Balance.

Overall, I would say that my students do not have discipline problems.

Right now I am teaching 3 different sets of students. Even though all 3 sections are registered at the same level of English ability in the school, it is very very clear that they are not at the same level (even within a single class, some students have no idea what I'm saying, while other students understand everything). That makes teaching very challenging. Do I spend my time giving individual attention to the students who are obviously struggling, while making the other students sit and wait until I'm done? Do I just keep trucking along because I don't want the students who are doing well to be "held back"?

What I've learned in college is that to solve this problem, students should be learning from each other, not just from me. So I should give them group work, have each student specialize in one thing, and have them teach each other. That way each student is doing independent work, each student can master a specific area, and everyone is learning. Now in practice, that is so hard to implement. Especially if a student can barely write or comprehend a simple sentence.

I brought up the discipline issue because (surprise, surprise) in the class with the lowest English comprehension level, the students are having the most difficulty focusing. In those classes, I have students who like to make jokes with the teacher, ie. talk back to me in a joking manner, make smart aleck-y comments, or make other comments to distract the class. And without fail, those students are the ones who have the most trouble understanding English.

Now what to do? I know this sounds awful. But many times, what I end up doing is just being really mean to the student who talks back (read: the student who is struggling the most) and ignore that student (usually a man). And then I'll pay extra attention to the students who understand me and do all their assignments (usually the women). This makes perfect sense (to me) on a classroom management level, ignore the student who is making a commotion and that student won't make a commotion anymore since ze isn't getting any attention from the teacher.

But in terms of helping students academically, it doesn't make any sense at all... I'm ignoring the student who needs the most help (who is acting out because ze doesn't understand the material) and focusing on the students who are already doing fine? I mean, it's the easiest route for me.

I really need to challenge myself constantly. I can't help but favor the students who do well in class. I favor the students who volunteer to speak in class. I favor the students who are the most fluent in English (and thus feel comfortable enough to volunteer in class). And to be completely honest, I favor the students who are better looking, who smile the most, who carry themselves with confidence, who initiate conversations with me.

Today in class there was a student who was obviously in tears. Maybe not directly my fault (since I wasn't yelling at her or picking on her), but I'm sure indirectly my fault since she was probably crying because she didn't understand what I was saying. She never volunteers in class. She never asks questions. Half the time she's not looking at me since she's looking into her electronic dictionary. Her homework assignments are incomprehensible. She obviously has no clue what's going on in class or with assignments. And I've known this. But I didn't make an effort to do anything. She had to literally cry, for me to notice, for me to actually do something. That, I would say, is not being a good teacher Wendy.

Teaching English is exhausting.

Hell, speaking English to people who don't understand English is exhausting.

I find it especially frustrating when students refuse to admit that they don't understand something. I know that there are cultural differences, and I know that they just want to appease me, but you never can tell what is right/wrong if the answer to every question is always yes.

Take this as a typical example. This happened today during the bus ride home with one of my students. Background story: I assigned my students to write a paragraph about either "morning" or "night." One paragraph, about one or the other, not both (sorry, my teacher-speak kicking in). And keep in mind that when I'm speaking to the student, I'm using full-on teacher-speak, slow, enunciated, and patronizing to anyone who actually understands English.

So the student asks me, "Teacher, homework, what do?"

"Rewrite the paragraph about either morning or night."
(Student looks confused.)

"Remember the paragraph you wrote about either morning or night?"
"Yes."

"Which did you write about? Morning or night?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the morning or the night?"
"Yes." (nodding enthusiastically)

"Which one did you write about?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the morning?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the night?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the morning or the night?"
"Yes." (smiling a lot)

"Which one did you write about?"
"Yes."

"Today, you brought your paragraph to class (She nodded along "Yes") and you let your partner read it. What was that paragraph about?"
"Yes."

"What was that paragraph about? What did you write about?"
"Morning. Morning."

"So you wrote about the morning?"
"Yes."

And then I proceeded to explain what she was supposed to do for homework. Afterwards, I asked her about 5 times if she understood, and of course the answer was Yes every time.

Sometimes I'll ask the student to explain what I just said, to see if they really do understand, and a lot of times, the student will just smile and say, "Sorry."

