Archives for November 2008
Thanksgiving in China
The reality of being an expatriate sets in hard when you come across a holiday like Thanksgiving and realize this is the first time you’ve celebrated it without your family. Not to mention it’s the first time you’ve celebrated it without consumerism shoving it down your throat. My Facebook friends have been pretty liberal in announcing when they’re having pumpkin pie, though, making it incredibly hard to forget that pumpkin pie is my favorite dessert.
Obviously, Thanksgiving has no presence in China. Turkey doesn’t even have a presence. Two hotels, however, put on Thanksgiving buffets and promised turkey to appease those with North American roots. The hotel I went to—whose dinner cost 158 yuan—apparently flew in a turkey from Canada. Now that’s special treatment! Unfortunately, miscommunication, being the common problem that it is, led us to believe that they had no turkey whatsoever. Our waitress even told us they had turkey yesterday but not today. Disappointed, Thanksgiving dinner ended up looking like this:
After an hour of eating all these other foods not Thanksgiving related, I was ready to leave. Then a group of Americans walked in and asked, “Where’s the turkey?” And the manager said, “Oh, it’s right here! Tada!” They had turkey after all! It just wasn’t ready when we got there. Rather than telling us we would have to wait, though, they told us it was gone. Yeah… that makes a lot of sense. So, of course, we had to stay and eat some, which meant going home feeling even more stuffed and bloated. But then it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving, would it?
Changzhou’s Root Carving Museum
One of Changzhou’s little treasures is a root carving museum showcasing the works of Tu Yidao. Who is Tu Yidao, you ask? Well… he carved roots. What more do you want to know?! Yeesh.
Drawing a Blank
One of my favorite activities to incorporate in my lessons is having the students draw on the chalkboard. They like to draw, for one, but the real reason I rely on this so much is that it’s a great way to fill time. Hey, what did you expect? But after two months of always telling the students, “I want someone to draw the eyes. I want someone to draw a truck,” we’ve finally gotten to the point where I only need to prompt them, and they do the rest, “Teacher, can I draw nose?” Then I say, “No, you can’t,” because I’m evil.
Now it’s starting to come together, though. The students are using vocabulary they’ve already learned (parts of the face, vehicles, clothing) with the newly-introduced concept of “Can I….” To make things interesting, I also taught them the word “erase” and let them choose whether they draw or erase an item. They really enjoy erasing other people’s artwork. Go figure. In a Grade 3 class, we were drawing/erasing clothes for two characters. As soon as one student erased Amy’s trousers, several of the boys shielded their eyes and wouldn’t open them again until somebody stepped forward to cover Amy’s invisible legs. But don’t worry. She was still wearing invisible underwear.
How to How are You
Something has got to change. I can’t, in good conscience, teach English at a school where all the kids walk around like zombies, chanting, “I’m fine, thank you, and you?” So this week’s lesson is going to start with a nice breakdown of some things you can say when approached with the inevitable, “Hello, how are you?” Today, I’m…
Okay.
Not bad.
Good.
Great.
Fantastic!
I think that’s a good start. They’re kids, after all, and don’t need to concern themselves with being able to say, “My job is so unfulfilling. How are you?” Now I just need someone to teach me some proper “How are you?” responses in Chinese. I could use new material instead of always falling back on, “I’m very tired.” This is partly to be funny, and partly because it’s the truth, but mostly because I don’t know how to say anything else!
My problem, I have realized, is that I have no self-discipline when it comes to eating sugar studying a foreign language on my own. If there’s no teacher at the end of the week to quiz me, I’ll simply spend my free time playing games or watching TV or working on some other project. Anything but study! This is why I’ve finally asked a friend to meet with me once or twice a week to give me Chinese lessons.
Alas, I still lack the confidence to speak Chinese freely, but I finally understand why. I’m thinking too much. Remember, kids, Chinese is simple (comparitively, that is). There aren’t filler words, verb conjugations, endless lists of synonyms, or arbitrary names for personal care products to worry about. For example, in English, the word “shampoo” comes out of nowhere. In Chinese, shampoo, or “xifashui,” can be directly translated as “wash hair water” since “xifa” means to wash hair and “shui” means water. That’s a lot easier to memorize (just not as much fun to say; shampoooooo). Often, I ask about a grammar rule, and it ends up being way simpler than I was expecting. I’m just so used to speaking in English where you only sound intelligible if you apply the words “while, for, the, to, and nomenclature” in all your sentences.
