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.

The Gym

There is a gym right outside the South Gate of the school. It is not much of facility. There are a couple of running treadmills, two non-electric bikes, a few weight machines and free weights, and even a couple of those hip belt machines which I haven’t seen in decades, where you strap a belt around your hip and the machine moves the belt around. I have no idea what that vibrating, oscillating belt is supposed to do, and neither do the people who use it, I think. And I probably would not have joined, even if it only costs about eight dollars a month, were it not for the wooden floor that takes up about half of the area. There is nothing special about the wooden floor itself. It is the fact that every night (and weekend afternoons) some group class or other is held on the wood floor. Most nights of the week it is some version of aerobics. I joined because they do a type of yoga a couple of nights a week and because it is nice to have somewhere else to go.

My site mate, Spencer, goes a couple of nights as well, though he primarily goes for the aerobics, when the floor fills with forty Chinese girl and one Peace Corps volunteer. I go on Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon, which is when they do yoga. It is not the greatest yoga, and of course I don’t understand a word of being said, but both sessions offer a pretty good stretching workout, with the Wednesday class being a little closer to traditional yoga. At those times it is about twenty Chinese girls and one Peace Corps volunteer. On Thursday nights we go together, or at least we did tonight and it may start a tradition, who knows. I stuck to the treadmill and watched the aerobics class. It actually would have been a pretty good aerobic workout, probably even more of one than I got on the treadmill, and I certainly saw Spencer sweating.

Loud techno music, bright lights and a wall of mirrors–some things are the same all over the world I think, and an aerobics class may be one of them.

Chips Ahoy

These are my downfall. If they look like Chips Ahoy, it is because they are Chips Ahoy. And I have become addicted to them. I don't know how it happened. This summer, at the Peace Corps Training, there were Oreos. And, while they were better than nothing, I would never eat more than a few a day and only because they were there. Perhaps because there was no milk to go with them, and Oreos without milk, well, are spaghetti without sauce (though I probably shouldn't be thinking about Italian food). And I do not think I have eaten a Chips Ahoy cookie for twenty years. But now, my pantry is stocked with them. I am not sure if there is some dietary deficiency that the CHips Ahoy are filling, or if it is perhaps because they provide me with a familiar taste in a land where so many things are strange to my palate. But they are truly like the Lays Potato CHips. I can't just eat one. I don't even remember when I started or how I stumbled into them. I think I was just looking for something sweet to have in the pantry and they were the one recognizable commodity. All the shops have Chips Ahoy, so they are easily obtainable. And there are even mutiple flavors: orange flavored chips ahoy and coffee flavored chips ahoy. But my money is on the basic Chips AHoy. Come to think of it, I think I'll grab a few right now.

jiuzi in season

You buy what is in season here. That’s how you get your fruit. You may remember this summer I got a little sick of taozi (peaches) and xigua (watermelon), but that was the time and they were the fruit. Now it is pretty obvious it is jiuzi (oranges). They are all over the place, filling the front row of fruit stands and being carried around by those vendors who attach two huge bushels to a stick and carry as much fruit as possible on their persons as they wander the streets. Actually, they are not quite oranges but somewhere in between oranges and tangerines. And while you can still get more variety of fruits and vegetables at the grocery stores, the local mom and pop produce sellers are the way to go to find what is fresh. So I go to the little place that is just around the corner from the building where I live. I am a pretty steady customer there for xiangjiao (bananas) and pinguo (apples). But for both of these fruits you only have to tell the guy how many of the fruits you want, and you can even use your fingers to explain. With oranges and similar fruits it is a little more work because you have to ask how much the basic unit costs and then go from that. The basic unit is a ‘jin," which if I am right is slightly more than one pound. So you ask "Shifu, Jiuzi, duo shao qian yi jin?" or "how much per basic unit are those oranges my good man." The rate is yi kuai ar, or about fifteen cents a pound, so I ask for a couple of jin, which is probably more oranges than I will be able to eat before they go bad but I don’t really want to ask for any less because at some point I’m not sure it is worth his trouble. So he goes slightly over two jin and the bill is 2.8 kwai or around thirty cents. And that should keep me in oranges for the next couple of weeks.

After class

So there is this student who I talk to after my Monday oral English class.Usually when students want to talk after class, it is just to practice their English and they generally ask questions like ‘how long have you been in china’ and ‘do you like chinese food.’ And I am tired after class and try to keep the conversation short. But this student always has something interesting to say and sincerely wants to know something about American culture, so I try to stick around and talk to her for a little while because amid her questions I usually come away feeling I understand a more about the students and about the intellectual climate here. Today, she began by talking about how there was a lecture she attended by some Ph.D. from the United States, and one of the questions he asked was how many students have access to computers. The student was shocked that an American academic would ask such a question, because it assumed that China was so backwards that they didn’t even have access to computers. What other misunderstandings were there in America about China? she asked. How could Americans be so misinformed? I told her that Americans are notorious for not knowing much about foreign countries, and that they generally don’t find out until it is too late. With the Muslim world, for example. There was a great interest in Islam after the 9/11 bombings. But what if people had been interested in Islam before the bombings? Perhaps the level of understanding and interest could have undercut the trend towards violence.

I said that this is one thing we are supposed to do in the Peace Corps. When we return home we are to educate our fellow country men and women about the country we spend time in, and I told her this was especially important in the case of China. I said I thought maybe Americans could avoid this mistake in the case of China, that people were beginning to understand how important China was and that hopefully we could get Americans interested in China and as a result avoid misunderstandings and foster cooperation. She said it sounded like a good idea.

