My residence in this place has definitely put a kink in my new school year's resolution to keep a more regular blog. Every few days something crazy, weird or just "China" happens and I feel like I should share it with any readers or at least note it down for my future entertainment. Then I realize that all I can do is share it with my laptop until I can borrow someone's proxy and post. Result? No generation of a single written word since that last note from KL. I have notes about the oral presentations I just graded (they will turn into a post at some point), quotes from essays, anecdotes from Malaysia that I keep trying to remind myself of and that gave rise to Megan's and my catchphrase from that trip "Oh, well! At least it's a good story!" as well as the usual plethora of random meetings, weird and occasionally offensive student comments, new ELC developments and pre-EF gems.
Today though, as I sit in Jenica's apartment, shamelessly using her proxy to distract myself from the pile of essays I have yet to grade and babysitting her kitten who just got relieved of his ability to procreate, I just want to ramble. I'm not sure if these thoughts will be coherent or cohesive in any way, but I feel the need and desire to "share". It's been a stressful, busy and frustrating semester in a lot of ways and I've been adapting to certain new unignorable facts.
Fact #1- I am still in Shantou, China, despite the fact and repeated claim that "I am leaving at the end of this year" (said in 2007, 2008 and most recently 2009). The plan was to come here for a year, live somewhere else in China for the 2007-2008 school year and become quite competent in China, then return to 'the real world' and settle down somewhere, presumably with the reason I came here in the first place. Now, it's late 2009 and I am still here (as an astonished former student remarked a week ago) and by the time I leave (I'm saying it again, and this time hurt me if I go back on my word "I am leaving at the end of this year") I will have spent more time in this transitional place than I did at college. I am a "senior at STU" and determined to change directions as of July 2010. If it's good enough for the likes of Lok, Tracy, Jasmine and all, it's more than good enough for me.
Fact #2- I am now unattached and vascillate between being happy about it and living with thousands of "what-ifs". I won't expand on that state of affairs here, but suffice it to say that I have re-evaluated some things since August and have made some changes in my outlook and performance in life. It feels strange writing anything about this situation at all, but it's part of my reality and I figure anyone who cares to read my blog probably knows all about it already!
Fact #3- I have no diea which direction to go in after I leave Shantou. This is a by-product of Facts #1 and 2 and intensified by the feeling that I have gotten almost all I can out of my experience here. I could get a Master's in TESOL, Applied Linguistics or something similar and remain here/ return here, but I'm not sure that I would develop much more as a person and a teacher than I have already. Without singing my own praises, I think I can fairly say that I've come from an incompetent, nervous, shaking and shivering mass in front of the classroom and someone who thought her colleagues were so far out of her league to a confident equal to at least a few of the other members of the ELC faculty who has at least 1 out of 3 lessons that impart some form of knowledge and fewer than 1 out of 6 that totally bomb. If nothing else, my students will be well-versed in the uses of "it sucks!" and "awesome". I've been trying to vary my experiences here and to that end have become a coordinator, whose opinion is sometimes solicited, and leadership occasionally followed. I have been acting as advisor and counselor to various people around here (most notably one new teacher who seems to be having some troubel adjusting) and feel like this is finally "my place". Of course, that means I feel the need to leave it and so something different. Maybe if it wasn't for the fact that you have to make new friends every year, that doing anything other than planning/ grading or hanging out in someone else's apartment requires a 40 minute bus ride and that the discovery of the library has so far been the highligh of my year, I'd seriously consider staying here more or less permanently. But things being as they are, with 80F weather in November, no easy way to see family or non-current STU friends and no real Christmas spirit, I think I'll take my uprooting and resettling with a pinch of excitement and a healthy dose of relief. I just hope wherever I land it gets cold in the winter! Current interests include Paris, London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Boston, New York, Washington DC, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Anyone have any leads there? I think I'll leave exoticism for my next fit of wanderlust!
Fact#4- I'm barely excited about visiting new places in Asia anymore. I'd go back to Koh Tao or take someone to Angkor (with just the one sunrise excursion probably) but I am not so intrigued by some of my other options. Is that bad? I really should be out there this winter discovering Indonesia or the Philippines, or even another part of India, but I keep having this image of myself bundled up wandering around the snow somewhere and that makes me want to skip the rest of Asia and go home, or at least somewhere familiar for Spring Festival. Decisions decisions. Maybe another sign that I need to move on.
Fact#5- (loosely connected to #3) I think I do want to go back to school sometime soonish. The discovery of the foreign language section of the new STU library sent me into geek-happiness, especially the collection of psych 101 and abnormal psych texts (they have the 101 book I used at Harvard Cont. Ed.) and the random smattering of Greek tragedies, both in English and Greek. Where did those come from?! Not sure what I'd go back for though. Psych? Classics? Teaching? Counseling? Law? Med? It's not like all these hours of introspection have given me any direction whatsoever. I just know that I remember liking learning and that when I sit there with terribly grammatically incorrect essays facing Euripides' Alcestis in the original, all I want to do is find a Liddell and Scott and get to work and that when a conversation comes up where I actually feel like I have interesting things to say (and it's unrelated to the best way to get through grading and planning without feeling your will to live floating away) I feel almost smart (or really dumb when the conversation goes over my head) and wish I could speak with more authority on intellectual things. I've even forgotten which one was the id and which one the ego... oh, my brain, where have you gone?
Fact#6- Students do not feel comfortable when office hours (and possibly other events) are held in a teacher's home. Knowledge I could have used approximately 3 years ago when I moved this weekly ritual from a classroom to my apartment, or at the start of the semester when I'm pretty sure the words "If you do not feel comfortable coming to see me in my house, please let me know and I can hold office hours somewhere else" left my mouth. Students!
Fact #7- Kittens lose their teeth and it's completely normal. (just in case you wanted to know!)
That is all for now. I should get at least 1 essay graded before Jenica returns and finds out I wasted an hour and a half! Oh well, she just walked in... Productivity (and library), here I come!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
KL, HK and more abbreviations
Just a quick note while I am in censorship-free land. I've been in Malaysia with my friend and colleague megan for a few days and have had a great time. I wasn't expecting to like it this much, but am so glad we made it, after all the hiccups!
I'll write more details when I get home, but suffice it to say that AirAsia will no longer be getting my business by phone, as they cannot tell the difference between 7th and 2nd...
KL is lots of fun though kind of crazy and there is such a variety of people and food that makes me kind of giddy. I really want to find some awesome unique souvenir before going home tomorrow, but things seem very similar to Thai handicrafts and are much more expensive... maybe my souvenirs will just have to be pictures and delicious memories!
Pics to come on Flickr!
I'll write more details when I get home, but suffice it to say that AirAsia will no longer be getting my business by phone, as they cannot tell the difference between 7th and 2nd...
KL is lots of fun though kind of crazy and there is such a variety of people and food that makes me kind of giddy. I really want to find some awesome unique souvenir before going home tomorrow, but things seem very similar to Thai handicrafts and are much more expensive... maybe my souvenirs will just have to be pictures and delicious memories!
Pics to come on Flickr!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Just a little fire
So... Saturday night, I was in my kitchen, finally getting my act together to feed myself and looking forward to having a "real meal", when I lost power in my apartment. The lights suddenly went out. I opened the door and could hear voices so I yelled out and got no response, but did manage to ascertain that it wasn't just my apartment that had lost power- it was the whole building.
Went back to the kitchen to turn off the gas and realized that while I own two flashlights, neither one had batteries- note to self, buy batteries and candles. I grabbed my cellphone and by its not-so-powerful backlighting I unplugged my computer and turned off the fan in the kitchen. Then I went to the balcony to see what was going on. Dave outside in front of the building with a friend, was apparently just returning from dinner when he saw flames coming from the electrical counter box downstairs! At this point, notice the "fire safety" configuration of B6: the fire alarm pull-thingie is just inside the door to the building, the fire extinguishers are also by the door (on the wall with the power box), there are no smoke detectors, no fire escapes planned, no foldable fire ladders or smoke masks in the apartments. Admittedly the building is concrete so it would not burn down, but we all have gas stoves and hot water... The only possible exit strategy is a well-aimed leap out of the window and I live on the 5th floor.
There were only 2 other people in the building, I believe- both on the 6th floor. So, here I am, on the balcony, yelling to find out what's going on when I see smoke coming out of the front door and flash back to the email from my friend Beth who was here at the time (not rendered verbatim, but I think the general feeling is there): "Don't worry, there was a fire in B6 a couple of days ago. The electrical box was in flames and they are working to fix it. No big damages, but smoky smell and sooty walls. One of our colleagues ran downstairs through the smoke and she suffered some smoke inhalation problems, but the rest of us are fine. Power should be back in a couple of days. We're being housed in ACC until we can go home."
At least I knew that running down would be a bad idea! I paced back and forth and onto the balcony a couple of times to see gradually more campus security people arrive and crowd around. At one point one of them ran to another building and got a fire extinguisher and appeared to make use of it. Another guy tore open a smoke-mask package, put on the mask and dashed in, making me realize that those would be handy little gadgets to have inside the building on fire/ filled with smoke. Dave had called one of the office assistants and she in turn had called in the "professionals" (though when I called a little later to try to find out how they were going to help us out of the smoky, possibly-still-on-fire building she seemed remarkably unconcerned by the situation- might be a Chinese thing).
The fire got put out and I got a phone call saying to stay put and put a towel under the door to prevent smoke from getting in, though by then I'd been stupid and opened the front door again to see if it was indeed smoky all the way up or if I could get out- it was smoky- and I already had smoke in my living room. I shifted to the bedroom to get cleaner air and leaned out the window so they'd see I was there. Of course, since I am "foreign teacher", they didn't try to talk to me, merely shining their light up at my face and telling each other that there were 2 foreign teachers in the building (and possibly a family above me). No explanation of how we were getting out... still!
I was about to jump in the shower, get soaked, grab a scarf and run down when I heard voices coming into the building and got another call saying they were coming to get us with flashlights. I grabbed keys, shoes, trusty lighting-up cellphone and waited by the door for the knock and the light. When the security guy came and I started coming down the stairs, I saw that from the 4th floor down, the banister and floor was completely covered in fine grey ash and, while the smoke had mostly cleared, there was a strong smell of burning, which, obviously, was worse the further down you went. When I passed the electrical box, I saw a mess of burnt metal, ash and melted plastic... awesome...
Outside, it took a while to get information. Another office assistant/ friend, Daniel had come over to help interpret and calm us down. The people had no idea if we could stay there for the night, though they seemed to be on the "find alternate accommodation" side of the fence. Since the keypad on the door wouldn't work, they promised to leave someone in front of the building and Daniel was volunteered to stay until midnight to help people get stuff and make sure other B6 inhabitants knew what was going on. I thought they said something about the locking the door overnight, but it seems that the family in 602 refused to come out so they couldn't lock them in. Gradually, we managed to get in touch with our other colleagues who would be homeless for the night and I started trying to figure out whose couches and beds we could all shanghai until the next day. More and more workers/ security people crowded around the charred remains of our power supply looking perplexed and slightly overwhelmed... great start.
The last time this happened, they were put up in the ACC hotel until power was back. This time, our liaisons seemed to think that camping in other people's houses should be our priority. I was mostly interested in getting away from there and with a few things I'd gone back to get (not reasoned out things, since I forgot a towel and a change of clothes, but stuff), finding where I'd be sleeping, because no matter what others preferred, I was not excited about breathing smoke and ash all night, without a fan or AC to ward off the heat. I think I was making it too easy for our confused liaison. Maybe I should have yelled and freaked out and demanded a hotel room at ACC since they own the building that has caught on fire twice in less than 2 calendar years. Maybe I should have kept silent and just gone to pass out on Erin's couch. I really don't know what to do in these situations and I think I talk a lot to ward off the potential panic, because I felt really calm and kind of like things were unreal all evening, through explanations to others about what had happened, through phone calls and text messages to stay on top of things, through our director eventually getting us some hostel rooms at the Network Centre Hostel, through possibly having to share said room, then finding out I wouldn't have to but that they did have smoke masks and fire alarms and two stairwells there so if there was another fire later in the night, I'd be able to get out. I joked my way through those observations and the fact that I was actually cooking for the first time this semester and my food would probably go bad (I shoved the pot of pasta into the fridge and covered the sauce with a cutting board). Basically, I thought I was handling it really well, except for a little lack of coordination.
After staying with people as long as possible, watching a buffered episode of Bones on my laptop and cleaning off the dust, I sat there and didn't want to turn out the light. I suddenly realized that I was scared it would happen again, like some stupid coincidence. When I finally turned out the light and calmed down enough to fall asleep, it wasn't too long before a huge thunderstorm work me up, but I was too drained to go watch it. Before I fell asleep again I thought I heard someone whisper my name through the door and thought maybe it was Jenica coming to sleep in the A/C and away from the panicked meows of Elliot (Boy Cat now has a name)... nope, just my crazy imagination!
