by Ruth
It is my belief that anyone should be a little leery of a game with a 20 page instruction manual. Nevertheless, for whatever reason (there was probably some cult brainwashing involved) we sat down tonight to figure out Cities and Knights, a more complex version of Settlers of Catan. An hour later, we had set up the game and read through the rules. I think there are about 167 of them, though I lost count at page 9. As we went through the rules I wondered who in the world came up with all of these. “Hey, let's make it so if you get three of these cards you can trade them in and flip this other card and then every time one of these three numbers are rolled along with this picture, you can get this third kind of card.” Somebody had to have been the first one to think of this. Probably a computer or mathematical genius with OCD tenancies and a twitch.
The game itself then lasted for about two hours, leaving me wondering, “How in the world did I ever get sucked into this? I hate long games. I boycott Monopoly.” Part of the length was probably due to looking back at the rule book every other turn. Who can honestly remember 167 rules? Kevin won, 13-12, so now we have each won the game once. Because yes, we have played this crazy game before and then decided to buy it for ourselves. That time I had a quick, decisive victory, so of course I liked the game.
You may have never heard of the game but get into the right circle and--bam--everyone you know is obsessed with it. Our dear friend Matt was introduced to the game over the summer and lost it about 10 times in a row...and then asked for it for his birthday. See - I ask you, is that a normal response? This is why I think there must be some kind of cult/brainwashing involved. That and the fact that after hating the game and refusing to play for two years, I unaccountably started playing it all the time. I'm not sure who is the mastermind behind this whole cult/conspiracy, but I strongly suspect that a certain former team leader of mine (*cough* Andy) is high up in the chain of command.
Tomorrow night some students are coming over to play games with us. I think we'll probably choose something a little bit simpler to play.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Chinglish - Please be quite
Happy Chinglishy Thanksgiving everyone:
I thought I'd share a couple of the (admittedly cheesy) text messages from students: "A Star has 5 ends, a square has 4 ends, a triangle has 3 ends, a line has 2 ends, a life has 1 end and I hope your happiness has no end."
Or there's this one, sent by several students. I think I've gotten this one every year at Thanksgiving, in fact: "I open my wallet, find no money; I open my pocket find no coin; I open my life, find you, then I know how rich I am! Happy Thanks Giving Day."
BTW, a little shameless self-promotion for those who are looking for a unique Christmas gift, I'll remind you about my Chinglish book. Not sure if the coupon code I wrote about on this website still works (giving free shipping), because I can't actually access the site here in China (censors still block everything from Facebook and Blogger to the LA Times and USA Today), but check it out by following the link from here: http://chinglishbook.blogspot.com/.
I thought I'd share a couple of the (admittedly cheesy) text messages from students: "A Star has 5 ends, a square has 4 ends, a triangle has 3 ends, a line has 2 ends, a life has 1 end and I hope your happiness has no end."
Or there's this one, sent by several students. I think I've gotten this one every year at Thanksgiving, in fact: "I open my wallet, find no money; I open my pocket find no coin; I open my life, find you, then I know how rich I am! Happy Thanks Giving Day."
BTW, a little shameless self-promotion for those who are looking for a unique Christmas gift, I'll remind you about my Chinglish book. Not sure if the coupon code I wrote about on this website still works (giving free shipping), because I can't actually access the site here in China (censors still block everything from Facebook and Blogger to the LA Times and USA Today), but check it out by following the link from here: http://chinglishbook.blogspot.com/.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Snow
On Wednesday morning my parents left for the airport to head back to America. It is now Saturday morning and they are finally getting home.
As we waited outside for the school car that would take them to the airport, we shivered in the dismal weather. It was 33 degrees and sleeting heavily. Moments after they left the temperature dropped and the sleet changed to snow. Within a couple of hours everything was covered with snow, and it continued to snow all day long and into the next day. Apparently it’s the most snow they’ve gotten in years.
At the Xian airport, things were not going so well. Due to the snow and fog in Xian as well as storms throughout the entire northern part of China, 200 flights were grounded leaving 20,000 passengers stranded. My parent’s flight was supposed to leave at 11am…then at 2pm…then at 4pm. Sometime that evening, they actually got on the plane and sat on the plane for 7 hours before finally canceling the flight and sending everybody back off. After over 30 hours in the airport (where they met all kinds of interesting people and witnessed some interesting…ah…“social disturbance”), they were finally able to get to Beijing on one of the few flights that actually left that day. They said when the plane landed in Beijing everyone cheered. By this point they had already missed two international flights and had to wait for the next day, though fortunately this time at a hotel instead of the airport. I don’t know all the stories, so you’ll have to talk to them. But the happy ending is that they did finally get back home, only two days later than planned.
Back in Weinan, the snow is quite pretty, and we are quite cold. The weather has been maxing out in the 20’s and low 30’s and we still have no heat. It feels like Yangzhou. Wearing several layers of long-johns and a couple of sweaters. Sitting under blankets next to the tiny space heater. Unlike like Yangzhou, however, we will not stay this cold all winter. Tomorrow is the magical day…Heat Day!! An arbitrary date (November 15) on which these unknown heat-lords decide that it is late enough in the year for heat to be turned on all over the region. I’m going to stop writing before my hands seize up from cold, but before I do, one more thing almost as rare and monumental as Heat Day…
I actually put pictures online! The first ones really since last Christmas. So if you want to see a few pictures from my parents’ visit, you can check them out at www.flickr.com/photos/ruthiemarie.
As we waited outside for the school car that would take them to the airport, we shivered in the dismal weather. It was 33 degrees and sleeting heavily. Moments after they left the temperature dropped and the sleet changed to snow. Within a couple of hours everything was covered with snow, and it continued to snow all day long and into the next day. Apparently it’s the most snow they’ve gotten in years.
At the Xian airport, things were not going so well. Due to the snow and fog in Xian as well as storms throughout the entire northern part of China, 200 flights were grounded leaving 20,000 passengers stranded. My parent’s flight was supposed to leave at 11am…then at 2pm…then at 4pm. Sometime that evening, they actually got on the plane and sat on the plane for 7 hours before finally canceling the flight and sending everybody back off. After over 30 hours in the airport (where they met all kinds of interesting people and witnessed some interesting…ah…“social disturbance”), they were finally able to get to Beijing on one of the few flights that actually left that day. They said when the plane landed in Beijing everyone cheered. By this point they had already missed two international flights and had to wait for the next day, though fortunately this time at a hotel instead of the airport. I don’t know all the stories, so you’ll have to talk to them. But the happy ending is that they did finally get back home, only two days later than planned.
