Glutton for Punishment

“No puede tener verguenza cuando esta aprendido una lengua” I told my Honduran coworkers last summer while on a church mission trip. “You cannot have shame when you are learning a language.” I think anyone who has learned a second language would agree. From a psychological perspective it comes down to conditioning, positive reinforcement and punishment. When you use a new word correctly that you have learned the other person’s understanding is a great reward, this reinforces what you have learned. The flip side is the punishment. I have been punished many times by lack of understanding. More often than not when I engage in conversation with people on the street they greatly over estimate my abilities and proceed to barrage me with all kinds of words that I don’t know. Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes it is confusing, and sometimes it leads to large misunderstandings. 

To me, learning a language via practice with native speakers is like warfare on the brain, and sometimes self confidence and pride are casualties of my war. Yesterday morning I went to get some pants hemmed, and I started talking with the lady running the shop. The people in Zhengzhou are so curious sometimes about foreigners that they will tolerate and wade through my Chinese in order to gain some information about me. Anyway, at one point I thought that I had accidently said that Chinese people were ugly (in hindsight I’m not sure what I said), so I over corrected. “I think Chinese people are very beautiful.” This was a mistake that I should have known better to make. Many of my students often suggest that I should find a Chinese girlfriend (could be self promotion, but who am I to state their intentions); many Chinese men tell me that Chinese women are very good and that I should abscond with one, and most are shocked to learn that I don’t have or want a girl friend at all because at the ripe age of 23 I should certainly have one.  

 Back to the story, the seamstress lit up with excitement. She told me that the shop owner next door had a 20 year old daughter who could speak some English. She grabbed me by the arm with surprising strength and was well on her way to seeing me forcibly introduced to the young women. Wes you fool. I’m a glutton for punishment, but there was no need to pull innocent bystanders onto my playground of shame.  “nooo!” I made a stand at the doorway. She backed down and released me. “How much does that shirt cost?” I awkwardly and abruptly changed the subject. This was the perfect distraction because as a Chinese shop owner she could not resist pedaling her product. I tactfully backed out of negotiations on the product and we continued to talk about other things while we waited for my pants to be hemmed. This is one small example of the circus that is learning Chinese in China.

Dancing Queen and Cock Fights

It all started at that cockfight in Kaifeng… no, no it didn’t, our group “chickened” out before the fight , myself included, but that’s a hell of a hook to start a post with right? We did go to Kaifeng last weekend though, and the weekend before that was Halloween. Both events were not surprisingly, unique; one was serendipitous in its participation, while the other was an all too common miscommunication with our Chinese guides on what we actually wanted, or what they felt we wanted.

We (the foreign teachers) had committed ourselves to putting together a Halloween party for the college students the Saturday night before Halloween. On Saturday,  As we tried to shake off the chemical vestiges of the Friday night expat Halloween party the college Halloween party loomed over us as an onerous task. That afternoon we all scrambled to put together some activities for these kids. I don’t know If I have said this before, but Chinese college students literally have the maturity level of 6^th and 7^th graders. I mean this, so putting together a party for 400 of them was really a headache. We scrapped together some Halloweenish activities: bobbing for apples, face painting, ghost stories (we had no idea how this would actually play out in practice), and a few other flaky things to fill time; however, when we got there we learned that the students had actually prepared a party for us. Thank God.

Our parts were minimal, but fun. They sang, songs, had several dance routines, and the grand finale seemed to be out of “glee” with an Asian twist as many of my students danced to “Dancing Queen” by Abba and threw out candy into the crowd. It was a great time. Side note: they are curious enough about the foreign teachers as it is, taking pictures sometimes in the middle of class, but if you add Americans with costumes, the attention acts as a pressure cooker, pressing down on your abdomen, moving the pressure to your face, and finally manifesting itself as a painful smile. What else can you do? You can see some of the pictures, and maybe, just maybe you will have some idea of what I am talking about. Later that night we went to one of our local watering holes, Reds (where everybody knows your name), to unwind after posing with 200+ students individually to take pictures. I was worried that I would be permanently stuck with an awkward smile and a peace sign. My cheeks hurt. Reds had a mini pumpkin carving contest, which Gillian and I tied for first in. After that we went home and to sleep. I don’t think I could absorb anymore Halloween in China, as fun as it was.

