‘Twas the weekend before Christmas…

It’s finals week here at Beihang, so I’m going to keep this short – I don’t have time to go into any great detail about the past week and a half. I’ll give a three highlights, and fill in the gaps at a later date. I promise.

1. I went to RBT (a pseudo-western tea house popular here in Beijing) on Tuesday with Mel to study and practice for our Chinese class. While we were sitting and chatting, VoL’s Skin came on over the PA system. I stopped and stared for a few minutes (ala the Desperado-guy from Seinfeld) and eventually managed to compose myself – it was surreal.

(For those of you who are unaware of VoL – VoL is an underground Christian folk rock band that is virtually unknown, which is why I included this note. The song Skin is about Vincent Van Gogh, his insanity, and his supposedly lopped off ear.)

2. I spent last weekend planning out my listening test (final for my graduate students) It was by far the most stressful forty eight hours of my life (so far) One thing I didn’t think about - and I should have - was that I would have to grade the finals at some point in the near future. Rather than make it multiple choice (easy to grade, cause it’s either right or wrong) I decided to make a fill-in-the-blank style test (hard to grade – full of grey area.) Each test takes about ten minutes to grade. That doesn’t sound so bad, but remember that I have 437 students in these classes. That’s only 73 hours of grading. Oh well.

3. Last night I received my first Christmas gift from Christie Brasser – a huge ornament with my name written on it. It’s large enough that it dwarfs my tree – the tree hangs on the ornament instead of the usual way. It’s large enough to be used as a Christmas piñata – do I dare to start a new Christmas tradition? Yes, I believe I do.

Have a merry Christmas, y’all

Hello Y'all,

It's been awhile since I last posted; I apologize. I have been busy enough that I had to prioritize my tasks, and unfortunately this didn't rank very high. Tonight I acquired a new type of internet card, and it seems to work great - maybe my internet problems are behind me (so it'll be easier to blog) - only time will tell. I composed this piecemeal over the last few weeks, and I haven't taken any time to check for continuity errors. Sorry.
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I've been playing nurse for most of the floor this past week – those who are sick have come down with a pretty nasty case of food poisoning or possibly a mild case of the flu. I've been to the store at least twice a day to acquire Ritz crackers, Sprite and water as well as a few other necessities. I have my rounds to check on everyone, and they all have my cell number in case of emergencies (such as running out of water or Ritz crackers.) I'm not just being nice – I hope that they will reciprocate when (not if) I get sick. There is nothing worse than being sick and alone, except being sick and alone in a place where you can't communicate with most of the people – including all of the doctors in the on-campus clinic.

That's how I spent most of my week. Here are a few non-nurse highlights for your reading pleasure...

Monday
Five of us on the floor decided to do a Secret Santa drawing to spare the pain of buying gifts for everyone and to place a cap on the value of the gifts given. It took us an entire hour to draw names – someone always ended up with their own name. It became Kafkaesque after the first four attempts (Beijing tends to amplify this feeling,) and everyone was pretty quiet until we succeeded. After we had drawn names, Mike mentioned that his stomach was cramping, and I was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. Mike, Mel, and I had eaten lunch together at a little restaurant outside of campus, and we had shared the same dishes...

Tuesday
At 2 am my cell phone rang – it was Mel, calling to let me know that she was horribly sick. She wanted to know if I was sick as well. I said, “no,” and went back to sleep.

That night I went out to dinner with Jared and Mike Brasser (a different Mike than the one mentioned before) to a little restaurant that the foreign teachers of BUAA call “Ashtray.” I don't know why it has that moniker – it just does. On the way to our table I noticed Stephanie and Anne (both foreign teachers at BUAA, and both from Australia) were sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant. I waved, they waved back, and I headed over to my table. The food was really good – some of the best that I've had in China. We went our separate ways after dinner, and I headed back to my flat to do a few lesson plans and to record myself reading a few articles for the College English magazine.

Wednesday
Taught my classes, they went remarkably well, and I spent my afternoon lazing around my apartment. I also took a little time to clean, if I remember correctly. I went out to a pretty sweet restaurant for dinner – the meal was served on a gigantic piping-hot cast iron plate. It was more food than ten people could eat (there were two of us – Mike had decided that he was feeling a bit better.) About half way through dinner a random bug fell from the ceiling and landed in the middle of our dish. After pointing it out to our waiter, we left – the meal was gratis. Went back to my apartment to do lesson plans – on the way I ran into Mel, who was apparently feeling much, much better. She apologized for the late call, and informed me that both Stephanie and Anne had cases of food poisoning from eating at Ashtray...

