Now, I know this is probably the absolute worst time to write a new blog. It's Christmas day here in China and it's Christmas Eve back home. All of you are probably busy wrapping up last minute presents or doing something with your families-as much as I would like to think you are all sitting around waiting for my blog updates, I know that isn't very likely. Still, I thought I would post some of the highlights that occurred during the two weeks I gave finals. So here we go:
1. I was told during a presentation about traveling that Seoul is the capital city of North Korea-perhaps if things continue to escalate on the Korean Peninsula this would come true in a decade.
2. Three students showed up 15 minutes late to their allotted time slot for their final-their time slot only lasted 25 minutes.
3. During another presentation on travel I had a group discuss the various regions of France where wine is produced and then how to properly drink each type of wine.
4. One student completely plagiarized a final project on Jimi Hendrix's If 6 Was 9. As if when we she started talking about "acid infused blues," the counter culture, and how this song is the epitome of "the 1960s individualist anthem," that I wouldn't know she copied that information from Wikipedia.
5. In the two weeks leading up to the final in my sophomore Oral English class I had 10 students who had never shown up to a single day of class before come up to me and ask how they can receive a passing grade. I told them that being in class probably would have helped.
6. While grading my listening final, I thought I reached a low point when one student received a 32/100. However, that was followed up by a student who received a 24/100-these two students also showed to one class before we took the final.
7. And last but not least, during a conversational portion of a final on current events, one student promptly looked over at me and said "Why did the Nobel Peace Prize Committee show up China?" I quickly handled that question like a politician during a debate, where I just started talking about another issue to divert the attention of the entire group. I believe it worked.
Overall, my students did very well on their finals for the most part and with the exception of a few students all will pass and improved their English as the semester went on. To my surprise we actually have a white Christmas here in Wuhan. It has been snowing for the last two days and yet there is barely enough snow to cover the ground. Still snow on Christmas is pretty nice. I also had my first experience of shopping on Christmas Eve/Christmas here in China. My students had been warning me since Thanksgiving when we discussed Black Friday, to avoid the mall at all costs on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, because as one student put it, you have to fight to move around. I did not believe my students at all. So against their advisement I went shopping on Christmas Eve. I went very early in the morning and beat all of the crowds. The reason why everyone goes shopping on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is because everything in the mall is on sale, and I don't mean 10-20% off. We are talking 50% at the lowest. From what I gathered is that, as Christmas Eve progresses the discounts increase and then at midnight on Christmas Eve the sales really swing into full of effect.
To give you an idea of the amount of traffic out last night, you need to know that from my apartment to the mall it is about 2 miles, or a ten minute cab ride depending on traffic. Last night around 10PM some friends and I got into a cab to head to Wuhan Prison, which you have to drive past the mall to get to. Traffic was so bad last night that it took us 15 minutes to find a taxi-and some taxis wouldn't even take us the way we need to go because of traffic-, and about 20 minutes to get halfway to the mall. In fact, the road we needed to travel down to get to Prison was shut down to avoid increased flows of traffic. Traffic in China is chaos-buses constantly make left hand turns from the right lane of traffic, cabs will drive in between two cars while occupying the middle of two lanes, etc-enough already without the entire city of Wuhan going shopping, but last night was mayhem. We had to walk the next mile and a half or so to the bar and the entire time we just kept seeing waves and hordes of people coming from the mall or going to the mall. I thought that if I could go shopping on Black Friday and work at one of the busiest malls in the suburbs during Black Friday that I could handle shopping with the Chinese on Christmas Eve. After seeing the crowds of people, no way-In reality I used a four letter to describe my feelings but it doesn't really seem appropriate to write that in a Christmas type blog.
Anyways, the foreign teachers and I are having a big Christmas dinner together tonight and we will all celebrate together. It is nice to be done with finals and to be more or less done with my first semester of teaching. Less then three weeks before I take off for Southeast Asia and get out of Wuhanese weather. I cannot wait for the upper 80s and low 90s of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.
Merry Christmas to everyone back home. I wish I could be there with all of you, but we will just have to wait till next year. I hope Santa was good to all of you.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Experiences Abroad, Holidays Away From Home, and Life Updates.
