My New Jacket and Other Holidays

So I am no longer freezing to death. Im sure there was great concern in my following, but now you can hold off the vigils and such, Ive learned to suck it up, and I bought a jacket.

Anyway, so there was a Halloween party at the university. That was interesting. My site-mate and I wanted to do the holiday right, so we went downtown and tried to find a pumpkin, which according to all our students, was a totally reasonable mission. Alas, the English translations were not so good for their large gourd squash things and even their consistency did not really seem right to make a weird mishapen jack o lantern, though I suppose we could have tried a little harder. I mean, In Senegal I saw volunteers make them out of watermelons, that is dedication.

But we did want to get dressed up, though generally failed in the whole get-a-costume thing. I ended up as some sort of weird black and white thing with clowny clockwork orange kinda makeup. Leo put some red around his mouth and carried around a hammer and I guess was some kinda serial killer of some sort. And then from there we went to the 'party'.

Now I was pretty sure that no matter what, a college party here in China could not resemble a college party in America. I will have to write a whole other blog about how maturity levels are different, ideas of independence, general behavior of students, feelings about drinking and having fun, all is so different. Anyway, but the party was hosted by the university, it was held in a big banquet hall above the cafeteria, and there was some vague holiday-ish decorations (ok, I admit I did see some cut outs of ghosts and a witch on a broom), lots of colorful lights, a stage and seating set up facing the stage taking up most of the room. When we came in there were many students packed into this room, many of them were my students, so that was cool. No one in that main room was wearing any kind of costume but us. We tried to mingle for a while in the crowd, meeting people and scaring people with our 'beautiful makeups', but we were soon ushered over to stage left so that the party could begin. This ushering us around was definitely a big part of the whole evening. On the stage was an announcer or host of some sort, and he was starting things off, getting people to take their seats. He was being filmed by some video crew, another interesting point of the evening.

Again, we were mingling over to the side of the stage with various people. Out the door to the side were maybe a dozen students dressed in costumes, where the whole point was that they were wearing them to be judged on stage and afterwards they would promptly remove them. Soon after the program began, we were unexpectedly ushered on stage and asked to explain Halloween for everyone, why it was important and what it meant for all Americans. That was odd. Then they spontaneously asked us to begin our "program", whereupon we stared blankly at each other for a while. Bo one had really said at all what was supposed to happen at this "party", let alone that we were expected to have a 'program'. Eventually, Leo told a terrible rendition of some ghost story that no one could really hear anyway with the music and the noise, and that they wouldnt have understood anyway even if they could hear it. Then the costumed people came up on the stage in a big line and we were told to choose two to be the winners or soemthing. I just chose kinda at random and felt badly after because I could have picked one of the two or three that were my students and it would have all been the same.

Anyway, then we tried to just hang out and mingle by the stage but then we were again ushered to sit in front row center for the rest of the program. There was singing and music playing, kungfu demonstrations and dancing. Later there were some games presented by the host, where he choose people 'randomly' from the audience and had them do things, like who could wrap tp around their partner the fastest (vaguely halloween-like, mummy like at least), and another was a game like charades, the rest i couldnt really figure out.

Eventually that all ended and it was time for the dance party. Again, not to be confused for an American dance party. First the chairs were partway moved so that some of the dance department could come and break-dance. This was in fact one of the coolest and most interesting things I have seen here in China simply because it was so different and interesting. After that they cleared out all the chairs and there were a few different dance melodies played where students danced in unison, electric slide style, sometimes in conga line, sometimes in rows, sometimes with a partner, sometimes in a circle. It was kinda fun, I am not good at being coordinated, but it was funny at least.

And that went on for maybe a half hour or so, maybe more, and that was it, the lights came on and everyone left. That was the whole college party, China-style. Oh, i guess there was some candy, they randomly threw hard candy over the crowd sometimes.

Throughout the whole event, people constantly took pictures with us. That is pretty constant anytime we are at any function or a student has a camera. But this was much more so because of our semi-costumed selves. Everyone wanted pictures. One student would come up and her friend would take the picture with her phone, then her own phone, then another person would come up and there would be three more pictures with all the phones, then the friend would want to be in the picture so she would give all the phones to someone else and there would be another four taken... and so on and so on. Literally the entire evening. My face hurt from trying to smile so much.

