Sunday, December 25, 2005
CHRISTMAS IN CHINA & THE US OF A
Friday night we had our language school's Christmas party at Teresa Pizza right near my appartiment. All the little kids and their families came and we sang Christmas carols and ate pizza.
The Chinese celebrate Christmas, it is their biggest "party" holiday of the year. There is however no religious signifigance to the day. Since the start of December, snowman and reindeer have begun to spring up in storefronts. Christmas carols play all day, every day in both English and Chinese. The Chinese ones have been re-written to exclude any mention to Jesus. My favorite is Wo men zhu ni shen dan kuai le, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."
After a 12 hour flight and time zone confusions (I arrived in Newark 15 minutes before I left Beijing) I am now home for 10 days. I will still post, though anyone who wants to call me can. My cell phone # is (610) 574-8024. Speaking of time changes, It's 6am and I still haven't gone to sleep.
Friday night we had our language school's Christmas party at Teresa Pizza right near my appartiment. All the little kids and their families came and we sang Christmas carols and ate pizza.
The Chinese celebrate Christmas, it is their biggest "party" holiday of the year. There is however no religious signifigance to the day. Since the start of December, snowman and reindeer have begun to spring up in storefronts. Christmas carols play all day, every day in both English and Chinese. The Chinese ones have been re-written to exclude any mention to Jesus. My favorite is Wo men zhu ni shen dan kuai le, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."
After a 12 hour flight and time zone confusions (I arrived in Newark 15 minutes before I left Beijing) I am now home for 10 days. I will still post, though anyone who wants to call me can. My cell phone # is (610) 574-8024. Speaking of time changes, It's 6am and I still haven't gone to sleep.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
HOSPITALS, HEATING & HOLIDAYS
Saturday evening, an hour or two after eating a burger at a Western restaurant here, I quickly came to the conclusion that I had food poisoning. After being up all night and throwing up more time than I can count I went to the hospital Sunday morning. I called my homestay family to find out what hospital I should go to and they came and picked me up and took me there. They then proceded to spend the day there with me. We went to the hospital where my homestay mother is a doctor which is apparently a teaching hospital. I know this because I had 4 different people try to give me IVs and was stuck 9 times unsuccessfully before I finally did it myself. How do I know how to give an IV? I don't. But I got it right somehow. Call me Dr. Ben. That's ben with a 3rd tone. Not Dr. Stupid. 12 hours later I went home. Went back the next day for some tests ad have spent the week basiclly recovering.
It's been 30 degrees here most of the week. I thought Kunming was supposed to be the "Spring City." A while back, someone in the government had a brilliant idea, "let's just draw a line across the country. Everyone above it gets free heating, everyone below it doesn't." This is regardless of altitude. If you like at 12,000' on a mountain below the line, well, you're out of luck. I bought a heater for my house but it does little. Hopefully Kunming will start living up to its promotional title and will warm up.
Today is December 22nd. According to the Chinese calendar it is also the coldest day of the year (hmm, that's funny because it was 20 degrees yesterday.) To celebrate, dongzhi, people go to the cemetaries to clean the tombs of their ancestors and memorialize the dead. They then go hom and elebrate the coldest day of the year by eating dog, since it is a hot meat and it helps their qi (chi) in this weather.
I'm still teaching. Last class we learned going to. That having been said, tomorrow I am going to go to my language school's Christmas party. Tomorrow night I'll write about Christmas in China.
Saturday evening, an hour or two after eating a burger at a Western restaurant here, I quickly came to the conclusion that I had food poisoning. After being up all night and throwing up more time than I can count I went to the hospital Sunday morning. I called my homestay family to find out what hospital I should go to and they came and picked me up and took me there. They then proceded to spend the day there with me. We went to the hospital where my homestay mother is a doctor which is apparently a teaching hospital. I know this because I had 4 different people try to give me IVs and was stuck 9 times unsuccessfully before I finally did it myself. How do I know how to give an IV? I don't. But I got it right somehow. Call me Dr. Ben. That's ben with a 3rd tone. Not Dr. Stupid. 12 hours later I went home. Went back the next day for some tests ad have spent the week basiclly recovering.