Back in Weinan, the snow is quite pretty, and we are quite cold. The weather has been maxing out in the 20’s and low 30’s and we still have no heat. It feels like Yangzhou. Wearing several layers of long-johns and a couple of sweaters. Sitting under blankets next to the tiny space heater. Unlike like Yangzhou, however, we will not stay this cold all winter. Tomorrow is the magical day…Heat Day!! An arbitrary date (November 15) on which these unknown heat-lords decide that it is late enough in the year for heat to be turned on all over the region. I’m going to stop writing before my hands seize up from cold, but before I do, one more thing almost as rare and monumental as Heat Day…
I actually put pictures online! The first ones really since last Christmas. So if you want to see a few pictures from my parents’ visit, you can check them out at www.flickr.com/photos/ruthiemarie.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Quarantine Fun
By Ruth
The school quarantine continues. Students are still not allowed to leave campus unless they have a pass from the school…technically. As the quarantine period extends, however, the methods of getting around the rules multiply. Some students told us that people were making a profit by forging passes. Someone outside the school was charging students 1 kuai to use his ladder to climb over the wall.
The school campus is surrounded by a wall with two gates. Several guards stand at each gate monitoring (or at least appearing to monitor) who goes in and out. Should students get caught by the guards, some of them will ask for bribes. Our student said, “If you pay the guards some money, you will not get in trouble. Of course, it is illegal.” Most of the students don’t want to pay the guards because they ask for too much money, and the students would rather just get in trouble. Very few students choose either of these gates as their methods of escape, however.
For a while we have been hearing about students climbing over the wall. One of our students, who is part of the student government, said she and other student government members were assigned to watch different places in the wall during lunch and dinner hours, to stop students from climbing over. However, if a student was especially nice and seemed to have a good reason, she said, she would probably let them by.
Yesterday our student was telling us that now they don’t have to climb the wall – some students have knocked a whole in the wall and you can walk right through! It is like their own little private gate.
“I think maybe in a few days the school will mend the hole,” she said. “But then the students will make a new hole.”
She also told us that one student had posted a map online showing all the places to get out of the school. “There are seven places we can leave the school. Two are the school gates; there is one behind the #2 dormitory and another behind the #4 dormitory; one by the athletic stadium…” The online post not only showed all these places, it also ranked them with stars according to difficulty! “Of course, the school found out about this and was angry,” our student said.
One of the office workers came to me last week and told me that the roommate of one of the boys in my class was sick, so all the students were supposed to wear masks in class and we should keep the windows open. When I went to class, though, less than half the class was wearing masks. I asked them, “Where are your masks?” And they said, “Oh, we forgot them.” Those that were wearing masks took them off to talk and gradually pushed them down under their noses or all the way down to their chins. By the end of class about three people were still wearing masks.
So we find the whole quarantine thing pretty funny. For our part, we aren’t going to the major supermarkets (as much), we aren’t eating out (every day), we aren’t (telling the school about) going to Xian, we are taking our temperatures twice a day (if we happen to remember), and we are wearing our masks (long enough to take a picture).
The school quarantine continues. Students are still not allowed to leave campus unless they have a pass from the school…technically. As the quarantine period extends, however, the methods of getting around the rules multiply. Some students told us that people were making a profit by forging passes. Someone outside the school was charging students 1 kuai to use his ladder to climb over the wall.
The school campus is surrounded by a wall with two gates. Several guards stand at each gate monitoring (or at least appearing to monitor) who goes in and out. Should students get caught by the guards, some of them will ask for bribes. Our student said, “If you pay the guards some money, you will not get in trouble. Of course, it is illegal.” Most of the students don’t want to pay the guards because they ask for too much money, and the students would rather just get in trouble. Very few students choose either of these gates as their methods of escape, however.
For a while we have been hearing about students climbing over the wall. One of our students, who is part of the student government, said she and other student government members were assigned to watch different places in the wall during lunch and dinner hours, to stop students from climbing over. However, if a student was especially nice and seemed to have a good reason, she said, she would probably let them by.
Yesterday our student was telling us that now they don’t have to climb the wall – some students have knocked a whole in the wall and you can walk right through! It is like their own little private gate.
“I think maybe in a few days the school will mend the hole,” she said. “But then the students will make a new hole.”
She also told us that one student had posted a map online showing all the places to get out of the school. “There are seven places we can leave the school. Two are the school gates; there is one behind the #2 dormitory and another behind the #4 dormitory; one by the athletic stadium…” The online post not only showed all these places, it also ranked them with stars according to difficulty! “Of course, the school found out about this and was angry,” our student said.
One of the office workers came to me last week and told me that the roommate of one of the boys in my class was sick, so all the students were supposed to wear masks in class and we should keep the windows open. When I went to class, though, less than half the class was wearing masks. I asked them, “Where are your masks?” And they said, “Oh, we forgot them.” Those that were wearing masks took them off to talk and gradually pushed them down under their noses or all the way down to their chins. By the end of class about three people were still wearing masks.
So we find the whole quarantine thing pretty funny. For our part, we aren’t going to the major supermarkets (as much), we aren’t eating out (every day), we aren’t (telling the school about) going to Xian, we are taking our temperatures twice a day (if we happen to remember), and we are wearing our masks (long enough to take a picture).
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Candy Auntie and Mr. Holy
My parents have been here for two weeks and it seems like every day has been packed. We went to Beijing (Great Wall, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven) and to Xian (Terra Cotta Soldiers, City Wall, Wild Goose Pagoda, Muslim quarter). Last week my parents came to most of my classes to introduce themselves, answer questions, and talk to students. This week my mom has come and helped with a “Southern Day” lesson in some of my classes. They have come to my office hours. We have had students over to our apartment. My mom taught a culture lecture. They have been on the school radio program. I’m taking full advantage of their visit and keeping them very busy.
Their visit has resulted in lots of funny student stories over the past couple of weeks which I would tell you about if I wasn’t so tired. So I’ll just give you a taste: the school radio broadcast.
One of my students, Lara, does a live English broadcast on the school radio (the one blasted on loudspeakers throughout the whole campus each day at lunch or dinner). I have been on the program twice; Kevin has been on it once. Last week in class Lara came and asked if my parents would be on the program. I said I’d have to ask them, and she was terribly excited when they agreed. Lara is excitable, talkative, and scattered. When she gets excited she talks very quickly and becomes increasingly more scattered.
On the day of the program, Lara explained the questions she had prepared for the broadcast. She met us and led us to the broadcast station, a small room in the classroom building with a closed sized area partitioned off for the broadcast. On the way, Lara asked my mom what she should call her. She said it was very difficult for her to say “Mrs. Hull” but she wanted something that would show respect.
“In China,” she said, “We would call someone auntie.”
“That’s good,” my mom said. “You can call me Auntie Candy.”
Lara liked the idea but could never quite get that straight and kept saying “Candy Auntie” instead. For my dad, she decided to stick with Mr. Hull, but she said it “Mr. Holy.”