When morning came, we were kindly invited up to have 'breakfasty beverages that require electricity' at Jenica's house, after which I checked out, then headed back to see that progress was being made on the disaster that was the B6 lobby- they were spray-painting the metal casing yellow. Why? Maybe because the color would distract us from the fact that there had been a fire, or maybe because it was some sort of flame-retardant paint. I'm still hoping it's the latter. Megan and I decided to leave behind the smoky smell and head downtown to pamper ourselves (pedicures and massages) before dealing with the reality that we had no idea where we'd be sleeping that night and no one had told us anything. I did get a flashlight- pocket-sized and powerful.
At 7pm, there were people installing electricity counters in the shiny-yellow box but no cables and a whole mess of random electrical paraphernalia littered the ground.
At 7:30pm, after showering and getting ready by tiny flashlight, I headed over to EAC for the opening night of the clubs (which I'll blog in less detail tomorrow).
At 10pm or so, they told us the power was back on! Hallelujah!
At 10:05pm, Karen called and told me that it was only back in the stairs, not her apartment. Fuses all on? yes. I ran this info by a couple of people and it was run by others until eventually someone fixed it.
At 10:30pm, I walked to B6 and saw light! In apartments! More than one! Turns out they hadn't flicked the apartment switches and were waiting to know who lived where to do so and check that it worked. When I got in, I saw that I'd left lots of lights on and that a spider had already started making its home between my stove fan and the cutting board above my sauce... evil creature!
By 1am, I was ready to go to bed, but didn't want to turn off the light in case there was another fire and I didn't notice because I wouldn't see the power go out and would be asleep. Reason was nowhere to be found.
After some reassurance and talking to people as long as possible, I finally gave in at around 4:30am and climbed into bed. I did not fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Today I noticed there's ash all over my living room and kitchen floor.
Tonight, I'd better sleep like the dead... though not the "burnt-to-death" dead...
Thus is concluded the epic of "the second time B6 caught fire and how nothing changed at all after the first fire". I feel like this is a sign that I should get out of here this year, regardless of how well it goes!
Went back to the kitchen to turn off the gas and realized that while I own two flashlights, neither one had batteries- note to self, buy batteries and candles. I grabbed my cellphone and by its not-so-powerful backlighting I unplugged my computer and turned off the fan in the kitchen. Then I went to the balcony to see what was going on. Dave outside in front of the building with a friend, was apparently just returning from dinner when he saw flames coming from the electrical counter box downstairs! At this point, notice the "fire safety" configuration of B6: the fire alarm pull-thingie is just inside the door to the building, the fire extinguishers are also by the door (on the wall with the power box), there are no smoke detectors, no fire escapes planned, no foldable fire ladders or smoke masks in the apartments. Admittedly the building is concrete so it would not burn down, but we all have gas stoves and hot water... The only possible exit strategy is a well-aimed leap out of the window and I live on the 5th floor.
There were only 2 other people in the building, I believe- both on the 6th floor. So, here I am, on the balcony, yelling to find out what's going on when I see smoke coming out of the front door and flash back to the email from my friend Beth who was here at the time (not rendered verbatim, but I think the general feeling is there): "Don't worry, there was a fire in B6 a couple of days ago. The electrical box was in flames and they are working to fix it. No big damages, but smoky smell and sooty walls. One of our colleagues ran downstairs through the smoke and she suffered some smoke inhalation problems, but the rest of us are fine. Power should be back in a couple of days. We're being housed in ACC until we can go home."
At least I knew that running down would be a bad idea! I paced back and forth and onto the balcony a couple of times to see gradually more campus security people arrive and crowd around. At one point one of them ran to another building and got a fire extinguisher and appeared to make use of it. Another guy tore open a smoke-mask package, put on the mask and dashed in, making me realize that those would be handy little gadgets to have inside the building on fire/ filled with smoke. Dave had called one of the office assistants and she in turn had called in the "professionals" (though when I called a little later to try to find out how they were going to help us out of the smoky, possibly-still-on-fire building she seemed remarkably unconcerned by the situation- might be a Chinese thing).
The fire got put out and I got a phone call saying to stay put and put a towel under the door to prevent smoke from getting in, though by then I'd been stupid and opened the front door again to see if it was indeed smoky all the way up or if I could get out- it was smoky- and I already had smoke in my living room. I shifted to the bedroom to get cleaner air and leaned out the window so they'd see I was there. Of course, since I am "foreign teacher", they didn't try to talk to me, merely shining their light up at my face and telling each other that there were 2 foreign teachers in the building (and possibly a family above me). No explanation of how we were getting out... still!
I was about to jump in the shower, get soaked, grab a scarf and run down when I heard voices coming into the building and got another call saying they were coming to get us with flashlights. I grabbed keys, shoes, trusty lighting-up cellphone and waited by the door for the knock and the light. When the security guy came and I started coming down the stairs, I saw that from the 4th floor down, the banister and floor was completely covered in fine grey ash and, while the smoke had mostly cleared, there was a strong smell of burning, which, obviously, was worse the further down you went. When I passed the electrical box, I saw a mess of burnt metal, ash and melted plastic... awesome...
Outside, it took a while to get information. Another office assistant/ friend, Daniel had come over to help interpret and calm us down. The people had no idea if we could stay there for the night, though they seemed to be on the "find alternate accommodation" side of the fence. Since the keypad on the door wouldn't work, they promised to leave someone in front of the building and Daniel was volunteered to stay until midnight to help people get stuff and make sure other B6 inhabitants knew what was going on. I thought they said something about the locking the door overnight, but it seems that the family in 602 refused to come out so they couldn't lock them in. Gradually, we managed to get in touch with our other colleagues who would be homeless for the night and I started trying to figure out whose couches and beds we could all shanghai until the next day. More and more workers/ security people crowded around the charred remains of our power supply looking perplexed and slightly overwhelmed... great start.
The last time this happened, they were put up in the ACC hotel until power was back. This time, our liaisons seemed to think that camping in other people's houses should be our priority. I was mostly interested in getting away from there and with a few things I'd gone back to get (not reasoned out things, since I forgot a towel and a change of clothes, but stuff), finding where I'd be sleeping, because no matter what others preferred, I was not excited about breathing smoke and ash all night, without a fan or AC to ward off the heat. I think I was making it too easy for our confused liaison. Maybe I should have yelled and freaked out and demanded a hotel room at ACC since they own the building that has caught on fire twice in less than 2 calendar years. Maybe I should have kept silent and just gone to pass out on Erin's couch. I really don't know what to do in these situations and I think I talk a lot to ward off the potential panic, because I felt really calm and kind of like things were unreal all evening, through explanations to others about what had happened, through phone calls and text messages to stay on top of things, through our director eventually getting us some hostel rooms at the Network Centre Hostel, through possibly having to share said room, then finding out I wouldn't have to but that they did have smoke masks and fire alarms and two stairwells there so if there was another fire later in the night, I'd be able to get out. I joked my way through those observations and the fact that I was actually cooking for the first time this semester and my food would probably go bad (I shoved the pot of pasta into the fridge and covered the sauce with a cutting board). Basically, I thought I was handling it really well, except for a little lack of coordination.
After staying with people as long as possible, watching a buffered episode of Bones on my laptop and cleaning off the dust, I sat there and didn't want to turn out the light. I suddenly realized that I was scared it would happen again, like some stupid coincidence. When I finally turned out the light and calmed down enough to fall asleep, it wasn't too long before a huge thunderstorm work me up, but I was too drained to go watch it. Before I fell asleep again I thought I heard someone whisper my name through the door and thought maybe it was Jenica coming to sleep in the A/C and away from the panicked meows of Elliot (Boy Cat now has a name)... nope, just my crazy imagination!
When morning came, we were kindly invited up to have 'breakfasty beverages that require electricity' at Jenica's house, after which I checked out, then headed back to see that progress was being made on the disaster that was the B6 lobby- they were spray-painting the metal casing yellow. Why? Maybe because the color would distract us from the fact that there had been a fire, or maybe because it was some sort of flame-retardant paint. I'm still hoping it's the latter. Megan and I decided to leave behind the smoky smell and head downtown to pamper ourselves (pedicures and massages) before dealing with the reality that we had no idea where we'd be sleeping that night and no one had told us anything. I did get a flashlight- pocket-sized and powerful.
At 7pm, there were people installing electricity counters in the shiny-yellow box but no cables and a whole mess of random electrical paraphernalia littered the ground.
At 7:30pm, after showering and getting ready by tiny flashlight, I headed over to EAC for the opening night of the clubs (which I'll blog in less detail tomorrow).
At 10pm or so, they told us the power was back on! Hallelujah!
At 10:05pm, Karen called and told me that it was only back in the stairs, not her apartment. Fuses all on? yes. I ran this info by a couple of people and it was run by others until eventually someone fixed it.
At 10:30pm, I walked to B6 and saw light! In apartments! More than one! Turns out they hadn't flicked the apartment switches and were waiting to know who lived where to do so and check that it worked. When I got in, I saw that I'd left lots of lights on and that a spider had already started making its home between my stove fan and the cutting board above my sauce... evil creature!
By 1am, I was ready to go to bed, but didn't want to turn off the light in case there was another fire and I didn't notice because I wouldn't see the power go out and would be asleep. Reason was nowhere to be found.
After some reassurance and talking to people as long as possible, I finally gave in at around 4:30am and climbed into bed. I did not fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Today I noticed there's ash all over my living room and kitchen floor.
Tonight, I'd better sleep like the dead... though not the "burnt-to-death" dead...
Thus is concluded the epic of "the second time B6 caught fire and how nothing changed at all after the first fire". I feel like this is a sign that I should get out of here this year, regardless of how well it goes!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Creatures
Not too much has happened since grading finished that is not related to animals in one way or another (other than my ever-worsening addiction to Bones).
Firstly, on Thursday, I went with J to meet and maybe take home a ball of white fur. We had heard of 2 kittens at the home of the father of the boyfriend of a friend that were up for adoption. The idea was that J would take one home and I would or wouldn't fall in love with the other and have something to wreck my house and keep me company once again. I've been telling myself I should get a pet since it might keep me on some sort of eating/ sleeping/ being a reasonable human schedule (feed the cat= feed self, go to bed earlier as cat will wake me up at 4am regardless of what time my head actually hit the pillow). In theory it seems like a good idea, but I'm having enough trouble getting motivated to take care of myself, that having something else to care for might not have been ideal. It turns out that that was a good thing.
When we got to the apartment, the kitties were nowhere to be found, though after a while the mother was found and picked up, something which she kicked and screamed her way through until I was forced to just let her climb onto the roof. After a much longer while, the little female kitten was found and placed into the crate we had brought... she was NOT happy! There was miaowing, hissing, clawing, twisting and when she realized that no amount of running into the door of the crate would free her, she settled into the corner, made herself as small as possible and vibrated with fear and indignation. The boy remained hidden the whole time we were there.
Kitty 1 stayed where she was for the ride back to STU and for most of the afternoon even with food and water placed within easy reach. Clearly, she wasn't going to forgive the evil humans any time soon! As I hung out with J a good part of the afternoon we threw around names for the quivering ball of fur. When I left to go make banana bread later, she still had no name and we still hadn't seen head, tail or even tip of ear move.
One delicious banana bread made later, E and myself introduced D to Twilight, though our sarcastic peanut gallery-ness may have ruined the movie for him (if the acting, makeup and story didn't). I'm still practicing my "always in pain" face in case they come to Shantou to cast a future movie...
Yesterday morning came with the delivery of Boy Cat at J's house. Apparently he really missed his sister and cried until she was found hiding under the couch. Last night, I got to hear these cries for myself when I went over there to visit- it was heartbreaking! The girl (now named Fizz) ran under the couch as soon as the humans entered her territory, but her brother didn't see her, hidden under the curtain as he was. When the curtain was pulled back he freaked out and tried to claw his way up the wall towards the unfortunately slightly open window and onto the balcony and succeeded in reaching the ledge after several failed attempts, determined little furball! J then spent about 20 minutes trying to lure him back inside and away from the ledge of the balcony and potential death 2 floors below (boy cat appears to have bad eyesight and lack a few brain cells... poor dumb kitty!). My diagnosis of his cries: fear of being abandoned. Poor thing miaowed the whole time, but sounded almost desperate when J wasn't in sight. When he finally came in, we breathed a sigh of relief and promptly closed all windows to avoid a repeat performance! Eventually (after feeling more lost and miaowing even louder- J legitimately feared he'd damage his vocal chords) he finally was reunited with Fizz under the couch while we watched Harry Potter try to survive his way through the unaptly named "Triwizard Tournament".
