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In case you missed it

In case you missed it, here is the text of the essay I did for the Ogden newspaper

What am I doing here? There is an existential sense in which I could intend this question, one that involves speculation into what could possibly motivate a middle-aged professor to take a two year leave of absence in order to join the Peace Corps. But as they say, we won’t go there. Instead I will talk about the practical details of life in Chengdu, China as part of the twelfth group of volunteers (known as China 12s) to serve as English teachers at Chinese universities in Western China.
To begin, I should say that I did not choose this assignment. As many of you may know, you don’t get to pick where you go in the Peace Corps. Generally speaking, you request a region of the world and a type of volunteer activity that is based on your particular skill set. But the final say on where you wind up belongs to the Peace Corps. If you don’t like the posting you are offered, that is the end of the story–they don’t offer you another one. In my case, I actually requested an assignment that had nothing to do with teaching–I felt I needed a break from the activity–but wound up teaching at a Chinese university. Your fate has a way of following you around.
Of course, you don’t jump right into your new life. Instead, you enter a ten-week training program to prepare for the job you will do and the culture you will be doing it in. For me, most of that time was spent living with a Chinese family in Chengdu while studying language in the morning and attending lectures and doing teacher training in the afternoons. It was an exhausting and enlightening two and a half months.
Enlightening because Chinese is a fascinating and infinitely complex language in which, despite a not insignificant amount of time and effort, I can count myself only a novice. Perhaps the most notorious feature of the language, one that makes it especially difficult for a Westerner, is the fact that the meaning of a word can change depending on how it is pronounced. So, for example, the syllable "da" can mean "to hang over something," "to answer," "to hit," or "big" depending on whether it is pronounced with one of four tones. The teacher training was also eye-opening because, though I have taught for over fifteen years, the process of TEFL, or Teaching English as a Foreign Language, has a pedagogy distinct from the one most college professors are used to. Lecturing has little place in the TEFL classroom and instead emphasis is placed on students doing most of the talking.
It was not only humbling, learning a new language and a new set of job skills, but tiring as well. The training took place five days a week from eight to five, with some Saturday sessions, and was done in what I was told was the hottest summer on record in Chengdu and in a humidity such as I have never experienced in my life. But on September 7th, I was sworn in along with fifty-six other trainees as the twelfth group of Peace Corps China volunteers in one of the proudest moments of my life at a ceremony presided over by the United States Ambassador to China. I was assigned to Sichuan Normal University, the main teacher training institute in Sichuan province. Currently, I am teaching both oral English and American culture classes.
Some people may have trouble seeing Peace Corps China as a regular Peace Corps assignment because we are not living in a hut in Africa. But this is to misunderstand the Peace Corps’ mission. The major goals of the Peace Corps have always been to help interested countries develop a trained workforce and to promote an understanding of Americans in other countries (and of other countries among Americans). Although there are other foreigners teaching English at many universities in Western China, there are certainly not enough to fill the demand, and at many institutions Peace Corps volunteers are in fact the only foreign teachers. More important is the second Peace Corps goal. Our language and cultural training allows us to integrate into a community in a way that few other foreign teachers do, giving people here a different image of an American than they might gather from television or learn from their friends and family. Hence it is no surprise that a recent Brookings Institution report concluded that the Peace Corps mission of promoting an understanding of Americans was even more urgent than it was when the Peace Corps was founded forty-five years ago. As has become all too obvious by now, our relations with a country are determined more by how successful we are at winning the hearts and minds of the people than by any other factor. Given the dominant role China will play on the world stage in the coming years, even a small program that can generate good will and foster understanding can be significant.
So that’s what I will be doing for the next two years, if not exactly why I will be doing it. But I probably would not be doing it at all had not Weber State University provided me with an extended leave of absence. I would like to close by publicly thanking them for their support on this perhaps foolhardy but certainly well-intended mission.

