a short story

Last week, when I handed out the vocabulary words to my class, I told them that they had to write a story for homework using the new vocabulary words. I just wanted to share one of the stories with you. This was written by one of my best students, and I have not edited it at all except for omitting the last name of one of my students that was written in the story. For the record, Jeff and Steven are two other students in the class.

"When I and Ms. Stephanie was chatting in my house, suddenly the TV informed that Ms. Stephanie is a murderer. We were so astonished. Th TV said that Jeff told them that Ms. Stephanie killed Steven violently. The police didn'tk now that Jeff is very evil man. So they trusted him. The TV also said that the police have already started investigating. In the interview, Jeff said that he is confident that Ms. Stephanie is a murderer. I told Ms. Stephanie to hide in the cavity because she wasn't a murderer.

On the second day, I started to find a clue that can prove that Jeff is a murderer. I searched for ten minutes, but I couldn't find a clue. So, I went back to my house. When I looked at mailbox, I found a paper and a picture. It says: "If you see this woman, call the police. Reward is one million RMB." It was such a disturbance. I anticipated that the police will find the cavity. So, I went to Dohyeon's house, and confided the secret and asked for assistance. But, he didn't memorize me. That baffled me. I told Ms. Stephanie to surrender and she went to the police station. But, I sweared her to catch Jeff. Maybe I can catch him in the next story."

and then, a few lines down on the page:

"Extra funny story (do you know this story?)
Once upon a time, there was a boy who ate a fire. He died."

I found out that this student had also made a reward poster to go along with the story. In fact, one of my history students came up to my office to tell me that he had seen a Wanted poster with a picture of me on it. So in class I asked to see it...and it wasn't drawn, like I had expected. No, he had made a wanted poster on his computer with my name and a real picture of me (which he had taken during a scavenger hunt a few weeks ago) on it. And...sadly...he had blacked out my eyes. I didn't even know what to do so I made him promise never to make something like that again and to throw it away. I didn't really get it. He's not the kind of kid that I expected to black out my eyes in a picture. Sometimes I can't believe the kind of shit I have to deal with.

3 other kids in the class also wrote about me murdering some students. This is my favorite class-- I can't even imagine what my history students would write about me doing if I made them write a story.

Charity Fair

Well, it was about time I got some pictures of some of my students to show you. Thankfully, Shannon had her camera at the Charity fair this afternoon.

The Charity fair was an event for the primary school students. They all got to set up little booths in the cafeteria and sell stuff (home-made food, dvds, toys, "rubbish" as one of my students called it). 70 percent of the money they made went to charity, and they got to keep the other 30 percent.

It was totally crazy, but a lot of fun. I ate so much food there (someone brought in samosas, some other kids brought in korean food, some others made brownies and chocolate chip cookies and it was just like being at home), bought Kill Bill for 2 kuai (um...25 cents. i haven't checked to see if it works yet), and some jewelry and stickers from some of my students.

So...here are some pictures of my 4th grade ESL students. Looking at these pictures makes me so happy...I guess i didn't really realize how much i adore these kids. The first one here is Gota, who is so so small and so so cute and Japanese. He barely understands a word I say and likes to pant like a dog in class sometimes. Whenever I write stuff on the board and tell the class to copy it into their notebooks, he'll look at me, point at the board, and say "dees? copy?" as in...this? copy? I find myself responding to him or telling him straight up: "Gota. Copy. This. This, copy." I hate speaking in broken English but what can i do, he doesn't understand me otherwise. And here is a picture of me and Gota and Lina, this adorable, shy, Korean girl. God these kids are cute!
This picture is of Rebecca, me, and Daisy. These girls are so incredibly sweet. Rebecca is the one who told me I should get my boyfriend to buy me a car, and she is from Taiwan. Daisy is Japanese and yesterday brought Shannon and me presents (cause Shannon teaches the same ESL kids that I do). Our gifts included some "fashion jewelry" (a little 'silver' necklace with a turtle on it) and some Disney nail polish. My nail polish is gold...Shannon's is big glitter chunks. And she wrote on the packages "I love Miss Cummings" and "I love Miss Stephanie." These kids seriously melt your heart. I feel really bad that she's failing my class...

