Adventures in Kunming and Beyond

Yes, it has been one month since I haphazardly arrived in China. That’s a big deal. I think I’ve made some progress adjusting to life here. I would also say that our quality of life here has improved, primarily through the weather. It was like we woke up one day last week after weeks of rain, and it was sunny. Since then, it has been sunny and upper 60s to low 70s. Not too bad. Kunming looks much better sans rain. I’m told it won’t rain again until the Spring, although the temperature will drop. You’d be surprised at how much better a person can feel with a change in weather.

Anyway, so about slacking off on the posts. Well, things have really picked up with school. Classes are in full swing (8 regular ones a week) and my students enjoy pushing me to the limits some days. For the most part it’s good. I’ve also had some other additions to my teaching schedule/social life. Tuesday nights I’m now a part of English Corner. For those of you unfamiliar with this ritual, it entails the Chinese students finding as many foreign volunteers as they can and then for two hours bombarding them with English conversation. Not difficult, but after you’ve introduced yourself about 50 times and explained your hometown and what you like about China, it gets a little old. The point is for students to practice English outside of class, so the concept is good. And, because we went once, we are now part of the group.

Last Thursday I started my three-week speech seminar, which is probably my favorite class. It’s basically a prep course for the big CCTV speech contest taking place over the next few weeks, but it’s nice because all of the students are there voluntarily and I found that I enjoy helping them with speeches (hmm…maybe rhetoric in grad school?). We have two more sessions of that to go, but we’re actually choosing the students that will advance to the next round (only five from our department) this week. Speech season runs my life right now. I am judging a division of the contest on Wednesday night, so that will be a new experience. I am also making my celebrity debut in China on Friday night as I was asked to hostess another university’s preliminary division. All of these speech events are for the big CCTV one that’s in Beijing, if the students make it that far, so there are a lot of official rules and guidelines that CCTV enforces to any group holding a preliminary contest. I actually have a prescribed order/script that I have to follow for Friday night’s event. (On a sidenote, the instructions are all currently in Chinese, so it will be a bonus when I find out what I’m supposed to be saying in English.) Anyway, I have to attend a rehearsal for it this week. The rules also state that as the hostess, I must dress “formally.” That means my other cultural adventure for the week will be tackling Chinese fashion and shopping. So this week is insanely crazy with all of the speech things I’ve been recruited for. It’s also an extra long week because next week is a holiday. However, to get the full week of holiday, we have to make up two days of classes for next week this weekend. Not cool. The holiday is actually tomorrow (Tuesday), and it entails eating a special dessert called Moon Cakes. The premise of the holiday (Mid-Autumn Festival) is to be with your family and friends and eat these cakes or something. Anyway, so everyone’s been running around handing out Moon Cakes and they’re all planning parties for tomorrow, so I have a list of appearances to make.

Other than that, we’ve vetoed any glamorous plans for the week of break. Unfortunately EVERYBODY in China has time off, so it’s supposed to be pandemonium and chaos. That and the fact that we haven’t gotten paid, and the university is going to take half of my check for my plane ticket means that funding is low. The plan is to hit up some local sights and make the best of it. Perhaps I’ll perfect my badminton game, since I’ve been getting recruited lately (p.s. Chinese alcohol does not improve your game at all) by students. I guess I look athletic? HAAA!

Well, what have I been up to the last few days? For the most part, I tried to survive another week of classes, including my two new freshmen classes. A note about that: I now teach two freshmen writing classes of 50 students each, in a crammed room with only a chalkboard. My creativity will be pushed to the limits.

Outside of being a working girl, Havvah and I had a few interesting cultural experiences. Wednesday night we decided to walk around and see what was going on. Our first encounter was some sort of dance squad/cheerleaders/aerobics class performance taking place in the gym. We were never really sure what to make of it, but it was pretty entertaining, and tame, if these were the school’s version of cheerleaders. Anyway, a mildly amusing event. But the real excitement came when we nearly found ourselves in the middle of a confrontation between a restaurant owner and some pretty intimidating looking guys who were attacking with broken bottles. Not the place you want to find yourself or see that happening right outside campus gates. About two steps later there was another incident that had resulted in injuries so it was mayhem with paramedics, ambulances and onlookers. Anyway, we practically ran back through the gates, and ran into Mr. Wong who was returning from a cigarette run. Of course, that made for an awkward walk back as he would say something in Chinese and we’d be like, ummm, English? Oh, well. To make up for it, and to try to get in good with the people that control our quality of living, we decided to share some of the brownies Ryan had sent with them. That was certainly interesting, and I’m still waiting to get my plate back with some sort of Chinese equivalent (fish heads, maybe?).

