We make ‘em tougher here in China...

Last post I mentioned that my students had military training (军训) here's the proof.




I'll never look at a basketball court the same way again.


That pair doing the goose-step march on the far right are my students.




Forget basketball and field events... these students will demonstrate movements with shields and clubs.



I think Americans should consider adopting this little addition to our regular style of schooling - it's just one week at the beginning of the school year (and only for freshmen in high school and college), most of what the students do is stand at attention and march when and where they're told to, there's no aggressive behavior or beating, and it does so much for the students' self-discipline and sense of direction and purpose.
My students saw me there watching and many of them said hi to me (one group even said "Hi Miner" all together). I felt proud of them. All I'd seen of these students was from a dais in a classroom and occasionally around campus, bookworms like me. But seeing them dressed in camo-gear, marching together, it gives me confidence in what they'll do for their education.
...(Plus I can tell my colleagues in the U.S. that my 5' Asian girls are just as tough and more disciplined than their 6'4" American male football and basketball players.)
I felt a little bad not being out there with my students, but I put myself through another form of physical hardship to prove my dedication to personal growth and refinement of spirit: fasting coupled with intense self-reflection (Yom Kippur).


Another really interesting development:

When I was in Vancouver, Canada this last summer with my bros and Uncle Mike and Aunt Susie I went with Mike and Tom to a Buddhist temple in Richmond and met a woman named Yvonne who works with her husband Harvey to send BC teachers to teach in primary and secondary schools in China, mostly Wenzhou.
I sent her some emails about what I've been up to and included some questions about what teachers are allowed to do as far as field trips off-campus, but she was too busy to reply, and then she lost my email address (that was a few weeks ago).

I include all of this background to emphasize how much of a shocker it was when Yvonne called me on my China cell phone around noon on Thursday to say that she was on campus and wanted to see me before she went back to Canada (she borrowed another teacher's cell so she could make an in-group call and got my number through the Foreign Affairs office).
So I biked over to the campus, talked to her for about half an hour, met her husband, and then said goodbye when they had to go to a lunch with some of the Wenzhou administrators.

...it was pretty cool.

The rest of that Thursday I spent with Julie, my teacher. In the evening I went to her home to make dumplings with her and her family (husband Mu + mother-in-law). And I made sure not to eat anything before the 24 hours was up.