More pictures

Here are a couple of other images from campus. Again, note the blue sky. This is not a usual appearance in Chengdu. Note also the fact that the track is almost empty. This is not a usual appearance either. In the pre-sunlight hours there are people circling the track, and students start filling the soccer field by eight a.m., and it usually stays full all day, which is why I usually try to do my running very early. Since the tai chi starts at 7:15, this means I must start running by 6:30, but as I've mentioned, the track is far froom deserted at this time. By now I calculate I have done close to a thousand laps around this thing by now. If my ipod ever quits functioning (and like every other electronic device I own, it has been touchy) I think I would truly go crazy. At the far end of the picture, in te left hand corner, is where our little group gathers for tai chi. The wall against the grandstand to the right is where the soccer players kick balls. They line up and kick balls against the thing and have the balls bounce back across the track. It makes for some interesting running. This is why I run before the soccer starts. The statue is that of Confucius. I am not sure if this is an actual image or if anyone really knows what Confucius look like anymore than we know how Plato or Socrates or Buddha looked, but it doesn't prevent there from being statues and images. .

The Panda Cage

It was sunny the other day, so I went around campus taking some pictures because, well, there aren't a lot of days like this. So these are just some random shots. This is a picture of the building where I live. I am on the fourth floor. The building is in a gated compound known as the foreign teachers compound. There is a guard at the front gate. The gate gets locked at eleven on weeknights and midnnight on weekends. You need a key to get in after that and I am still waiting for a copy. Within the compound there is a restaurant as well, though I generally don't eat there because it is a bit pricey and there is much cheaper food to be had nearby. But it is convenient so sometimes I wind up there. I had heard the locals refer to our compound (in good humor) as the "panda cage." The idea is that pandas are separated off and need special care, and I guess that is that is supposed to apply to us. It is no suprise, then, that there is a doormat of a panda at the front door.

Chong Yang Festival

The day before Halloween was a Chinese Festival, the Chong Yang Festival (the 9th of September refers to the lunar calender which is different than the solar one we are used to). Here is a poem from that holiday which a student brought to class. I gather the holiday is one where families traditionally climb mountains together.

Miss My ShanDong Brothers on 9th day of September in the Lunar Clendar

I am all alone in a place far away from my hometown
I miss my family very much especially today,the ChongYang Festival
I know all of my brothers will climb the mountains though
I am far away from them All the people will pin the leaves of Cornus on clothes except me

Here is an explanatory note from the student: "I think you know that the 9th day of September in the lunar calendar is "the Chinese Chong Yang Festival",so the title means the author miss all his relatives on Chong Yang Festival. And here, the author write"brother", in fact , he means he miss not only his brothers, but also his other relatives. In this poem, the author tried to show us his loneliness. As you know, Chinese tend to miss his family very much, especially when he is not with his family."

Happy Halloween

Well the Halloween thing wasn't my idea. It was the idea of Sarah, my co-teacher in the culture class (she teaches four sections, I teach three). I did not even tell my three sections about Halloween. I figured they could look it up on the internet if they were interested. As culture goes, it did no seem that significant.But Sarah went into great detail with her classes and invited her students over to her apartment for Halloween, to stop by for candy. As a gesture to give students incentive to show up, I offered to have them stop by my place as well. Since she had over one hundred students, I thought I better not invite mine otherwise it would get a bit overwhelming. So I got about a hundred pieces of candy and so did my co-teacher. She made apple cider.

They actually know about Halloween over here, though they don't exactly celebrate it. The grocery store I go to had a Halloween display. But I think it's more of a sales gimmick and as I understand it there is no trick or treating. One thing they do, at least as reported to me by a couple of students, is to hit people with plastic mallets. Don't ask me to explain.

So tonight we did not know what to expect, weather no one or two hundred people would show up. I had on a cowboy hat I managed to find somehwere. About fifty showed up in all. The first couple of groups were not dressed up, but the later groups at least made an effort, as you can see. They came in large groups, eight to ten. When they got to my place, I gave them candy, sang a song on guitar (they all knew Hotel California) and then they sang a song or two back, sometimes in English, sometimes in Chinese. No one hit me with a plastic mallet, thankfully.

This land is their land

Today the Oral English class focused on folk songs, in particular on one folk song: This Land is Your Land. I handed out a copy of the Woody Guthrie tune and explained that this is a song dear to the heart of many Americans and expresses the way they feel about their country. I explained the chorus and verses and connected them to aspects of the American continent, pointing out where on my map of America on the board the various verses refer to. The chorus of course goes:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the redwood forests to the Gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

And the first verse
As I was walking that ribbon of a highway
I saw above me, the endless skyway
I saw below me the golden valley
This land was made for you and me

SO then I put the students in groups and had them come up with their own chorus and verse about China. The thing that got them interested in this assignment is that I brought my guitar and sang "This Land" on the guitar and told them they would have to sing their version in front of class accompanied by me. Although they of course objected, they in fact could not wait to get in front of class. These kids love to perform, and to watch performances. Karaoke, or KTV as its called here, is huge.

