Forgive the pretension and the neo-plagiarism, but this excerpt from a recent article in Time magazine says it all for me:
'The foreign observer is likely to be happy only if he sees his foreignness as an adventure, and recognizes that he has given up a sense of belonging for a sense of freedom, traded the luxury of being understood for that of being permanently interested.'
That pretty much sums the Asian expat experience. It's nearly 18 months now since I stepped on British soil but, aside from the beer and quality TV, there’s not all that much I miss.
Another reason for not writing is that in some ways there is no longer anything to say. I’ve been here long enough for many things that were once a major hassle to become routine, for incidents that once seemed outrageously funny or fantastic to be borne with a mere shrug (or expletive). Though I can safely say I have never busted my guts to learn Chinese I speak enough now to get by, which again detracts from the newness and exoticness of the place. And with three semesters of experience in my job behind me, few things young Chinese students get up to surprise me any more. Though there's still time yet.
This is not to say that life has become boring: it has not. There are of course some things I can never get used to: the pushing and shoving in queues; the rudeness and often corrupt behaviour of petty officialdom; the almost complete absence of beauty in the polluted, noisy and overcrowded urban environment. But this notwithstanding, I feel that I have taken some small steps in gaining an understanding of what to us will always be an almost alien culture - but one that in the near future those in the West will increasingly have to deal with.
Unfortunately, problems with my fifty-dollar scanner and computer gremlins have interfered with updating the photography part of the site, but hopefully I’ll be able to address that sooner or later.
July saw a couple of brief trips: first a week in Hainan, the large island dripping off the south coast of China that passes for an Oriental Costa del Sol and hosts the Miss World competitions. Lay on a beach, read a book. No further information necessary. Feeling somewhat guilty about not doing much serious travelling, I did also venture to Kaifeng, an ancient walled capital, for a couple of days and was punished by a dearth of sightseeing material and unavailability of return sleeper tickets – another 12 hours overnight sitting in third class with the great unwashed. Of whom there are very, very many.
August – a sprint around of China's major highlights with a British tour group during a maternal visit. All the usual: Hong Kong (an urban 'unChina' with a few unexplored crevices of history and nature); Guilin and Yangshuo (heavily touristed but the stuff of picture postcards, tall and jagged lumps of rock poking out of the rice paddies); Xian (Terracotta Warriors, anticlimactic to the extreme); Beijing (Great Wall of China, yadda yadda yadda).
Apart from a trip to what had to be the world's worst air show at Zhuhai near Macao in November, that’s pretty much it. I have all these big ideas of places I should go, but perhaps I’m too settled now to get myself in gear. I’m lazy and overweight. I have a girlfriend and even a cat. Perhaps I'm coming of age. I'm nearly 30 or something.
The cat, who was found abandoned and starving by acquaintances back in September was originally named Zapata but is now just 'Pisi' (Romanian for 'cat' is 'pisicuta'). I wouldn’t wish this name on him back in the UK, but it’s stuck. A ginger tom by nature he isn’t the best of house pets, perpetually play-fighting, biting and scratching but he’s calming down with age. It’s sad sometimes to acknowledge how much we spend on toys and food for the cat gets while the majority of people in China get by on under 200 dollars a year. If nothing else it’s nation of deep and painful contrasts.
Still doing the occasional bit of writing, sometimes for local English-language magazines, which is useful pocket money and exposure. Quite a portfolio building up now. And by the end of the year I hope to have finished the first draft of my book, something I've always wanted to do but until now have never had the time or inclination to get round to. There’s still many months of painful revision and rewriting to go, but if anyone knows any literary agents that might be interested in a historical novel about the events preceding World War One please let me know (even if you’ve bumped into a literary agent once while shopping at Tesco's, let me know.)