Anyway, things here are fine, except that now my 6th grade english students think it's ok to mention the whole 'miss stephanie is fat' thing...like at the charity fair one of my students was trying to sell me food and when i refused, he said 'oh come on...you're fat...you can eat a lot...' COME ON. I'm going to bring it up one final time in class tomorrow and tell them that the next student who makes any mention of his teacher's weight is getting a warning note. Seriously.

i've officially been slapped in the face with chinese culture

Today in my 6th grade non-native English class, I spent the class period teaching the students the new vocabulary words for the week. This is usually a harmless activity which takes up an entire class period, usually on Monday or Tuesday. I like vocabulary day.

Today, however, was different. The class was going a little bit crazy and from the very first word ("reward") I could tell it was gonna be an off-day. Somehow I ended up drawing a Wanted posted on the board with one of my very silly students names on it, advertising a reward for his capture. The kids laughed.

So a few words later, we got to "cavity." I explained what a cavity is, how it usually refers to a hollow, decaying spot in your tooth, etc, and asked the class if anyone had had a cavity. Not one of them had, which I thought was strange. I guess their families are really rich, so they can afford good dental care. Maybe they just didn't know what I was talking about. Either way, I decided to volunteer the information that "I've had one cavity. But just one. I had a cavity 3 years ago."

This was a big mistake, because one of my particularly outspoken students responded with this:

"You got a cavity because you like chocolate. You like candy. You eat lots of chocolate and candy and that's why you are fat..."

It took me a second to process.

Excuse me? I was shocked. It wasn't even that I was sad or angry, just totally and completely shocked. Ok, I was pretty angry. But seriously, who calls his teacher fat to her face??? But it didn't end there.

"...and that's why you don't have a boyfriend."

so not only had my student just called me fat (in front of the entire class, who was laughing), he also told me that the fact that I was fat was the reason why I don't have a boyfriend. He was laughing the whole time he was saying this, so I know that he wasn't really trying to be hurtful... but if I've learned anything from the returning teachers it's that you're not supposed to tell the students anything about your personal life. So...I restrained myself from correcting him and telling him that I do, in fact, have a boyfriend, and that my boyfriend doesn't seem to mind the fact that I am "fat."

If only it ended there. The whole class continued laughing, I started laughing in an awkward, nervous way because I was in a weird place between pissed off and astonishment (one of my vocabulary words this week). I know how ridiculous the entire situation is and that I can't REALLY be offended because in Chinese (and apparently, Korean) culture, weight is not a personal matter. It's something that people talk about in front of each other. In the US, we're taught not to call each other fat (at least not to each others' faces), but here it's a non-issue. I thought about mentioning that this student is, relatively speaking, fatter than I am...but I thought that might cause too much controversy.

So, the class laughed, I made jokes and told them to never, ever call a teacher fat...and students in the back continued to ask me how much I weigh. "65 kilos???" ughhhh really? you're really asking me this?

I changed the Wanted ad that I had drawn on the board to feature this new naughty student's name and moved his seat to the front of the room, but I couldn't really punish him because it's just a cultural difference. The rest of the class period, my students continued to ask about my age (another GREAT topic...although here the issue is that i'm too young. I've already told them my age before but apparently no one remembers that i'm 22 so I'm not about to offer that information up again. I just tell them I'm 55 and smile) and tell me that I need a boyfriend. In fact, when I assigned the homework, one of my best students raised his hand and told me that he knew a nice Korean guy for me, that he would introduce me to some "very kind" Korean guys. Nothing like a 12-year-old matchmaker to make you feel really, really uncomfortable.