The Gang's All Here

It was Friday morning, 7:15. I was at the track, getting ready for the daily tai chi session. We were gathered in a little corner off to one side. Even at this time of the morning, there are dozens of people circulating around the track. Some older men and women, walking alone; there is always this group of three women, housewives probably in their forties or fifties, who walk together; a lot of students running individually or in small groups–a lot of these are dressed in their school clothes. Most of the people are walking or jogging at an incredibly slow pace, but there are a few young men moving along at a pretty good clip.
Most of the Chinese exercise at this time of the morning because they believe the air is better. At this track, the early morning is about the only time there is relative calm. For most of the rest of the days there seem to be groups of students on the soccer field that is tucked inside of the track. This makes running difficult because they are invariably launching balls across the track and against the wall the runs along one side. I’ve had to dodge a few of these myself. So if you want to run around the track, best to do it early. But not too early, at least during the weekdays, because at about 6:30 or so the soccer field is filled with students doing group calisthenics to some metallic voice booming over the loudspeaker.
Anyway, on this morning I looked around at our little group. There is the leader, Master Wang, a tall, stately figure you wouldn’t want to mess with now even though he is in his sixties. There is Mr. Chen, the wiry little guy who used to live in Mongolia and who speaks Russian and his wife, even little but always smiling. There is Nancy–at least that’s her English name–the Chinese student who first invited me into the tai chi group. There is Xiao Bing. She is a teacher from some region about 600 miles away who is at the University to do research for a year. Her child and husband live back home and they are coming this weekend. And there is some other Chinese woman probably in her thirties who has been showing up occasionally since I’ve been coming and still seems to have problems with the basic movements..Anyway, this has come to be the basic group, although more often than not probably someone or other is missing. Nancy and Xiao Bing both speak English, so if both of them are gone, it gets a little awkward. Mr. Chen speaks a little English, but it’s best if someone can translate. You don’t really need much, if any language to do the tai chi, but sometimes it’s helpful when a move is being explained. Anyway, on this morning, I looked around and realized everyone was here, and it felt good to see everyone, and I turned to no one in particular and said, "The gang’s all here." Xiao Bing overheard, and asked what that meant, but there is no way to convey the exact meaning of that phrase, I think, in a quick way. And anyway, it was time to start.

Jokes

I started by telling the class a joke, or trying to, in Chinese. It was an American joke that I had worked with my tutor on translating into Chinese. Jokes are notoriously hard to translate across cultures, and I wasn't sure how this would work. My goal was to get them to tell me a Chinese joke (in English, of course). I wanted to choose a joke that would have some cultural significance, say somthing about American society. So I chose a lawyer joke. The fact that there are all these lawyer jokes in America certainly reveals something about the American attitude towards lawyers. The jokes, of course, are not flattering to lawyers, and usually show them to be, well, quite ruthless. The joke I told them involved a lawyer and his friend who are backpacking in the woods. They come across a bear. The lawyer starts to take off his backpack and the friend says, why are you taking off your pack for, you can't outrun a bear. And the lawyer says, I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you. Thankfully, they laughed and then they got together and told me some Chinese jokes. One or two I honestly didn't get, but I think it had to do with their translation into English, but some of them were quite good, and revealing.

My favorite was one about the Chinese needing to decide how many astronauts to send into space, and after prolonged debate they decide on two, and when asked to explain their decision they say that if they set up four they would play mahjong and if they sent up three they would play dodiju. Mahjong is a very popular board game here and dodiju is a popular card game, and the joke is funny because it is the culture poking fun at one of its nearly addictive attitude towards these games. I still wasn't sure, though, if the astronauts were supposed to be from Chengdu, which might make more sense since Chengdu is known especially for its love of mahjong. There was another interesting joke about a headmaster, a director, a teacher and a student who are on a plane. There are only three parachutes for the four of them. Both the headmaster and the director say that they are too important so they grab the parachutes and jump off. The teacher says that the student is the future of China and so offers the parachute to the student, who says not to worry, there are actually two parachutes left because the headmaster grabbed the student's backpack by mistake. This joke actually is quite touching in the attitude towards the teacher and it is the big shot, the headmaster, who gets it in the end. And there is a lawyer joke. A lawyer and a farmer meet on a narrow bridge. Only one can go across, and the lawyer says "I will not give way to a fool" and confidently walks across the bridge. The farmer says, "I will give way to a fool" and lets the lawyer pass.

"Chengdu is a leisurely city"

The stretch between Wednesday at ten a.m. and Thursday at 11:30 is a crazy twenty five and a half hour period. I have, depending upon how you count it, five of my seven or ten of my fourteen classes. Each class consists of two forty five minute periods with a five minute break in between. So on Wednesday I go from 10-11:35 (oral english); 2-3:35 (culture); 4-5:35 (culture) Thursday 8 a.m.-9:35 and 10-11:35 (both oral english, though different levels). The teachers here refer to each of these as two classes, although most of us view it as one rather long class. Regardless, to have ten of these, or five of these, in so short a stretch of time makes for a couple of intense days. I usually just come home and crash in the period between my Wednesday morning and afternoon classes, and usually just do the same after class is done on Wednesday, usually not even having enough energy to go out for dinner. I try to sleep a bit later on Thursday and don't go to tai chi or run in the morning. When the second class is finished on Thursday, I feel an incredible lightness, although it is usually not long before I think about the Greek myth Sisyphus, who was condemned in the afterlife to roll a rock up a hill, only to have it roll down once it got to the top. He had to keep repeating this process for eternity.

