This sums up so much

Here is a picture of Xiyangyang and HaiTaiLang (Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf) at Zhongshan Park last week.  Allie and I wanted to take a picture with them but it would have cost us a whopping 10 kuai to snap a photo with my favorite Chinese cartoon characters.

Then we turned around and saw them on a smoke break and being served strawberry ice cream by some little fellow extortionist.

My First Communist Holiday

Taken from The China Daily, "Model workers' receive honors in Beijing"

This weekend is the Workers' Day Holiday and we have Monday off from school.  Many other businesses and schools are closed between 4-5 days and I feel pretty ripped off.  This is not celebrating my labor, Communist Party.

I have also changed my weekend job schedule and now teach on Saturday mornings and afternoons, leaving my Sundays free (yippee!).  Otherwise, I've been pretty busy this week listening to my students' midterm exams, meeting with real(?) Canadians, and pretending I am in America by sitting at Starbucks.  Nothing terribly interesting, but I am also really tired right now... yawn.  Goodnight, residents of the free world.

Three day weekend

three day weekend...

three day weekend...

 three day weekend...

come faster, please!

Hello there, Spring

Yesterday afternoon I went over to Zhongshan Park with Allie to see the cherry blossoms which are now opening up.  It was a perfect day, 60 degrees with clear blue skies and a slight breeze.  It was also a Friday afternoon so there weren't too many people out there.

And by "not too many" I really mean this by China standards.  It was still super crowded by American terms and resembled DC during the peak times of the Cherry Blossom festival.  Another thing reminded me of DC too:

wedding photos with the cherry trees!  We saw several couples posing, but this couple was probably my favorite on so many levels.  That pink!  The poof!  The hair!  His bad mariachi band outfit!  Damn, like seriously.

Then there are the Chinese girls who take photos with the blossoms with little-to-no expression on their faces but with some important body placement.  Lots of leaning against trees and smelling the flowers, not to mention the couples wearing matching outfits in front of the trees.

When in Rome, right?  入乡随俗.

I also went out to dinner to celebrate my friend Anna (from Poland)'s birthday with some of her other friends.  We had some really yummy Korean barbeque and then finished it off with a XiYangyang cake.

We all went out to Le Bang for drinks and dancing, so I sent Tian Jian a text message and he showed up with his drunk friends.  It was a really fun night!  Here is a photo of Anna, Tian, Kana (from Japan), me, and Chris (from the UK). 

Overall, Spring is here!  It's finally here!  I could not be happier for its arrival.

The good and the bad

Follow-up to the Day of Mourning

As usual, the Chinese government always manages to make even the most solemn of days and turn it into a propaganda campaign.

Domestic media coverage has been tightly controlled, with reporters instructed to focus on the heroism of rescue workers and to avoid stories about the thousands of Buddhist monks who dug through debris or handed out food from the trunks of cars. 

(The New York Times' article can be found HERE.)

I'm not shocked that they did this, but I am still embarrassed and saddened that this happens in a country that I am living in and helping to educate.

In an interview on Wednesday, Woeser, an influential Tibetan blogger who is in frequent contact with people in the earthquake zone, said several monks told her that they had been ordered to leave Jiegu in recent days, although such accounts could not be immediately confirmed. 

Whenever the Tea Party "activists" or any other similar protest group in America claims to be suppressed by the government, they should be reminded that in other corners of the world there are more drastic measures taken to suppress any unsavory opinions and viewpoints.  Being in China (both times) has made me really proud to call myself an American and proud to be living in a country of freedoms.

OMG RU 4 REAL?!?! NOWAI

I taught my students slang this week using dialogues that Matt and I co-wrote this weekend.  Here are the dialogues that they had to read:

(calling on the cell phone)
A: What’s up?
B: Not much, you?
A: Nothing really, just hanging out with my friends.
B: Oh that’s cool.
A: Hey wanna meet up after class?
B: No, I can’t. I’m swamped with homework.
A: Bummer. I want to go to the new coffee shop. Catch you later!/ See ya!
B: Alright, later!

(at school after a test)
A: How was the test?
B: Oh my gosh, I think I bombed the writing section.
A: Seriously? You’ve been studying your butt off!
B: Yeah, I totally froze and forgot everything.
A: That sucks.

(after seeing a movie)
A: That movie was awesome!
B: Yeah it was pretty tight. / Yeah, it was really legit.
A: What did you think of the actor?
B: I thought he was really hot.
A: Truth, but the dialogue was pretty lame.