 As I said, last weekend we went to Kaifeng. As a group we were excited about this. Kaifeng is one of the seven ancient capitals of China. It was China’s capital during the Song dynasty, and reached its peak during the 11^th century as a well connected industrial hub making use of canals and waterways to the Yellow River; however, this was not the Kaifeng that we would see or learn about. The closest we would come to this was seeing the old city wall on the way into town. This trip was orchestrated through our college. They were nice enough to take us to Kaifeng for the day, all expenses paid, but this committed us to their prepared agenda. 

 

The college administrators thought that we would be bored by the historical Kaifeng, completely missing the fact that this was what interested us. Instead they took us to a “historical” amusement park with lots of performances. I can see their conversation in Chinese playing out, “Yes, we will take them there. They have performances; the Americans will be impressed.” Unfortunately, this was not the case. We learned that this park was built in 1998. One of the activities that they tried to take us to was a cock fight, not understanding that most Americans are put out by this display of animal cruelty, so this was nixed. The park did have some cool things, but all in all, the day was frustrating. This weekend I seek the elusive driving range to get my golf fix… like all mundane tasks in China in its conception, this should be wildly interesting and anything but mundane. 

More pictures of the past two weekends

"Apologize"

Today I gave back quizzes from last week. Most of the grades were good. Some, however, were not so good. Jason failed. After class he stayed in his seat in the back row. This did not phase me; we have a 20 minute break in between my two, two hour morning classes. What was out of the ordinary was when he turned his mp3 player up as loud as it would go, stood up, and played/sung "Apologize" by Justin Timberlake. The main chorus - "its too late to apologize." This was an awkward situation. Being sung to in general is awkward. I anxiously checked Sunday's NFL scores while he was doing his thing. Oh look, the panthers won their first game. You hear that Jason? No. The only voice he was hearing was Justin's guiding him through this emotional catharsis that was apparently necessary in order to move forward with the day. At least he wasn't asking me to change his grade.

Qingdao

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post about the first part of my travels to Beijing and Qingdao. I have actually been a little sick this past week. When we got back from Beijing and got off the airplane we noticed something strange, literally, in the air. The airport was smoky and had the matching smell that something was indeed burning. As it was 1:00 in the morning, none of us felt the need to solve this mystery immediately. A very quiet and fatigued cab ride back to our barracks seemed much more appropriate than an ecological investigation. Unfortunately, the next few days also were smoky, for lack of a better word. Weather.com concurred. It listed the weather as “72 degrees, smoke.” Apparently, that is a weather condition in China. The smoke also made  me sick, and in the end was believed to be from farmers burning mass amounts of straw. But anyway, I’m better now.

 The Qingdao leg of my journey was incredible. In brief, Qingdao is a medium sized modern city on China’s coast.  The skies were blue, the temperature moderate, and the scenery, sublime. Qingdao is also China’s beer capital as they are home to China’s largest brewery, Tsingtao. At one point we saw a sign that boasted the city as the beer capital of the world. Ohh, the Chinese. Highlights included a tour of the brewery, a walk on the beach, and a nice hike to the top of a park where we could see much of the city overlooking the Yellow Sea. The strangest (the word “strange” is losing meaning to me and is an inevitable descriptor of at least one part of everyday) part of our stay occurred after a couple bags of beer while meandering about the winding streets of Qingdao which  has a tangible European feel as it was under German control from 1898 until 1914. As we were passing one alley way with seemingly not-too-out-of-the-ordinary Christmas lights, “Let’s check this way out,” Anna said. I was sold; after all it was curiosity in its purest form that brought me to China in the first place--even if I told you it was because I wanted to learn Mandarin and I was an Econ major or any number of official reasons, although most are true. We continued down this rabbit hole of an alley way that presented clues that this alley way was extraordinary. But it could be that we were all sharing a bag of beer with straws? no, the alley gives way to archways and  louder sounds… a hubbub. Joe, Anna, and I pressed forward with steeled resolve, and like Alice and her rabbit hole we found a bizarre world which seemed only the imagination could conjure.  

We entered what was called “Vallerium City.” This place was the strangest of strange. It was a two or three block European city replete with artificial sky. But in practical terms it was a really cool mall. There was a magician performing publicly as we entered. As we continued we saw a man dressed as a pig, a man dressed as a witch, a man dressed as a princess, and several other men dressed in ways that would not make their mothers  proud. Eventually, we pressed through Vallerium City and shook off its confusion to put some grub in our bellies. We spent a total of two days in Qingdao and enjoyed every second.

