D - Gotta Go to Gou?

Last weekend, we went to a "resort" in Liaoning Province known as BingYuGou, which translates as "Ice Cavern Valley". It's northeast of Dalian towards the city of Dandong. The closest town is known as ZhuangHe. If you ever visit the Liaodong peninsula, where Dalian is located, you will very quickly notice that it's actually quite rugged. The peninsula is covered in green sloping hills and small mountains wherever you go. Dalian has some lovely sights where you can see the urban environment mixed in with smooth green peaks. Essentially BingYuGou is advertised in China as the mecca of these small mountains, scattered around small lakes in rivers. It's also known as "Little Guilin", Guilin being a famous city in southern China known for its beautiful scenery. After hearing about this place, a number of foreign teachers at our university were interested in going. Our friend W, who is the most advanced in his Chinese (he studies constantly), took it upon himself to organize a trip there with a Chinese touring company. With only a small assist from one of our Chinese friends, he booked a 2 day, 1 night from Dalian to BingYuGou and back. The trip included transportation and driver, tour guide (not English-speaking), admission to the park, lodging, 4 meals (lunch,dinner,breakfast,lunch), and a side trip to a local hot springs on Sunday. All of that cost only 300 RMB per person (about $39).

Early on Saturday morning, the "bus" arrived. When I say bus, I actually mean extended minivan that could in theory hold 12 people. The van had 2 seats up front (occupied by driver and guide), and 4 benches. To give you an idea of the spaciousness of the seats, it was literally impossible for me to sit down where my legs had a seat directly in front of me. The hip-to-knee portion of my leg was longer the space between seat back and seat front. Fortunately each bench featured a fold out seat, which allowed me to angle my legs to avoid amputation. We departed around 8:30 and arrived at the BingYuGou area around 12:30. Strangely our driver seemed to insist on taking the most remote roads possible, despite our route paralleling the DaZhuang expressway. The journey of course featured the usual insanity of Chinese driving. On narrow country roads, the driving experience is essentially an extended game of "chicken", as vehicles refuse to allow someone in front of them to slow them down at all. I can't imagine cruise control ever getting heavy use in China...

Our catered lunch at a local Chinese restaurant outside the park was less than delightful. It's a little difficult to eat family-style with 9 people. In addition, the food in northeastern China is very heavy on sauces and oils. When food is hot, it can be really delicious, but as soon as it gets cold it becomes unappetizing smothered in a salty brown sauce. And of course, we are a sight to the very common people and tourists in the area. Getting stared at is par for the course.

From the restaurant, we drove another 30 minutes to the park. To get in, you take a short boat ride from the entrance gate. While in the boat, some people tried to take a picture of us sitting next to their friend but we held up our hands and said "No!". Chinese people need to learn that foreigners, while interesting, are not zoo animals. We don't mind genuine curiosity, but no one wants to be part of a freak show.

Here's the entrance to the park: The full set of pictures can be found in our online photo album.

An example of the scenery...

Overall, BingYuGou was a strange experience. The scenery was quite lovely, but it was filled with chincy tourist attractions. One such attraction I took advantage of was a zipline that you could take to zoom from one side of the river to the other. I may be posting a movie of that soon. But there were many other things like this. Lots of cheap Chinese trinkets, a fake waterfall, swinging Indiana Jones bridges, etc. There were no hiking trails and no real sense of connecting with nature. It was overprogrammed to say the least. I think most of us were disappointed. After about 5 hours, we returned to the small town just outside the park to get cleaned up and then go to dinner.

C and I paid a little extra to get our own private room with private Western bathroom. Another couple did the same, but the remaining five members of our gang shared a room, and had a bathroom out in the hall (no shower, no western toilet). The beds were slats with a thin sheet on them. Ah, touring in the Chinese fashion. I truly felt like one of the common people. Somebody get me a Mao suit and a bouffant Kim Jong-Il hair style please! Dinner was a slight improvement on Lunch. The rest of the evening was split wandering around the truly tiny town and then downing a few beers in the hotel with our group.

