bumper cars with infants

stories

2008-10-21T03:53:00.002+08:00

Stories I need to remember before they're forgotten:
-the extortion dudes
-ljl at tian shang
-first night at the host fam
-meeting panda
-subsequent meetings with panda
-9/11 potion guy
-yolanda
-meeting ljl
-ting ting, her parents, brother

club china

2008-09-25T02:54:00.003+08:00

From being back to the US for a solid three weeks. Anyone who's been to China will know that you can't really understand what it's like until you've been. And even if you have been, there's a good chance that if you stayed in Beijing or Shanghai you'd probably not really get it.

final act

2008-07-14T01:01:00.002+08:00

Last Friday was perhaps my final school-related activity, I was asked by the waiban to take part in a series of interviews of students affected by the May 12th WenChuan earthquake. The interviews were part of a program run by SUNY in which 150 full scholarships would be given to college students who had family members in or around the Sichuan quake area. The scholarships would be given to the students with the best English level and most genuine interest in spending a year in the United States.

There were a total of 47 interviews, of which only seven were English majors. During the interviews, a panel of 14 teachers including myself, quizzed the student on why he or she wanted to study in America, his or her goals, and what the student intended to do if chosen to go. Each interview lasted 5-10 minutes depending on how proficient the student was in English. If the student had exceptional English, the interview would last a bit longer. In the longer interviews, the panel further assessed the student's ability to explain what he or she knows about American culture or what the student planned to study with respect to his or her major. Of the 47 potential students, only ten were chosen based on a combined average score given by the panel.

A number of the interviews ended abruptly when it was determined that the student had either no real desire to go to the US to study or didn't have the confidence or language ability to sit through a university level class in English. One student came in and had absolutely no idea why she was there. She awkwardly came into the conference room, sat down in the chair facing the panel, and introduced herself. When one of the teachers asked why she wanted to go to America to study, she replied, "I didn't know this was to go to America". The teacher then answered, "OK, you're dismissed". Actually a lot of the interviews ended that way. "You're dismissed". It was very Apprentice board room style. Only the students who had no real shot and needed to be booted out were given the "You're dismissed" comment.

In all it took four hours to go through the 47 interviews. By the end, my brain was numb from listening and interpreting, then having to ask a fresh insightful question to the interviewee. It was fun though as I was given complete discretion over what questions I wanted to ask. Additionally I was more or less consulted when the other members of the panel thought it was necessary to end the interview. As I was sitted on the side of the conference table, the rest of the panel turned to me and I either nodded in agreement which perhaps prompted the "You're dismissed" or I asked a follow-up question and continued the dialogue.

I ended up asking a lot of interpretive questions about differences between China and the US. The questions could have been understood in a number of different contexts, perhaps even negatively, but I think the fact I was only asking the question and not suggesting or pointing to a response made it relatively harmless. A few students said they were interested in journalism to whom I asked what the differences between Western, specifically American media and Chinese media. Towards the end of the interviews I started to get weary, and began asking sharper questions. There was one geography major who I believe failed the interview because I asked her which continent America was on. When she didn't know the word "continent" the panel laughed and after one more question she was given a "You're dismissed".

After finishing the last interview, the teachers went into a separate conference room where we all ate lunch. Perhaps it was the heat or the exhaustion after interviewing students for four consecutive hours, but I don't think there was a single word uttered during the meal. After lunch we went back into the conference room with the 15 finalists from the original 47. The 15 finalists were then asked to give a short impromptu speech about why his or her experiences during the earthquake and what he or she could learn from traveling to the US to study. Again the panel gave a score and after another hour the field was finally narrowed down to ten.

As I left the conference room after everything was over, I stopped by the room where the remaining students were filling out forms that would allow them to enter the next round of interviews in Chengdu. I told them they should be proud of how professional they were and gave them tips about how to appeal to a group of people choosing a potential overseas student. I said the first and foremost thing to remember was confidence. I'm not sure whether this was the best advice I could have given them, but I felt that any panel review would rather choose a Chinese student who had the confidence to speak up in class, ask questions, and find a circle of friends as opposed to a student who lacked that confidence. Especially when the interviews are only 5-10 minutes, impressions are everything, and confidence can go a long way...

out...

little raisin

2008-06-29T03:37:00.004+08:00

Our last party of the year finished an hour ago. The occasion was for Sarah's birthday, but it ended up being a zombie theme party, largely in part due to lots of recent talk about zombies and the undead - I've been reading a lot of the Zombie Survival Guide for one reason or the other. It's also been interesting comparing the differences between Chinese zombies and Western zombies. As if there weren't many cultural differences already present, our conceptions of zombies are also quite dissimilar. The Chinese zombie (jiang shi) has red eyes and doesn't walk but jumps upwards of five meters in order to travel, and holds its arms straight out perpindicular to the body. The word "zombie" doesn't translate that well either, as in most dictionaries its listed as "ma mu bu ren de ren" which means someone who is apathetic and uncaring, but has nothing to do with being risen from the dead. And by the way.... -> No, not all we do is party in Nanchong. And when we do party, it's a cultural exchange; the goal is not to get inebriated. We invite all the Chinese people we can. People who can't speak English are encouraged to come. No one is ever denied admission, even if they don't have a costume. At our last party we raised 400 yuan for the earthquake disaster relief. <-

Anyway, I dressed up in my old security guard outfit that I don't think I've worn since '06. Coincidentally, the first Peace Corps party thrown in Nanchong was a Halloween party that Sarah and I organized. I wore the guard outfit then as well. It's strange how it all comes full circle. Not many people came to the party unfortunately. It was organized more or less last minute, and all of my students were either busy studying for exams or had already left. Li Jia Li also had to study, but stopped by for ten minutes or so to say hello.

The previous week, I visited Xi Chong with Sarah at the request of a student of mine, Mariska. Mariska called me and asked me to find a foreigner who could teach an oral English class at her parent's summer school for one week. I told her I would try, and when I wasn't able to find one, I said I would do it, and being the super Peace Corps volunteer team we are, I invited Sarah to come along. The road leading to Xi Chong is largely unpaved and large sections of the road are under heavy construction. Traveling in Mariska's father's rickety van took more time than it should have, because going fast just meant hitting the pot holes and loose rocks with more speed. Finally Sarah and I got there after around an hour and a half of bumping up and down and were immediately escorted in through the front door of the classroom to an uproarious applause from 25 middle school students.

We hadn't really prepared much in terms of teaching content, but then again, it's much easier to teach kids than it is to teach college students. The level of English proficiency is higher at a university as opposed to a primary school. Naturally its rewarding when a teacher can have a dialogue with a student about something a tad bit more relevant than numbers or greetings. In return, however, it takes more time to create ideas for such classes, especially when the number of students exceeds 40. For me it was actually a relief as a change of pace to be able to go to a new classroom with new students and be able to use material that would not necessarily be intellectually challenging but stimulating simply because it was fun.

It was difficult getting into teaching mode after getting out of the car. I had initially expected a short walk to the school and then a brief chat with another teacher perhaps followed by lunch and then our class time. What happened was the van door was opened, Sarah and I were herded out and paraded into the classroom where the students were already waiting for us. As the classroom was one room and open to the outside street, we had barely a few seconds to murmur our plans as we stood in the front of the class. We went with "Simon Says" for our first activity, then taught and sang "If you're happy and you know it".

Mariska had said that the English level of the students was quite low, some not even knowing the ABCs, but in fact most already knew the body parts we were teaching them for Simon Says. The more difficult vocabulary we taught them were "feet" (as opposed to foot which they knew) and "eyebrow". It was a good thing Mariska was there with us because as good as Sarah and my Chinese is, it would take a long time to explain how to play Simon Says in Chinese. Mariska more or less acted as our teaching assistant/translator as Sarah and I explained directions in English and had her say them to the students.

After class was over, Sarah and I went with Mariska, her parents, and another owner of the summer school to eat lunch at an upscale restaurant nearby where we had just taught. We were offered remuneration for coming out to Xi Chong and having the class, but being Peace Corps volunteers we politely declined and explained that as volunteers we can't accept money for something like this. I suggested giving the money intended for us instead to the earthquake relief, and I can only hope that it will be used as such, but in all likelihood it probably will just be pocketed.

Mariska wanted to take us around Xi Chong city, with a population of ~600,000, and show us some "beautiful sites". Sarah and I both agreed and we walked around the enormous square, saw a local high school, and then walked to Mariska's home. It was a nice house within a primary school campus. It was actually one of the most comfortable Chinese homes I had ever been inside. Almost everything was made from wood, including the walls and cabinets. The sofas were soft and plush, and after having ganbei'd several times at lunch, it wasn't difficult at all to fall asleep and take a nap. We ended up playing many games of Dou Di Zhu before deciding to head back to Nanchong. Mariska's mother had offered us a place to stay for the night and suggested we go back to Nanchong the following morning, but we had to return (for something very important) that evening.

On the way to the bus station in Xi Chong, I managed to again leave my phone in a taxi. I now lay to rest the fourth phone I have purchased over the past two years here in China. The taxi we were all in was such shit too, the door wouldn't close, it had no rear view mirrors, and the springs were popping out of the backseat cushions. The driver was a real asshole, too, and asked Sarah and me for money, even though Mariska was paying, when he refused to give us change for a 50 kuai bill. No wonder when I left the cab and got on the bus and realized my phone was gone, it had already been turned off (presumedly by the cab driver) in order to prevent myself or a friend from calling it. Asshole... It's not even the phone that matters, it was really the phone numbers that the phone had inside. I lost a few contacts that I'll have to wait for them to get in touch with me before I can call them back.

The real problem was getting a new cell card with my old phone number. Thankfully when you lose a cell phone the thief will just sell the phone and trash the cell card. In Chile when I lost my phone and got my old number back, people continually called me thinking they were going to get in touch with whomever had stolen my phone. Because my phone card was opened by a student of mine from two years ago, I had to get in touch with her and prove that I was indeed the owner of my phone card and not a crazy foreigner who likes to steal girls' phone numbers. Forget the fact that I was able to supply the last numbers dialed from the phone and times, China Mobile required me to get the ID number of the student who opened the account for me. Also forget the fact that for some reason when I lost my phone the previous three times I never had to get in touch with the student. In the end I tracked her down and got my phone number back. All is well.

The Google

2008-06-12T04:24:00.002+08:00

Talking to some students about Bush the other day. Someone had a joke book with some good Bush jokes in it.

Wasting time on YouTube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABli2MT3-r8&feature=related
I think is my favorite.

formal party

2008-06-05T12:34:00.005+08:00

The formal party was a huge success. In all we raised nearly 400 kuai for the earthquake relief efforts. I was initially worried that the party would be misinterpreted by colleagues or other Chinese people living in my building given that the previous week extracurricular activities were canceled schoolwide and three days of national mourning were in effect. We Nanchongren organized a schedule of activities for the party in which we'd be raising money and entertaining at the same time.

Here's how it went down:
7:45 - Moment of silence followed by candle lighting
8:00 - Start of sale of tickets for raffle and candy giveaway. Raffle for two CDs. Candy giveaway entailed people guessing how many candies were in a plastic bear jar. Closest person won. Raffle and candy giveaway tickets were each one yuan.
8:30 - Raffle giveaway. Loopy and Jason each won
9:00 - Candy giveaway announcement. Total number of candies was 51. The candy was split between two people, one of whom guessed 50 and the other 52. The extra candy was given to the person who guessed the furthest from the actual number, one of my students, Peggy; a guess of 140.
9:30 - Magic trick. I rocked the floating cigarette. If you're curious what the floating cigarette is, check my youtube for a practice show before I did the real thing. It's not an easy trick, and there are still some fine points I'm honing, but I think the overall reception was good. A few of my students asked me why I don't teach them this in class. Some of Durf's students were unimpressed, however.
9:35 - Fashion show. Guys and girls walk down the dance floor to music and strut their best moves. Congrats to Bo Tao and Sarah, winners of the male and female parts respectively.
10:30 - Announcement of the final money count ~ 400 yuan.
10:45 - Departure to roof to light fireworks. The blasts were so loud that car alarms on the ground floor were set off.
11:00 - Departure to Tian Shang for post party.

Great night... Oh, and who made such a cool invitation for the party? I do that for free, too. Anyone need an invitation made?

back to school

2008-05-27T22:24:00.002+08:00

This week was the first teaching week since the earthquake two weeks ago. It was difficult to get started again. I was tired and lethargic through the first class, and I had really no reason to be, either. I hadn't taught for nearly 13 days and for some reason in class I had to summon up my energies and get through it.

McDonald's is back open again. The last time I was downtown (last Saturday) it was at night and the McDonald's, typically open 24/7, was closing down at around 9:00.

There was an aftershock this afternoon while I was teaching class. I was staring at the class watching them do group work when all of a sudden the class erupted in a bloodcurdling shriek. Two boys jumped out the window and bolted down the street. I didn't even feel it. I took the class outside for the remainder of the class time which fortunately was only 20 minutes.

I decided to close the blog for a bit out of fear some of the posts on here might be interpreted as too controversial at a time when foreigners and negativity were heavily scrutinized. I suppose in the end I was overestimating the influence of this blog, but I can't help but think that someone within my immediate community checks this ever so often. Saying the wrong thing, or saying something that could be perceived as negative, especially during this recent period, could get me in some trouble.

More stories soon.

serious

2008-05-21T17:50:00.003+08:00

This morning Sarah sent me a message saying there were crowds gathering outside the McDonald's protesting the fact that the company hadn't given enough money for earthquake relief. The people had apparently dispersed by the afternoon, and there were a number of guards present afterwards.

BeiHu park is full of tents and other makeshift camping setups out of the fear of major aftershocks reported by the government media. It's almost ridiculous at this point, you really want to go up to some of the people and ask them what they're doing.

I met up with Julien and the other PC volunteers at night to say farewell to Nanchong's only Frenchman. We decided to go to unimart and purchase some ice cream, and passed by McDonald's on the way there at around 10:00. There was already a large group of people assembled outside the main entrance. Most of the 100 or so people gathered were in their 20s and 30s, and stood around talking and looking inside the restaurant. McDonald's had apparently been closed earlier in the day because of the protesters preventing workers and patrons from entering, and the lights were still off from before.

A McDonald's employee had put up two posters near the front doors illustrating how the company had actually donated quite a bit of money for earthquake relief efforts. At some point in the day someone had broken the main McDonald's neon marquee above the front doors and pulled the promotional posters off the walls. There were guards and cops around the crowd to make sure it didn't happen again.

The protesters (I guess you could call them that) weren't really doing anything. There was a bunch of standing and talking, but very little action. When the four of us arrived, we were immediately surrounded. We asked questions about what was taking place to a Nanchongren who's English was fairly fluent. Eventually someone made a very direct comment that because we were Americans we probably had lots of money; forget the fact that we were Peace Corps volunteers making less than the person who shouted at us.

In any event, we decided to leave after that comment seeing as there were people around who were clearly itching to get things started and being present only made it more likely we'd be put in a precarious position.

warnings

2008-05-20T13:56:00.003+08:00

There was a warning broadcasted on the radio and TV last night that said there was a great chance of a serious aftershock in or around Nanchong. People again streamed out in hordes, occupying open spaces around the basketball blacktops and along the sidewalks near my house and the teaching buildings.

Apparently the Peace Corps had caught word of the warning and informed our school's foreign affairs office, who then forwarded the message to Ashley and me. I was encouraged by friends to spend the night outside, and even scolded by the local shop sellers that I shouldn't go back to my house. Ashley decided to come over to my house because all the other people in her building had vacated it to sleep on the street, and eventually we were able to convince Bo Tao to do the same. Li Jia Li was too afraid to come with us, and decided to stay near her house sleeping next to a guard station at the middle gate.

Needless to say, there was no earthquake, and all the paranoia-like fear that pervaded the campus yesterday has passed. The aftershock warning continues for the remainder of today, and classes have been canceled... again... I haven't taught now in over a week, and I feel as if I'm starting to lose track of where I am in relation to the end of the semester, especially in terms of what I have to do to finish/wrap up my classes.

There were a number of memorial services downtown that I was able to see at night after I finished my office hours. Some were more organized than others, but all were in central places with various candle arrangements spelling out 5/12 or "zhong guo".

repeated movies

2008-05-20T13:51:00.001+08:00

Things some actors are good at:
Ending in a bus -> Dustin Hoffman
Saving a child -> Clive Owen

everything back to normal

2008-05-15T17:44:00.004+08:00

Some of my junior students from last semester with whom I had become close friends stayed at my house the past two days because they had been locked out of their dormitories. A few of the undergraduate dormitories had apparently been damaged slightly and the school, instead of providing alternative housing for the student body, had promptly shut the doors and denied access to anyone attempting to enter. The junior friends of mine had called me and asked if they could stay at my house, a first floor apartment, and of course I agreed. Their options were to either sleep on the street in a makeshift tent with a rice-paper tarp or sleep on the couches in my house.

They were still very concerned about the possibility of a second earthquake, something that I had to dispel numerous times over the past couple days. Many students were afraid to stay in their off campus housing unless they were on the first or second floors because living any higher up would certainly mean their demise in the event of a repeat quake. Li Jia Li perhaps was the most scared of them all; she refused to sleep in her third floor apartment building, purchased sticks of incense to burn at Qing Quan Si (Buddhist temple in Nanchong), spent one night with a blanket in an internet bar chair, and seriously considered flying home to JiangXi province (a four hour trip) to escape the ensuing aftershocks.

An additional wave of panic came when a number of people (who knows who started this?) reported they had seen snakes and rats around Nanchong and predicted that there would be another earthquake soon. The logic, indeed flawless, was that animals have some uncanny sense to perceive impending earthquakes, and that the presence of snakes and rats was somehow a harbinger of an enormous aftershock that would soon take place.

