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Looking back over my first report made me realize how boring it must have been to read. My memory tends to formulate itself in a journalistic, if not highly stylized, tangential and anecdotal mess-which, by the way, I would not suggest if you are training your brain to write papers in the fields of History or Anthropology at Grinnell- so in this report I will do my best to let it read as an extension of certain memories and various journal entries.
School
After four years at Grinnell I thought the worst way to start my day was a firm undressing from Kamal at Café Phoenix after a physically draining weekend of tennis travel and the equally draining festivities upon our homecoming. It turns out a class full of 17 year-old boys-who have been giving you grief and throat aches the whole semester-showing up for the final exam late, 90 percent pencil-less and loaded with uncreative excuses is just as demoralizing. I only seek condolence in the marks scored by the few troublemakers who I played basketball with. They all accurately labeled the free-throw line, the three-point line, the baseline, the block, and the top of the key. And they all shut-up when I told them to because I had earned their respect in the paint. Some lessons are better played than taught.
Margaret is a much nicer teacher than I am. I ended up flunking 4 students who turned in exams that were replicas of their desk mate's, failed the oral exam and did not participate in class. I also gave out more than a handful of D's for kids that simply did not give any effort. Giving grades that don't impact a student's GPA makes for an awkward situation. Our class is in part, after all, a time for these kids to relax and take some time off from their grueling studies. Originally I had planned on doing the same as Margaret, not reducing anyone's grade to below a C, but in the end I decided to be firm with the kids who were dishonest.
I found the process of testing students to be just as stressful as taking exams. Writing a "fair", understandable, and error free exam was difficult. The amount of time it took me to finish grading took nearly fivefold the hours I had planned on. And the stress of finishing 25+ oral examinations in approximately 35 minutes, while simultaneously trying to prevent the students in the classroom from cheating, was almost overwhelming.
Outside of stressful and impossible-to-not-take-personally testing the second half of the semester had some wonderful highlights. One week I taught an anatomy lesson and during the last few minutes I opened the floor for the kids to ask me questions about the body. Most of the time I got nothing, but there were some funny ones such as: "How do you make a baby?" (not a joke) "What's in the middle of your ass" (In chinese), but the best came from my smart kids. I have a class of 12-year-old-boys who are extremely sharp and get along well. During the entire class the most outspoken boy, Alex, holds on to his desk mate Daniel's ear lobe. I thought about asking Alex to stop this the first week but it did not seem to be bothering anyone. After the rectum question, just before the bell rang, Daniel politely raised his hand and, grabbing his unoccupied earlobe, asked "What is this?"
Holiday Festivities
Class was canceled frequently and often without advanced warning in the closing weeks of this semester due to both celebrations and tests. Ending the semester as a teacher was almost as stressful as ending a semester as a Grinnellian. I have not been home for Thanksgiving since high school so Thanksgiving in China was not as shocking to me as it should have been. We worked a full day of five classes and had steamed dumplings, won ton soup, and thin noodles tossed in peanut sauce Fujian style. I went to boxing immediately after. For some reason my little brother was just as jealous of me eating his favorite steamed dumplings as I was of him eating my favorite roast turkey leg.
While the class cancellations drastically altered our plans for the last few weeks of class, the parties and banquets were unforgettable. On Christmas day we took advantage of some discount coupons at a sushi buffet to get started. Nothing like a little sushi, marinated tenderloin, and chilled ramen to remind me of Mom's dill rolls, roast turkey with rice stuffing, mashed potatoes and ham. The mall was rampant with Christmas decorations and we even spotted an upside down Christmas tree! After closing down the buffet I grabbed a pillow and put on a Santa suit that has probably not been washed much less mended in 15 years. The pants were enormous (I hiked them up over my pillow and still had to close them with a belt) and ripped in inconvenient areas. The coat was excellent but the beard was ripped, Scotch-taped and graying in areas. The hat was covered in golden glitter and barely exceeded my hairline. I was the only one that seemed to mind.
The kids did not disappoint the buildup I've had in my mind from previous accounts of the annual Christmas party. When I barreled into the room slinging a sack chalk full of peanuts, tangerines and imitation Dum Dums, I was barraged by a crescendo of screaming middle school children. When they noticed I was throwing candy and not punishing them severely for reaching in my sack, I was quickly taken advantage of. I tried asking them if they had been naughty or nice this that year but the only response I received was two cupped hands and a giant grin belting "YEA!"
My favorite part of the festivities was the student performances. They showed a collection of various fairy tales and other Disney performance that evoked Santa's hollering but the most inspired performance came from my youngest, lowest-level-English boys. While the handsome prince's suit and Snow White's gown were elegant the show was stolen by the seven dwarves who marched in with matching sweaters and Santa hats (the twins were wearing identical sweaters-of course). Each boy holding the shoulders of the dwarf in front of them, they trained around grinning from ear-to-ear and chanting "1 2! 1 2! 1-2, 1-2, 1-2" in lieu of "high ho!" Myself and every female in the building could not resist but comment on how cute they were.
