"When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life. Ignatius was about to say this to himself; then he remembered that he went to the movies almost every night, no matter which way Fortuna was spinning."
5.31.2011
Chinese Hospitals and Physical Therapy
Back to my broken wrist!
Getting my cast off was both a scary and happy day. Happy because I was so tired of it and scary because I had gotten a second cast put on by the Chinese doctors and I had no idea if they had put the cast right or not. When they took of my huge cast to put on the smaller, more manageable second cast I was absolutely terrified. The doctor was ripping off my first cast despite my pleas for him to slow down and take his time. I told my Chinese co-worker who was with me that I was not in a rush and he still ignored us and went on with his business. It really hurt and they didn’t even do me the favor of taking of my cast in the same room where they would put on the new cast. I have found that in China, each step in a process like this is done in a different room with a different person with a different stamp. It’s like a marathon. They do not seem to like to consolidate things! The other doctor put my cast on very quickly and it looked pretty shoddy, although an Indian intern there who spoke some English tried to assure me that the cast would be fine.
So, this is why I was nervous when I came back the second time. I really did not want to have any problems with the way my bone healed. They took the cast off, took some more x-rays and then a doctor took a look at them. This experience was my first time truly feeling the pains of the language barrier in China. The doctor was explaining to my Chinese co-worker what was going on with the x-rays and my co-worker was not really translating what the doctor was saying, either because she was unable to or just did not feel the need to. The most I could get out of her was that there was still a piece of my bone that was not healed. So of course, my question was what does that mean, do I need another cast? Of course, my questions were not really answered and they just said that I needed to move it around and exercise it. So, I then asked my co-worker to ask them about physical therapy. She did not know the term so I had to explain it to her for a awhile until she understood. She asked the doctor and the doctor told her that I did not need physically therapy, all I needed was some sunshine and milk. At this point I was on the verge of crying out of frustration but I controlled myself. I pushed the physical therapy again and finally they prescribed a 10 visit regimen to the hospital for me.
The kind of physical therapy the Chinese do was definitely not what I had in mind. This physical therapy involved me going in two different rooms each day- one room was called the High Frequency Electrotherapy Room, and the other was the Usage of Chinese Drugs to Fumigate Room. Right when I saw the names of the rooms I wanted to say forget it but I had already paid so I don’t think I had a choice but to continue. In the High Frequency Electrotherapy Room, I would sit on a chair next to a bed and the nurse would put these pads hooked up to a big machine on top of my wrist. She would wave a little wand and when the wand lit up that meant the machine was working. I still don’t really know what electrotherapy is, but I did some quick research on it and learned that studies had not shown it to be effective in healing bones….great!! There were people in there who had these pads on their heads, backs, chests… anywhere you could think of. After doing this, I would go to the Usage of Chinese Drugs to Fumigate Room, where I would put my hand into a small cut-out in a bed and the Chinese drugs would come up through the hole and fumigate my hand! It was very hot and felt pretty good. This room always had a nice smell to it because of the Chinese drugs. I swear it was just tea or something though coming up through there- one time I saw them pull the drawer out where the big, hot pot of water was and it had these tea bag things in it.
I really had no faith in either room having any effect on healing my wrist but I continued going to the hospital anyways because I made friends with the nurses there and it was fun visiting them everyday! My favorite nurses by far were in the fumigation room. There were two nurses who were there everyday and I became the closest with them. One of them, the younger one, spoke a bit of English so she would often be my liaison to speaking with the older nurse. When I first started going there I still didn’t speak a lot of Chinese, but somehow in the middle of my visits I really started picking up my Chinese so we kind of stopped speaking in English as much and the younger nurse let me practice my Chinese.
The older nurse was definitely my fave- I would always do something wrong in there somehow and she would chastise me in Chinese and give me exasperated looks, although she was always smiling when she did it. Everytime I walked in there I would have a big smile on my face and she would sort of shake her head and sigh, but I think she secretly liked me because again, she did it with a smile. I think I finally won her approval the last day I was there though because I noticed that she had done a setting on my machine wrong so I called her in and told her and she looked really surprised and patted me on the head lol. Sometimes she would like to just try to talk to me in Chinese even though I didn’t understand very much and just observe me. It seems kind of weird, but I’m getting more used to that. One time I walked into the fumigation room and it was full so I had to wait in a chair by the nurses. The older nurse and another younger nurse just sat there and looked at my face very thoughtfully and talked about it in Chinese. I was like okay this is awkward but whatever. The younger nurse would sometimes just pause after speaking Chinese and just say “yes, very beautiful” in English lol. They really could have been talking trash though, and I would have had no idea!
The older nurse also took it upon herself to teach me some names of body parts and she would quiz me every time I came in. I am really going to miss them!
My bone is pretty much healed now, so I guess the Chinese meds worked after all :)
English Awards
More on Harbin later...my posts are a little all out of order.
So I started choosing the students for the English Awards this week! I have to write down three students' names from each class to give to the school. Luckily, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be because I've been doing it at the end of class and the other kids are usually not paying attention or don't understand what's going on, lol. I did have a few students ask if they could write their names down though and it broke my heart having to say no!
The criteria I've been using for choosing the top 3 students has been quite sub par though.
For example, in one class I was really having trouble deciding between two boys. Finally in the middle of class I made my decision. But then....at the end of class I always show a video, and I played the music video for "Baby" by Justin Bieber (LOL) and the boy that I decided not to pick apparently knew the song and was singing it like he was a total rock star. I immediately changed my vote to him. If only he knew...lol.
In another class I still had not decided on the last spot by the end of the class and I was deciding between 2 girls and a boy. Well, the bell rang and the two girls were not paying attention and being a little naughty, and the boy was just sitting there quietly, so I decided that it would be easier to get his attention so I just chose him. Haha...
I also couldn't bear not give Jessica, the girl who talks to me all the time in English on QQ, the award, even though she is not very vocal in class. I felt bad, another boy really should have gotten it over her, but I couldn't do it. Her class is truly a pain in my butt and she and two other girls who have excellent English always try to help me silence them so I just gave it to the three of them.
I also thought that giving the English award to 3 girls in that class would make up for giving it to 3 boys in one of my earlier classes....the girls were absolutely LIVID. I probably should have swapped out one boy for one of the girls, but I couldn't decide between the girls, they were all so good. So I picked the third best boy...that was really my bad. I think those girls hate me now!
Another case where I changed my mind in the middle of class- I had decided on 2 boys and a girl for the award, but all of a sudden during class the girl went absolutely crazy on this one boy. She stood up and started shrieking at him, I mean seriously she looked like she was about to beat the crap out of him. He looked terrified! He didn't stand up to her at all..probably because she is the same size as me, and he is of normal 4th grade proportions. I ran down the aisle and one of my students stopped me and said "teacher, she is very, very mad. she is always mad. she is crazy!" I had to agree. She had stopped screaming at this point, so I tried to talk to her and tell her to sit down and calm down. I know she could understand me, but she just stood there staring down at this poor boy, ignoring me. Finally, I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away since another boy had kindly agreed to switch seats with her. I couldn't get her to budge. She was still towering over him, and still ignoring me, so I put both hands on her arm and started trying to gently tug her away but to no avail. Then she started ripping off tiny pieces of paper and throwing them at him a fairly nonchalant way considering the look in her eye. It was really creepy. I think the little boy and I were both very afraid that this whole scene was like the calm before the storm...I was truly expecting to see the boy flying across the classroom at any second. Finally, I told the boy to switch seats with someone since the girl was obviously going no where, and he was so relieved. However, all of the boys were too afraid to sit next to her as she had not relented her position and they started to wrestle. I was like oh good lord now I have completely lost control!! Finally, I looked at one of my good students who is of slightly mature proportions (so she would not be able to hustle him) and asked him if he could sit down there. He looked really hesitant and said no, but I gave him a puppy dog face and clasped my hands together and he sat down for me. Point of the story, I ended up giving him the third award instead of the girl. Haha! He deserved it anyhow, I just wanted to throw a girl in the mix, but she definitely lost her spot after that little show. I feel sorry for whoever ends up being her boyfriend....lol. This is not the first time that I have seen her seek vengeance against a male class mate, another time she made several hurtful sentences directed at the boy who told me she was crazy. He did not look nonplussed at all, he just sat there and took it.
By the way, I asked one of my students after class why she got so mad, and he said it was because the boy mistakenly thought she had put a bunch of paper on his desk and so he put the paper on her desk. I really question the validity of this, or, I really do not understand Chinese childrens' psyche.
Finally, the best moment of doing this was when one of my second graders asked why he was writing his name down (even though I explained it to his class like 50 times) and I simply told him, "because you have good English", and he bent his knees all the way down to the ground, jumped as high as he could while shouting "YES!" SO GREAT. I still don't think he understood that he was receiving an award lol. Most other kids just said "thank you teacher".
Well, I have about 60 more names to collect! So far so good- no tears!
So I started choosing the students for the English Awards this week! I have to write down three students' names from each class to give to the school. Luckily, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be because I've been doing it at the end of class and the other kids are usually not paying attention or don't understand what's going on, lol. I did have a few students ask if they could write their names down though and it broke my heart having to say no!
The criteria I've been using for choosing the top 3 students has been quite sub par though.
For example, in one class I was really having trouble deciding between two boys. Finally in the middle of class I made my decision. But then....at the end of class I always show a video, and I played the music video for "Baby" by Justin Bieber (LOL) and the boy that I decided not to pick apparently knew the song and was singing it like he was a total rock star. I immediately changed my vote to him. If only he knew...lol.
