Santa in Kaifeng

These photos are of Adam, who bought a Santa suit for 100 yuan and walked around downtown Kaifeng with an entourage of foreigners.

I am enjoying having a working camera again (which is borrowed from Adam).

Looking Forward by Looking Back

I'm including another one of my Asian Studies Senior Seminar papers.  The winter break is coming up, and I've been trying to decide where to go.  I had thought that I'd explore China, but these last few weeks they only places I want to go to are Beijing and Harbin.  I also have started to feel a little tired, in a way that I remember feeling tired of everything around this time two years ago in Japan.  So, I think I'm going to visit Japan this break.  Though it is certainly not written in stone.  This piece talks about the end of the semester in Japan, and coming back.

Pine Trees at Uji, Kyoto

Walk from Train Station to Kansai Gaidai Dorms

Listening Practice:  An Outsider's Role in Japan

            After one semester in Japan, I felt a bit overwhelmed.  My language skills seemed to be deteriorating, instead of getting better.  Most of the study abroad students I knew were returning home for spring semester.  And I had the eerie but unconfirmed suspicion that my host family was glad that I was leaving them.  I was beginning to wonder if I had gained anything from the experience of being abroad.

            Ironically, it wasn't until I left Japan that I began to feel at home there.

            For two weeks during winter break I traveled outside Japan.  The experience was incredible, but I will not elaborate on it here.  I will leave it that I saw a side of Asia that is not as organized as Japan is.  I found out what it was like to be unable to speak any of the native language.  It is with this context that I was able to view my return to Japan.

            On the first night back I caught the slowest of the Shinkansen and rode from Fukuoka to Osaka.    By the time I arrived in Osaka it was 11:30 at night.  The local train I would have needed to catch to get to the dorms would shut down for the night before I could get there.  With my leftover money I went and caught a cab.

            Osaka is known for being more casual and more open than most of Japan.  People speak more informally and are more comfortable with foreigners.  The cab driver that night was definitely from Osaka.  After I told him the destination and we agreed on the price, he used the casual short verb form.  He didn't try to use English except once in a great while when I didn't understand something he said, and even when he did, he would shift almost immediately back into Japanese.  Over the course of the two hour cab ride we talked about food, American/Japanese stereotypes, and China as a world power.  Out of all the people I talked to in nine months in Japan, that cab driver that night remains by far my favorite conversation partner.

            As spring semester went on I found myself fitting into a new role.  While first semester I tried to be a part of a family, second semester I tried to be myself and explore.  I eavesdropped more, and smiled more.  I have come away with some interesting conversations, from a brief history of a fire bombed neighborhood in Tokyo to drinking habits of working men in Sapporo.  I found a role in listening to others rather than in speaking or doing.  Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised.  I am much more of a listener in English as well.

Classwork

I don't really get to share what I do in class in that much detail, so I thought I'd share something I had my conversation class do for homework.  I asked each class to write a response to, 'If you could clone one significant figure, who would it be and why?'  Here are the results.  I did not include descriptions next to the names, but if you post a comment, I will fill you in. I am pleased to say I recognized all of the former Premiers and Presidents of China, and none of the popular singers or actors or writers.  I know these ones now though, because each student described their person in their assignment.

Person                           Class 1              Class 2              Class 3              Class 4                  Total

Zhou Enlai                      IV                     II                       III                     IV                          13

Oscar Wilde                   I                                                                                                          1

No One                          I                       I                                                 I                               1

Bai Fangli                       I                                                                                                          1

Steve Jobs                     I                        I                         I                                                       3

Oneself                         VIII                    IV                   VI                       III                           21

Confucius                      I                        I                        II                         II                            6

Albert Einstein               III                      I                         I                                                       5

Tracy McGrady             I                                                                                                           1

Friend                            I                                                                                                           1

Michael Jackson            II                       I                                                     I                            4

Audrey Hepburn            I                                                                                                            1

Deng Xiaopeng             III                                                I                         IV                            8

Mother Teresa                I                                                                                                           1

Issac Newton                 I                                                 I                                                         2