The semester is now drawing to a close: exam time beckons and then it's six weeks off for Chinese New Year. I’m writing this fresh from a bizarre experience called the 'Culture Anglar Soul' awards. Basically a popularity contest run by the students for the foreign teachers, a nice gesture but last year they flew us to the seaside in Xiamen which I would rather take any day. Don’t ask what an 'Anglar' is, some kind of misinterpretation of the concept of angels we think. So in return for a little trophy (and a bonus wad of notes stuffed in an envelope) I fulfilled my duty as a foreign teacher and performed a karaoke version of ABBA's 'Money Money Money'.
The irony was of course lost, but that’s life in Shanghai: a mixture of the weird, the wonderful and the wearing but always the interesting.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and best wishes to all.
Phil
The Science Museum in London has just launched a new website called Ingenious.
The official line is: "Drawing on the resources of the Science Museum, the site contains over 30,000 images which are used to illustrate over 30 different subjects, topics and debates. You are invited on a voyage of discovery through the content, exploring new perspectives on human ingenuity. The rich resources offer authoritative re-interpretations, which challenge traditional views. Ingenious brings together images and viewpoints to create insights into science and culture."
As an example, I suggest you click on this link which will take you to an image that really does give a unique insight into science and culture.
Courtesy of Owain Huw Davies, Science Museum Assistant Curator, part-time model and inexplicably also a new parent.
Now I need to check up on this more thoroughly, but this comment threw me quite a bit. I was conducting 'job interview' style talks with individual students and one of the standard questions was 'why did you choose this university' etc. etc. cue standard reply of 'oh, it's one of the best for accounting etc. etc.
One student, however told me that as an ethnic Mongolian she was not entitled to entry to Fudan or any of the other top three Shanghai universities.
Can this be true? Was it just sour grapes from this individual or is there some kind of policy, either on behalf of the universities themselves or by the government? It requires further investigation - comments welcome...
These were the words of Joan Hinton (Han Chun), an American nuclear physicist who defected to China in the 1940s and has just been granted a green card.
Rarely do I turn on CCTV 9 these days, but with my DVD player inoperative I thought I'd take a look. On the interview programme, Dialogue, appeared this frail 83-year-old widow, chuckling at her own aphorisms, so used to speaking Chinese that she struggled to find the English words, spouting her theories on the progress of communism.
It does strike you as a little odd that it took 56 years for her to get a residence permit. Also odd that a scientist with experience on the Oppenheimer project was assigned to agricultural development by the new communist authorities (though she understandably said she did not wish to participate in further nuclear research). Bizarre too that the wartime government in the US didn't pick up on the fact that one of its people had a close friend fighting with the communists against the KMT.
While I accept Hinton's motivation to defect, a horrified response to Hiroshima and Nagaski, the rest of what she said seemed very suspect.
Great Leap Forward? "I didn't see any problems where I was." Yep, she saw a whole bottle of milk carried across a river. Didn't get that bit I must admit.
On the Cultural Revolution, Hinton not only denied that she was subjected to any persecution but even said that she participated, implying that she betrayed an escaping "counter-revolutionary" priest to the authorities. At times it even seemed that normally wooden presenter Yang Rui was pressuring her to say something a bit bolder.
And quizzed on whether she felt betrayed herself at China's capitalist revolution she turned to her script - you actually saw the pages flick across the desk - and said that young people need "a sense of humour, a sense of history and a sense of struggle". Shenme?
She's getting on. But to dismiss everything over the last 55 years as merely "fascinating" is to deny some pretty major things.
Still, such an original and unusual perspective can only help to objectify the debate on what really happened and what is really happening.
For articles in the western press see The Atom Spy That Got Away and this downloadable NPR audio (scroll down the page - Real Player required) where she does seem to come out against the modern days yuppies and cash cows. "Young people these days... all they want is money!" Well, I'm with her on that one.
It's reported that a base jumper was injured jumping off the Jin Mao tower in Pudong, Shanghai, yesterday.
