The Word Is: Go

The red Chairman turns cobalt, turquoise, tan, purple then to a familiar green. A rainbow of symbolism seeps from the Ren Min Bi as mood ring analogies strut onto the page: green with envy and red with passion and every feeling and hue between. More than 100 years of change change change has sprung a massive population of work hard harder hardest. Work hard on what? Raging bureaucracies in a top-down system ensure that the most worthwhile accomplishments go unnoticed. Rising budgets amidst rising materialism reveals a hunger unpolished. A young Chinese generation hopes wishes wants money to appear in neat piles but no plan comes to mind; ideologies are marked by their absence. Making a lot of money is a must but details of the plan are lost among daydreams of a colorful life. All the while overflowing pressures fall onto students and twenty-somethings as daydreams drown into nightmarish expectations.

We paint our financial portraits as vibrantly or as dimly as we’d like. We wish, hope and pray for more money, and we work incredibly hard for it as well. We use low funds as a great excuse to stay in our comfort zones — to stay home — and we let our emotions run with whatever financial peak or valley we find ourselves. Everyone handles money a little differently, but we all save it hold it keep it spend it waste it give it. And the fact remains that if we aren’t creative in the way we handle it, money (or lack thereof) will prevent us from doing the things that keep life colorful.

The Word Is: Money 钱 [qián]

下次见 [Xià cì jiàn]! See you later!

Two months of nothing. 65 days and no written rain. No new stories, or even tidbits, to wet readers’ whistles. And I realize the dust is starting to kick-up. Yes, I’m thirsty too.

I can’t think of a  better way to turn on the flow again than to publish some material from other writers. This should start to stir the writing atmosphere and hopefully bring in some much needed moisture.

I’ve just posted a few more compositions from my writing students onto the Student Page. This latest assignment is titled Big & Small. Here, I challenged students to write about one object/thing/idea from two different perspectives: from the macro and the micro (hence, Big & Small). This was a complex assignment to think about, and I even struggled to explain what I was hoping to see in their final compositions. The results were predominantly one part compare and contrast, one part personal narrative. A great mix, for sure. It all comes down to this: changing the way you look at the world changes your understanding of it. Click here to read a few examples of the Big & Small assignment.

My younger brother, Sam, has also recently started publishing his own work online. The depth of his poetry continually surprises me, and I recommend taking a look at a few of his poems on Teen Ink, an online literary magazine for teenagers. Sam currently has nine poems up and ready for readers.  Visit his site, rate his poems and give him feedback on his work. You can do it all here:                         http://www.teenink.com/users/abeatlesfan65

With these nudges of inspiration from my students and brother, and a little more free time in my schedule, I have grand plans of ending the drought. Look for more writing in the coming weeks.

The Word Is: Thanks 谢谢 [xièxie]

下次见 [Xià cì jiàn]! See you later!

It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders; engaging in risky behavior is a rite of passage in our culture no less than in most others. Danger has always held a certain allure. That, in large part, is why so many teenagers drive too fast and drink too much and take too many drugs, why it has always been so easy for nations to recruit young men to go to war. It can be argued that youthful derring-do is in fact evolutionarily adaptive, a behavior encoded in our genes.

Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild

It started with bungy jumping.

Sometimes I mistakenly label my life here in Xi’an as quiet. I find it easy to lose sight of how much happens every week, every day, every hour under the false pretenses of a routine schedule. I may have an identical class schedule each week, but variety comes in large doses as people constantly surprise me with their perspectives.

So, in response to my “quiet” life, I decided to jump off a 12-story platform with a rubber band around my ankles. Seemed like a good solution to my alleged problem. Part of this idea stemmed from my days in Queenstown, New Zealand: where dreams are made, and more to the point, where bungy jumping arguably originated. I was broke for most of my stay in NZ, and my former boss put it well - “bung jumping is over-priced adrenaline.” Her words supported my lack of funds, and I never took the dive. But distant regrets of a missed Queenstown adventure, combined with information of a nearby bungy-jumping facility here in Xi’an, put me over the edge. I had to do it.

