My Bike...

I may or not have mentioned that I adopted a bicycle that I found under the stairs of my apartment. In the last few weeks, I have switched out the tires (both inner tubes and outside rubber, totaling less than 10 USD) and replaced the broken seat... The terrain here is great for riding, everything is flat and paved, no hills and I have been pedaling little bit around campus, but I have been way to scared to try to brave the streets.. The lines on the road are useless in China, as are the traffic lights... People do what they want either way...

Today, Ben finally convinced me that I should try and ride to the McDonald's (Downtown about 1.5 miles). What an amazing/terrifying adventure. in this short distance, I almost killed an old woman and three middle school children AND had to dodge several buses and numerous taxis... I think once i get used to riding here, I will be venturing out more and more!

The route we took (back)

My Beautiful Bike （自行车）

Reading Out loud

I apologize as I am finding it harder and harder to keep up with my blog. I have been very busy this week and cannot figure out when is the best time to designate for writing... This week has been crazy, its the first week where I have had to give full lessons to all of my classes... Teaching is exhausting. (mother, I do not know how you do it.-- However, I think that having 8 classes of 50 is bit more challenging than 2 of less than 30)

Reading Aloud... In class today, I asked my students to read through the dialogue and make sure that they understand it... I had no idea that they would all (50 mind you) begin to read the whole thing OUT LOUD!!! Mind you this is not all at the same time, each was reading at his or her own pace... this also did not happen at low volume. this was LOUD, some where shouting... I was caught completely off guard... after they finished reading, I asked the students how could they possibly focus on what they were reading with their classmates reading aloud and at different paces... Their response was "reading aloud enhances comprehension" and "we are used to it." I do not think that I will ever be able to get used to it...

The classroom is not the only place where one can hear Chinese students reading aloud. Starting in the morning by 6 AM and lasting until around 8 PM, when walking through the campus gardens (pictures are forthcoming) the sounds of hundreds of studious young Asians can be heard as they read aloud from their texts... My favorite is passing by someone who is reading from an English book. She (usually a girl, sometimes males) will have her head buried in her book and I will walk past and say "good morning!" she often just giggles and says nothing in return... I try to do this at least twice a week... I actually met a very nice young man with this approach... at 10 PM, walking home from English Corner, I passed a student reciting King George VI's famous WWII "We are at War" Speech (made popular in the movie The King's Speech)... Nice, friendly guy. He invited the foreigners to pick pears with him this weekend... should be a good time.

English Corner (Part 2) and other random thoughts

A few weeks ago I explained English corner: a place where students meet with foreigners ever night at 8:30 to speak in English... I thought that English corner was such a useful way for students to practice their oral English and listening skills that I required my conversation classes (freshmen- about 150 total) that they would be required to attend once per week... Similarly, the other foreign instructor that teaches freshman classes also decided that it would be a good idea to require the same thing... What does this mean? ENGLISH CORNER HAS EXPLODED!!! Instead of only ten or twenty people coming, our numbers now range around 50 or 60 PLUS! (Mind you that there is only ever a maximum of 8 foreigners there at one time!) The conversations have become more strained too as freshmen with poor English skills vastly outnumber the upperclassmen who can hold a common conversation!!!

It is interesting to see, however, the gap in ability even between the 1st and 2nd years.... I hope that I will be able to make my freshmen improve to such a level by the time I am done here! The first classes with them was a bit strained... they were all very nervous, as I was the first time they had ever spoken to a foreigner... I can identify with with; being from a small town, I was exposed to little or no diversity until college... Their apprehension is understandable... BUT, I do feel as though this week's class with my first years will be much better. I have finished assigning their English names and distributed them back their class leader!

 My biggest mistake was that I accidentally named a guy "Cherry." I quickly changed this to Devin! This is what happened, in the first class I distributed cards and asked students in order to help me give them an English name write their Chinese name and something about them that could give me a clue as to what to name them. i didn't however ask them to specify gender!!!! And in Chinese, I am unable to do that simply by looking at names. So since i only have a few boys in class (about 8 out of 150), i decided that i would just go ahead with all girls names and clean up the mess later... Maybe I'll have a boy named sue!