Several of my students were there waiting for us. They weren’t related to the radio program, but they wanted to get in on the action. There were also several broadcast students eagerly looking on. By the end of the program, there were probably a dozen people crowded excitedly in the room.
The radio program consisted of Lara asking my parents a bunch of questions. The questions were wide ranging, varying from “How do you celebrate Christmas?” to “What are events that influenced your lives?” Some of the questions were a little more out of the blue, such as, “Some people do things that they enjoy and others do them just for money. For example, Clinton’s lover has written a book. What do you think about this?”
Lara said, “I hope that you won’t use any difficult words that I won’t understand because then I will feel embarrassed.” She kept talking about how nervous she was. I think perhaps the more nervous she is, the more she talks.
After the program, Lara told us they had recorded it to post on the internet so other schools could listen to the broadcast as well. So now my parents are famous.
There are lots of other funny stories (how can there not be, when you are teaching students to speak with a Southern accent and repeat things like, “She ain’t like the rest of us” and “He’s not so smart, bless his heart.” It was great fun.). But I will save some of those for our next newsletter…which I plan to make my parents write.
Their visit has resulted in lots of funny student stories over the past couple of weeks which I would tell you about if I wasn’t so tired. So I’ll just give you a taste: the school radio broadcast.
One of my students, Lara, does a live English broadcast on the school radio (the one blasted on loudspeakers throughout the whole campus each day at lunch or dinner). I have been on the program twice; Kevin has been on it once. Last week in class Lara came and asked if my parents would be on the program. I said I’d have to ask them, and she was terribly excited when they agreed. Lara is excitable, talkative, and scattered. When she gets excited she talks very quickly and becomes increasingly more scattered.
On the day of the program, Lara explained the questions she had prepared for the broadcast. She met us and led us to the broadcast station, a small room in the classroom building with a closed sized area partitioned off for the broadcast. On the way, Lara asked my mom what she should call her. She said it was very difficult for her to say “Mrs. Hull” but she wanted something that would show respect.
“In China,” she said, “We would call someone auntie.”
“That’s good,” my mom said. “You can call me Auntie Candy.”
Lara liked the idea but could never quite get that straight and kept saying “Candy Auntie” instead. For my dad, she decided to stick with Mr. Hull, but she said it “Mr. Holy.”
Several of my students were there waiting for us. They weren’t related to the radio program, but they wanted to get in on the action. There were also several broadcast students eagerly looking on. By the end of the program, there were probably a dozen people crowded excitedly in the room.
The radio program consisted of Lara asking my parents a bunch of questions. The questions were wide ranging, varying from “How do you celebrate Christmas?” to “What are events that influenced your lives?” Some of the questions were a little more out of the blue, such as, “Some people do things that they enjoy and others do them just for money. For example, Clinton’s lover has written a book. What do you think about this?”
Lara said, “I hope that you won’t use any difficult words that I won’t understand because then I will feel embarrassed.” She kept talking about how nervous she was. I think perhaps the more nervous she is, the more she talks.
After the program, Lara told us they had recorded it to post on the internet so other schools could listen to the broadcast as well. So now my parents are famous.
There are lots of other funny stories (how can there not be, when you are teaching students to speak with a Southern accent and repeat things like, “She ain’t like the rest of us” and “He’s not so smart, bless his heart.” It was great fun.). But I will save some of those for our next newsletter…which I plan to make my parents write.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
H1N1 Quarantine
It is officially quarantine time here in Weinan.
The school frantically sent us a message at 8:30 last Wednesday morning: "Sorry to bother you this early, there is an emergence (sic), the school identified one case of flu last night, it is a student from biology department, so we need to talk about this, are you free this morning?"
So we scrambled over to the waiban's office and learned that the night before, school officials were called together for an emergency meeting at 10 p.m. because there were now 15 cases of swine flu in Weinan. Eight cases had been identified at the Railway University in another part of town and one here. "It is a very serious situation."
We knew China was taking H1N1 (the swine flu) seriously when they monitored everyone's temperatures who walked through the Beijing airport and asked us to provide contact information in case anyone on the plane sitting near us had been infected. We even heard stories of people who received daily calls asking if they were alright.
We knew the school was beginning to take H1N1 seriously when they handed us thermometers a month ago and asked us to monitor our temperatures daily, informing school officials if it topped 38 C (100.4 F). Now, they want to be notified if our temperature crosses 37.5 C (99.5). They also began checking IDs at the school gates to limit access. Several schools in Xi'an had already implemented full-blown quarantines, not allowing anyone off-campus, so we crossed our fingers that this wouldn't spread to Weinan.
Now that an infected student on campus has been found, the game has changed.
So the new rules: "Students will not be allowed to leave campus unless they have very urgent business and a note from the dean."
Teachers will be allowed to leave campus, but are be strongly urged not to do so unless absolutely necessary. "
You'd think that someone had died, not just gotten a case of the flu, but the fallout in China after their failure to stop the spread of bird flu a few years ago had them kicking precautionary measures into overdrive here.
Thankfully they only FORBADE us from going to two places: the two big, crowded supermarkets where we do most of our grocery shopping.
"You should avoid crowded areas," we were told. "Also, it is better if you cook at home rather than going to restaurants."
Unfortunately, there was a problem: We are about to leave for Beijing, since Ruth's parents were about to board their flight to visit us only a few hours after we were notified of the quarantine. It's a bit difficult to avoid crowded places in a city of some 17 million people.
"Maybe you should wear a mask."
"Do you know where we can buy one?" I asked, thinking that probably the now off-limits supermarkets might be our best bet. The school gave us several for the trip.
We did just come back from a few days in Beijing with Ruth's parents (we took them to the Great Wall, where the leaves were turning orange and yellow, the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen, the Hutongs an acrobat show and our favorite Chinese Mexican restaurant: Pete's Tex-Mex). Now we're wondering just how much off-campus exploration of China they're going to be allowed to do. When we first arrived from the train station, the guard asked to see our IDs. We probably were only allowed to enter because of our foreignness. I was able to leave campus yesterday to buy some groceries at a smaller nearby store, but it'll be a shame for them to come to China and not be able to go anywhere or eat Chinese food. What happens when we take them to Xi'an this weekend? Not quite sure.
We'll see. So far, I've only seen a handful of students and a few teachers walking around campus wearing protective masks.
Then again, this afternoon, one of the workers in the English department stopped Ruth, asking if she taught a particular class. "The roommate of one of the students in your class has H1N1, so all of your students will be required to wear masks when they are in the dormitory and while they are in the classroom so that nobody else gets sick."
Rumors among students are swirling that perhaps as many as 100 students aren't allowed to leave their rooms and that at least three are symptomatic. Students, many of whom live nearby and go home every weekend, are already getting stir-crazy. At least one has admitted to burrowing through a tiny hole in the fence so she can see her boyfriend off campus.
