The Village of Silver

About a 10-minute bike ride from Pengtun is the village of Xinhua, a rather unremarkable town in most respects that, two years ago, was transformed into a tourist destination. (Note the awesome Chinglish). Groups of Chinese travelers going between Dali and Lijiang often stop by Xinhua to watch ethnic dancing and buy insanely expensive, locally produced silver jewelry. Apparently, international travelers also visit from time to time. It’s a rather strange place—totally built up in some areas and looking exactly like every other village in others. There’s a lot of wealth—some homes make Americas McMansions look modest in comparison—but there are also houses that have doubtless been around for decades or even centuries.

The kids from Xinhua go to my school, and my class has three kids from the village. Yesterday, Mark and I went to hang out. We biked over on our own, and then I called Levi, who guided us to his house.

Levi is one of my troublemakers. He’s way more physically mature than a lot of my other boys—tall and possessed of facial hair—and he’s actually my only student who’s ever made me feel physically uncomfortable. A couple weeks ago I saw that he wasn’t doing whatever he was supposed to be and plopped down next to him (a relatively common tactic when kids are off task). I faced out to give some instruction to the rest of the students, and he slid up behind me. Not cool, Levi. He’s also the kid whose can of beer (pulled from his desk a month or so back) is sitting in my room as a constant blackmail threat. Nonetheless, there are some kids you can just tell have had decent upbringings, and he’s definitely one of them.

The Levi that I visited with yesterday was nothing like the Levi I know from Class 82. In fact, it made the visit a little awkward, because I didn’t know how to interact with this polite, demur teenager who wasn’t joking around or being a bit of a jerk.

When we arrived at his house, it was clear that we were Expected. We put our bikes in the courtyard and smiled at the folks making fake silver knives and the like for the souvenir shops all over town. Then he brought us into the sitting room found in most homes around here—benches or couches lining the walls and facing each other, a table in the middle, the TV at the far end. Fruit and other snacks were already laid out, and Levi’s little brother poured us tea. Levi gave us huge hunks of watermelon, which there was really just no graceful way to consume, so we munched as politely as we were able.

I didn’t interact much with his mother, but Levi’s father sat with us for awhile, and we chatted about the importance of education, his own educational and family background, and the ways that Xinhua had changed over the years. Like many of my students’ parents, Levi’s dad is from the area (in fact, he and Levi’s mother grew up in Xinhua in houses very close together), but when Levi was young he spent much of the year doing business in Sichuan, coming home only over the New Year. When Levi’s brother (now 11) was very young, Levi's father managed to get a business going in Xinhua instead and was able to return home full time. Coming from a large family, he had a few older siblings who were forced to leave school and start working at a very young age. He was able to continue studying until halfway through eighth grade. It’s difficult, he told me, to support Levi and his brother’s studies, when he and his wife didn’t go to much school themselves, but they’re trying to emphasize the importance of education in today’s world. Even if it doesn’t lead to more money, he said, it’s better to be educated than to leave school when you’re young.

Levi’s a smart kid, and if he decided to apply himself, I’ve no doubt he’d do well, but he doesn’t, most of the time. I tried to convey this to both him and his father; we’ll see what happens.



After leaving his home, we biked around the village, stopping by Ginny’s house and trying to track down Johnny, who wasn’t around. Then I asked about silver, since I wanted to buy some local souvenirs for my mom and sisters. Levi’s father came out to meet us and brought us to a shop run by a woman he’d grown up with. Bracelets, my initial plan, were a bit out of my price range, but I found some nice earrings, and because Levi’s father was there, I didn’t have to spend 20 minutes bargaining the price down. She just gave me a good deal. The importance of 关系 (connections) cannot be overstated in China.

I haven’t visited all my students, but I’m grateful for the ones whose homes I have been able to see, and I’m especially grateful to have been able to experience the village of Xinhua behind all the touristy glitter.

The Process has begun

By “The Process,” I of course mean the absolutely insane amount of organizing, throwing away, giving away, mailing, and packing that stands between me and my night bus to Kunming on July 16^th. This time frame is slightly complicated (mostly in a good way) by the fact that we were informed this week of a 9-day-vacation, beginning yesterday and extending to next Saturday night. This is bad for two reasons: 1) it cuts way down on review time, and 2) they told us late enough in the game that flying anywhere isn’t really a possibility. However, it is also great for two reasons: 1) there are plenty of places to visit that don’t involve flying, thus allowing me to take a “bonus” trip here in Yunnan, and 2) being away from school for a few days will leave me far less likely to be staring at the calendar on my computer, compulsively counting down the remaining days of class, days in Heqing, and days in China (7, 14, and 19, for the record). I’ve decided to go down south with Arianne, her mother (who’s visiting from the states), and Mark. We’ll be hanging out in tea country for a few days. I’m very excited. Apparently there are nicely sized blocks of really good tea available for very cheap. I’ll leave today and get back probably on Friday, after an overnight in Dali on the way up.

We found out a week or two ago that Pengtun isn’t going to be a TFC school next year. Since Yiming and I are both leaving, Malijun is moving to an elementary school, and the school isn’t really dealing with a teacher shortage, the admins of both the school and TFC decided it’d be better to move Mark to another school rather than move 2-3 new fellows in. Well, that’s the official reason. There are others, I’m sure, like our test scores. TFC fellows in schools down south have had their bans (classes) taken away from them because of poor grades, and they spent this semester teaching oral English to most students in the school. There’s nothing wrong with that—in fact, I think in many cases oral English instruction would be a much more appropriate use for TFC teachers than being in charge of a ban’s complete English instruction—but it does show the natural frustration some schools are feeling with our less-than-stellar results.

But enough of that. What all of us meaning Pengtun means is that I will not be able to treat my room as a college house, as it were. My last two years at Mac, I lived in homes that had been inherited from and were subsequently passed on to Mac students. It was a pretty great deal, because we got each place mostly furnished and were able to take and leave whatever we wished when we moved out. This year, however, will be more like my first two years in college, when I lived in the dorms and a move out meant that everything other than school-provided furniture must go. We’re still not entirely clear on what belongs to the school and what doesn’t, since when we got here we already had quite a bit remaining from last year’s fellows, so that complicates things.

Packing will be a slow process, not least because I know that the more I take my room apart the more I’ll be fixated upon getting out of it. Yesterday I mailed a box of books and cards (padded with winter socks) that I’ve received over the course of the year. It was less expensive than I thought it might be, which was a relief, but as I sent it by freight who knows when I’ll get it? I also threw away a bunch of papers and other miscellaneous stuff, including my 10-month-old box of really expensive and really disgusting pork mooncakes (a gift from the school) that I smuggled out to the dumpster in the dead of night. I organized my desk drawers and collected a bag of clothes to give away. Clothes to throw away will be dealt with later. I’m paring down my pantry, trying to use up stuff and pass along/toss things I don’t think I’ll ever end up eating. There are a whole lot of decisions to be made concerning such questions as how much of my pharmacy to try to take home with me, whether or not to hang onto clothes that I like but that aren’t in fantastic shape, etc. Most of these decisions will need to be made post trip, but I’m glad to at least have gotten things going.

Anyway, not to harp entirely upon the leaving on Heqing, I share here a few stories of recent life.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I contemplated the timeless question as I braked on my bike, then swerved to the right so as not to hit the two roosters casually bobbing their way across my path. When I bike to town, I go over a mix of cement, dirt/mud (depending on the amount of rain), cobblestones, asphalt. The way I usually go, I pass through most of Pengtun, dip out onto the DaLiLu for a minute, and then cut back in to villages closer to town. I am as likely to run across a cow as I am a car, likely to see more tragons than tour busses, and not at all surprised when I find myself needing to slow in order to keep fowl alive. The other day, I also became an impromptu horse whisperer, when a foal somehow traipsed its way out of the field and onto the Pengtun village road, a few meters from the DaLiLu. While its mother neighed in what I’m sure was a most potent combination of exasperation and fear, I got off my bike and tried to coax the little horse back down. It didn’t quite work, but he at least moved farther away from the big road.

