Monday, November 8, 2010

Portrait

(This is a back-post that I couldn't get up until now. It was written on Nov 8 2010)

I had a student ask me last week, "what's your favorite color?" I said green. Then she asked, "what's your favorite clothes?" I was a little confused by this question and it took a little bit more conversation for her to admit that she wanted to DRAW me. She was gathering information to draw me in "pretty clothes and dress". I laughed and said, sure you can do that. Well, this week she came up to me after class and handed me FOUR drawings of me in various outfits. She said to pick my favorites. I picked the "Princess Marija" and the Halloween-version. Here they are for your viewing pleasure:




My students are weird. But clearly some of them like me enough to draw me. And I'm still occasionally getting a few of them asking for photos after class.... by that time I'm covered in chalk. A few have said they wanted a photo to send to their parents, who have never seen a foreigner before. They've only seen them from movies.

But they're all still pretty shy. I think their overall confidence has grown a bit since the beginning, and I know the ones who will speak up in each class, but I still don't know names. I tallied it a few weeks ago, and I have just around 400 students total. So I definitely don't know their names. I suppose if I had thought of a good system ahead of time, I may have more memorized by now, but I definitely don't know that many. And I probably won't know them at the end of the semester. That's one aspect of being a teacher that I really suck at-- remembering names and faces. I feel a little bad about that, but at this moment, I think it's more important I can give them a taste of America and what I have to offer them than to remember 400 names and faces.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Shanghai - Day Three, World EXPO

Day 3 of Shanghai - I apologize for bad photo formatting, but internet has been crappy on my end, and I just wanted to get this up ASAP.



It was Monday, and we got up at 5:40am, got ready, and hopped on a train to meet Angela at one of the many EXPO gates at about 7. She was quite late, and didn't get there until 7:30 or so. Then to get in line for tickets (That began selling at 7:30, but there was already a large-ish line.) The Chinese and lines do not go together well. It's always a headache to be in a large (even small ones sometimes) with the Chinese, because every time there has inevitably been pushing by impatient people, or the "fake" moving, of everyone squeezing together closer when everyone should KNOW that tickets aren't sold until 7:30am, or that the park doesn't open until 9am. There's no need to be closer to each other than we already are if we're not actually GOING anywhere. But clearly, we're in the minority of that thought. :/

As we were waiting for a bathroom break, we decided to buy some of the tiny tiny fold-up stools that some people were selling. They ended up (for me) being reallly worth it (10 kuai) because there were a lot of lines, and a lot of walking, and a lot of waiting.

Anyway, after getting our tickets and stools, we had to go through some very quick security, then into the massive line of people at the gate. We were probably in that line for an hour or less. As you can see, it kinda goes on forever...


But once we got IN the EXPO, it was a lot better. We'd decided we would avoid any pavilions with extra extra long lines, and only attempt a really long line maybe at the end of the day, when we would probably be tired (we didn't actually end up doing that). So we wanted to hit (or at least I was of this mindset) as many pavilions as possible in the only day we could be there. Most people, it seemed, spent two days at the EXPO, but we had not planned or wanted to do that since we'd only be in Shanghai for a few days. And the money issue too, of course.

This meant, definitely no going in the China, Japan, or Taiwan pavilions. China's (and Taiwan's) needed reservations, and they were already out of reservations when Angela asked a worker at 7:45am.

So we took photos next to the outsides of pavilions, so at least we could get the sense of how many countries were represented. (A TON, THAT'S HOW MANY) They were also selling fake passports because each country (or at least each country was SUPPOSED to have one) had a stamp that you could get stamped in your passport. They were 40 or 50 kuai, and that was way too much for a piece of paper, so I used the back of my notebook, and they would still stamp that. Hooray for being frugal!


I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the choices, but we'd decided to walk further out to the European edge. We'd walked for at least 15 minutes, and we needed to get in line for SOMETHING quickly while the lines were still somewhat short, so we picked Sweden. Sweden had Dala horses outside, which made me very happy.

The theme of the EXPO was "Better City, Better Life" so a lot of the pavilions exhibited their green technology, or recent developments to improve their cities. I think Sweden's had the most of all the ones we went into.


I also noticed that if it was possible, a country would try to have a semi-mascot. For Sweden, this was Pippi Longstocking. Good thing I didn't wear my hair in braids that day! Sweden's had the most gadgets and such inside, and they of course had an IKEA-centerpiece. And swings!! I love swings, and I had no idea why they were there, but I was happy to swing on one for a bit.

Our second was Ireland, which was honestly a bit dull, as it was mostly just pictures so you could pretend you were there. The only non-photo exhibitions in Ireland were the examples of houses from different decades. Neat, but it didn't quite make up for it. Sorry Ireland, I guess you didn't have as much to offer.


We wandered for quite a bit after Ireland, noticed that Germany's line was INSANELY long (probably at the three or four hour mark at that point) and so we finally chose the Netherlands for our next stop.


The Netherlands had a bunch of movable sheep, and had what I think was the most visually interesting pavilion-- it looked like a bunch of floating rooms connected by a swirly walkway. Great Britain's by comparison looked terrifying with it's porcupine-outside.


The Netherlands reminded me most of what old World Fairs were meant to do-- display new inventions, innovations, and anything interesting to come out of the country. Each "room" or "house" contained something that the Dutch had helped create.

Van Gogh, a neato toy clock carousel, a terrifying bear that's eyes would follow you, a floating rock, a square car, a solar car, some very strange art (one was supposed to be like a bar?), a wind-turbine car, and a telescope... those were just a few of the neat things there. I felt that I was the only one who cared about the rooms, since I was quite far behind the others while roaming this pavilion.

