Another vacation

My only experience teaching in an official capacity before this job was in rural/suburban Oregon at non-collegiate secondary schools (I also taught the full five days a week, but the subject at least was something I had been extensively trained in).
Though all teachers made it a goal not to become what I call "mission-control" - people who countdown - it was something we all ended up falling into.

I'm not sure if it's the lighter work-load, the level of maturity of my students, maybe it's the fact that I'm actually taller than most of them and thus feel more like a teacher, or it could be because they give me lots of compliments, but I don't have the same craving for days off like I used to.
Sure I still become physically drained from doing this job and want to get out of my class for some alone time, but usually it's just for the sake of recharging myself, either by lying down and resting, reading or going into my head to play with my imagination.

Whatever the reason for my lack of desire for days off I now find myself with an entire week off because of National Day (comparable to July 4th). We had to teach Saturday and Sunday like we would on our Mondays and Tuesdays respectively in order to accommodate this schedule, and unfortunately I haven't planned any trips for myself.
Realistically though my lack of travel plans may be for the best: everyone will be traveling somewhere at this time so hotels are likely to be booked, tickets all sold, so on and so forth. And in the meantime I can focus on getting to learn the lay of the city better, planning my curriculum, practicing some Kung Fu (falling behind with that) and improving my Chinese vocabulary. Not to mention getting some time to do some reading, which I haven't been able to do because of work and all the time spent getting my documents in order.

Now the pictures:

View from my office building (on the floor just above my office)


















Dinner with the Foreign Language College Teachers and Administrators

Choosing what we'll eat















Some of what's available: Poultry (heads are always still attached), bivalves (BIG ones), frogs (still living), turtle (had that once before, not bad but not noteworthy)

To give you more than a mental picture

I just found out I can load images on Blogger, so I'll give all of you some visuals of where I live and the kind of scenery that surrounds me.

(Truth be told this isn't much more than a sampling of what I've seen and most of my pictures are on Facebook).


Wenzhou University, North Campus Entrance
(September 6th)













View of the grove and street from my balcony













View of the mountains from my balcony













Inner court from the level of my apartment













C 区 (district) - my home













Wenzhou Medical College

Recent Developments...

For the first two weeks of the term I had no classes at all because the freshmen had yet to arrive, and for two weeks after that I had no classes on Monday, first because the freshman came on a Wednesday, and then because there was a holiday last week so no one had classes on Monday.

Yesterday I met my Monday students for the first time, after my Thursday and Friday classes had already received two lessons a piece. My regular morning classes in Oujiang (瓯江学院) were much like the morning classes I'd done in previous weeks - although I've found myself tasked with finding English names for several of my students - a task I wouldn't say I'm qualified for, but I'll do it nonetheless. I've given an English name to one girl I know who invited me on the hike last weekend (Janette), and I've so far named girls in two of my classes Susan.


Getting settled into the system I thought was taken care of, but yesterday I had to go to the Police station and hand over my passport and other information to get my work permit, only problem was I thought my boss still had my passport, so I was there (45 minutes from the campus) with copies of my passport and other official papers, but unable to process the documents without the passport hard-copy. I went back today with my passport in hand and turned everything in (most of the paperwork I finished yesterday anyway), but there was a time when I wasn't sure if I would be fined for my slight tardiness ($500 US).

I've been doing more work on my idea to clean up the natural areas around Wenzhou and I 've sent requests to a group called Freecycle for garbage cans, garden tools, gloves, etc. The organization has groups in several cities and allows people to give away their old 'junk' to avoid sending it to landfills. We'll see how that plan goes - in the meantime I'll get to my surveying.

As far as learning Chinese I've gotten into the mindset of doing all I can to not fall into using English, and I find I two things: 1) I know a bit more than I thought I knew, and 2) I know a lot less than what I thought I might need.

So hot... so humid...

...but oh the things to see and do.

Last night I went to the P.E. college and participated in a Taekwondo class that practiced the same techniques I did when I was 10. Talk about rigid movement - it was like doing a poor version of 'the robot'. Though I was a bit impatient because I finally got the Internet working on my own machine and I wanted to get to using it and upload some pictures.

