peacecorpsjournals.com??

For some reason I've been getting a lot of hits from a site peacecorpsjournals.com. I'm not sure who runs the site or how this blog got listed there, but I'm up on the top of the list for the moment under China PC blogs. Not sure what people visiting this blog expect to find, but if anyone has any questions you're welcome to e-mail me at parnheim-at-gmail.com...

welcome to the working week

Week one down, 16 more to go. They say the second year of PC service goes faster than the first, and going in with a burst of confidence has seemed to make all the difference in my classes. This semester I'm teaching seven sections of oral English and two sections of American culture. Luckily for me I've moved away from the juniors and now exclusively teach the sophomores. There's a new PC volunteer coming soon and I'll be starting up xihuaonline.com again in a couple weeks.

The freshmen students arrived yesterday to campus. They'll be spending the next three weeks doing army training before they start class officially after "Golden Week" (National Day - October 1st). It's easy to spot a freshman. Aside from the fact that they look generally younger than the other students at the school, they have that apprehensiveness and caution that you'd only expect someone leaving home for the first time to have. They tend to congregate around the middle gate standing awkwardly talking and noting as discreetly as possible that there's a foreigner standing nearby. Ah freshman year.. They'll be practicing marching, various drills, exercises, and how to fire a rifle. It culminates with a big ceremony on the track field where the students march around shouting various Chinese salutes and military leaders walk around looking impressed.

I read recently in the Peace Corps newsletter that a volunteer recently had a surge of patriotism after having served. What is there to be patriotic of today? What could I possibly be proud about in terms of the state of affairs of contemporary America? I spread an image of the US that is never represented in foreign policy nor by any of the leaders of the country. I don't hesitate to tell people what America is "really" like (interestingly enough an image of China that is rarely reciprocated). In the grand scheme of things though it's quite meaningless. Most Chinese don't walk around thinking about geopolitical theory so snap judgments about the US are all that really matter; in which case answering questions about how pretty our women are and how much money we make in a month is as patriotic as it usually gets.

back to school

Tomorrow's the first day of the new semester. I finally got my schedule today, less than 24 hours before I have to teach my first class.