Yum, yum!

Before I left for China, lots of people wanted to give me advice about what to eat and what not to eat and what foods to watch out for while I was in China.  Some told me to bring my own snacks in case I couldn’t find anything suitable.  Others worried that I would be unhappy with the food and feel homesick for American food.  Many said that I would loose weight while I was here.  The brochure that the travel clinic doctor gave me after my vaccinations said, “If you can’t cook it, boil it, or peel it, forget it!” Food was one aspect of this trip I was not worried about, but with all of this advice I wondered if I should be.

I was right not to worry. I’m not shy about eating, and I’m not fussy.  I enjoy trying new foods, whether they are in a fancy restaurant or from a street vendor.  Everything I’ve gotten to eat in Shenyang has been absolutely delicious.

Workday breakfasts are the least exotic meal I eat because I usually have it on my own with food I bought at Tesco.  I have coffee (boil it), and an orange (peel it), and a hunk of Maky bread, which is flaky and buttery and tastes like brioche.  “Maky” is the name of a bakery, and the slogan printed in English on all of their advertisements and products is “Enjoy the time! For more delicious to share with you.”  Yes, Maky, I will enjoy the time.

On a few mornings I have breakfasted with Vicky and her family.  One day she brought home these delicious little pancakes from a vendor on the street below.  They looked somewhat like silver dollar pancakes, but they were fatter and had cornmeal.  Another day Vicky bought a different kind of pancake.  These were larger, and the batter had been ladled onto the griddle in a spiral motion, and so to eat them, we sort of unwound them.  They were very stretchy and chewy and were flavored with scallions.  The best street vendor breakfast I’ve eaten so far has been a little loaf of spiced bread that was studded with almonds.  It was so soft and puffy that “cake” is probably a better word to describe it.  It was similar in flavor to gingerbread, but it was a most interesting blue-grey color, like poppy seeds.

I eat lunch at school from my lunchbox.  This does not mean the same thing in China as it does in the U.S. My “lunchbox” is actually a stainless steel bowl with a big handle on the side. There is no cafeteria, but there is a small kitchen where the school cook prepares rice, two vegetables, and a meat dish for the faculty and staff. When the lunch bell rings, everyone in the English department office grabs her lunchbox from her desk and walks through the school courtyard to the kitchen to fill it up. We have to be prompt, or we will miss out. When we have wormed our way through the tiny, crowded room, we take our lunchboxes back to the office to eat together. The children have their lunches delivered in big coolers to their classrooms and eat with their base teachers. The lunches have all been really good and fresh, but they are always a surprise. My favorite dish is scrambled eggs and stewed tomatoes. We have gotten this twice now. Yum!

Vicky’s mother prepares dinner for the family and is an outstanding cook. She shops through the street market and finds things that look good and fresh.  With every meal she serves white rice, and sometimes she mixes in quinoa or some sprouts.  There are usually three dishes: one will have beef, pork, or chicken, one is usually a soup, and one has lots of vegetables.  Anything we don’t finish is covered and saved and served again at dinner the next night.  She uses lots of types of mushrooms and tofu, both of which I love, and I enjoy these dishes the most.  A couple of nights ago she brought home barbecued pigs’ feet.  I had to pick around the connective tissue with my chopsticks, but they were very good and smoky. Vicky and her mother won’t let me help with the cooking or cleanup, and I feel a little guilty that I can’t repay them the favor. I try to bring home fruit and sweets to share instead. I hope to treat the whole family to a big dinner at a nice restaurant before I leave.

In the meantime, I have been treated to several outstanding dinners out.  I have been to two Korean barbecue restaurants, two hot-pot restaurants, and one place that served everything on big bamboo skewers that had been boiled in a very spicy broth.  I especially like the hot-pot dinners.  Each person orders a pot of hot broth and puts it on a hotplate or burner in front of him.  Then, platters of different meats and vegetables are brought.  The diner chooses what he likes best and puts it into his own boiling broth until it is cooked to his liking.  This meets the doctor’s admonition to “boil it” and “cook it,” I think.

The most memorable dinner I have had so far was last night, though.  I was invited to a Korean Barbeque restaurant with the head of the English department, Eva, and her husband and parents.  Eva ordered for the whole table, and while we were waiting to be served, she showed me the pictures from the menu of the items she had chosen for us.  It all looked very delicious. She pointed to little, pink pork sausages, floppy, weird mushrooms, thinly sliced beef and lamb, prawns, bright green vegetables, and chunks of purple potatoes.  Then she pointed to something I had never seen before on a menu – cocoons.  Or at least that’s what Eva called them.  I don’t remember enough from my biology class to be sure in what stage these caterpillars were (pupa? larva?), but these were definitely some sort of wormy-things that were going to turn into butterflies. They had hard, little exoskeletons that were black and shiny with big eyes. Sure enough, as our food arrived, there were two plates of these little insects. “Two plates of cocoons,” I observed, trying not to show my anxiety. That is a lot of insect to eat in one meal, especially if one is not accustomed to eating insects. “They are very delicious,” Eva’s husband assured me. “You’ve never had them before?” They were not moving, but I’m not sure they were dead. We roasted them over the hot coals until Eva’s mother said they were ready.  They didn’t look much different than they had before.  Eva said not to eat the shell, to spit it out. I didn’t understand and asked to watch her eat one. She put it in her mouth, chewed it, swallowed the meat, and then spit out the crunched-up shell onto the table. So, that’s what I did. And Eva’s husband was right; they really were delicious! The texture of the shell was much like that of a cooked shrimp. When I bit down, it cracked open and the meat inside squished out.  It was creamy and a tiny bit gamey, but in a good way. There was hardly anything to it, and so I understood why Eva had ordered so many.  We had eaten through our cocoons in a matter of minutes. The most unpleasant part was having to look at the little shells sitting on the table top for the rest of the meal.