The next day we got up bright and early for a quick Chinese breakfast. Now I know my blog entries are more on the negative side, but Chinese breakfast is awful. I really do like China overall, but let's face it, focusing on the differences is more entertaining. Your average Chinese breakfast consists of a boiled egg, and something called "baozi", which is essentially the most tasteless piece of dough man has ever intentionally concocted. It's a steamed bun. I think the plywood on our backbreaking beds probably had more flavor. Anyway, from breakfast, we proceeded to our final tourist destination of the trip, a hot springs for which we brought our swimming attire. In my mind, I pictured a beautiful cave full of elegant stalagtites and stalagmites, with gently steaming waters and winged Chinese women gently strumming the Chinese harp and perched upon rocks like the Sirens of Odysseus. Perhaps that description is a bit overblown, the phrase "hot springs" inspires fanciful thinking. I also briefly considered the famous Blue Lagoon of Iceland. What I got was a massive locker room full of naked Chinese men scrubbing each other down. I was a bit out of place wearing my baggy bathing suit, but I tried to block it out. When I finally got the courage, the hot spring pool was actually quite nice. My skin turned bright red with all the heat, but it was indeed relaxing. For those seeking a more co-educational experience, you could also emerge from the single sex area to a general family pool that used significantly cooler water.

After an hour or two, we departed the hot springs and headed back to Dalian. Using W's rudimentary Chinese, we begged the driver to take the highway. We eventually did so, but not before driving on the countriest of country roads. The plus side was that we got to see a lot of Chinese farms and farmers. There were people plowing with mules, and with donkeys pulling carts along the roads. Unfortunately for the people, the land appeared quite dry. I think of Dalian as being a wet city, but I think there's an overall drought in Liaoning province.

We forwent our final lunch on the way back, and survived another death-defying drive. All in all, it was a worthwhile trip, if only to experience touring Chinese style. If you're thinking of going to BingYuGou, you'll get no objection from me. Just don't think you're getting the natural experience. BingYuGou is all about the new China, custom tailored to the interests of unadventurous Chinese tourists seeking a weekend distraction.

C - give and take

A few days ago, D and I went downtown to pick up a package his mother had very generously sent him for his birthday, and as we approached the downtown area, we both were struck by the skyline and bustle of the city we've been living in for nine months now. Obviously we don't get downtown often enough! Our life here has become rather routine: eat, sleep, teach, etc.

I'm hoping to be more active in the next few months before we leave, as there are a few important Dalian sights we haven't seen yet. There's a holiday coming up next week, although I'm not entirely sure what it's commemorating. Something about labor, I think. That's probably the only aspect of communism left in China. Well, that and the authoritarian government, I suppose. We don't have any exciting travel plans for the week, mainly due to the last-minute way in which the university notifies us of the holidays and which days' classes will be rescheduled. It's hard to book plane tickets when you have no idea which days will be holidays and which won't!

D - Feature Debut

Without further adieu, I present my feature debut as China's newest and undoubtedly hottest voiceover artist. Try to restraint your glee at the sexy images of container ships, ore carriers, and hard-hatted shipyard workers.

To fit the constraints of YouTube, the video has been broken into two parts. In total, the video is 11 minutes long.

PART 1



PART 2

D - The New Voice of China

And it's me. After a two week hiatus, IM is back to talk about my latest experience of note here in China. First, however, a little background is required. Dalian is uniquely positioned in China's northeast as a port. As an ice-free port, Japan, Russia, and China fought many battles over the peninsula in the last two centuries. Now that the city is free to do business, the Port of Dalian has evolved to become one of the Top 20 ports in the world. Naturally such a venture is interested in attracting foreign investment, and that's where I came in. The Port company has a public relations video they produce to inform people about the capabilities of the port and to advise of future plans for expansion. The video is reworked about every 2 years or so in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Most recently, the voiceover for the English version was done by an Australian foreign teacher that the FAO of the Port company ran into on the street. This year however, no such chance encounter was forthcoming, so they called up DMU (whom they have a partnership with) to track down an English speaker. For whatever reason, she called me and offered me the opportunity to work with the Port company.

The Port company FAO sent me over a working script for the eleven minute video and I edited it to improve the grammar and vocabulary. Then on Wednesday of last week, he picked me up and brought me to the training center of the company, where they had a small recording room. For the next three and a half hours, one paragraph at a time, they would play the video and I would read. Sometimes I would nail the paragraph in a single take, but more often it required two or three readings. The script is filled with long words that are necessary to describe seaport operation. Combined with the fact that the Chinese version of the script can be read about 1.5 times faster, the unwieldy vocabulary made it difficult to say all the words clearly and yet within the time constraints of the pictures on the screen. Although Chinese can seem like caveman speak to a foreigner if literally translated, its pictographic nature gives it remarkable expressive power in a short number of sounds. We had to edit the English version on the fly several times to make the words fit within the confines of the video.

