Hong Kong (and one naughty monkey!)

Once again it's taken me too long to get back to posting. I spent Christmas in Hong Kong with Uncle Brian and Aunt Beth. I flew into Shenzhen (the city in mainland China across from HKG) and crossed the border overland. Entering Hong Kong overland for the first time I finally got a sense that the region really was much bigger than the island plus Kowloon.

Eating constant Chinese food has gotten to me a lot less this time around and I haven't notices as much of a craving for western food. However, arriving in Hong Kong after awhile in China, one realizes it was there. Eating proper pizzas and burgers along with holiday home cooking is quite a treat after 3.5 months in China.

Anyway I spent most of the time hanging out with my aunt and uncle and relaxing. We went to a couple of parties where i was kind of the young guy but of course everyone was friendly and to someone who finds both Asia and business interesting it was fun to listen to the stories and discussions of all of the Hong Kong dwellers.

After one of our shopping trips we had a very friendly cab driver who was into practicing her English. She was really quite cheerful and was letting me know I needed coffee after hearing me yawn. Then she decided I needed strawberries because she had heard something on the radio about strawberries helping people to stay wakeful. Soon she was telling us how she was a 50 year old woman but when the music turns on she "just has to move" like a "naughty little monkey". I suppose I feel precisely the same way about dancing but I had to stifle my laughter at the whole thing while in the cab because it was just so ridiculous and random.

That's the story on Hong Kong. A new post will follow this one soon because I've just purchased a digital camera here and am putting together the basic photo tour of life and sights in Jilin.

A pre-departure post.

I think I was asked for a weather report for the area and failed to include it in our last post. Most days are cold, much like Minnesota this time of year though maybe a bit more of the biting wind to deal with. Often the weather report that comes to my friends' laptops reads "smoky" and often they're quite right. Some days we just breathe a thin haze of smoke. It's not a daily thing ever and the situation is way better than a lot of Chinese cities but it still is a little gross that there's literally smoke all over (from coal I imagine).

I'm getting different rumors now on what I'm teaching. Our bosses have told us nothing and seem to like telling us nothing while our students have had two conflicting schedules released to them. Some students are pretty sure I'm teaching them literature, while others are convinced that I'm teaching them technological English and a Bible/greek mythology class. The possibility that both are true is remote but it could happen.

Upon arriving in Jilin I was shocked at the number of questions I recieved about Jesus and the Bible. Some of this is due to the fact that the students had a Biblical Literature class with a previous Maryknoller. However, there is a rather high-profile group of Christians in town. They run multiple English corners (free, open English practice) and a large portion of Jilin's serious English students seem to know them. I'm sort of intrigued by their presence in this random corner of China. I'm interested to know the story as to exactly how they got here and how they stay.

Between the Christian school in town, the Chinese-Catholic seminary next to Campus, and the old church at the riverfront (looks like a mini St. Francis De Sales) Christianity seems surprisingly noticeable in Jilin.

It's been a long time since I've written and some people have let me know it's time again. Time has gone very very quickly here. I am now thinking about things like giving exams and starting to get final grades together. It's weird to still live life on the semester schedule while suddenly being on the other side of the podium (though I usually move my podium out of the way before class).

I found out the course I'm teaching next semester is something like "Selected Readings in American Literature". If anyone has recommendations on stories, poems, etc. that are worthwhile and not too difficult, I am open for suggestions. (The ideal piece would be one that makes good reading practice [not too easy, but not incredibly wierd], is short, and lends itself to discussion.) I think I'll have a textbook which will be mostly excerpts from American literature Classics. I also have a tenuous rumor that I have an electronic multimedia room, which would be nice.

Anyway I am coming right up to a whole lot of travel. I head to HKG for xmas, return here to finish up with giving examinations and grading everyone, then head with the other foreign teachers north (Yes, north in January) to see the Haerbin ice lantern festival which is apparently quite cool. After a few days in Haerbin we return to Jilin to pick up our salaries and catch a train south. We'll stop briefly for Beijing and two of the most famous mountains in China. I'll then part with my friends and head directly to HKG for a couple days of relaxing before jetting off to Thailand for a month. It all seems kind of unbelieveable right now, especially after how routine things have been for awhile.

