Birthday Party

I am sorry for not updating my blog as much as I should have lately... I just have not been keeping you updated... That doesn't mean, however, that nothing has been happening! Actually, this has been a pretty eventful week! I will try to break it up by activity. Today's blog post:

My Birthday.
As you many you of you may know, October 24th was my birthday, my first birthday in China. (not my first in a foreign country since I spent my 20th in South Korea) I wanted to do something fun so I suggested that we foreign teachers should all go to Lazy Cat Pizza for dinner... Lazy Cat is a pizza place near downtown Kaifeng they say that they serve authentic New York style pizza. Although it is not perfect, its pretty close to a pizza that you could buy in the states... The price is expensive compared to other food in China. One pie ranges between 45 to 80 RMB. (remember i can get a good and filling individual meal for less than 10). The actual currency conversion from USD is about 7 to 12 per pie... Not too bad...

There were 10 of us in all that went: 8 American teachers an Australian and a Chinese student.. We feasted on Pepperoni, Bacon, BBQ Chicken and Margarita pizzas as well as onion rings, french fries and potato skins! We washed it all down with some Coca Cola! A small taste of America on my Birthday... Like usual, however, I neglected to take pictures... So I will have to try to get them from others that did and I should be able to post them in the near future...

Kissinger: On China

I have recently completed the book that I have been reading for the last couple months: Henry Kissinger's book On China. Of all of the books that I have read on China and Chinese politics, this one is probably one of the best and certainly unique. The book starts with a couple chapters framing the history of Chinese politics and political culture through the imperial times and into the 20th century. This part is not to bad, but it was nothing that I did not already know... The most interesting contribution Kissinger gives in this section is comparing Chinese strategy in foreign policy to the game of Wei Qi... (I think we call the game go-- it is similar to Risk and involves encirclement of the enemy and massive strategy) He continues this metaphor throughout the remainder of the book and uses it to explain Chinese reaction to such things as American involvement in Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam...
The best parts of the book are when Kissinger quotes the various leaders and characters from both sides of the US-China dialogues that he has been directly involved in over the past several decades... This is where I learned a lot and where I will be drawing much of my information if I use this information in forthcoming papers...
The chapter Tienanmen, is my favorite chapter in the book... I have read extensively about the build-up to and the actual events in the Spring and early Summer of 1989... (If you are interested, but do not want to spend a lot of time, Check out the PBS Frontline documentary: Tank Man) Instead, Kissinger goes into detail about the problems and debates within the US about how to handle the issue... Here he explains how the first Bush Administration had to walk the thin line between Realism and Idealism... On the one hand, he (Bush) knew that a harsh reaction would not be beneficial to either China or America in the medium to long term, but he was forced by an angry public to do something....
Above all. this book gives an excellent portrayal of Sino-American relations since the 1970's... this 550 page work helped me to better understand this complex relationship between our two countries... Furthermore, it served to solidify my passion for this field and inspire more active research (I am in the beginning stages of 2 major essays that I will be working on throughout the year and eventually attempt to get published upon returning to the states)

Marta

This weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting Marta. She worked at Henan University two years ago and taught English here...She came to visit William and other teachers from Beloit College, her Alma Mater. When meeting here, I found out that she used to live in the apartment that I now live in. It must be weird for her seeing someone live in the place where she spent two years of her life! she came in to see what it looked like and to take a small trip down memory lane... When checking out the bookshelf, she was pleased to find that many of her books were still here... She then proceeded to ask me if she could borrow a couple.. I said "sure, they're yours anyway!"
Last night, Marta told us of a bar that a friend of hers had just opened downtown and she invited us all tog o check it out... This bar was on the 4th floor of a newly built facility and was the only place open in the entire building... Despite being not busy, it is really nice! half of the bar is a large patio with awesome murals and other artwork as well as dance-lights! the inside bar area was also very nice; comfortable booths and lounge chairs were everywhere.. Unfortunately, the small group of foreigners were the only ones there, but we stayed and talked until about 11:30...
The beer was warm, but the people and the atmosphere were pleasant... I am not sure that I will be frequenting though... Just not my scene... 