It has been exactly one month since my last blog post and life is still going well over here in Wuhan. One of the best parts of the life currently here is that winter has yet to show it's ugly face. While it is snowing back home, with temperatures dipping into the teens on a more regular basis, we have yet to see a single flake, and I have to say I don't miss it at all. We have had maybe our second or third cold week here since October-and by the winter standards I am use to, 50-60 degrees really isn't cold at all. I do get a big kick out of seeing all my students wrap themselves up in huge jackets as soon as the temperature drops below 60 and listening to them complain about the cold. The one drawback to this unusually warm winter-and who says global warming isn't real?-is that I don't think a White Christmas is in my future at all. With Christmas only a few weeks away, it doesn't seem as tough or upsetting as Thanksgiving did. Back home there are Thanksgiving/Autumn decorations everywhere, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Charlie Brown specials, and that fantastic smell of turkey come Thanksgiving Day. Aside from the smell of sweet potatoes lingering in our food street, there was virtually no trace of Thanksgiving anywhere.
Yet, take a walk around our food streets now or even a trip down to our enormous mall and you can see people selling snowmen, reindeer, and Santa decorations. Some restaurants that cater to a more westernized crowd have put up decorations inside and are requiring their employees to wear Santa hats. Not mention that multiple Christmas Trees I have seen popping up at various spots around campus and the bars we frequent. With the Chinese more willing to embrace Christmas-mostly because of the shopping discounts they get on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day and the younger generations increasing curiosity in western culture-it at least gives me friendly little reminders of the holiday and helps me enjoy the holiday more, instead of focusing on how I was missing out at home.
In the last couple of weeks I have been busy putting the finishing touches on my Spring Festival trip which will start January 16th or so and will last about a month. With stops in Vietnam-Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, and Saigon, Cambodia-Phonm Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville-and finally Thailand-Bangkok and Phuket-I am needless to say unbelievably excited to get out of China for awhile and do some more traveling. After living here in China for a few months, I have become a firm believer that travel really does broaden the mind. The other school of thought on travel seems to be that the more places you go to and the more you see, the more close minded you become. Some travel and see the places they explore as backward or not on par with their own experiences-this is especially true in developing countries. However, I think that is the wrong way to look at time abroad. Part of the problem too on Thanksgiving is that I was turkeyless-no Thanksgiving turkey and no Turkey bowl. We did all have a big group dinner at a restaurant here but eating sushi and rice just wasn't the same as turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.
While abroad you have an opportunity to embrace a lifestyle that should be extremely different than the one you have back in the States. You have an opportunity to be engulfed by a new culture, new ways of thinking, new opinions surrounded you, and your core beliefs on the world and yourself are certainly challenged more then once. Just as a quick side note for those of you that hear or read that China is challenging U.S. supremacy or is on the cusp of becoming a world power, that may seem likely on the east coast of China or in places like Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shen Zhen, but the reality is that super power status is probably decades away in China. Too many changes need to occur first-political reform, educational reform, equal income distribution as well as FDI, a general raise in wages for the working class, not to mention a healthy respect for civil society. Now after that little sidetrack, lets get back to the real point of this paragraph. Living here in China, I have seen some things that I never thought I would see and in some cases would have preferred not to see. But those are all part of the journey, part of the experience of moving 10,000 miles away. Had I moved 10,000 miles to be surrounded my strip malls, fast food chains and Wal-Marts, then there would essentially be no point in moving. Instead, living here is the chance to take in what the world has to offer, learn from it and grow from it.
After my trip through Southeast Asia, visiting two countries that I haven't been to before-while going back to one that I love-, and having the opportunity to speak to another completely different group of people-I have to admit I am really looking forward to having a conversation with the people from Cambodia based on the history of their country in the latter part of the 20th century-I will have yet another opportunity to learn. Even though I am a teacher over here, I think I am learning just as much if not more than my students on a daily basis. For better or for worse I have started to feel unbelievably guilty when I walk around with my iPod in. I constantly feel like I am missing out on the sounds of China-mostly car horns, loud conversations, and loud music-or some sort of important cultural facet of life in China.
Other than trying to soak up everything I possibly can from life overseas, all is grand. I recently attended a play here on campus, the university had a showing of Othello and thankfully it was in English. Several of my students roped me into going and they weren't sure if it was in English or not, and after being placed in the VIP seating area I wasn't really in a position to bail if it was in Chinese. Finals will begin here on campus in two weeks and I actually finished putting together my first test tonight. I know understand why teachers fall behind on grading. I think the best analogy at times is that it is similar to working in a mail room, you are constantly getting papers (mail) coming in, and as fast as you try to mail them out, they keep coming. Luckily I have only fallen behind once and a lot of work on my weekend caught me up.