Downtown Nanchong is absolutely normal. You would have never known there was an earthquake at all just from looking around the city. There's no damage to any of the buildings, stores are doing business again, and there are no rescue or assessment crews around. It seems almost as if the craziness of the rumors and borderline paranoia is limited to the student body on campus; understandable, though. Fear spreads pretty quickly when the population has limited access to information and the outside world.

Another big rumor yesterday was the water shortage. I got a call from the waiban explaining that there had been some large chemical factory northwest of Nanchong that was destroyed in the quake. As a result, the water of the Jia Ling river had been contaminated and the water supply in Nanchong was going to be hopelessly limited for an unknown period of time. One hour? One day? Who knew for sure. People started buying bottled water as if the impending blizzard were going to trap as all in our homes for weeks. Crowds thronged around bicycle trucks and pushed and shoved in order to pick up the ever precious case of bottled water; the life source when Y2K hit... I mean the earthquake, oops! (this picture here is from later in the day. earlier there would have been 20 people around these cases of water.)

Needless to say, there was no earthquake, and although I had calmed and comforted the students staying in my house last night not to worry, they still wore their jackets and backpacks to sleep just in case. Class was held as usual this afternoon, except for teachers with classes in the C and D buildings (such as myself) because of minor superficial damage to the roof tiles.

Without downplaying the tragedy of WenChuan and the other parts of China where there had been serious damages and losses of life.. let's get back to reality here.

camping out

2008-05-13T11:45:00.004+08:00

The earthquake started when I was at home at around 2:30. I was sitting in my big chair that faces the window when it began to shake. I initially thought Xiao Qiang was scratching my chair so I hit the padding a few times to scare him away, but when he didn't stop I got up to push him away. It didn't occur to me it was an earthquake until I saw the cat cowering in the corner and the windows in the apartment building across from me waning back and forth.

Last night was the most peculiar thing about the earthquake. Clearly no one in Nanchong had experienced anything like this. Understandably it was quite a shock. When I went to go meet Li Jia Li at the middle gate of the school, students were already leaving their dormitories in hordes and flocking to the playgrounds, stadium, and streets. Most of the people I had talked to explained they were afraid their dormitories would collapse when the next earthquake struck, and had taken to the streets to sleep.

It was actually quite funny, really. It was as if there had been some enormous war and people were forced out onto the streets, forming makeshift refugee camps wherever there was open space. Everyone and their grandmother (literally) was outside last night, rolling out his or her bamboo mat on the ground, a pillow, and a blanket. Out near the dormitories in er qi there was hardly any place to walk around. People stayed up to all hours of the night, some playing dou di zhu, ma jiang, or just talking. Most of the stores never closed (especially those near my house and the middle gate), selling drinks, crackers, and other items that people needed. When I checked the store closest to the middle gate, almost all the drinks and ice cream had been sold and the boss was holding a large plastic bag full of money. Along the street towards the teacher's apartments, people had taken their cars out of the garages, parked them near the stadium, and passed the night sleeping inside. Even I was out there for a bit before I convinced Li Jia Li it was ok to go back inside. Another minor shake that lasted a few seconds took place around 5:00 and we immediately ran outside, but quickly decided to go back indoors when the tiredness hit us again.

This morning people and students were still camped outside, talking and eating food. Classes were canceled for the day, so it'll give me some time to do some work on the site and whatnot. Last night was really something to see though, it was like the great Chinese camp-out.

stupid tv

2008-05-12T15:41:00.002+08:00

to get some more information about what was happening in nanchong after the earthquake, i turned on the tv for the first time in several months. i expected to find some sort of live coverage about what was happening; maybe even some pictures of chengdu or nanchong. there were 37 channels, 6 of them repeated, 10 soap operas, 4 specials on china's history, 2 basketball games, 2 reports on the olympics, 2 news program dialogue shows, and 3 previously taped news shows. chinese media has to be the most broadly responsive and entertaining source of information available in the universe. FIRST PRIZE.

wild

2008-05-12T15:05:00.004+08:00

just sitting around, thought they were doing some blasting nearby the house as they always do. it didn't stop though. definitely the strongest earthquake i've ever experienced, dwarfing the tiny shakes i'd occasionally feel in chile. being on the first floor probably helped, i can't imagine being some of the students stuck on the eighth floor or anything. after it happened everyone ran out of their buildings (aren't you not supposed to do that?) but so did i. i rode my bike around the campus taking some pictures. i heard a building fell near wu xing. sounds unlikely, but i'll be going downtown to see what happened there in a bit...

----> all the students came out of the dorms

-----> everyone trying to use their cell phones.
impossible to make a phone call.

2 guys 1 girl

2008-05-06T23:28:00.003+08:00

Weird that everything is coming to an end here...

New store on campus: 2 guys and 1 girl. I'm interested to see what it sells. --------------->

-> Chinese words to remember: cai mao shuang quan (attractive girl that knows who che guevara is)

back to some semblance of a routine

2008-05-05T01:24:00.002+08:00

The Labor Day break was fantastic. As always with vacation time here, I planned to do much more than I actually accomplished, but it was still a great time. Met some new people, improved some old relationships, practiced my Chinese, and even got a bit of work done. All in all a satisfying break.

The bad news is that I realized today my bike was missing. I had left my keys inside my house yesterday and was forced to climb through the window in my living room. I was so happy that the window was left unlocked and I was able to enter the house that I forgot I had left the bike outside. Ashley was actually away still so if I hadn't been able to get in I would have been stuck on the street. Anyway I went to go meet Xiao Zhao today for lunch and as usual I decided to bike over, but as I looked around the house I quickly realized the bike wasn't there. I asked around the neighborhood if anyone had seen it but unfortunately it's safe to say it's gone. It wasn't even my bike either, a student lent me it a few months ago, and I promised nothing would happen to it. Some of my other students, Loopy primarily, hinted that I would either break it or lose it, but I said it would never happen. Ha. Never underestimate my power to lose something. It was a pretty poor quality bike, one that the student got for free, but I'll have to replace it nevertheless. I loved that little crap bike...

I bought a new cell phone the other day as well. I was doing a thorough cleaning of my house and had the phone tucked in under my shorts. I felt it vibrate so I reached to pick it up to see who was calling at which point I fumbled it and it fell into the well of the squat toilet, circled for a brief second and then dropped into the black abyss that is the squat toilet pipe. Luckily, someone at the last party had dropped a plastic cup into the pipe as well so the phone only entered the second stage of Chinese squat toilet hell. I reached in and grabbed it out, but it was missing its back, which cost 45 kuai to replace (the phone was only 200). I decided to pick up a non-toilet phone downtown. There were a number of sales for May Day and I got one for 400 that has a camera (won't use it) English/Chinese dictionary (doesn't work) and the greatest part: a calculator that I can punch in the dates and numbers of my last menstruation and the phone will tell me subsequent menses.

I'm thinking back to last week when, according to Sarah, I pulled off the greatest magic trick yet; the Li Jia Li Ting Ting switch. Guess it was kind of cool. They missed each other by mere seconds.

I actually went over to Ting Ting's house this afternoon. I met up with her after she got back from Beijing and we went to eat some noodles at this place near Unimart. We went back to her house for a bit so I could check out her place and meet her dog (a super energetic pug that loved me more than the family). Her parents were perhaps the most spontaneously kind Chinese people I've met here. The immediately made some watered-down coffee for me and gave me a tour of the house (smelled like moth balls). It was quite big and well furnished, but still strangely designed in that Chinese-house way. The dining room and couch area, as in most houses here, is the first area you walk into and usually isn't separated by wall, it's like one enormously long stretch of hallway. It sort of looks more appropriate in my house because I don't really have a dining room, but strange when it's fully decorated and there's no transition between each section.

Ting Ting's parents asked me if I enjoyed the coffee and of course I said I did, at which point they asked me if I drank coffee in America, and I said sometimes, but in China I don't usually. Why not?
Oh, because Chinese green tea is soooo good.
Really? Let's give you some green tea, here drink this!
Ok I'll drink it! Thanks!
An Wen is really good at doing magic tricks..
Not really (ok I'll do one....)
Wow, can you do that with our cards?
Yes! Here let me do one more.

The conversation continued like this until we talked about what the parents do. They were both teachers, but now work for the Nanchong government (I'm still not exactly sure in what capacity) but I explained that in some respect I also work for my government, but I'm not as enthusiastic about the policies of mine. They explained that China also was not very good and that there are a lot of poor people. I said that in 25-30 years, China would surpass the US (a line that I've recently used a lot here - cha bu duo 25-30 nian hou, zhong guo hui chao guao mei guo. zhong guo ren min de yi bei zi yi nian bi yi nian hao le <- also a good one). They disagreed but I explained the development of China's economy is faster than the US will ever be again. It's tough to believe that people who lived through the 60s and 70s in China (Ting Ting's parents and most Nanchongren for example) would ever doubt that times have improved, and will improve, so greatly in such a short period of time.

They ended up giving me a fan that the father had painted his own calligraphy on, and a few Nanchong tourist maps that Ting Ting had modeled for apparently. Ting Ting is older than I am, and she's not yet hit that point where she's visibly aging, but the pictures of her from when she was 20 or 21 are much more flattering.

My mom would be pleased to know this, too, as an advocate against bottle feeding infants. According to the Nanchong tourist map, "Jialing River, slowly flowing down to south from Qinling Mountains breast-feeds all living things on the bank like a kind mother." It continues.... "The people of Nanchong living by the side of Jialing River for generations, suckling prime and taking nimbus widely of the mother river, create Jialing River civilization and superinduce extraordinary splendour for the Chinese nation." <-- I can personally attest to taking nimbus in Nanchong...

Waited for a while to see Li Jia Li but she was working late. She works everyday. It's sort of egregious. It's incredibly interesting seeing the differences and similarities between the two though. Can't figure out which one is more with it. Pictures of both coming soon. Ugh.. So much to do tomorrow.

Also, congratulations to this blog, which now ranks #4 on google for searches of "gap catalogue".

guevara

2008-05-01T12:46:00.003+08:00

I would say the vast majority of people; my students and teachers included have absolutely no idea who Che Guevara is. I suppose in the grand scheme of things he's not that relevant within Chinese society, but he's definitely an important historical figure that everyone should know. Especially if you're in a communist country. Xiao Zhao can't recognize the poster on the door of my apartment as the overused image of Che with scraggly hair and the black hat, but then again she thought the capital of the US was New York. Jason knew who it was, but he's also a history major, so I'd be even more shocked if he didn't. I actually don't think I could go out with someone who didn't know even the most basic knowledge about him.

Che visited China twice, once in 1960 and again in 1965 to meet in Chairman Mao regarding trade with Cuba and the role of the Soviet Union which competed with China for influence. They're both incredibly gifted guerrilla fighters who successfully employed similar tactics to bring about the revolution. While their individual ideologies regarding the role of government (leadership and foreign policy) differed greatly in terms of how the revolutionary policies would be instituted and what role the lower class (industrial workers, peasants, farmers etc..) would play in bringing about social change, they were both essentially Marxists (Guevara perhaps more so) with a sprinkle of Lenin. On a personal level they were both members of the middle class (not a surprise for a revolutionary - who else has time to sit around and contemplate stuff?) and enjoyed discussing history and pao niu-ing... (Wow I had a lot of parentheses in that paragraph)

Wu Yi Jie kuai le...

without going into exactly why

2008-04-30T23:07:00.003+08:00

but today was a good day...

Tomorrow is Wu Yi Jie!

things to remember

2008-04-25T03:03:00.000+08:00

gan qing shen yi kou men

talking

2008-04-23T23:21:00.002+08:00

All this talk about the protests happening around the center of China against foreigners is worth noting. I had a long discussion yesterday with Jason about the symbolism of such a protest. Today it continued in a similar fashion after our two hour Chinese lesson, but in a different manner. I maintained that China, by winning the olympics for 2008, has forced itself into the world spotlight. Its actions, political on international and domestic fronts, are
----
As I was writing this I got a phone call from Yang Cheng, a PE teacher at the school here. He explained to me (at 11:45) that he was at a KTV bar singing and drinking. He passed the phone to a girl who explained where it was. I said I had class in the morning (not true) but really I wasn't in the mood to go out. I got at most four hours of sleep last night and I didn't want to drink again - especially not KTV style. I reluctantly accepted and headed over to the middle gate to meet Yang Cheng.

I actually don't know exactly how I know this person. Last time I saw him was at the sports meeting last week, and he seemed as if we were the oldest of friends. I had absolutely no idea who he was, but did the typical ever-effective shake-hands-nod maneuver in order to keep it social.

At some point I was asked where I was from and I heard someone murmur something negative about France. I inquired what the person's opinion was of France which in turn spurred an enormous discussion between Li Jia Li (the girl who talked to me on the phone) and the rest of the people I had met at the KTV bar. It turned out Li Jia Li was the boss of the KTV bar and Chinese post graduate student at Xi Hua. The four guys I was with at the time immediately interjected "Fuck France" and "Cao Fa Guo" for effect. From what I could pick up from Li Jia Li's explanation, the four guys (Yang Cheng included) were vehemently anti-France for the recent events in relation to the torch relay, and Li Ji Li was defending the actions and castigating the Chinese people's response against Carrefoure. Li Jia Li was poised and in control, a 19-year-old girl against four middle-aged drunks in a smoky KTV room. It was impressive to watch.

It's pretty stupid anyway when you get down to it. This was the point before I got interrupted by Yang Cheng's call. China requested the world's attention by hosting the Olympics. It asked to host foreign athletes, foreign organizations, and perhaps most importantly foreign media. China's in the spotlight now and it clearly cannot take the heat. There are parts of China's foreign and domestic policy that can be easily denounced; we all know what they are. But when the so-called western media monster critiques aspects of said policy, it suddenly becomes a repeat struggle of the 19th century and western imperialism/colonialist influence.

The western media is definitely not out to get China. Most Chinese people would believe that the "West" is an identity in itself; that anyone further west of India shares a similar mentality that includes at the forefront a deep dividing contrast with the mentality of those living in China. More recently, the deep dividing contrast has been exaggerated by both sides as being something innately tangible. The "East" (essentially China) believes the West is out to get it and the "West" believes that the East is becoming too powerful and therefore is out to get the East. It's quickly becoming a buzz word - the West and the Western media as if all of the people in the western hemisphere are conspiring how to destroy Chinese development. In the end, it's a clash of media roles within the relative cultural context. For example I'm able to say I dislike the American government without necessarily feeling any professional or personal consequences. The same can't be said of a similar comment made by a Chinese journalist within China. Chinese journalists can criticize the West as being an imperialist behemoth. A Western journalist, however, is quickly demonized by China for making similar comments about the East.

The West is not out to destroy China insomuch as China is reacting to the new influx of criticism that comes with western media. People here, however, are slow to realize that hosting the olympics makes you subject to different types of analyses. Some of these analysis are foreign and domestic policy suggestions which the broad population as a whole may not agree with. It's worth keeping in check the fervor with which these four middle-aged men, two of whom are from the Sichuan countryside, have deep-rooted angers against a government that never did anything except allowed a brief public demonstration (or in other eyes attempted to tarnish the harmonious image of the Chinese Olympic spirit by targeting a weak handicapped torch carrier and ultimately prevent China's development as a future world power).

More about this tomorrow. Props to Li Jia Li though, who just actually called me btw...

just another tuesday

2008-04-23T01:57:00.004+08:00

Class today was as usual. Morning 8:00. Got there two minutes late because I was cutting up the pieces of paper to play "taboo" with the students and couldn't find my scissors. Then I had to carry the bicycle up six flights of stairs... Oh well. I feel like most of my classes in the morning (and in the afternoon to some degree, too) don't get started until the second period. Almost all the students don't know what is going to happen in the class yet, so they don't know how to position themselves or interpret the information. I like not being predictable. It distances me from the other teaching styles that the students have gotten for 15 years. Yeah, a syllabus would be worthwhile and probably make keeping a schedule much easier, but who's really planning their timetables weeks or months in advance? Things change in China so frequently (especially plans) that it's practically impossible to follow a real strict course syllabus. I realized that very early on in my Peace Corps service.

My class is actually relatively worthless (it receives one credit point) compared to the other courses that are weighted much more heavily in terms of their credit worth. I don't mind that, really. If anything it makes my job easier as I'm not bound to really drill the students to reach some vague and meaningless goal in their English learning. Each week I do my best to present them with a new and contrasting world view, teaching style/methodology, and a fresh concept that they hadn't thought about before. I feel oral English is meant to be fun; like the jazz band part of high school where you've been in history or science or math for the last three hours and for the next period you take out your saxophone and play some hip jazz charts. I hope students come to my class with that feeling; not necessarily of fear, regret, or anger, but of relaxation and curiosity.

After class I came back home and called up Ting Ting. We decided to meet at McDonald's again at which point we hit up a small restaurant near Wu Xing. It wasn't that great, and way overpriced considering the quality, but so are the restaurants near the city center. The tables weren't even high enough to put your legs under so I had to sit awkwardly with my feet crossed to the left of my chair. I never understand why there's such a prevalence of short tables at restaurants.

We decided to hit up a movie and went to the movie theater near the clothing district. Ting Ting thought the movie would have been in English with Chinese subtitles, but it wasn't. I was actually happy about that because I've been trying to immerse myself in Chinese as much as possible lately and focusing on the movie was actually good practice. I couldn't follow much of the intricacies of the plot (it was a terrorist thriller with a super attractive female secret agent lead), but I know it ended in Kuala Lumpur and also took place in France, Italy, and Norway... I'm trying to find the name now, but can't for some reason. It's definitely not an old movie. It was pretty awful though, typical Hollywood garbage, but entertaining. At a few points in the movie, the female lead dresses scantily clad and answers the door in a towel. She asks the stranger to help her fasten the bra clasp behind her back. At this point Ting Ting asks me if this is common in your country...