In another class I still had not decided on the last spot by the end of the class and I was deciding between 2 girls and a boy. Well, the bell rang and the two girls were not paying attention and being a little naughty, and the boy was just sitting there quietly, so I decided that it would be easier to get his attention so I just chose him. Haha...
I also couldn't bear not give Jessica, the girl who talks to me all the time in English on QQ, the award, even though she is not very vocal in class. I felt bad, another boy really should have gotten it over her, but I couldn't do it. Her class is truly a pain in my butt and she and two other girls who have excellent English always try to help me silence them so I just gave it to the three of them.
I also thought that giving the English award to 3 girls in that class would make up for giving it to 3 boys in one of my earlier classes....the girls were absolutely LIVID. I probably should have swapped out one boy for one of the girls, but I couldn't decide between the girls, they were all so good. So I picked the third best boy...that was really my bad. I think those girls hate me now!
Another case where I changed my mind in the middle of class- I had decided on 2 boys and a girl for the award, but all of a sudden during class the girl went absolutely crazy on this one boy. She stood up and started shrieking at him, I mean seriously she looked like she was about to beat the crap out of him. He looked terrified! He didn't stand up to her at all..probably because she is the same size as me, and he is of normal 4th grade proportions. I ran down the aisle and one of my students stopped me and said "teacher, she is very, very mad. she is always mad. she is crazy!" I had to agree. She had stopped screaming at this point, so I tried to talk to her and tell her to sit down and calm down. I know she could understand me, but she just stood there staring down at this poor boy, ignoring me. Finally, I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away since another boy had kindly agreed to switch seats with her. I couldn't get her to budge. She was still towering over him, and still ignoring me, so I put both hands on her arm and started trying to gently tug her away but to no avail. Then she started ripping off tiny pieces of paper and throwing them at him a fairly nonchalant way considering the look in her eye. It was really creepy. I think the little boy and I were both very afraid that this whole scene was like the calm before the storm...I was truly expecting to see the boy flying across the classroom at any second. Finally, I told the boy to switch seats with someone since the girl was obviously going no where, and he was so relieved. However, all of the boys were too afraid to sit next to her as she had not relented her position and they started to wrestle. I was like oh good lord now I have completely lost control!! Finally, I looked at one of my good students who is of slightly mature proportions (so she would not be able to hustle him) and asked him if he could sit down there. He looked really hesitant and said no, but I gave him a puppy dog face and clasped my hands together and he sat down for me. Point of the story, I ended up giving him the third award instead of the girl. Haha! He deserved it anyhow, I just wanted to throw a girl in the mix, but she definitely lost her spot after that little show. I feel sorry for whoever ends up being her boyfriend....lol. This is not the first time that I have seen her seek vengeance against a male class mate, another time she made several hurtful sentences directed at the boy who told me she was crazy. He did not look nonplussed at all, he just sat there and took it.
By the way, I asked one of my students after class why she got so mad, and he said it was because the boy mistakenly thought she had put a bunch of paper on his desk and so he put the paper on her desk. I really question the validity of this, or, I really do not understand Chinese childrens' psyche.
Finally, the best moment of doing this was when one of my second graders asked why he was writing his name down (even though I explained it to his class like 50 times) and I simply told him, "because you have good English", and he bent his knees all the way down to the ground, jumped as high as he could while shouting "YES!" SO GREAT. I still don't think he understood that he was receiving an award lol. Most other kids just said "thank you teacher".
Well, I have about 60 more names to collect! So far so good- no tears!
5.27.2011
Hello from Harbin!
Just arrived in Harbin last night and things are going well so far. The city is pretty dirty but the Chinese people here seem more fun than the Chinese people in Dalian...I arrived around 11pm last night and all along the sides of the streets were people out eating BBQ and drinking. I have never seen that in Dalian!
This being said...I think the people here are also a little more aggressive than the people in Dalian. Maybe it's from all the drinking, or they have some Russian blood in them, I don't know. I have only been here a few hours and I already saw 2 fights break out, and one was between a man and an older woman...oh my god. The woman was like beating on someone's car and the guy was trying to get her to stop really aggressively- he was hitting her and pushing her, but she kept on at it lol. She got that car pretty good.
The people here are very friendly though- about 5 minutes after arriving I was invited to go out and get some food and drinks with all the Chinese people who worked in the hostel. They were pretty raucous. Only one of them could speak English so I couldn't talk with them very much but one of them sang a song for me in Chinese. Oh how the Chinese people love to sing! They really wanted me to sing too but I REFUSED.
Then this morning I woke up really late because I didn't sleep well last night and one of the people in my room had bought breakfast for me and left some of it in the room and some at the front desk.
And this is why I love Chinese people!
This being said...I think the people here are also a little more aggressive than the people in Dalian. Maybe it's from all the drinking, or they have some Russian blood in them, I don't know. I have only been here a few hours and I already saw 2 fights break out, and one was between a man and an older woman...oh my god. The woman was like beating on someone's car and the guy was trying to get her to stop really aggressively- he was hitting her and pushing her, but she kept on at it lol. She got that car pretty good.
The people here are very friendly though- about 5 minutes after arriving I was invited to go out and get some food and drinks with all the Chinese people who worked in the hostel. They were pretty raucous. Only one of them could speak English so I couldn't talk with them very much but one of them sang a song for me in Chinese. Oh how the Chinese people love to sing! They really wanted me to sing too but I REFUSED.
Then this morning I woke up really late because I didn't sleep well last night and one of the people in my room had bought breakfast for me and left some of it in the room and some at the front desk.
And this is why I love Chinese people!
5.26.2011
Broken Wrist in China
As most of you know, I came to China with a broken wrist. I very intelligently decided to go snowboarding 2 weeks before my departure date and it snapped on the second run of the day. Well, in reality it was really the first run because before that Prav and I only did a bunny slope :(
The cast in the picture is the one that I had put on in China. I think it was really poorly made and didn't hold my wrist in place at all...luckily my wrist healed correctly and I have not had any issues.
Everyone was very curious about my arm when I came here. I had told one person I met soon after I arrived that I had only been in China 2 weeks and they said “Oh wow and you already broke your wrist! You should just go home.” Haha, I corrected them and told them that in some ways breaking my wrist was one of the best things that could have happened to me when I came to China.
Well…I am exaggerating a little bit but it definitely had its perks. For one, on every flight I took coming here I went to the front of the line with the elderly and people with children to board the plane first. I felt a little stupid, especially when I got in to Chinese territory and I had no idea how to explain that I needed to go to the front of the line in Chinese. Basically, I would just show them my arm, make a sad face, and they would let me on first. That was definitely a wonderful perk.
When I was getting on the plane I even had one Chinese woman take my really heavy back pack from me and push through the hoards of people to carry it on for me. How nice of her!! She was really insisting on it too, I tried to wave my hand and tell her no but she grabbed it from me. The only words in Chinese I knew coming here were hello and thank you so I just said thank you to her like 20 times hahah.
Also, I’m not sure if this happened due to my broken wrist or not but Delta set me up with a big white limo to take me from La Guardia to JFK where my flight to Shanghai was. What happened was that the morning of my flight I got to DCA and my flight to JFK was cancelled, and the only other flight that would get me to NYC in time for my flight to Shanghai flew into La Guardia. When I got there, I went into the Delta office next to the baggage claim area to see if I could find someone to help with my bags and to catch the bus/take a taxi over to JFK. The woman asked for my flight information and then she got on the phone and made a call to have me picked up and the cost of the ride would be on Delta since they cancelled my original flight. I was so happy! A worker helped me with my bags and I went outside to wait for my ride. She told me it was a white car so I was just looking for that. All of a sudden a big white limo pulled up and the driver asked who needed a ride to JFK for a Delta flight. The worker and I both looked at each other baffled. We couldn’t believe that I was going to take a limo to JFK! I was pretty embarrassed- there were other people waiting out there and I just wanted to tell them that I typically don’t use limos as my main form of transportation.
The other great thing about having a broken wrist was that I learned how to use chopsticks with my left hand. In fact, even though my cast is off now I still use my left hand to eat. I learned that Chinese people think that those who use their left hand are clever, so I want to maintain that image, hehe. I learned this because quite often when I am eating, Chinese people will point out that I use my left hand, so I asked a Chinese person about it. I just thought it was strange that they would notice this because in America I never notice (let alone care) which hand someone is using so I knew something was up with it in the Chinese mind!
The worst part about having a broken wrist in China was trying to take the buses. They can often be quite crowded and people didn’t seem to care much about the fact that I was handicapped. I was definitely pushed quite a bit and people wouldn’t give up their seat for me but I could handle it. If you ever saw my cast it was pretty large and I planned on using it as a weapon if I needed to. Fortunately, this never happened.
Next post, I will write about the tortures of dealing with the Chinese hospital
5.22.2011
singing superstar
This student is so funny, and I think this picture perfectly captures his person...he is a little out of it sometimes! However, to give him some credit whenever I've blind called on him he is ready with an answer. He speaks English very loudly and seriously and I like to hear him speak so that's why I blind call on him lol.
He doesn't participate very much, but he behaves well. For example, if we are playing a game he gets really into it but he doesn't play. One time we were playing a game with 2 teams and if it took too long for one team to answer I would slowly start walking over to the other team so the first team knew to hurry up. Every time I would start walking away from his team he would shout "no no no" at me and wave his hands in front of him because he didn't want the other team to get the point. Finally, one time I said, "okay, well do you know the answer?" He said, "no no no" and waved his hands in front of him. LOL.
