Chinadoug

2007-03-29T22:13:00.000+08:00

I've made the leap.

Here lies my new blog.

2007-03-16T14:56:00.000+08:00

This morning I was approached by a student who told me that neither his grade nor the grades of three of his fellow students had been submitted. That's a fairly common complaint around here and I've already resubmitted grades for twelve other students since the beginning of the semester. But here's the twist that makes this story so depressing: these four students took my academic writing class in the Spring of 2006, two semesters ago.

I still have my grade book from that semester, so I went back and after a good hour of searching I found their grades. (They'd each attended a different class, and none of them attended the class with the others in their major.) I typed up the "missing score" email explaining the mix up, and sent it to my contact lady. I received her reply fifteen minutes ago. To sum up: It's too late to change, and the students are out of luck. These students were set to graduate after this semester, but now they'll have to wait a year (because the necessary class is only offered in the spring.)

I've been lobbying for the right to enter my students scores into the system myself, instead of the current system where I turn in my scores to the department and they have a grad student mis-enter them for me. Now I'm going to get belligerent about it. This is completely unacceptable - the students passed the class with flying colors, and now they have to wait to graduate because a grad student didn't bother to type their grade into a computer. And now that the mistake has been caught and explained, the registrar will not make an exception to the "all-changes-must-be-submitted-before -the-end-of-the-next-semester" rule.

2007-03-14T13:35:00.000+08:00

Hi everyone,

Thanks for making the jump to this, my old, once blocked but now freely available blog. I'll be posting to this blog until China decides to free Xanga, I head back home, or China decides to block this site as well.

Peace,
Doug

2004-11-05T17:19:00.000+08:00

Ok, I haven't updated in a long, long time, and I apologize to all those who've taken the time to let me know how disappointed they are in me (I'm looking at you, Sandy.) I've decided to create a new blog, since I can't view this one here in China. I'll also be able to post pictures on my new blog and thus create a complete multimedia hullabaloo of goodness. I hope y'all enjoy.

Doug's New Blog

2004-09-06T17:01:00.001+08:00

Here we go again…

First, let me tell y’all about my class schedule for this semester – it rocks. Here’s why: I am teaching the same class (different students) that I taught last year. This means no new lesson plans. I also have every Friday off. This’ll let me do a whole lot of short trips out of Beijing. Also, I start on the 20th of September. (That’s a week later than everyone else.) I’m doing everything I can not to gloat in front of the other teachers, but it’s really hard.

I just returned from a short trip to Shanhaiguan – the place where the Great Wall meets the Pacific Ocean. It’s a beautiful small town (150,000 people) with a really laid back, friendly attitude. It was pretty much everything Beijing isn’t. Let me give you a quick breakdown of what happened. First, Mike and I took an early train from Beijing to Shanhaiguan. We rode “hard seat” class – the least expensive and most uncomfortable way to travel. Thankfully the ride only took 4 hours. Upon arriving in Shanhaiguan, we walked around in an attempt to find one of the three hotels which are listed in the LP. Since the map included was lacking in detail – and the fact that I only saw one street sign as we wandered – we managed to get more than a little lost. Thankfully we did stumble across a pedi-cab with a driver who knew of a great hotel and took us there without too much trouble. The hotel was a remodeled courtyard house and it was in great shape (for China.)

After getting situated Mike and I went for a wander to get a feel for the city. The Great Wall runs along the east side of the city and the part of the city that had our hotel was inside of a gate in the wall. (A gate in the Great Wall was a walled compound that housed a whole lotta soldiers to protect the gate from invaders.) The ocean is South of the city and the Great Wall meets the ocean at laolongtou (old dragon head.) Eventually Mike and I found a museum, which we toured with a guide who spoke English fairly well. An interesting tidbit about this museum – it had no point or purpose. It was a little bit of everything from everywhere in China. Most museums in China have just a little bit of this problem but this one was completely random. After that, we went to dinner at a crazy restaurant recommended in LP. We were the only people in the restaurant and when we finished eating the guy took a picture of us to hang on his wall (the wall was covered with pictures of foreigners.) Also, I ordered a can of coke and watched the waitress run down the block to a convenience store to purchase my coke.
After dinner we wandered around for a while and eventually found a row of shops that were selling tourist junk at remarkably reduced prices – most stuff sold for a tenth of the Beijing price. The next day we went down to laolongtou and saw the ocean. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and a steady breeze. We headed back to Beijing in the afternoon – another long and painful train ride – and dealt with the impenetrable crowds around the Beijing train station.

Mike took a lot of pictures and he has website where he'll be posting them soon. I've added a link to his website - feel free to check out his pics.

2004-09-06T17:01:00.000+08:00

The past few days have been incredibly busy – I’ve been playing floor mom for all the new teachers. They’re a decent bunch, although they don’t seem to be adjusting at all. They’re struggling, to put it mildly. Here’s an example: Saturday I took three of the new teachers to the Lido Hotel – the Lido sits in the middle of a great bunch of DVD stores and close to a couple of foreign import stores. We arrived and two of them headed straight to one of the import stores. They purchased loaves of French bread, went outside to the curb, sat down, and ate the entire loaf. I was surprised by the display (as were the masses of Beijingers who teemed past.) So I made sure that they had some lunch and answered more questions. I’ve answered more questions in the past week than I ever have. I mean that sincerely. I’ve actually posted hours on the door of my apartment, because the newbies seem to have no sense of time – have you ever had someone ask you at three in the morning where to buy cheese? I have. (The person in question was very homesick as well as concerned about dairy products.)

More newbies arrive tomorrow; I’m writing a short guidebook that should answer most of their questions. I also bought English maps of Beijing to give them and hopefully this will solve most of their problems here in Beijing. The problems that they’ve taken with them I can’t do anything about.

It’s thundering outside, and it’s bound to start raining at any minute. The sky’s all ugly and bruised, so it’ll be a doozy. The air was thick with pollution today, but tomorrow it’ll be clean and crisp for awhile – until the pollution rolls back in (around noon, most likely.)

Well, that’s enough for now.

2004-09-01T21:42:00.000+08:00

The past few days have been a blur – I haven’t been feeling too well and I’ve been taking it really easy. I spent Sunday with the Brassers, Monday I went to PriceSmart, a bulk goods store like Sam’s Club, and browsed around, Tuesday I wandered around the embassy district, and today I moseyed down around the Forbidden City. I’ll give you a few highlights of the past four days:

1. The weather has been spot-on perfect. Bright blue skies, minimal clouds, and a nice breeze is all we’ve had for the past three days – no smog or oppressive grayness.