The Others

Today I met two more foreigners who are teaching at Henan University: Tim and Toby... Tim is Australian and is teaching on the same campus as me. He teaches English to students that will do their later years of their program abroad in Australia. Toby is German and he is the German teacher on the new campus. He also teaches in the international Education college to students who will study here and then eventually go to study in Germany.

He has been here since we have (about 2 months now) and until this week he thought that he was the only foreigner in Kaifeng! (the new campus has no other foreign teachers) He was so excited to be able to communicate with people (he speaks flawless English).

Tonight Ben, Mal, Tim, Toby and I went to get dinner together, after dinner we were walking back and came across some sort of concert that was being set up in the middle of campus. Tim thought that maybe some of his students were involved in this so we walked in for a closer look. As soon as they caught sight of us, some official looking man grabs a hold of Tim and guides the group of us to the front row (mind you there is probably about 4,000 people here). We sit down in our seats where there is already a bottle of water waiting for us... The show begins (completely in Chinese.) It was some sort of variety show with singing, dancing and other types of musical performances... Between acts the cameraman would always put the camera on us foreigners as we clapped... (I am fairly certain that we will be on  TV somewhere) After the show, we were ushered onto the stage to have our pictures taken with the performers.... CRAZY STUFF 

Following the show, which lasted until about 9, I decided that I would have Tim and Toby come to English corner with me... Since this was their first time there, Tim and Toby were quite the hot topic as the students asked them many things about Australia and Germany. for some reason they were not able to comprehend that only one was German and kept getting confused thinking they both were... By far my favorite question of the night was directed at Toby: "Do you like Hitler?" Toby, being a very humorous guy (and perhaps the craziest that I have met) says "Of course, he's my best friend." The other foreign teachers were able to laugh at this, but then Toby quickly explained that this was not the case and that the German people do not like Hitler or the Nazis...

I think that we will be having a lot of fun in the coming months together!!!

Mashed Taters and Cheesy Broccoli!

On a lighter note from my last blog, i want to catch you up a bit on what I have been eating...
I still frequent the same places outside of the west and south gates but I have also been doing a little cooking lately with Ben (short ben). What we have been making is: mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli!!! Its like thanksgiving dinner without the turkey and stuffing!!!! I never thought that something so simple would be so good!

Ben had the foresight, when was back in the states over break, to buy some necessary things that are not available in the states... one of these things was a potato masher! Potatoes are easy to find here but most of them just get cut up and served in various Chinese dishes. Nobody mashes them! But we did!!!

Ben has a double steamer pan and he discovered if he takes out the lower steam plate that he can boil potatoes and steam broccoli at the same time!!! While the potatoes are being mashed we put some strips of American cheese on the broccoli and cover it to let it melt a bit... YUMMY We did this for the first time last week, and we made it a full 4 days before we repeated it again this week! its cheap, quick and easy! i think that this will be a regular tradition!

Suicide Tragedy

This morning I opted out of going to get breakfast at west gate... ( I have been eating peanut butter and jelly for breakfast) I told Ben the night before that I would probably sleep a little bit later and not be going with him to west gate at 7.... Around 7:35 as I am preparing my final materials for class, Ben knocks on my door... He tells me that he decided not to go to get breakfast at west gate because he had been told that a girl jumped from the dorm adjacent to the gate... He proceeded to tell me that the girl was a junior... I immediately got a sick feeling in my stomach as I realized that I have 6 classes of girls that live in that building and that 3 of them are juniors... I was on my way to one of those classes at that time...

I hoped and prayed that it was not one of my students, and I took Ben's advice and decided to act as if I didn't know anything about it and proceed with the lesson as normal... I got to class and all of the students looked miserable. Sara, the class monitor, told me at the beginning of the class what happened. She explained that the girl was NOT an English major and that the she climbed from the 4th floor to the 6th and jumped... I am not sure whether or not she died immediately, I can only hope that her suffering was minimal. This occurred at 11 PM last night... She went on to say that police and investigators were there until about 3 AM... Most of the class had barely fallen asleep by the time they had to get up for class...

