D - Examining the Chinese Mind

17 days until we return to the US for a couple of weeks. Almost there! In the mean time, class has been keeping us busy. In this post I wanted to talk about some of our past lessons and how we're doing examinations.

As an Oral English teacher, one of the dilemmas is deciding what the final exam should be. We've worked on a broad array of different topics - from directions to music to job interviews. The primary focus is on pronunciation and on-the-fly creation of english. The problem is that testing someone's speaking, while not difficult, can take some time. Our classes are 1 hour and 30 minutes, and each class has about 30 students. To examine a student for even five minutes would take 2 and a half hours. There are no classes during lunch here, so for exams my classes will get extended into eating time. Pity the poor students that catch me at 1pm when I haven't eaten since 8:30am!

I have two sets of students - 3rd year marine engineers and 1st year automation students. I haven't decided on an exam for the freshmen yet but for the marine engineers I am going to have them use phrases from our "For and Against" lesson.

Each students will get one of 8 proposal.

• Providing Free University Education
• Voting for Government Officials
• Paying Government Officials More Money
• Requiring China College Entry Examination
• Giving Money to the Poor
• Banning Smoking in Public Places
• Creating high taxes on alcohol
• Allowing Women in the Military

The students have to say if they are "for" or "against" the proposal and why. I will prod them with some additional questions to make them prove they aren't just going from memorization. I also gave them a general rubric describing how I will evaluate their performance. I'm expecting a pretty normal distribution, although the only students who will fail are probably those who haven't been coming to class and getting their attendance grade. I decided to do "For and Against" because 1) We did it in class 2) Opens the door to using a lot of different words and 3) I want them to develop opinions. Chinese people are so uninclined to have strong opinions so by discussing even mundane or previously-decided questions, I think there's some value.

What else have we been up to? Well C and I have been showing movies to our freshman classes. Allowing them to see how real people communicate in English is beneficial and helpful to their listening abilities. We turn on the English subtitles because their reading is far past their speaking. C has been showing "Walk the Line" (The Johnny Cash story). I showed that once but I have also shown "A Beautiful Mind". The students really seem to like both movies overall. Yesterday C noted how the Chinese are somewhat obsessed with the fact that a native Chinese person from the People's Republic of China has never won the Nobel Prize. There's a massive inferiority complex that results in the PRC thumping its chest whenever possible. "A Beautiful Mind" of course is about a schizophrenic mathematical genius who eventually wins the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994. C commented that the movie would no doubt increase their Nobel fever - "Look, even crazy people in our country can win this award! What's wrong with China??"

I think "A Beautiful Mind" is a good movie for them to see. It demonstrates that in America, despite the odds, even a mentally ill man can meaningfully contribute. I don't have any knowledge about the Chinese mental health system but somehow I too many John Nash's have been allowed to escape.

I feel like this has been an exceedingly boring entry. There have been many moments I wanted to report but you really have to write them down while they are emotionally fresh. This blogging thing is not as easy as it looks!

D - In the Home Stretch

Wow, it's been awhile, but I promise we haven't been taken to prison or anything. The easy part of my schedule is over now and I am in the midst of the final push to the end of the semester. It's currently week 14 of 17 at DMU, so we're moving closer to our return to the US (which we are rather excited about).

The new apartment is good. If you're curious to see what it looks like, check out our photo album. Try to ignore the handsome fellow wearing long johns to keep warm. In reality though, we are plenty warm now. Turns out our air conditioners are also heat pumps that can warm the place up. And obviously our internet is working now. It's odd, we have much bigger apartment in China that we did when living in New Jersey. Of course everything here has the tinny quality you come to expect in China. You look at the faucet fixtures and they look pretty normal, but you touch them and something is just off. The handle is loose, the silver finish flecks off, it feels like it's going to break. This is the way for most things in China that are not carefully purchased. Everything has an overwhelming cheapness.

I want to relate an interesting story about the move. The FAO indicated that some student volunteers and movers would show up Saturday at 10am. They did and the moving was quite efficient. Within two hours we were pretty much moved to our new place. The method of moving surprised me a little bit. If you've seen a picture of our refrigerator in the photo album, you know it's not a full American style fridge, but neither is it a dormitory fridge. It's a sizable and heavy piece of equipment. Well the Chinese movers handled it as follows. One man stands in front of the fridge and pulls it on to his back. One of the the others helps him push it fully on to his back. AND THEN HE CARRIES IT ON HIS BACK DOWN FOUR FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. Likewise, when arriving at the new building, again he carries it on his back up 5 flights. I might add that we're not talking about Yao Ming here. This is a 5 foot 7 Chinese guy that can't weigh more than 145 lbs. They also carried our TV and our washing machine in this manner. To be honest, my heart was a little sick. A few days of that could ruin your back forever, and they probably do it every single day.

