On a light-ish note

It's easy to get down on yourself when teaching English as a foreign language. It's really, really easy to forget just how difficult a language it is, especially coming from a Chinese background (and vice versa). Consequentially, I can sometimes be prone to thinking I'm not doing my job "right" if I'm not getting through to 100% of the students (even if the little bastard falls asleep in my class). Praise from above is all well and good, but - what can I say - I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I don't want anyone to fail.

As a cure for these occasional bouts of melancholy - languishing in the solemn knowledge that despite my best efforts, not all of these student will ever really be able to effectively utilize the language - I indulge in my sinful addiction...

I speak, of course, of cruising political blogs and forums. In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany." And wow, is it ever true! Ascribe it to the Jonathan Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory (Normal Human + Anonymity + Wide Audience = Raving Dickwad), and then mix that with the normal rancor of partisan politics... and the result is... well... something approaching a true model of evil incarnate. Nevertheless, it's quite entertaining... especially when the facts are on your side.

But back to the main topic... how said internet cesspools help me out of these kinds of funks. Observe, from a conservative...uh... human...I think:

The contitution say if i am right [ we have the right to bear arms} thers was also an incident where the was thirteen yesr girl had a paper signup in a store window, the town councel made a big issue over it , they made them take it down it had noyhinthing do to politics ,But they ssayed it was a something agaist Omba. what is this country country coming to when a thirteen year old can't is all over the news. and embrassed for something .Omba is changing this this county into a comunist ountry. what and watch in time we will be paying out of our pocket to him.

by BUTCH MORGAN October 27th at 7:21PM

This... person... has been - ostensibly - speaking some horribly mutated variant of the English language his whole life. And yet, I'm proud to say that I have an easier time understanding a nervous Chinese college kid reading aloud from something she just wrote, than following this line of thought... much less spelling.

And there you have it - proudly making Chinese students more literate than the majority of the Southern electorate.

(CS)WC Out.

Well, I hope you're recieving me alright.

Time Flies Like the Wind...

...fruit flies like bananas. - Marx, G.

Holy cow! How did I manage to not post anything for this long?! Event, events, events...

Saturday morning found me being forced into semi-consciousness by my phone ringing at 7:33am. It was - of course - the ever-babysitter-ish Xiaoxian calling since I (clearly) hadn't made the 7:30 bus out to Chashan which she was riding. Why, you might ask,would I be making that 40 minute jaunt at that ungodly hour on a weekend? Because I'd *been signed up* for a student/teacher pep-rally game-day...thing.

I make it sound like some awful thing. But my main gripe, really, was getting up so damn early. Once I was underway - via city bus (the 53, which I learned does an od series of loop-de-loops on its way out of the city) - it wasn't so bad. Nothing an iPod full of music can't fix, even on the earliest of mornings. And once there, they provided a bagged breakfast of sweet-ish bread, an orange, and some water (I was just as glad it wasn't milk... or eggs). The events were vaired, and I was only signed up for tug-o-war. Little did I know that it was just a clever ploy to get me into their web... and that once there, I would be asked - nigh, conscripted - into forced labor for no less than 2 other events: the team-whip relay race, and the half-inflated-volleyball-behind-the-back-team-passing game. Truly horrific, I know. You may want to keep small children and the elderly with heart difficulties from reading this... I don't want my plight scarring anyone permanantly.

With that behind me, I was able to catch a ride back into town with a woman named Luyi, who is the vice-dean of the Foreign Language School. We had a nice conversation, and she was kind enough to drop me off right outside of my apartment block. I then slept for most of the rest of the day. Heck, I told myself, it was Saturday... and by 11:30am I'd done more than most people do all day!