Speaking of leisure, here is a quote from a new English language guide to Chengdu.
"Chengdu is a leisurely city. Although the income of the people is not high, the price level is relatively low. Here, you may see the indolent sun, lackadaisical people and sluggish city. When the breeze blows, people would feel airy. The city thinks highly of enjoying life. The pressure of life would disappear in the free chat, and only the bitter happiness left.In Chengdu, you would not think about other things, but only about enjoying life in Chengdu."

doggie bags and lesson plans

I found out about doggie bags today. The word is "da bao," and no, the "bao" has nothing to do with "bow wow" as is dog bark, but that is the way I remember the term. It simply means to put in a box, and that is what they do, give you a little box to take the food home in. For me today it was "ma po do fu" which is somewhat hot tofu, and it’s the hottest thing I can stand to eat, though I can only stand so much of it. So now I have half an order sitting in my refrigerator just waiting to be heated up. Unfortunately, I have no microwave oven.

Getting ready for the lower functioning English class tomorrow, and that is always the biggest challenge of the week in large part because everything must be so well laid out, every activity planned for. Tomorrow is the lower of the low functioning classes. Thankfully, as I’ve mentioned, one of the teachers here has an excellent set of lesson plans which I have borrowed, well, pilfered, though even these must be fine tuned to the class and prepared ahead of time.
And with this class you need a lot of activity. One of the activities for tomorrow is to put them in groups of two and give them a slip of paper with an occupation on it and they have to decide how to do charades on that activity for the class. My guess is they will like this one.Unfortunately, the other activity for tomorrow is a little more problematic. I am supposed to have them stand in two circles, one inside the other, and they are supposed to go around introducing themselves with information they’ve been given on slips of paper. The only problem is that there is no room for them to get into a circle in the classroom. So I’ve been thinking of other ways to carry out the activity.

One of the grammatical activities has to do with working with plurals. The Chinese language has no plural. The nouns say the same. There is no "book" and "books." There is just the word "shu," which does not change regardless of whether you are talking about one or a hundred. You say "yi ban shu" or "one book" as well as "yi bei shu" or one hundred books." So the activity calls for giving them a bunch of examples of plurals and having them break them into different groups. I can already tell this will be too much for my class. I will probably give them all the plurals and give them a rule and tell them to find all the ones that fit the rule. That’s what I mean by having to adjust the lesson plan. Exciting stuff, huh?

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain

We watched "My Fair Lady" for the culture class. The relevance was, that there is a chapter in the textbook on the development of the English language, and in particular a section on the connection between social class and pronunciation with respect to British English. The proper way to speak British English is known as "Received Pronunciation" or RP and that is what is used by BBC radio and television announcers. The book’s point is that there is no longer the strong connection between pronunciation and social calls with respect to British English that there once was. And there is nothing that serves as a better illustration of how strong that connection was than the musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s play and starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. The plot, you may recall, involves the fact that Harrison plays Professor Henry Higgens who takes the flower girl Eliza Doolittle from off the streets and attempts, as part of a bet, to transform here into an elegant socialite and promising to pass her off as such a one at an elegant ball six months hence. He makes his own point about the connection between how one talks and they way one lives when he says (well, sings) to a fellow upper crust companion: "If you spoke like she does instead of the way you do/you’d be selling flowers too." They especially enjoyed the part where Eliza has her linguistic break through by being able to finally pronounce "The Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain." At this point, you may recall, they break into one of the film's better known musical numbers. We didn’t get all the way through, but with some skipping around made it up to the point where Henry Higgins does a trial run by taking Eliza to the elegant race track and she ends up by reverting to her old style when a horse she has a bet on is involved in a close race. "Move you arse," she screams among the polite crowd, and there is quite a bit of consternation and even one case of a woman fainting.

Interestingly, there was just an article in a recent Newsweek (the Peace Corps sends us Newsweek) that mentioned this movie because it was about a British woman who was actually being tutored to make her pronunciation not so aristocratic but more like the way most of her fellow countrymen talk because she did not want to stand out from the crowd.

I'm not sure if they grasped the point of all this, but they sure do like a musical here.

Things Missed

N.B. I will try on weekends to put out an extended essay to give a little more in depth sense of what is going on over here.This is my first, and hopefully not the last, effort in this direction.

What I find myself reflecting on these days are different things that I miss, and the way that I miss them. If you are traveling somewhere for a brief period of time–anywhere from a few days to a few months–the excitement of travel is usually enough to prevent you from missing things–or from missing them for very long. And if you have settled permanently somewhere, although you might miss certain things from your old location, your energy is usually sufficiently invested in the new locale that you don’t really have time to miss things. Besides, if you have moved from Ft. Lauderdale to Seattle, you may miss the sunshine, but unless you want to go crazy you put it out of your thoughts and focus on the benefits of your current location: the mountains, the ocean, and a Starbucks on every block. But it is this intermediate situation–somewhere between a temporary break from your current life to a completely new transition–that I currently find myself in. And in this condition, it is easy or natural to miss things because there is an expectation of getting them back is present the way it is not when you move somewhere new. And, unlike the case of short term travel, the excitement that often overrides our longing for certain comforts of home has worn off now that I have been abroad for over three months

But missing things is not so simple, and there are all sorts of ways to miss things, I am finding out. There are of course the obvious things, things that I miss because I am able to find no substitute for them over here. The most obvious thing that falls into this category are friends and family. There is no need to elaborate on this one, except to say that I knew coming in that I would miss them. Not that it makes in any easier to know something is going to happen.