I tried to go on with class as normally as possible. I was my bright and exciting self... But at the end of class I told them: "If you need anything, any help with any classes, to talk about anything, any problems whatsoever, you can talk to me." I couldn't bare it if this would have been one of my students... They seemed in better spirits by the end of the class and this also made me feel a little better. I think that I am also connecting with them on a more personal basis, which should make this year much better for all of us...

My thoughts: youth suicide seems to be quite a problem here. I think that it is because students receive so much pressure from all angles: society, family and themselves... Sometimes they just crack and see no way out... I am not sure that there are many outlets for them either... As I am writing this, I wonder if there is any psychiatric help made available to the students... This is doubtful, but I will be looking into it... a life cut short is always such a tragedy...

Education (Part two)

the second major problem with the Chinese education system that I have identified may be a product of or stem from the first problem... The second fault is the complete stifling or lack of creativity... Due to the fact that success is determined by a students ability to regurgitate some memorized information, no attention is paid to whether or not a student can think for him/herself... This, I think, is completely tragic... Not only is it sad, but it is also detrimental to society... No creative youth= no innovation...

this week, I witnessed this plague first hand... I collected my first writing assignment this week. It was only a journal entry with the topic: "who is your favorite writer an why?" To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect... prior to assigning this, i had done a brainstorming and outlining activity with the students to show them how to come up with and organize ideas... (I used JK Rowling, since i thought they might also know a little about her Harry Potter Series) I told them that I would not require them to follow the model that I gave them and encouraged them to write freely...

What I received was anything but free writing... The majority of the students chose to write biographies of their chosen author. Most of these entries were either directly or partially copied from articles on the internet! STRAIGHT PLAGIARISM! This completely shocked me. At first, I did not recognize it for what it was. After grading several journals, I began to realize that most of the students were giving me really detailed and really well written backgrounds of their authors... When one entry read like a wikipedia article, I got suspicious. I decided to type the first two sentences into Baidu (Chinese google) to see what would happen. I found that the article was copied verbatim from baidu zhidao (like a Chinese wiki)... I was so upset... It ruined my whole day (this was last Monday)

Later, I was able to pick up on the plagiarism more easily when students would use difficult vocab or complex sentence structure, I was immediately tipped off! But somewhere in the middle of 250 journals, I became a total pessimist: I would think that any coherent sentence or well-though out analysis must be plagiarized... This is terribly sad. I don't know how I am going to deal with it... I do not have the time to look up every sentence that I think might be copied! It already takes me about 5 hours to grade one class of journals (I have 5 classes with 50 students each and a 300 word assignment-- do the math!)! I would not be able to sleep if I tried that... So I am not sure what I am going to do...

I have, however, resolved that I will give a lecture on plagiarism next week in class and hope that resolves some of the problem... But I am doubtful it will... The idea of internalizing the right idea is so endemic in this country (what better way to show that you know the right answer than to copy) , that a lecture on composition ethics is unlikely to reverse it... 

I just hope that I can make a small difference in the lives of these students... I hope to not only help them improve their English skills, but also help them open their minds and encourage them to think for themselves... In a country with 1.3 billion people, there is no doubt that the creative potential is here, it is just that it is being crushed by the system... So tragic... If you were to ask me what the difference is between American and Chinese education (and many people have asked this), I would say: "In China, students are taught what to think. In America, students are taught how to think!"