Anyway that's about the whole story. Not much new has happened but I'm up for a lot of changing scenery soon. I always love getting e-mails from people so keep me updated.

Kev

A post I made and forgot to actually post on time because I neglect my blog sometimes.

Last Wednesday I was a judge at an English "journalism" competition. I suppose it was called this because the first round involved each of the contestants reciting a news article or report. This was about all it had to do with journalism.

The next round was for each of the contestants to do something with the judges. Prior to the competition I thought this meant that they would have some sort of conversation or something with us to demonstrate their English. However I was dragged up to dance by one of my students (which was outrageously awkward) and then asked some things in Chinese and apparently my responses were hilarious to the 200 or so people present. The whole thing was a little odd.

I attempted to make chicken in a barbecue-like sauce the other night but it ended up being the worst smelling thing I've managed to (externally) make in years. Saturday night, our friend Jenny came over and we had a big jiao zi (Chinese dumplings, they're sold as "pot stickers" in the U.S. often) making party. They were outrageously delicious and we have a bunch of frozen leftovers.

Class this past week went well, I broke up the period a bit more which helps their attention. I still definitely feel I do a much better job with the classes I teach later in the week after I've run through the plan a couple of times and adjusted it.

There's snow on the ground. There was a big dump of snow this past week. A huge number of the foreign students I live with have never seen snow so I ended up taking part in a ridiculously large snowball fight. The snow wasn't great for making the snowballs but it was still pretty cool and it was such a good snowfall to be the first for so many people. It was difficult to imagine seeing snow for the first time as an adult.

That brings me to Thanksgiving stuff I guess. There was a big "thanksgiving party" at English corner Wednesday night. This meant that one girl read something she found on the internet about thanksgiving. Then there were some people who performed dances to pop music while students flickered the lights to set the mood. There were some games as well but most people watched. None of the other foreign teachers made it so they wanted me to participate in absolutely everything. A human knot, a ridiculous-looking pop-the-balloon game, and again, dancing which was slightly less awkward than the above mentioned dancing incident. It was great fun but I'm not sure the idea of thanksgiving got through.

For Thursday we were all pretty busy so we went to a barbecue restaurant which, unbeknownst to us had obtained turkey as part of their meat selection for the night. It was pretty tasty turkey. I've heard of t-day turkeys for U.S. expats in China coming from local zoos--though that certainly could be rumor. The plan now is to take Saturday to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal to the extent possible.

There are occasional instances of utter political incorrectness out of people here. It's interesting because the students obviously have absolutely no idea that what they've said is considered somewhat offensive on the other side of the Pacific.

I head to HKG to see my Uncle Brian and Aunt Beth for Christmas, a fact I'm pretty excited about. When students hear we have been/do go to HKG they often say "they have very good shopping there" or "you can buy many good things there".

Also while looking at vacation possibilities I realized that Malaysian Borneo is within very affordable reach. My inner child went bonkers (or should I say "went ape!").

A Random Story (Halloween Pictures)

This is me being plunged by Jenny. I know that's a really bad toilet costume.

Matt was a mummy

The other day while eating lunch, the table behind us had a soup with a sternoish can of flames beneath it. Deeming it hot enough one of the diners began to use his wooden chopsticks to fish the sterno out. The liquid within it spilled all over the base of the stand and the whole wide puddle of the flaming liquid was now heating the bowl. They pulled the soup off and finally removed and put out the flames in the can. One waiter decided to simply do away with the fire and yank the whole burning stand out of there spilling the liquid all over the table and the client. Thank God the client didn't catch on fire but the table now had a 2 foot stretch of flaming puddle across it. Another waiter thought that a paper napkin would be a good way to wipe at the edges of the burning puddle. This had obvious results. It was both frightening and utterly ridiculous.