Thursday
Taught my classes – the students didn't seem to want to be there, and it was a teensy bit exasperating – I spent most of the time cajoling them along. After classes I did a little grocery shopping (snacky foods) and went to the internet cafe to check my email and send a few overdue replies (I'm about a month and a half behind, in case you're wondering.) I had my new Chinese class at 4 pm – it moves about twice as fast as the other class I was taking, plus it is taught by a teacher who speaks English. The teacher of the other class did not. I also signed up for a class on writing characters – it'll meet on Wednesdays. After class Rob, Mike, Mel, and I went back to “The Bug” restaurant – we sat in a private room (the walls had been spray-painted gold – China chic) on the third floor. We didn't see any bugs. The meal was still pretty good, though Mike left halfway through – he was having premonitions – stomach cramps and a bily taste in the back of the mouth. We drank two one-liter cartons of this funky carrot-pumpkin-mango-apple juice with dinner and were shocked to discover that each carton cost 45 kuai each (that's enough to buy 10 gallons of apple juice, which is what we had ordered.) We all vowed to never set foot in “The Bug” restaurant again. Afterwords I went back to my apartment and watched a DVD.

Friday
So tired – so very, very tired. Went to class, came back, took nap, went to dinner at Ashtray with Mel, came back, sat on couch and stared at the wall for a bit, and then went to sleep. At least I'm honest. Oh, wait – between the nap and dinner I wrote a few (43 by my count) Christmas cards/postcards – to the Grands and my former workmates at Repcolite. Made plans for phase two of the Christmas card campaign.

Saturday
Went to the Forbidden City Concert Hall at 2 pm to buy tickets for that night's performance of Handel's Messiah. It took an incredibly long time to find the concert hall, since it was hidden deep inside a park directly west of the Forbidden City. After buying tickets we (Mike – he was feelin' better - and I) braved the art students that hover around Tiananmen Square and headed towards one of the museums on the east side of the Square – the museum is showing an Egyptian exhibit which contains all of the relics of King Tut. When we arrived, we were sad to see that the museum closed at 4 pm, since it was 3:54 by my watch. So we wandered around doing tourist-type things – snapping pictures of people flying kites, talking to art students, bartering for things we neither need nor want in the Qianmen Market (southwest of Tiananmen) and making a general nuisance of ourselves. After a while we went for dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had “Beijing Burritos” - hot pulled pork in plum sauce with spring onions served on tofu pancakes which are rolled like burritos (hence the name.) Very tasty, once you figure out how to roll a burrito using chopsticks – it's quite a challenge. Once we finished, we headed back to the concert hall for the Messiah.

The Messiah was excellent – it was performed in English (the Chinese version was performed the next night) by a chamber orchestra, a full choir, and four talented soloists. Mike had never heard a live version of the Messiah performed before that night, and he was impressed.

Sunday
Went to BICF, met Jared and the Brassers, and we went to the Outback Steakhouse for lunch to celebrate the birthdays of Mike Brasser and myself. It was good, very good. Jared and I had a drink-off (using Fanta Orange – we tied on the amount) since they actually had free drink refills. Mike and I received presents aplenty – I received the Beatles Anthology DVD set, a boxed set of Lu Xun's works (Lu Xun is a famous twentieth century Chinese author,) and a tiger-striped toilet seat cover (from Jared.) The food was good (and Western) and there was actually too much – everyone left feeling uncomfortably full. Mike and I even managed to finagle free ice cream, since it was our birthdays (also strange for China, or so I heard.)

That night I went out to eat with most of the foreign teachers to celebrate my birthday, again. I was still pretty full, but the celebration was for me, so I did my best. I even had birthday bread – we ordered “cake” from the menu, but what appeared was only mildly cake-like. It was a large round loaf of fried sesame bread. It was really tasty, but it wasn't birthday cake. We had a lot left over birthday bread, and I was forced to take it home.

Monday
'Twas my birthday. I had leftover birthday bread for lunch, and I taught my classes. After classes the other teachers and I went out to a “cafe and bar” for birthday libations. It was a pretty good day.

Tuesday
Not sick yet, but I was getting there. Didn't do much of anything except teach class and sleep. I did find out that Mike (the teacher) had gone to the on-campus clinic since he hadn't been feeling well – he was diagnosed with an inflamed intestine – he's not allowed to eat anything except plain bread and rice for the next 3 days or so.

Wednesday
I felt happy and healthy – and it showed. I found out that my finals will be finished on the day after Christmas (all the other teachers won't finish until Jan 12 or so. It's the joy of teaching all spoken English classes – writing classes have later finals than the spoken classes. Mel and I went out to dinner at Ashtray – everyone else was still under the weather...

Thursday
Taught my classes. Didn't do anything else worth mentioning. Still not sick, though all the other teachers have been.
I am tired, and I think I'll be going to bed early tonight.

I have had a good 36 hours (as of 10 pm.) I think I'll explain in reverse chronological order. Why? Because I can.

3 hours ago – present
Compiled, processed, edited, and arranged this blog (also updated my gradebook while I was on the computer.) I had Godfather III on for background noise.