2. I went down to Silk Alley with Mike T. (the teacher – Mike B. is my friend of Calvin fame.) Mike T has been almost everywhere in Beijing, but he hadn’t been there before today. Silk Alley is one of those “flagrant tourist” spots – it’s a market where everything is overpriced (but you can haggle) and I always keep a hand on my wallet. Silk Alley dead ends into a US embassy, but you can’t get there thanks to a large wall of barbed wire and Chinese guards with automatic weapons.

3. Today I had the strangest dish at lunch – it was beef jerky in a peppery sauce. It came on the recommendation of a waitress, and I don’t have a clue as to what it is called. But it was really good.

I still haven’t heard when classes start or what I am supposed to teach. I’m trying to be patient, but it’s getting hard to be calm here in Beijing.

2004-08-28T23:13:00.000+08:00

A whole slew of new teachers arrived today and an old one too. Mel's back for a goodbye tour of Beijing - she's been travelling around Asia since she finished teaching and felt that she had to say goodbye to all of her friends here one more time (real reason: she left most of her possessions here. It is good to know that she cares enough to
lie.) She ended up hanging around my apartment and we caught up on the happenings and managed to watch 6 episodes of 24. Yes, I am aware how sad that sounds, but I'm still a little jet-lagged and Mel was really tired and out of it.

I also replaced my crappy, plastic, dribbler showerhead with a nice and powerful brushed stainless steel model. I also replaced the flexible hose that connects the pipe to the showerhead - I now have a hose long enough that I could easily shower in the middle of my living room. Not that I would, of course, but it is nice to have that option.

I've been hearing rumors that my classes might not start until Sept. 13, but they are just rumors . I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find out that my classes start Tuesday. I'll keep y'all posted.

2004-08-27T11:52:00.000+08:00

I just returned from IKEA with a really comfy faux-leather recliner and footstool. I just thought I'd let y'all know. (My couch with its rock-like feel managed to offend my mother's sensibilities, and I know that she was concerned about my seating arrangements.) This afternoon I'll be heading out to the Underground Market - it's a fun mixture of antiques, souvenirs, everyday essentials and crap. It's a great time, and I highly recommend it.

2004-08-26T13:33:00.000+08:00

I’m back in Beijing. I arrived last night. I suffered through the longest and most painful set of flights possible. I flew with the main airline of the Great White North (I’d mention the name, but I’d rather not get sued for libel) and it sucked. Here’s why:

1. No food from Vancouver to Beijing – GWN air is having a contract dispute with its caterer, so no food for me (they did have drinks)

2. A 7 hour delay in Vancouver – I can understand this, but no explanation was given and we were strung along – just fifteen minutes more, just thirty minutes more

3. I ended up sitting next to an older lady who could hardly hear and seemed a little disoriented. During each movie she would elbow me viciously every five minutes or so and then ask me to explain what had just happened. She also gave two long monologues – one about UFOs and aliens and one on the different types of demons and angels (according to tradition.) It was fantastic.

4. The movies sucked. We saw Man on Fire, Fantasia (a crappy Hong Kong movie, not the Walt Disney classic) and Hellboy. Feeling a little depressed and abandoned? Try watching Hellboy while listening to an incoherent monologue on demons after 10 hours of a 14 hour flight.

But I’m back in Beijing now – I’ve been cleaning and rearranging furniture today. Not much else is happening around here - most of the teachers are arriving over the weekend.

2004-08-05T13:59:00.000+08:00

Most of you are aware of this, but for the few who aren't in the know - I'm back in the sleepy town of Holland, Michigan. I left Beijing three weeks ago and have been dividing my time between the beach, friends, and relatives. I head back to Beijing in three weeks, and I'm ready to go... adjusting to life in the USA has been a little rough.

As I'm sure you've noticed, I've taken the time to overhaul my blog. I'd been unable to view my blog in Beijing (I can see the text but not the look & feel) and these changes are long overdue.

2004-08-05T12:58:00.000+08:00

2004-06-19T21:42:00.000+08:00

It’s over.

I’m sitting on my balcony in the sweltering heat of the evening, sipping a cold, frosty beverage. It’s nice out here – there’s a little bit of a breeze, and I can smell the night jasmine in the park fourteen stories below. The sky is remarkably clear (for the perpetual smoginess of Beijing’s air) and I can see the moon and stars tonight. I’m in an excellent mood – I’m done with classes for the year, and I have a month to revel away before I head back home for the summer.

I finished my “special” class a week ago and I’ve been relaxing for the past week. I have visitors arriving on Monday (my little bro and my mom) and so I’ve also spent a considerable amount time organizing and cleaning my apartment – I think I have almost everything squared away. I’m packed and ready to head back at the moment – hopefully this’ll make it easier for me to travel after my visitors head back to the States.

For those of you who talked about visiting when I left and haven’t yet found the time to mosey on over, I am very disappointed in you. But I’m going to be really nice and stay an extra year so that you’ll have a whole ‘nuther year of chances to visit. This was not an easy choice to make, but I feel that I’ll have a better chance of accomplishing my goals if I spend another school year here in Beijing. For the record, this goal does not involve marriage – I really want to develop my Chinese, and if I stay in Beijing for another year I should be much closer to fluency. I will be heading back to Michigan in July to decompress a bit and reconnect with good ole American culture… and Mexican food. (There is no authentic Mexican food in China, at least none that I’ve seen and I’ve looked hard. There are a few attempts, but they fall short.)

Yesterday I had to attend an awards ceremony for foreign teachers – it was really short. It took 25 minutes, tops. I walked away with a Beihang t-shirt and a Beijing bottle opener. I also had to go to dinner with my department head and random professors. This took substantially longer than the ceremony, and I had to eat “formal” Chinese food – things like spicy fish scales and dried camel hump – yummy! Afterwards I went out with most of the other foreign teachers to Tomato – a German pizza restaurant especially popular with the Korean college students in Beijing. It’s an okay place – they have there own micro-brewery and that’s all right with me.

Let’s see, what else has happened in the past few weeks…………… not a whole lot, apparently. So I’ll stop here.

2004-05-31T23:37:00.000+08:00

Mwhahahaha! I removed quite a few viruses from my ‘puter, and now I can access the internet from my room. (I managed to find a real licensed copy of Norton AV in the high-tech district of Beijing.) I’m back in the nineties, technology-wise. It feels good.

I’m done with my semester, and I have two days of teaching left – it’s a special introductory class that takes place next week. I’m not exactly sure what “special introductory class” means. It’s only 12 hours of teaching, and I’m supposed to spend 4 of those hours testing their English skills. So it’s not that big of a deal and I’m finished with all of this on June 10. The end is near (at least for this semester…)

I have the entire week off, but I still have a few non-work commitments which have resisted my attempts to weasel out. So I won’t be traveling – what will I do? My goal for this week is to find the first 7-11 in Beijing. Apparently one recently opened here (although no one seems to know exactly where it is) and I’ve decided that I have to track it down. Chances are it’s on the east side of Beijing, since that is where the majority of foreigners live. I haven’t spent a lot of time in that area (I live on the west side of Beijing) and I’d like to explore it – this seems like the perfect excuse.