Cost wasn’t an issue this time as I paid a cool ¥160 (US$23.44). Yes, I went bungy jumping for $23. I feel like cheap bungy jumping is scarier than expensive bungy jumping, but I got a very official “Beaver Certificate.” To be clear, “Beaver” was absolutely a Chinglish misprint, but this random badge of honor added to the experience.

Three of my students, Anjoline, Rain and Stephanie, came as witnesses, but they stayed at ground-level to capture the moment from below as I went up the platform with two non-English speaking technicians. Their qualifications were unknown to me, and they weren’t especially friendly or patient. My apprehension grew. They sat me down and untied my shoes. That’s when the clear packing tape came out. PACKING TAPE. They took a few laps around my jacket and a few loops around each of my shoes and then quickly began to prepare the other contraptions for my downfall. In my opinion, packing tape, in any capacity, shouldn’t be a part of the bungy jumping experience.

My keepers were talking to each other, and I can’t say that I was armed with any Chinese bungy jumping vocabulary, so I tried not to listen as I looked at my shoes wrapped with strong but not-really-that-strong tape. Without any mental prep time, I was summoned to the edge of the platform. These guys were professional and efficient but not in a comforting way. No countdown. Just a slight push. No opportunity to yell since the free fall took my breath away. Tension, tension, stretch, stretch, stretch, tape holding, stretch, stretch, stretch. And finally the rebound. Blood rushed to my head in a way that I had never experienced.  I was 9,000 miles away from home and disoriented as the staff lowered me into a hot-pink rubber raft. For the moment, I was literally cross-eyed. Solid ground, please.

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Bungy jumping was voluntary, but I hadn’t expected routine public bus rides to become so treacherous.

Well over a billion people live in China and most of them don’t have cars. My public transportation commutes have generally been crowded, but post-bungy, they seemed to be of a higher density. On an especially busy ride one afternoon, I took a headcount. There were 25 people in my vicinity. I judged how many other groups of 25 there were throughout the rest of the bus, and I came to a number just short of 150 people. As I stood in the stairwell holding the public transportation version of an oh-shit bar, I felt vulnerable. I signed a waiver before I bungy jumped, but there was no paper trail as I squeezed my way onto Bus 336.

Unfortunately, the bus travels through a construction site, cavernous road and all, on the trip to the smooth downtown Xi’an roads. Small bumps become mountains with so much body weight and the leaning, swaying and near-tipping becomes unnerving when you look at how many people are forced into an upright, mobile game of Twister. Limbs are stretched out in every direction as I reach my arm over a guy’s head to grab something stationary at the same time putting way too much weight onto one foot for balance. It seems that no one wants to lose the game, so everyone attempts to stay still as the bus jolts back and forth.

Pictures of grasping hands and heads of black hair can highlight the claustrophobia that ensues, but nothing replicates the experience of wearing one too many layers of clothing around so many other bodies while holding a few bags of groceries in your tense hand as your personal bubble completely disappears amongst other cramped and confined passengers. Solid ground, please.

Evidently, bungy jumping and bus rides weren’t enough to prevent a quiet week. A few days after my previous adventures, I woke up to a silent and confusing rumble as my bed shook. Before I opened my eyes, I wondered who was shaking my bed. I grew up in the absence of earthquakes, so tectonic plate movement wasn’t the first thing to cross my mind when the room started to shake. However, a text message from one of my students confirmed that I had jut been through my first (minor) earthquake: “Hey, be careful and be alert, for there was an earthquake at 7:30.” Solid ground, please.

Sorry, no pictures of the earthquake. It’s difficult to capture this sort of unstable moment with still photography.

My life isn’t quiet, and this became remarkably apparent as I jumped, swayed and shook — one right after another. An especially jostling week reminded me that I have plenty to talk about as the days pass and new experiences continue to come my way. Needless to say, though, I’ll be looking for sturdy, grounded excitement as I move through the next few weeks.

