Reflections

So here I am, sitting in Starbucks, all excited about hopping on their wireless Internet while I sip my coffee… and my computer can’t find it. What? you’ve got to be kidding me! Ever since I got to China I can’t find a single wireless network anywhere!

Wait…. ever since…. d’oh!

So there’s this little switch on the front of my computer that you can use to disable the wireless card while you’re on the plane. Y’know, so you don’t mess up the nav systems and wind up becoming the cast of another hit TV series. Well, I never use mine. I mean never use mine. But when you’re on the same plane for 14 hours, you kind of need to. Apparently, when you never ever use it, it’s harder to remember to turn it back on.

I wonder how many other free wireless opportunities I’ve missed. Somebody in the apartment next door is probably broadcasting an unsecured network with a ridiculously strong signal. I’ll have to check that when I get back.

<continues singing along with the Barenaked Ladies song>

There are now several things to discuss, none of which are the items I thought my next post would be about. So I guess the first thing I should tell you that I learned is to stop giving teasers and previews of blog posts. I will probably write the bit about giving English names at some point, but not in this post. Other points trumped it (that, and Xiaofeng is proving to be somewhat indecisive).

I have now been here for one full week. Actually, as of this writing, I’m about 8 hours shy of a week, but that’s close enough for me. That completes about one seventh of my total stay. No… I can’t let myself get away with that. I’m a math teacher, and I’m going to be here for seven and a half weeks, so that means I have completed two fifteenths of my stay. Either way, it’s a trip of just the right length that none of my fractions will simplify very easily, so 没关系 (“whatever”).

In the last day of this first week, three things happened that are worth reporting. Let’s start with the good ol’ Internet, shall we? I am posting this blog entry from my own, in-house, land-line access to the net. <insert sound of a cheering crowd here>. My hosts came and finished preparing everything and hooking it all up yesterday afternoon. Not only is it significantly faster than my at&t wireless card, it is also significantly less expensive.

I’ll still have to pay my monthly minimum for the at&t service, but I’m not going to have sport the $5 for each extra meg of data, now. I might even make my data limits this month too, which would be cool. I’m still really glad that I went with the at&t contract, though. Without it, I would have failed one of my classes at UCF already, and my grade in the second would have seriously suffered.

By way of an odd segue, which really only makes sense to me until we get to the end of this bit, I can no longer cast aspersions on Starbucks while I’m here. I have often identified Starbucks as a source of corporate evil (or a corporate source of evil, 都可以 (“whatever”)). I’m going to have to retract that statement, at least as it applies to 常州. Since I’ve arrived, I have surprised myself by making coffee a daily part of my beverage regimen. I normally just drink a lot of water, but at home I have a sink-mounted filter and I fill up three liter-sized bottles of water for the day. I don’t often get through them all, but I always have three liters available. These bottles are either in my classroom, in my living room, or I carry one around with me.

I have been spoiled by the taste of my spiffy filter and the convenience of my big liter-sized bottles. The water doesn’t taste right to me here. Mind you, faucet water from home doesn’t taste right to me either, so I’m not saying China has bad water, I’m saying I’m a wimp. In the absence of all this water to drink I was getting ridiculously thirsty. I got some tea, some packets of instant milk-tea (read, “tea with milk in it”), and some packets of instant coffee. I’ve been rotating through them all as part of my morning routine. The coffee, though not horrible, is not real coffee. If I didn’t get anything even remotely like coffee while I was here, I’m sure I would have been fine with it, but having this “almost coffee” on a regular basis has left me craving the real thing.

So I asked my contact (I’d say “friend” but that seems presumptuous. Sometimes I think he must shake his head and either chuckle or sigh at some of the questions I’ve sent him.) that had taught in 常州 for two years where to find fresh-brewed coffee and how to ask for it correctly. He replied simply, “There’s not a Starbucks at 南大街 anymore?”

Duh! Starbucks is everywhere! Of course they would have a location at the biggest, most popular shopping venue in any city in China that’s large enough to have an Olympic training facility! I felt like a total dummy-head. They do; I found it; and it was yummy. But that’s not all! They also have free wireless Internet! (hence the segue that only made sense to me until now). Given that I almost always wind up completing my weekly work for my online reading class in a single weekly marathon session, I may be going to Starbucks once a week, much like I used to go to the Dandelion once a week. The dandelion is still cooler, but you go with what you’ve got. Now, I am attempting to pace out my work more effectively so I can avoid that, but we’ll see how that works out.