After giving the students a party it was apparently time for a "cast party" (read banquet with the English teachers who organized the party + the Principal-of course) at a nearby restaurant. Our overworked and motherly boss magnanimously gifted us a carved stamp of our Chinese names that will last indefinitely. The gift was followed by plate after plate of delicacies including: a good ol' pepper-steak (I ate mine and our bosses), taro root, sticky-rice stuffed chestnuts, and durian pastries. All of this was washed down with an unnecessary amount of baijiu. When the principle left early the teachers immediately filled my glass and encouraged me to drink up. What excuse did I have when I was the only male in the room and I had already mistaken one teacher for another (when you say something wrong at a banquet it is custom to be punished with drinks, generally three small shots of baijiu)?
I suppose the method in which we celebrated Christmas was equally unauthentic. For hors' d'ourves we tore apart a loaf of French bread with our hands and slapped on Italian salami and gouda cheese. For dinner we ordered pizza, uncorked two bottles of sparkling wine and baked brownies in a toaster oven. I guess you could say we were reminiscing over dorm life.
Travel
I have been taking advantage of our ample Winter break for Chinese New Year by traveling with a family friend. Tired of the oppressive Nanjing cold I decided to book tickets to the island Hainan occasionally referred to as China's Hawaii because of its tropical latitude and palm-tree-flanked sandy beaches.
Upon our arrival we were greeted with a sign baring our names and a car that took us to our hotel for a nominal 1 dollar fee. I was amazed to be walking around in a thin sweater and jeans at 9pm; gorging myself on mangoes, peeled and sliced for me, washing them down with beer somehow drier than the local Nanjing brand. The seafood was excellent but tainted by high tourist prices. As my 2006 Lonely Planet didn't suggest much in the food department, we were lucky to find a small joint that I particularly enjoyed.
Dinner tonight was fit for the gods. The type of meal cooks enjoy. I was glad to be eating it in China as I could be loud, ripping the crab (stir fried in a ginger and scallion sauce) apart with my hands, shoving huge pieces of leg in my mouth and crunching them with my teeth, spitting out the shell pieces, dipping my fingers in the sauce and licking them, sucking on discarded shell pieces… and other barbarous acts that make eating crab pleasurable. - 1.13.09
We visited Monkey Island, a short hop off of Hainan, and there was a lot of monkey business going on there. One of the first monkeys we saw was sitting in the path sort of looking at us in an out-of-the-corner-of-his-eyes kind of way so I squatted down to say "hi." I should have spoken Chinese because he quickly reared up and pushed me away! Unfazed he resumed the posture while we moved on. The "research center" was a little sad because we could tell some of the monkeys had been hit (by their acrobatic trainers) and they did not have any medical attention for monkeys that had been injured. They play hard. We saw quite a few missing hands and one who had just recently had his wrist completely broken... it was hanging from his forearm, bone protruding, by a thin piece of skin and fur while he licked the bloodless bone. There was a comedy show where you could get your picture taken with the actors and without fail the Macaques would reach into shirt and jacket pockets without being noticed. We postulated about
the trainer trading them sweets for RMB. Aside from tour groups and smoking staff there were some peaceful and beautiful parts of the island. Lots of flowers, butterflies, and really cute Macaques hugging and grooming each other (the big-balled ones were doing more mating than grooming). Some of them were more forward with their begging, hugging onto legs, while others were subtle, sitting down and watching the show behind us with big eyes after smelling our coconut treats.
After Hainan we journeyed around Southwest China via ferry, bus, and train. We biked underneath and climbed some of the beautiful and mysterious hill outcroppings in the Guilin area. I managed to eat eight bowls of Guilin rice noodles (simply hot rice noodles with a little broth, fresh minced green onion and cilantro, peanuts and chilies to taste) in the three days we stayed there. We stayed in Kunming for a few days but didn't see much of the Yunnan area because I came down with a debilitating flu. The type of sickness that leaves you bed ridden and sleepless for 48 hours and when you are finally feeling well enough to get up, you go to put your jeans on only to realize you have lost 10 pounds. Even the local herbal medicines smoked through bamboo pipes gave only momentary relief. Needless to say I was on Ibuprofen for the New Years Eve festivities in Kunming. We were lucky enough to spend it with a friend's brother's in-laws. We ate numbingly spicy rabbit and well seasoned moss among other delicacies
before blowing up strings of fire crackers to keep the evil spirits out. Chinese New Year is a great time for kids. They receive red envelopes stuffed with cash and get a break from school. They can spend this money and time on cheap fireworks and firecrackers that range from sparklers and small roman candles to weapons that more closely resemble dynamite and mortars. From our vantage we couldn't see any rules or regulations on lighting these explosives in city limits so you can imagine the streets were a neon war zone.
Looking back over my goals for the first semester it seems that I will need to be taking most of them on with me to second semester. My Chinese level has stayed pretty stagnant and my understanding of the kitchen has not improved as much as I would have liked. I take some solace in that I managed to stay healthy until break, I wore a tie to work every day, and I (if not only slightly) was able to increase relations with the other English teachers. Nothing like playing rounds of 80 points (a doubles trick taking game) with middle age women on New Year's Eve to endear myself to them. As I prepare myself for a semester of teenage girls my main goal is to avoid making the same mistakes I made with the boys.
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