Just found the name - Kod apokalipsisa. Apparently it's a Russian movie so it wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't dubbed or not. On a side note though, who the hell prefers a dubbed movie? Isn't there a good deal of acting in one's voice? Are we that of a degenerate group of people that we're not able to read subtitles? I can imagine someone thinking to himself, "Fuck subtitles, just let me listen to dialogue in my native language so I don't have to scan the bottom of the screen for a direct translation. I gain nothing from hearing the real actor or actresses voice. Please save me from this grueling mental obligation and strip the movie of any artistic quality it had previous to the butchering of the original production. I prefer images and sounds I can instantly recognize. Oh, and while you're at it, please bring me a copy of Maria Callas in Carmen (voiced over by some Chinese woman), an original Salvador Dali (painted over by some Chinese artist) and To Kill a Mockingbird (rewritten by some Chinese author)."

Here's what Pagliacci would look like:

Ugh so annoying. I'd really like to hear a legitimate argument for dubbing.

Anyway, hit up Tian Shang afterwards and met up with Julien, Durf, Sarah, Tan Ce Tian, She Jian, and the rest of the crew. Ting Ting came along for a bit, everyone had a good time dancing around. Grabbed some Lanzhou noodles and came back home.

Just another Tuesday in Nanchong.

lo que yo amo de chile

2008-04-21T23:30:00.002+08:00

un e-mail del Victor Hugo:
-----
Hola muchachos, nunca mando ni reenvío ni pesco la verdad este tipo de cosas que me llegan, pero esta se pasó. veánlo y descubran qué clase de mierdas gobiernan este país.
http://www.coyotefilms.tv/
-----

la personalidad y creatividad de un chileno solito...

loud party remix

2008-04-20T00:30:00.003+08:00

What a strange night...

loud party!

2008-04-19T11:52:00.003+08:00

Loud party.. TONIGHT.

Also ran in the "sports competition" this morning the 100m, and didn't finish last wooh! I didn't Zhu Bin though, which was a disappointment. Ashley did the javelin and shot put. For some reason the people doing the javelin don't run when they throw. They stand stationary and hurl the javelin as if it were a chopstick.

That's all for today.

loud party

2008-04-16T22:15:00.003+08:00

Went loud party shopping today. Hit up Xi Men market for some odds and ends to add to the costume. I'll most likely be going to Chengdu on Friday to get my camera back from the DHL office. It'll be, good god, the third week in a row I'll be going to Chengdu. AND I'll be going the week after as well. I need a camera though seeing as the pictures from the loud party will be well worth the trip. The Nanchong folk have abandoned the rules of secrecy in the hope of defeating the Chengdu-ers in the costume contest. Winner takes home a big bag of chocolate peanuts from Chuan Bei. I'll also be performing a new trick I've been working on. I definitely shouldn't have hyped this trick up as much as I did, but it's pretty cool, even if I may say so myself. Part of the trick will be dedicated to my parents for sending me the materials, as well as Pinball (my American cat who recently passed away) because he definitely would have enjoyed watching this. Xiao Qiang actually liked it too much and messed my first attempt up.

Xiao Qiang zui jin shi zai shi tai tiao pi le! The little bastard meows all the time at night, has been scratching up my screen door. Today I came back home and found a snickers bar half-eaten on the floor of my apartment. I thought cats and dogs couldn't eat chocolate, but this one can. There are chocolate crumbs everywhere. At least he's got good taste.

Tomorrow is the "sports meeting" at Xi Hua. I don't think I've ever done a long jump in my life. I can rock a 100m pretty solidly (I think), maybe 200m as well.

Showed a number of different movies to my classes this week seeing as their probably all fretting about the TEM-4 on Sunday morning. Rushmore, Mean Girls, and Rocket Science were among the three I showed this week. One student put her head down during Rushmore. Who falls asleep during Rushmore? I lost a lot of respect for this person; not that I had a lot to begin with, but you probably know who he or she is. If you don't, ask me later.

Ugh, I STILL have yet to transfer over the website from Xi Hua Online to the school servers. I've been sooooo out of it recently, interested in other things (ie anything other than work, really) and a lot of my obligations have taken back seat. Bu hao, phil, bu hao..

sundays

2008-04-13T12:50:00.002+08:00

Got back from Chengdu last night. Instead of hitting up Tian Shang as usual (there was some party there last night, which means no dance floor and millions of people), decided to meet up with Ting Ting. It was about 10:30 when we finally got together at McDonald's. Got a medium #6! Halfway through the meal, Ting Ting's dad showed up and we ended up talking. I couldn't
understand much of what he was saying through the heavily accented Sichuanhua, but no worries, it was a great time nonetheless.

He wrote a number of Li Bai poems on some of the McDonald's napkins in beautiful calligraphy. He wrote them in traditional Chinese poem format. Top-to-bottom and right-to-left with the author's name and a message in a smaller font on the left of the poem.

For example:
m    11  6 1
m    12  7 2
m     13 8 3
m    14  9 4
m 15  10 5

m being author's name and personal message. Each message was for "Mei guo peng you an wen".

side note: Just finished watching "Jumper" what an awful movie...

Anyway, on Thursday there was a speech contest for non-English majors (biology department) which I attended as a judge. I like going to see these things, despite the bad reputation they have for being boring and incredibly repetitive. Usually when you're a judge you get a little present, not necessary, but a nice perk for being there. They are also a curious little parts of Chinese culture you can pull from each speech.

The topic for this last contest was "The Olympics". Here are the speech names (spelling errors not corrected):

The Olympic Companion I Go
What Can We Do for the 2008
The Hreo of the Olympic
Color the Olympic
Go with Olympic Game
(First five speeches part of the group entitled "Olympics Come to My Home")

On Our Way to the 2008 Olympic Games
My Dream of2008 Olympic Games
OLympic Games and Me
Something in My Mind
What Shuld We Do About Olympic Games
(Second five speeches part of the group entitled "Be Going on of Olympics")

Let's Hold Together
Under the Blu Sky of Beijing the Capital of China
Time For Action
Olympic is Coming
The Olympic Chang Us
(Third five speeches part of the group entitled "We Meet in Being Jing 2008")

Almost every speech mentioned the motto of the 2008 Olympics: A green, high-tech, people's Olympics. There was a clear emphasis on the "green" aspect of the Olympics, and many contestants called on other students to be more responsible when it came to throwing away garbage, turning out the lights, and recycling plastic bottles.

The frequent mention of the environment is pertinent on a number of levels. Perhaps the most positive sign is that people on a micro in Western Sichuan are beginning to really pay attention to the environment and understand some of the ways to improve the increasingly moribund environmental situation in China.

I think it's easy for the environment to be targeted in China because the problem and solution are easily laid on the shoulders of the people, rather than a centralized authority. One can blame themselves or their peers much more easily for the ruined environment than the government or a governmental policy. Chinese people certainly has no lack of history when it comes to targeting
their peers when they think they've done anything wrong...

plazas

2008-04-08T12:06:00.002+08:00

Met Ting Ting for dinner yesterday. I wish I could take some pictures but my camera is still MIA. If it's not here by this weekend I'll get another one, as the Nanchong contingent will be hitting up Chengdu again to visit Sarah in the hospital. I need to have one for the loud party. Absolutely necessary.

Anyway, before dinner, I suggested walking around Bei Hu park. My suggestion was apparently ridiculous for a person like myself to make, and she called me an old man. I remember back in Chile when going to the plaza de armas or somewhere in Santiago or Talagante was cool. People went there just to walk around or hang out. If anything, the central plaza was a place for young people to meet or hold some celebrations during various festivals; not an activity restricted to old folk.

The loud party is next weekend the 19th. People advised to wear their loudest, craziest costumes. Anything you would never wear on a daily basis is acceptable. People not wearing costumes will not be admitted. It will be the greatest party we've had so far. More later.

My kid could paint that

2008-04-03T01:42:00.001+08:00

Just finished watching My Kid Could Paint That. An interesting documentary. Starts out really optimistic, but it's pretty clear that by the end the film maker realizes the whole thing is some varying degree of fraud. It doesn't go as deep as I would have liked it to into any definite conclusion, but still a good watch nonetheless for 6 kuai (80 cents).

April Fools

2008-04-03T00:51:00.002+08:00

Haha...

I got a text message from Sarah yesterday morning saying:
"I don't think I can go to the club tonight, I'm in the hospital"

And I initially get really worried, what's wrong with her?

Then I realize OH it's April Fool's. She's just joking around. Why else would she mention the fact that she couldn't go the club. Not true.

I send her a message back saying, "I'm coming downtown to see you, which hospital are you at?"

No answer.

I send her another message, "I'm downtown now, where are you?"

At this point I expect her to admit the April Fool's joke and tell me not to come, at which point giving me the win, but she replies finally, "I'm on my way to Chengdu, I need surgery."

I think, So! You want to one up me on this one now? I then answer her, "Are you serious? I'm canceling my classes to come up and make sure you're ok." This will get her now! She'll have to admit the joke.

She sends me a message back, "I'm at Hua Xi hospital near Aaron's school."

I answer her, "I'll be there in three hours, can I bring you anything?"

She replies, "Thanks. Maybe a book or something."

So at this point I've also told Ashley about what's happening and she agrees that Sarah's just joking around. We decide that Ashley is going to call Sarah from a public phone and pretend to be the Peace Corps medical officer and ask Sarah what's wrong in order to get her to admit that it's a joke. Ashley and I figure it's the knockout punch we need to end this.

Ashley calls Sarah on her cell phone and they begin talking. Ashley's voice is dead on and I can't help but laughing. She keeps her cool pretty well though; definitely believable. Ashley asks Sarah who's at the hospital with her. Sarah says that Dr. Gao and Dr. Jo (the PC medical officer) are with her. Ok, so we figure the gig is up and that Sarah probably knew it was Ashley. We conclude that there's no way though that Dr. Jo was with Sarah at that moment though.

Ashley decides she's going to call Durf and just make sure everything's ok. I say goodbye to her and go back to my house for a pre-class xiu xi. I get a phone call a few minutes later from Ashley explaining that Sarah's in Chengdu and is going to get some surgery done within the next couple days. Durf is surprised that we have not left for Chengdu yet.

Oops.

We're going on Friday morning to see her.

unblocked!

2008-04-03T00:06:00.002+08:00

Blogspot's finally been unblocked and I'm able to post again. For the longest time I was unable to get into blogspot AND blogger. Since coming to China I'd been able to get into blogger (which allowed me to post but not see the blog), but not into blogspot. Since January or so access to both had been restricted. Anyway, here's the first post in a long time.

Just got back from dinner and KTV with a couple people I met at McDonald's at 1:30 last Friday. It was a weird initial encounter at McDonald's. Our usual group (Sarah, Durf, Xiao Zhao, Jason) and I were hitting up a post game run. While I was ordering I noticed a guy next to me looking at me uncomfortably. He would tilt is head over quite conspicuously and then glance back at the menu on the counter when I looked back over at him. Usually when people do this they want to ask a question and it's a good sign for me to start a conversation.

At this point in time though it was a tad bit late, and I was tired and not in the best of states. I normally engage anyone who gives me the curious glance-over, but at 1:30 in McDonald's after going to Tian Shang, I just wanted some food and a bed. I knew it was inevitable; people that do the glance-over more than twice usually have a high level of curiosity and will probably not let you go without asking some questions in simple Chinglish.

It started with the typical "Where are you come from?" Before I could answer I made my order and the guy was absolutely amazed I spoke Chinese. Now don't get me wrong, I'm confident about my Chinese now, especially when it comes to small talk, but I'll reiterate that 1:30 at McDonald's after Tian Shang made me feel shaky. We started to have a conversation then about what I was doing here and how much money I made etc.. All the usuals.

Enter cute girl and other guy. After ordering and answering a few of glance guy's questions, a quite attractive girl and some other guy also came up and decided to ask their own series of questions. So there I was, in a circle of Chinese people at 1:30 AM after coming from Tian Shang, and suddenly I had to kick up my brain into professional-Peace Corps conversation mode. Eventually I was asked for my phone number, at which point it occurred to me that I should probably give these people a fake number, except that cute girl was pretty cute, and all three of them weren't obnoxious or anything, so I decided to stick to the real one.

Anyway, cute girl called me on Monday and asked me if I had any free time, so I told her Wednesday I did. To tell you the truth, I actually didn't remember exactly what she looked like, except I'd put some money on the fact that she was probably Chinese. Anyway, we decided to meet at the McDonald's again. --Would this be another medium number six???-- I met her and she assumed I wanted to go to McDonald's to dine on fine American cuisine. I asked her if she wouldn't mind going to Yi Dian Wei, one of the nicer restaurants in Nanchong that serves some interesting Chinese-style dishes with some Japanese/American ingredients (I think...) Anyway, she was down. I almost went into McDonald's and got the medium number six for nostalgia sake, but I thought better of it.

The meal wasn't bad. I had thought it would be awkward, and actually I had half expected our meeting to be a repeat of when a girl called me and it turned out to be a 11-year-old, but it was cool. Got the usual bullshit out of the way first, then just joked around. It reminded me a lot of Chile in a way, going to a restaurant with some random person and speaking only a few words in English. Halfway through eating at Yi Dian Wei, other guy from McDonald's came and sat down with us. Turns out the guy wasn't her boyfriend as I had initially thought, but a close friend. She referred to him as "Xiao Di Di". Xiao Di Di is actually a slang word for penis, so when I explained why I had started laughing, they also thought it was quite funny...

After dinner, they had planned to go to other guy's friend's birthday party at a KTV joint near Wu Xing. Haha, I should say again that I have probably spent less than thirty minutes with these people all together, but yet it seemed perfectly natural for me to go with them to other guy's friend's birthday party. Why not? First we stopped over at Hao Li and picked up a cake for the friend. The full cake was ready in about ten minutes from ordering to leaving. Icing, message, decorations on top.. everything in ten minutes. I remember having to wait a day or so to order a cake in the US...

So we got to KTV and went in the room. Initial surprise of the foreigner is clearly visible. People are shy and awkward, some not making eye contact at first. Cute girl (Ting Ting) instructs me to sit down. I stand and greet everyone then take a seat. I hear people asking if I can speak Chinese and what I'm doing here. (That second question is actually quite legitimate, probably couldn't answer it myself). I get some phone call from my counterpart teacher saying there was a basketball game tomorrow. Oops, I got class. Can't go! (What a bummer... not!) Ok, thanks for letting me know. (Why couldn't she let me know about the Bolivian ambassador coming? THANKS Xi Hua Wai Ban...). Get back into the KTV room, toast a few times. Instructed not to drink so much. Instruct cute girl that a few mini glasses isn't much. Initial surprise has for the most part dimished. Offered cigarette. Turned down. Cute girl toasts me with Pepsi; she doesn't drink. People passing around a clear glass plate with stuff (yeah you all know what it is) on top. Cute girl says I don't want any, says that stuff is bad. Stand up to answer another phone call from counterpart. Told when every future basketball game is. Return to KTV room. Sing Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin with cute girl. Few claps. I go to bathroom, come back. Outside of the door, cute girl explains she wants to go. I say it's ok, we haven't been here that long. People come out of the KTV room and ask what's going on. Cute girl says I want to go. I think WTF? She says we'll dance for a little bit, then leave. We get back into the KTV room and two guys have taken their shirt off and the strobe light is on. Cute girl gives me evil eye for some reason. I ask her if she wants to go. We dance for two minutes then exit. Other guy comes also. Where to?

We hit up McDonald's as the only open place we can sit down and chill. It's around 11:00 at this point. I offer to pay for McDonald's as it's the equivalent of the American embassy. I'm not sure if they understood the analogy, but I'm denied anyway AGAIN. We sit around and talk for 45 minutes and then leave. They come with me back to Xi Hua (for who knows what reason) and pay for the entire taxi to my door.

A fun time...

thinking back

2008-01-16T14:41:00.000+08:00

I was recently going through these old pictures from Chile in 2005 and I stumbled across one that was taken of Karina, myself, and some morning TV host that did a brief show at estacion central. You had to eat some CRAZY food that wasn't revealed to you until after, and hesitantly I took a bite. It ended up being silk worms, but in retrospect, after being in China, there's nothing I wouldn't eat. Hell, silk worms dipped in la jiao sauce are appetizers here. I've had pig brain, cow stomach, duck intestine, just to name a few (countless times). Silk worms?? Don't make me laugh, Chile...

Meanwhile in Nanchong, we've recently become stars at the new local club Tian Shang Ren Jian (a piece of heaven). We're pampered and attention is lavished on us by the staff. Oh, but how can we ever repay them for such a service? We dance around on the lighted stage for ten minutes, then return to the bar and resume being pampered. It's a tough, tough life.

It's actually quite fun doing this. Certainly being the center of the club isn't something most people are accustomed to. Chinese people can't dance as well as those in Latin America, and most of my moves, moves which I predominantly learned when going to "el establo" or "calle suecia" or "providencia" in Santiago have paid off innumerably. I've really discovered there are only a two kind of Chinese dance moves:

-The circle: The circle isn't bad. I shouldn't badmouth the circle. It's just when a few people hold hands and awkwardly raise their hands up and down not even in sync with the rhythm, it can get old quite fast. It's incredibly popular though, perhaps because you're there with your friends and no one is really sure what to do or how to act.
-The rock: I think the rock is perhaps most popular with the girls. I see a few guys doing it occasionally, but the rock is much more common with the female clubbers. It basically entails a girl with hands clenched, arms unextended, head shaking back and forth, hips moving ever so slightly. If you can imagine one of those boxing puppets that kids play with just sort of jerking from side to side, you've got the rock.
-The punch: The punch is the rock's younger sibling. It's the same body stance as the rock with fists clenched, but instead of keeping the arms stationary, they extend outwards in a punching motion. It's not a full punch either, it's just a casual half-uppercut. Right hand goes out on the up beat, left on the down beat and so on.

