Through the Window

A couple weeks ago I took the bus to Anshan. On the way, I recorded some of the scenes. I apologize for the shaking and fast moving cinematography...and for the music. This is an attempt to share more of the general atmosphere here but I don't think it comes through very clearly. I have said to a few friends that it is a good thing the people here are friendly because it is not a very attractive place to live. I don't think you can see in the video how rundown some of the buildings are nor how barren the landscape.

As I sit here and try to think of words to describe what is around me, I find that I cannot capture the whole picture. I guess what I can say is this: even if the people here are poor by American standards, I have observed that they are happy, perhaps even happier than many Americans. It is a strange phenomena that the more one has, the more one wants. No one here seems to feel sorry for themselves and they take great pleasure in the things that I, too, hold dear such as spending time with friends and family. Last Monday, at a dinner party while I watched everyone eating, laughing, and toasting, it came to me that people try to make happiness a complicated and elusive thing but really, happiness is a simple choice.

Miscellaneous, Part 1

Everyday I learn new things and make observations about China, its people, and their customs. Many of these things would not make a full-length post on their own, so I’m putting them together in an odds-n-ends post. I’m calling it part 1 because I’m sure I will have more random things to talk about at some point in the future.

The ladybugs and I are engaged in an epic battle of good and evil. (I’m the good guy.) They enter my house through the cracks around my windows, get into everything, then die leaving me to have to dispose of their remains. Every weekend I have to clean the ladybugs off my window ledges and sweep the floors because they are all over the place. I suppose, though, if my apartment is going to be infested with something ladybugs aren’t that bad.

A lot of people have asked me about the weather here. It started warming up last week and I think we are getting into the mid 60s most days. It has not rained too much and usually when it does, it is a light rain. But it is almost never sunny by my standards. I don’t think I would always call it cloudy, but there is a haze (I’m guessing its pollution) that is ever-present in the sky. I think only twice in the last month could I look up in the sky and see blue. It is strange to me, then, that a lot of people have solar panels. My water heater uses solar power--this probably explains why I had a hard time getting hot water before I had them install the electric water heater! I think they would be much better off with windmills because it is often windy--and at times VERY windy. I am not looking forward to next winter. The cold I can handle but when it is cold and there is a biting wind that is the worst!

I have observed that some people here are very fashion-forward. Others have good pieces but do not put them together well. The rest have it all wrong and look like they were barfed on by the 80’s. I have not done any shopping myself but the other day I was looking through a catalogue that belonged to one of the native English teachers who is engaged to Ricky (my assistant). I noticed in the catalogue that many of the pictures were of a boy and girl wearing identical or nearly identical outfits and I asked her why boys and girls like to dress the same. She explained that when a boy and girl are in a serious relationship they often get a matching outfit to show they are together. She said it was common for a boy or girl to give matching clothes as a gift to their significant other. I had to laugh about this because it is the opposite of what you would want to do in American culture. The students told me that when a boy and girl want to go on a date, they usually go shopping together. However, a student also told me that they are not allowed to date—I think this is a rule particular to our school, which is a private school and has a lot of live-in students.

The students still want me to sing to them all the time. I have learned that if the class is getting too noisy, all I have to do is hum or sing softly then they all get quiet so they can hear me.

One of the most striking things to me is the constant juxtapositions I see. Many of you noted that I described observing poverty in and around the city but that many of the students had camera phones in the same post. (Actually, they have devices that are phone/camera/MP3/MP4 player/translator/PDA/etc.) This is just one example. My internet and mobile services are more reliable than my water has been and the other day the electricity was out at the middle school but judging by the way people were acting it seems this is not all that uncommon. One would think that water and electricity services would be more stable than the technological ones. Also, I was struck the other day when I looked at a student’s desk. Many of the students decorate their desktops with pictures of pop icons, Mickey Mouse, etc. but this one student had a large periodic table of elements in the center of his desk surrounded by pictures of NBA stars and all types of guns from revolvers to assault rifles. He is a good student so I don't think I have worry about his mental health.