I'm sure eventually Fizz and Boy Cat will learn that J is friendly and wants to help them, but when I left, they'd shifted their safehouse to a spot under J's bed behind a suitcase- they may not have liked the movie!
This all makes me want a cat and also be glad that we didn't separate them! I can't imagine how loud and unhappy Boy Cat would have been if he'd been adopted alone. I always suspected that kittens would be more fun in pairs, but this proves it beyond doubt: kitties are much like heads!
In other news, we have discovered a new inhabitant of the reservoir. We were joking about the existence of Rezzie, a friendly monster, but yesterday when E and I had reached and were resting on our favourite rock, I looked down to see something come out of a crack and aim towards the surface. It was like a thick plant with a bulb at the end. Then it disappeared back the way it came. A few minutes later, we both saw it and I was sure that it was actually a snake- coming out for air, fish or our lives, I couldn't be sure. E tried to lure it out of its hole by throwing little bits of twig into the water (logic of this is unknown by all parties involved) and while that didn't work, it did peak out later, long enough for us to agree that it was indeed serpentine in nature and to make us a little warier about getting back in. Let's just say that we wasted no time in aiming for the steps and way out once we carefully got back in. I think I'm glad I didn't know what was below me in there, but all the same, I may use the pool instead for a while! Shudder!
Firstly, on Thursday, I went with J to meet and maybe take home a ball of white fur. We had heard of 2 kittens at the home of the father of the boyfriend of a friend that were up for adoption. The idea was that J would take one home and I would or wouldn't fall in love with the other and have something to wreck my house and keep me company once again. I've been telling myself I should get a pet since it might keep me on some sort of eating/ sleeping/ being a reasonable human schedule (feed the cat= feed self, go to bed earlier as cat will wake me up at 4am regardless of what time my head actually hit the pillow). In theory it seems like a good idea, but I'm having enough trouble getting motivated to take care of myself, that having something else to care for might not have been ideal. It turns out that that was a good thing.
When we got to the apartment, the kitties were nowhere to be found, though after a while the mother was found and picked up, something which she kicked and screamed her way through until I was forced to just let her climb onto the roof. After a much longer while, the little female kitten was found and placed into the crate we had brought... she was NOT happy! There was miaowing, hissing, clawing, twisting and when she realized that no amount of running into the door of the crate would free her, she settled into the corner, made herself as small as possible and vibrated with fear and indignation. The boy remained hidden the whole time we were there.
Kitty 1 stayed where she was for the ride back to STU and for most of the afternoon even with food and water placed within easy reach. Clearly, she wasn't going to forgive the evil humans any time soon! As I hung out with J a good part of the afternoon we threw around names for the quivering ball of fur. When I left to go make banana bread later, she still had no name and we still hadn't seen head, tail or even tip of ear move.
One delicious banana bread made later, E and myself introduced D to Twilight, though our sarcastic peanut gallery-ness may have ruined the movie for him (if the acting, makeup and story didn't). I'm still practicing my "always in pain" face in case they come to Shantou to cast a future movie...
Yesterday morning came with the delivery of Boy Cat at J's house. Apparently he really missed his sister and cried until she was found hiding under the couch. Last night, I got to hear these cries for myself when I went over there to visit- it was heartbreaking! The girl (now named Fizz) ran under the couch as soon as the humans entered her territory, but her brother didn't see her, hidden under the curtain as he was. When the curtain was pulled back he freaked out and tried to claw his way up the wall towards the unfortunately slightly open window and onto the balcony and succeeded in reaching the ledge after several failed attempts, determined little furball! J then spent about 20 minutes trying to lure him back inside and away from the ledge of the balcony and potential death 2 floors below (boy cat appears to have bad eyesight and lack a few brain cells... poor dumb kitty!). My diagnosis of his cries: fear of being abandoned. Poor thing miaowed the whole time, but sounded almost desperate when J wasn't in sight. When he finally came in, we breathed a sigh of relief and promptly closed all windows to avoid a repeat performance! Eventually (after feeling more lost and miaowing even louder- J legitimately feared he'd damage his vocal chords) he finally was reunited with Fizz under the couch while we watched Harry Potter try to survive his way through the unaptly named "Triwizard Tournament".
I'm sure eventually Fizz and Boy Cat will learn that J is friendly and wants to help them, but when I left, they'd shifted their safehouse to a spot under J's bed behind a suitcase- they may not have liked the movie!
This all makes me want a cat and also be glad that we didn't separate them! I can't imagine how loud and unhappy Boy Cat would have been if he'd been adopted alone. I always suspected that kittens would be more fun in pairs, but this proves it beyond doubt: kitties are much like heads!
In other news, we have discovered a new inhabitant of the reservoir. We were joking about the existence of Rezzie, a friendly monster, but yesterday when E and I had reached and were resting on our favourite rock, I looked down to see something come out of a crack and aim towards the surface. It was like a thick plant with a bulb at the end. Then it disappeared back the way it came. A few minutes later, we both saw it and I was sure that it was actually a snake- coming out for air, fish or our lives, I couldn't be sure. E tried to lure it out of its hole by throwing little bits of twig into the water (logic of this is unknown by all parties involved) and while that didn't work, it did peak out later, long enough for us to agree that it was indeed serpentine in nature and to make us a little warier about getting back in. Let's just say that we wasted no time in aiming for the steps and way out once we carefully got back in. I think I'm glad I didn't know what was below me in there, but all the same, I may use the pool instead for a while! Shudder!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Because the STU possess many forigener teacher
Grading this morning was as speedy as predicted and not nearly as painful as feared! In barely 3 hours, we normed, graded and giggled over quite ridiculous samples of freshman writing. The group I was put in for norming was led by our assistant director and everything went quite smoothly. We only had disagreement once and it barely mattered. We quickly got down to the fun business of searching for juicy quote-wall material, while occasionally writing down a number between 0 and 5 on the paper (it was actually more scientific than that but where's the fun in writing "we read and graded some essays"?).
As usual, I wouldn't want to be the only one to derive entertainment from required grading, so here are today's contributions to your new and improved methods of communication (be sure to use at least one of these today, preferably complete with awkward spelling and random extra letters):
- "To tell the turth, I did pulzzed" (rearrange these letters to make real words)
- "I believe I can fly because of my new heaven- STU" (in stark contrast to 90% of the essays that claimed STU wasn't really a place they wanted to be and definitely NOT their first choice)
- "Genious is 1 percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent prespiration" (yes, I know this isn't an original quote, but to me, the spelling just made it that much more delicious)
- "We can learn english from the forigen doctor. We can join the ELC and make some difficult friends. More important, it can teach me to be." (yeah.... henceforth, I would like to be referred to as a "forigen doctor")
- "through my effort to service other people and provide envience to people, I [...] want to make the world more beautiful" (no comment)
- "STU owns many exerlant teacher and student"
- "it is so butifull" (yup, full of 'buti's)
-"It is said that Shantou University is a beautiful school. Because there is rounded with a little hill so all kind of trees where and there. This make me such expect." (this one had many, many more good tidbits!)
- "We have a large and a amazingliberty liberary."
On the other end of the scale, there was one that successfully used "diligent" and "acquire". There is a whole essay that deserves to be immortalized, but I think I'll have to photograph it rather than typing it out so no part of the overall effect is lost.
Finally, as you read these, and future "quotes posts", please remember that I'm not making fun of the students, but merely enjoying the strange things that come from language learners! I'm sure I've said way worse things (case in point, as the cleaning lady was leaving yesterday, I said "你好，谢谢"... I realize that thanking her was good, but I think saying "hello" after she'd been in my house for 30 minutes may have struck her as weird!).
Anyone have any good/ awkward language learning stories?
As usual, I wouldn't want to be the only one to derive entertainment from required grading, so here are today's contributions to your new and improved methods of communication (be sure to use at least one of these today, preferably complete with awkward spelling and random extra letters):
- "To tell the turth, I did pulzzed" (rearrange these letters to make real words)
- "I believe I can fly because of my new heaven- STU" (in stark contrast to 90% of the essays that claimed STU wasn't really a place they wanted to be and definitely NOT their first choice)
- "Genious is 1 percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent prespiration" (yes, I know this isn't an original quote, but to me, the spelling just made it that much more delicious)
- "We can learn english from the forigen doctor. We can join the ELC and make some difficult friends. More important, it can teach me to be." (yeah.... henceforth, I would like to be referred to as a "forigen doctor")
- "through my effort to service other people and provide envience to people, I [...] want to make the world more beautiful" (no comment)
- "STU owns many exerlant teacher and student"
- "it is so butifull" (yup, full of 'buti's)
-"It is said that Shantou University is a beautiful school. Because there is rounded with a little hill so all kind of trees where and there. This make me such expect." (this one had many, many more good tidbits!)
- "We have a large and a amazing
On the other end of the scale, there was one that successfully used "diligent" and "acquire". There is a whole essay that deserves to be immortalized, but I think I'll have to photograph it rather than typing it out so no part of the overall effect is lost.
Finally, as you read these, and future "quotes posts", please remember that I'm not making fun of the students, but merely enjoying the strange things that come from language learners! I'm sure I've said way worse things (case in point, as the cleaning lady was leaving yesterday, I said "你好，谢谢"... I realize that thanking her was good, but I think saying "hello" after she'd been in my house for 30 minutes may have struck her as weird!).
Anyone have any good/ awkward language learning stories?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
As predicted...
grading oral tests was rather painful, "soothingly akin to having one's teeth drilled". The norming was fine and unexciting, though it did contain the first gem of the day: "my goal is to be a journ" (that was all he said in 1:30 mn).
I took notes on the best quotes and, ladies and gentlemen, here they are in no particular order:
- 'Journ boy' also had: "If I plan, I will have a good lung" (mispronounced "luck", maybe?)
- "making them sing is bad" (who or why? I don't know)
- "he is too young and he just globe up"
- "it isn't normal to pick my bum at the meeting" ("it isn't normal to pick up my phone at the meeting"... I hope, since that was the question!)
- "it help me correct my fat"
- "he found himself the wrong/ long loon/ loom" ("wrong room")
- "you can bring some information from his eyes" (please explain this procedure...)
- "wearing the school uniform is clean and clear" ("and under control")
- "Washington, an African president, when he was a boy, cut off his uncle's tree" (something about the lying about it... response to "Honesty is the best policy": discuss)
- "I will success, I will succeess, I will succeed" (just keep on tryin')
- "I don't think it's the right thing because it's the wrong thing" (no logical argument escapes your logic, does it?)
- "devil usually forgot homework, devil make fewer friends" ("they will"?)
- "I think I could be a good future... I want to be a sportsnews"
- "we can know each nother"
- "the phenomenons of the meeting" (noteworthy because the rest of the response wasn't nearly good enough to include the word "phenomenon" to refer to people picking up their cellphones)
- "the peer should try his best to streak the children to watch TV"
- "maybe that student is very hairy" ("in a hurry"?)
- "... it is too big and too long... just like mine" (I tuned it at that point and wasn't motivated enough to find out what "it" could possibly refer to in this girl's answer... all I know is it had nothing to do with any prompt on the list!)
- "my mother told me how to do a man... he's a teacher to Chinese and my Chinese is very good" (considering that "he" could refer either to a man or this guy's mother, I have no idea what this could possibly mean, but it was about someone the student admired)
-"every coin has two, has two, has two... [peels]" (maybe "peels"... unsure about what actually came out, but since everyone knows this saying and overuses it, it's refreshing to find someone clueless about what 2 things a coin could have!)
Then there was the guy who told the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf to explain that honesty is, indeed, the best policy, including the common phrase "the boy was so boring" as a reason for why he called out "Wolf!"
The usual mispronunciations of "room" (loom, womb, loon), "decision" (with an "ai" sound in the middle), "success" ("succex") and "abroad" (as in "aboard") (also misused as in the phrase "get my education in abroad/ a broad..." eek!).
D in the video was refered to as "the room master" several times, which I also found vastly entertaining. Got to find your fun where you can!
In other news, I have been rereading blogs written by former colleagues and entertaining new ones with the contents- hilarious, and such good memories. Today was kind of a "down with here and life alone" day, so hoping that tomorrow is better! Stupid stress and anxiety!
I took notes on the best quotes and, ladies and gentlemen, here they are in no particular order:
- 'Journ boy' also had: "If I plan, I will have a good lung" (mispronounced "luck", maybe?)
