Monsoon season

We spent most of the day doing household chores. While doing laundry, the sky grew ominously hazy, then dark. Rain came down in buckets, sending students studying on the grass field below running frantically for cover. We could hear them yelling as they were running. It was quite the downpour! We quickly brought the hanging laundry in. Water leaked through our windows in the computer room, which we contained using plastic pans. Thunder and lightning filled the dark clouds. Strong wind blew through the campus. The storm ended in about half-hour, followed by clear skies and sun. That only lasted for about 2-3 hours, at which the clouds, wind, and rain came again. This went off and on about 3-4 times throughout the day and into the evening.

L. and I tried out our walkie-talkies for the first time. With AA batteries costing but rmb 1 for 4 of them, it'd be a cheap way to keep in touch over short distances. The TV reception went out, so we spent the rest of the evening watching "Ice Age" and other DVDs, while working on the computer. And cleaning up after the storms that blew in throughout the day.

ESL "Hangman"

Tonight's class went well. Didn't overwhelm the students as much this time. The material off http://www.eslgold.com was better for the new students. Jordan helped out a lot copying the material. I made up a worksheet laying out the English alphabet, along with each letter's pronunciation in pinyin, how they're used (or not used) in pinyin, and how they're used in English. In the last half-hour, we played "Hangman" using simple words, which seemed a hit with the students. They'd never seen this game before. I'll have to find some more games....looks like a good way to learn.

Visiting a 3-self church

We decided to fellowship at the 3-self church today. S. hasn't been there yet and wanted to check it out. It's quite a hike from where we are, in terms of public transportation, and probably very expensive by taxi. Of course, we opted for public transportation. We took the 523 bus to a busy area and took a taxi from there to the nearest subway station. From our destination subway stop, the church is about a 20 minute walk.

As we came closer to the building, we could hear the sweet strains of "Lord, I Lift Your Name On High" in English. If you don't get there early enough, it's pretty touch to find seating, it's always packed out. As we arrived, people were standing at the entrance, waiting to be seated once the singing was over. The service was conducted in Chinese with English translation. The Scripture reading was from Isaiah 53, highlighting Jesus' suffering and also drawing parallels with Job's.

After the sermon, there is usually a time of personal testimony that is set ahead. Miss L. shared about her struggles and frustrations in finding a job. She'd sent 60 resumes, with no response. She would cry every night and question her worth, but gave it up to God. She eventually found a job that has her working 13 hours a day. (Seems a bit too long for a daily quota). She drew her talk to a close saying that speeches are like mini-skirts; the shorter, the better. (Interesting!)

S. wanted to stay for the 2-4 pm BS, but I was still pretty sick, so we went home.

Later that evening, S. went to meet some other guys for English BS with some teachers. I stayed home and rested.

Chinese b'day party

If you were at our wedding in Boston, you might have met one of our friends, J., from England. He visited last year, met one of my students, a lovely girl, and has been in a relationship with her for the last year.

Anyway, he decided to come to GZ to celebrate this b'day this year. It was good to see J. again and catch up, since we weren't able to at the time of the wedding. C., his girlfriend, organized the party and invited about 30 people there. We were introduced to many of her friends, mostly women in their early 20's. Although, i think J. S. and I were the only ones who spoke English. A couple "games" were played, we were surprised how much was loaded with sexual innuendo.

I was not feeling well (been sick for a couple days now), and we decided to call it a night around midnight. C. bargained a cab for us and we came right home.

Happy Birthday, J.

Jazz!?

Our university is part of a team to promote cultural interaction and frienship through fine arts, in the city of GZ. So during the course of the year, we have several concerts by pianists, guitarists, orchestras, etc. Today was a jazz concert.

We took the shuttle from our campus to the main one, where the concert hall is located, and had a couple hours to kill before the actual concert. So, we decided to have dinner at a Hunan restaurant where i am good "friends" with one of the waitresses. The weather was somewhat agreeable, so we decided to eat outside. As we were finishing our meal, all the restaurants that had tables outside started folding their tables up, as did our restaurant. Turns out the "gong an" were making their rounds. They parked their truck in front of our restaurant and waited impatiently for the staff to put everything away, including our table. We weren't quite done, but they started putting away our table, all the time apologizing to us. S. continued to finish off the rice in his bown as we stood there watching the scene. We got a RMB 3 discount on our tab for the trouble. First the Banana Lady, now this... Black Market Parking Lots?