3 hours – 5 hours ago
Walked around the Alien's Street Market – it's an indoor market in the CBD (Central Business District – due east of the Forbidden City) in which the majority of the sales clerks speak Russian and Chinese rather than English and Chinese. I bought a tiny little Christmas tree and a few ornaments – my goal is a reproduction of the sad little Christmas tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and I think I'll achieve it. Also checked the price of ice skates – I can skate on the pond in the campus common (when it freezes, of course.) I noticed a lot of leather goods – this seems to be the place to get “quality” leather products in Beijing.

5 hours - 7 hours ago
Ate an early dinner + transit time. 'Nuff said.

7 hours – 11 hours ago
Karaoke at a KTV club in the New World Shopping Center – this was strange. I've done karaoke in the US – late at night in front of everyone in a smoky bar that has vintage 70's décor. But here, karaoke is done in a small private room – no drinking, no harsh smokiness, no vintage 70's people (or décor.) Everyone takes it very, very seriously. I went with Jared, Mike, Christie, and a bunch of people that I didn't know – students at Tsinghua University who attended a seminar that Mike gave – one of them won a gift certificate to this karaoke place from Mike's company and invited M+C (and anyone else they wanted to bring.) It was an OK time- I didn't know many of the songs, but Jared and I did an excellent rendition of “In the Jungle.” (I know I'm biased.) I sang the melody, he did the oweemoways. We're thinking about competitions – as seriously as people take karaoke here, there have to be quite a few.

13 hours -11 hours ago
Got up, got ready, and moseyed over to the NWSC. Once again, 'nuff said.

13 hours – 22 hours ago
Sleeping. (It was good – I hadn't been sleeping well)

22 hours – 28 hours ago
Hung out in my flat – moved furniture around, did the rest of my lesson plans, waged war against the grime and bacteria in my bathroom, (it was really, really bad – but it's operating room clean now) and watched Godfather II. Received a call from Tang, the editor of College English. He asked for a hard copy of what I'd submitted earlier.

29 hours – 28 hours ago
Had a tasty supper of Mongolian hotpot at a nice restaurant – by myself.

32 hours – 29 hours ago
Walked to IKEA – it was a beautiful day, I didn't even mind the hour it took. I bought a rug, hangers, a shower curtain, and a bunch of other things that I didn't really need.
Took a taxi back – my spoils were too heavy to carry back on foot.

34 hours – 32 hours ago
Went to the head editor of College English's office at noon to drop off an essay that I'd been correcting and submit my own version of it (on a floppy disk – I wasn't going to handwrite out a hardcopy.) The door was open just a little bit; the lights were on. No one else was in the Foreign Language Department; everyone was at lunch. I walked into the office – he wasn't there. I put the envelope containing the document and my floppy disk on the desk, and walked to the door. It had shut. (All doors in the FLD lock when shut, and you need a key to open them – the knobs don't have a latch.) I reached for my cell phone and realized I didn't have it on me. So I sat down at his desk and waited until people returned to the FLD after their two hour lunch. Since he had numerous pencils and pieces of paper on his desk, I composed a little poem to vent a few frustrations while waiting for my eventual rescuers. I'm going to included it – it isn't finished and I make no claims about whether or not it's “good poetry”, you may read at your own risk.

My smooth predilections were brought to a halt
by a student who claimed it was all my fault
that she wasn't learning anything worth knowing -
the things I was teaching appeared to be flowing
in one ear and out the other – not sticking or stopping.
I opened my mouth and prepared for the flip-flopping
of her opinion since my expressions weren't guarded -
offend your teacher in China and you'll be awarded
a failing grade. But she wasn't finished (just flustered -
probably checking to see if the courage she'd mustered
had melted.) stating, “I think we should do more speaking in class
and less listening.” Shocked - I should have waited, let it pass,
and let my internal censor work- and inspired, I said,
“then you should speak – so far today I know I have led
well, tried to start three discussions, but class was silent -
were you just tired or bored or did you not know what I meant -
were the directions confusing, did I go through them too fast?”
But she didn't answer my question – she let it go past
and stood there smiling,

36 hours – 34 hours
Taught my last class of the week; received conformation from Patricia (my boss, who was sitting in on my class as part of a study) of a rumor that I'd heard from Stephanie (from Australia, the other foreign teacher in the grad program.) The rumor? That our classes are finished on December 20 instead of January 10 (which is when the other programs and foreign teachers finish – suckers.) Since the last week is the final exam, I have three weeks to teach, a week of finals and then a paid six week vacation.

This past week has been hectic and sleepless; the details are all a blur. So I won't do this chronologically - I guess I'll have to do this stream-of-consciousness style. It might be hard to follow; it might be easy. I won't know (it will make perfect sense to me.)