I hope everyone back home is enjoying the holiday season, the shopping, and the Christmas decorations. I will do another blog on Christmas to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Until then I miss all of you and keep in touch. It is always great to hear from all of you. GO PACK GO and the Bears Still Suck. Oh, one last thing that I almost forgot. My dream/future wife-Grace Potter-recently was part of Vh1's Salute the Troops show and was looking gorgeous as per-usual. I encourage all of you check out the videos here. I would be lying if I said I haven't watched these at least a few times already.
Yet, take a walk around our food streets now or even a trip down to our enormous mall and you can see people selling snowmen, reindeer, and Santa decorations. Some restaurants that cater to a more westernized crowd have put up decorations inside and are requiring their employees to wear Santa hats. Not mention that multiple Christmas Trees I have seen popping up at various spots around campus and the bars we frequent. With the Chinese more willing to embrace Christmas-mostly because of the shopping discounts they get on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day and the younger generations increasing curiosity in western culture-it at least gives me friendly little reminders of the holiday and helps me enjoy the holiday more, instead of focusing on how I was missing out at home.
In the last couple of weeks I have been busy putting the finishing touches on my Spring Festival trip which will start January 16th or so and will last about a month. With stops in Vietnam-Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, and Saigon, Cambodia-Phonm Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville-and finally Thailand-Bangkok and Phuket-I am needless to say unbelievably excited to get out of China for awhile and do some more traveling. After living here in China for a few months, I have become a firm believer that travel really does broaden the mind. The other school of thought on travel seems to be that the more places you go to and the more you see, the more close minded you become. Some travel and see the places they explore as backward or not on par with their own experiences-this is especially true in developing countries. However, I think that is the wrong way to look at time abroad. Part of the problem too on Thanksgiving is that I was turkeyless-no Thanksgiving turkey and no Turkey bowl. We did all have a big group dinner at a restaurant here but eating sushi and rice just wasn't the same as turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.
While abroad you have an opportunity to embrace a lifestyle that should be extremely different than the one you have back in the States. You have an opportunity to be engulfed by a new culture, new ways of thinking, new opinions surrounded you, and your core beliefs on the world and yourself are certainly challenged more then once. Just as a quick side note for those of you that hear or read that China is challenging U.S. supremacy or is on the cusp of becoming a world power, that may seem likely on the east coast of China or in places like Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shen Zhen, but the reality is that super power status is probably decades away in China. Too many changes need to occur first-political reform, educational reform, equal income distribution as well as FDI, a general raise in wages for the working class, not to mention a healthy respect for civil society. Now after that little sidetrack, lets get back to the real point of this paragraph. Living here in China, I have seen some things that I never thought I would see and in some cases would have preferred not to see. But those are all part of the journey, part of the experience of moving 10,000 miles away. Had I moved 10,000 miles to be surrounded my strip malls, fast food chains and Wal-Marts, then there would essentially be no point in moving. Instead, living here is the chance to take in what the world has to offer, learn from it and grow from it.
After my trip through Southeast Asia, visiting two countries that I haven't been to before-while going back to one that I love-, and having the opportunity to speak to another completely different group of people-I have to admit I am really looking forward to having a conversation with the people from Cambodia based on the history of their country in the latter part of the 20th century-I will have yet another opportunity to learn. Even though I am a teacher over here, I think I am learning just as much if not more than my students on a daily basis. For better or for worse I have started to feel unbelievably guilty when I walk around with my iPod in. I constantly feel like I am missing out on the sounds of China-mostly car horns, loud conversations, and loud music-or some sort of important cultural facet of life in China.
Other than trying to soak up everything I possibly can from life overseas, all is grand. I recently attended a play here on campus, the university had a showing of Othello and thankfully it was in English. Several of my students roped me into going and they weren't sure if it was in English or not, and after being placed in the VIP seating area I wasn't really in a position to bail if it was in Chinese. Finals will begin here on campus in two weeks and I actually finished putting together my first test tonight. I know understand why teachers fall behind on grading. I think the best analogy at times is that it is similar to working in a mail room, you are constantly getting papers (mail) coming in, and as fast as you try to mail them out, they keep coming. Luckily I have only fallen behind once and a lot of work on my weekend caught me up.
I hope everyone back home is enjoying the holiday season, the shopping, and the Christmas decorations. I will do another blog on Christmas to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Until then I miss all of you and keep in touch. It is always great to hear from all of you. GO PACK GO and the Bears Still Suck. Oh, one last thing that I almost forgot. My dream/future wife-Grace Potter-recently was part of Vh1's Salute the Troops show and was looking gorgeous as per-usual. I encourage all of you check out the videos here. I would be lying if I said I haven't watched these at least a few times already.
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