We walked to the campus auditorium for the jazz concert, picked up our tickets which put us at the very back of the balcony - the nosebleed section. The jazz combo was a univeristy group from Oklahoma. After they gave a 10+ song performance, a few university students gave music performances on Chinese and band instruments. It ended rather awkwardly.....the last performance (which sounded akin to a junior high marching band) should've been a warm-up to the main attraction. Welcome to China.

Tonight's TV break:

Sesame Street

Pinky and the Brain

"Fight Club" on the Pearl Channel

And now the news...buy our goggles to make you taller!

I completed the first 3 lessons for the Monday's Beginning English class and sent them to Jordan. This ESL Gold website is great!

L. is feeling a bit under the weather. We both have scratchy throats and have been sneezing, but it's been hitting L. harder.

We watched "60 Minutes", featuring reports on Enron and Ken Lay, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Islam-critical movie "Submission", and George Lucas' final "Star Wars" movie (all with Chinese subtitles). We finished with the local news and "Late Night With David Letterman". ATV World broadcasted all this....I guess they're a CBS affiliate of sorts. "Pearl" might be an ABC affiliate of sorts.

The local English-language news, broadcast from Hong Kong, gets reports that China will censor at its discretion. This is done by airing a "half-eaten" commercial suddenly in the start of a controversial news report and abruptly returning back to the news when the station feels the report is over. Curious, funny, irritating at the same time. The infomercials I mentioned earlier this month are also useful in blocking out certain content, which makes some sense....I can't imagine these informercial items being that popular that they need to broadcast them in daytime hours. But I also learned that what's blocked out is not necessarily censorship. I heard from one of the students that this may also be a way to keep people from seeing certain programs that require additional payment (since our reception is cable).

Sniff, sniff...aachoo!

I've been sneezing all day for some reason. Maybe the warming weather is having an effect? It remained pretty foggy the whole day.

I spent most of the day working on new teaching material for Monday's class, while L. went off to teach. I found a great website, ESL Gold that has much of what I'm looking for, including simple dialogues and mp3 recordings.

We watched Dallas and Minnesota play NBA ball, with Chinese commentators in the background. Minnesota won.

A couple of students from L.'s class last year dropped by. They looked through our wedding photos. Since there were many pictures of the church L. and I were married in, one of them asked if I was a Christian, which I affirmed.

"Sesame Oil Street"

I got up early this morning, 6 am, to catch Creflo Dollar's "World Changers" show on TV. I still can't believe this show is airing here in China!

I flipped between that and children's shows teaching kids to honor their parents, be a good citizen, do well in school, and practice good hygiene. It might've seemed corny at first, but I see a lot of positive in this type of programming. The U.S. could do well to reproduce it. "Sesame Street" and "Mister Rogers" don't provide as comprehensive and succinct a message on these matters as the kid shows here in China, IMHO. U.S. kid shows seem to focus more on individual self-esteem, fun, and happiness, and not as much on positive interactions with family, school, and society at large. Just my observations, tho'.

first day of work

S. taught his first class here. It's every Monday night for two and a half hours. I accompanied him to provide some support, although he didn't need any, he was great.

Here's his perspective:

Teaching went well, tho' the students knew less English than I expected. Some knew none at all. We went around assigning English names to each person. We went through the worksheets i had prepared earlier. Some students helped set up the AV so that my computer could be plugged into it. It was a good thing, as having the computer helped a lot. We took a couple of breaks during the 2.5 hours of class. L. sat in the back to prepare for her lessons. One student, calling himself "Jordan" (he's an admirer of Michael Jordan) offered to be my monitor and help make copies of lessons for students to study in the future. One student asked if I could use less Chinese and more English, but other students asked me to use more Chinese and have someone help translate. It's going to be a tough balance, but it's looking like I'll have to cater to the lowest common denominator and "dumb" the curriculum down to pre-pre-school level almost, hoping those who know English better will appreciate practicing how to pronounce what they know better. Otherwise, those more advanced may be better off in the intermediate class.