The whole club scene is different to begin with, too. I mean most people in the US go to the club to meet new people, have some drinks, etc... In China, the club is a place you go with some close friends, largely stick to yourself, most likely not dance, and leave before 12:00. Now, I should mention this is Nanchong, Sichuan province, not Shanghai. It's even different in Chengdu where clubs stay open until 4 or 5:00. It's not uncommon though here to see a group of guys sleeping on the couches or looking bored while observing the other people. I think KTV is still the predominant choice in terms of late night entertainment where you go with a small group of friends and get a private room where socialization with the unknown is kept to a minimum. With the birth of Tian Shang Ren Jian, the club scene in Eastern Sichuan takes a dramatic step in the right direction. Or perhaps it's westernization that's taking a step forward... Whether or not it's in the right direction is up for debate. I believe it is...

exams

2008-01-14T23:22:00.000+08:00

It's exam time here. I never really noticed it until this semester but in all of the trash cans around campus there are these super tiny slips of paper, maybe one inch by one half of an inch long. The Chinese characters written on the paper are tinier than I can even describe. I tried taking some pictures of the ones I found around the teaching building, but they don't do it justice. I definitely couldn't write English this small. Some good cheaters out here...

ok, back

2007-12-04T23:39:00.000+08:00

So nice to be done with the day. On Tuesdays I teach four one-and-a-half hour classes from 8:00 in the morning until 5:40 in the afternoon separated by a three hour break for lunch and whatnot in the middle of the day. Exhausting...

The following day I have another 8 AM class and a lecture in the afternoon, but compared with Tuesday it's a breeze. Thursday I feel is my most relaxing day. Office hours at 9:30, two classes in the afternoon, and an evening lecture. The lectures I'm giving are part of my class on American culture which is the third leg of a class consisting of a broad overview of culture, British culture, and my section.

I absolutely love giving these lectures as opposed to my oral English classes. In those classes I never feel I can really grasp what the students will latch onto or really enjoy participating in. I'm always having to come up with these weird discussion activities that direct the students to interact with each other and then with me and then back with each other again. It's especially difficult to try and monitor 45 20-year-old students at 8 AM who look like they just rolled out of bed.

Anyway I really enjoy giving these lectures because I can really just put on a good show. And I use the word show because that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm not forced to do these stupid games or design inane conversation activities. I get on stage, load up my powerpoint, and expound on American culture 90 minutes. It's exhilarating, really, to see 200 students in one classroom listen intently about the rise of racism in the post-bellum South. I had the chance to observe the previous two teachers who taught the first two parts of the course, both of whom will remain nameless. They are great teachers, knowledgeable in their fields, but their presentation was amazingly uninteresting. They stood for 90 minutes, perhaps shifting their feet a few times, reading almost word for word from a powerpoint with black text on blank white slides, complex vocabulary words, and obscure cultural concepts. In some ways I'm the one eyed man in the land of the blind, but I put everything I have into the classes and I know it shows.

The last class I covered the 1800s in America, focusing on manifest destiny, the Civil War, and immigration/America as a melting pot. I could have done a lecture on each one of those topics alone but seeing as I only have four more classes and I know the students are more interested in contemporary times, I'm hurrying through the early American years. The first lecture I gave on Wednesday was a bomb (though still better than the other teachers if I may say so) as the electricity was off (some generator was blown or something, the entire campus was dark) and I had to talk for 90 minutes about the 1800s with only some chalk. The following day I gave the same lecture to the other half of the junior class and completely rocked. Singing "America the Beautiful" (again, to a class of 200+ students) and throwing different colors of chalk into a big metal bowl and stirring it up might have been the highlights.

Other highlights:
-Mass groaning upon viewing a picture of Chinese workers on the Transcontinental railroad.
-A student coming up to me (actually my fault on the oversight) after class and saying that one of my slides had a picture of the Hong Kong flag and not the Chinese flag. I had just copied and pasted different flags and made a compilation. Stupidly one of the flags I chose was the HK flag. I was advised that HK was part of China. I advised that I knew and apologized.
-Shocks and gasps at pictures of KKK members marching near the Capitol building.

Tomorrow I'll be tackling the early 1900s and up until WWII, and in the next class the civil rights movement and transitioning into the present day. I wish I could teach the class again next semester, but alas it's only one semester.

About 18 people came to my office yesterday, more than there were enough chairs for, and people were even turned away. It was the most people I've ever had at office hours, and we played some interesting games that I need to remember to write down so I don't forget them. Good fun though.

I'll be updating more frequently now that my computer seems to like blogger.com... We'll see if it lasts...

jenga

2007-11-24T21:50:00.000+08:00

playing jenga... will update soon.

Hanoi

2007-10-05T19:45:00.000+08:00

Will be back in Nanchong soon. Posting from the airport in Ho Chi Minh City. Cambodia and Vietnam have both been a blast. More later.

peacecorpsjournals.com??

2007-09-10T19:57:00.000+08:00

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

2007-09-07T07:29:00.000+08:00

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

2007-09-02T17:57:00.000+08:00

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.

pig$

2007-08-26T22:17:00.000+08:00

Today was the first day back in Nanchong. I'll get to writing about my travels in Shandong (eastern mountain) and Shanxi (western mountain) soon, but today was worth noting.

I went to go get dinner with Jason (one of my good friends here). He noted that the price of pork had gone way up ("helicoptered" as he put it) since last semester. Meat is as a whole usually more expensive here, but nothing too excessive. Prices on the menus at university restaurants were blacked out and written over with new prices, many upwards of 20 yuan. $3 isn't a lot to pay for a well made pork dish, but given that it usually costs 10~12 yuan, a 50% increase is considerable.

We weren't able to come to a definitive answer as to what caused the increase. Inflation was certainly a possibility. The new pig virus was another, but it didn't seem like there was any sort of concern from people eating or the bosses. I asked Jason how many did he think actually knew that there was a vicious virus affected one of the biggest pork producing areas in China, and he suspected that very few had any idea. All in all some scary information. I'll be staying off the pig brain for a while. (Here's the article from the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/business/worldbusiness/16pigs.html).

We also talked the role of Confucius in Chinese society. I was surprised that when visiting Qufu (Confucius' hometown) and areas around Shandong province there were so many temples dedicated to worshiping him. Confucius himself was a philosopher, not a religious person by any means. He never postulated any deities or gave any indication that he himself believed in a god. The way he is followed, however, is almost likened to making offerings at a Buddhist shrine.

What Confucius did was create a mildly successful social order that (depending on whom you talk to) had a limited impact on shaping modern China. It should be noted that Mao targeted Confucianism (among other philosophies and religions) as an outdated way of thinking and destroyed numbers of Confucian temples. I equated Confucius worship with that of Marx saying that each were respectively equally influential in their times and certainly moved Chinese society in a different direction. I argued that it would be preposterous though for me to go to a temple and make an offering or pray to a Karl Marx statue. In many ways though, Confucius is the founder of an emergent China in the middle ages and Marx is the founder of a modern China that has become emergent within the last century. Confucius lived around 2,500 years ago; will there be a Marx temple in China in another 2,400 years?

at tai'an

2007-08-15T22:21:00.000+08:00

So we've arrived in Tai'an, home of the Tai Miao and Taishan, respectively the holiest sites of Taoism. Tomorrow we'll hit up the sites and afterwards make our way to Qufu. I managed to get the 280 kuai hotel room down to 150. The clerk actually accepted my offer quicker than I had expected, which also makes me believe I could have gotten it down even further. It's a nice room and perhaps one of the best I've stayed in China, and for 150 split between Simon and I, it's not a bad deal.

Qingdao was a unique city within China with regards to the architecture and the city itself. But more on that later. Out of the wangba and into the fire.

QD

2007-08-11T17:02:00.000+08:00

Have arrived in Qingdao after a 40 hour train ride and trying to find the hostel where we're staying. It is pouring and has been constantly since we arrived. More later

august

2007-08-04T14:57:00.000+08:00

It's the lull of the summer here in Nanchong. Students are gone, shops are closed, and restaurants are few and far between. If I want to eat I essentially have to go downtown, which isn't too much of a hassle considering how much time I spend down there anyway. But with the heat and the scarcity of transportation it's become difficult to get around. I'm glad I only have a few more days until I leave for Shandong province. There's still some more shopping I have to get done before I leave, namely I need some sandals. From what I hear though the beaches in Shandong are on par with those of a grotty Delaware public beach with seaweed and pebbles everywhere. There's going to be an international beer festival at the same time and Simon and I will be arriving for the 'opening ceremonies' or whatever that means. (Tsingtao - the beer available in the US is the same as Qingdao - the city where we'll be going. Tsingtao is the old Wade-Giles Romanicized version of the Chinese)

I should have made some posts during summer project. In retrospect it was a good two weeks. 15 days total, 14 days of teaching. Three hours a day + two lectures and afternoon tutoring. Rigorous and tiring, yes, but I feel like a better teacher now. I worked with Sarah and we team taught every day except for one when she got sick after some hotpot and I taught all three hours. We were a great team and worked well together sharing the explanations and class time equally. The lesson plans alone that we compiled for the task are priceless. It got shaky the last couple days when the students (and ourselves) got tired and the novelty of having two foreign teachers bouncing around at 8:30 AM everyday started to wear off.

Sarah and I had class 3 students (Class 1 being the best up to class 6) according to an introductory oral exam given by the PC volunteers. Anyone could come to the two week program that wanted to and tuition prices ranged from 300 for students to 800 for full-time teachers. Most of our 19 students in class 3 were students though we had seven teachers as well. Interestingly enough, classes four, five, and six had higher ratios of teachers to students than classes one, two, and three. The levels of class six were as low as you could imagine, sometimes unable to answer simple questions like, "Where will you go this summer?" or "Are you a teacher or a student?"

How do they teach if they can't answer these simple questions? It's actually quite simple. They come in, read a lesson from a book, have the students answer supplementary questions, and that's it. It's a classroom format that would never fly in the US, but works surprisingly well given the nature of the education system in China. Dull and uninteresting, but effective. I think back to the teachers who taught English in Chile who probably had an equal level of proficiency compared to the teachers in class six at summer project. Had my teacher friends tried to come in and read from a book it never would have worked. The Chilean education system is too close to ours where students interact and actively engage the teacher. Questions are asked, answered, and there is very little rote memorization in the form of recitation etc... It's much more difficult to be a low level language teacher in Chile than in China.

summer plans

2007-07-28T20:35:00.000+08:00

Qingdao - August 11th - 15th - Beaches, seafood, int'l beer festival
Tai'an/Taishan - August 16-18 - Home of the tai (dai) miao
Qufu - August 18-20 - Hometown of Confucius
August 22nd - Return to Nanchong

blogspot still blocked

2007-07-22T21:46:00.001+08:00

Still unable to post in Nanchong, but for some reason at the PC office in Chengdu I can get into blogspot without any problems.

Here at the summer project with other volunteers teaching 14 days out of the 15 we're here, three hours a day plus two lectures and two hours of afternoon tutoring. It's just so exciting!!!1

I'm a traditional girl

2007-06-07T00:02:00.000+08:00

I hear that a lot. "I'm a traditional girl." It's a loaded phrase, really. It generally means the girl is more conservative; that she doesn't drink or smoke, that she doesn't dance or sing KTV, have a boyfriend, etc...

I got a lot of those "I'm a traditional girl" responses when I asked my students to complete a little assignment about their identity. On the front of a paper they had to draw a picture, write a poem, or story, and on the back they were required to explain why this image or writing related to their identity. Many of them wrote poems similar to the one I showed them "The Delight Song of Tsoai-Tsalee" that has about 20 sentences that start with "I am". Anyway, about 30 or so of my 250 students wrote I am a traditional girl.

The phrase raises a number of interesting implications regarding Chinese society. Traditional values are present in any society, but the word "traditional" is only used in societies which are still in the process of development. For example, there are "traditional" values in the US; conservatives, folk-town values etc... but the word "traditional" is rarely ever used to describe someone, especially if it's to describe yourself.

Modernity is indeed a difficult concept to define, but the usage of the term traditional I believe implies that there is a significant conflict between traditional and modern, and that this conflict is easily identifiable. People who use the word traditional to describe themselves distance themselves from what is modern; ideas, points of view, customs, culture etc... Whereas in the US, if you were to use the word conservative, which carries the same meaning as traditional, doesn't suggest a distancing from modernity.

Who knows though? Maybe I'm missing something in the translation or I'm reading too much into it. I just found the wording interesting, and it's such an overused saying here.

I've become hooked to eating these GamBianMian noodles. It's exactly like a plate of spaghetti. They even have pieces of beef and tomatoes on top. It's just missing some Parmesan cheese shavings. Here's a picture of said noodles.

I get this stuff a few times a week now. There's a 24 hour joint downtown that I go to quite often after classes and schmooze with the staff while I eat. The dish is 6 kuai for a big plate, 5 for a small.

Blogspot's been blocked again for a while in China which is part of the reason for the delayed posting. It's been following this pattern for a while. Blocked for a month, unblocked for a month, blocked for another month. Luckily my student website's (http://www.xihuaonline.com been kicking since I got it onto a dedicated IP address.

The site's now got 60 articles, which I'm proud to say is a now a mild success for me, but more of a success for the students who write. I'll be putting up an article written by myself addressed to those who have written and shown such confidence in their writing (a trait very few students possess).

hello, nanchong!

2007-05-27T16:10:00.000+08:00

I met with me Chinese tutor last week for the first time in a while. She's moving to the new campus along with the school leaders and science faculty and will be finally moved in next year. It's sort of a letdown being on the campus during its transition period and not really experiencing what it's supposed to be like. I can't imagine though what it must have been like for the Peace Corps couple here before me when construction was just beginning. I certainly have it better than them.

Tonight's the foreign language drama competition and I've been asked to sing a song. There are three plays followed by a break in which I play a song followed by another set of three songs. I was originally asked to be a judge, but was bumped last week for some unknown reason. I do enjoy singing songs and it's so easy to wow the Chinese audience. I'm going to be playing Long Train Running by The Doobie Brothers. It's not a great song, not even particularly good really, but the sound and rhythm are catchy and I can easily fit my sax in the breaks.

There's a new Peace Corps volunteer apparently coming to my school next year, and I'm admittedly torn regarding his or her arrival. For the past year I've been the only foreigner on the new campus, and much of my experience so far has reminded me of being in Talagante and only once every month or so seeing another American. It'll be nice though to get some help with executing certain projects and getting things done.

I've got to go and practice the song a few more times and memorize what I'll be saying when I'm on stage (in Chinese). My tutor gave me some great lines to use when I go out. I promise I'll post tomorrow with pictures/recap.

'bout time for an update

2007-05-18T12:26:00.000+08:00

Being a volunteer here is a strange thing. I'm affiliated with a organization well known for its grassroots development work around the world. In China though, especially in Nanchong, development has already taken place. People don't live in huts; they live in cities. Nanchong people don't live in a small village far removed from any form of central communication; they live in a thriving, modern city with consistent access to internet, phone lines, multiple post offices, supermarkets, and fast food restaurants. So it seems odd that the same three goals of the Peace Corps apply to the volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as the volunteer situated in Nanchong, China.

What are my goals really? I'm not even sure I could tell you. I could give you their rhetoric, their ideas, but it seems quite meaningless once you've arrived here. Here I am, supposed to improve the community, create programs, and change the views of the impressionable youth. But how much change can you take on by yourself? I'm a member of a number of communities: the city of Nanchong, the faculty at the school, the students (in the sense that I often socialize and associate myself with them) etc.. But these communities are enormous. They include hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people. As a single person I can change parts of these communities, but the depth and breadth of those changes are relatively minuscule.

I look at the other teachers and faculty members at this university. Great people. Most of them are friendly and sociable, but they are teachers and they're not here for development. They're not volunteers from organizations with three goals and a history of humanitarian work. I'm here by myself trying to make changes by myself in a society and education system that I undoubtedly don't completely understand yet. They don't have office hours or run student newspapers. (Side note: It's really a shame for the students because those without a foreign teacher miss out on personal interactions with staff that in my opinion were the best part of my college education.)

Anyway, I reiterate, the school and the teachers are great, but they're not here for the same reason that I am. If I want to start a program, I have to design it, do the legwork, organize the meetings, ensure that everyone comes, and see wholly to its success. This is where the Peace Corps differs from a standard development organization, and partly why being a volunteer is more difficult that most think. Whereas in a development organization you have a team of people working to create and implement different strategies and various methods of implementation, here in the Peace Corps for the vast majority of the time, you're by yourself. The exception being if you live in a large city with a great number of volunteers where you can collaborate frequently. Here in Nanchong, however, I'm the only one at my school and as rewarding, meaningful, and useful the experience has been, it is at times frustrating and discouraging.

A girl posted a story on the website that frankly shocked me when I first read it. (xihuaonline.com - it's the one entitled "My College Life") The girl is a fantastic writer; one of the best in my class. She's on the quiet side though, and slightly apprehensive about speaking up during class time. The first time I read the article I didn't know what to say. It read like a desperate cry for someone or something and it caught me off guard. Most of the other students' writing is about the mundane countryside of his or her hometown or his or her mother's wonderful cooking. I wrote her back a long letter to the girl and posted a comment on the site, but it's an awkward position I'm in. How concerned should I be?