- "making them sing is bad" (who or why? I don't know)
- "he is too young and he just globe up"
- "it isn't normal to pick my bum at the meeting" ("it isn't normal to pick up my phone at the meeting"... I hope, since that was the question!)
- "it help me correct my fat"
- "he found himself the wrong/ long loon/ loom" ("wrong room")
- "you can bring some information from his eyes" (please explain this procedure...)
- "wearing the school uniform is clean and clear" ("and under control")
- "Washington, an African president, when he was a boy, cut off his uncle's tree" (something about the lying about it... response to "Honesty is the best policy": discuss)
- "I will success, I will succeess, I will succeed" (just keep on tryin')
- "I don't think it's the right thing because it's the wrong thing" (no logical argument escapes your logic, does it?)
- "devil usually forgot homework, devil make fewer friends" ("they will"?)
- "I think I could be a good future... I want to be a sportsnews"
- "we can know each nother"
- "the phenomenons of the meeting" (noteworthy because the rest of the response wasn't nearly good enough to include the word "phenomenon" to refer to people picking up their cellphones)
- "the peer should try his best to streak the children to watch TV"
- "maybe that student is very hairy" ("in a hurry"?)
- "... it is too big and too long... just like mine" (I tuned it at that point and wasn't motivated enough to find out what "it" could possibly refer to in this girl's answer... all I know is it had nothing to do with any prompt on the list!)
- "my mother told me how to do a man... he's a teacher to Chinese and my Chinese is very good" (considering that "he" could refer either to a man or this guy's mother, I have no idea what this could possibly mean, but it was about someone the student admired)
-"every coin has two, has two, has two... [peels]" (maybe "peels"... unsure about what actually came out, but since everyone knows this saying and overuses it, it's refreshing to find someone clueless about what 2 things a coin could have!)
Then there was the guy who told the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf to explain that honesty is, indeed, the best policy, including the common phrase "the boy was so boring" as a reason for why he called out "Wolf!"
The usual mispronunciations of "room" (loom, womb, loon), "decision" (with an "ai" sound in the middle), "success" ("succex") and "abroad" (as in "aboard") (also misused as in the phrase "get my education in abroad/ a broad..." eek!).
D in the video was refered to as "the room master" several times, which I also found vastly entertaining. Got to find your fun where you can!
In other news, I have been rereading blogs written by former colleagues and entertaining new ones with the contents- hilarious, and such good memories. Today was kind of a "down with here and life alone" day, so hoping that tomorrow is better! Stupid stress and anxiety!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Welcome, freshpeople!
Last night was the Freshman Orientation shindig for ELC. In honor of this, every year, we foreign teachers have to find a way to make fools of ourselves onstage. By Friday night, no one had come up with anything, though our fearless leader was under the impression we would be putting together some sort of Michael Jackson tribute, including the Thriller dance and moonwalking... I think she was being optimistic about our combined talents!
Yesterday, 3pm found a small contingent of foreign teachers in my apartment, bouncing around silly ideas, such as the Potter Puppet Pals (my personal preference... might try to include it in EF somehow), the Total Domination song with weird hand motions, a self-referential 'laowai are people too' skit, Old McDonald Had a Farm (complete with charades of animals), and many more. If nothing else, I think we learned that, as a group, we have unlimited potential for B.S. After much debate and dismissal of awesome yet impractical ideas, we landed on charades of animals, hobbies and famous monuments (preplanned and NOT involving getting students up on stage) and then a group performance of "Yellow Submarine". There would be silly acting, guitar music, shaking of pill bottles, air-trombones and trumpets and out-of-tune singing from the laowai... it couldn't fail to get the fresh(wo)men excited about English!
The actual Orientation had its ups and downs, as usual! The band was excessively loud, and I think I may have lost a fraction of my hearing. I got to see the ELC video for the 10th time, at least, and have now resolved to make a new one, provided I am still here Spring Semester. The students learned not to fear their English classes, but to dive in with enthusiasm, while we tested our pronunciation and understanding of Australian English and words like "chilly bin" and "esky"... don't ask! We were impressed by the "th"s of the students who volunteered to read tongue twisters onstage. We all introduced ourselves more or less creatively- there are a couple of ABCs who introduced themselves as such, prompting one of our not-so-Chinese American colleagues to quip "before anyone asks me, I am NOT Chinese-American". We gave pop culture and other references to help students situate where we came from ("I am from Maryland, close to DC where Obama lives", "I am from Washington State, NOT Washington DC. Obama does NOT live near my house... I do live nearish Bill Gates though", "I am from Alabama, where Forrest Gump is from"... it went on and on). Promises were made about classes being fun and/or tough and advice was given about how to tackle the next 4 years of their lives. It was quite inspirational... at least in parts!
Then, came our performance. Before the start, I'd had to round up a few more people to participate, and participate we all did. There were clucking, wing-flapping chickens, a kangaroo that hopped around the stage, a monkey that waved back and forth, scratched and beat his chest, a fish blowing bubbles, an elephant who was disappointed not to be able to use the cries he'd practiced all afternoon. We mimed reading, painting, swimming, running, basketball, baseball, ping pong. The Statue of Liberty was posed in front of by tourists taking each others' pictures (complete with 'peace sign' hand action) and then, for our charade finale, we joined forces and made The Great Wall. I'm pretty sure a few people ran away before we started our slightly tuneless, but not unenthusiastic rendition of Yellow Submarine, aided by a Powerpoint peppered with little submarine pictures. E and I rattled our Aleve and Vitamin C bottles, accompanied by M on the Altoid box. D guitared it up and E and I provided the funky echoing voices in the last verse. It was comical, if not actually good. I felt like we should have apologized to both the audience and the Beatles!
Good thing we didn't do Michael Jackson, also, because after we ridiculed ourselves, it was time for the extra-curriculars show. EL parodied their way through various song snippets to tell of the virtues of the Reading Room (Jingle Bells), the TV Room (Hakuna Matata) and the conversation room (I forget what that was). EC has many, many new programs that were also introduced in song, through rapping in tiny shorts while the couple presenting Cocktail Party chugged glasses of wine most efficiently. CEC's performance was quite strange, but seeing a student perform a very impressive Michael Jakson impression (complete with moonwalk- see below) was the highlight of the evening. Even the Debating Society (STUDS or EDS for short) couldn't surprise us more when they uttered the words "red hairy ass" as a reason why a pig was a better choice of mate than a monkey... again, don't ask!
It was great to see students I love up onstage impressing people with their English, though I could have done without the contributions of a few, including singers who may have rivaled the 'ELC gang' for awfulness!
Finishing the night with smoothies and wine just seemed right!
Today the freshpeople (one of the older students awkwardly called them that) take a placement test, and we grade it for the first half of the week... Oh, I can't wait for my very own 90 or so samples of "my fadder, my fadder, my my my, fadder, she she she... suppor me".
Yesterday, 3pm found a small contingent of foreign teachers in my apartment, bouncing around silly ideas, such as the Potter Puppet Pals (my personal preference... might try to include it in EF somehow), the Total Domination song with weird hand motions, a self-referential 'laowai are people too' skit, Old McDonald Had a Farm (complete with charades of animals), and many more. If nothing else, I think we learned that, as a group, we have unlimited potential for B.S. After much debate and dismissal of awesome yet impractical ideas, we landed on charades of animals, hobbies and famous monuments (preplanned and NOT involving getting students up on stage) and then a group performance of "Yellow Submarine". There would be silly acting, guitar music, shaking of pill bottles, air-trombones and trumpets and out-of-tune singing from the laowai... it couldn't fail to get the fresh(wo)men excited about English!
The actual Orientation had its ups and downs, as usual! The band was excessively loud, and I think I may have lost a fraction of my hearing. I got to see the ELC video for the 10th time, at least, and have now resolved to make a new one, provided I am still here Spring Semester. The students learned not to fear their English classes, but to dive in with enthusiasm, while we tested our pronunciation and understanding of Australian English and words like "chilly bin" and "esky"... don't ask! We were impressed by the "th"s of the students who volunteered to read tongue twisters onstage. We all introduced ourselves more or less creatively- there are a couple of ABCs who introduced themselves as such, prompting one of our not-so-Chinese American colleagues to quip "before anyone asks me, I am NOT Chinese-American". We gave pop culture and other references to help students situate where we came from ("I am from Maryland, close to DC where Obama lives", "I am from Washington State, NOT Washington DC. Obama does NOT live near my house... I do live nearish Bill Gates though", "I am from Alabama, where Forrest Gump is from"... it went on and on). Promises were made about classes being fun and/or tough and advice was given about how to tackle the next 4 years of their lives. It was quite inspirational... at least in parts!
Then, came our performance. Before the start, I'd had to round up a few more people to participate, and participate we all did. There were clucking, wing-flapping chickens, a kangaroo that hopped around the stage, a monkey that waved back and forth, scratched and beat his chest, a fish blowing bubbles, an elephant who was disappointed not to be able to use the cries he'd practiced all afternoon. We mimed reading, painting, swimming, running, basketball, baseball, ping pong. The Statue of Liberty was posed in front of by tourists taking each others' pictures (complete with 'peace sign' hand action) and then, for our charade finale, we joined forces and made The Great Wall. I'm pretty sure a few people ran away before we started our slightly tuneless, but not unenthusiastic rendition of Yellow Submarine, aided by a Powerpoint peppered with little submarine pictures. E and I rattled our Aleve and Vitamin C bottles, accompanied by M on the Altoid box. D guitared it up and E and I provided the funky echoing voices in the last verse. It was comical, if not actually good. I felt like we should have apologized to both the audience and the Beatles!
Good thing we didn't do Michael Jackson, also, because after we ridiculed ourselves, it was time for the extra-curriculars show. EL parodied their way through various song snippets to tell of the virtues of the Reading Room (Jingle Bells), the TV Room (Hakuna Matata) and the conversation room (I forget what that was). EC has many, many new programs that were also introduced in song, through rapping in tiny shorts while the couple presenting Cocktail Party chugged glasses of wine most efficiently. CEC's performance was quite strange, but seeing a student perform a very impressive Michael Jakson impression (complete with moonwalk- see below) was the highlight of the evening. Even the Debating Society (STUDS or EDS for short) couldn't surprise us more when they uttered the words "red hairy ass" as a reason why a pig was a better choice of mate than a monkey... again, don't ask!
It was great to see students I love up onstage impressing people with their English, though I could have done without the contributions of a few, including singers who may have rivaled the 'ELC gang' for awfulness!
Finishing the night with smoothies and wine just seemed right!
Today the freshpeople (one of the older students awkwardly called them that) take a placement test, and we grade it for the first half of the week... Oh, I can't wait for my very own 90 or so samples of "my fadder, my fadder, my my my, fadder, she she she... suppor me".
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Just to check...
I set up this blog when Blogspot was available in China but Livejournal was not so I needed a new place to write if and when the fancy struck me. Now, Livejournal is available but Blogspot is not (other than with a proxy).
Does anyone care which I use? Should I revert to Livejournal or stay here and transfer previous material? Would a whole new place be even better?
Thanks for the feedback, whoever may be reading this!
Does anyone care which I use? Should I revert to Livejournal or stay here and transfer previous material? Would a whole new place be even better?
Thanks for the feedback, whoever may be reading this!
Friday, September 11, 2009
A new year, a new resolution to keep up with this blog!
So... I'm back in Shantou, kicking and screaming all the way back once again! I seriously need to take the hint and maybe consider NOT signing another contract this spring. Remind me of this if you hear me utter anything along the lines of "well, at least it's something, it's a fallback"- it is no longer a fallback. It's a good place, there are good people, friends, students, support for teaching, opportunities for advancement etc, but 4 years will be more than enough.
That said, we started the year quite brilliantly with a professional development retreat to the beautiful island of Hainan. There was the awkward first faculty meeting and group picture, this preceded by the medical "body check" tests downtown which I joined once again this year to hold hands while blood was drawn, meet the new people and get a free ride to and from WalMart with all my stuff. New people are all sort of lost for the time being, but I'm sure will all know their way around faster than I learned to get around town. I still stick to my usual haunts and hope that La Kaffa will not be closed indefinitely, thereby depriving me of my favourite caffeine-providing locale.