The Problems with the Chinese education system (Part One)

As promised previously, I will rant about the problems in China's education system... Their are two main problems... I will talk about the first one today: The emphasis on memorization of the "right answer"

Chinese classes are all lectures. there are very few if any discussion classes and within the lectures there is no discussion.... I think that this is terrible... I don't feel as though this is an effective way of learning and frankly, I think that this is a waste of time... If you are just going to class to be talked at, then why not just read lecture notes or watch a documentary... If you want to actually learn something, then I think that is important to be an active participant in your own education... This means asking questions and thinking about the topics and issues... Not just trying to ingest and memorize them, which is exactly what students are expected to do here in China. For example, English instruction for these students starts in middle school, at about the age of 12... By the time they get to college, they have had at least 6 years of formal English Education... But most of them can barely express themselves. This is due to the poor quality of the system and NOT for lack of effort on the students..

Chinese students are very hardworking... Probably the most hardworking students on the planet... They are always studying... When I wake up in the morning and walk across campus to get breakfast at 7 AM, the students are already everywhere studying: the library is already full and the empty classrooms are littered with students pouring over their books and notes... they will also do this late into the night and then get up the next day to do it again... You would never see an American student with this dedication (at least not me!)

Unfortunately, they are doing it ALL WRONG.... Instead of thinking critically about the material, they try to memorize it verbatim. Instead of analyzing how material relates to other ideas and can be applied practically, they just try to memorize... THIS DOES NOT WORK... You CANNOT learn this way! sure it might be good for taking in some facts, but not for retaining them or applying them.... China is breeding a country full of encyclopedias!!! I think that it is much more useful to learn HOW TO APPLY INFORMATION and not the information itself! Information these days is so accessible, it is not useful to memorize a fact if you can simply look it up!

To combat this problem to the best of my ability, I am dedicated to teaching my students SKILLS and not FACTS... Yes building vocabulary in a foreign language is important, but without the proper ability to utilize that vocabulary, it is useless!

Sorry for the rant... Just had to get that out... tomorrow, I will go into the other major problem with the educational system..

Writing Class continued

As I have been preparing for my classes and grading homework.... I have been asking myself why they chose ME to teach this class... I mean why me over a qualified Chinese teacher that may have a PhD in composition??? I know the common answer is because, I am a native English speaker, but I have no formal training in composition (beyond English Comp I and II in college) and I have no teaching experience.... The writing class that I teach is the highest level of English writing that these students will take before they graduate with a degree in English!!! This is a huge responsibility and burden on me and have been bothering me quite a lot lately... part of me feels as though someone with a formal background in writing should be teaching them... so I still ask myself the question: Why me?

the closest thing that I can come up with to convince myself why I am doing this is NOT to teach them, but rather to guide them and to help them... As I mentioned above, I feel that I am unqualified as a formal instructor, but what I am good at is being a natural English speaker.... This also means that I have been exposed to natural English writing and I can easily recognize it... SO I tell myself that I am more of a coach than a formal instructor... Rather than worry myself with presenting them with the best type of instruction, I will concern myself individual improvement.... Therefore, I want my classroom to be more like a discussion than a lecture... I will also implement the Socratic Method into my teaching style... With this, I will put a tiny dent into what I believe to be a huge problem of the Chinese education system... (tomorrows blog topic.)

Catching Up: My Writing Class

Due to "internet problems," I have been unable to update my blog for quite some time... I am sorry and I will flood you with a bunch of daily blogs in order to make up for it!

This week I gave a lesson in my writing class on effective introductions, effective conclusions and proper use of transitions! Yes it is just as boring to teach about as it is to study... However, I think that I did a pretty effective job. Unfortunately, I was not provided with a textbook with which to teach the course and I was told that I am not allowed to assign one... this means that I have to provide them with materials for every lesson that I teach...
I also have to make my own curriculum and set my own requirements... My teaching assistant, the Chinese grad student who is supposed to give me guidance, has not of been of any help... he has only told me that I need to teach writing and that I should prepare my own materials...

I teach 5 writing classes with about 50 students per class... (I know, way too many) 2 of these classes have been at Henan university since they were freshmen... They have had several foreign teachers and their listening and expression is quite good... I am able to teach them quite easily and they follow me very well...