He's usually pretty quiet like I said, but last class out of no where we were singing Happy Birthday to a student and all of a sudden I hear this booming, bravado-like singing coming from his direction. I look over and he is absolutely pouring his heart and soul out into this birthday song- he's clutching his arms against his chest, gesturing, then clutching his arms again, his eyes are closed and he is just really having a go at this tune. I've never heard a 2nd grader bellow before that day... Well, needless to say, I died laughing. He was so into the song though that he didn't even notice. Maybe I'll tell him next class that if he sings me an English song his team can get a point :)
5.18.2011
My Chinese Friend, Joey
*** There is a picture above here in case you can't see it...click on it...
I haven't talked much about some of the people I've met here, so I'm going to spend some time now to talk about my friend Jiang. If you'll remember my post about trying to return the bad apples, Jiang was the Chinese person who came to the rescue at the end because he speaks some English and was able to help translate.
Well, it turns out that I am the first foreigner that Jiang has ever spoken to in person so to say that he was excited to meet me is an understatement. I didn't know this tidbit at the time when we met though so I didn't really expect to hear from him again. Well, he called me a day or two later and when I answered he was absolutely bursting with excitement. He told me that he was so proud of himself for communicating with a foreigner and that he had trouble sleeping because he was so excited to speak English again. He also VERY excitedly told me that he wanted to buy me some bananas, because after I was done with the apple business he accompanied me to buy some more fruit but I couldn't find any bananas. On the phone he was like "BANANAS, BANANAS, I WANT TO BUY YOU SOME BANANAS!" This really made me laugh...
Well I thought he was a little crazy so I had sort of been screening his calls and texts but finally I thought oh what the heck I'll meet up with him for 30 minutes and give him a chance. So we met up and got some street food and I realized that he wasn't really crazy...I guess it's just hard for me to understand how exciting it could be to meet a foreigner, especially if you are interested in practicing their language.
When we met he told me that he had bought me some bananas but that I hadn't called him back so he had no choice but to eat them hahahah. He also told me that he had been busy searching for a suitable English name...he finally landed on 'Joey' because he thought he was a little bit stupid like Joey from Friends. Haha, I think he is a very honest person, although I told him that in America we typically do not insult ourselves like that.
So Joey is a very special person- he's one of the most happy, excitable and friendly people that you will ever meet. The first time he met all of my foreign friends he literally had a compliment for every single one of them. He wished one couple great happiness and told them they were wonderful together, told another that he could be in the movies, and another that he had beautiful eyes (LOL).....I think he comes from a very traditional Chinese family and I'm not sure if this is related or not but he is also one of the most innocent people I have ever met, especially considering that he is 28. I think it will be easier to see this from the text messages rather than having me describe why...
So, here are some of the fabulous text messages that he has sent me. I'm not putting them up to make fun of him or his English, in fact I think he English is amazing considering he has never talked to an English speaker before, but rather just to demonstrate his character.
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The first messages he sent me:
"still remember me? have u got banana today?"
"i prefer to make friend than to practise eng heartly"
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the first time we met up:
me- "okay we can meet at 4"
joey- "no problem, i will be at 38square at 3, waiting for u, call me then"
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Now for a series of texts he sent me on the weather...........
"the weather is not well today, did u take umbrella with u, hope u not get wet. can u see weather report at home?"
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"doing what now? have u got home? so strong wind outside, i am on my way home by bus. good news to share with u, i made a deal yesterday, someone rent a house through me, it let me earn 200 yuan"
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"the traffic is heavy, the bus almost not move, it might take me some time on the journey, i think i should have a little sleep"
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"i guess it will still be cold the days after, wear more clothes. i met a korean who speak chinese well, his wife is a pretty chinese lady, and she is pregnant. but i did not find house satisfied to them"
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"i guessed wrong about the weather today, it is nice out"
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After I met up with him I thought it would be really good to invite him out to a foreigner bar to break him in a little bit and get him more accustomed to foreigners. So I sent him a message and let him know that we were going. He said:
"it is my great honor to be invited, i am very glad to join u, but i am not sure that i can afford the place u often meet, and i am afraid i may give you trouble, if u do not mind, tell when and where then, i will go"
He has told me at least a million times that he doesn't make a lot of money but I told him the point was to meet foreigners, not spend money. So then at 6:30 PM on Friday he said:
"is there any party? how can i find you?"
I told him that we probably would not go to the bar until at least 10:00 PM, so he said...:
"oh my god, i think i should go home, have dinner first. call u later"
I apologized for the miscommunication, he replied:
"don't say that, it's not your fault. i should think about that point. i rarely go to that kind of place like bar, which is high-paying for me. so i'm greatly eager to have a taste"
After going to the bar:
"it is great memory in my life, thx for your beer. nice dream"
I introduced him to all of the foreign teachers here and he was so happy to meet them. Since then, Joey has come to the bar 2 more times. I am afraid that we are stealing his innocence....the whole time we were there his mother was calling him every 10 minutes because she was so worried about him. Good lord...he's 28!
Side note on his mom, he said she is always bugging him about getting a girlfriend even though he doesn't really care for one that much. She often tells him that he is "unclean" as well and sometimes when we're talking on QQ he has to get off because his mom is making him wash himself or something. Very strange...he seems clean to me.....
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I decided that I would teach Joey a little bit about our culture when we were at the bar. Sometimes, when Joey would want to talk to me, he would call me like 10 times even though I wasn't answering and thus was clearly busy. So I explained to him that in America (and probably many other places lol) we just call each other once or twice and if they don't answer we just wait for them to call back. I have had other Chinese people do this to me as well, so I don't think it's just him. He was very surprised about this and said that he understood...however...the very next day he called me like 5 times in a row. I was like AHHHHHHH!!! But then he sent me this message, and again mentioned the weather, lol. I think I asked him if he was really interested in the weather or something haha:
"first, i want to say sorry for giving u so many calls in a short time. i remember your words. i was just afraid that u called me back but could not find me, my phone was power off, i left the battery charger in my office, so i wasn't able to contact u till now. the usb, it doesn't need to be hurry to return. though i don't want mention the weather, it is like winter today, so take care of yourself"
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random text, "mr. ben" is one of the teachers in the company and he is my age, so younger than joey hahah.
"have i expressed clearly? hoho. i know what kind of person u are, u are generous girl. same with me i think. if u come across mr. ben, tell him that i remember who he looks like. that guy's net id is "grubby", a popular star in electronic sports field. his wife is also popular, a beauty champion of singapore"
-----------------------------------------------------
So anyways, Joey has been a very good friend to me here, helping me out whenever I need it. When I went to Shenyang, he booked my hotel room for me there, typed up a bunch of stuff I could do there in Chinese and in English, and was even on call for me in case I ran into any problems. For example, I had some trouble with one of the buses so I called him and he told me what to do, talked to the station manager and helped me sort it out. He was very worried about me while I was there since I was alone- the first morning I was there he texted me at like 7:45 AM and I just happened to be up and in the shower so I didn't receive it. After I got out of the shower 20 minutes later, I got a call from him asking me what the matter was and all this stuff...I don't really understand why it didn't occur to him that I might have been sleeping but I appreciated his concern lol.
So, don't worry about me here, I have people like Joey watching my back!! To be honest, many people here watch my back I think. If I ever need help, there are many Chinese people I can call who are happy to do something for me. It has made my life a lot easier here....they can be very nice people.
Well, that is Joey.
Twins!!
This is a picture of my favorite set of twins (they are tied with another set I have at another school though :)). They are in the 2nd grade. They are making a surprisingly goofy pose but usually they are very serious and well-behaved in class and very, very sweet. Their English level is really not very high, but they are always participating and trying really hard so I can forgive them. They always want to be the leaders on their team! They have the right attitude and I think they will do very well in life.
So in this class, there are several very good students in addition to them, and at the end of the year I am only able to give out 3 English awards. This is making me nervous in every class, and especially in this class. I really want to give them an award, but if I gave it to both of them that would only leave one slot for another student! And their English is not THAT great...there are other students in the class with better English. So my idea was to just give them one, shared award, if they could understand that it was meant as such, even though it would only have one name on it. I didn't want one twin to think that I only thought one of them deserved the award....! I knew they would not be able to understand me, so I grabbed one of my 2nd graders with suuuch good English and asked him to translate, he told me he would try! The twins were so sweet of course and readily agreed to it. The both said they would write the other brother's name on it.
I was sort of thinking about bringing up a bunch of the good students in my other classes and just letting them work out themselves who deserves the award...because I think I am incapable of choosing only 3 out of 55 kids per class!!!!! In some classes, I think this strategy would work. Sometimes when I am giving stickers out a student will tell me that another kid should get the sticker instead of them, or the students will help me choose who did the best in the class to give the stickers to. However, some of my other classes are just way too competitive...there's going to be a lot of crying about this....ahhhhh!!! I can't stand having to do this, and I'm totally just going to go by my gut...how can I make criteria for this?!?
5.17.2011
What's Under There?
I recently had a girl from Italy staying at my apartment through couch surfing, and she told me a very funny story...
So she took a sleeper train from Beijing to Dalian and was in a compartment with a bunch of other Chinese people and for whatever reason she was not wearing a bra under her shirt. She noticed a bunch of Chinese women staring at her chest and discussing it, hand motions and everything. They started speaking to her in Chinese but she doesn't really know any. Finally, one woman just came over and pulled up her shirt over her head to confirm whether she was wearing a bra or not hahahha. She said they were also trying to get her to adjust her shirt because they thought she was showing too much cleavage. So funny...I don't think she was too bothered by it though...
