Ancient Relics, BBQ and Karaoke

I now have the chance to write while catching my breath after four busy days in Nanning. Last Friday was my first day of classes. It was quite eventful as I had 5 classes (the last one ending past 9pm). The school schedule here is very different from America. The students start their first class around 7:30 am and then proceed until 12pm. Students then eat lunch, followed by a two hour “siesta” or sorts where most everyone in the school takes a nap. With the hot and humid climate here, it’s necessary to take a nap during the sun’s peak hours. Classes resume from around 2:30 until 5:30 and then break for dinner and some downtime. Classes resume from 7:30 until just past 10 at night. They have school six days a week- pretty grueling!

My first class was intended to introduce myself and allow the students to practice their introductions. All the students oohed and ahhed at many of the pictures of my family and friends. If you are reading this fam and friends, you are now famous among a group of about 120 Chinese high school girls! I felt pretty comfortable in my role as a teacher. I always enjoy talking in front of groups. It was difficult to get the students to participate in the way I hoped, however, since they are shy about using their English. The real test will be to draw the students out over these next 7 weeks so that will be confident in speaking English. They must realize that trying and failing is the only way to improve.

I spent Saturday visiting a couple of Nanning’s most popular tourist attractions. The first was a beautiful park surrounding a lake near the center of the city. This park is several miles in circumference, with a landscape that changes drastically every half mile or so. Part of the park was grassy with trees and pagodas- a perfect place to rest. Another part of the park was like an amusement park with games and rides. Still another part had concrete platforms among the trees for people to practice dancing, while others practiced playing instruments of various kinds. In this part of the park, I witnessed a fair amount of western dancing! In fact, some of the swing dancers out here in China would put some of my Chi Psi fraternity brothers to shame, which is saying something!

 The second stop was the Guangxi province relic’s museum. This showcased the various pottery and other relics from the province’s ethnic minority groups. For part of the time, I followed one of the museum tour guides as we proceeded through the exhibits. Every so often, the adult tour guide would pass off her duties to one of many younger girls (“interns” you could say) who explained to the crowd a particularly important relic. These girls seemed very young- probably around 12-15 years old.  They delivered their speech in a very buttoned up and professional manner. When the tour group proceeded past them, they became 12 year old girls again, running over to their other tour guide friends and laughing and giggling.  Was this oppressing their youthfulness? Or was this just a good opportunity to get some work experience? I am still not certain. 

On Sunday, I woke up early in the morning to eat BBQ with about twenty of the students and a few of the teachers. When the Chinese eat BBQ, they do not go to a restaurant. Rather, we packed up our own food, which consisted of various meats and vegetables on a stick, and then hauled it down to a spot next to the river which runs through Nanning. Here, we made our own fire pits and grilled the food. While sitting next to the river, I must have taken 100 pictures with the girls that came along. Not to be braggadocios or anything, but it seems like a picture with me is quite a highly prized commodity among the students. After this, we all went to one of the teacher’s apartment to rest and have another meal. Then, we went to a Karaoke place. As you may know, Karaoke is very popular in Asian cultures. It was actually quite fun, contrary to what I expected! I think maybe America should invest in a chain Karaoke store.

After this, I went to another teacher’s home for dinner. As you can probably tell, I have been doing a lot of eating. Chinese people love to spoil guests with lots of food. Although I was actually hoping to lose some pounds over this trip, it looks like I will be gaining some.

......Now, another week of teaching and various other shenanigans…...      

P.S. The saga continues with the dog. Oh, and an added twist. There is now a third dog, who is also quite ferocious. Every time I walk to my room I hear a cacophony of loud barks when I am about fifteen yards away from the foot of the stairs, and then hear the dogs sprinting at me. They are then restrained by their leashes. God forbid that the leashes ever break. If I get seriously injured on this trip, it will most likely not be a result of human assault, getting lost or a traffic accident…it will be assault by canine.   

Ping Pong, Meat and Sprained Ankles

You may think this title is somewhat odd. If so, good. Read on.  I spent my day here without anything much to do besides prepare for my first day of classes tomorrow, which was quite leisurely.  When I am at loose ends, I always find going to the teacher’s office to be profitable. I can listen in on conversations and give my Chinese ear some practice, and I participate in conversations as well. These conversations often consist of me asking people to say something again or in a different way, since it’s hard to understand them. In fact, I often get the feeling that I am the butt of the joke when they start rambling and laughing in Chinese. However, I have realized that you must be willing to be the bud of the joke if you want to become fluent in a language. Oftentimes, we are too afraid of seeming like an idiot (even if we know that we are not!) to fully embrace the stage of language acquisition which makes us seem foolish to native speakers. I plan to come back to this school in ten years when I can no longer be made fun of behind my back. Then, I will have the last laugh.