Third (and finally, because I’ve written a lot), I had my first completely successful outing on my own. I’ve gone out on my own before, but I didn’t accomplish the things I set out to do. Yesterday, I set out to buy a map, have lunch, check out the Starbucks, and get some books for next year. I did all of those things successfully, and more. I found my way, without getting lost (I didn’t even need to use my map for that bit), ordered my own lunch, found Starbucks, had coffee, got my books, made it back here, and gave myself a “w00t”. At the bookstore, I spent $80 on books that I intend to ship back for use next year. For that amount, I got two smallish dictionaries for student use, one large Chinese to English dictionary (the title, 汉英大词典, literally means “Chinese English Big Dictionary”), one large English to Chinese dictionary, four large wall maps, and all seven Harry Potter books written in Chinese. In the states, half of the Potter collection, alone, would have busted that total. Now, my price tag isn’t totally complete, mind you. I still have to ship them home. But I’ve done this early enough that I should be able to use the cheapest method and not worry about them showing up a month after I need them.

LINGUISTIC NOTE: You may have noticed that I used two different phrases, and translated them both as “whatever.” If you think about the way we use that word in English, it does have several different meanings, and those uses get translated in different ways. This includes the third one that I’ve listed below, but didn’t use in my post.

• 没关系 - mei guan xi - lit. “There is no relation.” Used in the sense of “it doesn’t matter”
• 都可以 - dou ke yi - lit. “all are O.K.” Used in the sense of “it’s all good”
• 算了 - suan le - “whatever” in the dismissive or angry sense, like “forget it,” or “leave me alone,” or to imply that the speaker doesn’t care

Over the past two days, I have visited two schools and taught guest lessons at both of them. This was an interesting and highly educational experience, and both schools were very different. We went to both schools to coordinate first, and then I came back later to teach the lesson.

The first thing I noticed, in both cases, was the awe with which the students received me. It was actually kind of cool. It made me feel a bit like a celebrity. As I walked through, the students would pause what they were doing and stare at me. It wasn’t rude or with gaping mouths or anything, it was just an acknowledgement of my… unusualness. Many times they would give sidelong glances, or try to appear as if they were not staring, or whisper to their friends and giggle. It was kind of entertaining.

Of course, I’m sure the students didn’t consciously think that I would understand what they said, so I overheard lots of comments that they made to classmates, like, “那么高!” (na me gao = so tall) or “外国人!” (wai guo ren = foreigner (literally, “person from outside the country”). In a country as ethnically diverse as the US, seeing someone different is not really a big deal at all. In China, although it is a very ethnically diverse country, all of those ethnicities are Asian. It is very rare to see people who are white, black, or Middle Eastern here, so I tend to be quite noticeable.

The lessons themselves were very interesting. The students here seem very eager to participate. I didn’t need to use any advanced classroom management techniques to entice them to engage in the activities or to volunteer. I did notice, though, that they were very accustomed to choral response. If there were words on my Powerpoint, and it wasn’t immediately clear what I wanted them to do, the class read the words aloud together.

At the first school, I felt a bit like a rockstar, though it was both surprising and a bit overwhelming. After class, one of the girls came up and asked me if I could write my name. I thought she wanted to see it in writing so that she knew how to spell it, so I started writing for her. Well, apparently, she wanted an autograph, and once it was apparent that I was willing to give them, I instantly had 45 little hands with 45 pieces of paper thrust at me and heard 45 very excited voices calling for a signature all at once. For someone who tends to get claustrophobic with crowds, it was a bit overwhelming.

At the second school, the class seemed a bit less dynamic. I didn’t launch the lesson with the same level of energy, and the class itself seemed a bit more subdued. That could be why, when I met with the teachers afterward and asked for suggestions, I was told that I could make my lessons more interesting. Granted, I agree with her input, but I was looking for suggestions on how to do that. The students in this area have a very different background of experience from the students that I usually work with. I wanted to know what they would find interesting. I did get a few good ideas from her, though.

All told, it was a great experience. I look forward to more learning experiences. It’s been less than a week, and I already have had enough experiences to remember and stories to tell for many years to come. Up next, coming to a blog near you, “choosing English names.”

