A day in the life...

Hey! Jennifer and I just got back from a weekend in the same city we went for Valentine's Day dinner, Nanjing, and I was sitting on the train whisking through the countryside at around 170mph when I had a flash of brilliance. :)

My passion for traveling is equaled only by my frustration and angst when trying to convey the joy of the experience to others. For many, traveling is about finding solitude and peace in the middle of a completely different world, such as Elizabeth Gilbert's, Eat, Pray, Love. I on the other hand, enjoy immersing myself into wherever I am and soaking up all of the unique surroundings using as many sense-sponges as possible - I eat voraciously, talk incessantly, watch non-stop, hear acutely, and even over here in physically aloof China, the occasional connection of a hug lets me touch my host world.

All these new experiences give me volumes to chat about with friends, family, the guy drinking the same beer as me at Four Green Fields, the taxi driver in a new city who happens to be chatty - I enjoy telling everyone who will listen all about the crazy places I've been - but my words and descriptions always fall short. Especially when compared to the power of pictures.

So I decided to try a photo essay. Many of you may not know that I was enrolled to begin my graduate work as a Journalism major at USF but decided that Education gave me more options for traveling (since I'm too old to be trekking through war torn quagmires such as Iraq, Afghanistan, or New York City). And since writing, and taking photos is a passion of mine, why not put together a collection of photos and text that describes what a day teaching is like for me here in #1 Sr. High School in DanYang, China?

I like to begin things on Monday's, and mine began at 6am when I popped out of bed to the clanging and clattering of construction directly beneath our window and grabbed my camera and starting shooting. I kept it with me through the whole day, shooting everything I felt would be interesting. It ended with a Chinese feast in a private restaurant generously provided by the parents of one of my students who are asking if I will consider tutoring her privately as she is heading over to the United States soon and wants to learn more English asap!

On my way to watch the Chinese Flag raised for the morning, I grabbed a short video of the students as they formed up and then ran out to the track to line up for the weekly student speech. Click to watch..be patient, the web is still slow sometimes.



I'm putting some captions with these shots so you get the full effect of the experience...it's not glamorous over here by any stretch, but I hope I can convey how much I/we enjoy it.

Here are a few of the more interesting pics, to see the whole photo essay of my day, click on any picture to review all the photos.

Tip: When you click on a picture, or a video, in the blog, you are automatically taken to the viewer called Picasa. Once you are in Picasa, click the Slideshow button in the top left corner underneath the name of the photo album, DayInTheLife. Using the slideshow, you can adjust the time each slide appears so you can read all of the information provided in the captions.

Enjoy!












Zie Jian!

All in a day's work...

Click for more pictures of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

Hello, Ms. Jennifer here again! With a new week comes a new lesson, and a new attitude. I last wrote about the difficulty I was having with trying to get my students to speak English. I search and search each week for the perfect lesson that will motivate my students to speak and stay interested in my class. Much to my dismay however, I do not think there is one!

Click for more pictures of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

So my plan of attack now?...I have several lessons to choose from during the week. This way, if one fails or they are just not engaging, I can try the next. It also breaks up the monotony of teaching the same lesson 18 times in a row. So far, it has been working (of course, it's only Tuesday!).

I have also come to the conclusion that I can not reach everyone. There are just some students that don’t want to learn how to speak English. As I go around the room I have some students that are very interested and then some that could care less. For those that could care less, I give them a solid chance, then I pass right over and move on to the next student.

Click for more pictures of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

It's just a fact that I have too many students in my class for me to waste valuable time on a student that does not want to participate.

Click for more pictures of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

I even tried handing candy out to the students that volunteered to speak. I thought it was a good idea but I have since changed my mind about that also. I now have a system of going around the room and picking people in random order to speak English. If they are disinterested, I will just tell them thank you and let them sit back down. For the students that want to try, I spend more time asking them questions and engaging them in conversation (that is what the school is paying me for afterall!).

Click for more pictures of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

My hope is that the students who want to learn to speak will have an opportunity to speak in the 40 minutes a week that I teach them. The other students that don’t want to learn will at least be forced to listen to us speak. But I have also had trouble keeping the other students quiet as I go around the room.

Click for more pictures of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

I will first politely say “SHHHH”. Then I will ask them again, “Please do not be rude to your classmates when they are talking”. Then if that doesn’t work, I will shout “Anjing!” which means stop talking in Chinese - but more importantly it is what they hear yelled at them from their Chinese teachers so I do get them to be quiet after I shout that! Well, at least most of the time.

I do have one class that I am starting to dread teaching. Class 6 on Monday’s has been a problem from week one! There is one boy, in particular, that mimics what I say and talks Chinese to his friends while I am talking. I have asked nicely and I have taken him aside after class but nothing works.

Click for more pics of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

This week, he would not be quiet after repeated requests so I made him stand in the back of the class room against the wall. A method of punishment I learned from other students. He kicked desks and stomped his way to the back of the class! I try not to let it appear that I am angry and I continued my class with a smile.