I have gone to Wangfujing once a day for the past three days – Thursday to see if Matrix Revolutions was still playing (in English, with Chinese subtitles rather than dubbed Chinese with English subtitles) at a little theater hidden inside one of the two gigantic malls on Wangfujing Dajie (Dajie = Street) . It was. So most of the foreign teachers and I went to see it on Friday. The theater was modern, but the staff kept dragging gigantic strings of balloons from the back of the theater to the emergency exit at the front of theater. It was a little distracting and disturbing (where are they taking all those balloons?) We even attempted to track down the balloons after the movie, but alas, the balloons had disappeared. Saturday I went Christmas shopping, and I started out on Wangfujing. After a bit of browsing and a minor bit of hassling by “art students” (younger people, usually females, who wait on the street and sweet talk tourists into buying crappy art at ridiculously high prices – usually by claiming that a famous and obviously printed painting is their own work. They always claim to be students who need to sell their work to afford to attend school, and their ploy seems to work on tourists.) I moved onto the hutongs surrounding the Forbidden City. Hutongs are loads of fun – people yelling, “hallo – looka, looka!” at you as teem with the masses past their stores, kids barely able to walk trying to stick their little hands inside your pockets when they think you aren't watching, and no set prices on anything. I needed a “man-bag” to hold all my junk (map, Chinese-English dictionary, water bottle, etc.) that I might need when I go out and about, and I saw a nice North Face backpack in a shop as I teemed along. The first quoted price was 8 times what I ended up paying (after ten minutes of hard bargaining) and I still paid more than I should have. Of course I paid much, much less than I would have in the States, and I don't feel cheated, so I did well.

I taught my first twenty hour week this past week, and it did not go very well. 'Twas a long, long week, and by Friday it showed – I felt a little punch-drunk. Some classes are easier to teach than others, and some are just about impossible. Thankfully this semester is almost over – just six weeks to go. According to my boss, I'll be teaching Ph.D. candidates next semester, because I've been getting good reviews from some students that I'm teaching now. Students let you know what they think about you and your teaching methods here, there is absolutely no mincing of words. It's refreshing, as long as they say good things about you to your face.

I had another case of food poisoning this past week, but it wasn't anything that Immodium couldn't handle – more of an inconvenience than anything else. I can't wait until I finally adjust to the food here. I caught myself calling my flat “home” yesterday, and that's supposedly the sign of being settled (according to Mel and Mike, who were quoting an “written thingie – what's the word?” “Article?” “That's the word” written by “???” - it took them thirty minutes to agree that they didn't know who wrote it or where they'd seen it. So if any of you would like to come teach in China let me know – I can assure you that you're qualified.)

My life has simmered down at the moment; I need to start planning where I am going to go on Spring Festival ( a month long break that starts sometime in January – I'm not exactly sure, and getting details out of anyone here is almost impossible.) I welcome suggestions, if you have any.

On Sunday I attended the morning service at BICF, and afterwards went out for lunch with Jared and the Brassers at a little restaurant not at all close to Dongzhimen (a subway station.) I'd thought that you were never more than 500 feet from a restaurant when you were in Beijing, but I was proved wrong. We had to walk for at least half an hour before we stumbled across the little (tiny!) establishment. The food was spicy and good. After that I went back to my pad to prepare for my lessons – the topics for the week were food (grad students) and traveling (undergrads.) My feet had been sore for about a week; I took the time to examine them and found that I had some of the largest blisters that I have ever had – they were under old callouses. After a half hour of playing podiatrist, my feet were happier. I had purchased a thick wool pile (I used to call it shag, but my British neighbor, Melanie, took the time to point out what shag means in Britain. I won't go into it here, but it isn't good.] rug from IKEA that is more comfortable than my bed. I've contemplated sleeping on it, but it is a little too small for me to fit on comfortably. It is great for sore and tired feet, and it knocks the echo out of my room. I ended up hanging out with Melanie and Mike (from Nevada, teaches spoken English at the flight school, and is here only for one semester – his college has an exchange program with Beihang, so he gets credits for teaching here.) We watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, if I remember correctly.

Monday was typical – I have three classes on Monday – two in the morning and one at night. I do not have enough time between classes to go anywhere fun, so I reviewed my Chinese, cleaned my apartment, did laundry and lazed around before my night class. I also dropped off my first recordings at the editor's office – I had spent about three hours on Saturday and Sunday recording myself reading articles from College English onto a digital recorder. After that I was pretty bushed, so I went to bed early. That night at around 2 am, I was awakened by a noise – it sounded like someone was slamming a door. It went on and on (for about 5 minutes or so) but I did my best to ignore it, figuring that it was coming from my downstairs neighbors. The walls on my floor are soundproofed – I can't hear anything that happens on my floor, but the floors are not soundproofed – I often hear noises and conversations from below when I am in bed. So I figured it was no big deal and went back to sleep. I found out later that the noise was from students banging on the secure door on our floor (you need an RF fob or a password to get past the door and onto floor 14 – the door is designed to keep uninvited students off the foreign teacher floor.) The students are foreigners as well (the ones banging in the door were from France and Korea) and they live on floor 13. Their heating pipes had burst, their apartment was flooding, and the shut off valve was in Melanie's apartment. Apparently the hot water is pumped up through a separate set of pipes (one set for each apartment on the 14th floor) and then flow down to each apartment directly underneath. So I control the heat of everyone underneath me – if I shut the valve, everyone underneath me will be without heat The heat wasn't on yet – the maintenance people had been pressurizing the pipes to make sure they were okay.

