Archives for November 2009
Teddy Bear Escapes from Hospital
Notify the police if you see anything.
Malatang: Build-a-Soup Workshop
This isn’t one of my favorite things to eat in China anymore, as I kind of overdosed last summer, but it’s one of the first types of restaurants foreigners pick up on. You don’t need to speak any Chinese to order “malatang.” Just grab a basket, browse through the different meats and vegetables in the refrigerator, and add whatever you want and as much as you want. The store owner will tally up what everything costs and cook it in a soup for you. The final bowl looks something like this (and only costs 9 yuan):
Happy Thanksgiving from China.
Chinese Bakeries and Husband Pies
A new bakery opened in Changzhou, and it’s been consistently busy for the last two weeks. Every time I walk past the window, though, I lose all desire to go inside. Have you ever seen a more unappealing selection of bread? And are those… are those hot dogs?! Yuck.
Bakeries are easy to find in this city. It seems like there’s one on every block. All the bakeries I frequent, though, rarely see any other customers. Half of their shelves are always empty, too. It’s amazing they can stay in business. The one near my school probably only gets by on all the sales they make to me. I do like my “husband and wife” pies:
I believe they are called “husband and wife” pies, because there is a sweet version and a salty version. Guess who’s the sweet one? Unfortunately for the guys, the salty ones are disgusting. Beware the flaky, brown filling. It tastes like spicy dirt. I’ve also been told not to give a “husband and wife” pie to a girl. It means she smells like spicy dirt. Or that you want to marry her. Something like that.
Five Problems for Chinese English Speakers
Almost everything about English is difficult, and a list of five common problems could consist of nothing but grammar rules. I’ll forgo the really technical stuff, though, and focus mainly on the things that stand out to me the most (and, consequently, bug me the most as an EFL teacher fighting a losing battle).
1. The “th” sound
There aren’t any sounds in Chinese that require the speaker to stick their tongue out, so this completely goes over my students’ heads. Even when I exaggeratedly demonstrate to stick your tongue out while pronouncing words like teeth or thirty or think, they just won’t do it. Maybe it’s too much of a social faux pas.
2. The “arrr” sound
The stereotype that Chinese people pronounce Rs as Ls is horribly misinformed. This is not true. What is a problem, however, is when the R sound is in the middle of a word, such as in dark, shark, or Clark (hey, that’s my name). I know they can pronounce R correctly, but it almost always comes out as “ah” (i.e. dock, shock).
3. Plurals
It seems like a simple rule to add an S on the end when there’s more than one of something, but we have a lot of words (like clothes and mouse) that this doesn’t apply to. Chinese is much simpler, because the word stays the same, only the quantifier changes. Often, my students will just tack on an extra S for everything (i.e. clotheses).
4. He/she
Some of my friends, whose English is ridden with slang and other fluent nuances, still struggle with he/she. They’ll accidentally refer to a boy as a she or a girl as a he. That’s what happens when boys and girls look too much alike! In reality, though, spoken Chinese only has one word for both (ta), so it really is confusing.
5. Verb tenses
They say Chinese is difficult, but how can it be difficult when the language doesn’t have tenses? Words don’t change, unlike English, where we add -ed or -ing on the end depending on when something happened, not to mention all the irregular verbs out there. Students, then, play it safe by sticking to -ing (i.e. I like to swimming).
The Frozen Foreign Teacher
Hey, I wasn’t done complaining about the weather. Seriously, it’s bad. Every time I go to class, I think to myself, “There is no way I can tolerate this for another two months.” Those classrooms are so cold, it’s making my whole body ache. But when I ask the students to close the windows, they look at me like I’m crazy and keep trying to crack them open again when I’m not looking. What the hell is wrong with you people?!
The afternoon classes are even colder than the morning, and the last class of the day—the special class for the top students—makes me want to cry. I don’t even take off my beanie or coat or gloves to teach. It’s a shame I have to end the day in the coldest room in the school, because the special classes are the only classes that feel like actual teaching. Those students are also the only students I feel any kind of connection with since I see them twice as much as everyone else (i.e. two times a week).
One of these special students did have the nerve to tell me my normal lessons were too easy, though. I reminded him that I was teaching from their book, and he replied, “Yes, you teach us many words, but we already know these words. You should pick a topic, like traffic, and we can talk about it.” Except that if we did that, only five students would participate. Every class has about five know-it-alls (he being one of them), but the rest of the students are divided evenly into “I can answer if you give me a minute” and “Duh……”
My current lesson, for instance, pulls a list of vocabulary words straight out of the book, simple words like “important” and “able.” I know they know what these mean, but few of the students really understand how far these words reach. They just parrot safe, familiar answers, “Sleep is important. Eat is important. I am able to study.” What I want is for them to personalize the words and tell me something that is specifically important to them. All I get in return, though, is, “Duh……”
When China Freezes Over
I usually tell people my favorite season is winter, but when winter finally comes, I complain about the cold and wish for a quick summer recovery. Then summer comes, and I start pining for winter. I really do like winter, though. It’s such a great feeling to relax in a nice, warm house with no obligation to go outside once you’re home from work/school. The winter holidays and open ski resorts are a nice touch, too.