It's been 30 degrees here most of the week. I thought Kunming was supposed to be the "Spring City." A while back, someone in the government had a brilliant idea, "let's just draw a line across the country. Everyone above it gets free heating, everyone below it doesn't." This is regardless of altitude. If you like at 12,000' on a mountain below the line, well, you're out of luck. I bought a heater for my house but it does little. Hopefully Kunming will start living up to its promotional title and will warm up.
Today is December 22nd. According to the Chinese calendar it is also the coldest day of the year (hmm, that's funny because it was 20 degrees yesterday.) To celebrate, dongzhi, people go to the cemetaries to clean the tombs of their ancestors and memorialize the dead. They then go hom and elebrate the coldest day of the year by eating dog, since it is a hot meat and it helps their qi (chi) in this weather.
I'm still teaching. Last class we learned going to. That having been said, tomorrow I am going to go to my language school's Christmas party. Tomorrow night I'll write about Christmas in China.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
WAL-MART, CLASSES AND CHINESE LOGIC
I found out today that the gate outside the complex I live in closes at midnight. If i arrive after 12, I have to knock and wake the security guard. However, if it were that simple it wouldn't be China. The security guard is a little old lady with no teeth and to get in I have to pay her 1RMB per hour after midnight I arrive (i.e. if I arrive at 3am, I give her 3 RMB.) It's an interesting concept, though I've never heard of it anywhere else. Today I gave her 50RMBand told her that this would cover my next few months here. She was happy and surprised to be getting the money up front, and then in traditional Chinese fashion tried to get a little more from me. She pulled out a 5000 Dong(vietnam) coin and a 10 Won(korea) coin and told me they were worth 5000 and 10RMB respectively. She then asked me how much I wanted to give her for the coins. The answer was nothing, which she finally accepted and walked away after 15 minutes of explaining to me in Chinese why I should buy them from her.
Classes continued. My teacher didn't like my new Chinese name, since ben isn't a Chinese surname. She has therefor taken to calling me jia min which "is good Chinese name." I taught the 4 year-olds again. We did a lot more singing and they did a lot more paying attention. I am, however looking forward to getting the 11 and 12 year-old class next week.
Went to Wal-Mart today and bought some furnishings for my appartiment, including a DVD player. Wal-Mart undercuts local prices everywhere they go. This is even true in a country as cheap as China. My top of the line DVD player was $20. Unfortunately, in keeping with the Wal-Mart tradition, none of the employees had any idea where anything was. This, compounded with the fact that no one there spoke English made it an interesting shopping experience. For lunch I went to KFC (since it is right next to Wal-Mart) and met a Christian doctor from Philadelphia who came to China to do the work of the Lord by teaching local hospitals emergency medicine. Apparently, emergency medicine here is equivalent to how it was in 1970's America. Anyone reading this who knows what emergency medicine was like in the US in the 1970's, please fill me in.
I found out today that the gate outside the complex I live in closes at midnight. If i arrive after 12, I have to knock and wake the security guard. However, if it were that simple it wouldn't be China. The security guard is a little old lady with no teeth and to get in I have to pay her 1RMB per hour after midnight I arrive (i.e. if I arrive at 3am, I give her 3 RMB.) It's an interesting concept, though I've never heard of it anywhere else. Today I gave her 50RMBand told her that this would cover my next few months here. She was happy and surprised to be getting the money up front, and then in traditional Chinese fashion tried to get a little more from me. She pulled out a 5000 Dong(vietnam) coin and a 10 Won(korea) coin and told me they were worth 5000 and 10RMB respectively. She then asked me how much I wanted to give her for the coins. The answer was nothing, which she finally accepted and walked away after 15 minutes of explaining to me in Chinese why I should buy them from her.
Classes continued. My teacher didn't like my new Chinese name, since ben isn't a Chinese surname. She has therefor taken to calling me jia min which "is good Chinese name." I taught the 4 year-olds again. We did a lot more singing and they did a lot more paying attention. I am, however looking forward to getting the 11 and 12 year-old class next week.