I can’t wait to have more culinary adventures in the remaining weeks of my trip! And, by the way, I’m not losing any weight. Quite the opposite, actually.

What's the Point?

On Monday and Tuesday I was back at Branch Two to teach the first graders again. I was better on Tuesday at handling them than I was on Monday, but it has been exhausting.  After dinner last night, I was so tired and upset that I shut myself in my room and didn’t come back out except to brush my teeth.  I haven’t felt this defeated by my students since I was a first year teacher at a tough, poor, public middle school.

I am very lucky to have well-behaved students at my school in Atlanta.  All kids can be talkative and playful at times, but the students at my school, for the most part, take their educations seriously and want to earn good grades, impress their teachers, and make their parents proud.  I can manage the behavior in class with my sense of humor and energy level.  I work hard to be peppy and positive and diffuse tense situations with laughter.  I invest hours every term planning assigned seats for my students to maximize my proximity to struggling or difficult students and to protect others from interacting inappropriately with others.  I train my students to follow certain procedures that make getting class started, collecting paperwork, and cleaning up after activities go smoothly and efficiently.  I hardly ever have to raise my voice to my students, and I think that we all have a pretty good time.  Occasionally, a student will step out of line too far.  This is when I rely on the Dean of Students, who will support me by giving the student a consequence for his actions, and can organize an effort to intervene with the student or his family if the misbehavior in class indicates a bigger issue.

Unfortunately, I can’t rely on any of this to manage the behavior of my students in Shenyang.  First, I don’t know anyone’s name, and I don’t have a seating chart.  The kids know that I will have a hard time pinning a consequence on their behavior because it is hard to keep track of them.  They also know that the activity I am asking them to do will not be counted for a grade.  Next, the classrooms are very crowded.  I can’t walk all the way around the room, and so if I run to one corner to keep a group of students on task, another group falls off task on the other side.  By the time I reach them, the first group is off task again.  Also, the students’ desks are very close together.  They can easily reach into each other’s desks and mess around with each other’s stuff.  This is problematic, especially in first grade, where I have had to sort out several cases of stolen papers and crayons, most of which have involved tears and lots of finger pointing. 

Finally, and this is the worst part, I don’t have the language skills to be funny in class, or at least not funny with a purpose.  For example, on Monday afternoon, Class Seven decided to play a little prank on me.  All of a sudden, just as we were about to practice “umbrellas” from line three of our poem, the room was filled with little sparkling lights, as if a disco ball had just been lowered into the classroom.  About half of the thirty-four students had taken little compacts with mirrors out of their desks and were trying to reflect sunbeams at my face.  They didn’t try to hide what they were doing at all. Some stood up on their chairs to catch a better angle, and everyone was giggling.  Believe it or not, this would be a pretty easy thing for me to solve at my school at home.  I would pick out the ringleader who organized the prank and saunter up to his desk.  Then I would pretend that I was checking my makeup in the little mirror and pretend to squeeze a pimple.  When I had finished primping, I would say, “Thank you, So-and-so, I look much better!  You can put away the mirror now… because I don’t want to look in it ever again.” Then I would smile very coyly at him until he put the mirror away.  Everyone would laugh and put their own mirrors away, and we would continue our lesson. This is what my instinct told me to do in Class Seven, too, and so I did.  Big mistake!  It really got everyone’s attention when I “squeezed” my pimple, but no one understood to put the mirror away.  Several students gestured for me to check my face in their mirrors too, and some of the kids who weren’t in on Round One of the prank, got involved in Round Two.