I didn't ask this student this time. I was already too exhausted from the conversation.

Patience. Teaching is a test of one's patience, for sure.

Weekend of Culture

So this past Saturday I went to the Beijing ArtWalk with the other teachers. It's a monthly event held in the art district in the northwest part of Beijing (on the 5th ring road, so also out in the boonies). When I studied abroad, we went on a class field trip to the 798 art district at DaShanZi. This time around, we went to the JiuChang art district, which is right next to the DaShanzi area. JiuChang is literally alcohol factory (it's called this because the art galleries and studios are at the site of an old alcohol factory). Since it was the first ArtWalk of the year, there were lectures, different types of FREE wine at each gallery, free snacks, all the galleries were open, and many of the artists were in the galleries. I was still feeling pretty sick, so I was sniffly and icky most of the time, but I had a really good time.


This is the gallery of a Korean artist, Park Seo-Bo. He gave a speech in the gallery and I got his autograph. His stuff was real minimal, with great color.


This was taken in one of my favorite galleries. It was a series of photographs, showing the interior of Shanghai and Beijing homes, with the view of the city outside the window.


The series is about the contrast between life inside the home and outside the home. And about how young people focus so much time doing meaningless activities. And obviously, there's a lot more going on here.


This photo is from another one of my favorite galleries. I'm a really big fan of Chinese contemporary art, especially photography. This exhibit focused a lot on the ways Beijing is changing, hence all the stuff about construction (and you know how I'm fascinated by all the construction going on here).


This picture is from an art installation. It was a really fun exhibit, since it was really interactive. The viewer walks through the gallery in a prescribed path, reading parts of a story as we walk through the exhibit. It starts off with the death of an emperor, and then we walk to a forest and we read about the story of a hero. And finally it ends with an overtop display about how we should all fly to the moon, and make more and more and more money (obviously a comment on materialism and the Olympics).


I liked this sculpture outside one of the galleries.



This gallery had paintings of stills from Hong Kong movies. And this giant installation of a tumbling Jenga tower. Also in this gallery were cloths that were handpainted. Really impressive.


I thought this was adorable. Is it just me or does this dog look super optimistic?


After dinner in DaShanzi at the Cave Cafe (where I ate fettucine alfredo with salmon, yummy!), we went to Alfa Lounge across from worker's stadium. I had a daiquiri. It came in a martini glass. I went home early since I was still sniffling like crazy.


Then on Sunday, our students invited us to go sing KTV with them. It was soo much fun. The students brought an entire table full of food for us. When we first walked in the room, the kid (his name is Gavin) on the right was passed out already. Turns out he had started boozing early in the afternoon and was wasted by 6 pm.


This was taken during my favorite song of the night. I forget who sings it, but it's this crazy Chinese dance song, and the chorus pretty much is comprised of repeating xu xi xi xi xi xu xi xi xi xi again and again as fast as you can. We just jumped up and down, dancing like crazy. My kids are great. I love them. I wish I could actually communicate with them. Too bad I can't practice speaking Chinese with them. I know I could actually be friends with some of them, if only we could actually talk and understand each other.

I'm sick.

Here is the food I eat when I'm sick in China (which is pretty much the same food I eat when I'm sick at home).


This is preserved duck egg and pork porridge with green onions. Super yummy stuff.


This is some more fried leafy green vegetable.


And here's a moon cake that Joe gave all of us. This one was bright green inside. I like the lotus paste and seed ones the best. Also I stole some green tea from the office, so now I can really enjoy the mooncakes.


And now I'm going to post pictures of my room here in China. (If you're on facebook, these are the same pictures).


Here's the view of my room from the long hallway (coming from the front door). The room is a double so it came with two sets of everything, including full sized beds. I pushed the beds together and now I have one massive massive bed.



That's a giant closet cabinet thing. There's so much space, and I didn't bring very much stuff. And that's my wall of pictures. Those are the same pictures I had in my Clark I room during senior year.


We made a trip to Ikea, and I bought this pretty bedspread which just brightens up my day. No more sterile-white-hospital-sheet look .

That's my desk and the hallway leading to the kitchen and bathroom. I posted a map of China and a map of Beijing. Yay for internet access!