Went to Wal-Mart today and bought some furnishings for my appartiment, including a DVD player. Wal-Mart undercuts local prices everywhere they go. This is even true in a country as cheap as China. My top of the line DVD player was $20. Unfortunately, in keeping with the Wal-Mart tradition, none of the employees had any idea where anything was. This, compounded with the fact that no one there spoke English made it an interesting shopping experience. For lunch I went to KFC (since it is right next to Wal-Mart) and met a Christian doctor from Philadelphia who came to China to do the work of the Lord by teaching local hospitals emergency medicine. Apparently, emergency medicine here is equivalent to how it was in 1970's America. Anyone reading this who knows what emergency medicine was like in the US in the 1970's, please fill me in.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
APPARTIMENT, NEW CLASS, MORE TEACHING
I started moving into my appartiment today. It is basically unfurnished which means I'll be making a trip to the oh-so-evil empire of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart just recently expanded here and like all Wal-Marts has a very large selection of items for cheaper than elsewhere (even in a country as cheap as China.) The only other thing I need to do for the appartiment is some serious work on the bathroom. A Chinese toilet, OK, I can deal with that. A shower that is directly over the toilet and without a showerhead, that will be an issue. Some rubber piping and a showerhead and it'll probably be fine.
My Chinese class continued and since I only knew 60% of the characters in the book they were just finishing they moved me into a class that wasn't as far along with an American and an Indian. On the bright side, I am so far ahead of them that when I go away for a month in January, when I return we should be at the same level. 哎呀汉语是很难.
Yesterday I had another class. This time a dozen 4 & 5 year olds. They too learned musical instruments, but had no trouble with "xylophone." "Saxophone" and "trumpet" were impossible for them, and I decided against teaching them "ukulele." 4 year olds are a lot less well behaved when there arent 11 year-olds to keep them in line. I had to break up a fight, confiscate a bunch of paper airplanes and generally couldn't get them to shut up. Even the songs, a usually fantastic way to engage a 4 year-old didn't work. I guess that's what happens when their parents make them learn English. I heard an interesting thing today. That is, "As long as you don't kick them out of class or hit them you can do whatever you want." I'll keep that in mind next time they cause problems.
I came up with a new Chinese name. My previous one had been Guo Jun Xi meaning something like "strong handsome." This was given to me by a couple of girls who really liked me, but it seems a little well, pretentious. That having been said, I also wanted a name that was closer to my own. Since ben with the 4th tone means stupid, I decided to use the 3rd tone meaning origin or root. My Chinese name is now 本佳民. Ben jia min meaning "origins of excellent people" or "root of excellent nations." I like it.
I started moving into my appartiment today. It is basically unfurnished which means I'll be making a trip to the oh-so-evil empire of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart just recently expanded here and like all Wal-Marts has a very large selection of items for cheaper than elsewhere (even in a country as cheap as China.) The only other thing I need to do for the appartiment is some serious work on the bathroom. A Chinese toilet, OK, I can deal with that. A shower that is directly over the toilet and without a showerhead, that will be an issue. Some rubber piping and a showerhead and it'll probably be fine.
My Chinese class continued and since I only knew 60% of the characters in the book they were just finishing they moved me into a class that wasn't as far along with an American and an Indian. On the bright side, I am so far ahead of them that when I go away for a month in January, when I return we should be at the same level. 哎呀汉语是很难.
Yesterday I had another class. This time a dozen 4 & 5 year olds. They too learned musical instruments, but had no trouble with "xylophone." "Saxophone" and "trumpet" were impossible for them, and I decided against teaching them "ukulele." 4 year olds are a lot less well behaved when there arent 11 year-olds to keep them in line. I had to break up a fight, confiscate a bunch of paper airplanes and generally couldn't get them to shut up. Even the songs, a usually fantastic way to engage a 4 year-old didn't work. I guess that's what happens when their parents make them learn English. I heard an interesting thing today. That is, "As long as you don't kick them out of class or hit them you can do whatever you want." I'll keep that in mind next time they cause problems.