Travels Part I

38 years before I was born to the day, October 1^st, 1987, Mao Zedong declared China a People’s Republic and thus signaling an end to a long raging civil war with Chiang Kai-Shek of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang. The Kuomintang retreated from mainland China to Taiwan. To this day there is still strong ambiguity where exactly Taiwan falls in terms of sovereignty. The result of the declaration, however, was the birth of an overtly communist China and an annual week long holiday from October 1^st to the 7^th also called “Golden Week.” With this holiday Joe, Gillian, Anna, and I decided to set out for Beijing and subsequently Qingdao, knowing that we would be up against one of the most powerful and formative forces in the modern world, the Chinese population. 

               

Our first activity on day one in Beijing was touring Tiananmen Square as well as The Forbidden City. Everyone involved knew that this would be tantamount to walking into the lion’s den. Maybe that’s not the right analogy because there are only five or so lions in a pride and the Chinese people aren’t exactly the most physically imposing opposition, but you get the idea. Tiananmen Square, adjacent to the Forbidden City, would be a mad house. They are the two largest tourist attractions in city of Beijing, China’s capital, and it’s their equivalent of July 4^th, and it’s a Saturday. If you didn’t get the idea hopefully now you do. When we finally got to the subway exit that empties in between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen it was a packed stairway going up. All I could see were people and blue sky, I had no idea what I was walking into or what to expect at the pinnacle of this stairway. I just took one patient step at a time as it was gifted to me.  To sum up these attractions, they were both very crowded but not so much that it detracted from the overall value I took away from them.

              

   I have stated before how China is land of many contrasts. For example, they have the first operating mag-lev trains but use troughs regularly as their toilets. They have one of the most beautiful countries in the world, but it is often bogged down in a hazy smog. This theme could be continued ad nauseam, but I will apply it to the average Chinese person and their desire to both push and shove their way to the front and help you at whatever costs. Example 1 in present tense: After seeing Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City we set out for Jingshan park, a short bus ride away. Eventually, the correct bus is pulling up, and we have positioned ourselves well, though a short sprint in either direction is likely to correct for how far or short of our position the bus, more specifically the bus door, stops from our current position. We and the masses behind us can all see the bus coming. The calm before the storm acquiesces to a murmur then a roar of anticipation. As the bus is still pulling up the man operating the door in the middle of the bus sticks his head out of the window and yells something in Chinese. This is atypical. If I were judging on inflection alone he was saying “save yourselves!!” But the piranhas don’t signal that he has said get the next bus and thus the rush is still on. It finally stops. GOOO! If you are old, young, tired, on the verge of death then that is too bad.  You have just died via trample.  You should have known better; you shouldn’t have been standing there. Elbows, grabbing, pulling, shoving, it’s all fair game to get on the bus that I can only assume is the last transport off of a doomed planet. In the craze of this moment once I had established myself on the bus I would not have been surprised to see a strange women trying to hand me her baby, so long as I would take it to the next stop, maybe the next stop would offer a better life.

               

That is all very real, but I will offer its counterpoint. Almost every accurate description of China has a counterpoint. On our last day in Beijing we wanted to go to Hou Hai Lake. On our way there our bearings became unsure so I asked a passerby, “Zai nar hou hai?” (Where is hou hai?). They were not sure so they in turn stopped the next random Asian that walked by and asked them. Again, they were not sure. Before we knew it we were holding a conference in the middle of the street on where exactly Hou Hai lake was and what was the best way to get there. It was too much. They were already into this subject way more than I cared to be. Eventually, we were able to adjourn the committee, but these are the lengths that they will go to help you on an individual level. Just don’t expect them to hold a spot for you in line. They have no concept of a line aside from may the best line cutter win. China, the land of contrasts.

This concludes part one of my Golden Week summary. I will post on Qingdao tomorrow. ..

... The Bird's Nest from the 2008 Olympic Games. 

Hmmm... I had beef last night; tonight I'm more in a baby mood.