Last night I judged an English language karaoke contest held at Beihang. It was long – it lasted for almost three hours – three hours of mostly off-key karaoke. All of the karaoke-ers were students at Beihang, and more than half had been students of mine. Some of the contestants were excellent, but most were so-so at best. I was a little upset because I had been planning on giving feedback to the contestants – I had been told that by my boss – and I had spent some time preparing some really good slams. Didn’t get a chance to let’m fly.

I’ll be filling in the gaps in this blog in the upcoming weeks – keep checking for updates

2004-05-24T19:41:00.000+08:00

Yo.

It's time to take a small preventive step and share a story that will eventually find its way to your ears. I do not think this story is that funny, in fact I'm slightly embarrassed by it. But a good friend of mine (whose last name coincides with the subject that I'm teaching) has been sharing it, so I'd better beat him to the punch. I had this awful dream about a raging penguin who was trying to kill me for some atrocity I'd committed against all penguins (I'm not sure what it was - the dream was vivid but not specific.) The murderous penguin was at least six feet tall and incredibly intelligent- it managed to track me all over the world. It eventually cornered me and I flat-body jumped awake. Unfortunately I had placed a chair in a corner which had a large pile of laundry strewn over it. I'm cursed with a slightly overactive mind and a large set of lungs - when I saw the penguin lurking in the corner waiting to deliver the finishing peck, I let a scream of complete unabashed terror escape. I spent the rest of the night trying to get back to sleep.

Here's the aftermath: the next day I was a little late for class and hurrying in that general direction when one of my neighbors grabbed me (literally,) stopped me, and asked if I was all right. I tried to blow it off, since I assumed it was social pulp, but he asked again. I assured him that I was fine, but late for class. He seemed greatly relieved, and explained that he'd heard me scream the night before. He thought he'd better check up on me. So keep this in mind - if I should happen to slip and while both flailing and falling manage to pin myself under my bookshelf (it's happened in GR) - I'm screwed, since my neighbor prefers to wait when checking up on screams.

2004-05-09T19:42:00.000+08:00

It's the end of the May holiday; I've had the past week off and I return to finish out my classes - give exams and watch movies - tomorrow (and for the next three weeks). I did some traveling over the holiday; I spent five nights in the fab city of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia (it's a province in China that is next to Mongolia, hence the apt name. ) I ended up in Hohhot through some strange twist of fate - my original plan called for me to go to Qingdao, a lovely city on the sea where all the women are foxy and the beer flows like water. This plan fell through - the friend (who shall remain anonymous) I was to travel with had something come up at work at the last minute and could not back out. Thankfully, Mel, also a teacher at Beihang, invited me along on her trip - which she had already planned.

I accompanied Mel and her friends Debbie and Cat to Inner Mongolia. I managed to have a pretty good time, although I would not say that the trip was relaxing. I managed to postulate a few rules of traveling in China after all the pain and suffering - I'm sure that most of you won't be surprised, but if I can spare a few people some frustration, it'll be worth it.
I'll include them in the timeline - I'll place them at the moment they became obvious to me.

The trip started at 8 pm Saturday - Mel, Debbie and myself met Cat at the Beijing West train station. We proceeded to the lounge to wait for our train to discover that it was loading - and so we hurried to find our beds in the hard sleeper section of the train. Doug's Rule #1: when booking hard sleepers, never book a bottom bunk. I had never been on a sleeper train before, and I was not as impressed as I could have been. It was tight and crowded, and our bunks (being on the bottom) were used as seats for the teeming masses until lights out and as steps on the way up and the way down. Thankfully the majority of the train ride was at night, and our intentions were to sleep away most of the time. This was not to be. Directly above me was a man who was quite possibly the loudest snorer that I have ever heard. Now my father is known for his ability to make the house shake with the noise of his sleeping, but my father could not hold a candle to this man. It would have been impressive, had I not been so tired. The one highlight was watching Mel (who is maybe 5'3" and a hundred pounds) pummel the man above in a slight fit of righteous rage.

Early the next morning we arrived in Hohhot. We gathered our belongings, moved off the train and were met by a man who had been sent by the hotel to make sure that we arrived safely. I was a little wary, but the girls hopped into line and followed him. I followed the girls. Thankfully the hotel was directly across the street from the train station - we could not have missed it had we deliberately tried. Upon entering the lobby the man finally introduced himself as a tour guide who worked closely with our hotel. He began talking to the clerk and eventually became quite rosy in the face - apparently the hotel had taken our reservations but not kept any rooms for us to stay in. The tour guide smiled and led us casually out of the hotel and down the street to a different, less classy establishment. Doug's Rule #2: do your best to avoid staying in places that post room rates by the hour. After a bit of haggling we procured two rooms - a single for me and a five person for the three girls. We said goodbye to the tour guide and went to our rooms to settle in and regroup. Upon entering my room I was a little surprised - it seemed very clean and the bed was quite comfy. The girls were not so lucky - there room was a complete disaster. Seeing as we paid 10 kuai ($1.25) for my room and 40 kuai ($5) for their room for the night, I wasn't terribly surprised. They seemed to be. After a bit of hemming and hawing, we headed out into the streets of Hohhot to find an agency to arrange a tour of the grasslands.

This was not as easy as it appeared - The Lonely Planet guide to China turned out to be completely wrong in almost all respects to the city of Hohhot - the map was completely wrong, descriptions of sites and attractions were completely false and misleading- nothing was where it should have been. Doug's Rule #3: Never trust a guide book So we were led on a wild goose chase through the back alleys of Hohhot. After hours of searching we stumbled on to the Inner Mongolian Hotel, a five star hotel located far away from the city center. An official tour agency was supposed to be housed inside according to the lonely planet; unfortunately it was not to be found. What we did find was the hotel tour guide who tried to sell us on a grassland tour, gave us a real, correct map of Hohhot, and found us cheap rooms in a three star hotel (attached but not affiliated with the Inner Mongolian Hotel.) Since we had booked our other hotel for the night, we (the girls, really) decided to spend that night in the sleaze joint and spend the next night in the three star. I'm still not sure why they chose to do this - their room was scary.

On the way back we stopped at the Inner Mongolian Museum, a place so packed full of propaganda that it was more amusing than informative. It did have a sweet wooly mammoth skeleton, but that was the highllight of the Inner Mongolian Museum. We headed back to our hotel and now set out on our original mission: find a tour of the grasslands. We eventually stumbled across another tour agency that had a guide who spoke pretty good English; we decided to book an overnight tour of the grassland with this agency. This made me happy, since my Chinese is OK, but not great - Mel was happy to have me come with her and her friends since my Chinese is better than theirs. Doug's Rule #4: Always travel with someone who speaks the language better than you do. Having an English speaking tour guide made my Chinese skills almost a moot point. So I was a little happy and a lot relieved - all would be well.