I came up with a new Chinese name. My previous one had been Guo Jun Xi meaning something like "strong handsome." This was given to me by a couple of girls who really liked me, but it seems a little well, pretentious. That having been said, I also wanted a name that was closer to my own. Since ben with the 4th tone means stupid, I decided to use the 3rd tone meaning origin or root. My Chinese name is now 本佳民. Ben jia min meaning "origins of excellent people" or "root of excellent nations." I like it.
Monday, December 12, 2005
FREEDOM, TEACHING ENGRISH, LEARNING CHINESE
Friday, after 15 hours of partying to celebrate the end of the program, I went to sleep around 4am. The next morning, I went over to Summit Langage School where I'll be teaching (and maybe doing some private Chinese study) to observe a class and learn how to teach it. It seemed easy enough. I was told to come back Tuesday to watch another class.
Sunday morning, I recieve a call from Maggie, the Chinese owner of Summit who asked me if I could stop by around 4. I said sure. I came in at 3:45 and was told my class had already arrived. Oops, an oversight on Maggies part. "Ben can you stop by," "Ben can you teach a class with no advance warning," same thing. Right? My class was 4-11 year olds and the book had us learning musical instruments. Ok, easy enough. I walk in and an 11 year old says, "ta you huang se tou fa (he has yellow hair)" to another kid then they both start laughing. I look at him and say "yes, I do. Wo ye hui shuo zhongwen (I also speak Chinese.)" This scared the crap out of him because I guess their last teacher coundn't speak any Chinese and they would crack jokes all class. They were mostly good after that. They were quite enthusiastic too, with all 12 kids shouting, "let me try, let me try" when they wanted to speak (at least they raised their hands.) We then began learning instruments. Why anyone needs to learn "xylophone," let alone a person just learning English is beyond me. It took them a long time but by the end of the class they could all say "xylophone." Everyone knew "piano" since 10 of the 12 played it. The only word none of them could get, no matter how hard I tried was "saxophone." Go figure. My next class is Tuesday evening.
This morning I started at the Kunming College of Eastern Languages. There are 4 people in my class - an Israeli, an Brit, a girl from somewhere in Europe and Me. Class is interesting. A bit difficult and I don't know about the teacher, so I'm not sure if I'll continue there. If nothing else, it was the cheapest place to get a student visa. I move into my appartiment in 2 days and am very excited about it. More to come.
Friday, after 15 hours of partying to celebrate the end of the program, I went to sleep around 4am. The next morning, I went over to Summit Langage School where I'll be teaching (and maybe doing some private Chinese study) to observe a class and learn how to teach it. It seemed easy enough. I was told to come back Tuesday to watch another class.
Sunday morning, I recieve a call from Maggie, the Chinese owner of Summit who asked me if I could stop by around 4. I said sure. I came in at 3:45 and was told my class had already arrived. Oops, an oversight on Maggies part. "Ben can you stop by," "Ben can you teach a class with no advance warning," same thing. Right? My class was 4-11 year olds and the book had us learning musical instruments. Ok, easy enough. I walk in and an 11 year old says, "ta you huang se tou fa (he has yellow hair)" to another kid then they both start laughing. I look at him and say "yes, I do. Wo ye hui shuo zhongwen (I also speak Chinese.)" This scared the crap out of him because I guess their last teacher coundn't speak any Chinese and they would crack jokes all class. They were mostly good after that. They were quite enthusiastic too, with all 12 kids shouting, "let me try, let me try" when they wanted to speak (at least they raised their hands.) We then began learning instruments. Why anyone needs to learn "xylophone," let alone a person just learning English is beyond me. It took them a long time but by the end of the class they could all say "xylophone." Everyone knew "piano" since 10 of the 12 played it. The only word none of them could get, no matter how hard I tried was "saxophone." Go figure. My next class is Tuesday evening.
