tjr800
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "tjr800" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:02 am
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Spring Semester, a harbinger of something new
Written April 17, 2007
After my morning class today (10-12) I had lunch with colleague Christina and went back to my apartment. But it is so incredibly sunny and beautiful outside today that I just couldn’t stay in and loaf on my couch watching yet another episode of “24” (starring Keifer Southerland) as I had originally planned. So I popped the battery into my computer and found a partially shady spot near the library to sit and do some writing. I haven’t journaled outdoors since last summer in Chengdu…or as “Uncle” Cayce likes to say, “Cheng-doodles.” Then, as now, I am a sight to see not only for my pale complexion and wavy (curly?) hair but also for the laptop.
So I am enjoying the weather in Lanzhou these days. Spring seems to be a fickle month here: almost sweatily warm in the late afternoon, but still several-layers of clothes cool in the mornings and evenings. Lanzhou is famous for being dry, yet it has rained briefly several times in the last week. The other wonderful thing is when the winds whip through here and we get dust storms. The good news is that when all is said and done, the air is much cleaner.
So far this semester has been much better than the last one was for me. I am more confident and better-prepared in my classes, and I have decided to challenge my (Oral English) students more. So I am making sure that everyone speaks a few times during each class – even if it is mostly with a partner. I know that it takes teaching a (semester-long) class a few times before I will really have it down. On the last day of class last semester I actually apologized to my students for not being a better teacher…explaining I felt I was still learning and settling in much of the term. Each week I have three or four 8 AM classes so I am forced to get up early which is a good thing for me. For the first time in my life I am getting up sooner than the last minute and taking a little bit of leisure time in the early morning. I get up and do about 20 minutes or so of yoga (the 5 Tibetan rites) as well as some crunches and push-ups, then enjoy some breakfast while reading the SF Chronicle online. Breakfast is usually some combination of yogurt, bread/muffin, a hard-boiled egg, and/or a piece of fruit.
If you are some sort of early bird I don’t have to tell you the advantages of getting up early and doing these sorts of activities, but for me it has been a revelation. I am more awake and coherent when I get in front of the students, and just feel better all morning. And I don’t feel guilty if I take an afternoon nappy-pappy…like almost everyone else here does. Yes, it is a struggle to get up at 6:30 AM – though I had to get up before 6:00 to get to my last job (Career Counselor at AT&T in San Ramon) on time. But the point is I am doing it and I am proud of myself.
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A month or so ago I was invited by my school’s liaison (Wai Ban) to attend a conference for foreign teachers here in Lanzhou. It was to be an all-day Saturday event which is a little bit of a bummer, but I decided to go anyway. A week later he asked me to give a speech at said conference. I’m not sure why I was selected, but it turns out I was one of 4 or 5 keynote speakers of the day! I chose to speak about creating student-centered debates and discussions, something I feel I am excelling at this term. I talked about positioning myself as a co-learner with the students and encouraging them to speak from the heart. I believe if we can get these students to start talking about things (in English) that are important to them…to get them to speak their truth…then there will be no shutting them up.
It went very well and I got some tremendous feedback from various peers. So that was cool. I thought I was delivering a pretty dynamic speech, but was put in my place by guy named Mervyn who went later in the day. This firecracker of a man lives in New Zealand and has been a drama teacher, which totally shows. He introduced a few simple role-playing ideas to get the students talking and “acting” with each other. I remember learning some of these concepts two years ago when I took a comedy improv class but didn’t think about doing this in my speaking class…till now. Guess what? It works and it is fun for everyone. I’ll be flinging it out again in about one hour from typing this.
Last term I had 4 sections of Speaking classes and 4 sections of Pronunciation (Phonetics) – and all my students were freshmen. I told my dean back then that I would like some different classes like culture or writing and this term she hooked me up. This term I have 3 sections of Speaking (the same freshmen), 3 of UK/US History (Juniors), and one section of Western Culture (Seniors). Even though the curriculum is laid out for me, the history class is a lot of work because it is a content course, primarily me lecturing. And I have about 50 students in each class. It is held every other week (2 hours) for a total of eight meetings. This is the first class I have ever taught that has frequent quizzes and tests so I am feeling more and more like a legitimate university professor.
I have free reign as far as the content of my culture class, which I love. Actually I have a lot of freedom in all my classes. The seniors are much more advanced (than the freshmen) in their English speaking skills and are more willing to put forth opinions and even disagree with me…which is not common in traditional Chinese classrooms. So we have done lessons on gender stereotypes, cultural shifts, diversity, perceptions of beauty, what it means to be a successful woman, and other juicy topics. We are brainstorming, debating, reading articles & analyzing them in this class. There are legitimate discussions everyday. Maybe all of that sounds exactly like what should happen in university classrooms (I think it does) but I was basically told that my students wouldn’t have the capacity to do these kinds of things. Some say my school, Xi Bei Shifan Daxue (Northwest Normal University) is the premier teacher’s college not only in Lanzhou, but the entire province of Gansu. So I guess I should be thankful that I am here. I am really enjoying my teaching this semester and feel like I am stimulating some new, useful ideas in my students. Not only in content of what we are discussing, but in the process (methodology) of how I am teaching. I am hell-bent on showing them that teaching is not exclusively a one-way, didactic process…which is exactly what they have been getting for most of their careers as pupils. The educational system here is changing (very slowly) as I do here occasional stories of inspirational primary & high-school teachers. But it has a long way to go, as evidenced by my recent witnessing of a teacher (in the English department!) standing at the podium, head buried in a book, reading to her students for most of the class. It is fun to be on the front-end of this sort of a wave, to be a harbinger of a new, more vibrant way to do things.
Current Music: Peter Gabriel "I Grieve"
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08:57 am
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Peace Corp Conference & Ancient Warriors of Clay
Written 03/26/07
It seems, dear reader, that I have to catch you up on two months or so of life here in Western China. Time is definitely flying on this end of the globe.
After my vacation with my buddies in Yunnan was over (early February) I jumped on an overnight train to Chengdu (where I spent last summer) for our five-day “In-Service Training.” This time I splurged and got the hard sleeper so I could relax and stretch out.
Despite some of us bitching about having to sit through more meetings and classes, IST was actually fairly interesting. We heard from our Country Director, whose speech was full of gratitude to us for our hard work. He mentioned that one of the China 12’s Moms has a bumper sticker on her car that says something to the effect of: “My son is a Peace Corps Volunteer: Fighting Terrorism the Right Way.” I thought this was pretty cool. The main PC office in Chengdu sends us the international version of Newsweek so that we can keep up with the goings-on of the world. A recent article, “America’s Unsinkable Fleet” (February 26, 2007) explains that the US is (again) amassing a huge military presence on the island of Guam. Officially the idea is to have troops, planes, and ships ready to deploy if anything should go down anywhere in the Pacific or Asia. But the author suggested that the real reason is to deter China from making any moves. I sort of rolled my eyes at this hawkish view of things. But isn’t it curious that this is going on when there are almost 200 American Peace Corps volunteers here trying to score points with the Chinese government? Not to mention how many other hundreds (thousands?) of Americans here in other various official capacities. Geez, international politics is so complex. Indeed, it could be my calling.
But I digress. IST also featured useful and/or inspiring talks from the usual suspects: our program manager, our medical officer, and a handful of volunteers. We had language training sessions in the morning and I could choose my own seminar in the afternoon. Sometimes I chose to take a nap, but did manage to catch a talk on Marxism & Leninism in China, a talk on Chinese literature, language learning techniques, cooking in China, and staying in shape in China. One of the most intriguing sessions I attended was the WID/GAD presentation and discussion. WID/GAD stands for “Women in Diversity, Gender and Development,” or something like that. Basically this group is dedicated to keeping women’s (and other equality) issues in the spotlight as we do our work here. My site mate, Katie, is the provincial leader for us here in Gansu. As this issue is near and dear to my heart, I was thinking about being an officer next year.
All in all, the conference offered many useful sessions and it was fun to hang out with the volunteers from the other provinces whom I hadn’t seen since the summer. There were a few trips to the local clubs and many sing-along’s in our hotel rooms. We even had a talent show which featured an impressive lineup of singer/songwriters. I guess its mandatory for a certain percentage of PC volunteers to pick up the guitar during their tour. For that matter, it seems most of the men must at some point grow a beard. For the show I sang, with my boy Brent accompanying me on guitar, a silly old song by the band Great White called “Wasted Rock Ranger.” It’s got some dodgy lyrics.
Since I was in Chengdu, I hooked up with my host family for the two days immediately following IST. All seven of them came out and we spent the day at some sort of relaxation park/tea house/restaurant district. I brought along my language teacher from summer Wendy Wu and my buddy Monica. It was fun and a little surreal to hang out with the old fam. After a dinner of hot pot, my host mom gave me the choice for evening activities: disco or karaoke. I chose karaoke and with mom, dad, Wendy, mom’s co-worker, and the two boys in tow we headed out for a night on the town…and didn’t get home until midnight. It was cute how they tried to cram all of my favorite activities into the limited time we had together. The next day I had an afternoon train back to Lanzhou but I was roused out of bed early so that host dad, little brother, and I could go to the day spa! I relaxed alternately in the sauna and steam room with a damp towel on my head, sipping water spiked with electrolytes. And what a good idea that is! I didn’t have time to get a massage although based on how crunchy my neck and shoulders are I think I need to start that up on a weekly basis. I got a few massages over the summer and they are very affordable, generally only 10-15 Yuan for an hour.
After recuperating from all of my travels at my apartment for a few days I took off on another trip with my boy Simon. We wanted to take advantage our remaining time off and check out Xi’an with its world-famous terra cotta warriors. Xi’an is a seven-hour train-ride basically due east of Lanzhou. We rode on the Lhasa/Beijing express, the newly-completed line that for the first time connects Tibet (by its capital, Lhasa) to the rest of China by rail. The ride was quick and smooth. We spent much of it playing Dou dijiu (“Beat the Landlord”) with various new Chinese friends. There was a big group of female students on the bus with us from some art college in Lanzhou who enjoyed playing cards, giggling, and chatting with us in their stop n’ go English. We were discussing American bands that they liked. Simon and I were surprised to hear about their devotion to Guns ‘n Roses, Marilyn Manson, and Metallica. Who knew they were such hard rockers?!
Written 04/05/07
Xi’an is a beautiful city that I’m told always has its share of foreign tourists. It has a lot of history and was, in fact, the capital for a couple of the ancient dynasty. One of its big attractions is that it still has its city walls which enclose the “ancient” part of the city. All told this massive wall runs about 15 kilometers. It is about 3 stories high 20-30 feet wide. Simon & I rented a tandem bike and pedaled our way around the top of it on an overcast day, stopping often for pictures. Since the famous Spring Festival was about to begin there was a slew of huge, colorful…uh, the best thing to compare them to is parade floats. So we cruised through this non-moving parade of animals, scenery, and whatnot. We were trying to figure out the theme and, perhaps this is Ameri-centric of us, but the only thing we could come up with was that they were depicting Disney movies. We saw scenes approximating 101 Dalmatians, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, etc.
We stayed at a very reasonably-priced hostel in the bustling downtown area. There we made friends with a bunch of foreigners: American, British, Canadian, and Israeli. We stayed up late a few nights chatting, playing poker, throwing darts, and sipping on some adult beverages. The last night we were there was Spring Festival Eve which is sort of like our 4th of July…combined with Christmas. From the 3rd story wrap-around balcony at the hostel I was able to see a very random but very spectacular show. Perhaps the most incredible fireworks display of my life. Fireworks are very popular here and at no time are they more popular than on this holiday. I’ve seen some pretty cool shows in my day, but the difference here is that everyone goes out and buys fireworks and sets them off seemingly at random…much like the neighborhood independence day celebrations from the misty memories of my youth in Simi Valley. You know, before the man made the cool fireworks illegal. The sheer volume of fireworks was awe-inspiring, it probably went on for an hour. The noise was at times deafening, ricocheting as it was off the various huge hotels, malls, and other buildings in the square.
Simon and I visited the locally famous Bell Tower and Drum Tower. These were old ornate towers nestled in the middle of outrageously busy intersections featuring, respectively a big bell and a big drum. Of course the main attraction of Xi’an is the renowned terra-cotta warriors. In 1974 some farmers digging a well in the countryside chanced upon these fragmented remains of a replica army. Some say it was the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century. The museum here includes several thousand clay statues depicting an army of the Qin dynasty, complete with horses and carts. These guys are about 2200 years old. During the tour we learned to look for some subtle differences in the warriors’ stance, costume, and facial expressions which denoted the rank of the officers or jobs of the infantrymen.
The terra-cotta warriors are very impressive, but I have to admit that there was so much hype I almost felt a little let-down when I actually laid eyes on them. Still, I think it is required viewing if one is in western China. Since it was the beginning of Spring festival, I guess the crowds were smaller than usual which means the crowds are normally enormous. It was kind of fun to be a wei gou (foreign) tourist amongst mostly Chinese sightseers. It was a good reminder that these attractions are most often frequented by the “host country nationals” (a Peace Corps term) and not foreigners. I’m reminded of when I visited Yosemite National Park (eastern California) last summer with my sister Christina and her family. I was pleasantly surprised at how many foreigners were there checking out the hiking and beautiful scenery as well.
After Xi’an, I returned home with the better part of three weeks to go before the new semester started. Honestly this time was very low-key. I just wanted to relax and do a whole lot of nothing before getting back into the swing of the school term. I had spent more than I budgeted on all my travels so it was some lean times as far as entertainment and buying extra stuff.
*Hua Mulan & Meng Lijun
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12:33 am
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Thomas' Spring Adventures in Southern China, Part III
Written 02/26/07
The last blog left off with Matt, Brent, & I arriving in a tiny village in southern Yunnan and finding some food and hospitality at a villager’s home. Lunch consisted of a variety of stir-fried, saucy vegetables – some of which were hard to identify. But at this point in my Chinese adventure I simply don’t care about figuring out what something is, I just eat it. One dish featured big chunks of gelatinous whatnot. Since many traditional Chinese dishes contain gelatinous goo, we dove right in and started chomping…on beef fat. It didn’t matter much though; we were road weary and needed something to fill us up. Afterwards as our young mute and deaf guide led us to our accommodations for the night, Matt confided in me: “Thomas, I think I ate too much fat.”
This village was tiny – I doubt more than 1000 people lived there – and despite a few nods to modernity (trucks, TVs, fresh roofs) it was pretty gritty and rustic. We reminded each other that even today the majority of Chinese people are farmers and live in exactly this sort of place. Dear reader, don’t forget that 100 years ago agriculture was the #1 industry in America and most people still lived on farms there.
“Xiao didi” (the nickname we gave our guide, literally “small younger brother”) gave us the grand tour. Despite the size of this village (it took about 5 minutes to walk across) it had a newly-constructed school which didi attended. We wondered aloud to each other about what kind of education he was receiving given that he clearly needed different attention than other girls and boys his age. This kid was amazing. Spending time with him was definitely a highlight of the whole trip. Despite only being able to communicate through hand signals, body language, and eye contact, we all felt like we were able to understand each other more than many other Chinese people we come into contact with. We had fun with him. The next day when it was time to leave I was packing up my stuff and he noticed my iPod. I gave it to him and he popped the ear buds in and started using it like a pro which told me that he has some hearing going on. I wanted to give him something when we left (but obviously it wasn’t going to be the MP3 player – my most prized possession) so I gave him a Peace Corps sticker. It’s the current emblem which features a modified US flag with the stars morphing into a white dove. He was pleased and immediately found a place to stick it: on the passenger-side mirror of a truck (his Dad’s I guess) that was being loaded. I smiled thinking about the next foreigner to spot this truck out in the sticks of southern Yunnan…and see the Peace Corps had been there.
Written 03/12/07
The other thing we did that day in the village was to walk up to the top of a neighboring hill and visit the local Buddhist temple. It was tiny but beautiful. Before we went in, didi modeled for us the prostration method and we practiced on a sand castle just outside the main temple. Apparently a few monks live in an adjoining building and on this day three eighteen-year-old trainees were there. Thanks to Matt’s superlative Chinese language skills, we were able to sit and chat with them for a good long spell. They were very bright and energetic young men. As with most Chinese guys that age they knew all about the NBA and one was even wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey. I just can’t seem to escape LA for very long.