From a humor standpoint, there were a few moments of interest. When we first started, I apparently wasn't giving the rather dry material enough emotional impact. In the event of an insignificantly dramatic performance, the head of public relations for the Port (who joined us in the recording studio) would say something to the FAO and the recording guy, and the FAO would then translate for me. "More emotion! Stronger! Faster! Slower! More passionate!" I did my best to keep a straight face given the unenviable task of making "The Port of Dalian was founded in 1899..." into an Oscar-worthy performance.

Here's a few snippets of the video script:

"The Port of Dalian is planning to build a new crude oil terminal with draft of -27 meters and capable of accommodating 500,000 dwt ULCC tankers. The capacity of crude oil storage will increase to 9 million cubic meters and the refined oil storage will increase to 1 million cubic meters. By the year of 2010, Dalian Port Xingang District will become an international trans-shipment hub and logistics and distribution center for oil products and liquefied chemicals with an annual volume of 80 million tons."

"In August 2006, the State Council approved the establishment of the Dalian Dayaowan Bonded Harbor Area. This is the most preferential policy for port development. Taking this as an opportunity, the Port of Dalian will speed up port construction, develop the Bonded Harbor Area into the logistics hub of Northeast China and contribute to the revitalization of the old Northeast Industrial Base. In 2006, the throughput of Port of Dalian made a record of 200 million tons and became one of the Top 20 ports in the world."

But the absolute best part of the video is the end, when the documentary is brought to a stirring conclusion....

"Holding the Seas and Harboring the World, the Port of Dalian, now over a century old, is still full of dreams and ambitions."

The Port company FAO informs me he will provide a copy of the video with my performance for my records, at which point I will certainly YouTube it for the world. All in all, it was a good job for me to take. I was paid 2000 RMB for my trouble, and I have to say I liked it more than teaching Oral English. A few more jobs like that and maybe we could actually go to South Korea for the May holiday after all.

D - The English Corner Mafia

Almost every Chinese university is blessed with a variety of clubs known as "English Corner". English Corner consists of university students and ambitious locals (who may not be attending the school) that want to practice their English. The idea is that people can come and speak in an informal environment. All you do at an English Corner is just chat. Many universities in China consider this to be a formal part of a foreign teacher's job. Thus, English Corner responsibilities are written into the work contract and the teacher is obligated to go to English Corner every week. For C and I however, there is no such stipulation. All and any English Corner visits are from the goodness of our hearts as we take pity on the under-Englished masses of China.

Or at least that's how it seemed until this week. Then we met the English Corner Mafia. Last semester, C and I had avoided English Corner. You see, teaching students here can be mentally exhausting. You spend 90 minutes trying to rip English from the mouths of students who are too shy or too english-inept. Consider an analogy for Oral English: I get the mental picture of a dentist, putting his feet on a patient's chest, while trying to yank out a particularly stubborn molar that needs extraction. There are of course, successes when we get students talking and have some brief satisfaction, but more often we keep our pliers handy. Silence is truly golden.

Despite such frustrations, we did go to an English Corner last Fall. Essentially students (usually at least 10-15 per teacher, sometimes more) gather around the foreign English teachers in a massive huddle and they ask the same questions over and over again. Where are you from? What do you think of China? Why did you choose Dalian? How do you think of Taiwan? Do you love NBA? Who is your favorite NBA player? Do you like Yao Ming? And on and on it goes. Of course we try to ask students questions as well, but that often creates awkward silences for the students that lack English ability and they are inevitably interrupted by some English star who wants to move on to a discussion of Western movies.

For the first 30 minutes or so, I greatly enjoyed English Corner. It was a good time to get to know the students and learn about their backgrounds. After awhile I found it to be a drag. C had a better time although she shares my frustrations. She has a strong sense of obligation, so she returned to English Corner the next several weeks until the end of the year. Now in the second semester, we received an email from the English Corner coordinator inviting us back. C went the first week, and she was swarmed because there were only two foreign teachers there. She was the only white teacher though, the other was our friend M who is a Chinese-American that teaches here. Needless to say that a 20-something girl with blonde hair and blue eyes was more of a sensation than a 60-something Chinese man.