New Campus

As I may have mentioned before, Henan University has two campuses. An old campus and a new campus. The new campus houses the science type majors and the old campus is home to arts and humanities majors, including English...Recently, I went to the new campus to explore for the first time... About a week ago, I was introduced to Mr. Yu, a friend of my Chinese prof in the states. Mr. Yu works for the University Library system and invited us over to see the library on the new campus... It was HUGE. actually it is the biggest library in the province. Here are a few pictures of only a small section of the new campus. The new campus IS very new... it was completed and opened in 2002!

Some dorms from far away

Really cool round building

the library. It is supposed to look like an open book... I guess I can kinda see it

closer view

round building from a distance

more dorms (from the library 5th floor)

square in front of the library

The new campus definitely has the feel of a large research University with facilities that would compare with many in the states. The old campus, however, has more of a small liberal arts school feel... I really like that Henan University has both!!!

a Change in the weather

Well, it has been a while since I have made the time to update my blog... For this, I am sorry!!! Much has been happening in the last week... It has finally stopped raining and the sun has been shining since Tuesday! More notably, I am now engaged in full time classes... Although I have not begun actual lessons, all of my classes have started... as previously mentioned I teach a total of 8 classes 5 writing and 3 conversation... In total, I have close to 400 students!!!! I am exhausted... I want to remember all of their names but it is almost impossible... I find that preparing lessons for class is extremely difficult, especially for writing, where I have encountered three major problems: 1. I have no book assigned to my class ( and I am not at liberty to assign one) 2. I teach 5 classes, 3 of which are transfer class students which means that they are not only behind the other 2 'non-transfer' classes, but they all have varying backgrounds with English, making it difficult to teach. 3. I only meet with each class once per week for 2 hours each time... I want to accomplish many things this semester but, I feel that this schedule is not conducive to learning... I do not want to burden them with 2 hour lectures, and I think that meeting with them more often would be better...
In short, I think that this semester will be challenging but very enjoyable!!!

Ms Liu's spinning tricks

This video is of our building caretaker playing with some sort of fancy Chinese top/yo-yo! she has two sticks with a string attached and makes the top/yo-yo spin by running the string through it... once it is at full speed, it hums and she can do some pretty fancy things with it... One of the foreign teachers, William, has attempted this game and succeeded to some degree... Ms Liu tells us that it took her more than 5 years to learn. ENJOY 

Ping Pong

As many of you may or may not know... I love ping pong!!! Fortunately, China is the ideal place to play this sport. (yes, I am going to call it a sport-- if I sweat doing it, then its a sport [under this criteria walking up several flights of stairs is ALSO a sport]) Since my arrival, I have not had as many chances to play as I would like nor have I been able to play many people... Not to brag, but I am pretty good (especially for a fat white guy) and in the dozen or so games that I have played, I have not been beaten!!! 

There is a table in the office directly adjacent to our apartments, but we are unable to play during regular business hours-- I guess we make too much noise... This limits us to only nights and weekends... I am currently in the process of recruiting people to play against me and beat me bad. I have been told that students can actually major in table tennis!!! That's who I want to play! I feel that if I can play against this caliber of competitor often, my skills will escalate dramatically!!! 

(short)Ben has arranged a challenger for me this evening... He tells me that SHE has got some skills! Stay tuned to see if my win streak continues!!

The Zoo (Foreign "Expert's" Housing)

the front of my spacious apartment, complete with front porch

The area between apartment buildings

Behind my apartment

The above pictures were taken recently inside the the apartment area of the foreign experts housing... We jokingly call this compound "The Zoo." As you can see in these pictures, we are completely fenced in! If you look closely at the first picture, you can see that these bars are even topped with spikes. This fence is complete with a heavy iron gate. As if the fence itself were not enough to give the feeling of "zooness," the creatures inside certainly complete the picture. I am referring of course to US-the foreign teachers... On  nearly a daily basis, while outside the apartment either eating breakfast or doing whatever, passersby will literally stop and stare into "the zoo." The funniest part is that many of these people make no attempt to hide the fact that they are staring at us- some laugh and point, others just look dumbfounded... Being stared at in China is definitely something that I will have to get used to... We teachers joke that we need to hang the following sign on the fence: “不要饲料的外国人” （do not feed the foreigners)