So she took a sleeper train from Beijing to Dalian and was in a compartment with a bunch of other Chinese people and for whatever reason she was not wearing a bra under her shirt. She noticed a bunch of Chinese women staring at her chest and discussing it, hand motions and everything. They started speaking to her in Chinese but she doesn't really know any. Finally, one woman just came over and pulled up her shirt over her head to confirm whether she was wearing a bra or not hahahha. She said they were also trying to get her to adjust her shirt because they thought she was showing too much cleavage. So funny...I don't think she was too bothered by it though...
5.14.2011
Maybe I am not like a Chinese teacher after all...
because I do not humiliate my students for no reason!!
At school on Friday, I was hanging out in the English teachers office and a bunch of my 3rd grade students came in to see their Chinese English teacher. They were from one of my most ridiculously out-of-control but lovable classes so I was very happy to see them. Usually, they are bouncing off the walls with excitement when I walk in the room. More so than my other classes, these kids really think I am like the big sister or the baby sitter or something. They hug me, they give me back massages, they want me to play hand clapping games with them (remember 'double double this this'....I made the mistake of teaching them that lol). Once class starts, they are still crazy but they get pretty into my games and activities so I accept them for who they are, lol.
So when they came into the office they made eye contact with me and then sighed and looked down with out smiling! I was very surprised. They lined up in front of their teacher and waited. I didn't think too much of it at first, students are often coming in and out of the teachers' office at my schools to recite some inane English dialogue or even sing a song to them (one day, tons of students were singing "I will follow him" to their teacher!).
However, the teachers at this school (Tao Yuan) are particularly aggressive and after making the students wait for a bit while she was (pretending to be) busy grading something, the teacher started screaming at the first boy in line. I have no idea why she was doing this, but I don't think it had anything to do with his behavior because some of my good kids were in line too. My guess was that he did poorly on an assignment or something because I have seen the teachers yell at their kids for this and fling their notebooks/assignments across the room.
So, the boy started bawling and she continued to humiliate him while he stood there. He started crying so hard to it started to sound like he was having a panic attack. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to stand up and take the boy away from her so he could calm down. Of course I couldn't do anything but it was so ridiculous. I kept turning around and sort of giving her dirty looks but who knows if she caught my drift. Eventually she stopped, he left and came back a few minutes later... but he was still having trouble breathing. She made another girl cry too who I think is a sweet little girl.
Don't think that all Chinese teachers do this though because at the main school where I teach at I have never seen an English teacher do this to a child and I can't imagine any of them doing so. I think maybe there is a just a different culture at Tao Yuan. The English teachers there feel like they have a lot of power over these little kids or something and they often abuse it. Pretty sad.
I even feel like they try to play power games with me a little bit there because at lunch I am not allowed to serve myself my own food, even though most of the other teachers help themselves to as much as they want. A student usually brings me a tray with a decent amount of food on it but I literally eat every bit of it and I'm usually still hungry afterwards. On the other hand, I see the English teachers load their trays up with a ton of food and throw half of it away.
At first I thought maybe they had the kids bring me the food as a sign of respect, but this hypothesis fell under suspicion after my friend Bell had a terrible lunch experience there. She told me that one day they only gave her like 1 or 2 sticks of chuar (grilled BBQ meat) as her main dish and she was still very hungry so she asked one of the teachers if she could go get more from the cafeteria or whatever. The teacher told her that she could not, even though a little while later that same teacher walked in with like 10 sticks of chuar. Wow...pretty insulting. After that, Bell refused to eat there, I don't blame her! The thing for me is just that the lunch is free, it's convenient, and it's not too shabby. Although, if something like that happened to me I would probably stop eating there....out of my 3 schools the teachers there are by far the least friendly to me.
Just wish I could tell the kids that this behavior is not acceptable and to not model themselves after that when they become adults....
At school on Friday, I was hanging out in the English teachers office and a bunch of my 3rd grade students came in to see their Chinese English teacher. They were from one of my most ridiculously out-of-control but lovable classes so I was very happy to see them. Usually, they are bouncing off the walls with excitement when I walk in the room. More so than my other classes, these kids really think I am like the big sister or the baby sitter or something. They hug me, they give me back massages, they want me to play hand clapping games with them (remember 'double double this this'....I made the mistake of teaching them that lol). Once class starts, they are still crazy but they get pretty into my games and activities so I accept them for who they are, lol.
So when they came into the office they made eye contact with me and then sighed and looked down with out smiling! I was very surprised. They lined up in front of their teacher and waited. I didn't think too much of it at first, students are often coming in and out of the teachers' office at my schools to recite some inane English dialogue or even sing a song to them (one day, tons of students were singing "I will follow him" to their teacher!).
However, the teachers at this school (Tao Yuan) are particularly aggressive and after making the students wait for a bit while she was (pretending to be) busy grading something, the teacher started screaming at the first boy in line. I have no idea why she was doing this, but I don't think it had anything to do with his behavior because some of my good kids were in line too. My guess was that he did poorly on an assignment or something because I have seen the teachers yell at their kids for this and fling their notebooks/assignments across the room.
So, the boy started bawling and she continued to humiliate him while he stood there. He started crying so hard to it started to sound like he was having a panic attack. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to stand up and take the boy away from her so he could calm down. Of course I couldn't do anything but it was so ridiculous. I kept turning around and sort of giving her dirty looks but who knows if she caught my drift. Eventually she stopped, he left and came back a few minutes later... but he was still having trouble breathing. She made another girl cry too who I think is a sweet little girl.
Don't think that all Chinese teachers do this though because at the main school where I teach at I have never seen an English teacher do this to a child and I can't imagine any of them doing so. I think maybe there is a just a different culture at Tao Yuan. The English teachers there feel like they have a lot of power over these little kids or something and they often abuse it. Pretty sad.
I even feel like they try to play power games with me a little bit there because at lunch I am not allowed to serve myself my own food, even though most of the other teachers help themselves to as much as they want. A student usually brings me a tray with a decent amount of food on it but I literally eat every bit of it and I'm usually still hungry afterwards. On the other hand, I see the English teachers load their trays up with a ton of food and throw half of it away.
At first I thought maybe they had the kids bring me the food as a sign of respect, but this hypothesis fell under suspicion after my friend Bell had a terrible lunch experience there. She told me that one day they only gave her like 1 or 2 sticks of chuar (grilled BBQ meat) as her main dish and she was still very hungry so she asked one of the teachers if she could go get more from the cafeteria or whatever. The teacher told her that she could not, even though a little while later that same teacher walked in with like 10 sticks of chuar. Wow...pretty insulting. After that, Bell refused to eat there, I don't blame her! The thing for me is just that the lunch is free, it's convenient, and it's not too shabby. Although, if something like that happened to me I would probably stop eating there....out of my 3 schools the teachers there are by far the least friendly to me.
Just wish I could tell the kids that this behavior is not acceptable and to not model themselves after that when they become adults....
5.12.2011
QQ with Jessica again!
...Zach told me my pictures aren't working again...so I'll do another post with out pictures until I figure it out.
My 4th grade student, Jessica, is awesome! This is the same girl who told me the hot dog joke last time. It's funny, I didn't know who she was until she started talking to me on QQ because she does not participate much in class. Her English is seems very good, at least her written English anyways. I wish the girls here would be a little more confident in class though- a lot of them let the boys take control and I would bet that Jessica's English is better than most of her classmates. In almost every class I have one or two super aggressive, confident, smart, out-spoken girls though and I love them! They can be really funny, like if we are playing a game and there is the potential to cheat, they will be the first ones to do so. HA! It's because some of them are realllly competitive, probably more-so than most of the boys. Last week I had my students do a team activity where they had to come up with as many verbs as they could in like 5 minutes. Most of my teams were able to come up with between 20 and 50 verbs. Pretty good. On one team though, with one of my strongest girls, they came up with 85 verbs. Wow! This is the girl who said that she would be a headmaster so she could hit the student of the day, hahha.
Anyhow, here is another conversation with Jessica. What a great girl, I became the student and she became the teacher! Any practice I can get speaking Chinese is helpful. So in case you were interested, here is me writing in Pinyin (the romanization of Chinese characters). If you'll notice, the words appear to be very short. That is because most of the words are not really words... while they have meaning, they really only become a usable word when combined with the neighboring words. For example 'ming tian' means tomorrow, but you do not write 'mingtian' because each small word has a meaning and thus its own character (if you're typing in Chinese characters you have to use a program and enter ming, find the character from the drop-down, then tian, and find the right character from the drop down. it looks like it takes forever). I looked up the word ming and it has 14 different characters, so the meaning of ming in this circumstance can really only be surmised by combining it with tian (tian has 15 meanings, lol). To make things more complicated, sometimes when you combine two words they also can have multiple meanings. Then, you need to understand the context in which they're used, or be really good at hearing the tones. This is why Chinese is so hard. Chinese uses for tones, but for these 14 meanings of ming only two tones are used. Therefore, most of the time if you just say one word in Chinese, even Chinese people will not be able to understand the meaning, because there are so many! I hope that made a little bit of sense...
Ok, this is a rambling post! So Jessica and I had a very simple conversation, and yes, I wrote some really bad English in there as I was translating her text out loud :/ I think being able to communicate with a 4th grader is a step in the right direction though. And if you know Chinese, I'm sure some of mine is pretty bad, so go easy on me lol.
