The China Chronicles: December 2006

Monday, December 25, 2006

You know how certain people can always make you feel like you are in trouble and put a damper on your day? That drives me crazy!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

The water in my washing machine after my clothes have been rinsed TWICE. Gross, huh?

A waterfall at Longgong

Saturday, December 23, 2006

I am currently writing this blog while I am listening to the tv show "24." I can't actually watch the show because I get too scared watching it at night by myself. But I also can't turn it off--since Thursday, I've watched probably close to 15 hours' worth. I know, I know--I'm a sick, sick woman and I need help.

Today, we went spelunking. For those of you who get "spelunking" confused with "skinny dipping"--it's not even remotely close to being the same thing. You know who you are :) This adventure started at 7:20 Saturday morning. Let me just tell you how excited I was about that. Let me also tell you a little bit about 7:20 a.m. in China. It's still pitch dark outside. It's really really cold. Nobody else is out and about. Basically, it's an unholy time to be up and about on the weekend. We met the car (we have chauffers who work for the school) and ate beef noodles for breakfast. Think Ramen Noodles with slices of beef and cilantro and onions. Isn't that what you eat for breakfast? It's almost as good as waffles!

Anyway, despite our early start, we had a fun day at Longgong. It's called the Dragon Palace in English. It is currently a 4A tourist attraction, and they want to make it a 5A attraction. The inspectors (or whomever) were there today to judge it, so that's why they called in the laowais (foreigners). It looks good if there are foreigners visiting. We were an attraction ourselves. The Chinese tourists (who, by the way, are every bit the stereotypical Asians with cameras) took pictures with us. Kelsey told one guy that he could take our picture if he paid us 3 yuan. She told the next guy that it would cost 5 mao (half a yuan). When they asked why it was cheaper, Kelsey said, "He is more handsome." If they're gonna stare at us, we might as well entertain ourselves :)

We also took a boat ride through an amazing cave. The top of the cave was probably 600 feet up from the surface of the lake. It had amazing formations and great acoustics. Then we had to fill out a survey rating Longgong. On the first one I filled out, I gave the signs a rating of "fair" because one of them said "Hurl the telephone," which is actually supposed to say something to the effect of "For complaints, call this number." Apparently they shredded that one because I had to fill out another one, and I gave everything a "very satisfactory" rating. It's a very Chinese thing to do. For whatever reason, they gave us free purses after we filled out the surveys with a deck of cards in them.

We went to the restaurant and waited for an hour and a half for lunch to come. We were starving! Considering that it was fancy food to impress us, it was a really good lunch. The fancy food is actually way worse than the cheap food. However, there was no turtle floating in the soup, which is always a pretty good possibility, so that was nice. There were chicken livers which we skipped, but there was smoked beef, some sort of greens, wassun (like a cross between pea pods and cucumber), cabbage, cold noodles, cashews, fish, 2 kinds of soup, dumplings, sweet rolls, rice (of course)...I think there was more stuff, but that's all I can remember. I had my first bite of fish in China. It takes a little getting used to. They serve the whole fish, head and eye and skin and everything, and you pick pieces off with your chopsticks. The fish was actually really good despite its grotesque appearance.

After lunch, we went to another cave called Buddha Palace, except the sign said Duddha palace, but they tried. Again, the top of the cave was probably at least 600 feet high, and there were golden Buddhas that had to be at least 50 feet tall. It was sort of surreal. The cave was so beautiful, and the Buddhas were so gaudy. It was really sad to see. People came and paid the monks to bow to Buddha and throw coins in the lucky dragon pool. There are so many superstitions here, and it's so empty.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

This is Liz and me at the Christmas banquet for foreigners in Guiyang. Just so you know, my head isn't actually that much bigger than hers--it's just a bad angle, but you've gotta take what you can get when you are doing self-portraits.

Anyway, Liz and I went to Guiyang Saturday afternoon and came back Sunday afternoon. On our bus ride there, we almost killed about 20 construction workers. We'd speed up, almost hit one, slam on the brakes, then speed up again. The bus driver also thought it'd be fun to weave in and out of the cones on the highway. When we got into town, there was traffic like crazy. We finally got to the bus station and tried to remember which bus to take to Wal-Mart where we were meeting Kara. We were pretty sure it was bus 24, but we weren't sure which direction to take it.

We decided to take a taxi. That was a fabulous idea. We got in and told the driver "Wal-Mart." We drove for awhile and he kept pointing out the window, but there were two buses next to us. We couldn't figure out if he was pointing to the ad for baby formula on the side of the bus or what. Did they sell that baby formula at Walmart? We finally figured out that he was actually pointing to Walmart, but it was the wrong one. We told him we didn't want that one and that we needed to go to the other one. The whole way to the other Walmart, the taxi driver sang, "Walmart, Walmart, Walmart, Walmart," except it was more like, "Warmart, Warmart, Warmart, Warmart." We gave that taxi driver a whole extra yuan for the entertainment.