Next week is a drama competition in which students will be performing short skits or acts from plays in English. I've asked to be a judge and sing a song. At least this time I have more than a week to prepare. Last time I sang a song it was a hit (I believe, at least). I wore similar garb from the Blues Brothers and played my saxophone and sang to Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music White Boy. It'll be hard to top it, but I've got some ideas already floating around. We'll see what happens.

meeting

2007-04-23T20:58:00.000+08:00

There were about 60 people that came to the meeting this evening. I was expecting that many more or less. It would be unrealistic of me to expect all 60 students to continue coming and posting articles. I think maybe 25% will write an article, and even that number may be somewhat of a highball, but even if we only retain 10 or so students, that is a significant staff for the first year try (in my book at least)

I began the meeting with a short introduction of myself and a welcome to the newspaper, then handed it over to Esther who has become the unofficial student leader of the newspaper with help from my suggestions. She spoke about the newspaper in Chinese and explained why she enjoyed it, the basics of the publishing process and what would be happening in the future. Joy then gave a demonstration about how to publish articles on the website using the http://localhost I had stored on my computer.

It's back to class tomorrow, and next week there is a week vacation for Labor day, so I'm looking forward to getting through and over this hump.

I almost don't feel like posting this because it's quite short and on the side of irrelevant, but here it is. There's a picture of Esther giving her speech at the beginning.

sixth sense

2007-04-21T05:53:00.000+08:00

With the TEM-4 next week, I decided to show The Sixth Sense to my sophomore classes. We had been working the past few weeks on how to write a descriptive narrative. A lot of activities focused on how to use our senses to vividly describe a scene, person, place etc... Anyway, the movie itself was just a reward for recently finishing their latest big assignment, and a break before the exam this Sunday morning.

I realized after watching the movie again that a lot of Shyamalan movies are interesting stories but have way too many plot holes when you get down to the specifics. One of the things that really bothered me was how the ghosts find these weird kids to communicate with. I can only imagine that there is some call center that ghosts and spirits call when they want to meet someone. The conversation would go something like this:

Tech support: Hi, you've reached the Ghost Outreach center, how can I direct your call?
Ghost: I'm looking for a medium.
Tech support: Okay, what's the nature of your inquiry?
Ghost: I'm a 13-year-old girl who was poisoned by her mother. I'm looking to pass a video tape of her putting paint thinner into my food.
Tech support: Great, and do you have any alarming symptoms or conditions we need to be aware of?
Ghost: Yes, I am extremely pale and will vomit up my food on cue.
Tech support: Not a problem. And what's your location?
Ghost: Central Philadelphia.
Tech support: Well the closest one in your area is a 10-year-old boy named Cole. I'll go ahead and reserve a time for you at 10:00 for next Thursday. Remember to cancel at least 24 hours in advance or you'll be charged in full. I'll be using the insurance card you have on file. Thanks for calling the Ghost Outreach center.

I mean it's a great movie, but the story, when you get right down to it, just doesn't make any sense. The students really liked it though, and it was fun watching them scream at the scary parts. I had the chance to show the movie during one of my nighttime classes that really set the mood perfectly. Some of the students covered their eyes whenever they expected a scary scene.

In other news, I've got the first meeting of XiHua Online, the new and updated version of the previous website I had started cwnutimes.com. The new one, www.xihuaonline.com is much neater and has a few new features that weren't on the old site. I've done everything I can in terms of promotion, and hopefully there will be a big turnout. I'm starting to hand over the reins of the newspaper to my two students YangLiu (Joy) and XieYingMei (Esther), who both will be leading the first meeting with as little of my assistance as possible. Besides, I know students feel more comfortable expressing themselves to other students, whether in Chinese or in English, so having the two student leaders will be a perfect way of making all involved feel comfortable coming, writing, and asking questions.

I'll be posting what happens then. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions on the site http://www.xihuaonline.com, would be welcome. To the left is one of the various posters I made to post around the school.

posters

2007-04-20T00:02:00.000+08:00

When I was living in Chile I collected lots of American movie posters in Spanish from movie rental places and theaters. I lost a bunch when I tried to pack them in my suitcase because they ended up too wrinkled and ripped, but they were still cool nonetheless. Anyway, when I was downtown today, I visited a few movie and music stores with posters plastered along the walls to inquire as to how much they were. At the end of the day, I had purchased a number of wickedly neat music posters with Chinese characters. The best ones I got are of a Justin Timberlake Futuresex/Lovesound album poster and a Babel poster both in Chinese.

One guy had literally hundreds of posters and was surprised to hear that I wanted to buy some. I grabbed about 15 and asked how much, but for some reason he didn't want any money. I insisted I give him some reimbursement, as many of the posters I wanted he had to climb up a ladder and pull them off the wall. I initially offered him 30 yuan (2 yuan each) but he said 20 was fine and I told him I'd be back later. I only had time to go through maybe half of the ones that he had.

Here's a picture of my new wall with some of the posters I purchased this afternoon. It resembles my college apartment wall where I had numbers of posters covering the wall of my bedroom.

Most of the Chinese pop music artists featured on the posters I've never heard of, some I have. Admittedly I'm not a fan of Chinese contemporary music, but it would be entirely elitist of me to judge it as I'm sure Chinese people harbor similar feelings regarding American popular music.

This post has little to nothing to do with the NBC show 'Heroes'

2007-04-19T23:05:00.000+08:00

I'm absolutely uncanny when it comes to recognizing faces. Really. If I were on Heroes, that would be my ability. I would recognize a face from a crowd or something. It's not as useful as the Japanese guy's power to go through time and space, but anyway, I can recognize any student's face. If I have met someone before, I remember that person's face.

Last Wednesday, I showed a movie in my Advanced Oral English class. Next week is the TEM-4 exam that students need to pass in order to get a full diploma from the school. If students don't pass the exam, they graduate, but do not get the same certificate that a student that did pass the exam would receive. The students take the test for the first time when they are sophomores and if they don't pass it, they take it again as juniors. About 60-65% of my juniors are taking the test again. I managed to take a look at one of the test review books all the students have and view some of the questions. I'll post some examples after the exam once I can get one of the booklets from a student, but most of the questions were quite difficult, even for me. There's a vocabulary section, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension (a tape is played and questions are asked). Believe it or not, it's probably just about on par compared to the SATs.

I can't stand the TEM-4, the TEM-8, CET-4, CET-6 and any of the other frivolous exams that students take. I really can't stand them. For the students, the tests are of utmost importance. They spend every waking hour studying and reviewing questions from the books. I can't blame the students though. It's completely understandable that focus so hard to pass the exams. The problem really lies with the education system. There's too much rote memorization and too excessive of a burden to get good grades and good exam scores. The creative foundation and joy of learning is completely lost in the desire to pass the next state assessment. The sophomores here take a class called "Philosophy" in which they memorize word-for-word the texts of relevant philosophers in Chinese culture; notably Marx (Makesi) and Confucius (Kongzi). Ironically enough, Marx would have abhored the very class and education system that is supposedly based on his ideologies.

Anyway, I digress. I decided to show a movie in my oral English classes this week because many of my students are stressed out with regards to the upcoming test and I figured I'd give them a break for a week. As I recognize all of my students' faces, I noticed that there was a new student in my class; someone I had not seen before. Sometimes when I show movies in class, (very rarely, actually) students invite their friends to come and watch, which is perfectly fine with me as a teacher. So I went over and asked what the new student's name was and he responded "Jimmy". It turned out he was in my class but he had only come once prior to the class I was showing the movie (we are in the 6th week).

Jimmy's English is by far the worst of all my students. He's also shy and reserved; two not very choice qualities for English majors at a teaching university. After showing The Truman Show, I caught Jimmy before he left class and told him to sit down. I waited until all the students were gone and I could talk to him without other students observing the conversation. I then essentially gave Jimmy an ultimatum. I told him he could continue not coming to my class and I would fail him, or he could come one hour a week to my office and I would prepare another lesson where I would teach him one-on-one.

Jimmy chose the latter and said, "Thank you" before leaving.

I'm not sure yet whether this will pay off, but Jimmy clearly needs some special help, much moreso than any of my other students. If he's planning on being a teacher or using English in any sort of professional context, he's going to need someone to work with him on a personal level and rapidly improve his proficiency (which is impossible in classes of 45+). Our first meeting is next Thursday at 4:30.

all in a day's work

2007-04-18T01:05:00.000+08:00

English signs from the Nanchong Unimart written by an 80-year-old Jewish grandmother.

How the grasses are mowed at my university.

"THE KING OF KILL INCESES"

I needed a nail clipper, but I'll pick up a set up batteries while I'm at it.

What, me worry?

us declares war on one-handed-man

2007-04-10T23:24:00.000+08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3026237

I wonder if this will affect the prices with my #1 source for DVDs in Chengdu, the one-handed-man. He gives me 8.5 for a DVD9 (usually haggled to 8.1-2). The last time I went to Chengdu was when my parents were here and there was a crackdown taking place. When I went to his normal alcove DVD shop, there was no one there. As I started to leave the computer center with my parents, the wife of the one-handed-man (I hate referring to him as that, but I'm afraid I don't know his real name, and that is clearly his most defining characteristic) whom I know found me and led me to a location outside of the computer area where the entire stash was. The prices were at 8.5 (standard) but he refused to bargain lower. I'm thinking of making a trip in the near future before (perhaps) the market gets shut down for good (dear God I hope not). Do I use too many parenthesis? (I think so).

No one beats the one-handed-man in terms of selection. Anybody I've taken there (now including a roster of around 15+ people) can attest to the quality and quantity of his goods. He's one of the few vendors that has actual rips of DVD shows as opposed to the poor quality compressed garbage they sell on the floor below. I remember one time when Ethan, Pierce, Ethan's friend, and I were purchasing DVDs when a police raid took place and the one-armed-man took a number of boxes to another location, shut off the lights, and ordered us to be quiet. It was an interesting experience despite the fact that nothing really exciting happened, ie there was no shootout over Butterfly Effect 2.

Piracy is indeed a way of life here and pervades the culture in realms well outside the DVD market in Chengdu. I have a couple "Polo" shirts from Beijing, a pair of "Converse" sneakers from Nanjing, and a couple "Tommy Hilfiger" button downs from Guangzhou. People will counterfeit anything that could potentially be counterfeited. You can read a previous entry here about 32 and 64 gigabyte pen drives from Shenzhen.

Cheating's apparently rampant in the school systems, though admittedly I haven't experienced any troubles with it. I've caught a couple students trying to exchange answers from one class to another (as I teach several of the same classes and sometimes use the same tests), but nothing similar to what I've heard from the other volunteers.

I think if you really try to police the DVD markets etc.. which to me seems like an impossible task in itself, you really only hurt the one-armed-man. He probably only makes a few yuan a DVD anyway and lives precariously from month to month in small apartment in a run down section of the city. Seems excessive to line the pockets of movie and music executives who probably spend the equivalent of the yearly salary of the one-armed-man in a single day at the course. And don't think that Congress is acting in the interests of the little guy from the US; this is just big business directing the agenda.

Btw, my mom purchased that exact same DVD pictured in the ABC article from "you know who" in Chengdu. There's a new-ish Chinese movie I want to get called Disciple about a heroine drug lord who decides to retire and pass on his drug empire. I can't remember the Chinese characters but it's men (as in door) something (there are only two characters). If anyone knows, let me know.

sports

2007-04-09T21:44:00.000+08:00

I played basketball today for the first time since elementary school. I was asked by the head of the foreign language department and although I argued that I was awful at basketball, he responded, "We know all Americans are good at basketball". So I was pretty much obliged. He'll probably be a good contact to have down the road in any event.

So I went down to the old campus at 4:00 to meet the other players and maybe try to practice a bit before the game began at 4:30. I had watched countless numbers of basketball games and played that arcade game where you have to shoot the ball into a moving hoop, so I wasn't clueless as how to play. When it comes to sports I'm not a klutz either, really, though I wouldn't call myself an athlete, per se.

Anyway while I was standing looking for where the game was taking place, a few students came up to me and introduced themselves to me and I asked them where the basketball courts were. One of the students I met named "Yi" insisted on leading me to the courts and ensuring I got there safely, despite the fact that they were in eyeshot of where I was standing, but thanks a lot, Yi!

The game was the English department versus the PE department, rumored (well, not really rumored actually) to be the best team at the university. I hadn't expected to do well, and honestly I was quite worried about the game itself, but I went with a positive attitude and "had a try". We got seriously pwned and I'm not even sure the score at the end of the game, but I was satisfied that I scored a total of FOUR points (considering it'd been 15 years) and managed to finally get into a decent rhythm at the end of the game. There's another game on Friday I've been asked to participate in, as well as a speaking competition which I'm looking forward to for non-English majors. I like the speaking competitions for some reason.

Speaking generally about sports in China, the most popular ones are definitely basketball and ping pong, probably followed closely by badminton, volleyball, and soccer. There are moves to make American sports more popular in China, including interestingly enough women's ice hockey, but as this article indicates, it's not doing to well. Tennis is quite unpopular despite the similarity to the rest of the raquet sports, as are the rest of the dumb raquet games like squash and racquetball, the latter two both of which require you to be White and a member of a country club to play.

I've played soccer and ping pong with many of my students, some regulary, others not as frequently, but each time it's a great stress relief for the students. In all they take a total of 13 or 14 classes, a total of 26-28 classroom hours and many of them obviously need an outlet. The guys are the only ones to play basketball or soccer (at least that I have seen, though I'm sure girls play basketball quite well and quite often), where as guys and girls both play ping pong, badminton, and volleyball. I haven't heard sports referred to as specifically female or male, which is good considering I doubt China has ever experienced a Title-9 movement.

The English department has to win at least two games to advance to the next round of the tournament and so far we're 0-2. But there are a total of eight games, and according to Jackie, the self-described "fire output" of the team and a member of the "iron triangle" (including Jackie, James Liu, and a six-foot guard named Wang), there are worse teams than ours is and we have a good chance of winning at least two. Jackie's actually a very nice 25 year old from Xi'an who has an uncanny knowledge of Western culture and speaks nearly perfect idiomatic English. I had forgotten about him since I only met him a few times last semester, but I'll be getting in touch with him more now that I have his number. I'll post what happens this Friday at 4:30...

Picture 1: one of our players enjoys a festive pre-game cigarette

Picture 2: the players before the game

Picture 3: during the game

网吧

2007-04-02T19:34:00.000+08:00

The ubiquity of the 网吧 (wang ba - literally internet bar in Chinese) is fascinating to say the least. The vast majority of them are open 24/7 and have deals with local restaurants to bring food to hungry internet users. I remember in Latin America there was nothing as sophisticated as I've seen here. The internet culture in Chile was limited to online photo blogs, chatting on MSN, and occasionally listening to music. Here in China, people often do all three simultaneously while playing games or watching movies. What's more, the male-female ratio seems to be about 50/50.

There seems to be stiff competition for internet users here at the XiHua campus and around Nanchong city as well. The prices are usually 2 yuan - 2.5 yuan (~$.25) an hour during non-peak hours and 3 yuan during peak times. Compared to Chile which was usually 600 pesos (~$1.25) an hour and comparatively had much more poorly maintained facilities and equipment. There are a total of 13 internet bars on the new campus alone, with countless ones downtown. It would be safe to say that there is at least one or two on each block.

Here in China, people treat coming to the internet bar as a hobby and many do it quite seriously, often spending upwards of seven or eight hours on the weekends. I was once kicked out of an internet bar because I wasn't going to pay a fee to stay for eight hours from the period of 12 AM - 8 AM.

Because the Chinese alphabet (if we could call it that) includes upwards of six thousand characters, computer users type a word in pinyin, the Romanicized version of the Chinese character, and then choose the character from a list that match the pinyin. It's interesting to watch sometimes as most typists are highly skilled hunt-and-peckers. No one is taught how to use a keyboard as a middle school student from the United States might, perhaps because typing skills are so radically different. I haven't asked my students, but I suspect they were taught very early on how to read pinyin and typing naturally followed.

At around 7:00-8:00, every internet bar on campus is packed and there's a line of people waiting to snag an empty seat once it becomes available. Towards 9:00, the crowd starts thinning and by 10:00 it's nearly empty. The dorms close at 10:30 on the weekdays and 11:00 on the weekends and repeatedly coming in after hours could mean disciplinary action or even a fine.

The whole internet phenomenon is significant for a number of reasons. Modernity could be defined in a number of ways (literacy, healthcare, rich-poor gap), but with respect to the internet bar, the knowledge and ability to use a computer is invaluable. The Chinese internet population is around 86 million according to most sources and is now second in the world. Though we generally consider the US the center of internet activity (and in most accounts it is), it's only a matter of time before China becomes not only a major communication/IT hub, but the leader in the internet field.

More on this later.

it's the mightiest

2007-04-01T16:39:00.000+08:00

no se puede entrar....

2007-03-28T00:45:00.000+08:00

Well blogspot's been blocked for the longest time now and very difficult for me to access now. In addition, my student newspaper www.cwnutimes.com has also been added to the GFC. yay!

the rents

2007-03-06T22:56:00.000+08:00

My parents arrived a few days ago from Tokyo and came from Chengdu to Nanchong where they will be until the end of the week. They're staying at the Wan Tai Hotel, Nanchong's finest four-star establishment at a whopping 198 kuai a night ($25). It's actually a very nice hotel, though at one point it took some work to get the window to close.

It's been raining nonstop the last two days, too. It was almost as if Nanchong knew my parents were coming and intentionally made the weather miserable. It's really cold and damp and like all buildings on campus, there is no heating whatsoever. It makes for an interesting classroom. I can't imagine having to wear a winter coat to class in the US, but sure enough each and every student today had on a thick jacket to keep warm.