Here's my tiny tiny kitchen. Tiny refrigerator, tiny stove top (with no oven), and tiny sink that emits nasty foul smells. And those are tiny croissants on top of my regular-sized microwave. I haven't used my stove yet. I'm a little scared. There's a sign in Chinese in my kitchen, and I haven't figured out what it says yet, but there are a bunch of exclamation marks on it.


That's my shower, with exposed pipes.



And there's the bottom half of my shower. Yep, I just have a shower curtain separating my shower area from my toilet. So that means that every time I shower, the entire bathroom floor is soaked with shower water. Sounds pretty nasty, but you get used to it. And this is pretty typical of Chinese bathrooms.


My sink area and more exposed pipes.


I'm actually loving my accommodations. I don't really mind living in a dorm room (even though we were originally promised actual apartments). I'm just glad I have my own space. I feel like such a brat talking about how I need to have my own room, especially considering that Chinese college students live in dorm rooms with 6-8 people.

Most everything in China is disorganized.

Seriously.

Talk about cultural differences. First of all, you can rarely get a straight answer out of anyone, for anything. I attribute this to the major differences in communication style.

I like to know everything. I like to have everything in order, and I like to communicate what I know so that everyone else will know what's going on too. And it's not that people in China don't have everything in order, it's just that they don't communicate it in a way I can understand. In China, a lot of things are assumed, so things aren't necessarily said outloud. But that's not helpful for me. And it's very frustrating, because it just means that I have no idea what's going on most of the time.

Sometimes I don't even know when I need to do something until just a few hours before I need to do it, and sometimes even only a few minutes before. I know it's not because the staff at my school want to sabotage me, it's just the way things are done. But it doesn't make things any easier for me. I've just become the obnoxious American who asks the same question over and over again (mainly because I can never figure out what the real answer is).

I have so much sympathy for the office staff at my school. The office staff is nearly all women, and most of the time they have absolutely no clue what is going on. The president of my school is such a deceitful asshole liar. He's a misogynist, and he has no respect for anyone but himself and the other men at the school. I don't think he ever does any work, and whenever we ask him anything, he just lies and gives us the run-around, telling us to ask the office staff. But when we ask the office staff, they never know what's going on either since no one tells them anything. And they do everything in English! It's crazy. I certainly wouldn't be able to run an office using only Chinese.

So today I showed up 10 minutes late to my writing class. It was soo embarrassing. I got sick last night, and so I didn't correct any student homework, I drugged myself with NyQuil and went to bed early. I woke up this morning, taught for an hour, ate lunch, and went back to sleep. After lunch, I passed out again, until about 3:15pm, then I woke up, corrected student homework and ran to the classroom. I showed up to my Section 2 writing class. The students in the classroom said, "Teacher, we don't have class today. You teach us tomorrow." They showed me their schedules, and they were absolutely right. I must be out of my mind (Sadly, this wasn't the first time this week that I got the sections mixed up). So I ran to the office to check my schedule, and Mandy, one of the office staff, says, "Wendy, your students are looking for you. You're teaching section 1 writing today." So I go to the classroom (it's 3:38pm, and class starts at 3:40pm so I'm thinking, "Whew.. I'm just in time."), and the students are going crazy. When I walk in the classroom they say, "Wendy's late! Wendy's late! You have to sing a song! Sing a song!" Obviously I'm not going to sing. So I ask the class, "What time does class start?" I look at their schedules, and all of them say 3:30pm. But MY schedule says 3:40pm. What the heck!? See! Serious disorganization if the teacher doesn't even know what's going on. I take full responsibility for showing up to the wrong section, but for typing the wrong start time for classes on my schedule? Not cool.

But yeah, this level of disorganization, I don't think it's only my school. I think it's China. It's just major cultural differences in how things are run (and it's not even an issue of a language barrier. I'm pretty sure that even if I were completely fluent in Chinese, I'd still be confused all the time, just cuz I'm not used to the process of how things are done around here). And honestly, I don't think I'll ever get used to it. So for anyone who is considering working in China, prepare yourself for major confusion, like all the time.

Picture Time!