The Word Is: Bungy 蹦级 [bèng jí]

下次见 [Xià cì jiàn]! See you later!

I have just posted some work from my current students here in Xi’an. It’s taken me a while to get these published but better late than never. these are examples of my introductory assignment at the beginning of the semester. Their mission: to write one sentence beginning with the word “I.” Mission accomplished. Check out some of their work on my Student Work page.

The Word Is: I (or me) 我 [wǒ]

Rain and clouds are all the rage in Xi’an. Must be sumthin in the water. In my first seven weeks here, I’ve been trudging under gray skies and through my fair share of puddles.

While putting one foot in front of the other around campus and downtown, I’ve had to look to the ground more often to avoid wet shoes, wet socks, and, what it all comes down to, wet feet. It’s this view where I’ve found the equal and opposite world that appears below us after a good (or bad) rain. With the help of Chinese drainage, water sticks around because subtle peaks and valleys along sidewalks and streets pool water in the most inconvenient places.

These inconvenient places include inside my Xinxiang, Henan apartment last year. With any good (or bad) rain, my leaky windows invited the water inside to gather. Both my kitchen and bathroom sat at opposite ends of the hallway, so constant mopping or frequent wading were my options. Neither was ideal.

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Rashes of gray and rainy weeks sometimes bring on feelings of ill-motivation. However, the reflections that appear at our feet provide the ultimate buddy system. We’re never alone on a puddled street, or in my case, a soaked hallway floor. Small clusters of palm trees in Singapore find themselves among a small plantation as their numbers double in the rain during the summer of 2009; one guy with one umbrella suddenly turns to two guys with two umbrellas, and they always keep the same pace; a student basketball player gets a teammate (or opponent) as he plays the morning after a rain shower.

Just an Asian phenomenon? Obviously not. But let’s be honest, “Puddles” without the “Asian” in front of it lacks the splash I need in a blog post title. In an attempt at equal playing time, I’ll give North American puddles some of my written attention now. I was in New York about 18 months ago and flew in on a rainy day. One pair of yellow New York galoshes turned into two thanks to a messy, in-the-middle-of-the-walking-path puddle.

Call to action: from my wet experience in Xi’an, puddles are here to stay. A closer look into the rippled world at our feet may just be the best way to double the fun on an otherwise average walk.

The Word Is: Puddle 水坑 [shuǐkēng]

下次见 [Xià cì jiàn]! See you later!

I have just posted one of my final writing assignments from last spring in Xinxiang (took me long enough). Students created photo captions, and I have highlighted the really exceptional work on the Student Work page. Check it out!

The Word Is: Photograph 照片 [zhàopiàn]

Officially Back in action

I’ve been all over the place (literally) the past four months. Winding up my second semester in Xinxiang, traveling with my friend Carolyn, heading back to the States for a month-long visit, and settling into my new life at the Shaanxi University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Xi’an, Shaanxi. In other words, I’ve been doing everything but blogging. I’ve committed myself to more consistent posts now that I’m nearly six weeks into teaching and without any real obstacles between me and more frequent writing.

You can also check out my photographs on Picasa here. The album Back and Forth displays my best shots from the summer, and I’ve created the album China 2.0, which will hold my photos from my second year in China.

Beginning at the end of my time in Xinxiang

As I wrapped up finals in June, my college roomie, Carolyn, flew to China to meet me in Xinxiang. We had a load of places to visit throughout the next month. Beijing for a little capital-exploring, beer-drinking in Qingdao, south to see Hong Kong, then Kuala Lumpur and Redang Island for two very different sides of Malaysia, and finally Singapore to wrap it all up. Whew.

Highlights are easy to remember. We started it off right with a couple of stops: the 789 Art District in Beijing, and a lonely part of the Great Wall where a small group of us 9 Dragon’s House hostel guests tromped around and took a few pictures. When I say “a few,” I mean a lot.