"Poopin' in the Street Dada dee da dee"

I have have been having trouble keeping up with my blog as the internet has been down the last couple of days. A lot of interesting things have happened in this time. I will break these occurrences up into separate blog-posts in order to keep my readers interested. I am sure that the title of this post has everyone intrigued, so I will waste no more time in getting to the point... Here's what happened:

Yesterday for lunch, a small group of foreign teachers (the Ben's and Malory and I) went to a small restaurant outside of the south gate. As the rain had subsided for a few minutes, we decided that it might be safe to sit at a table on the sidewalk... We had ordered our food and just before it arrived, a cute little Chinese girl (between 2 and 3 years old) walked out from a neighboring shop and started pacing around in the street near our table and holding her pants. We all knew it "she's going to poop." no sooner than we all agreed that this was going to happen, (but way before we were prepared to witness it) the child pulled down her pants and squatted down within ten feet of our table... She proceeded to squat for about five minutes as she pinched a couple of logs right there on the sidewalk, all the while looking at us foreigners as if we were the ones out of place... Midway through this five minute relief session, our food arrived. Somehow we were able to eat normally and nearly finish our meals. (Small Ben, however, seemed a little disturbed and I had to help him with a few bites) This experience has certainly brought new meaning to the term "dinner and a show."   

Mid Autumn Festival: Moon Cakes

an example of a fancy moon cake

This past Monday was a national holiday which meant NO class as China celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese festival best explained by the experts of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

When I ask students or Chinese friends what they do on Mid-Autumn Festival they always same the same thing: "eat moon cakes 月饼." So in order to experience the holiday in a traditional manner, I emulated the locals and spent the weekend sampling moon cakes. Fortunately, I did not have to actually buy any cakes because I received several as a gift from the International Programs office and from other teachers and friends... This venture was semi-successful at best. The very first one I tried was pineapple flavored, which was delicious. The next few were not quite so good... The next one was what I call "ambiguous meat flavored"Yeah, I know, meat in a cake GROSS!!! and it is indeed as gross as the name implies... I made it one bite in before throwing the rest of it away... The third one was also a "dud" as I have been calling the bad ones. It started out good as it was sweet red bean filled. The sweetness ended abruptly when I bit into something hard, yellow and bitter. I thought Potato? Ben, who I think knew what was coming and decided not to tell me for his own enjoyment, quickly informed me that it was actually duck egg-yolk... From this point on, I made it a habit of either asking explicitly "what is in this?" or breaking the thing open to examine it before putting it in my mouth... This has generally been a pretty good practice as I have successfully avoided two more "ambiguous meat cakes" and managed to find another pineapple cake, a strawberry cake and a peanut cake!!!

The Cold, The Rain and the Foreigners

These last few days it has been pretty miserably weather wise. Actually, we have had pretty constant rain for the last week... The temperature has also fallen about 20 degrees since my arrival when it was in the mid to upper 90's. Now it is cool and comfortable in the low to mid 70's. However, the rain does make it feel a bit cooler. Being from the 'North Pole' of Ohio, I find this weather along with the cool mists to be quite comfortable and  therefore have not changed my wardrobe from the shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops that I have been wearing for the last week. On thee other hand, it appears that everyone else in the city of Kaifeng (including the other foreign teachers) has decided that it is now time to wear pants and fall jackets... What does this mean for me? I stand out even more!!! Now its not just "Oooo, look at that foreigner," its "Wow, look at that crazy foreigner who is not wearing any clothes!!" While walking downtown yesterday, I saw a moped crash into the back of a bus right beside me... I have a strange suspicion that it was because he was trying to steal a second glance at me and Ben and didn't see the bus stop in front of him!!!
My clothing choice also seems to be bewildering to my students and Chinese friends that have asked me on numerous occasions: "do you feel cold." I always answer "No," and try to explain that where I come from it starts snowing sometimes in November and that the snow comes up to our knees!!! I start wearing pants when the temperature goes below 55!!!