So while walking on the overpass to go to my subway stop at GuangBo Xue Yuan, I saw this donkey in the middle of the street. What it was doing there, I have no idea. But it had a pile of food it was nibbling on, and a snazzy little outfit too, so it's gotta belong to someone. I've seen it a few other times around campus. Maybe you can pay to feed it?


This is at the south gate of ChaoYang Park. This was the day when we were going to see Nine Inch Nails at the Beijing Pop Music Festival (obviously inaccurately named). But we waited so long for my friend Clay to show up, that by the time he did, we were too tired for the concert, so we spent about 20 minutes selling/scalping our tickets.


This was our first night out in Sanlitunr. Pretty lights every night of the week, aggressive people practically dragging us into every bar tempting us with drink specials and cheap hookah.


Here we are outside Worker's Stadium, getting ready to go to Mix. As you can see, there's an Outback Steakhouse, though I hear it's pretty awful. And Vics expanded, so maybe we'll go there next time. P.S. we got those roses at dinner at this awesome Chinese restaurant called Berena's Bistro.


One of the staff people Joe got all of us a box of mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival (which is coming up on Tuesday). The mooncakes were soo yummy!


Mmmm.... my favorite... leafy green veggies. This looks like spinach, but it's not. Apparently it's called youmai cai, and it's just as yummy!


Xiaolong bao! Super yummy stuff. These dumplings, along with the leafy greens above, make for the perfect meal. Another great comfort food.


This is a stand at the night market in WangFuJing. That's right, it's sea star on a stick, and apparently centipede on a stick. But all this stuff is pure novelty meant to get a rise out of the tourists.


And here we are at the famous Beijiing roast duck restaurant, Quan Ju De, at WangFuJing Street. They carve the duck right in front of us at the table. I've had roast duck 3 times already since I've been in Beijing. And I am loving the stuff. The restaurant's so fancy that the chef doesn't even breathe on the food (hence the face mask, haha).

Cute Student Stories

One of my students is absolutely in love with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Absolutely in love! Almost every time I've seen him, he's asked me about Arnold. Earlier this week, he stopped me, all serious, and said, "Wendy, few weeks ago, I send email to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he not write me back. What can I do?" I was just like, ".......uhhhh, he's probably very busy." The student replied, "I know I know. Many people love Arnold." Then he said he wishes Arnold could be the Governor of California forever. And yesterday in his homework assignment, he wrote, "I love Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though he is the Mr. Governor of California." Too precious.

Today while taking the school van home from the QingHua campus to the ErWai campus (where I live), I started speaking Chinese to one of the staff people. Then, as I was struggling to make myself coherent, all the students in the backseat decided to close their windows so that they could hear me speak. Ack! Stage fright for realz.

And it's settled. I'm going on a tour to Inner Mongolia for the National Holiday during the first week of October. Living in a yurt, riding some camels, definitely looking forward to it.

Special Moments of the Day

Living in Beijing, often I have those moments where I just think, "Only in China would this happen."

This afternoon I was walking back from my classroom to my dorm room (walking literally to the building next door). As I'm crossing the little road, this burgundy car sees me trying to cross the road and literally accelerates toward me, with a look of disbelief (like, "How dare she cross the road in front of my car?!"). I had to run out of the way, because otherwise he would have hit me.

The traffic here is pretty horrendous. And the driving is even worse. The other night, during a ride home, the taxi driver was swerving so much, accelerating into red lights, and stopping so suddenly, I actually wondered if he was drunk.

Those moments sometimes make me aggravated that China isn't like home.

But while walking to the cafeteria for dinner tonight, I saw an older woman walking around in circles backward (!) around the tennis courts. It was the most bizarre, hilarious, awesome thing ever. And it reminded me why I love China.

Today in my writing class, a 10 minute writing warm-up exercise turned into a 40 minute writing exercise (and our class periods are only 50 minutes long!). One of my classes is known for its problem students because the students either don't show up, show up and act snotty, or just have no idea what is going on. (I'm glad I only have to deal with them twice a week.) So today, about a third of the class just didn't show up (the clique of snotty people all ditched).