My 4th grade student, Jessica, is awesome! This is the same girl who told me the hot dog joke last time. It's funny, I didn't know who she was until she started talking to me on QQ because she does not participate much in class. Her English is seems very good, at least her written English anyways. I wish the girls here would be a little more confident in class though- a lot of them let the boys take control and I would bet that Jessica's English is better than most of her classmates. In almost every class I have one or two super aggressive, confident, smart, out-spoken girls though and I love them! They can be really funny, like if we are playing a game and there is the potential to cheat, they will be the first ones to do so. HA! It's because some of them are realllly competitive, probably more-so than most of the boys. Last week I had my students do a team activity where they had to come up with as many verbs as they could in like 5 minutes. Most of my teams were able to come up with between 20 and 50 verbs. Pretty good. On one team though, with one of my strongest girls, they came up with 85 verbs. Wow! This is the girl who said that she would be a headmaster so she could hit the student of the day, hahha.
Anyhow, here is another conversation with Jessica. What a great girl, I became the student and she became the teacher! Any practice I can get speaking Chinese is helpful. So in case you were interested, here is me writing in Pinyin (the romanization of Chinese characters). If you'll notice, the words appear to be very short. That is because most of the words are not really words... while they have meaning, they really only become a usable word when combined with the neighboring words. For example 'ming tian' means tomorrow, but you do not write 'mingtian' because each small word has a meaning and thus its own character (if you're typing in Chinese characters you have to use a program and enter ming, find the character from the drop-down, then tian, and find the right character from the drop down. it looks like it takes forever). I looked up the word ming and it has 14 different characters, so the meaning of ming in this circumstance can really only be surmised by combining it with tian (tian has 15 meanings, lol). To make things more complicated, sometimes when you combine two words they also can have multiple meanings. Then, you need to understand the context in which they're used, or be really good at hearing the tones. This is why Chinese is so hard. Chinese uses for tones, but for these 14 meanings of ming only two tones are used. Therefore, most of the time if you just say one word in Chinese, even Chinese people will not be able to understand the meaning, because there are so many! I hope that made a little bit of sense...
Ok, this is a rambling post! So Jessica and I had a very simple conversation, and yes, I wrote some really bad English in there as I was translating her text out loud :/ I think being able to communicate with a 4th grader is a step in the right direction though. And if you know Chinese, I'm sure some of mine is pretty bad, so go easy on me lol.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:36:08 PM
Hello Miss church
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:37:17 PM
hi jessica!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:37:45 PM
Last lesson the class is very noisy
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:37:58 PM
YES
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:38:09 PM
you have a very noisy class
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:38:34 PM
Can I teach you speak Chinese?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:38:49 PM
haha, of course!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:38:55 PM
i am learning chinese right now.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:39:31 PM
Now I am speaking Chinese.You speak Chinese too!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:39:56 PM
no, now you are speaking english!!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:04 PM
wo neng xie pin yin
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:03 PM
Why
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:13 PM
wo bu neng xie han zi!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:19 PM
好的
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:22 PM
because you were writing in english
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:25 PM
i can't read that!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:28 PM
i can only read pinyin
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:34 PM
haode
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:57 PM
ni ming tian you ke ma
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:41:25 PM
you. wo you wu ge ke!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:41:47 PM
ming tian?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:41:59 PM
dui!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:42:15 PM
ming tian, wo zai tao yuan xiao xue
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:42:41 PM
ni ye dao tao yuan xiao xue jiao ?ke?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:43:04 PM
dui
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:43:11 PM
he jie fang xiao xue
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:43:33 PM
wo jiao zai san ge xiao xue!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:43:47 PM
na ni zai mei guo shi lao shi ma
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:02 PM
bu shi.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:44:15 PM
dou shi na ji ge xiao xue
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:17 PM
wo zai gong si gong zuo
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:44:33 PM
ni zuo shen me gong zuo
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:35 PM
dui
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:51 PM
wo bang mei guo ren
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:45:03 PM
o
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:45:14 PM
yi xie mei guo ren mei you gong zuo he qian
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:45:27 PM
wo bang ta men zhao dao gong zuo
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:45:38 PM
ni de pin yin hen hao!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:45:58 PM
hehe.wo shi zhong guo ren a!!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:46:22 PM
hahah
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:46:25 PM
wo zhi dao
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:46:54 PM
ni zen me hai bu shui jiao a
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:47:41 PM
wo shi dian shui jiao
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:47:43 PM
ni ne?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:47:52 PM
xian zai wo bu lei
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:48:21 PM
wo yi ban dou shi jiu dian shui
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:49:08 PM
hen zao!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:49:15 PM
(very early?) haha
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:49:28 PM
shide
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:50:25 PM
dang ni nu ren de shi hou, zai gong zuo, ni yao shuo ying wen?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:50:51 PM
ni de ying wen hen hao, he ni zhi hai zi
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:51:27 PM
wo qi shi dou shi gen wai bian de lao shi xue de
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:52:59 PM
didn't understand that
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:53:01 PM
tell me in english?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:53:17 PM
you want to be outside of teacher studying?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:53:18 PM
Ok
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:53:25 PM
yes
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:53:48 PM
i see
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:54:05 PM
suo yi, ni yao zuo shen me?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:54:24 PM
wo yao xue xi ying yu
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:54:43 PM
ting hao de!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:55:20 PM
呵呵
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:55:25 PM
hehe
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:56:42 PM
i am very happy to hear that
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:56:51 PM
wo hen gao xing ting na ge
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:56:54 PM
haha
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:57:12 PM
I like English very much
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:57:56 PM
i can tell! how many english classes do you take a week?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:58:13 PM
twice a week
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:24 PM
i see
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:30 PM
you should also try watching english movies
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:34 PM
or listening to english songs
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:39 PM
that is a very good way to learn
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:00:08 PM
Oh yes
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:01:10 PM
shang ci ni gei wo men ban tong xue ting le Lady Gaga de ge dan ni shuo bu zhi dao na shou ge de ming zi
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:05:12 PM
next time i give your team listening to lady gaga but i said i said i don't know the name?
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:05:22 PM
last time*
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:05:40 PM
wo ke yi gao su ni na shou ge de ming zi
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:07:07 PM
ohh
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:07:12 PM
wo ming bai
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:07:18 PM
ni xiang zhi dao ma
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:07:29 PM
wo xiang zhi dao
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:07:47 PM
shi Telephone
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:09:14 PM
shi! wo chang ge zhe ge ge dui ni de ke
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:09:26 PM
ni wang le?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:10:06 PM
wo zhi dao dan shi ni shang ci shuo ni bu zhi dao ge ming wo cha de
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:12:16 PM
hmm. ye xu wo cuo ma?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:12:28 PM
bu zhi dao
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:14:37 PM
haha okay.
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:14:49 PM
ni xiang wo de han yu hao bu hao?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:14:59 PM
fei chang hao
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:15:13 PM
haha
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:15:19 PM
hen shan liang xue sheng!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:15:25 PM
zhen de
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:15:52 PM
haha, yes!
Hello Miss church
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:37:17 PM
hi jessica!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:37:45 PM
Last lesson the class is very noisy
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:37:58 PM
YES
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:38:09 PM
you have a very noisy class
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:38:34 PM
Can I teach you speak Chinese?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:38:49 PM
haha, of course!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:38:55 PM
i am learning chinese right now.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:39:31 PM
Now I am speaking Chinese.You speak Chinese too!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:39:56 PM
no, now you are speaking english!!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:04 PM
wo neng xie pin yin
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:03 PM
Why
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:13 PM
wo bu neng xie han zi!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:19 PM
好的
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:22 PM
because you were writing in english
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:25 PM
i can't read that!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:40:28 PM
i can only read pinyin
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:34 PM
haode
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:40:57 PM
ni ming tian you ke ma
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:41:25 PM
you. wo you wu ge ke!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:41:47 PM
ming tian?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:41:59 PM
dui!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:42:15 PM
ming tian, wo zai tao yuan xiao xue
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:42:41 PM
ni ye dao tao yuan xiao xue jiao ?ke?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:43:04 PM
dui
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:43:11 PM
he jie fang xiao xue
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:43:33 PM
wo jiao zai san ge xiao xue!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:43:47 PM
na ni zai mei guo shi lao shi ma
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:02 PM
bu shi.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:44:15 PM
dou shi na ji ge xiao xue
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:17 PM
wo zai gong si gong zuo
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:44:33 PM
ni zuo shen me gong zuo
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:35 PM
dui
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:44:51 PM
wo bang mei guo ren
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:45:03 PM
o
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:45:14 PM
yi xie mei guo ren mei you gong zuo he qian
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:45:27 PM
wo bang ta men zhao dao gong zuo
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:45:38 PM
ni de pin yin hen hao!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:45:58 PM
hehe.wo shi zhong guo ren a!!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:46:22 PM
hahah
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:46:25 PM
wo zhi dao
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:46:54 PM
ni zen me hai bu shui jiao a
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:47:41 PM
wo shi dian shui jiao
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:47:43 PM
ni ne?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:47:52 PM
xian zai wo bu lei
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:48:21 PM
wo yi ban dou shi jiu dian shui
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:49:08 PM
hen zao!
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:49:15 PM
(very early?) haha
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:49:28 PM
shide
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:50:25 PM
dang ni nu ren de shi hou, zai gong zuo, ni yao shuo ying wen?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:50:51 PM
ni de ying wen hen hao, he ni zhi hai zi
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:51:27 PM
wo qi shi dou shi gen wai bian de lao shi xue de
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:52:59 PM
didn't understand that
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:53:01 PM
tell me in english?