The Chinese have an affinity for the gaudy. I’ve seen wedding dresses in shop windows so garish that they elicit a gag reflex from me. Decorations are often brightly colored and plastic seems to be more in favor than natural materials. An example: there are some exposed pipes in my bathroom that the owner of the apartment tried to dress-up by hanging chains of fake flowers on them. Also, I was noticing the other day an old wooden cabinet in a teacher’s office. Some of the handles were neon green plastic, replacing the metal ones that used to be there. And another example: do you remember that door from my apartment tour? Well, I didn’t realize it at the time but if I turn the handle there are little lights above it that flash different colors. It’s like a disco every time I close the door!

I have always known that Americans are more embarrassed by body functions than other cultures and one thing I have noticed is that the Chinese think nothing of spitting. Spitting on the street is common practice and I suppose not all that strange (although seeing a woman hock a loogie still surprises me (my sister, Ashley, notwithstanding)) but it is also common to spit on the floor indoors. I have not seen any carpet in the places I have been and I wonder if there is no carpet because people spit or if people spit because there is no carpet. Regardless, people will spit on the floor in the hallways and in the classrooms but it should be noted that the floors are mopped throughout the day.

Finally, as many of you know, fireworks were invented in China and I must say they do love to set them off. Any occasion seems a good reason for fireworks here: someone is born, someone dies, someone gets married, someone opens a new shop, someone sneezes…there are fireworks going off at all times of the day and night. These are not the kind of fireworks like we have for the 4th of July. Mostly they are just a lot of noise and a little smoke. Sometimes it sounds like a war-zone with all the explosions!

Language Learning

I had three and a half years teaching experience before coming here but teaching English as a second language is a whole other game. For example, I can tell you the definitions of “when” and “while” and how they can be used as different parts of speech but I had difficulty explaining to one of the Chinese English teachers why “Will you wait _______ I get my coat?” should be “while” and not “when”. There are so many things in the English language that we, as native speakers, take for granted. I catch myself using expressions and idioms all the time and often have to stop to explain them. Not to mention slang, jargon, colloquialisms, etc.

One thing that I do have going for me is my knowledge of British English, thanks to the years I spent in Australia. This has come in handy a few times like when a student asked to go to the WC. I explained to them that Americans do not call it a WC and many might not even understand because we call it a restroom or bathroom. I also mentioned that if they ask for a bathroom in England, Australia, New Zealand, etc. that people would think they needed to take a shower. For this reason, I recommended that they practice asking for the toilet so that no matter where they go, the message is clear.

What I teach is more or less up to me. Being the Montessorian that I am, I asked the students what it is they want to learn from me. A lot of them want to learn songs (this week we are talking about American music), and they asked to learn about customs, places to visit, American schools and education, everyday English, and (to my surprise) grammar. One boy asked me to teach about housecleaning but I’m not entirely sure he was serious.

I am not only here to teach English. One of my major goals is to gain some proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, or Hanyu, as they would say. (I specify Mandarin since one of the other major languages in China is Cantonese, spoken in the south including in major cities such as Hong Kong. Many of the people here watch Mandarin-subtitled movies made in Cantonese.) I did not come here knowing nothing of Mandarin since I had two semesters of study in college but that was five years ago now and I had forgotten much. I did begin to remember more as I have stayed here. Sometimes a word would just pop into my head that I hadn’t even remembered I’d forgotten (the feeling is a bizarre as the description). There are some things I’ve been trying to learn out of necessity such as the names of foods or crucial questions but I was also given a lesson book to help me study.

As you know, the Chinese alphabet is made up of characters. There are some 48,000 characters but only about 4,000 or 5,000 are used in everyday language. When writing characters, one uses strokes. If you think of drawing a “k” you first make the long, downward line, then the right-to-left down diagonal line then the left-to-right diagonal line. It is similar in Chinese. There are 30 different strokes though some are certainly more common than others. Basic characters are called radicals and if one knows radicals, one can often guess the general meaning of more complicated characters. For example, 木 (mu4) means “wood” and 木桶 (mu4tong3) is a cask and 森 (sen1) is a forest.

When speaking Mandarin, one of the most challenging things for me is using the proper tone. For each sound there are four ways to say it- a steady tone (first tone), a rising tone (second tone), a dipping tone that lowers then rises (third tone) and a lowering tone (fourth tone). So, even if you know that he1 means “drink” you need to say it with a steady tone or else you could accidentally say “and”. Then it gets even more complicated because some of the same sounds and same tones can mean different things depending on the context of the sentence!