Here is my favorite sample of a student verse.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Hei long Jian to the Hai nan islan
From the roof of the world, to the island of Taiwan
This land was made for you and me
As I was walking the famous Silk Road
I saw in front of us, forefather’s footsteps
I saw behind us, the trace of our won
This land was made for you and me

Next time, though, I have to remember to bring my map of China because I had no idea where many of the place names they mentioned were located, and it would have been nice to have them point them out to me. Still, things went pretty well, and this lesson plan is certainly a keeper.

Usual Happenings

I was down yesterday with a little case of la duzi, the result of something I ate disagreeing with me. Nothing to be alarmed about. It's a not unusual happening and usually resolves itself within 24 hours, and if for some reason it does not, I am fortunate enough to have the Peace Corps medical office be a bus ride away. Another usual happening is having the schedule change on you without notice, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad ways, always in ways you didn't see coming and couldn't have anticipated. Yesterday was a good way because I found out that there will be no school next Wednesday through Friday because there is some kind of sports meeting going on across campus. I have still yet to find out exactly what this consists in, but it seems to be some sort of intramural competition, with races and games and such, and faculty are dragged into it as well, but not, apparently, foreign faculty, which is fine with me. I actually did hear rumors and rumblings about this from my students but it was not confirmed until about two days ago. Now in one sense, this does screw up my schedule because I had planned review for my Oral English classes next week and a review the following week, and they have already signed up for test times. SO now the students will not know whether the review is in two weeks and the test is in three or there is no review and the test will go on as scheduled. I guess I'll see who shows up in two weeks. For now, I'll enjoy the break, since 10 of my 14 hours are during those days off.

Book Report #2

It’s been a while, but I really haven’t had much time for reading. Here’s what I’ve read since "Soul Mountain."

"Raise the Red Lantern" is a trilogy of stories by Su Tong. The title story was made into a well-known and well-received movie by the Chinese director Zhang Jimou. In beautiful prose it tells the story of nineteen year old woman, Lotus, who goes to be the fourth wife of a fifty year old man after the woman’s father kills himself. The woman develops feelings towards the man’s son. In the meantime, she also becomes convinced that other mistresses in the not so distant had been thrown into a well once they were found to be unfaithful. Nothing comes of the feelings towards the son, who declares to her that he is afraid of women. But one of the wives is caught having an affair, and she mysteriously disappears. Lotus becomes convinced that the unfaithful wife has been thrown down the well and soon thereafter goes crazy.

On a lighter note, I also finished a short story by a writer who I have never heard of, Mo Yan. I picked up a collection of his stories at a place called The Bookworm. It is a coffeehouse/restaurant that has just opened up that has its own lending library. The charge is three hundred kuai or about thirty five dollars a year and you can check up to two books out at a time for two weeks. I went there to see if there were enough interesting books to make it worth it. The verdict is still out, but I definitely want to check out more work by this writer. The connection with Raise the Red Lantern is that the story I read, "Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh," has also been turned into a movie by the Chinese director Zhang Jimou. The story tells of a construction worker who is put out of work just months before retirement, costing him his pension. He struggles to find something to do and while walking in a park one day stumbles across an abandoned bus. He gets an idea to turn it into a meeting place for the lovers who are strolling around the park. So he fixes up the bus, puts locks on the door, and rents it out to lovers walking around the park. Of course all this is illegal and the bus isn’t even his. At first business is slow as he is shy to advertise his service. But desperation drives him on, and, with a little nudging from a friend, he soon has a booming business going. All seems well. If he can do. Winter is coming and he is about to shut the bus down. If he can do this for a couple of more season, he thinks he will have enough money for retirement. But on the day he is shutting things down he sees one more pair of lovers and decides to be kind and open up the place for them. The problem is, they do not come out, and the door locks from the inside. After waiting all day for them to come out, he is in panic and goes sees his friend who has a cousin on the police force. But when they go there and break down the door, they find no one inside, and the shifu ("shifu" is a term of respect to refer to a worker or manual laborer) decides it must have been ghosts.