Commie Party

As some of you fine folks might know, the CCP celebrated 90 years on July 1^st, and, as such, there was a bit of hoopla around here. All of the teachers at Pengtun, and all of the teachers from other schools in the area, were required to participate in a local singing exposition/talent show. Mark and I got out of this, somehow, which is probably a good thing as it’s possible I’ll run for office some day, and Mark’s Chinese side of the family fled to Hong Kong in part because of that whole communism thing. The other teachers were required to rehearse before evening classes a few times a week, and, I must say, they were good. It’s not entirely unheard of for teachers in American schools to be drafted into singing during talent shows or other events, but I feel like the spirit there is always one of light, slightly embarrassed indulgence. There is no harmony, no solemnity.

As Mark and I watched the teachers perform, I found myself subject to the rather furious pokings of an old woman who, for some reason or another, reaaaallly didn’t like me. I could not understand a word she was saying, but she poked me for a few minutes.

On Friday night, the actual 90 Year Celebration day, I got a text from one of my very sweet and not very intelligent girls that read something like this (forgive my translation skills):

“Burning hot weather, burning hot happiness, I wish you with the Party constant good fortune, I wish you with the Party constant good luck, I wish you with the Party constant happiness, I wish you with the Party constant luck in love. On July 1^st, be happy happy!”

Slipping Towards Sunset

My family and some friends have known for awhile, but just to clear up any confusion, I’ll go ahead and say straight up that I’m planning on returning home this summer rather than remaining in China for a second year. There are a number of reasons for this—some organizational, others purely personal—and I don’t feel like a public blog is the best forum to discuss them. So, suffice it to say, this was a decision that took me a long, long time to make, and although it’s got its downsides, overall, it’s right for me.

Nonetheless, I feel so incredibly fortunate to have been able to be a part of this place that will, every day, affect the way I think about life once I’m home. For all its challenges, this is perhaps the most personally worthwhile experience I’ve had, and I remain so humbled by the degree to which the people who call Heqing home have let me make it mine, for this short time.

I’ve got exactly five weeks left as of today (Thursday, here in Yunnan) before hopping on a plane to Chicago and then on to Atlanta. I’ll be going to Beijing a few days before that, and I’m lucky enough to be able to zip off to Tianjin for a day to attend a family friend’s wedding!

Anyway, during these last bits of time I have here, I’m trying to absorb as much as possible, to live as much as possible. This is made slightly harder by the rain, about which I have composed a not-entirely-original poem:

Rain, rain, go away
Though the fields want you to stay
You make it grey all day
So I want to go home today

I’m affected strongly by weather. Always have been, really. It’s amazing how sleepy the rain makes me. Lesson planning through the last month was already gonna be something of a challenge, just by nature of it being the last month, but now it’s gonna be laced with the extra difficulty of overcoming grey. Ah well.

On the plus side, living in a generally rainy environment these days makes the non-rainy moments all the more wonderful. Tuesday, I biked into town for what has become a mostly weekly ritual of meeting up with Hallie and Arianne and Mark for bubble tea. Only, that evening, we were also having dinner with Yiming and Malijun and Yiming’s girlfriend, who’s visiting from Hong Kong. Because of this, we ended up being in Heqing until close to 8, at which point the sky was beginning to turn towards dusk.

I rode back alone (Mark had to stop by the store, and the Chinese fellows don’t have bikes), starting out on my usual route and then branching off to take a dirt road I’d not tried before.

It was a beautiful evening. Quiet, with a touch of a breeze, cool without being cold, as is so often the case in the basin here. Pedaling along, I caught the glances of the last of the farmers coming in from their fields. The older men, brows furrowing atop eyelids, often give me slightly hardened looks, trying to place this strange figure in her coral rain jacket. I don’t think there’s ever any sort of resentment, just interest in the disruption from normalcy. Women, young and old both, are often more forthcoming, smiles tentative but frequent. The younger men, students or those who should be but didn’t test in, are typically the only potentially aggravating sort. I get “hello” from a lot of people, but it’s the teenage and 20-something boys that really like to shout it, over and over, usually beginning just as I’ve passed by and continuing until I’m out of earshot. On good days, I grin at the silliness of it. On bad days, I roll my eyes and occasionally mutter things in English that it’s probably fortunate they can’t understand.



Tuesday evening, clouds caressed but didn’t smother the sky. Streaks of pink blended into pale blues and whites outlining the western mountains. The tower, the one we hiked to three months past, stood in steady black, crowning the highest peak, a vessel for the waning sun’s rays peaking through to drape over the stone, the earth, down into the rice paddies below. And to the north, layered cloud upon cloud upon cloud, grey to silver to gold.

I biked through the dirt paths dividing field from field, listening to the soft songs of waterfowl, witness to the simple but captivating beauty of this place. Heqing has modernized a great deal but still runs, in some respects, like I expect it has for centuries. Farming is done mostly by hand. It’s quiet, no machinery disrupting the rhythm of planting and harvest and everything in between. I’ve grown used to the sight of rice paddies dotted by men and women, the latter’s hats wrapped with bright scarves. Sound comes only from the motorized wagons and from the main road, something that didn’t exist not so long ago.

Rural China is full of frustrations, especially for those of us accustomed to a first world standard of living. But moments on my bike, feeling free as anything; moments wandering through Heqing town and through the market in particular; moments with my students when they’re being the silly but loveable young teens that they (sometimes) are; those are the times when my smile bursts forth. Those are the times I want to remember.

Pengtun Cooking- Rice Noodle, Broccoli, and Tofu Stir-fry

So, it’s been a good long while, I realize, since I posted a recipe for a chocolate zucchini rice cooker cake and an intention to write up more recipes. However, better late than never.

This is not a rice cooker recipe. It’s not actually served with rice but rather with what is probably among my very favorite foods in China, 二丝 (ersi). The Dali area is famous for its ersi, thick and glutinous rice noodles that are often served in broth with meat sauce for breakfast but are also lovely stir-fried.

I realized this week that, at this point, for me to use a recipe for fried rice or a stir-fry seems as silly a notion as using a recipe for a sandwich. Aside from baking adventures and occasional pancakes and curry and the like, everything I make comes out of the wok. I no longer think about the order of putting things in, the temperature needed, or amounts of rice wine/vinegar/soy sauce/sesame oil/etc. And I can’t imagine a kitchen without a wok ever existing in my future.

Really, quite a bit’s changed about my eating habits this year, and a lot of it’s not for the better. I eat more sugar, fewer whole grains, and, I’m sure, a ton of pesticides. But I love the market and eat a heck of a lot of fresh produce. In fact, I imagine that the people at the grocery store think that all I eat is sugar and rice and oatmeal, because veggies, fruit, tofu, eggs, and noodles are all easily found elsewhere. My eating manners have also changed. We Heqing fellows joke about how we’ve turned into country bumpkins, slurping from our bowls. And I eat pretty much everything except oatmeal and baked goods with chopsticks. Those two get spoons. Yes. Baked goods too. I was skyping with my family about a month ago, and they were extremely perplexed to see me scooping banana bread out of a bowl, with a spoon. Oops.

Anyway, pretty early on in the year, I discovered that ersi stir-fried with broccoli, tofu, ginger, and garlic is a truly awesome dish, and I’ve made it probably at least once a week since.

Because I’ve never run into anything like ersi in the states, I’m not sure exactly how this should be replicated in an American kitchen, but I think a pad-thai type sort of noodle would work. Everything else is easily findable in American stores, although one of the things I’ll miss most about China is buying my tofu and noodles fresh at the market, along with huge hunks of ginger, garlic, and broccoli direct from the Baizu farmers. Amounts are, obviously, approximate, and really don’t matter—just use however much of each as you like.

