QD

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

no se puede entrar....

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

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

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

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.