Teacher Mode, Activated!

So I'm going to hit you with the bad news first: this is not a blog post about my trip to Shanxi and Shandong province. Instead, I am saving that for my very first vlog post, which should hopefully be up sometime later this week, provided I can make the graceful mental leap from apple video editing software to pc. However, the good news is that I was finally given my teaching schedule for the year, and I know how all of you are waiting with baited breath to hear about that.

So, to satisfy your ravenous curiosity, and without further ado, here it is: in the next year, I will be teaching two different college courses. Specifically, I will be teaching News English and Listening and Speaking. The News English course consists of five sophomore classes, and the Speaking and Listening course consists of four freshman classes, all of which meet once a week in two back-to-back 45 minute sessions, which means I'll be teaching for around 16-18 hours a week.

In reality, though, it sounds like a lot more work than it actually will be. The beauty of teaching only two different courses means that I'll only have to come up with two lesson plans per week, which I can then recycle for all of the other classes. Other perks are that the college wants us to assign as little homework as possible, so there will be nothing to correct or grade. And while they have no set lesson plan or text book for us to work from, it also gives me a lot of leeway in deciding exactly what I want to teach about. My lessons in the Listening and Speaking class can range from food to music to the American education system, as long as I get the students listening and speaking. And the News English course is meant to prepare the students to read newspapers and to understand American News TV, which will be a lot of article reading and showing clips of news, as well as plenty of vocab lessons. Overall, I know it will be plenty of work, but I should also have time left over to take advantage of my time here in China.

As a professor at Jinjiang College, we have access to certain benefits, not the least of which is half-price coffee at the on-campus cafe (excellent lattes for under a dollar!). We also get free Chinese lessons twice a week, access to a 'teacher's only' gym, free tennis lessons (for whatever reason), and oddly enough, a teacher's only karaoke room--where cafeteria workers will bring you drinks and snacks as you sing another off-key Beatle's song. It's definitely not a bad gig, and I'm sure that I'm going to find plenty of ways to occupy my free time.

Finally, when finalizing our schedule, I found out that our break for the Spring Festival extends from mid-January, all the way to late March. I'll be getting over two months of paid vacation, and I plan to spend it visiting my sister and boyfriend in Germany, and hopefully traveling around China a little with my two cousins, if everything works out. Overall, I'm pretty excited about the year to come.

As lessons begin on Monday, I'm off to start making my very first lesson plan. In the week to come, you can look forwards to hearing about my cross-country road trip as well as seeing pictures of my faaaabulous apartment! I know, it's going to be difficult to wait, but you'll just have to try to contain your excitement.

Chengdu: Home of China's National Treasures

A few days ago we took a day trip into Chengdu to see, what else other than China's most precious animal: the panda. It was a hot, humid day, so most of the pandas were inside their compounds. However, we could walk inside and see most of them through glass windows, and we did see one adventurous juvenile braving the heat, high up in the boughs of a tree. Fat and cuddly looking, they meandered around their enclosures, occasionally getting into wrestling matches and chomping on bamboo. For the most part, they were content to sit around and do what pandas do best: look adorable.

This rapscallian was giving his mother a hard time: climbing around on the wooden structure in their enclosure, and jumping off onto her over and over again:

We were even there during a time when there were tiny, tiny little babies in the Moonlight Nursury. They were so young that they were still in the incubators, and were actually surprisingly ugly. They were pale, pink and wormlike. However, I couldn't help but be fascinated by these tiny creatures. Despite so much pitted against them, these little pups had struggled against all odds into the world.

However, despite going to Chengdu for the express purpose of seeing the legendary pandas, I found that my very favorite part of the area was not the pandas themselves, but the red pandas. I'm not sure how closely the two are actually related, but red pandas look like a raccoon mixed with a fox, and they are freakishly adorable.

Just look at that face.

Even more surprising was that the red panda enclosure was not actually blocked off from the pathway leading through it. There was only a waist high railing, which meant that as we were walking around, we would happen upon a red panda, casually sauntering along the pavement or up some stairs. The picture below was taken about 4 feet away from the little guy. It was an amazing experience to be able to see them so close up, and I challenge anyone to watch a red panda cleaning his paws, and not squeal. The cuteness overload was through the roof.