It was supper time, and we set out for a Mongolian hotpot restaurant for our nightly repast. For those of you who aren't in the know, Mongolian hotpot consists of a large pot of bubbling broth that you use to cook meat and vegetables. The broth comes in two varieties - mouth-numbingly spicy and sweet. It's a lot of fun and pretty tasty. It also takes a remarkably long time to eat - we had been eating for a little over two hours when our waitress came over and motioned for Cat to follow her into the kitchen. Cat disappeared for a few minutes, and then reappeared to ask Mel to come back into the kitchen as well. A few minutes passed, and then Mel and Cat sauntered out laughing and giggling. They sat down with rather pained smiles on their faces and informed Debbie and I that the waitress had told them that two customers in the restaurant were planning on robbing us when we left the restaurant. The waitress had said that we could wait in the restaurant for as long as we wanted - they would eventually leave. Now I wasn't terribly worried - mugging a foreigner is a crime that has the stiffest of penalties, and I assumed that they would just try to pick our pockets. But the girls wanted to wait, so wait we did. Eventually the customers in question (a man and a woman) left, and we headed back to our hotel without incident.

The next day we packed up our stuff and moved into the three star hotel - I had gotten a great night's sleep, but the girls had not fared as well. They had spent most of the night trying to keep their skin off of the sheets and pillowcases. After settling in to our rooms, we decided to head out to see a "picturesque" mosque. It would have been picturesque, had it not been under construction. We then moseyed down to the main shopping district, where the girls spent an enormous amount of time shopping for jewelry and gloves (for the grasslands) while I desperately tried to keep myself entertained. I've always had a pretty easy time staying entertained, but even my most valiant attempts failed in Hohhot. Their desire for shopping sated and my patience having expired a few hours before, we headed off to dinner at a restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet. This restaurant was right where the LP said it would be (a first) but the restaurant did not have famous dishes mentioned. Relying on my formidable pantomime skills and modest knowledge of Chinese, we managed to only order twice as much food as we needed and left the restaurant quite full. Since we had to get up incredibly early the next day, we turned in early.

We arrived at the tour agency a little after eight am and were on our way to the grasslands by nine. Our English speaking tour guide turned out to be slightly more insane than we hoped - she loved to sing Mongolian songs to us and force us to sing western songs back to her - Edelweiss and Jingle Bells being her favorites and what she demanded from us. She also forced us to take milk tablets (white pills that have the taste and texture of pure unadulterated evil - and I am being kind when I say that.) Upon arriving at our "resort" we deposited our bags in our yurt (a large Mongolian tent) and hopped on our horses for a two hour ride around the grassland. My horse, while nice and tame - some might say with one foot in the grave - did not respond to English commands. It sat quietly until the tour guide clucked and all the horses started plodding along. It was quite thrilling. When the riding was finished, we watched a horse race and some "authentic" Mongolian wrestling - it boils down to grappling, since no hitting or kicking is allowed. After this we had an "authentic" Mongolian dinner. During dinner the baijiu appeared. Baijiu is "white wine" or as I would call it, watered-down engine degreaser. It tastes slightly better than a milk tablet. The Chinese people at our table began pouring out toasts to us foreigners and we, not wanting to offend them, drank with them. Thankfully we were sunburned from the ride, and they thought that we were blushing from the booze. They did slow down a bit, but they all ended up sloppy drunk. I did not end up in such a condition, and I will not comment on the state of my companions. While they were drinking they would sing and then, like our tour guide, would force us to sing to them - we used American Pie, Yesterday, and Oops,..I Did it Again to placate them. After this we were treated to a show of "authetic" Mongolian culture - singing and dancing. Apparently the accordian was invented in Mongolia - I was unaware.

After this wonderful display of "authentic" Mongolian culture the four of us headed back to our yurt to sleep. I haven't mentioned this yet, but the grasslands of Mongolia are known for horses and wind chill - a stiff gale constantly blows, and makes a beautiful spring day feel more like winter. At night it gets mighty cold. Yurts are lined with heavy wool cloth to keep in the heat and stop the wind, but our yurt was a little defective - there was a sligt draft which kept us up all night shivering. So very cold - Mel and Cat both admitted the next mornning that they were positive that they were going to freeze to death - I knew that I would have to suffer. The next morning we headed back to Hohhot after an "authentic" Mongolian breakfast consisting of Chinese breakfast foods.

We wasted a lot of that morning sitting in a coffee shop trying to get warm. We spent most of the afternoon in a park sunning ourselves. The park had a zoo, which was depressing, and a ferris wheel, which offered a great view and a high probability of death. We went back to the hotpot restaurant from the first night for dinner, and after dinner boarded a sleeper train back to Beijing. We had a soft sleeper this time, which provides a private cabin for four with a lock on the door to keep out stewards, robbers, etc. It was nice.

That's a quick run through of my trip to Hohhot - it was a good time, although I'll never travel under those conditions again (especially not to Hohhot.) A few random thoughts for some random people...

Rachel: There are free horses in the grasslands. All you have to do is lassoo'em and tame them and they are yours. Getting them home might be a slight problem.

English: Mel blames you for everything that went wrong on this trip. Just thought you should know.

Beth: I think a yurt should be the "next step" in our families camping escapades. A yurt's supposed to be portable (although the ones that I saw were anything but) and I'll see if I can rustle one up for this summer.

2004-04-05T11:28:00.000+08:00

I promised I'd flesh out a few details today and that's what I'm going to do. I've spent a little time reminiscing about the last two months and here's what stands out...

Ethnic Minorities Park - a large park in Beijing that celebrates the different ethnic minorities of China - there are mock ups of their villages and houses that you can walk through and explore - pretty neat in a depressing sort of way (most of the real settlements and authentic houses have been knocked down and replaced with China's solution for modern living - the large soulless soviet-bloc apartment.) It was pretty much void of people and quiet - unusual for Beijing. And it was a bright, sunny, and warm day - all in all, perfect. I've got plenty of pictures.

The perpetual cold that I have had for the past six weeks or so - it's starting to get better now, but I've been hacking and sneezing for that whole time. Maybe it's allergies - I don't know. I've also been getting more than enough sleep in the last month or so - I've actually started going to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour - my mom must be proud.