So I was left with a group of 4 women that understood most of what I said, and a group of 3 men that have absolutely no idea what I'm saying about 95% of the time. Their level is so low that sometimes they don't understand what I'm saying when I'm asking them if they understand! It took so much personal attention just to get them to write 2 sentences. And then I wondered if it was a mistake for me to tell them that I understand Chinese, because then they just started speaking only in Chinese to me. Ahh teaching. Definitely a lesson in patience and time management.

Also today I learned that I had been misidentifying mapo tofu my entire life! So at home, my mom makes this dish that is diced soft tofu cubes cooked with bits of pork and salted soy bean. I love the stuff and served over rice, it's the ultimate comfort food. I had always thought that dish was called mapo tofu and so I wondered why whenever I ordered it in Beijing, the dish that came was a completely different flavor (one of the differences being that actual mapo tofu is ridiculously spicy). Today in the dining hall, since I made friends with the workers at one stall, I had her recommend me a tofu dish. She recommended liusi tofu, which is the dish that my mom cooks at home!! AND it came with some veggies. Mmm... yay for more comfort food here in China.

But I still crave pizza and french fries like every day.

We have the National Holiday off (the first week of October) and I was originally intending to go to XinJiang province with some other teachers, but the plane tickets are so expensive I can't afford to go anymore. So now I need to think of another place to visit. I also wanted to go visit Monica in Tokyo, but tickets there are even more out of my league. :-(

Also, one of the staff people, Joe, gave us a giant box of moon cakes for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival! I love moon cakes! Now I need to go buy some tea to go with my moon cakes.

Look out for pictures soon!

Day 1 of China Blog, Day 22 of Living in China

After lots of searching on the internet for the perfect blog hosting site (that isn't censored by the Chinese government) and lots of failed attempts at formatting a template on a different blogsite with very unreliable internet, I've returned to blogger for my China travel blog. The ironic thing is that I can access my blog settings on blogger, but I can't actually view my blog since that part of the website is blocked. Luckily, I found a proxy site I can use to view my actual page.

Now onto the update part of the post!

Today is my 22nd day of living in China (though quite honestly, it feels like a lot longer).

I first arrived in China on Sunday August 26. I flew into Shanghai and spent a week living in a hotel at Shanghai JiaoTong University. It was a week-long orientation with CIEE (the program I used to get connected with a Chinese school). We spent the week sight-seeing around the city, listening to guest speakers talk about cultural differences living and working in China, receiving training about teaching English as a foreign language, and preparing lessons for the upcoming school year. I got to go to the 88th floor of the JinMao Tower (the tallest building in China), take a night cruise on the HuangPu River with a gorgeous view of the skyscrapers along Pudong and the Bund, visit the Shanghai Museum, wander around People's Square, and visit the Yuan Garden in the Old Quarters. One of the Chinese student helpers I met was named Apple (just like Gwenyth Paltrow's baby!). She told me that her friends gave her that name because when she was younger, she was chubby. While in Shanghai, I also got a chance to hang out with my good friend Amy, whom I met while I studied abroad in Beijing. She took me out to all the cool nightspots in Shanghai.

On Saturday September 1, I flew to Beijing with two other teachers. We arrived in Beijing and got whisked away by Joe, a representative from the school (It was the fastest airport pick-up I've ever experienced. It took less than a minute, literally). Next we arrived at Beijing International Studies University, which is technically in the ChaoYang District of Beijing, but is all the way out on the East 5th Ring Road (which pretty much means we're living out in the suburbs, and it takes us nearly an hour to get to the city center, since there's traffic all the time). All the teachers are living in the foreign exchange students dorm, but at least we get our own rooms and I have my own bathroom and kitchen.

I'm teaching for the Beijing World Exchange College of Language (WECL) which is a private school housed on the Beijing International Studies University (aka. Er Wai) and the Qinghua University continuation school campuses. So WECL is pretty much a 2 year English language intensive school for adults. Many of the students are college-aged students who take an extra 2 years to study English in order to pass a test to study in the U.S., or older adults who took time off work to improve their English, or adults who just take night/weekend classes while working. Since it's a private school, the classes are pretty small, only about 20 students each.