Other than that, we threw a great halloween party. It was a tasty international potluck. It was mostly Korean and Chinese food plus Matt's (another Maryknoller) chili and my mushroom cheese sauce on bread. I dressed up as a toilet and had a small (new, clean) plunger, the combo lent itself to some great toilet-plunging dance moves. It was good to party with the people we live and take classes with. My friend Joe (From korea) had a good time putting small wipes of chili on the toilet paper component of my costume, it was really gross looking.

Classes have gone a bit better the last couple of weeks, I'm also getting to know my students better, remember a lot more of their names, and find out a lot more about them. A lot of students have the same names and many students have kind of odd (occasionally unfortunate) names which I won't go into.

This post has been in progress for a long time (I kinda forgot about blogging for awhile), but I've just realized it's November. I have 2 months until the semester break and still don't know exactly what I'm going to do for said break. My idea is to fly to some Southeast Asian Capital, see some of Southeast Asia, then make my way back up to China a little after the new year's craziness has died down.

Anyway, I've been cooking a lot lately (for the fun of it, I'm really not too sick of Chinese food yet, I'm convinced Northern food is better, much less greasy). Great veggies are cheap here (I love the available green leafies) and the mushroom situation couldn't get much better. Making simple soups or curries is pretty cheap. There's really very little in the way of standard ingredients I can't get here and cheese is the only truly expensive item.

I've been in China for a Little While

After returning from vacation back to my apartment and classes I've started to feel like I really do live here in China. Everything has begun to feel a lot more routine. Even my kabob-gobbling frenzy has died down to nearly-reasonable levels. I stay a lot busier on campus and make less runs into town. I've booked out Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday night for getting tutored and Wednesday night for helping the oral English club with "English corner"--basically extra spoken English practice for first-years. Teaching five sections of the same class does help a bit in terms of time spent planning.

I've felt like my classes have been a bit lacking so far. Though my Maryknoll Coordinator told me I did a good job after sitting through one of them (which was encouraging), I still feel like I need to come up with a bigger variety of ideas. As the course is Scientific English I do a lot of articles and discussion questions and throw in some more general English practice activities as well. The class goes pretty well most days in terms of getting people to speak English though I think that the students' past foreign teachers have made class a great deal more fun and exciting. The students want games and movies all of the time and I've done just a little bit of each so far. Informal taboo/catchphrase can be astounding for getting almost every student to speak a lot of English, the beauty is that the game loses it's fun if they aren't speaking in English. We haven't found anything else that does the trick quite so elegantly. If you're ever playing a game that heavily involves language use and you think I could possibly adapt it to English teaching, let me know.

I one of the things I've done is to pretty much ditch the textbook. Chinese textbooks seem to be whatever assembly of articles relating to the given subject which the editors could get away with paying the lowest royalties for. My textbook is a bunch of articles of random articles varying from Bill Gates' speech at Tsinghua University sometime in the late nineties to dated articles about the "future of the Internet" which are far less than relevant today and not even up to speed with the date of publishing (2001). My friend James teaches "Legal English" with a textbook containing at least a couple of chapters lifted straight from Wikipedia.

The Chinese is coming along slowly, I just added a second tutor and am now being tutored four times a week. Meeting with tutors is especially good as it encourages more studying, I'm a long way from conversational but I guess it's a good sign that I've begun involuntarily thinking about Chinese in my mind.

Other than that, I'm bracing for the winter.

Photos of Vacation

The post below has the written detail.

Behind us is where the lake should be. Astute Kevin experts may notice that my pose an alpine trekker derivative. However, in this situation it was quite neccessary.

This is the closest edge of the lake just coming into view.

Oh! I think we're gonna see the lake! (Imagine lots of excited yelling behind you as you see this.)

Now there's a funny looking guy in front of the lake.

This is how the lake empties and becomes the begginning of the Songhua river (which my apartment looks over, that picture to come) The staircase you see on the right was closed due to falling rock and we were sad we couldn't climb to the top of the falls.

This is what North Korea looks like.

