China Finals

I am long overdue for a blog post.

Not only is the semester winding down, but I am closing the book on my time as an English teacher in China. The former offers plenty of fodder for laughter and frustration, but the latter has not yet provoked reflections that I could put clearly into words. That may not come until, as Papa Z. says, I am sitting on a windy Himalayan peak.

Fingers are crossed that our Tibet travel permits are approved. There have been new restrictions about group sizes, countries of origin, and modes of entry into the area. I've heard about a few friends being denied. Not to mention that foreigners are getting really bad press in China at the moment.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, and hopefully I will be in Tibet 6/8-6/20.

Yellow Mtn.

And while I know I will gain perspective on my experiences and time in China over the coming weeks (and months and years), I can definitely say that I have learned at least two things about myself over the past two years:

1) The more I learn about China, the less I understand; and
2) my greatest pet peeves are crowds and when eating mouths are unnecessarily noisy.

These pet peeves were on display during a recent weekend to Yellow Mountain. Heralded as one of the better tourist attractions in China, Yellow Mountain has unique rock formations and colorful cliff faces. As with all famous tourist attractions and popular mountains in China, Yellow Mountain was annoyingly crowded. After summiting, my friends and I had to wait in line just to see each vista on the peak circuit. While in line, I gave some stink-eyes to a couple of guys eating cake and shrink-wrapped tofu. Their mouths snapped and slurped so much, my personal space felt invaded. Also, food was falling all over this guy's mouth and clinging to his sweaty face to form a handlebar mustache made of cake. Eventually, I couldn't suppress the shivers running down my back; the pain and exhaustion after climbing miles of stairs, the claustrophobia-inducing line, and these guys' mouths pushed me too far: "你嘴很吵."

Spring's Quarterly Report

Spring time on campus

At eight weeks into the term and with just eight weeks left in the academic year, I feel it is time to purge myself of some thoughts and anecdotes related to my teaching experiences.

***

General Class Management:

I am now showing one video out of this ongoing series to each class each week. They love it. I am amazed at how Jessica has corralled her manic personality traits into flawless Chinese mannerisms. Her affect is dead-on though, somehow, more than a little offputting.

Also, I recently discovered that her Chinese name (白姐, baijie, "white sister") is also the title of a popular Chinese pornography novel.

Thanks to DNyks for bringing this series to my attention. Thank you to my students for being well-read on Chinese pornography. (In China, porn is called "yellow" material; perverts, "黄.")

***

As class began one brisk day in March, I found myself lassoing one student's attention: "Sousa, can you please put your nunchuks away?"

One week later, I walked into the same class while Michael Jackson's "Beat It" was playing. My students started clapping [mostly] to the rhythm and shouting: "Dance! Dance! Dance!"