The next morning we awoke, washed up a bit, and had a nice breakfast with our host family. After paying them a modest sum (50 kuai) for our stay we set out. We knew the main road would take us to our next stop but the father of our family insisted we could save several hours if we cut across the mountain instead. So we gave it a try. It was definitely scenic, breathtaking at times, but it didn’t take long before we realized we had lost the trail. As is the case with many areas near villages, this mountain was terraced so crops could be grown on it. As we trekked along we saw a handful of the local villagers schlepping up there to do their days’ work. Soon we found ourselves wandering along a terrace, being careful not to trample the seedlings while trying to keep the road down below in our sights. We bumped into one of the hill-farming villagers again and asked her the best way to get back down to the main road. She basically pointed downward and we shuffled our way down a fairly steep embankment, slightly disappointed that we couldn’t hack it with the mountain trek, but glad we weren’t totally lost.
The morning passed quickly enough with us cruising along our road. Occasionally some locals would zip past us on their motorcycles. In China, motorcycles are a very popular way to get around…I guess because they are cheap to but and don’t use much gas. I’d venture to say that most of the bikes you see passing by have more than one person on them, and no one wears a helmet. I’ve seen families of three or four crammed onto one motorcycle puttering along up a steep narrow mountain road while cars whizzed by. And the child’s asleep, their limp body wedged between their parents. The local riders in Yunnan tended to be friendly and we exchanged many waves…though I imagine they thought we were crazy to walk along with our huge backpack in the heat and dust. But the hike was what it was all about for us.
Along the road that day we were just about out of water, and given that there was absolutely no civilization, we knew we would have to find a way to get some water out of the river that paralleled our road…but looked to be a treacherous hike away. Matt had brought his backpacker’s filter for this purpose. We chanced upon a crew who was doing some work on the road and there happened to be a tiny stream crossing it at this spot. So we shucked our packs, crouched down, unpacked the filter, and started pumping into our bottles. The crew of ten or so (including a few women who, thanks to the Cultural Revolution, get to work side-by-side with men in all of the rough trades) gathered around to watch us like we were some sort of circus act.
We arrived at our next destination (another tiny farming village) in the early afternoon. Given that most of its population was out in the fields until evening, the place was very quiet. Keep in mind that this place is too small to have a restaurant or hotel. It took us a few tries, but eventually we found a place that was equipped and willing to give us room and board for the night. Once that was settled, Matt, Brent, and I relaxed on their porch for a few hours: playing cards, reading, and chit-chatting like the men of leisure we are…at least between semesters. Like the place we stayed at the night before, this establishment was part store/part home. The parents were out and so it was being run by their teenage daughter, home from boarding school for the break. The most popular item she was selling was gasoline. The motorcyclists would cruise up to the store and buy a liter which she handed to them in a re-used plastic water bottle.
Sitting there and watching the local activity was fun. This village was basically a big barnyard. We saw a host of chickens, pigs, dogs, and cats roaming freely. Occasionally the roosters would posture, squawk, and fuss with each other in what appeared to be a never-ending battle for territory and/or hens. Across the dirt street from where we were a woman split wood for several hours. Now I’m no lumberjack, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t doing it in the most efficient way possible. She would position the wedge and then try to pound it into the log with another piece of wood instead of the flat side of the axe. For a moment I entertained the idea of going over there and offering to help, but my comrades talked me down.
The evening turned into night and eventually the parents came home. We ate with them, their daughter, and two very elderly women – we guessed grandma and a friend. Once again the food was plentiful, delicious, and much appreciated. After dinner and some simple conversation the three of us took our time on the back porch washing our faces, teeth, and feet. We were taking water from a spigot and putting it into basins, tossing it into the garden below when we were finished. It occurred to me just how silly these simple activities can get when the conveniences of first-world bathrooms are stripped away. There was plenty of giggling.
Before we went to sleep, the three of us headed downstairs to the toilet of the house. We were using a flashlight since there were no lights. The first floor of this place was an open-air, dirt floor situation. It was basically where the animals lived. Since I knew where the squat-pot was, I was leading the way (without flashlight) and almost tripped over a huge, black animal that was sleeping. A moment later, Matt shone the light on it and exclaimed, “Oh my God, it’s a water buffalo!” That’s rural China for you.
The rest of the night and next morning was (relatively) uneventful. We said our thank-you’s and headed out. Again, a beautiful morning was spent trekking along the road. I can’t emphasize enough how exquisite it was to be out in the sun and clear skies after the winter in Lanzhou. It was a welcome change to be breaking a sweat and worrying about sunburn. The last stop on our hike was (I think) the little town of Damenglong. We arrived and enjoyed our first restaurant cooked meal in a few days. We had hoped to be able to grab a bus back to Jinhong that afternoon, but after asking several townsfolk (and verifying with the sheriff) we found out that their was no bus that day and we would have to wait until the morning. We considered some other methods of transportation (hitching a ride on a truck, buying a lift from some motorcyclists) but eventually decided to rent a room from the hotel(!) in town and spend the night. The place was clean, very reasonably priced, and even had a shower with hot water(!!).
We had dinner with a wandering watercolor artist who spoke amazing English and chatted for a few minutes with another American and his Chinese girlfriend who showed up in town that evening. We decided to treat ourselves to our first beers in a week and relax a bit before bed. We stretched out on the driveway (not a lot of cars to worry about) that led into the hotel complex and gazed up at stars in the gorgeous night sky. Again, I gave thanks for how clear it was out in the middle of nowhere. Sadly, the local swill was really gross and we could barely stomach a bottle of it.
The next morning we had some breakfast and noticed another group of foreigners making their way down the main drag. We all ended up on the same bus…the only bus and found out they were from various parts of the UK, Germany, and one other European country I can’t remember. Apparently it is very popular for Europeans and especially Brits to take a “gap year” (between high school and university) and go live abroad. In addition to these youngsters, we ran into a few 18/19-year-olds in Chengdu doing this gig.
The bus ride back to Jinhong took a different route than what we had been walking the last 3 days and based on how far we were dropping in altitude, I realized we had climbed quite a bit during our hike. The ride was bumpy, scenic, and seemed to take a long time. After we got back we collected our bags from the hotel we stayed at, ate some food and killed a bunch of time until our sleeper bus back to Kunming was ready to board. From there we would go our separate ways for a few days and then reconvene in Chengdu for our “In Service Training.” Our little trip was pretty much over and with that came the exhaustion and slight sadness of knowing that I probably would never visit this place again in my life. I was so glad to have done it though.
Current Music: Apollo Grooves - Gibby Music
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01:41 am
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Thomas' Adventures in Southern China, Part II
ritten 02/14 & 02/24/07
Thomas’ spring adventures in southern China, part II
The last blog left off with me arriving by plane in Kunming on January 20th. I jumped into a cab and headed off to the Camellia Hotel. What I immediately noticed about the city is that it was clear and not polluted. The streets were jammed with the usual cars and pedestrians, but also countless bikes as people made their way to their morning appointments. The obvious differences between this city (much further south) and Lanzhou were the weather (warmer, clearer) and a lot less of the unwanted staring from the locals. But there was something else that Matt, Brent, (my travel partners) and I couldn’t quite put our fingers on. Maybe it was just that we were on vacation and therefore in great moods, but we talked about how it would be so cool for the Peace Corps to assign us there.
I met Matt – or what’s left of him, he’s lost 70 pounds (the healthy way: exercise and eating right) since coming to China – in the lobby of the hotel and we began a marathon of gin which would last the length of the trip while we waited for Brent to show up. Interestingly, the three of us all live in different provinces, but all shared an interest in this journey, planned it over email, and went for it. That first day we walked around town quite a bit and spent a low-key night at the hostel. Apparently Kunming is a tourist attraction because that place was crawling with foreigners and vacationing Chinese. At one point I was hanging out in the lobby chatting with guys from Malaysia, Japan, & Korea. Very cool.
After a day or so in that town, we jumped onto a sleeper bus to Jinghong – even further south in Yunnan Province. Taking this mode of transportation was another first for me. I had seen these busses tooling around Lanzhou and they always looked very steamy on the inside. I was not disappointed with the hot, dripping humanity on our bus after 12 hours. We’re looking at 35 or 40 people stacked bunk-bed, three abreast into a bus. My biggest concern was that I would have to pee and this bus didn’t have a toilet onboard. My bladder, I’m embarrassed to say, is the size of a thimble. The good news is that about two hours into our southward journey (after a 90 minute delay in getting started) we made a pit-stop at a bus station in some town in the middle of nowhere. Throughout the night the bus stopped a couple of times – as did the sleeper bus we took back to Kunming a week or so later – and I got out to use the facilities each and every time.
I guess a lot of folks here travel in these busses and they are comfortable enough…as long as you don’t care to sit-up, stand, or move around. Before the train took off a few Chinese guys came over and started talking animatedly with Matt and “Kunming Tom,” another American English teacher we met on the train. One of them whipped out his laptop which, surprisingly, picked up wireless internet access right there at the “qi che zhang” (bus station) and went to his investment website. He then proceeded to grill my boys on the soundness of his investments. I guess since we’re western capitalists we must know everything about finance. What are you gonna do?
The bus had a movie playing till about midnight which was in Chinese and in my top bunk I was about 2 feet too far away from the TV to make out the subtitles without straining. So I thanked my lucky stars that I had chosen to bring my iPod, turned it on, and proceeded to flip and flop all night long. Of course my “bed” was not designed for my lanky Anglo frame…it was just barely wide enough for me and at least 6 inches too short. I guess I managed to get a few winks in. Sometime around 6 AM we arrived at our destination. We had a place in mind to stay at, but of course it was too early to check in, so the four of us walked around town a little bit and found a place to eat some noodles for breakfast. Jinghong is a beautiful place. It was sunny, warm, full of palm trees, and ethnic minorities. In China 90-95% of the people are “Han,” unlike the USofA, this country is a very homogeneous place genetically. Having lived here for almost 8 months I have gotten a little better at spotting the “minority” folks: Tibetan, Mongolian, and those with Thai blood, to name a few.
We stayed at a hostel that advertised “bamboo huts.” I suppose they were bamboo, but the atmosphere was a touch disappointing with four or five units crammed into someone’s backyard. Still it was fun & we were on vacation which is what really mattered. There was a western restaurant (which had outstanding food) on our block called “Mei Mei Café,” (literally “little sister” café) and every time we went by it was, appropriately enough, crammed with white people…whom we joined a few times. After a night under the mosquito nets in our bamboo hut, we awakened for a lazy day. Wildly enough, a couple of traveling Americans showed up at our place that afternoon and the young woman immediately recognized our travel buddy “Kunming Tom.” Apparently they went to the same high school back in Illinois (or maybe Ohio, the Midwest is all the same to me). So now we had two more buddies for our adventures in Jinghong. We spent the rest of the day sipping beer, playing cards, eating great food, and shooting the proverbial shit.
The next day the six of us rented mountain bikes and rode around the town and local area. After an hour or two in the hot sun we were shucking our outer layers of clothes, re-applying sunscreen, and stopping frequently to take pictures &/or rest. All of which was a welcome blessing after my freezing winter in Lanzhou. Upon examining Matt’s pale Irish(?) face reddening in the midday glare I insisted that he wear my trusty black Oakland A’s visor which I had with me. It stayed with him for the rest of our weeklong adventure…which was best. Of course he wore it cockeyed which is what the kids (he’s 10 years younger than I) do these days I guess, and I felt square wearing it straight after I got it back. Anyway, it wasn’t long before we hit the outskirts of town and found ourselves biking among the crops that seem to surround every Chinese city. After meandering through fields of peppers and telling a farmer: “Nide qiezi hen hao kan” (your eggplant looks great) we found ourselves at the shore of the river that bordered town. We took a long time to debate what our next move was. I think I mentioned that there were too many chefs in the kitchen. We wanted to ride our bikes through some of the villages on the other side of the river, but weren’t sure how to get there. Eventually we decided that wading across wasn’t an option and rode the mile or two to the bridge…but not before chancing on a (fairly nasty) swimming hole and taking a quick dip. I think the Peace Corps frowns upon swimming in China in general, but that didn’t stop me from taking several dips at my host family’s condo complex swimming pool last summer nor from jumping in that day in the fields outside of Jinghong.
That night Matt, Brent, and I discussed our plans for the rest of the week. We had planned on doing some light backpacking along a road that would take us through a couple of small villages. As we were hashing out the details and the timeline, I offered that we should, “allow for some time to get lost” which our biking buddy and neighbor Austin found quite hilarious. Eventually we worked it all out and consolidated our crappola for the next 3 days into one backpack (Matt’s) which we rotated between the three of us during the hike. The rest of our stuff stayed at the hostel for the cost of one kuai (about $0.13) per bag per day. The next morning we grabbed a bus to the fine city of Damenglong. The distance was short, but the road rough so it took a fair amount of time. After a late breakfast of underwhelming “niu rou mian” (beef noodles) at a local feeding trough, we stocked up on water and the available trail food (fruit, cookies, crackers, sausage). We asked a cabbie what he would charge to take us part of the way to our destination and after scoffing at his outrageous “lao wei” (foreigner) price we set out on our way. Incidentally, this same cabbie found us two more times later…his price dropping each time.
Walking along the road for the next couple of days, the three of us had some fun and entertaining chit-chat…including the sharing of quite a few “favorite” lists: books, movies, school mascots, and our most-loved topic: music. We sliced and diced that one six ways to Sunday: favorite bands, favorite solo artists, favorite female artists, favorite folk artists, favorite country artists, favorite singer/songwriters, etc. Other topics were bandied around and there was even some down time for quiet reflection or private headphone listening. I’m told we traveled, mostly on foot, about 45 kilometers in three days (28 miles for the hopelessly continental Americans among you). Not too outrageous unless you consider that we are in a strange land without camping equipment, food, or much water – though we did have Matt’s filter-pump which we used several times.
Our first stop was some tiny village whose name I can’t remember…but was officially part of this hike according to Lonely Planet. I think when the author of the article did this hike a couple of years ago things were a touch more…provincial. The “trail” we followed was actually a legitimate dirt road that vehicles traveled along…part of it was paved, and the rest will follow suit soon. In fact as you read this it is being paved. This made us wonder what kind of effect being featured in Lonely Planet has on these supposedly remote areas. My advice to anyone hoping for truly rustic adventures is – do it soon.
We got there in the late afternoon, fairly tired from walking all morning. At the first reasonable looking house we inquired about some food. Based on our LP reading, we were expecting that this would be easy and thankfully, it was. We had landed at one of the key establishments in town. The food came quickly enough and in the meantime one of the proprietor’s children served us scorching tea in grubby mugs. He wanted to play a card game with the three of us and dealt out what appeared to be two decks of cards to us. As we interacted with this youngster we came to understand that he was functionally deaf and mute. You can imagine our concern as to how this card game was going to unfold. You can also imagine our amazement when we realized that he was dealing up “dou di jiu” (beat the landlord) with us – the one Chinese card game we all know and had in fact been playing already on this trip. Maybe our visit to this village was going to work out after all.
Current Music: Buddy Holly - Think It Over
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12:30 am
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Thomas’ spring adventures in southern China, part I
Started 01/18-1/20/07, revised 02/09/07
Thomas’ spring adventures in southern China, part I
It turns out my histrionic concerns about having to spend 22 hours standing on a train on my way to Chengdu were unfounded. Thank goddess. I guess there isn’t a “standing car” on these long-distance trains, at least not the one I took three weeks ago. Despite my doomsday predictions, my ticket was for the “ying zuo” (hard seat) car which was actually quite comfortable and filled with friendly people. You can imagine my relief. I was able to get quite a bit of reading done, currently I am working on Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” (which is phenomenal, eye-opening, and I feel should be read by every American) and a little bit of writing done. The train had scarcely begun moving when a college student came over and sat by me. It turns out she is (a non-English major) at a local college here in my district of Lanzhou…where my buddy Kari teaches. She and I spent some quality time chatting and she taught me a bunch of new words…we even tried our hand at a dodgy game of hangman.
Having only traveled in the “ying wo” (hard sleeper) cars, I was impressed by the consideration that the attendants gave to our car. Sure, I watched my share of disgusting things happen, for example a neighbor of mine cleaned his ears and trimmed his fingernails (a personal pet peeve of mine) right next to me…and as if that wasn’t enough he then shucked his shoes and trimmed his toenails. Luckily this guy later slumped on me during sleepy time and we used each others’ shoulders as pillows. But the attendants came through several times sweeping the floor and emptying our trash containers. Also, the food and drink carts seemed to be constantly rolling by. I guess that’s because we common folk can’t just stroll down to the “fanguar che” (dining car) when we’re hungry.