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:53:17 PM
you want to be outside of teacher studying?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:53:18 PM
Ok
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:53:25 PM
yes
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:53:48 PM
i see
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:54:05 PM
suo yi, ni yao zuo shen me?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:54:24 PM
wo yao xue xi ying yu
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:54:43 PM
ting hao de!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:55:20 PM
呵呵
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:55:25 PM
hehe
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:56:42 PM
i am very happy to hear that
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:56:51 PM
wo hen gao xing ting na ge
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:56:54 PM
haha
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:57:12 PM
I like English very much
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:57:56 PM
i can tell! how many english classes do you take a week?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 7:58:13 PM
twice a week
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:24 PM
i see
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:30 PM
you should also try watching english movies
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:34 PM
or listening to english songs
Miss Church (Victoria) 7:59:39 PM
that is a very good way to learn
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:00:08 PM
Oh yes
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:01:10 PM
shang ci ni gei wo men ban tong xue ting le Lady Gaga de ge dan ni shuo bu zhi dao na shou ge de ming zi
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:05:12 PM
next time i give your team listening to lady gaga but i said i said i don't know the name?
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:05:22 PM
last time*
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:05:40 PM
wo ke yi gao su ni na shou ge de ming zi
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:07:07 PM
ohh
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:07:12 PM
wo ming bai
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:07:18 PM
ni xiang zhi dao ma
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:07:29 PM
wo xiang zhi dao
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:07:47 PM
shi Telephone
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:09:14 PM
shi! wo chang ge zhe ge ge dui ni de ke
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:09:26 PM
ni wang le?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:10:06 PM
wo zhi dao dan shi ni shang ci shuo ni bu zhi dao ge ming wo cha de
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:12:16 PM
hmm. ye xu wo cuo ma?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:12:28 PM
bu zhi dao
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:14:37 PM
haha okay.
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:14:49 PM
ni xiang wo de han yu hao bu hao?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:14:59 PM
fei chang hao
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:15:13 PM
haha
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:15:19 PM
hen shan liang xue sheng!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 8:15:25 PM
zhen de
Miss Church (Victoria) 8:15:52 PM
haha, yes!
5.10.2011
Couchsurfing in Jinshitan
I have been wanting to try out couch surfing for a while so I thought there’s no better time to give it a try than while I’m in China! After signing up, I thought it might be cool to try to couch surf with a family in the suburbs of Dalian to see what it’s like to live in a Dalianese family. I did some searching and a found a 26 year old guy named Tiger who lived about an hour away from the city center with his mother and had a whole bedroom available. Tiger told me that his written English was pretty good but that his speaking and listening was not as good so I knew that there would be a little bit of a language barrier. Tiger said it would be okay though because we could have a kind of ‘heart-to-heart communication’. This must be a direct translation from an expression in Chinese because I have heard many Chinese English speakers say this!
Bell and I arrived in Tiger’s neck of the woods Friday afternoon and he was already waiting for us at the station even though we arrived early. My first impression of him was that he was extremely tall - maybe like 6’2”. I have never seen such tall Asian people in my life, I’m so short here! He led us to the bus and paid our fare. This set a precedent for the rest of the weekend- Bell and I were not allowed to pay for anything except for our entrance into the mountain we climbed.
The little town that Tiger lived in was nothing special, just some small shops and apartment buildings. I’ve found that this is the case for a lot of places in China…the people are really what make these places special!
Upon entering Tiger’s apartment, I was immediately hit by the smell of delicious food. Tiger’s mom came out to greet us and she was the sweetest woman you’ll ever meet. She didn’t speak any English and I didn’t really speak any Chinese at the time so our conversation was mainly through positive body language, haha. They sent Bell and I into the living room while they finished cooking dinner. We offered to help but of course they wouldn’t let us. Tiger’s mom brought us a bowl of miniature strawberries while we were waiting. After they were done cooking Tiger called us back into the kitchen and I was couldn’t believe the amount of food that was on their small kitchen table (I think tables are always way too small for my liking in China…I never have any room to breathe at them!). They had made Chinese chicken wings, shrimp, rice, octopus, spring rolls, fish, bread, string beans with beef, cucumbers with ham, egg and tomato dish (very typical in Dalian). After we sat down Tiger’s mom left the kitchen and I was like where is she going! Of all people, I thought the main cook should eat with us! Tiger told me that his mom had already eaten. I felt so terrible that she was not eating all of this good food she had made for us, I hope she ate some of it while she was cooking. I asked Tiger if they usually ate that much for dinner and he said yes, but I think he either didn’t understand my question or was just saying that.
So while we were stuffing ourselves we got to know Tiger a little better. We learned that he is an English teacher in his town and that he taught 10 to 13 year olds. I was very surprised to learn that he was an English teacher. His English was passable but definitely not up to par with the level that I think an English teacher should be at…some of my students have better English than he does. This is probably a good example of why many students must take extra English classes with native speakers to actually become fluent in English.
We also learned that the reason he was living with his mother in Dalian was because his father had died of cancer a few years back and he was now taking care of his mother. Before his father died he worked in Beijing at what sounded like a pretty good job and had a girlfriend there so it seems like he gave up a lot to go home.
After dinner we all shared some pictures with each other and Tiger showed us a Michael Jackson video that he really liked. They LOVE Michael Jackson in China! Tiger couldn’t express how he felt about him in English so he typed something in Chinese and put it into an English translator so we would understand. It said “Michael Jackson’s death is the world’s loss.” I was like wow! Look at the picture, Tiger is doing the Michael Jackson "This Is It" pose. He said his favorite movie was ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and that he liked many American movies because Chinese movies lacked imagination. I was sort of sad for Tiger though because I don’t think many people his age live in his area of Dalian and his weekends mainly consist of watching things like Michael Jackson videos. I think he joined Couchsurfing so that he could meet some new people and have some more things to do. He said that he was only interested in hosting people, not surfing! I feel like it’s usually the other way around.
We took a bunch of pictures with Tiger and his mom and then we went to bed. Tiger’s mom had to wake up very early in the morning because she is a janitor in their building.
The next day we had a small breakfast (Tiger said that he didn’t know how to make breakfast and his mom was working hahah) and then left to go meet Tiger’s sister, aka first cousin, to take a walk on the beach. In China, they call their cousins their brothers and sisters since most young people don’t have any siblings. They understand the difference between cousin and brother/sister so I’m not sure why they don’t change the translation in English but I’ve gotten used to it and don’t question it anymore. Tiger’s sister was very sweet and spoke even less English than Tiger (even though she was also an English teacher lol) but we still hit it off very quickly. The beach there was nice and I can imagine that it is swarming with tourists when it gets warmer. There was even a bride and groom doing their wedding pictures there so we took some pictures with them! Then we went to a small park where you could pay a little bit of money to feed these white pigeons that would fly on you when you had the food. As you can see from the picture, I was not very excited about this. Tiger was like master of the birds though! At one point the pigeons flew away and the lady selling the bird food blew a whistle really loudly and all the pigeons halted mid-air and turned around and came back. It was pretty cool how well she had those birds trained!
After that we went back to the house and Tiger’s mom had prepared another huge meal for us for lunch. We stuffed ourselves again and then had to say good bye to her because we would not be returning to the apartment after our hike.
Tiger’s sister arranged for her friend to drive us to a nearby mountain for our hike. It turns out that Bell and I had already been to this mountain but we had walked up a different side of it before so it was fine. Bell and Tiger’s sister got tired so Tiger and I finished the climb with out them and when we got to the top Tiger said “we made history.” Hahah it was so funny to me. After climbing back down Tiger’s sister bought us all ice cream (even though I was trying to pay for it) and we had to end our wonderful day together.
All in all my first couch surfing experience was phenomenal and my guess is that this was a very unique experience- I doubt most hosts are so hospitable and accommodating. Even just last week I hosted my first couchsurfer and I was so busy that she ended up cooking dinner for me!!! Well, couch surfing is fun, especially with Chinese people!
Bell and I arrived in Tiger’s neck of the woods Friday afternoon and he was already waiting for us at the station even though we arrived early. My first impression of him was that he was extremely tall - maybe like 6’2”. I have never seen such tall Asian people in my life, I’m so short here! He led us to the bus and paid our fare. This set a precedent for the rest of the weekend- Bell and I were not allowed to pay for anything except for our entrance into the mountain we climbed.
The little town that Tiger lived in was nothing special, just some small shops and apartment buildings. I’ve found that this is the case for a lot of places in China…the people are really what make these places special!
Upon entering Tiger’s apartment, I was immediately hit by the smell of delicious food. Tiger’s mom came out to greet us and she was the sweetest woman you’ll ever meet. She didn’t speak any English and I didn’t really speak any Chinese at the time so our conversation was mainly through positive body language, haha. They sent Bell and I into the living room while they finished cooking dinner. We offered to help but of course they wouldn’t let us. Tiger’s mom brought us a bowl of miniature strawberries while we were waiting. After they were done cooking Tiger called us back into the kitchen and I was couldn’t believe the amount of food that was on their small kitchen table (I think tables are always way too small for my liking in China…I never have any room to breathe at them!). They had made Chinese chicken wings, shrimp, rice, octopus, spring rolls, fish, bread, string beans with beef, cucumbers with ham, egg and tomato dish (very typical in Dalian). After we sat down Tiger’s mom left the kitchen and I was like where is she going! Of all people, I thought the main cook should eat with us! Tiger told me that his mom had already eaten. I felt so terrible that she was not eating all of this good food she had made for us, I hope she ate some of it while she was cooking. I asked Tiger if they usually ate that much for dinner and he said yes, but I think he either didn’t understand my question or was just saying that.