Primary Kids are Terrible Cheaters
Because the teachers’ retreat consumed my weekend, I took the easy way out in preparing this week’s lesson and fell back on playing Concentration again. I don’t really like playing games with the kids, though. They get out of control over the slightest bit of fun, which would explain why their Chinese teachers are so by-the-books. Sometimes, we hardly get to play at all; most of class is spent waiting for them to be quiet before we can continue.
Playing games like this also brings out the students’ inner cheater. Let’s not kid ourselves; children are conniving, they just aren’t very good at it yet. They haven’t learned how to be successfully inconspicuous. So during the game, I would catch a lot of them jotting down where the pictures were so they could take the “memory” out of Memory. But calling them on their trickery and taking their cheat sheets away didn’t stop them from trying again. They just turned to scribbling notes on their desk. The only thing I could do to get them to stop was to confiscate their pencils.
I’ve run into this problem before. Years ago, as an ILP teacher, I remember lecturing my students about how cheating wasn’t fair after a game went horribly awry. More recently, the last lesson I did with the kids at World was Go Fish. It started out well enough, but I eventually had to end the game early to introduce two new and very important words: cheat and cheater. Those kids were like cheating addicts. They couldn’t stop, and the more someone cheated them, the more they had to cheat others in return. It’s the Golden Rule hard at work.
Chutes and Ladders
I envy the countenance some of the Chinese teachers have. As soon as they walk into the room, you can see the wave of fear sweeping across the students. They quiet down, straighten up, and remove all evidence that, just a few minutes prior, they were completely ignoring the foreign teacher’s demands. That’s me, by the way.
Part of why the Chinese teachers’ presence is so effective is because they speak Chinese. Who would’ve thought, right? But they’re also a bit rough with the kids, physically throwing them out of class or smacking them in the back of the head with a book. And this is just for offenses like doodling or working on other homework in class. To me, those are great alternatives over talking and making airplanes. I’m not picky.
Admittedly, it’s hard to resist the temptation to fall back on traditional discipline, but it’s clear some level of sternness is required if anything is going to get done. And in one class, the little hell raiser who’s always loved pushing my buttons finally got to me. I was going around the class, prompting students to ask, “Can I have a piece of paper?” when I caught him tearing up a paper he had nabbed from the teacher’s desk. I calmly took his book away, went over to the window, tossed it out, then continued with the lesson without missing a beat. The kid was mortified into submission, and the rest of the class, while not making a scene of it, was surprised enough to behave for the next 20 minutes. A new record!
After class, I tried to tell this student I would help him get his book back, but he didn’t want anything to do with me. And that’s when I realized I am in a very, very difficult position as a foreign teacher. These kids don’t interact with foreigners on a regular basis. So what they see in me they infer in all white people. I don’t want Chinese kids to think foreigners are rude and mean-spirited, but I’m also trying to eliminate the mindset that foreigners are goofy and can be walked all over. I’m sick of having to wash out the footprints in my jacket.
This issue really comes to light when dealing in closer relationships. I guess now is a good time to mention that I am dating a Chinese girl, and while we get along great, she, unfortunately, has heard stories of other foreigners cheating on their girlfriends and, since I’m a foreigner, fears there is a possibility I will do the same. Comma overload. The sad thing is, there really are a lot of foreigners who come to China and treat it like their own personal playground, enjoying the monkey bars one day and claiming the merry-go-round the next. Then they go home with a bunch of stories to tell, but all they’ve really done is made it harder for the rest of us to establish the rapport we took for granted back in our motherlands.
Foreign Teachers Retreat But Don’t Go Far
Yikes. That’s a whole lotta foreigners. Good luck finding me in that crowd. This is Changzhou’s annual foreign teachers’ weekend retreat, which is a great way to bring all those hidden foreigners out of the woodwork. In these two days, I met so many people who, like me, teach out in Wujin district, and yet we’ve never run into each other until now.