6th grade boys are cruel, man.

quote of the week

This week I was teaching my 4th grade ESL students the difference between 'need' and 'want' and how we earn money to buy things that we want. I told my class I wanted a new car. I then asked my students how I could get a new car, hoping that someone would provide me with the answer "save money and buy it" but was instead told by 9-year-old Rebecca,

"have your boyfriend buy it for you."

i restrained myself from teaching them the word "golddigger."

random things this week (birthday, etc)

ok, so there wasn't that much more to post about Xi'an. We walked around the city wall, got harrassed by about 8 million street vendors, bought lots of fake stuff (i got a fake coach wallet, purse, and a fake north face backpack, on top of the other things i bought), bought dried fruit, and basically just wandered through the city. Actually, I was a little confused when I saw this:

but i've decided to stop questioning why there would be an umbrella set up in the middle of a busy street. Whatever, it's China.

So when we got back from Xi'an, I had a serious problem to deal with. Half of my 6th grade English class failed the monthly exam, which is completely unacceptable. So I had to figure out with a the other 2 teachers in my group how to give them points back. We ended up having them correct all of their mistakes and giving them back one quarter of the points that they lost. I think it was the best thing we could do, although I had made the mistake of circling all the right answers when I graded their tests. Even after doing this, 4 of my students failed. I'd feel worse about it, except that these students usually don't understand a single word I say. They don't answer me in English. As far as I'm concerned, that's unacceptable and they shouldn't be in Non-native. In fact, one of my students (who only communicates with me through another girl in the class) had an English teacher last year who would speak to her in Chinese and write things in Chinese on her homework so that she would understand them. I don't see how this was at all helpful because she obviously didn't learn any English in the class. It's sort of infuriating.

Monday was my birthday, and what an awesome birthday it was. Not only did I receive packages from my parents, Mike, and Sara, and a beautiful jade bracelet from Shannon and a card from Dania...one of my ESL students gave me a present too! Granted, it is a bedazzled scrunchi (google 'bedazzler' if you're confused) for my hair that I would never in a million years buy for myself...but this little girl is so adorable and it was so thoughtful that I feel like maybe I should wear it one day just to show her how I appreciate the gesture. Plus, then I could fit in with all the other women in Asia.

After school, I realized that the cake that grandma had apparently sent me had not arrived, and I mentioned it to Dania....so she showed up at my door with a cute little individual cake that she picked up at the store for me. It was really thoughtful. I feel really lucky to have such good friends here.

So we lived my dream a bit and went to Zapata's for Mexican food for dinner. Let's just say it was no Big Ten Burrito...but it satisfied the craving for now. We were going to go do karaoke after, but I was pretty tired and numbers were dwindling so we went bowling down the street from the restaurant. Being in the bowling alley was like being back at home. It was awesome.

Today was also a crazy day, for 2 reasons. The first was my speech. When I went to practice setting up at noon and saw that I was in the HUGE auditorium and that around 300 people were going to be there...I got a little nervous. However, I think the speech went really well. I had plenty of material to talk about (even had to skip some things), and Shannon and Dania told me that it was really good and that they thought it was interesting. In fact, 3 of the students (I believe they were all from the local division high school) came up to me after it was over to ask me lots of questions. They had been sitting in the front row. It made me feel so, so, SO good to know that there were people actually paying attention and interested enough to come ask me questions. When it was over I felt like a weight had been lifted.

The other reason today = crazy is because of skype. Skype is an amazing thing, and I still sort of can't believe that calling computer to computer is free. It's great. However, 2 weeks ago I brought my computer into my 6th grade non-native English class so I could use it to show a movie. The boys crowded around so they could inspect my computer, and happened to notice everything on my desktop. then I heard my favorite student say "Ooooh, Skype! I have Skype!"

I should have realized that he wasn't going to forget the fact that I have skype. Today I got home from the grocery store and he had found me on skype, requested my contact info, and had tried to call me. He is one of the 3 smartest kids in the class and I really adore him...but I feel so incredibly uncomfortable about the fact that he found me on there and tried to call me. And I can't really change my skype name because all you have to do is search for someone's full name and it comes up. I really really hope that he doesn't bring it up in class tomorrow and that I can just ignore the whole situation. i don't want to be mean about it but i don't want my students trying to contact me through skype.

No no, lose money! or, my trip to Xi'an

The last time I wrote, I was leaving to go to Xi'an on Tuesday morning. Seeing as I am writing this on Sunday, it's clear that I got there and back in one piece. The trip certainly was interesting though...