One of the security guards came by and chatted with me for a while and his parting advice was for me to watch out for thieves. Interestingly, my “wai ban” (foreign affairs office) director gave me similar advice. I guess this time of year (spring festival) is prime time for the burglars to get their game on since there are so many travelers. I took this to heart and kept my valuables in my backpack which either on me or right next to me for the entire train ride – and the entire trip for that matter. Later that night, the security dude offered me a spot on the hard sleeper car. I knew this was a possibility and I could have a horizontal spot to stretch out on if I was willing to pay the 180 kuai difference in ticket price. It was tempting, but my budget was so tight that I decided to tough it out. I think it was the right move.
Of course I was the only foreigner that I saw on the train, for that matter I had gone the whole day without seeing another foreigner. I felt like quite the spectacle for all of them. Earlier in the day as I traveled across Lanzhou from my apartment to the train station (1 hour+ long journey) I truly gave the locals something to stare at. I had taken my usual night-time shower, and as usual my hair was piled high in a silly nest as it does after a night of drying on the pillow. My thoroughly stuffed and hugely tall hiking backpack was casting a shadow over me while my smaller backpack clung to my front to complete the crazy afro-poof turtle-shell get-up.
Early in the train ride I noticed that the stops we were making seemed really long. It turns out that I wasn’t hallucinating, as the train ended up being 3 hours late pulling into Chengdu. As if 22 hours wasn’t long enough, I had to spend 25 hours chugging along at glacial speed through mid-western China. So the big question was would I make my flight out of Chengdu that fateful Friday afternoon? I’ll save you the suspense – I didn’t make it. My old teacher, Wu Yu (Wendy) was supposed to meet me at the train station, but I was way too late and she wasn’t there. Once I arrived, I kept my cool despite my delirium, and called her to formulate a plan. I hustled into a taxi and sped off towards the airport…I had about an hour before my plane took off. Sadly, the train station and airport aren’t too close and Chengdu’s traffic was (as usual) unforgiving. It took just a few minutes too long to get there. Literally. The policy is that they stop checking people in 30 minutes before the flight takes off and I was about 1 or 2 minutes too late.
What was I gonna do? I kept breathing. Wendy and fellow volunteer Justin met me at the airport. With her help I exchanged my ticket for a flight that left the following morning and telephoned my travel partner Matt to tell him the good news. Then we headed off to Justin’s house so I could shower and we could get some dinner. It turned out to be a nice evening and I slept like a baobei (baby) on Justin’s couch. We woke up early the next morning and he walked me to the airport (yes, he lives that close) for my 8:00 AM flight.
I’ll tell you what, sitting on that 1-hour (and change) flight with those upper-class Chinese people was a vastly different cultural experience than traveling in the cheap seats on the train…not to mention about a day quicker to go roughly the same distance. Sheesh, its times like those that I wish I still had a corporate America-sized paycheck. Then and when I’m walking through the mall seeing cute clothes that I want. Anyway, at the airport and on the plane I received almost none of the stares that I have grown to expect when I am in public. The stares that most Americans would think are rude, but I am slowly coming to accept are just signs of curiosity. On the train if I stood up in the car I commanded a lot of attention. It was entertaining for me to just slowly pan & scan around and take in the gawks. At one point I debated whether I should break into song. I mean, they thing I am a rock star so I may as well give them a show, right?
In Chengdu (a much more metro place) and among the Chinese who are wealthy enough to fly, there was much less staring. Likewise, there was no one casually striking up a conversation with me. On the train, in addition to the college student, there was another random guy who chit-chatted with me several times during our 20+ hours on the train together. This guy was very nice, very patient, and spoke “pu-tong hua” (common speech) very slowly and clearly with me. I felt like I was really communicating with a stranger for one of the first times, which was incredibly encouraging. On the plane I appreciated the convenience and comfort, but I sort of missed my “common” friends.
Class-ist musings aside, gazing out the window of that airplane was a truly transcendent experience. After spending so many months in dreary Lanzhou, squinting to see beyond the hazy belchings of the coal-burning power plants; it was wonderful to get up above the atmosphere, above the clouds, and see the sun’s orange magnificence splayed out in front of me. I don’t live like a pauper or anything and I never really have, but sitting in that airplane with a whole aisle to myself, looking out on that sea of clouds I felt my privilege deep down in my bones. It was wild to experience so viscerally what I had talked about, written about, and discussed so many times before (not necessarily on this blog). It was also uncomfortable.
The last thing I want to touch on in this entry is the discussion Justin and I had that night (January 19th). It seems that while there are a healthy number of volunteers in Chengdu, apparently they all live very far apart from each other. While he sees fellow volunteer Aaron occasionally, he hasn’t seen the other Chengdu ren (people) but once or twice this semester. I was contrasting this to the (at least) weekly hanging-out that I do with my Anning ren. Don’t kid yourself, gentle reader, not all Peace Corps experiences are the same. In fact, they’re all quite unique. And despite what you and I would have expected, we Peace Corps China (nee US China Friendship) volunteers seem to have different experiences as well. At least as far as frequency of contact with our buddies goes. For better or worse, Justin has had to make a life for himself with his Chinese students and friends while I have been able to establish a social circle with my American and English-speaking Chinese friends.
Current Music: Bon Jovi - This Ain't a Love Song
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12:26 am
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iPod, movie night, prepping for the trip
Written 01/16/07
Can I just say that I love my iPod? Currently it is housing 6768 of my favorite songs…about 27 gigabytes worth…and it plays for me most of time that I am in my apartment. Often I have it on random, but today I have it playing alphabetically by song title. I just got through all of the songs that start with “Rock” (there were 28 of them) and then we moved on to “Rockaria!” (ELO), “Rockaway Beach” (Ramones), “Rocket” (Def Leppard), “Rocket Man” (Elton John), etc. I have no doubt that my experience here would be much different if I didn’t have the familiar and comforting sounds of my music. And I have managed to add a bunch of new music during my time here thanks to friends, cheap CD purchases, and Limewire. During the semester I played several songs for my classes including Elvis, The Beatles, The Eagles, & of course Tom Petty. Yes, it is a legitimate spoken English activity. First we do a “cloze activity” wherein I give them a lyric sheet with several of the words missing. They listen to the song and fill in the blanks as best they can. Then we move onto singing the song, often with me modeling it the first time. Most of the students really love this. There seems to be an expectation that we wei shi (foreign teachers) are not only willing and able, but enjoy singing in front of groups. It is a frequent request.
Two Saturdays ago I went with most of the other foreign teachers here at my school on a departmentally sponsored appreciation day. We all piled onto a bus and after a decent brunch of niu rou mian (beef noodles, the local specialty) we went to the far side of Lanzhou to some sort of recreational facility carved into the side of a mountain. We were ushered into a huge greenhouse-like room full of small trees, an artificial creek, and dozens of tables. Here we were dispatched to chit chat, play cards, mah jiong, and Chinese chess for about six hours. With fellow Americans Christina and Brandon, I played a few rounds of “Beat the Landlord,” a really fun 3-player card game I learned back in Chengdu. Brandon and I thought to bring along some papers to grade in case it got boring and I managed to score two or three classes worth of speech evaluations. At that point a resourceful colleague had discovered a karaoke room on the top floor of the pink hotel next door and rounded up a handful of willing participants. Did I mention that karaoke, or “KTV,” is very popular here? Unfortunately many of the places that have it feature a disheartening lack of English songs and fairly crappy sound systems. But this place had neither of these faults! So a bunch of us went up and spent two hours belting out tunes. Brandon stuck with Elvis while I opted for the cheese variety platter: REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You,” The Bee Gees’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” and Air Supply’s “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All,” which (I’m a little embarrassed to say) is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Anyway, afterwards we all got back into the bus and drove to a pretty fancy restaurant on the river for a tasty banquet. All but one at my table of 11 spoke English quite well which made conversation much easier for me. After we were done eating and toasting, a popular tradition at these banquets, the hosts invited people to get up and either sing a song or tell a joke. After several people did their shtick, the attention inevitably turned to the table with the Americans. Having earlier tipped my hand as a novice singer, I really had no choice but to get up and sing something. Oddly enough I was ushered to a stage at the front of the dining hall, while the previous crooners got to sing from their tables. I carefully chose a song that was (I think) in my range and that they all knew: The Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More.” Even though I was a little nervous, my song was fun and well-received. All-in-all it was a good day.
Right at the moment I finished that last paragraph my Anning (the western district of Lanzhou) Peace Corps mates Ben & Niffy showed up at my apartment. They had been wandering around trying to find a computer that had legitimate internet access (the recent earthquake in Thailand has seriously hampered our downloads of late) so Ben could book a flight to Bangkok for his winter break. I was happy to provide the working connection even though my computer is very slow. Now that they are gone I can continue typing my musings until I get a little more hungry, at which point I will head across the street to buy a late night snack. I wish it could be a tasty A&W cheeseburger, but alas, it will have to be some fried meat and vegetable bits stuffed into a bingzi roll.
On Friday I gave my last final. It was a long day considering I had to do three tests (two spoken & one pronunciation). On Thursday I decided I wanted to do one last movie night for my students (we had two earlier in the semester) on Friday evening. It would be sort of a celebration for all of us having finished our first semester of college, remember they are freshman…like me. I had one of my class monitors look into reserving the big room on campus, but unfortunately it was not available. I got this discouraging news at about 3:00 PM – in the middle of a final. I knew I really wanted to have this last hurrah for me and for them, so I started brainstorming fiercely.
I decided I should have the movie night at my apartment. The problem is that I don’t have nearly enough room at my place for the almost 200 students I have. After wracking my tired brain for a while I came up with a solution: I would tell the 6 monitors to come and have them invite 5 students from each class. This would result in about 35 or so students here. It would be cozy, but do-able.
So I called the monitors between my last finals (about 4:20) and told them my idea. Everyone seemed excited and at 7:30 my apartment was chock-full of eager 20-year olds. I don’t know if there has ever been a time when I could conjure a successful party in just a few hours. What can I say? These kids love me. At my place it was a study in high-density living. Having lived their whole lives in China, these youngsters are used to finding a way to be comfortable with little or no room at their disposal. I have seating for about 11 bodies. So some stacked on top of each other, some sat on the floor, and some stood. When everyone was settled, I did a few minutes of congratulatory chit-chat. Then I asked them a few Thomas trivia questions, the answers to which I had shared at the beginning of the semester, with candy prizes to the correct response-givers. At about 8:00 I started the DVD, which I had purchased earlier that day, “The Princess Bride.” I figured it had a good balance of action, comedy, & romance. My students enjoyed it thoroughly and I had a blast watching it with them. After the movie was over two of my favorites, Lucy & Oscar stayed behind and generously helped me sweep the floor and tidy up.
Written 01/17/07
Last night and today were earmarked for cleaning up my apartment and packing my provisions for the 3-week trip I am embarking on tomorrow. As it so often does, though, life intervened. Late last night I got a call from fellow volunteer who was having one of those doubt-filled, existential crises. So I threw a few things in my bag, hustled down to the street and grabbed a cab to her school. We chatted for a while about her family, about “making a difference” here in China, and about the tension she was feeling between wanting to complete her commitment and wanting to go home. I think all of us here go through these emotions from time to time, some of us just a little more intensely. After she mellowed out enough and looked to be nearly asleep, I excused myself, took a shower and settled in to get some sleep in her guest bedroom.
This morning I had to wake up relatively early and get back to my campus so I could meet with my dean and give her my final grades for the semester. So as of about 10:00 AM, I am officially done with my first semester as an English teacher at lovely Northwest Normal University. Go Thomas!
After that meeting, I had my usual Wednesday morning Chinese lesson with one of my two tutors. It was pretty casual, mostly me getting some key train and plane verbiage from her. After a quick lunch we headed back up to my apartment and Thomas the Counselor was called upon again. It seems that just yesterday my dear young teacher broke up with her boyfriend and is feeling pretty down about it. She told her story and we processed for well over an hour, with me throwing in some of my own relationship experiences and insights. It was clear she really needed to unload and I was happy that she was courageous enough to do it with me. She told me she felt much better when we were done and I could tell by her body language that she was more relaxed.
A few blog entries ago I wrote about my reflection on the work I am doing here and how I wanted to put more of my skills to use. And so I started some group work with young men, which is on a pause now that we’ve reached the semester break. Intention is a powerful thing. Often just putting out our intention can make things start to happen. I do not have a sign over my head like Lucy of “Peanuts” fame reading: “Psychiatric Help – 5 Cents” (about 0.4 yuan) but nonetheless I am being engaged for this kind of support. Don’t worry, I realize my job is not to be a shrink here, and I am approaching these encounters with utmost humility…and empathy. Oh yeah, and I put a teaser out to the administration that I am very interested in teaching an introductory Psychology class.
Buying train tickets is one of the last of my basic tasks in China that I have yet to master. In fact I am still quite intimidated by it. Train is a very popular form of travel here and there is no way to buy tickets online. Oy, the hoops we have to jump through! First off, one cannot purchase a ticket more than five days prior to departure. Since I planned to leave on the 18th, I knew I had to wait until the 13th to get my ticket. Conveniently enough, there is a ticket outlet right down the block from my school where I have purchased tickets before with some of my students smoothing out the transaction between a frightened Thomas and a surly, impatient attendant. Sadly, this local ticket office is closed on Saturdays (like January 13th) so I had to schlep myself across town to the train station which is over an hour by bus. After waiting in line there for 25 minutes, I was told by the attendant that I couldn’t buy a ticket for that day.
As I was dejectedly walking back to the bus I was approached by a couple who spoke great English. They saw my failed attempt and explained that the train station only sells tickets for trains leaving today and tomorrow. It turns out the woman is an English teacher at my same school and her husband charitably offered to show me where another nearby place was where I could buy tickets. So we hopped on a bus and were there in about 10 minutes. I thanked him profusely and he left me to wait in line…for another 15 minutes only to be told that indeed, I couldn’t buy the ticket until the next day. Apparently when they say “5 days,” that includes the day of departure, so I had to wait until the 14th to buy a ticket for the 18th.
Here’s where it gets complicated. Due to financial considerations, I am doing my trip to Kunming (in south China) in two legs: first a train ride to Chengdu, which is about halfway, and then a flight the rest of the way. Sunday was the big day to buy both tickets. I recruited one of my monitors, Tiger, to accompany me on my excursion and help make this happen. As we were speeding out of our district on the old 310 (the “short bus”) I noticed, much to my surprise, that the local ticket window was open. So we hopped off the bus and got in line. 30 minutes later we were at the front. There are four different kinds of tickets available on the busses:
1. Soft Sleeper – which is in a quasi-private room with four beds & pretty comfy.
2. Hard Sleeper – which affords little privacy, but a reasonable amount of space and comfort (it’s not really that hard)…this is the class I have most often ridden.
3. Hard Seat – again, not too hard and with a decent amount of space…I had one of these for a 5 or 6 hour trip and it was fine.
4. Standing Car – or, as I like to call it, the “cattle car” into which everyone who wants to travel cheap is shoe-horned…I’ve never even seen it.
Somehow between when tickets went on sale at 8 or 9 that morning and when I had my chance to buy one at 11, everything was sold out except for the standing ticket. So I am facing the prospect of a 22-hour train ride without a seat to call my own. In my worst-case-scenario imaginings, I envision it being as crowded as the bus is at rush hour. And the crowded busses are laughably sardine can-like…from the outside you cannot see through to the other window. I was told that this late January – early February timeframe is the height of the travel season in China. Just imagine the holiday migration in the United States…got that in your head? Now multiply it by 4 or 5. Hijole. Our chief medical staffer told us that in these handful of weeks about 2 billion tickets for travel will be purchased.
The good news is that there is a chance a seat or sleeper could become available during the trip…if someone dies. No, I’m only kidding. There are travel agencies who buy up tickets when they first go on sale and if all of them are not resold, then there could be some vacancies. I’ve got my Chinese cheat sheet ready so I can pop the question as soon as I get on that train. The other good news is that I was successful in buying the plane ticket (feiji piao) so leg #2 of the trip will be quick and have some semblance of comfort.
When I roll into Chengdu at 11 Friday morning my beloved teacher from the summer, Wendy Wu will be there to greet me. She has selflessly offered to take my cold weather clothes bag off my hands (this trip will take me to both warm and cool climates), then we’ll have a quick lunch and she’ll get me onto the shuttle for the airport. This is my biggest excursion within China so far and incidentally the first one during which I’ll be traveling solo. So I’m a little nervous. I’ll be able to relax (read: pass out) when I meet up with fellow-traveler Matt at the airport in Kunming on Friday night.