Noodle, Broccoli, and Tofu Stir-fry

Ingredients

-A cup or so of broccoli stem and florets, chopped roughly

-Half a cup of tofu, moisture squeezed out and diced

-a large handful of fresh rice noodles (or an equivalent amount of dried rice noodles, cooked)

-about 2 cloves garlic, diced

-a half inch piece of ginger, diced

-a tablespoon of roasted peanuts, chopped or whole

-rice vinegar to taste (maybe a teaspoon)

-soy sauce to taste (1-2 teaspoons)

-a drizzle of sesame oil

-sesame seeds to garnish

-oil for the wok

-water

Procedure

1) If you want your tofu crispy, fry it first and remove from the wok. I’m bad at frying things, so no tips here.

2) Heat the wok over medium-high and add perhaps a teaspoon of cooking oil (I use peanut here, but I assume anything would work), along with a pinch of salt. Swirl to coat.

3) When the oil’s spitting a little, put in the broccoli, garlic, and ginger and stir-fry briefly, tossing about so it doesn’t burn. If your wok starts to smoke, you might need to add a touch more oil.

4) After a minute or two, turn the heat up a little bit and add a couple tablespoons of water. Stir-fry, letting the broccoli absorb the water and turn a lovely shade of green. Try a piece and add another tablespoon of water if it’s still really crunchy. You want it a little crunchier than how you like to eat it. Turn the heat back down to medium.

<

5) If you haven’t fried the tofu, put it in now and stir-fry briefly before adding the rice noodles. Stir-fry for a minute or so and then, if using fresh noodles, add another tablespoon or so of water so they’ll soften. Stir in a circle to keep the noodles from sticking, and add your vinegar, soy sauce, peanuts, and sesame seeds.

6) Continue to stir until ingredients are incorporated and the noodles and tofu are cooked through.

7) Serve, topped with a drizzle of sesame oil and more sesame seeds, if desired. Sometimes, I also add chopped scallions, but it’s just as good without.

Hooray for Bubble Tea! (and other musings)

I have said, on many occasions, that a good number of my issues with living in China might be resolved if only there were a coffee shop closer than an hour away.

My dear friends, one of my most desired standard-of-living wishes (up there alongside “toilet” and “shower” and “oven”) has come true! Sorta.

It’s not actually a coffee shop. It’s a bubble tea shop. Really creamy, thick, sweet-but-not-too-sweet bubble tea. There are many CEIers relatively obsessed with bubble tea, but until January (when this place opened) Heqing didn’t have any that didn’t taste like plastic. We didn’t know about it until last week, when Arianne went and told Hallie, who went and told me, etc. We met up on Friday and ordered, settling at a table upstairs. While ambiance isn’t necessarily the shop’s strongest suit, that one table on the tiny balcony is a place where it will be absolutely lovely to grade or read or whatever in the future. Plus, bubble tea! They have a relatively large small cup, which goes for 5 kuai here and would likely go for close to 5 dollars in the states. The other awesome thing is that this gives us a place to hang out in the city, where, really, there aren’t places to just go and sit unless you’re at a restaurant. So, hooray on all counts.

As we set out from the tea shop, the workers there—young guys probably around our age—asked if they could take a picture with “the first foreigners to come to their store.” So we posed, Backstreet Boys blasting from behind the counter, as they took several shots. Such is life for Americans in Heqing.

At this point, all five of us are entirely accustomed to attention, desired or not. Most of the time it’s just fine. Sometimes it’s funny, like when little kids I walk or bike by stare at me as they would perhaps a UFO. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, like when my bike falls over as I park it in front of the yarn store and before I can right it myself I find a small pack of nearby shop owners coming to my aid. Sometimes it’s annoying, like when I’m walking along, having not-a-very-good-day, and teenage construction workers say “Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.”…you get the idea. Or when I’m standing on the side of the road waiting for a bus into town and the cars that sometimes have seats in the back for passengers and sometimes have pens in the back for pigs slow down such that it’s quite difficult to tell whether they’re stopping to pick me up or simply pausing to gawk for a moment.

Sometimes it can be a source of entertainment, if I’m bored and engage just for the heck of it, like when folks in Dali take pictures of us (not subtly at all, I might add) and I encourage them, in my best enthusiastic and sarcastic tone, to take more. Sometimes it’s endearing, like when I take the scenic route back from town and end up pedaling randomly around villages trying to make my way to my elusive pepto bismol colored-home, which locals are more than happy to help me find. Or when I’m in the vegetable market buying ersi and ask a question of whomever I’m buying from, which all 5 of the noodle sellers try to answer at once.

This week I’ve begun to appreciate a little more the non-academic impact I’m having on my students. Some of it connects with the “Oh my god, a white person!” thing. We had our midterms yesterday and Thursday, and, as such, every teacher was assigned 5 periods of proctoring (11 hours in two days. Oh joy, oh bliss.). Since the classes are shuffled for testing purposes, each room had three kids from my class. When I entered the room I was assigned to one evening (don’t you want to take exams from 6:30-8:30 PM after having already taken 3 during the day? I know I do), a girl in the corner covered her mouth and practically leapt from her chair. While her reaction was the most extreme, it was very clear that other students also took interest in my arrival. Then I saw one of my boys and greeted him in English with a “Hey, Kendall.” He looked up with a nonchalant “Hey Miss Emily,” and then went back to his geography textbook. Rowan walked in a minute later and asked me if I’d be proctoring. We chatted briefly about the test he was about to take and he went to his seat. Then Peter strolled by the window, yelling “Miss Ou!” (the first character of my Chinese name) on his way to his classroom.

My kids know me. And in 20 years, whether they’re working in Beijing or farming in Pengtun, they’ll have had the experience of knowing an American (and a left-handed one at that. I still catch kids trying to take notes with their left hands occasionally) at a very young age. I’m not saying it’s going to shape their lives, but it has value, especially for folks immersed in this homogenous community.

I’ve also remembered, this week, that I love them. They’ve been driving me absolutely bonkers, and grading their last big test made me want to break into the bottle of Jack Daniel’s I have in my kitchen, but I do love them. It helps that I’ve been loosening up more in the classroom, even as I’ve gotten stricter in terms of reporting to the principal. I like to have fun with my kids, and I like to be silly, but for much of this year I’ve been pushing and pushing myself to emulate my very stern local counterparts. All that’s really succeeded in doing is making me angry and my kids rebellious. So I’m trying to, for lack of a less clichéd term, be my normal teacher self again. Stay tuned on how that goes. It’s certainly put me in a better place mentally, so that’s gotta be worth something.

The weather’s changing again. We had nothing but blue skies, with some chubby puffy marshmallow clouds, for months. But over the last few weeks we’ve swapped all-day blue for blue mornings (mostly) and a gradual blowing in of big clouds and rain. But the thing about living in the basin here is that it can look like it’s about to downpour and not spill a drop, or it can be partly cloudy and pouring. Arianne and I discovered this last weekend, when we went biking in the hills around her school and got pretty darn wet when the seemingly more-blue-than-grey sky opened on us. Luckily, lushly green rice paddies look just as lush and green while wet, and my camera didn’t get messed up. Unluckily, my school doesn’t like rain, or at least thunder. The power goes out a lot—not for more than a couple of hours, most of the time, but a lot…like right now. At 8 PM on a Saturday night…. No, I am not making this up. Thank goodness for my lovely Mac’s ridiculously long battery life. Now where did I put my candles?

Moral Ambiguity

Sometimes I think about what would happen if you put last July’s Emily Cohen and me into the same room. I’m the same person, if hopefully a little more mature and a little wiser and with a few more life skills, but there are things about me that have most definitely changed. There are stances I’ve taken and things that I’ve done that last summer’s me would never have considered. Some are rather ridiculous, like the fact that I, Emily Cohen, now wear eye-liner and lip gloss almost daily (nobody is more shocked than I, I assure you) so that my kids will think of me as a little older and thus take me more seriously. I also bake, knowingly, with bleached flour. Some are stupid and dangerous, like biking on mountain roads without a helmet (sorry, mom!), because bike helmets just don’t really exist in China, and perhaps not washing all my veggies as meticulously as I might. And some continue to make me wrestle, resigned but not content.