The school frantically sent us a message at 8:30 last Wednesday morning: "Sorry to bother you this early, there is an emergence (sic), the school identified one case of flu last night, it is a student from biology department, so we need to talk about this, are you free this morning?"
So we scrambled over to the waiban's office and learned that the night before, school officials were called together for an emergency meeting at 10 p.m. because there were now 15 cases of swine flu in Weinan. Eight cases had been identified at the Railway University in another part of town and one here. "It is a very serious situation."
We knew China was taking H1N1 (the swine flu) seriously when they monitored everyone's temperatures who walked through the Beijing airport and asked us to provide contact information in case anyone on the plane sitting near us had been infected. We even heard stories of people who received daily calls asking if they were alright.
We knew the school was beginning to take H1N1 seriously when they handed us thermometers a month ago and asked us to monitor our temperatures daily, informing school officials if it topped 38 C (100.4 F). Now, they want to be notified if our temperature crosses 37.5 C (99.5). They also began checking IDs at the school gates to limit access. Several schools in Xi'an had already implemented full-blown quarantines, not allowing anyone off-campus, so we crossed our fingers that this wouldn't spread to Weinan.
Now that an infected student on campus has been found, the game has changed.
So the new rules: "Students will not be allowed to leave campus unless they have very urgent business and a note from the dean."
Teachers will be allowed to leave campus, but are be strongly urged not to do so unless absolutely necessary. "
You'd think that someone had died, not just gotten a case of the flu, but the fallout in China after their failure to stop the spread of bird flu a few years ago had them kicking precautionary measures into overdrive here.
Thankfully they only FORBADE us from going to two places: the two big, crowded supermarkets where we do most of our grocery shopping.
"You should avoid crowded areas," we were told. "Also, it is better if you cook at home rather than going to restaurants."
Unfortunately, there was a problem: We are about to leave for Beijing, since Ruth's parents were about to board their flight to visit us only a few hours after we were notified of the quarantine. It's a bit difficult to avoid crowded places in a city of some 17 million people.
"Maybe you should wear a mask."
"Do you know where we can buy one?" I asked, thinking that probably the now off-limits supermarkets might be our best bet. The school gave us several for the trip.
We did just come back from a few days in Beijing with Ruth's parents (we took them to the Great Wall, where the leaves were turning orange and yellow, the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen, the Hutongs an acrobat show and our favorite Chinese Mexican restaurant: Pete's Tex-Mex). Now we're wondering just how much off-campus exploration of China they're going to be allowed to do. When we first arrived from the train station, the guard asked to see our IDs. We probably were only allowed to enter because of our foreignness. I was able to leave campus yesterday to buy some groceries at a smaller nearby store, but it'll be a shame for them to come to China and not be able to go anywhere or eat Chinese food. What happens when we take them to Xi'an this weekend? Not quite sure.
We'll see. So far, I've only seen a handful of students and a few teachers walking around campus wearing protective masks.
Then again, this afternoon, one of the workers in the English department stopped Ruth, asking if she taught a particular class. "The roommate of one of the students in your class has H1N1, so all of your students will be required to wear masks when they are in the dormitory and while they are in the classroom so that nobody else gets sick."
Rumors among students are swirling that perhaps as many as 100 students aren't allowed to leave their rooms and that at least three are symptomatic. Students, many of whom live nearby and go home every weekend, are already getting stir-crazy. At least one has admitted to burrowing through a tiny hole in the fence so she can see her boyfriend off campus.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Being Eaten by a Lion...and other things that surprise me
The other day I bought eggs at the grocery store. Usually they come about 15 in a plastic bag, and they are still covered with poop and dirt and feathers. This time when I took them out of the bag to wash them, the eggs were all clean. I didn’t see a single bit of poop on anyone of them. My natural response was suspicion. “This can’t be right. What is wrong with these eggs?”
Then I began thinking about how my natural responses to things are becoming a little bit strange. Why would I be suspicious about eggs just because they happen to be clean?
The past few days I have noticed several other unusual things that surprise me. For example…
*Today I went to shut the door in my classroom and thought something seemed strange. Then I realized it was because the door actually had a doorknob.
*I got through my entire lesson plan for the first time this semester.
*I went to a website the other day and it wasn’t blocked.
*80% of my students didn’t copy their homework from the internet.
*The good cooking smell in the hallway tonight was actually coming from my apartment (the benefits of the crockpot).
In other news, my parents will be coming in just a few days! They will be here visiting for about two and a half weeks. While here, I am making them come to/teach my classes, give culture lectures, clean the apartment (oops, haven’t told them that yet). Actually, we have been doing lots of cleaning getting ready for them to come. I always forget how big our office is when the floor isn’t covered with stacks of papers. It’s like a new room.
Anyway, we’ll probably be pretty busy while they’re here and might not be doing a bunch of blogging. Unless I make them write a blog. That’s actually a great idea…guest bloggers. I should look into that.
About that lion...the random pictures which are appearing in every post are due to the fact that blogger is one of the 10,000,000,031 websites that are blocked. Flickr, strangely, surprisingly, is not blocked, so we are able to upload blogs by posting them with a picture. So we upload the blog in Flickr, it then goes to Blogspot, which then imports it to Facebook. My how we do get around. Seriously though, this blocking thing is driving me crazy. The special holiday is over – give us back our webpages!
Then I began thinking about how my natural responses to things are becoming a little bit strange. Why would I be suspicious about eggs just because they happen to be clean?
The past few days I have noticed several other unusual things that surprise me. For example…
*Today I went to shut the door in my classroom and thought something seemed strange. Then I realized it was because the door actually had a doorknob.
*I got through my entire lesson plan for the first time this semester.
*I went to a website the other day and it wasn’t blocked.
*80% of my students didn’t copy their homework from the internet.
*The good cooking smell in the hallway tonight was actually coming from my apartment (the benefits of the crockpot).
In other news, my parents will be coming in just a few days! They will be here visiting for about two and a half weeks. While here, I am making them come to/teach my classes, give culture lectures, clean the apartment (oops, haven’t told them that yet). Actually, we have been doing lots of cleaning getting ready for them to come. I always forget how big our office is when the floor isn’t covered with stacks of papers. It’s like a new room.
Anyway, we’ll probably be pretty busy while they’re here and might not be doing a bunch of blogging. Unless I make them write a blog. That’s actually a great idea…guest bloggers. I should look into that.
About that lion...the random pictures which are appearing in every post are due to the fact that blogger is one of the 10,000,000,031 websites that are blocked. Flickr, strangely, surprisingly, is not blocked, so we are able to upload blogs by posting them with a picture. So we upload the blog in Flickr, it then goes to Blogspot, which then imports it to Facebook. My how we do get around. Seriously though, this blocking thing is driving me crazy. The special holiday is over – give us back our webpages!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Up and Down
(or, Who Says Mood Swings are Just for Teenagers?)