I awoke the next morning feeling something akin to what I imagine being trampled by an elephant feels like. My back was stiff, sore, and I was barely able to get up out of bed. The really super obvious answer as to "why" completely eluded me until... well let's just say it was a while. Taking a few ibuprofen, I was able - with a bit of subtle coercion - to convince Jienan (whom I've up 'til now referred to as Nancy) to take me to a local music store to investigate claims of an electric bass taking up residence there. Indeed, after a bit of perusing, I stumbled across the beast lurking in a plastic cover. It was 1000RMB for the little guy - some noname Chinese brand, I'm sure, called Gojira (which I think is literally the real way to say "Godzilla" in Japanese). Unfortunately, the store had neither cable nor amp to offer...making my thoughts of purchase a moot point until I could find these other rather important componants. We scoped out another music store, which turned out to have 2 bass guitars - one of which was a "Fender" for 2200RMB - but again, no amp. And so, the search continues. But THEY EXIST HERE! And by the Power of Greyskull, it shall be mine!

After that whole tirade, Jienan was tired and not feeling great, and so she took me to a spa for a massage. She was able to get 50% off, she told me, since she was a business owner and a frequent customer. Suffice it to say - as with all business/government dealings in China - she pulled some strings. The masseuse did a number on my back, loosening it up to the point where I could actually move it again... only to discover that it still *really* hurt to move. It was at this point the whole tug-o-war debacle popped into my head. DUH! But I was pressed for time since...

Jeff Barlow had arrived that very day, and Aaron and I had been *cordially* invited to attend a dinner with him, the dean, vice-dean, his liason and her husband (Warren). It was a delicious meal at - I was told - one of the most popular restaurants in town. It was great to see Jeff - hey, he brought me Nature Valley granola bars! I didn't know how great it'd be to see something like that, haha. Moreover, both the dean and v-d made a point to commend Aaron and I on our performance so far, saying that, while we certainly have lots of room for improvement, we're both doing quite well, and the students like us. She then made a point to tell Jeff that I was something of a "movie star" at the school. Sigh... it's embarrassing enough that it's true, but did she have to bring it up? Granted I'm certainly not complaining that about 80% of the girls there are virtually swooning over me (not complaining at all), but talking about it, for whatever reason, just makes me feel ridiculous.

So drive them staples deep!

Ripped from the Headlines!

With the continued plummeting of many American companies due to managerial greed and corruption, we may want to consider taking a page from the Chinese government regarding corruption and bribery - he says, tongue firmly in cheek... observe, from cnn.com:

-----------------------------------
Ex-Beijing official gets death sentence

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A former Beijing vice mayor in charge of overseeing Olympic construction projects has been given a death sentence for corruption, a court clerk and his lawyer said Sunday.

The Intermediate People's Court in Hengshui, a city outside Beijing, ordered the death sentence Saturday after finding Liu Zhihua guilty of taking bribes, said a court clerk who would only give his surname, Ma.

However, the sentence was "suspended" for two years, Ma said. The reprieve means if Liu shows good behavior, his sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.

The government squelched all reporting on Liu's prosecution in the months leading up to the August Olympic Games to avoid tarnishing its image on the global stage.

Officials said Liu's misdeeds had nothing to do with Olympic projects, but his dismissal put a cloud over preparations for the games and prompted authorities to ratchet up anti-corruption efforts.

Liu was elected to his post as vice mayor of Beijing in 1999, and dismissed and kicked out of the Communist Party in 2006.

Liu faced 10 charges for accepting bribes totaling about 7 million yuan ($1 million) and gifts in return for favors to property development companies while vice mayor, his lawyer Mo Shaoping said.

Mo said some of the allegations were dubious. "Liu will probably appeal the verdict, and the final decision will be made soon," Mo said.

China reportedly spent $38 billion on urban renewal and infrastructure construction for the Olympics. Many officials have been charged with corruption in construction and real estate deals in the rapidly growing capital.
---------------------------

Wow! OK, for reals, I'm done for the day...

The Question-Master (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Chinglish)

Somehow or another I was conscripted into judging one of the school's English "competitions," meaning I got to ride a city bus out to Chashan, listen to 16 kids speak, grade them, and then leave.

Or so I thought...

