Further life and times of *liltayinchina*

Here I am, almost choked with tears. My pride is hurt, but I’ve had some time to think over what I’ve just learned so I feel calmer now, though the bus ride home was anything but soothing.

Julia finds me to be an incompetent teaching partner. I don’t know whether she actually used the word incompetent because I’ve yet to hear this information from her mouth. The strangest thing happened to me today.

But in order to understand today’s events, I should catch you up on the last couple of weeks and Grade 2. Ever since the show lesson for Grade 1, which was in December, Grade 1 has gone very well. Christy and I talk often and it is easy to discuss my ideas with her, as well as gain knowledge on teaching and aspects that I am otherwise weak in. Grade 2 is another matter altogether. For a while before the Spring Festival holiday, I felt that things in Grade 2 were going smoothly. I didn’t need to discuss things with Julia in detail because we were clicking really well and her disciplining and my teaching meshed perfectly…in my mind.

We returned from the holiday and everything changed. Grade 1 continued to go exceptionally well and Grade 2 suddenly became a minefield. Some days would go smoothly and others would be a complete disaster. I should mention now that I am not openly aware of what works and what doesn’t in my teaching methods. All I know is that with each day, the tides can and do change. This causes me a great deal of (potentially) unnecessary stress but I haven’t tried to change things because I figure that this is part of the territory for an untrained teacher in a classroom of 45 students of a different social background and an unknown language.

I mention this because several of the Chinese teachers and a couple of the foreign teachers have suggested time and time again to find the formula “that works” and apply it to Grade 2. But I don’t know what the formula is because I don’t function in that way. I come up with different methods for conveying the information each time and so I don’t know what works any more than I know why nothing is working.

There are two factors that contribute to the recent decay of my working relationship with Julia. First, Julia has decided to withdraw from my classes for the most part. She still shows up, but often, if feels as if she has mentally escaped the classroom. She stands in the back and chimes in only when positively necessary. I had noticed this new behavior of hers a couple of weeks ago and was very disturbed at first. Then, gradually, I came to expect it. You see, we don’t discuss the problems we’re having. Instead, we act as if everything is business as usual and get through lessons on a day-to-day basis. Her enthusiasm wasn’t very high to begin with and now, it is completely sapped. For some reason, I fear Julia, or am intensely intimidated by her and chose to avoid her at all costs. This is part of the second factor contributing to my incompetence.

And I will completely own up to my own deficiencies. Unfortunately, not only do I fear Julia and choose to avoid the problem with her, but I am aware that she wishes me to be a stronger disciplinarian and I refuse to do it. At first, at the beginning of the 1st term, I became aware of the need to rein the students in at all times. I tried being angry and ferocious (I know, ME), but it seemed ridiculous and I couldn’t get behind it in my own mind so how could the students possibly take me seriously? After a few half-hearted attempts to threaten the students into submission, I gave up altogether and Julia picked up where I had feebly left off.

Several times now, I have been ashamed at how obviously my inability to discipline has turned Julia into the bad cop, but I have a few defenses for my stance on anti-strictness. I cannot understand my students. I cannot answer their simple questions and I cannot relate to them in any way other than the puppet that speaks perfect English. They have a million and seven questions, being inquisitive and bright children, and all I can do is pick out a few words and look helplessly at Julia for translation. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve arrived in class to find a student inconsolably crying at his or her desk and Julia will ignore the student, taking the stance that it is best to leave the student to collect him or herself. She won’t even ask the nature of the grievance. This troubles me greatly. If I could communicate with the child, I would ask the reason for the tears. These children are required to study for the duration of an adult’s work schedule daily and are constantly yelled at, made examples of and ignored. It upsets me that I know little of their family backgrounds or how they act in their other classes. It seems an imbalanced request to require that the foreign language teacher make English class fun and interesting and yet keep the students in line and controlled. I’m supposed to make learning exciting and be silly and yet, when I do these things, the students are loud, talkative and boisterous. This makes Julia extremely perplexed and she barks out angrily, putting an end to the fun and leaving me in an awkward position. I suppose she thinks I should be the one yelling, but I cannot reconcile laughter and shouting in the same breath.