What strikes me is that the event appears to have been authorised, or so the article suggests. I'm pretty sure that in the UK it's illegal. Health and safety heads baulk at allowing people to jump off their buildings, bridges and antennas for obvious reasons - health and safety, not to mention insurance (which I'm sure is the main reason for many of them, I'm afraid).
Also worth noting that the AP reporter had none of his phone calls returned. If I was the organiser of such a potentially fatal event, I wouldn't want to publicise it too much either.
I do sympathise with the man and his friends and family, but in another sense if you take part in sports like this you can expect to meet with the odd accident.
Try this. UK newspaper The Guardian, always a great source of information, yesterday featured a major article about the collusion between the UK and China on rubbish dumping.
The gist is that all the crap the UK wraps up in black bin liners is being shipped over here where frankly, no-one cares. It's a win-win situation, assuming you're a corporate giant or government official with nothing to lose.
What the Chinese are after are plastic bottles etc. which are reprocessed presumably to turn into more cheap plastic bottles and nasty little toys.
One thing that I'm fairly convinced of in China is that when when I chuck out cans and bottles, someone, somewhere will use them. It doesn't seem to be the case in Shanghai, but in Xi'an for example there's urchins roaming the streets on the lookout for plastic bottles - presumably they get a couple of fen per bagful.
One ragged and possibly mentally-ill tramp jumped onto the train once as it stopped at Suzhou and grabbed every bottle from hard seat - regardless of whether it had actually been discarded or was still in use...
I'm all for recycling, so in a sense it's not a bad thing, and something that should be done more in the UK but the article asserts it's not being done in the name of environmental awareness but pure profit.
In casual conversation with a colleague today we discussed the profit mentality that pervades China - it's at the expense of the safety and welfare of the common people who do the work, the customers who deserve better quality, and of course the environment which answers back even less than the proletariat. Profit, profit, profit. Something's got to give.
But what I'm also getting at is that if you're on the mainland, for part of the day you couldn't read the article. Or at least I couldn't myself. It's worrying - has the great firewall developed a method to selectively block certain stories that are critical of China, or even articles in the mainstream press that even dare to mention China? Have a go - click here and tell me if the text loads quickly for you.
After two months off. God help me... getting up at 7.15 am again.
Once again I'm teaching 'Western Culture', Journalism and Spoken English. The first is as always a nebulous concept to say the least. Here's my take on it, lifted from the Powerpoint presentation I gave:
Why Should We Learn About Western Culture?
Firstly - why not?
Practical reasons:
Globalisation
China is and always has been a global 'player'
You are students on an international course
In your careers you are likely to encounter foreigners or even travel abroad
Abstract reasons:
History is full of suffering – some of it due to ignorance and misunderstandings of different cultures
To develop further, China should learn from the successes and failures of other cultures
Education is not just about books and exams.
'I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world.' (Socrates)
What is Western Culture?
Try to define Eastern culture...
What about Asian culture?
What is Chinese culture?
What is Shanghai and Jiangsu culture?
So how do you expect me to teach Western culture? It's a nebulous concept…
Yes, all of the above is a facetious approach consisting of trick questions designed to get the students to engage brains, but from my foreign perspective it does really raise a point.
What is Chinese culture?
Is it a mixture of Buddhist, Confucian and Daoist beliefs? Is it a politically charged blend of Maoist Communism and 21st century capitalism with a Chinese face? Or does it really exist at all?
Did, during the course of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese succesfully eliminate the old culture and what, if anything, was it replaced with? There's enough MacDonalds, Buicks and baseball hats around to really make you ponder.
Conclusion - I have no idea. I've been here one whole year and not a clue. Answers on a postcard please...
Learning a language can be a tedious process. All that grammar and vocabulary can be awfully wearing. Well, I've found a new way...
Since Romanian girlfriend Simona returned from her motherland I've been introduced to this utterly inane song that's apparently been storming the charts across Europe.