Tom From Guam - a good friend of mine will be coming to Beijing soon, and while I have many good friends here in Beijing already, more never hurts. No that's not his real name, but I don't think he would like it if I was to put his real name here. For the sake of posterity, I feel I should say (as far as recruiting goes):
Team Beijing: 1-confirmed 2-probables 1-potential
Team Hong Kong: 0

LOTR:ROTK - I finally managed to see this movie in a real theater two weeks ago. The movie wasn't officially released in Beijing until March 14, although it was available earlier in slightly less legal forms, which I avoided like a plague. I wanted to see it in the theater first. Just getting to the theater was a quest in itself - Every mode of transportation that I took broke down on the way to the theater - taxi, bus, subway, ankles (a minor twist, nothing to worry about.) The trip should have taken an hour - it took me just under three to get to the theater. I did enjoy the movie.

That's all that really stands out - I'm sure I'll think of more as time moves on, but that's all you're getting at the moment.

2004-04-04T20:34:00.000+08:00

It's been seven weeks since I last updated this - I'd apologize, but I don't really feel like it. So let me give you a quick overview: I'm starting my eighth week of the second semester - I only have six weeks left to teach before the end, and I have my students giving speeches for the majority of the time (this both minimizes my time spent making lesson plans and gives me pseudo-concrete things to grade them on.) My spare time is spent napping (I'm always tired and I've had a perpetual cold for the past few weeks,) cleaning, studying Chinese, playing Euchre and strategy games with Jared, Mike, and Christie, and watching the occasional DVD. My time is flying by here in China; I haven't seen all that I want to see nor done all that I want to do...I'm debating over staying for another year at the moment. I'm leaning towards staying right now, but I haven't made any final decisions yet.

A lot of interesting things have happened - my journal is getting thick and I have been documenting a lot of things for posterity with my camera - but alas my internet is still down, so I can't cut and paste like I'd like. I'm not going to take the time to retype everything, but once it's up again (should be relatively soon, now - I've put the machine in motion) I'll make up for all this lost time.

I know I've said this before, but I'll fill in more tomorrow - I have to put the finishing touches on my lesson plans for the upcoming week.

2004-02-20T11:29:00.000+08:00

The internet in my room is still down. This upsets me greatly, since I have to meander down to the nearest internet bar and fight with the teeming masses (who are playing Counter Strike) to get a computer. But now that I'm on a 'puter, I'm not getting off for a while. So let me tell you about the past week.

It's been rough. Apparently there were some problems with the grades that I gave to my students last semester. My boss knew this. Rather than talk to me about it, he gave my phone number and my address out to ALL of my students, so that they could get in touch with me. This upset me, since he's the one who told me not to give this information to my students. My phone had been ringing off the hook, students kept "popping in" at inopportune times, and I spent most of my free time trying to sort through this gigantic mess. Eventually I unplugged my phone - I had given all of my students my email address, but they'd rather call, so this way they had to email me - and spent as little time as possible in my apartment. Yesterday was the last day to change grades for the past semester, and the madness has thankfully stopped. The worst part was that I'd resubmit a grade, and it would take two days for the registrar to change it officially (and notify the student of the change.) So I kept getting upset calls and angry emails and late-night visits from students that I'd already helped. 'Twas frustrating. But it's done now, and I can move on. Hopefully.

My classes are much smaller than last semester, and the students seem to be a little more confident than the previous ones. I'll be spending more time this semester doing lesson plans, since I don't really have a textbook. It'll all work out, I hope.

This past weekend I helped Mike and Christie move in to their new home - I was impressed by how fast it went (although I wasn't there for all of it) and how easy it is to find. It is very conveniently located, and there's even a coffeeshop (which makes great smoothies) right outside their door - ah, the extravagance. That's a word I'm surprised to use.

Wednesday night I hung out with Jared, and when we were walking back from the restaurant, we stumbled across an rink where a bunch of people were playing hockey. We were invited to play, and I had quite possibly the best time that I've had in China. I'll mention this, because I'm sure that Jared does on his blog - I had forgotten to wear a belt, so my pants kept wandering in a general downwards motion, especially when I would try to sprint.

That's all for now, I have to run to my next class. I'll fill in more later.

2004-02-13T15:03:00.000+08:00

My internet connection is down in my room. This happens much to frequently around here, and since I prefer to cut and paste my blogs out of Word, I'm out of luck. I have a diatribe prepared - it's all ready to go, nice and informative - but it'll have to wait. So I'll do less than give the highlights - I'll give two. I'll fill the rest in later, when the internet is back up and purring.

The first is that I now have my schedule for the next semester (starts on Monday) - I'll be teaching 14 hours - 8 hours of post-grads, and 6 of master's candidates. I will not have any of the same students this semester - there's no overlap. I also am without a night class - my latest class ends at 4pm. So I'm happy. My schedule could change but hopefully, it won't.

Second - This morning I sat in on a taping of a tv show. I was one of the "experts" (Mel and Jared were also experts.) who gave his/her opinion about learning Chinese. I still don't know why I was there, but it looks like I'll be on tv, so all in all, it's a good thing. The taping was done in a coffee shop outside of Li Gong Daxue (the place where the Calvin students study) and it was very informal. I ended up with two new - free - Chinese dictionaries, so it wasn't a total wash. That's all I have time for at the moment. Sorry.

2004-02-08T21:38:00.000+08:00

Here’s what went down in the last week and a half – my apartment is spotless – almost sanitary. I’ve spent an enormous amount of time studying Chinese – I’ve memorized four hundred characters since I’ve returned from Kashgar. I also acquired salsa – this was harder than it sounds. It took me three long, hard days of visiting import shops all around Beijing to find the right salsa. I’d been given a large bag of white corn Tostitos (that’s a long story that I shouldn’t tell without getting permission. I’ll ask and let y’all know how it works out) before I left for parts distant and I wasn’t going to eat them without the proper salsa. Beijing has food from all over the world, but Mexican food is few and far between. There is one restaurant (which I know about, there are probably more) that sells Mexican food in Beijing; it is unlike any Mexican food that I have ever had. That’s not a good thing.

Wednesday night I went to Tomato, a new Italian restaurant in Wudaokou, with the Brassers and Jared English. The food was good and the company was great. Afterwards we went to Sculpting in Time, a coffee shop next door to Tomato that is known for its slow service, and discussed handwriting – theories on and what ours looks like and used to look like. After that we went to Wisdom, an adult toy store, according to the sign. It had numerous games and brainteaser-type puzzles – we didn’t buy anything, but we looked around for a good, long time. When we had finished, the Brassers took off for home, while Jared and I headed back to my place to watch Fight Club, a movie that Jared had never seen. That was the extent of my past week and a half. I could write more, but this is it for the moment.

