You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2005.
Lenora’s pregnant!!!!!!!
Yippee. She and Tobias are going to have the cutest children ever (although, Karis’ kids are going to be a hard set to beat)
Needless to say I’m a very proud aunt. I’m really excited to have a baby in the family again. I love that my family is so colorful. We really are going to have the most wonderfully beautiful family. I wonder when (or if) Andre’ and Dancy will have kids. Yippeee!!!!!
Tracy Chapman: Going Back
Last night the SST group hosted a Halloween party. It was a bit chaotic, but really fun, and the 200 plus Chinese students who came seemed to really enjoy it. We had a few performances, some games, and a haunted house. The performances included our small percussion group doing a piece written by J.D., the witch’s piece from McBeth, the Jack-o-lantern song (I helped with that), and a costume contest. The games were bobbing for apples, three legged race, blowing a Ping-Pong ball from one basin full of water to the next, and helping to carve pumpkins. The pumpkins were not like the ones in the states, but Meryl and Zeb did an amazing job working with that, and improvising. The haunted house was actually really good for the short time and limited supplies we had. The Chinese students who were planning with us were able to provide enough fabric to somewhat divide up the room, and the guys bought cool masks from the underground. Britch was particularly scary in his. It wasn’t really scary by US standards, but the Chinese in general are easily scared, so they found it really scary. We had to tone it down part way through because it was too scary for many of them. One girl threw up afterward. I enjoyed chatting with random Chinese students, and going through the haunted house with a few girls that I met.
I was dressed as a cat (big surprise). Saturday, Jess, Meryl and I went to the underground and to “woman’s” street, and I got a small headband, a couple black armband things, and a black tie. I cut out ears from the armbands, and sewed them together, and then stuffed them and sewed them to the headband. I also stuffed the black tie and used it as a tail. then I also found this perfect chocker to serve as a collar. I used eyeliner as facepaint. It was fun. As proof of how easily scared Chinese can be (especially girls) I have a little story. After the party I went to visit my roommates because I they had class during the party. On my way back across campus after discovering that they weren’t in, a scared several students just by passing them in my cat costume, most of them kind of didn’t notice me at first and then suddenly saw me when I was close, but one girl saw me in a well lit area and from a distance and still freaked out a bit when she looked up and saw me. Another girl was so scared that she practically fell down. Because I decided to see my roommates, I had to go back to main campus by myself, I had sort of gotten used the the staring here in China, but this was torture.
Today was better.
I had lunch with Eunice and her friend Jane and then they helped me pick out some Chinese cds to buy. Then I had class, and resigned myself to half my class not showing up. But I’m grateful for the ones who do, and it’s actually more fun to teach a few students who really want to be there than a ton who only sort of want to. And then I got to have super with my FABULOUS roommates from East Campus (well, only 4 of the 7, but that’s a good ratio really). In a bit we’re going to KTV (karaoke) and I’m going to spend the night 
Yay. So yeah, I’m in a good mood. Night
Today I got up early and went with a few of the girls in the group and Karen to a school for mentally handicapped kids. We weren’t able to see very much, but we learned alot, and it seems like a good establishment. It’s one of the only openly Christian social organizations in this area, and it is fully run by Chinese people, although it’s mostly funded by a Church organization in Norway. Then Jess and I bought some street sweeper’s brooms that look exactly like witch’s brooms that we’ll use for the Halloween party we’re hosting on Sunday. Then I preped for class, and I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I somehow convinced myself that I needed to be there an hour before I needed to. So I read for a while and then I taught class. I’ve never ever had the axact same group of people twice in class. I think there were only 2 people in common between last week’s class and this week’s. The numbers are never the same either. In one week I have about 24 another maybe 35, maybe I’m a bad teacher because the numbers have been smaller lately. It’s hard when I can’t rely on them to do anything for homework, even simple stuff. And when it’s like pulling teeth to get them to do stuff. After I got back I had BBQ with Hannah. It was wonderful. Then I watched the rest of Amadeus from the other day, and now Duma.
Seems like a nice enough day, huh? If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve had several reminders of Jesse and Suzi today and it’s finally kind of sinking in how much that hurts. It hurts deeply, and it brings up all the hurt of this whole experience and then hightens it. It’s a consuming pain right now, like hands closing around my throat and a searing throughout my chest and stomach. I’m so tired of feeling that way. I will start getting past it, won’t feel it anymore for a while, and then it will come back, something will bring it back.
Then there’s Ray who is one of my students and is trying to woe me. I mean…. he’s cute, and I enjoy talking to him, but I’m not sure how to deal with his advances. Soo…. I think I’m just going to keep him at a distance until we leave. Hopefully that doesn’t mean I can’t hang out with him at all, but just make it more clear my intentions.