Worst thing being, execrable as it is, I've played it about 20 times a day and am actually beginning to get a grip of Romanian (a language not unlike speaking Italian in a camp-creepy Dracula voice).
The song is 'Dragostea din Tei' by this moronic trio of pretty boys, O-Zone. And for the benefit of curious readers, here's the words...
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haha
Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc,
Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.
Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum,
Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.
In English...
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haha
[These are just sounds, no translation required or available.]
Hello [on a cellphone], greetings, it's me, an outlaw,
I ask you, my love, to accept happiness.
Hello, hello, it's me, Picasso,
I sent you a beep [cellphone signal], and I'm brave,
But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you.
You want to leave but you don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want don't want to take me.
Your face and the love from the linden trees,
And I remember your eyes.
I call you [over the phone], to tell you what I feel right now,
Hello, my love, it's me, your happiness.
Hello, hello, it's me again, Picasso,
I sent you a beep [cellphone signal] and I'm brave [or strong],
But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you.
Repeat ad nauseam. Especially the third bit.
Fine. Now to learn Putonghua via J4 Sino-Synth. It can be done...
Seriously, before they take it down!
Go to the China Daily website's China pages. On the right hand side, to the left of the advertising bar you'll see a light blue menu, at the bottom of which is 'news talk'. You'll also find 'news talk' if you click on any story headline, for example this one about Deng and Kissinger. A new window will appear, with the blue menu again.
Click on ' when will china have direct elections ' and see what turns up.
Cost of maintaining the CCP's censorship policy? Billions. Cost of one copy of China Daily? One kuai. Clicking on the above invalid topic? Priceless.
Haven't had so much fun in ages. Discovered this site by a pony-tailed geek at a British university - http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/.
It's actually a parody of this official government site - http://www.preparingforemergencies.gov.uk/ - and earned the nerd a reprimand from the civil service.
From what I've read, every household in the UK is being issued with a booklet on what to do to prepare for terrorist attacks. But I and (I think) many of my compatriots honestly don't think that terrorism is the greatest danger facing us.
After all, the IRA spent 30 years bombing us (variously sponsored by sympathisers in Libya, not to mention certain 'Irish Americans' in Boston and elsewhere) and no such leaflet was printed.
We already have one of the most effective counter-terrorist strategies in the world. Yes, people should be vigilant but during my lifetime terrorism has been a threat that we're aware of and accustomed to. The Northern Ireland question is being addressed, however ineffectively, only after the gunmen have laid down their arms after decades of no success.
Frankly I think that the most serious problems in the world are caused by environmental pollution, poverty and motor car accidents. No-one's ever suggested that cars are banned because they kill hundreds of people every day, much less that companies stop pumping out pollutants that are going to cause much more long-term lethal effects on the global populace. And poverty and the discontent it raises is and always has been the undisputed champion when it comes to killing people (and breeding terrorists).
The place where terrorism really is a threat right now is Iraq. Only yesterday 128 people were killed - 128. I bet they haven't been issued with any booklets.
You can't buy deodorant here anymore.
Supermarkets like Carrefour used to sell just one brand of men's toiletries - Adidas - and just the roll-on deo and shower gel. A few weeks ago the products mysteriously disappeared from the shelves.
Now I've found the same is true at foreign goods store Parkson's. In fact the entire display cabinet that used to hold the Adidas stuff is missing and there's an ominous blank spot on the wall. I resorted to purchasing local brand Fa, which at the end of the day is a woman's product and smells decidedly effeminate.
Has Adidas withdrawn from China? That's my guess. Well it's going to mean a lot of smelly foreigners from now on. And there's no way to put this nicely at all, so I won't, they've got a lot of company.
Many if not most of of the local chaps I've sat next to on trains and buses have certainly had an aroma about them. What's more, a tour around the classrooms at my university uncovers more (and not just the guys). During a survey exercise I set my journalism class once, one student decided to ask people about how often they washed, and the result was an average of about three times a week.