I remember so clearly during the very first week training reading an essay by one of Pengtun’s former fellows about corporal punishment in the classroom. He wrote eloquently about his personal moral struggle with how to handle behavior problems in a system that prizes physical over all other forms of discipline. He decided that he would bring students to the lead teacher and to the principal, where they would almost certainly be hit. Reading the essay, I remember understanding his logic and respecting his decision but firmly convinced that I would never, under any circumstances, make a similar call.

I have. I have on not just one or two but on a number of occasions. I’ve brought kids to the lead teacher. I’ve brought kids to the principal. I have grabbed kids by their upper arms and collars to make them stand up. I have collected lighters and knives by using pressure points. I’m not proud of any of this, but I’ve learned this year that there are times when, to a certain degree, it can be necessary to bend one’s personal ethics in order to better mold to and positively impact one’s environment. I know, I know, that sounds really bad, and where are the boundaries? Does allowing my kids to be hit this year mean that I’ll make the same decision regarding my own children in 10 years, or that if I end up teaching in the States I’ll wish I was allowed to strike my students?

I don’t think so. I remember conversations at the Minneapolis public school where I worked where teachers lamented phone calls to parents, because they knew that reports of bad behavior at school would result in hitting at home. Nonetheless, at school, there was no hitting. At school, there were other punishments, a system that maxed out with expulsion rather than slapping. There were also reward systems, a relatively new concept for my students. This year, I’ve implemented an extensive rewards system that’s been largely effective for my good kids but hasn’t succeeded in curbing bad behavior. For that, as it was with the teachers at my old school, I’ve needed punishments.

Since September, I’ve tried a plethora of American-style discipline techniques, ranging from seat changing to lectures to holding students back after class to texting parents to extra homework to sharing treats with only well-behaved students to kicking students out of the classroom into the cold in the middle of winter (I lived in Minnesota for five years. Yunnan cold is not cold). Some have been vetoed by the administration of my school, others by the lead teacher, leaving me with few options and even fewer that I’m capable of enforcing without help. Calling on this help risks corporal punishment for my impish students; not calling on it risks an utterly chaotic classroom for my engaged and dedicated students. I’ve come to the difficult decision that the latter is worse.

These kids have been hit by their teachers since they were in first grade—swats on the legs and top of the head for not paying attention, strikes on the hands for incomplete homework, being dragged by the ear or hair from classroom to office for bad behavior. Hitting is technically illegal, and hence it isn’t regulated. Although I’ve never witnessed this, I’ve heard stories of students slapped across the face, thrown to the floor, hit so hard they dropped out of school. My poorly-behaved students do not take my ‘lighter’ punishments seriously. If I were their only teacher I would probably have more success, but the 1-4 hours of the school day that are left in my care aren’t enough to mitigate the other 10-13 spent with hitting teachers.

I will never hit my students. I’m actually, according to CEI, not allowed to hit my students. I will, however, continue to bring my kids to teachers who take reports of bad behavior as cause for physical punishment. I have moral qualms with this, but I have deeper moral qualms with the notion of a few badly-behaved children keeping the other 40 from being a part of a classroom conducive to study. My students are products of their school environment, an environment that, unlike school environments in most of the United States, includes hitting. I don’t like it, but like so many other parts of rural education in China, I’ll work with it.

New Year's Travels

Well, it’s been awhile coming, but I’m finally ready to sit down and write about the five and a half weeksish I spent on the road. I could do this in a couple chunks, but instead I’m just gonna post one heck of a long entry. It keeps things simple. Also, I've split pictures from break into four albums: Thailand, Cambodia, post-Cambodia, and Food. All are at http://anamericaninheqing.shutterfly.com. And on facebook too.

Adventures began on the evening of January 15^th, with my very first Chinese night bus. I have vague, drowsy memories of the driver and a passenger or two crouched over a panel on the bus floor that opened down to the engine. And as I recall there was dish fluid of some sort involved. Nonetheless, we arrived in Kunming bright and early.

After meeting up with my travel buddies (Emily Cole, Kristen, and Laura—Alex was already in Bangkok), we napped atour hostel for most of the morning to make up for the night’s lack of slumber, then enjoyed an afternoon and evening sitting at Salvador’s (best western food in Kunming). The city was chilly and wet. I found myself wishing I’d brought a scarf and mittens for the trip.

Then we went to Bangkok. Bangkok, where I was sweating in shorts and a tank top. Bangkok, where our guesthouse’s whole neighborhood smelled good. Bangkok, where public transit zooms about, where both the local and the western food are amazing. Thailand wasn’t love at first sight; it was love at first touch of tropical air wafting in through the gap between plane and jet way.

Our first Bangkok stop was a short one. We spent a day getting acquainted with the incredible weather, Thai iced tea (made thus with sweetened condensed milk—highly recommended), street food delicacies of all sorts, public ferry rides, wats, hot showers, and…the fact that we don’t speak Thai.

This became quickly obvious, as we all tried to speak Chinese when ordering food, buying tickets, etc. It was a bit hilarious, and somewhat embarrassing, and also very humbling. None of us would consider ourselves fluent Chinese speakers (heck, I don’t know if I’d call myself proficient), but we’re all so accustomed to trying to make do with what Chinese we do have, circumlocuting left and right and, usually,eventually, getting ourselves understood. In Thailand, we were helpless. The first time we wanted to order iced tea there was nothing to point at (except a Thai-alphabet menu), we didn’t know any numbers, and we couldn’t even say thank you. If some young, English speaking guy hadn’t come to our aid, I don’t think we’d have succeeded in acquiring our tasty treats. But throughout Thailand people were, in almost every interaction, so very helpful and accommodating. Those who spoke English (and there were many, no doubt due in great part to tourism) used it with us, and those who didn’t tried to help us anyway.

The evening after arriving in Bangkok, we took our first Thai night bus down to Krabi and then bought ferry tickets to Ko Lanta. Going into this trip, I expected the island to be my least favorite part. I’m not a huge beach person. But I’d also never been to a tropical island.

And what an island it was. Bungalows a minute from the ocean, beachside meals, water in colors I didn’t know existed outside of postcards and movies, tropical fruit everywhere, caving, snorkeling, mo-peding…. Ko Lanta is certainly a resort town, and hence there were a heck of a lot of European vacationers about (we all went into blonde haired/blue eyed shock) and a lot of expensive things.It could hardly be called the most traditionally Thai part of our trip. Still, it was an exquisite few days.

As we came to Lanta (by ferry), so we left, boating first to Ko Phi Phi and then to

Phuket. Phuket has a party town and an old town, and we opted for the latter. We stayed in a creepy old hotel (home to Phuket’s first elevator) and spent a night and a two days wandering the streets, appreciating the strange but enjoyable mix of Chinese, Thai, and European influences.

After another night bus, a quick stop at the Bangkok bus terminal, and a couple hours on yet another bus (a second class one rather than the first class one we’d been sold tickets for—oops), we arrived in Kanchanaburi, a river town that was

once the site of a WWII POW camp and now plays host to lots of backpackers. We slept in raft rooms on the river Kwai, visited a war museum moving in its simplicity, rode bikes about town, and bused out to a park with seven tiers of waterfalls and monkeys.

Laura, Kris, and I headed back to Bangkok a day earlier than Alex and Em. We stayed by Khao San road rather than in the less touristy area where we’d slept our first night. It was nice for the experience, and Khao San road is certainly a good place to shop, but I much prefer the quieter Ari neighborhood. We went to the Great Palace—which contained more gold than I think I’ve ever seen in one place—and met up with Alex and Em for one last night in Bangkok before Kris and I split off for Cambodia.