On Tuesday I taught my one class, and then went to the Xizhimen (a main subway stop – it is a transfer station) area with Mike – he knew of a great DVD store where the prices are small but the selection isn't. I bought 25 DVDs – though 20 were in the 007 box set, and we ended up going to a jaio zi bar for dinner. Jaio zi are boiled dumplings that are usually filled with pork or beef and vegetables. Thanks to a slight language barrier (although Mike is almost fluent in Mandarin) we ended up getting enough jaio zi for ten people – it turns out that this place sold jaio zi by weight, so mike ordered one kilogram instead of one serving. I did my best, but that's just too much, even for two hungry foreigners.

I woke up early on Wednesday – I had a meeting with Prof. Zhang at nine about the classes that I was picking up from Ben (the teacher that left.) We discussed my schedule, and worked out times for my two new classes – their original times conflicted with other classes that I was teaching. I still have every afternoon free, but now my mornings are packed full – I have classes from eight to noon every day except Tuesday. After the meeting and my class, I went to Hepingmen market – it is an art market, and I bought a few posters and scrolls to put on my otherwise bare walls. Hepingmen market is a pretty sweet place – you can find every type of artwork imaginable and the supplies if you'd like to do it yourself. It's worth visiting if you're in Beijing, though it is a little touristy.

Thursday after my classes I went to Wangfujing (the main shopping district in Beijing)with Mike and Rob (teaching writing and oral English at the Freshman village, off campus – all freshmen are off campus, since Beihang is actively renovating the entire campus. Next year the freshman housing will be done, and they can move back onto campus. Rob is from Florida originally, though he taught in Hunan province last year.) Our goal was to visit the Foreign Language Bookstore, and we succeeded. I purchased a few novels and an excellent Chinese – English dictionary. Time was precious, since I had an accountability group that night with Jared and Mike Brasser. I'll be heading back to the bookstore when I have plenty of time to browse. On the way back to my apartment the light rain that had been falling all day began to freeze and eventually turned to snow. Branches fell from trees and all vertical surfaces were icy and slippery. Apparently Beijing doesn't see much snow or ice in the winter, and I am the only foreign teacher at Beihang who has experience walking on ice (Rob and I were the only ones who had seen snow before this storm.) Everyone, foreigners and natives alike, were walking around so slowly and hesitantly on some of the most textured ice that I've ever seen.

Friday I had 2 classes – one was with my new class, and the other was my largest class of grad students. The power was out in all the classrooms, and it made the rooms rather dark and sleepy. After class I went to the internet cafe, since the internet service that I have in my room has been kicking me off after about five minutes online. I met Jared at six pm – we went out to dinner and then to the theater. We saw The Diary of Anne Frank. It was performed in Chinese by a Chinese theater troupe. Since my knowledge of Chinese is limited (I know maybe thirty words) the two hours I spent in the theater seemed much, much longer – five years or so, I'd say. The acting was high school quality, and there was no set per se, just a few chairs, a sofa, a bed, and a table. The sound effects were the worst, though – at one point the actors hear the Nazis outside, and from the sounds we heard, there must have been at least 2000, all running in place. So it was pretty much a waste of my time.

I spent most of Saturday lazing around, watching Bond movies while working on my lesson plans for the upcoming week. I went out to Pizza Works with Rob for lunch – Pizza Works is an all you can eat pizza place, and they have all you can drink draft beer. It's a wonderful place – the pizza was good, the beer was okay. The pizza had very little sauce, and everyone seemed to pour ketchup on top of their pizza. I don't know which causes the other, but I tried it ala ketchup, and it wasn't terrible. I went out for dinner with Jared, M+C, and four other people that I didn't know. I do know them now, but since I only know their first names, I'm not going to record them here. We ordered too much food – we had 15 dishes (as a general rule, you order the same number of dishes as there are people present.) The food was really, really good – some of the best food I've had in China. After dinner we went back to the Brassers and played Cranium and a little Dutch Blitz (it's a card game – I hadn't heard of it before Saturday. It's fun in a world domination kind of way.) On the subway back I encountered the drunkest person that I have ever seen. The car was almost empty, and he was lolling and rolling around on the seat. This was strange, since everyone here is concerned with face, and being drunk on the subway is a great way to lose it. Also, he was all alone- this was the first lone drunk that I've seen- they're always in groups here. He got off at the first stop, and I was left wondering why.