There are other things that fall into this irreplaceable category which I probably should have seen that I would not be able to replace them but quite simply did not think of it, unlike the case of family and friends. Baths, for example. I mean, I knew in all likelihood I would be unable to take a bath for two years but just kept that thought from my memory even through my two and a half months of training when the bathroom consisted of a hole for a squat toilet and a shower head. It wasn’t until I got to my site where I would be for two and a half years that the sad realization hit me that I will simply be unable to take a bath for the duration of this time. Now, many people and perhaps most men would not see this as a great loss. But I can think of few things more relaxing than to slip into a hot bath at the end of a long, hard day, especially during the cold, cruel Utah winter. And though the winters here promise to be equally cruel if not as cold, I now confront the reality that there will be not tub of steaming water to take the edge of the chill or to relax aching muscles. Well, let’s not dwell on it.

Not having a car and not being able to drive. Again, it should have been pretty obvious that I would neither have a car nor be able to drive for the next two years. But what that meant never truly crossed my mind, perhaps because I had spent the year previous to leaving without a car, which in retrospect is probably a good thing. Americans love their cars and the freedom just to take off and drive and I’m no different in that way. It is a great safety valve. But for the next two years I won’t be going anywhere that public transportation won’t take me.

Friends and family, baths, and cars–all things I either did or should have seen that I was going to miss. But the reverse is actually true to some extent. There are some things that I truly thought I would miss that I find myself missing not at all. Like many people, I have a few favorite television shows, some of them on PBS, but some of them not on PBS. And they weren’t many but I did watch them regularly and they provided a nice diversion. But there is one English language channel over here and they have a combination of news and discussion. So, no Seinfeld reruns, no Curb Your Enthusiasm, no CI, no Rescue Me, no Monday Night Football. No problem. I only wish I could give up the news as easily but I find myself still addicted to checking news web sites so that the world is still with me regardless of how far I have tried to get away.

I am not sure whether I thought I would be able to get newspapers or magazines over here. In the excitement of getting ready to leave and then in the exhaustion of training I probably did not think about such mundane things. But now that things have settled down into a routine of sorts, the pleasures of thumbing through a newspaper or one of my favorite magazine is a little pleasure that I truly miss. Herman Hesse wrote one of my favorite essays on such little pleasures and mentioned how for most of our days it is these little things that are so important and that we often don’t appreciate them. Little joys he called them. And true, I can get many things on line but it is somehow not the same. In fact I have not even subscribed to the electronic versions of my two favorite magazines–The New Republic and The New York Times Review–because for me part of the joy was just sitting down somewhere and thumbing through the pages. The tactile element is important in a way I can’t explain and it’s why electronic books will never replace the real thing. There is something about the private space you can create with yourself and a book that up to this point the computer has been unable to replicate. And so especially on Sunday morning, when a big, fat newspaper is a sort of ritual I like many Americans are accustomed to, I miss the newspaper. And while we are on the topic, another little lost joy worth commenting on is the inability to go into a Barnes and Nobel bookstore and browse through books and drink coffee. I could easily spend a night doing this, but won’t be for a while. The coffee shop/bookstore combination has not caught on over here, and even if it does, there will be at most a shelf or two of English language books.

But there is another class of things besides those that I absolutely cannot find over here–besides the friends and family, the clean air, baths and newspapers–that I miss. These are things that I cannot say I can’t find them over here. But I can’t find exactly those things over here and must settle for some substitute. And even though many people would be hard pressed in some cases to see much of a difference between the thing I miss and the substitute, the fact is I can, and that’s what counts. For me, one of the major things that falls into this category is Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice. Now, to be sure, the situation with regard to orange juice could be worse. For a while, it seemed I would be unable to find anything that could claim to be one hundred percent orange juice. Most of the stores only carry juice heavily mixed with sugar water. Indeed, when I was living with my Chinese family, I used to take two busses to get to a store where I could buy little bottles of Dole one hundred percent orange juice from concentrate which I would then stick under my bed. Each morning I would gulp down one warm bottle every morning. So things have certainly improved since then. Now the distinction between Tropicana Pure Premium and Orange Juice made from concentrate is perhaps not quite the line between caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee–but it is darn close. And granted, for most people, the distinction between the two types of orange juices may have no more meaning for them than does the distinction between the two major branches of Islam. But students of religion and of orange juice know the difference, and that is what matters.

The list of foods that could fit in here would probably be endless, or at least difficult to list. Ice cream might be first on the list. There is the fact that nothing tastes like ice cream over here for a reason I can’t determine, certainly not the numerous ice cream bars that look nothing like the ice cream bars we are used to, and there aren’t any containers in stores and even if there were I would not be able to get them home in time before they melt. So there are substitutions for the real things, but they are pale substitutions at best. A few of the American style restaurants sell shakes and such, but even these are not quite on, and neither are they cheap. Salads should be mentioned. Not because they fit in this list–in fact, they should probably listed above in things for which no substitute can be found–but because they should be listed somewhere. You really want to stay away from raw vegetables. The best bet would be to clean them at home, but that is such an elaborate process but none but the most salad fanatic would engage in it, and I am not a salad fanatic. Still, I would like one every now and then, but will have to settle for, well, for not having one for two years. I am no sure when I get back if my body will be able to digest raw vegetables.