Wish me luck!
Current Music: Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
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04:44 am
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Dreams, Visions, Holidays
Written 01/09/07
For whatever reason a particular image has been popping up in my head often the last couple of days: me in full baseball catcher gear. You know, with the chest protector, the face mask, the huge soft mitt, the uncomfortable crotch cup, and especially the shin guards. I’m talking about the fancy new shin guards that have the built-in triangular pads that provide a comfy buffer between one’s calves and thighs. They make squatting and balancing with all that gear seem somehow natural. Oh bless. I can practically feel my cleats twisting into the reddish dirt behind home plate. I can taste the grit between teeth. My eyes squinting out at the pitcher, then darting out to the outfielders to make sure they’re aligned correctly for this hitter’s tendencies. He swings his bat back and forth like a pendulum, trying to calculate the rhythm of this pitcher. The fingers of my right hand shoot down between my legs to give the sign then drift back behind my back, twitching nervously. Finally, the umpire’s hand comes to rest softly on my shoulder and we both hold our breath as the pitch is released…
The funny thing is that I was never a catcher in my 8 years as a ballplayer back in Simi Valley Little League and later Chaminade (my high school). But I did suit up with the gear sometime in the last year and a half or so. I was helping run a practice with my boy Allan who was coaching the baseball team for the school he teaches at in Oakland. I certainly let too many balls skid past me, but still really enjoyed the synergy that he and I had during those couple of hours out on the field.
But why would this image keep replaying in my mind? Part of the reason is because it is baseball’s off-season. Each October after the World Series ends, I am faced with a baseball drought until March when Spring Training starts and eternal hope bubbles forth again. During these long, cold months (and they’re especially cold in China) I am hungry for all things baseball. And these things are in short supply. The news of the sport is scant, and usually its bad news for Oakland A’s fans. So my imagination is taking me to the golden ball field in my mind. But there’s something else going on with this symbol. A catcher receives, and certainly I am getting a lot from my experience here. But a catcher also is asking for what it is he wants to receive. A catcher calls the shots. And he is covered from head to toe in protective gear in case something goes awry. Maybe this is indicative of the phase I am moving into with my service here in China: I’m becoming certain of what I want and I’m asking for it…with my interaction with students, friends, and my school. I’ve established my support system and routine so like a catcher I am protected from foul tips. Maybe it’s a stretch, but who knows?
Written 01/11/07
I was a waiter at the Elephant Bar back in Simi from the summer of ’97 to the summer of ’98. Chris and I worked there together, saving money and biding time till we moved back up to northern California (Sonoma County) to continue school and flip ahead to the next chapters of our lives. I have many fond memories of working at that restaurant: fun & cute co-workers, after-hours parties, a little change in my pocket, and the occasional old acquaintance that would show up in my section. I often wonder if I might not carry the tray again someday. Yet for many, many years after leaving that job I had intense anxiety dreams where I was back at that or some other restaurant. In these dreams I am scrambling around while customers pile up, unable to work the computer system, can’t get any help, and generally freaking out because I don’t know what I was doing. I’ve had this dream literally within the last year.
A couple nights ago I had another restaurant dream. Perhaps it was inspired in part by having just watched “Waiting,” a hilarious recent movie starring Ryan Reynolds about the staff of fictional generic middle-America chain eatery called Shenaniganz (think Chili’s, Chevy’s, Applebee’s et al). But this dream wasn’t really stressful. I had gotten jobs at two different restaurants one of which was like the E-bar, but not exactly, and I was trying to figure out how to fit together my two schedules. I was waiting on a quasi-familiar person that was finished eating but didn’t leave until the very end of the dream. Then she handed me a little booklet that she had clearly put together by hand and in it she wrote “Don’t do it, Thomas.” I took it to mean that I shouldn’t take the restaurant job(s). I woke up right then.
It was refreshing to finally wake up from a table-waiting dream without being in a panicked sweat, but there is clearly a larger message here. Perhaps the old subconscious is telling me that I need to reconsider a current decision. Maybe there are some plans that need to go back on the drafting table. I don’t think this is about coming to or staying in China, but possibly it is about plans percolating for when I get home. I don’t have the conclusive answer now, but isn’t it fun to think about what messages our dreams send to us?
*******
Ah, the holidays. Christmas 2006 wasn’t the first (or probably the last) that I spent outside of the good ol’ US of A. I definitely had some bouts with homesickness…I missed being with my family and participating in our cute traditions, especially my Mom’s infamous tamale assembly line. My Dad reports that the gross this year was about 9 dozen. And zippy cousin Bill sent along some digital pictures in case I forgot what my folks look like elbow-deep in masa.
The Chinese people definitely know about Christmas, though only a tiny fraction of them are Christian. They know it commemorates the birth of Christ and that his father, Father Christmas, brings toys to the children. Christmas lights and various seasonal icons are available in the stores here. A surprising number of restaurateurs and merchants put decorations up in their windows. An even more surprising number of them leave the décor up year-round. I think Jeff Foxworthy has a bit about how if you never take down your Christmas lights you might be a redneck.
Sweetly enough, I got lots of “Merry Christmas” greetings from students and even some strangers. But compared to America, December 25th came and went here with little fanfare. I didn’t mind having a reprieve from the onslaught of consumerism and obscenely bland Christmas songs in every public place…though I did smile when I heard Wham’s “Last Christmas” on the local bus one day. Ok, so I also enjoyed listening to a “Carpenter’s Christmas” (as in Karen & Richard) at a friend’s house while playing Scrabble.
Christmas Eve happened to be my fellow Peace Corps volunteer (and downstairs neighbor) Katie’s birthday so she hosted the requisite party for the Lanzhou crew. We had about 25 or so people, most of them PC, but with a respectable handful of Zhonguoren (Chinese people) in attendance as well. We had a great food spread featuring a chili cook-off with 5 delicious varieties (including my own!), a gift exchange (I scored a lovely – and needed – pair of gloves), plentiful libations (of course), a mini-dance party, and a viewing of Sarah Silverman’s stand-up “Jesus is Magic.” Apparently I am slated to host the Christmas party next year and I’ll have a tough act to follow.
The next day a bunch of us surveyed the damage to her apartment, ate some leftover chili, and relaxed with some more movies. Later in the afternoon I cruised back upstairs to my place to prepare for my regular Monday night office-hours. I hosted about 25 people myself (all students) Christmas night. I wrote out the words on butcher paper and taught them “The 12 Days of Christmas” which was fun and “The Little Drummer Boy” for a touch of the nativity story. I attempted to teach them “Winter Wonderland” which I love but was a bit too complicated for them to sing-along to. They asked for “Jingle Bells” but I had to decline because I only know the words to one verse and it is not on my iPod.
My students gave me some wonderful and thoughtful presents: handmade origami, beautifully intricate paper cuttings, and even a homemade periwinkle knit scarf. I think my favorite is another homemade gem: a bookmark with some dried flowers pressed into it and a message that says: “Merry Christmas – never frown because you never know when someone might fall in love with your smile.” Isn’t that some great advice?
On December 29th, a consortium of provincial and educational leaders hosted a huge banquet for all of the foreign teachers in Gansu. Of course this includes all 20 or so PC volunteers in Gansu as well as scores of other foreigners (American and otherwise) who are out here in northwestern China doing their thing in various universities. Our PC country director and our program manager were in attendance as well. Including all of our Chinese hosts there was a couple hundred people there. We had to sit through a painfully long program of speeches and various singing and dancing acts. There were some pretty colorful outfits, operatic arias, and playing of traditional instruments. I guess I would have enjoyed it more had I not been so starving. When the food finally arrived, it was pretty good and even included a few attempts at western dishes. All in all it was fun and a great chance to see some of my buddies that are not so nearby.
New Years’ Eve two nights later was another chance for us to have some good times. Fellow volunteer Kari hosted. The PC folks that have been here a while have a tradition of throwing theme parties. In October we had the “Pink Party” and last year they had the “Orange Party” and the “Ugly Shirt Party.” So on NYE we had the “White Trash Party.” I first heard of throwing a white trash – themed party years ago from some friends up in Sonoma County (who knew?). I suggested it to Kari and she ran with it quite spectacularly. The ornamentation of the apartment included a naked mannequin, posters of NASCAR and Britney Spears, a dartboard, lots of Christmas lights, and various bandanas touting America’s strength and that the south would rise again, etc. The costumes were pretty outrageous as well, though words won’t do them justice. Suffice it to say that that hair was teased or shellacked, teeth were buck, and the bumpkins were country. I rocked my aviator shades, a Harley-Davidson type bandana, and chopped my beard down to a bushy handlebar. This is the same long mustache that, when I wore it a few years back, Shannon Murphy famously said I looked like a “greasy, bad man.”
I was put in charge of the music and had a lot of fun compiling the play list of 100+ songs. I had to download some country nuggets and other southern-fried biscuits but had the classic rock well in hand. Do the names Loverboy, Garth Brooks, Joe Walsh, Shania Twain, Journey, Ted Nugent, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kenny Chesney, Motley Crue, Toby Keith, Jimmy Buffet, or ZZ Top mean anything to you?
********
This week is the end of the semester here at my school. I am in the middle of conducting oral exams for all eight of my classes. That’s about 250 Chinese youngsters wrestling with our native tongue and me having to pay very close attention to each one of them. It’s going pretty well so far, but I expect to be thoroughly drained come Friday night…especially since I have major insomnia right now (its 4:00 AM Thursday morning).
Once the exams are over and I finish my grades I’ll have a couple of days to relax. Then I’m off on a 10-day trip to Yunnan (southern China). I’ll be hooking up with a couple of PC buddies that work in another province. We’re gonna do some sight-seeing, hiking, tree-climbing, mosquito dodging, and hopefully enjoying of good food and drink. It is much warmer and less polluted in this part of the country which will be a very nice reprieve for me. After Yunnan I’ll go back to Chengdu (where I trained during the summer) for our 5-day In-Service Training, or IST as we refer to it. As in corporate America we PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) love our TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms). I’m definitely looking forward to a little bit of travel…albeit not the 22-hour train rides.
Xin Nian Hao! (Happy New Year!)
Till next time!
Current Music: Paul McCartney - Silly Love Songs
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12:25 am
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Cars, White Christmas, Sex Ed
Written 12/20/06
I just got done playing a quick and satisfying game of Yahtzee! on my cell phone. No, not a new cell phone but in fact the same old “LG” that I was using the last year and a half I was in the states. I haven’t bought the card which would allow me to use it here. So it sits in my room and acts as my alarm clock and occasional gaming device. I like not having an active cell these days, what I lose in convenience I more than make up for in less hassle…and expense.
Speaking of convenience versus hassle and expense: earlier tonight I was reflecting on whether or not I want to get a car immediately when I return to California. This month makes two years since my old Honda Civic was stolen and I have been sans car. During that time I often carpooled to work with Philena or Danna, and on other days I did the walk/BART/bus trifecta. Of course there was the occasional errand or visit to a friend that was less expedient because I had no car, but for the most part it was much less traumatizing than you out there in highway land might imagine. Granted, during these two years I lived in the (SF) Bay area and now I live in Lanzhou both of which have continually flowing streams of public transit.
Owning a car in China is not a given. It is definitely a luxury item and from what I can gather, only for middle class and above. None of my students have cars, and I imagine maybe half of their parents do. In this city I estimate about 2/3 of the cars on the road are taxis or buses. One of the first things that struck me when I first strolled around my campus was the blessed lack of cars. This place is not a cluster of classroom buildings ringed by enormous, yawning parking lots as college grounds back home tend to be. Here there are rows and rows of tall, densely packed apartments on the east side of campus (where I live) filled with teachers, administrators, and (get this) retirees, plus their families. Each morning when I briskly hoof it to class, I pass through throngs of older folks doing Tai Chi, playing cards or mah jong, or just hanging out with each other.
Along this daily journey there is also a kindergarten filled with squealing youngsters and a middle school with its ubiquitous students wearing matching blue and white track suits. As for the university students, they are crammed 6 or 8 to a room in the dormitories just outside the west gate, on the other side of campus. Except for a handful of administrators and other bigwigs, nobody drives to or from this school. We don’t have to…we live here.
All of this is to suggest that I have tasted life without a car: both in the US and here, and it is sweetly feasible. Believe me I don’t miss chasing away hundreds of dollars every month on car payments, insurance, gas, and maintenance.
********
Last week I had opportunity to dream of a white Christmas. No, not white people but in fact snow! I knew it was cold enough when I started noticing puddles and little rivulets of water icing over in the street. But Lanzhou is a high desert and too dry to support much precipitation. Recently we had a few flurries that amounted to tiny, dandruff sized flakes fluttering down and disappearing when they hit the vast, dirty ground. But last week it dumped down and stuck. It was breathtaking. Visions of some fatherly, Norman Rockwell-esque figure in a long coat and scarf with colorful bags tucked under each arm going home to his eagerly awaiting family danced in my head. Perhaps that could be me going to sitemate Katie’s party this Sunday. We’ll see.
The magic of the snowfall didn’t last too long, though. Faster than I would have liked, it was shoveled aside or packed down into ice. In midday the ice softens just enough to collect dust and grit and turn into dirty slush. Then during the night it re-freezes so all we are left with is, literally, black ice…which doesn’t bode well for the vehicles on the road nor those of us without hiking boots. Still the memory of a pristine blanket of white covering my little corner of China lingers. I’ll take this moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a wholly Happy Holidays, and a fabulous new year!
********
I got several touching responses to my last blog/email in which I related my “teachers reaching out” stories. I looked up an email address for Mr. Tomaszewski (who still works at Chaminade, my old high school) and sent him the entry…he emailed me back which was very cool. All in all it was wonderful to read the encouraging notes, and it’s a good reminder that there are people out there who do read my stuff…and care about what I am doing here. So thanks!
It turns out that it was kind of a banner week for me. In addition to my inaugural mid-week young men’s circle (I’ve had two since) I also did a 1-1/2 hour lecture on AIDS and safe sex…four times, one for each speaking class. December 1st was world AIDS awareness day and many of us volunteers here in Lanzhou talked to our students about it. These young people have received zero to nil sex education in school which, for me, is a scary prospect. We had an (anonymously submitted) question and answer session at the end of the lecture. I addressed some very thoughtful questions and even got a few students thanking me for bringing this information to them. I talked about it with my friends here and my fellow volunteer teacher here and I are inspired to do a lecture series next semester. The need and the interest are certainly there.
Current Music: Aerosmith - Hole In My Soul
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01:54 pm
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Men have feelings too
Written 12/04/06
When I was a freshman at Chaminade College Preparatory I fancied myself some sort of math whiz so I was in Algebra II/Trigonometry. On my first four tests I scored: A, B, C, D, respectively. At that point my teacher, Rich Tomaszewski, asked to have a little sit-down with me. He explained he was concerned about my declining pattern and then he did something a little surprising: he asked me how I was doing and how I was handling the transition to high school. I shared some of my feelings with him about being overwhelmed and lost in this new and much bigger environment. I told him I was having a hard time. I still remember the scene vividly: he with his bushy beard and brow furrowed with concern, jotting down notes about what I was saying…me totally impressed and disarmed that he actually cared about me as a person. He had the wisdom and the heart to engage me in a supportive way…not as a teacher who wanted to criticize me for slipping grades. This heartwarming scene actually foreshadowed what would happen a few years later when he took over as director of campus ministry and I was a member of the L.I.F.E. team. During my senior year and the year after I graduated I led somewhere between 5 and 10 retreats collaborating with Rich and the rest of the team.
I have been thinking about this moment quite a bit recently. About two weeks ago I was teaching my spoken English class on a Friday morning. I noticed one of my boys (I only have about 3 per class) was wearing a very sullen expression. His body language and complete and unabashed lack of participation during small group time told me something was quite wrong. At first I was upset and wanted to chastise him for not working with his partners. After a minute I mellowed out and decided to approach him and ask him how he was doing. Then the most amazing thing happened: he immediately started pouring his heart out to me. He told me that he was struggling with living at the university, missed his family, and wasn’t doing well with his studies. In addition, his class is all female and he said he has a hard time talking with girls. I moved us out to the hallway so we could talk for a few more minutes while the rest of the class finished group time. In that moment his English was incredibly eloquent, he did not miss a beat. I guess it’s true that when you are speaking your truth, speaking from the heart…nothing can get in the way.