By Ruth
Everybody has bad days, but when you live in China and have a bad day, you can call it a “Bad China Day” and conveniently blame everything on China. Sometimes it deserves it. Sometimes it is just a handy scapegoat.
Prologue
I’m pretty sure this is breaking “blog length etiquette” rules all over the place, but since I haven’t really been blogging much recently, I felt the need to get it all out all my recent thoughts in one long monologue. For ease of reading, I decided to divide it into chapters.
Chapter 1: Test
The other day we had to take a test for the school or for the country or something. It was an evaluation for “foreign experts” working in China involving a basic knowledge test, a psychological test, and a writing test. Evaluating foreigners isn’t such a bad idea (have you seen some of the foreigners they let over here? Yikes…) It’s just the methods that were somewhat…lacking.
The psychological questions were...confusing. Some of the wording wasn’t exactly the clearest. For example:
- Do you agree that the up-and-down is not the real life, but trivial daily life is real?
- When you describe one thing, what would you like to do?
- What do you think about the idea that the actively taking is better than passively receiving?
The “basic knowledge test” asked some basic questions. It also asked some things like,
- Who is the current president of the United States? (Obama was not one of the answer choices, so I chose George W. Bush)
- When did the UN reach the agreement titled Declaration of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment?
- Who is the current prime minister of China? (Unfortunately…it doesn’t have a prime minister. It does have a premiere, sometimes incorrectly referred to as prime minister)
- Which skin color is most common among Chinese people? (…and the correct answer is apparently “yellow”)
- 0.0495×2500+49.5×2.4+51×4.95=?
It was pretty funny overall, but the other night when I was taking this test, I was not in a funny mood. So by the time I finished, I was pretty ticked off about having to spend my time on something that seemed so useless. My complaints automatically went from small scale (stupid test) to large anger encompassing the entire country. “This is such a stupid country! The whole thing is ridiculous. It’s all so stupid. All 1.3 billion people. Why do I live here? ”
Chapter 2: Class
Which is funny, because mere hours earlier I was in class, watching my students discuss a question and thinking, “I love my students. They’re so cute and fun. I love teaching. It’s so great that we get to be here and do this.”
And the next day, after the previous night's test anger had passed, I was back in class looking adoringly at my students. This week’s lesson was fun to teach. The topic was dating, and student love to talk about anything like that. 95.7% of them are hopeless romantics. I returned from class thinking happy thoughts about my sweet little students…until I started grading their homework.
They had watched an English movie, read an English book, or listened to English music and written a review about it. Most of them wrote good reviews, but some of them were too good, far too good. It was the difference between writing like this:
“They have a dream that one day to go to South American 'wonderland waterfall' adventure. But until Ellie died, this dream didn’t also can achieve.”
and writing like this:
“But this is 1970’s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at on the street.”
So I looked them up on Google, and sure enough, there they were. No more happy thoughts of innocent students. I was already drawing up the plans for a scathing lecture that would leave them all feeling small and ashamed. Suddenly every student was a lazy, dishonest plagiarizer.
At least until I went back to class today and my student said, “Ruth, I think you are very humorous this year. You make us laugh all the time.” And I thought, “My students are so cute. They think I’m funny. I am pretty funny, aren’t I? I just love my students.”
Chapter 3: Headache
A few hours after the “you’re so funny” comment, the headache which had been lingering around all day came out in full force. As did the train horns, bus horns, car alarms, screaming children and every other possible noisemaker in a one mile radius. China is a noisy place. I guess that’s what happens when you squeeze a thousand people into a few acres next to thee railroad tracks and a highway, and several hundred of those people are children, and anyone who drives a motor vehicle believes that the coolest part is the horn.
Whenever I have a headache, it seems like everyone goes into noise-making overdrive. So I lay in bed with a hot rice sock on my neck and a frozen bag of corn on my forehead mentally strangling the world’s horn-manufacturers.
Unfortunately, headaches wait for no man (or would it be, time waits for no headaches?) and I had to go do a culture lecture. At the culture lecture,
1. The students laughed at me. I’m so funny! :)
2. The computer locked up. Why do computers hate me? :(
3. My little freshmen waved excitedly and smiled adoringly at me. :)
4. My former student told me I should study harder to learn more Chinese (which is totally true, I just didn’t want to hear it). :(
5. My headache receded. :)
6. My student told me I looked tired. True, but generally that’s like when someone says you look sick. It’s not a compliment. :(
7. Christina told me I looked like Rory, the early years (when she was smart and not slutty). :)
Epilogue: The Moral
As I review the last 48 hours, I find that apparently I do believe “the up-and-down” is the real life. The past few weeks have held even more ups and downs, ones more significant and not quite as funny.
A month ago I decided to memorize Psalm 16, particularly because I wanted to remember a few verses in the middle:
“You have assigned me my portion and my cup:
You have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places:
Surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
These past few weeks I have been thinking about those verses a lot. There have been times when I’ve thought, “It totally makes sense! All is pleasant and delightful!” There have been other times when I’ve had to say, “Really? Really? Surely this is not what You were talking about.”
But today as I was lying in bed willing my headache away, all of a sudden it made sense and I thought, it is true. It's really true. The ups and the downs are like variations on the earth’s surface. Mountains blend into hills which turn into valleys. Oceans end and deserts begin. But far beneath it all, the same core stands firm and unchanging.
I’m not always happy about where I am or the events that happen in life. Sometimes I’d like to choose my own “boundary lines,” thank you very much because these ones aren’t looking so good. But sometimes I realize that I’m just looking at the surface of the land. What’s underneath, what doesn’t change, really is that pleasant place, the delightful inheritance.
So…the moral(s) of the story?
#1: Stupid, Chinglishy tests can teach you something.
#2: Feelings change every week, day, hour, and/or minute.
#3: Far underneath, there lies a truth that never changes.
By Ruth
Everybody has bad days, but when you live in China and have a bad day, you can call it a “Bad China Day” and conveniently blame everything on China. Sometimes it deserves it. Sometimes it is just a handy scapegoat.
Prologue
I’m pretty sure this is breaking “blog length etiquette” rules all over the place, but since I haven’t really been blogging much recently, I felt the need to get it all out all my recent thoughts in one long monologue. For ease of reading, I decided to divide it into chapters.
Chapter 1: Test
The other day we had to take a test for the school or for the country or something. It was an evaluation for “foreign experts” working in China involving a basic knowledge test, a psychological test, and a writing test. Evaluating foreigners isn’t such a bad idea (have you seen some of the foreigners they let over here? Yikes…) It’s just the methods that were somewhat…lacking.