Going overland to Cambodia is complicated and full of potential scams, which I spent a good long time researching. We took the 5:55 AM, quite uncomfortable 3^rd class train from Bangkok to the Thai border (ash blew in through the window, and the seats jutted into our backs), rode a tuk tuk to the border itself, walked through, got a visa on arrival, immigrated, took a complementary government bus to the transit station, and got a shared cab to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap, so far as we could tell, was not a particularly exciting place. It was incredibly touristy, of course, and hence had a lot of western and Cambodian food options, and a few fun markets, but the attraction of the town was definitely the temples. There are lots and lots of temples to see, Angkor Wat being the most famous, and Kristen and I spent two days exploring. As many visitors as there were, most of the sites were not nearly so crowded as American and European tourist spots I’ve visited. So that was nice.
The temples were big and small, in various states of repair and ruin. I found myself, naturally, utterly amazed by the architectural feats of so long ago. Watching the shifts in religious allegiance was also fascinating. Buddhas hacked out of rock or turned into Hindu holy men with the addition of beards, broken statues of Shiva and Vishnu.

Cambodia also threw me for a loop by using the American dollar more than the Cambodian riel. I hadn’t had greenbacks in my wallet, much less used them, since July. This was made even more confusing by the fact that everything in Cambodia is very cheap in American dollars. Kristen and I decided to splurge in a major way when we bought 5-dollar plates of homemade, and very authentic-tasting, four-cheese gnocchi and tagliatelle with pesto.

The trip back to Bangkok was much simpler than the trip to Cambodia. We went to our original guesthouse in Ari and spent a relaxing night there before Kristen met up with her boyfriend for more beach time and I embarked on my first ever solo travel adventure.

At first, this just meant going across Bangkok, where I dropped my bags at the train station and explored. I walked to Chinatown to check it out, and then I walked swiftly away from Chinatown, because it was a bit too authentic. After wandering for most of the afternoon, I returned to the train station and got on my night train up to Chiang Mai. I happened to be sitting across from an American family living in Beijing and had the longest English face-to-face conversation I’d had with a non-CEIer since leaving the states. Thai sleeper trains, as opposed to Thai third-class trains, are a really nice way to travel—quite comfortable and with actual beds instead of just reclining seats like on the buses.

Chiang Mai was not as hot as down south or Bangkok, but warm and comfortable, with tons of cafes and pedestrian-friendly streets. The combination of my being a solo traveler and

wanting a bit of a break after being on the road for something like three weeks meant taking time to relax. I’ve said many times that having a coffee shop in Heqing would solve half my problems, because there’s nothing quite like that atmosphere (not to mention selection of beverages) to cheer up a mopey/uninspired/unproductive me. I spent a lot of time in Chiang Mai sipping mochas and smoothies and other treats. I also spent a lot of time in cooking school—three days, in fact. I knew I wanted to go for at least a day, but the first was so much fun that I signed up for the second, and the second was so much fun that I signed up for the third. I now feel fairly confident that, given proper ingredients, I can replicate some pretty authentic Thai stuff. I explored a lot of wats and markets as well, and my visit happened to correspond with the annual flower festival, so I saw a parade with rather incredible floral floats.

After a week in Chiang Mai, I night bused back to Bangkok and reunited with Kristen for our last couple days in Thailand. We went to Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn), Wat Pho (home of the incredible reclining Buddha), Bangkok’s largest outdoor park, and Cinnabon. Yes, there is a Cinnabon in Thailand. Actually, there’s a Cinnabon and a bunch of other ridiculous places at this huge food court in this huge mall that definitely was a bit of cultural overload. I also went to the US Consulate to get pages added to my passport. It was American but not, and I was surrounded by perfectly nice looking folks and by some creepy old guys with their 20-something Thai girlfriends/wives.

Flying out of Bangkok was a sad experience, I must say, excited as I was by the prospect of Hong Kong. And Hong Kong was quite fun (and quite expensive). Mark surprised Kris and me by meeting us at the airport,and he proceeded to be our guide for our three-day stay.

We booked a room at the Chungking Mansions, not realizing until after the fact that, though its reputation has improved dramatically, the place is pretty darn sketch. That would explain the prices. Certainly I wouldn’t want to stay alone, but with Kristen it was fine. Our room was a shoe box but clean and secure, and the mansion itself had some amazing Indian food because many of the residents are Indian and Pakistani.

Hong Kong’s weather left something to be desired. I don’t think I would have been that bothered by it coming directly from China, but going from Thailand it was cold. Also wet. Very wet. So much so that when we went to see the Lantau Buddha (which is among the world’s largest seated Buddhas) we saw shapes rising from the mist. Still, we had a lovely time checking out different parks and neighborhoods and getting a sense of where Mark grew up.

Macau is about a one-hour ferry ride from Hong Kong, and Kris and I passed through on our way back into the mainland. While there we met up once more with Emily Cole, who was staying with her aunt, and she toured us around. What a cool city. Macau has a Vegas-like reputation in China, and it’s true that there were casinos, but all I saw was amazing Sino-European architecture and food. We visited a centuries-old church that had burned down, leaving only the stone façade, and a fort, and had Portuguese egg tarts and sandwiches at a café near the center square. All too soon, however, it was time to get on a bus and cross back into China. It was Valentine’s Day. I’d been out of the country for nearly a month.

After a one night stay in Guangzhou and a 26-hour train ride with the lights on and without a sleeper car (not recommended—after finally drifting off I got woken up by a young guy who wanted to know about what I put in my hair to make it curly. ‘Nuff said.) we got back to Kunming.

Laura was already there, and over the following days the rest of the CEI crew trickled in.We indulged in lots of western food, city strolls, and a day of hiking west of the city, before settling back into work with a professional development conference and a plane ride back to Lijiang. Flying over Heqing, I was struck, as always, by just how gorgeous it is. There’s a lot I don’t appreciate about this place yet and a lot that I think I never will, but the straight up beauty is a definite perk.

We’re three weeks into term now, and today marks exactly 8 months since my arrival in Beijing. I’ll be teaching (with a few breaks, I’m sure) until mid-July. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities I had during my time off and am working to make this new semester more successful (academically and personally) than the last. So you can expect a return to regular, rural, China-style blogging soon enough.

Why I (Pengtun 7th Grader) Want to Study

First of all, I posted two new batches of pictures—one a general update of the last couple months (Yes, crazily enough it’s been that long), the other a compilation of some of my cooking/baking adventures. Both can be found at http://anamericaninheqing.shutterfly.com. Enjoy, and onto the main event:

About a month ago I made all my student write me essays, in Chinese, about why they wanted or didn’t want to study. The kids weren’t doing their homework and weren’t really studying much in general, and I wanted them to reflect on how they were doing and how they could do better and why any of it mattered. When I gave directions, I reiterated, oh, about fifty times, that I wanted them to write how they really felt and not what they thought I wanted to hear. Some of my kids seem to have taken that to heart and others not, but, at any rate, here’s a list of reasons for studying, courtesy of rural Chinese 12-14 year olds and my translation/paraphrasing skills. (Commentary, naturally, can be found in the parentheses next to each reason.)

-“I can get lots of knowledge” (This was the first sentence of many an essay, so I guess getting lots of knowledge is rather important to these youngsters.)

-“There are opportunities to get to know teachers and classmates.” (And beat up classmates, and pass notes to classmates, and laugh at classmates….)

-“I can understand life principles.” (Not sure exactly what you’re getting at there, but I appreciate the thought)

-“I can understand English and the differences between English and other languages.” (Impressive, Molly, impressive….)

-“Because Zhou Enlai said so—you should study for the people and devote yourself to the motherland.” (Motherland—a new and useful word for the Chinese vocabulary of Emily Cohen)

-“I want to repay my parents and my teacher. I can’t fail them.” (A common sentiment in theory, but, unfortunately, a lot of my kids still fail to study enough to repay anybody. And yes, Amy, that includes you.)

-“Studying changes destiny.” (Go forth, young padawan, and control your destiny.)

-“Now is the information age.” (Perhaps so, Peter, but I’m not entirely sure how your English textbook is helping you play with the internet.)