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Upon arrival in Qingdao, there were two things that had to be done: beach and beer. We accomplished both at once as we chilled out with Tsingtao Beer in-hand under a large umbrella and watched bronzed and banana-hammock-wearing Chinese men jog past. The beach was good, but the beer and scenery was better and funnier.

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Upon arrival in Hong Kong, we stayed at the Chungking Mansions, the same guest-house I had stayed at during my winter holiday. This second time wasn’t as impressive as the first. Cockroaches had already booked our room, and Carolyn was nice enough to read the sketchy Mansions review from her guidebook; to paraphrase, the article painted a scene of gangsters and dead bodies and advised that everyone should visit the Mansions… once… during the day… not as guests. While we came out unscathed, we had some interesting elevator rides with some interesting people. While spending as little time in our room as possible, we were also able to grab some awesome skyline photos.

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Our Kuala Lumpur accommodation was strikingly different than our Hong Kong guest house. Our college friend, Adam, had just moved to KL for a job. A nice apartment free of cockroaches (and other dreadful things) was waiting for us. Carolyn spotted a roller-skating rink on our way into town, so we rocked out like we were 10-years-old again in old school roller-skates. Can’t think of anything better to do on a Monday night in KL. We were even lucky enough to acquire roller-skating blisters on our ankles, so we were able to respond to others’ concerns about the bandages with arrogant but badass comments like, “oh, that? Just a roller-skating injury.”

After Beijing, Hong Kong and KL, it was time for some proper chilling out on Redang Island. The word paradise gets thrown around loosely, but when I use it to describe Redang, I’m using it in the truest sense of the definition: “heaven as the ultimate abode of the just.” Sand volleyball with locals on staff, hammock net imprints on our backs after naps under a blanket of palm trees, snorkeling among giant wrasse and (distant) sharks. Paradise. This place has moved into the top spot on my “Favorite Places in the World” list moving Byron Bay, Australia to number two. I’ll let pictures describe the rest.

Singapore was our final destination as we met up with another college friend, Lincoln, who is architecting his way through the city country. Lincoln was working while we were there, but he was able to point us in the right directions.

Traveling rocks, but there are always a few lowlights. However, broken expectations, in retrospect turn into funny, memorable stories. For example…

A walk to the Qingdao Peninsula was over-hyped in the Lonely Planet China guide: the peninsula is said to be “dominated by it’s white German-built lighthouse.” this lighthouse may do a lot of things, but dominate is not one of them. I grabbed one picture from afar and thought the lighthouse must be more powerful seen close-up. I wound my way through town and got right up to this supposedly gargantuan piece of German architecture, but I still failed to see its dominating presence. At least the walk was pleasant.

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Then there was the rain in Hong Kong. On the fourth day of water-logged shoes, Carolyn smartly opted for the museums, but I was set on a hike that a friend recommended. I hoped for the best while expecting the worst. Simply put, I got the worst as I hiked in the rain for three hours. All I have to show for it is this paragraph and the picture below. Soaking wet then. Funny only now.

After a short spout of aquaphobia post-Hong Kong, I was excited to visit THE WORLD’S LARGEST FOUNTAIN in Singapore a couple weeks later. Something of a fountain fanatic, the title gave me grand images of choreographed shoots of dancing water and powerful jets pumping to the sky. It was more of a Titanic experience: bad ending. Yeah, it was big (evidently the biggest), but it was also ugly as water fell without variety into a glorified pit from brown, over-sized PVC piping. Maybe the Titanic comment was over-dramatic but the big fountain was a mild disappointment nonetheless.

Obviously these aren’t horror stories of travel-gone-bad, just the realities of spending an entire month seeing new places.

Three Days to unpack and re-pack

From Singapore, Carolyn and I parted as we headed back to our homes New York and China. I had a quick turn-around as I unloaded my back-packing kit and swapped for a proper suitcase to spend a month back in the States. My first stop was Chicago, then Kansas, and finally Minnesota.