I didn’t say much except that I understand how difficult all these obstacles must be, and that I think he is a wonderful young man and a fine English student (which is true). After our interlude we went back in and during the second half of class he was actually smiling. The next morning he invited me to play basketball which we did with a few more of the boys and then enjoyed a tasty lunch of “sha guo” (soup with noodles, meat, veggies) together.
And there you have it, the feel-good story of a “new” teacher doing something supportive for a student in much the same way that an influential teacher did for him in the past. And in both these stories the teachers have beards…coincidence? I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Written 12/06/06
This incident and a few other ideas (an article about Paul Farmer, a tireless doctor who is serving poverty-stricken Haitian people; and my fellow teacher Brandon’s practice of doing a weekly boys’ night for his students) have been brewing inspiration in me. I began thinking about how much of my focus so far in China has been on myself: my comfort, my apartment’s conveniences, my progress in Chinese, my entertainment, my sanity. Certainly these concerns are valid and I cannot do my job effectively without these pieces in place, but this focus seemed not quite right. After all I am here to serve. One of the things I have discovered about myself is that I feel most alive, most useful, most satisfied, most “in the zone” when I am of service to others. What can I say? I’m a helper.
My thoughts turned to considering what skills I have that are not being put to use. What else can I be doing that will be of use to these young people in my community? Well, I’m no doctor or environmentalist. I’m no poet, preacher, or politician. And as much as I’d like think so, I’m no rock star. But I do have a lot of experience in the touchy-feely arts. Whether in school, group therapy, or just with friends; I’ve sat in countless circles with others sharing our lives and our feelings…speaking from the heart. And my university doesn’t have much by way of counseling or mental health support for the students.
So today I held my inaugural session of the “Young Men’s Circle” at my place. Once a week I am inviting all of my male students (I have around 15 and 5 came today, including the guy mentioned above) to join me for an hour or so of talking. It is a chance for us to talk about things “man-to-man.” Of course they love the idea of going to a teacher’s apartment and practicing their English (my office hours open to all my students are on Monday nights) but you would be surprised at how quickly these guys jumped into some of the deeper topics. Today I explained some of my ideas about the differences between how men and women communicate and especially how we express emotions. I shared some personal experiences from my own life, with my parents, with my girlfriends. As is generally the case with group work, when one person “goes deep” it gives permission for others to do likewise. One brave soul has to break the ice and I knew it had to be me, so I made myself vulnerable. These young men jumped right in. I got several-minute long discourses from three of them about their families and their feelings about their dads. Dare I say that they were more forthcoming than college-age (or any age) men would be in an initial session like this in the states.
It was incredible for me. Needless to say I was thrilled about how things went and am looking forward to more. Don’t worry; I’ll be careful, professional, and extra supportive as needed. I’m ready for this.
Current Music: Elton John - I'm Still Standing
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02:53 am
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Americans Gather, Raiders, English Corner
Written 11/26/06
Last night was the official Thanksgiving get-together for all of us Peace Corps folk who live in and around Lanzhou. About 15 or so of us (including some other local friends) gathered at volunteer Cayce's apartment. His place is about an hour away by bus, though I opted for the 20-minute cab ride. We hung out for the entire afternoon and evening: sipping wine, playing cards, and chit-chatting – much like a Thanksgiving back home! It was wonderful and definitely distracted me from any wistful longing to be with my family who was all together back in Palm Desert, California. My family was still assembled at my aunt & uncle's place and as I hoped they might, they called me this morning and passed the phone around so I could chat with everyone. Not quite the same as being there, but certainly a wonderful way to start my day.
On Friday I crammed three classes' worth of my Spoken English students (about 90 kids) into an audio/video room in our foreign language building. There were not quite enough seats, so there was some standing and some sharing of seats. Instead of our usual weekly classes we had a movie. I guess I wanted to do something special for the American holiday, so we watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" – with Chinese subtitles, of course. I explained that this movie is 25 years old and was one of my favorites when I was young. They enjoyed the action sequences and the funny parts and managed to not squirm too much for the lengthy expository scenes.
Written 11/30/06
As of today I have been here for 5 months. Wow! 5 months, that's 19% of my total time here. Right now in this moment, it seems like the blink of an eye. Tonight I was speaking at "English Corner" – a weekly meeting which any student can come to and practice their English, and possibly win fabulous prizes. Anyway, I was talking about how each of us needs to find time to slow down and breathe. Things seem to go by so quickly and we often never step out of our hectic schedule long enough to appreciate what is going on. How often do we fail to recognize and appreciate what is going on right now? In my life it seems like most of the appreciation happens after the fact, after time has passed and I reflect back on what occurred.
It has been a good four or five years since I was immersed in the rapid-fire nature of a scholastic semester. And it is a weird, jarring time-warp. Four months and change and its over. Another one will pass quickly and my students will suddenly find themselves sophomores, wise fools. This is what I was telling them tonight, all 32 years of my wisdom bubbling forth: "Before you know it you will graduate, get a job, get married, and start having kids (unless of course they follow in my footsteps J). You'll think back to your university years and they may seem so different and so long ago. So take a deep breath, look around you, and enjoy what is happening here and now."
Oh bless.
Current Music: Barenaked Ladies - Christmas Medley
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03:12 am
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Call me cheap! Cold winter approaches! No Turkey!
Written 11/22/06
First off, I want to share something that recently came to my attention: a way for folks in America to call China on the cheap. Two of my friends have already used this method and it does work. Simply visit the website www.callchinaforfree.com and follow the directions. I think it involves a long-distance call to somewhere in the US, but it is still much cheaper than calling here direct. I imagine most of your cell phone plans include free long distance, so give it a whirl, won’t you? Here is my phone number again: 011-86-931-7970803
International access code for US - 011
Country code for China - 86
My "area code" - 931
My local phone number - 7970803
Earlier tonight after a tasty dinner of chao mian (fried noodles with some meat and veggies) I wandered over to the local outdoor vendor market. It’s called pei li guan chan (literally “pei li” square) and I can see it quite clearly from either the kitchen or bedroom window of my apartment. My view is great since I’m directly across the street from the square and six flights up. There is constant activity over there with vendors selling fruit and nuts, meat and bread, kaui can (fast food), clothes, kitchen and bathroom bric-a-brac, various electronic whatnots, and DVDs. Really, the commerce goes on and on there. It is like a swap meet everyday. Tonight I bought some shaving cream so I can stay on top of my facial hair grooming or, as Matt likes to say, “man-scaping.” Yes, it’s true I’ve decided to resurrect the beard for the first time in a few years. I think it is some sort of requirement for male Peace Corps volunteers to rock the beard at some point while they are serving. I guess it is something about the hippy ethic, the alleged bohemian lifestyle, or perhaps we all just want to be international men of mystery. Either way, I’ve received some good feedback from my local friends so it stays for now.
The other thing I invested in tonight at the vendor market was a DVD, or rather a collection of DVDs. I have been going a little bit crazy with movie purchasing here in China since the movies are so cheap, usually 5 or 6 yuan ($0.75). I’ve picked up about 35. Interestingly, my selections so far have included an inordinately high percentage of mob movies. I don’t have an explanation as to why. I now own seasons 1-6 of the Sopranos, all 3 Godfather flicks, Goodfellas, and for good measure, the newly released “The Departed.” DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson. It’s really good. Tonight I could no longer resist the temptation and I picked up the James Bond film collection: 20 movies compressed onto three very full discs. And all for a song. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? We’ll see. My DVD player cruised along with “Live and Let Die” till about halfway through and then started gagging and sputtering. Of course this machine, a hand-me-down, is not the highest quality. So we’ll see if these movies play elsewhere or if I just flushed the equivalent of almost 2 US dollars down the drain.
But enough about my embarrassment of entertainment riches, let’s talk about how I am truly roughing it. It is cold here now. Walking around after sundown for any length of time means being red-faced and runny-nosed. This week’s highs are in the 30s and 40s while at night the temperature dips down into the single digits and [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<gasp!>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] Written 11/22/06
First off, I want to share something that recently came to my attention: a way for folks in America to call China on the cheap. Two of my friends have already used this method and it does work. Simply visit the website www.callchinaforfree.com and follow the directions. I think it involves a long-distance call to somewhere in the US, but it is still much cheaper than calling here direct. I imagine most of your cell phone plans include free long distance, so give it a whirl, won’t you? Here is my phone number again: 011-86-931-7970803
International access code for US - 011
Country code for China - 86
My "area code" - 931
My local phone number - 7970803
Earlier tonight after a tasty dinner of chao mian (fried noodles with some meat and veggies) I wandered over to the local outdoor vendor market. It’s called pei li guan chan (literally “pei li” square) and I can see it quite clearly from either the kitchen or bedroom window of my apartment. My view is great since I’m directly across the street from the square and six flights up. There is constant activity over there with vendors selling fruit and nuts, meat and bread, kaui can (fast food), clothes, kitchen and bathroom bric-a-brac, various electronic whatnots, and DVDs. Really, the commerce goes on and on there. It is like a swap meet everyday. Tonight I bought some shaving cream so I can stay on top of my facial hair grooming or, as Matt likes to say, “man-scaping.” Yes, it’s true I’ve decided to resurrect the beard for the first time in a few years. I think it is some sort of requirement for male Peace Corps volunteers to rock the beard at some point while they are serving. I guess it is something about the hippy ethic, the alleged bohemian lifestyle, or perhaps we all just want to be international men of mystery. Either way, I’ve received some good feedback from my local friends so it stays for now.
The other thing I invested in tonight at the vendor market was a DVD, or rather a collection of DVDs. I have been going a little bit crazy with movie purchasing here in China since the movies are so cheap, usually 5 or 6 yuan ($0.75). I’ve picked up about 35. Interestingly, my selections so far have included an inordinately high percentage of mob movies. I don’t have an explanation as to why. I now own seasons 1-6 of the Sopranos, all 3 Godfather flicks, Goodfellas, and for good measure, the newly released “The Departed.” DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson. It’s really good. Tonight I could no longer resist the temptation and I picked up the James Bond film collection: 20 movies compressed onto three very full discs. And all for a song. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? We’ll see. My DVD player cruised along with “Live and Let Die” till about halfway through and then started gagging and sputtering. Of course this machine, a hand-me-down, is not the highest quality. So we’ll see if these movies play elsewhere or if I just flushed the equivalent of almost 2 US dollars down the drain.
But enough about my embarrassment of entertainment riches, let’s talk about how I am truly roughing it. It is cold here now. Walking around after sundown for any length of time means being red-faced and runny-nosed. This week’s highs are in the 30s and 40s while at night the temperature dips down into the single digits and <gasp!> below zero. Luckily I made the move to buy a very flattering black pea coat and some less flattering thermal underwear recently. Last month I received a few lovely sweaters in a care package from Joey and Diana and have actually bought a few more here. My warm cap, scarf, and gloves arrived in the care package from my folks along with the indispensable hiking boots. I’ve been wearing those often as they effectively shield my feet from Lanzhou’s piercing, high-desert chill.
Being a California boy I’ve never had to deal with a real winter. Growing up in southern Cal, I learned that seasonal change is something those people elsewhere in the country have to deal with. White Christmas? Only in the movies or if the family decided to intentionally go find some snow during winter break. I remember being surprised to realize spring didn’t start until late March, after all January was always dry, warm, and everything felt fresh and renewed.
Bundling up is something I have only limited experience with, although I am learning quickly. In the past I would find myself in truly cold environments only every other year or so and always by choice. It is an adjustment to put on thermal underwear and layer clothes like they are so many sub sandwich ingredients. I’m not on vacation anymore. I have to admit, the biggest pain is layering up do go out and then coming home and having to de-layer as soon as I step into my apartment. Since I have to hike up six flights of stairs (no elevator) I have no choice but to be warm by the time I make it to my place, and when I step inside I almost can’t get the heavy clothes off fast enough.
Written 11/23/06
My place is fairly warm since this building has central heating – as does the university and much of the city for that matter. What that means is that the cityscape is dotted with coal-burning plants that boil water and pump it out to the surrounding area. So I have two radiator-style heaters, one in each main room, which receive the hot water and in turn give off heat. I have no control over how hot this place gets and can’t even turn the things on or off. They fired up on November 1st and are set to run through the winter.
But the true superstar heat-giver of this apartment is my water distiller. Since we can’t really drink tap water here, the Peace Corps provided each of us with a machine that boils, condenses, and filters about 3-4 liters of water in a few hours time. It’s pretty nifty. During the cycle, a fan is blowing over the distilling coils to cool the collecting steam and this action cranks out a tremendous amount of heat. It is cold enough inside that I still have to wear pants or sweats and a long-sleeved shirt when I am at home. On my full-size bed I have a sheet and 1 blanket which so far has kept me plenty warm, though recently I have been wearing socks to bed which I could never stand to do back home.
Back in the homeland today is Thanksgiving and across the country people are gathering to celebrate a little family togetherness. My own clan is mustering in our recent-traditional spot of Uncle Jerry & Aunt Judy’s in Palm Desert. It has been many years since I missed a family Thanksgiving and I will think of them as this day progresses. Some of my thoughtful students have wished me a “Happy Thanksgiving Day” when I saw them in class earlier this week which was very sweet. For my spoken English classes today and tomorrow I’ve decided to show a movie so we all get to relax a little.
My local American friends and I don’t overlook any opportunity to get together and celebrate so we are having a late turkey-day party on Saturday. With almost the entire Lanzhou crew getting together, we’ll have around 15 people there. Of course there are no turkeys to be had in western China – chickens, ducks, and geese, but no turkeys – so we’re going to have to improvise. Aside from the star fowl, many other traditional dishes will be approximated: mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie a la mode, etc. In an attempt to provide a counter-balance to the twice-baked, blanched, fricasseed, and otherwise bludgeoned food I will bring a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables for dipping and snacking on. I’m looking forward to it. Happy Thanksgiving all! Current Music: The B-52s - Channel Z
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02:39 pm
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Check-in Letter
How do you assess your own adjustment to the new independent lifestyle in which you find yourself? A few days ago I was reading an email from Matt, one of my best friends back home. He was commenting on the very active and engaged routine I am enjoying here, so soon after settling in to my site in Lanzhou. He had assumed (as had I) that I would be experiencing more loneliness and general homesickness than I am. When I was back home I suppose I didn’t know exactly what to expect of China, but Matt has helped me to see that I am not experiencing the worst of my fears here. While I do miss friends, family, and various conveniences of California, I think things are going very well for me here so far.
I definitely think things have become more enjoyable for me. In my first couple of weeks I had quite a bit of free time, and in the last two weeks or so I have been jumping from one appointment to another. It is nice that my teaching schedule is free enough that I can have meals with friends and students, and enjoy some of the attractions of my city. I have enjoyed quite a bit of jogging and also basketball, tennis, and bowling. In some ways the 6 weeks I have been at site seem to have flown by, and on the other hand I realize that I have learned and done so many things already. Despite my still fledgling Chinese speaking skills, I am able to communicate with waitresses, bankers, taxi drivers, and shopkeepers enough to get my point across. I like to think that I was already a pretty patient person, and I have learned that trait helps me immensely here. There really are very few chores that can get done quickly. To check for mail at the Waiban office can take 25 minutes, to assist a student with editing a one-page composition can take an hour, just to walk across campus can take forever as I will most likely be stopped by someone for a chat.
Do you have any safety and security concerns? I have not had any serious concerns about my safety. I am used to living in a sizeable city, so Lanzhou does not frighten or confuse me in the sense that it is teeming with people. Sometimes it is unnerving when people stare at me, but I understand that a white foreigner is quite the novelty for them. My campus and apartment building are pretty dark at night, but I’m not worried about it. As a tall, dark, and (for now) bearded man, I am probably more threatening to others than they will ever be to me.
What is your progress in finding a language tutor? I am very pleased to report that as of October 25th, I have already had 6 sessions with my language tutor. I am meeting with Li Yaping (English name: Nancy) an average of twice a week. She is also tutoring a few of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. Of course I met Nancy over the summer during pre-service training when she taught my language classmates and me for one week. Back then I was impressed with her teaching skills and was thrilled when she agreed to be my tutor here in Lanzhou.
Our lessons are held at her house which is a short bus-ride away for me. I am always made to feel welcome and often she invites me to join her family for dinner after we’re done studying. We spend a good portion of our 1-1/2 hour sessions just doing free-talk which is very useful for me. She is walking me through the PC-provided language textbook. Before long I expect to be piecing together Chinese characters in sentences.