So next week, I will need to find/develop material that's much, much simpler than what I used today (even tho' it, too, was for beginners). Vocabulary and dialogue will be a good start.

weekend in Chaozhou

The university sponsored a foreign teacher weekend trip to the city of Chaozhou, it's pretty close to the eastern coast of China. We left Friday afternoon and got back tonight. It was a very touristy trip - i.e. leaving the hotel early in the morning and catching as many "sites" as possible before heading back. They don't allow for much "rest and relaxation" during these trips. Which is fine, because you do get to see a lot of stuff in very short time.

Quick recap of the trip: We arrived fairly late Friday night. The driver was being quite cautious as the weather was very wet getting there. The company that acted as our tour guide set up dinner at a restaurant that seemed closed for business by the time we arrived. Most of us went and grabbed something else to eat after we were dropped off at the hotel

Saturday: It was cold and wet the entire day. Not a very good day for siteseeing - but we did anyway. Breakfast was very traditional (no pancakes here), but pretty filling and good - especially considering the meal before. S. loved it - all the Chinese "fun stuff" that he doesn't ge to have very often.

We visited many memorials and other sites preserved from the "old" Chaozhou city. Another feature quite common in many Chinese tours is Buddhist temples. Many people burn incense to one or more statues housed there.

(Funny story: at one point the batteries for our digicam were running out, so S. stopped by a couple vendors and bought a few more - both of whom sold him bum batteries. We think that the vendors or whoever they got batteries from just retrieved old batteries and repackaged them. Another foreign teacher also got bum batteries. Grrrr! Hopefully, it's only a Chaozhou thing and not a GZ thing. Unfortunately, we could not take as many pictures with the digital camera as we would've liked.)

We also visited a tea-drinking place, where they showed how to make, serve, and drink different kinds of tea Chaozhou-style. We stopped by a ceramics factory. Chaozhou prides itself in being the ceramics capital of China. It's also known for making toys and wedding garments. We bought several small porcelain cups as gifts and souvenirs.

We went back to the hotel after dinner. It was nicer to be back inside where it was warm and dry.

Sunday: Due to the weather, we didn't get to visit as many places that our tour guide had planned (which was fine with us - we were all ready to go home - but not fine with the guide). So we had to make up a couple sites from Saturday and the Sunday sites as well.

We left our room, returned our card key, ate breakfast, and boarded the bus. It was darn cold today! 10 Celsius, with humidity and breeze to boot. Spring is only days away, but it sure doesn't feel like it. At least it wasn't rainy.

We stopped by the Phoenix Pagoda (?) Temple, which has three stories, each containing a shrine to some famous Chaozhou historical hero. The top one, which looked like a scared green goblin, was reportedly a god for good grades and school studies. Some men below were selling rides on horses.

Later, we went to the Kaiyuan Temple. It's one of the most famous temples in Guangdong. The smell of incense was suffocating. Many folks worshipped there, mostly elderly women. Some were chanting and walking slowly in front of some Buddha statues. There must've been 50 statues of all sizes there. The biggest ones were situated three-in-a-row and were painted gold, as were many of the idols. Many tourists crammed into the temple. Most of them, Chinese, were there to pay homage to the idols, sometimes bowing to each one of them once. We were told that if a "prayer" is answered, the prayer-er must come back to this specific temple and thank the gods - some even come from overseas. WOW!

Next was a bicycle rickshaws ride through the old residential parts of downtown. Two persons per rickshaw, making an armade of 25+ rickshaws. It seemed like we were in a chariot race of some kind. A fun way to go through town. Halfway through, we stopped off to take some pictures. Amazingly, a few beggars (some even missing limbs) were able to keep up with us....how, we don't know.

Lunch was next, vegetarian and mostly consisting of soups. (Not a good idea before going on a road trip). We headed back to GZ after lunch, with a stop on the way at a "shopping center." This consisted of one large room with some very traditional "snacks," ex: fermented prunes, etc. Most of us weren't into shopping, instead we bought roasted sweet potatoes from a vendor outside the shop. He seemed very happy by the business.

We headed home soon after. There were several "potty breaks" - which was to be expected after serving three varieties of soups to fifty some people. Despite the weather, it was a really good trip as far as getting to know our colleagues better. Being on another campus, we don't really get to be regular part of the international teacher community on the main campus. So, trips and dinners and other events sponsored by the university for the foreign teachers is always a welcome opportunity to get to know other internationals affiliated with our university. What a variety!