I’m sure she doesn’t like being the disciplinarian and that is why she has become frustrated and withdrawn, but if this is the case, why let me find out about her disappointment in such a roundabout and disconcerting manner? Why not have it out with me? I suppose she tried. Last Thursday, after an extremely unruly week with both Class A and B, she came to the office and asked to take one of my class periods. She wanted to go over something that was very important with the students and said that she didn’t want me to be there because the children, “never listen to you”. I felt as if she’d slapped me. Without having made any suggestions or discussed the problems with me beforehand, she’d simply notified me of my incompetence. She then suggested that I be more strict in class and discipline them more often. She told me of an intricate and to me, ridiculous scheme for keeping the children in line: a point system based on conduct and participation that leads to stickers that leads to a prize after a certain amount of stickers are collected. I felt like asking her if she wanted me to focus on the point system or on my lesson plans. Instead, I promised I’d think about discipline more and we left it at that. I’d even started to feel confident again because classes were going better and she had continued to be withdrawn so I felt I was gaining ground with the students.

And then today happened.

It happened in such a surprising manner that I suspect the urge to cry came from my shock and the blow to my ego. I had just finished with Kindergarten and was going to use the computer in the office to write about Kindergarten because it had been especially comical and bizarre and because I don’t have the Internet again at home. Christy happened to be at the computer and so I collected my things and was on my way out when she came over to chat with me about trivial items. And then, from somewhere deep in my subconscious, I asked a question that surprised me and seemed odd because I felt it didn’t relate to me at all. I had no idea where I was going with my line of questioning. It was as if my subconscious had a plan but had to grope in order to get my conscious in sync. I asked Christy what courses of action were available to a Chinese co-teacher if she was disappointed with her foreign teacher. I remember, as I was asking the question thinking, “Why are you asking this. This has nothing to do with your own situation. Are you trying to gain gossip on another foreign teacher?” Christy seemed surprised by my question and didn’t quite know how to respond. I continued with more questions, eventually coming to what my subconscious wanted to discuss, “Do you think Julia would approach me about a problem before going to the leaders?” And then, Christy, looking relieved and obviously having misunderstood my question said, “So she has talked to you about her disappointment with your classes?”

I felt my stomach drop. For one thing, I had eerily caught wind of Julia’s dissatisfaction without even being aware of what it was I was attempting to unearth. Christy immediately saw from my reaction that no, Julia had not talked to me. She looked worried and nervous. I tried to ease her mind by saying that I just wanted to talk about the situation and that she need not tell me what Julia had confided to her. Christy became concerned and tried to offer me advice. It was too soon in my discovery to be open to advice. I felt betrayed. Anger and defiance rose up in me at the thought of Julia withdrawing from class, a sign that she didn’t care about what happened, and then going and talking about the problem to my other co-teacher. Christy explained that Julia didn’t want to talk to me unless the problem was universal. She said that she, herself, was satisfied with me as a teaching partner and so Julia had assumed that the problem wasn’t completely with me but that it was more obscure.

And now that I’ve had time to reflect on the whole situation, I see that the problem is with me. I am no more of a disciplinarian in Grade 1 than I am in Grade 2. However, Christy and I have a very solid working relationship. She is willing to take the role that I refuse and I work hard and make sure that the lessons are strong and creative and fun. On the other hand, Julia and I hardly ever speak. Our interactions are strained at best. I am intimidated by her moods (she is often irritable and silent) and by her un-offered teaching experience. Instead of helping or suggesting ways to improve my plans she looks on from the back of the room and if she deems a point that I’ve made irrelevant, she simply doesn’t translate, leaving me afloat, scrambling to follow my apparently irrelevant point with a more appropriate one.

The upside of all of this is that I seem to have matured in a lot of ways. Why, just last year, had this sort of thing happened to me, I’d have been on the phone with the first parent to answer and I’d have cried and waited to be told how perfect I am in their eyes, worrying only about my crushed ego. Also, I find it easy to throw up my hands in melodramatic despair and shriek that all is lost in situations where I am criticized. I’m not one to work stubbornly towards a resolution unless it somehow benefits me.