Class Twelve, at the very end of the day was even worse.  While we were acting out the words we had learned (something that the other classes found fun and engaging) eight boys got out of their desks and started rough housing with each other.  I don’t like yelling, and I hate having to touch a student, but I had no choice.  I thought someone was going to get hurt.  I screamed, actually screamed, “Go to your seats, now!” and I grabbed one boy by his arm and lead him back to his desk.  I was furious, but the class thought my anger was funny.  They imitated my screaming and giggled.  I vaulted up to the desk at the front and drew a diagram of the classroom in my notebook to show the base teacher where these boys sat and to take note of what they were wearing.  All of a sudden, I could tell they were worried. It got quiet.  I spent a good minute working on my notes, making a point of counting the rows of their desks.  I observed what the boys looked like, muttering to myself about the length of their hair, the color of their clothing, etc.  I closed the book. Then I calmly said, “I do not teach naughty students.” I sat down in the teacher’s chair and propped my head up on my hand, simply watching them.  Another minute passed quietly.  It felt like a long time.  When a couple of students began to stir, I opened my notebook again and made a big deal of marking where they sat and what they were wearing.  They stopped.  I could tell they were uncomfortable.  I made them sit quietly for another minute.  I noticed some of the wiser students quietly taking out their math homework to work on.  That was fine with me.  After another quiet minute, many more students had found something else to do on their own.  We passed the rest of the lesson this way.  There were about ten minutes left.  When the bell rang, I pointed at each of the especially rude boys.  Then I said, “I hope we have a better class next week.” And I left. I don’t think they understood the words I said, but I hope they understood the tone. And, I really do hope we have a better class next week.  I’m going to ask the base teacher to stay with us.

Things are only slightly better for me in the sixth grade classes.  Since these students have studied English longer, we can communicate more, but the same problems arise.  They know that they’re not going to be given a grade for their work, they know I don’t know their names, and there are so many of them that it is easy for them to fall into a mob mentality and just ignore me completely.  The sixth graders also seem less worried about what their base teachers will do to them if they are naughty.  This week our lesson is to play the “alphabet game” and “hangman,” and sing the “Hokey-pokey.”  The alphabet is way too hard for them; just saying the letters in order, even if they are written on the board, is very, very difficult for them.  They like hangman, for a while, if they can look in their textbooks to guess the words, and they think the Hokey-pokey is just stupid.  This lesson is another big flop.  Lili keeps urging me to just play games and to sing songs with them and to make it easy. But isn’t that what I’m doing!? I think I have chosen easy games, and I try to adapt to make the lesson even simpler when I find that it is too difficult for the students.  We sing songs. We move around. We go outside. And I’m still drowning.

There are two other foreign teachers working at the school as well.  I have only met one of them, however.  He is a young man from Nigeria and has been assigned to work in the fifth grade.  He is having the same problems I am having and wants to quit.  I think that if the Shenyang Experimental School hopes to keep recruiting teachers from abroad to guest teach, it needs to figure out a way to make the students accountable for what is taught during these special lessons, and the Dean needs to make the base teacher or the English teacher that would normally be teaching the lesson stay in the classroom with the foreign teacher. This is not happening for me.  I think the poor teachers here are so overwhelmed by the number of students and the amount of grading they have to do, they jump at the chance to have some extra planning time to work on their own.  Most of the base teachers have left the classroom before I even arrive.

I’m glad to have the opportunity to experience Chinese culture in a meaningful way, and not just as a tourist, but I am not having a good experience in the school here. I’m sorry to report that I feel my coming here is a big waste of time, money, and energy for me, for the Chinese students here, and for my students and school back home.

Keeping Clean

Sunny, a new colleague of mine in the English Department, and I were talking about the U.S.  She has friends who live in New York City, and they had reported to her that New York was a much cleaner city than Shenyang.  “Is this true?” she wanted to know. “It is dirty in China?”  Well, to put it bluntly, yes, Shenyang is dirty. 

First, the air quality in Shenyang is very poor.  There are huge factories with towering smokestacks that pour out billowing plumes of smoke during the workday.  There are thousands of cars crowding the roads, and the exhaust from them fills the streets.  Many street vendors burn fires to roast nuts or cook meat, and I can smell the smoke and ash on my clothing when I get inside.  Shenyang is also a smoker’s paradise.  China Tobacco is based here.  This is the company that Harry works for.  Tobacco shops line the streets, and people give each other boxes and cases of cigarettes as gifts.  People smoke everywhere, including the school grounds.  It is also very windy and dry here, and every now and then, a big gust of wind will hit me with a bunch of grit.  I have noticed that many people wear masks over their mouths and noses when they are outside.  Some of these are even quite fashionable; one can pick a mask to match her outfit.  When I walk to and from school, I find that I feel a bit asthmatic when I arrive.  I am very grateful that Vicky’s family does not smoke, and the air inside the apartment is much cleaner.

Next, people spit here. A lot.  Men spit. Women spit. Children spit.  Some are considerate and spit into a sink or trashcan, if one is handy, but most people just spit onto the sidewalk or into the street.  The sidewalk is dotted by little wet globs of mucus and spittle every few yards.  I know that this is one of those cultural differences that I should not be offended by.  But I just am.  I think it is totally gross, and I have to remember not to let anyone see me make a sour face.  I think the spitting has to do with the poor air.  Maybe sniffing and snuffling to clear one’s sinuses of grit and pollution and expelling it on the ground is healthy for the individual doing it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not very healthy for the people standing nearby.  I am especially offended when people spit near a food vender’s cart. Yuck!