What's with this lackadaisical attitude to personal hygiene, such that I'm assuming that a foreign supplier has withdrawn its business here due to lack of custom? Do people simply consider bathing too much of an effort, are they trying to conserve water or is it ignorance of other people's sensitivities again?
It hit 38 Celsius in Shanghai the other day and my feeling is that soon this place is going to start honking even worse than ever.
Just as China erected a gigantic buffer - perhaps the greatest engineering achievement in history - to repel the Mongol hordes, cities such as Xi'an and Pingyao put up their own city walls to encircle themselves in a perceived comfort zone.
Is there an analogy to the so-called great firewall of China, which protects the Chinese from the deleterious influences of free speech, diverse opinions and sometimes even actual fact? Does the celestial nanny have a microcosmic element in smaller institutions?
I know little about the technology, but any readers out there who see the following may wish to comment.
I currently live and work on a university campus, and one of the benefits is an LAN connection. The semester officially ended on 16 July, last Friday and at 7pm on the dot what seems like a firewall went up.
For over 36 hours I was unable to access any website at all hosted outside the mainland. This meant that while I was still able to view the drivelous journalism of China Daily and the infinitely better English-language blogs by Chinese people such as Leylop and Isaac Mao, for the most point I was cut off.
Yes, I know, most people don't use the Internet, it's only been around for a few years, get used to living without it etc.. But I couldn't even get on to Hotmail to send and receive important e-mails. I had to resort to sneaking around a sweletring Internet cafe downloading files onto a newly-purchased USB Flash Drive (one of those memory thingies you plug into a computer instead of a disk).
And I'm pretty sure that in order for this to have happened, whoever looks after the university network had to turn on some kind of device to filter out the non-Chinese sites. Can't see it merely being 'technical problems'.
Why exactly would something like this occur? Were they testing a system for future usage, an anti-outsiders contingency measure in the event of some kind of turmoil to which students might react?
Can't see these students reacting motivated to oppose anything at all short of nuclear armaggeddon myself, but you never know.
Right, OK. I've got to find some stores like this one somewhere in Shanghai and photograph them for a guy in Japan who is compiling the company brochure. Never say that a website isn't an effective self-marketing tool.
Last time I did this, however, I spent two days tramping around Shangers searching for the right stores which was most tiresome. Anyone, any ideas where to find these places? They're all going to be re-named 'FamilyMart' by Friday, hence the need for pictures.
Click on the pic to enlarge.
Now I know what it feels like to be on a production line. Despite my criticisms, I've finally found something in Shanghai that is frighteningly efficient. And also clean and hygienic with people who (try to) speak English.
It's the Foreigner's Exit/Entry Health Centre. In order to gain or renew a work visa, you need to go through a thorough check up. Walk into the centre in Hongqiao, cough up your RMB 702 fee and you're off.
After handing in your form, you are bustled into a changing room where you don a surgical kimono and place your belongings in a locker. The attendent checks you weight and height then barks a number at you.
At first this is confusing, until you realise it's the room number for the blood test. In, out, shake it all about. Done. 108! X-ray. Flash! Done. 109! Ultrasound. Fortunately did not turn out to be pregnant. Done. 118! ECG. Electrodes popped on and off. Done. 116! Eye test. Do you wear contact lenses? Yes. Done! 115... and then queue for a while for the final check up and data entry.
An incredibly impersonal process that doesn't exactly make you feel valued as a human being, but there again I'm a foreigner, not a human being, so should be grateful for the remarkable speed and convenience of the process.
Will let you know if there's anything wrong with me; so far three extremely fit and healthy people I know aged 23, 21 and 19 who have been through the centre have all been turned up with severe complaints of various internal organs. Funny that.
In my admittedly cackhanded efforts to comprehend Chinese culture - since, after all, that is what I am here to do - I've been criticised for numerous reasons. Not least is the simple but common 'you are a foreigner' jibe.