I got back to my room and showered, and within a few minutes of getting out of the shower, a couple students came knocking at my door (to add to the problem my two towels were in the washing machine at that moment so I couldn't dry myself in the conventional manner). Anyway, I got invited to go on a hike up one of the mountains near the campus with the "Crazy English" club.

The hike took place around 6:00 this morning. We biked out to the base of the mountain (where I had gone a couple days before when I had a free afternoon), and halfway up the mountain we celebrated one group member's birthday with a fruit-filled spongecake (there were close to twenty of us).
The students were very nice and wanted to include me in all that they did, but therein lay the problem; I like to go hiking to get away from excessive socialization and the press of civilization. I certainly don't mind going hiking with others, and I don't mind talking to others on a hike, but in my experience there's a sort of unwritten, unspoken "non-speaking" rule in regards to hiking up a mountain - you talk all you want when you have a break, and while hiking you strive for silence. You focus on breathing and enjoying the scenery ...in silence.

Apparently such is not the case in China, I scarcely had a quiet moment. So many group members wanted to talk to me and practice their English. And when I tried to speak in Chinese they would usually just answer the question and then jump right back into English (sometimes it's almost impossible to get Chinese practice, no one wants to use the native tongue with foreigners.)

At the top of our ascent (we only went about halfway up the mountain) I climbed some tall stones to get a better view (and get a bit of distance from everyone) and my 'daring stunts' had some of friends freaking out.

We had lunch at a restaurant outside the university and a little ways away from the town. As usual I was reluctant to leave food uneaten, knowing no one is taking it home for leftovers, and I noticed we still had a lot of steamed rice. One of the girls told me not to worry because it can be reused. That relieved me as far as knowing that there won't be so much waste of food, however learning that my lunch included potentially reused rice from someone else's meal left me just a little discomforted.


One last thing I'll mention was that all along the paths ascending the mountain there was a fair amount of garbage, from plastic bags to packaging, to cigarette packs and bottle caps. Having lived so long in Oregon where such things are almost unthinkable I found the quantity of rubbish astounding.
A couple days ago I had been brainstorming ways to help clean up the river that runs through the town, and today I found the opportunity to do some clean up on the mountain. I and the other students only collected a plastic grocery bag-full of rubbish, but the students found it very inspiring - maybe I can use it to affect some real change in the near future - garbage cleanups in exchange for special English lessons (hey it starts with a dream).

So much to do... and yet still there's time

Before I came here I read two books about Americans who had gone to teach in China - Iron & Silk (1986, Mark Salzman), and River Town (2001, Peter Hessler). (I read them in this order).

Like Salzman I came here right out of college, and like Hessler I arrived here with minimal fluency in the language. Unlike either of them I'm not with any program in America (Yale-China or Peace Corps), and my contract is only for one year instead of two years.

Both of these books gave me some useful insights into China and I found both of them a lot of fun to read, although when I read Iron & Silk I had a hard time taking Salzman completely at his word. His book was certainly entertaining and fun, but the sheer volume of his activities: kung fu with one master (a veritable martial arts superstar), yixing with another master, travel, outings with the English teachers, it seemed impossible that he could do all these things and still have time to teach - at a MEDICAL college in the city where Mao Zedong came from no less.

Now however I think I begin to see where he would have found the time. So little of my time here is spent teaching I sometimes forget I actually have a job. If it weren't for the years of teacher training that make me keep planning my lessons I'd probably just be practicing Chinese, reading books and doing some martial arts all day and never even give a thought to preparing for my classes.
Despite my commitment to working on lesson planning I actually have done a lot of non-teacher related stuff, including a few martial arts classes. I have a few martial arts teachers, though none of them speak any English, and tomorrow I start some classes with them.

Since my intended class for last night got moved to another day of the week, I took the time last night to go out biking through the bazaar to see what's being sold beyond the college grounds. The food looked good so I think I'll go back soon.