The other thing was we were constantly, constantly apologized to for it not being interesting. I had to say over and over that it was interesting. It was legitimately interesting. And then they would say, "but it is not like Halloween in America?" Well of course it is not like bloody Halloween in America, nobody does anything like this in America unless you are in elementary school, but then I didnt really want to explain all that. I just had to keep saying over and over that I was having fun. That was a really annoying part. Often people here will ask you over and over if you are having fun, and you cant say 'no', but even when you are having fun, especially when you are having a good time, it can just be obnoxious to have the same four sentence conversation with every person you talk to.

So that was Halloween. Strange, interesting, kinda exhausting.

Now yesterday was another holiday, the new year celebration for the Yi ethnic group in China. I will try to keep this short as this is already way too long a post. Much of the administration at the school gets invited to this celebration held by some of the Yi student leaders, not far from the university. We got there just after ten in the morning and stayed until after 5 in the afternoon though we were told that it would continue until maybe ten that night, they like themselves a party.

So there were maybe a hundred or so people total there, students and administration and their families, maybe a bit more. I was there with Leo and the other American paid teacher, Donald, and a Japanese volunteer (JICA) teacher was there too. She just came to Yibin and has been teaching Japanese majors for a week. The four of us were often together as we were the big interest, besides the holiday that was going on.

After some tea, mahjong and card games, people gathered around a bonfire and two small pigs were brought out. It was clear almost before I was the pigs what was happening. Maybe I can sense it from being in Senegal, the metal bowls, the long inexplicable knife held by some young grinning guy. First they carried the pigs around the fire three times, we didnt get good translations on the symbolism in everything but I am sure that many things had symbolism. Many of the Yi men and women wore soft black coats with colorful embroidery. The Yi people are mostly in western Sichuan province and Tibet, if I understood correctly.

Then there was something new for me. I had never seen a pig slaughter before, let alone two. It was quick, ill give it that, but the screaming before hand, eek. But it was different then Senegal, not the throat cutting move, but rather a neck stab into the heart.

Later there was dancing around the fire, some singing, some chanting, general merriment. Then lunch was served a little after one. I had to eat some of the pork, though it was served in rather intimidating large chunks to eat with chopsticks. And then the drinking, toasting, and all that began. I tried to limit myself because I am weary of such situations, but many people were rather drunk in quick order.

After lunch I wanted to just talk to people and mingle, as I always want to do at parties and always fail to do here because no one ever lets me. Instead they had more singing, followed by a kind of wrestling, followed by arm wrestling, which I got pulled into more than once. Then there was more singing and whatnot. Some old guy pulled out an accordion and that was kinda cool. But then everything started to drag out and it was clear if we stayed for another hour we would be expected to have dinner and more and I thought we would be best to make an exit.

It was really cool though, the music, the songs, the clothes, the dancing, the tradition. I really want to do more things like this while I am here. maybe without the arm wrestling...

This week is of course Thanksgiving, the deans of the school have invited us to some dinner that night and Leo and I really want to go to another city where many other PCVs are meeting for a weekend. I guess I will let y'all know how all that turns out.

On Freezing to Death in China

It is cold here. Really. Like really cold. Well, ok, I should qualify this.

I haven’t had real fall like weather since 2007, and that was in good ole Atlanta and so it really wasn’t that cold feeling till later, and even then I was more prepared for it. That is a good part of the reason. Senegal only had coldish weather starting maybe around December, and then, well, it was Africa cold, like 80s, that kind of cold. But to be fair, it was really like one long summer, punctuated by periods of more heat, more rain, or more wind. Though generally, it was a big long two and a half year summer.

And now apparently it is fall. I was first informed that it was fall back in September. That was around the time that I was teaching with rolled up sleeves and sweating through the shirt anyway. My fan and AC were on whenever I was at home and I thought that I really should invest in a hand fan (though they just don’t seem the same after having one in Africa so long). It was hot here. Not really like dreadful Sahel heat, but up to 40 some days and the worst was that it was humid. The air is so thick sometimes with coal smoke and fog that it is hard to see the scenery, even mountains that are just a kilometer or two away. But anyway, it was hot, and that was only a month ago.