However, I think I've cracked something here.
It's something that applies to a large proportion of the human race, but I think is particularly applicable in China, at least in Shanghai. Acknowledgments to academically-orientated colleague Steven Sorensen who dubbed it 'the preservation of pretended authority'.
Everyone's at it, but in few places is it in more evidence than the corner of Chifeng Lu metro station.
Where Chifeng Lu meets Zhongshan Bei Lu resides a man known to us as 'traffic Hitler'. Dressed in a tasteful brown uniform, it it this guy's lot to direct the operation of the crossroads. A thankless and even dangerous task, given the torrential rain, insidious pollution and a driving mentality more akin to flying a Tie-Fighter around the Death Star than anything related to even self-preservation (let alone the preservation of others).
But despite his lowly position this chap goes into his job with tremendous gusto. He has the energy of a neurotic puppy on steroids. If he's not piercing the air with whistle blows he's flapping his arms and yelling at people and cars to bend to his will. All day, every day, rain or shine.
Nothing can move at the crossroads - not cars, not bikes, not people - unless permission is obtained from Traffic Hitler. The funny thing, for somone with such manic drive is he's completely ineffective.
I'm nearly 30 years old. Evolution has kindly provided me with binocular 3-D vision and a reasonable intellect. My forward-facing eyes allow me to judge distances and estimate speeds. I thus consider myself capable of crossing even a busy and dangerous road.
But step off the pavement at the wrong moment for him and he'll actually push you into incoming traffic to put you back in your place. Meanwhile, cars are merrily zipping through the traffic lights behind his back.
I must get some photos one day.
It's the same it seems in other strata of society. At the university, we have a person whose specific job appears to be to leave unhelpful memos on our desks, whisper incoherently and suspiciously and generally make life difficult. We foreigners thus disregard everything she does, even sometimes when it's stuff that's actually useful or right.
Same goes for the government. Block Google? It's because it can. Not going to stop me using the search engines, or for that matter seeking out the BBC Website etc.. It does it to show that it's in charge even if what it does is ultimately ineffective.
So is this a matter of simple incompetence or a hierarchical awareness, a general cultural thing? Holding on to one's little corner, Canute-like trying to hold back the tide? Or have I completely misunderstood again. Go on, do your stuff ironophobes.
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Both have a somewhat crazed look in their eyes but I assure you that the dog is merely playacting. The milky fluid dripping from the knife is in fact dishwater.
Click on the pictures to enlarge.
It may not seem so in China, but everyone is an individual. At least in theory.
There's thousands of English teachers here but millions of students. Millions. Faced with the army of kids that this biased ratio generates, no-one can be blamed for feeling that the blank expressions they encounter each day are all part of some amorphous mass, an impersonal juggernaut of closed young minds.
There's always at least one, however, that singularly breaks the mould.
I'm lucky enough to teach at a relatively prestigious international programme at a relatively prestigious university, and have a few such students. One such individual is the somewhat... Slavically-named S------.
S just took me for dinner as a precursor to an English-language 'talk show' she runs for the benefit of the majority of her compatriates who have no access to foreigners. (God, I hate being thought of as a 'foreigner' all the time, but it's now becoming an easy term of referral. Perhaps we're just another such mass to them.) I'm to be the guest of honour, naturellement.
It's probably the first time I've actually been able to have a protracted conversation with any of my students. And over dinner we discussed, what else, the education system.
S has a different approach to many of the others. She rejects the consuming passion and obsession for grades; she realises that there is more to life than the oppressive grind of the Chinese education system. For example, she "sets aside time each day for self-development."
I can't tell you how glad I was to hear this. S values the opportunity of having a foreign teacher, while also valuing the different perspectives and attributes of the Chinese teachers too. Moreover, she reads books. Doesn't sound like much, but in her view few of the others are reading anything outside their academic life. If you can call it life.