Oh, and I miss home. I miss comfort. I’m ready to deal with all the loose ends of Jesse and I, and I can’t do that till I go home, and now that I feel ready I have to wait over a month to do it. Ugggg….
But as one of my students quoted today “life is like a box of chocolates” (we were talking about our favorite movies)
I’ve been a bit amazed as of late as to how completely unfair life can be. It’s not fair that I gave so much to the relationship, but it didn’t count for anything in the end. It’s not fair that Jesse has the chance to skip the grief and move on to a new relationship. Would even have been any grief regardless? Or did he just feel relief to be rid of me….
But obviously I’ve picked one of those bitter dark chocolates that I don’t really like. Maybe that will make the carmel I get next taste even better than it would have had I eaten it right away.
So, if you’ve been reading my blog lately, it might seem like I’m not in China anymore. This is not so. I am most definitely still in China. So here are a few things about me in China.
Teaching has been going better (sort of) the disorganization with our classes is apparent, frustrating, and disruptive to our ability to be good teachers. This is not the case for all of the SSTers, but most of us teach at Eastern Campus, and it’s just not a good setup. On friday we were told that we were going to teach 4 straight periods of 45 min each. Then Thursday we were told that we would still be doing this, but that we’d have half our class for two sessions and the other half for the remaining two. Then the next day some people didn’t have any class, some only had part of their class at 4, and I had about 13 students at 2 when we were supposed to start. My lesson plan (which I had made twice, once for 4 periods, and then revised for only 2) had to be completely thrown out the window. I ended up going over a dictation from the week before, highlighting key mistakes, mostly in vocab, but feeling like this was kind of useless because most of the students there probably didn’t make those mistakes. Than I listed 11 life values
money
extended family (parents, sibs, etc)
politics
education
marriage
arts
travel
children
sports
national identity
religion
and asked the class to pair up and rank them as a pair from most important to least. Then we discussed. Then I had them rank them by what they thought was most important to an average American. That was interesting. Money, religion, and national pride all ranked high in the American list, although it varied. Others that appeared high were education and travel. During the break I wrote up the list in my order
marriage
children
religion
travel
extended family
arts
education
money
politics
national pride
sports
Then we played “would you rather” from some questions I had whipped up while they were working in groups. I also asked them to create their own, and we went over those. There were some really interesting ones, like if, after you were marriage for a number of years, you found that the passion had gone out of your relationship, and you meet someone else who you did have chemistry with, would you get a divorce or stay with your spouse. Alot of the questions had to do with would you rather be rich or …., would you marry for money or love, would you marry for looks or personality, etc. It was fun. It got them talking, and I learned more about them in the process. Every little activity with them is like pulling teeth though. It’s not that they don’t understand. They do understand! I can tell, but the don’t like to participate. Going first is their definition of torture. Sooo…. teaching is interesting in China.
Also, I’ve been living in the dorms at East Campus for the past 2 weeks. More about that later. I like it.
This weekend we traveled to see a giant Buddha, and then a mountain. I’ll get you the names of them later because I can’t remember the spelling now, but the Buddha was cool although anti-climatic and overcrowded, although I had fun hanging out at a tea house with some of the people in the group. Then today we climbed up part of a Buddist mountain, and saw some monkeys that stole the sugarcane I had bought (long story). We were climbing alongside a mountain river that was so clear and really green and deep at someplaces were it narrowed into falls. Beautiful. Probably the most beautiful place I’ve seen in China, although the landscape you see while hiking the Great Wall rivals it. After climbing for a while most of us turned around and about 9 of us hit another tea house, shared all the snacks we had brought along for lunch, ordered bottomless tea and played cards and joked around for about 4 hours. The tea house was right next to a waterfall, and there were some amazingly large butterflies or moths that would float by once in a while. It was cool, but the tea was warm, and the company was superb. This evening I had supper with Jess, Meryl and Zach and then spent the rest of the evening talking with Sarah and Anna and then Sarah and J.D. All in all, today has been one of the best on SST. Smiles.
Endnote: While today was fabulous, the past couple days have been hard. I’m not exactly sure why. This whole week has been overshadowed by the knowledge that Jesse and Suzi are dating (or whatever they chose to call it). I’m hurt that I had to ask. Would they have told me? I’m hurt that he’s moved on. I’ve actually known about a mutual attraction since about 2 weeks after Jesse broke up with me, but that doesn’t stop finding out that they are actually dating any less painful. I’m sad that I can’t live in the apartments. I really was looking forward to it. I’m sad that I can’t live with Crystal, and that I’ll never really become friends with Suzi now, those were things I was looking forward to as well.