We flew from Shanghai to Xi'an, which was about a 2-hour flight. The plane (Hainan airlines?) was surprisingly nice, as was the hotel we arrived at in Xi'an. It was really too nice...we would have been happy with a much crappier hotel. We had a suite that includeda living room, 2 tvs, and a little beverage center where we made tea every day. The hotel also included breakfast every day, which was awesome. I had missed cold cereal SO MUCH. However, not everything about the hotel was totally amazing. Our first night there, we were hungry for some non-Chinese food. The directory for all the floors in the hotel that was posted in the lobby had mentioned "Marco Polo Western Restaurant" on floor 5. So, we put our stuff down, relaxed a bit, and then decided to head downstairs to check it out. Of course, we get there and find out that not only does the restaurant not have an English menu, it also sort of doesn't seem to exist anymore. Perhaps a Chinese restaurant took over? It's still unclear. Also, the people at the front desk couldn't direct us to a restaurant with an English menu. Our second night in Xi'an, this was our dinner:

But enough about the food. Our second day there, our travel agent had planned a tour for us. We went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Huanqing Springs, and to see the terracotta warriors. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is a little bit south of the city, and is a beautiful buddhist temple. Here are some pictures that from there: While we were at the Pagoda, I had the first of many AWKWARD encounters with Chinese tourists. So, I'd heard that in some areas of China they don't get a lot of Westerners. I'd also heard about the desire of some of these small-city/country folk to have their photographs taken with "white" people. But I didn't really expect it.

However, after I had just posed for the first picture there in front of the pagoda, a young Chinese boy of probably 9 or 10 came up to me and asked me if he could be in a picture with me. I was completely taken aback, but agreed. Shannon started to walk away, but the boy's parents (who were overjoyed at this kodak moment) motioned for her to get back into the picture. The boy's younger sister stood on the other side of Shannon, and the boy looked up at me and said, in a sort of creepy, awkward voice, "You are soooo beautiful." I smiled really big for the camera, probably gave a peace sign, and walked away as he got confused on how to say 'thank you' and instead told me "you're welcome." It was totally weird.

However, that was only the first of the probably 20+ pictures with Chinese people that we posed for during our stay in Xi'an. I guess 3 pretty American girls IS sort of interesting...but I really didn't anticipate the paperazzi coming out once we stepped outside of Shanghai. My other favorite was a little old man (who i think told us he was 87). I clearly wasn't ready for this picture to be taken... So, the tour was good...the terracotta warriors were impressive but overrated. Here is one shot out of about 8 billion that I took:

There is a lot more to say, but I am exhausted and my birthday is tomorrow...so this is all I'm going to give you for the time being.

quick recap and off to Xi'an

I'm leaving for Xi'an with Shannon and Dania in about an hour and a half, and I need to pack and shower...but I figured I'd take a few minutes to give a brief recap of some weekend highlights.

The weekend was short, because of the National Holiday. That sounds weird, I know, but let me explain. In China, they don't like giving people days off from work. The US obviously does not either. However, a major difference is that when the Chinese government DOES give a holiday (such as a week-long holiday celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China), they say that you must make up at few of the days off, so that productivity doesn't decrease too much.

How does that translate into my short weekend? Well, the National Day holiday was October 1 (Sunday), and goes until Saturday the 7. In order to make up for days lost during the week, we were required to work on Saturday September 30, and are required to work on Sunday, October 8. That way, it's more like we only had 3 work days off instead of 5.

So on Saturday I think everyone showed movies in their classes. I showed 3 separate ones, and plan to continue Lord of the Rings in my English class on Sunday. We also got paid on Saturday, which was pretty awesome (especially since they made a mistake and paid me more than I was supposed to get....but then they later realized their mistake so I have to give the money back). What wasn't awesome was waiting in line at the bank for over 2 hours. We would have probably been there for another hour if some kind man hadn't given us his waiting number as he walked out the door.

