my other classes when they had their mid-autumn day party. Here is a picture:
This is my smallest class. Pretty sweet. I hate to play favorites, but they are so much easier to teach because there are so few of them. Plus they are really cool. Some other happenings:
I think I saw an albino Chinese person today. They were chinese, but they had naturally light brown hair. Plus they were really pale. I thought it was another american, but they were Chinese. One of the strangest things I've seen in a while. I'm ashamed to admit, I stared. Something else, Haley and I were walking to the our apartments when this little boy points us and yells at the top of his lungs "WAIGOREN!" (foreigner) His grandmother smacked him in the mouth. You talk about funny. Adults know that we know what Waigoren means, but little kids don't. So the only people that call us that are little kids. Anyway, another day, another night.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
p.s. My class has yet to be visited by any State experts, I hope that maybe I'll dodge that bullet, but we'll see.
So I have been telling yesterday's class for a week that there will be a Idiom, Proverb and Vocabulary quiz this week. At the start of class everyday, we have been covering one idiom and one proverb for that day. I explain each for five minutes and move on with the rest of the assignments. I told them last week that I would give a quiz today I also said before I started the quiz "No cheating, this means yada yada yada" I wish I had a youtube video of what happened after I started passing out the quizzes.
The class, after I had passed out THREE QUIZZES, started passing around dictionaries like it was a scrabble tournament. They didn't even look at the test before they began cheating. So many people were cheating, I couldn't even tell who wasn't cheating. I wrote down about twenty names of people I was going to fail , before I stopped the quiz and said that I wasn't going to grade it (that or fail the whole class), and it took ten minutes, after the class monitor explained it in CHINESE, for everyone to catch that I wasn't going to grade the quiz and they were wasting their time by finishing it. And even THEN the students got about %50 of the answers right (I feel like that teacher that gives an open book test and then one student fails it, except I gave an open book quiz yesterday and everyone failed, I think I maybe doing something wrong here). So that's my experience with giving a quiz on paper. Probably will never repeat that. Still have no idea what I am doing for a final.
But tonight I got to hang with one of my other classes when they had their mid-autumn day party. Here is a picture:
This is my smallest class. Pretty sweet. I hate to play favorites, but they are so much easier to teach because there are so few of them. Plus they are really cool. Some other happenings:
I think I saw an albino Chinese person today. They were chinese, but they had naturally light brown hair. Plus they were really pale. I thought it was another american, but they were Chinese. One of the strangest things I've seen in a while. I'm ashamed to admit, I stared. Something else, Haley and I were walking to the our apartments when this little boy points us and yells at the top of his lungs "WAIGOREN!" (foreigner) His grandmother smacked him in the mouth. You talk about funny. Adults know that we know what Waigoren means, but little kids don't. So the only people that call us that are little kids. Anyway, another day, another night.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
p.s. My class has yet to be visited by any State experts, I hope that maybe I'll dodge that bullet, but we'll see.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Inspectors
They have arrived.
They have arrived in their black audis with their blue briefcases. State inspectors. This week Enshi Vocational and Technical college is being inspected by the government to approve a massive amount of funding and increase the status of the school one level. The adminstration has been preparing for this for two years. Everyone is on edge, and in a few short hours a state inspector will be sitting in on my class room evaluating my performance.
When Haley and I were walking to class this morning, we ran into our translator who said "The experts have begun entering the classrooms." Sounds ominous doesn't it?
We have been told (of course) to not worry about it. And I seriously doubt that the performance of one twenty-two year old American is going to derail two years worth of work. The administration knows what they are supposed to do, and I don't. So I am going to teach, with enthusiasm. And hope that the inspector doesn't speak English. And what's the worst that can happen, they fire me and send me home? I'm blacklisted from Enshi for the rest of my life? ("Why yes, well you see, there is small town in China that I can never vist again. Those were hard times. I'd rather not talk about it.") I'll keep you updated. Edge-of-your-seat excitment I know.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens"
They have arrived in their black audis with their blue briefcases. State inspectors. This week Enshi Vocational and Technical college is being inspected by the government to approve a massive amount of funding and increase the status of the school one level. The adminstration has been preparing for this for two years. Everyone is on edge, and in a few short hours a state inspector will be sitting in on my class room evaluating my performance.
When Haley and I were walking to class this morning, we ran into our translator who said "The experts have begun entering the classrooms." Sounds ominous doesn't it?
We have been told (of course) to not worry about it. And I seriously doubt that the performance of one twenty-two year old American is going to derail two years worth of work. The administration knows what they are supposed to do, and I don't. So I am going to teach, with enthusiasm. And hope that the inspector doesn't speak English. And what's the worst that can happen, they fire me and send me home? I'm blacklisted from Enshi for the rest of my life? ("Why yes, well you see, there is small town in China that I can never vist again. Those were hard times. I'd rather not talk about it.") I'll keep you updated. Edge-of-your-seat excitment I know.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens"
Saturday, September 22, 2007
A funny little anecdote
In on my classes a few days ago we played a game. I call it the lying game, and I'm sure that you have played it before. It goes a little something like this: everyone rights three facts about themselves but one is a lie. The person comes to the front of the class and tries to fool the class into thinking that the lie is the truth. If he or she does, they get a point. Pretty simple, eh? (you would think, but it takes about fourteen minutes of explaining and three examples before everyone gets it, I feel inept cuz I just can't explain this thing clear enough).
Any way, everything was going peachy until one girl writes these three things on the board:
1. I have two older sisters
2. I have never been to Wuhan
3. I have been sucked at the breast until age six.
And the class didn't laugh. Well they did but only a few snickers and not the riot I was expecting. And most of the snickers were from my reaction after reading the board. These definitely are not American schools. Maybe they talk about breastfeeding everyday? Maybe it's as popular as basketball. Who knows?
(It was #2 in case you were wondering)
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
Any way, everything was going peachy until one girl writes these three things on the board:
1. I have two older sisters
2. I have never been to Wuhan
3. I have been sucked at the breast until age six.
And the class didn't laugh. Well they did but only a few snickers and not the riot I was expecting. And most of the snickers were from my reaction after reading the board. These definitely are not American schools. Maybe they talk about breastfeeding everyday? Maybe it's as popular as basketball. Who knows?
(It was #2 in case you were wondering)
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
Friday, September 21, 2007
Sports
I feel that I'm pretty much settled; because for the first time that I have been in China, I'm struggling to find something to write about. I went to a Chinese pool hall today. That pretty much describes that adventure. Chinese pool is the same as American pool, except the poolballs are smaller and the table is a lot faster (is that pool term? I don't know. But you don't have to hit the cue ball that hard for it to go shooting across the table). I, of course, prefer American pool, but Chinese pool is a nice alternative.
Basketball. Let me just say a word about basketball. The Chinese love basketball more than Americans. Well, they love to play it more than Americans. Everyone is always playing some basketball. The girls, the guys; short, tall; fat, skinny. Everyone plays basketball. I'm guessing Yao Ming is the perpetrator of this phenomena; because they love the NBA and they have never heard of the NCAA. And everyone plays like they've been watching the NBA too: no passing, no shooting; only dribble penetration and layups. It's rather funny that a foreign country would love something more than the people that created it.
I'm going to post a picture of my neighbors parrot:
Sorry about the bad quality, but I had to lean out of a windowsill to get this photo. Don't ask me why I took it; I guess I was bored. These blog posts will get more interesting. I promise.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
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