When the moving was over for the day, the movers had taken care of two foreign teacher apartments. The moving crew included 4 underlings and a boss. How much were they paid for their trouble? 160 Yuan, about $20 for the 5 of them. How ridiculously cheap. And I am quite sure they are happy to have the job - how many other able bodied Chinese men would take their position? Let's say that they make 30 Yuan per day in their moving job. That's only 900 Yuan per month, less than I take out from the ATM at one time.

I have one other new apartment anecdote for this post. Unlike our old apartment, our washing machine will not be in our bathroom. Every 2 floors they have a designated laundry room. The rooms have the requisite equipment - namely pipes to supply water and drains to accept the waste water. Unfortunately our Chinese friends made a critical error when designing the laundry room. The drains were elevated! The Chinese washing machines have a hose that you lay down on the floor to release the waste water. This means for the machine to effectively drain, the drain must be (at highest) on the ground level with the machine, and preferably at a lower level than the washer. But in our new laundry room it was the opposite. Luckily, they finally figured this out and put a BRICKS and MORTAR ledge in the laundry room, which they are then covering with tile. When placed on the new ledge, the machines should be able to drain properly. But why was the room so poorly designed to start with?

D - Movin' Out

We have moved into new digs here in Dalian. The old foreign teacher building has been under renovation for several months now and they finally finished the work. Unfortunately, the DSL in the new apartment isn't up and running and probably won't be for several days. We came back to our old apartment this morning to use the internet (and watch Tennessee get waxed by Arkansas). Hopefully this will be the last outage! The new place looks nicer. It has better fixtures and nicer furniture. It's also cleaner and so far seems to be inhabited by fewer bugs. Unfortunately it's also freezing. Our old apartment isn't exactly cozy but for some reason seems to retain heat better. Well, that's all for now. Hopefully we will return to regular posting in a few days when all is well in the new foreign teacher building.

C - it's the most wonderful time of the year

Lately it's been pretty cold here in our apartment, and D and I have both been frustrated that the heat has not yet been turned on. Yesterday it snowed, and I thought "Ha! They'll HAVE to turn the heat on now!" But no such luck.

With our apartment so cold, I've been spending most of my free time in bed under my very warm comforter. I get in bed with the intention of reading, studying, or grading papers, but of course, I always end up falling asleep. I haven't taken afternoon naps since I was a junior in college, and I'd forgotten how much I hate the feeling of waking up in the evening when it's dark. Sunset time here is quite early -- around 4:45 pm -- so I've experienced this uncomfortable feeling more often than I'd have liked to this week. Today was one of those days.

On top of the fogginess produced by my indulgent afternoon nap, I've got a mountain of paperwork to do for my students, since three of my seven classes are taking their final exam this week. It mainly consists of answering comprehension questions about the movie "Walk the Line", and I was amused to see that the students must have found the Wikipedia entry on the movie. (Incidentally, China just granted access to Wikipedia a few weeks ago, to which I alerted them -- the timing couldn't have been better for my students.) Some of them got the question "What causes Johnny Cash's interest in Folsom Prison?", to which they've all responded "A B-movie called 'Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.'" I then asked them "Do you know what a B-movie is?" They, of course, did not. But I'm pleased to see them researching things on wikipedia. They haven't found the Chinese-language version yet, thankfully -- that would've made my final exam a lot easier!

D - Chills, Church, and Communists

The high here in Dalian today is about 45 degrees fahrenheit, but it's been colder most of the day. The formerly temperate ocean breeze has turned into a bone chilling face slapper. I almost felt like I was in Rochester, NY (site of my university education and many a cold sprint to class). If weather.com can be trusted for China though, it will supposedly be 62 tomorrow. Ah the weather, go figure.

I have a few short stories to relate from China. Last Friday evening, I joined our Danish friends at their home for dinner. About a month ago they opted out of the school provided housing and now live in a relatively posh condo just up the road. The walk to school is a little longer but they have a bathroom to die for. Imagine this - the water from the shower actually goes into a shower specific drain. This is in stark contrast to our bathroom, where the shower floor and the bathroom floor are identical. Thus if someone needs to use the toilet subsequent to a recent shower, their pants will become soaked. To combat this problem, C had a brilliant idea - she picked up a squeegee (reminiscent of something you might use on your car windshield), which we employ when exiting the shower. In China, even simple things get a little more complicated than we are used to.