Now I guess the seasons are changing or something. Though you cannot tell it here from the trees. There is one kind of tree found in a couple spots on campus that looks like it is losing its leaves. But then maybe it is just diseased or something. Everything else is a green as ever. Anyway, so I guess it has been around in the 50s this last week. Not terrifically cold, but cold enough for me. The other problem is that that I don’t really have any kind of reliable way to heat my apartment. There is this AC thing that is up near the ceiling that I can switch to heat, but it only stays on for a couple minutes at a time, maybe enough to heat the ceiling near its thermometer, then it clicks off and I think the heat must mostly all go to the windowpane a foot away and the rest of the room, let alone the rest of the apartment, stays about just as cold as it would be anyway. So that’s to say, I wake up pretty cold, which I would enjoy except that I have class at 8.30 most mornings and this cold really makes me want to sleep past 7.

It’s becoming more of a problem because I really don’t have enough winter clothes. I knew this coming over but I figured I would just pick stuff up here and so far that hasn’t really worked out. Bargaining is a bit intimidating when you don’t speak the language enough to say more than some numbers and the things I would bargain for here aren’t on the same level as Senegalese prices (where I could get a shirt and shoes together for three dollars if it’s a good day). Not to say that I don’t have some. I even have a couple of nice suit jackets that my aunt was nice enough to help me get. But I will need to invest in a couple sweaters and maybe a coat before this winter comes on for real. And that is really strange because I am told that it doesn’t even snow here so it shouldn’t even get as cold as Atlanta…

The other fun news of the day is that because of various factors that are beyond my understanding, the school here has decided to keep its students from trouble in the city by instituting a 7 day school week. I was informed of this for this weekend by a phone call at 8am saying that I needed to teach on Saturday like it was a Tuesday, and teach on this Sunday like it was a Wednesday. That is just super fun. Not. The students seem disgruntled, I am certainly disgruntled, and I don’t even know who or what to be mad at. There are rumblings that it will continue next weekend and maybe will go on to the indefinite future. I sure hope not, maybe someone will talk some sense into someone this week to stop all that from going on. I didn’t even have the will to do anything today about class. I had been thinking of traveling to visit some other volunteers who were having a Halloween party in Chongqing. But I guess it is a good thing that I wasn’t there because then I would have missed all this excitement…. I also wanted to do a movie club meeting this weekend. Oh and maybe relax, that would have been fun too. But today I showed pictures of Halloween stuff in America and told them, from the best of my memory some American fairy tales that involved witches and pied-pipers and whatnot. The students just wanted to watch a movie, but I don’t know if I can get away with that much laziness.

Anyway, here’s to hoping for the weekend…

Classes and Schedules

We just finished up our fifth week of school here. I am an actual university teacher and everything, with all the grading to do, but then, none of the money... ah well.

I have six classes of freshman English majors where I teach oral English. In each of these classes there are a little more than forty students that I get to pretend I know what I am doing in front of for an hour and a half once a week. Twice a week I meet with a class of non-English major freshman, for a listening and speaking class. There are fewer of them, 19, but their level is obviously much less than that of my major students.

Teaching is interesting. I don’t think I am very good at it at this point, it’s my first time teaching like this anyway, but I think it is really interesting and it is fun being creative and finding different ways to get students to practice what they know. And I am learning a lot. Maybe next term I will emphasize things like vocabulary more because I feel like I am presenting a handful of words each week and they remember them for the length of one class, then when I do recall stuff later they have no idea what I am talking about. Things like that I still need to work on. But then, vocabulary is not particularly my emphasis anyway.

I also find myself in fast associations with many people, English major students, non major students, other teachers, and just other people in the city that want to be my best friend if only so I can personally teach them all English. And I am not an English tutor. I don’t know how to be a tutor and I don’t have time enough to be a tutor. But then all too frequently I don’t know how to get out of situations like that when I would like to be doing anything but being a free private tutor for one person.

Which brings me to my other problem is that I never feel like I have enough free time or know anyone easy going enough to allow me to study Chinese at all. Outside of restaurants and supermarket situations I have had no opportunity to practice at all, which seems absurd except that on campus everyone wants me to speak English constantly and so this is hardly an immersive condition. It’s frustrating, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Chinese wasn’t so impossibly hard for me anyway. Honestly from how things look at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t learn anything new to say in the next year. Ok, maybe I can, it is just really hard to ever practice and I’m feeling overwhelmed by it is all.