It was really great having my parents in class. Foreigners are such a novelty here that having multiple ones in a room together interacting is a mind-blowing experience. I invited my parents to visit and present something to the class if they wanted to, and they immediately agreed. I prepared a powerpoint slide of some pictures that my mom used to talk about life in the DC area while my dad discussed a personal story and had the students advise as to how the various characters in the story should have acted. It worked great, and it was a perfect lighthearted introduction to the semester.

During the break between class periods, I mentioned to my parents that it might be a good time to ask some students if they would like to come to eat hotpot with us after class to which my parents agreed. As they were all new students from a new class, I wasn't sure of what the dynamic would be like at dinner. Most Chinese students are comfortable with spending time with a professor or teacher outside of class, but not necessarily with a foreigner, his parents, and only after meeting him an hour earlier. I asked the entire class of about 38 whether or not they would like to come and around 15 raised their hands. At the end of class I reiterated that it wasn't obligatory to come and if you wanted to go, no matter the number, it was fine. To our surprise, as class ended, all of the students got up and left the room and none of the stayed behind to go get hotpot! Then as I was planning to take my parents by myself, a group of students returned to the classroom and said they wanted to go. The dinner was an experience for them, not only hotpot, but the interaction with the students. I only regret that my parents weren't inducted into the pig brain club - kudos to myself (president), Ethan, and Sigma. They were very against eating any of the strange delicacies you can order on the hotpot menu.

Hopefully it will stop raining tomorrow...

as long as it's fine and soft

2007-03-01T00:52:00.000+08:00

Some of the most awful Chinglish I've ever seen. This was taken in Beijing.

The new semester starts in less than a week. I still don't know my schedule, but given the nature of the school, it's only natural I haven't received it yet. I'm really excited to get back to work and meet my new students. I'm going to revamp a lot of the lesson plans that didn't work as planned and improve my organization which really fell apart towards the end of the last semester. Traveling to the south and east has really opened my eyes to new ways of looking and understanding Chinese culture and I walk around with a different but stronger confidence than I had before.

Enough about that though. The university campus is starting to open again and shops and stores that closed for spring festival are now up and running. The question I get asked most nowadays is if I went home for spring festival to which I respond, no I didn't, it's too expensive to go back to the US. It's easier than saying that I don't celebrate spring festival the way you do and I have different holidays where it is customary to spend time with family.

Spring festival was such a chaotic time here. I don't think there is another time or place in the world where so many people try to travel at one time. The commotion rose steadily from the beginning of February and then peaked around the 15th-18th. Train and bus tickets were sold out everywhere and Sigma and I ended up being stuck in Nanchong for the festival itself, which ended up being a great time in the end.

One of the greatest things about the Chinese new year is the fireworks. The story goes that fireworks are set off to scare the monster "Guo Nian" and increase your luck and success for the new year. Leading up to spring festival (the 17th of February this year on the lunar calendar), fireworks are sold all around the city usually in small shops that sell only fireworks and nothing else. Being a foreigner you get quoted a price that's much, much too high, but with some haggling you can them dirt cheap. The fireworks that are sold are not dinky little sparklers either. Many of them are big, bulky boxes that shoot off enormous explosions high into the air. Bottle rockets are one of my favorites also. I picked up a pack of 200 for 10 kuai ($1.25).

The night of spring festival was incredible. I called the other foreigners in Nanchong and met up at Peter's (an Australian teaching at a middle school) apartment. The sounds of fireworks and firecrackers going off started at around 4:00 in the afternoon and by around 8:00, there was no break in the noise. There was also a bang or an explosion that could be heard nearby. It really sounded like a war zone (or I suppose what I'd expect a war zone to sound like) Peter's apartment itself was relatively high and as a result, everyone had a good view of the rest of the city. Approaching midnight, it seemed like everyone in the city was lighting his or her mother lode stash of fireworks. It was by far the most spectacular show I had or ever will see. There was so much smoke that only few minutes after 12:00, it was nearly impossible to see across the city. The greatest part was when the security guards of Peter's apartment building lit their massive supply all that exploded within 30 feet of us. It was initially frightening given the size and sound of the explosions but it was too incredible to turn away from. Words and pictures can't do it justice. It was simply amazing to see. Everywhere you turned there were hundreds of fireworks going off in the air.

I'm certain people don't still believe in the monster "Guo Nian" or evil spirits and the lunar calendar is completely anachronistic now, but setting off fireworks for the new year is something that really defines spring festival. You take 1.3 billion people and each one of them literally starts the new year over with a bang. They start fresh. Wherever you are you hear the fireworks. It's more forceful than a ball dropping in Time's Square or a new year's resolution or Dick Clark's rockin' new year's eve on ABC. It's inspiring and unifying to say the least.
As much as China is so diverse with its millions of local dialects and 56 different races and ethnicities, there is a commonality that exists in the country and between the people that makes the Chinese society so cohesive. It's what makes the ideals of communism and socialism realistic. It's what makes China, China from Beijing all the way to Nanchong.

hong kong feevah

2007-02-07T22:53:00.000+08:00

Hong Kong was by far the most Western place I have ever seen in all of my travels around the world. It felt as if in some places there were more foreigners than Chinese nationals. Nearly everyone spoke English and signs were in Cantonese and English instead of Mandarin and English as they were in Shenzhen and Guangzhou (mainland). There were 7-11s, Starbucks, Western food on every corner, and all of the other homogenizing signs of western cultural encroachment.

The city proper is one of the most densely populated areas in the world with an average of 6300/km2 and in some places it's climbs to 50,000. The sidewalks in most places are barely three or four people wide. The most striking aspect of HK was undoubtedly the architecture; instead of building wide and sprawling offices that resemble elongated cubes for example in New York, the skyscrapers in Hong Kong look like if you were to hold up a 12-inch ruler and put some windows in it. They're so tall and so immense that at places it's impossible to see any clear sky except directly up and it often becomes overwhelming and claustrophobic.

Ethan and I only spent a day in the city (Ethan spent two because he couldn't get back to the mainland with an expired visa, which is a story in itself) and tried to do as much as possible as quickly as possible. The first night we were there we visited a night market which was really just a tourist excursion where prices were expensive and had the same mass-marketed clothes, CDs, and electronics that were available everywhere else in the country but for five or six times more than you'd pay on the mainland. In the Lonely Planet it mentioned how good the food was at the night market, so Ethan and I stopped in at an Indian and Nepalese fast food joint. We ended up getting some samosas (sp?) and chicken fingers which looked and tasted like they had just come out of a TV dinner freezer box. The total was 50 Hong Kong dollars for five samosas and ten chicken fingers. We attempted to pay in RMB and then in Macao patacas, but each time the Indian woman running the store tried to convert it into Hong Kong dollars and take a percentage. We eventually paid in HK$ and angrily left.

The following day we visited a few Buddhist monasteries and walked around the city some more before hitting the metro and making our way over to the Shenzhen-HK border. Ethan had come to China with a visa that allowed him two entries to the mainland. The first was used when he first arrived in Beijing and the second when we visited Hong Kong a few days earlier to see an expat synagogue. Being a resident of China, I am able to use the super fast Chinese resident line at customs and enter and reenter as many times as I want. Ethan on the other hand was promptly stopped while trying to get back onto the mainland with out any entrances on his visa. I wasn't able to see exactly what was happening, but after waiting for an hour outside the customs area I concluded he didn't make it.

Ethan explained to me that he had come quite close the third or fourth try when a customs worker didn't notice that there were no entries left, but a guard had spotted him and made him leave. Now by myself, I went to Guangzhou via the super fast soft-seat train from Shenzhen and checked into the Guangzhou youth hostel, which was absolutely nothing like a hostel at all. I got a double room with the expectation that Ethan might still make it, but it would be another day before we would meet up again.

Player, dealer...

2007-01-28T09:08:00.000+08:00

Macao. It officially came under sovereign Chinese rule in 1999 being handed over by the Portuguese. Almost all the signs in Macao are bilingual: Cantonese and Portuguese. It's peculiar why Portuguese still remains such a part of Macao when it's clear that there are very few Portuguese on the island and it is no longer taught in the schools. Mandarin is now being taught and stressed quite heavily, as was the case in Hong Kong, and subsequently, with the mainland influence now really taking effect, Cantonese has decreased in popularity and significance.

The official currency of Macao is the pataca and it's used exclusively in Macao and only in Macao. The pataca has a 1:1 exchange rate with Hong Kong dollars, and Hong Kong dollars can be used interchangeably througout the island, but the downside is that patacas cannot be used in Hong Kong. The analogy that Ethan and I came up with was that Macao was essentially a big Disneyland where you could buy lots of Disney money that you could use on the rides or to buy cotton candy, but it would only be of value while you were at Disneyland. Once you left Disneyland, or in this case Macao, the Disney money became useless and you would be forced to take a hit in order to exchange it back. After two days in Macao, we ended up having 4000 patacas ($500) left over, and Ethan took it back to the US with him to exchange there. Stupidly, we didn't realize that patacas were so exclusive to Macao, or otherwise we would have used the Hong Kong dollars everywhere.

There's still a lot of colonial architecture that remains and the many areas are reminiscent of the Portuguese-style streets and facades. A lot of the churches in Macao are painted bright colors in a way that immediately reminded me of the multicolored houses of Valparaiso, Chile. Pink, green, and yellow, as in Chile, were all quite common colors.

Macao is the only place in China where gambling is legal, or at least approved by the state. Ethan noted that the casinos in Macao were much quieter compared to those of AC, and I agreed. Though I don't have as much experience as Ethan does when it comes to casinos, it was clear that the people tended to keep to themselves and rarely talked while at the table. I was disappointed that there was no poker in Macao. 24 casinos. No poker. That being said, there was not a big expat contingent as there was in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or even Guangzhou which would explain why certain Western games wouldn't be played here. Comparatively, Macao seems like a relatively exotic location within China where very few backpackers visit. The rooms are expensive, it's not easy to get to, and nearby Hong Kong is much more of a draw.

Baccarat is an interesting game. It's all the rage in Macao and people wager anything from 100 yuan to 10,000+ a hand. The play begins with a betting round in which you can bet on the dealer, the player, or a tie. You get dealt two cards and the goal is to get closer to nine. The closer your two card total is to nine, the stronger your hand. Let's say you bet 100 yuan on the player. The dealer then deals you two cards and two cards for himself. You win if you beat the dealer's hand. When the hand is over and the winner has been determined, the dealer flips over a chip that says "Player wins" or "Dealer wins".

It sounds simple, but Ethan and I were unable to figure out how to play exactly because we didn't know the value of each card. It didn't stop us from playing though and as a result, the real excitement came from trying to guess which chip the dealer was going to flip over as we couldn't understand what each card was worth. I think Ethan finished up about 1,000 yuan playing a game that neither of us really knew the rules to.

The most fun part of Macao was the greyhound racing park. I had never seen a greyhound, let alone a greyhound racing park. I remember a long time ago when I used to listen to Opie and Anthony when they talked about visiting a greyhound track. They would tip some guy to go to the paddock area and watch which dog took a dump last because it was always the fastest one. I explained the strategy to Ethan who like myself had absolutely no clue how to handicap dog races in China, so we began watching the last one to take a dump. We didn't have to tip anyone because they brought the dogs out and paraded them on the dirt before the race. Each time we would bet on the dog who shat last. We were picking winners, placers, exacta boxes, you name it. I think we finished up about 150 yuan, which was a lot considering we were betting 10 yuan a ticket.

Interestingly, the dog track seemed to attract the same sort of clientèle that a horse racing track would attract in the US: single middle-aged balding men. There might have been one woman in the whole place. We were the only foreigners. I might have been the youngest one there.

The race itself was anti-climactic to say the least. After the dogs are paraded around, they're placed into a big metal box. After they're locked in, all the dogs start barking and scratching and howling and the metal box starts to shake. When the door opens a small stuffed animal swings by on the inside of the track and the dogs bolt out. The race was incredibly difficult to follow because there was no camera that would follow the action and the whole race was literally over in about ten seconds. Like with playing baccarat, the excitement really came at the end seeing who won after all the action was over, and not with the actual event itself.

Before visiting the dog track, Ethan and I went to check out a Jai Alai stadium but unfortunately, it had been torn down a few years ago. I would have guessed it was demolished because the city wanted to make room for more commercial or residential development in the expensive downtown area. Ethan remarked that a similar fate probably awaited the dog park. This huge open space in downtown Macao was surrounded by enormous skyscrapers. It's hard to believe that in ten years, the track will still be there serving this handful of single middle-aged men while Macao develops and expands at such a rapid pace.

We hit up some more casinos looking unsuccessfully for a 10 yuan minimum blackjack table and then took the ferry to Hong Kong.

we said Beijing duck, not Shenzhen duck

2007-01-28T02:46:00.000+08:00

Shenzhen was the first stop on Ethan and my trip around China (after Nanchong). After flying to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province in the southeast of China, we took an hour train to Shenzhen. The city was once a miniscule farming town of 45,000 before it was given SEZ status and turned into a pocket of unbridled capitalistic development. The first day there we hit the big shopping downtown area where Ethan picked up a pair of shoes and I unfortunately couldn't find anything I liked.

Shenzhen was a memorable experience, not because of anything specifically noteworthy about the city itself, but because of the number of times we were scammed. The first was when the two of us stopped in to get some Beijing roast duck for lunch. For those who don't know what Beijing duck is, it's roast duck served with a soft tortilla like patty, plum sauce, and cucumber or chives. You take the pieces of duck dip it in a little sauce and roll it up in the patty and eat it with your hands. I should preface this by saying, Ethan and I both love Beijing duck with an unquenchable passion and can consider ourselves connoisseurs given our extensive experience. So before entering this restaurant I asked the hostess who stood at the front entrance whether or not they had Beijing duck (Beijing kaoya) to which she replied yes, of course. Ethan and I sat down and ordered the duck and waited a few minutes for it to be prepared. First our waiter brought out the pancakes along with the plum sauce and chives. A few minutes later the duck arrived.

I started to prepare my first patty by spreading a line of plum sauce and reaching for a piece of duck. I remarked that there was an inordinate amount of duck skin and not much meat. Ethan then looked at the plate of duck and remarked that not only was there a lot of skin, but the plate of duck was just skin and contained no meat at all. The plate of duck appeared to have an ample amount of skin and meat, but in reality, there were only about ten slabs of dry skin propped up underneath by some puffy wafers of some sort. We were paying 48 yuan for ten pieces of duck skin and some chips.

Ethan called over the waitress and we began to argue that this was not what we had ordered. I explained that we wanted Beijing duck. It sort of went like this:
Me: "What is this? We ordered Beijing duck."
Watiress: "This is Shenzhen duck."
Me: "Where is the meat?"
Watiress: "What meat?"
Me: "We ordered Beijing duck, you didn't give us Beijing duck."
Waitress: "They are the same thing."
Me (pointing to the picture in the menu): "This is what we ordered. Beijing duck. You gave us the duck skin, not Beijing duck. We want Beijing duck."
Waitress (calling over manager): "This is Shenzhen duck."
Manager: "This is Shenzhen duck."
Me: "We want the meat. Where is the meat?"
Manager (signals to a waitress who brings over a skinned duck): "You want this?"
Me: "We want the meat, yes."
Manager: "We don't serve the meat. This is Shenzhen duck."
Me: "I asked you if you had Beijing duck and you said you did. This is not Beijing duck."
Manager: "Do you want to eat this?"
Me: "We want the meat."
Manager: "Shenzhen duck doesn't have meat."
Me: "Forget it."

So Ethan and I got up and left. They were fine with letting us leave without paying, even though there was food served to us, and I had eaten a few of the wafers propping up the duck skin. We concluded it had to be a scam (unless anyone has heard/knows anything differently, in which case let me know) because I can't think of anyone who would pay 48 kuai for ten slivers of skin.

The next scam took place when I was at a grocery store looking for some candy that Ethan wanted. Near the check out a woman was tending a small kiosk that sold China Mobile phone recharge cards that you could use to put money on your phone. I purchased a 30 yuan recharge and asked the woman to put it for me. Big mistake. She did it and immediately after I tried to call Ethan but it said I was still out of funds. I asked the woman why it still didn't work. She said I had to wait 30 minutes. So I waited 30 minutes. Then I waited an hour. A day. Three days later I still had no money and the phone recharge code no longer worked.

Before leaving Shenzhen to Macau, Ethan and I checked out the big computer center located near the clothing area downtown. I think Ethan needed some USB memory or something and I was looking for some camera memory also, so we stopped in and looked around. One of the shopkeepers told us they have 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, and 32 GB USB drives. I was flabbergasted. 32 GB on a little tiny pen drive? Impossible. Or maybe not. Clearly not having learned any lesson before I asked the price on the 32 GB, which was 250 yuan. I asked to try it in a computer and the shopkeeper connected it and showed that it indeed had a total space of 32 GB. Something had to be up. It had to. No way this little thing could have 32 GB of space on it. Ethan transferred some files onto the drive and sure enough it now read 31.7 GB.

We bought two for 400 kuai and while I continued to look at camera memory, Ethan went over to another shop. He then shouted to me that they had 64 GB pen drives also! D'oh! At some point Ethan handed his newly purchased 32 GB over to the other shopkeeper and explained to Ethan that it was falsely reporting the 32 GB space using some program to mask the size. The other shopkeeper removed the program and showed us that really it only had 512 MB. By the time Ethan had come back to warn me, I had purchased a 4 GB camera memory which also turned out to be masking it's size. We demanded our money back and fortunately without having to shout, punch, or break things, the shopkeeper returned the money. Ethan says that we should have gone to the other shopkeeper who warned us of the scam in the first place to buy something as a reward for alerting us to the ripoff, but we had to catch the ferry to Macao and were already very late.

Leaving Shenzhen that night was a relief. It was really overwhelming being there. It seemed everyone was out to get our money in some way. I did manage to pick up all six seasons of Oz though, and surprisingly each CD works perfectly. Off to Macao...

fotos de mi gato!