About where I am living

I could go on and on about the history of the province OR city where I will be staying for the next year.. Here's a couple of links to catch you up...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henan_Province
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng

trip to Zhengzhou

Today, I went with the Ben, Ben and Malory to Zhenzhou- The provincial capital and biggest city. The purpose of our venture was to find a foreign food import store and pick up a few comforts of home. We found three (3) such stores but didn't end up buying too much... We went to the city without a shopping list and we came back with only: Pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, BBQ sauce and lime juice... I had wanted to buy a big jar of peanut butter and the Ben and Mal wanted to buy some cereal... I was unable to find the peanut butter and the cereal was grossly overpriced at about 36 RMB (about 6 USD) (mind you we get a hot egg breakfast for 3 RMB) So they decided that they would just live without the cereal. As for me and the peanut butter, I think I can wait til Santa sends me a present this year (hint hint mother)!
Although the trip in itself was not incredibly successful and quite long (we left campus as 7:30 AM and didn't get back til about 6:30), I did manage to bring the iPod along and snap a few pictures for the enjoyment of my followers... Here they are:

A large banking building near the bus stop at arrival

One of countless apartment grids in the massive city.. Both Zhengzhou and Kaifeng are building rapidly as money starts to come into central provinces...

A nifty drum statue in a park near the bus station

River/ Canal running through the outskirts of the city

A closer view of the apartment grid: I counted 31 stories on the highest one

A park inside a Zhengzhou Campus

Spelled wrong: Olive tree RENTASRANT

and spelled wrong DIFFERENTLY!!: RESTAURAUT  

a SMALL bike and moped parking lot near the center of town

Inside the McDonald's in the center of town. (I tried a bacon chicken burger... Chicken good, Bacon bad)

freshly minted SEQUENTIAL bills!!! (given as change at Mc D's) ever seen this before?

square in front of Mc'D's

again

a large park near the city center

Chinese Beer （啤酒）

Today I want to talk a little bit about Chinese beer... I am sure this will only be the first time of many that I share about beer over the course of the next year. In the past two weeks I have had a chance to sample various brands of Chinese beer. I remember in one of my first blog entries I mentioned drinking a beer and claimed that it was cheap and "not so bad." Since then, I have had some beers, also cheap, that were "so bad;" I would like to point out that MOST Chinese beer has an alcohol concentration ranging from 2-3.5% ABV (In the states it starts at 4 and goes UP)
Yesterday, Tall Ben (another beer lover) and I decided that it was time that we find some good beer... We had heard rumors about a German beer store downtown and decided to check it out... Well, to make a long story short--- the store was a disappointment. There was a poor selection and everything was overpriced. The main product was mini-kegs costing about 300 RMB each. (Mind you, I have been eating ALL day for about 12 RMB) Since we went all the way down there, Ben and I decided that we should at least buy one (bottle) of beer apiece. I grabbed a pilsner (frankly it was the only one I knew anything about).
On the way back to campus we decided that we'd just buy a case of our favorite 'fall-back' Chinese beer "TsingTao" 青岛 (We have it in the states)... This beer was only 45 RMB (about 8 USD)  for a case of 12 600 ml bottles... This beer tastes pretty good and surpasses other local beers with an ABV of 4.7% (doesn't taste like water). I think I'll be sticking with this for the remainder of my time here...

The English Corner

There is a small are outside the library in a garden area of campus called "The English Corner." Every night at 9 pm students meet in the corner and can speak only English... Last night, Ben suggested that that we join these students and make their night a little more interesting... This was a wonderful hit!! About 20 students showed up and we all talked for about an hour in little groups... Most of these students were English Majors some of which were my students but many of which were Ben's... However, about halfway through the session, a yound man walks up curiously and introduces himself as "Richard." At first Rich was indistinguishable from all the other students so I started asking him the usual questions like "what's your major?" and such... After a short while into the conversation I deduce that Rich is not a student after all but rather a new teacher on campus, who just stopped by because he heard us speaking English and was curious!!!
The student leader- "Rambo"- of the "English corner group" was very appreciative that the three of us foreign teachers decided to show up... He said that he had been alone the past two nights with nothing but his thoughts... after having such a good time meeting and talking with these new friends I don't think Rambo will have to worry about sitting alone anymore because we will be frequenting the English Corner