For tomorrow I'm going to give my students a taste of some of U.S. culture through music. I'm thinking "Star-Spangled Banner", "I'm Free", some songs from "Grease", "Forrest Gump" and probably "Star Wars". (and of course some Disney music).

And then there were three...

...three days a' teachin' that is.

Around noon today I received a call from my boss, Shelly Ke (pronounced 'kuh'), saying that my Tuesday evening class has been made into a Monday evening class. So next Monday I teach three classes for the first time (two in the morning at Oujiang College, one in the evening at the Foreign Language College), and from here on out I have Saturday-Sunday and Tuesday-Wednesday to explore Wenzhou and learn Chinese. (...and plan my lessons I know, let me enjoy the moment).

Today I did work on reformatting my first lesson and got a few possibilities lined up for what I might teach on Thursday and Friday, but I don't want the students to get too far ahead of the others, so I think I'll revisit some of the things they asked to learn about last week and in the meantime I'll treat them to some classic Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons - I knew it was a good idea to bring those.

I spent the afternoon in the office next door to mine talking with a colleague, "Faye" who got a master's degree in translation from Leeds College in Cambridge, UK (this is her first year as a teacher too). She helped me find this professional translator's site where they also have jobs for voice-overs, so I'm looking into it now to see what opportunities there are in that regard - who knows someday I might have a career, or at least a part-time job, in voice-acting or narrating (...awesome).

Regrettably I didn't go to the Wushu gym at 4:00 like I intended, so I'll do it on Thursday and until then just do a bit of practice on my own.

IT'S A TYPHOON!

Well it's a lot of rain and some wind to go with it, but it's not going to kill anyone.

I'm really wishing I'd made some room in my bags for a rain-jacket, though before I left I already emptied my bags of most of my books and other non-essential paraphernalia, so I'm not sure where I would've packed said jacket.

Last night we had a nice little celebration for the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节日). Julie's apartment is still being renovated so we couldn't eat there, but we did go to the restaurant where she and her husband took me on my first night in Wenzhou - the place with Northeast-style food (don't try to order clam chowder, it's a different Northeast). Ben came and so did Jada, and Mr. Mu's mother came as well.
The food was really great, and we had lots of it. We ate sweet and sour pork, caramelized sweet-potato, vegetables, noodles, beef, and a couple other dishes I can't name. And afterwards we had moon cake (月饼). Ben said that he had been feeling lonely when he got the call from Mr. Mu, so the dinner was just what he needed - and after my trip to the islands got cancelled, an outing with friends was just what I needed too.

Tomorrow night I have my first class at the Foreign Language College and it's three periods instead of the standard two, so I need to try to make it a bit longer than my previous classes - I'm thinking of using some music during the breaks and maybe having them make name cards too.

Thanx for the comments people have been posting, hopefully I get my Internet working soon and I get to post some pictures to compliment the stories.

First week over, four classes introduced

Wow...
wow...
I expected this teaching job would be different from any kind of job I could get in America (given my qualifications) but some things you just can't prepare for.

Here's a breakdown of the two days I've taught so far:
I get up, shower and dress, have breakfast (oatmeal) and bike over to the school (it's a much shorter commute than either of my two student-teaching jobs in the US were). I go to the building attendant and sign out an access card for my classroom, then go to my room (the room is already open, the access card is for the computer). I get out my materials (clock, notes, paper, etc.) load up my PowerPoint and wait for the straggling students to arrive (even twenty minutes early a number of students are already there).

All of my classes have at least 30 students, about 90% girls. The students in the first and third classes seem very capable and many students are participating and using English comfortably. The students in the second and fourth classes have some good speakers, but most of the students are still afraid to speak, so I need to work on getting them talking.

In all but the first class the students have asked me to say something in Chinese, and in the third and fourth classes they asked me to demonstrate some Kung Fu. Not wanting to be a hard ass I chose to give them what they asked for, but before doing any of these things I would take off my glasses to signal a "departure from normal practice". For lack of anything "useful" to say in Chinese, I sang the first two stanzas of "Beijing Welcomes You", and for Kung Fu I did Wushu Basic Stance Drill (just 10 moves).
Both of these things got a lot of applause.