Walmart was totally packed. It was way worse than Walmarts in the States. We bought our tuna, peanut butter, and Ritz crackers and left asap.

Sunday morning, we went to the Christmas service and then ate lunch at the hotel. It was a buffet and we had a salad bar and forks and everything! Salad in China is pretty much unheard of, so that was exciting.

Also on the exciting news front, I found Pringles at the Wang Ke Long yesterday! They're kind of expensive (13 yuan) but not prohibitively so. I have Pringles, this is the last week of classes before finasl...it's gonna be a good week.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

So remember how the final for both sections of the same class have to be the same? Well, I wrote the listening final for the class I share with Mr. Yang. Mr. Yang spent a year in England, and he has great English. He wanted me to write the exam because he hasn't taught listening before. I didn't mention that I haven't taught anything at all before.

The exam is comprised of four parts: defining vocabulary words, giving a summary of a movie we watched, listening to a dication they've already heard and filling in the blanks, and listening to a song they've never heard before and filling in the blanks. I chose the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol because the lyrics are simple and clear. We have to have the students listen to something they haven't heard before because they are really good at memorizing, and they will memorize everything they've heard before, so it's the only way to find out if they are really learning how to identify English words.

Anyway, yesterday during class, Mr. Yang came over from next door and asked how many times I let the students hear the song before the test. I said I don't let them listen to it at all before the test. With a look of panic, he said oh, I'd better go stop it then! And he ran back into his room.

After class was over, Mr. Yang came to talk to me about the song again. The lyrics in part say, "Let's waste time chasing cars around our heads. We don't need anything or anyone." Mr. Yang wanted to know what chasing cars around our heads meant. I told him that it wasn't literal, and it was similar to daydreaming. (I have no idea if that's true or not.) He said, "Oh, is this a religious song?" I said, "Um, no, it isn't." He said, "Oh, so it's just a love song." I was like well, I guess so. He said, "Well, it sounds like drugs to me--like chasing the dragon." I said, "Well, Mr. Yang, I've never actually heard the expression 'chasing the dragon' before, but this isn't a song about drugs." He asked if I stopped the song after every line to explain the meaning to students and tell them the words. I said no, when my students listen to songs, I play it all the way through twice and then give them the answers and explain the meaning. Then he left. After he told me that next week, he wants to combine our classes so that he can observe me teach since he hasn't taught listening before. Like I'm some sort of teaching genius.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

In the last couple weeks, I have gotten two belated birthday packages, one containing mac and cheese and the other containing Cheetos. Does it get any better than that? I think not.

Monday, December 11, 2006

This is a picture of my family taken last October at our house. It has nothing to do with anything, except that the holidays are a time to be with your family, and since I won't be with them, looking at this picture makes me happy. Maybe it'll make you happy, too. Or maybe you'll just think I'm strange, but that's okay too.

This morning, I blew a fuse...for the second time since Saturday. I mean literally blew a fuse, as in my electricity went out. I think that makes four times in the last six weeks. China sure is fun!

Saturday night, Liz came over for a slumber party! That's right, 23-year-old girls still have sleepovers. We watched It Happened One Night and half of Little Women. Halfway through Little Women, at 9:30 p.m., is when the electricity went out. Thankfully, it was fixed by 10:15. In the summer, it wouldn't matter much, but it gets pretty cold pretty quickly with no heat. Sunday morning, we finished watching Little Women and then went to the grocery store and to lunch at our favorite potato place. I think I've written about it before--it's sort of like mashed potatoes fried with cabbage, bean sprouts, cilantro, and who knows what else. It sounds a little funky, but it's amazingly good, and lunch for both of us costs 4 yuan.

At the grocery store, I found dinner rolls! There's not much bread in China, so that was pretty exciting. The rolls they had out on the shelves had black seeds on them, and China is just not a good place to take chances with stuff like that, so I successfully told the woman that I wanted rolls without black seeds and asked if they had any. It went like this: "You meiyou zhe-guh? Wo yao zhe-guh, huh wo buyao zhe-guh." It translates: "Do you have this? I want this, but I don't want this." I don't know the word for rolls or seeds or without, so I had to make do. She understood me! And they did have plain rolls! After that victory, Liz and I bought Coke and Kit-Kats and milk and crackers and left to go to lunch.