Saturday night we went out to celebrate to a cute little restaurant (I had chicken quesadillas. I miss mexican food so badly) and then to a bar called "I love Shanghai." They sell t-shirts there that look sort of like the "I heart NY" tshirts, only less cute.

Sunday was our food-orgy day. 8 of us went to the Westin for Sunday brunch and it was pretty incredible. They had so many different types of food and beverages....and most of it was western food! They had a mini-orchestra playing classical music on the steps:

I think one of the highlights of brunch was actually the window/roof washer. That, or the rollerskating girls who gave a floor show which included one of them spinning the other around BY HER NECK. no joke. Anyway, here's the window washer:

Yeah, he is wearing a Superman costume. I'm a little confused as to whether or not he did that on his own accord, or if the hotel requires that to be his uniform. Either way, I like his style.

Anyway, I could write more but I'm off to Xi'an for 4 nights. I'll be back on Saturday late evening sometime...keep it real.

under surveillance?

Ok, so I guess I expected a touch of ridiculousness when I decided to come to China. I'm aware of how crazy and inefficient Chinese bureaucracy can get, and I knew things weren't going to be quite the same as what I was used to in "Western Culture." But this is just absurd.

Earlier this week, we walked into the office in the morning, and everything seemed totally normal...until one teacher (who I will call Mr. Winkle) arrived at his desk and noticed something unusual. Instead of his tidy workspace that he had left behind the night before, he was confronted with a surveillance equipment workstation that had taken over his desk. Maybe you need a visual.

This tv, vcr, and receiver, were piled on top of his desk (seen at right in the picture), leaving absolutely no room for him to really sit or get any work done, let alone set up his laptop. I wish I had been able to get a shot of the stuff actually sitting on his desk...but I didn't have my camera with me that day. He moved the stuff onto the floor himself. Anyway, in the picture, you can see some wires (ok, TONS of wires) all over the place, including some that are leading up to the window. Well, the absurdity doesn't end with the random surveillance equipment taking over "Mr. Winkle's" desk. These are what the equipment is connected to:

There are a number of things that are wrong with this picture. Notice where the cameras are pointed. Some random apartment buildings. Ok....notice what the cameras are propped up against. Maybe you can't tell from the picture, but yes, thos are BOXES OF STAPLES. Oh, and good thing they've been taped so firmly to the air conditioning duct outside the window. Really, I wouldn't want the cameras to be on there too firmly or anything.

So rumor has it that someone across the way was dumping garbage somewhere where they weren't supposed to. Does this really merit security cameras? Did I mention that there is no one around to actually pay attention to whatever is being shot by the cameras? Was it really necessary to pile all of the equipment onto "Mr. Winkle's" desk? Come on.

Mr. Winkle (I can't believe i've chosen to call him that....google 'mr. winkle' if you don't get the hilarity of it) was (rightfully) annoyed at the situation, so he wrote an email to the administration. I've pasted it here for your reading pleasure:

Hello Helen,

I am writing regarding the security surveillance station that has been installed into my personal workspace. I was not consulted about this situation. The other morning I entered the office to find my desk packed with wires, a VHS recorder, and an old 1970's Samsung TV set among other electronics which appear to be hooked up to a pair of security cameras that have been scotch taped to the air conditioning unit directly adjacent to my desk and which are currently pointed at the bedroom windows of several apartment units across the way...

There are a number of issues that need dealing with.

-The clutter is cluttering up my business thus decreasing my productivity.

-I believe the exorbitant wiring to pose not only fire but also electrical shock hazards. In the event of inclement weather, my welfare is at risk due to the combination of open windows and exposed wiring.

-I do not mind taking on the additional job requirement of "SecurityAdvisor", however this shall require additional salary. The amount is, of course, negotiable.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

Regards,
....Mr. Winkle

Helen's response was, "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I will investigate the matter further." That was on maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. Well, Saturday rolled around and what had changed? Now, instead of only being hooked up to the tv, there is also a laptop installed onto one of the OTHER desks that shows the feed from camera 2. Of course, there still isn't anyone around to actually pay attention to the feed. China...what are you thinking?