Chicago was brief but filled with activity. Priority number one was getting my visa renewed at the Chinese Consulate. I was worried about bureaucracy and delays, but I was pleasantly surprised with speed and good service. With paperwork out of the way, I could prepare, with my friend Kathy (although I rarely call her Kathy since “K-Tron,” her college nickname, has stuck), for the Warrior Dash. This six-kilometer obstacle course run would be a challenge since I hadn’t exercised in about two months and I was still fighting a wicked case of jet-lag. After a muddy finish in a vivid and flamboyant outfit, I had made it to Warriordom.It’s also important to mention that I ate my first Chipotle burrito in more than a year. Over-due to say the least.

K-Tron showed me a great time in Chicago, and then I was set for Kansas to see Dad and family along with a few college friends. I was lucky enough to be around for the most comfortable Kansas summer I can remember. Dad and I took advantage with a couple Gator rides, where I snapped few nature shots. My loving father also brought me Taco Villa in Topeka to continue my Mexican-food spree. Taco Villa is home to the “thing,” yes, the “thing.” My favorite food in the entire world. I chowed down on these tortillas topped with ground-beef, cheese, a zesty red taco sauce, and the kicker, a greasy, delicious white onion sauce. Understatement: I miss Mexican food.

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Minnesota brought me to the final leg of my American journey where I got to hang out with Mom, younger siblings and quite a few Stillwater friends. Toward the end of my stay, I decided that I wasn’t quite ready to go, so I changed my flight to spend an extra weekend at home. Good decision as we ate a couple of good meals and got some more family time before I headed back to China. My last two meals were Mexican, of course. One last stop at Chipotle for lunch, and then my Mom made her famous enchiladas for dinner. Mexican food and family. I can’t think of a better way to go out.

Transition to Xi’an

In August, I was back to China to Start year two. I had two weeks to clean up and move out of my Xinxiang apartment, say good-bye to friends and make my way to Xi’an and SUST. The overnight train was interesting; I had waaay too much luggage with too little space, and an uncomfortable sleep since my stranger bunk-mate fell asleep with my pillow and blanket beneath her before I could collect them. My neck hurts just writing about it.

Nearly two months have flown by and I’m going into my sixth week of teaching. I thought the learning curve would steady in year two, but life here has been blowing my mind. I’m really engaged in my classes (classes of about 30 students, opposed to 50). I’m teaching two spoken English classes, two writing English classes, and I’ve just taken on a media and culture class. It’s been interesting as I re-vamp my curriculum, and I am getting a chance to work closely with a few other teachers as well as my students since I’m living on campus this year.

My teaching schedule is nothing short of ideal. I have classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which leaves me with a four-day weekend, every weekend. Although I’m an hour north of downtown Xi’an, it has been refreshing to have the option explore the city since I have been given a work schedule that is ridiculously perfect.

In less than 2,000 words, I have just summarized the un-summarizable. A fantastic summer is moving into a wholly different, but no less interesting fall. Look for more posts as I dig into Xi’an.

The Word Is: Summer 夏天 [xiàtiān]

下次见 [Xià cì jiàn]! See you later!

Nihao!

I’ve just added a few more pieces of students’ work from last year at Xinxiang University. Take a look at student movie reviews that analyze the film “Wall-E.”

The Word Is: Movie 电影 [diànyǐng]

After a three-month absence, I’m back to writing again. I’ve been having some technical difficulties with publishing pictures correctly, but instead of prolonging another post, I’ve decided to put up a picture-less story. . .

Language has been kind of a big thing for me over the past year. Learning Mandarin has been a roller coaster of progress and plateaus as I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly is going on around me here in Xinxiang.