We picked Lithuania next, since Josh has ancestry there. There wasn't much to offer inside, but apparently they invented hot air balloons and basketballs. (Didn't know that.)

We'd have liked to go inside Canada, but that was another that the line was reaaallly long at. We did an awful lot of walking up to pavilions and seeing how long the lines were, then walking away because we didn't want to waste so much time waiting.


At this point, we came upon the USA, and we had noticed that if you had a valid passport for the country pavilion (excepting China of course) you could take a super short VIP line. So we did this for the USA, even though we'd heard it wasn't the best one. USA's was three movies in three theaters that were shuffled to, and then a final advertisement room with all of the sponsors for the pavilion. Not... really inspiring. The movies themselves were alright. The first bothered me the most, since it was mostly showing how Americans can't speak Chinese (thanks a lot) and then a bit with Kobe Bryant, because the Chinese love him. The woman introducing was American, and she mentioned she was from Minnesota, and I yelled and jumped and she heard me. I went up to her for a minute afterward and she said she was from Edina and I told her where I was from, and she said she was working for the EXPO for the time, but then she got swamped by other Chinese, so I didn't get to talk to her any more than that.

The second movie was mostly forgettable, something with keeping children as our future, nurturing their creative progress, and that they'll make the world better. And then a little message from Barack Obama (though most of it was narrated by Hillary).

The third was an actual movie (no talking, however, just music) starring a girl of 12 or so (with WAAAAAY too much make-up on. It was really distracting for me.) wanting to start a garden in a broken-down alley. No one helps her at first, then she starts asking for help, and the neighbors finally pitch in. It rains, and she's sad their work has gone to waste, but everyone else fixes it up the next day. And lala oh it's so heartwarming. It was pretty, but... it was essentially just a "let's work together" message.

And then ads. So I can see why some people were not so impressed with the USA. I wasn't. I feel we could have done something much different than what was displayed, but... I suppose there was no initiative for that.


Next was the Africa Pavilion-- not many countries in Africa could afford the huge pavilions of the US or Sweden, so there was a larger hall for all the other countries in Africa. I got more stamps here. Some of the countries we walked past or through: Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Benin, Niger, Kenya, Republic of Togo, Senegal (where I had a guy from Senegal try to talk to me in French), and Ghana.


I think at this point we took a little rest, since we'd been walking around for hours. Found some more Haibao illustrations in the ground, and we took the ferry across to the other side of the EXPO. We weren't sure what this side was for, exactly. We wanted to go into the pavilion labeled simply, "OIL". But it was far too long, and so we ended up just going into one for a Chinese company named something about jade (I cannot remember their name now) that was sort of interesting, and had a lot of history and a strange movie about jade (it used a song from Batman Begins, without permission, I'm sure), and we headed back over the river.


The South Korean exhibit looked crazy awesome from the outside, but alas, it was another on the warnings they would broadcast that had "exceeded a wait of 5 hours", sooo no. We weren't going there. (It was maybe 4pm at this point?)



We wanted to hit a few more, and we wanted to stay until it at least got a little dark to see what it was like at night. Nepal and India were close, and really gorgeous looking. Nepal's line appeared short, and we went in only to realize it had a fake "entrance" line, and then another line for the inside. So we just looked at what was in the inner ring and got out again.


We'd looped our way back to the Chinese pavilion, so we got a few photos in front of it. China's pavilion was really beautiful and by far the largest, and it would have been nice to see inside, but I reasoned that we're already IN China, we can explore China for real later in the year. And possibly Taiwan too (I have yet to decide what I'm doing for Winter Break).

The sun was beginning to set, and we saw that New Zealand's line was short, so we entered. It was short for a reason-- it was similar to Ireland, and they mostly showed pictures, and had a tree on display that had been created for Lord of the Rings.

Our last stop was the Philippines, which was kind of empty of anything but food and a Beatles cover band. We got some yummy banana fritter-type things (forgot their name) and headed out. We walked past a few pavilions we'd missed, and figured out where the nearest train stop was to our location in the park. Angela had already left us at this point, because she had to meet some other friends around 7pm.

We stayed in the park JUST long enough to see some of the lights turn on. We exited the gates at 6pm. We'd been there for almost 12 hours. We returned to our hostel, and we all kinda collapsed for a while, then realized we needed food and we still had some time to kill before we would let ourselves go to bed. I honestly don't remember what I ate that day, but we did decide to test out the bar scene. Of course, it was still a MONDAY night, so there wasn't much happening. But we found the area according to Marlie's travel guide that was the "bar street". We wandered a little and entered a bar and we all decided to get Guinness. The bottles proclaimed it was the "foreign extra Guinness". Sadly, it was not Guinness. It didn't taste like it at all other than being a dark beer. But we drank it, since it was our one real splurge on the trip. (None of us bought anything in the way of souvenirs while we were in Shanghai.)

We returned to the hostel, a bit silly over our non-Guinness experience, and decided we would sleep in a bit for Tuesday (since we'd gotten very little sleep the past two days) and do anything we had left tomorrow. Angela sent us more information about places to visit, and with another Jet Li action movie playing, a little bit of 90s Spider-Man, and the realization that I'd burned myself that day, we went to bed.

Here are a few extra photos of the EXPO:
[Jade carving - An exhibit in the Sweden pavilion - Russian Pavilion]




[Turkey Pavilion - Brazil's - Poland's - Malaysia's]