Shannon, an English teacher? No more...

This week wraps up my final week of teaching writing in Tianjin. I'd have to say it's bittersweet...I didn't enjoy teaching all that much but I adore my students. They are a source of complete joy for me as I live in this foreign country.


Since I was required to turn my grades in last weekend, I knew that I wouldn't be formally teaching this week, so instead we just had some fun and celebrated making it through the semester! We played games: I taught them "Have you ever...?" where they had to change chairs when they could answer "yes" to the questions. They thought this game was absolutely hilarious every time they had to get up and move and in some classes we played for nearly an hour! In every class I had one or two students who thought they were so clever to ask questions like, "Have you ever been to America?" or "Have you ever had blonde hair?" or "Have you ever taught English writing?" Needless to say, I ended up in the center of the circle quite often. :) I also taught some of them the card game, UNO...this is a card phenomena that could easily spread throughout China! Another activity we did was English tongue twisters. This was hilarious as they attempted to say, "Unique New York" or "Toy boat" 10 times in a row, very quickly. We had a lot of laughs together this week. Finally came picture mania, we took a ton of pictures in each class. I will miss these students immensely.


Two of my classes touched me most this week. In each class I gave a little farewell speech: stay in touch, stay motivated, support each other, laugh together, etc. and in my favorite class one of the students stood up with a response and spoke on behalf of their class. He said that because of me, they will no longer be nervous to talk to a foreigner, whereas before they would never have opened their mouths. He said that I taught them so much more than writing...'sniff!' The other story comes from my last class: when I dismissed them to go they all stayed put in their seats, just looking at me. I finally asked them if they were okay and they started talking amongst themselves and asked me to have lunch with them. When I said we would find a time, they stood up to go. They didn't want to leave unless they knew they would see me again! The sincerity and genuineness of these students will remain with me for the rest of my life....


Tonight I'm heading to Beijing to pick up 3 good friends from college - Amy, Emilie and Dietrich - and we are going to explore Beijing and Tianjin for a week! I'll try to post once while they are here!

June's Birthday Bash

June is birthday month among Jian Hua folk! There are 5 birthdays this month (including mine!) and so we decided to have a birthday bash yesterday to celebrate. We started out the evening by eating dim sum. This is a Chinese cuisine that is most popular in Hong Kong and southern China. When ordered, a wide variety of small dishes are chosen (similar to Tapas...) so there is much to choose from! Cindy and I created the lovely spread seen below...


After dinner the cupcakes came out and the birthday group was sung to. In this picture, please take note of Zhou Jun, who is sitting next to me, and also the expression on my face. As we were told to blow out our candles, I hesitated for once second and in that second Zhou Jun blew out my candle before blowing out his. Hahaha...see the joy on his face?!?! Also pictured are Joel and Beth.


With our full tummies we went out into the sticky, stuffy humid weather and walked to a park nearby. This park is the gathering place in Tianjin for tons of people, especially in the evening. Usually there is spontaneous dance, roller blading, kite flying, Taiji (martial arts), and countless other surprises happening all around a huge square. Last night we stumbled upon the biggest exercise class I've ever seen. I am not exaggerating to say that there were 300+ people gathered on the square moving and shaking to some very annoying techo music. We waded through the people and eventually, of course, we joined in - for about 30 seconds and then the attention became too much to handle. See Natalie and Cindy dancin' it up below.


One thing we noted about the dancing was that there seemed to be no requisites in dress for this event...in fact, one girl was wearing tiny white high-heeled shoes and a skirt! I made a comment that you would only catch me in those shoes at a wedding, yet here she was exercising in the park!!


These last pictures were not part of the birthday bash but I felt it necessary to include them in order for me to redeem myself! Several months ago I posted after I had made some hideously ugly dumplings. I gained my 'face' back this weekend as I made dumplings again and actually had (a few) good ones!!

The Olympic Mascot - Fuwa

These cute little characters are seen all over China in every way, shape and form you could imagine! I even saw them painted on a huge jet plane the last time I was at the airport! They are the mascots for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and they have become a huge hit around China. Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini which, when put together, says "Beijing Huanying Ni" or "Beijing Welcomes You." Each Fuwa represents a popular Chinese animal - the fish, the panda, the Tibetan antelope and the swallow (with the exception of the red one who holds the Olympic torch.) As you can see, they each represent one color of the Olympic rings. They are also associated with a certain personality, cultural inspiration, sport, and ideal. If you want to read more about what each one symbolizes you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuwa or http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/beijing2008/graphic/n214068254.shtml
Personally, I think these are a brilliant design and I would say they have done their job of generating excitement, worldwide.