After hearing 55+ students repeat "that sucks!" and "seriously?" I realized that I might be teaching them to sound like valley girls and bros.  I nevertheless found this pretty funny and I think that they had fun learning more informal words rather than stuff from a formal textbook.

I also taught them about IM (they knew we didn't use QQ but thought we used MSN... weird, right?), AIM and Gchat.  I also listed out some nice little words for them to use when IMing me or their friends, such as nm, brb, h/o, ttyl, gtg, thnx, and jk.  Many of the ones that they use online are numbers.  For example, they type 886 because the numbers "ba ba liu" sound like "bye bye le."

What was even better was when I drew an upward arrow to explain the levels of laughter online.  I listed the ones I use most frequently: hehe, haha, HAHA, lol, lmao, and lmfao.  They have all sorts of weird ones here, including "嘻嘻“ (sounds like 'shee shee') which is somewhere between haha and HAHA to them.

One of my students was IMing me tonight and actually typed "ttyl" to me and I was so excited that he (a) remembered what I taught her on Tuesday and (b) put it to good use.  Success!  Being a teacher means finding fulfillment in the little things like this.

Tomorrow I will go see the cherry blossoms downtown with my friend Allie.  Hopefully I'll also get to meet up with Anna, a Polish girl I have met at my Chinese school, and go out.  I love warm spring weekends. 

Qinghai Earthquake

Today has been declared as the National Day of Grieving for the earthquake in Qinghai.  After class I went to visit my students' lobby coffee shop and witnessed them have a moment of silence.  It was really touching and I said a prayer for all the victims and victims' families of the earthquake.  Even Baidu (a music downloading site and google equivalent) and Google Music are shut off in silence to show their support for Qinghai.

So please take a moment out of your day to think (or pray) for the people of Qinghai , a region that most people didn't even know existed until this terrible disaster.

Fratting?

Is it considered fratting with the enemy if I hung out with the dog's owner?

I should give a quick update first about the chubby, gimp leg puppy though.  She is no longer tied up to the fence.  Apparently it was only for a day or two and lately she's been running around like before.  Hopefully they don't do it again, but they have put a makeshift collar on her made out of old plastic coated electrical wire.

After class today, I helped coach some of Joe's Tourism major students.  They are headed to Nanjing tomorrow to take part in a National Tour Guide Competition and have prepared these awesome speeches about various historical sties in China.  They were really sweet and I hope they win!

 Joe and I went to dinner at a restaurant across the street that I had never been to before.  We ordered so much food, including fish, eggplant, egg fried rice, and these strange cereal covered sweet potato balls.  I was feeling pretty guilty because I knew that Joe was treating me to dinner, but it turns out that the owner of the restaurant was his former student.  So we had a huge dinner for free and even got some leftovers to take home.  Sometimes I do love the whole Chinese 关系 ("relationship") concept.

My class fifteen is doing their "practical training" this week and are basically set up to say "Good morning/afternoon/evening" at the entrance of the Hotel Management building from morning to night.  They also have to bow at various doors and man a makeshift convenience store in the lobby.  We teachers have started to notice that each class is setting the bar higher and higher and I can only imagine what it's going to be like at the end of the semester.

This is my first class up to the challenge though and I am like a proud mama!  They have set up a cute little coffee lounge in the lobby (music was added a few weeks ago by another class).  I went to visit them this evening and bring them some snacks because I had way too much food from dinner.

On the way back, the dog ran towards me as always and I picked her up and brought her back to the shack she lives in.  After greeting the 阿姨 ("auntie") she invited me into her house and we sat down and chatted.  She showed me her collection of foreign bills and we ate oranges while talking about random subjects.  I was having a lot of issues understanding her husband (?) because of his accent so she ended up translating a lot for me.

And during this entire visit, her dog was sitting on my lap and not moving.  Then when I tried to leave, the dog tried to run after me and had to get chased back to her house.  Oh dear.  If she "mysteriously" disappears they will totally know it was me who stole her.

Oops.  Otherwise, I had a very busy, but normal day in China.  It is finally warming up and it was a solid 60 degrees today in the middle of the afternoon!

Identity crisis, the sequel

Today at lunch I met a Chinese English teacher who teaches most of my classes Hotel English.  He was really nice even though his English was spotty and probably worse than my Chinese.  I was glad to meet my Hotel English counterpart and I think he was glad to meet me because my students had been telling him about me.

I asked him what they thought of me, forgetting how blunt the Chinese can be at times, and was told that some of the students think that it is a "pity that [I] am not a blonde eyed, blue haired American girl."