Four things of significance happened today:

1)      At lunch, I realized that the word for “meat” refers to pork unless otherwise specified. In other words, you must specify “chicken meat” or “cow meat” when describing a meat, otherwise you are automatically talking about pork meat. This reflects the prevalence of pork in the Chinese diet. Interesting, I thought.

2)      I played basketball for the first time today with the PE teacher and some of the students. While viciously pulling down a rebound in a crowd of 5’3”, 100 pound Chinese girls, I managed to sprain my ankle. It was slightly embarrassing.

3)      I engaged in a spontaneous game of ping pong today with the students. Even though ping pong is China’s national sport, I represented the US well. I won a great deal of the games I played. I was proud to hang with the Chinese in a game of 乒乓球。

4)       While purchasing some bottled water outside of the school gates, I talked to one of the natives. His skin was weathered from many years in the sun, and he seemed to me the classic Chinese man in the straw hat tilling the fields that you might see on a postcard. He asked me if the ground was the same in America. I responded that, of course, the ground was the same in America, just like everywhere in the world. However, having never seen another part of the world, how would one know that the ground is necessarily the same? Before I left the country and travelled to Beijing in high school, I actually had no idea if the other side of the world would resemble my home at all. I almost miss the wonder of not knowing. Now I realize that different places in this world are not all that different.

Settling In

I have now experienced the first couple of days here in Nanning. Once I arrived, I was greeted by two members of the school where I am teaching: the principle and one of the English teachers. The English teacher speaks pretty good English, which is both good and bad for me. I will be able to communicate when in need of something, but I will also be tempted to speak more English. My living quarters are spacious and private, but the conditions are much poorer than in the US. The floor is all concrete, the bathroom does not have a toilet and I am sharing the space without about 50 bugs.

The lack of AC in such a hot and muggy climate is not comfortable, but cold showers and many fans certainly help. The bed is a bit hard, but I have been so exhausted that sleeping has not been difficult. On the first day, I met many of the teachers and got the low down on my teaching schedule. I also ate lunch with the girls at the school for the first time, which was enjoyable. They are very shy about using English. I try to speak as much English with them as possible to allow them to practice but oftentimes we must use Chinese or else the conversation stagnates. All of the students are from the same province (and some have never been outside of the province). The school is funded by a non-profit and does not require its students to pay tuition or living expenses. All of the students are very poor, often coming from families that farm for a living. There is much greater attention to every yuan (1/6 of a dollar) than I have ever experienced. I think nothing of buying something for several yuan, but they often weigh the merits of every purchase.  

Several other notes. Speaking Chinese has been much harder than I imagined. Maybe because they speak a slightly accented form of Mandarin or maybe because I am not accustomed to the fast-pace, “real life” Mandarin, my comprehension of more complicated topics is limited unless they speak slowly. I am sure this will improve over time, but I expected it would be easier off the bat. Also, there are two dogs which hangout next to the stairs of the building where I live. They are both HUGE. One is on a leash but the other is not. On the second night here, I was by myself and the dog without a leash seemed to be guarding the stairway. It was about a thirty minute showdown before I realized this dog was actually completely tame. I have grown to like him. However, today, the other dog which seems much more intimidating (but is on a leash) broke free from his leash just as I exited the stairs and started chasing me. Naturally, I started to run away from him and ran into the cafeteria for shelter, to the amusement of many students eating at the time. Breathlessly, I tried to explain to them what happened in Mandarin but struggled in my frenzied state. They must have thought I was crazy. I am still pretty scared of that dog. Oh well, we shall see how it shakes out in the days to come.  

 

On the plane...

5/12

I am currently writing 11 hours into a 16 hour flight from NYC to Hong Kong. I seem to have adjusted to flying long distances. Although I struggled through my flight to Beijing several years ago, I am actually having fun this time! I could easily go for another 5 hours or more. I am always impressed by two things when I fly internationally: 1) first class is really nice (I’ll probably never experience it) and 2) the view from the back of the cabin with hundreds of individual tv screens flickering in front of me is truly spectacular. I actually started my college common app essay by describing this scene, calling it a “collage of colors”, and my feelings of awe inspired by this “collage” have not changed. I enjoyed myself immensely taking thirty minutes to stand in the back of the plan looking at this scene, slowly sipping on some red wine (yes this is legal, holla international airspace), and contemplating my upcoming journey.

I have spent much of my time frantically refreshing my memory on some Chinese vocabulary that I will need to use. Also, I am slightly stressing about a tight connection in Hong Kong that I could possibly miss, so I will be hustling the moment I arrive in HK. If I miss the plane, I will have to stay the night in HK and fly out tomorrow- not ideal but not disastrous!

All for now. Just…5…more…hours