2007-01-28T02:25:00.000+08:00

la jefa de una tienda alrededor de mi departamento me dio un gatito hace unos meses porque iba a abondanarlo/dejarlo en la calle. en esa epoca buscaba un gato y cuando la jefa me conto eso, tuve que llevarlo.

aqui son algunas fotos de mi gatito que se llama 'Xiao Qiang'. mis estudiantes le dieron el nombre y creo que proviene de una pelicula china muy conocida pero se me olvido como se llama. significa 'un poco fuerte'. a Xiao Qiang le gusta morderme con tanta frecuencia y ha llegado a molestarme bastante. a la vez es bien fuerte tambien. lo estoy tratando de enseñar por tirarle con agua y gritar cuando me ataque pero ya no ha mejorado. espero que cuando sea un gato adulto, no esta tan loco. bueno, al fin es un gatito precioso. siempre duerme en mi cama y me sigue cuando camino por mi departamento. lo echo de menos cuando no estoy en casa. a ver... las fotos!

Too much to write now

2007-01-24T03:00:00.000+08:00

After the 9 day break from Nanchong, it's a smack in the face of what a different world this small city is, for most accounts, drastically ideologically contrasting when compared with the rest of China.

Xi'an: la 2da parte

2007-01-24T02:29:00.000+08:00

Deja que las fotos hablen por si solas...

<- Singing happy birthday to my mom with a group of Chinese computer science students we met on the street. You can see the whole video at: http://www.youtube.com/v/Li9P7BxBhQA.

<- Terracotta warriors. Needs no explanation.

<- X mas celebration in downtown Xi'an. There must have been over 50,000 people in the streets. Roads were blocked off and everywhere people were setting off loud firecrackers that would sometimes go off just several feet from you.

<- Bell tower in downtown Xi'an where my brother and I paid ten yuan to ring the gong six times and celebrate our mom's birthday again. View the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9Rjs9SoUeI

to guangzhou tomorrow

2007-01-16T04:34:00.000+08:00

In Hong Kong now. Too much to say. Really an enormous and overwhelming city. It'll be nice to get back to the mainland tomorrow.

chestnuts roasting by an open fire : part one

2006-12-26T23:34:00.001+08:00

And by chestnuts, I mean sweet and sour pork, and by open fire, I mean a greasy wok. Anyway, I went to Xi'an this weekend to meet up with a few other PCVs from various other Peace Corps sites. My brother recently arrived in Beijing and after telling him I was going to Xi'an, he and I decided to meet up the following morning.

I met him at 8:30 at the train station in Xi'an after one of the longest and most uncomfortable train rides I've ever experienced. Trains from Nanchong don't go directly to Xi'an, so I had to transfer in Dazhou, a smaller city about three hours east of here. It was actually very interesting. When I went to go buy the ticket in Nanchong, a man tried to cut in front of me and buy his ticket first at which point the cashier explained something to the man in Chinese, and the man recoiled and went behind me. I couldn't pick up everything the cashier said as the local dialect is enormously different from standard Mandarin, but I could understand it was a scolding of some kind and she was explaining that Chinese people shouldn't act that way. The big stereotype of Chinese train stations is that it's first-come-first-served, and pushing and shoving is not only acceptable but encouraged. This clearly evidences, however, that it's changing and it felt really good to know that someone was on my side trying to help the poor laowai get his train ticket. So, with my ticket now, I left at 4:00 to Dazhou.

After arriving in Dazhou at 7:00, I had three hours until the train to Xi'an. Unfortunately, the train from Dazhou to Xi'an was considerably longer than the train from Nanchong to Dazhou; around ten hours. I should probably mention there are three types of train tickets in China:
-Yingzuo (hard seat: the most basic ticket. Essentially a bench with a thin piece of padding with a cloth cover. It's not bad for short trips, but it hurts after a while and it's nearly impossible to get any sleep unless you're by the window where you can put your head down on the table or next to the window)
-Yingwo (hard sleeper: six beds in an open compartment. 66 beds (I believe) in each car)
-Ranwo (soft sleeper: four beds in a closed compartment. I can't remember off hand how many in each car)
So, I have an yingzuo on the ten hour ride from Dazhou to Xi'an and the biggest problem with the yingzuo is that you have very little leg room. You can't stretch out in front of you because there's another passenger. You can't put your legs into the aisle because there are food carts and cleaning personnel that come down the aisle and have no qualms about stepping on your feet or nudging you to wake up and move. I'm also seated in the aisle seat so falling asleep is much more difficult because there's no armrest and no place to really support your head. I admit I have pretty bad posture so naturally I want just to lean back and prop my head up somewhere to fall asleep. No such luck. Imagine trying to fall asleep on a ten-foot-tall stool, and you have some vague notion of what it's like at 3:42 AM on an yingzuo from Dazhou to Xi'an.

At around 4:00 I got up and walked from one side of the train to the other and managed to scout out a few seats where there was no one sitting in or on the either side of the seat. This meant I could put my head down on the mini table or up against the window and stretch my legs out. It was divine. I managed to get an hour or so of sleep before a group of really loud and screechy women came and began chatting until we arrived.

Once in Xi'an I called my brother and he was still on the train from Beijing. It was about 7:30 and he would arrive in an hour or so. I walked around the train station for a while, bought some bananas and cookies and then returned to the station where I met him.

Stay tuned for part two.

Last thing: there was almost a fight in one of my classes today between two of my male students. It was in my advanced oral English class where I'm having my final examinations in which groups of seven or eight students which have respectively researched topics of the Iraq war, gay marriage, or immigration will use the formal debate structure (opening statement, cross examination, rebuttal etc..) to argue against each other (more about this later). Anyway it was at the end of class and I'm not sure what was said, but one student slammed his water bottle down on his desk and jumped up at which point the two students were face-to-face separated by only a few inches. The rest of the students who were packing up their bags immediately turned and the whole class fell silent. It was scary in that "I hope to god this doesn't happen but it sure looks like it will" sort of way. They looked like mountain goats eying each other out before butting heads. Fortunately, one of them turned away and left before the situation escalated, but I really thought I was going to have to break up a fight. When I went to eat hot pot after class with some other students, they didn't hear what was said, but the two guys involved apparently have a long history of confrontation and both have notoriously short tempers. I'll see if I can more information on what exactly happened later.

The GAP catalogue

2006-12-09T00:50:00.000+08:00

The new fall line is in. Here's Bill in a delightful sweater vest ensemble available in cream (shown here), burnt umber, and navy blue. Perfect for barbecues, picnics, or back-breaking manual labor: $40.

short about the lecture

2006-12-08T23:05:00.000+08:00

I was asked a couple weeks ago to give a lecture at the school by Kitty, the head of the English student union organization. There weren't any details about the content except that it should be around 90 minutes and about whatever I wanted. In my classes I incorporate some lecture, but for the most part, there's a lot of discussion and interaction. I thought about how I could talk constantly about something for 90 minutes and make it interesting at the same time and realized it required a lot of planning.

The lecture was scheduled for 7:00 PM this night, and in typical Phil fashion, I started working at 4:30. I had told Kitty the topic would be culture, but in order to give myself some leeway so I could change the content in the future if I wanted to, I didn't tell her much of the specifics about what exactly about culture I would be talking about. I wasn't worried though. I wasn't going to be reviewed in any way and I knew that even without any planning I easily make a 90 minute speech about culture.

I figured it should be a lecture about something students were curious about. I haven't seen a Chinese teacher's lecture, but according to other students, all of the lectures from Chinese teachers are pretty dull. It's essentially a professor at a podium speaking for 90 minutes. It was a Friday night and I know I wouldn't want to attend a lecture held by a foreign teacher about something strictly academic, so I decided it I would try to keep it light. The biggest thing was making sure I didn't stand and talk like the Chinese teachers, but I love to be dynamic when I'm on stage so that was the least of my worries.

Knowing students absolutely love to look at pictures and are incredibly curious about traveling and foreign culture, I took about 45 of my nearly 2,500 travel pictures on my computer into a powerpoint separated by information slides about culture:

-Culture is what makes us different
-Culture makes our cities different
-Culture is our ideas about religion
-Culture is what gives us ideas about what is acceptable and unacceptable, what is good and bad, and what is funny and not funny
-Culture is the food we eat
-Culture is what we like
-Culture is also what we don't like
-Culture makes us friendly

After each slide I put in some pictures from my travels. I explained the pictures and told some stories surrounding them. The time when I got my cell phone stolen with a friend while sneaking back into estadio nacional after leaving to buy pisco got the best response. I used some pictures of dishes from Chile and Egypt for 'the food we eat' and the pictures of the protests in Chile for 'what we don't like'. Man, I love those protests.

I ended with a slide about what I have learned from traveling:
What have I learned?
-Culture is a beautiful thing
-We are all different, and culture is what makes us different
-You cannot get rid of your culture
-We need to respect other cultures

The whole thing went flawlessly. I couldn't have asked for a better response. After my speech, which lasted about 60 minutes, I opened it up for questions, of which there were a number and I had to end the Q&A session myself after about 20 minutes to prevent it from dragging on. There were lots of laughs (exactly what I wanted), and afterwards lots of people came up, asked to take a picture, and thanked me. I then took some of my students who had come to the lecture out to eat some hot pot and a local restaurant.

I also heard one of the English teachers, described by Kitty as 'plump', is interested in my new online newspaper for students: www.cwnutimes.com. I'm not sure in what capacity, but it'd be nice to have a Chinese English teacher around to help or maybe write some articles. I've put a lot of time into the website so I hope it's successful. The first meeting is on the 13th, and I've been actively promoting it by telling other teachers and students to put up flyers and inform their classes. I have absolutely no idea how many people will show up on Wednesday.

In all:
a great day.

newspaper + education

2006-11-30T22:18:00.000+08:00

So this online newspaper I have seems like it's really coming together. I've come up with an advertisement and scheduled a first meeting for December 13th. I've made an announcement in all of my classes and it seems like a great deal of my students are really interested. The biggest challenge I see now is making sure that the content isn't vapid and trite articles about, 'How great my hometown is'. I'm not too worried about the sophomores and juniors. I'm really worried about the freshmen and non-English majors whose English is considerably worse but arguably exhibit much more confidence than the English majors.

I'm not sure why the freshmen and non-English majors have more confidence when speaking than my sophomore and junior students. The freshmen are the only ones who will come up to me in the hallway and ask me questions, even though they're just the dull milk-toast questions about whether I like China. I'm not even sure what happens that makes students shy about approaching a foreigner in the first place. I know when I had native Spanish speakers at F&M I wasn't necessarily afraid of approaching him or her. I never went up to one and initiated a conversation like some of the students here do, but I think it would just be strange to walk up to a professor and ask her if she likes American food.

In any event, I was never shy about approaching a professor. I think a lot of the apprehension here has to do with the level of the professor verses that of a student. The word for teacher, laoshi, literally means old master and the laoshi in China is certainly considered more knowledgable and therefore above a student. In the US, the tradition is for students to actively question as opposed to passively receive, which would explain the emphasis on participation and volunteering in American classrooms. I believe that is the biggest difference between American and Chinese classrooms. I've seen a couple classes here and for the most part, there is little teacher-student interaction. Most of the information is one way only. It's been difficult to get students to consistently participate, but the progress that I've seen so far, although not the level I'd like it yet, is quite surprising and commendable given the students' educational background up until now.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare the F&M liberal arts education to CWNU though. I think most unviersities in the United States are not like F&M, and are probably just as impersonal in terms of professor-student relationships as I think CWNU is. I don't have much experience with big schools, so I should say that these conclusions are somewhat unsubstantiated considering. Students here though have very little face time with professors, and interaction between students and professor is fairly limited. I do everything I can to make sure I am available to students at all times: I have office hours, give out my e-mail and phone number, hold review sessions, visit English corners etc... but I am the only English teacher that does this. Chinese professors, at least the ones I've met so far, don't hold office hours and never visit English corner. There is a bi-weekly showing of an English movie by Mr. Hao, but the word 'showing' is a misleading term. I thought originally that Mr. Hao would explain the context of the movie and give some background, but it turns out all he does is choose the movie and give it to a student to show. That's certainly a better situation than having no movie at all, but it lacks the personalism that I've experienced throughout my schooling. I've inquired about showing my own movies (which I now have quite a collection of) but students seem content with having Mr. Hao choose the films for them.

In any event, this newspaper shows some promise for bridging the professor-student gap even more, and making sure that students have another English outlet. More to follow...

The vet

2006-11-28T21:27:00.000+08:00

So I went to the veterinarian yesterday with my cat to investigate the scabbiness and flaky skin problems it was having. When I got him out of the box, the vet instructed me to hold the cat's neck between my hands while he gave him an injection. While giving the injection into the back of his neck, the little cat squirmed away and I can only imagine what sort of pain he experienced wiggling with a needle in his spine.

The vet gave another injection to the cat and placed him back into the box. At this point the cat became limp and unable to walk. I asked if he was okay, and the vet responded that, no, in fact he wasn't ok. A few minutes later, and the kitten was completely comatose. There was no movement at all in his limbs. He wasn't even blinking. The vet then left the office and took me and the cat in his carry box (actually just a cardboard box from my parents with a soft sheet) to his other office (across the street) where he told me to sit and wait. The vet then left me and the cat and returned to the main office.

Ten minutes passed and nothing happened. The cat was just as limp as before. The vet returned and held up the cat at which point the cat's head snapped back. He put the cat back into his box and he lied there motionless again. At this point I began to look around this office and noticed an empty bottle of baijiu (rice alcohol) and a couple half-drunk beers on a table in the center of the room. The vet then gave the cat another injection with no reaction and then took a sip of beer. When I finally got a smell of his breath, I could tell he was drunk, and not just any drunk, this guy was clearly under the influence. I probably wouldn't have minded if it were my doctor. I think it would be humorous to see my doctor drunk and trying to assist patients, but here was this veterinarian trying (at this point) to rescue a cat that he had hurt with his negligence. This picture here is of the doctor's table where the bottle of baijiu, which is now in the trash, was previously lying on the ground.

The vet left again and returned with another injection. No reaction. He told me to wait again and I sat there while he left to his other office. He came back again with another injection. Nothing. At this point it went through my head exactly what I would do if the cat died there. Did I have any recourse? It turns out he is also a teacher at CWNU, but doubt there is anything I could do other than try my best to express my anger in Chinese.

Finally after an hour and a half of sitting and staring at the lifeless cat, he began to come to and began to move his legs. Eventually he was able to drunkenly move around with great difficulty. Only this morning was he able to walk in a straight path. I've asked about other vets in the Nanchong area.

Today I continued talking about debating in my advanced oral English class. I'm leading up to a big debate as a final exam in which six groups will individually debate the pros and cons of the Iraq war, gay marriage, and immigration reform. I'm slowly taking them through each part of a debate; the opening statement, cross-examination, rebuttal, and closing statement. Each week we talk about a new topic and practice another aspect of the debate structure.

Today's topic, perhaps partly for my own interest to see their ideas and to give them some more background into contemporary American politics, was the legalization of marijuana. Not one student of all 150 students I had today was pro-legalization. Everyone had these weird notions of what marijuana did and what the effects were. Some ideas were very extreme, that marijuana could cause the breakdown of society: smoking or touching marijuana would make the person violently and deliorously addicted, ultimately leading to disorder and chaos. Other students were tamer and only talked about the harmful effects of smoking on the lungs.

I asked where they got this information, and most of the students responded that it was from CCTV (the Chinese national television station). I wish I could see some of the commercials that talked about drug use. I can ony imagine that it was like those 1930 films about marijuana called 'Reefer Madness'. On the bus from Nanchong to Chengdu a propaganda short about birth control was intermittently shown during a movie on the bus's tv screens. The short began with a number of sperm swimming incessantly through a beige-ish background. The camera then focuses on a single sperm that begins to take on certain animal-like qualities. It stops swimming and looks around like a worm would coming out of a hole. At this point the image faded away and a message popped up in English and Chinese: 'Don't leave anything to chance'. I must have watched the little lonely sperm movie at least ten or eleven times by the time the two hour bus ride was over.

Only a few of them mentioned it was their parents who had told them marijuana was bad. I made sure to explain that what made a drug 'bad' was relative and explained that coffee, cigarrettes, and beer all are techincally drugs. After going deeper into the pros and cons and having the students practice cross-examinations, it seemed that the ideas of marijuana-induced destruction and chaos had faded away.

It's raining and my food is getting cold. Back home now...

MERRY THANKSGIVING DAY, Phil!

2006-11-25T13:49:00.000+08:00

One of the text messages a student sent me on Thursday. It's interesting the way American holidays, regardless of their significance, are observed/celebrated here in China. Students have absolutely no idea what Thanksgiving actually is, but they sent me many messages and believe it is a time to celebrate. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two most widely observed American holidays here by far. Easter is probably third. I consistently have to explain that Thanksgiving is an American (cultural) holiday while Christmas and Easter are religious ones.

When I say that I don't celebrate Christmas, all of my students gasp in wonderment. An American who doesn't celebrate Christmas? Then I have to explain what Christianity is and why I'm not Christian and why I also don't celebrate Easter. I'm sure these holidays are relevant in China only because the Chinese understand that they are significant in the US. A lot of my students related Thanksgiving to the Chinese mid-Autumn moon festival; a time when you get together with friends and family, but they had no idea as to what Thanksgiving was really about; historically and culturally, at least.

On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I went with some other foreigners to eat huoguo, Chinese hotpot; essentially a simmering bowl of hot oil in which you cook various dishes in before eating. I hear hot pot is more popular in Sichuan province than it is in some of the other areas, which may be because of the Sichuan propensity to spicy foods. It was as close to a Thanksgiving dinner as one could actually get in Nanchong.