Mother                          II                                                 I                                                        3

Father                           II                                                                               I                           3

Cao Xueqin                   II                                                                               I                          3

Cheung                         I                                                                                                            1

Yuan Longping                                       I                                                        I                         2

Jackie Chan                                            I                                                                                   1

Zhu Rongji                                              I                                                                                   1

Ren Changxia                                          I                                                        I                        2

Wu Zetian                                               I                                                                                  1

Girls Generation                                      I                                                                                   1

JJ Lin                                                     I                                                                                    1

Grandparent                                            I                             II                                                   3

Sanmao                                                   I                                                                                  1

Garfield                                                   I                                                                                  1

Bill Gates                                               II                                                        I                         3

Mr Bean                                                  I                                                                                  1

Su Shi                                                      I                                                                                  1

Cat                                                          I                                                                                  1

Taylor Swift                                             I                                                                                  1

Oprah Winfrey                                         I                                                                                  1

Mao Zedong                                            I                                                                                  1

Li Bai                                                       I                                                       I                          2

Liu Bingshan                                                                             I                                                  1

Michael Jordan                                                                         I                                                  1

Dogs                                                                                        I                                                  1

Lin Dan                                                                                    I                                                  1

Alex Del Piero                                                                          I                                                  1

Yu Minhong                                                                              I                                                 1

Florence Nightingale                                                                  I                                                 1

Leonardo Da Vinci                                                                    I                                                 1

Babies who have died                                                               I                                                  1

Doraemon                                                                                 I                                                 1

Boyfriend                                                                                  I                                                  1

Martin Luther King Jr.                                                                                        I                        1

Helen Keller                                                                                                      II                        2

Jolin                                                                                                                    I                        1

Another Perspective

As you may have noticed, I am not the only one here in China.  Ben has been linking all of our blogs together, so I thought I would do the same too.  On the left hand side of the screen are Eaaf, Adam, and Ben's blogs.  If you are interested, we all are seeing some of the same stuff every day, but we tend to write about very different stuff.

Unorganized Days

I forget often to mention daily life.  When I first got here everything was so new, that there wasn't enough time to write about everything.  Now, with day to day stuff is not so new it doesn't seem important anymore.  But that doesn't change how different it is from back home, so I can elaborate now.

Most mornings I get up, have instant oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast.  Both are sold at almost all supermarkets and are easy to come by.  I also have instant coffee, which is also incredibly easy to get, lemon tea with honey, which is delicious, or hot cocoa, a recent acquisition from a new shopping center that opened this last week which has imported foods.  If I have class, I then load up my bag with the relevant text book, my homework folder, lesson plan or notes, and a thermos of lemon tea.  I place the bag in my bicycle basket then ride about three minutes to get to the building my first class is in.  During that three minute ride I might pass any of the following: people taking wedding photos in a rented suite and dress, people playing 'gate ball' something similar to croquet, someone with a trash collection cart with a large straw broom attached, cars, bikes, electric bikes, students walking.  For the last five, you may think these things happen adjacent to each other, but in fact, they all happen in the same place - on the road/side walk where I am riding.

I then teach class.  If I am in the North Foreign Language Building, during breaks if I stand on the balcony I can hear someone playing a flute.  I have yet to figure out where exactly the mysterious flute player is, only that he/she is there most mornings I am there.  Though the individual rooms are heated, the inside courtyard is not, so if I leave the classroom I must make sure I'm bundled up.  If I am in the Comprehensive Building, during breaks I often go to the stairwell where the sound of students reciting lessons, speeches, and practicing pronunciations in Chinese, English, German, and Japanese, creates a dull roar that almost cannot be heard from outside.  The bathrooms in both buildings are similar.  They are squatting toilets that are open, so that all five other occupants plus those waiting for their turn, could potentially see you at work.  There is a trough that is flushed every so often - at least once an hour.  The Foreign Language Building has a mirror by the sink, but otherwise the two buildings are the same in this respect.  There is a blue sheet with the character 女, for woman, or 男, for man, blocking the inside from view by the opposite sex.

