Speech Contest and Free Talk

In addition to teaching courses, the university will ask us to take part in some extra English speaking related events. The foreign language department highly encourages us to hold "Free Talk" sessions. These are times set aside when I invite students to my apartment to hold informal conversations in English-- essentially to just hang out. There is a lot to say about these Free Talk sessions so I'll go into that later. One thing that some of us were recently asked to do is to judge a speech contest.

I jumped at the chance to be a judge because it sounded like it would be so much fun. The contest was through CCTV which is China's TV network. There are two sections of the contest, one for English majors and one for non-English majors. The finalists from Qufu compete in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, and then so on and so on until the televised finals in Beijing. I was a judge for the second night, for non-English majors.

When I got there, I was so excited to see many of my students, and I was glad that it was the non-English major part of the contest so that I wouldn't have to rate my students compared to others! They were so excited to see me and all came up to me to say "hi". I was really excited to find out that two of my students were the emcees, so I got to see them stand up and speak in front of the crowd all night.

There were four other judges on the panel, all were professors at the university. There were 13 contestants that gave a prepared speech, an impromptu speech, and had to answer a question from a judge. The prepared speech topic for all of them was "science intelligence or culture smart" so they chose to argue for science over culture or culture over science or some said that they were inseparable. Then they chose a number which corresponded to a random question such as "Should Chinese citizens boycott goods made in Japan? Why or why not?" or "What do you think about internet addiction?" ("internet addiction" is when young people spend too much time on the internet and can get in a lot of trouble for it here in China). Then, as a judge, I had to come up for a question on the spot if it was my turn to question the contestant. As an American, I found this really difficult to do because I didn't want to say something inappropriate or too difficult for them to answer since I didn't really know their English knowledge. We then tallied our scores of between 30-40 points for the prepared speech, 30-40 points for the impromptu speech, and 15-20 for their answers to the judge's question.

At the end I was introduced as "our foreign teacher Lisa" and asked to address the crowd. It was pretty funny as I made the typical "congratulations to everyone!" speech and thanked them all for having me. It was actually a really fun night and great to see a campus event like that that I could understand. After the winners were announced (everyone got a certificate for participating) and they all took pictures with the judges. I'm really glad that I did it and I can't wait to attend more of those kind of events. Next week is Confucius' birthday and Founder's Day (the 60th anniversary of Communist rule this year) so I think that some impressive celebrations will be in store.

But on to Free Talk. I've had several sessions in my apartment all ready and while they are pretty fun they are also exhausting. The students are so excited but also so nervous so these first sessions have just been two-hour long sessions of small talk with one of me and 15 or so of them. I have learned some funny things from them but I think that in the coming weeks I'm going to structure them a little bit more. We talked about American movies like Twilight, Harry Potter, and High School Musical. We also talked about things in China, where they are from, what those places are famous for (kite festivals, mountains, vegetables), what kinds of food they like that I should try. We also had some really interesting talks when they asked me about voting for America and if I really got to vote there. They giggled incessantly when I told them I voted for Barack Obama because they think he is so cute. A lot of girls in my classes chose the name Michelle to be like the first lady. I'm not going to lie though, I was really hoping to get some Sashas or Malias but no such luck.

They also told me how scared they were about the swine flu. We have a break coming up in the beginning of October for Autumn Festival and Founder's Day that us Americans were planning to make use of by traveling. But rumors are flying around that no one will be allowed to leave campus for fear of bringing back swine flu or for fear of involvement in potential Founder's Day mayhem. That includes the state organized parades because 60 is such an important number in Chinese culture everyone is saying that the streets of every major city are going to be jam-packed. I've seen some of the rehearsals of the parades in Beijing on TV and it looks comparable to the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony... yeah, it's a really big deal. Also every other year the parade is made up of the military but for the first time this year students will also be included in the parades.

Here on campus to battle swine flu, all of the foreign teachers have been given thermometers to check our temperatures and tell our liaison if we are not feeling well so we can be quarantined. One teacher came back from visiting her family with a cold and her temperature was .3 degrees above average so she was quarantined for a week. They have also closed the east gate to campus which is where a very crowded (and largely Muslim) market is. However, you can walk about 500 feet out the north gate to the east gate.

They are taking it very seriously here but the only thing that I am really nervous about at all is whether we will be able to leave or not. I am healthy and safe and have all the right antibodies so I just want to be able to travel. We had a variety of ideas of where to go on our travels but have toned them down to traveling to Jinan or Tai'an where a famous Taoist mountain is that we want to climb. No matter what, I'm sure I'll have some good stories to report about after this break.

Teaching!

I've finished my first full week of teaching now. I technically started last week but the postgrads and PhDs didn't start until this week. Overall I have to say that I really like my students and I felt very comfortable in the role of a teacher. But it definitely made me miss Chicago, the kids I worked with there, and working with kids in general. This teaching experience will be decidedly different than the one I had last year.