The psychological questions were...confusing. Some of the wording wasn’t exactly the clearest. For example:
- Do you agree that the up-and-down is not the real life, but trivial daily life is real?
- When you describe one thing, what would you like to do?
- What do you think about the idea that the actively taking is better than passively receiving?
The “basic knowledge test” asked some basic questions. It also asked some things like,
- Who is the current president of the United States? (Obama was not one of the answer choices, so I chose George W. Bush)
- When did the UN reach the agreement titled Declaration of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment?
- Who is the current prime minister of China? (Unfortunately…it doesn’t have a prime minister. It does have a premiere, sometimes incorrectly referred to as prime minister)
- Which skin color is most common among Chinese people? (…and the correct answer is apparently “yellow”)
- 0.0495×2500+49.5×2.4+51×4.95=?
It was pretty funny overall, but the other night when I was taking this test, I was not in a funny mood. So by the time I finished, I was pretty ticked off about having to spend my time on something that seemed so useless. My complaints automatically went from small scale (stupid test) to large anger encompassing the entire country. “This is such a stupid country! The whole thing is ridiculous. It’s all so stupid. All 1.3 billion people. Why do I live here? ”
Chapter 2: Class
Which is funny, because mere hours earlier I was in class, watching my students discuss a question and thinking, “I love my students. They’re so cute and fun. I love teaching. It’s so great that we get to be here and do this.”
And the next day, after the previous night's test anger had passed, I was back in class looking adoringly at my students. This week’s lesson was fun to teach. The topic was dating, and student love to talk about anything like that. 95.7% of them are hopeless romantics. I returned from class thinking happy thoughts about my sweet little students…until I started grading their homework.
They had watched an English movie, read an English book, or listened to English music and written a review about it. Most of them wrote good reviews, but some of them were too good, far too good. It was the difference between writing like this:
“They have a dream that one day to go to South American 'wonderland waterfall' adventure. But until Ellie died, this dream didn’t also can achieve.”
and writing like this:
“But this is 1970’s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at on the street.”
So I looked them up on Google, and sure enough, there they were. No more happy thoughts of innocent students. I was already drawing up the plans for a scathing lecture that would leave them all feeling small and ashamed. Suddenly every student was a lazy, dishonest plagiarizer.
At least until I went back to class today and my student said, “Ruth, I think you are very humorous this year. You make us laugh all the time.” And I thought, “My students are so cute. They think I’m funny. I am pretty funny, aren’t I? I just love my students.”
Chapter 3: Headache
A few hours after the “you’re so funny” comment, the headache which had been lingering around all day came out in full force. As did the train horns, bus horns, car alarms, screaming children and every other possible noisemaker in a one mile radius. China is a noisy place. I guess that’s what happens when you squeeze a thousand people into a few acres next to thee railroad tracks and a highway, and several hundred of those people are children, and anyone who drives a motor vehicle believes that the coolest part is the horn.
Whenever I have a headache, it seems like everyone goes into noise-making overdrive. So I lay in bed with a hot rice sock on my neck and a frozen bag of corn on my forehead mentally strangling the world’s horn-manufacturers.
Unfortunately, headaches wait for no man (or would it be, time waits for no headaches?) and I had to go do a culture lecture. At the culture lecture,
1. The students laughed at me. I’m so funny! :)
2. The computer locked up. Why do computers hate me? :(
3. My little freshmen waved excitedly and smiled adoringly at me. :)
4. My former student told me I should study harder to learn more Chinese (which is totally true, I just didn’t want to hear it). :(
5. My headache receded. :)
6. My student told me I looked tired. True, but generally that’s like when someone says you look sick. It’s not a compliment. :(
7. Christina told me I looked like Rory, the early years (when she was smart and not slutty). :)
Epilogue: The Moral
As I review the last 48 hours, I find that apparently I do believe “the up-and-down” is the real life. The past few weeks have held even more ups and downs, ones more significant and not quite as funny.
A month ago I decided to memorize Psalm 16, particularly because I wanted to remember a few verses in the middle:
“You have assigned me my portion and my cup:
You have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places:
Surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
These past few weeks I have been thinking about those verses a lot. There have been times when I’ve thought, “It totally makes sense! All is pleasant and delightful!” There have been other times when I’ve had to say, “Really? Really? Surely this is not what You were talking about.”
But today as I was lying in bed willing my headache away, all of a sudden it made sense and I thought, it is true. It's really true. The ups and the downs are like variations on the earth’s surface. Mountains blend into hills which turn into valleys. Oceans end and deserts begin. But far beneath it all, the same core stands firm and unchanging.
I’m not always happy about where I am or the events that happen in life. Sometimes I’d like to choose my own “boundary lines,” thank you very much because these ones aren’t looking so good. But sometimes I realize that I’m just looking at the surface of the land. What’s underneath, what doesn’t change, really is that pleasant place, the delightful inheritance.
So…the moral(s) of the story?
#1: Stupid, Chinglishy tests can teach you something.
#2: Feelings change every week, day, hour, and/or minute.
#3: Far underneath, there lies a truth that never changes.
Monday, October 5, 2009
60 Years of China
by Ruth
(photo by Kevin)
October the first was an important day for China. It was the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Each year the country has a week long holiday to celebrate National Day. Every ten years, a big military parade is held in Beijing. But this year’s holiday was a really-really-really big deal.
To make sure there were no troubles or disruptions during the national holiday, Beijing instituted security measures than were even firmer than during the Olympics. They also blocked about 15,000 new websites in the weeks leading up to the day. Facebook is long gone, blogger has also fallen by the wayside (so we are uploading blogs via flickr), and we haven’t even been able to find a proxy site to break us through the barriers. We’re still holding out hope that once the national day hype backs down, we’ll regain some more access.
Anyway, on the morning of October 1st, a big military parade was held in Beijing. Only the top leaders and elite of the elite were invited to attend, but the whole country followed along on TV. We invited some students who stayed here during the holiday over to watch it with us. They were excited and brimming with pride about being Chinese. Sometimes I have to envy their patriotic zeal. Being Chinese seems to be one of the most central aspects of their identity.
In the evening of National Day, another big performance/gala was held in Beijing. It involved 60,000 performers singing and dancing and waving things in the air (all perfectly synchronized of course). It also included twice as many fireworks as the Olympics. The performance lasted for 1 hour and 40 minutes, and fireworks were going off for at least 75% of that time. It was all quite impressive.
I could say more, and perhaps Kevin will later, but for now I will just leave you with two recommended sights. I really should have put these at the beginning because they are more interesting than the blog.
A fellow foreigner in China posted some links, and I wanted to pass them onto you. They are both really interesting.
1. (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/china_celebrates_60_years.html) First is a series of pictures from the military parade.
2. (http://vimeo.com/6853452) Second is an interesting video – a combination of time lapse and slow motion that condenses the parade into 3 minutes 42 seconds.