It turns out that the bubbly, giggly girl who prodded me into agreeing to this was not exactly completely forthcoming about all of the details. Upon arriving, I learned that the format would be as follows:
1. Prepared Speech - 3 min
2. Impromptu Speech - 2 min
3. Question and Answer Session - 1 min

Upon being introduced to the audience, I was abruptly made aware that I had been deemed the "Question Master," and was thus expected to ask all of the questions to the speakers regarding their topics, either prepared or impromptu.

Let me be clear about this... these were first/second-year students, often non-English majors, who spoke in Chinglish so thick as to occasionally lose me completely. I was thrown into a position of speaking into a microphone, asking a question that I essentially had to pull from the top of my head. When people get nervous - and believe me, I was - what happens to their speaking-patterns? Why they speed up exponentially, of course! With an ESL student, they cannot understand you unless... that's right... you slow...the...hell...down. This translated to more often than not the student staring blankly at me after I had asked my hastily thought up question, and asking me to repeat. Them not understanding me only increased my anxiety, and... well, you can imagine the vicious cycle...

Fortunately Xiaohong was also a judge, and she bailed me out by offering to trade off asking questions. Later I asked how I - 1st time teacher, and 1st time judge - had pulled the "Question Master" title, to which she shrugged and said I was a native speaker. Sigh. The irony is that me being a native speaker actually makes it harder for them to understand me, since they can much more easily listen to Chinese-English vocal patterns.

The prepared speeches were, all in all, boring as hell. Apparently the topic du jour was "being a new student at WZMC," and so it was chock full of half-baked English about how great campus life was and how everyone must work hard to succeed... and, of course, each speech was literally basted in innane quotes and tired cliches... who teaches these kids these sad, sad phrases? It's painful to listen to! Someone actually tells them at some point that these "canned phrases" are really, really great to use... and to that person I say "STOP LYING TO CHINESE KIDS!!!"

The impromptu phase was marginally more interesting. Occasionally their student's topic forced them to make a real argument, or take a position...but far too often the so-called "topic" was little more than 3 words strung together, as if that was a meaningful question. Some of the choice examples are: "Trust and Love," "Life and Death," and "Knowledge and Practice." In such cases,the student would basically stretch the answer of "both are important" to 1:30-2:00 by throwing in some weird story, lamely attempting to relate it to their original topic, or simply spouting more cliches and quotes to fill the time.

Finally, 16 arduous and interminable speech sessions later, I was once again called upon to give an impromptu "comment session" on the speeches as a whole. I fumbled around for a minute or two before running out of things to say except "uh" and "ah." Once again, Xiaohong bailed me out by offering her own assassment in Chinese. Whew. After that, it was the award ceremony, which - once again - I was surprised to learn that I was to be a presenter... photos were taken, books (the prizes) were handed out. I really, really, really wanted to leave.

First prize? An English dictionary... man, talk about a lame first prize! How about, like, a Harry Potter book at least?! About 1/2 of the participants wanted me to sign their book... like I was some star or something. Obligingly - and rather embarrassed - I agreed... they seemed to really like my signature, which admittedly I have crafted to be flashy and noticable... So I was at least glad that it worked. Finally, we judges were give a small red envelope which turned out to contain 200RMB. I didn't realize this was a paid position, so that was a nice bonus.

Really I just wish I'd been informed...about anything... prior to me actually sitting down in the chair...

Xiaohong finally made our way out, and caught a tricycle/taxi back to Xialupu... about 1/2 way back, though, there was a group of poeple and cars stopped in the street. A woman had been hit by a car. This was a busy, highspeed road at night with no crosswalks or overhead lights. Objectively, she deserved what she got... it's idiotic to be crossing a street like that: it's dangerous enough crossing on a well lit crosswalk with the light favoring you at midday! But her limp, unmoving body, and the spattering of blood on the pavement as our taxi eased its way through the crowd and right by the scene of the accident easily overrode that assessment. I don't know her fate, but I sincerely hope she survived. She looked dead... she certainly wasn't moving. Two men picked her limp form up and carried her out of the middle of the road as we passed. It's an image, I think, that I'll have in my head for a long, long time - a powerful reminder of just how dangerous life can be, and how fragile we really are.