Lunch and dinner tend to be very similar and are based entirely on my mood at the time.  Outside South Gate, there are a variety of restaurants that serve a variety of dishes on rice or noodles.  Outside East Gate are most restaurants, though perhaps owing to the fact I usually go there with students, the restaurants seem to be more specialized in specific kinds of noodle dishes.  Outside West Gate are a few restaurants, but the main appeal is the variety of stalls that sell a wide selection of foods - Korean sushi, egg and ham in steamed bread, egg vegetables and sausage in a piece of bread that looks like a tortilla, fried chicken, stinky tofu, fried balls of pumpkin dough, choose your own noodle soup.

Some days if I have time and am feeling adventurous, I go out from the campus area.  Sometimes I am with other people and we show each other stuff we have heard about.  Sometimes I am by myself, usually on my bicycle testing myself to go farther than I've been before.  Traffic is crazy, but I have come to feel no longer controlled by my fear of it.

And then at the end of the day I sleep, but depending on the time I can still hear people walking around outside, old people exercising, or fireworks at Millennium park.

Unorganized Thoughts and Updates!

This here is a little bit of an amalgam of thoughts and stories and bits and pieces of things that I originally wrote out while my reading class was taking a test.  For reasons I won't go into, the notebook I wrote it in is now in someone else's room and though I have every intention of retrieving it soon, I would like to update before doing so.


First, I would like to tell everyone that we had a real Thanksgiving in Kaifeng China.  Ben ordered a turkey off of taobao (a cross between amazon and e-bay), but otherwise most of the ingredients we collected here.  We had mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, carrot pennies, stuffing, gravy, bread, and baked apples.  We invited one of the Australian teachers, the German teacher, and the Japanese teacher and his wife as well as several Chinese students and one of the translators who works for the international affairs office.  It was quite delicious.

In other news, it is that wonderful time of the year when professors start working on finals and students start studying for them.  We have about three weeks or so till the end of the semester.  Conversation finals start early so that everyone will have enough time to have oral conversations.  Ben and I have worked together to design our final and it looks pretty, I think.

My confidence about my Chinese oscillates between being very proud to slightly embarrassed.  However, I am certain that my ability has definitely been improving steadily.  Occasionally I wonder if I studied the wrong language in college, or in high school, but it is too late.  And in all honesty, with the workout Japanese grammar gives your brain, I feel like there's not much grammatically that can intimidate me.  (The exception is Russian.  Scares the Dejesus out me.  Strangely, I still insist to myself that French would be impossible to learn.  Guess I'm going to draw the line somewhere.  Spanish however would be fun to go back and work on....)  That was a bit of a tangent.  But back to Chinese!  I am studying for about two hours a week with a student of mine, and that keeps me somewhat honest even during these intensive weeks when I spend a good deal of time reading and writing things or otherwise working.  The more time I spend working, the more time I spend using English.  And when I'm exhausted from said work, I relax by reading or watching things in English.  It is a vicious cycle.  But, my TV works fine and I have watched Chinese TV if not regularly then enough that I can talk to people about 那是我妈码 (That's my mom!), a reality show where young men go on and answer questions about their mothers' preferences and traits.  And Mona, or 豪杰(Haojie) keeps me honest by giving me and quizzing me on vocabulary and grammar.

I have been eating lunch with my students more regularly, and I am quite enjoying it.  I feel in need of a break from teaching, but the actual classes are going well.  My conversation class, which at the beginning of the semester I had no clue how to run much less make active and fun, have gone quite well the last few weeks.  I am proud of where I am now, though I somewhat wish I could go back and start the class from the beginning without the bumbling and missteps I made the first month or so of the semester.  But that was the price of growth. I know I am going to be teaching the same students next semester, though it is currently up in the air as to what I will be teaching them.

It is cold out, though not enough for snow. We had a flurry about a week ago, but no more.