2004-01-29T01:17:00.000+08:00

All right everyone, I know that it has been a long time since I last wrote, so I’d suggest you prepare a drink or two (whatever suits you – I’d pick coffee, except that it’s so hard to find real brewed coffee here), put on your reading glasses, and get all nice and comfy – this is going to be a long one. Everything up to now has been pamphlet-sized – this is going to be a novella. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I promised last time that I would talk about Christmas, so let’s start with that. I’d hate to break a promise. The week of Christmas I didn’t have to teach any classes – they were left open so that I could finish my finals if I needed the time. I had to finish finals in three of my ten classes – the other classes watched a movie or were cancelled if they met on Christmas or the day after (Boxing Day, if you aren’t from the USA.) I say that they watched a movie, since I offered each class the same choices – Mission: Impossible, Shrek, The Truman Show, and The Princess Bride – and each class chose Mission: Impossible. I kept the choices the same since I figured it was a fluke – surely one class would want to watch Shrek… apparently not. I spent Monday and Tuesday watching M:I .in the morning (four times in two days) and the nights grading the listening test finals that I had given to my graduate students the week before. On Wednesday I finished a final with my continuing education students – they were the best and the brightest of my students, and I gave them a conversational final – each student would come to the podium and we would talk for five minutes, and then I would give them a grade based upon their listening and speaking skills. It was much easier to grade than my listening tests, and it seemed less subjective. The listening tests were not well designed – I had to decide how correct the answers were – 50%, 60%, 20% - not just if they were right or wrong. But I digress.

After classes on Christmas Eve I went out for lunch with Mike. On the way back to my apartment, my cell phone rang – it was Mel, letting me know she was sick. I stopped at the store and bought some water and Ritz crackers and dropped them off on my way back to my apartment. I spent the rest of the night grading listening tests and well, that’s about it. I may have spent some time cleaning – my sister was visiting that weekend – but I doubt it. I honestly don’t remember; it was over a month ago.

Christmas morning I awoke very early and called my Grandma Lubbers – the party was going on and I had to call to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. After that I went shopping for Christmas presents – I had a party at the Brassers later in the day. No, I didn’t take the time to prepare earlier – I had a couple of hours to spare, and it all worked out ok. I had lunch at KFC – it was the first time that I’d had KFC in China and it was an experience and a half – it’s like stepping into a pseudo-high-class restaurant –everything is clean and the staff is friendly. ‘Twas very strange, even for Beijing. After that I went back to my apartment to warm up – it was a very cold and blustery day. A few hours later I headed over to the Brassers – they were having a Christmas ham (a real ham, even) and other Christmas foods. We exchanged presents – I received a sweet chair from the Brassers and they received an assortment of stuff from yours truly. After dinner, presents, and a little celebration, I had to leave – Stephanie was having a party of her own that night and I’d promised to stop in. The party was a good time – all the foreign teachers stopped in and the party went long – well into the night. I left early, since I had one final to finish the next morning.

The next morning – Boxing Day, if you prefer – I called G+G (Grandpa and Grandma Hulst) to wish them and the rest of the family a Merry Christmas. After that I went to finish my finals – I had four students that I needed to grade, and after twenty minutes I was finished with my classes for the semester. I believe I went back to my apartment and went to sleep. I don’t think I did anything else worth mentioning, so I’ll skip over it.

Saturday I awoke early – Mike and I were planning on taking a bus trip to the Great Wall. We walked over to the bus stop and waited for about an hour. After realizing that the bus wasn’t coming, we headed over to the terminal to wait inside a bus for about two hours. After losing almost all of my patience, the bus left for the Great Wall. Mike and I rode on a sixty passenger bus with about 5 other Chinese people (including the tour guide.) The tour guide did not speak any English, thankfully Mike speaks Chinese pretty well. We headed to the Thirteen Tombs, a pass in the Great Wall, and eventually to Badaling (though we didn’t really get off the bus at Badaling.) Because it was a private tour bus, we stopped at everything of minimal interest on the way to the three stops. This trip should have taken about four hours, but it took about nine hours. It was quite possibly the longest nine hours of my life. The tombs were interesting for about five minutes or so – the best part was the Chinglish on the signs which were placed about five feet apart all through the tomb area. The best was, and I quote, “Please according to priority for visitage.” It must be a deep truth; I don’t understand it. There really isn’t anything else worth mentioning – it was a nice day for photos and being outside, but I was preoccupied since my sister was arriving later that night.

Ok, let’s move on to Xinjiang Province. I went to Xinjiang Province (Xinjiang can be loosely translated as Western Regions) on my “vacation” (really week three of my seven week break.) I stopped at Urumqi (the capital of the province) and Kashgar – a major stop on the Silk Road. Xinjiang Province is an interesting place – the majority of people belong to a minority group known as Uyghur (pronounced Wee-gir – insert joke about Eminem here – we always did.) Uyghurs look nothing like Han Chinese (undoubtedly what you picture when you conjure an image of Chinese people – they look close to the stereotypical image of a Chinese person, though not exactly, of course.) One could say that Uyghurs hate Hans, since the Han people have been settling in Xinjiang in droves for the past twenty-five years or so. The government encourages the settling and development of Xinjiang, and this upsets the native Uyghurs – they are not happy with the local government. The local government (run by the Hans) has declared the Uyghur way of life unsanitary and have been knocking down the Uyghur housing and rounding up the people who complain as terrorists. There have been protests in the past and the region has had problems with stability – though no foreigners have been targeted in the recent past.

There is an underlying tension in Xinjiang, and it divides both of the cities that I visited. There is a Uyghur part of town and a Han part of town; the Han section is modern and feels a little like Beijing. Step into the Uyghur part of town and you feel like you’ve jumped back in time at least a thousand years, maybe more. All the houses in the Uyghur part of town are made out of straw and mud and sometimes pressed earth. There are modern conveniences, but they are few and far between.

We – Jared English (a friend from college who works in Beijing,) Jason Sigsby (one of Jared’s former roommates and colleagues,) and myself, left for Urumqi early on Friday morning (the 16th of January.) We arrived at the Beijing Airport early – too early to remember the time. Early, very early. There weren’t too many problems in the airport – I made it through security without setting off the metal detector, but Jason wasn’t so lucky. His belt set off the detector, and the security lady de-belted him with an amount of flair that surprised all of us. The flight to Urumqi took 4 hours (almost due west of Beijing) and the plane had video games as well as a highly edited version of Pirates of the Caribbean (all of the scenes that had skeletons in them were cut – so essentially the last half of the movie was gone.) Upon arriving in Urumqi, we had to wait for about an hour or so to claim or baggage – efficient Urumqi ain’t. As we waited we kept placing bets as to when our luggage would come down the chute, and after placing bets for the fifteenth time, our luggage arrived. Stepping outside was painful – it was incredibly cold and dry – it hurt to breathe for the first few minutes. We flagged a taxi and were taken for a ride – it took us over an hour to get to our hotel – it only took ten minutes the other times. The hotel was really nice, in fact it was a five star…and it showed. Everything was modern and the staff were actually helpful (which is impressive for China – there is absolutely no concept of service over here…it is a strange, strange country.) We wandered around the city after dark, and found out that there aren’t enough taxis in Urumqi – we had to wait for at least a half hour before an empty taxi drove by and stopped for us.