Welcome to my blog, everyone.

This seems easier than sending out group emails to everyone; it might not be. I reserve the right to stop doing this at any time. Just thought I'd better make myself clear, lest I upset someone dearly if I should stop blogging in the future.

OK, let's move on. I've been in Beijing for a little over a month, and I believe that I am starting to settle in. For those of you who aren't sure, I am teaching English at Beihang University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA from here on in.) If you should happen to have a map of Beijing lying around, it is located on the southwest corner of the Fourth Ring Road and Xueyuan Lu. BUAA is a rather prestigious university; it is China's top ten (supposedly.) BUAA is also directly responsible for the recent Shenzou-5 launch – over 90% of the engineers and technicians were trained at BUAA.

I am one of eight foreign teachers at BUAA (there was one more, but he left three days ago due to family problems.) Let me give the demographics – 4 guys from the US, 1 guy from Canada (pronounced “gie” up north but he lives off campus) 1 lady from the UK, and 2 sheilas from Australia. The seven of us live on the fourteenth floor of a building that is what I would call “soviet bloc-chic.” The fourteenth floor has forty apartments, but since it is reserved merely for foreign experts (I have a card that says precisely that. It is by far the best souvenir a guy could have) no one lives in the thirty-three apartments that are empty. I have an empty “buffer” apartment on one side, and the lady from the UK on the other. Thankfully the rooms are sound-proofed; I can be as loud as I want whenever I want.

I am presently teaching 20 hours a week; the amount changed recently due to the departure of Ben, a very professional teacher who was carrying quite a load of classes. I also picked up an editorial position that Ben had at College English, a magazine that caters to college students who would like to learn English but aren't enrolled in classes. I will also be recording myself reading articles from the magazine – the recordings will be available online so that the people who purchase the magazine will be able to hear a native speaker and mimic the pronunciation (I'll include a link when my recordings go online.) This is on top of my contract, and I will be paid extra for this (I include this to prevent the email I would receive from my mother if I didn't include this information. Sorry.) I will also be collaborating with a professor in the Foreign Languages Department on a study that she wants to conduct on the results of native-speaking teachers in TESL classrooms. So I've got quite a bit on my plate at the moment, and it looks like I'll only be gaining more as time marches on.

All of my classes are Speaking/Listening – which means no papers to grade, although it will leave me in nebulous place when I have to give out grades at the end of the semester. I recently assigned a 5 minute speech for each of my grad students (14 hours, 500 students, classes range from 30 to 70 students) and my class of sophomore English majors (20 students, 2 hours.) I had another class of the same, but I lost them in the shuffle after Ben left. I haven't met my other class yet; I picked them up from Ben. I believe that it is a group of six students that are traveling to Toronto next August, and they need to grasp as much American/Canadian slang as possible before they leave (4 hours.) The Canadian Six could be a lot of fun – I can't wait to explain hockey to them as well as the thirteen different uses of the word “eh.” I think I remember Ben saying that their grasp on English left something to be desired, and that his feelings towards them were muddled – a love/hate relationship. Here's hoping that he was talking about a different class.

I sat through a mini-performance review on Thursday, and I seem to be doing a good job (this is China – everyone's concerned about saving face, so they won't tell you if you're doing a horrible job – you have to read between the lines.) My boss said that if I keep this up, I'll teach the Ph.D candidates next semester - this is apparently a great honor. I couldn't tell why it was a great honor – he tried to explain, but his answers didn't make any sense. So when I figure it out, I'll let you know; I promise.

(The next section is a rehashing of the group emails that I sent out. If you read them before, feel free to skip ahead – you won't miss out on anything.)

First Email – 10/04/2003
I arrived in Beijing on Saturday, Sept. 27 at approximately 6 p.m. (My plane was delayed for 4 hours or so at O'hare- one of the engines, to use the apt term that the stewards used, blew up. So we had to wait for a different [better?] plane.) I managed to collect my luggage, which thankfully was all there, ready and waiting, and head out out into the teeming throng of former passengers and aggressive taxi drivers. Someone was standing there holding a sign with “Duog Lubers” on it, and I nonchalantly sidled up and introduced myself. She was so happy to see me for the following reasons: I was under the age of forty – apparently there are quite a few older TESL teachers out there, and they are not known for there ability to make the classes they teach “fun.” I had bothered to show up—she'd been waiting for me since noon. And, she eventually confided in me that she had a test scheduled for 7 p.m., and she might actually make it back in time.