-“Studying makes me smarter. We should all value time and want knowledge.” (And yet in class you seem to most enjoy sleeping and goofing around with your little friends….)

-“I can expand the limits of knowledge” (Not your knowledge, Jake, but knowledge in general? That’s lofty of you.)

-“Everyone only has one life and to make it more valuable we should study more knowledge.” (And then do what with it, exactly?)

-“Knowledge is important for the whole society and so I don’t become a stupid person.” (Yes, William, it is. Unfortunately, you spent half of tonight’s evening class with your eyelids flipped inside out, looking at the wrong page of the text book. So you might need to work a tad bit harder on that front.)

-“Knowledge allows us to understand more things so that when we grow up our lives will be more wonderful.” (I would like a more wonderful life. How does one go about achieving that?)

-“Everyone should respect the nine years of compulsory education.” (I believe you already do, Zoe, but, please, get the rest of your class on board)

-“Education is everyone’s right and everyone has to go to school.” (And yet, Freddy, you seem to most enjoy far-from-subtle whispered conversations with friends halfway across the room)

-“Studying is our wish and our duty. It’s an activity that delights us and makes us happy.” (I’m sure it does, Sophie, especially when you cheat on every other test.)

-“Books are our best friends and our best teachers.” (I thought that was dogs?)

-“I’m stupid, so I like to study and I like your class.” (Well, Barry, I’m not really sure how those connect, but good for you)

-“When we start middle school our thoughts are more mature than in elementary school and we should know that our reason is to learn knowledge, not play.” (Ellen, considering that your current average is around a 90%, I’d say you’re doin’ pretty well on that front)

-“Science and technology are really developed and connected to life.” (Sure, Nate. This connects to English how exactly?)

-“I don’t want to study because I’m afraid of your bad list of names and responding incorrectly.” (Leia, sweetie, you are not the smartest child in the world but I know you care because you always do your homework and when I ask easy questions you very shyly but hopefully raise your hand. You will never get on my nonexistent bad list of names.)

-“My ideal is to work in America, so I must study.” (Yes, Alanna, and stop cheating. Because, you see, if you only pretend you can speak English when you get to America you might have some problems.)

-“We can have contact with the world, impact society, and understand a lot.” (True, Mike, true.)

-“To get good grades and make the teacher happy.” (Y’know what would make me happy, River? If you’d do your freakin’ homework and not do homework for other subjects when you’re in my class!)

-“Go to college and make foreign friends.” (Miguel, you are a smart kid, and if you tried you could almost certainly get to college. However, you are also insane, so I’m not sure how that’s all gonna work out for you.)

-“Because I want to lay foundations for the future and not be illiterate.” (Luke, I don’t want you to be illiterate either, and English can help you lay foundations for the future, but somehow I don’t think it’s gonna help your ability to read Chinese all that much.)

-“To increase culture.” (Hate to break it to you, Amelia m’dear, but I’m afraid you’ve lost me there. Whose culture are we talking here?)

-“Without English we have no future.” (This would be funny, Ariel, if it wasn’t more or less true, at least as far as education is concerned. English is worth more on your high school entrance exam than any other subject, and you, unfortunately, are averaging a 25% on your tests.)

-“I don’t like to study English, but it’s important for testing.” (Yes, Connor, it is. And I think its importance is stupid, but unfortunately I don’t control the tests.)

-“To get knowledge, wealth, and happiness for myself and my family.” (Laura, considering that you are among my very best students, I’d say that’d a distinct possibility.)

-“The most afraid people in the world are the people without knowledge.” (You must be positively terrified then, Leland, considering how many of my classes you sleep through.)

-“Studying can change impulsive hearts, sharpen dull hearts, and get hearts that know nothing to know lots. It gives people meaning.” (From most students, I’d just think this was weird, but from you Sam, I’ll actually take it at face value.)

-“Because teachers teach lots, especially foreign teachers.” (Is this a good thing for you, Serenity, or a bad thing? At any rate, that is my goal. To, y'know, teach lots.)

Grocery Run

This morning after class I went into town—Heqing City. I didn’t need anything special, so I was in and out within an hour and a half. A trip to town always begins with walking a block from the school gate out to the Dali-Lijiang road that connects those two tourist spots and goes right past Heqing. Actually, from what I understand (although I could certainly be wrong), today's two-lane highway more or less follows the path of the "Horse and Tea Road," which some folks might better recognize as the "Southern Silk Road." There are two kinds of vehicles, both costing one yuan, that shuttle people to the city: 19-seater buses that I would say hold up to 40 when things get really crowded, and what I think of as “Oregon Trail” cars—five seater cabs with an arched wagon-like piece of canvas covering two benches in the pick-up truck style back. These benches hold 3-4 people each, but often there are also 5-6 people (or 3 people and a couple bikes) crammed into the small standing space between the benches. Kinda hard to picture, perhaps. I’ll try to remember my camera next time.

You flag down either kind of transport by sticking your arm out, and it’s a short ride—5-10 minutes, depending on how many times we stop to pick up or drop off more passengers. This morning I had to wait more than 10 minutes before a bus arrived. Normally, they’re much more frequent, and it was kinda chilly. I was wearing my fleece and an excellently warm alpaca scarf, but I haven’t broken out my hat or mittens much. Gloves are pretty common here, but we’re talking cute little skin-tight gloves or motorcycle gloves, not my Norwegian snowflake mittens. And, for whatever reason, I don’t see a lot of hats except for those worn by the Bai women, and those aren’t winter-knit caps. However, I’ve decided that I don’t care. Minnesota-trained or not, my hands and head are chilly.

Anyway, when I go to town, I almost always need to go both to the market and to the supermarket. Today I go to the market first, which is on the far side of town (keeping in mind that the “far” side of town is all of a 10-15-minute walk from the closer side). Once off the bus, I first have to walk through the meat and fish sections. There are two wheelbarrows full of pig heads. I have no idea why. There’s a lot of blood on them. There are always pig heads (and feet and legs and everything else), but there are not usually wheelbarrows fully devoted to the storage (display?) of pig heads. It’s really quite upsetting. So glad I don’t eat pork. In the fish section I try not to look at the flopping and suffocating piles, but peripheral vision—what can you do? Again, so glad I don’t eat fish.

Once free of the animals, I move to the potato trucks. The first time I bought potatoes, I thought they were russets and only discovered after scrubbing them in my sink that they were, in fact, red-skinned potatoes. The (mostly) ladies who sell them sit by small fires to keep warm. I buy eight—it is Chanukah, after all—and pay 5 kaui.

Then, crossing over the piles of discarded, rotting scallions and cornhusks, I make my way to my broccoli lady. I started buying broccoli from her a couple months ago, and she knows that, although I often buy other things, broccoli is always on the list. Today I supplement my large crown of broccoli with two sizable tomatoes and an eggplant, paying 7 kuai for the lot. Produce is getting a little more expensive as weather turns cooler, but there’s still plenty of it, and since it’s not hot I can buy more at one time. When I first moved here, I could really only buy veggies I’d eat within a day or two. Now I can leave food by the window and it’ll keep much longer. It’s pretty awesome.

I’ve recently rediscovered onions. Not that I’d ever not known about or liked onions, but I hadn’t really been buying them. Today I look around for one of the onion-ginger-garlic sellers. They often have other things too, but generally if people have garlic or ginger they seem to specialize in all three. I grab two red onions (I don't know if I've ever seen white or yellow onions here, actually) and 3 bulbs of garlic and pay 4.5 kuai.

The tofu lady I go to today gets into a long (because I have major accent issues) conversation with me about whether or not I can tutor her high-school-aged niece in English during the break. As over the break I won’t be in Heqing, I say I can’t do that, but who knows? Maybe next time I’ll ask if she wants me to meet with her niece on the weekend or something. At least she doesn’t seem annoyed as she cuts and bags up my 1 kuai slab of fresh tofu (about 2/3 of the size you’d get in a box in the states).