The next day we went back to the airport and left for Kashgar – it was an hour and a half flight (due west) from Urumqi, yet it’s in the same province. Kashgar is really close to some of the “stans” – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It’s also pretty close to India. It was one of the main stopping points on the Silk Road back in the day. After we checked into our hotel – the fabulous Qinibagh Hotel (we were the ONLY people staying at the Qinibagh during our stay) – we headed out to explore. We stopped at a little restaurant decently close to our hotel for lunch, and sat a table close to the door. The waiter/cook/owner walked over, and Jared ordered some yan rou tang (lamb soup) and nang (it’s a type of bread.) The w/c/o said, “rice?” Jared repeated the order again – same response from the w/c/o. So we had “poloo” - rice stir-fried with carrot, pumpkin, a huge chunk or roasted lamb, a few small shards of bone to slice up your tongue, and sometimes raisins or pomegranate seeds. We ate this frequently in Kashgar – it seems to be a staple of the Uyghurs, and it is pretty good. After lunch we headed down a street that was lined with hat and knife stalls. Since we seemed to be the only foreigners in Kashgar at the time (it’s a huge tourist spot in the summer,) we attracted a crowd wherever we went. We walked past a large number of fruit stalls which sell a variety of dried fruit – Xinjiang is known for its fruit, and quite a few open-air butchers who had their wares hanging right on the street. It wasn’t as unsanitary as it sounds, since it was colder than a meat locker outside. I even stumbled across a few blacksmith and carpenters who were working their craft the old fashioned way. We also walked through Old Town – the Uyghur suburbs, for lack of a better term. I can’t do it justice, so I won’t try – you have to see it to believe it. After that we went to a really bad museum – it was the most unimpressive and boring thing that I have ever seen, and I’ve driven through Northern Ohio at night…

On Sunday we went to the Sunday Market, the largest open-air market in China. Salespeople come from all over China and the ‘stans to sell their wares, which are primarily spices, knives, rugs, hats, and fruit. Everything else under the sun is also sold here, though in lesser quantities and varieties than the previously mentioned items. Mohammed (a curtain salesman who worked at the Sunday Market, spoke almost perfect English, and was very friendly – we’d met the day before on the street) led us around the market. When we’d seen all that we wanted to see, he suggested that we go to see the livestock market outside of town. We agreed. I’ve never seen so many sheep, goats, donkeys, and horses in one place before. We browsed around for a while (thankfully there weren’t any camels, I’d have purchased one if there were any present) and eventually wandered out of the sales area to watch blacksmiths shoeing horses. Eventually we grew bored, and Mohammed suggested that we visit a cemetery that wasn’t to far away. It turned out to be the most interesting part of the visit to Kashgar, at least as far as I was concerned. The cemetery was immense, and the customs (as explained by Mohammed) were very different from the western set. I won’t go into them here. After that we headed back into Kashgar and began a general mosey back towards our hotel. That night we took a right out of the hotel instead of a left (left led us to the rice? place) and after a two minute walk we were smack in the middle of the Han part of town. We had “Chinese” food for supper instead of Xinjiang food. There are three things you should know about Xinjiang food: no pork (because the Uyghurs are followers of Islam,) no rice (it’s too cold to grow it in Xinjiang – they eat nan, wheat bread, or laghman, wheat noodles, instead,) and the food is hallucination-inspiring, tongue-numbingly spicy. It was a nice change of pace, but I couldn’t eat it everyday.

Our plans for Monday had us taking a trip to one of the borders to look into one of the ‘stans, but due to inclement weather – it was winter – we were unable to get anyone to take us even remotely close. So we went back to the hotel and decided to go back to the Sunday Market - that’s its name, it is open every day, though more stalls are open on Sunday. We acquired a few more souvenirs, and wasted time – we were ready to leave. There isn’t much to do in Kashgar during the winter, since all the tourist attractions are outside of the city and the routes were closed due to snow. That night we went to a Mongolian hotpot joint for supper and I had squid by mistake. ‘Twas the highlight of the day.

Tuesday we left the Qinibagh Hotel behind (good riddance – it was bad, and not in the as time passes my disgust will fade away way – I’ll stand by that feeling ‘til the day I die) and went back to Urumqi. The Kashgar airport left a bad taste in Jared’s mouth – the lady in charge of the airport tax was late, and we had to wait for her to arrive so that we could pay the tax and consequently proceed through security. Jared was chosen by Jason and myself to wait in line for the tax. Why they don’t include the tax in the price of the tickets was a deep question that Jared pondered as he waited; I know this because he kept repeating the question until we arrived in Urumqi. We also rhapsodized about songs for Urumqi on the flight back – we’d adapted “Rock the Casbah” into “Rock the Kashgar” – but Urumqi left us stumped. We checked back in to the Hongfu, and settled in. Eventually we left and explored Urumqi – we found an Islam import store called Istanbul that had all kinds of interesting foodstuffs – like Naibao – a Whopper-esque candy that was really good – good enough that Jason bought at least five pounds of them in bulk. Tuesday night we went to a park that had ice sculptures – bears, dragons, elephants, camels, castles, etc. Jason rode an ice elephant for a pretty sweet picture; when he dismounted, we noticed a large crack had developed in elephant’s tummy region. We moseyed a little faster at this point. We also discovered that the park had a skating rink.

Wednesday morning we went skating at the park, or rather I tried to skate while Jared and Jason skated – the largest skates available were still to small for feet. After two hours Jared and I headed back to the hotel; Jason skated for six hours or so. We had been invited to dinner by the Executive General Manager of the Hongfu – he was from Canada, and we happened to be the only English speaking foreigners staying at the hotel. He’d been in China for fifteen years, and had many stories to tell – especially about the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. After dinner Jared and I headed down to People’s Square at about eleven-thirty for the best fireworks display I have ever seen. Nothing in America comes close (Wednesday was the eve of the lunar new year, and it’s the Chinese equivalent of Christmas.) We were in the center of a large square – maybe a quarter-mile to a side. People were lighting firecracker and rockets around the perimeter, and the mortar tubes were maybe 50 fifty feet away. Fireworks were going off all around and directly overhead – it was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know where to look or what to focus on. It was truly awe-inspiring.

Thursday we took it easy – nothing was open, since it was New Year’s Day.

Friday we went to Tian Chi – a picturesque lake in the middle of a mountain range near Urumqi. It’s a main tourist draw in the summer, and in the winter, when the lake freezes, you can ride horses on it. Or if you prefer, you can take a sleigh. There is also a tube slide – sort of like a bobsled track, but not as steep or as much fun. It was beautiful. We ate lunch in a yurt (it’s a big tent that the Tajiks – the people who live around Tian Chi – used to live in.) It was horribly overpriced and the food was awful, but I can now say that I’ve eaten in a yurt. We relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday was spent relaxing – we had a western breakfast which was the highlight of my day (this was the first western breakfast that I’ve had since coming to China.) We also purchased large quantities of souvenirs in a last minute purchasing attack. Other than that, we didn’t do anything worth mentioning.