And I grievously underestimated something about these students: flirting. During my teacher training I was told, unequivocally, that we teachers must never put ourselves in any situations with our students that could ever possibly be construed as romantic or suggest mutual attraction. In my inquiries about teaching in China I was told that the girl students will look at young American guys like American teenage girls look at rockstars, and will pursue them just as fervently - my sources were not exaggerating.
In every class I've had, students ask me if I have a girlfriend, they ask for my phone number, they want to know what I think of Chinese women, I even had one student suggest I wear a T-shirt next class because she thinks I'm handsome. (...not gonna lie, that was a little, uh... yeah).

When I was a student, or a teacher in America, I was not one of the popular crowd. I had several good friends, and I wasn't the victim of social discrimination, but I wasn't the kind of guy that had hoards of girls asking for my number and giggling and hiding their faces every time I smiled. Now I'm living that classical high school/college boy's dream, but honestly I don't really care for it.
Fame by its very nature is transitory, and the fame I have doesn't come from any achievement on my part, but only by virtue of having been born an American and being able to speak my native tongue. Why attach any value to it? (I've been reading a lot of Stoic philosophy, can you tell?)

After I finished my classes on Friday I went to the Teacher's Break Room in 楼 7 and sat in a massage chair for a little while - that was a nice release of physical tension. I also met a Math professor in his mid-forties whose been teaching at the University since 1990. He and I played ping-pong for almost two hours and he was whoopin' my ass. Although he did give me a number of tips about how to hold the paddle and how to swing properly, so I made a lot of progress.

This weekend we expect a large typhoon on the coast, fortunately I'm a little further inland, so it won't be getting to the university. However one of the teachers has invited me to go with her to one of the islands on Sunday. These islands are within the delta and further up-river, but still a typhoon is a typhoon, so I'm waiting to see if that trip is still a go.

My teacher, Julie, invited me to go to her house on Monday (she also invited Ben) and we'll celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) - kind of like an early Thanksgiving.

Besides that I'm just hanging out around school - still no Internet in my room, so no pictures to show everyone, and my Chinese is still weak, so I'll practice some of that in conjunction with my lesson planning, and... that's about it.

Alive and teaching...

Today was my first official day of work: I had my class in Building (楼) 4, Room (室) 510 at 8:10, and again at 10:10.
I dressed in slacks and a gray, long-sleeve, button-down shirt, complete with glasses, a tie and hiking boots. (I like those boots, don't knock the style).

I gave the students a general outline of how and what I'm going to teach (most of it came from the meeting I had with Ben earlier this week). I stated several times that despite the fact that I'm the teacher, the class is theirs - their responsibility to do the work and speak the language - and that my role will be to help set up ways for them to practice, and to oversee that practice and correct any of their flaws - which I told them not to be ashamed of because it's how they will learn.

One thing I tried that had questionable success was to demonstrate how inefficient it would be if I was the only person that they conversed in English with. I put a few questions on the board and passed around a sheet of paper that the students could write their answers on. I admit it was pretty abstract so I don't know how many students actually understood what I was trying to impart, but they seemed to get the idea - the first class needed about an hour to finish. (I was doing other things while the paper went around).

I picked up very few of their names, regrettably, and I won't see these students again until next week - so for tomorrow's classes I think I'll give them paper to write name cards.

When I was done I went over to the Teacher's Lunch in 楼 7 and ate with a colleague who has an office near mine on the 13th floor (层).
Oh, one quick note about how I eat: I alternate left and right-hands with my chopsticks. Mostly I eat with my left, and when other people here try they usually can't do it. It's kinda cool to have a unique skill with an old tool.


I finished my day by going over to the gym and doing some Kung Fu - mostly punching the bags. First my feet got bruised from kicking, now my knuckles have lost skin from punching.

Tomorrow it begins

Tomorrow morning my first class begins at 8:00 and goes until 9:50. It includes a short, 10-minute break in the middle there, but it'll still be the longest continuous teaching experience I've ever had with just one group of people.
The second class is immediately afterwards and it's just as long.