The other three classes are transfer students made up of students that have the equivalent of associate degrees in English... Many of these students have never had a foreign teacher and their comprehension and expression has suffered because of it... on the other hand, others have had foreign teachers and their English skill is on par with my other two classes... as can be imagined, this type of class is very hard to teach... if I talk at a natural speed, the students who have good English skills are able to follow me while the others are confused.... If I slow down, I might be able to pick up a few more students who have poorer listing skills but I lose the better students to boredom.... I am not sure what I am going to do... I think that I will meet in the middle with a moderate speed...

Just like my two classes differ from the transfer classes in listening ability, their writing ability is also drastically different.... SO... I am not sure whether or not I am supposed to have the same expectations for ALL classes??? I feel as if I hold the good classes to higher expectations, then this will be unfair to them and the other class as well.... I think that I am only going to grade by improvement... If students heed my suggestions and make improvement through the year, then their grades will reflect this positively. However, if they make no effort, then this will only hurt them....

Ducks and Dogs

Outside of the west gate (where I often go to eat my street food) there are two animals that I always see... The one is Mr. Duck. The first time I saw Mr. Duck, he was being carried out of a restaurant by a worker who was holding him by the neck... She proceeded to place him inside a very small fenced in area where he wanders around and we have been seeing him there ever since. Actually, we are not sure if it is the same duck, it might actually be a new duck everyday... Either way, we like him, if we approach the fence, he comes up and quacks at us. I tried to feed him some bread this morning, but he wouldn't have anything to do with it... 

Mr. Duck

The second set of creatures are the puppies... In a cage below the newspaper stand are two baby doggies... About twice a day, I have to walk past these precious little creatures and NOT buy them. This is heartbreaking. If I knew for sure that I was allowed to have one AND that I could bring it home, I would certainly buy it... If Anissa was here, I would already have the dog I am sure...

Making Pizza

for the last several weeks, we have been amassing the necessary ingredients for assembling pizza... we had to  by the mozzarella and pizza sauce in Zhengzhou, we didn't even try to find pepperoni... The crust on the other hand and how we were going to be able to bake an entire pizza in Ben's small oven was another problem. Malory suggested that we should by some flat bread from one of the street vendors and and use that to make individual sized pizzas! What a wonderful idea! it worked perfectly.  the sauce was already prepared in a bag but the cheese had to be shredded. Luckily Ben thought to bring a shredder from the states! each person made their own pizza and we were able to cook about 6 at a time on the two racks in Ben's oven...

If you want to see pictures of this adventure, Ben is uploading them to facebook and should be tagging me in them

Fancy Dinner

Has anyone ever heard of Groupon or Living Social? well if not, in short, they are internet coupons where someone buys in essence a gift certificate for less than full price... Ben and one of our Chinese friends found a fancy dinner gift certificate at a western style steakhouse- coffee shop marked down 80% ( YEAH 80%) 

so of course all of us that were offered the opportunity jumped at the chance to get a 155 Yuan meal for 28! 

On Tuesday we decided that Wednesday would be the day that we would go... Wednesday at lunch, I suggested that we should all dress up for dinner: shirt, tie, jacket, the whole thing!!!

So this is how it happened: 

6 PM, five very well dressed foreigners  and 2 Chinese people get on bus number 33 outside of the south gate of campus.

6:01 PM, the strange looks from the locals is intensified by our clothing. They had to be wondering who we were and where we were going, and wherever we were going, why the heck were we taking public transportation and not riding in a black sedan.

6:30 our bus arrives (well at least the stop closest to the restaurant) Since we are still several blocks from the eating establishment, we decide to hoof it... the spectacle continues as the foreigner parade marches through the new part of town toward the cafe.. 

6:45 we arrive at our destination... A very (very very) fancy restaurant with a well dressed wait staff and fountains, a coy pond, table linens, everything... we are escorted to our tables, and due to the large size of the group, we were instructed to split up into two groups.