But I do like teaching. And all the students seem to mostly like me. I try to teach a little about American culture in my classes too. Sometimes I think I know too much about linguistics, like when a student asks about the spelling of something and I get to talking about Old English, German or French and then just stop and have to say, “well, that’s just the way we do it…”. And it is all really fun. In my listening class we have listened to a few songs and I have had them try to figure out what some of the lyrics are. And sometimes things are just baffling, like when a student comes with an English textbook for another class asking her to fill in blanks with “a” or “an” or “the” or “some” and one of them is seriously like “Harry wants to go to __ store”. And I just say, “well, I guess you should put “the” but you really could put “a””, and the student looks at me pleadingly and I know if I say anything more I will just make this more baffling and be making fun of this illogical textbook. Or one of my textbooks that asks students to look up the word ‘brasserie” because it is used in a listening activity, but then of course, it isn’t in anyone’s dictionary and I have to explain it and explain that no Americans actually use this word.

But with all the ridiculousness and all the whatever, I really like it here right now. If nothing else but for the PC goals of showing people of other cultures what Americans are like, I think people are surprised by things I like and do and say because it is not in line with their American stereotype. I guess I could say a lot about stereotypes, but I can save that until another time.

Greetings from China!!

So this is my long awaited new blog about my life as a Peace Corps volunteer in China. I have actually been here for a while now, but it has taken about this long to figure out my internet situation well enough to be able to post something on here. So, gee, where to begin?

First, what am I doing here? So I ended my service in Senegal May 13 and was back in America for about a month and a half. Before I left I put in paperwork to be transferred to China. It took a little doing, it’s a different country and region obviously, but also it’s a different sector, PC China only has English teachers. The end of February then, I met up with my new group in Washington DC and after a short staging orientation, we all left for China together.

I can give a general idea of what’s all happened:

We went straight to the city of Chengdu, right about in the middle of China, in Sichuan province. That is where we had our training and figured out China and how to be English teachers and all that fun stuff. For a few days we lived in a hotel together, as a training group of about 90 people, but soon enough we separated into four more manageable training groups and went to different universities around Chengdu. I spent my PST at Sichuan Normal University, East campus (SNUE). At our training sites, all of us trainees had host families.

Our training here was a good deal of language training, like any good PC program should have, but it had a good focus of teacher training. After all, as soon as we are done with training we will all start teaching at universities around China almost immediately. We had a lot of interesting crash courses on how one goes about teaching a language and about how China’s school system generally works. We also had two weeks of model school where we got to practice on some students that were nice enough to come over to hang out with us on their summer vacation.

We were also able to visit our sites before we finished PST. They made it rather dramatic, the whole revealing of our sites. I was chosen to go to the city of Yibin with one other volunteer, Leo Dorsey. We are to teach at Yibin University, following a long succession of volunteers at the same school. On our site visit, we stayed with a different host family, with the idea that they could be our community contact and they could show us around to things outside of the university. We say our campus and our apartments and a little bit of the city too.

Then, on August 28, we swore in as new volunteers. Here in China, they refer to the group by numbers, so we are China 16, the 16^th group that has come to China with the Peace Corps. They also don’t seem to like the words “Peace Corps” here, so on a lot of official stuff, they put “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers”, which happens to be the literal translation of the words they use in Chinese.

The same afternoon we swore in, we took a car down to our site and I landed in my apartment to decompress and figure out what had happened. We started school on the 13^th of September so we had some time to figure out what was happening. Some volunteers started teaching as soon as they got there and a few schools had even started school before our training was over so they had to pick up their classes when their students had already been there for a week or two.

I am about to start my fourth teaching week. I have six classes of English majors that meet for an hour and a half, once a week, and I have one small class of non-majors that meet twice a week for an hour and a half each time.

Ok, so that is about as general as I could possibly be in a post, but this is the first entry and if I put everything that had happened and all about how the food here is too spicy, then that would be much much longer and no one would probably finish one entry.

I could say so much about just about every aspect of everything that I have done so far and all I anticipate doing that I am not even sure where to begin. But maybe this is a good start…

Well, I write you more later!