I do hope she lived.
(CS)WC Out.

With my freeze ray I will stop - the pain.

First Things First

As promised, my pictures from my walk...


Found this on the side of a bar. It really kind of explains itself.













These are the ties that are used to "pave" most of the sidewalks in Wenzhou. They seem to be exceptionally fragile, since the vast majority of them are broken... It looked like someone was getting ready to replace some of the broken ones.













A little rest area on a streetcorner nearby. On a bright sunny day like this one, it can be quite nice to take a few minutes, relax and enjoy life passing you by.










One of my attempts to be "artistically photographic." I think it was the combination of light, shadow, and the wood grain that caught my eye.














This was truly a uniquely beautiful day. It was the clearest, bluest sky I've seen since I've been here. It rained the night before, so the usual haze of smog was missing.















One of the most convenient, fun, and terrifying methods of short-mid-range transportation: The Tricycle! For only 5 RMB, the rider will take you up to 1.5 Km. They like to weave through traffic, though, which makes them a bit like a thrill ride... with no safety belt... They take some getting used to, but they're awully nice in a pinch. And for 1/2 the cost of a taxi, they are very well-used by locals and foreigners alike.





Renovation in progress. This guy apparently doesn't like his eyes and wishes them to be rid of their functionality ASAP. He's using a welder without any kind of eye-shield. Doing that is like a concentrated version of staring straight into the Sun...













Life on the riverfront.
















Ah, progress... ha

Lips parting like a flag all unfurled.

Hallalujah

From bad to good, things have a way of coming back around again. It began with an impromptu phone call from Warren's wife, Xiaohong (means "Little Red"), calling on behalf of Mr. Ma - the school's financial go-to-guy who is very nice, but doesn't speak a word of English. He'd been relayed my request, but before he went through the process of find a guy to fix an apparently broken heating pipe, he wanted to know if maybe, just maybe I had flipped the switch to turn on the water heater.

Yes, that's right... a month and a half of cold showers... all because I was never told that you could turn off the heat by using a seemingly-useless lightswitch next to the mirror. Sigh.

I wish they'd given me an instruction manual on all the weird little eccentricities of this apartment. But the point is I finally have hot water! Woohoo! And moreover, I was paid (finally) and so was able to go to the nearby-ish Trust Mart (owned by, of course, Wal Mart and connected to a McDonald's) and buy a new "hose" thing to connect my showerhead. The result: a fully funtional, fully temprature-control-able water with no holes in the hose to spray said pleasant water every which-a-way...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

In addition, today was a phenomenonally pleasant day. It rained - or rather, misted - all day yesterday, and so the usual heavy blanket of smoke, ash, and other miscelaneous pollutants was MIA. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sun shining brightly. It was so pleasant that I decided to go for a walk. And don't worry... I brought my camera. I'll post the pictures up soon :) But for now...

(CS)WC Out.

I'll give you something to cry about.

Now I know why they don't allow firearms here...

Because I'm just about ready to go kill someone. My day is just beginning, and yet already I'm feeling more than a little irked. There are several chief causes of this phenomenon.

1) Construction continues downstairs. That's right, the same crap that's been pounding away for weeks and weeks continues unabated by weekends, hangovers, or godawfully-early hours of the morning. Fortunately, they seem to be down to the small detail work, meaning there's much less of the floor-shaking grinding and pounding, and mostly only the relatively easy-to-ignore occasional hammering. It's sad that I've actually learned to partially tune-out hammering on my floor...

but that's just the beginning. I'm used to that. Let's read on...

2) My shower nightmare continues. Like peeling back the layers of some unholy onion, my bathroom debacle just seems to go from bad to worse at every turn. I was just getting ready to call in my lack of water-heat, when the hose from the spiget to the showerhead abruptly developed a leak. A little edge of metal on the outer sheath seems to have sliced right through the hose, meaning that every time I turn the water on it spray out in random directions... cold, cold water. And as the temprature drops that is going to get less and less pleasant. Hopefully I can get it fixed soon.

but that's just more of the same. I already know that bathroom hates me as a matter of principle. No, what really turned my crank today...