Despite living in China amongst all the Mandarin chatter, I am still surrounded by English. I teach it days a week, most of my Chinese friends speak fantastic English, and it’s not unusual for a perfect stranger to strike up a conversation because he or she wants to “be friends” and practice speaking. these situations give me a lot more English in my daily life and far more challenges with my native language than I had predicted.

Chinglish has been my most formidable foe as I teach and speak the English language. The Chinese have formed some one-of-a-kind English phrases that we would never use in the Western world and have taken a few English words and loaded them with Chinese context. While I have banished a lot of these phrases and tried to enlighten my students about more native verbal substitutes, I have slowly succumbed to using Chinglish at times, knowingly and sometimes unknowingly, simply because it ensures my meaning will be understood. It’s not something to boast about, but I’ve fallen into the reality and begun to accept it even if the phrases don’t roll off my American tongue with ease.

A few unfortunate examples:

I duly note my substitution of the full words “cannot” and do not” instead of “can’t and “don’t.” I rarely use contractions here just to avoid confusion, but it hurts my ears to sound so unnatural and formal even in casual conversations.

I have almost completely taken the word “bad” out of my vocabulary and put “poor” or “not well” in its place, which I think is a poor move on my part, but again, I do it in the name of clarity.

I don’t “grade papers” here, I “mark compositions.”

And maybe the most painful… I don’t go to the bathroom anymore, I go to the “toilet.” I made the switch to this less-than-delicate word after repeatedly asking “where is the bathroom?” only to have Chinese waitresses stare at me with puppy-like gestures as their heads would bend slightly sideways in confusion.

In addition to some of the unexpected encounters with my own language, I put myself in the hot seat every Tuesday afternoon at English Corner. Organized by the student English Club on campus, I spend an hour or two in a casual atmosphere of question and answer as well as discussion and debate with students who choose to come practice English in their free time. Here, I can always count on a few hard questions about the meaning of life, the definition of success or even “the differences between American and Chinese girls.” More often than not, I get a few questions each week seeking the answers about how students should prepare for Chinese examinations, jobs, and the future. Questions like these make me feel ill-equipped and I always feel the need to flash the disclaimer “I could be wrong…” before I make a full-hearted attempt to answer the questions with what I guess may be a half-assed result. I learn a lot from these afternoon conversations: I often flip the questions back to the students, and I get some interesting commentary on the Chinese perspective.

At English Corner, in classes and elsewhere, I have had to find the right speed at which to talk with students. I have found that talking slow enough as to enunciate all my words clearly is important, but I have also found that I need balance clarity with a steady pace so my words don’t lose their natural intonation and flow. It’s amazing how the mechanics of speaking come to life as I have had to be more conscious of even the smallest parts of language.

I’m supposed to be the “Foreign Expert,” a title given to me by the Chinese government, but sometimes I fall short with sub-par answers to fair questions from students and other teachers. I take so many things for granted with my native language; there are so many rules that I naturally follow but am not able to articulate why I follow them. This is a tough one since I feel like the why questions are exactly what I’m paid to answer.

I will end with my favorite, and most stifling question yet: what is the difference between a relative pronoun and a demonstrative pronoun? I didn’t think “beats the hell out of me” would be an acceptable answer, so I dug into my brain (and a grammar text book) and put together a coherent explanation. Whew. I’m sure this won’t be the last brain-buster in China since I have accepted a teaching position in Xi’an at the Shaanxi University of Science and Technology this fall. I am moving to the city in just a few days, and I’m pumped for a second year in a new place but this time armed with a few more language tools.

The Word Is: English 英文 [yīngwén]

Xià cì jiān 下次见! See you later!

I have created a new page to show-off some of my students’ writing. You can access this page by clicking the Student Work tab in the top right-hand corner of my blog. I have just published five students’ compositions who wrote interesting letters about their college life here in Xinxiang. In the future, I will continue to post new writing as it comes in. However, there will be a lag in new material on this page over the summer months… no school! Take a look and feel free to post comments.

The Word Is: Student 学生 [xuésheng]

Xià cì jiān 下次见! See you later!