What do you feel best about your experience at your site thus far? The best part of my experience so far has been the camaraderie between me and my fellow volunteers. We are like a family. I know I can count on any number of my Lanzhou friends to support me and help me should I ever need it. Spending time with my people here is a great reminder that I am not alone and there are many others having an experience parallel to mine. Kari said it best when she told me she felt like she has known us all for years…even though it has only been a few months. We are all learning and growing so quickly, and it is a blessing that we are doing it together.
A close second-best part of my experience is how my students have so warmly taken to me. One of my worries is that my students would not be receptive or responsive to me. Granted, it has taken a few weeks for them us to get comfortable with each other, but I think it has happened. They seem to trust me and a few have approached me to help them with other English-related projects outside of class.
How do you think your communication and collaboration with your Waiban and department is going? (“Waiban” is the university’s administrative office that takes care of the foreign teachers and students.) For the most part, the communication with my Waiban is fine. Generally it is a one-way street with me asking for something (mail parcel, internet service, shower repair, etc.) and my Waiban contact negotiating to get it for me. They have been fairly prompt and responsive. One time he requested a favor of me: to help a school official’s son with his grad school application essay, which I was happy to do.
What is not so great about your experience at your site thus far? I don’t have any significant complaints. As I mentioned earlier, being gawked at daily and occasionally laughed at is sometimes unnerving. The cost and challenge of chatting with folks back home is also a drag. Of course I often feel at a loss for words when I am trying to communicate with a non-English speaking local. I have always prided myself on being a fairly eloquent communicator, so to be stripped of that capacity with most of the people I talk to is frustrating.
Based on your observations and analysis what do you see as the needs, interests, and challenges facing the school/individuals with whom you are working? Most of the students I teach have been studying English for 6 years or so. Given that, it is interesting to me that so many of them such weak speaking skills (or perhaps it is their confidence). In terms of them gaining better language skills, I imagine that smaller classes and/or more demanding curriculum could help them.
I definitely see the need for foreign teachers at my college. The students are hungry to speak with and learn from native speakers.
Current Music: Erasure - Freedom
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03:02 pm
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Basketball, Baseball, and Buses
Written 10/11/06
I can’t remember the last time I felt more exhausted than I do right now. It’s that good, full-body tired that only happens after serious physical activity. I’ve been very lazy with exercise since I left Chengdu just over a month ago. After I got my new running shoes in the care package last weekend, I enjoyed a celebratory jog around campus…literally, I ran around the campus. But for the most part I have not been moving my body aside from morning yoga. And I really need to be.
I am feeling so great tonight because I played basketball earlier. Apparently there is an intra-departmental quasi-tournament at the beginning of the fall semester. Neighbor (and fellow English teacher) Brandon told me about it so I showed up with the best athletic outfit I could muster. For a unique touch, and to help keep the locks out of my face, I wore my A’s visor. Brandon and I played the whole hour-long game I guess because we are tall and American and thus must know our way around the court. I have to confess, I haven’t played any serious basketball in a few years. I like the sport, but never did play much. Anyway, we got our *sses handed to us by the other shorter, but quicker and much more practiced team. I think we lost by 30 points…not pretty. We had potential though, and I think with any practice at all we could have made a much better showing.
I think I scored 2 or 4 points, grabbed a handful of boards, made some blocks and maybe had an assist or two. My other contributions were getting called for 3-second violations, double-dribbling, and other brain-dead fouls. Ugh. From a sporting perspective it was embarrassing. I got winded quickly. As evidenced by my lack of scratches and claw marks (that all my American friends received, including the women’s teammates) I was not nearly as aggressive as I should have been. Afterwards, I could tell that my body was going to be very sore very soon. So after grabbing a quick shao bing (Chinese sandwich) I headed back to my apartment and proceeded to stretch myself thoroughly on the ol’ therm-a-rest, which is playing the part of my yoga mat. I expect to sleep quite soundly tonight and we’ll see tomorrow if I did enough stretching. Seriously, though, where is the hot tub when you need it?
At the time of this writing, my beloved Oakland A’s have made it to the American League Championship Series where they are down 1 game (in a best of 7) to the scrappy Detroit Tigers. One of my friends here is from Flint, MI and so is naturally a Tigers fan. If my boys go down to her team, I will never hear the end of it. Needless to say, I am thrilled that Oakland is doing so well. The excitement of my team being in the playoffs is almost too much for me to handle right now given that I can’t see any of the games on TV. I don’t think the Peace Corps would be amenable to sending me home on the off-chance I could score tickets to some games. When the A’s were in the playoffs a couple of years in a row (’00-’03) I went to some of those games at the Coliseum. I was actually at the game when Derek Jeter did his now-famous backhand flip to nail Jeremy Giambi at the plate and totally take the wind out of our sails. Of course from the leftfield nosebleeds, I had no idea what had happened…only that my guy was improbably out. They didn’t show a replay there at the stadium.
Anyway, I am forced to “watch” the games unfold online. I used to do this back home with the radio play-by-play on since I didn’t have cable and so couldn’t watch them on TV. Thanks to the magic of the internet and ESPN.com’s “Gamecast” I can track the game in real-time from the comfort of my PC. Now my boy Derek who teaches at a school about 1-1/2 hours from here somehow has ESPN at his apartment (along with BBC, Discovery, and 1 or 2 other English-speaking channels). So last week I made the trek out there and watched a Tiger’s-Yankees game and a Mets-Dodgers game live. They were on at 1:00 AM and 8:00 AM respectively.
My plan was to go out to his house last night so I could catch the A’s game this morning. The route involved at least 2 buses and I was almost sure how to do it. The trick was that I had to catch the final bus be 7:30 and I was starting at 6:30. Much wildness ensued. After my last class I hustled to the bus stop and was well on my way when a massive traffic jam stopped everything. After about 15 minutes of sitting idle, everyone on my bus stood up and walked off. I wasn’t sure if I should or even could stay and wait it out. So I hit the street as well. After getting past the snarled intersection, I ran several blocks looking for a bus stop that serviced the line I needed. As if I don’t get enough stares normally (for being white) now I was jogging (without proper running clothes) through the streets with a backpack…my hair and Ipod headphone wires flailing to and fro. I’m sure I had a frantic or at least puzzled look on my face as I weaved through the people, bikes, motorcycles, cars, busses…always the wrong bus.
I finally found the bus I needed, the “1.” I jumped in and we sped off in what I assumed was the right direction (it was). There was still time on the clock, but I got off a few blocks too soon! I remembered I was supposed to get off when I saw a Bank of China branch. What I didn’t remember was that there are Bank of China’s seemingly every block in downtown Lanzhou. I ended up getting to the designated spot about 10 minutes too late. I figured maybe the bus was running late so I hung out and waited about a half hour. No dice. A little dejected I went across the street to “Homeworld” which is a massive department store/grocery store for a little retail therapy. After dropping a surprising amount of currency, I left and grabbed a bus heading back home. I knew the buses couldn’t take me all the way home at this hour, but I wanted to go for a while so the inevitable cab ride wouldn’t be so expensive.
I got off somewhere else downtown (I’m still getting used to the lay of the land). My next task was to find a bank so I could get enough cash to pay for my ride home. Wouldn’t you know it? Now that I need one, I can’t find a bank anywhere. So I walked – in the right direction at least – for what seemed like forever. In addition to my backpack, I was weighed down with four fairly heavy bags of groceries (including two bottles of wine, a cast iron skillet, and various jars of whatnot). Earlier, on the bus, one of these bags saw fit to leap from my hand and disperse its contents onto the floor. Since I was hemmed in by the ever-present throng of bus passengers and couldn’t get to my wayward belongings, I had to rely on the efforts of a Good Samaritan to help me out. Did I mention that my hand was bleeding also? Yeah, on this same bus ride I made an off-balance grab of a handle to keep myself from toppling over and scraped the hell out of the knuckle of my right middle finger.
I suppose alls well that ends well. I found the bank, got my money, and got into a cab promptly. I came home, put all my goodies away, and even had the wherewithal to whip up some macaroni and cheese. No, Homeworld doesn’t carry it, but my folks were good enough to include some boxes of it in the care package. Of course since butter is more scarce than a baby Panda here in China, I had to substitute yogurt (peach). Still, it was delicious.
I got up this morning to “watch” the baseball game. Rare is the morning that I get up before 8 when I don’t have a class forcing the issue. But I did today. Even with all of my sacrifices, the A’s couldn’t pull off a victory. So, my dear Athletics: for game 2, if I promise to make it to Derek’s house and watch you on ESPN like a good boy, could you please win?
Current Music: Aerosmith - Pandora's Box
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04:38 pm
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A long holiday & some mail
Written 10/07/06
Today marks the official end of the autumn festival holiday. The university has been closed this last week in recognition of National day and the mid-autumn celebration. National day commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) back in ’49. I believe last night was the harvest moon which I commemorated with a trip up a tiny hill right by my apartment building. There I sat on an outdoor stairwell and gazed longingly at the full moon while listening to Neil Young’s hauntingly beautiful tune “Harvest Moon” on my Ipod. When I first sat the clouds didn’t allow me to see the moon, only a scattering of light on this chilly October eve, hinting as it was at the bitingly cold months that approach. By the end of the song the moon had peaked out and shown me her bold, pale surface. We stared at each other, both unmoving as the clouds drifted by, hurriedly going nowhere special.
I have had a gloriously lazy time of this vacation. Hard to believe that after just three weeks of school we get a full week off, but that’s how they roll here in China. Because of a Peace Corps restriction, I couldn’t really travel out of my city. I wasn’t quite as productive as I’d hoped to be but managed to spend quite a bit of time with my local buddies and even some out-of-towners who came out to visit us. For the pile of us in the Gansu province, Lanzhou is the place to be if you want to see other Americans and PC folk. We spent a few nights hanging out in colleague Pierce’s apartment sipping wine, playing cards, giving massages (mostly me), and watching movies. We traveled around the city endlessly by bus trying to find certain hard-to-find items. I split a huge block of mozzarella with some friends and managed to find basil and garlic salt as well (all very rare in these parts).
Speaking of rarities, the weeklong festivities kicked-off (for me) with a couple of eagerly anticipated care packages. Last Friday I received my first bit of mail at my Wai-Ban’s (foreign affairs) office from my boy Dave back in Santa Rosa. He sent me the new Tom Petty CD, a Jimmy Eat World T-shirt, a slinky, and a baseball card book. Needless to say I was thrilled to enjoy the new TP songs, but even more it was touching to get an envelope full of love from home. The next morning my Wai Ban buddy called to say that another box had arrived and to ask me for a favor. The favor was to help a student (whose Mom works for the education department) to edit his personal statement for his grad school application. This bright young man is trying to go to a university in England to further study Economics. His spoken English was passable but, like so many of his peers, his writing skills leave something to be desired. The teacher and editor in me wanted to make suggestions and send him off to re-write it himself. But the realist in me saw that approach would take forever and not yield especially brilliant results. So I sat with him for two hours at a computer and slowly went through the document asking questions and making edits as I saw fit. I think the essay is quite nice now but I wonder how much he learned. Oh well.
The real excitement of that last Saturday afternoon was what happened next: my other mail parcel. My folks had taken a huge box of goodies that I prepared, put in some of their own additions, and sent it to me. Forty pounds, one week, and an ungodly price-tag later it reached me here in Lanzhou. My young friend helped me hump the damn thing across campus and up the six flights of stairs to my apartment – no small feat. After getting him some water and a comfortable seat, I ripped into the box. It was like Christmas in September: a ton of my sexy warm clothes, shoes (including a brand-new pair of Asics running shoes which I put to use the next day), food, books, and whatnot. My parents threw in various food items that I asked for and will eat happily. My sister Laura included some thoughtful gifts as well.
Current Music: Matchbox 20 - Bent
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10:48 pm
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Neighbors, Strangers, & Phone Number
Written 09/26/06 & 09/27/06
Just got done watching “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey with neighbor Joanne (her English name). It’s a cute movie and hopefully interesting enough for her. I went ahead and put the Chinese subtitles on so she could actually follow along. Afterwards we went through my picture books – always a fun activity with new friends. She thinks I have had a lot of girlfriends, but I don’t really think so. I think I have had an appropriate amount (somewhere between 2-4) given my 13+ years of dating history.
Joanne lives across the “courtyard” from me (the courtyard is undecorated tile flooring which lies three floors below, so really she lives across the chasm from me). An anomaly for a resident of this campus, she is neither teacher nor student. She is working part-time at the library and studying for the entrance exam to graduate school which is coming up in February. Cutely enough, we have shared a few meals and shopping trips with each other. Let me just say it is very helpful to have a Chinese person in tow when it comes time to make purchases. It’s all about the bargaining (jian jia) here. The merchants pretty much expect that you will haggle over the price and as a Lao Wei (foreigner) I suspect I may be quoted inflated prices up front. Anyway, today I was returning some crappy speakers which I was using for my computer and Ipod. They had a tinny sound and worse yet one of the little satellite speakers didn’t work at all. So I was gritting my teeth and listening to songs without one of the two channels. Not mono, mind you, but without half the sound. Anyway, we not only got full credit, but I bought a new speaker set-up that is totally sweet. She managed to jian-jia it from 218 yuan (about $27) down to 155 yuan (about $19). Nice. Once I got the speakers back home and hooked them up I have been playing music (loudly) all day. It makes all the difference in my mood here in my apartment. Yesterday I was trying to decide whether my next purchase should be a toaster over or a DVD player. How silly of me. Today I realized that what I really needed was a quality sound system…so that’s what I got.
As I left my apartment earlier this evening to head out and get some chicken and peppers over rice, I had the feeling for the first time that I actually live here. Really, I do. I guess it’s about right that I have this realization now, two and a half weeks after moving in here. Interestingly, I have already had dinner with three of my neighbors and met/visited a few more still. At my last apartment in Oakland, in a year a half’s time, I set foot in a total of four neighbors’ apartments. I never shared a meal nor spent any significant time with any of them. What does that tell us? I’m not sure, but I am enjoying the hospitality and friendliness of the people here. I am also enjoying my “rock-star” status.
An interesting thing happens when new acquaintances ask me my age. I’m not ashamed to say I am 32, but it seems nobody believes me. Well, that is nobody in their 20’s believes me – people closer to my age don’t have any trouble accepting it. I’m not sure how to take it when someone tells me I look “good for my age” or that I don’t “act my age.” What is an early-30’s guy supposed to act like? Am I immature? Young at heart? Somehow freakish or unwanted because I am not married yet? It’s strange and I don’t know how to respond. Lately I’ve been going with some combination of “you flatter me” and “I use good moisturizer.”
Maybe the issue is that when one is in their 20’s, the 30’s seem very far off and mysterious. I’m trying to think if I, a handful of years ago, imagined that people older than 30 wore their age on their face. Maybe I did. Certainly now I wear my age more and more, but apparently not enough for these whippersnappers. I guess if I had short (and/or receding) hair, more conservative clothes, and a more “grown-up” attitude I wouldn’t be met with incredulous looks when I say my age. Oh well. To use one of Philena’s expressions: it’s an elegant problem to have.
Speaking of incredulous stares, I’ve certainly had many more of them in my 3 months here in China than ever before in my life. Some people, on seeing a Lao Wai (foreigner), look as if they’ve seen a ghost. I understand that white people are totally fish out of water here, but still my puritan sensibilities are offended with the unabashed gawking. The vast majority of them are not being rude – at least by Chinese standards – it is not considered rude here for intense gazes to linger. These folks are just uncontrollably curious. We were primed for this in training, but it is still feels slightly uncomfortable everyday. So I am getting to know a little bit of what it feels like to be an outsider, an “other.” Growing up in the suburbs of LA in California, there were not a whole lot of people that looked very different from me. Did I stare when I saw a black person? Probably. Did I treat Asians, Mexicans, Indians, and other outsiders differently? Yes, I think a little bit. Even after adopting a cautious, politically-correct outlook during my undergraduate days (’92-’96), I approached people of color differently. For me it was a function of not having any real relationship with anyone with whom I could work through my own awkwardness and self-consciousness. It was not until graduate school (’99-’02) that I could begin counting African Americans as friends. Truly connecting with and collaborating with people who have very different backgrounds from me was probably my most important lesson during my Master’s program.