6:46 we are sat down and served a plate of watermelon seeds (yeah the things we spit out in the states) We could not figure out how to eat them, so we settled for sucking the salt off of the shells

6:48 the waitress begins to ask Alexis (our resident Chinese interpreter) about how we want our steak cooked (yeah, I said steak) apparently, in china instead of rare, medium rare, medium etc, they rank the done-ness on a scale from 1 to10. one being the rarest and 10 being the most well done. I thought I'd be safe with a 4 since I tend to go for medium rare in the states, I should be fine with a more medium than rare cook.

6:52 each person is given a small cup of espresso. (I think it was just really strong coffee) I was happy just to have some coffee for the first time in over a month... It was pretty good

6:55 our soup and bread arrives.. it wasn't to bad. the soup was just some kind of lukewarm sweet corn/milk porridge. The bread, on the other hand, was not so good. it was like toasted sweet bread. but it wasn't sweet. just weird. 

6:56 (only one minute later) the meals arrive... Each dish is on a personal skillet type of dish and covered with a metal lid. after the server lifts she lid she proceeds to pour gravy all over the steak which is also served with a sunny side up egg and a poor attempt at Italian Pasta. The gravy, I am convinced was just black pepper and water... SPICY! The steak seemed way more well done than even medium let alone rare, but hey, meat is meat! (I even think it was beef!)

7:20 a plate of fresh fruit is brought out containing watermelon (with seeds), papaya, pear, and some melon. this was a refreshing finish to a spicy meal. 

I think all of us really enjoyed the meal. Although it was no Texas Roadhouse, it was good to have a meal centered around a piece of meat for the first time since arriving. the atmosphere of the restaurant definitely made up for the mediocre food too.

Grad School Applications

As mentioned previously, this week was dedicated to the completion of my grad school applications... I can now say that on Wednesday night, that this has been a success. I have all of the applications filled out, all the transcripts requested, and after a little trouble, the GRE scores sent to all of the schools!!!

I did run into a few problems due to the fact that China is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Time. For instance, some of the application materials could only be accessed during regular business hours... Not a big problem, I just had to look something up after 9 pm... Also, for some reason, the GRE website is no longer displaying which schools I had sent my scores to on test day... I want to clarify this for certain because sending new or additional reports costs 23 bucks each.... I am applying to 5 schools to that adds up fast. What I had to do was call the ETS/GRE service last night and talk to a representative. This was much harder than it would have been in the states because I was calling via skype and my internet connection is very shotty and the all kept dropping. So after about 40 minutes and 5 tries, I finally got the information that I needed. It turns out that 3 of the five schools already had my scores! I only had to send 2! Now, I should be all in the clear.

For those of you who have not been keeping up, I am applying to 5 schools. Niss and I have limited our search to schools/ cities where we can both pursue our graduate degrees. I am applying to the University of California San Diego, University of Michigan, Florida International (Miami), Georgetown University and American University (both of which are in DC) If you ask me what is my top choice, I am not sure that I will be able to answer... All of the programs are good. If you ask Niss, I am sure that she will not want to live through another cold winter so that means eaither Miami or San Diego.... Which is fine, because I am happy to go anywhere!

Speaking of Anissa, I got my first package in the mail the other day: a custom-made calendar of our engagement pictures!!! What a treat! Immediately after arriving here, I realized that I had completely forgotten to bring any pictures! (I know what kind of a fiance am I?) Now I'll have a new one to display each  month!!!

National Day

Yesterday (October 1st) was Chinese National Day. This day marks the anniversary of the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China. Which was established on October 1. 1949... I guess you could say that Oct. 1 is the equivalent of US July 4... The celebrations in China, however, do not seem to match those in the states! don't get me wrong, there are fireworks (but there is always fireworks -- ill talk about this later) but there are not BBQ's or picnics etc... What Chinese National Day means to me is that I get a week off from teaching!!! Many of the other teachers are taking advantage of this time to travel to other cities in China, I have decided that I should use this time to complete my grad school applications.  I think that I will try and travel to a couple of other cities within the province (day trips). I am not quite sure what I'll be doing, but at the end of the week i should have my forms filled out and my apps turned in!