So we headed on to BUAA, and I learned many interesting facts as the driver attempted to kill us all with the greatest bravado, or at least make me poo my pants. I will confess, that had the airline food been anymore plentiful than it was, I might have had a problem. Some of the facts I discovered: there are two thousand students in this program; I was the first of two foreign teachers to arrive; we would each be teaching seven two hour classes; all of the students in the program would have AT LEAST one class with either of us. Those of you who are good with logic problems should have no problem understanding why I was little quieter after this discussion. After a good hour of some of the scariest stop-and-go traffic that I've ever seen we pulled onto the grounds of BUAA, and I was ushered into a large soviet-era block style building, onto an elevator, and whisked up to the fourteenth floor. My concierge waved a fob which let me pass through a formidable, shiny door, and I followed her down a pristine hall to my door, which has sort of a jail house chic thing going on. (My door is really two doors—the outer is a steel monstrosity that would do any jail cell proud, and the inner is a typical solid wood door. ) I stepped into my apartment.

My pad is pretty fly – it's a one bedroom, 500 sq. ft. loft. I kid you not, the ceiling is really twelve feet high. All the furniture is from IKEA and it all looks pretty new. The bathroom and kitchen are rather tiny, but serviceable.(the bathroom deserves it's own email) I'll send y'all a picture or two once I figure out how to make that work – one task at a time.

So my concierge left, and I was alone and I realized: I'm thirsty. This posed quite a serious problem. The tap water in China isn't fit to drink – you need to boil it to kill all the little baddies that are living it. So I searched-no kettle, pot or pan. There was a plate, a cup, two mugs, and a set of chopsticks, but I being tired, was not up to my usual creative problem solving self. Well, I thought, I saw a snack shop downstairs, I'll just mosey on down and buy something to drink. And that's when I realized my sheer ineptitude – I hadn't exchanged any money at the airport. I had absolutely no Chinese money on myself.
And it was dark outside – so I decided to wait it out 'til morning, rather than go exploring in the dark. It was a long, thirsty, and most importantly, long night.

I was up at the very crack of dawn, and I wandered around for a couple of hours until I stumbled onto a Bank of China ATM (compatible with the Cirrus network- check the back of your ATM card) and made a sizable withdrawal. I then walked next door to a snack shop, gestured wildly for a few minutes, and ended up with a large plate of food and a big pot of tea. After a good half hour or so I was contented, and I headed back to my pad for a little shut eye.

I have managed to adjust to the time (Beijing is 12 hours ahead of EST) and I'm getting around to adjusting to the food. My classes start on Oct. 9 (Oct. 1 is National Day and the nation takes the week following off.) and they are all oral classes – so it does not appear to be too much work. Each class meets once a week, so I only have to prepare one lesson per week. All my classes, with the exception of one, are finished before noon, so if you would like to visit, feel free.


Second Email – 10/05/2003
I'm going to take the time now to root through some of the minutiae. Hopefully I can head off the slew of questions that will soon be heading my way. So, you may read on at your own risk (I'm not promising that this won't be confusing, didactic or boring.)

Let's start with the classes that I'll be teaching. Everyone of my students is in a graduate program; not a single student of mine was an English major. They all have had at least four years of English, the majority have had six years, and about 20% have had eight years or more. Each class meets for one two hour period per week, and I'm teaching seven different classes of people a week. (I only have to plan one lesson per week.) My classes range in size from 35 to 65 students per class. (Stephanie, the other teacher in this section has a class of 125. Sucker.) The lesson planning is minimalistic for the textbook does not leave a lot of room for improvisation, which is just fine as far as I'm concerned. Once I get comfortable, I should have little problem supplementing the lesson plan with fun, but the first few classes might be rather dry. Oh well.

Next, the campus. It's really large and spacious. I know you don't believe me, but it's true. BUAA's campus sprawls over a square mile. I'd say it's about the same size as Calvin's campus. (I know that doesn't help quite a few of you, but it's what I know. Sorry.) My building is next to a large park, sort of like a college quad, except that you aren't supposed to walk on the grass. (I assume that's what those signs mean, and I haven't seen anyone on the grass.) The campus is really quite quiet and subdued.

There are numerous teahouses, restaurants, banks, internet cafes, pharmacies, and department stores (really) within a twenty minute walk of my apartment. As a bonus, Beijing recently completed a new loop of the subway, and there is a station right off campus – so I have cheap, (5 yuan for a round trip ticket - $.60 American) fast transportation to downtown (where the action is.) There is even an IKEA nearby -it's maybe a forty minute walk away. (Someone at Repcolite needs to tell Dick O.) There is a grocery store right around the corner and there are perpetually-open cafeterias almost everywhere. Everything is incredibly cheap – I spent 6 yuan ($.72) on a three course takeout meal so large that I'll have leftovers for a couple of days. You can pick up a CD for 5 yuan, a VCD for 7 yuan and a DVD for 8 yuan at a store on campus (of course it's pirated – there is no such thing as copyright law here. So quality is suspect, and legally, I can't take them home. But I digress.) It appears that when a movie is released in the states for viewing in theaters, it's also conveniently for sale in Beijing in DVD form at the corner market.