Trash is another issue here.  In some ways I think the way Shenyang deals with its refuse is more sustainable than what we do in the U.S., but it makes for a messy sidewalk.  Most of the products that people purchase here are not packaged the way they are in the U.S.  People carry their own bags and containers to the market in which to carry things home, and there is just less to be thrown away.  I like and respect this.  There are some trashcans on the street, but not too many. When there is something to throw away, most people will just drop it on the sidewalk. Sanitation workers carrying cloth bags and natural bristle brooms walk up and down the roads sweeping the litter into their bags. At the end of the day when the vendors have wheeled their carts away and there is a lot of litter, it is swept into little piles and either burned or picked up on a cart, after it has been picked over for any reusable or refundable items.  I’m sure that there are huge landfills here somewhere, but it seems that people produce less trash.  In the classrooms at my school, for example, there are only tiny little trashcans, smaller even than the one I keep in my powder room at home.  There are no plastic liners in the trashcans, either.  When one fills up, a student takes it to the water closet at the end of the hall where there is a larger trash bucket that will be emptied (on to the street?) at the end of the day.

The water closet is also where we wash our dishes after lunch and wash out the mops we use to clean the floors and chalkboards of our classrooms and offices.  The sink is a long trough with several spigots for cold water.  There is no hot water in the building.  The trough has holes drilled into it, and all of the water flows down to a single drain in the floor. 

Keeping one’s own self clean amid all of this can be tricky.  My host family is very careful not to waste any resources.  I respect this, but it means that I don’t shower or do laundry as often as I am used to at home.  I take a shower about every three days, and even then I do not leave the water running the whole time.  My “shower” is actually a handheld showerhead and a drain in the floor of the bathroom.  There is a plastic tub I can fill up if I want, but I haven’t.  I feel awkward, like I am splashing water all over the whole room, and I try to be careful.  When I finish washing, I have to wipe down the walls and the floor of the room so that it doesn’t mildew.  The whole process takes me quite some time.  The towel Vicky has given me to use is also not what I am used to.  At home, I have over-sized, Egyptian cotton towels with my initials monogramed on them.  After a shower, I use two – one is for my hair, and I also have a matching bathmat underfoot.  When I decided to take a shower for the first time here, I saw a stack of threadbare hand towels on a shelf in the bathroom, and I wondered where Vicky kept the regular towels.  I asked to borrow one, and she pointed me to the hand towels already in my bathroom.  They are tiny, but I guess that I’m not meant to wrap myself in them.  I just dry off and try to move on.

Vicky has a washing machine and dryer combo, but we only use it for washing our clothes.  When they have rinsed and spun, we hang them on a line in front of her living room window to dry overnight.  I’m sure that it must save a lot of electricity.  It is kind of satisfying to hang out the laundry, too. The line is on a crank that raises it up and down so that the wet clothes can be hauled up and out of the way.  When elevated, they don’t block the view as much. It’s fun to wind the whole line up and down.

The floor of the apartment is kept very clean.  Vicky’s mother sweeps and mops every day.  We all take our shoes off at the door and change into slippers in the house.  I am very self-conscious of my comparatively huge, sweaty feet, and I’ve gotten in the habit of washing my feet and changing into clean socks as soon as I get home.  The tabletops and other surfaces are not nearly as clean as the floors.  The dining table is covered in plastic. As we eat, we put any bones or gristle right on the tabletop next to our bowls.  After dinner the plastic is wiped down with a wet cloth, but the cloth is used again and again, and I'm not sure it has been changed out or washed since I have been here. Dishes are washed in the kitchen sink with water and (sometimes) soap, and are put back in the cupboard still wet.  Since it is a risk for me to drink the water here, I have to be careful to make sure that any bowl or spoon I use has dried off completely before I put food in it.

I have been keeping one of Vicky’s mugs in my room and using it for coffee in the morning, and for brushing my teeth.  After each use, I wash it using boiled water and soap.  I have bought some paper towels to use, too. 

I think I’m doing an OK job of keeping myself clean and healthy, but I feel like a big, stinky mess, and my hair is definitely not its prettiest right now.  I have to confess that I can’t wait to check into my hotel in Xi’an (in two weeks!) and take a long, hot shower, for real.

Date Night

Friday night is date night in Shenyang.  Couples typically spend Friday evening having dinner together and then going to a movie or shopping.  My friend Lili had been set up on a date for Friday night with a gentleman, someone her mother’s friend had recommended.  Unfortunately, she was not especially interested in having a date with him.  So, she invited me to go shopping after school, and told her date that she needed to entertain the foreign teacher and that she was very, very sorry. She meant for this conversation to cancel the date, but to Lili’s surprise, he did not cancel and was excited to meet me and practice his English.  Lili was a little embarrassed when she told me that a man would be joining our shopping trip, but I didn’t mind. Hurray for date night!

After school, Lili and I took the metro train to Middle Street where there are lots of posh new shops and restaurants.  Traffic is closed on Middle Street, and so pedestrians can walk up and down it safely.  We passed by two Starbuckses, two Kentucy Fried Chickens, and a Pizza Hut.  We walked into Zara, which I think we have in the U.S., but which is a very big department store in China, and we looked at the beautifully decorated electronic signs.  After a few minutes of wandering, we stopped at a fountain to wait for Mr. Han, Lili’s date.  He was on time, and very polite, but a bit nervous, I think. 