But it appears that I’ve changed for the better in the last year (for the most part…) On the bus ride home, I took deep breaths and determined to resolve the situation with empathy. You see, this isn’t my life. I get to leave this particular hardship in three months and I get to choose whether or not to ever return to teaching. I also have the opportunity to train to be a teacher and to equip myself with the skills that I currently lack. On the other hand, this is Julia’s life. Each year, she must start afresh with a green foreigner. She doesn’t have any say in that foreigner’s amount of experience or training, either. And, she must work with whomever she is told to. In the meantime, she is responsible for a certain productivity from the students. She is at the beck and call of parents who feel that the foreign teacher is going too quickly in class or not calling on their child often enough.

And so, while I am not willing to begin disciplining this late in the game, I am willing to do and try whatever else Julia would like, in order to make her life easier. I also would like to be successful with my 2nd graders as I love them dearly and want them to have the best chance in English next year. And hopefully, in dealing with this problem directly, I will encourage Julia to talk face to face with her next co-teacher so as not to vent her frustrations everywhere but the source. I can only hope.

Here’s a small triumph for me tonight: I’ve managed to keep my eyes dry and I’ve managed to calm myself considerably and think rationally about my mini-trauma through thought and 2200 words. Thank goodness for self-analysis!

Posted by liltayinchina at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Eileen and I have just this past Thursday finished our ten lessons with Teacher Jiang. At the lesson before last, he boldly announced that we were through with drawing practice and ready to learn how to paint. Eileen has had little experience with painting and though I know a lot about color and a little about watercolor, I have had little experience with real painting as well. I would even say I’m afraid of it. I’ve never once tried oil painting and though I’ve often painted with acrylics, my style is more as if I were using markers than actually mixing and creating three-dimensions with the paint.

So while Eileen was excited, I was apprehensive. I knew that I could still use the drawing practice and was sure I’d miss it a lot. But, the idea of knowing the secrets behind Teacher Jiang’s own incredible skill did seduce me into being a little excited too. We met Jiang Laoshi (sounds so much better than Teacher Jiang) outside of the art store that started it all, and he took us inside and began consulting the vast amount of small pots of what I’m continuing to believe are acrylic paint, though the English on the pots says, “Advertising color paints”. He chose the following, though memory has eliminated some of the names for the greens and blues: lemon yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, crimson red, scarlet, deep red, mauve, green light (light green), sap green, viridian, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, prussian blue, black, and white.

After making our purchase (all of these pots of paint, plus six brushes, a palette knife and two large mixing palettes came to the equivalent of $8 USD dollars each), we returned to the studio. At some point before the Spring Festival, the studio moved from the seventh floor of the abandoned building to a small concrete block situated among art professor residences. The walkway to the new studio takes us along a tree lined back alley and right under several cherry trees that were in full bloom this past Thursday. The new space is reminiscent of an artist’s colony and brings me great pleasure upon arrival.

Jiang Laoshi immediately took to filling our paint boxes/mixing palettes with paint. He arranged the liquid cubes of paint beginning with white, then yellow to red and brown and told us these were the “hot” colors. Next he added the greens, blues, purples and black and told us these were the “cold” colors. He asked Eileen and I what our favorite colors where. She said yellow ochre and pointed to some of the reds. I said all greens and pointed to an orange-red as well. Eileen asked what his favorite color was and he replied simply, “An artist loves all colors. When you are a great artist, you too, will love all colors.” We found his reply extremely charming.

After filling our paint boxes, Jiang Laoshi painted the still life for us so that we could get a sense of the steps involved. He was so fast. His brush strokes were placed with thought and care and attention but also so quickly. The still life consisted of a light green-yellow apple and a yellow pear. The background was a bright red cloth. Jiang Laoshi kept talking to us of the energy and excitement one needed to feel in order to paint. It was startling to see the same skilled and patient hand move so differently while holding a brush. We were used to slow movements with pencils over paper. With a brush, he was an animated madman, sending paint and water flying with every flick of his wrist.

Of course, his quick replication of the still life was perfection. The colors were deeper than what we saw in front of us but the way the light fell on each object was exact. The vivacity of his movements had also been caught in the depiction of the objects. It was magic to witness him work.

Soon, we were setting about the same objective. Only a few short days ago, it was cold and windy in Wuhan. Thursday night was almost warm and the windows and doors of the studio were open. Outside, in the night air, someone was tuning an er-hu – a traditional Chinese stringed instrument played upright in the lap with a bow. I found the evening to be intoxicating. The stringed instrument vibrated sounds into my wildly open subconscious as my hand moved the brush across the paper with free abandon.