You can see the river in there somewhere. One of the bushes under the bridge began to walk as we looked, no joke.

After close examination I determined that North Korea approximately follows the dictates of Newtonian Physics.

I saw some people playing cards on the ground, and some people walking around, and some really badly maintained buildings. All of it was way more interesting than it sounds, seeing bustling, loud, bright China butting up against this eerie ghost-town looking place.

I don't know that it's appropriate to pose and smile for a picture in front of North Korea, but there we are, the red line behind us is the bridge border.

Hiding in the concrete mushrooms.

Is it safe to come out now?

.

Back to School

I'm back home in Jilin after a week(ish) of vacation. We headed over to Yanji, capital of Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture, on the border of North Korea. The town itself was not as exciting as we had hoped but the food was great with a lot of great cheap grill-it-yourself restaurants. We took a day trip from there to the small border town of Tumen. From there we could look across a river to an eerie, dilapidated north Korean town which was pretty much darkness at nightfall. All of it was in rather conspicuous contrast to the endless construction and the more than plentiful lighting behind us in China. Borders can be really interesting.

Anyway, the main goal of the vacation was to see ChangBai Shan. Literally "long (as in "constantly") white mountain" The top of the mountain (Shared by China and North Korea) holds heaven lake, which is the largest crater lake in the world. Many who climb the mountain don't get to see the lake due to fog, and I initially thought we'd be in that boat. However, after about a half hour on the crowded mountain (everything beautiful is put up for mass tourism in China) we started to make out the closest edge of the lake. The crowd started screaming with excitement and we were suddenly afforded a good ten minute long view of the lake. The fog lifted for a second time as we made our way around to the different viewing spots after a short snowball fight we headed back down to see the rest of the ridiculously crowded attractions on the mountain range which included some views of the sweet waterfalls, a hot spring with eggs being boiled in it. There was also a little mountainside pond whose informational sign had a comical mix of highly academic words and broken grammar giving us the greatest fun in its deciphering.

After the mountain, we hung out in the nearby town of Erdao/Baihe (two towns in one, basically) for another day, walking the local sculpture park and playing cards in a tea bar. We all became rather addicted to "Red tens" a Chinese card game whose sheer number of rules makes it feel like a few games in one. We played the whole train-ride home as well.

Budget traveling in China can be an adventure at times. Last time I really traveled by ground here it was in the middle of the low season. Travelling during a national holiday however, means you join quite a large portion of China's population in doing so. Headed out we had standing room tickets on the train which emptied enough that we were able to sit after just a little while. Headed back to school (and therefore toward the largest city in the province) the train got more packed as we went. Our card-games drew a great deal of spectating, as did another Maryknoller's ramen prep, as did just about everything we did.

the post before I go on vacation

Ni men hao,

It hasn't been many days since I last posted so I suppose I can't say a lot. One thing worth mentioning is that I've seen fireworks out my window (I have a great view of the river and city) about 9 times in the nearmonth I've been in China. They are very popular for private parties and weddings and of course, all festivals. Speaking of festivals, the mid-autumn day has just passed. The mid autumn day is a day to enjoy the full moon and eat mooncakes. Having been to China previously during a mooncake festival I was determined to not receive and especially not eat any mooncakes. However a guy at our favorite dumpling restaurant (he might have been the owner) served us each a peanut mooncake and closely monitored our consumption thereof after which he told us we were wasting our time studying Chinese--English was the language to know.

Anyway I head off on vacation for the National Holiday soon. I stood in a line to get train tickets for an hour today only to not get all of the train tickets and have to adjust plans. I will be standing for seven hours on a train this coming Saturday, it will be crowded and fun. We are headed to the town of Yanji, in a Korean majority area to hang around town and possibly go on some day hikes--the scenery and terrain is apparently amazing. From there we will head to Changbai Shan one of the cool mountains China has so many of and there's a lake on top which is in both China and North Korea. I'd better head to study Chinese, but I'll of course be writing again after the break.

