A Hippy in China? Impossible

Once again I have become negligent in my updates with the blog. Over a month has gone by since my last entry and that is in part due to that fact that how do I follow up an entry about two months of traveling and adventures? Well, I think I may have the answer with a few stories that have come up over the first six weeks of the new semester. In the last six weeks I have had to remove several students from class, rip a students attempt at a homework assignment up in front of him, defend my showing of a documentary as nothing more than an aid to a lesson, and start teaching a class full of Ph.D holders. Life has been good lately. On the bright side I have had a lot of free time since my lesson plans have been done way ahead of class and this has allowed me to watch documentaries that I would classify as horror films if I owned a Blockbuster and finish several books-including a re-reading of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, why I thought this was a good idea I have no idea, South Park really describes the book for you in about twenty seconds. I've also had plenty of time to read the news which my students hate since I insist on bringing up current events in class-if you've ever wondered what pulling teeth is like, welcome to my world when we discuss current events.

This semester I inherited a new set of students on Wednesdays and Fridays, along with being selected to co-run an English course for professors on campus hoping to teaching in America in the future. I kept my same freshmen students on Mondays and once again they nothing short of spectacular, they follow my limited set of rules and participate, cannot ask for anything else. However my new group of students have a very hard time showing up for class on time, which is my only real rule in class that I strictly enforce. After the same set students showing up late several classes in a row I started the lock the door as the bell rang. Now when they show up late not only cannot they not figure out why they cannot open the door but I've also seen a few walk right into the door expecting it to open up. All in all I've received a good laugh from this a time or two. It is like watching a bird slam into a window and we all know that never gets old.

With these new students I am suppose to cover a certain set of chapters in a horrible book given to me and all my students. In this book one of the lessons I am suppose to cover is on environmental protection. I decide one day that instead of doing listening activities and group work that we will watch the documentary The 11th Hour. We spent two periods watching the film and then discussing it. However during the course of watching this movie I had several students falls asleep. Now before every film I show in class I remind my students that if one of them falls asleep they ruin the movie for the entire class because I turn it off and give a test instead. With this film since it was being incorporated into a larger lesson I couldn't really do that. Instead I had to assign two page papers to the students who fell asleep and a seven page paper to a student who didn't learn his lesson the first time. This same student also came back to the next class without his paper, was kicked of class and told to come back when he had the paper finished. I expected him to come back the following week. But this is China after all. He showed up about half an hour later with a seven page paper, which had the first two sentences consisting of "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, YEA, YEA, YEA." And it was written in size twenty font. I laughed at as I flipped through the pages, ripped it up and told him to stop being a child, stop wasting my time and go write an actual paper. I'm blown away at times over here by the childish behavior of some of my students. They are very smart at times and wonderful students for the most part but at other times I just want to shake them and ask them how old they are. I can never imagine at any point in my high school or college years where I would've had the balls to do what some of these kids do. In that regard, I give them the tip of my hat, but then in reality I have to teach them some very basic lessons at time that I never should.

In the follow up discussions about The 11th Hour I realized how environmental protection and raising awareness was something that my students had never really spent any time on. A majority of my students were glad I had shown them the film, one called me a hippy-which I didn't even think they knew about-and a few seemed to think I was standing a pedestal and preaching to them about a developed verse developing world issue. I tried to tell them that I wasn't doing this at all, that I was merely attempting to raise awareness and get them to see one of the big issues facing our generation. It was really sad to see how many students thought the things in the film and what I was talking about were made up-I had no clue Fox News was broadcasted in China-and some of them just have no real concern over the issue at all. Activism has a long way to go over here still. Which is why my Final Jeopardy question this week during class has been in regard to the resent arrest of one of China's most prominent international artists. I ask the students who co-designed the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest? Then I tell them to look up more of the work that Ai Weiwei has done, knowing that their search results will lead them to articles about his recent arrest. Someone has to stir up the pot a little I think.

Aside from these few issues, classes have been good. Life is good and I am enjoying the last few weeks I have here in Wuhan. I am planning on going to Beijing at the end of the month for a few days to see a concert and check another city off the list as well as the Great Wall. I will be home at the end of June. I believe Batavia will be holding a parade for the return of it's favorite son and the Chicago Cubs will be having me throw out the opening pitch at a game shortly after I return as well. One thing that I am going to be home just in time for is the Dave Matthews Band Caravan which will be in Chicago from July 8-10 and the official announcement of the location will be April 7th supposedly. The last thing I want to say before I sign off is, remember when the Packers won the Super Bowl? Wasn't that just the greatest thing ever?