After our introductions, he suggested we eat some dinner, and he took us to a very nice restaurant that sells Korean-style noodle bowls.  He urged us both to order more so that I could try lots of different tastes, and paid for the whole meal before it was even served so that we couldn’t.  Lili was only lukewarm to him and talked mostly to me about work and about an American school group from Chicago that will be visiting next week, and I felt a bit sorry for Mr. Han.  So, I tried to include him in the conversation by telling him about my husband and my dog and my school, and I asked him about his work and about Chinese pop music and about Shenyang.  We talked about what we were eating, and he complimented me on my proficient use of chopsticks.  It was fun.  After dinner, Lili wanted me to buy souvenirs for my friends and colleagues while she was there to help me bargain with the merchants, and I think she was hoping that Mr. Han would go home.

But, he did not want to go home.  He wanted to have his date with Lili. He went into all of the stores with us.  He helped me pick out silk scarves for my friends and made sure I was getting a fair price.  He wanted to carry our coats and bags for us.  As we walked through the jewelry section, he paid close attention to what Lili liked.  When we got thirsty, he bought us each a bottle of water and found a comfortable place for us to sit down.  He was a very good date.

By about 20:30 I told Lili that I should be getting back to the apartment because Vicky and Harry go to bed early.  We walked outside, and Mr. Han hailed a taxi for us.  I think Lili thought this is when she would finally say good-bye to her date, but no.  Mr. Han made sure we were safely buckled into the back seat, and then he climbed into the front seat of the taxi to give the driver instructions to Vicky’s apartment complex.  When we arrived, he opened the door for me, and I thanked him for the generous dinner and music recommendations.  He made the taxi wait so that he and Lili could see that I made it safely into the building.  I thought he was very nice, but I think I had more fun on Lili’s date than she did!  I doubt poor Mr. Han got a goodnight kiss.

Saturday was also an exciting day.  My new friend Lucy, who is a bilingual science teacher at my school, invited me to go sightseeing with her.  We met at the gate to our school and then took the metro to Shenyang Station.  This is an older train station that was built during the Japanese occupation of this region.  The architecture of the station and the buildings around it looked somewhat Russian, and Lucy told me that they had classic “Shenyang character.” 

We walked from Shenyang Station to another new, upscale market street, called New Mart.  It was almost identical to Middle Street, where I had been the night before.  I saw several of the same stores, and Lucy wanted me to shop while I had someone with me to help with the bargaining.  Again, this was a very nice gesture, but I was all shopped out.  I don’t much like shopping at home, and I’m not really interested in shopping for clothing or cosmetics in China, so I just had fun looking at everything.

When we reached the end of New Mart, we took a taxi to Beiling Park, and on the way we passed a huge statue of Chairman Mao.  I will have to go back to take a picture, because it really is something.  Beiling Park is the city’s most famous park.  It is very large with lots of lakes and ponds and walking trails.  But the real treasure in Beiling Park is the famous Zhaoling Tomb, which was first completed in 1643 to memorialize Emperor Taizong.  Emperor Shunzi, who was one of the first Qing emperors, expanded it a few years later.  It is a very large complex.  A wide boulevard, now paved with asphalt, leads up to the gates of the tomb, and along either side are several intricately carved stone statues.  One pair of statues reminds anyone on horse to dismount before approaching the tomb, another pair work as sundials, and another pair keep guard.  The avenue is lined with beautiful, ancient pine trees, a symbol of longevity.  Before we reached the gate to the tomb, we crossed a gorgeous stone bridge.

There are two gates into the tomb.  The outer gate is an archway made of stone.  It is beautiful and even more intricately carved than the statues before it.  It was meant to show the power and prosperity of the emperor.  I can see how it would make a visitor to the tomb feel quite humble.  The ramp leading up to the stone gate is blocked off with modern handrails, as is the stone fence nearby.  I presume this is to protect them from kids on skateboards.  The gate is still standing, but there are large metal ribs helping support it.

Behind the stone archway is the main gate.  It is a large red wall with three doorways through it.  The one in the center is for the divinity, the one on the east was for the emperor, and the one on the west was for the officials.  Lucy and I couldn’t go beyond the main gate, but they had the emperor’s door open for us to look through.  Beyond this main gate, are two other buildings, including the tomb itself.  The buildings and courtyard areas beyond the gate all had ceremonial functions.  For example, one area is for slaughtering animals, and one is for a tea ceremony.  All of these rooms and places would have been used in rituals honoring the late emperor.  The timbers under the eaves of the main gate are decorated with beautiful, colorful paint.  Lucy said the paintings were original, but given Shenyang’s violent climate, I don’t see how this is possible.  I think they must have been reconstructed and are continually repainted.  Still, they were beautiful, and I feel lucky to have seen them.

We wandered back through the park and then caught another taxi to a “hot pot” restaurant.  I enjoyed this very much.  Lucy and I talked about our schools and our students.  She is a truly kind person, and I think probably an excellent teacher. We are both looking forward to staying in touch in the future, and I hope that one day I can take her sightseeing in Atlanta. Between Lili’s date and sightseeing with my new friend, I had a very fun weekend!