Another thing for which I have had to accept a pale substitution of the original is exercise. My running for the foreseeable future is confined to a quarter mile running track. Gone are the many running routes of old, not a few of which wound up into the mountains and afforded a type of solitude truly unimaginable here. Now the runs must be limited to as many laps as I can stand around a quarter mile track becaus I am surrounded by concrete and the track is the only reasonable place to run.

That is probably enough of a litany on things missed. I do not want to end on a sour not. For all of these things except family and friends there have been things that have more than compensated for the loss or the almost as good as loss. If I can’t go to Barnes and Noble, there are the numerous DVD stalls that have truly given my movie viewing a new life and perspective. And for all the foods lost or nearly lost, there are so many new dishes to take their place. There is ma pou do fu, baozi, jaozi, kung pa ji ding, the milk teas and the almost endless variety of soups. If one form of exercise is curtailed, there are other things to take its place. Tai Chi, for example. And friends and family are irreplaceable, but there are so many new people, new students, and so many places to visit in China. As Thoreau said and as we don't often remember, you never gain but that you lose something.

Friday

No classes today, Friday, so one thing I like to do to is to make a little expedition across town. The ultimate goal is the Peace Corps office, but there are a few choice stops along the way. So I takde the 56 bus to the 77 bus and ride it to Sabrinas, the imported grocery store where I pick up one of the many staples of life (Grape Nuts, liquid Soy Milk, tomato sauce, or, today, some of the little creamers for coffee). Across the street from Sabrinas is one of the better known Amercian style restaurants: Peter's Tex-Mex Grill. As you can tell from the name, they specialize in Mexican food, but they also have burgers, spaghetti, club sandwhiches and other American staples, and arguably the best ice cream shakes in town. My favorite is the burrito, which is huge, and at three American dollars would be a bargain in the States, but at 25 yuan it is pricey for your average Peace Corps volunteer. So I don't come here too often, obviously. But the burrito will be my meal for the day, it's that big.

After finishing the burrito I head across nearby Sichuan University (not to be confused with my university, Sichuan Normal University) where the Peace Corps office is located. It's quite a hike acorss campus, about three quarters of a mile, and there are so many twists and turns I often get lost and rarely take the same way twice. But before I get to the Peace Corps office I stop at a little combination dvd and used cd store and see what is in stock. The guy selling the used cds knows me by now and always tries to show me something. Today it was the Rolling Stones, which I passed on, but I did pick up a Dave Brubeck cd in the "This is Jazz" series for a little more than a buck. DVDs are even cheaper.

Then it's to the Peace Corps office. Today it is to check if a package has arrived (it hasn't). I usually stop by the medical unit and pick up some hand santizer and go up to the bookshelf and see if there is anyone has turned in any new books to read. Then I see who is around and see what has been going on at Peace Corps China. Then it is another stroll to the 56 bus and back to Sichuan Normal University.

arguments and ice cubes

In the higher functioning Oral English class I thought I would just let them loose on debate and see how they would do. That is, I reviewed the distinction between matters of value and matters of taste, and told them we were interested in matters of value i.e., ethics, art, religion, politics, and that this is what we would be discussing this semester. Then I said I just wanted to see what level they were at with respect to debate and what I might need to teach them. So I gave them time in group of four to prepare to debate. I deliberately gave them very little instruction on how to proceed.

The groups that presented generally did a pretty good job with pretty predictable difficulties. They tended to present claims without presenting any reasons or evidence for them. And they were especially bad at not responding to what the other person had said. I think this is a function of generally not listening to each other in the classroom.

One debate involved the claim ‘whether we are using petroleum at too fast of a rate." The pro side said, yes we were and that since there is only a limited amount of petroleum we should be careful in our use of it and, moreover, since burning petroleum pollutes the atmosphere we should likewise burn as little of it as possible. The con side said that we would find some new technology that would replace oil at some future point and so we should not be concerned. Here is where the idea of evidence for a claim comes in. The person presented no evidence for the assertion. And worse, the person arguing against them did not push them on this obvious point. But again, these are the mistakes anyone new to argument would make.

In general, though, they acquitted themselves well, which is remarkable considering that they were performing in a second language.

Culture note: I cannot seem to find an ice tray anywhere. Instead, they have these plastic bags that you fill up with water and they sort of fill up into separate little ice units. You have to tie up the plastic sack and after it freezes you have to cut out the little cubes, which are about the size of four or five stacked quarters. Interesting.

You don't have to be a weatherman ...

Facing two oral English classes tomorrow. For the lower functioning class I have a series of lesson plans thanks to another teacher. Last class the major exercise was having them introduce themselves by explaining their names. Unlike English names, there is usually a story behind Chinese names. Here is the example from the class notes, where a Chinese student is asked how he got his name, Wang Xiaoyu: "Well Wang is my family name. My given name means "laughter and rain." My father chose it for me because when I was born, my father was very happy and it was raining hard at the time." Another difference is that Chinese introduce by their last name first, the exact opposite, of course, of the American way of introducing themselves. That is, if I were to introduce in the Chinese manner, I would introduce myself as "Vernezze Peter." This is often explained by declaring that for the Chinese it is the group or family that is more important and for America it is the individual that is more important. This week they are supposed to work on starting up a conversation with a stranger with such phrases as "Nice weather, isn't it?" though it seems to me if you are going to start a conversation it should be with the phrase, "What about this weather?" That just seems more natural. That is, I don't think you want to come off sounding too optimistic when reporting on things. People might look at you strange. It's like when we were doing a section on just basic greetings, the "hey, how ya doin?" I discouraged people from saying things like "Great!" because I don't think people generally say things like that, and if they do we look at them kind of strangely. It's not that they are negative. Instead, I think it goes back to ancient superstitions of not wanting to draw the notice of the gods by declaring how wonderful things are.