The Barber Shop Battle and Hair Clippers

The other morning after getting breakfast around 8 AM, two other foreign teachers (Both named Ben-- Big Ben (大本）and small Ben (小本）]and I were walking back to the foreign teachers residence when we were caught in the middle of a strange occurrence... As we were walking we began to hear some type of drilled shouting up ahead and as we drew closer we could see a group of young men (all with weird hair cuts) running around in circles and chanting ” 一二一二一二“ （ one two one two)... As can be expected, we were very surprised by this behavior so we sneaked in for a closer look; Big Ben pulled out his video camera to capture the scene... We soon realized that these guys were the worker from the hair salon that they were drilling in front of and that this was some odd morning exercise routine... After about two or three minutes of watching and filming. we hear a similar noise directly behind us... We spun around just in time to see a line of male hair dressers goose stepping out of their place of employment and shouting emphatically... We were caught in between and luckily Big Ben caught it all on tape!!! I will try to get the footage to share with all of you!!!

It was not long after this that I realized that I was going to be needing a haircut pretty soon... However, after bearing witness to this morning routine I was certain that I did not want to frequent one of these locals and let one of these loonies touch my precious head... Besides, I have made it 22 years without ever paying for a hair cut (Debra used to cut it, and I have been doing it myself through college) and I was not about to let my first barber shop experience be here, so I opted to buy some hair clippers,,, Fortunately, I found a set online from the Chinese version of eBay for around 10 USD including shipping!!!! They arrived within 3 days and now I have a fresh haircut!!! These clippers also work better than any that I had used stateside...

The First Class...

I had my first class today (Monday) at 8 AM... to be honest, I was a little nervous about standing in front of a classroom for an extended period of time for the first time... I got to class at about 7:45 and all of the students were already there... 

[Before I continue, an explanation of the Chinese college system needs to be given. In the US students pick their individual classes and semester by semester fulfill the requirements for graduation--- each individual course will have a different make-up of students. In China, each grade level is separated into 'classes' or fixed groups of students that will take every course together throughout their entire college career...]

So when I arrived at the classroom I was certainly the strangest face in the classroom and the ONLY one unfamiliar to them... Each class meets only once per week for two hours each meeting. (I teach 5 writing classes to 3rd years and 3 conversation classes to 1st years)

I did not want to start into hard material on the first day, so I thought that I would just do a small introduction about myself. I followed this by asking each student to:1, Tell me their Chinese and English Names, 2. something they thought made them unique  3. Why they chose to study English and 4. Each had to ask me a question about myself or anything really...

The English names were not as odd as I had been warned. In my first class the only two that are noteworthy are Cola and Flower (I am told that Flower changed her name from Smiley). The students had trouble coming up with something that made them unique; most just said their hobbies or stuff they like to do... One girl paused and asked if liking to eat made her special. I told her if enjoying food was special, then I was the most special person in the room! As for why students chose to study English all 45 students gave one of the following 4 answers 1. "I like it" 2. "It can get me a good job"  3. "My parents forced me to" OR 4. "because I don't like math."

The questions that were directed at me ranged from "What us your favorite color" to what do you think of the American economy" (i stayed away from that one, After all it is an English class..) to "How did you propose to your Fiance?" The whole process took up the better part of both 1 hour periods and left me with only about 20 minutes to explain the course... I made it through explaining weekly journal assignments before I ran out of time... I hope to manage my time a little better with my next class.

Pictures.... (of my room)

It has come to my attention that some the readers of this blog have requested to see more pictures. Those of you that are close to me I am sure know that I am never good at taking pictures when I go new places. I am trying to work on this a little more, and this is a start. I wanted to take some pictures of the campus today to share, but it is raining outside and they didn't turn out so great.... So here are a few pictures to satiate my ravenous readers:

Living room (prior to re-arrangement)

Bed (room)-- Actually Just a Box Spring

Closet One looking into the Living Room

Closet two (looking from living room into bedroom)

Main gait to campus reads "Henan Daxue" Literally Henan "big study" but actually means University 

These are just a few pictures... and just a friendly reminder to my readers: I will be here for a year, so I have to space the pictures out for several months... My blog posts will become less and less about daily experiences and become more about specific experiences or events... Please stay tuned... Its going to be a great year!!!