Well, um, gee, thanks for the compliment?  

I understand that the students would ideally like a "blonde eyed, blue haired American girl," but I'd like to think that after my students' initial period of time when they were trying to figure out what exactly an Asian-American was, that they now see me as an American.  At the beginning, it was almost as if I was a lost Chinese girl who was shipwrecked on the far away island of Singapore, was shipped to America in a box by accident, and has finally returned to the motherland, the Middle Country, the Peoples' Republic of China.  Now my students forget I actually speak Chinese and have no questions that I am American.

At first I was asked things like "Why is your hair black?" and "Are your parents Chinese?" which seem pretty obvious to us, but to many Chinese people there is no concept of the hyphenated Asian-American.  I thought most of my students had gotten over this by now.

I guess they haven't. 

I'm giving my students the benefit of the doubt, though, since I do have so much direct contact with them and face-to-face time with me speaking American English and absolutely no Chinese.  The way I walk, dress, hold myself, and even write my number '6' (a constant war between me and my students) is completely different.  Maybe it was just this one teacher who did not expect the 'foreign teacher Alison' to look so Chinese.  Perhaps he himself has more prejudices than my students and would not learn English from me, but rather a white person even if they are an uncaring and overall crappy teacher.

These are the frustrations I have faced almost every day here.  I am an Asian-American.  I am Chinese.  I am a U.S. citizen, have voted in the past two elections, hold a drivers license, and have completed thirteen years in the American educational system.

The thing is that China is so very homogeneous.  There may be fifty-one minority groups, but most (92% according to Wikipedia) of the people you see are Han.    There is no Korean-Chinese or Canadian-Chinese.  Only Chinese.

The plus side is that there is a word in Chinese "华人“ (overseas Chinese) which indicates I am of Chinese decent, but my family settled in Singapore all those decades ago.  Step one, check.  Step two is to explain how I can be both American and Chinese at the same time.

Cue shrill sound of a bomb dropping and exploding.  

And that's where the logic ends.  So here I am, somewhere between fully American and fully Chinese to the, um, real Chinese?  Cool.  Thanks guys.  I appreciate it.  I'm just going to continue to teach you American English with some hopes that you too one day will go to America, and possibly even have your own little Asian-American children yourself.  That will be the day.

Anonymous question time

Last week I let my students write me questions and suggestions anonymously just to see what they were thinking.  I was kind of apprehensive at first, especially with the students who have also had me last semester.  I was getting told that they were bored and sick of my little routine of making dialogues and reading from the book, so I decided to ask them what they suggested we do. 

I got some really helpful suggestions:

- At the begining of class, you can make serve several topic to us. We can discuss them.
- I suggest you use computer to teach.
- You can show us some news about USA by English newspaper, TV pictures, I like this way of teach.

Some expected questions:

- I want to know more about the USA, can you let me know more?
- I want to watch more movies ^_^
- Will you let your kids learn Chinese culture in the future?
- What's your favorite food in China?
- What's your QQ number?
- Do you like China?
- What do you think of China football?

Some that broke my heart:

-I have a dream that one day I can go to USA, but I don't know how and when I can make it true.  So will you give me any suggestion?
- I want to ask you a question.  I know you and your boyfriend in the different place.  I want to know how do you improve your feeling?  Do you think it's bad for your feeling in the different countries. Thank you. ^_^
- In your eyes, we're children, yes or no?

And some weird questions:

- I think we can have a party. invite several foreign teacher take with every student.
- Do you want to have a baby? Why?
- What's do you think about Christopher Emmanuel Paul?
- How many boyfriend would you have?
- Do you have any view for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 201 World Exposition in Shanghai
- I want to see Can you dress on a skirt next week later someday this summer?
- what kind of men do you prefer?
- What do you think TaiWan's question?

Overall, I found this to be pretty helpful and it gave me ideas for class.  I was getting pretty bored too and frustrated with simply reading from the book and making silly dialogues.  I ended up making a photo slideshow to show them my life in America because there were a ton of questions about my family, friends, and life.  A few also just wanted to see pictures of Matt, my family, and my friends.

It felt really weird to do it because I knew that some of the slides would result in a huge "oooh!!" or "wahhh!!" by 55+ students.  I also kind of enjoyed a sort of distance with my students but I guess it's better in the long rung if I do this now.  They still don't know how old I am though. 

No, I did not tell them what I think about the "Taiwan question" and I have no clue who Christopher Emmanuel Paul is. 

