Full Week, and the Huang He

The past few days have been the most action-filled thus far.

This was my first (almost) complete week of class. I had class Thursday morning for four hours, Friday for four, and Saturday morning for four. Thursday was nursing classes, so they got their second class from me. They'll consistently be my guinea pig classes for ideas and such since they'll be ahead a class the entire semester. That is, if I go the same speed for every class. Which I probably won't, since the sizes vary greatly. Friday classes are around 70-85 students. My biggest classes by far. The first class Saturday morning only has 13 by comparison. We'll definitely be going faster through lessons just because there are fewer of them. The second Saturday class is back up around 70.

My ratio of boys to girls is better in the non-nursing classes, since nursing isn't exactly a popular option for males. But the number of females still outweighs the males by far. The most I have is 30 in the 80+ class.

For my second lesson, I mostly stuck to the first unit activities, which included reading a passage out loud, answering questions in class, and some vocabulary checking. I made up a warm-up that turned out to be a smash. I found this Calvin & Hobbes comic, and made it empty. I asked the students to create a story or skit to the comic they could perform to the class. It gave me a few ideas for future warm-ups and activities, and I think every class really enjoyed it.

Here are the best pictures I could take with my tripod and self-timer of my teaching outfits. I forgot to take one of yesterday's, but there are glimpses of it in the following pictures, as you'll see.

One day I really was craving sweets, so this is a picture of an unopened and opened moon cake. Moon cakes are for the upcoming autumn festival (which we get three days off for), but the flavors can be a bit... hit or miss. I was able to find a strawberry one, and as you can see the inside was a strawberry-like paste. I liked it. Though I don't think I'll eat the egg yolk one.

Saturday, however, was the best day I've had so far. Ben was able to meet a fantastic man, Zhu Xue, a wood carver. Ben got in contact with him because he wants to learn English, and Zhu Xue invited all of us to his store and out to dinner yesterday. I was the only one of us genuinely excited to see the carvings, though I thought Zhe Xue was an old man from the business card Ben showed me. He is not. He's about 30 years old, and he's been carving for 12 years and incredibly successful. He's a native of Kaifeng, and he's carved the famous scroll, 清明上河图, or “Along the River on the During the Qingming Festival”. It took him five YEARS. (EDIT: Not two, FIVE! It took him two years to make the Olympic car featured on his website.)


Anyway, Zhu picked us up at 6pm in his shiny fancy car (with amazing sound system) and drove us to his store. Everything was incredible. After showing us the store, including a carved CAR he made for the olypmics (it costs about 3 million dollars to purchase) he asked us what our favorite Chinese characters were and proceeded to make calligraphy scrolls for each of us. Josh chose dragon: 龍, I chose phoenix: 鳳, Marlie chose duck: 鴨, Ben chose god: 神, and JM chose Tao: 道. The process itself was amazing to watch, using a rice-like substance to soak up the ink and create “feathering” of sorts inside the characters.

After the calligraphy we headed to dinner, to the fanciest place we've been to in Kaifeng. There was a woman paid to play the piano at the entrance! And the menu had English AND pictures, so we had a much easier finding food than usual. They had western food, so Marlie and I had spaghetti, and Josh had pizza. The pizza they make in China is slightly different (just like the Japanese idea of pizza) and it doesn't have tomato sauce on it. It's still very delicious, though. We all had Budweiser (the usual Qingdao is too sweet tasting for my tastes), since they offered us beer, and because there were six of us (or possible because of Zhu Xue) we got free extra dishes which included a plate of lettuce with dressing, roasted peanuts, and a delicious fruit platter that I ended up eating half of. (No one else seemed to be eating from it!)

After dinner, we realized we'd be getting back after ten o-clock so we had to call Lao Wang, the gatekeeper of our complex. He locks the gate at ten, and we need to let him know if we'll be back later so he can stay awake/be aware that he'll have to open it for us. Ben called and we were about to head back, but Zhu Xue suggested KTV. Karaoke. I said YES since we were going to be late anyway, we should take advantage of going to our first KTV. We ended up going, and it was glorious.

He brought us to the BEST KTV in Kaifeng. It was like a castle. It was incredibly clean inside and the walls were full of neon designs. As you can see, we enjoyed it.

We got back just before midnight (before the main gates lock). Best Saturday ever.