Thursday was the climax of an ongoing situation between myself and our contact at the foreign office. Basically, all foreigners need to get extensive medical check ups, even if you had it all done in the States. Every time this person at the foreign office gave us a few hours notice that she was taking us (which happened on three occasions), I had a class conflict. Other particulars aside, it was getting old, and without the medical thing, I couldn’t get my residency permit, which takes two weeks to process. The problem there is that the October break is quickly approaching, and I didn’t want to find myself without a passport and be stuck in Kunming. To attempt to resolve this, I offered to go to the clinic by myself (meaning on my own time, without the foreign office, but with Havvah). Well, after bringing this up, I was told I needed to go immediately. Ok, but Havvah had a conflict. Well, after explaining several times that I was willing to go without the foreign office, but not without someone who had already been to the place, I was given an ultimatum: go today and get your passport in time for break, or wait and don’t have it. You might think I was being a baby, but I promise, I wasn’t. The clinic was on the opposite side of town and took me an hour to get there. Armed only with the characters for the clinic and directions to hand to the staff, I set out to get the damn thing taken care of. Again, an hour in a taxi only psychs you out more for something of this caliber. So we pull up to this building, which definitely didn’t look like a medical facility, and the fun began. Let me say that there was no English the entire time. The process included lots of tests, like an ultrasound, x-rays, an EKG and bloodwork. They were definitely not the friendliest people…I’m quite certain that bedside manner is not a concept here. I got yelled at so many times, and the thing is, this is the clinic that all non-Chinese people have to go to in order to get their permits so perhaps they would not be new to the idea that most of their patients are not Chinese speakers. Well, I survived, and took a LONG shower afterward. And we celebrated with a trip to Salvador’s for supper. So, hopefully my results don’t come back with any reasons why my health prohibits issuing me a permit. And, my next task is fighting for reimbursement of it. Just for your amusement, the total cost of the exam, with all tests, was $50 USD.

Anyway, Friday was a Metro trip. Nothing too exciting. Saturday I tackled the mound of laundry taking over. I also put my new Lysol with bleach (courtesy of Ryan) to use. It was beautiful. Saturday night we got out to sample some more of China’s nightlife. Last weekend we went to a British-type bar (Chapter One), which was ok for hanging out, but probably more of a sports bar atmosphere. So, the selection for this week was Speakeasy. It turned out to be a very eclectic underground bar with lots of Chinese and foreigners. Havvah drank cheap beer, but I was determined to find anything but beer. Unfortunately, that comes with a price, so I think I’m just going to have to suck it up and learn to drink beer Oh, well. We met some guys from the Netherlands who were in Kunming doing some kind of tulip bulb research for their job. They were a lot of fun to hang out with. However, my small Dutch town origins did come back to haunt me. One of the guys was actually from the real Friesland in Holland, so I was telling him about Friesland in Wisconsin. How ironic. Anyway, it was fun to meet new people and just chill.

And, of course, that brings us to Sunday, which is still synonymous with homework and lesson planning. It would have also meant sleeping in, but some sort of convention/assembly/pep rally has been going on all day, all weekend at the auditorium right outside my window. That would really sucked to be woken up by it if I had had more than my one rum and coke last night. Oh, well. We are also planning to hit up a fine American delicacy in the form of McDonald’s today, too. Beautiful greasy goodness

Oh, and did I mention that I also got myself accidentally signed up for teaching a Saturday morning class??? Yeah, never assume that weekends aren’t an option. So, next Saturday morning I begin the first of three Saturday, two hours classes where my task is to teach global citizenship and speech writing to prepare these students for a contest in October. Yes, basically six hours total to teach them something, how to write a speech about it and then make sure they have a final award-winning product for the last session. I mostly just feel bad that these students’ fate rests in my hands…a lot of pressure…and why didn’t I ever take any of those global citizenship classes Drake offers?? Ah, regrets.

It was a hectic day. Let's start with class. Well, my third session of viewing, listening and speaking (vls) for the week got a little hostile. This particular group is one of my quieter ones, so I was figuring that ... [Continue reading this entry]

A few days without posts...I regret to say nothing truly enthralling happened. Thursday ended my week of teaching, since my freshmen classes don't start until this week. Although I was relieved to have survived my first week of teaching, Thursday ... [Continue reading this entry]

As you can imagine, every day in China has potential for being lost in translation. Today was a prime example. By "lost in translation" I don't necessarily mean in terms of the language, although that is a regular issue. I'm ... [Continue reading this entry]

For the third day in a row, it was cold and rainy. Here are two immediate problems with that: wet pants, particularly jeans, are very difficult to dry quickly when you don't have a dryer. Also, rainy weather is very ... [Continue reading this entry]

Today I taught my first two classes. They were both the same subject (Advanced Viewing, Listening and Speaking), and went fairly well, I think. My students didn't have looks of pure hatred on their faces, so I took that as ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yup, a new blog. I quickly discovered (after I logged into my contraband Internet) that many blog sites are not accessible in China. In my case, I could access it, but it was in Mandarin. Hopefully this one will work. ... [Continue reading this entry]