This boy doesn’t realize who he is dealing with. He might find himself standing the rest of this semester!

Again, I am having a great time teaching though. I have so many students that are very happy to see me, they bring me gifts and stickers, they invite me to go with them to places in town…it is for these students that I love to teach.

Click for more pics of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

I brought my camera with me this week to show you some of my classes and my school. I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures and I will blog again soon.

Bye. Bye.

Click for more pics of my school and studentsDanYang_Jenns

When in Rome...

The Chinese National Anthem howled over the intercom system and as their flag was hoisted slowly into the sky, I suddenly I found myself in the middle of a paradigm shift.

I was shuffling across a breezeway headed towards Class 6, which is my 9:00 class of fifty-five high school kids, when blaring music stopped me dead in my tracks. I grinned to myself and looked out over the oval running track into a bright, crisp morning. With my back pack over one shoulder, a glass of hot tea in one hand and and my pointing stick (a small shaft of bamboo used to point out words on the board) in the other, I looked like any other teacher here on campus.

Except I'm white, speak English, and come from the worst of the West; the USA.

My breathing slowed and as I squinted into the sun I saw almost 1,000 students lined up as straight and tight as a military parade. I stood up straight and still and paid my respects.

When in Rome, er, China...

Back in 387AD, St. Augustine was in Milan and he noticed that the church didn't fast on Saturday like they did in Rome. He asked the bishop of Milan about it and he said, "When I am at Rome, I fast on Saturday and when I am at Milan, I do not." This custom became "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." and me and Jenny take this to heart here in the Middle Kingdom too.

I was remembering that morning I got caught by the National Anthem, and all of the ramifications of Doing as the Chinese Do, as I walked with Jenny into my school auditorium last Saturday night. We were there to enjoy an evening watching my students perform drama plays based on the theme of Chinese History. True to Chinese form, we knew nothing about the plays that the student's had been working on for weeks, until the day before and then it was only from an email from a student asking if we were attending the Student's Party tomorrow night?

I figured I could show up at their dorm building (it's right next to our teacher's apartment building) with a six pack of Coca-Cola and an English version of Kung Fu Panda and maybe learn a little about student life here in DanYang.

Turns out the student party is not one evening but two! evenings of drama routines put on by all 16 classes of my student's (with no teacher help of any kind) and the theme is Chinese History.

We said our one thousand hello's (we are the most popular teachers on campus, much to the chagrin of our Chinese counterparts) to the students and were happily escorted to our seats in the front row.

The school treats us like we are visiting dignitaries and we were surprised, but grateful, that they did not go so far as to ask us to judge the competition!

It did not take long to figure out a few things about my Chinese students; 1) organizing eight plays in one evening is time consuming and leads to mass chaos, 2) my kids have no rhythm at all, but they sure love to sing and dance, and 3) the only thing that matters when it comes to Chinese History is the Chinese Revolution of 1949 in all it's glory.

Play after play showed the dismal and repressed lives of everyday Chinese before the revolution and then the jubilation when Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC (People's Republic of China) and Chiang Kai-shek and his forces were forced out and fled to Taiwan. Communism prevailed in China!

Yes, here in the Middle Kingdom the Communists are the good guys.

Click on the pic to watch of video of the winning play. Be patient, it may take a few minutes to download.

So in a dramatic switch of perspective, for more than twenty years after the Chinese Revolution of 1949, there was almost no contact, limited trade, and no diplomatic ties between China and the USA at all. It was not until the 1970's that the US stopped recognizing the Republic of China, located on Taiwan, as China's true government and supported that government's holding the Chinese seat in the United Nations.

So we sat among a sea of friendly faces and watched history from another perspective - the Good Guy (Communism) wins and life here became happier and more fulfilling with more opportunities and a bright future, especially for the 800 million farmers and the students at our schools. It's ironic that Jenny and I would not be here at all if it wasn't for the last twenty of so years and this beautiful and complex country had not opened her doors, and her heart, to us.

So we clapped and yelled and were truly glad to be there.

I was asked to give a little speech after the shows were over and I walked up to the stage to a roaring applause. I joked that my students should be in the movies in Hollywood. I thanked them for their passion. I thanked them for letting us attend this wonderful event this evening. I even threw in a little Thank You Very Much in Chinese for a good laugh. They roared louder.

As I walked off the stage, in the back of my mind I was watching them line up on the field again, listening to their National Anthem playing lightly in the background and I felt more rumblings. More moving, more shifting.

I realize now after all my traveling and exploring other cultures that the rumbling and shifting is actually my mind opening, slowly, and letting in more light and joy. Not like tectonic plates shifting and throwing up mountains, more like water flowing around a rock. Quite. Warm. Friendly.

Being around kids, wherever you happen to be, can do that.

Zie Jian