This was surprisingly organized.  I did not expect it to be so.
Oh, one final note: I have been talking to my Reading classes about Native Speakers and bad grammar.  What it means about a person or character if they make certain grammar mistakes.  You can call this a conversation about dialects, or classes.  The thing I want them to remember is simply one's education level.  If someone has poor grammar and speaking skills it is assumed that they are not educated.  So, on their test I had a set of 10 sentences, which they had to mark as being said by someone well or poorly educated.  All the sentences were taken from Pirates of the Caribbean.  I'm quite pleased by how it turned out.

The Infantile Expert

This essay was written last semester for Asian Studies Senior Seminar.  I believe it holds true for China as well, so I decided to publish it here.

Playground Nearby Kansai Gaidai Dorms in Hirakatashi Japan

The Infantile Expert: Settling in Back Home After Study Abroad in Japan

In my previous abstract I talked about historical roots of culture and the effects of them imposed over a short period of time.  In this abstract I would like to speak more briefly about the similar effect that occurs to individuals who study and absorb culture over a short time in their lives.  In short, I will examine the paradox of the East Asian Studies student.

As the student travels from his or her home country to their country of focus, then back to their home country, after the initial culture shock he or she begins to settle into a role.  While abroad, the road is that of observer and inquisitor.  With child-like ignorance, the student blunders and attempts to absorb.  The process is ongoing.  Some say one must stay longer than one semester in order to move a degree beyond it.  Others say one must stay longer than a year in order to move beyond.  In truth, the student is trying to compensate for all the years they lived outside the culture in order to understand and navigate a world, even though realistically the student will always be a foreigner.

When the student returns the role is reversed.  Suddenly the student is an authority among his or her family and peers.  Having seen, breathed, and eaten things contemporaries don't know how to pronounce, the student becomes an expert.  Essays that might have been an a middle schooler's text book magically transform into advanced language study.  The student becomes a story teller, trying to spread the knowledge that they absorbed.

Certainly such experiences are important for well rounding students.  But what do they mean for the specialist?  What is it to specialize in a culture one did not grow up in?  This author can only speculate since this author is still on the first few baby steps of this journey.  It is the journey of trying to become a bridge.  How does one really 'settle' into being a bridge?  How can one settle into being half-way between worlds?  It is unsettling to realize that one may be a sage in one language and an infant in the other.  Possibly more unsettling is the knowledge that one may never really move beyond that role.  Yet there is something exotic and addictive to it as well.  There is something strange in the desire to not settle in back home, and instead return to childhood and adventure.

How the System Works

I believe previously I described the classes I am teaching as reading and conversation, but I don't think I've explained before the schools I am teaching at.  At Henan University, there are three different schools at which you can get a degree as an English major.  The first, where I teach conversation, is the Foreign Language College.  This school is particularly well known for teaching English and the students there received very high scores on their college entrance exam.  The second, where I teach reading, is Minsheng, which has the exact same curriculum and for the most part the same teachers as the Foreign Language School but the students received lower scores on their entrance exam and pay about two to three times as much as the Foreign Language School students.  The third school is the College of American and European Studies, where Eaaf teaches conversation, which is new and therefore has a less defined curriculum and has students with even lower scores and higher tuition fees.
I myself can only compare the Foreign Language School and the Minsheng students.  For the most part, I find the main difference to be personality.  The Foreign Language School students as a whole are quieter and the Minsheng students are more creative.
Their future on the other hand, at least when I talk to the Minsheng students I am friends with, is overshadowed by which level of school they were in.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to have one's future written by the score of a single test.  It frankly terrifies me.  I sincerely hope they do well in their careers in the future, because they are as a whole wonderful intelligent students.  But what I know is that on several occasions when with a friend from Minsheng, they will hesitate and point out how they did not go to the Foreign Language College, so maybe their dream of becoming a translator or English teacher will be more difficult...