(photo by Kevin)
October the first was an important day for China. It was the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Each year the country has a week long holiday to celebrate National Day. Every ten years, a big military parade is held in Beijing. But this year’s holiday was a really-really-really big deal.
To make sure there were no troubles or disruptions during the national holiday, Beijing instituted security measures than were even firmer than during the Olympics. They also blocked about 15,000 new websites in the weeks leading up to the day. Facebook is long gone, blogger has also fallen by the wayside (so we are uploading blogs via flickr), and we haven’t even been able to find a proxy site to break us through the barriers. We’re still holding out hope that once the national day hype backs down, we’ll regain some more access.
Anyway, on the morning of October 1st, a big military parade was held in Beijing. Only the top leaders and elite of the elite were invited to attend, but the whole country followed along on TV. We invited some students who stayed here during the holiday over to watch it with us. They were excited and brimming with pride about being Chinese. Sometimes I have to envy their patriotic zeal. Being Chinese seems to be one of the most central aspects of their identity.
In the evening of National Day, another big performance/gala was held in Beijing. It involved 60,000 performers singing and dancing and waving things in the air (all perfectly synchronized of course). It also included twice as many fireworks as the Olympics. The performance lasted for 1 hour and 40 minutes, and fireworks were going off for at least 75% of that time. It was all quite impressive.
I could say more, and perhaps Kevin will later, but for now I will just leave you with two recommended sights. I really should have put these at the beginning because they are more interesting than the blog.
A fellow foreigner in China posted some links, and I wanted to pass them onto you. They are both really interesting.
1. (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/china_celebrates_60_years.html) First is a series of pictures from the military parade.
2. (http://vimeo.com/6853452) Second is an interesting video – a combination of time lapse and slow motion that condenses the parade into 3 minutes 42 seconds.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Nationalistic Patriotic People's Singing Extravaganza
Sept. 23, 2009 (it's been a crazy week, so I didn't have a chance to finish this till now, but since today is THE National Day, Oct. 1, now's as good a time as any)
By Kevin
It was finally here: the much-anticipated singing competition. After weeks of listening to choirs from each of some 20 departments at the school, including staff, office workers and cafeteria workers, rehearse a half-dozen patriotic "revolutionary" songs dating back to the founding of modern China (the PRC), it was show time.
We weren't sure until now where the competition would be held, but we followed the sound and sauntered out to the square on campus a few minutes after we'd been told it would start: at 2 p.m. (No city or school in China would be complete without a giant concrete square modeled somewhat after the large one in the capital where untold numbers of major events have occurred in the last 60 years has) The steps in front of the central teaching building made a natural stage for choirs. Thousands of students sat in the square. Some were dutifully watching the performances, which had already begun. Most were huddled underneath umbrellas chatting with friends. Though the temperature was in the 80s, many still wore long sleeves, so umbrellas, or as we've taken to calling them, "sunbrellas" were necessary to help the students keep their skin white. Generally Chinese people have a polar opposite reaction to sunny days from Americans. American women sunbathe, often admiring the darker tones of other cultures. Chinese girls do everything they can to be as pale as they can, admiring the whiteness of our skin.
But I digress. As we looked for the students, teachers and leaders from the English department, who we've heard practicing for hours on end for the last few weeks, we found out that they were inside the building getting dressed and doing their makeup. Yes, even though few students wear makeup, both guys and girls made sure to apply the most gaudy stage makeup they could imagine.
As I walked into the building, and unfamiliar student approached. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked, nervously. I assumed he wanted to know how to improve his spoken English or one of the other standard questions Chinese students need to know about us. "Can I borrow your shoes."
I figured I heard him wrong. "My shoes?" I asked, sizing him up. He was taller than an average Chinese student, but I still had several inches on him. "Won't they be a little bit big on you?"
"It doesn't matter," he said. "My leader said I must wear black shoes, but we only have 15 minutes until we will sing."
I put my foot next to his. My size 13 foot dwarfed his size 9. But he insisted that the size difference wouldn't matter. "I will still need shoes to wear, though," I explained. "Let's go to my house and I can exchange shoes with you there."
"I think we'd better run," he said. "I don't have much time."
On the way to the apartment, in between hard breaths, he explained that he was a "fresh student" (Chinglish for "freshman," which I'd guessed -- all the freshmen wear the same white shirt with yellow and blue fringe) and that his English name was Darren.
At the apartment, Darren slipped his feet into my shoes. There was a good inch to spare behind his heel. We couldn't run back to the staging area because the shoes were too loose. He walked with his knees bent, trying to keep his feet from slipping out of clown shoes. I remembered how big my Dad's shoes felt whenever I tried them on as a child. I tried to imagine how he felt, walking in the shoes of a foreigner to sing patriotic Chinese songs.
When he made it back, the math department was waiting, they were second in line to sing. He endured several minutes of ridicule from his friends, who seemed to tease him about his shoes. I wonder what he told them. Undoubtedly I was now his best friend.
After he sang, he came back, slipped back into his white shoes and thanked me profusely for helping him. Around this time Ruth and Christina came back from going to see the English department teachers and students putting on their makeup. They'd learned that the English department would be the 17th group to perform. We were on group number five and it was now more than an hour into the program. We decided we'd kill the time in the comforts of our apartments, then return just before the English department performed. There's only so many times a foreigner can handle hearing the same half-dozen revolutionary marches sung over and over again, even if the arrangements are (slightly) different.
Around 4:30 p.m., our students and colleagues were finally in the staging area, anxiously awaiting their chance to do the motherland proud and show off their patriotic zeal. I thought about how many millions of college students were likely doing the same thing today or sometime in the coming week. They proudly took the stage and sung with all their might. After they exited to the other side of the stage, we hurried to find them, so we could congratulate them on a job well done. By the time we found them, the last group, the Art department (which includes not only painters and sculptors, but also musicians and singers), took the stage and blew everyone else away.
Thankfully, the English department wasn't competing against them.
"Can you understand what they are singing?" asked Connor, a former student who is now a junior. Nope. He seemed confused by our appearance. "They are patriotic songs about the motherland."
"I figured as much. China is celebrating it's 60th anniversary. It's a big deal."
"Why did you come?" he asked.
I thought it seemed obvious. This was a huge outdoor competition with a mass of thousands of students. The school "strongly encouraged" us to move classes in order to accommodate students who might want to watch. Music had been blaring on loudspeakers all day long. We couldn't avoid it if we tried. But I kept those explanations to myself and went with the still truthful, but more diplomatic, approach: "We wanted to come," I said. "We've been hearing students and teachers practice for a long time. We knew that the singing would be excellent and we wanted to support our students."