3) I hung my sheet out on my balcony to dry yesterday, and clipped it firmly in place so I wouln't have to go searching for it again...like last time when the wind picked up at just the wrong moment. I checked it today and there were several pieces of fish stuck to it. Fish... raw... that had dried in the sun because someone had either dropped them from their upper apartment like an idiot, or had actually thrown them up from street level and fucked over my sheet. I swear to god, I would pummel whoever did this, whether they "meant" to or not. I'm washing the sheet again as we speak, but I fully expect that I'll have to go buy a new one. It's ridiculous. I really pisses me off.

A 10-Day waiting period may not be nearly enough...

(CS)WC Out.

They mesmerize skeletons.

More Pictures from the Weekend!

That's right, kids! You get a double-dose of shutter-speed action this time around! For a limited time we at AWW are offering you TWICE the photos for HALF the cost! These are from this past weekend (ok, the first one is from Friday, but Close Enough!), which, after the gods decided to take mercy on my poor, foreign soul and let me not be sick, has been quite fun... you'll soon see why...



I'm not sure what the idea was with this, but around noon, the campus landscaping staff covered many of the sidewalks on campus with these orange flower petals. I guess they're for tea and cooking... they sure smell nice. I was told this is the time of year they bloom.







Firstly, this is just a cool shot I think (and considering how friggin hard it is to get a decent shot at night with a handheld camera, I'm doubly happy... seriously the exposure times on a lot of these are 3-5 seconds... just try holding perfectly still for that long... try it).

Secondly, this is a 1-Way street. The carswhose headlights you see? Yeah, they're totally going the wrong way. It's like this every time I come tot his street. Seriously. These people are just plain driving-retarded.


Two temple-towers on an island in the middle of a river. They look quite nice at night, but again, it was a pain in the ass to get a quality shot without a tripod. I think you'll agree it was worth the effort, though. Also, this was the spot a beggar would NOT leave Nancy or I alone. We told her to go away several times, but she'd just clank away right behind us. Finally I had to start yelling at her to get her to go away. Never underestimate yelling at someone in a foreign tongue.





Ferris Wheel. Didn't ride it, but it was fun to look at.














My God! What are those lights in the sky?! Some kind of UFO?!
















It must be an invasion! Look out they're everywhere! ... Wait... they seem to be going up instead of coming down...











Really, though, it does look a bit like some kind of close encounter... we'd better check it out, eh Nancy?
















Miniature Hot-air balloons?! Well that's pretty cool. I was told people write wishes on them and then send the up. They're powered by a little open flame burning - I would think - a bit of oil. Still they can be a major fire hazard if the wind blows wrong, which is why they're illegal.

Of course, laws only mean as much as the police are willing to enforce them... which here is roughly "not at all."










I have no idea who these girls are, but they were nice enough to let me take pictures of them prepping for launch :)

Too high to wonder why.

As Per Request

Here's some pictures I've recently taken. There's a couple that somehow failed to be included from earlier, but by and large, they're new. And due to overwhelming family deman- er...that is, request, I'll go ahead and post em on up.

I'm glad the week's over, since I'm feeling - once again - borderline sick. Just that general achy feeling all over my body, as well as a particularly sore back... ugh.





Ronald Reagan?! I didn't know he had a business in China!










Here's a picture of a group of the freshman class in uniform. Prior to starting classes, they went through several weeks of semi-military "training." Apparently they teach them to march, let them fire a gun, make them follow orders, march them around a bit, and then let them go on their merry way. Interesting stuff... especially after meeting some of these freshmen... :)







If it's not one collectivist, quasi-uniform, then it's another. The girls here love umbrellas... love them. And not for rain, either, but for sun. They don't want to be tan because it implies that they work in the field and are low-class. Think the Victorian West.








This guy was cruising around the campus after hours. I was told it's actually the University's Science Dept. that has built it as a test vehicle.










Finally, an (admittedly underexposed) shot of my friend Nancy Sun... again, by request.