Stories from Nanjing: Karma

I don't mind bugs.  I don't like to touch bugs.  I freak out if I think a bug will bite or sting me.  But if I am reasonably assured that the bug means me no harm, I am usually perfectly content watching it.
On Purple Gold Mountain, there are a number of big name tourist locations.  There is the Sun Yat Sen Memorial, and a UNESCO World Heritage Ming Dynasty tomb.  But after a long half day of walking, and of getting slightly lost going up and down, surrounded by seas and mountains of people (海人山人) I ended up in the area slightly to the East of the main attractions.  It was actually someplace that I had read was really worthwhile to visit but had given up on finding.  There were considerably fewer people.  And though I had wanted to see the Sun Yat Sen Memorial because of the historical significance of Sun Yat Sen, it was only when I got away from it that I started to enjoy myself.
I would have a conversation with a woman who picked up the trash around the food stands, which involved lots of writing and nodding.  People start conversations with you almost any time you are out in parks or other public areas and don't seem preoccupied with something.  It is something I like a lot more than in Japan, where people waited for some sort of formal connection to be made.
But before that, I visited a Buddhist temple there, in that Eastern part of Purple Gold Mountain.  Walking through gates to go further inside, I saw a bug on the ground flat on its back.  It was a beetle that had landed somehow and could not open its wings and fly.  I lowered my bag to it's legs and let it grab hold of it.  I walked farther inside the temple courtyard and assumed the beetle would just fly off.  It did not fly off, and when I checked fifteen minutes latter it remained firmly attached to my bag.  I adjusted my bag so that the beetle could walk onto the stone hand rail.  It crawled and climbed atop a stone lotus.  It stood there while I watched it, and until I walked away.

Hey! It's been less than two weeks!

You may have noticed that I have been slightly more verbose this week than I have been in the past. Well, my computer has risen from the dead just in time for Halloween.  We have had a Halloween party which was a big success, which I will happily talk about, but not at the moment because I don't really have a way to tell it yet coherently.  But yeah!  Lots of writing!

Like Riding A Bike

This Friday I got a bicycle!  I haven't ridden since I was in middle school, but I got one for 130 yuan with a lock thrown in.  I should say, I picked the bike, and then Ruth and Jane (you may remember an earlier post talking about some girls who gave me moon cakes and some hand made flowers.  That was Ruth and Jane) bargained it down.  It has a white rose on it, which I did not see before I bought it, so I want to call it 薔薇 which means rose in Japanese.

(A side note about the word  薔薇.  My Japanese is not as sharp as it once was, so I checked to make sure that I remembered it correctly.  I did.  But I also discovered that there are two ways of saying  薔薇 which I was unaware of, which also mean rose.  The first, the one I knew, was 'bara' ばら.  The second and third, 'soubi' and 'shoubi' そうび としょうび are written using the exact same characters.  About a week ago I was listening to someone explain to the foreigners who speak better Chinese why they think foreigners have a hard time reading since some characters have more than one way to be read.  Ha!  I say, ha!)

Yesterday I rode my new bike around campus, especially up and down the street behind our apartments next to the track field, which has little to no traffic.  Today I rode it to the convenience store on campus and to the soccer field.  I am still too scared to ride out in street traffic, but it is amazing how those fundamentals, once learned, stay in your brain.

I have managed to have an actual conversation with Mrs. Wang王太太.  In the International Affairs building right next to our apartments live Mr. Wang 老王 and his wife.  They are caretakers of the area and live in the International Affairs building.  Mr. Wang has a strong accent and even our Chinese friends have trouble understanding him.  Mrs. Wang on the other hand speaks very clearly.  Usually I can follow a conversation she has with someone else who speaks better Chinese, but can't actually say anything of consequence myself.  Well, today she was out gardening when I came out to ride my bike, and told her that I bought it yesterday, that it was not new, and that Molly had also gotten a not new bike yesterday.  Mrs. Wang knows a fair amount about bikes, and she said many things I did not catch.  She pointed out parts of the bike, possibly commenting on the quality.  But I was just so happy I could be understood saying small talk and could understand her as much as I did.  It's shaky, but it's just like riding a bike.

On the Outside Looking In (外国人)

There are two things I want to discus here.  The first would be homosexuality in China.  The second would be the foreigner as a confidant in China.