I realized the other day that I missed Jesse. You might say “of course you miss him”. But this was different then the ordinary missing. I had been on IM and wondering why he wasn’t on, he’s always on, and I had the vague feeling that I was sad that he wasn’t. Then later that night I realized why Jesse wasn’t on….. I realized that he probably was, but I couldn’t see it because he has my IM blocked (for my benefit). Then I realized how much I had wanted him to be on, not necessarily there, but so that I could read his away message, or maybe say hi…. And that’s when I realized how much I missed him. That got me thinking about how I handle breakups, and I realized that I had hit the hardest stage. The drama’s over. Now comes the long haul. Now I have to go through the really long process of letting go. This is not easy for me. I have trouble not holding on for dear life. Even the pain sometimes seems better than letting go. At least the pain is still connected to the relationship. I want to ask so many questions. I have the tendency to want to lay bare all the details of what happened. To know what I could have done better. It’s hard not to feel that I did something wrong and if I had just been better, more independent, something…. I wonder how I didn’t see. How could I possibly have been so BLIND! I tend to blame myself…. maybe I pushed too hard, maybe I didn’t ask the right questions, maybe I did see, but was too scared to realize it. But I’m trying not to ask those questions, I’m trying not to analyze and analyze and analyze.
So I spent the rest of the holiday hanging out at the Wai Ban with people. I did alot of shopping in town, and one evening Abby, Jess, Dan, and I went for Indian food. It was lovely. I really enjoyed hanging out with Anna and Katrina and other people that I didn’t really know before SST. Anna has been a wonderful roommate. I’ve loved getting to know her. I’m sad that we won’t be roommates any longer. Tomorrow we all move to Eastern Campus, and I’ll be with Claire and 2 other Chinese roommates. Another day during the break, Jess, Meryl, Zeb, Abby and I went to the underground market and then the “antiques” market. It was a lovely day spent with good friends. On sunday we went to church and sang a pitiful rendition of 606 in front of the congregation. This was partly my fault maybe because I gave the starting note, but it seemed right, so maybe we flatted badly. Anyways, it water under the bridge. At one point a Chinese woman tried to reach the pulpit, but was restrained. She was talking angrily in Chinese, and she definitely was talking about us. We were all seated at the front of the church, and we felt really awkward about that. Then we got a tour of the attached seminary and then a talk about the church in China, and a bit about the seminary. It was interesting to hear about the difference between the registered church in china, and the “underground” church in China. If you think about it, the churches we go to are registered in the US. The Chinese government doesn’t prevent the “registered” church from worshipping, or converting people, or believing what they want to believe. There’s also no reason to smuggle bibles into China as some churches in the States do. There are Chinese bibles printed here and sold cheaply because all the materials are donated. That evening I had a dance lesson, and we started learning a dance from Tibet. During the lesson, a young Chinese man who is interested in improving his english came and interpreted for us, and during a time when he wasn’t needed, I noticed him practicing waltz. After class I struck up a conversation with him about ballroom dancing, and was trying to see if there are ever any dances on campus. Way lead to way, and he offered to teach me more waltz. I’m so excited to be dancing again. We’re having our first lesson on Thursday. And get this. He’s the amature champion of Sishuan Provence! How sweet is that. So yeah. I should go to bed now. Goodnight from the Middle Kingdom.
National week is officially over. Sadness, woe. Tomorrow we go back to class and routine and getting up early.