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I've realized that Josh is my catalyst for really DOING things. This morning he convinced me to get up at 9, even though we'd gone to bed at 3 the night before so we could go to the Huang He/Yellow River. The river that I've named this blog after.

I got myself up and threw on clothes. It was raining. But we decided we would go anyway. We originally were going to take the tricycle/cart, and I would drive it on the way there while he ran, and then he would bike and I would ride on the way back. But I can't maneuver it at ALL and so we borrowed Ben's bike (really a bike we found in the apartments that we fixed up to working order).

By the time we'd swapped bikes, it had stopped raining, (9:30 approx) thankfully. I rode the bike with Marta's yellow backpack she left, stuffed with our water bottles, extra coats, and 10 kuai. I decided last minute to grab my ipod and portable speaker and threw it in the basket. A great idea, and we played some Americana folk music as we biked/ran to the Huang He.

It was pretty clear we were leaving the city life and approaching the country. We passed through a very small market, and a lot of corn and rice fields. And a duck. And lots and lots of dogs, chickens, and roosters crowing.

We only knew vaguely the direction. North, until you can't. It took about an hour, and it was completely worth it. We reached a dirt path, and a man with his sheep was to the right. We didn't want to scare the sheep or startle any rams, so we went on the other side. It was a very pretty park. The tiny village or market we came across was almost empty.

And then we reached the river. The ground wasn’t muddy per se, but more like clay. We took off our shoes and waded in the river for a while.

On the way back we saw some cows chained to trees.

Another day off to a great start!

First Day of Classes

So today was my first day of class! At most I have four hours of class in one day, two classes. There is a break every hour, which is nice, but I didn't leave or do anything during any of the breaks. Some of the students left briefly.

I think it went okay. The classes today were from the Nursing school which I think are going to be my lowest level of English students. I spoke too fast at first, and on the survey a few of them wrote I should speak slower. I haven't looked at the surveys yet, but that was what I saw as I collected them.

For the first hour, I talked about myself a little, and then went over the syllabus. I handed out the survey for them to fill out, in class, so I have something to work with for next week. Then introductions from each of them of their name, hobby, and favorite animal. So so so many of them said “little dog” was their favorite. I said a phoenix which may have confused them. But I drew a picture, so I think they understood what I meant.

Most of the students are girls. Of the 70 some students today, I think 6 were male. I could pretty quickly find the ones who will do fairly well, since they were the ones who talked more and more clearly in English during introductions.

After the break, I played Bohemian Rhapsody for them. I had the lyrics in a word document, but I had some lyrics missing. I had them listen and respond to me what they heard. I then would explain the lyrics, or in some cases, the idiom used. (Like “I'm easy come, easy go.” and “any way the wind blows”.) The first class, I got partway through the song, and it took the whole hour. For the second class, which I think is the slower of the two, I had over twenty minutes still left. Uh oh! So I had them watch the little video for the first unit in preparation (it had Chinese subtitles) and fill out the checklist which I made homework for the first class. The second class still got out early, but at least now I have an idea for pacing for two hours.

I'm hoping my other classes (which will be freshmen) will be smarter and faster. I'm afraid that these first two classes only understood about 40% of what I said. I may have more Chinese in my lessons that I thought for Thursdays. At the very least, I'll have some of the harder words prepared in Chinese.

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Just had the best afternoon ever. Hilarious lunch, for whatever reason. We've added more background to my true identity of “Vamparia”. I come from the old country, likely Sweden. (Sorry weird inside joke I can explain later...)

We also played the longest amount of football toss/frisbee toss with a few real bouts of football ever. We had to switch fields twice. Our regular place, the track field, was being overrun by the comrades gearing up for the rest of their training. Then the grass (very WET grass) by the lake. Then in the park, and we even got two guys to play with us! I'm dubbing one guy grasshopper. He would jump even when it wasn't necessary, and always did a jumping throw. Awesome guy. Too bad we couldn't get their names. They said they had a meeting that we probably made them late for. Ah well, we probably made their week!

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I'm going through the survey sheets, and the last question I asked was “Do you have anything else to tell me?” and I got plenty of funny Chinglish. A TON of “You are so beautiful!” But some of my favorites are:

“I need your help Marija Ferber” (I'm Obi-wan?)
“More importantly, you are so beautiful.”