And while we are on the subject of the weather, I think I will point out to them that it seems to me you can at least try to strike up a conversation with anyone in America by saying "What about this weather?" in a way you could not with any other phrase or statement. If you turned to a stranger on a bus or that you were standing next to in line and said hello, they would probably look at you oddly, but the "how about this weather?" comment seems pretty inncuous and while it might not always get a reply it probably has as good a chance as any line.

Miscellaneous

With another teacher we threw a frisbee around by the running track around suppertime. The field was still filled with students playing soccer, and there were people walking and running around the track, but there was a space open between where the playing filed ended and the track began, and that is where we threw a frisbee. People got a kick watching us toss it around. When we would play ultimate frisbee this summer, which is sort of like football but with frisbees, people would line the field to watch. It was the evening’s entertainment. We weren’t quite so popular here, but then again there was only two of us instead of competing teams. Occasionally the frisbee would go off course and someone would pick it up and try to throw it, usually with disastrous results. At one point some little kid came over and then it was over. He just had to throw it every time. He must have been three or four and was just having the best time chasing that thing around, and occasionally getting off a pretty decent throw.

Our school is undergoing some big review, so there are a lot of big shots walking around campus, and a lot of nice looking cars parked around campus. Everyone is pretty much on edge it seems. I guess they were going into classrooms on Monday morning, and I was told I was fortunate I did not teach on Monday morning. They leave tomorrow. They’ve been cleaning up the campus quite a bit in preparation for this. They cut down a whole bunch of trees in the courtyard near our apartment, gave us a new trash receptacle and even fixed the badmitton net. Too bad they are leaving, actually.

The weather had been absolutely gorgeous the last couple of days. Sunny and pleasant, really the first of that type of days since I have been here. We had sun in the summer, but it was combined with unbearable heat. Mostly, we’ve had a lot of clouds, and the for about a six day period we could not do tai chi because of the rain. In any case, it promises not to last. It certainly looks like that time in Seattle is going to come in handy in dealing with the weather here.

Had dinner with a couple of Peace Corps volunteers who have just finished two years in Fiji. I ran into them while they were with a China 11 (someone who has already been in China for a year; I am part of China 12, the twelfth group of China volunteers). The China 11was in town because she had been bitten by the kittens of a cat she is keeping. So she needed to take an overnight train into Chengdu to get the rest of her rabies shots (we got three rabies vaccines this summer). The two volunteers from Fiji have an interesting story. They had booked a ticket with a third volunteer and were supposed to travel around Asia, but at the last moment the third volunteer pulled out and it turned out she had booked them to stay in China for two and a half months. So they somehow got an apartment in Chengdu and will be based here.

Well, that is life today.

Film Club

With a Chinese colleague I am putting together a film series for students on campus. The films will include a little talk by me before and then a discussion afterwards. The idea is to show films that say something about American culture. I wanted to choose films off the American Film Institute' s 100 greatest films list. I ended up choosing the films listed below because I think each of them has a distinctive central character that represents a different aspect of the American pscyche. So here is the list and the description I sent (the number in parentheses at the end of each description is the number of the film in the ranking)

Citizen Kane (1941): Although it is more than 60 years old, it is universally agreed to be the greatest American film, and is on everyone’s list of greatest world films. So I think any film series about American films that did not include this film would be remiss. (#1)
Casablanca (1942). Again, an older film, but an important American film. The main character, played by Humphrey Bogart, certainly represents an American ideal that continues in film to this day, and the story of the struggle against the Nazis that is at the heart of this story is a classic tale of good versus evil. A classic love story and a cast of colorful characters makes this film is imminently entertaining and enjoyable.(#2)
The Godfather (1972). Once you get over the violence this story is really an allegory of American, about the American dream, about justice gained and lost, and about the immigrant experience.(#3)
The Graduate (1967). A tale of disaffected youth struggling to find identity after college graduation, this film introduced Dustin Hoffman and continues to speak to today’s youth. (#7)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946): Perhaps the most beloved American film, one still shown every Christmas to enormous ratings, the film tells the story of a good man driven by circumstances to consider suicide, and his being shown what the world would be like if he had never existed. An ultimately life-affirming film.(#11)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975): The tale of inmates at an insane asylum, the film features another of America’s great actors, Jack Nicholson, and portrays a perennial American cinematic figure, the rebel.(#20)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940): The classic tale of Dust bowl America during the Depression and a man who tries to raise the social consciousness of disaffected farmers, based on the novel by Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck. (#21)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) : The tale of a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman in the American South, the film still today speaks to the issue of race relations in America. (#34)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951): Quite literally one of the most famous acting performances in American film history. The film that introduced Marlon Brando, based on the classic play by Tennessee Williams.(#45)
Taxi Driver (1976):The tale of a disturbed Vietnam War Veteren who sees his society as decaying and decides to take steps to remedy the situation. An astounding performance by Robert DeNiro in portraying an uncoventional and disturbing figure who nonetheless certainly forms part of the contemporary American landscape. (#47)
Network (1976): A dark comedy about a national news anchor who decides to start telling the "truth" on the air, and the consequences that follow. A vicious look at the fine line between American information and entertainment in America that is more relevant today than when it was written.(#66)
Forrest Gump (1994): The fictional tale of an the amazing life of a mentally challenged optimist. Perhaps the finest single film for covering thirty plus years of American social history.(#71)
Rocky (1976): The classic American tale of the underdog, as a club fighter is given a shot at the heavyweight championship of the world. (#78)
Patton: Tale of a classic American warrior, the brilliant but idiosyncratic General George S. Patton (#89)
The Searchers: Generally agreed to be the greatest Western, with the greatest director of Westerns (John Ford) and the greatest Western actor (John Wanye). (#96)
Unforgiven: A modern look at the genre of the Western, directed by Clint Eastwood. The West probably as it was, and not as Americans tend to idealize it as, with all the moral ambiguity and violence that entails. (#97)