The trip to Hainan started on the 5th, bright and early, with all of us appearing packed and ready for fun, sea, bonding and at some point professionally developing into masterful teachers (for those who have not reached that level yet). Flight was uneventful, apart from a cute airline logo, arrival in Haikou included coconut candy (everything there includes coconut in some form!) and the beginning of the Harry Saga. Harry was the tour guide we picked up in Haikou. He was irritating, clapped his hands to get us to do anything, stated the obvious (as in "ok, stand up now!" after we were told to get off the bus), started every sentence with "OK" and ended with "aah" and was generally more than we could deal with during 5 days of forced interaction in 90% humidity and 35C weather (that's realfeel 110-120F according to Accuweather), with daily wake-up calls between the hours of 7:00 and 7:30AM. After a quick lunch, we were taken to the hotel, which had a very pervasive mold/ smoke smell (especially in the room I was assigned and the dining room- enough to put you off any food!), then bused over to Hainan University for a tour during which we stayed on said bus, swung by Evergreen Park, had some dinner back in the hotel then basically crashed as many of us were still recovering from jetlag.
Next day, after a rather Chinese breakfast, we went off to be professionally developed by listening to various talks about teaching English, one of which, from our fearless leader, involved research carried out on myself and fellow faculty members. Apparently, I am easily identifiable as the perpetrator of quotes involving how the language of foreign teachers begins to include never-used-so-often-before words such as "delicious", "convenient" and "hometown". Several people guessed it came from me, even people who weren't sure I'd taken part in this project (about our Chinese and 'home language' selves). The afternoon session of the day involved us splitting into interest groups and discussing various aspects of ELT in China. I joined the Extra-curricular activities group, which ended up just being a group of ELC teachers talking to one HaiDa guy about what we offered, while he told us they had nothing like that and he didn't really know about what did exist at his school, though he suggested that we come up with a way to evaluate the usefulness of these activities rather than just doing whatever came to us at the time. A valid point, but he offered no suggestions as to how to do that... helpful! Dinner that night more than made up for the unfulfilling sessions, as it included a buffet of sushi and delicious desserts!
Day 3 was made up of a lecture/ workshop about the state of ELT in China given by a professor from Macao who had no problem telling it like it is on the Mainland. He may have been walking a fine line, telling us about which newspapers to take from HK and Macao back into 'China' and which it would be best to leave behind, while making it clear to us what he thought of Chinese policy making. I definitely enjoyed the pictures of lower-ranking political figures sleeping through reform speeches in silent protest, boredom or general disregard of their duties in light of the fact that they would have no say either way. Good to see our colleagues reacting to this and nodding along in a not so "toeing the party line" style.
The afternoon was full of bus-time as we made our way across the island to Sanya, land of beautiful beaches and fancy hotels, and our retreat 3 years ago. This time we stayed on a different beach, but the hotel had a great view of our stretch of sand and was close to a bbq area, complete with pushy little girls thrusting firecrackers and Roman candles at me (5 jiao for 1, 1 yuan for 2!) I ended up wandering down the beach with a few people until we found "cocktails" at a "beach bar": 4 mixed drinks of questionable alcohol content at a table on the beach, overlooked by a tiki lamp. It had atmosphere... kind of! New drink: Sanya Bay.
Day 4- was subversive and refused to get back on a bus and get dragged around to another beach, butterfly village, seashell museum and tropical forest (yup, all that in one day!), when there was a perfectly decent sandy area with beautiful waves right in front of my nose the whole time. An unnecessary 7:30AM wake-up call later, my roommate and I were on the beach with overpriced snacks in hand, ready to bake, swim and generally have a great day, starting at 8:30. We jumped in the waves, lay back down to dry off... then 3 guys decided that right next to our heads was the perfect spot for their sunshine-y day- there was no one else on the beach!! Miles of empty sand and they just had to come park themselves in our personal space and take out their cellphones and (presumably) take pictures of us. We quickly decamped cursing the locals and their lack of beach/ human etiquette and found ourselves a pair of wooden lounge chairs with a tiki parasol for 30RMB/ day. More wave-jumping action and perfect positioning between the two lines of breakage of the waves, a little chit-chat with a couple of new colleagues who also went the umbrella/ chairs route rather than the sand/ sun/ annoying people one and we headed back to go hunt down the Muslim quarter for some delicious, non-Harry-ordered foods. No dice with the taxis- they had no idea what the "muselin simiao (Muslim temple)" was. They did offer to take us to a famous temple 20km away though! We settled on a lunch of fish, tofu and egg, but at least, we ordered it ourselves, with me having to serve as the designated Chinese-speaker! Success- I can now get things done, more or less speedily and accurately! I am a whole new person (especially after amazing a new co-worker when I claimed to be "shy and introverted")!
The afternoon plans for yet more wave-fun were dampened by the threatening clouds and intense downpour, though we did manage to make it back out to "our bar" for after-dinner drinks with a bigger group of people. Much discussion and fun for our last day in Sanya.
Day 5- Breakfast (still not approaching "delicious"), bus to Boundary Island where we could swim or join the "water sports games" (oh, Harry and his Chinglish!) The bus ride was fine, the boat ride to the island was quite fun for those of us with a strong stomach- bumpy times! On arrival and after being vastly entertained by some hilarious mannequins in wetsuits- pictures on Flickr to come soon) we excitedly got away from Harry and headed over to the "swimming area"... it was tiny and packed with people. More subversion as a few of us carefully headed over to the next little bay, traipsing through masses of broken coral and happily jumped into beautiful clear water... until we felt a weird shock, heard a tinny sound and we whistled at to get the heck out of the non designate swimming area! There was a policeman on the shore looking annoyed and a guy on a jetski to help enforce the rules. No choice but to turn back and I headed back to the "corral" with two of my fellow rule-breakers (the other 2 tried, it seems, to find a good new spot repeatedly and to annoy the guard as much as possible by keeping eye contact and occasionally trying to make a break for it). Good water, annoying rocks underfoot but fun colleagues did make it all worth the trouble, the staring and the potential sunburn. A communal shower (thankfully no naked colleagues at that time), overpriced drinks, a neutral Chinese lunch later we met up with those who had taken part in the "water sports games" and saw the pictures of them holding onto the coral reefs and picking up sea urchins... my irritation at how these Chinese people (the scuba instructors who condone this, I mean), and other inconsiderate and ignorant people, ruin the environment knows no bounds at this point! I remember being sternly told not to even get close to the reefs when I went diving and here they are grabbing on, picking up random bits off the beach and buying souvenirs made of coral!! Gah!
Anyway, boat ride back was, again, speedy, bumpy and entertaining, made more so by the screams/ squeals of my fellow workmates! More hours on the bus, then the visit of a conference center and another boat ride to the "Jade Belt"- a stretch of sand that looks out onto the South China Sea, a beach with waves the knocked over a few teachers and drenched more than that! The guy holding a turtle that kept trying to beat him up with its 'flippers' was just the cherry on top!
New hotel for the evening and a friend and I went to explore the area around the hotel in an attempt to stay awake past 8PM and find some ice cream/ dessert. The best part was the discovery of the NanGuo Supermarket, not for its offerings (we're better off in Shantou), but for its delectable Chinglish. There were aisles of "bumf", "dentifris", "clean air", "bathebles", "family thing" (yes, singular) and, my favourite, "mop/besom". We did not pay with our "credit carts", but this store definitely could have produced yet more entertainment if we had had time and energy enough for it.
Not much to add about today- a temple with some interesting statues of disgraced mainlanders (with good faces) this morning after a disappointing breakfast and an irritating experience with milktea people who seemed convinced that we did not need large cups and that the small or medium would be more appropriate. Much annoyance at the airport with people in the next line for check-in yelling at each other and shoving into us and Harry making the whole process go about as slowly as possible, while trying hard to grab all bags by the most tearable parts possible. Glad to have left him behind in Hainan! Flight was delayed, we got back to campus after a slight pause on the road to maybe wait for some freshmen. More disappointment and irritation when I got home and the best part of my day may have been the smoothies I had for dinner followed by the Singleton cult movie: Bridget Jones' Diary.
To look forward to (and by that, I mean, to produce fodder for sarcasm and my ever-decreasing patience): Freshman Orientation, grading and more grading... I need to get a squishy stress-ball for this week/ semester/ life!
That said, we started the year quite brilliantly with a professional development retreat to the beautiful island of Hainan. There was the awkward first faculty meeting and group picture, this preceded by the medical "body check" tests downtown which I joined once again this year to hold hands while blood was drawn, meet the new people and get a free ride to and from WalMart with all my stuff. New people are all sort of lost for the time being, but I'm sure will all know their way around faster than I learned to get around town. I still stick to my usual haunts and hope that La Kaffa will not be closed indefinitely, thereby depriving me of my favourite caffeine-providing locale.
The trip to Hainan started on the 5th, bright and early, with all of us appearing packed and ready for fun, sea, bonding and at some point professionally developing into masterful teachers (for those who have not reached that level yet). Flight was uneventful, apart from a cute airline logo, arrival in Haikou included coconut candy (everything there includes coconut in some form!) and the beginning of the Harry Saga. Harry was the tour guide we picked up in Haikou. He was irritating, clapped his hands to get us to do anything, stated the obvious (as in "ok, stand up now!" after we were told to get off the bus), started every sentence with "OK" and ended with "aah" and was generally more than we could deal with during 5 days of forced interaction in 90% humidity and 35C weather (that's realfeel 110-120F according to Accuweather), with daily wake-up calls between the hours of 7:00 and 7:30AM. After a quick lunch, we were taken to the hotel, which had a very pervasive mold/ smoke smell (especially in the room I was assigned and the dining room- enough to put you off any food!), then bused over to Hainan University for a tour during which we stayed on said bus, swung by Evergreen Park, had some dinner back in the hotel then basically crashed as many of us were still recovering from jetlag.
Next day, after a rather Chinese breakfast, we went off to be professionally developed by listening to various talks about teaching English, one of which, from our fearless leader, involved research carried out on myself and fellow faculty members. Apparently, I am easily identifiable as the perpetrator of quotes involving how the language of foreign teachers begins to include never-used-so-often-before words such as "delicious", "convenient" and "hometown". Several people guessed it came from me, even people who weren't sure I'd taken part in this project (about our Chinese and 'home language' selves). The afternoon session of the day involved us splitting into interest groups and discussing various aspects of ELT in China. I joined the Extra-curricular activities group, which ended up just being a group of ELC teachers talking to one HaiDa guy about what we offered, while he told us they had nothing like that and he didn't really know about what did exist at his school, though he suggested that we come up with a way to evaluate the usefulness of these activities rather than just doing whatever came to us at the time. A valid point, but he offered no suggestions as to how to do that... helpful! Dinner that night more than made up for the unfulfilling sessions, as it included a buffet of sushi and delicious desserts!
Day 3 was made up of a lecture/ workshop about the state of ELT in China given by a professor from Macao who had no problem telling it like it is on the Mainland. He may have been walking a fine line, telling us about which newspapers to take from HK and Macao back into 'China' and which it would be best to leave behind, while making it clear to us what he thought of Chinese policy making. I definitely enjoyed the pictures of lower-ranking political figures sleeping through reform speeches in silent protest, boredom or general disregard of their duties in light of the fact that they would have no say either way. Good to see our colleagues reacting to this and nodding along in a not so "toeing the party line" style.
The afternoon was full of bus-time as we made our way across the island to Sanya, land of beautiful beaches and fancy hotels, and our retreat 3 years ago. This time we stayed on a different beach, but the hotel had a great view of our stretch of sand and was close to a bbq area, complete with pushy little girls thrusting firecrackers and Roman candles at me (5 jiao for 1, 1 yuan for 2!) I ended up wandering down the beach with a few people until we found "cocktails" at a "beach bar": 4 mixed drinks of questionable alcohol content at a table on the beach, overlooked by a tiki lamp. It had atmosphere... kind of! New drink: Sanya Bay.
Day 4- was subversive and refused to get back on a bus and get dragged around to another beach, butterfly village, seashell museum and tropical forest (yup, all that in one day!), when there was a perfectly decent sandy area with beautiful waves right in front of my nose the whole time. An unnecessary 7:30AM wake-up call later, my roommate and I were on the beach with overpriced snacks in hand, ready to bake, swim and generally have a great day, starting at 8:30. We jumped in the waves, lay back down to dry off... then 3 guys decided that right next to our heads was the perfect spot for their sunshine-y day- there was no one else on the beach!! Miles of empty sand and they just had to come park themselves in our personal space and take out their cellphones and (presumably) take pictures of us. We quickly decamped cursing the locals and their lack of beach/ human etiquette and found ourselves a pair of wooden lounge chairs with a tiki parasol for 30RMB/ day. More wave-jumping action and perfect positioning between the two lines of breakage of the waves, a little chit-chat with a couple of new colleagues who also went the umbrella/ chairs route rather than the sand/ sun/ annoying people one and we headed back to go hunt down the Muslim quarter for some delicious, non-Harry-ordered foods. No dice with the taxis- they had no idea what the "muselin simiao (Muslim temple)" was. They did offer to take us to a famous temple 20km away though! We settled on a lunch of fish, tofu and egg, but at least, we ordered it ourselves, with me having to serve as the designated Chinese-speaker! Success- I can now get things done, more or less speedily and accurately! I am a whole new person (especially after amazing a new co-worker when I claimed to be "shy and introverted")!