I started teaching last Tuesday, and I've got to say, teaching is really exhausting. So far I've only been teaching 10 hours a week and I've been stressing already. My full teaching load is still only 20 hours a week (I'll be teaching college exchange students from Inner Mongolia), but those students don't arrive until October. I have one class that I really love. But it's really frustrating when some students just have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about in class. Our school has an English immersion policy (which means I'm not supposed to speak Chinese in class), so it's really difficult for me to see the students struggle and not be able to just translate for them. I've noticed that outside of class it's hard for me to kick the "teacher-speak," ie. talking really slowly and loudly, enunciating everything, and using hand motions to act out what I'm saying.

Our school has provided us with text to teach (so at least I don't have to create an entire curriculum on my own), but in terms of how to deliver the material, it's completely up to each teacher. So I've been trying to incorporate fun activities, while working through the books as efficiently as possible. It's also really hard correcting the students written grammar and pronunciation. All the students are so eager to learn, but sometimes I just feel so bad correcting them (for fear of hurting their self-esteems) and then I just wonder where to begin (since their levels are so elementary).

After teaching for just a week, it's already gotten easier. I just wonder if it will ever get less tiring. I am planning to volunteer for an organization in the city, but I'm going to wait a few weeks, until my schedule gets settled. And I also need to buckle down and seriously start studying Chinese. I speak English so much (in class and with the other teachers) that my Chinese isn't just going to improve on its own.

Also, everywhere I go, I've been making an effort to talk to workers. I found out that the salespeople at Silk Street market work 12 hour days every day of the year and get only TWO DAYS off each year. A lot of them are from AnHui province and from other areas that aren't as wealthy as Beijing. Also, a woman that works in the dining hall on campus works more than 12 hours a day, every day. I need to start talking to the taxi cab drivers, because apparently they are overworked and underpaid as well. I just need to work up the courage, since most of the time I can't understand their accents.

I will update later on the drama that has been going on with my school and the other juicy stuff. This is just a start.

Now for some pictures!


Here I am at the Yuan Gardens in the Old Quarters in Shanghai (The "Old Quarters" is pretty much a big shopping center that is designed to look all "ancient," when in fact there is a Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and Haagen Daz in the complex. And there's a really famous xiaolong bao restaurant too, which is always crowded.)


My most favorite dish to eat here in China. Lamb kabobs with spices from XinJiang. These meat skewers are the reason I started eating meat again here in China (though when I get back to the States, it'll be back to pescetarianism for me). This pic was taken at a Uyghur restaurant in Shanghai, with dance performances and everything!


This is the gorgeous Shanghai skyline. I took this picture during our night cruise on the HuangPu River. Our ship was super fancy. It was a clear, crisp evening, perfect for sitting out on deck.


The building on the left is the JinMao Tower in Shanghai (China's tallest building). On the right, they are building China's next tallest building. When we went to the 88th floor of the JinMao Tower (the observation deck), we could see all the construction workers on the top level of the building next door.


While Michele and I were wandering around Shanghai's People's Square, we came across a Madame Toussaud's wax museum. Of course we had to take a picture with Yao Ming in the lobby. He has a bouquet of roses because apparently he just got married (to a woman who's probably the same size as me).

Outside the Forbidden City in Beijing. Mao is looking as spiffy as ever.


There is construction everywhere in Beijing (and now it's in overdrive for the Olympics). This is in WangFuJing. There used to be a big building at this site, and now it's all gone. I bet they're building another shopping center in its place. The construction workers in Beijing are typically migrant workers from poorer, rural areas; and they usually sleep and eat at the construction site. What a life.


This is the Bank of China across the street from the Silk Market. I was here for three hours, waiting to cash just $100 USD in traveler's checks (if I had known it would take this long, I would've brought more checks with me). So not worth it. Sometimes things in China are so inefficient, it's completely mindblowing. There were only 2 tellers serving the 60+ people waiting. Why didn't I just go to a different bank with fewer people? Well, you can only cash traveler's checks at Bank of China branches. Greeeat.


A night out with the other teachers at a tapas place called Bed. Tapas! in China! Amazing! Their mojitos were absolutely delicious.


The teaching gang at the famous Beijing Duck restaurant, QuanJuDe, on WangFuJing Street.


I promise to update soon with more details and more pictures!