A recent turn of events, though, finds the Fuwas at the center of a hugely superstitious debate. China has witnessed a rough year with a lot of major, global incidents and because of this, many people are beginning to question the "good" of the Fuwa. Here are some examples of the so-called "Curse of the Fuwas":

• Nini (green) has a kite on her head. Kite flying is a tradition that comes from Shandong province where a train collision occurred.
• Yingying (yellow) is a Tibetan antelope - enough said?
• Huanhuan (red) is the Olympic torch. The torch running has caused massive problems all over the world, especially in a certain European country...
• Jingjing (black) is a giant panda. Pandas come from Sichuan province - the earthquake.
• Beibei (blue), the fish, is innocent so far...BUT...torrential rains and flooding across the country might be enough to do her in...

So...what's the consensus? Innocent...or Evil?? :)

Wo Shi Ironman!

I just finished watching the movie, "Ironman" with my friend, Natalie, and there was one particular part in the movie that just about killed us both! As with any DVD's that you buy in China, we had a fake copy and there are just no guarantees of the quality you will get before putting it in the DVD player, ready for action. For example, with this particular copy it took us both by surprise to see Bruce Willis on the menu page - maybe Robert Downey Jr. wasn't available for one final shot?? Another part in which we had to guess our way through was when the subtitles came on to indicate a different language being spoken - too bad for us the subtitles were in Chinese. But the real kicker of the movie was at the end... If you've seen the movie, then you probably know that the last line is, "I am Ironman" and it's kind of the movie tag-line, the clincher. Actually, I'm not even positive that is the last line because at that point in the film I was trying to read Robert Downey Jr.'s lips as he said, "I am Ironman" in perfect Chinese. Why they chose to dub the last line of the movie, we'll never know but we looked at each other, in complete befuddlement, then proceeded to laugh hysterically. Only in China....

Another story - several months back I was watching "Ratatouille" and it was obviously a copy that had been secretly filmed in the cinema. How could I tell? Well, at one point a man got up and walked across the camera - nature calls! At another point the lady next to the camera must have gotten some popcorn stuck in her throat because she developed a loud, raspy cough and finally, it was easy for me to know when to laugh...just follow the lead of the audience. :)

No matter what DVD I buy, there are always issues with the language and subtitles - you just never know what is going to pop up and for the first month I had to do a lot of experimenting with the remote (marked all in Chinese characters) so that I could figure out which buttons changed the language and subtitles - don't worry, they're memorized now. The newest Harry Potter, though, I never did find the English language feature on that one....

Probably one of my favorite things about these DVD's are the descriptions of the movies on the back cover. Many times the descriptions are taken from an online review and just inserted onto the back cover. This works fine for the most part, unless the review happens to be a negative one and the inserter can't read English - that leads to some really bad publicizing for the film!!

For the most part, the movies that I buy are pretty good and if they're not good quality, well they're only 6 kuai (less than one dollar) per DVD. It's worth the risk....even if the skill of lip-reading is required every once in a while...

The Things I Stare at All Day Long....

JOURNALS and TEXT MESSAGES...yep, I stare at these two things all day long and, after a while, the strange things that are written in/on/through these become a blur in my more and more "Chinese-ized" mind. What I mean by this is, I am starting to look at things in a different light. For example, the shoes/clothes/sunglasses/purses that I thought were hideous before because they are covered with sequins or beads are now starting to look, okay. Or the text messages with questions that I thought to be so strange before are now becoming somewhat, normal. Don't get me wrong...there are still a lot of things that make me say, "HUH?" but I am definitely getting used to living in this culture. Listed below are some of the recent text messages I've received, as well as some of the sayings that are written on those journal covers that I stare at everyday...

Text Messages:

"Today I read the magazine The Economist and came across an article about an excellent editor. The title is Bottle Her but Keep Her. I'm not sure about the meaning of BOTTLE HER. Can you give me a hint?" ~ Casey

Oh, how I wish I could give you a hint, Casey!

