Making a better world... one bag at a time

While I spent the last week doing the work necessary to be able to put my lessons together I found myself spending a lot of time going over the ideas I started developing a few weeks ago in regards to the problem of pollution in and around Wenzhou.

Last Sunday I bought a couple large bags from one of the shops in the University Town business center and on Wednesday I biked and hiked up one of the trails behind Chashan Town looking for garbage to collect. I continued my ascent until I reached a village where the neighborhood dogs got a little territorial and didn't let me pass through (haven't had any trouble with dogs in China before, not sure what went wrong).
In any case I started picking up garbage in plain view of several of the locals as they did some of their work and I continued to work my way back down the trail. I ended up with enough refuse to half fill one of the garbage cans (~100 liter) near my apartment; hardly a dent in the grand scheme of things, but people watched me work, and hopefully that at least will tell people that there's a problem.

Then today I had another hike with the Crazy English Club. This time we went by a new route and continued hiking (ascending and descending) for almost three hours (not counting breaks). I brought both bags and on the way back we loaded them both.

I live for this stuff.

Defacto Club Leader - Wang Liao Xin

Susan (newcomer)

(right) Xiao Ming - the younger brother I never asked for but like regardless.

Jia Jing (in her Earth-goddess pose)



(The fruits of our labor)

I felt sorry for making the casual weekend excursion with friends into an activity approaching extremist environmentalism, but most everyone seemed proud for having done it, and some of the students say they hope to learn from my example. And we passed several people on our way out, so we didn't do this unnoticed.

Now we just need to get other people to do their part...

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.

Land of a thousand holidays

This country has holidays like they're going out of style. That's not to say that EVERY holiday is celebrated equally, or that every one warrants a day off, but it seems every week or so there's something being celebrated.
Truth be told, I didn't know about this holiday until a few minutes ago, so this is one of the exceptions to the rule of frequent celebration.

九月九日憶山東兄弟 王維

獨 在 異 鄉 為 異 客，

每 逢 佳 節 倍 思 親。

遙 知 兄 弟 登 高 處，

遍 插 茱 萸 少 一 人

jiǔ yuè jiǔ rì yì shān dōng xiōng dì

dú zài yì xiāng wèi yì kè

měi féng jiā jié bèi sī qīn

yáo zhī xiōng dì dēng gāo chù

biàn chā zhū yú shǎo yī rén

Double Ninth, Missing My Shandong Brothers

As a lonely stranger in the strange land,

Every holiday the homesickness amplifies.

Knowing that my brothers have reached the peak,

All but one is present at the planting of zhuyu.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ninth_Festival)


My brothers of course are neither from, nor in Shandong (the buggers are in Walla Walla, WA and Hanover, NH respectively) so the poem isn't a perfect fit for me, but it still seems to suit my situation quite well.


Aside from the parallels between my life and web-sourced literature I have another week with no classes while my students are in military 'training' - at least if that's what you call standing under the sun in camo gear and marching back and forth to a drill instructor's orders. It sounds more tedious than anything else.

Oh, and another interesting thing that I decided to try. I realized I've spent about as much of my life in Oregon (~11 years) as I spent in Massachusetts (~11 years), so I decided to try and make contact with some of my old primary schoolmates before our lives get any further removed from those days than they already have. (Thank god for Facebook).
I only made contact with a few, but it's still nice to get a link established with someone from the past after such a long time.

Last Tuesday's adventure to the South

All of this was in a valley only about two hours drive south of Wenzhou. Every stop was practically overrun with visitors like ourselves, and all sections of the hike had paved stones, but the trip was still an exciting one, and as you can see we got to visit some very beautiful sites.
Participants: Ben Clarke (the guy wearing the stocking cap), Me (the young guy with the light eyes), Mr. Mu (Julie's husband who invited us), Mr. Mu's college friend (now the headmaster of a school in the north of China).

After this trip we went to a nice little restaurant near Chashan town (next to the college) and had a good dinner. It was a good trip.

It never ends...

In general I'm a pretty stoic person, but recently I've had to deal with some issues that got through my skin (figuratively and literally).


When I first came here and was living in an apartment on the first floor I considered getting a mosquito net, but after I slept there several nights without any of the pests intruding on my slumber I decided it wasn't worth the investment. When I moved up to the second floor however, the little monsters began to bother me without end. They came at me one at a time when the light was turned out, and after buzzing by my ear would fly away before I could turn on the fluorescent light. And the moment one was no longer a problem (after I had crushed it) another would begin flying in and pestering me.
The difficulty was in actually crushing one because they fly much faster than the mosquitoes we get in America.

There is a striking similarity to this situation that can be seen in my day-to-day life regarding the students and various people that I have met since I came here. Students and some teachers ask if I have free time to talk with them so they can practice their English (and on the rare occasion, teach me some Chinese), and during that time they are polite but typically are uncomfortably close to me physically and go on talking and interacting without pause (sometimes for hours).

Both problems result from the lack of a protective and exclusive net - in the former it's a physical net, in the latter a spatial as well as chronological net. Likewise in both cases I feel like I'm being intruded on and being sucked dry.

Good news is I got to do some martial arts with my colleague Ben the other day. We did some qigong and then some touch sparring. I took one harsh kick to my left leg and it still stings a little, but overall it was a lot of fun.

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