The afternoon plans for yet more wave-fun were dampened by the threatening clouds and intense downpour, though we did manage to make it back out to "our bar" for after-dinner drinks with a bigger group of people. Much discussion and fun for our last day in Sanya.
Day 5- Breakfast (still not approaching "delicious"), bus to Boundary Island where we could swim or join the "water sports games" (oh, Harry and his Chinglish!) The bus ride was fine, the boat ride to the island was quite fun for those of us with a strong stomach- bumpy times! On arrival and after being vastly entertained by some hilarious mannequins in wetsuits- pictures on Flickr to come soon) we excitedly got away from Harry and headed over to the "swimming area"... it was tiny and packed with people. More subversion as a few of us carefully headed over to the next little bay, traipsing through masses of broken coral and happily jumped into beautiful clear water... until we felt a weird shock, heard a tinny sound and we whistled at to get the heck out of the non designate swimming area! There was a policeman on the shore looking annoyed and a guy on a jetski to help enforce the rules. No choice but to turn back and I headed back to the "corral" with two of my fellow rule-breakers (the other 2 tried, it seems, to find a good new spot repeatedly and to annoy the guard as much as possible by keeping eye contact and occasionally trying to make a break for it). Good water, annoying rocks underfoot but fun colleagues did make it all worth the trouble, the staring and the potential sunburn. A communal shower (thankfully no naked colleagues at that time), overpriced drinks, a neutral Chinese lunch later we met up with those who had taken part in the "water sports games" and saw the pictures of them holding onto the coral reefs and picking up sea urchins... my irritation at how these Chinese people (the scuba instructors who condone this, I mean), and other inconsiderate and ignorant people, ruin the environment knows no bounds at this point! I remember being sternly told not to even get close to the reefs when I went diving and here they are grabbing on, picking up random bits off the beach and buying souvenirs made of coral!! Gah!
Anyway, boat ride back was, again, speedy, bumpy and entertaining, made more so by the screams/ squeals of my fellow workmates! More hours on the bus, then the visit of a conference center and another boat ride to the "Jade Belt"- a stretch of sand that looks out onto the South China Sea, a beach with waves the knocked over a few teachers and drenched more than that! The guy holding a turtle that kept trying to beat him up with its 'flippers' was just the cherry on top!
New hotel for the evening and a friend and I went to explore the area around the hotel in an attempt to stay awake past 8PM and find some ice cream/ dessert. The best part was the discovery of the NanGuo Supermarket, not for its offerings (we're better off in Shantou), but for its delectable Chinglish. There were aisles of "bumf", "dentifris", "clean air", "bathebles", "family thing" (yes, singular) and, my favourite, "mop/besom". We did not pay with our "credit carts", but this store definitely could have produced yet more entertainment if we had had time and energy enough for it.
Not much to add about today- a temple with some interesting statues of disgraced mainlanders (with good faces) this morning after a disappointing breakfast and an irritating experience with milktea people who seemed convinced that we did not need large cups and that the small or medium would be more appropriate. Much annoyance at the airport with people in the next line for check-in yelling at each other and shoving into us and Harry making the whole process go about as slowly as possible, while trying hard to grab all bags by the most tearable parts possible. Glad to have left him behind in Hainan! Flight was delayed, we got back to campus after a slight pause on the road to maybe wait for some freshmen. More disappointment and irritation when I got home and the best part of my day may have been the smoothies I had for dinner followed by the Singleton cult movie: Bridget Jones' Diary.
To look forward to (and by that, I mean, to produce fodder for sarcasm and my ever-decreasing patience): Freshman Orientation, grading and more grading... I need to get a squishy stress-ball for this week/ semester/ life!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A few quotes
From random times this semester:
I just have to consummate my speaking paper. (last step of a process essay about prepping a meeting)
I went to the tonsorial shop for my hair cut.
Last week I watching movie. That movie is very hot. (from oral post-tests-can't remember the question or imagine what it could have been to get that response)
Sunday is the first day of a week. (response to describing a typical day of the week)
My father, he often go to bed with somebody [...] it is bad [...] maybe it is good (who do you admire most?)
Everyone make a drink (I think this was a mispronounced "dream")
My major is civil engineer, I want to be an architecture. (At least he knows his word forms, if not when to use them)
I frown upon ghosts. (vocab sentence for "frown upon")
We can see many loose boys and girls in the foreign films. (sentence for "loose")
He has hygienic hobbits. (sentence for "hygienic". may have been badly written "habbits")
The next round of essays should be fun.
I just have to consummate my speaking paper. (last step of a process essay about prepping a meeting)
I went to the tonsorial shop for my hair cut.
Last week I watching movie. That movie is very hot. (from oral post-tests-can't remember the question or imagine what it could have been to get that response)
Sunday is the first day of a week. (response to describing a typical day of the week)
My father, he often go to bed with somebody [...] it is bad [...] maybe it is good (who do you admire most?)
Everyone make a drink (I think this was a mispronounced "dream")
My major is civil engineer, I want to be an architecture. (At least he knows his word forms, if not when to use them)
I frown upon ghosts. (vocab sentence for "frown upon")
We can see many loose boys and girls in the foreign films. (sentence for "loose")
He has hygienic hobbits. (sentence for "hygienic". may have been badly written "habbits")
The next round of essays should be fun.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Stereotyping
Two weeks ago, my students took quizzes and the results were, as we say here, "less than delicious". One thing they need work on is "fast reading"- basically a skimming and scanning exercise with yes/no/not given answers. At my level, they are expected to read 400-450 words and answer 5 questions in 5 minutes . They tend to just answer from what they expect to read rather than the content of the passage, so I decided to write something completely false to see what would happen. Here is the edited version (to make sure they are not offended).
Stereotyping China- Fast Reading
Despite what you might have heard to the contrary, the stereotypes are true: all Chinese people are the same. They all have black hair and eyes, they basically all wear glasses and they are all smaller than the average westerner. Wandering around a big city in China, it is often difficult to remember where you are and where you have been since you feel like you are seeing the same person over and over again.
While to ignorant people it might seem that similarities would only be skin-deep, Chinese people really do not differ as much as you would expect. They see rice as a basic part of their nation’s cultural fabric and as a result will eat it at least three times a day. Even at breakfast, Chinese people manage to get their fill of rice through porridge, or ‘zhou’. For everyone, from small children to the elderly, it is seen as ‘un-Chinese’ and disrespectful to refuse rice if it is offered. The nation-wide pastime of tai ch’i is just as common as movies would have you believe. It is impossible to walk past a park without seeing at least 20 or 30 old people in traditional white outfits gracefully moving their limbs in a tranquil way.
It is often said the Chinese nation is a one of proficient martial artists. Since the population of this country is so abundant and the resources can be very scarce, everyone must know to defend him or herself. After school is over (sometimes as late as 9 p.m.), children gather at wushu schools run by monks from such temples as Shaolin. There, they are put through long drills of kicks, punches and weapon handling, during which they can be seen jumping between posts, flying through courtyards or even easily balancing on one leg for hours at a time. Girls learn to handle small knives, light swords and long bamboo poles while boys become skilled in the use of spikes, numchucks and wide blades. As adults, Chinese people keep up their skills by taking part in yearly wushu competitions and occasionally fighting for their honor. Crimes such as murder and theft are much higher in China than anywhere in the West due to these skills, but rape statistics at almost at zero as no one would be foolish enough to attack a woman trained in these lethal skills.
The last national Chinese trait that should not be missed is an impressive ability to solve any mathematical problem available. Schools, of course, instruct children in Confucianism, Chinese calligraphy and music (all children play the guzheng or erhu) but without mathematics, a child’s education would not be complete, by Chinese standards. As soon as a child is able to count on his fingers, he is given math problems to solve every night. By the age of 13, most Chinese children can solve the ‘quantum simplex’, an arithmetic problem that confuses many Western scholars. (488 words)
Questions: (Y/ N/ NG)
1. There is a wide variety of typical Chinese facial features.
2. All Chinese people have rice as a necessary part of every meal.
3. Tai ch’i is a good way for old people to keep their bodies healthy and flexible.
4. If you are a woman, you are more likely to suffer from rape than murder in China.
5. A Chinese child who immigrates to Europe will always be better at math than his classmates.
Stereotyping China- Fast Reading
Despite what you might have heard to the contrary, the stereotypes are true: all Chinese people are the same. They all have black hair and eyes, they basically all wear glasses and they are all smaller than the average westerner. Wandering around a big city in China, it is often difficult to remember where you are and where you have been since you feel like you are seeing the same person over and over again.
While to ignorant people it might seem that similarities would only be skin-deep, Chinese people really do not differ as much as you would expect. They see rice as a basic part of their nation’s cultural fabric and as a result will eat it at least three times a day. Even at breakfast, Chinese people manage to get their fill of rice through porridge, or ‘zhou’. For everyone, from small children to the elderly, it is seen as ‘un-Chinese’ and disrespectful to refuse rice if it is offered. The nation-wide pastime of tai ch’i is just as common as movies would have you believe. It is impossible to walk past a park without seeing at least 20 or 30 old people in traditional white outfits gracefully moving their limbs in a tranquil way.
It is often said the Chinese nation is a one of proficient martial artists. Since the population of this country is so abundant and the resources can be very scarce, everyone must know to defend him or herself. After school is over (sometimes as late as 9 p.m.), children gather at wushu schools run by monks from such temples as Shaolin. There, they are put through long drills of kicks, punches and weapon handling, during which they can be seen jumping between posts, flying through courtyards or even easily balancing on one leg for hours at a time. Girls learn to handle small knives, light swords and long bamboo poles while boys become skilled in the use of spikes, numchucks and wide blades. As adults, Chinese people keep up their skills by taking part in yearly wushu competitions and occasionally fighting for their honor. Crimes such as murder and theft are much higher in China than anywhere in the West due to these skills, but rape statistics at almost at zero as no one would be foolish enough to attack a woman trained in these lethal skills.
The last national Chinese trait that should not be missed is an impressive ability to solve any mathematical problem available. Schools, of course, instruct children in Confucianism, Chinese calligraphy and music (all children play the guzheng or erhu) but without mathematics, a child’s education would not be complete, by Chinese standards. As soon as a child is able to count on his fingers, he is given math problems to solve every night. By the age of 13, most Chinese children can solve the ‘quantum simplex’, an arithmetic problem that confuses many Western scholars. (488 words)
Questions: (Y/ N/ NG)
1. There is a wide variety of typical Chinese facial features.
2. All Chinese people have rice as a necessary part of every meal.
3. Tai ch’i is a good way for old people to keep their bodies healthy and flexible.
4. If you are a woman, you are more likely to suffer from rape than murder in China.
5. A Chinese child who immigrates to Europe will always be better at math than his classmates.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Student presentations
I have been bad at keeping up-to-date with my adventures here, but this weekend I have some down time so I thought I'd write up my notes on student presentations. As usual, for level 4, students gave presentations about original business ideas. Among the weird Chinglish and strange products, as few quotes stood out. "Pressure" was pronounced "pleasure" repeatedly (just think about "when you are facing much pressure, going to bed is very helpful" or "nowadays, women face many pressures in life" or "people are slaves of pressure").
In my first class:
"Do you want to enjoy your lovers on valentine’s day?"
"help the students while hunting jobs" (I'm thinking... with a gun)
"our slogan is... "magic"" (accompanied by a grandiose arm-swoop- you could almost see the cape)
And my favourite- A group promoting a "superstar factory" where they can make you famous, beautiful or whatever. The whole presentation was pretty good, but the highlight for me was one of the students, John (who was in the musical last semester for EF and is kind of a clown) who was supposed to be a girl who is ugly (holds up picture of ugly face with glasses/ pigtails/ warts etc in front of his head) then is turned beautiful (flowing hair, thick lips and large eyes) by the service. He spoke in a falsetto voice, shook his arms (and cardboard face) at the sky in desperation at "having everything, except friendship and love... because I am so ugly!!" and scared people into crossing the street by his/ her ugliness. His switch into a low announcer/ tv-presenter-style voice for the end of the commercial ("and now, if you want to contact us, don't hesitate to dial...") was the icing on the cake.
Class 2 was less delicious, though still quite quote-worthy.
There was "Dig truth" the P.I. company that will solve all cases, including "high-tech crime, love triangle, economic crime" and promised to work with black and white people, out of their 221b Baker Street address.
Two students promised: "We will only service people once in their life" (I believe about a wedding service so successful you'll never divorce).