I’ve already harped on this a lot, how difficult it is to be the only foreigner in a something-mile radius. You may not see it in me, but I’m actually a very social person. That doesn’t mean I’m talkative. It just means I need time to be around and listen to people (preferably those who speak fluent English and can tell a dirty joke or two). Surrounded by chaos and disorganization, a little uninhibited English dialogue goes a long ways in maintaining sanity.
The retreat took place in a nearby city called Liyang. Tianmu Lake is in this vicinity, but we saw more of the countryside and swung by a bamboo forest, instead.
TV Roundup: Volume 2
My Name is Earl (Seasons 1-2)
Earl Hickey is one of the most likeable characters on TV, someone who actually goes to great lengths to right everything he’s done wrong instead of being yet another dimwitted father figure who gets off easy with an end-of-episode “but I love my family” speech. Unfortunately, Hickey does come dangerously close to being such a well-intentioned do-gooder, you can’t help but wish something bad would happen. Do you take this as a sign, then, that you need to shape up your own life, or do you keep watching, continuing to begrudge Hickey for being so much better than you? In my case… keep watching. While the show masquerades as cheesy, sometimes clever, feel-good fluff, My Name is Earl does wade through a lot of darker humor and adult situations that don’t always lend to a well-balanced marriage. I’ve nothing against dark humor, but when it’s sandwiched between childish dialogue fit for a third grader, something’s amiss.
Robot Chicken (Seasons 1-3)
This is the kind of show that only interests people who either smoke too much pot or haven’t progressed past the mindset of a 12-year old. And here I am. However, I do have two weaknesses that Robot Chicken nails: stop-motion animation and classic cartoon, toy, and video game references. Stop-motion animation rocks, and it is a real treat to see how they pull it off. But sometimes the show takes the easy way out and resorts to cheap CG special effects. I realize CG is enormously cost effective, but there’s no charm or magic. Similarly, instead of delivering clever send-ups of pop culture, like the hilarious “Senior Mutant Ninja Turtles” sketch, one right after the other, most segments fall back on vomit, poop, and blood for the punchline. A la Happy Tree Friends, there’s something disturbingly amusing about watching cute cartoon characters die in horrible ways, but, in the end, substance always trumps slapstick. Even if it’s cruel, gory slapstick.
30 Rock (Season 1)
While 30 Rock occasionally channels the greatness of Arrested Development (nevermind the fact that Will Arnett has a guest appearance), it just doesn’t have any really memorable characters, or at least, it’s hard to come to that conclusion, because the unlikeable ones are the ones that get all the attention. Take, for example, Tracy Jordan, a washed-up movie star with a penchant for doing stupid, crazy things. He’s like Michael Scott from The Office, only Michael narrowly avoided being annoying, because he was usually well-intentioned, just horribly misinformed. Tracy Jordan, on the other hand, is a celebrity jerk, and there’s the problem: he’s a celebrity and a jerk. It’s hard to sympathize with those credentials. What really makes the show difficult to enjoy, though, is that it starts to come across as an inside joke to people in the TV and movie industry, and those of us who teach English to ungrateful 10-year olds for a living can’t help but feel left out.
Seinfeld (Seasons 1-9)
I don’t know if it’s fair to review a show that I used to watch religiously with the family until we got to the episode all about sex moves. Then it was cold turkey. Visiting Seinfeld again so many years later, however, has really opened my eyes. Namely, this show was pretty funny and really hit its stride in later seasons when the awkward situations kept piling up. Sadly, while those embarrassing moments are still relatable, Seinfeld doesn’t quite have the zing it used to. You have to use the phrase “for its time” to fully appreciate this story about nothing, but doing so automatically dates it beyond repair. Any show that features bad 90s haircuts can’t possibly be the best sitcom ever (a common proclamation), can it? As funny as Seinfeld was (and still is; credit is due), better things have been made in the past ten years. It’s like arguing that the original Legend of Zelda is the best in the series. Sure, it was the cornerstone of many childhoods, but Zelda has since grown up. And so has TV.
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