Advertisement
Published: November 25th 2007
A middle school
This is a middle school on campus. I caught them right after lunch coming back to the building. Basically tons and tons of Chinese kids running around like crazy.The past few weeks have been hellishly busy. On top of the normal classload and Chinese studying, I gave a midterm to my western culture class and a speech to about a hundred students. I made the test rather easy on purpose so that all of my students would do well on it. As I've mentioned prior, these kids are incredibly busy with classes and homework, so much so that I genuinely feel guilty assigning them excessive homework and making overly difficult tests. To give a specific example, the other day one of my best students told me he has about 35 hours per week in classes alone! Imagine that, that's like a full time job! So instead of trying to be the hard-ass, I'm trying to make class as interesting as possible, faciliating intelligent discourse and conveying as much knowledge as possible in an entertaining manner. With that being said, the idea of the exam was to basically see if people were paying attention in class. The exam was broken into fill-in-the-blank, true or false, matching and then finally an essay. The intention was that everyone would do quite well on the entire test and then I would assess their
Out to dinner
The three foreign teachers from Skidmore. JJ and Erich are to my left and right respectively. ability to think critically with the essay portion of the exam. In my opinion it went great, now I just have to correct these sixty exams that are in front of me. Ugh!
The speech went great as well. After teaching in front of a ton of Chinese students everyday and already giving one extending speech at the beginning of the semester, I wasn't worried about getting up in front of a bunch of people and speaking my mind. The title of my talk was: "A Ship Without Its Captain: Public Diplomacy In The Information Age And A Discussion Of What Lies Ahead." JEEZ! I know, really long title that at first doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but if you were there, I'm sure you would've found it interesting. I won't summarize the talk, but I do want to talk about a couple of points because I think they are incredibly significant and something that has been on my mind quite often here in China. Basically I discussed a few international surveys that have been covered a bit by the American media, which all point to a very alarming problem facing America. The surveys depict the declining
An empty street
At about 12:30 to 1:30 everday Chinese students (and adults too) take an afternoon nap, the equivalent to a siesta in some other countries. I like to go out and walk around at this time some days. The streets on campus are almost completely deserted. It's kind of an eerie feeling not seeing anyone in China because you're accustomed to having Chinese people everywhere! image of America abroad, detailed by the points that most people abroad disagree with the Bush Administration's foreign policy (big surprise), do not believe America should play the role as "the world's policeman," are in favor of withdrawal from Iraq, and so on. I also discussed the recent announcement from a woman named Karen Hughes, the under-secretary of state of public diplomacy and affairs, that she will be stepping down from her position sometime in December. Additionally, I talked about how social networking sites (like facebook.com and myspace.com) and media content uploading sites (like youtube.com) create a new venue for information sharing and can play a major positive role in trying to improve the problem of America's poor image. Lastly, I introduced and discussed in some detail the front runners for the 2008 presidential election and explained both the opposing ideology of the Democrats and Republicans, but also the importance of the upcoming election. After about an hour and a half, I opened up the floor for questions. To my delight, the students not only enjoyed the presentation, but I had to cut off the questions after about 45 minutes. The students surprised me by their interest in the subject
Gettin' down on some foosball
Here we are rippin' up the foosball table. I pride myself on being pretty solid at most sports, but I am absolutely terrible at this game! As you can see by the poster in the background, JJ's bar (another JJ) is the hangout for foreigners. Sometimes it's good to spend sometime away from everything that is China and let your hair down with the foreigners. Something to keep sane I guess. matter and also their well-informed queries. To sum up the tone of the speech and intentions: In my opinion, we are living in an incredibly crucial time in history and as an American living in a foreign country, I have seen first-hand how the current administration's policies and our actions as a nation have shaped a distinctly negative opinion of America and consequently Americans as well. In many instances, I feel a bit uneasy telling people that I am an American and in particularly sticky situations, I find it much easier saying that I'm Canadian. I don't want to have to do that in the future and it's a shame that it has gotten to this point. I may be exaggerating my role here in this country, but I do feel like somewhat of an ambassador here. When people ask me about myself, they are really asking about Americans in general and I feel obligated to give my honest opinion of things. With this in mind, I do give a somewhat bleak depiction of America at times, but it is only because I feel like my country has lost sight of itself in recent years. I think I am a
Freshmen
Four times per semester I am obligated to go to a thing called "English Corner." Basically I sit and field questions on the fly and talk about America. It's pretty entertaining for everyone and I get to teach people about America beyond the stereotypes, which is nice. One of my freshmen classes asked me to do an additionally English Corner for them every other wednesday because they are busy on the regular fridays. I'm a push over and I obliged. This is them after the show! positive person however, and I truly believe that America is still the best country on this planet. I just wish we started doing things in a different way, wherein we would not only improve the lives of Americans' lives and our economy, but simultaneously save face internationally and regain our position as a model country that other nations respect and aspire to emulate.
Before leaving for China, I picked up a great book entitled
The American Short Story. My reasoning for grabbing it was two fold: one I thought it would be a great resource for an extensive reading course and two, being a management and business major, I really haven't had a proper dose of the classics since high school. The other night before bed I picked up the little treasure, opened it and drowsily began reading a story at random. The story turned out to be E. Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." As I read further and further into the story, I became progressively more engrossed with its unfolding. Whether it be my soporific state or just a desire for something fantastic, I'm not sure, but I began to associate with the protagonist and put
Finding America in China
Red, White and Blue and KFC at a large department store in downtown Dongying. KFC is insidiously successful in China. They have more than effectively managed to localize their product here and Chinese people gladly pay a premium for their spicy chicken sandwiches and other delicacies. I'm not much of a fast food afficionado, but I can appreciate their ability to use their knowledge of Chinese taste to successfully market their product. myself squarely in his shoes. I won't recount the events by summary, but I will quote a couple of select passages and admonish you to read the story at some point if you get a chance. It's quite brilliant.
So now it was all over, he thought. So now he would never have a chance to finish it. So this was the way it ended in a bickerring over a drink. Since the gangrene started in his right leg he had no pain and with the pain the horror had gone and all he felt now was a great tiredness and anger that this was the end of it. For this, that now was coming, he had very little curiosity. For years it had obsessed him; but now it meant nothing in itself. It was strange how easy being tired enough made it.
Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would Chinese dishes
I have definitely moved past the uncomfortable stage of eating Chinese food. From my time here before, I got a taste of what real Chinese food is like-- it's quite a bit different than sweet and sour pork and General Sao's chicken. The dishes sometimes are rather interesting looking and I've tried to keep an open mind to try everything at least once. I have added a good number of dishes to my repertoire and I can say that I genuinely enjoy eating Chinese food. I must admit however, I could use a good steak or some pizza sometimes! never know, now.
************************
It was not that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. He had had his life and it was over and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same places, and some new ones. You kept from thinknig and it was all marvellous. You were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by someone who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing of comfort, or being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at
Chinese BBQ
We happened upon this BBQ spot one night. We went with a Chinese friend previously because they brew their own beer and have excellent food. It turns out that the upstairs has BBQ and some entertainment. all. The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did not work. Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life so he had come out here to start again. They had made this safari with the minimum of comfort. There was no hardship; but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0264s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