(CS)WC Out.

Too low to find my way

Back to the Grind

It was a good break... full of sitting around, watching movies, eating, and later on grading a million papers. And yet, like many breaks, it's almost refreshing to get back to work... if only because one can easily become bored with nothing to do. When you start spending too much time with people - even people you enjoy spending time with, it can easily begin to feel like a job unto itself. So suffice it to say, I'm a little glad I now have a real excuse to say "sorry, I can't come" now. It beats lying.

The students today were... how can I put this delicately...?... completely lifeless. Yeah, that'll do. Just utterly dead in the water... Not that I can say I blame them, really. It's their last break for 2 months, and heck, they're freshmen. What can you really expect from freshmen? Nevertheless, I'm hoping tomorrow's classes will be slightly less bleak and zombified.

I hear there's some disappointment from me not taking pictures over the break... but really it because I didn't go anywhere! I think the most exciting place I went was with Nancy to pick up a cellphone.

Speaking of which, I got a cellphone. that's right, I'm actually en communicado once again! It's a cheap little Nokia... only ran me 299 RMB, and then another 100 for the # and activation. My monthly plan here is 18RMB/month, and it's 0.25RMB/minute to make calls. I get 200 free outbound text messages, and then they're some piddling surcharge after that.

So, to sum it up, the who activation/phone cost was roughly $38, with a monthly charge of...oh... $2.50. And calls (at least domestic) are about $0.02/minute. Not only that, but I can take this (or any) phone and swap out it's SIM card to whatever country I'm in. Phones in the US are locked down, and cannot be used outside their company's call area at all... unless you pay$50-60 dollars to buy the "unlocking code" from a third party... which quite frankly sounds more than a little fishy.

My God. Cell phones in the US suck! Those companies are horrible! And the governement just lets them gouge the hell out of us! Sigh...

anyway, I've still got more papers to grade. You know how it is with me: work, work, work.

(CS)WC Out.

You must follow, leave this academic factory

Relaxation

No pictures this time, so apologies for that... I keep forgetting to bring my camera out :/

It's been, as the title implies (or rather, explicitly states), a very laid back week so far. I spent the 1st half of this break to approximately "nothing" constructive. This morning - Thursday - I officially began the grading process for my 90-odd papers I still have to read through... I think I'm down to something like 70 now. Yippy-skippy.

There had apparently been some phantasmal plans to go camping near a *clean* river in the mountains with a group of the La Luna crowd... but then another typhoon afterbirth lumbered through the area, and I for one decided going up into no-man's-land to "tent it" was not the best plan of action... I have no idea whether the mission was scrubbed entirely, or if some people still went up.

Thankfully in the last couple of weeks, the temperature has dropped substantially... from "demonic inferno" temperature (~30-35C) down to "super pleasant" (24-27C). It's really made all the difference in the world. I no longer feel like I'm swimming through molten jello whenever I take a walk.

Surprisingly it's been a relatively sober week for me... I had expected me to be taking this opportunity to "bar it up" most nights. For whatever reason, though - chalk it up to the slightly modified company I've been keeping, since most of the "usuals" are out of town or MIA right now - I've been perfectly happy having fun sans beverage.

Went out to the riverfront yesterday and watched the barges chug on past... all over the city, fireworks were being lit off, and it really made for quite the scene. Hey, it was National Day... like our 4th of July... except the fireworks are homegrown and thus much cheaper. Hell these people light off fireworks for weddings, funerals, a good deal at the store, a free soda, or not tripping on the sidewalk. It's pretty damn commonplace. And considering 95% of all fireworks are made right here in China, it's no wonder! (I'll have to check and see just how many Three-Finger Teddy's I can spot!)

And so there we go. Other than the homework corrections, and a minor bit of ongoing stateside drama, this break has been peachy-keen. I'll do my best to remember my camera on my next excursion...

Oh, and I'll probably have a cellphone fairly soon. I've discovered they can run as cheaply as 300RMB... so like $40. Sweet.

(CS)WC Out.

Broken and weary, unable to find my way.