It was a pretty fun week though, just to figure out what exactly they were thinking about me and have a more laid-back class that wasn't so academically driven.  This next week we'll be preparing midterm dialogues and I have a powerpoint about slang and how we use IM.  I'm excited to teach this lesson plan, a feeling I haven't had in a while.   Change is good. 

It is still cold here in Qingdao but this weekend we actually broke 60 degrees and I actually felt warmth outside!  I also stopped wearing my puffy coat last week, so I'm very excited for the beginning of what is sure to be a short spring leading to a beautiful summer. 

FAIL

I know this is completely unrelated to China, but I had to share this with any other blog viewers out there. 

I promised myself I wouldn't, but I'm afraid I've fallen in love with a little dog here in China.  She lives on my campus and is owned by a grounds keeper woman who has a little hut on the school grounds.  Jenna and I met her as a puppy last term when she was just a little thing with a gimp leg and now she has grown into a full grown 15-lb dog with a gimp leg.

I really love animals and it's always such a comfort to me to play with one.  I've refused to give her an English name in my head but have all sorts of nicknames for her (1st Violation).  She waits for me when I'm walking past her home and runs to greet me to quickly roll over so I can give her a belly rub.  If I try to walk away, she gets up on her hind legs and asks me to carry her (2nd Violation).

I've been trying to resist, but I actually looked up how to bring a dog back to America last night (3rd Violation).  I know that I couldn't do it because firstly, she kind of has an owner and secondly, my mom would throw both of us out.

Chinese people have a very different view of keeping a pet than we do in the West.  Dog's aren't revered as "man's best friend" and most people are actually kind of scared of dogs, even the tiniest "punt" ones.  The woman that owns this dog has another huge German Shepherd who is actually kept in a cage all day and it breaks my heart.  I also think I might be the only one to love on this little dog!

Well, I walked to class this morning to play with her (4th Violation) and found her tied to a fence behind the house with a 6 foot long chain.  She just looked so sad that I want to buy a wire cutter and hide her in my apartment until I go back to America.  This really breaks my heart and I don't know if i I can talk to her owner!  So this is my latest dilemma and it's really been bothering me all day.  I miss my dog at home, Albert, and can't wait until I can actually get a dog of my own.

My not so 老 老师

I was really excited that 田老师 invited me to his apartment for a party and had a fleeting thought that it might be his birthday.  Turns out I was right!  I had a really fun Friday night but it was not without its own strange occurrences and funny stories. 

不好意思, Holy !#%@& I am embarrassed

I thought that I had 田健 (my teacher's name is Tian Jian)'s phone number because he had been texting me off and on over the past few months.  So yesterday afternoon I texted him to figure out how to get to his apartment and this is what happened (all in Chinese, this is a translation):

Me: How do I get to your apartment?  Which bus do I take?
田老师: What are you talking about?
(incoming phone call)
田老师: Eh, Wu Laoshi (my Chinese name as a teacher)?  Foreign Teacher?  Do you remember me?  Did you send me a text message incorrectly?
Me: Oh god.  I am so embarrassed.  I am sorry, I do not remember who you are!
(text messages)
田老师Haha, it's okay. 
Me: I am so embarrassed, my Chinese teacher's name is also 田老师!
田老师: Haha, no problem. Next time I can teach you Chinese. =)

At this point I am:
(1) laughing because so many Chinese people have the same last names,
(2) embarrassed because I had mixed up my own Chinese teacher with someone else who decided to text me and
(3) mortified because I have an unknown stalker of sorts. 

I know that this other mysterious Tian laoshi has to be a teacher on my campus somewhere and there are only a few that I've given my number to, so this narrows it down quite a bit.  The problem is that I don't remember what any of these teachers look like!  I try to keep my head down here on campus because I hate being asked to teach other people English.  My life is so awkward. 

Happy Birthday, 祝你生日快乐田健!

I finally got myself over to 田健 (Tian Jian, my Chinese teacher)'s apartment and was greeted by many of his students.  They were all Japanese except for myself and Anna, a Polish girl who also studies at the school but isn't technically Jian's student.  It was really nice getting to know other expats who are not from Western countries and their children were just too cute for words!