So I started out the break going with my friend Eunice to her home in Yi Bin which is a 3 1/2 hour bus ride South East of Chengdu, and is the first city on the Yangtze river. It’s a small version of Chengdu, and hemmed in on several sides by mountains. The city kind of creeps up up the sides of the mountains. Eunice has a sister Echo, and her two aunts and their husbands and her grandparents were around alot, so I got to hang out with the whole family. Echo and their grandfather showed me their calligraphy styles, and wrote some poems for me. Their grandmother showed me how to make jiao zi. Echo played piano for me, and then I sang some, and I had happened to bring a hymnal with me, so Echo (I was really impressed with this) sight read some hymns. We did all of them really slow, but it still felt good to be singing with a piano. Echo really liked doing Silent Night, and I taught her to sing it in english, too bad we didn’t have a Chinese translation. They also started teaching me a traditional Chinese folk song about jasmine flowers. They had some music videos of popular english songs, and the uncle really liked “My Heart Will Go On” and asked me to sing it. I was also asked to sing a few more from that, and Eunice wanted me to teach her “From this moment” by Shania Twain, and she had the words, I did that one evening. One evening we watched “The Princess Diaries” and at the end there’s a ball, so I pulled Eunice up, and showed her how to waltz, and then Echo and their younger cousin. Their grandmother and aunt also knew how to waltz, so we waltzed to the music video of “Auld Lang Syne”. They also showed me some Chinese dance. It was a really enjoyable evening. Eunice, Echo and I also did these little pictures at a picture booth shop, and that was really fun, when I get home you all will have to see them. Abby’s really gotten into them, so some of us did them the other day too. Earlier that day we had gone to a temple of a boy god who had slain the four dragon kings, and gave luck if you worshipped him. It was interesting to watch and Eunice asked me about my religious beliefs, and we talked about it some, but told her that I’d explain better at another time. She asked me if I wanted to try the worshipping, and for the first time in my life I was faced with really refusing to worship something other than God. It was kind of surprising how strongly I felt about it inside. The the most interesting part of the trip was the night of National Day. Echo, Eunice and their aunt took me to an old opera house that’s now a public hall, and the public can come and sing and there are some people who kind of “mc” it, and a small band with a hammer dulcimer, a couple erhu, and some other more western instruments. My host aunt had heard that I sang, and went to the people in charge and they came over to meet me with huge smiles on their faces, and the woman hugged me which is really rare in China, and then they convinced me to sing, and since I didn’t think that the band would know songs I knew the words for, I sang one tin soldier because I knew that I’d be able to carry the tune, and remember the words. It went well, and then after that the main guy singer sang “My Heart Will Go On” in Chinese in my honor, and then after a couple songs they told me they had the words to “Edelweiss” and asked me to sing that, and then after a while the guy MC and I sang “Happy Birthday” because it was the birthday of modern China, him in Chinese and me in English. It was really nerve wreaking, but fun too. The stage was a balcony which is pretty typical for Chinese opera, and there were people sitting around at tables drinking tea. So that’s all kind of out of order of what I did there, but, it gives the feel of the time. I was supposed to go to my Chinese teacher’s home town near by, but I heard some difficult news, and decided just to go back to Chengdu. I’ll tell more about the rest of the week later.
The first day I went to teach there was a mix up about which room I was supposed to teach, so the graceful entrance I was hoping for was totally shot. I had about 24 junior marketing students and throughout the period there was a number of goings and comings. One girl didn’t show up till about 5 minutes before it was over. Of course she could have thought I was still going to teach for another 45 min like all the rest of the students. We had been told to prepare material for one period and discovered on the bus ride over to the Eastern Campus that they’d be expecting two. The week before we had gone over to Eastern Campus expecting to do a short fifteen minute introduction and spent the evening playing games with a few students from each class. We were told that the students that were assigned to us that evening would be our “aids”, and most of us found later that they weren’t even in our classes. So patients is the name of the game.
During my first class I introduced myself and then asked the students to pair up and interview each other about their Chinese name, English name, hometown, and favorite color. I then had each group introduce their partners to the whole class. Alot of the class wouldn’t concentrate during this! They were chatting with each other, and I had trouble hearing. Especially because the students talked too quickly.
During my second class I “laid down the law” a bit and asked them to be on time, that it’s important to use english as the first means of communication and that Chinese should be a last resort. I also tried to instill the idea that listening to each other was important. I talked about family relations during that class, and could tell that when I split them up into groups (I tried to mix them up some, but that sort of failed) that they still talked to each other in Chinese. Then when they seemed to be done, and I regained their attention I asked a pair of guys in the back to share what they had learned about each other’s families. I stood at the front for a few minutes thinking that they would eventually get up and start talking…. when they didn’t, I walked back and asked them what the problem was and after a bit figured out that they hadn’t done it. So then I tried to get the rest of the class’ attention only to find that half the class wouldn’t stop talking, so I tried the “when I raise my hand, raise yours and shut up” trick from like 2nd grade, and I explained it several times, and the quicker students explained it around to the rest of the class in Chinese, but only like 5 students would do it! That’s when I used my stern voice for the first time. I told them that their behavior was not acceptable, and that I was sorry if there was something cultural that I didn’t understand, but that if I was going to teach them I needed them to pay attention and do what I asked of them. For the first time the whole class there was total silence and I felt like a teach for the first time. The rest of the period was spent talking more in-depth about family relations including step and half siblings. And then talking about typical Chinese families, a bit about the one child policy, and then creating an imaginary family tree. They seemed to enjoy that, but I have a feeling that they might not really respect me, and think that I’m wasting their time. Maybe next time will be better. I hope.