First Grade

Teaching first grade is really hard.  It’s so hard that I want to say that again: teaching first grade is really hard.  Being a fairly laid back person, I am rarely offended.  However, the one thing that really upsets me is when people who don’t know anything about education make thoughtless remarks about how easy work must be for teachers, particularly primary grade teachers.  This happens all the time. For example, at a party not too long ago, I was introduced to someone new.  When she asked what I did for a living and I told her I was a teacher, she actually patted me on the head and told me how “adorable” that was. Having dinner with some friends not long afterwards, someone mentioned that his neighbor seemed always to be home early.  He had wondered how she afforded to live in the apartment across from his if she didn’t work, and finally he asked.  It turns out that she was a kindergarten teacher, and so “she didn’t have a real job after all,” he said.  The whole table erupted with laughter. I had trouble staying for the rest of the meal.  He obviously didn’t see his neighbor lugging in crates full of student work and lesson planning materials.  He didn’t see her going to every student’s house for a required “home visit” before each term.  He didn’t see her preparing several mini-lessons and structured activities for each school day.  She may have gotten home earlier in the afternoon than he did, but her job was far from over.  Let me make this perfectly clear, in case you, dear reader, are someone who would have laughed at that kindergarten teacher, too.  Just because what primary grade teachers do is cute does not mean that it isn’t serious. What could possibly be more important that teaching children to be literate, to be compassionate, and to communicate? Nothing.  Primary grade teachers are not only responsible for teaching content knowledge, but they also teach thinking skills and work on the moral formation of their students in such a way and at such a critical time in the development of the child, that it is unlike any other stage of education.  They have to do all of this and patiently help zip up jackets and pull on mittens, and wipe runny noses, and tie shoelaces, and walk children to and from recess, and sit with them in the cafeteria, and comfort cry babies, and constantly sanitize the surfaces in their classrooms, which are essentially big, germy petri dishes.

Teaching small children is such a big responsibility that I am not interested. No, thank you. No way.

This is why I was dismayed when Lili told me that I was not to teach fifth and sixth grade at Shenyang Experimental School as I had planned, but first and sixth.  She said that it would be “so fun” and that I should teach a nursery rhyme to the students.  I don’t even know what that means. Teach a nursery rhyme to them? Without out any Chinese language skills?

I asked my colleagues back home and my family and friends if they had any suggestions.  I am grateful for all of the wonderful support I received.  My dear sister-in-law, who is an elementary school teacher and mother of two young children, and my mother-in-law’s friend, who is an elementary school principal, both gave me the same solid, practical advice: get the kids involved in the lesson with movement, music, pictures, or tactile objects.  If I can’t explain what the words are, I should show them.  My real savior was my mom, who, as I mentioned before, is a retired first grade teacher.  She helped me choose a poem to teach and gave me some good ideas for how to actually organize the activities in the lesson.

The first graders have had about four months of English lessons.  They have all chosen or been given an “English name” for school, can say the alphabet, can count to twenty, and can ask, “What is your name?” and “How old are you?”  So, I decided to start there.  I didn’t bother trying to explain why I was in their classroom or where I was from.  When the bell rang, I said. “Hello! My name is Perrin. What is your name?”  The braver students raised their hands to say, “My name is Judy!” “My name is Rita!” “My name is Sam!”  Many of them have sweet, somewhat old-fashioned names.  There are lots of Sallys, Timmys, and Bobbys at Shenyang Experimental School.  After we had spent some time on this, I pointed to “Rain” by Robert Louis Stevenson, which I had printed on the chalkboard.  I read through the entire thing, acting out the words as I went.  Then I said, “You will read this too!”

I passed out a sheet of typing paper to everyone and motioned that I wanted them to fold it half, and in half again.  They could follow along just fine as I modeled it for them.  When we opened the paper back up, we counted the squares on the page: “One… two… three… four squares!” Then I gestured to them to take out pencils.  This was harder than I thought it would be.  Many of them needed reassurance that what they had chosen was OK.  I got lots of little tugs on my coat and students asking, “Teacher! Teacher! Yes or no?” as they pointed to their writing implements.

Once everyone was set with a pencil, I underlined rain in the first line of the poem.  I mimed writing it on my own paper and spelled the letters aloud.  They wrote rain in the first square of their own papers.  Then I pointed out the window to the sky and said, “Rain is wet and falls down in little drops.”  I wiggled my fingers like rain was falling.  They didn’t understand what I had said, but they thought I was funny, wiggling my fingers around.  I had them copy me, and they thought that was funny, too.  Then on the board I drew a cloud with rain falling from it.  Some of the kids got it right away.  Others needed to look at the illustration I had made, which I carried around the classroom.  With enough pointing and nodding, I managed to have them draw a “definition” of rain in the box with the word.  I redirected their attention back to the board where we found raining and rains in the poem, and we practiced reading these.  Then we chunked the first part of the line and tried reading it through.  I said, “The rain,” and then gestured for them to repeat, which they did.  “Is raining,” I continued.  They mimicked me.  Then we tried the whole thing.  “The rain is raining…” “The rain is raining…” When they got the hang of it, I asked them to stand and add in our special rain finger wiggle.  They loved doing this so much that they forgot to read the words.  So we had to practice a little bit more.