My noodle lady knows that I’m always after ersi— fettuccini-sized chewy rice noodles. I pay 1 kuai for a nicely-sized handful before moving past the many varieties of ground pepper and into the fruit lane. Here I stock up, bagging 6 or 7 clementines, 5 bananas, and 4 apples for 12 kuai.

Produce total: 30.5 yuan, or $4.50 at today’s exchange rate.

I walk past stalls bursting with socks, slippers, DVDs, and all manner of other things out of the market gate. I’m kinda hungry, so I approach a steamed bun seller and hand her 5 mao (half a kuai) for a small but warm roll, munching as I walk to the store. The market is at one end of one of the main streets cutting through town, and the supermarket I like to go to is almost at the other. It’s maybe a 10 minute walk. I pass by restaurants, clothing stores, blanket stores, convenience stores and the toilet paper store (all it sells is TP—I kid you not), as well as stands hawking papaya slices (sour and dipped in salt and chili powder, so not really my thing), spam hot dogs, and french fries. When I reach the store, I hand my backpack to the woman behind the counter (it’s not allowed inside) and grab a basket. I need a few things here: soy sauce (5.9 kuai for a 500 ml bottle), salt (1.3 kuai for a 500g bag), sponges (2.9 kuai for 4), tissues (3.8 kuai for 10 pocket packs), and sesame oil (a bit pricey at 10.8 kuai for a 180 ml bottle, but so worth it). When I reach the sesame oil aisle, I realize that I’ve forgotten the characters for it. Scanning the many bottles, I experience a brief moment of concern before centering myself and letting the characters surface once again in my mind.

Store total: 24.7 kuai ($3.71)

On my way back to the main road and my bus home, there are a few flower shops, a gaming den, and countless convenience stores. I drop into one and pick up 4 eggs for 3 kuai. Eggs are running pricey these days, but I'm a bit protein-conscious lately so I still like to keep a stock.

I wait for a minute at Heqing’s one stoplight but eventually end up jaywalking anyway, passing building supply shops, fruit and breakfast stands, and more restaurants before arriving at the seemingly arbitrary place where one can almost always find a bus waiting. Seats are already full, so I grab a handle, cushioning my eggs as best I can. This is always the scary part. I guess 10 AM on Friday is busy, because before long I find myself pushed far forward, directly behind a middle-aged gentleman and his cigarette. I'm forced to relinquish my handle in favor of the top of his seat. There are “no smoking” signs in all of the buses, but I think they’re paid about as much attention as the technical maximum capacity.

Three or four minutes after I step on, the bus sets off. We pick up two more people on the way out of town and let off a few before we get within range of my school. I yell “师傅，下车！” (Driver, get off bus!) which is, I’ve learned, the standard “Please stop” request. He pulls over and I step around people and baskets of produce to shove my not-at-all-graceful-but-at-least-efficient way down the steps. A dart across the street, a five minute walk, and I’m home again.

This Episode Brought to You by the Letter m (and i l y o h e n )

As I’ve written on a number of occasions, my language woes here are many. I have trouble articulating myself properly, speaking to my students, making small talk with teachers, etc. Just last week my banzhuren (the woman in charge of my class) came over to me saying something about a book and 25 kuai and I, to this day, do not understand what that was about. Apparently, however, I was not supposed to pay the 25 kuai (that much I could ask and understand the answer to), but two days later she showed up with a copy of a review book for me and the news that my students would be receiving theirs over the weekend. Why, and who’s paying for them? Mysteries both.

So that’s a classic case of language barrier in action. Another comes pretty much daily, when I stand in front of my class and say something in Chinese (like “last name”) that results in fits of giggles from my students. At first, I ignored these outbursts, but now I’ve started to question them with: “我说什么错了？”(What did I say wrong?) Sometimes the kids will tell me, and other times they won’t. I suspect that when they won’t it’s because I’ve said something inappropriate, but, again, mystery reigns.

Every Monday, I am obligated to attend two meetings: a full faculty meeting at 3 PM, and an English department meeting at 10:25 AM. The full faculty meetings are usually long (although not painfully so) and dull, as much for the local teachers as for us CEI fellows. I sorta try to pay attention, but my language skills do not allow me to glean full comprehension of anything and do not even let me catch the gist of some topics. I always bring my little vocab notebook and scribble away; sometimes this allows me to acquire such useful words as “lawn” and “bonus;” at other moments, my listening skills and the speakers’ accents combine in such horrifyingly inaccurate ways that my dictionary spits out engineering and computer science terminology. I keep trying though.

The English meetings are both nicer and scarier, because they are smaller. There are perhaps ten English teachers at our school, all of whom speak English with varying degrees of success. A few try to engage Mark and me in English conversation, while others will utter a word of English only under extreme duress. These meetings are casual, with teachers throwing around various questions and ideas for the classroom. Mark and I have been mostly quiet so far, except when practicing English with those teachers who have shown interest. We try to follow along as best we can, and when conversation moves slowly enough we sometimes can at least get the main ideas. However, the English teachers truly like to talk, and sometimes a particular topic gets them fired up, and everybody starts to talk at once. When this happens, I’m screwed. It’s a cacophonous mess, the universe’s sense of order ripped into spheres of utter chaos. If I can ever come to understand those moments, I will feel as though I am the best non-native Chinese speaker in existence. For now, Mark and I just wait for passions to cool.

So those are all distinctly language-based examples of communication difficulty, but there’s other sorts of communication too. I have two excellent stories for you that nicely illustrate this point: The Wuzixi (Noon Study) that Wasn’t, and The Bank Account Debacle

The Wuzixi (Noon Study) that Wasn’t

So, last Thursday I was to teach my usual noon study. It’s only a 35-minute class and quite casual. I normally just let the kids have a study hall, and that was my plan for Thursday too. However, when I arrived at my classroom, I saw that it was already quite occupied, and not with my students but with my banzhuren and what looked to be my students’ parents. I remembered YiMing saying something about there being a parents’ meeting on Thursday during lunch, but this description had not included the idea of there being fifty adults in my classroom when I expected to be able to use it. Lunch ends, after all, at 1:20, which is the time my class was to begin.

At first, I assumed the meeting was just running late, and I tried to keep my kids (congregated in the hallway just outside the door) on the quiet side. However, with 1:30 quickly approaching and my kids growing ever-more-antsy, it was clear I needed to take more drastic action. There was nowhere to go but outside, so that’s where I took them. I lost a few of my boys along the way, but it couldn’t be helped. After all, my class was one of two or three without access to their rooms, and I had an assortment of not-my-students tagging along, bringing my count of 49 up to at least 60. So I led the kids out and we made a circle, and I improved like mad. We did chants and songs and name games. I shouted myself hoarse and then some. All the while, I kept an eye on our room, in the hopes that at any moment the door would open, the parents would leave, and we could return to normal. No such luck. At 1:55, the time my wuzixi was scheduled to end, I let the kids go and I went back to drink some tea and soothe my poor throat. My banzhuren never said anything to me, so I guess that’s what I was expected to do?

The Bank Account Debacle

Last Sunday (I know, banks are open on Sunday! What a concept), Ma LiJun, Mark, and I went to the Agricultural Bank of China to open accounts. Our school does direct deposit, and because we hadn’t yet opened bank accounts we hadn’t been paid for September. Ma LiJun’s account should have been pretty straightforward to set-up. She would just need her government ID card and a couple of other easily-acquirable things. Mark and I, being Americans, required our passports and an official note from our school stating that we were employees there.

Once we arrived at the bank, we discovered that Ma LiJun could not, in fact, open an account, because her old credit card number was from a different province and thus they couldn’t find a record of it. Why this makes any sense at all I really don’t know.