These two came up yesterday morning when I received a text message from a high school girl I am tutoring in English.  She asked me if we could meet tomorrow instead of this afternoon, that she had some questions about the story I asked her to read, and that she had some news.  When I asked about the news, she told me her friend told my student that she is in love with her.  “She is a lesbian” my student said.  Though the circumstances could be different, I imagine that my student was unaware of her friend's sexual orientation until now.  It is possible her friend did not know about her own sexual orientation until now.  I texted my student back, and advised her that even if she does not feel the same way, her friend may be feeling very scared right now and it would mean a lot if they could remain friends.

Homosexuality is legal in China, but not encouraged.  It is under the table and not considered socially acceptable.  But it is there.  I wonder how out in the open it is.  This week, I asked my conversation students to create three laws for an imaginary city.  Two groups in two separate classes said that gay marriage should be allowed because love and marriage should be open to all people.  One of these groups said gay couples should marry and not be allowed to divorce.  The topic of homosexuality has come up more often in William and Eaaf's classes.  I am sure Eaaf has documented these episodes in much more detail on her blog, so I will just summarize my impression – I believe people our age are curious, but not sure who to talk to.  So they talk to us.

The foreigner in China is defined more so than anything else by being outside.  They are from outside the country.  They are outside of society.  They are outside of social ties, and manners.  This can be a frustrating thing, especially as one becomes more proficient with the language.  Most places in the US accept people as an insider after a relatively short period of time.  The difference between an insider and an outsider is fairly small.  But there is a perk to being an outsider.  You are outside of accepted norms.  People are very comfortable sharing very personal things, such as their feelings on homosexuality, very quickly.  Possibly, it is because some of us with low language skills are rather gossip spreaders.  There are only so many people we could tell even if we wanted to.  Beyond that, I can only speculate.  But I speculate that there is a bit of escapism and bit of a feeling that one can step outside the rules.

A Long Expected Party

It has been a bit longer than I usually post, for which I apologize.
I have not been having the greatest luck these last few weeks.  My computer first wasn't working.  Then it worked, but wouldn't connect to the internet.  Then it connected to the internet, and a day latter stopped working again.  My camera has developed AI, and knows now when I'm testing it to see if it's working, or if I'm someplace I really would like to take a picture, and will work in the former situation but not in the latter.  I've also been sick.
It has reached that point in the semester that I remember from when I was a student, when classes were no longer new and exciting and I wanted to do other things.  As a teacher, I can't quite slack off like I might have before.  My main dilemma is whether to stick to the boring text book, or run around and find interesting stuff to teach.
I have written some things on paper about my observations on various subjects, but have not typed them.  These include television, news, and the Nanjing Massacre Memorial.  So those will be coming.

In the meantime, I have not talked about Nanjing at all!  Nanjing (南京) was beautiful.  Since there were many people visiting for the holiday, we ended up having to book rooms at two different hostels, which worked out well because we got to see some very different parts of the city that way.  The main place we stayed was right next to the Confucian Temple, and seemed like the place all the hip people like to hang out.  The other place we stayed was near Zhonghuamen (中华门) and had some places with lots of money that were very western, and some places that clearly had less money but very delicious food.  Will and I saw the Confucian temple and the Nanjing Massacre Memorial together, but otherwise explored on our own.  We also saw Marta, a Beloit alumni who taught in Kaifeng for two years and is now going to grad school in Nanjing.
The photos I'm posting are from the Confucian temple and from Zhonghuamen, where they were flying kites the day I visited.  After Zhonghuamen, my camera decided to not work at places like the Nanjing Memorial, etc.
Tada!  I know these aren't very polished posts, or frequent, and I apologize for that.

Train Station 

Downtown, right next to our first hostel

First night in Nanjing

Confucian temple.  There was one night they were having a disco party in there.

Inside the Confucian temple

Looking out on the back street

The best trash bin ever!