And what of people who were more starkly different in appearance: midgets, albinos, amputees? These folks go through their whole life and no matter where they are, most people look at them and form judgments and opinions based solely on appearance. In the grand scheme of things, me (a tall, healthy, slim, white-looking young man), being stared at by a few local Chinese people each day is another elegant problem.
And now for a completely different topic: I finally have my own dian hua (telephone). A number of days ago I received my first phone call from America when Joey gave me a jingle. So here is the low-down:
Dial the international access code for US - 011
Dial the country code for China - 86
Dial my "area code" - 931
Dial my number - 7970803
So that's 011-86-931-7970803. If you find a more efficient way to dial me, please post a comment here. I understand there are some very good deals to be had on calling cards there in the US. I am 15 hours ahead of those in California (Pacific time). So if it is 11:00 PM here in China, it is 8:00 AM there in CA. I would love to hear from folks, but send me an email first so I can be sure to be home for the call!
Current Music: Rush - The Trees
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09:12 pm
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The Golden Girls & reflections on a party
Written 09/18/06
Like everything else in this apartment, my laptop is developing a tenacious layer of dust. The air here in the northwest corner of Lanzhou is palpably dirty. I welcome the wet days like the one we had last week for they temporarily knock the crap out of the air and I can feel good about opening the windows to air this place out. Sadly, dusting is one of the household cleaning chores that I never quite took to. That one, wiping down the kitchen counters, and scrubbing up the toilet bowl are my least favorites. Ironic that those are the top three most important tasks for keeping this place live-able.
Those who have been here assure me that when the winter really kicks into gear I will not be pleased. September is barely half through and it is already long-sleeve shirt (&/or sweater) weather. I guess the temperature will wallow in the teens (Fahrenheit) and lower far long after the novelty of cold has worn off. Being a California boy, I’ve never really had to deal with a bitingly cold winter. When I lived in Sonoma County, we had some rainy seasons, but never anything chilly enough to warrant an honest-to-goodness winter coat. As of this writing I am still waiting for my box of “winter” and auxiliary clothes to arrive from America. It will be nice to have my sports coats and whatnot so I can look like a legitimate university teacher. But I will still have to go out and get my hands on at least some gloves, thermal undies, and a long coat. During early summer of this year when I was traipsing around sunny southern California, it was hard to take seriously my task of shoring up the winter clothes collection. I may regret that.
So I am into my second week of teaching. My schedule is not especially demanding (I have four hours of classes four days a week) so today I enjoyed a leisurely afternoon nap like so many of my Chinese neighbors do. I don’t think it will be a good idea for me to nap every afternoon since I am so undisciplined at getting out of bed once I am in it…but I have to say, today’s was extremely pleasant.
My biggest classroom challenge is going to be finding a way to make the four phonetics (pronunciation) classes interesting. Today we did some reading, listen and repeat drills, partner practice, and sentence writing. It was fun enough I suppose, but I am worried that either the students or I will get bored if I don’t keep creative activities forthcoming. At the same time I have to cover this dry content. My students are for the most part attentive. The main issue is keeping the cross-talk and chit-chat to a minimum when I am trying to listen to a single student.
Almost all of my 200 or so students are freshmen. So this is their first time living away from mom and dad. This means something different than what it means in America. Back home, college-age kids are thrilled to be away from the rules of home and immediately begin partying like its 1999. Although I am not sure what college kids did before 1982 when Prince released “1999.” I guess they tried to emulate “Animal House” or something. Anyway, here in China the freshmen miss their folks and visit them as often as they can. They don’t stay out late. They don’t party. They don’t jump straight away into ill-advised sexual relationships. I’m not exactly sure how to explain this difference. Culturally there is a very strong study ethic instilled from an early age. Respect and responsibility to the family is paramount. Being irresponsible doesn’t seem to be on their radar screen. In the class I taught in the summer I had a long talk with my students about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. They said they don’t really have parties and when I asked them why, they told me they have nowhere to host. And these were seniors! Somehow shoe-horning a dozen sweaty teenagers into a tiny dorm-room and drinking themselves silly isn’t appealing to them. Either that or they’re scared of getting caught and punished. It almost makes me feel embarrassed thinking about my own college-age shenanigans.
I imagine my freshmen will be starting out the term fresh, motivated, and focused. Once they get the lay of the land, though, those attributes may become scarce. Here’s the ironic twist to what you read in the above paragraph: apparently some college students here hardly ever go to class and then show up to take the final at the end of the semester…and pass. I read in China Daily (the one English language rag here) recently one university is requiring students to carry cards and literally clock-in to the class in order to curb absenteeism. I’m not sure how that’s any different than the teacher taking roll, but it is still somehow encouraging to me.
After my morning class today one of my students invited me to have dinner with her and her friend tonight. At this point in my residency at Northwest Normal University (read: the very beginning) I am saying “yes” to all invitations. There may come a time when I will have to set firmer boundaries for my time – especially with students outside of class – but we are not there yet. Besides, it takes a tremendous amount of courage for the student to do this, and I don’t want to shut them down.
Anyway, when I met her at the designated time and place, she apologized and said she had to run off to a meeting, but her friend was still interested in having dinner with me. It turns out this other youngster is not even in any of my classes, but was so excited about the opportunity to converse with a foreign teacher that she sprinted halfway across campus to meet with me. I guess this sort of moment captures the essence of why we Peace Corps folk are in China. The motivated English learners here are starving to work with native speakers. So in accordance with the first mission of Peace Corps (unchanged since 1961: To help the people of interested countries meet their needs for trained men and women), we are here doing language training. As for me, I had some tasty Muslim food and wonderful conversation with my new friend. She was tremendously talkative and outgoing, so I bestowed on her the English name of “Shy.” She actually understood the irony.
Speaking of bestowing American names, I did that with a vengeance last week. Most of these students have been taking English lessons for about 6 years (grades 6-12) and so already have English names. But one way or another many of them don’t, or don’t like the ones they have. That’s where I step in. Since about 90% of my students are girls (an interesting quirk of the English department) I have to mostly come up with girl’s names. One class I had to come up with about 15 or so girl’s names right on the spot. It’s tempting but ultimately creepy to name them after ex-girlfriends. Besides, that particular path of personal history is lined with some wacky monikers (Philena? Key? Gisella?). I don’t have the heart to give them really outlandish names, but I also can’t stand to be too conventional. Sometimes I name them after colors or whatever pops into my head when I look at them. But mostly I fall back on names of my favorite rocker chicks. I’ve named girls after the ladies in the Go-Go’s (Belinda, Charlotte, Jane), Heart (Ann, Nancy), and the Runaways (Joan, Lita). In one class I even had some fun with the names of the Golden Girls (Dorothy, Blanche, Rose).
Written 09/20/06
I’m just relaxing here at my place in the middle of my mid-week weekend. I have no classes between 6:30 on Tuesday and 2:30 on Thursday. Earlier today I went out with my neighbor and new friend Joanne into downtown Lanzhou to see if we could get some shopping done. I am in the market for some warm clothes, some artistic whatnot to hang on the walls, paint for those same barren walls, and a foam cushion for my bed. This apartment came with a bed which is fine, just with a slim and rock-hard mattress. I have been sleeping with my therm-a-rest (sleep pad) placed on the bed which has worked fine so far. But, really, I needed the foam. After looking all over this city for several hours, we found the foam in the hardware/house ware wholesale alley of Anning…right around the corner. After some intense bargaining, I paid 120 yuan ($15 USD) for my slab of what they call “sponge.” I came home, slapped it on the bed, and rocked a short nap. Yeah, I think it’s going to work.
Oh, and I bought a pink dress shirt and a nail buffer today as well. More than this, I got a chance to see some of the key shopping districts and how to get there. My apartment continues to look make small strides in terms of looking more like…my home. I know I have only lived here 10 days, but I want it to look spiffy right now!
As I look outside my windows (in the kitchen and the bedroom) I can see some low and parched mountains. It’s 6:30 on Wednesday and the sun is tossing its evening warmth onto them. A glance down towards the street shows the hustle and bustle of throngs of people going about their business. Street vendors are selling their wares. One can get their hands on everything from fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, clothes, kitchen and household bric-a-brac.
I just finished watching “Hero” starring Dustin Hoffman and Geena Davis. Now that it’s over I decided to pop on some background music and pick up my novel “On Beauty” by Zadie Smith, freshly borrowed from site-mate and downstairs neighbor Katie. After a couple of songs, the ipod random gods popped up a voice-memo. Sol and Shannon gave me an attachment that allows for spoken word to be recorded directly into the little machine. So the night of my Northern California going-away party we tried it out and recorded 45-minutes worth of party banter. The cast included Sol, Shannon, Allan, Ashley, Rick, Amy, and me. After a few minutes of discussing ALF, we’ve moved into playing “5000” which is a silly dice-rolling game. Although it is the waning hours of the evening and the party, we’re all still energetic and delivering plenty of shtick.
I’ve been avoiding listening to this because I thought sounds of the game might be boring or that perhaps 43 minutes of un-sober shenanigans wouldn’t make sense 3 months after the fact. I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised and enjoying all of the laughter and BS'ing taking place on here. Luckily I am not talking too much since I really don’t like listening to the sound of my recorded voice. I suppose if I were in a bad mood or just feeling homesick that listening to this wouldn’t be a good idea. But it is bringing a big smile to my face. Especially just then when Ashley gave Rick shit for falling asleep. Oh bless. I hope when I get home in two years that we are still this funny for each other.
Current Music: Peter Gabriel - The Barry Williams Show
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11:35 am
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Quick update on site arrival
Written 09/11/06 and 09/14/06
I’m sitting here and so much has happened since I last updated that I don’t really know where to start. Let’s start with today. I have been living in my place in the teacher’s apartment complex at Northwest Normal University for about 2 days now. My classes are comprised of all freshmen and today was their first day of classes. Apparently they have compulsory military drills and so begin their semester two weeks after the rest of the school. That’s nice since I got here (from training) two weeks late as well. It’s been wild to watch all of these young people marching around campus in their camouflage outfits. They provide a stark juxtaposition to their civilian schoolmates who are trying to be as hip as possible with their fashion statements.
I was told to be prepared for some disorganization and late notice when it comes to school administration. It came true. As of last night (Sunday) I didn’t know my teaching schedule for the upcoming week (and semester for that matter). Someone from my foreign affairs office called to say that I don’t have class Monday morning and to come in to the office in the AM and get my schedule. When I came in I found out that indeed I did have a Monday morning class and had missed it. Oops.
Today I met with my dean and got the books I will be using and my schedule. Basically I have 8 classes for a total of 16 teaching hours per week. I’ve got four oral English classes and four “Phonetics” classes. I guess phonetics is basically the nuances of pronunciation, tone, accent, etc. I’ve got two classes per day everyday but Wednesday when I have nothing. That mid-week break is kind of nice, but I have to admit I would’ve liked having Monday or Friday as the off day instead. All in all it’s not too grueling a schedule. I only have to write two lesson plans a week, but I may get bored by the time I have taught the same thing four times in just a few days.
Settling in to living in my pad is going slow but sure. As of Tuesday I have a phone line(!) and am still waiting for my internet to get hooked up. More details to follow for how to call me here if you want to give it a whirl.
Everything else here in the apartment is approaching OK except the kitchen. My kitchen is pretty dysfunctional. No stove, no oven, no microwave…not a single luxury. The only thing I have with which to apply heat to food is a hot plate. I figure I will be eating most of my meals out here in the beginning, but the kitchen will have to be addressed soon.
The other day I did a thorough sweeping and mopping of my floors here. I have what looks like hardwood floors. I guess that’s what they are, but I get the feeling that it’s more of a laminate than actual wood. Concrete underneath. Hard floors throughout is preferable to having carpets or rugs. So much nasty stuff gets tracked indoors, I think I’d just as soon see what I’m dealing with rather than have it fester in a carpet forever. Much like my Chinese friends, I am implementing a “no shoes” policy inside my place. I bought a plastic rack to fling my shoes on and set that right by my front door.
***
I found out that I scored Intermediate-Low on my Language Proficiency test. Yay, me! That is the minimum score we were expected to get. Not quite everyone made it to that level and to be honest, I didn’t think I would either.
Current Music: Thelonius Monk - Japenese Folk Song
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04:18 pm
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End of training, banquet, host-family letter
Written 09/02/06
Just five days till my 32nd birthday! Coincidentally, Friday is also “swear-in” day for us Peace Corps trainees. There is a Peace Corps oath that we swear to and then we officially become volunteers.
Yesterday (Friday) was probably the most eventful day of my time here so far. It started with our “Language Proficiency Interviews” (LPI). To keep things fair, the staff brought in a couple of outside language teachers to chat with each of us (in Chinese) for about 15-20 minutes. I was anxious about it since I am still struggling with this language. I felt I could come up with enough things to say in my broken Chinglish, but was worried that I may not be able to understand the questions. In the end I guess I did ma ma hu hu (OK). I answered the questions while making some semblance of sense and I managed to even ask a few of my own. Reflecting on it later, I realized that I had quite a bit of prepared verbiage that I didn’t get a chance to speak. Oh well. I doubt that I made the “Intermediate – Low” level that we were expected to. If that is the case, I think the fallout is that I am required to get a tutor at site, which I was planning on doing anyway.
Learning this language, whether in training or during the two years of living and teaching at the college, is a function of individual commitment. Among the 22 trainees I’ve been learning with, there is a wide spectrum of commitment to getting Hanyu (spoken Chinese) down. I guess I’m not at the very bottom amongst us learners, nor am I a superstar. I do want to be able to speak with the folks in my community, but apparently I don’t want it quite bad enough or I would have studied more.
The LPI was followed by a nice lunch at a restaurant with a few of my buddies and teachers. After lunch, all of us filed into our conference room to do the group reflection and feedback as we do every Friday. This functionally marked the end of our training. Afterwards, to celebrate, a few of us bought some cold beers and sat in a garden on campus and enjoyed them. It had been a draining day…and week for that matter. It was lovely to relax and chit-chat without worry as the sun lazily slid west, our pagoda marking the passage of afternoon to early evening like an oversized sundial.
But the day was not quite over. We still had a banquet that night with our host-families, and frankly, I was excited about it. I took the 20-minute walk through campus and huge apartment complex back to my house and got there around 4:00. I didn’t have quite enough time for a nappy-pappy, but I did enjoy a shower. Sadly, that flooded the bathroom. I guess almost two months of not being very conscientious about my hair during shampoo/conditioning time took their toll on the drain in the shower. The set-up of my shower is such that when it doesn’t drain quick enough, the extra water flows out of the enclosure and passes discreetly behind the (blessedly western) toilet and into a centralized bathroom floor drain. For most of my time here, this is what was happening. But I guess I managed to gunk up that second drain and so the whole room was becoming a pond. I asked for some help from Ping, my host grandpa’s wife. Messes don’t faze her and she promptly lept into the mess with a poker to clear the drains.
After the drama was over and I was done profusely thanking my savior I got back to the business at hand, namely getting dressed for the banquet. I had rented something special for the occasion and was looking forward to showing it off. Last week as part of a culturally-enriching field-trip, we had all gone down to the garment district of Chengdu. Several of my colleagues placed orders to have some authentic formal Chinese clothes made for them to wear during the swear-in ceremony. With the help of our beloved Wu Laoshi (teacher), snappy friend Derek and I rented some fairly outrageous costumes. His outfit was that of a Tibetan shepherd and I’m not exactly sure what mine was. My teacher says it would most likely be used in plays or performances. The get-up involved a floor length black skirt trimmed with red at the bottom. The top was sleeveless and red with snazzy designs. It left my midriff bare. Hmmm, wish I had been doing more ab-work lately. To top if all off I had a hat that featured a rhino-like horn in the front with a red tassel hanging down off of it. Suffice it to say that everyone who saw it last night was duly shocked and impressed. When I entered the banquet hall with my host family, I received a spontaneous standing ovation. When Derek arrived in his colorful and similarly outrageous outfit a bit later, we posed and shutterbugs flocked to us like paparazzi to Tom and Katie. This group loves taking pictures. Everyone wanted to record the moment and/or pose with us. No joke, I doubt I will have this many pictures taken of me in one night ever again, including when/if I get married.