In China, however, I’ve decided I hate winter. Even in 2009, they still haven’t figured out how to construct a decent building that retains an adequate amount of heat. I’ve got my heater running on full, another space heater set up near my bed, and yet wearing a sweater and long underwear to sleep still isn’t enough. I apparently have a heater monitor, too, who tattles to the head teacher whenever she thinks I am using the heater too much. Why is she watching my apartment, anyway?
And now for the ultimate dilemma. My kitchen doesn’t have a built-in heater, so, naturally, it gets miserably cold in there. The pipes from upstairs run right through the kitchen, though, and stink up the place. Who knows what vile things drip down those pipes every day, but, believe me, they reek. The only way I can get rid of the smell is to leave the windows open. Uh… Clark? That just makes the cold situation worse. So what would you do? Be cold or gag all the time?
Teaching isn’t much better. The Chinese teachers and students are so up in arms over needing “fresh air,” they’ll subject themselves to frigid weather for the sake of “keeping healthy.” Between classes, the students will slide all the windows open, and nobody bothers to turn the heater on. This obsession with not wanting to get sick is making it so I can’t even function as a teacher. It’s a little hard to get across perfect pronunciation when you’re shivering your ass off. G-g-g-g-good m-mor-morning, s-s-s-s-students…
Five Things I Don’t Like About China
I’ve been sitting on this list for a while, trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s been bothering me. Yeah, after 16 months of straight China, I’m in serious need of a break. Now before I get bombarded with comments telling me I can go home whenever I want, keep in mind that I’m still here by my own choosing, and there are still things I like about being here, too. But you don’t always get a positive post from me.
1. The attention
No matter how much I try to put myself in their shoes, I still can’t accept the staring and pointing and giggling and obnoxious “Hallooooo!” calls as anything but condescending. People have suggested moving to a bigger city, like Shanghai, to get away from the attention, but then the locals treat you like a tourist or a language opportunity, and you still don’t feel like you’re being given much respect as an individual.
2. The traffic
This is something you just never get used to. It is so unbelievable how drivers have no regard for the well-being of pedestrians. I seriously never feel safe, even when I’m using the crosswalk with the lights in my favor. Drivers (particularly e-bike drivers, who are the worst) carelessly break all the rules and still have the gumption to honk at you for not getting out of their way fast enough. Oh, it gets better. At night, they’ll even flash their brights at you.
3. The crowds
I’m from a small town in rural Utah. I find it hard to adapt to big cities, and China definitely pushes the envelope. It’s tiring and a tad frustrating having to put up with so many people everywhere you go. It’s impossible to squeeze onto the bus after 8:30, and weekends and holidays jam up the trains so much, it’s better to stay home. Unfortunately, people have taken the crowded factor as an excuse to be pushy and inconsiderate.
4. The smoking
60% of Chinese men smoke. 59% of Chinese men don’t care whether or not it bothers you. Smoking is everywhere. It’s part of the culture. Some people are convinced it’s even good for you. So very few places have no-smoking rules, and of those places, very few actually enforce them. The Chinese smoker is a persistent bugger, though, and he’ll just hide in the bathroom and make it smell even worse. Thanks, but I don’t really like dry-heaving and urinating at the same time.
5. The Internet
I didn’t want this list to become too political, but, honest to God, the Internet censorship drives me crazy. As a web developer and overall computer junkie, I’m on the Internet a lot. Some of my most frequently visited sites, however, like Youtube and Facebook and Blogspot, don’t work in China. Plus, Google periodically blocks a random search, making it hard to do something as simple as looking up teaching ideas. Workarounds exist, but I just want normal Internet.
Showing Movies in the EFL Classroom
My Spanish teacher from high school used to reach into his Disney vault every Friday and pick out a nice pelicula to subject us to. As a student, I loved these days, because I could play Bomberman on my TI calculator after making a quick list of 20 words I recognized from the movie. As a teacher, I realize this may not be the best way to practice English. The dialogue is usually too fast for students to keep up with, but if you turn on Chinese subtitles, then nobody pays attention to what is being spoken. I run into the same problem when I watch a Chinese movie with English subtitles.
Now if I were a cool teacher, I wouldn’t worry about this, just play a movie, and let the students sleep during class.
But I’m not.
There is some merit in letting your class watch a film, then asking them to describe it afterwards. A 90-minute movie takes three class periods to get through, though, and a lot of details are lost in the wait. Even with a shorter TV show, it’s hard to remember the smaller nuances of what happened that add up to great fluency. That’s why I love Shaun the Sheep. Every episode is only seven minutes long and contains no talking, so the emphasis is all on the actions. I hate frequently starting/stopping a movie, but in the case of Shaun, the story’s over, and the next one won’t start until we’ve spent seven (or more) minutes talking about what we just saw.
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