On Mondays and Tuesdays I teach Sophomore Oral English. I meet with each section just once a week. I have two sections each day and each section has 36-38 students. Three out of four of the sections had an American teacher last year and I can definitely tell the difference between them and the one section that has never had a foreign teacher. Those that have experience with an American teacher speak much more and are more willing to answer questions and slip up and switch to Chinese much less. Still all the sections are very excited to have me as their teacher and they all are very diligent students. They are all English majors and some of them want to be English teachers, some were pushed into the major by their parents or their entrance exam scores. There are two text books for the class, one on speech and debate and one entitled "Encounters with Westerners". They aren't the best but will definitely provide some good jumping off points for discussions.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach Listening and Speaking for PhDs. They are not English majors but rather have to take this English course in order to get a doctoral degree from the university. Needless to say, I've heard that the roster has 18 students (I don't actually have any of the rosters for my classes yet) but only 10-12 people show up. Their English abilities vary greatly but they are all extremely brilliant people getting doctoral degrees in things like non-linear math and Marxism. The book for that class is very troublesome. Half of it is just scripts that I am supposed to read and the other half is mainly a fill in the blank style workbook for the students. All of the scripts are taken from actual news reports or interviews which sound like an interesting idea but for students just learning English hearing me read Bill Clinton's radio address on prostate cancer might not be the most helpful. Another American teacher who has been here for 4 years is teaching them in the Reading and Writing course and we have been trying to collaborate/commiserate on what to do. Still, the students are very nice people and try their best to make conversation with me when we see each other in passing.

On Fridays I have two sections of Listening and Speaking for postgrads. Each section is 42 students and they are also not English majors that I will see once a week. It was really fun getting to know them because they are all my age and they reciprocate my humor in ways that the other students do not. The textbook for that class has a CD with listening exercises on it and is similar to the PhD textbook but much, much better. Another teacher from Skidmore is also teaching them Reading and Writing so they are doubly excited to have 2 American teachers who are the same age as them.

The schedule feels pretty light, but that's what my contract is for! I will also be holding office hours in the foreign teachers' communal office in the Department of Foreign Languages building and I will be holding Free Talk sessions at my apartment where students can drop in during a designated time to just hang out and practice speaking English. But having a less hectic work week than in America is really helpful as my apartment is always clean. And the extra time to revel in the fact that it is MY apartment will never get old. Also in China I tend to buy food for a meal or two, cook it, and then go out to the market again so it's nice to have the flexibility in my schedule to do that. I also plan to go for more bike rides and set up some Chinese lesson and of course write lesson plans!

Biking and a Banquet

This past weekend I went to buy a bike. I knew that I wanted one before even coming here and then seeing just how many people even in little Qufu bike around, I was set on getting one. Our Chinese friend from the other campus in town brought us to the walled part of the city to go to the least expensive bike store he knew. We wanted to bargain but the salesman did not at all, so we each got a bike for 270 yuan or about $40. In America that sounds really cheap but keep in mind that a week's worth of groceries for me is about 50 yuan so the bike was a lot of yuan. Still totally worth it because I love it.

It's purple with a white basket and a black bell. It also came with a lock but bike locks are different in China than in America. Instead of locking your bike to something you just put a lock around the spikes of the back wheel so that the bike can't be moved. So my first question was couldn't someone just pick up your bike and carry it away? Apparently this never happens.

So to explain biking in Qufu, I first have to explain driving in Qufu. While there is a double solid yellow line down the middle of major roads, it serves as a suggestion. If you really need to get around someone you can just go around them and drive on the other side of the road for as long as you need to. Also honking is not just for "get out of my way!" or "you're about to hit me!" like it usually is in America, honking here can also mean "I'm passing you" "I'm behind you" "I'm going to turn in front of you" or really anything. Also all vehicles participate in the honking: cars, trucks, motorcycles, motorbikes, 3-wheels carts (engine or not), bike, horse and carriage, rickshaw... every vehicle imaginable.

There is a large bike lane, equal in size to the other lanes and on major roads in town there is a divider up. But the directions are optional, so while there are bike lanes on both sides and most people go with the direction of traffic, there are a few stragglers who do their own thing. Similarly, if a car or truck really needs to pass someone they can come on in the bike lane. In short, I'm glad I brought my helmet. The only other person I've seen with one is a 2 year old practicing rollerblading on the badminton courts but I'm really ok with that.

Other than biking back from the bike store and biking to and from classes, I went on my first real bike ride today. It went much better than I thought and I was pretty pleased to just ring my bell randomly along with the crowds. I tried to bike out of town and into the countryside but I ended up by the off ramp for the highway. I kept going and found some strip mall/market alleys. I stopped at what I think was a traveling theater. It was a huge crowd of elderly people on their various kinds of bikes and a stage with people in all kinds of crazy costumes. A few people sold some things and I stayed for a bit but then decided to move on. I also biked down a side street/alley/market and then when I stopped to turn around, the lady's stand I was in front of came out and patted me on the arm and nodded, so that was nice.

I plan to go on a lot more biking adventures in and around Qufu because it's such a fun way to find new things and figure out my surroundings. But on another note...