I figured I should write another post since I’ve been here for a bit less than a week. I’m getting settled in, and thoroughly enjoying my time here. I’ve made a couple of trips to Wal-Mart already, but both times I have been escorted so I didn’t want to shop in my normal wandering style. I typically go through the store and look at everything. The visuals help me figure out what I actually need. I know I need to go a third time (I need a mop.), but now I know how to get there on my own. I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m so new here, or if it’s just their style, but my hosts seem like they feel that it is impolite to give me time to myself. It’s a delicate cultural point, to be sure, but I know myself well enough to know that I need some time by myself to process things and get some work done. The way that I work, I need to sit down with many of my books to reflect and plan, then I can crank out my lessons and materials.

I digress. That was actually not the point that I wanted to write about at all, but in the stream of consciousness, “getting settled in” implied getting the things I need for around the apartment which in turn led to Wal-Mart. The thing I most wanted to write about is how much my hosts totally rock! 季老师 (Ji Laoshi) and I have had some great conversations about life and linguistics, Xiaofeng (whose name I still need to learn the characters for) is a lot of fun and really gives me insight into the local culture and style Nancy and 小蔡 are really great at interpreting during conversations with others and they bring a huge helping of joy and laughter with them wherever they go.

I’ll write next time about the first lessons that I’ve done and my experiences being at the local schools, but if I get into now I’ll be in mid thought when it’s time to leave. Until then, greeting to all my friends from the other side of the planet. I’ll talk to you soonish!

Now I can say, “I’m here!”

That was all… talk to you later.

Hmm… Ok, ok, I’ll elaborate. 

The first thing that I noticed is that, when speaking with locals, it’s really pretty easy for me to get the gist, and really easy to utterly miss the point, too. Nancy and Xu Xiaofeng picked me up at the airport. I have to apologize at this point, because I never got Nancy’s Chinese name, and I have no idea which characters to use for Xiaofeng’s name. I’m working on it.

Anyway, Nancy speaks excellent English, Xioafeng speaks only a little bit of English. Neither one of them knows my linguistic abilities yet, so to start, Nancy did much of the communicating, and I stayed mostly with English for the long drive from Shanghai (上海) to Changzhou (常州). During that time I tried to express myself in Chinese to augment my English, or I would use both. Typically, though, whenever they would have a side-bar conversation, it was really easy for me to get the gist of it. When we were talking and the the meaning hinged on a word that I didn’t know or understand, it was really easy to derail the whole process. Sometimes I think that, if they were around when I was learning Chinese, they’d know which way to say things and this would be exceptionally easy. Unfortunately, there are lots of ways to say any one idea. Just because I would understand one or two of them, doesn’t mean I will follow whichever way the speaker chooses to express it.

Our trip to 常州 took long enough that, once we arrived, Nancy had to rush to her Philosophy class, so Xiaofeng and I went for dinner together. We went to a fabulous place for hot pots and roast duck. I totally should have taken pictures of it. Unfortunately, taking pictures of food is one of those things that I always thought was silly, so I didn’t bring my camera in. Now, I totally see why it makes sense. I can’t describe most of the food, especially not the subtleties of it or what made it so great, because I have nothing sufficient to compare it to.

Conversations with Xu Xiaofeng were a bit more limited, obviously. I probably would have fared better, but I was ridiculously tired from my travels and not functioning at my best. My general impression, though, is that he’s got the sense of humor that would mesh really well with mine. He’s pretty cool, we’ll just have to work on the whole communication thing. That’s part of why I’m here, though, so I’m up for the task.

The apartment they’ve got for me is huge-ish, and has the most beautiful hardwood floors. I’d upload pictures, but I’m still using my cellular card for internet access, and photos would definitely put me over my data limits and get expensive very quickly. If I find a cheaper way to do so, I’ll upload photos and such when I get back. That’ll leave a lot of catching up for y’all, and reduces the chances that I’d actually write stuff about the pictures, so I’m going to try to set something up while I’m here.

By the way my crazy plans of staying up all night before departure and not eating anything on the plane really helped me get pretty close to this timezone. I’m an early riser, as it is, and I only got up this morning at 4:00, so I’d say I’m pretty close to adjusted. Now I’m going to go unpack and get showered and such. Watch this space for more updates!