I've signed up for Mandarin classes, so eventually I'll be able to communicate without using my formidable skill of pantomime (thankfully honed to perfection through many games of charades) and ability to repeat phrases ad nausea in English until someone who understands both English and Mandarin walks by. My Mandarin phrasebook just aggravates people since I can point at the phrase I want to say (thankfully written in both Chinese characters as well as in English) but if the answer isn't a simple yes or no, their response falls on ignorant ears. But a phrase book is a comforting thing to have; it's a traveler's security blanket.

Third Email - 10/21/03
My classes are going very well; in fact I couldn't be happier with their progress. My seven classes of grad students are moving well, so well in fact that I have been assigned two other classes to teach. These classes are smaller, and are full of sophomore English majors. I'm actually looking forward to teaching these classes – I'm sure that they will be a great time. Grad students are talkative, but I've heard that these classes are driven to learn. I've been mentioning most of you to my classes – they love a good story, and I've got plenty.

I started taking classes in Mandarin on Monday, and I'm all giddied up to learn. My teacher doesn't speak a word of English – but the book we are using has plenty. So the teacher goes very slowly, and we all piece together what she's trying to say. But I'm learning a lot very quickly – I can pronounce the pin yin (how the characters sound – it is written using the roman alphabet) correctly now, and I can do all the tones, so all I need is to memorize the pin yin of all the words I need. Then I can at least speak to people (I'd have to spend a lot time memorizing the characters to be able to read signs and so forth, but I'd be happy just to be able to speak mandarin well enough so that the average person could understand me.

I went to Longqianxia this past weekend; it's a little town east of Beijing that is very touristy. The neat thing is that it is aimed at Chinese tourists. I chaperoned the trip (it was for about 30 English majors) with another teacher, and it was a blast. I have some pictures, and eventually I'll place them on this blog. The city is set in a canyon – there is dam at one end of the canyon and past the dam (on the river) is the amusement park.

(End of Rehashing)


Halloween was both awful and a wonderful time. My Halloween started early - I awoke at 3 am, all cramped up and tasting bile. I raced to the bathroom and spent the next six hours hugging the porcelain throne. Food poisoning is awful no matter where you are, but I can assure that a case of food poisoning in Beijing is a special occurrence.. As I reclined in my minuscule bathroom, I had plenty of time to ponder the great mysteries and paradoxes of life. Nothing brings enlightenment faster than the prospect of death; After three hours I was sure that I was going to die in my pajamas on the floor of my bathroom in Beijing.

At 9 am I felt a little better, and I realized that I had to email a lady from BICF (Beijing International Christian Fellowship – a church that I've been attending that isn't under gov't control, since it only allows in expats) to let her know that I couldn't be a camp counselor over the weekend. It took nearly half an hour to log on to the net – the internet has been remarkably slow lately – and open my yahoo account. To my great delight an email explaining that I wasn't needed was waiting for me – I was so happy I did a little dance of joy. When I finished celebrating I packed up my textbooks and went to class - I only had one class on Friday then, and the lesson called for very little speaking on my part. So I went and suffered through it. If I had canceled, I'd have to make up the class. I'm not going to do that. I'll suffer through before I cancel.(The lesson was on Western health care – what to do when you get sick in the West. Appropriate, no?)

After my class, I went back to my apartment and slept for about five hours. I awoke to the grating sound of my doorbell (a combination of fingers on chalkboard and cat in death throes) and lumbered to the door to find most of the other teachers waiting for me. They were wearing club clothes, and they wanted to know if I'd like to go get some pizza and then go out to Bar Street (Sanlitun? I think – they called it Bar Street) Clubbing didn't appeal to me, but pizza did, so I agreed. We went to this place called Le Jazz – a pseudo-American style eatery (what people in China think American food is like.) It was cafeteria-style, and the food was filling and bland (good for a nauseous tummy.) I had a good time – though Le Jazz had absolutely no connection to France or jazz. I even felt well enough after to eating to go to Bar Street.

Beijingers celebrate Halloween the same way most Americans do – costumes, jack-o-lanterns, candy, parties. It was comforting, and I had a pretty good time, all things considered. I even danced (after a lot of cajoling and a very well thought out philosophical argument) at GROOVE, a dance club that was throwing an all night Halloween bash. Eventually, I moseyed back to my flat and slept well.

I spent most of Saturday being lazy, but I went over to Mike and Christie Brasser's place for dinner (M&C went to Calvin – they graduated a year before me.) I can honestly say, without any doubt or hesitation, that the tacos that I had at the Brasser's were the best that I have ever had. After dinner, Jared (a friend from Calvin) coerced us in to playing the Newlywed (board) Game. Jared and I vs. M&C. Suffice to say, Jared and I lost, but not by a great margin. After that we played a little Scrabble, talked for a while and eventually went our separate ways.