happy mid autumn day

Today is Mid autumn day. Here is something a friend of mine wrote to explain the meaning of this day:

Happy Mid-autumn Day. (中秋节快乐 zhong qiu jie kuai le) Today is Mid-autumn Day. This holiday is like Thanks Giving Day in the United States. Chinese eat moon cake and family will get together, it’s kind of round cake with nuts, egg or meat inside. But to tell the truth, not many Chinese like to eat. It has a legend behind this festival and moon cake. Long long ago, there is a man called Hou Yi. He is a strong and powerful man. At that time, there are nine suns in the sky. People suffer from heat and singe. There is nothing God and goddess in heaven can do. Only Hou Yi can rescue people. He has a magic bow and many magic arrows. With his great power, he shoots nine suns down, leaving only one in the sky to lighten the earth. Chang'e, his wife is a very beautiful woman. She is afraid to die and hopes to be immortal. Hou Yi, cannot refuse her beseech, asks for the immortal medicine from the goddess. Considering his contribution to the earth, the goddess gives him two. Chang'e is too greedy to share the medicine with Hou Yi, takes the two together. Unexpectedly, she not only becomes immortal but also becomes a goddess living in the heaven. However, she is too shame to live with other goddesses in heaven, and decides to live on the moon. She feels so lonely there and misses Hou Yi very much. She feels regretted and wants to say sorry to Hou Yi. She makes a kind of cake to show her sorry and her missing to Hou Yi. People call it moon cake. Of course, nowadays, mid-autumn day do not have the same meaning. Now, it’s a time, when family members get together and have dinner. After that, they will go to the yard eat moon cake, have a nice talk, of course with a beautiful and bright moon in the sky, if the weather is fine.

Socrates is mortal

As I said, I have two higher functioning oral English classes, and today I began to test how far I could take them in turns of what they would be able to talk about. I wanted to see if they would be able to think logically in a second language, which is no small task because most people can’t think logically in their first language. The idea was to introduce them to some basic logical reasoning patterns and to see if they comprehended them and could apply them. This required I perform one experiment I have not ever tried with a Chinese class, and truthfully I did not know how it would work. It was to see if the patten of deductive logic was as embedded in their minds as it is in the Western mind. That is, I can walk into any college classroom in America and put the following sentences on the board: "All men are mortal," "Socrates is a man," and then ask students what follows and every one of them will say "Socrates is mortal." Logic is hardwired into the brain as it were. But would it work with the Eastern mind? I was curious to find out and today, much to my relief, the students, when given the same two sentences, shot back with the same answer: Socrates is indeed mortal. I then introduced them to two basic logical patterns: "All A are B, x is an A, therefore x is a B" and "If A then B, A, therefore B" and had them come up with examples to mimic these patterns, and this they did quite well, to the point where they were able to apply them in a sophisticated way to some interesting problems including ethics, aesthetics and politics. I then told them do (since many of them had asked earlier) this is what philosophers , apply these basic reasoning patterns to all aspects of life: ethics, politics, love, friendship, art, happiness, knowledge, reality, etc. that I would be asking them to engage in a little philosophy as the term progressed. We will see how it goes.

oral english

In addition to the culture class I am teaching four sections of oral English. In two of the classes, the students’ English ability is fairly low and in the other two classes it is pretty decent. This dictates the content of the class. In essence, they are two different classes. The basic oral English class is fairly highly structured with pattern drills and some pair work. For example, we spent the second 45 minutes of last week’s basic oral English class working on the following dialogue:
A: Hey. How you doin?
B: I’m alright. How you doin?
A: Pretty good.
Now, there might not seem like much here, but there is a whole lot for the basic English learner to assimilate. There is the fact that people, at least of the younger generation, rarely if ever say "Hello" when greeting each other. Yet this is what you often hear come out of people’s mouth out here when they want to talk to you. Second, there is the informality of greeting. Again, no one says, "how are you doing?" It’s "how ya doin." I wish I had a copy of the Miller commercial where all the guys in the bar say this to each other. This leads to the third point, which is that we just naturally inflect the first "How you doin" differently from the second "How you doin" In the first, the emphasis is on "doin," while in the second the emphasis is on "you" (or "ya"). If you say it in exactly the same way both times, the dialogue would sound very strange. Now we don’t think about these things, but these are things someone learning the language needs to be taught. So this is the sort of stuff we cover in the very basic English class. It may sound like there is not a lot to do, but in fact structuring the basic low level English class probably takes more time than anything because everything has to be laid out and explained in great detail, and you must put together drills and exercises that will stress these things.
The upper level oral English class is a lot more fun because you can give the students topics to work on in group. But more on that next time.

