我就喜欢。。。

I love: autumn days that remind me of home, students who can get me free tickets to the China Open

I am not a fan of: teaching 6 hours in one day

I hate: a bus ride that is supposed to be 30-45 min taking 1.5 hours


*edited*

胡说

(this post is actually going to turn into 3 different posts that i've been meaning to write lately).

In Beijing, you pass red banners everywhere. If you can't read Chinese then you probably just shrug, having no idea what the characters on the banners are saying. When you slowly learn the characters that are printed on the banners, you are amazed at the variety of aspects of daily life that they comment upon: the environment, traffic, safety on construction sights, the Olympics, etc. The fun part about the banners is that they always use propaganda-ish words. Hu Jintao's recent favorites are: construction a harmonious society (建设和谐社会）and being civilized (文明). Especially recently, some have advocated people's contributions to the Olympics, a la: 我参加，我奉献， 我快乐。 Anyway, there's a good recent article on Yahoo news on slogans in Chinese society and their importance: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070907/lf_nm/china_party_slogans_dc

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Jen's stupid moments

It's easy to stand out in China. As a foreigner who doesn't look at all Chinese, I have grown accustomed to the stares. However, I do try to minimize unnecessary attention, and having a decent level of Chinese usually does that. But sometimes my Chinese just doesn't work. On the bus the other day, the next stop was broadcast over the PA system, and I thought I might have read the schedule wrong and missed my stop. So I tried to ask the bus lady (there's a lady on most buses who takes tickets and makes sure people swipe their cards) what the stop following the next stop was. But I could not come up with how to phrase this question. Even if I don't know the exact words, usually I can get my message across. But this time, all she kept doing was repeating what the loud speaker said, and she even said it in English. Meanwhile, every person on that bus was staring at me, while my face turned bright red. Finally I got my point across, and thankfully, the next, next stop was the right one, and I quickly ran off the bus.

My other "stupid moment" was when I went to the gym the other day. I stood on the treadmill for a minute, trying to figure out how to use it, since this was the first time I was using this gym. After about 20 seconds of staring at it, the woman next to me points to the button I'm supposed to press. The stupid part is that all of the instructions on the treadmill were in English.

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Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy sucks in every country, but I think it's particularly bad in China. I went to the bank today to open account, and knowing I would have to wait a long time, I took my Chinese book with me. After taking my number and seeing that, yes indeed I had about 80 numbers in front of me, I decided to run to the post office. Even at the post office, the line was out the door, but I sighed and joined it. However, once we actually got into the building, I realized that there were two windows with no lines. I couldn't read the Chinese above the 4 windows, but I had an inkling that I could go to one of the open windows to buy my postage and mail the postcards. I asked a lady next to me, and she said that yes, I could. I noticed that everyone in the long lines had a slip of paper in their hands, but I had no idea what they could be waiting for. I kind of wanted to ask, but my eagerness to get out of line trumped my curiosity.

Back at the bank, I studied Chinese while waiting, and thankfully many with numbers before mine left. While I was sitting at the counter opening the account (which I did in Chinese without any problems!), a guy came up to the counter and said to the teller, "Why don't you open more windows? Everyone's waiting so long, and I'm wasting my time here." Almost every time I have been to a bank in China there has been a long wait, so I've learned to plan on it. Still, almost every time I have been to a bank in China, there has been someone complaining or making a big fuss over the wait. One time I took a few kids to cash travelers checks during EPGY; the wait was somewhere around 15 minutes, which is like a gift from God. But there were still two people behind us arguing with a bank employee. While I'm amazed that so many people have not grown accustomed to/begun to plan around waiting at the banks here, there arguments also provide me with an opportunity for Chinese listening practice as well as general amusement.