In my writing class last week, I taught about how to write thesis statements. As an example, I had students come up with a list of facts about a topic, come up with a few thesis statements about the topic, and then underline the facts that support that statement. As a demonstration, the class made facts about the school dining hall which is apparently a den of rank and inedible filth that no one likes. Everyone was negative about the dining hall, and supplied facts like, "The food quality is poor", "The service is slow", and "The chopsticks smell bad". Then one of my students said that, "The peanuts taste good", and I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. I've started using it to describe other situations in the way that you might use the phrase, "Well at least you have your health". For example, my apartment is cold, the floor is dirty, and I need to take the trash out.. But at least the peanuts are good".

After waiting several weeks and many trips to the old campus, I've also finally got my saxophone from home. I'm not sure where it was during the week in which I know it arrived and the time I picked it up, but at least it is here and with me. I inquired at the music department about finding some other people, a bass player or a piano player, to help make a little jazz group. Chu Longfei, a very nice guy and a saxophone student at the school, said he knew some people and would ask around. It sounds promising.

Last Friday I went to Chengdu to buy a new camera and visit Pierce, another PCV who was in Chengdu for some health exams after being injured in an altercation coming out of a bar at his site in Lanzhou, Gansu province. It was good to see him and we and another PCV Matt went to a Western restaurant called "Pete's". Nothing like a break from Chinese cuisine. I got a Reuben sandwich and Key Lime pie. So good.

I took the bus down to Chengdu in the morning, but because the busses stop at around 6:30, I was forced to take the 9:30 train back which takes another hour. The train has assigned seats and when I went to my seat, I found it was taken by a Chinese construction worker talking with his friends. I found a seat nearby as to not disturb the man, but eventually someone told me I was in his seat and I had to move. I apprehensively went up to my real seat and showed the worker my ticket. He apologized and I sat there uncomfortably for a few minutes until I whipped out the pack of cards I had in my pocket and asked the workers if they wanted how to play "Dou Di Zhu" a game similar to "Asshole". It literally means "Kill the landlord" and everyone knows how to play it here. People usually play for money (about five kuai a hand), but I am reluctant to ever do that. Everyone crowded around to see the laowai playing cards. It was a great time. I asked them some questions and then took a nap. I woke up to find everyone else around me also passed out. It was the first time being on a Chinese train, but certainly not the last.

..aaaand we're back

2006-11-15T01:55:00.000+08:00

So I've neglected to update not because I didn't have anything to post about, but because I haven't been able to log into blogspot for a long time now. Chinese internet is often unreliable and sometimes sites that are accessible one day, may not be the next. The free university internet in my house also went down a couple weeks ago and has only come back just now. Did I mention I have free high speed internet in my apartment? Another PCV coined the term Peace Corps: Cadillac program. True. It's definitely a different experience than being in Africa and several days away from a computer (no names).

Anyway, the Halloween party I had at my house was a success, and people ended up dancing and having a great time. I'll upload some pictures in a bit. Other news will also come soon.

a little about the campus

2006-10-28T23:04:00.000+08:00

There are two campuses to CWNU. The old campus, located right in downtown Nanchong, is where the science classes and all of the department offices are. The new campus, which is on the outskirts of town about 25 minutes by bus, is where the foreign language, mathematics, post graduate students, and one American English teacher live. (This picture is of the first foreign language building. There are two nearly identical ones towards the left of this one).

The new campus is still under heavy construction. Most of the buildings are completed, but the finishing touches are still being put on. Trees are being planted, streets are being paved, and plaques that I can’t read are being put in place. The construction never really seems to stop either. Behind my apartment complex, the school is building new teacher's apartments when the new campus is opened to the rest of the faculty. During the week, there are cranes and jackhammers until about 1:00 in the morning. The crews start work at around 7:00. The workers live in little makeshift huts next to the construction site. When they're not working, the construction workers dress surprisingly formally. Most workers wear grey but stylish blazers and coats, collared shirts, and slacks.

The classrooms here are fairly basic, but clean and have good acoustics. The rooms are set up with rows of three seats on the left, five seats in the middle and another row of three seats on the right side. I have access to a computer lab for my Advanced Oral English classes, though I find having computers can sometimes be a distraction. In the computer lab, there are two rows of four connected desks each containing a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Chinese students have this tendency to look down and away from you when a question is asked to the class, especially if they don't know the answer. Adding a computer screen only gives the students another reason not to look up at me. In the front of the classroom is a teacher's computer where I can control what is put up on the screens of the other computers in the class. Unless I absolutely need to show something relevant, I will use one of the regular classrooms because the desks in the computer classroom are small and it's more difficult to split students into groups.

Some of the department offices will be moved to the new campus next year, as well as some of the teachers’ residences. (In the picture: a new science building on the right not yet in use and some construction). It’s nice being the token foreigner on the new campus though. People never seem to get used to seeing me around. Even at campus restaurants that I regularly frequent, I am always greeted with smiles and a big Chinese “hallo!” There is one woman who always is ecstatic to see me. She is by far the nicest person I have met in China. She runs a small campus store that sells fruit, drinks, household items, toiletries, and various non-perishable foods like dried noodles. The store is near my house and I drop by during the week after class to get a water or some chips. When I leave she always tells me, “Zuo yixia!” (Please sit!). I rarely do because I’m tired after class and I’d like to get home. When I say that I don’t have time or I’m tired, she offers to have one of her friends drive me home on his motorcycle.

I feel that hospitality like that is a real crap shoot. There are a few reactions that a foreigner can expect here. I think the most common are shyness, bewilderment, fear, and just plain apathy. I try to make as much communication as I can without seeming overly aggressive. If I can tell someone is talking about me I acknowledge them with a smile and a “Ni hao”. No one expects a foreigner can speak Zhongwen, so I think most Chinese are reluctant to approach a foreigner especially if they can’t speak any English.

At the English corner yesterday, the topic was sports. It officially begins at 8:00, but I have class until 8:30 so I got there half an hour late. Like last time, I took one step outside and immediately a crowd of Chinese freshmen immediately circled around me. It reminded me of the ponds here with the millions of enormous goldfish that swarm together when you drop a few flakes into the water. It was unfortunately a lot of the same questions. “HEY! Excuse me, SIR!! Do you like China?” and “Excuse me! What is the difference between Chinese and American universities?” Most students associate me with the rest of foreign teachers, but being with the Peace Corps separates me in terms of my goals and role at the school. I’m a volunteer and I’m interested in development, and not money, religion, or marriage (I know people that are here for each).

Next week I am hosting a Halloween party at my enormous house. I’ve invited a few of my classes to attend. I’ll be dressing up as a Chinese security guard with some clothes I bought at a local store. The hat, tie, shirt, patches, and tie clip combo was 60 kuai and I haggled it down to 50 ($6.25). I’ll have to explain the concept of an American party to make sure that students know it won’t be a banquet and you don’t have to arrive on time or stay for the entire time. The party is costume-mandatory, and there’s a prize for the best costume, so I’ll be taking lots of pictures.

This last picture is from a fashion show at a fancy mall in downtown Nanchong. Public activity here tends to attract crowds of onlookers whether or not you're included in the intended audience.

losing face

2006-10-19T21:52:00.000+08:00

Today was my first real experience with losing face. I feel bad for the girl because I know it was my fault, but my own cultural background told me it was ok. In retrospect I shouldn't have done it, at least not so vocally.

In my writing classes, I always begin class with a 10 minute writing warm up that I collect after time is up. After the warm up, I have a grammar touch-up exercise that includes correcting a short passage or a number of sentences. The goal is to fix some basic stylistic or grammatical mistakes that I can see most of the students make in their writing. The topic for the writing warm up today was "Whom do you admire the most, and why?" Looking at some of the papers while the students were writing, I glanced at Bella's composition entitled "A Angel". When time was up, I asked my monitor to collect all of the essays except Bella's. Coincidentally, the grammar touch-up exercise was when to use "a/an" and "the" (indefinite and definite articles).

Bella didn't take this the right way though. I had intended to show here why it was wrong and allow her to correct it, but when I asked her to hand her paper to me to show the error, she put her head down on her desk and refused to look at me. I froze for a second and then continued with the grammar correction. When I looked back at Bella again, I could see her face was flushed and her eyes were glassy as if she had been crying. After the grammar touch-up I went over a few phrases and idioms: "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride" and "Luck favors the well-prepared". I called a break early in order to leave enough time to go over the story book assignment due next week.

During the break, a student came up to ask me a question about the "beggars would ride" phrase, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Bella ripping her composition up into little pieces. I acted as if I didn't see it. After class ended I called Bella over and spoke to her privately. She had visibly calmed down and apologized numerous times for destroying her paper. I explained that I didn't single her out because her essay was bad, but because I wanted her to correct the gleaming mistake in her title: "A Angel". I also apologized and told her to bring me a new copy the following week. Phew.

After class a couple students, Tovell (from my advanced oral English class) and Jane, winner of the CCTV cup English competition, met me at my classroom and asked me to come to the English corner. I congratulated her again for winning the Xi Hua competition and asked her when the next round would be. It turned out the Sichuan Province-wide finals were last week, and, according to Jane, the winner was, "a very nice boy from a university that I can't translate into English. Electric something..." Thanks, Jane.

I was surprised to see so many people at the English corner. There must have been about 75, and the vast majority of them were freshmen. The topic of the corner was "What are your dreams?" As the only foreigner and native speaker there, I was asked to give a welcome speech and tell what my dreams were. I started off with the, "Hello!" and everyone responded "Hello!" to which I made the stereotypical D.A.R.E. teacher response, "You can do better than that! I can't hear you!" And all of the students answered in a chorus at the same level. Oh well. As a crowd pleaser, I explained that my dream was to come to China. I saw some of my own students there as well, including one junior girl who never says a word and sits and stares out the window half the time. At the corner she was eager to say hello and ask me some questions. Her English is nearly perfect, and the writing I've graded of hers is by far the best in the class. She's too arrogant to be shy, she must just think the class is too easy or unstimulating.

I wish the topic was something more substantial than "What is your dream?" because god knows I don't have a dream and I certainly don't think I could tell any of the Nanchong English freshmen students how to pursue theirs. Maybe something about the relation of English to socioeconomic status in developing countries would have been more suitable. I could have whipped out my thesis.

After giving the speech I was swarmed by almost all of the freshmen who had come to the English corner. About 90% of them were girls. One by one they asked me questions and I did my best to answer them as completely as possible. Unfortunately most of the questions were the typical ones I hear like, "What is your favorite Chinese food?" (Beijing kaoya), "What do you think about China?"(Wow! The people are so friendly and the food is delicious!), "Can you speak Chinese?" (yi dian dian), "Do you like Sichuan food?" (No Sichuan food is horribly revolting and too spicy to be enjoyable by anyone without a steel tongue.. No I mean I like it oops!). I managed to get a couple pictures which really made the whole experience worthwhile. When the English corner ended at 9:30, everyone wanted to take a picture with me on their camera phone. It's probably the closest to celebrity-dome that I'll ever get. Everyone wanted my phone number and e-mail. Many girls told me I was very handsome and that they were afraid to talk to me. That's probably because I just reek of unharnessed sexual intimidation, hah!

back to school

2006-10-10T23:09:00.000+08:00

Today (actually last week, but I've posted this on Sunday) was the first day of classes back from the National Day vacation. I had a total of three one-and-a-half hour classes of "Advanced Oral English". I've really begun to pick up on each class' unique personality. Some classes are quiet and slow to respond to questions while others are visibly engaged and talkative. My goal now is to make the quiet classes more active. I've started writing down people's names who volunteer in class, and it's really improved the student's attention.

I did a lesson on relationships and dating in the United States. We started with dating vocabulary including, "Blind date, double date, to go steady, and to go Dutch". Then, I split the class into groups of five and read five true or false questions about dating and relationships in the United States:

1. Most Americans begin dating in Middle School or High School
2. Americans usually have many boyfriends or girlfriends
3. Americans exchange wedding bands after getting married
4. Couples in the US usually go Dutch when paying for a bill
5. The divorce rate in the United States is ____ %

My last class really had fun with the questions and I was pleased to see some really heated discussions taking place. I think the divorce rate question was the favorite because no one knew exactly what it was. Most students guessed around 60-70%. Just in case you were wondering, the US census puts it around 52-53%. We then turned the questions around and talked about what the situation was like in China. Most students agreed that in China, the divorce rate was around 10-15%. I haven't been able to verify it, but it's an interesting statistic nonetheless. In my last class of the day, I had planned on doing an activity involving describing and drawing the ideal bachelor and bachelorette, but instead we ended up having a 40 minute talk about the reasons why the rate is so much higher in the United States than it is in China. Some students volunteered really insightful arguments regarding understandings of personal freedom, traditional vs. modern ways of thinking, and even women's rights. I wished I had some taped recording of what was said. It was by far the best class I've had at CWNU.

I'm also still getting the hang of hospitality here in China. I've had a lot of students ask me to get lunch or dinner or go downtown. It is customary when a boy and a girl get a meal for the boy to pay the entire bill - no questions asked. When discussing relationships in my oral English classes, students all agreed that going Dutch is completely unheard of in China while in the United States it is culturally acceptable. When I go out with students, I consistenly make an effort to pay especially when I know the bill is expensive. Sometimes I am successful, but other times I'm not. I know students have considerable less money than I do; very few of them have jobs, they tend to receive little money from their parents, and (especially at CWNU) the majority are from less developed rural villages. I feel guilty letting the students pay, but if I'm invited I know I should just shut up and let them. Despite paying for the bill, I always enjoy eating dinner with students because it's a good chance to talk about things beyond 'Where are you from?' and 'What do you think about China?' The following is a picture from a dinner I had a few days ago with some juniors of mine (left to right: Kristen, Joy, and Louise).

On Friday, I had my first lesson with my new Chinese teacher. Her English name is Sure, though I've forgotten her Chinese name already. Most Chinese names go in one ear and out the other because the words are just so foreign still. Sure is 24-years-old and teaches English and Chinese at CWNU. She's been trained in teaching Chinese to foreigners and taught the Peace Corps couple who just finished their service. I have two lessons a week for one hour at a time. The Peace Corps reimburses me for tutoring fees up to 400 kuai a month, and I've arranged to give her all 400 kuai. When she left, she went through my DVD collection and took 'School of Rock' and 'Bowling for Columbine'. It'll be interesting to see what she thought of 'Bowling'.

On a side note - yesterday, wikipedia (in English) was removed from the list of banned sites within China. Wikipedia in Chinese still remains censored and inaccessible in mainland China. This is great not only because now I can much more easily find some facts and tidbits I can use in class, but it is also a symbol of relaxing government internet and information censorship standards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/technology/16wikipedia.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

the intro

2006-10-04T15:56:00.000+08:00

I made this blog on October 3rd, the last official day of the national day celebrations here in China; the three day celebration marking the foundation of the People's Republic of China by Chairman Mao Zedong on October 1st, 1949.

The first day I went downtown and met up with Sarah, another PCV, and we went into the city center to see what was happening. The central park was full of people, and of course we got the usual gawking, pointing, and ever-so-popular high-pitched Chinese girl giggle. Part of the park is more like a carnival than a park and includes several games and amusement rides including bumper cars and a few tame roller coasters. I love bumper cars and immediately went over to check them out. I was surprised to see many mothers with their infants, who could not have been more than a year old, in the bumper cars getting smacked around by all the other cars. Would this ever happen in the United States? I'm not sure. In any event, I took a picture and it gave me the motivation to create this blog: bumper cars with infants.

I'm a teacher at China West Normal University and a Peace Corps volunteer. I teach two classes of writing to sophomores and five classes of advanced oral English to juniors for a total of 14 teaching hours. During the week I hold office hours, help out with a university English radio show, meet up with students, watch movies, study Chinese, and grade papers. The school has about 30,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students with more majors than I could list here. Most of the students will go on to become teachers (hence the "normal" designation) after graduation.

Last Friday was the CCTV cup English speaking contest at China West. There were a total of 8 contestants, all English majors at the university. The winner goes on to Chengdu to compete against other winners from around Sichuan province for a scholarship and an internship with CCTV. Two were students from one of my sophomore writing classes. The topic was "gain and loss". All of the speeches were about some dull and superficial explanation like a loss was actually a gain in disguise or that we shouldn't feel sad when we lose or fail. After a four to five minute memorized speech, the students then had to answer one question from one of the judges which included myself, another foreign teacher, two English department administrators, and a female Chinese English teacher. The student then selected a number from one-to-nine which corresponded to a picture. Of the pictures I can remember, one was of a news story about China entering the WTO, another of an anorexic model, a Chinese space shuttle being launched, a popular Chinese soap opera, and an image from a Chinese internet chat service. The students had 30 seconds to prepare, then were able to talk for two to three minutes.

After the picture response, the rest of the judges and I wrote down a score and handed it to one of the contest hosts. I was advised that (even now I am still unsure of why) the lowest score I should give is an 8.0. Most of the scores I gave were around 8.8 to 9.0. Of the eight contestants, the top two students tied for 9.1 and went onto a playoff round. One of the two finalists (the girl in the picture) whose name is Joy, is in my writing class. I was asked by one of the hosts to propose a question to each of the contestants, and I said something to the effect of, "Is there such a thing as a loss with no gain, for example losing a family member?" In retrospect it was as superficial as most of the speeches, but how many questions can you really ask about gain and loss? The Chinese English teacher also asked a question before the judges panel wrote down their choice as the winner. I thought Joy had done a much better job, despite the fact that I had something vested in the result (I was the winner's teacher! haha), but the other student won 3-2. Afterwards I presented some awards to the runner-ups and took pictures. It was a fun initiation to these contests which apparently happen several times a year.