So while we were stuffing ourselves we got to know Tiger a little better. We learned that he is an English teacher in his town and that he taught 10 to 13 year olds. I was very surprised to learn that he was an English teacher. His English was passable but definitely not up to par with the level that I think an English teacher should be at…some of my students have better English than he does. This is probably a good example of why many students must take extra English classes with native speakers to actually become fluent in English.
We also learned that the reason he was living with his mother in Dalian was because his father had died of cancer a few years back and he was now taking care of his mother. Before his father died he worked in Beijing at what sounded like a pretty good job and had a girlfriend there so it seems like he gave up a lot to go home.
After dinner we all shared some pictures with each other and Tiger showed us a Michael Jackson video that he really liked. They LOVE Michael Jackson in China! Tiger couldn’t express how he felt about him in English so he typed something in Chinese and put it into an English translator so we would understand. It said “Michael Jackson’s death is the world’s loss.” I was like wow! Look at the picture, Tiger is doing the Michael Jackson "This Is It" pose. He said his favorite movie was ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and that he liked many American movies because Chinese movies lacked imagination. I was sort of sad for Tiger though because I don’t think many people his age live in his area of Dalian and his weekends mainly consist of watching things like Michael Jackson videos. I think he joined Couchsurfing so that he could meet some new people and have some more things to do. He said that he was only interested in hosting people, not surfing! I feel like it’s usually the other way around.
We took a bunch of pictures with Tiger and his mom and then we went to bed. Tiger’s mom had to wake up very early in the morning because she is a janitor in their building.
The next day we had a small breakfast (Tiger said that he didn’t know how to make breakfast and his mom was working hahah) and then left to go meet Tiger’s sister, aka first cousin, to take a walk on the beach. In China, they call their cousins their brothers and sisters since most young people don’t have any siblings. They understand the difference between cousin and brother/sister so I’m not sure why they don’t change the translation in English but I’ve gotten used to it and don’t question it anymore. Tiger’s sister was very sweet and spoke even less English than Tiger (even though she was also an English teacher lol) but we still hit it off very quickly. The beach there was nice and I can imagine that it is swarming with tourists when it gets warmer. There was even a bride and groom doing their wedding pictures there so we took some pictures with them! Then we went to a small park where you could pay a little bit of money to feed these white pigeons that would fly on you when you had the food. As you can see from the picture, I was not very excited about this. Tiger was like master of the birds though! At one point the pigeons flew away and the lady selling the bird food blew a whistle really loudly and all the pigeons halted mid-air and turned around and came back. It was pretty cool how well she had those birds trained!
After that we went back to the house and Tiger’s mom had prepared another huge meal for us for lunch. We stuffed ourselves again and then had to say good bye to her because we would not be returning to the apartment after our hike.
Tiger’s sister arranged for her friend to drive us to a nearby mountain for our hike. It turns out that Bell and I had already been to this mountain but we had walked up a different side of it before so it was fine. Bell and Tiger’s sister got tired so Tiger and I finished the climb with out them and when we got to the top Tiger said “we made history.” Hahah it was so funny to me. After climbing back down Tiger’s sister bought us all ice cream (even though I was trying to pay for it) and we had to end our wonderful day together.
All in all my first couch surfing experience was phenomenal and my guess is that this was a very unique experience- I doubt most hosts are so hospitable and accommodating. Even just last week I hosted my first couchsurfer and I was so busy that she ended up cooking dinner for me!!! Well, couch surfing is fun, especially with Chinese people!
5.08.2011
Mao in Dandong
5.07.2011
QQ with my kids' parents
Some of the kids gave my QQ number to their parents, so they have been talking to me on QQ too. Here is an example of a conversation I had:
Mom
ok,welcome to Dalian china.If you have time,I can see you, talking over tea.
My telephone call:13478978248
Victoria 10:07:35 PM
that would be wonderful! is your daughter's english name lisa?
Mom
My daughter's english name is alise
Victoria 10:09:40 PM
did she write me a letter?
Mom
I am sorry,I don not know. she is sleeping.
Mom
she is fat, she has two big eyes,she is cute.
Victoria 10:14:30 PM
oh okay!
Her mom sent me a picture of her and I think the description was pretty apt, lol. They have no qualms about calling people fat here- if someone is fat it's just a simple fact about them, there's no reason to beat around the bush! I was on a hike a few weeks ago with my company and they had brought an older student along. The Chinese people in my company didn't even know his name, they just referred to him as "that fat boy" hahah. So ridiculous.
BTW, this little girl named Lisa wrote me an adorable letter a few weeks back saying that she wanted to get tea with me, so that's why I thought this was her mom. I guess I will be going out for a lot of tea these days.
QQ with my kids
There is an issue with my pictures showing up...so until I get that figured out I'll just put up a few posts that don't need pictures.
I gave all my students my QQ number (still deciding whether that was a good idea or not :)) and I have been having some funny conversations with them. This girl is in 4th grade.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:18:22 PM
Can I ask you a problem?
Victoria 2:20:54 PM
sure!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:21:43 PM
Why are dogs afraid the sunbath?
Victoria 2:22:56 PM
that is a good question
Victoria 2:23:11 PM
i think that it makes them not feel good
Victoria 2:23:13 PM
what do you think?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:23:16 PM
Do you know?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:23:28 PM
??
Victoria 2:23:40 PM
i am not sure
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:24:18 PM
Because they don't wangt to be hot dog!
Pretty good!!
I gave all my students my QQ number (still deciding whether that was a good idea or not :)) and I have been having some funny conversations with them. This girl is in 4th grade.
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:18:22 PM
Can I ask you a problem?
Victoria 2:20:54 PM
sure!
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:21:43 PM
Why are dogs afraid the sunbath?
Victoria 2:22:56 PM
that is a good question
Victoria 2:23:11 PM
i think that it makes them not feel good
Victoria 2:23:13 PM
what do you think?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:23:16 PM
Do you know?
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:23:28 PM
??
Victoria 2:23:40 PM
i am not sure
Jessica Jiefang 4.3 2:24:18 PM
Because they don't wangt to be hot dog!
Pretty good!!
5.02.2011
Chinese Clubs- Dandong
I mentioned earlier that Bell and I went to a Chinese club in Dandong one night when we were seeking somewhere to go out so I need to describe this experience. I’m not really sure if they are considered bars or clubs but I’ve heard people say club so I’ll just call it that. This was one of the most depressing places that I have ever been to, hahha. Bell and I were in the mood to go meet people and be sociable and this was definitely not what we had in mind. Chinese clubs go something like this- everyone sits around and talks/plays games at tables while people go up on a stage and sing. It sounds like it could have the potential to be fun, except everyone was very subdued there, the singing was done in a very serious manner and the music was ridiculously gloomy. I had some pictures and a video of it but I must have accidentally deleted it :(
This club had one guy who was the ‘professional’ singer and then when he wasn’t singing people from the audience would go up and sing. Although this was like karaoke, no one else was singing along and no one was laughing at their friends sing. This was serious time. To me, it seemed like the ‘professional’ really didn’t like sharing the spotlight with anyone. It often seemed difficult to get him off the stage so someone else could sing and if people started getting too loud in the club he would definitely raise his voice a bit so we could still hear him. I didn’t see him smile once while he was up there. Finally, one pretty cool, older Chinese guy went up there with a cigarette in his mouth and grabbed a stool. Him and the ‘professional’ did a little duet together- he sang while the ‘professional’ did back up vocals and played guitar. This was probably the most entertaining performance of the evening. The guy was not using any words and at some points he definitely was just making up lyrics because he started singing something about ‘gambei’ which basically means cheers in Chinese but it did not go with his original tune. His friends asked him to do an encore and with out hesitation he sat down and belted out another song, again with no lyrics, just sitting on his stool, looking thoughtfully out into the audience and slowly puffing on his cigarette.
After he was done singing, Bell asked me if I wanted to get another beer there. I said no. We left and returned to our hotel room, feeling beaten and down trodden.
I think that Chinese people are so ridiculously serious about their singing. I went to a KTV* a few weeks ago in Dalian with a bunch of Chinese people and 3 of them told me that sometimes they go there together and practice singing for 7 hours. Good lord, 7 hours!! That definitely is not for fun hahah, that is some serious business. I’m not sure how accurate this is but from my observations the men here are more serious about their singing than the women are. I have not met a Chinese guy that did not like to sing, and I’ve asked all of them! I do not think that an American guy would be caught dead singing the way the Chinese guys go about singing here. It’s a little on the feminine side….but I think it is a positive characteristic of the Chinese people. :) This is a picture of my co-worker John, the only guy who works in the office. As you can see, he loves KTV. He is one of the 3 who practice signing at KTV for 7 hours at a time.
The second night Bell and I were in Dandong we went to a KTV with a bunch of foreigners and the experience was way different than our Chinese KTV experience. It was soooo much more fun, lol. The people were very, very good singers but they were just so much more animated when they were singing and having a lot more fun with it than the Chinese people do. The song choices were also much more upbeat and fun to listen to. At first after going to KTV with Chinese people I though that KTV would never work in America, but after experiencing it in a more Western way I think it could be very popular in America. Does it exist there yet?
*For those who do not know what KTV is, it is basically a large building with dozens of small, private rooms with couches where you can go sing for your friends… like a private karaoke session. There is a big screen in the front of the room where the lyrics come up and they have a pretty extensive music selection but when you’re trying to search for songs in English it’s pretty disorganized. People often order drinks and beers while they’re there. I am not a very good singer but the mics sort of echo your voice a little so I did it and I don’t think I sounded too bad.
