In Custody

Don and Rob are going to laugh at me for blogging about this but I thought this was hilarious. Let me try to paint a picture for you.

The three of us have been going to the other campus to practice English with students there. This campus is "out in the country" and is about an hour's drive away from here. All there seems to be out there is space, clean air and other newer campuses of other universities. There is little in the way of pedestrian traffic since only students and teachers seem to live out that way. And at the front gates of every university here, there are security guards. This is important for later.

Across the front gates of our campus, there is a nice lake. Since we had a bit of time after our English Corner the other day before we took the school bus back to this campus, we decided to check out the lake. We walked past the security guards on the way out. Remember that Don and Rob stand out here, a lot. Now we have a nice walk around the lake. Met a group of boys who asked to have their photo taken with Don and Rob, normal every day stuff. Then we made our way back to the campus so we could take the bus home.

As we walked towards the front gate, the security guards motioned us to stop. They approached me and of course said something I couldn't fathom. I am madly shaking my hand to tell them I don't understand while speaking to them in English. They continue to talk at me. Surely, they must have seen us leave for our walk. Now, we don't have any id's to show them that we work for the university. So we are standing there trying to figure out how to get back in. I understood enough to know they wanted us to go inside their guardhouse to wait. Wait for what? We weren't sure. Our friend, the Chinese teacher, who coordinates our visits was unreachable. So we called the only other person we knew on campus there, Trista, who is a friend of Rob's. Thankfully she answered her cellphone and quickly (really really quickly, she ran from her dormitory) came to our aid. She broke us out of "jail" and we had a great laugh.

You have to imagine the three of us standing there in the guardhouse thinking how in the heck do we convey to these guards that we could be trusted to enter. We are trying not to laugh too much in case it did not convey enough seriousness. We weren't really sure if we were in trouble. For my part, I am laughing because they're looking at me with a puzzled look on their faces. I am NOT a lot of help here :) Who would have thought that going for a walk was going to be such an adventure!

Something That Scares You

So you're supposed to do something that scares you every day. Well, Don and I did just that Friday evening. We performed in Mandarin in front of a packed house (a thousand students we guesstimate) along with Rob and Yoshi, a Japanese teacher. What? But I didn't think you guys spoke Mandarin, you say. We don't! We had no idea what we were saying. We were given the script for this short skit two weeks ago and the four of us practiced it a couple of times before that evening.

Yoshi had studied Mandarin in Japan so he memorized his lines. I tried but just don't have the required brain power to memorize. I'm not sure I ever did. I would be a very poor student in China because that's all they ever do. So I relied on a cheat sheet that was my attempt to approximate the Mandarin sounds with English. Our act, as you will see below, required us to play instruments too so Rob was able to tape his cheat sheet to his cymbals. Don memorized his lines easily and even managed to play the gong on cue.

We were very nervous but knew that the students would enjoy seeing their teachers make a fool of themselves. They did! Whatever we said was very amusing for them. Or maybe it was just our impeccable pronunciation or delightful stage presence. I'm happy they enjoyed it. We are always correcting them so it must have been nice to see us mangle their language and be able to judge us for a change. We have received a range of reviews. Some were brutally honest. Some, I think, were just being polite. Hope they hold on to their memories cause that was a one night only gig.

Enjoy our performance!

Technical Problems

hear that there are problems with the videos. I don't know what it might be since I can post videos but can't see them from China. So I'll just try reloading them again on the previous post.

Sunday Breakfast - Revised

At my brother's suggestion, we videotaped our trip out to get breakfast this morning. Many of our meals and some of our fruits and veggies come from the street vendors just outside of our apartment complex. I have not spent any time editing it into one piece so forgive the cuts and the unscripted and witty (??) dialogue you'll hear from us.



































The crepe costs about 30 cents each!

Symposium in Liaocheng

Our university nominated Don for an award from the Shandong Government. He was one of 24 foreign teachers who received a teaching excellence award during this symposium. There are over 1,600 of us (foreign teachers) in this province.

We traveled to Liaocheng with Sam, who also won an award for his academic paper. The symposium and awards ceremony were held at the Liaocheng University and we stayed at the hotel right on campus.