Then it was Mark’s turn, and mine. Nervously, we handed over our passports and the note. At first they were confused as to how to use a passport rather than a Chinese ID card as a proof of ID. Once they figured that out, the real problems began. American passports, you see, list one’s surname on one line and follow it up on the second with one’s first and middle names. Our note from the school had our first names first and last names last and included no middle names at all. We tried to explain that middle names were not important in America and that only the first and last names mattered, but they wouldn’t budge. Much more important than the lack of middle name, however, and even the fact that the names were written in different orders, was the fact that while our passports had our names written in all caps, our school note had only the first letter of each name capitalized. MAJOR issue! Big, big problem! As Mark and I spent our first weeks here teaching the alphabet, we were able to explain, using proper terminology, that in English there’s (in this situation) no difference in meaning between big and small letters, but according to our teller that was absolutely not true, and having all caps versus just the first letter in caps meant that our names were entirely different on one form of ID than on the other. BIG problem.

So, in short, none of us opened accounts that day (don’t worry—we got a new note and opened them two days later).

Adjustments, Adaptations, and Absolutes- Part 2

Sunday night. The kiddies are all in class right now, poor things, but I have a few hours of freedom and a good night’s sleep ahead before Monday sweeps me away. It’s been a nice couple of days. This morning Mark, Ma LiJun and I went into Heqing proper to go shopping. I found an absolutely awesome (and huge!) outdoor market a little over a week ago, so we went through there scooping up fresh noodles, fresh tofu, and as many veggies as I thought I could consume before they went bad (which is not many, I’m sad to say. Man do I miss having a fridge). I also found peanut butter at one of the large supermarkets in town, so peanut noodles are officially back on the menu. So’s banana bread, one of these days, but I have to wait for my bananas to go bad first.

This was actually a three-day weekend, because Friday was “Teacher’s Day.” It’s kinda a big deal in China, more so at some schools than at others. Pengtun’s celebration was relatively relaxed. We had a “meeting” during the afternoon where a few teachers and administrators gave speeches while the rest of us munched on peanuts, sunflower seeds, tea, candy, and fruit. A few hours later, the teachers and their families gathered again for dinner. Overall, I don’t feel like I got to know the teachers any better, but it was still nice just to see their children and things. And, of course, I appreciated the three day weekend. I also got a gift—a plastic wind chime with little blue birds on it—from one of my students.

The last few days, I’ve been trying to get myself into a running habit. Call it a New Year’s Resolution, if you will. Now, those of you who know me well know that I despise running—that I will walk for hours and hours and hours but flinch at the thought of running more than a block. That hasn’t changed. However, last year at this time, I hated long bike rides, or at least long bike rides that were anything but flat. Not having a car, however, pushed me into biking a lot, and by the time I moved back to Georgia last summer, I could handle hills with relative ease that had me feeling near death earlier. I’m kinda hoping for the same result with running, but, well, we’ll see how it goes. Nobody should be surprised if within two weeks my running career comes to an end. I’ve noticed two things about running here as opposed to running in the states. The first is that this place is gorgeous. My pathetic little walk-jog things take me along paths beside rice paddies and marshes, fishermen and farmers. Mountains and clouds, of course, make up the backdrop. The second is that if seeing a white girl walking around is funny and interesting to locals, seeing a white girl trying to run around (and only slightly succeeding) is downright hilarious.

Running aside, there’re a few other things, in no particular order, that I’d like to muse about. Do enjoy.

Cleanliness and Organization

This afternoon I cleaned my room properly. Oh, it felt so good. I swept and I mopped (mopped!!) and I scrubbed. I did laundry and organized the kitchen (somewhat). And then I washed my feet, enjoying thoroughly the sensation of walking about barefoot without my soles quickly becoming the same color as my hair. I’m not a slob, but if I acquired Chinese language ability at the same rate this room acquires dirt, I’d be fluent by next Tuesday. My room, as I’ve said before, is very nicely sized and very nicely equipped. However, there’s no “hiding space” beyond my cloth wardrobes (which are filled with clothes), and the space under my bed. I don’t have a closet in which to stick those random things that I might need every once in a while, which is why I have things like my space heater randomly squeezed into corners. I am getting used to having these everything in plain view, but it still adds an air of “temporary” to my space that I’m in the process of finding additional ways of combating. I’m considering buying a small, inexpensive rug to cover up some of my beautiful concrete floor, but no decisions yet.

Plain Hot Water

I’ve always been really into cold water. At home, I guzzle it. In fact, at home I rarely drink anything except cold water, tea, and, occasionally, milk. In the summer my list expands to include iced tea and seltzer. Chinese people are not nearly as into cold water. You can get it quite easily—there’re bottles everywhere—but there are also superstitions regarding cold beverages and women’s health, etc. When I studied abroad, I mostly drank bottled water, so my water was usually room temperature. Here, I mostly drink water that I grab from the taps by the cafeteria and boil. (By the way, the word for “boil” in Chinese literally translates to “open,” so you’re “opening” the water. I love that.). I don’t have a compelling reason. It’s not that I can’t afford bottled water, certainly, as it normally runs around 1.5 kuai (20-25 cents), and it’s not that I don’t have time to walk five minutes to the nearest convenience store. At any rate, for my first week or so, I mostly drank either tea or boiled water that I’d left to cool to room temperature. Then, one day, I noticed myself drinking straight up hot water. I don’t remember making a conscious decision to do this, but suddenly it became my habit—not that I don’t still drink a ton of tea and lukewarm water, along with the occasional chilled bottle.

Laundry

As I mentioned above, I did laundry today—two small loads of it. I feel like laundry, more than almost anything else, hammers in for me the difference in the handling of time between some places and others. Many teachers in Heqing have washing machines, although driers are more or less a rarity in China. The students and the locals, however, do not, and neither do we fellows. That was a choice on our part, and one that we could still change. Washers run, from what I’ve heard, around 500 kuai. If we split that four ways, it would hardly be a huge burden. Yet, I appreciate doing the work myself. I appreciate squatting in my kitchen, scrubbing socks, observing as a task that involves no more than ten minutes of my time in the States, including folding dry clothes, turns into an hour or more. It’s so easy, with washing machines, to not think about what’s going on—to just know what temperature to pick and that, when I go back to the basement/Laundromat/wherever my clean clothes will be waiting to be popped into the drier. I don’t think about the soak cycle and the rinse cycle or any of that—except that now I do, because I am the rinse cycle.

Schedule

My schedule is weird. I have some days where all my classes start and end within two hours and others where my first obligation begins more than twelve hours before my last. The last two weeks, I’ve been pretty casual about what’s work time and what’s chill time, but that wasn’t working very well for me, so yesterday, I sat down with iCal and tried to set out a reasonable way to organize my non-class/meeting time. I now have established prep, Chinese study, exercise, cooking/meals, and, of course, breaks. I’m going to try to follow my schedule very closely this week to see how it goes, and then I’ll make changes as need be. Last year, it was so awesome to be done with work when I went home, and I’ll definitely miss that here, but I’m hoping that my set up “office time,” as it were, will lead me to feel like there’s more of a divide between work and fun. I’ve already labeled my desk as my “work space” and my couch as a “fun space,” and while I leave skype on wherever I am, I try to avoid gmail and such things when I’m at the desk. Likewise, I try not to do prep/grading on the couch or on my bed. I do expect that as time goes on I will acquire more responsibilities and thus have less time to myself, but for now I think having a relatively set schedule is best.

Mood Swings

I’m moody here. To be honest, I can be a bit moody anywhere, but it’s more pronounced here, and I don’t like it. I don’t like being unable to predict how certain things will make me feel, unable to gauge how I’ll react to particular situations. What I’m really struggling with right now is accepting my current emotional volatility and trying not to dwell on it too much. I have a whole lot of time left, and presumably I’ll mellow out at some point, but for now worrying about the mood swings is probably worse than the mood swings themselves.

Well, that’ll do it for now, mostly because I’m tired and want to do a bit more prep work for tomorrow. On the tired note, please excuse this post’s not necessarily being quite as nuanced as some of my others. I know I should probably have written this when I was a bit more detail-oriented, but oh well.