Also from Casey: "Shannon SOS! Can you tell me the difference between the two words amiable and affable?"

SOS! SOS!

The last one from Casey...she decided one day to find out if my name has any shortened versions so I told her "Shan" - this is now what she calls me. She's so cute!

Finally, one that couldn't be answered even with the help of 4 other native English speakers, "What is bush-apple?" ~ Jessy

We tried out "bushel of apples" or took a shot with "apple bush" but she informed us that these were not correct either...I'm still stumped!

Journal Covers:

All over China you can find Chinglish, the combining of Chinese and English (or poor translations) on menus, signs, billboards, official building signs and pretty much anything trying to express English! This includes the covers of all of those journals. Here are some of the best sayings...

"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two babies."

"I feel if in my fingers I feel is writte on the koow i love you i slways wind on the know i love fingers."

"This is the most comfortable notebook you have ever run into."

I did not change any of these...they are typed exactly as they are written on the journals. My favorite has got to be the second one and how it ends with "i love fingers..." HUH? Okay, so maybe I'm not as "Chinese-ized" as I thought... :)

Campus Life

On Sunday we had our final G.A.O. (Girls Afternoon Out) with some of my college students and we decided to go out and do something fun! As you can see from the pictures, we chose bowling. I didn't get an exact count, but out of the 9 Chinese girls who went, at least 6 of them had never been bowling!! Never been bowling?!?! In my somewhat zig-zag way of thinking, this led me to ponder college life for Chinese students and in reflecting back on this, I wanted to share with you some things about the life of a college student at my university. (Please keep in mind that these things are true at my university, but do not necessarily represent universities in China on a large scale.)

My bowling team - I had the best score, 98. We are pretty bad, huh?!?! :)

My school, TJFSU, is considered to be a mid-range school as far as the rankings go. Students who are accepted into college are given a ranking - either top, mid, or bottom range and they are only allowed to go to a school within their ranking. These rankings, by the way, are determined by ONE exam that students prepare for throughout their entire high school years. They study from 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. then go to sleep and start all over again - every day. I've even heard stories about parents who will feed their high school students so that they can continue studying. Sorry, I digress... Anyways, my school is comparatively small (I've heard the number of students range from about 8,000-10,000.) Yes, this is considered small!

A day in the life...
If I had to sum up a student's typical day, it would look similar to the following. (This comes from talking with many, many students...of course there are exceptions but I think this is how most students go through their college life):
Monday - Friday:
6:30 a.m. - Wake up and do morning running. Each student is required to run 50 times per semester. This includes running around a standard-sized track two times. They can do this at set times either in the morning or in the evening.
7:20 a.m. - Go to the classroom for required morning reading. Yes, required... They have to sit there until their 8 a.m. class and they can read anything they choose.
8:00 a.m. - 11:40 a.m. - Two morning classes lasting for an hour and 40 minutes each.
11:40 a.m. - 2 p.m. - Lunch and often times, a nap.
2 p.m. - 5:40 p.m. - Two more classes. Not all students have class all day but if they don't have class they are likely studying or in meetings. Usually an afternoon class consists of a P.E. class in which they can choose from a variety of sports including; frisbee, basketball, table tennis, pool, etc.
5:40 p.m. - 11 p.m. - Dinner, sometimes another class in the evening, studying. Some students will go to the library but most of them have told me they, "just prefer to stay in the dorm."
11 p.m. - LIGHTS OUT! I'm serious! The power is cut at 11:00!! If any of my college roommates are reading this, can you imagine? We were (or I was :) just getting started around that time!
* All of these requirements and regulations make it very difficult for the students to become independent and figure out how to live on their own. When they are thrown out into the "real world" often times students don't know how to deal with it and they have a very very difficult road.

Weekends - many students will go shopping for food or clothes, but mostly they stay in their dorms and sleep or watch downloaded movies. They rarely leave campus, even to eat out!

Some other interesting facts about TJFSU! There is one public shower for women, one for the men which all the students use (if this sounds like no big deal, please refer to the number of students that I mentioned above...) The showers are open from 2 p.m. - 9 p.m. and are closed on most holidays...