After visiting the pandas, we left to have lunch in Chengdu. It was a great city, full of Western comforts mixed with uniquely Chinese buildings. I plan on visiting the city many times before the year is over. And in case anyone thought I was bluffing about the food here, I snapped a quick picture of our amazing lunch, just so you can understand how jealous you should be feeling:

For the next five days I'm going to be traveling with my dear friend, Snow, to make a short road trip across China. We will be visiting Xi'an and will end up in her home in Taiyuan. Wish me luck, and by the time I get back, I am sure I will have plenty of stories and countless amazing pictures to share. Till then, man zou! Take it easy!

Pengshan: More Beautiful by the Day

I feel that it's time I tell you a little bit about Pengshan, my home for the next year.

Pengshan is not a beautiful city. It is quite small (by China standards) and dirty. As it is one of the top producers of cell phones in China, it is full of boxy industrial buildings that come in shades of gray. When I first arrived, I found it to be a glum place, and the little annoyances of China grated on my nerves instead of rolling off my back like they usually do: the spitting, the staring, the honking...

But after almost a week here, I find that I am enjoying this city more and more each day I spend here. While the area I live in is somewhat dour, downtown Pengshan is only a very short bus ride away, and has a lot of hidden beauty to offer. There's a sleepy river that runs right along the edge of downtown, and beyond its other edge is a sudden wall of humid jungle and mountains. Small, intricate tea houses hide behind willow trees, and quaint clothing markets can be found in the maze-like alleyways connecting main streets. Everywhere, there are side streets packed with delicious restaurants, and there are little parks filled with ancient mahjong players, the clicking of their tiles filling the liquid air.

My favorite place that we've found in Pengshan has been the main town square. It is also right off of the river, and is absolutely barren during the day due to the stifling heat. However, as soon as the sun goes down, the people begin to creep out of the woodworks and the square quickly fills to a crowded bustle, alive with festivities. Music plays as groups of people do synchronized dancing (kind of a mix between ballroom, zumba, and line dancing), little children zoom around in little battery powered cars, and people mill around, chatting and hanging out. Some nights, they will light floating lanterns, and they bob away over the city, or out past the river. It's a fantastic, cheerful time of the day, and a great place to go chat to people in Chinese or to sit and people-watch. 

All in all, I've been settling in just fine here in Pengshan. Besides the town itself, the campus I'll be teaching on is first rate. Within 500 feet of my new apartment I have access to a gym, a laundromat, a post office, a whole slew of restaurants, a coffee shop, my new classroom, and an on-campus bar. And best of all, my apartment has a western-style bathroom! What a place! What a life that I live!

Song of Storms

If you are going to steal a car in Penghan, you should do it during a thunderstorm.

I've been in China for almost a week, and already there have been two spectacular thunderstorms. The weather here in August is very hot and humid, but the storms break through the heat with surprising suddenness and ferocity.

First comes the wind, blowing debris across the roads and bending treas within its path. Like a grim pall bearer, the wind carries on its tail a sheet of boiling, dark clods. They sweep in suddenly, a dark hue overtaking an already gray sky. And as the sky continues to darken and the wind is whipped into a frenzy, the thunder and lightning begin, which brings about a whole new cacophony: the car alarms.

Each crack of thunder is so loud that it triggers the car alarm of almost every automobile in the city, sending up a demonic howling of wails, beeps, and screeches that echo through the streets and bounce off the solemn industrial buildings. After about ten seconds the cars stumble into an embarrassed silence...until the next shuddering boom, when they are startled into song once again. A car thief would have no worries about tripping an alarm, for it would be only one voice in the chorus of hundreds.

In fact, a thief would have a good twenty minutes of relative safety provided by the chaos...until the rain starts, and any rascal would have a hard-pressed time breaking into a car with buckets of water streaming into their eyes. When the rain finally comes, it is a downpour so thick and complete that you can hardly see across the street, and in a matter of minutes there is a layer of several inches of water blanketing the roads. When the wind slices through the torrents, the falling water twists into serpents of glittering silver. All the while, lightning blazes across the sky, thunder cracks, and the car alarms continue their plaintive wailing.