I've got a plan for how I'm going to run the class, what I'm going to say and what I'm going to have the students do, but still I feel apprehensive. (Even after being assured by ten people that I shouldn't worry).


In other news, the PIN number for the computer in my apartment still hasn't been able to get me connected, so I can't post any pictures.
Oh, and something cool happened on Monday that I forgot to mention: after working with Ben I went to a small village next to the Medical College, they were having a celebration that I got some pictures of. I don't know what it was about, but it was a nice little escape from the campus.


And the last thing I have to report is that last night I went to practice some martial arts in the PE college.
I invited my two colleagues from the US, only Will showed. The instructor wasn't around to coach us, but some of the students helped us train. I'm thinking now that maybe I should have done some more bag work without shoes back in the States - so many wheel kicks, the tops of my feet took some wicked punishment.

Love my neighbor...

...cause he's saving my life.

My neighbor, Benjamin "Benja" Clark is an expert on foreign language teaching and he's here on a fellowship through the U.S. State Department. He's had years of experience teaching as a college adjunct in America and he's read a lot of research in this profession as well as done his own research across the whole spectrum of learning abilities (from college-level to special needs youths).

He doesn't speak Chinese, (he taught French) but the methodology and goal setting that he's been helping me with has been invaluable.


To give you some perspective on just how valuable this is let me describe the help I've received in class preparation thus far:

Since I got here I've asked professors and students alike what the average freshman already knows of English and what might be the best way to teach them in terms of useful topics and in effective second-language teaching methodologies. Just about everyone (and I mean "just about everyone") gave me one or two examples of topics discussed and said "don't worry about it". Twice now I've been handed standard textbooks after asking for general explanations of what I should teach (I now have two copies each of the student and teacher versions of the text for my class, and both the student & teacher versions of the next level beyond mine).

In all of this time no one has ever sat down and said anything like:
- "your students already know _________, so start by reviewing _______",
- "in my experience, new students need to learn _________, be sure you include that at some point",
or even just
- "students love when a teacher _______".

So to have someone with experience in methodology and second-language teaching technique come along and say:
- "these are some goals we should shoot for",
- "this is how we'll do it",
- "here are just a couple ideas about what we could do in the classroom, we'll collaborate on some more later",

...it's really nothing short of a god-send.


Oh, and a few days ago my colleague who was my Chinese teacher in America, Julie Luo, gave me a jar of homemade raspberry jam that she got from her host family. This morning I tried it on some breakfast rolls that are the Chinese equivalent of plain biscuits -
They... Were... AWESOME!

Class Schedule

And Shelly has worked her magic again: my class schedule is here, it comes complete with textbooks for the students and the teacher (me).

Overview:
(this schedule starts next Thursday, September 11th)

- I teach 15 periods/week of Conversational English, (1 period = 45 minutes)
- These 15 periods are divided into 6 two-period classes in Oujiang College (瓯江学院), and 1 three-period class in the Foreign Language College (外语学院)
- The Oujiang classes are 8:10-9:50 and 10:10-11:50, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays
- The Foreign Language class starts at 18:30, Tuesdays evenings

All the Oujiang classes are Freshman, the Foreign Language class is Sophomores.

And as an added bonus, I get an office: Building No. 7, Rm 1308A (I share it with the American Culture teacher).

New Apartment

Finally I'm in my permanent residence for the next year (Rm 202).

"I want to thank the people that made this moment possible:
uh, Shelly from Oujiang College who did a fantastic job of arranging for the staff to clean the room after the last teacher left it such a mess... uh, who else, oh and again Shelly for promising to get people to get me the PIN number for the computer in my new apartment... uh, props to the last tenant for leaving all his cooking-ware, although you could've left the place smelling nicer... uh, thank you Jada for helping me get a cell phone and SIM card - thank you Julie for letting me use your Internet to write all this - oh, and thanks also for the homemade jam from your host family in Oregon... uh, if I forgot anyone here's a last thank you, you know who you are..."

"...OH, and thank you to the Academy for not cutting me off in mid-speech."