Zhonghuamen

Nanjing skyline from Zhonghuamen

Getting an octopus kite off the ground at Zhonghuamen

Zhonghuamen city wall

Much Obliged

Last night we were taken to a celebratory dinner commemorating the 62^nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.  The dinner was held by the regional government in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, and our school decided to send in addition to our school's president, Eaaf, William, Mrs. Ma (who works for the international affairs office and can speak very good Japanese) and myself.  Mrs. Ma's English is limited, but the four of us are able to communicate pretty well, with William using Chinese, and Eaaf and I using Japanese.  I am able to somewhat follow the conversations William and Mrs. Ma had, but usually I could only answer in Japanese.  We were seated with the vice-president of Zhengzhou University and four of their foreign teachers.  One of them, who sat next to William, was an older gentleman who has been teaching for seven years.  I was sitting between a Russian teacher from Zhengzhou University and the Zhengzhou University vice-president.  The Russian teacher, who has very good English, has been teaching for three years, and is from Moscow.  She came to China because her husband is Chinese and from Zhengzhou.  I got the impression that she misses Russia very much.  The vice-president of Zhengzhou University had a very good sense of humor (he would laugh a little whenever they would announce the Yellow River Friendship award going to a representative of the Coca-cola company) and he taught me the word for shrimp (xia1 虾) and oyster (bi, which I can't find in Chinese dictionaries, so maybe it refers to some other kind of creature).

Last weekend, we went to the Yellow River National Park with the other teachers (except for William who decided to sleep instead).  Once again, it was the school taking us.  This time however, it was only for us.  Among other things at Yellow River National Park was an enclave of peacocks which we got to feed and take pictures of.

I have started this week working on my Chinese with one of my students.  I told her I'd exchange one hour of English conversation for one hour of working on Chinese.  We covered holidays, parts of your face, furniture, and the phrase, “I didn't understand your meaning” 没有听明白你的意思.  This next week we are on vacation, and I am going to Nanjing.  So next entry will include many pictures from Nanjing.

This may be a habit I am forming from my classes, but I would encourage you to ask questions about these pictures and leave comments.  Though I am only posting once every two weeks, I can respond to your questions via e-mail or it may get me started on other posts.

Also, this just in right after I wrote everything else and saved it and my pictures for today onto my flash drive, my computer is broken!  Fortunately, everything is backed up on my external hard drive, and just about all of my pictures are still in my camera's memory card, so I don't think I've lost anything.  Except a working computer.  So... I will have to figure something out there.  I'm not panicking.  There's a city to visit.

Tatiana, Ben, Eaaf, Aikawa-sensei, Aikawa-san, Mrs. Ma and a friend of Mrs. Ma in the parking lot at Yellow River National Park

Several restaurant river boats on the Yellow River.  We ate lunch at the one with a red roof on the left hand side of this picture.

So many peacocks!  So many shinny blue feathers!

Zhengzhou, the newer part of the city.  As you can see there is lots of construction.

Our fancy table.

This is a great picture.  It really captured the essence of that number sixty two.

Night time when we left there were so many lights!  It was so beautiful!  And I had drunk more wine than I usually do because of all the toasts.  Mrs. Ma pointed out that my cheeks were red, but she said a little red made them look pretty.

Classes

I have seven classes that I am teaching this semester.  Four of them are conversation classes at the Foreign Language School.  Three of them are reading classes for English majors at a more general school. (Minsheng)  The Foreign Language School classes are about thirty students each, and the Minsheng classes are about forty students each.  I have some stories about them, but they were written throughout the last week.  I have dated these, and not edited them.

9/12

Just now, right before I started writing this, four of my students stopped by.  Two of them, Ruth and Jane, had brought me presents back from home (this weekend was mid-autumn festival, and many students went home to be with their families).  Ruth brought me moon-cakes (see last entry to read more about moon-cakes).  I have been telling all of my classes that my favorite Chinese food is moon-cakes.  Jane brought me a fake sunflower and blue rose, both of which she made herself by weaving silk threads around wires to make the petals.

Ruth, Jane, and Linda had lunch with me on Friday.  They took me to a place that serves heated stone pots filled with rice, vegetables, and meat.  Linda was pretty quiet, but Ruth and Jane and I talked.  I am hopeful that we may be friends.