On the first day, there was the awards ceremony and then an afternoon of presentations from some of the prize winners who had submitted papers on various elements of teaching a foreign language here in China.

The next morning Don and Sam attended a discussion group where they exchanged ideas with fellow teachers. These groups gave foreign teachers and Chinese foreign language teachers a chance to talk about ways to improve the program in this province. After the sessions, they presented their findings to the whole symposium and representatives from the education department of the government.

In the afternoon, we were treated to a tour of the university and the city of Liaocheng.

For more pics, check out the album on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47660&l=7d092&id=571108357

Your English is Good

Don and I just returned from a symposium where he received an award for teaching excellence. More about that in the next entry. We are busy sorting through all the pics now. The conference brought together foreign language teachers and Chinese teachers who teach foreign languages in this province. It was a great opportunity to meet and exchange ideas.

A funny thing happened to me. I was chatting with someone on break and another foreign teacher joined us. He asked where I was from. Since we had been used to answering where we were teaching, I answered that I was from Jinan, not thinking of the impression that gave. Then he asked if I had spent time in the US. Huh, why would he ask that? He went on to compliment me on my English. Why is he paying me a compliment? Then, it suddenly dawned on me that he thought I was a Chinese English teacher. Since many of them, despite their fluency, may still speak with an accent. I sounded quite different. Another foreign teacher had to repeat an earlier question he had asked. I gather that when I spoke earlier, he didn't quite hear me answer because he was having a hard time reconciling what I looked like with how I sounded.

At the same time though, I had Chinese teachers approaching me and start speaking Mandarin. I felt bad having to stop them quickly and clarify that I didn't understand.

These experiences have made me appreciate my adopted homeland even more. Growing up in Canada gave me the luxury of forgetting my visual identity for the most part. I don't think I fully grasped the significance of that advantage until I came to China. We are so used to seeing such a rainbow of faces in Canada, diversity is something I took for granted until we started living abroad.

In China, the vast majority of people can be described using fewer words. Our classes on adjectives to describe people are not as effective here. For example, most people have straight black hair. It's harder to introduce many of the other words that we might use to describe Canadians.

For my part, as long as I don't open my mouth, I look like everyone else. I blend. As soon as I speak though, I morph into this oddity. THEN they stare. They want to know how they can learn English as well as I did. They want to know MY secret. Well, first you have to move to Canada with your family when you are young so you can learn English without fear. Enjoy the undivided attention of an ESL teacher. Thanks to Ms. Wetmore, Glen and I speak good Canadian English like a native speaker. Then you get an education in English. Sadly, that is beyond the imagination for most of our students. Even those who hope to study abroad may never achieve the level of English they desire.

Oh btw, some of the foreign teachers came up with a great idea for a business for us. We could advertise a new teaching method that Don has perfected and I would be his star pupil. When I speak and show them what this method can do for them, we'll have them knocking down the doors. We could make a lot of money here! Ha ha!

One of Don's students just asked me whether I felt more Chinese then Canadian. I think the question is really whether I feel more Chinese then Foreigner here. While I get glimpses of my Chinese self, I would have to say that I feel more foreign here than I ever did. I have come up with a new identity for me here: the invisible foreigner.

My New Do

Getting my hair done in China has been great. For once, hair stylists are not afraid of my hair. Would you believe that it's actually difficult to cut oriental hair? Well, there's a country of experts here and I've taken advantage. Although I haven't tried to go by myself like I did in Mexico, I've been ok with asking for help. A few months ago, I had my first perm in many many years. Back in Canada, my hairdresser permed it once when I was still in university ... a long long time ago. He refused to do it again. Apparently, my hair had a mind of its own and was not very cooperative in staying in the curlers. The magician who's been doing my hair has a work around. Bless him!




Here are some pics from my second perm. We also changed my hair colour. I feel like a brand new person. It only (ha ha) took 5 hours! Thanks to Sunrise who was so patient and did such a great job being my interpreter and protector! BTW, your hair looks fabulous too! J

Happy Hallowe'en!