"The whole country washes to colour the catena headquarters"

I don't know what the title of the post means but I read it on a shop sign in town and thought it catchy.


Teaching is going pretty well. It's difficult to plan classes that keep the whole class engaged for 2 hours when they are at such different skill and (especially) motivation levels, especially when there are 45 people. Overall though my students are pretty great. Most of them have more understanding than they let on (they have very restrained classroom habits) and are interested in learning to be more fluent. The job description I was given was something like "you will teach scientific english, here is your textbook". The textbook is not the best, so if anyone has neat short articles on science they think I could use send them my way (think 6th grade reading level, unless the article is very short). The students are especially interested in computers, cell phones, the internet, business technology, and the environment. A couple approached me after class on Monday to ask me about special relativity so we had great fun going through the bit that I remember from high school physics.


I'm realizing it is my third week and I have not yet done anything formally with my students outside of class, though I see and talk to them everywhere around campus and even in town. I head out shopping for electronics (phone, camera) though with a group of guys from one of my classes soon ("a group of guys" pretty much means all the males in the class, over 90% of English majors at colleges like this one are women). Life is still very social though, and I (often along with other Maryknollers) seem to always be meeting up with friends from somewhere in the world, occasionally riding there in a hilarious taxi that I won't talk about until I can get a picture. The thing would be illegal for so many reasons back in the States. My friend Ashley (from Korea) has this driver in her phone and calls the outrageous cab to drive her everywhere.


Anyway I've been learning more Chinese than last time I came. It helps to have studied it before, especially for the headstart on pronunciation. It also helps emmensely to be in a region where local pronunciation is far closer to the standard Mandarin which is being taught. The Chinese are very interested and welcoming toward foreigners, which adds to the incentive to learn the language. For example two monks delightedly belted questions at me after sitting me down in their shop the other day, spraying me with the cucumber they were eating the whole time. Taxi drivers and street vendors whom I buy things from also want to make lots of conversation, and many of the foreign students speak much more Chinese than English, so I get a bit of practice. The hardest thing though is to sit and study characters, the first few are great fun, but it's a slower way to learn foreign vocabulary than I'm used to.

It is too soon to actually write another entry. If you're reading this and you have a skype name, send it to me at my e-mail or facebook it to me. I probably will be on during the nighttime here, which puts me on at morning time there. We are 13 hours ahead, 14 come daylight savings.

If somebody would fill me in as to what "high school musical" is I'd be grateful. I've seen things about it everywhere (in Hong Kong, on Chinese TV).

working hard at Chinese, characters are tough

Campus Life

So here in China I can update my blog but not actually see the finished product. I believe I have posted a couple of pictures. One is myself and two fellow Maryknoll teachers with the fourth taking the picture. Jim is in the middle, Matt's on the right, James is taking the picture (with his camera, I still don't have one). So far everything has been excellent in terms of hanging out with each other, meeting our students, and meeting international students (we live in the international students' dormitory).

I have still only taught two classes and have another two tomorrow, then one on Friday. I have the option to attend Chinese classes for free and they are pretty good. The teachers speak very little English which is difficult in the beginning, but I have enough in memory to follow along.

The town of Jilin is pretty cool. There is very little old architecture left, it's all given way to apartment buildings and malls and such, but it is still a very Chinese city. It's out of the way of a lot of expats and tourists, and neither especially rich or poor for China. One thing I've loved is the grocery store. I realized I had only really been to a large (Chinese-owned) Chinese grocery store while in Beibei which is a much smaller town than jilin. The grocery store here is much much larger with all sorts of crazy food, the variety being somewhat due to the Korean influence as well as closer proximity to the ocean--the seafood here is crazy.

I'm blogging a lot lately and I'm sure I have a great deal more to discover, especially as I get to know people around here, but it's been pretty exciting to be back. It's certainly different than last time both because of where I am in China and because I think much differently than last time I landed here. There are however a lot of similarities: the friendly and timid "hellos" randomly from people in the streets, students who are incredibly shy and giggly around me, a lot of older men and women laughing and joking with me (if I only knew chinese, but they still have a good time) while I wait for food, and the need for 360 degrees of awareness no matter what lane I'm in. It's all pretty wild and it's a lot to take in even the second time around.