Well, this week on Wednesday night we were invited out to dinner by our friends from Canada, L and T. So C decided to give English Corner a raincheck. She even sent text messages to students telling her she couldn't make it. We went out and had a nice dinner at our favorite local Chinese place ("The One with the Blue Steps"). We returned and within about 20 minutes there was a knock at the door. I opened it and there were two Chinese students who wanted to come in. One of them was A, who C had gotten to know last year at English Corner. They came in and described the pitiable conditions of that night's Corner. Only 3 foreign teachers came and they *GASP* only stayed for about an hour, and then they left. C usually gets roped in to staying for 2 or 3 hours! The students wanted to make sure that C had not permanently forsaken the Corner. They were incredibly emphatic that she come next week and practically bullied her into it. I was personally appalled. C said that they are "a little needy". I'll say! "WHY DIDN'T YOU COME? WILL YOU COME AGAIN? PLEASE COME NEXT WEEK." Believe it or not, it's not our moral duty to go to English Corner. But that wasn't all. About an hour later, a different student called C to again confirm she would come next week. Then this girl tried to keep her on the phone to practice her English.

You know, it's really a shame how things work out. In class, students are very shy and don't take chances to learn English. Then at English Corner, people are almost rabid in their desire to learn and practice. It's ironic and a little sad that the people who most want to learn never seem to be in our classes. But I also think it was inappropriate how the students stalked us to try and ensure C would be at English Corner next week. Of course such pressure is always wrapped politely in China but it felt like extortion to me. I'm sure the next time we need a student's help they will say..."Of course, but someday....I may ask you to do me a favor...."

And the favor will inevitably involve English Corner.

I love Yao Ming

D - Parody of a Chinese Student Interviewing with an American Company

I wrote this faux dialogue to help my students understand what NOT to do if they interview with a Western company. It's intended to be ridiculous. Believe it or not, there are some students that might actually do some of these things...

Interviewer: Good morning, my name is Mark and I’m a manager here at Dell Computers in Dalian.
Student: Good morning, nice to meet you, I’m <> but you can call me <>.
Interviewer: Okay, great, good to meet you too. Let’s get started with the interview. First, I’d like to know what your major is at Dalian Maritime University, and why you chose that major.
Student: My major is <>, and I picked it because I didn’t really know what else to choose.
Interviewer: Uh, okay, I see. Well, why are you interested in working for Dell Computers?
Student: Dell is a very famous American company, so I think I want work here.
Interviewer: Yes, Dell is very well known in the world, but I want to understand your interest in our company. We like to hire people who have a strong passion for computers and helping our customers. How do you feel about the computer industry?
Student: I like computers. On the weekend, I usually play World of Warcraft all day long. How do you think about Warcraft?
Interviewer: I don’t really want to talk about hobbies right now, I want to understand why you are a good fit for Dell. Tell me about your favorite class that you’ve taken at the university.
Student: My favorite class is Oral English with my foreign teacher, D.
Interviewer: Interesting - Your spoken English is very good.
Student: Oh, no it’s not. My English is very poor.
Interviewer: No, really, I am pretty impressed with your English.
Student: Sorry, my English is really terrible. But I like my English class because my teacher never gives me any homework, and I think foreigners are very funny. They do many strange things. Especially Americans like D.
Interviewer: Okay, let’s discuss something else. Why should Dell hire you? What qualities do you bring to the table?
Student: Which table?
Interviewer: Uh, it’s just an expression in English. What I mean is, tell me about your strengths, how you can help Dell.
Student: I will work very hard. I will do whatever you tell me.
Interviewer: We do like team players at Dell, but we also want people who can think for themselves. What goals do you have for this job, if you are hired?
Student: I want to make money. Then I will marry a beautiful Chinese girl and I will have a son. Do you like Chinese girl?
Interviewer: Sorry, that’s not really an appropriate question. I think I have learned everything about you that I need to know. Do you have anything else you want to say?
Student: Do you think China and Taiwan are one?
Interviewer: I beg your pardon?
Student: I want to know your opinion on Taiwan.
Interviewer: I don’t think that’s relevant to this position. But thank you very much for your time. We will be in touch.

C - Net Nanny says...

We're blocked in China again! We can post entries in China but we can't read them... Arrgh.