thinking back

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

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

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

playing jenga... will update soon.

Hanoi

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??

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

welcome to the working week

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

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

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

back to school

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

pig$

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

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

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.