We did this whole process with around, falls, and field.  Each time was a bit harder, as the six-year-old attention span is quite short.  But by the end of the lesson, we had filled four squares on our papers and could read and act out nearly all of the first two lines: “The rain is raining all around, / It falls on field…” I was so proud.

Wrapping up the lesson was very tricky.  These classes have between thirty-five and forty students in them, and I didn’t want to let go of their notes. Materials like typing paper are hard to come by.  It seems that most Chinese lessons are taught from disposable workbooks.  The teachers rarely need to make copies of things, and the students do not keep binders or have loose-leaf paper.  I had purchased the paper for them on my own. I wanted to collect their “notes” in seating chart order so that I could pass them back next week and have the students fill in the four squares on the back with the remaining key words from our poem.  But, I couldn’t explain this to them, of course.  I mimed for them to hold their papers up for me to collect as I walked by, and I tried to turn it into a counting game, with the class chanting with me.  In each class, the sweet kids, trying to be helpful, passed their papers to each other and towards the front before I could get very far.  If the class had been smaller, and I had had access to more paper, a paper cutter, and to tape, I could have helped the kids make a pocket on the inside of their English workbooks to keep their notes in, but I didn’t.  Keeping the notes myself was my best option, I thought.  So now, I have twelve little stacks of paper on my temporary desk in the first grade office.  I will try to pass the papers back to their rightful owners next week, but I’m sure that lots of them are mixed up, and this will cause BIG DRAMA.  I might need to invest in another ream of paper and just review the first four words on the board.  Oh, well.

After my last first grade lesson of week one, I felt tired and defeated.  One of the real first grade teachers asked if I thought the students could understand me.  “No,” I said, “they don’t.”  I hope they are getting some benefit from spending thirty-five minutes a week with me, but I’m not so sure their skills in English will be much advanced by this nursery rhyme.  I’m not so sure my skills as a middle school teacher will be advanced by this either.  One thing is for sure, though: I really appreciate my twelve-year-old students back home much, much more.

Happy National Women's Day

March 8 is a holiday.  It is National Women’s Day, and government buildings, schools, and some businesses closed early to celebrate.  Also, the principal at school gave all of the female faculty members a case of toilet paper to celebrate.  I’m not sure when this holiday started or why it is significant, and no one I asked could tell me either. One teacher in the first grade office just said, “I don’t know.  Be happy. You are free from school!” And so, I was happy.

What do teachers do in the afternoon of a half school day in China? Well, pretty much the same thing they might do here: go to McDonald’s for lunch and then out to sing karaoke!  When Vicky suggested I join her friends for this outing, I felt right at home; I know several teachers at my school who like to do karaoke and like to eat at McDonald’s.  The only difference here is I couldn’t refuse!  I usually tell my friends that karaoke is too late for my bedtime, but since we were going at noon, I had no excuse.

We walked to a large shopping mall where there were all kinds of pretty shops and restaurants.  The large food court was filled with all sorts of things to eat, including Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and, of course, Chez McDonald’s.  The menu was fairly similar to what I’ve seen, but there were no salads, and there was something called the McWing.  It was not a sandwich, just little wings, like buffalo wings, only not breaded or covered in sauce.  Maybe we have these in the states too, but I tried one, and it was very spicy and bitter. My cheeseburger and fries were exactly the same.

After we finished eating, we went up to a glitzy karaoke place called Create KTV.  I had seen poster advertisements for this place before, but I didn’t know what it was.  We checked in, and a smart looking attendant led us down a corridor to a private booth where our group only would sing.  What a relief!  I was willing to be a good sport, but I was afraid that I would be singing in front of lots of strangers.  The attendant brought us snacks and drinks, and we began.  The music teacher from Vicky’s school sang first, and, naturally, sounded like a pro.  Everyone was eager to hear a song in English, and so I had to go next.  I was surprised that I didn’t know many of the available English language songs.  I recognized many of the artists, Britney Spears, Lady GaGa, Justin Beiber, Justin Timberlake, and Madonna, but I didn’t recognize the songs.  I guess these artists have success in China with different songs than are popular in the U.S.  Luckily for me, “Copacabana” by Barry Manilow, my most favorite star in the world, was on the playlist.  I sang my heart out about Lola and Tony, and everyone was amused, but slightly confused.  The video that showed on the screen while the music played featured polka dancers in Polish costume.  I tried to explain the story of the song, and Vicky interpreted, but it was lost.  Alas.

Nearly everyone else took at turn or two.  I ended up singing a few more songs, including “Like a Prayer,” “These Boots are Made for Walking,” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.” I listened to lots of Chinese songs, too.  Some of them I really liked.  I wonder if I can find them on iTunes when I get home?  Finally, “My Heart Will Go On,” from Titanic came up, and everyone shrieked with laughter.  The music teacher sang it with me as a duet, and I was surprised that many of the other teachers knew the words, too. 