But I digress. Also invited to the dinner were another couple consisting of a late 30s/early 40s American businessman turned Oral English teacher (K), and his Chinese wife (B). He said he is principally teaching at DMU because it's easier to get a residence permit in China as a teacher than a foreign businessman. They met because she was his interpreter in his various business dealings in China, which they are still engaged in on the side. My impression is that while he teaches, she is running the import/export business. Anyway, they are good people and we had a lovely conversation at dinner and afterwards. Even the Chinese wine that was consumed was passable. One part of the night was a bit disturbing however. Although K is married to a Chinese woman and does all of his business with the Chinese, he has a very negative attitude towards China. After B shared one story with us, I could start to understand why. Her grandfather was a member of the KMT (Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek) before the Communists took over China. Unfortunately he was captured by the Communists and tortured repeatedly. They would put him on a stage with his arms behind his back in some contorted, painful positions, and then groups of people gathered in the audience would yell anti-KMT slogans and pro-Communist slogans. Apparently B's grandmother was forced to yell insults against her own husband and pretend that he was an enemy of the state. As B said "She did what she had to in order to survive." I can't fathom the world we live in sometimes.

Continuing on that note, our Danish friends relayed another scary story, this one more recent. Last Thursday they had the day off so they decided to take a couple of random buses and then just walk around Dalian to see what they could see. Apparently they ended up in a part of Dalian that is off limits because it's near a Chinese military submarine base, a fact of which they were ignorant. There were no signs indicating it was a forbidden area until right next to the base. When they saw the sign, they immediately turned around and left to go back towards the bus stop. Despite this, a couple of soldiers caught up with them and politely asked them to return to the base for some questions. They did so and they were briefly questioned by some soldiers who didn't have a strong command of English. Eventually they were kept waiting for 2 hours while the People's Security Bureau (PSB) aka Chinese "Secret Police" were called. Four very large gentlemen with an fluent translator showed up and questioned them further. They called DMU to confirm their story. They reviewed their passports which they most fortunately brought along. Our friends managed to maintain their calm, which I am sure expedited things in their favor. Eventually, the FAO from DMU came to pick them up. So nothing negative came of it but you can imagine how terrified they were. It's a reminder that while China may be improving, it has a long way to go.

On a different note, I went to church in China for the first time on Sunday. Along with our Canadian friends, I caught the bus downtown. Just off of Zhongshan Square, there was a tall building. We met some people outside and they led us up a few flights of stairs. There was a large room with perhaps 75 rows of 8 chairs each. They were very soft and comfortable and every seat was taken. At the front of the room there was a video projector showing the actual church sanctuary, which was down the street in an actual church like building which was apparently built by the Dutch (?). The church was a legal Protestant church operating with government sanction, and the whole service was conducted in Chinese. Two Chinese girls offered to translate for us. One sat between L and T (Canadians) and another sat next to me. During the hymns and the sermon she would lean over every minute or two and whisper the translation in English, which is certainly unique in my experience. I recognized the tune of some of the hymns but couldn't recall the names. The service was essentially 3 hymns, some Bible readings, the sermon, and a closing hymn. All in all, what you would call a pretty traditional service! The only thing they didn't do was take up an offering, which I had expected when they sung the doxology at the end of the service. The message was traditional as well, espousing standard Christian doctrines such as loving your enemies, loving and obeying God, and following Jesus. Apparently some of the young people at the church hold a study (in English) on Tuesday evenings near DMU, so I think I will check that out as well. It's one thing to visit a church in a place like the US where there's a cultural tradition for doing so, and another in a place like China where people are risking their necks and reputations. This I have to see.

C - day by day

Lately I've been feeling incredibly happy to be in China. When I left our apartment to get some food for lunch this afternoon, everything smelled wonderful. First I smelled burning leaves, which were very autumnal and lovely, and then I smelled some sort of food being grilled or barbecued. Even though I wasn't really in the mood for Chinese food (I was en route to KFC, in fact) it still smelled delicious.

Then I walked a bit further up the road and was overwhelmed by the smell of, well, human waste.

Regardless, I'm quite pleased to be living here in China. It's such food for thought, because the cultural foundation is quite foreign to that of my own, and meanwhile no single political or social ideology is really prevailing because everything is changing so fast. It's impossible not to reconsider one's fundamental principles in a place like this. My mind is constantly churning out new theories and suggestions -- almost as fast as I can make observations.

I'm definitely a tad homesick, though. I've been telling myself that things are the same as they would be if I'd gone to Duke for law school this fall; I most likely would've last seen my family in mid-August and would be seeing them again at Christmastime. In that case, however, I at least would've been living in the United States, in a culture that I can make a bit more sense of, under a government that is currently troubling but not nearly as terrifying to me as China's. But if someone offered to wave a magic wand where our teaching contracts would go away and a free flight home and terrific 9-month job offer would appear, I wouldn't take it. There's too much to be learned here, and we just have to wade through it, homesickness and all. Or, as my mother would say, "put one foot in front of the other." And that's what we'll do.

Out of the saddle, back in the saloon

This is just a quick post to share that C and I are internet-less in our apartment again. Despite all appearances that it should work, it's just not. Our Chinese friends are on the case but no resolution just yet. Thus, I am back in the Internet saloon. My eyes aren't watering yet though...