The result is a confident, independent and intelligent young woman who stands out from the crowd. Her English is fluent, not because of my efforts (probably despite them) but because of her own self-discipline.
This all begs a few questions, however. How much of this is nature and how much is nurture? How many S are there out there? Are the individuals who make up the majority of my classes S in disguise, or are they missing something that inexplicably she and only a handful of others have? How can China survive without more people like this, people with the power to think?
Cos one thing is for sure; it's people that can make this country work, not robots. But from what I can see, on judgment day it's the machines that will inherit China and that's not a good sign.
The dinner was crap.
Update - having thought further about the above, written in a moment of frustration, I concede that some of it is a bit harsh. Of course Chinese students have the power to think, just like anybody else. The robots comparison is way over the top, so I retract it with apologies.
The trouble is that it often seems to a foreigner that students just aren't using their mental faculties the way they should. Too many times I will give a task, or instruct students to ask questions, and there will be no response at all. Other times, it's the opposite: but it's always the same ones who are active. The rest, it appears, are content to just sit back and do nothing. They can think, but often I have to make them think.
It's this that worries me. Because thinking is something you have to do on your own. Perhaps I should not blame the students but the education system, which seems to put far more emphasis on rote learning and memorisation than upon analysis, practice and argument.
I don't think it's just lack of confidence in a second language that is to blame, though it is a factor; maybe it's lack of experience in the critical thinking that I and my English contemporaries were imbued with at university.
Perhaps I should try harder to get to know the students better outside the classroom environment, but in many ways the door is locked.
"Don't say let me pass, OK? But say let me pass, PLEASE," a tall and big guy front turned around, seriously, with a chalk in hand directing me and picked the error out of my word.
This is Philip,my English teacher from London who is 28-year-old journalist. He impressed me with his sharply bright character and working style at the first sight.
He didn't seem like a gentleman if valued by our common definition that a gentleman always owns a so-called noble idiosyncrasy or graceful behaviour. Whereas, he was a little bit crazy.
He showed a number of exaggerated guestures to make himself well understood. He, for example, went up to the window, held his hand and stretched both of his forefingers straightly in one direction to demonstrate where his office allocated. He shouted "STOP" very loud and decidedly to show the time is up which, however, trapped many timid girls in shock.
Far worse, one girl privately guessed that he might have a bad temper. But the truth is that we never feel the two classes' time passed more quickly than this one.
Perhaps this is the kind of action that the lively atmosphere in class sprung from.
No doubt he had a quick mind and a good sense of humor. And these qualities were more reflected by his responses to our constant questions. When the class started, he required his students to ask every questions they want to know because he thought a good journalist was an excellent questioner, as well.
But this time I had to add that a reporter is also a smart answerer. He had a wide knowlege of his country, his abundent experience in Janes' inflamed the boys' interest, especially on Kelly Event.
May be at first class what we should do is to know each other. There weren't any heated debate or excellent questions. If the students got well-prepared, and we know him in further step, the questions will be like bullets fired.
This was the first impression of my English teacher, Philip, and he will be along with us for a whole semester. The story began here and will be created by time and every people in our class.
To be continued...
Hi, I am XXXX, after reading this passage, give your opinions, the more the better. If somewhere is not correct, pick it out.
Perhaps my English writing is no more than a pupil's work, but if I stick to practice, I believe I will make great progress. Thank you very much.
Remember, it is our secret.
On Monday you said you would be 29 after two weeks, well, happy birthday. Mid-aged man is hot.
A genuine, (almost) unedited, and completely unsolicited, e-mail article entitled 'MY ENGLISH TEACHER, PHILIP - Part 1 : First class', from one of my journalism students (not pictured to preserve anonoymity!). This individual is sure to go a long way. But "mid-aged man is HOT"??!!
All in all, it's been a good week. Meeting my new classes has been a bit varied: some have been very subdued, while others are bubbling with enthusiasm. However, one I thought was being particularly morose the other day is in fact now in hospital with TB. TB? Christ.
