Thursday, July 12, 2007
EVERYTHING'S DIFFERENT BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED
I've been back in Kunming for 4 days now and everything's different, but nothing has changed. All the little stores are different and there are many more large buildings, but the Kunming lifestyle is essentially the same.
I spent the first two days at the Yunnan University hotel, adjusting and reconnecting with people. I have seen over a dozen people I was friends with before but haven't kept in touch with these last 18 months. I've been eating at the French Cafe for real bread, Salvadores for ice cream and coffee and Guo Zi Lou, my favorite restaurant here has quadrupled in size. The spring rolls and iron skillet beef and tofu are delicious. I know, Ben eating tofu...but it's something I only do here. I've also been eating a lot of very good, and cheap noodles. Last night I went to Pizza da Rocco, the best Italian place in China. At $6, the meal was overpriced but well worth it.
My nights consist of wandering around the Green Lake and drinking at the Speakeasy, Chapter One and the Box. Beer is cheap and there's always a party somewhere.
I have been spending much of my time with my friend and former boss from the language school, Jason. After 4 years here, he goes back to Philly tomorrow. I'll visit him again when I get home. Apparently there is an English teacher giving students really messed up Shakespeariean names. I met Lear earlier and Jay's current boyfriend is named Shaxpir - yes, pronounced like the playwright.
At the Speakeasy one night I met this guy Alex from North Carolina who is teaching Finance at a private university here. Apparently, the university is for rich kids who failed the national college entrance exam but need a degree to get a job. Alex said he's had only 10 qualified students of the over 2000 he has taught. The university is rife with cheating so in the second week he gives a pop quiz. From that he can ascertain who the good and bad students arem and sits the bad ones in front and the good ones all the way in the back. That way, if the students are copying off of someone, it is always someone dumber than them.
I am currently staying with Chay, the Australian leader of Where There Be Dragons, in his appartment near the Green Lake. It's been fun and a good location. I met his summer group yesterday and gave them a talk about business, corruption and drugs in China. It was basically just a rehashing (pardon the pun) of the lecture I got 2 years ago on program, combined with a lot of the books about China I've read recently.
Last night, 5 of us went to see Transformers, which just came out in theaters here. Apparently, it has been hyped here for over 6 months and nearly every theater was sold out. We finally got tickets to an "English showing" only to discover that it had been dubbed entirely into Chinese. Though watching things blow up was cool, it got old after 20 minutes of not understanding and we left.
This morning, I joined my friend Ada at her university. As they correctly informed me beforehand, it was really rather boring in class. The class gave group presentations, some of which were quite coherent, while others weren't even English at all. We then read a readers digest article ranking New York as the most polite major city in the world. HAHAHAHA. A good discussion of what it meant to be polite followed. They had me introduce myself and talk for a bit, then I attempted to teach them to think critically and question authority, something their British trained but Chinese teacher supported as well. I was relatively unsuccessful. Most didn't understand what I was talking about, but the few who did agreed. Afterwards we went to lunch at the university and surprisingly, the food was good - the first such instance I've found at a school here.
This weekend I will do some travelling and head up to Lijiang. It's a 10 hour bus ride or 40 minute flight. UNESCO made the town a World Heritage site for its history and ethnic minorities. While I'm there I will visit Katie; Shang Fang, my former teacher and the rest of the Dragons Language program currently staying up there. I will then return to Kunming and stay with my former homestay family for 4ish days before leaving Kunming.
I've been back in Kunming for 4 days now and everything's different, but nothing has changed. All the little stores are different and there are many more large buildings, but the Kunming lifestyle is essentially the same.
I spent the first two days at the Yunnan University hotel, adjusting and reconnecting with people. I have seen over a dozen people I was friends with before but haven't kept in touch with these last 18 months. I've been eating at the French Cafe for real bread, Salvadores for ice cream and coffee and Guo Zi Lou, my favorite restaurant here has quadrupled in size. The spring rolls and iron skillet beef and tofu are delicious. I know, Ben eating tofu...but it's something I only do here. I've also been eating a lot of very good, and cheap noodles. Last night I went to Pizza da Rocco, the best Italian place in China. At $6, the meal was overpriced but well worth it.
My nights consist of wandering around the Green Lake and drinking at the Speakeasy, Chapter One and the Box. Beer is cheap and there's always a party somewhere.
I have been spending much of my time with my friend and former boss from the language school, Jason. After 4 years here, he goes back to Philly tomorrow. I'll visit him again when I get home. Apparently there is an English teacher giving students really messed up Shakespeariean names. I met Lear earlier and Jay's current boyfriend is named Shaxpir - yes, pronounced like the playwright.
At the Speakeasy one night I met this guy Alex from North Carolina who is teaching Finance at a private university here. Apparently, the university is for rich kids who failed the national college entrance exam but need a degree to get a job. Alex said he's had only 10 qualified students of the over 2000 he has taught. The university is rife with cheating so in the second week he gives a pop quiz. From that he can ascertain who the good and bad students arem and sits the bad ones in front and the good ones all the way in the back. That way, if the students are copying off of someone, it is always someone dumber than them.
I am currently staying with Chay, the Australian leader of Where There Be Dragons, in his appartment near the Green Lake. It's been fun and a good location. I met his summer group yesterday and gave them a talk about business, corruption and drugs in China. It was basically just a rehashing (pardon the pun) of the lecture I got 2 years ago on program, combined with a lot of the books about China I've read recently.
Last night, 5 of us went to see Transformers, which just came out in theaters here. Apparently, it has been hyped here for over 6 months and nearly every theater was sold out. We finally got tickets to an "English showing" only to discover that it had been dubbed entirely into Chinese. Though watching things blow up was cool, it got old after 20 minutes of not understanding and we left.
This morning, I joined my friend Ada at her university. As they correctly informed me beforehand, it was really rather boring in class. The class gave group presentations, some of which were quite coherent, while others weren't even English at all. We then read a readers digest article ranking New York as the most polite major city in the world. HAHAHAHA. A good discussion of what it meant to be polite followed. They had me introduce myself and talk for a bit, then I attempted to teach them to think critically and question authority, something their British trained but Chinese teacher supported as well. I was relatively unsuccessful. Most didn't understand what I was talking about, but the few who did agreed. Afterwards we went to lunch at the university and surprisingly, the food was good - the first such instance I've found at a school here.
This weekend I will do some travelling and head up to Lijiang. It's a 10 hour bus ride or 40 minute flight. UNESCO made the town a World Heritage site for its history and ethnic minorities. While I'm there I will visit Katie; Shang Fang, my former teacher and the rest of the Dragons Language program currently staying up there. I will then return to Kunming and stay with my former homestay family for 4ish days before leaving Kunming.
Labels: dragons, green lake, kunming, pizza, Speakeasy, spring rolls, teaching, university