My host grandpa, dad, 2 little brothers, and great-aunt joined me for the festivities. Sadly, Yanjie couldn’t come with us as she had to work late again. The other 21 trainees brought various family members. So with our teachers and staff it was a fairly big group. Speeches were made, drinks were gan-bei’d (toasted), and a ton of food was eaten. As is usually the case, the table I sat at couldn’t come close to finishing the mountain of food we were served (family-style, of course). A key cultural difference between the US and China involves the amount of food served at dinner…especially at the banquets. If ever there wasn’t enough food, the host would suffer tremendous embarrassment. So these restaurants end up with huge piles of uneaten food after each meal. I guess that happens at restaurants in America too, the difference is what happens next. In America the leftovers are thrown away, which makes us feel a twinge of guilt when we order way too much and can’t finish it. Not so here. I am told the leftover food is corralled up and used as feed for local livestock. I guess pigs will eat anything. So there you go, no guilt.
After dinner was over, host-family members were invited to come up and tell cute/funny stories about their trainees. The stories and all other announcements were translated so that everyone could enjoy. I encouraged someone from my family to get up there and to my extreme pleasure, my nine-year old brother went for it. He recounted a story from when we all went up to Qingcheng mountain a month or so ago. There was a river winding through the area and vacationers had a chance to navigate a raft around a calm and shallow part of the river. The raft was simply some bamboo lashed together much like the “pig-raft” I described in an earlier chapter, except without the inflated animal skins. Bamboo is very strong and buoyant so it works well as a little boat. Three of my family members were on the raft and beckoned me to join them. As soon as I got on, my weight made the raft drop down a foot or two till it was resting on the bottom of the riverbed. It was hilarious and we all had a good laugh while the water curled around our calves. Basically we needed to have less people on the thing for it to work. The crowd enjoyed the story.
Next was a ten-minute or so slideshow featuring pictures of us trainees and teachers with our host-families. In a nod to integration, the organizers chose a couple of songs that are real big here: John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads,” The Carpenter’s “Yesterday Once More,” and S.H.E.’s “Superstar.” S.H.E. is a Chinese group and their song is pretty rockin’. I didn’t have to come all the way to China to embrace JD or the Carps, but I cannot escape “Yesterday Once More.” That damn song is everywhere! Every I have done karaoke here, someone sings it (I admit sometimes it’s me). It just seems to waft out onto the street from unexpected sources. But I digress. The slideshow was very sweet and enjoyed by all. I had put a few in there of my host family and me. I think the best picture of me is from when a some classmates and I where making jiao-zi (dumplings) from scratch at our teacher’s place. As usual it was roasting that day, so I stripped down to my “wife-beater” t-shirt. In the picture, I am hunched over the counter mixing up the dough. I’m sweaty, hot, sporting crazed hair and an un-amused expression. Good times. Yes, Marco, I’ll get it posted on this site.
My favorite part of the night was running around the banquet hall and grounds with my xiao didi (little younger brother), the four-year-old. We were looking for our other brother some of the time. At other points I was just showing him off because he is so cute. When we went by their table, classmates Danielle and Steve commented that I am a “future stay-at-home dad.”
Written 09/03/06
The last part about Friday night I want to share is the after-party at the local karaoke spot which my teacher and I invited quite a few people to. Derek and I continued to sport our fabulous costumes. The group was huge and everybody seemed to have a good time in our private room. It was a little bittersweet for me since I really like karaoke and the spots here don’t have a great selection of English songs. I did successfully kick out the “Careless Whisper” and “Always On My Mind” jams, though.
Once the party started dying down and the other Americans were heading home for the night, a couple of us decided it was a good idea to check out the parties in some of the other private rooms. So we went in and danced and had a beer with our karaoke neighbors. They were happy to have us with them for a spell. By the time the night was over we had made three sets of spontaneous new friends, using our brave new Chinese to toast to our friendship. It was a night of extensive integration and merry-making.
As I type this it is about 3:30 on Sunday afternoon. In a few short hours I will be heading out to a celebratory birthday dinner with my host family and teacher. It should be quite fun and also marks one of the last meals we’ll all have together. I am leaving their house on Tuesday morning. So between now and then there will be laundry, consolidation, and packing of my crapola.
Since my teacher will be with us tonight, I wrote up a letter to my family for her to translate. I just wanted to share a few sentiments with them so they know how grateful and touched I am by what they have done for me.
To My Chinese Family,
While I am glad to start my new adventure as an English teacher in Lanzhou, I am sad to have to say zaijian to you. During the time that I lived with you here in Chengdu, you taught me new meanings for hospitality and kindness. I appreciated all of the warmth you had for me and genuine interest you took in what I was doing. When I would speak of you to my friends, they were jealous. I am lucky to have had your beautiful home to live in.
Chen Bi Yu, my new grandmother, I thank you for being so generous as to give me your bedroom for two months. You are a wise and benevolent elder to this loving family. With you around, everything seems to get done properly.
Yu Dao Yi, my new grandfather, I relished eating your delicious cooking each night! I wish you could come to my new home so I can continue to enjoy the food. It was a joy to hear your laughter and see your smile as well. I see your love for your family in everything you do.
Yang Xiao Ping, my new friend, I admire your dedication to the children. I know the family sometimes teases you for being fat, but I say it is not true, you are beautiful. Thank you for so diligently cleaning my clothes and for making the room brighter with your laughter.
Chen Bi Qun, my new aunt, you were always so wonderful to have around. I know you are the funniest one. Even though I can’t understand your jokes, you make everybody laugh. Thank you for always making the effort to try to talk to me.
Guo Zhi Yi, you are my da didi (big younger brother). When I first met you I was worried you might be too serious, but then I saw your playful side and it made me smile. I can see you are a good older brother to your didi and this touches my heart since I have a didi who is five years younger than me. Thank you for always eating breakfast with me when you would rather be sleeping. I enjoyed studying, playing games, and swimming with you.
Diao Yi Xuan, you are my xiao didi (small younger brother). I am so happy to play with you and have adventures in the pool with you. You honor me when you say I am your favorite person. My friends and I think you are so cute. We want to take you home to America to be our own child, but I think you will stay with your wonderful parents. I look forward to seeing you in a few years to see how you have grown.
Diao-gei (Diao brother), thank you for taking such good care of me. You always made me feel welcome here. You have taught me mah jiong and beat the landlord. I am impressed with your skill at driving through traffic and your dedication to your family. I enjoyed watching lan qiu with me. I also think you are more handsome than the other Chinese men I have seen.
Yan-jie (Yan sister), from the first day we met you made me feel like part of your family. You brought me into your life whether it was putting pieces of meat in my bowl or taking me out to drink beer with your friends. You are always so lively and fun-loving. I think you make everyone who comes to your home feel welcome and loved. Thank you for all of your effort to communicate with me in Chinese and help me with my studies. And of course you are beautiful.
Dear family, by offering your friendship and love, you have done so much for me. Without you, these two months would have been so much more difficult. I will always hold you in my heart.
Love, Thomas
A few hours later…
Dinner was wonderful. They told me they were taking me to an American BBQ, though where we actually ended up was an honest to goodness German Hof Brau. This place was complete with silly prints of old and fat German guys eating and drinking. There was a tasty buffet that included actual salad (good raw vegetables are scarce here), desserts, and assorted traditional Chinese fare. But the real exciting part was the people coming around with skewers of assorted meat which they sliced off directly onto our plates. I had beef, chicken, shrimp, fish, and some incredible BBQ pork. It was enjoyable and very unexpected.
Wu Laoshi (my teacher) accompanied us to dinner. Before we headed out I asked her if she would be willing to verbally translate the above letter and read it out loud while we were all together. It was too loud and crazy inside the restaurant to try it there, so all 8 of us (Xiao didi was not with us because he’s sick) huddled into the mini-van and there my heart was poured out to my family through the lips of Wendy Wu.
It was one of those moving and wholly unique moments. The women and I shed a few tears and Yanjie told me she doesn’t want me to leave. After just two months we’re so attached to each other. We made plans for me to come back down here to their place in Chengdu for the Spring Festival. Schools are closed for this week-long party and they insist that it is important for families to be together for it. I’m certainly gonna try.
Current Music: Elton John - Believe
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10:22 pm
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Care Packages & other lists
Written 08/27/06
I am eagerly awaiting the first of what I hope will be many “care packages” which my Mom says she mailed out over two weeks ago. It’s not a care package in the traditional sense since I put the box together myself before I left California. It’s my winter clothes and other assorted bric-a-brac that I didn’t really have room to bring. It should arrive any day now unless it is literally on the slow boat…to China.
I am a little worried that I will struggle with all of the stuff I have to schlep on a train from Chengdu to Lanzhou when I go there for good in two weeks. In addition to my huge backpack, small backpack, and feichang da (extremely big) rolling purple bag; I think I will end up with a box or two. In other words I probably can’t physically carry everything myself, not with any grace anyway. The purple bag, by the way, is a big hit with my colleagues here. It has a leash that I pull it with. Fellow trainee Kristen decided we need to name the thing. So we came up with zi se gou (purple dog).
Apparently my boy Tom Petty has released a new CD. I knew it was coming soon, but I feel somehow cheated that the album and tour are happening right when I first get here. Sadly, I don’t think the tour bus will make it to Central China. Not wanting to leave things to chance I have instructed Dave to send me care package #2 with the new disc “Highway Companion” and some other articles. This will be Petty’s first tour in almost 10 years that I am not going to see. Here’s the rundown on my 6 Petty experiences:
Year – venue – companion – album being supported
1991 – Forum/LA – Matt Smith – Into the Great Wide Open
1995 – Shoreline/San Jose – Chris – Wildflowers
1999 – Shoreline/San Jose – Sol, Shannon, Chris, Matthew (somehow) – Echo
1999 – Shoreline/San Jose – alone – Echo
2002 – Chronicle Pavilion/Concord – Dave & Sophie – The Last DJ
2005 – Greek Theater/Berkeley – Joey – no new album
Wasn’t that fun? What can I say, I’m a big fan. I was in the shower the other day going over the bands I have seen most in my lifetime. Petty shares the top spot (6) with Depeche Mode and REO Speedwagon. I know, it’s an unlikely trio. Aerosmith gets honorable mention with 5 concerts.
But let’s get back to the care package idea. Let’s just say that receiving American goodies over here is a euphoric experience. If opening up email is blissful, then opening up “snail mail” is a f**king miracle. I’ve been debating whether or not it is tasteful for me to do this and have decided to go for it and let you, dear reader, decide how classy it is or isn’t. So without further ado, here is Thomas’ official wish-list:
• Digital Camera (I don’t have any camera of my own!)
• A charger for a Philips Sonicare Elite toothbrush (I fried mine the first week and so cannot use my beloved electric toothbrush)
• Games (Trivial Pursuit, Apples to Apples, Taboo, etc. Matt, a bunch of these are tucked away in your garage)
• Magazines (any kind will do as I will use them in English classes)
• Pictures of you, scenic American calendars, postcards of your hometown (I will use these in class as well)
• Dry food goods (mac & cheese, dry soup, pasta, etc.)
• Mix CDs! (hip, new music or cheesy old stuff, its all good)
• Good books (I think I will be doing some serious reading and you can rest assured that several people will get around to each book)
• Oral-B Satin Tape (not the floss, but the tape)
And here is the address good immediately through June of 2008:
Thomas Rogers
International Cooperation and Exchange Division
Northwest Normal University
967 Anning Dong lu
Lanzhou, Gansu 730070
China (PRC)
These are things I just can’t get here. Of course no one should feel obligated to send me anything. But if you do…this may help you focus. Help me help you help me. Oh yeah, I like surprises, too. And I’m perfectly happy to accept hand-me-downs.
If you are going to hook up the camera or the charger, please post a comment here.
If you send magazines, books, or any other printed matter, ask for an “M” bag at the post office. It is much cheaper than the usual international rate.
Written 08/28/06
I was looking at the old calendar today and my days in Chengdu are numbered. I will live here in my host family’s house for exactly one more week, three nights in a hotel, then it is back on the bus and off to Lanzhou. I am excited to get up there and begin my teaching gig, I look forward to getting to know my new students.
A more pressing concern is this coming Friday which is the language proficiency interview (LPI). Like my last job (AT&T) and I imagine most organizations, the Peace Corps has a robust lexicon filled with acronyms. I am anxious about this exam. I am supposed to test at an “Intermediate – Low” level with spoken Mandarin. Somewhere in my paperwork I have the exact definition of what this means, but I can’t find it right now. Suffice it to say that it will be a stretch for me to be ranked at this level. I may get by with speaking but my listening, reading, and writing are all still very much beginner. I know the general themes that I will be asked about so I can use these last couple of days to study and practice that stuff…which is what I did today both with my teacher and with my host Mom.
So please, wish me luck on this. I go in on Friday at 3:00 (which is midnight Thursday/Friday for those of you in California).
Here’s a cute email survey that Dave sent me. I thought it might be fun. If anyone out there is interested in flinging out their own sets of four, feel free to post a comment here.
Four things you may (or may not) know about me:
4 jobs I have had in my life:
Dishwasher
Flower Delivery Guy
Waiter
Career Counselor
4 movies I would watch again:
Blazing Saddles
The Empire Strikes Back
Dirty Dancing
Sideways
4 places I have lived:
Chengdu, China!
Oakland, CA
Simi Valley, CA
A cruise ship in the Caribbean
4 TV shows
Simpsons
Action! (starring Jay Mohr, do yourself a favor and rent the first and only season)
Family Guy
Sledgehammer!
4 Vacations
Cairo, Egypt
Hawaii
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Lake Tahoe, CA
Good enough.
Current Music: Kool & The Gang - Get Down On It
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10:09 pm
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Basketball on TV, land of pick-up games
Written 08/24/06
Just got done watching the exciting (really, it was) conclusion of the China/Slovenia basketball game. Much like baseball did earlier this year, basketball is having an international tournament. I think it is taking place in Japan. I found out about the tourney earlier today in China Daily. Its an English language newspaper here in China which I enjoy looking over a couple times a week. On the two college campuses I’ve been on, there is a little courtyard with a few different newspapers splayed in these glass cases. I’ve seen this phenomenon in the states in men’s restrooms: the front page of USA Today’s sports section hanging above the urinal so we have something to entertain us for a few moments while we drain the main vein. Anytime I’ve ever passed these newspaper courtyards there’s always a few handfuls of people happily reading away. That’s one of the stark differences between the US and China: here there are always people around. If there is some activity going on in public you can be sure there will be lots of participants and spectators on hand. This is the land of pick-up games. Last week when I was in Lanzhou; Katie, Devon, Derek, and I enjoyed a solid 5 or 6 inning game of Whiffle Ball. Needless to say, Devon and I kicked some serious butt. What was especially encouraging for me were the dozen or so people who gathered around to watch. I knew something special was happening when I heard some of my shticky play-by-play banter parroted back to me from the fans. So perhaps my Whiffle Ball league idea isn’t just a pipe dream.
But back to the lanqiu (basketball) game…the family and I were relaxing in the living room (keting) and host Dad was flipping through the channels when he found the game. Seeing basketball on TV here was a trip, but very comforting. It was a distinctly American experience even though neither team featured any American players. The other thing that smacked of Americanism (besides watching basketball with my “Dad”) was that after a few minutes of sports energy filling the airspace, all of the women cleared out of the room
It was a fairly low-scoring contest, neither team scored over 80, and not because the defense was stellar if you know what I mean. The ball movement just wasn’t as crisp as I’m used to seeing. Even with Yao Ming, China trailed for most of the 2 quarters that I watched. In the waning moments of the 4th quarter, Slovenia took a 2-point lead with some 6 seconds on the clock. China’s in-bounded, Wang moved the ball quickly down the court and launched a three-pointer at the buzzer. It was good. Game over. I couldn’t help but get very excited. My little host country finally won a game in the tournament!
I’m fighting my second cold in about three weeks which is a total drag. The first one was a runny nose and this one is a sore throat. Today I had to co-lead a session on techniques for teaching writing to ESL students. It was cute when my voice cracked pubescently. I had my fellow trainees write haikus to try and get the creative juices flowing. The haiku poetry form is three lines following a strict syllable pattern: 5 syllables the first line, 7 for the second, and 5 again for the third. Mine follows:
“In the beginning
Of this Chinese adventure
We beat the landlord”
I think I discuss “Beat the Landlord” in a previous entry. It is a card game that is extremely popular with our dear Chinese hosts. All of us Americans have taken to it.
On my walk home after the afternoon session was over I considered taking a nap since I feel so crappy. Instead I decided to ride a late afternoon (shang wu) burst of energy and go for a run. I’m so glad I did. I feel physically tired and a little achy, but definitely rejuvenated. I think I’ll wrap this up now and head down to my special (albeit spotty) internet place and post this.
Current Music: Bedrock - Beautiful Strange
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