While we were at lunch, I put the milk and crackers in my shoulder bag so that the grocery bag wouldn't be so heavy. The bagger put two liters of milk, two cans of coke, two Kit-Kats, two packages of crackers, and one bag of twelve rolls into one plastic bag. Anyway, after lunch, we took the bus home, and right as we were walking through the gate onto campus, I realized that I'd grabbed my shoulder bag but left the bag with the rolls at the restaurant. Since it would have taken another 45 minutes to an hour to go back and get it and come home, I didn't bother, but it was kind of sad. I am really missing those Kit-Kats...

Finally, I finished writing the exams that I have to turn in today! Two more weeks of class, two weeks of finals, and school is OVER! Well, until March anyway.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

If you have been keeping up with the story of my pot, one of the handles finally burned all the way off. It makes the pot a little more difficult to pick up, but at least I can stop dumping cups of water on that handle while I'm cooking. As soon as the other one burns off, I'll be good to go.

Kelsey, a Peace Corps teacher, has a comment box for each class. Students can anonymously write her anything they want. Today, she got a comment that said, "Sara is the most beautiful of all the foreign teachers." It's not true, but it made me smile.

Also, I had to teach my class a Christmas song today. Just so you know, when you tell Chinese students to sing along with you...they don't. And if you know me, you should know that I am anything but a singer. So it was pretty much just me warbling along...it was lovely.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

I was making mashed potatoes the other night (or lumped potatoes if you've already read that post), and I neglected to mention that my pot CAUGHT ON FIRE. Not the actual pot, but the handles. It was too big of a fire for me to blow out (yes I tried, the only fire I ever deal with is on candles). I had to get a cup of water and dump it on the handles. I thought that if I ever needed a fire extinguisher, it'd be because my couch was on fire or the walls or something, not because I am the owner of a magic igniting pot.

Also, I now know what it feels like to be punched in the jaw. Who can I thank for this experience? Myself. In the middle of the night last night, I woke up and realized I was cold. I was pulling the covers up and my hand slipped and I knocked myself in the jaw. In case you are ever tempted to do that, don't. It hurts.

Friday, December 01, 2006

This is a brief (hopefully) account of my frustration with the Chinese educational system. For some of the classes we teach, such as writing, oral, and listening, we split the classes between two teachers because it's really difficult to teach 50+ students when you need to be interactive. It used to be that foreign teachers were pretty free to do whatever they wanted. Chinese teachers make 70% of students' final grades the final exam, and the other 30% is participation, homework, etc. Usually, foreign teachers make the participation and homework grade 70% and the final exam 30%. This school has just been accredited as a university instead of a college, so everything is changing.

Certain classes are examined now. I think essentially the education commission is checking up on us. We just found out yesterday that we have to have final exams as well as answer keys for the classes that are being examined turned in December 11. Finals week isn't until the first week of January, but they have to review our exams. They also need to know how many points each question is worth, because they will re-grade the tests after we grade them. This is kind of a pain, and it's really short notice to have to figure out what you are teaching for the next four weeks and what will be on your exam, but it wouldn't be so bad, except...

The classes we split have to have one exam for the entire class. And that wouldn't be so bad, except...there are no guidelines as to what to teach in each class. There's not a certain amount of the book you have to get through. Some teachers use the book, and some teachers don't. It's the same as two different sections of an American college class taught by different professors. If you went to Arvada West, think Mr. Link vs. Ms. Bellacome. If you went to UCCS, think Dr. Harvey vs. Dr. Pellow. (The point here is difference in teaching styles, not the fact that Dr. Pellow writes things like "this is grammatical chaos" on people's papers).

I have to give three of these exams. For my other classes (junior listening and freshmen reading), I can pretty much do what I want. I have to give one for my freshmen oral, one for my freshmen listening, and one for my junior writing. I teach both sections of the freshmen oral, so that won't be a problem. However, I split my writing class with Kris. She's already written her exam for that class, and there is nothing on it that I have taught my class. That means I have to spend the next four weeks teaching my class everything that will be on the test, and since the test is short answer ("write an outline in the correct format"), I have to sit down with her to find out exactly how she taught outlines so that our answer keys will be the same. As for my freshmen listening, I split it with some Chinese teacher, and I have no idea who he or she is. AHH! I'm spending this weekend feverishly writing lesson plans and test questions. I feel like I'm back in college myself.

On a happier note, I went to get dumplings at this amazing new dumpling place. I'd tell you the Chinese name, but I can't figure out how to spell it. It sounds like jao-dzuh. Anyway, we had them with garlic which was amazing. Then we got a TON of junk food (cookies, more cookies, krispy rice thingies, cake, chocolate...) and watched "Big Fish." That's how we are coping with this dumb new test business :)

The China Chronicles