Many of my students tell me that college life is boring. Telling this to a girl who LOVED college life, it's just unimaginable to me. I guess they don't have the opportunities (or motivation?) to make it fun. I have had many students tell me that the highlight of their year was meeting me - how sad!! :) They say that I am new, different and I bring them exciting opportunities. I know that part of this is true - I am constantly dragging students off campus to go out and do fun things! When students ask me about college life in the U.S. often times all I can say is, "it's different than college life in China..." So thankful for my own college experience!

Aroma's Words

In this blog I want to pass along to you the stories, trials, and trauma that my friend, Aroma, has been experiencing in Sichuan Province, the location of the earthquake. Every few days I hear from her; updates on what is happening in Sichuan and specifically what is happening to her. As I receive these text messages, phone calls, and e-mails I am continually thinking, "She is so brave. How can anyone be so brave under these circumstances?" Often times when tragedy strikes it is hard to comprehend or understand what the victims are going through. We may try to empathize with them but since we are so far removed, it is difficult. I hope that this post can give you a better picture of what's really happening - to someone who is a very close friend of mine.

The day of the earthquake (May 12th):
Text message from Aroma: "Shannon, are you okay? Did you feel the earthquake?" This is a testimony of the great love Chinese people have for their friends. She is asking ME if I am okay!!! She is in the middle of devastation and she takes the time to ask me if I am safe. :(

The day after the quake (May 13th):
Text message: "I am safe. I have been moved to a sports field with my family and my dogs. It is not safe to stay in our apartment because of the aftershocks."

Two days after the quake (May 14th):
Phone call: "My parents and I slept on the ground last night...it was so uncomfortable and cold, it was raining the whole night. We are lucky, though, we were able to get a ping pong table to sleep on tonight." Lucky?!?!

Three days after the quake (May 15th):
Text message: "My school got 70 little kids from a primary school at the center of the earthquake. Their teachers took these kids to walk 16 hours and finally get here. They haven't eaten anything for 2 days! I just helped them get enough milk and rice soup. I can't stop crying...they all lost their parents!"

Five days after the quake:
Text message: "I donated 200 steamed buns to feed the children and I am playing with them today to try to make them forget about the tragedy - at least for a little while. My parents and I are now sleeping in a tent."

About 2 weeks after the quake:
Text message: "I am moving to the mountains. They are going to explode the lake so they moved us away from the flood area."
* Due to some major landslides from the quake a lake has been formed in a river valley. There is great risk of this lake flooding Mianyang, the city that Aroma lives in, so the government has decided to drain and divert the water.

June 2nd:
Text message: "I am so bored living in the mountains! There isn't T.V., even no lights, so I could only listen to my mp4 again and again....All of the 620,000 people in Mianyang have moved to the mountains waiting. Nobody knows exactly when they are going to explode the lake."

A man being evacuated from Mianyang a few days ago.

Today:
E-mail: "I am home now. I lived in the mountains for 10 days with my parents and my dogs. My mom and I got red spots all over our bodies because of the humidity in the mountains. So we decided to come back home until we have to leave. They will turn on the alarm 5 hours before the lake bursts. We packed everything we need to live outdoor and put it at the door so we have enough time to get to safe places."

My friends and I here in China have commented on how impressed we are with how the Chinese government has handled this crisis. There is still much work to be done and many helping hands needed in Sichuan as they put this highly populated community back together. Recently, I have heard reports of "tent schools" - children are getting back to their studies and are also receiving some counseling to help them deal with their losses.

As the death count rises to 70,000 from this earthquake, I am sure there are thousands of stories similar to Aroma's. I hope that this post can help you to feel more connected to the lives of Chinese people in Sichuan. Don't forget about them!!

Another Good Read

I recently finished reading the book, "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze" by Peter Hessler and I really want to recommend it to you! It was written in 1999 and it is the story of a man who taught English in Sichuan Province for 2 years. He was a volunteer with the Peace Corps and he has some hilarious stories! Although my teaching situation is very different from his, I could still relate to a lot of the things that happened to him. He tells about his experiences with a very light and funny tone, while at the same time giving a lot of insight into Chinese culture.

This is what the New York Times says about it: "Charming and insightful...Poignant (and) hilarious...Lively, intelligent...You will learn a great deal about real life in contemporary China in River Town, and about how that vast country appears in the eyes of a sensitive, aware, rugged young American who keeps both his eyes and his mind open."

If you're looking for a good book, try it out!