Impressions from the First Week (and a half)

I began my teaching job last Monday and have so far taught 6 classes, 2 hours each. As the first class filed in, I felt that I should be with them sitting in a seat, looking up at the teacher/blackboard expectantly. After being a student for so long, standing in front of a class is a weird experience, especially since I was given no training what-so-ever and just told to teach. Thankfully, one of the other English teachers has been teaching in China for 3 years already and has even more years of ESL teaching experience, so the rest of us (three recent graduates from the US) have been stealing ideas from him.

So far I have taught 4 sections: 3 are made up of sophomores and business English majors while the other one is made up of juniors who study human resource management. This week and next, I add 3 more sections of graduate students. The 3 sections of English majors all have a decently high level of English and have been, for the most part, engaged. I'm actually really looking forward to having interesting discussions with them. The juniors have not taken any English in college, so their level is much lower. The lesson I had planned for this week (geared more towards the higher level students) fell totally flat in today's class of the juniors, so it seems as if I'll have to plan at least two lessons for each week.

However, despite my occasional stumbling through class, there have already been rewarding and amusing moments. When I them in small groups discussing a question, I usually wander around to listen in and help out, and they often have interesting questions. I've already been invited two places by students: a rock concert last saturday (i didnt go because it was too expensive) and a museum this saturday, which i probably will go to. Furthermore, when I told my class of juniors today that I was looking for a Chinese tutor, more than a quarter of the class stayed after to volunteer.

Probably the most amusing moment so far was when I had my first class brainstorming ideas for things they wanted to learn about, one girl wanted to learn how to meet foreign guys. In another class, the boys wanted to learn dating skills. Chinese students are almost always not allowed to date in high school, so when they get to college, they become like American 16 year olds - only interested in sex.

Communists

The girl who I would consider my best Chinese friend from when I studied abroad last year is a Communist. Or rather she's a party member. In fact, she's not just a party member but she works for the CCP in the party's equivalent of the foreign affairs office, a job she started this summer. Now, I hadn't actually heard her say that she was a member until very recently (see later in the entry) but I had basically figured it out last summer when I found out that a different girl, who i worked with, was one. The Communist Party in China is not what it used to be, in that it really is only communist in rhetoric only. In fact, many people join the party for the reasons that my former co-worker gave: job opportunities and connections, both of which are pretty darn capitalist. I haven't asked my good friend why she joined the party, but I'm guessing that her reasons would be similar though probably not identical. She's smart and ambitious (the party recruits and only accepts the best and the brightest) and also interested in government and international relations. From conversations, I've gathered that she also has faith in the party's governing ability. (While the CCP has done some really horrible things in the past and continues to do some less horrible things, they have also helped raise tens of millions of people out of poverty - the largest number in the shortest amount of time in human history).

I brought all of this up because I had dinner with her and Jason this past weekend. We caught up and then went to our favorite place to hang out from our time together at bei da - a tea house where you pay 18 RMB for all you can drink/eat, though it becomes increasingly difficult to get the attention of the waiters and waitresses the longer you have been there. They also screw up your orders frequently, but it's fun to see what you actually end up with.

Anyway, one of Jason's other friends met us there, and we, again, told each other what we were doing. When she found out that my friend was a party member, she exclaimed, "you're a Communist?!?!" in shock. Her shock was rather shocking to the rest of us, as I'm pretty sure this girl attends Bei Da, which of all schools in China, should have one of the highest rates of party membership amoung its student population (second only to Qinghua, oh and the party's graduate school if you count that). Awkward silence follows of course, and I, also somewhat awkwardly, tried to brush it off by saying something along the lines of "you really can say anything in front of her, she's not going to report you or anything," which is true. I've had many conversations with my friend about topics that would be considered sensitive both before and after realizing she was a party member.

Two minutes later, at least a partial explanation for her shock/outburst is given. Jason's friend asks my friend if she knows why the government is recently cracking down on house churches and deporting foreigners who preach at them. As a Christian in China, she has two options; she can either attend state-sanctioned churches or churches held in people's houses, which are illegal but often permitted as long as they don't cause political trouble. Of course, my friend, a very new employee of the party's foreign affairs office, has about as much information on that topic as you or i do.