Sunday – we packed up, said goodbye to the Hongfu, and flew back to Beijing.

Since then I haven’t done anything except write this. Most of the other foreigner teachers are still traveling – Stephanie is back, but I haven’t run into her yet. That’s it for the moment – I’ll do this more often from here on out, because this took too much time to write. Later.

2004-01-02T23:40:00.000+08:00

Unkie Tom, this one’s for you

Well, it is the New Year, and my sister, Sandy, is here in Beijing visiting with me. She’ll be here until the 6th of January. She’s taking a nap at the moment – she hasn’t fully adjusted to the time difference and so we are taking it easy today.

She arrived on Saturday night, and after an uneventful ride from the airport, we settled in and took care of the most important thing – my Christmas presents. (We also caught up on the activities of everyone and everything in Holland and the US in general.)

On Sunday we went to church, and afterwards met with Jared and his cousin, Susannah (she was visiting him over Christmas.) We went to Lido to buy DVDs and for lunch, and eventually made our way to Silk Alley for Sandy’s first taste of Chinese bartering. Now, I can’t say what we purchased – it might have been presents, it might not have been. All you need to know is that we haggled out excellent prices for everything that we bought. Later that night we went to Mike and Christie Brasser’s for dinner and games.

Early Monday morning Sandy and I met Susannah (Jared had to work and asked if Susannah could accompany us on Monday and Tuesday.) and we started our whirlwind tour of Beijing. We started out at the Forbidden City – we went through it at an incredible pace (with Roger Moore as our guide – he narrates the audio tour) and after that we headed to Jingshan park – it is a park directly to the north of the Forbidden City that has a big hill in the middle. The hill was made from the dirt, rocks and debris that were removed to create the moats around the Forbidden City; it also gives a very picturesque view over Tiananmen Square and the F.C.

At this point we went to lunch with Christie - we had an authentic Chinese lunch of baozi and jiaozi (steamed dumplings and filled steamed buns.) After lunch we went to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and spent a few hours wandering around the park – it’s gigantic, to say the least. After we had seen most of the sights – the echo wall, the processional bridge, etc. – we went to Hongqiao Market. This market is known for its pearls, but it has everything under the sun.

Once we had finished shopping (bartering, really) we met up with Jared for dinner. After a very random dinner (we had eel, fruit salad, celery and lily root, and sizzling rice) we went to see an acrobatics show. The show was excellent – contortionists, unicycles, and the Leaf-Men (guys should not wear leotards, especially ones with strategically-placed leaves.) It was impressive and disgusting – people should not bend those ways or have such a great sense of balance.

After that, we went our separate ways. On Tuesday we started later – at 9 am – and began by heading to Tiananmen Square to view Mao’s body (we’d missed it on Monday, and it’s one of those things that you have to see if you’re in Beijing.) I didn’t get to see Mao, since we all had bags, which aren’t allowed in the mausoleum and someone had to guard/hold the bags. After they had seen the Cat – as Mao was known – we headed to the Lama temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing, and there are a whole lotta Buddhas in the temple. There is even a 18m tall giant Buddha in the very back of the temple. It was interesting, but not too terribly interesting – there were only a few signs in English.

After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. We took a bus, and it took a long time to get there. Once we arrived, we moseyed down the Long Corridor – a covered walkway that is over a mile long, is covered with painted scenes, and runs the length of the lake. We ended up at the Marble Boat and then headed around the backside of the mountain and scaled the rocks up to the top of the palace. Scale probably isn’t the right word, since there were “steps” carved into the rocks, but it was steep and slippery. After we finished there, we went back to Jared’s apartment to wait – he was at work and we were tired. When he arrived he was bleeding – he’d fallen off his bike and scraped his hands and knees. Once we got him patched up, we headed out to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant. Mongolian hotpot is a very involved means of eating – you personally stew meat, vegetables and noodles in pot that is on your table. Sandy and Susannah didn’t seem to terribly enthralled with this, but they survived.

After dinner we went to Houhai – a bar area in Beijing that is built around Houhai lake – and cruised the scene. We ended up in a club listening to DJ Leaf do his mix. A live band came on after a while, and Jared requested a song. When the band got around to playing the song, they invited Jared onto the stage to sing with them. He did. The club had a deal going with their “specialty” drink, which tasted they way rubbing alcohol smells. So we each had one, and that was more than enough.

Wednesday was spent at Fuchengmen Market, a large market that has everything anyone could ever want (well…) Sandy bought a sweet blanket – heavy, warm and fleecy-good. I have one, and Sandy had latched onto mine. So I made sure that she acquired one of her own. We also bought quite a few presents, since Fuchengmen is THE place for good presents.

We went out to a Korean barbeque joint for dinner – Sandy, Mike (it was his going away party – he left on Friday), Mel, two of Mel’s friends from Shanghai, and yours truly. Korean barbeque is some of the best food on Earth – the meat and veggies are cooked over coals directly in front of you – tasty-good. After dinner we went to Sanlitun (a different bar street – the main one, in fact) and met up with Jared and Grace (one of Jared’s friends.) We spent New Year’s Eve in Durty Nellie’s Irish Pub listening to a Filipino band play covers of Pink Floyd and U2. Eventually the bartenders threw handfuls and handfuls of glow sticks to the throng. There was a countdown to midnight (though I’m pretty sure that it happened fifteen minutes after midnight, I might be wrong, but I doubt it.) We headed back to campus after one, and had to climb the stairs (fourteen flights – the elevator shuts down at midnight.)

Thursday we slept in and eventually ambled down to Wangfujing (the main shopping street in Beijing) and window-shopped for awhile. We stopped in at the chopstick shop and the foreign language bookstore and bought a few sets of chopsticks and reading material. After Wangfujing we headed down to the Friendship Store to see the real deals – real jade and pearls and antiques. It was enlightening. That night we went to dinner at Ashtray – a local eatery of decent edibles. Sandy was impressed with my ability to order and express myself in Chinese (well, not really – ask her for details.) After dinner we went back the apartment, watched a DVD, and went to sleep.

Now, I know that I promised more on Christmas, and I will – next time. I promise.

2003-12-21T17:27:00.000+08:00

‘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

2003-12-13T22:44:00.000+08:00

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.

2003-11-22T23:41:00.000+08:00

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.

2003-11-19T22:53:00.000+08:00

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.

2003-11-09T16:58:00.000+08:00

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.

2003-11-05T21:16:00.000+08:00

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.