Getting the Ball Rolling

Here in Pengshan, it was my second day in training as an American teacher. Each day, four of the American teachers team up to create a two hour long lesson for some volunteer students at the university, and are afterwards critiqued by our director, Tim. In the afternoon, we have an hour of Chinese class, and then the rest of our free time is spent making lesson plans, exploring the town, and generally bumming around wherever there is air conditioning (it is as hot and humid as I was warned it would be). The Chinese students are hardworking and cheerful, and creating a lesson plan and teaching is not nearly as nerve wracking as I feared it would be, for they are all very forgiving and supportive of their American teacher.

China itself is just as I remember it: confusing, fascinating, quirky, and delicious. The "delicious" aspect speaks for itself. I have never had food I enjoy more than actual Chinese food (don't get me started on American Chinese food), and the food here in Sichuan, the 'land of flavor', is no exception. I will freely admit that I've been positively gorging myself on Ma Po Doufu, Huo Guo (aka Hot Pot), Gongbao Jiding, or so many other of my favorite dishes. As for the "quirkiness" of China, that's a little more difficult to explain.

The reason I keep coming back to China, time after time, is that there is always something new to see or learn. Its history is so rich and vibrant, and its civilization has developed for so long separate from the Western world, it has a completely singular culture. Now, I'm not talking about the distinctive architecture or jade carvings or haunting music. Those, of course, are all part of the makeup of China, but it is certainly not everything. By 'completely singular culture', I mean that there is a nagging twist on everything you see and do. Everything, from people's body language, to the smells on the street, to the coca cola bottles in the store, is familiar, and yet slightly different from what your brain is expecting. The insects in the trees sound kind of like cicadas, but not the ones I know. The street signs are a different size and shape. The buses, the flowers, the leaves on the trees, the skyscrapers, the elevator music. Of course there are huge differences, such as the language and the people, but it is the little differences that sneak up on me. Add to that crowds of people staring at me, and it quickly creates an eerie sense of disorientation wherever go.

However, while this feeling of vertigo is not always altogether pleasant, it is definitely the reason I keep returning to China. It is fascinating and alluring, and forces me to look at my own country through a different lens. Always with something new awaiting me outside my front door, I have the opportunity to explore every time I leave--explore new territory, explore new tastes and smells, explore the trivialities of China that make it something all its own. Staying away from this country for long is simply not an option.

Also, the food. 

Welcome to the Zhongguo

You'll find out very quickly through this blog that I am something of a procrastinator. I was determined to write this first blog post weeks ago, detailing my feelings on leaving China for a full year, expressing my nervousness at teaching English at the university level in Pengshan, and documenting my excitement at returning once more to the country I have grown to love. Instead, it is 8 hours into the transpacific flight, and here I am--just beginning, and very sleep deprived and hungry. I hope, dear reader, that you will forgive me for any mistakes that are surely a direct result of my bleary head and unsatisfied stomach.

I'm sure there are a whole slew of metaphors for traveling. But for me, it is most like jumping from a great height. The weeks before you leave are like standing on the precipice, toeing the edge. This is a time for anxiety, excitement, and yes, for fear. You peer over the edge and waver. Are you really ready for this? Are you going to make the leap? You will, of course, but psyching yourself up is a battle nonetheless. As you jump, the peak of your arc is the plane ride over. You are no longer leaping upwards, but gravity has yet to take its hold on you and drag you downwards. You hover, caught in limbo. Like a plane ride, this moment can seem to last forever.

And then you are falling, falling down into another country. Sights and smells and places flash past you, too fast to process and overwhelms your senses as you struggle to orient yourself. This period of adjustment is always chaotic and nerve-wracking, a fast paced ride of pure adrenaline, and it is a thrill like no other. Very soon now, I will be thrust into the whirlwind that is China. Here's to hoping I land on my feet.

Laowai

Chinese: 老外; pinyin: Lǎowài
n. foreigner