When they came by to give me their gifts and wish me a happy mid-autumn festival, once again Ruth and Jane did all the talking.  Linda and another friend (who is also in my class) were quiet.  But I just received a text from Linda.  “hello , Ann . Tonight I saw you I feel very happy . I want to say again : happy moon ' s day ! I love you .best wishes for you . Linda”

I have been feeling kind of sick today, and a bit lonely.  These girls made my day!  I'm so happy!

This Saturday was Teachers' Day.  I received many many text messages wishing me happy teachers' day.  My favorite I will reproduce here: “Happy Teachers' Day to you,Ann!maybe it is your first teachers'   day in China.don't feel lonely. We are all here with you ! I will bring you mooncakes when I come back from home, Ok?i am really glad to be your friend! Sandy” Another good one, “Happy Teathers' Day , happy every day,best wishes to my lovely friend_like teather ^^ by Marissa from class 2”

I need to remember these things for whenever I feel down.  In Japan, I would be afraid that if I received this kind of praise I was somehow going to let down whoever said these things to me.  But I am not in Japan.  All I can do is be myself, with all my shyness and all my enthusiasm.

9/13

One thing I will say about being a quiet girl amongst less shy American boys – the conversations I've had with students have been very focused.  I went to English corner, and I talked a great deal to one girl (where as the other English teachers talked a bit with many different people).  Though I envey that – charisma?  Outgoing-ness?  (I'm not sure what adjective to put here), I am finding that my personality has its own advantages too.

9/16

I have just finished my first week of classes (I should say, my first week of actual classes.  The first week was just introductions.  This week I actually taught).  It's interesting to give the same lecture and get different responses from my classes.  My reading classes I assigned the short story “The Blue Cross” by G. K. Chesterton (a detective story).  One class was shy but when I asked them what the author may have meant by the story, came up with really good answers.  The second class was less shy and had lots of questions.  The third class had very few questions about the story, but asked me about churches, if I had ever met a priest, and about sex education in America.

Hairstyles here tend to be practical, though there are some girls with perms and some boys and girls with bleached hair.  There are a few boys with really crazy hairstyles that seem to come out of a Japanese cartoon.

I have found that people don't expect me to speak Chinese, but are happy to talk to me once they find out I speak a little.  The first week here I had at least one god exchange a day which I was proud of (look!  I ordered in a restaurant all by myself!).  Since then it's gone down to once or twice a week.  But it seems much easier to start a conversation than it did in Japan.

Yesterday there was a patriotic singing competition between the freshman classes.  I talked to a few freshman boys who didn't speak much English.  I talked to some of my students who were also there.  And a group of boys from one of the Physical Education major classes asked to take pictures with me.

9/17

Today, air-raid sirens went off for an hour this morning commemorating the day and time the Japanese first attacked.  Those of you from Beloit may remember I did my symposium project on perspectives on World War II in Japan.  Though there are certainly many ceremonies remembering the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is nothing that compares to this.

Also, I saw an advertisement with cartoon versions of the main characters from 'Journey to the West' (if you have heard of the Monkey King, 'Journey to the West' is the novel he is from) promoting ibuprofen.

I have taken to channel surfing when I have time to kill.  My favorite show so far is one that I have nicknamed 'Beautiful People' (美人心计 mei3ren2xin1ji4, literally it means scheming beauties).  I think it takes place during the Tang dynasty, and mostly takes place inside the palace.  

Most nights at about 8:30 until 10:00 there is English corner.  English corner is just a meeting place for students and English teachers to meet and talk.  There are many fewer people than in class, and the people who come tend to be from different classes as well, so there's less pressure.  Also, since it's a less formal setting, we teachers can act more like peers.  It has been a great deal of fun!  Several people from my reading classes have started coming regularly.  

There are also a few students I have had dinner with.  One was from Eaaf and Will's class, who is interested in studying at University of Pennsylvania for graduate school.  The other was one of my students.  My student, I invited after seeing her by chance around campus.  She is very quiet, but so cute!  She went to English corner with us after dinner, and she and I have texted a number of times afterward this week.  All of this is something I wouldn't have if my students were not my own age.