Vicky and I had to leave early to make it home in time for dinner, but it looked like the party would continue without us for a couple more hours.  What fun! Happy Women’s Day!

Peace and Quiet

My first weekend in Shenyang was quiet for the most part, which is a blessing, because this whole place sounds very noisy to my American ears.  Chinese is a loud language.  It has four tones.  The same sound can be pronounced up to four different ways, and each carries an entirely different meaning.  If spoken too softly, Chinese is difficult for the listener to understand because the tones are not distinct.  However, compared to English, even noisy, unrefined, American English, Chinese sounds harsh and fast.  For example, my roommate in divinity school, Xu, was from Beijing.  During the first week we roomed together she told me all about her boyfriend, back at home.  One night he called, and I overheard Xu’s side of the conversation.  It sounded like an argument. She was scolding him, I thought, or breaking up with him.  When she hung up, I ran over and said, “Oh, Xu, is everything OK? Are you alright?” She looked confused.  It had just been a normal conversation.

On Saturday, I slept in a bit.  I didn’t realize how tired I was from the stress and excitement of the week before.  When I came out of my room, Vicky and her mother had taken Katie to a math lesson, and Harry (Vicky’s husband – he picked an easy English name, just for me!) was still asleep.  I had the whole place to myself.  I fixed my own breakfast, bread with jam and coffee, and settled onto the couch for a long read. It was so peaceful.  It felt good to just do something normal.  The TV wasn’t blaring, Katie wasn't practicing her recorder, Vicky wasn’t chatting online with her sister in England, I didn’t need to fight through the hustling traffic outside, or wrestle my way through a crowded market, or say hello to dozens and dozens of noisy school children that want to meet the Fifty Foot Woman.  It was quiet. Shhhh!

When Harry woke up, he came into the living room and gestured for me to turn on the TV.  Well, there goes the peace and quiet, I thought.  However, he tuned the TV to Channel 9, which is the English language channel.  Who knew? I watched an English broadcast of Premier Wen addressing the deputies at the opening session of the National People’s Congress.  It reminded me of the State of the Union Address.  The Premier talked about how much China had progressed in the last five years, outlined general goals for the nation in the next five, and then spoke more specifically about the work to be done in 2011.  The words “moderate prosperity of the people,” “growth of the economy,” “regulating inflation,” and “redistribution of resources” came up a lot.  He spent lots of time talking about how local governments would be held accountable for building low-income housing, and how the national government would be responsible for regulating the real estate market.  The deputies clapped politely at the end of each section.  Many of them were in regional costume to represent their districts. Most were taking notes and reading along with the speech, and none of them hollered or hooted.  After the broadcast, there were several minutes of political analysis and discussion a la CNN.  I don’t normally watch stuff like that at home, but it was fun to here.

When Vicky and her mother and Katie returned, Vicky announced that we were going to make dumplings.  Oh, boy!  We went back to Tesco, my new favorite place, to buy ingredients.  The filling was made of ground pork, onions, shallots, garlic, and ginger, all chopped finely and mixed into a paste.  Vicky bought pre-made dumpling wrappers, but told me that they were basically rice flour and water mixed into a dough, rolled paper-thin, and cut into circles.  I got to help with the assembly.  To make a proper dumpling, one puts a dab of filling in the middle of the round wrapper, folds the wrapper over, and pinches the edges together so that it stands up on its own.  My dumplings looked like Italian raviolis, not Chinese dumplings.  I don’t quite have the feel for it yet.  The dumplings are put into a special pot that steams them for about ten minutes, and then comes the best part.  Eating them!  Even my ugly dumplings were delicious.  We made so many dumplings that we ate them again for breakfast on Sunday and Monday.

I spent Saturday night working out my lesson plans for the first graders on Monday and Tuesday.  I feel very nervous about this whole thing.  My mother is a retired first grade teacher, and I grew up watching how hard she worked to put together lessons for them. Her lessons looked effortless and fun, but I know the real truth.  This is one of the main reasons I decided not to become an elementary school teacher.  But here I am, about to teach a nursery rhyme to 360 six-year-olds that don’t speak any English.

Because I will be rotating to twelve different classrooms, I thought it would be nice to have a copy of the poem written on a poster to carry around with me, rather than recopy it on to the chalkboard in every classroom.  I also wanted to make illustrations of the important vocabulary words to hang up as we learned them.  So, while I was at Tesco, I hunted for poster board, markers, and crayons.  Even with its huge inventory, Tesco did not have big markers or poster board.  I asked Vicky and Lili if they had ever heard of it, and neither had.  They also had not heard of butcher paper.  So, I used typing paper and skinny markers to make illustrations of the words as best I could.  They are not as big as I’d like.  The first grade classrooms have between thirty-five and forty kids in them.  I’m afraid it will be hard for them to see.  And if it is hard for them to see, managing their behavior is a problem.  And once thirty-five six-year-olds tune me out, I’m toast.

I’m sorry to report that I was just too nervous to enjoy the last bit of peace and quiet of the weekend on Sunday night.  I guess the Sunday night blues have followed me all the way to China.