A tea shop suggested that "if your product is equal to rubbish, if you don’t have to advertising".
There was a travel agency that made people use their imagination to see great sights. When a reporter joined a tour and questioned the methods was murdered by the guide.
One used the slogan "Yes, we can!" repeatedly and emphatically to tell us how good they were at solving all sorts of sartorial, behavioral or financial problems. The moment when one student pretended to strip and change into other clothes was priceless, as was the response of "who made you look this stupid?!" from the kindly assistant.
Finally, a punching-bag company promised any way to "release yourself" would be made available to you to avoid pressure ("pleasure") from overwhelming you, because suicide and killing parents and friends would really be a pity. (Imagine this being said in a very peppy tone)
Class 3 has my outgoing students but sadly, their presentations weren't quite as memorable, weeks later. My notes read like this:
Falsetto- help! Help me! I can’t see you!- lion: oops- my supper! (this was to advertise glow-in-the-dark clothing to be worn during safaris to avoid getting found and eaten by lions when you're looking for help)
1/3 of our life is spent on the bed- pillow is a very important part of our bed. If have 2 dream pillows, can share dreams. It smells good, but be careful that the pillow can’t be eaten! Complementary pics on pillows to make “romantic pairs” (in reference to special pillows to help you dream better and, I think, record your dreams)
“rear-service”- Cindy… not sure what that means. Company Escort service. Symbol similar to “ming” (cuddly sun and moon) spooky bodybuilder/ soldier “if you feel lonely, come this way →” we have 1G RMB- I am so happy (this group offered escorts to help you with any situation you need- visiting parents, outings, protection etc... I'm still unsure about what 'rear-service' is, but they were very excited about starting their business with 1,000,000RMB as they mentioned it at least twice).
enjoy life, enjoy housea? Oh, you know, I hate my life, I want to have a look. Q&A session- 1G RMB- so cheap? (this group offered houses built on the sea that are basically houseboats. The customer who was fooled into parting with 1,000,000RMB for one seemed quite happy about his bargain during the interview he gave.)
L&F- love and flowers (and puppies?)- boy playing a girl- as usual… dancing- translate The Song- awkward date “don’t you want to say something else?”- “I love you” to Rachel- shock. shut up! Who says I have a gf?- hugs- weird falsetto (students chant “kiss kiss”) (bear in mind that Rachel is a male student and the group was mostly male- they like to cross-dress for oral tests. I can't say I remember exactly what was going on, except that the name of the company made me think of wandering around fields and listening to "the sound of music" and that flowers were supposed to solve all marital and realtional problems)
Robot woman to clean day and night (she will reinforce all stereotypes about what women should do for the house)
"You wish, I do". If you want to go to the moon, sorry not possible. But if you want to be king for one day, we will contact the people at gugong (Forbidden City) and do something. (We will make all your dreams come true... except the impossible ones).
In my first class:
"Do you want to enjoy your lovers on valentine’s day?"
"help the students while hunting jobs" (I'm thinking... with a gun)
"our slogan is... "magic"" (accompanied by a grandiose arm-swoop- you could almost see the cape)
And my favourite- A group promoting a "superstar factory" where they can make you famous, beautiful or whatever. The whole presentation was pretty good, but the highlight for me was one of the students, John (who was in the musical last semester for EF and is kind of a clown) who was supposed to be a girl who is ugly (holds up picture of ugly face with glasses/ pigtails/ warts etc in front of his head) then is turned beautiful (flowing hair, thick lips and large eyes) by the service. He spoke in a falsetto voice, shook his arms (and cardboard face) at the sky in desperation at "having everything, except friendship and love... because I am so ugly!!" and scared people into crossing the street by his/ her ugliness. His switch into a low announcer/ tv-presenter-style voice for the end of the commercial ("and now, if you want to contact us, don't hesitate to dial...") was the icing on the cake.
Class 2 was less delicious, though still quite quote-worthy.
There was "Dig truth" the P.I. company that will solve all cases, including "high-tech crime, love triangle, economic crime" and promised to work with black and white people, out of their 221b Baker Street address.
Two students promised: "We will only service people once in their life" (I believe about a wedding service so successful you'll never divorce).
A tea shop suggested that "if your product is equal to rubbish, if you don’t have to advertising".
There was a travel agency that made people use their imagination to see great sights. When a reporter joined a tour and questioned the methods was murdered by the guide.
One used the slogan "Yes, we can!" repeatedly and emphatically to tell us how good they were at solving all sorts of sartorial, behavioral or financial problems. The moment when one student pretended to strip and change into other clothes was priceless, as was the response of "who made you look this stupid?!" from the kindly assistant.
Finally, a punching-bag company promised any way to "release yourself" would be made available to you to avoid pressure ("pleasure") from overwhelming you, because suicide and killing parents and friends would really be a pity. (Imagine this being said in a very peppy tone)
Class 3 has my outgoing students but sadly, their presentations weren't quite as memorable, weeks later. My notes read like this:
Falsetto- help! Help me! I can’t see you!- lion: oops- my supper! (this was to advertise glow-in-the-dark clothing to be worn during safaris to avoid getting found and eaten by lions when you're looking for help)
1/3 of our life is spent on the bed- pillow is a very important part of our bed. If have 2 dream pillows, can share dreams. It smells good, but be careful that the pillow can’t be eaten! Complementary pics on pillows to make “romantic pairs” (in reference to special pillows to help you dream better and, I think, record your dreams)
“rear-service”- Cindy… not sure what that means. Company Escort service. Symbol similar to “ming” (cuddly sun and moon) spooky bodybuilder/ soldier “if you feel lonely, come this way →” we have 1G RMB- I am so happy (this group offered escorts to help you with any situation you need- visiting parents, outings, protection etc... I'm still unsure about what 'rear-service' is, but they were very excited about starting their business with 1,000,000RMB as they mentioned it at least twice).
enjoy life, enjoy housea? Oh, you know, I hate my life, I want to have a look. Q&A session- 1G RMB- so cheap? (this group offered houses built on the sea that are basically houseboats. The customer who was fooled into parting with 1,000,000RMB for one seemed quite happy about his bargain during the interview he gave.)
L&F- love and flowers (and puppies?)- boy playing a girl- as usual… dancing- translate The Song- awkward date “don’t you want to say something else?”- “I love you” to Rachel- shock. shut up! Who says I have a gf?- hugs- weird falsetto (students chant “kiss kiss”) (bear in mind that Rachel is a male student and the group was mostly male- they like to cross-dress for oral tests. I can't say I remember exactly what was going on, except that the name of the company made me think of wandering around fields and listening to "the sound of music" and that flowers were supposed to solve all marital and realtional problems)
Robot woman to clean day and night (she will reinforce all stereotypes about what women should do for the house)
"You wish, I do". If you want to go to the moon, sorry not possible. But if you want to be king for one day, we will contact the people at gugong (Forbidden City) and do something. (We will make all your dreams come true... except the impossible ones).
Your posterior is...
Most Saturdays, we play Frsibee with students. Different ones come each week, but there are a few we've seen repeatedly. One of them, a boy yesterday referred to as 'active/ good kid in white' is Philippe's student and not shy about getting very close to his opponents (sometimes uncomfortably close, in fact) or saying what he thinks. After Philippe slipped and landed on his butt trying to catch our flying plate and was picked up by another student (crazily playing in jeans and a button-down shirt), he turned to me and asked if he'd torn his clothes.
"No, but your butt is..." I started.
"Nice," added 'kid in white'.
I was going for "dusty", but whatever... Would it have been weirder coming from a female student? I can't tell.
"No, but your butt is..." I started.
"Nice," added 'kid in white'.
I was going for "dusty", but whatever... Would it have been weirder coming from a female student? I can't tell.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Bollywood!
I am a movie star.
Well, maybe not quite. More accurately, last Friday, I was an extra in a ridiculous, low-budget Bollywood movie. Philippe had met a guy recruiting the day before, so we found ourselves, up, breakfasted and rounded up with 25 or so other goreh youths in front of the local McD's at 8 a.m. then herded onto a bus, and driven out of town towards "Filmcity". Sound glamorous?
When we got to our movie's set, we were led to a room and given our costumes- black, white, grey or a combination of those- in my case, a white skirt (thankfully longer than I originally guessed), 2 stripe-y tank tops (black and white) and a really short white shirt (puffy sleeves, collar, strange mid-belly length... unflattering!); in Philippe's case, shiny black pants (think "fake leather") and a black shirt with white "washer" pattern (think "70s"). In both cases, our shoes didn't fit and it was like foot torture... for 11 hours. My hair was pulled back and curled, then sprayed into place. It was a little scary. All the other girls looked more classy, sadly, but some of the other guys rivalled Philippe for ridiculous outfits (see-through shiny white shirt, anyone?)
We then sat. Had a tiny cucumber and tomato sandwich. Sat more. Wandered around and found a mirror to see how ridiculous we looked. Saw some guys in obvious wigs (reddish and fluffy). Sat around.
Finally, around noon, we went on set and discovered quite how weird the day would be. The scene was set in a club called the Blue Elephant (with shiny giant blue elephant head cutout and hung front the ceiling). There were 2 stages (one with poles, one with a band), a raised bar and some raised areas, balcony-style, parts of which were covered in what looked like thick chicken-wire. We went up there. These balcony sections were surrounded by what looked like banisters, but was in fact plastic piping and not sturdy, as we were reminded by a loud voice answering to the name of Sweety, in the same breath as we were told to stand as close to the edge as possible, dance and wave our arms about. Philippe was somewhere under those platforms, standing around a table with some other guys, I was at the top with a bunch of girls. We basically danced over and over again to the same 15-second part of a song, occasionally being shifted from one platform to another.
There was a long lunch break. Then more dancing on platforms, this time while pole dancers did their thing on their own stage.
Then a random long-ass break. Then more dancing.
The whole "we'll get you back to Colaba by 9 p.m." was looking increasingly unlikely when Philippe started regularly going to argue with the agent-guy who had brought us over and eventually, we started walking off to change. They brought us back and shot their last scene as fast as possible. We still didn't get back to Colaba until a little before 11 p.m., half an hour after a girl's hostel closed and an hour before our night train to Jalgaon for the next step of the adventure.
Death-trap of the day: unstable platforms with fake railings.
Well, maybe not quite. More accurately, last Friday, I was an extra in a ridiculous, low-budget Bollywood movie. Philippe had met a guy recruiting the day before, so we found ourselves, up, breakfasted and rounded up with 25 or so other goreh youths in front of the local McD's at 8 a.m. then herded onto a bus, and driven out of town towards "Filmcity". Sound glamorous?
When we got to our movie's set, we were led to a room and given our costumes- black, white, grey or a combination of those- in my case, a white skirt (thankfully longer than I originally guessed), 2 stripe-y tank tops (black and white) and a really short white shirt (puffy sleeves, collar, strange mid-belly length... unflattering!); in Philippe's case, shiny black pants (think "fake leather") and a black shirt with white "washer" pattern (think "70s"). In both cases, our shoes didn't fit and it was like foot torture... for 11 hours. My hair was pulled back and curled, then sprayed into place. It was a little scary. All the other girls looked more classy, sadly, but some of the other guys rivalled Philippe for ridiculous outfits (see-through shiny white shirt, anyone?)
We then sat. Had a tiny cucumber and tomato sandwich. Sat more. Wandered around and found a mirror to see how ridiculous we looked. Saw some guys in obvious wigs (reddish and fluffy). Sat around.
Finally, around noon, we went on set and discovered quite how weird the day would be. The scene was set in a club called the Blue Elephant (with shiny giant blue elephant head cutout and hung front the ceiling). There were 2 stages (one with poles, one with a band), a raised bar and some raised areas, balcony-style, parts of which were covered in what looked like thick chicken-wire. We went up there. These balcony sections were surrounded by what looked like banisters, but was in fact plastic piping and not sturdy, as we were reminded by a loud voice answering to the name of Sweety, in the same breath as we were told to stand as close to the edge as possible, dance and wave our arms about. Philippe was somewhere under those platforms, standing around a table with some other guys, I was at the top with a bunch of girls. We basically danced over and over again to the same 15-second part of a song, occasionally being shifted from one platform to another.
There was a long lunch break. Then more dancing on platforms, this time while pole dancers did their thing on their own stage.
Then a random long-ass break. Then more dancing.
The whole "we'll get you back to Colaba by 9 p.m." was looking increasingly unlikely when Philippe started regularly going to argue with the agent-guy who had brought us over and eventually, we started walking off to change. They brought us back and shot their last scene as fast as possible. We still didn't get back to Colaba until a little before 11 p.m., half an hour after a girl's hostel closed and an hour before our night train to Jalgaon for the next step of the adventure.