But by far the sweetest was:
“Thank you my dear teacher. Because of you, I want to learn my English well again. You spirit my enthusiasm. Once a time I think it's useless to study English well, but now I change my thought. It is always important and necessary for me to learn it well.” Thanks Eileen!

I also don't have any of the best English names. Among the five of us, the “best” are:
Page Eleven
Cola
Journey
Shmily (mine!)
Cinderella
and a girl named Henry.

More later!! Off to dinner! (I'll have a picture post in one of the next posts.)

Free Time

This is a backpost now, and it was somewhat unfinished, but I'll post it anyway:

Today has been my first day with some actual downtime. My apartment is finally arranged the way I want it, and I just have a few odds and ends to put away and decorate. But I'm taking this chunk of time to relax, soak my feet, and watch an episode of Avatar instead.

We still don't have internet, but even when we do, I'll still need to get a proxy so I can access blogspot and facebook to keep in touch. The five of us waiguoren went to an internet cafe yesterday, and I mainly used it to check up on io9 and webcomics; nothing really serious.

The five of us includes: Josh, Marlie, John-Michael, Ben, and I. JM and Ben are from Akron in Ohio, and the rest of us are from Beloit. Although Josh, Ben, and I are the only ones with any Chinese experience, the other two have quickly picked up laowai and wu ge waiguoren. [Honored outsiders, and 5 foreigners, respectively.]

I haven't gotten sick yet, and I'm hoping I won't. The food has been good, and extremely cheap. I've been reviewing my 7s in the multiplication tables as that's approximately the exchange rate. (More like 6.56 something, but 7 is easier.) Everything has been cheap. The bus costs one yuan, or kuai. So only about 18 cents or so. Or two baozi dumplings for one kuai. To refill my water costs 5. I've only bought essential things, like toothpaste (that I accidentally bought green tea flavored. I didn't pay attention to the cha character.) and water and cleaning supplies.

Right now I'm listening to the sounds of outside chanting. The sophomores are undergoing their two week military training that's compulsory for all freshmen. They would have done it last year, but because of the bird flu, it wasn't possible (we learned this from one of the foreign directors today; we thought they were all freshmen).

One hilarious thing that we've started between the five of us, courtesy of Josh, are calling all Chinese children “grinnies”, and all dogs and puppies “wuppers” or “wuppets”. Most of the dogs we've seen are of a fluffy white variety, so it seems appropriate.

Just like Japan, I'm feeling the lack of sweet foods here, and so now that I've discovered they sell skittles I've been buying them every other day so I can feed my sugar craving.

Classes will start on September 6th with my TA Jenny at the Nursing school, and September 16th with my other TA Puppy (that I mentioned before) at the new campus. I have a different class situation than everyone else here, so we'll see how that goes...

Twenty Four Days To Go...

So I'll be off to China soon to teach English for an academic year. I'd like to have a place to share thoughts in textual form and in vlog form. We'll see which of the two prevails! I will post as many photos and thoughts as possible here in the blog. I really want an account of my time there, since it marks the beginning of a new “era” for myself and my future. I've graduated, and it's a time of uncertainty, but I at least know what I'll be doing for the immediate year! (In general, that is, of course!)

I've been told I will have a significant amount of freedom in the curriculum and how and what I choose to teach. This is both nerve-wracking and exciting. If I think of amazing ideas, I will be able to implement them, but the flipside of that is not having those ideas in the first place and feeling lost. But at least I will have my teaching partner, Puppy!

Yes, I said Puppy. From what I read of the very helpful book, River Town (by Peter Hessler) and his experience in China teaching, the Chinese will choose rather... unique English names. Like Puppy. Or Chair. Or... really anything that “sounds” cool. It sounds odd now, I know, but think of it in reverse. When learning a new language, everything sounds intriguing and “cool”... but it could mean something as mundane as “paper”, or as unsuitable a name as Puppy is. Regardless, that's her name, and I'll try not to giggle when I meet her in person.

I should be receiving my visa soon. I'm getting the tiniest bit anxious about it, but Jackie said it should all be underway and we should all be receiving them soon. I don't remember how long it took for my Japanese visa when I applied two years ago (wow, that long ago already), but I believe the process began earlier so I had less to worry about with timing.

I also have this crazy notion that possibly I can make this a semi-fashion/work/travel blog. It's a lofty goal, but I have been reading a lot of fashion blogs lately and I think adding that element may not hurt things. At the very least, it'll guarantee a picture per entry!