Last night the president of the university invited all of the foreign teachers out for a banquet. We all met up and took the school's van to this very fancy hotel inside the walled city. It was a huge dinner for about 30 people and was very formal with a seating chart and everything. There were literally too many dishes served to count and many of them were typical food of the Confucius family. The presentation was gorgeous and extremely intricate. The food was also amazing. Some of my favorites were: a purple sweet potato egg roll type thing, tofu with egg and spinach, sprouts with shredded pork. But, I'm really not doing any of this justice because these are all guesses as to what they were and I have no idea how they were cooked.

I also tried Chinese wine for the first time which was a bit bitter but it grew on me by the end of the night. In typical Chinese fashion there were a lot of toasts. It was also a special night because it was the night before Teacher's Day in China (that's today here now) which is to celebrate and thank teachers. I also tried Chinese liquor. It's served in tiny wine glass looking thing that holds about a thimble worth of alcohol and it is served in this glass for a reason. It is the strongest alcohol I have ever tasted, it not just burns your throat and stomach but even your lips and tongue. It is strong but leaves a licorice aftertaste. The Chinese professors and deans were champions at shooting it back though. All in all, it was a really fun night and very generous of the president and all of the other teachers who are look after us.

By tomorrow I will have taught all of my classes at least once and will take some time to gather those thoughts and post them up.

Qingdao

I just got back from my little trip to Qingdao. There is a huge beer festival there in late August/early September every year and some of the other teachers really wanted to go. I had gotten my teaching schedule and learned that I would be teaching sophomore Oral English (for English majors) on Mondays and Tuesdays, Listening for post-graduate non-English majors on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Listening and Speaking for non-English major PhDs on Fridays. I taught my sophomores on Monday and Tuesday and I'll be writing a separate entry on my first days of teaching but the main point is is that the students are great. However post-grad and PhDs don't start until this week so I had Wednesday-Sunday off! So when my friends asked me Tuesday night if I wanted to leave for Qingdao in the morning I said of course!

We took a cab from Qufu to the nearest train station which is about 20 minutes away in Yanzhou. There was talk of building a train station right in Qufu but then people protested because they were concerned it would disturb Confucius' tomb. So we made it to that train station and miraculously got soft seats (as opposed to hard ones) with a student discount! We were pretty pleased with ourselves but we had time to kill before our train so we walked around and bought some snacks for our 8 hour train ride. We knew it was 2 hours to Jinan, the capital of the province I'm in and then we proceeded to ask at pretty much every stop if we were in Qingdao yet. The train was surprisingly comfortable and cleared out after Jinan so my two friends and I had a little cabin with two soft benches (they can serve as beds but you wouldn't want them to) with bunk benches above us. The train ride there really ended up being fun but we were so excited to finally arrive.

Qingdao is much bigger than Qufu and really looks like a developed city. It has a lot of German influence which you can see in some of the architecture. We had a hostel in mind but then made a deal with someone offering stays at a hotel near the train station. We got a room to ourselves with three twin beds, it wasn't anything fancy but was really perfect for what we wanted. That night we took a cab to the beer festival by pointing to the word for beer in a phrasebook. It was a long street of restaurants with outdoor seating tents but there weren't too many people. We walked around a bit and chose a restaurant based on business man sitting there who offered us beer as we walked by. We found a lager to have which might be the only one available in China as all of the beer is pilsner. It was nice and we munched on some dumplings as street musicians ambled by. Our business man friend soon came over and we drank some more beer with him and tried to horribly to communicate anything but it was still fun.

The next day we wanted to go to the beach since Qingdao is right on the Yellow Sea. We took a cab there to find a beautiful beach covered in... brides. There were brides everywhere taking pictures. Most had jeans and sneakers on under their dresses which were getting very dirty on the bottom. Still we walked out on the rocks and watched the scene of brides getting glamour shots and average joes picking mussels to sell on the street. We walked around a good amount and then tried to make our way back to where the beer festival was but we were told it was over and even though we still wanted to go back to that area, we could not get a taxi to get us there. Instead we took a three-wheeled taxi to a jazz bar. While we waited for it to open we went to a diner-like restaurant with some really eclectic decorations and accidentally ordered cold meat jello with bones in it. We tasted it but didn't eat it. We went to the jazz bar but it didn't really pick up-- we were the only ones there for over an hour, but still it was a nice place but we decided we were done for the night. Not a huge night scene here so far.

We took an early morning train back to Qufu and after some confusion as to which cabin we should sit in, a train attendant logically placed us in the one with the other white people. Our new friends are Chris and Brian and are from Australia. Chris has been teaching in China for 4 years so it was really great to talk with him. Another plus was that they had found cheese in Qingdao and were eager to share it. I was surprised (ok only kind of surprised) at how much I all ready missed cheese! They were also going to Qufu to do the Confucius tour and helped us get on a quick and cheap bus back to Qufu instead of taking a taxi. He works in Don Ying which is where some other Skidmore teachers are working so it was really an awesome contact to make.

But, yes, I've made it back to Qufu, figured out how to do laundry, have a hot shower and am just in time to head out to my first night of KTV or karaoke in America to celebrate my only (so far) Chinese friend's birthday. It should be fun and I'll update about that and this coming week of teaching soon.