The Night Market

The Night Market Downtown (from second story KFC)

I am told that 开封(kaifeng) is famous for its night market. This collection of street vendors selling everything from watches to toys to underwear and FOOD stretches several blocks down 书店街 （bookstore street) and culminates in what you see here. During the day this is the intersection of two major streets in the city, but at night, vendors set up their stands and encroach several feet into the roadway (an entire lane actually). It is pretty wild. This phenomenon occurs every night from about 6 PM til 10 PM. Tonight was my first of what I hope to be countless trips to the night market...

"Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone"- N.D. Walsch

I found a random notebook at the campus store today with the title of this blog written on it... I thought it was really fitting to my experience here. Living abroad for a year away from all of my loved ones in a strange country is certainly out of my comfort zone, but so far I am loving every minute of it!!!

Today started out really great: Egg pita for breakfast followed by a couple hours of Frisbee... Lunch was also very enjoyable: McDonald's, that's right: McDonald's.... A short ride away from campus on the bus or 三轮车 (literally "three wheeled car"= a small rickshaw cab) is a Micky D's complete with Big Macs french fries and milkshakes. The menu also includes many types of chicken sandwiches because as Ben puts it "the Chinese like their fried chicken." (KFC is also very popular, actually the locals joke the KFC stands for Kaifeng Cai [菜 , cai= dish) I ordered the Big Mac meal with curly fries, yes curly fries, and everything was YUMMY!!! the cost of the meal was 20 RMB (about $3.30)

This afternoon Ben and I met with Leanna, my classmate from Akron who is studying at 河大 this year. She was tired, as her flight arrived late last night in Zhengzhou, but was eager to go around campus and find something to eat... I am happy that I at least know a few people here in China, and very glad that I chose to go on this adventure. However, classes start Monday and real life begins!!!

Chinese Health Checks

Today I received my first exposure to the Chinese medical system by way of our official Health Checks. All foreigners who will have an extended stay in China are required to take a physical exam to ensure that they are not bringing in any diseases to China or are susceptible to any disease. The whole process was very interesting...

this morning at 8 o'clock we all met at the office and climbed on the bus to Zhengzhou (the provincial capital- about 1 hour away). we arrived at the clinic around 9:15; it was already very crowded... We found out immediately that the pictures our leader brought of us were not the right size, so we had to go next door to a photo studio to get the appropriate size. This "photo-studio" was nothing more than a one bedroom studio apartment attached to a beer distributor. We literally had to squeeze between an unloading beer truck and stacks of beer crates to even make it into the cramped room. Inside the "studio" was two beds, a sheet with a stool in front of it, a lamp, a shade and a small Chinese woman with a digital camera... one by one we took our pictures...

Little did I know at this point that my day full of interesting and surprising things had just begun. The line for registration was long and the wait took about 30 minutes before we were even through to processing... after the all of us were signed in we proceeded into the 'clinic area' where all of the different types of exam stations were located. One by one we were checked off on all of the essentials: blood-pressure, weight/height, eye exam, chest X-ray, EKG, Blood/Urine test and finally a sonogram. This experience was interesting because I have never been through a screening process like this, much less one so in depth and within one facility and all in a language that I can scarcely say that I understand... 

The sketchiest part for sure was the urine test. After having blood drawn, each person was handed a small, numbered specimen cup and instructed to "fill it half way and place it inside the corresponding number outside the restroom." The rack outside the restroom was exactly that: a rack with numbers on it filled with OPEN half cups of urine. It would have been so easy to contaminate the other's samples. I wonder how it is even possible to get an accurate test... I think that this experience just goes to prove that things are just done differently in China... A notion that I am sure I will be becoming more and more familiar with in the coming months...