Before long, prizes were announced. First prize for the non-educational portion: the cafeteria workers. My mind flashed to Saturday Night Live skits with Chris Farley dancing to Adam Sandler's song about "Lunch Lady Land." Clearly I wasn't as mentally caught up in the patriotic fervor of the students around me.
I asked why Connor wasn't singing, since almost all of the other boys in the department were on stage. "I wish I could have been there," he said.
"I went to the first practice, but I had the runs for more than a week," he explained, using a bit of slang he'd recently picked up. "I couldn't stand there for two hours to practice."
I listened to the awards and noticed a couple that were familiar: "Wai jiao" (foreigner), so I was able to anticipate the student's translation. "We won," exclaimed one student, grinning. "First prize for the English department."
Another student, who had sung with the group, said he hoped this meant that the English Department would treat them to dinner. "So far, the department has given us a notebook for participating," he said, sensing a tinge of disappointment.
As we left, a reporter from the local newspaper grinned and asked us to pose for a few photos, handing his camera to a student to snap his memento of his fortunate rendezvous foreigners at a patriotic Chinese singing competition. Who knows if or when the photo might show up in print.
By Kevin
It was finally here: the much-anticipated singing competition. After weeks of listening to choirs from each of some 20 departments at the school, including staff, office workers and cafeteria workers, rehearse a half-dozen patriotic "revolutionary" songs dating back to the founding of modern China (the PRC), it was show time.
We weren't sure until now where the competition would be held, but we followed the sound and sauntered out to the square on campus a few minutes after we'd been told it would start: at 2 p.m. (No city or school in China would be complete without a giant concrete square modeled somewhat after the large one in the capital where untold numbers of major events have occurred in the last 60 years has) The steps in front of the central teaching building made a natural stage for choirs. Thousands of students sat in the square. Some were dutifully watching the performances, which had already begun. Most were huddled underneath umbrellas chatting with friends. Though the temperature was in the 80s, many still wore long sleeves, so umbrellas, or as we've taken to calling them, "sunbrellas" were necessary to help the students keep their skin white. Generally Chinese people have a polar opposite reaction to sunny days from Americans. American women sunbathe, often admiring the darker tones of other cultures. Chinese girls do everything they can to be as pale as they can, admiring the whiteness of our skin.
But I digress. As we looked for the students, teachers and leaders from the English department, who we've heard practicing for hours on end for the last few weeks, we found out that they were inside the building getting dressed and doing their makeup. Yes, even though few students wear makeup, both guys and girls made sure to apply the most gaudy stage makeup they could imagine.
As I walked into the building, and unfamiliar student approached. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked, nervously. I assumed he wanted to know how to improve his spoken English or one of the other standard questions Chinese students need to know about us. "Can I borrow your shoes."
I figured I heard him wrong. "My shoes?" I asked, sizing him up. He was taller than an average Chinese student, but I still had several inches on him. "Won't they be a little bit big on you?"
"It doesn't matter," he said. "My leader said I must wear black shoes, but we only have 15 minutes until we will sing."
I put my foot next to his. My size 13 foot dwarfed his size 9. But he insisted that the size difference wouldn't matter. "I will still need shoes to wear, though," I explained. "Let's go to my house and I can exchange shoes with you there."
"I think we'd better run," he said. "I don't have much time."
On the way to the apartment, in between hard breaths, he explained that he was a "fresh student" (Chinglish for "freshman," which I'd guessed -- all the freshmen wear the same white shirt with yellow and blue fringe) and that his English name was Darren.
At the apartment, Darren slipped his feet into my shoes. There was a good inch to spare behind his heel. We couldn't run back to the staging area because the shoes were too loose. He walked with his knees bent, trying to keep his feet from slipping out of clown shoes. I remembered how big my Dad's shoes felt whenever I tried them on as a child. I tried to imagine how he felt, walking in the shoes of a foreigner to sing patriotic Chinese songs.
When he made it back, the math department was waiting, they were second in line to sing. He endured several minutes of ridicule from his friends, who seemed to tease him about his shoes. I wonder what he told them. Undoubtedly I was now his best friend.
After he sang, he came back, slipped back into his white shoes and thanked me profusely for helping him. Around this time Ruth and Christina came back from going to see the English department teachers and students putting on their makeup. They'd learned that the English department would be the 17th group to perform. We were on group number five and it was now more than an hour into the program. We decided we'd kill the time in the comforts of our apartments, then return just before the English department performed. There's only so many times a foreigner can handle hearing the same half-dozen revolutionary marches sung over and over again, even if the arrangements are (slightly) different.
Around 4:30 p.m., our students and colleagues were finally in the staging area, anxiously awaiting their chance to do the motherland proud and show off their patriotic zeal. I thought about how many millions of college students were likely doing the same thing today or sometime in the coming week. They proudly took the stage and sung with all their might. After they exited to the other side of the stage, we hurried to find them, so we could congratulate them on a job well done. By the time we found them, the last group, the Art department (which includes not only painters and sculptors, but also musicians and singers), took the stage and blew everyone else away.
Thankfully, the English department wasn't competing against them.
"Can you understand what they are singing?" asked Connor, a former student who is now a junior. Nope. He seemed confused by our appearance. "They are patriotic songs about the motherland."
"I figured as much. China is celebrating it's 60th anniversary. It's a big deal."
"Why did you come?" he asked.
I thought it seemed obvious. This was a huge outdoor competition with a mass of thousands of students. The school "strongly encouraged" us to move classes in order to accommodate students who might want to watch. Music had been blaring on loudspeakers all day long. We couldn't avoid it if we tried. But I kept those explanations to myself and went with the still truthful, but more diplomatic, approach: "We wanted to come," I said. "We've been hearing students and teachers practice for a long time. We knew that the singing would be excellent and we wanted to support our students."
Before long, prizes were announced. First prize for the non-educational portion: the cafeteria workers. My mind flashed to Saturday Night Live skits with Chris Farley dancing to Adam Sandler's song about "Lunch Lady Land." Clearly I wasn't as mentally caught up in the patriotic fervor of the students around me.
I asked why Connor wasn't singing, since almost all of the other boys in the department were on stage. "I wish I could have been there," he said.
"I went to the first practice, but I had the runs for more than a week," he explained, using a bit of slang he'd recently picked up. "I couldn't stand there for two hours to practice."
I listened to the awards and noticed a couple that were familiar: "Wai jiao" (foreigner), so I was able to anticipate the student's translation. "We won," exclaimed one student, grinning. "First prize for the English department."
Another student, who had sung with the group, said he hoped this meant that the English Department would treat them to dinner. "So far, the department has given us a notebook for participating," he said, sensing a tinge of disappointment.
As we left, a reporter from the local newspaper grinned and asked us to pose for a few photos, handing his camera to a student to snap his memento of his fortunate rendezvous foreigners at a patriotic Chinese singing competition. Who knows if or when the photo might show up in print.
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