Holdin' out for a Hero

We started out the culture class talking about the myth of the hero–the fact that every culture holds out a some individuals as role models, and that these role models will tell you a lot about the culture. I started out the section on English culture teaching King Arthur, not because I wanted to but because the woman who is teaching the other sections of the course with started teaching Arthur before I started. Since we are supposed to try to coordinate the class, I thought I would make a gesture by trying to begin with the myth of Arthur, which I would not have chosen on my own, nor would I have chosen on my own volition to show the movie that "The Mists of Avalon," which I sort of a feminist take on the Arthur legend. But its been an interesting experience. As I told the class, if you want to know a culture you have to know its heroes. So the Arthur myth was probably a good place to begin the study of English culture.
One thing I did was ask the student to write out who their own heroes were. About half listed their mother or father. A standard response:"My father is my hero because in my heart he is perfect. He is magnanimous and always plays with us. He is not really like a father, more like a friend." "I think mother is the most great person. She gives life and look after us. Whatever she bear, she always thinks about us and tries to solve our problems." Next came political leaders Chou en Lai (1898-1976)and Mao Ze Dong (1893-1976), with about 11 an 8 votes (out of 60) respectively. Various other military figures were on the list, from common soldiers whose deeds of valor made them famous to emperors from other dynasties combined for five or six votes. The 100 m hurdle record holder, Liu Xiang, netted four votes.
Jackie Chan got a couple of votes. And Mariah Carey netted one vote "for her consistent spirit in favor of her own music she has taught me to be stronger when facing adversities."

Dietary info (probably more than you wanted to know)

No school till Thursday, so I thought I would fill in some details:
There are some dietary essentials–or at least things that I consider essentials–that I thought I would have to give up or greatly modify when I cam over here, but I have been pretty fortunate in what I have been able to find
1. Number one on my list is Grape Nuts. And I pretty much thought that would be a lost cause. When I was living in Italy, I was able to get All Bran, and I figured that would be the best I could hope for. But in Chengdu there is a little shop called "Sabrinas Country Store," which I plan on putting in my will, and the first time I went in there I stopped cold when I saw Grape Nuts an d bought two boxes. They run roughly four American dollars for a little box, which is about a twenty five to thirty percent mark up. The last two times I went in there, however, they were out, and I had to settle for All Bran. But yesterday the Grape Nuts were back on the shelf. I should have bought them out just to let them know someone is serious about grape nuts, but given that I had to buy other stuff I only bought what I could carry.
2. With Grape nuts I have soy milk. Now this is the land of soy, of course, and I have no problem finding powdered soy milk. But the problem is, well, it tastes like powdered soy milk. Here, again, Sabrinas comes through with soy milk at about three dollars a quart, about thirty percent more than you would pay in the states.
3. Orange juice. Here is the first area of compromise. I love Tropicana Pure Premium–not from concentrate. And that is just not to be had over here. In fact, 100 percent orange juice is a very difficult find. But the Carefore–the big French-based grocery chain that is a bus ride away–has Dole 100 percent orange juice from concentrate, and I have learned to adjust.
4. Tomato sauce. Here I was truly concerned. Because it is so cheap to eat out and because the kitchen has to be kept spotless otherwise our little crawly friends (and I’m not talking about the neighbors) show up, I am reluctant to cook. But tomato sauce truly is one of the staples of my life. Thankfully, it is pretty easy to find tomato sauce. Both Sabrinas and Carefore have selections of tomato sauce. Sabrinas sells big jars of Ragu of various types, while Carefore has their own brand, which is not great. Sabrinas also has Barillas, which in my estimation is about the best bottled tomato sauce.
5. Salmon. Here I thought I would be s.o.l. Back home I mostly eat wild caught salmon given the problem with farmed raised salmon, and you weren’t going to find either here. Even if it could be found, it would be outrageously expensive. Here, again, Sabrinas comes to the rescue. They sell big cans of wild tuna, which certainly is not the same as a nice piece of fresh grilled salmon, but it works. The canned stuff is actually safer than most of the salmon in stores because most of the salmon in stores is farm raised and the canned stuff is wild caught. It’s not cheap, though–about four and a half dollars for a big can, probably about twice or so what it would cost you in the states.
Overall, though, not doing too badly on the big five food groups–certainly better than I thought I would do. I truly don’t know what I will do if Sabrinas ever goes out of business.

Happy National Day!

October 1st is Chinese National Day, essentially the equivalent to our July 4th. It marks the day in 1949 when Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It's the first big holiday during which I have been in China. Everyone generally has October 1-4 off and since it is combined with a weekend it means a five day break and is therefore a big travel period, one of the busiest of the year, second I think only to the Spring Festival (more on that at the appropriate time). A news program I saw recently issued the general sort of travel warnings in terms of arrive early and allow for plenty of time that we here around Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, because our school is undergoing some sort of review, the nature of which still eludes me, we have to teach the weekend before and after the holiday. So I won't be going anywhere.

It is 8 p.m. and outside of my apartment I can hear fireworks; somewhere a loud horn is blaring; a chorus of people singing in the distance. Happy National Day!