This club had one guy who was the ‘professional’ singer and then when he wasn’t singing people from the audience would go up and sing. Although this was like karaoke, no one else was singing along and no one was laughing at their friends sing. This was serious time. To me, it seemed like the ‘professional’ really didn’t like sharing the spotlight with anyone. It often seemed difficult to get him off the stage so someone else could sing and if people started getting too loud in the club he would definitely raise his voice a bit so we could still hear him. I didn’t see him smile once while he was up there. Finally, one pretty cool, older Chinese guy went up there with a cigarette in his mouth and grabbed a stool. Him and the ‘professional’ did a little duet together- he sang while the ‘professional’ did back up vocals and played guitar. This was probably the most entertaining performance of the evening. The guy was not using any words and at some points he definitely was just making up lyrics because he started singing something about ‘gambei’ which basically means cheers in Chinese but it did not go with his original tune. His friends asked him to do an encore and with out hesitation he sat down and belted out another song, again with no lyrics, just sitting on his stool, looking thoughtfully out into the audience and slowly puffing on his cigarette.
After he was done singing, Bell asked me if I wanted to get another beer there. I said no. We left and returned to our hotel room, feeling beaten and down trodden.
I think that Chinese people are so ridiculously serious about their singing. I went to a KTV* a few weeks ago in Dalian with a bunch of Chinese people and 3 of them told me that sometimes they go there together and practice singing for 7 hours. Good lord, 7 hours!! That definitely is not for fun hahah, that is some serious business. I’m not sure how accurate this is but from my observations the men here are more serious about their singing than the women are. I have not met a Chinese guy that did not like to sing, and I’ve asked all of them! I do not think that an American guy would be caught dead singing the way the Chinese guys go about singing here. It’s a little on the feminine side….but I think it is a positive characteristic of the Chinese people. :) This is a picture of my co-worker John, the only guy who works in the office. As you can see, he loves KTV. He is one of the 3 who practice signing at KTV for 7 hours at a time.
The second night Bell and I were in Dandong we went to a KTV with a bunch of foreigners and the experience was way different than our Chinese KTV experience. It was soooo much more fun, lol. The people were very, very good singers but they were just so much more animated when they were singing and having a lot more fun with it than the Chinese people do. The song choices were also much more upbeat and fun to listen to. At first after going to KTV with Chinese people I though that KTV would never work in America, but after experiencing it in a more Western way I think it could be very popular in America. Does it exist there yet?
*For those who do not know what KTV is, it is basically a large building with dozens of small, private rooms with couches where you can go sing for your friends… like a private karaoke session. There is a big screen in the front of the room where the lyrics come up and they have a pretty extensive music selection but when you’re trying to search for songs in English it’s pretty disorganized. People often order drinks and beers while they’re there. I am not a very good singer but the mics sort of echo your voice a little so I did it and I don’t think I sounded too bad.
5.01.2011
Parks...Dandong style
This post is a hot mess....I'll reformat it later if I have time. Can someone tell me if the videos work? I was having some trouble with them again.
Bell and I had some extra time before taking a trip to a restored section of the Great Wall so we took a walk to the edge of town where this big arch was. Upon seeing the arch and its surroundings, I thought that we were about to go for a scenic hike through the woods. The first sign we came across pointed us in the direction of Happiness Woods. That seemed benign enough. But I should have known that I was getting much more than I bargained for when I came across another sign that said something like Lion and Tiger Woods. I didn't even take a picture of it because I figured that these were just figurative lion and tiger woods...especially since they love tigers so much here...well I was wrong!
The first thing we came across (probably somewhere in the vicinity of Happiness Woods) was a big open area where many people were dancing to some loud music and enjoying the sunshine. Even in Dalian, many people (usually older people) gather in the mornings to dance together in an open square near my apartment. From what I've seen, they typically dance in unison. However, at this dance party in Dandong, a lot of people were just doing their own thing. Some people were stretching, some were working on tai chi-ish poses, some were clapping, some were moving very slowly and others very quickly...it was a hodge podge. Then I saw this elderly woman in a pink sweater who had to have been the happiest lady that I've ever seen in my entire life. The whole time she was dancing she looked absolutely ecstatic to be there. She was a good dancer too! Considering her age she was extremely fluid and spry. The other woman she was dancing with looked quite a bit younger than her but she was having trouble keeping up. At one point, as you can see in the picture, the younger woman just stopped dancing with the woman in pink, put her hand on her hip and smiled at her incredulously. The woman in pink started laughing so hard and just went right on dancing with out her. I got such a good picture of her mid-laugh!!
After spending some time here and living vicariously through these people's happiness, Bell and I continued our ascent. I thought this square was the main public center of the park, but soon then we stumbled upon a fairly large amusement park tucked away in the forest! I thought it was such a strange place for an amusement park because you can't even see it from the road. It was pretty early in the morning when we got there so there were not that many people there but I imagine that this place probably gets packed in the summer. I think most of the rides would be okay- the merry-go-round, the choo choo train, the rafts, the bumper cars...I would have even tried the strange peddle-coaster thing...but they had a few things that I would be a little skeptical about going on, like the swinging pirate ship. It looked a little worn, lol. They also had a haunted house that I really wanted to go in but we didn't have time. I am so curious to see what the Chinese consider to be scary. By the way, they love that little sheep pictured on the choo choo train- I see it EVERYWHERE. I know it is some kind of cartoon but I have yet to figure out what it's all about.
Then we stumbled upon what must have been the Lion and Tiger Woods because lo and behold there were real lions and tigers there. I don't think I have ever been so close to a lion or a tiger before. They were in these really small, dingy, rusted metal cages and it seems like they could have escaped them if they really wanted to. However, they have probably completely lost their sense of will from living in very small, concrete-floored box for so long, so maybe that's why they just stay put. I had heard some bad things about Chinese zoos before but it almost seemed like they were trying their best to create really terrible living conditions for the animals- there was no where for them to roam, no water, no grass, no dirt or anything for them to walk on besides the concrete. The only good thing I can say about this zoo is that they had a pretty sweet monkey house....those rocks look sort of fun to climb around on.
All in all, I think the Chinese can be very fun loving people. The Chinese word for play (wa[n]r) is used quite often and can be said in the context of both adults and children. I noticed that when Chinese people speak English they often directly translate wa[n]r to play, so I am often asked what and where I played that day hahah. So, this was my first experience with a Chinese park!!
Bell and I had some extra time before taking a trip to a restored section of the Great Wall so we took a walk to the edge of town where this big arch was. Upon seeing the arch and its surroundings, I thought that we were about to go for a scenic hike through the woods. The first sign we came across pointed us in the direction of Happiness Woods. That seemed benign enough. But I should have known that I was getting much more than I bargained for when I came across another sign that said something like Lion and Tiger Woods. I didn't even take a picture of it because I figured that these were just figurative lion and tiger woods...especially since they love tigers so much here...well I was wrong!
The first thing we came across (probably somewhere in the vicinity of Happiness Woods) was a big open area where many people were dancing to some loud music and enjoying the sunshine. Even in Dalian, many people (usually older people) gather in the mornings to dance together in an open square near my apartment. From what I've seen, they typically dance in unison. However, at this dance party in Dandong, a lot of people were just doing their own thing. Some people were stretching, some were working on tai chi-ish poses, some were clapping, some were moving very slowly and others very quickly...it was a hodge podge. Then I saw this elderly woman in a pink sweater who had to have been the happiest lady that I've ever seen in my entire life. The whole time she was dancing she looked absolutely ecstatic to be there. She was a good dancer too! Considering her age she was extremely fluid and spry. The other woman she was dancing with looked quite a bit younger than her but she was having trouble keeping up. At one point, as you can see in the picture, the younger woman just stopped dancing with the woman in pink, put her hand on her hip and smiled at her incredulously. The woman in pink started laughing so hard and just went right on dancing with out her. I got such a good picture of her mid-laugh!!
After spending some time here and living vicariously through these people's happiness, Bell and I continued our ascent. I thought this square was the main public center of the park, but soon then we stumbled upon a fairly large amusement park tucked away in the forest! I thought it was such a strange place for an amusement park because you can't even see it from the road. It was pretty early in the morning when we got there so there were not that many people there but I imagine that this place probably gets packed in the summer. I think most of the rides would be okay- the merry-go-round, the choo choo train, the rafts, the bumper cars...I would have even tried the strange peddle-coaster thing...but they had a few things that I would be a little skeptical about going on, like the swinging pirate ship. It looked a little worn, lol. They also had a haunted house that I really wanted to go in but we didn't have time. I am so curious to see what the Chinese consider to be scary. By the way, they love that little sheep pictured on the choo choo train- I see it EVERYWHERE. I know it is some kind of cartoon but I have yet to figure out what it's all about.
Then we stumbled upon what must have been the Lion and Tiger Woods because lo and behold there were real lions and tigers there. I don't think I have ever been so close to a lion or a tiger before. They were in these really small, dingy, rusted metal cages and it seems like they could have escaped them if they really wanted to. However, they have probably completely lost their sense of will from living in very small, concrete-floored box for so long, so maybe that's why they just stay put. I had heard some bad things about Chinese zoos before but it almost seemed like they were trying their best to create really terrible living conditions for the animals- there was no where for them to roam, no water, no grass, no dirt or anything for them to walk on besides the concrete. The only good thing I can say about this zoo is that they had a pretty sweet monkey house....those rocks look sort of fun to climb around on.
All in all, I think the Chinese can be very fun loving people. The Chinese word for play (wa[n]r) is used quite often and can be said in the context of both adults and children. I noticed that when Chinese people speak English they often directly translate wa[n]r to play, so I am often asked what and where I played that day hahah. So, this was my first experience with a Chinese park!!
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