This morning I started at the Kunming College of Eastern Languages. There are 4 people in my class - an Israeli, an Brit, a girl from somewhere in Europe and Me. Class is interesting. A bit difficult and I don't know about the teacher, so I'm not sure if I'll continue there. If nothing else, it was the cheapest place to get a student visa. I move into my appartiment in 2 days and am very excited about it. More to come.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
END OF BEIJING, THE PROGRAM & BEN'S RESPONSIBILITIES
Our last night in Beijing, I went with Sar to meet some of his friends who happened to also be studying in China. We went to this bar that had more Americans in it than I have seen over the past 3 months combined. After some tequilla we departed and awoke early the next morning to take a flight back to Kunming.
My last few days have been rather busy. First I found an appartiment to live in. At about 70m sq. it has 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom for 1000RMB/month ($125.) It is on Wen Lin Jie - Foreigner Street - and located even more centrally than where I was living with my homestay family.
For those of you who thought I was just loafing around Asia...today I enrolled in a college and found a job. I enrolled in the Kunming College of Eastern Language for a semester, paying $2/hour for classes. They are also supplying my student visa. I will be supplimenting my Chinese with classes through Summit Language School where I am also their newest English teacher. I will be teaching the Advanced kids class of 4-8 year-olds. 4 classes per week at about 90 minutes per class. For my services I'll be recieving $10/hour, ironically more than I was making working over the summer back in Philly.
Tomorrow marks the 3 month anniversary of my coming to China. It is also the end of the Where There Be Dragons Fall China Semester. I have mixed feelings on the program. While my goal in doing it was to learn some Chinese and get acquainted with China before I went out on my own, in retrospect, I would've been fine on my own. From the standpoint of my goals for the trip, it was a success. Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it? Yes, with serious reservations. It has been an interesting experience thus far and I've done things which I probably wouldn't have done on my own (think 5 day mountain trek.) As my 3 month introduction to The Middle Kingdom winds down, I am thrilled to be independant once more.
Our last night in Beijing, I went with Sar to meet some of his friends who happened to also be studying in China. We went to this bar that had more Americans in it than I have seen over the past 3 months combined. After some tequilla we departed and awoke early the next morning to take a flight back to Kunming.
My last few days have been rather busy. First I found an appartiment to live in. At about 70m sq. it has 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom for 1000RMB/month ($125.) It is on Wen Lin Jie - Foreigner Street - and located even more centrally than where I was living with my homestay family.
For those of you who thought I was just loafing around Asia...today I enrolled in a college and found a job. I enrolled in the Kunming College of Eastern Language for a semester, paying $2/hour for classes. They are also supplying my student visa. I will be supplimenting my Chinese with classes through Summit Language School where I am also their newest English teacher. I will be teaching the Advanced kids class of 4-8 year-olds. 4 classes per week at about 90 minutes per class. For my services I'll be recieving $10/hour, ironically more than I was making working over the summer back in Philly.
Tomorrow marks the 3 month anniversary of my coming to China. It is also the end of the Where There Be Dragons Fall China Semester. I have mixed feelings on the program. While my goal in doing it was to learn some Chinese and get acquainted with China before I went out on my own, in retrospect, I would've been fine on my own. From the standpoint of my goals for the trip, it was a success. Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it? Yes, with serious reservations. It has been an interesting experience thus far and I've done things which I probably wouldn't have done on my own (think 5 day mountain trek.) As my 3 month introduction to The Middle Kingdom winds down, I am thrilled to be independant once more.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
BEIJING, GREAT WALL & ACROBATS
On Wednesday we took a 3 hour van ride to Jinshanling to see the Great Wall. Arriving in the evening we stayed in a guesthouse 8km from the Wall. SInce it was low season for tourists the closer guesthouses has all closed. They were also closed since due to the weather, all their pipes had frozen.
Sitting around the guest house we started playing cards. To make it more intersting we decided to start playing for cigarettes. Christina played along with her ex-boyfriend Efe. Efe is apparently a compulsive gambler because soon we were playing "Between the Sheets" and somehow the pot went from 1 cigarette to 200 plus the equivalent of 100 more in RMB. I broke even. Efe was up 5 packs. Christina lost everything.