Death-trap of the day: unstable platforms with fake railings.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
"I am sooo not getting on that death-trap"
This is a theme, so far this trip. There are many different exciting ways of getting around the country and half of them look like they were never designed to hold nearly as many people as they are doing.
Our second day in Mumbai, stopped by a pastry shop for breakfast (recommended in the LP and making Philippe salivate in front of the glass cases of chocolate and fruit concoctions), moved our stuff to the Salvation Army's hostel and we internetted. Then we headed over to the Haji Ali Mosque in northern Mumbai. To reach it, you take a really long bus ride through "real Mumbai" (not the touristy area around Colaba) then you walk out into the sea (Arabian Sea?) passing vendors and beggars aplenty. The mosque itself is a place of pilgrimage so it's a really interesting atmosphere. I was crazily on the lookout for what to do, this being my first mosque-experience, and me being really afraid of making a faux-pas and offending someone. I followed the women into the female entrance while Philippe got to go through the main entrance, all unshod and head-covered. It was really a great and interesting experience.
We also saw the laundry facilities for Mumbai's hotels, restaurants and general populace. This is an intricate network of washing tubs, rinsing areas, hanging posts, swinging lines and sorting people, all looking like it's been around for quite a while. We saw laundry being swung around, stomped on, hit against the stone tubs and twisted into the lines to hang without pins. Impressive.
Our day ended with a swing by Chowpatty beach where there were hundreds of people flying kites. The colors of the sarees and kites were amazing, and the gelato we treated ourselves to after a long day of walking wasn't bad either. The best, though, was wandering around the snack stands by the side of the beach. We tried panipuri (crunchy little puff with lentils and tamarind sauce inside), bhaji sandwiches (deep fried veggies in bread roll) and chai. We also got a weird thing in a leaf that tasted like rosewater, coconut and other things that I found horrible, but Philippe downed because it was served directly into your mouth by a man with a crazy moustache. The "death trap" part was the crazy ferris wheels that were made to spin by guys jumping up onto it and then swinging themselves off and pulling it down with their bodyweight... does that make sense? It was so strange to watch and, combined with the fact that it looked ready to fall apart, did not encourage me to try it, no matter how much Philippe made puppy eyes at me for great pictures.
The next day, after a slow start to the day and a chance meeting with a Bollywood guy looking for extras for a movie, we headed to Elephanta Island, to gaze at temples carved into rocks. The boat ride over was quite long, made more so by the cramped quarters and the slightly sketchy guy who was trying to get a picture of himself sitting next to me. Also, the random throwing of trash into the ocean was a delight... not. The site on the island is a group of about 4 main caves up a hill, with some monkeys. It was good to visit, being a completely different sight from what we'd seen so far. I realise that it's an impressive feat- carving huge temple caves from a rock, sculpting rocks into huge statues etc- but I felt bad being left nonplussed by the visit. The threat of monkey bites did little to add to it! There was a thoroughly impressive sculpture of three--headed Shiva.
After our boat excursion, we decided to delve into the mysterious world of train-ticket buying in India. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus or CST) is a beautiful building which combines all sorts of architectural styles on the outside. Inside, it's amazing how many people it can hold without seeming all that crowded. After asking several people, filling in some paperwork, getting a guy to leave us a lone and purchasing a book of all Indian trains for all the days of the week until June, we got our stamp, went to the reservation room and found that our train was fully booked and we'd have to be waitlisted. Too bad, we thought, but whatever, we didn't want to waste more time standing in the reservation room listening to a guy trying to sell chai by rattling some plastic cups at us. Then, we spotted the "Foreign Tourist" window. Surrounded by "Foreign Tourist Only" benches, it became our haven for over an hour while we deciphered train time tables, bothered the nice lady behind the window repeatedly and finally settled on one night train towards Ajanta and Ellora and a waitlist spot on another night train to Ahmedabad. Tickets in hand we avoided bus touts, traffic and wrong turns to return to Chowpatty and sample bhelpuri (crunchy, crispy, spicy and delicious), pav bhaji (lentils with onion, tomato and peppers eaten with grilled bread) and get a picture of P eating the yucky leaf combo from the guy with the moustache. I had to fight valiantly but managed to get away with some slightly less weird stuff and an odd-tasting glace cherry... I think this will be the worst thing I eat in the country, but everything else so far has been amazing.
Death trap of the day: tourist train on Elephanta!
Our second day in Mumbai, stopped by a pastry shop for breakfast (recommended in the LP and making Philippe salivate in front of the glass cases of chocolate and fruit concoctions), moved our stuff to the Salvation Army's hostel and we internetted. Then we headed over to the Haji Ali Mosque in northern Mumbai. To reach it, you take a really long bus ride through "real Mumbai" (not the touristy area around Colaba) then you walk out into the sea (Arabian Sea?) passing vendors and beggars aplenty. The mosque itself is a place of pilgrimage so it's a really interesting atmosphere. I was crazily on the lookout for what to do, this being my first mosque-experience, and me being really afraid of making a faux-pas and offending someone. I followed the women into the female entrance while Philippe got to go through the main entrance, all unshod and head-covered. It was really a great and interesting experience.
We also saw the laundry facilities for Mumbai's hotels, restaurants and general populace. This is an intricate network of washing tubs, rinsing areas, hanging posts, swinging lines and sorting people, all looking like it's been around for quite a while. We saw laundry being swung around, stomped on, hit against the stone tubs and twisted into the lines to hang without pins. Impressive.
Our day ended with a swing by Chowpatty beach where there were hundreds of people flying kites. The colors of the sarees and kites were amazing, and the gelato we treated ourselves to after a long day of walking wasn't bad either. The best, though, was wandering around the snack stands by the side of the beach. We tried panipuri (crunchy little puff with lentils and tamarind sauce inside), bhaji sandwiches (deep fried veggies in bread roll) and chai. We also got a weird thing in a leaf that tasted like rosewater, coconut and other things that I found horrible, but Philippe downed because it was served directly into your mouth by a man with a crazy moustache. The "death trap" part was the crazy ferris wheels that were made to spin by guys jumping up onto it and then swinging themselves off and pulling it down with their bodyweight... does that make sense? It was so strange to watch and, combined with the fact that it looked ready to fall apart, did not encourage me to try it, no matter how much Philippe made puppy eyes at me for great pictures.
The next day, after a slow start to the day and a chance meeting with a Bollywood guy looking for extras for a movie, we headed to Elephanta Island, to gaze at temples carved into rocks. The boat ride over was quite long, made more so by the cramped quarters and the slightly sketchy guy who was trying to get a picture of himself sitting next to me. Also, the random throwing of trash into the ocean was a delight... not. The site on the island is a group of about 4 main caves up a hill, with some monkeys. It was good to visit, being a completely different sight from what we'd seen so far. I realise that it's an impressive feat- carving huge temple caves from a rock, sculpting rocks into huge statues etc- but I felt bad being left nonplussed by the visit. The threat of monkey bites did little to add to it! There was a thoroughly impressive sculpture of three--headed Shiva.
After our boat excursion, we decided to delve into the mysterious world of train-ticket buying in India. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus or CST) is a beautiful building which combines all sorts of architectural styles on the outside. Inside, it's amazing how many people it can hold without seeming all that crowded. After asking several people, filling in some paperwork, getting a guy to leave us a lone and purchasing a book of all Indian trains for all the days of the week until June, we got our stamp, went to the reservation room and found that our train was fully booked and we'd have to be waitlisted. Too bad, we thought, but whatever, we didn't want to waste more time standing in the reservation room listening to a guy trying to sell chai by rattling some plastic cups at us. Then, we spotted the "Foreign Tourist" window. Surrounded by "Foreign Tourist Only" benches, it became our haven for over an hour while we deciphered train time tables, bothered the nice lady behind the window repeatedly and finally settled on one night train towards Ajanta and Ellora and a waitlist spot on another night train to Ahmedabad. Tickets in hand we avoided bus touts, traffic and wrong turns to return to Chowpatty and sample bhelpuri (crunchy, crispy, spicy and delicious), pav bhaji (lentils with onion, tomato and peppers eaten with grilled bread) and get a picture of P eating the yucky leaf combo from the guy with the moustache. I had to fight valiantly but managed to get away with some slightly less weird stuff and an odd-tasting glace cherry... I think this will be the worst thing I eat in the country, but everything else so far has been amazing.
Death trap of the day: tourist train on Elephanta!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Mishandled
"Your luggage has been mishandled."
"Alright, what does that mean? Where is it"
"We're not sure. Maybe still in Hong Kong, maybe in Delhi, maybe here in Mumbai... maybe elsewhere"
"SO basically, you have no idea..."
"It has been mishandled."
Not sure exactly how the conversation really went, but it seems to have been somewhere along those lines. When we got into Mumbai, after what felt like a ridiculously long flight (China and India are close together on the map, as Philippe reasoned) we got to the baggage pick-up area to find out that both our bags, as well as those of about 10 other people had been mysteriously mishandled and were plainly not there. They couldn't tell us where, or when or how, just point out that the bags were not there and they would look for them and let us know what happened. Since it was around 12:30 a.m. and the whole process lasted a good 2 hours, we decided to skip the whole "sleeping thing" in favor of sitting around then heading over to Sassoon Dock to see fisher-people unload the night's catch, as recommended by the Lonely Planet as a good activity for night owls. We took a pre-paid taxi from the airport to the Gateway of India (cool 1950s style black car with yellow roof and nifty old-fashioned "for hire sign") then wandered over to the docks, inadvertently walking through a section of slums which was a sudden awakening to the poverty that 55% of people in the country live in.
The unloading was cool, with people throwing up baskets of fish from their boats to the dock and people packing them up to sent to restaurants and markets. Would have been even better if we could have bought some! We then found a hostel (hard to do at 7am, pre-opening and checkout time) and slept through half the day.
Feeling rejuvenated, we had our first India meal (delicious dhal!!) which I was unable to eat in a convincing Indian style... finger-eating does not come naturally. We walked quite a few miles around the city, seeing a museum, a synagogue, a church (oldest Mumbai building), the University, the High Court, some cricketers, a train station and a market where we had to buy a few things to replace our grubby travel clothes, since jeans and hiking boots are great, but in this heat, with no change of clothes... ick.
In the evening (after more deliciousness), we made do with tiny black shampoo bought at a street stall (the shampoo itself really was black) and dried ourselves with our t-shirts before collapsing into sleep. We were rudely awakened an hour later by the arrival of our bags, mysteriously found in HK and shipped over on the only flight of the day... phew!
"Alright, what does that mean? Where is it"
"We're not sure. Maybe still in Hong Kong, maybe in Delhi, maybe here in Mumbai... maybe elsewhere"
"SO basically, you have no idea..."
"It has been mishandled."
Not sure exactly how the conversation really went, but it seems to have been somewhere along those lines. When we got into Mumbai, after what felt like a ridiculously long flight (China and India are close together on the map, as Philippe reasoned) we got to the baggage pick-up area to find out that both our bags, as well as those of about 10 other people had been mysteriously mishandled and were plainly not there. They couldn't tell us where, or when or how, just point out that the bags were not there and they would look for them and let us know what happened. Since it was around 12:30 a.m. and the whole process lasted a good 2 hours, we decided to skip the whole "sleeping thing" in favor of sitting around then heading over to Sassoon Dock to see fisher-people unload the night's catch, as recommended by the Lonely Planet as a good activity for night owls. We took a pre-paid taxi from the airport to the Gateway of India (cool 1950s style black car with yellow roof and nifty old-fashioned "for hire sign") then wandered over to the docks, inadvertently walking through a section of slums which was a sudden awakening to the poverty that 55% of people in the country live in.
The unloading was cool, with people throwing up baskets of fish from their boats to the dock and people packing them up to sent to restaurants and markets. Would have been even better if we could have bought some! We then found a hostel (hard to do at 7am, pre-opening and checkout time) and slept through half the day.
Feeling rejuvenated, we had our first India meal (delicious dhal!!) which I was unable to eat in a convincing Indian style... finger-eating does not come naturally. We walked quite a few miles around the city, seeing a museum, a synagogue, a church (oldest Mumbai building), the University, the High Court, some cricketers, a train station and a market where we had to buy a few things to replace our grubby travel clothes, since jeans and hiking boots are great, but in this heat, with no change of clothes... ick.
In the evening (after more deliciousness), we made do with tiny black shampoo bought at a street stall (the shampoo itself really was black) and dried ourselves with our t-shirts before collapsing into sleep. We were rudely awakened an hour later by the arrival of our bags, mysteriously found in HK and shipped over on the only flight of the day... phew!
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