Surprise reunion
Yangshou, China.
What a small world! Yesterday (Monday) on our way to class, Laurie told us that we would be picking up a guy named Tom who was coming to watch us for a day and learn more about VET and possibly volunteer himself. When our van pulled over to let in this Tom, Steve and I were both surprised to see a guy from Orange County, California who we had met in Beijing the day before leaving for Mongolia! How weird! Well, I guess it’s not that weird since I’d talked to him for a couple of hours and somewhere in there had mentioned our plans to volunteer with VET and he had sounded interested. I guess the biggest shock was that we knew he was going to study kung fu for a month East of Beijing somewhere and neither Steve nor I had realized it’d already been over a month since we had last seen him! Time flies! But I guess we had both forgotten that we’d met him before going to Mongolia, so that made a big difference. But it was neat running into him again and I was glad that my recommendation had gone somewhere.
We had a good day of teaching. I took the 4th graders and Steve took the 5th graders (Sue and Gordon had the 3rd and 6th since they’re a little more difficult). The 4th grade class went really well. We sang and colored and played games. The 5th graders were a little more difficult, with one boy in particular who was trying his very, very best to piss me off. I literally just stood and smiled at the back of the class while he did who knows what behind me to try to get me upset and to also entertain his friends. Eventually he stopped, though, and asked me to help him color later on in the class. Steve did a good job of changing gears when the boys were a little too wild when they were playing a game. The older kids are a little more of a challenge just with keeping them under control. But I guess that’s probably the same with kids everywhere. 13 year olds are harder than 11 years olds. But it was a good day.
In order to get our food free through Owen College the VET volunteers are expected to give one hour long talk a week to the college-aged English students who are interested. Monday night was my talk, and I didn’t really plan anything which was a bit of a mistake. I talked a little bit about myself and where I’m from and that sort of thing, but I don’t really like talking about myself, so I quickly ran out of things to say. I invited the students to ask me whatever they wanted about me or the states or what I think of China or whatever really. I ended up having to get Steve’s help since they were mostly interested in the financial crisis and the elections. We had fun explaining how people get into politics in the US since apparently in China politics is just like another job where you get in at the bottom level and have to be promoted in order to get a higher position. They just couldn’t understand how Arnold Schwartzenneger became the governor of California when he was an actor! But I think they finally got it. I’m amazed at how difficult it can be to explain things. Their world is so very different from ours and you don’t really realize how much so until you start talking about different things. For example, they just couldn’t understand how people get elected without being bribed and so being controlled by other people or companies. I tried to explain the caps on how people can donate to politics but they were still convinced that there must be mass bribery happening. Finally we just said maybe there is. You can’t always control everything. People give bribes and take bribes but there are laws in place in order to try to stop it from happening. Later on when I thought about it it made more sense that they couldn’t grasp the idea of no bribes since people in China or so incredibly corrupt. But that’s just an example. It’s really hard to explain. I don’t know if it’s because of the language barrier that they don’t understand or just my inability to explain things to them well. I think both of those play a part. But I’m becoming more and more convinced that it’s more of an entirely different way of seeing the world. This idea is becoming more and more concrete because of going to the schools and learning about how the students are taught. In the West I feel like we’re taught how to think. That’s one of the main parts of an education. You’re not just supposed to memorize information and spit it back out (like in China), but you learn to be creative, to ask questions, to seek out information. And I’m starting to feel like these concepts are completely foreign to the Chinese people. Betts, Laurie’s wife who trains English teachers who go out and teach in schools all around China, was telling us about how students in China are not allowed to ask their teachers questions. This is for two reasons. The first is that if they ask a question it is implying that the teacher did not do a good job of explaining it, which is insulting to the teacher. The second is that if they ask a question and the teacher does not know the answer the teacher will be humiliated. It has a strange sort of logic, but it’s also so strange to me to imagine. I was always encouraged to ask questions in school. It’s impossible for me to imagine. I literally can’t understand it. So I guess the difficulty is two fold. They can’t understand where I’m coming from and I can’t understand where they’re coming from. It’s fascinating and exhausting and depressing all at the same time. I often feel like they don’t believe what I’m telling them. And sometimes they point blank tell me they don’t believe me! But how can you argue with someone who you know is being lied to from their government, and who you also know believes all of the lies? And do you really want them to believe you? What would that mean for them? It’s a fine line to try to share with them things about your culture and your country while at the same time trying not to make them too curious. I’m afraid of what might happen to them if they start asking too many questions. So maybe it’s good they don’t believe me. I don’t know.
On a much happier note, I was finally able to get the photos off of my memory card, so I’m uploading the rest of the photos from Mongolia and the photos of Shanghai, Fenghuang and if I have time the ones I’ve taken so far in Yangshou. So that’s good. My stupid memory card wouldn’t work in the Chinese computers for some reason and since everything on the computers is in Chinese I couldn’t figure out why! But Gordon has the cutest little laptop with him so I was able to hook it up to that and save them to a different card which is working just fine now. So that was a relief.
Today has been nice. Steve and I are both anxious about the elections. It’s Tuesday around 5 pm here which means it’s 4 am Eastern time in the U.S. now, so we have to wait for Wednesday afternoon to see the results. We had the day off today since there are 5 teenage boys from Shanghai who are all sons of European diplomats and are here to participate with VET and hopefully their fathers will give a big donation. So today they went to the schools to teach and Gordon and Sue went to sort of help out and take over if needed. We would have went, but next Tuesday there are supposed to be 40 Chinese teenagers coming to teach and we’ll have to deal with all of them! So today we slept in and then had a tasty Western lunch. It’s been raining here (and is supposed to continue all week) so I had a minestrone soup and a toasted ham and cheese. It was really SPAM and cheese, but it was still delicious. Then we started working on our Christmas shopping since if there’s any chance of things getting to the U.S. in time we need to get a move on it. It was actually sort of fun bargaining. I don’t know if I got the real prices for things, but when everything’s so cheap it doesn’t really bother me too much. I got everything for at least half of their asking price and sometimes much, much less so I’m pretty proud of myself. We still have loads to do, but we got a lot of ideas today which is good.
Tags: China, free volunteering in China, teaching English, V.E.T, Yangshou
montarsig
Can I have something….DESIGNER??????? Like COACH or FENDI or LOUIS VUITTON…oh and that reminds me of a FUNNY STORY…while out for Meagan’s bachlorette party I guess some girl at the bar was asking AUNTIE EM for her “BLUE BATON” I didnt know about this until Meagan’s bridal shower the next day when she was telling the story to everyone….OF COURSE it clicked IMMEDIATELY with me!! LOUIS VUITTON!!!!!!!! LOL LOL LOL I know you dont find the humor as much as I did but omg it was sooooooooo funny that she seriously was looking for a BATON!! Anyway…something designer…ps MOM gave my candy to SOMEONE ELSE!! I found the STICKY with my name on it when we got back to Maryland……so I have nothing……….. :0( so can I get another xmas present :0) LOVE YOU….oh and good job teaching 🙂