The next morning we woke up at 5 am to see sunrise over the Great Wall. Arriving at the Wall in the dark, it was still about 15 degrees Farenheit when we started climbing. We reached one of the guard towers and waited. Since there are mountains in the distance, the sky was quite light by the time we were finally able to see the sun, however it was still one of the greatest sunrises I've seen. For about 20 minutes it appeared as if rays of light were radiating from the mountains. After sunrise we hiked for about 3 hours before finally getting too cold and going back to the van. While the Wall is usually very touristy, since it is off-season and very cold here, we were the only ones as far as we could see. No people, no villages, no cars, just the desert surrounding Beijing and the mountains.
That evening, after returning to Beijing, I visited my friend Chris who is studying in Beijing. I've known Chris since my time in Pennsylvania Governor's School for International Studies and he was given a scholarship by the Chinese governm,ent to come study in Beijing. Chris is working on his 8th language right now, so it appears he'll beat be to my goal of 10. We hung out for 5 hours catching up and discussing the idiosyncracies of China. I'm still trying to convince him to come travelling with me around Southeast Asia.
Last night we went to see the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe and their show. It was really impressive (as Chinese acrobats usually are.) People doing flips and leaping around, spinning plates and so on. The youngest kids were 8 years old and doing incredible things that make be believe that sometime a long time ago, Chinese people bred with monkeys.
This morning we went to the weekend market. It is huge and has almost anything people could want to buy. I picked up a few more propaganda posters and Little Red Books (from the Cultural Revolution.)
The weather here in Beijing has been between 15 and 30 degrees F lately. The last 2 days it has been snowing. No real accumulation or anything - about 1mm, but it has been fun nonetheless. My first snow of the season.
On Wednesday we took a 3 hour van ride to Jinshanling to see the Great Wall. Arriving in the evening we stayed in a guesthouse 8km from the Wall. SInce it was low season for tourists the closer guesthouses has all closed. They were also closed since due to the weather, all their pipes had frozen.
Sitting around the guest house we started playing cards. To make it more intersting we decided to start playing for cigarettes. Christina played along with her ex-boyfriend Efe. Efe is apparently a compulsive gambler because soon we were playing "Between the Sheets" and somehow the pot went from 1 cigarette to 200 plus the equivalent of 100 more in RMB. I broke even. Efe was up 5 packs. Christina lost everything.
The next morning we woke up at 5 am to see sunrise over the Great Wall. Arriving at the Wall in the dark, it was still about 15 degrees Farenheit when we started climbing. We reached one of the guard towers and waited. Since there are mountains in the distance, the sky was quite light by the time we were finally able to see the sun, however it was still one of the greatest sunrises I've seen. For about 20 minutes it appeared as if rays of light were radiating from the mountains. After sunrise we hiked for about 3 hours before finally getting too cold and going back to the van. While the Wall is usually very touristy, since it is off-season and very cold here, we were the only ones as far as we could see. No people, no villages, no cars, just the desert surrounding Beijing and the mountains.
That evening, after returning to Beijing, I visited my friend Chris who is studying in Beijing. I've known Chris since my time in Pennsylvania Governor's School for International Studies and he was given a scholarship by the Chinese governm,ent to come study in Beijing. Chris is working on his 8th language right now, so it appears he'll beat be to my goal of 10. We hung out for 5 hours catching up and discussing the idiosyncracies of China. I'm still trying to convince him to come travelling with me around Southeast Asia.
Last night we went to see the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe and their show. It was really impressive (as Chinese acrobats usually are.) People doing flips and leaping around, spinning plates and so on. The youngest kids were 8 years old and doing incredible things that make be believe that sometime a long time ago, Chinese people bred with monkeys.
This morning we went to the weekend market. It is huge and has almost anything people could want to buy. I picked up a few more propaganda posters and Little Red Books (from the Cultural Revolution.)
The weather here in Beijing has been between 15 and 30 degrees F lately. The last 2 days it has been snowing. No real accumulation or anything - about 1mm, but it has been fun nonetheless. My first snow of the season.