Stranger than Fiction

After my first class I make my way to the men’s room. As I walk in and am heading towards the far urinal I see one of my students, Hardaway, squatting (most places there are not actual toilets, just troughs) and going number two with the stall door wide open while smoking a cigarette. I snap my head back on plane and continue my saunter with disturbing detachment. This is not the first time this has happened. It must be 9:00am Wednesday morning.TMI? Maybe. Truthful? Brutally.

Baozi you are a fickle mistress

One of the great perks of the program that I have gone through to place me here is that Monday through Friday lunch and dinner are provided to us by a cook who lives on site. This is so awesome; however, it leaves us to the winds of culinary fortune for breakfast. For me this usually means baozi. Baozi are basically big dumpling creations. My flavors of choice – cabbage, and pork. 

I order my baozi from the same stand every morning.  “The baozi lady” with time has become a close personal friend of mine, but this was not always so. Chinese as most of you may know is not the easiest language to use. I often believe I am saying the word correctly, but due to tonal differences I am not. The result can be a frustrating linguistic game of who’s on first. When ordering the baozi such scenarios have played out all too often. “ro de he baicai” I order. What sounds like a bunch of garbled fast Chinese is the response I receive which the general gist of I believe to be, “what the hell did you just say? You sound like you’re choking, having a seizure, and talking all at the same time. Please tell me you are not trying to pass that as Chinese.” Ah, its raining and there is a line behind me. “Hao, hao, hao, hao” I eventually submit. This is basically like saying, “okay, okay, okay, okay”, the repetition is key. I just need something to eat before I miss my bus. Time to play scratch off lotto.

First baozi, so far so good, pork. Second, okay, the leafy green spinach deal. What I want to avoid at all cost is the bean paste baozi, the mail bomb disguised as a gift package from your grandmother. Bean paste is the ultimate Trojan horse of food substances. For it knows it is sweet, but harsh, and has a generally disagreeable texture and thus needs to be hidden in whatever food it seeks refuge. Bean paste is a cunning foe. I bite into the third baozi.

No, it can’t be. AHHHH, bean paste! I feel like some infamous military commander who has made a tactical blunder and in doing so sent thousands of my own men into certain doom. Charge or the Light Brigade. Gallipoli all over. Except its my own taste buds that I have let down. I am Colonel Kurtz from Apocolypse Now, “The horror, the horror.” This is not how you want to start your day. The good news it that I have now made it clear with my close friend and confidant “the baozi lady” which my two flavors of choice are and that these days of playing Russian roulette first thing in the morning are over.

Good thing I got my shots...

Not in Kansas Anymore

Humor. The overwhelming probability of humor is what awaits me every time that I leave my apartment in China. Sometimes I don’t even have to go that far. In our apartments at the new campus (yes, I have two apartments, don’t worry about it) one of my fellow teachers noticed that in between the potato setting and the beef setting on the microwave was a setting that read “baby.” These horrifyingly poor translations give me such joy in my day to day life. If I could just find the magnanimous soul slaving away in a factory unknowingly churning out little nuggets of comedy and thank them. In the hotel that I stayed in during our orientation in Shanghai there was a row of buttons which controlled corresponding lights. From right to left: desk light, pilot lamp, night light, and finally on the far left small pox. How did this happen? This was a very nice hotel. How could they butcher this so badly? And they were doing so well on the other light translations. I mean I thank God that they did mess this up because I have laughed a lot about it, but jeez guys.

 I posted a picture earlier of my Mr. Bond coffee drink which reads at the bottom “I’m young… I’m coffee.” If you say so Mr. Bond. That statement really reflects the difference in the way our two cultures perceive the world. I cannot say for sure and for certain what the coffee makers are exactly trying to project about their product, but do old people not like coffee too?

Another point of humor is my student’s names, their English names. Because I teach mostly sophomores they all already have English names. Some are reasonable – Jessica, Tim, Sam, Roger, Alisa. Others…. Precious (a guy), Corpse, Monkey, Sweet, Gentle, Banana, Panda. Take a moment by yourself and put yourself in my shoes. You are taking attendance. “Roger?” “Here” Jessica?” “Here” “Monkey?”… it is very hard not to laugh every time. It has not gotten any easier. “Um, excuse me you there in the back, Monkey. Do you know the answer to number four?” These are phrases I never dreamed that I would be saying. All of my teachers along the way would be proud. Well that Wes he was just always going to do something big and important. I can’t even take myself seriously when asking Monkey if he knows the answer.