Tian Jian and his roommates cooked us a big dinner which was delicious and really made me want to learn how to cook Northern Chinese food.  They claimed it was simple, but I doubt it and I think it's also great that these men know how to cook up a storm!  We had some classic dishes including eggs and cucumbers, mushrooms and pork, and the local specialty, Qingdao gala (clams).  Tian Jian even cooked up 酸辣土豆丝 (vinegar chili shredded potatoes) which were really good, but I joked that if we got 拉肚子 ("pulled stomach" or indigestion) tomorrow it would be his fault. 

Then Tian Jian toasted to his 25th birthday, to his friend the chef, and to all of us his students.  He said that an important part of teaching is to actually like your students and to feel happy when going to teach class.  Not only is studying well important, but also a special friendship between teacher and student and that it is fate that we were all brought together. 

It was really touching, and as a teacher myself, I couldn't agree more!  To me it is also important to have a close relationship with my Chinese teacher and to feel comfortable asking questions about anything and to make stupid mistakes during class.  I could not be more appreciative that he feels the same way and I am so glad that I have him as a teacher. 

And, well, after this touching moment occurred, the debauchery broke out in the form of beer and sake.  We did a lot of 干杯 ("empty cup", cheers, or bottoms up!) and he had to go around and drink with everyone.  I also had to hold up my own honor and "face" as an American and drink a lot just because I am from the US of A, the land of binge drinking.  Thanks a lot, Hollywood. 

Then there was a birthday cake complete with birthday torch candle that played "Happy Birthday" over and over again.  Let me tell you, Chinese cakes are delicious.  They are made with real cream frosting and the cake is perfectly moist and spongy.  It's also great because they're not overly sweet and you don't feel like you're going to develop Type II diabetes after ever single bite. 

Plus, they come with a paper crown, which should really be a part of every birthday party.  The down side of birthday parties in China is that the Chinese have this strange idea that it is normal to have a food fight at parties and smear icing all over your friends for luck. 

I didn't get too badly covered and only got a bit on my cheeks and a schmear or two in my hair by his roommate.  Also note the giant bottle of sake next to the mirror that was given as a gift by one of the Japanese students.  Needless to say, Tian Jian was tucked into bed by his roommates before midnight and left sleeping on the floor under a pile of blankets (but with a bucket!).  This was also before midnight and the friends then proceeded to leave the apartment to celebrate his birthday... without him.

Way to go, friends.  I'm just glad that's never happened to me! 

Beware the Jabberwocky

I also saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D tonight with Althea and it was pretty good.  It was a different interpretation of the story than the cartoon version and it was a lot trippier.  I kind of liked it and loved Johnny Depp's performance.  This was my first legal movie watching experience in China and it was kind of fun to actually go to a movie theatre again. 

Spring is arriving quickly and I no longer have to wear a puffy coat or tights under my jeans.  Yippee!

No word for 'bored'

I've been a bad little blogger recently.  I've just been so busy with my new schedule and such that I've neglected to share my witty comments and random banter about my life over here. 

This is my life, basically:
1- I have no weekends because I teach.
2- I have no life because I teach on the weekends.
3- In my spare time I plan out what I am going to teach.

I'm not complaining, though.  I do still really love my students and my job, but I feel like I might burn out earlier in the semester than I expected I would.  I've already started making plans to turn my Cooperation classes into "Gossip Girl" class where I teach them oral English, idioms, and casual speech using the show.  And well, for selfish reasons too.

Laowai or Old China Hand?

Last weekend my friend Cathy came down to visit with a large group of abroad students who are doing the same program I did two and a half years ago.  It was really cool to hang out with them and show them around Qingdao.  We ate a lot of seafood, drank a lot of fresh "raw" (not quite sure what this means, but it is good!), and shivered our way through the weekend. 

This is when I will continue to complain about the weather and lack of warmth in Qingdao.  It is still cold and very, very windy here.  On a good day, the temperature gets up to 60 but at night it is always in the 30s and 40s.  With huge winds, too.  And no heat in my apartment because it was turned off two weeks ago. 

On the plus side, I feel like I have finally hit my stride with the Chinese classes, almost a month into taking classes three times a week.  This excites me to no end because I no longer feel like an idiot that is unable to read and put together words. 

I feel like I'm accomplishing a lot now.  I finally got QQ this week, because my students begged me to get one.  I was also invited to hang out with my Chinese teacher at his party this weekend.  Woo!

没有意思

This roughly translates as "no meaning" but can be used in many different ways, including:
- not intersting
- no meaning
- boring

I find this interesting that in Chinese there is no real concept of calling something "boring", but instead that something that just lacks meaning.  This may be worse than just being boring, actually now that I think of it. 

I will blog more, I will blog more, I will blog more.