I'm especially pleased to be teaching journalism. It'll be a major challenge, and even a risk, but for once I feel my skills and knowledge can really be put to good use.
Other good things that have happened - my credit card finally arrived, thank God, meaning I can now purchase a much-needed new laptop. Also within the package was a copy of my long-awaited Sunday Times Travel Magazine article, 'Lost and Lonely on the Khao San Road'.
Saori, the Japanese graduate who I helped out the other night bought me a pizza; we found a good DVD player for Cameron; and, to cap it all it was a jolly warm, sunny and pleasant day.
Those of you who've written to me telling me to cheer up and stop dissing the PRC, relax. China is my punchbag: I take it out on China when I'm annoyed, but it makes a great cushion when I'm not!
Yep, it was a strange one.
Out with Jenny "let's-pretend-we're-Valentines" Zhao, I thought it'd be a good idea to take a look at the photographic exhibition at the Liu Hai Su art centre down in Hongqiao.
Having no idea what to expect, we were confronted with images of naked pregnant women in black-and-white, photos of household objects and model landscapes dressed in raw meat and finally, wooden peephole boxes containing cute Chinese-style porcelain dolls doing it.
We fared little better in the cinema. Jenny was keen to view Baober in Love, which she said is the film everyone's talking about. The poster depicted a happy smiley young couple hand in hand, though with outstretched arms. "Looks OK," I thought, agreeing to sit through two hours of un-subtitled Chinese cinema.
The story began promisingly enough as we met the eponymous heroine, an odd and flighty girl who regularly flicked her eyes and head in all directions to show she was a bit different, a bit crazy. There followed some surreal Poppins-esque sequences, such as the hovering dinner set and the nookie among silver cushions in a construction site rubbish chute.
Turned out, however, that Barbour was actually deeply disturbed and ended up disembowelling herself. Not very Valentine's.
Waiting 90 minutes for red-hot spicy Szechuan dinner, plus further loitering around trying to get trains and taxis meant that I didn't get back to campus until around 11.00.
There, on the edge of the basketball court was a forlorn-looking Japanese girl with designer togs and a suitcase the size of a karaoke machine. "Help," she said. I could hardly leave her, so full English gentleman act swiftly followed.
Poor lamb had just got of the flight from Tokyo with less Chinese than even I expecting to be met by the university staff. No sign of them. I turfed Jenny out of bed at 11.30 begging for translation assistance, and eventually Saori was found a room, provided with food and water (by me) and packed off to sleep at 12.40am.
It wasn't half a funny Valentine's day.
Today began with a bolt from the blue. Cocooned under my duvets, I heard my mobile bleep. It was a text message.
A text message from the most random person imaginable. A couple of weeks ago, I had met up with CIEE friend Hannah for lunch. She had been running late and on the way in borrowed a phone to inform me. The message was from the owner of the phone.
"Who are you," she asked at first. Then, "Are you a male..." Dingalingaling! Alarm Bells!
It transpired that this girl was one of Hannah's third year students out to improve her English. "You may call me Sunny," she texted. "Can I make friends with you if you don't care?"
While I am all for helping people with their English, this approach took me by surprise. Who in their right mind would call a complete stranger and ask this? How desperate is this kid? Can I really trust her?
Yet later in the day, a better experience in marked contrast to this one. The Living in China crew received a mail from a young woman in Beijing, Amanda Ma. Instantaneously, upon reading her website, I knew that we'd come across someone interesting.
Though there were some mistakes and misunderstandings, for a 25-year-old Chinese woman her writing is pretty useful. She already has a column in That's Beijing. Clearly she's on the way to becoming the next Muzimei... but with a rather more wholesome attitude.
This is exactly what the Living in China project needs - Chinese writers with talent and balls. One to nurture - I'll be blogrolling her too.