I love China

So I'm here.

I am teaching Scientific English to five different sections of College juniors. My first class I was a bit nervous and shaky. I had some rather intersting questions asked of me by the students. I was a little nervous for the first class, but the second class went very smoothly and I had a great time. There was a lot of laughing and giggling going on which is disconcerting but the Chinese laugh for a lot more reasons than we do. The biggest laugh came when I tried to pronounce a Chinese name. Anyway, The textbook contains scientific articles (they are incredibly simple) with some reading comprehension questions. I am going to try to find some articles from various magazines which are more up to date and maybe slightly more difficult than the ones in the textbook.

Anyway I'm living in way too large of an apartment in the international students' dormitory. I have a queen size bed, a restroom (with a view of the television). And my own kitchen. It's pretty ridiculous. It's also going to take some decorating to counteract the outrageous design concept of the place.

I ate donkey for dinner tonight with a Guy named Joe from Korea and his uncle who lives in the city. I was of great interest to the restaurant owners and other customers who wondered what I thought of the dumplings. Donkey is apparently a delicacy around here. It does taste good.

Anyway that's all I can think of for tonight I think I need to go retire to my ridiculous queen size bed.

Kevin

Heading to the Mainland!

Orientation is winding down and we're about to begin the last day of classes. This week has been far more helpful than I could have imagined. I feel a lot more ready than I thought I would and I've had a great number of gaps in my knowledge concerning China filled. I've heard a lot of great things about Jilin as well. Having been pretty much in the southwest before I'm excited to get a real look at North China.

I don't know yet what classes I'll be teaching and when, and we have been warned that such information may not be given to us until the morning of our first class. I guess I have to be ready to hop into a classroom and go. We were told that it will most likely be oral english which is what we've been learning about much of the week but we've been instructed a little on the running of a writing class as well. The encouraging and exciting thing about the teaching is that we have an opportunity to run a non-lecture class, something which students have not previously had much of.

Hong Kong is becoming a little more familiar to me as well, the layout is starting to stick a little and I'm starting to get just a little bit of the flavor. Last time through Hong Kong it felt a little like a return to the States with all of the English and westerners around. This time through the tonal languages, the smells I can't always identify, and the packed streets have all brought me right back to China and made me more excited to get to the mainland.

Holy Cau!

I spent the last couple of days with my Aunt Beth and Uncle Brian in Hong Kong and Macau relaxing, as well as seeing and smelling a lot of familiar asian smells. I'm not sure what they all are but they sure are familiar and they have really brought me back and made me realize how much asia has gotten into my blood. So my first couple of days were spent hanging out with my aunt and uncle, getting over jet lag, and savoring some luxuries which will be scarce in China (octopus sashimi, tandoori salmon, lasagna, red wine that tastes good). Macau also has a sweet art museum with a great feature exhibit upstairs.

I arrived at maryknoll house this morning and joined in for mass before a lunch at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. Afterwards we wandered a little in central hong kong and came back for dinner. It was a day filled with a lot of talking.

I'm really looking forward to orientation. Dr. Richard Bohr from St. John's University is here to help with the orientation especially with regards to teaching history and culture. There are a number of highly experienced and semi-experienced teachers, volunteers etc. I obviously have a little exposure to chinese culture which only makes me more excited to hear from the longtime students of China.

As much as I'm looking forward to orientation, I'm moreso looking forward to actually getting back to China.

Heading to china

Welcome to my blog. I'm headed for Jilin City, Jilin to work at Beihua University teaching english conversation.

Jilin is a city of about 2 million 11 hours north of Beijing by train, 1.5 hours by bus outside of the provincial capital of Changchun, and a 7 hour train ride from the North Korean border.

The blog will contain highlights of my time in china, photos, and thoughts. I'll probably include an inordinate amount about food as I'm very into cooking and eating.