It was quiet in the studio, as classes had not yet begun for the regular students of the institute so Eileen and I had the studio and Jiang Laoshi to ourselves. He seemed excited. I also noticed that he’d recently gotten his braces off. Honestly though, they seem to have made little difference to the architecture of his mouth. His lips still protrude in a humorous pout/pucker.

Eileen and I plowed our way through painting the objects on the red cloth. It was fun and exciting and exasperating all at once. And what I noticed most of all; it was quick. Before, I had slaved away to get the perfect three-dimensional qualities of a single pear to come forth through my pencil work. But with the paint, the slower I moved the more Jiang Laoshi would hop excitedly behind me, almost as if to say, “Stop thinking and paint already!”

Having never created art in this manner, I am excited to see what comes of it. The closest I’ve ever come is in sketching ideas for projects in ID. And even then, moving the pencil or pen quickly across the page always made me feel like an imposter. My brain feels at home with slow, concise, carefully judged movements: the tinier the detail, the better. Already, Jiang Laoshi has done more for me than several years in art classes ever managed to do.

Eileen and I will sign up for ten more sessions with Jiang Laoshi. And I’m already looking forward to next Thursday. He promised to use a green drop cloth in the next still life!
 

Posted by liltayinchina at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve just finished a book called Wild Swans. In it, the author details the lives of her grandmother, her mother and herself chronologically from her grandmother’s birth in 1909 in Northern China to her own life and her time in Mao’s communist regime. I’ve just read of Mao’s death and have a few thoughts of my own on the subject.

What strikes me first is that the self-created god died four years before my birth. So it seems natural that he stands in my minds eye a few shades fuzzier than say, Bob Hope or Ronald Regan. I mention these two men because to me, Mao was never a dictator or demagogue, he was a cultural ICON. Hope was an ancient entertainer and Regan was purveyed to me in parody rather than politics, thanks to pop culture.

Even though I didn’t understand the lyric, my first encounter with his name might have been through John Lennon’s lips: You can’t go around carrying pictures of Chairman Mao. And I suppose my first real acknowledgement of his face came from Andy Warhol’s famous prints. From my understanding of the artist’s other iconographic appropriations, Warhol’s deification of Mao put the Chairman benignly in the category of the celebrity of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s soup. If I am embarrassing you with my lack of worldly understanding and my naiveté, let me say that it is for a cause. I’m trying to show that the man who wanted to be a god, managed to orchestrate his own history as if from beyond the grave. Perhaps all truths are proven in time, but will it be too late for Mao? Will the discoverers of history place blame where it is due, or will they revere the image so long put before them and spread the blame to those who seem placed in history by Mao for just such the purpose? Here I speak of the Gang of Four, led by Mao’s own ruthless and pitiless wife.

And having just read of a woman’s life under his policies from birth to the age of 25, I see that the man carried out the exact purpose of his time on earth: to be remembered forever and ever as a mythical legend of a man. Known less for what he did and more for the mystery shrouding his extreme godliness. For here is one woman who suffered so greatly, and she can speak of countless others. Yet whose story do I know better? I won’t say that Mao wasn’t shrouded in mystery, but his benevolent smile made it easy to believe the myth. And that smile still shines down, oppressively so, on the passersby in Tiananmen Square.

In Shanghai, at the propaganda poster museum, there were many, many posters portraying a pre-Long March Mao. He wears a long faded-blue gown, in the style of a monk. One hand clutches a book of unknown title while the other hand is raised in a magnanimous, yet vague gesture. His face carries a serene and beatific smile and a halo of light surrounds his head. Had these pictures been replaced with the ones adorning my great-grandmother’s Sunday school walls, my little understanding of Jesus could have helped in creating a belief that the only son of God had been Chinese.

At the time of Mao’s death, the author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang, was finishing a degree in English studies. She writes of incredulous stories written about China and Mao from the perspective of foreign visitors after returning from tours of China. She marvels at the lack of understanding and the lack of information. Yet, if the people of China continued to view Mao as a god and as a benevolent leader, how could it be possible that the outside world would know more or even glimpse the real story?

After this one account, and it is extremely detailed, of the events that unfolded during Mao’s reign, I find any doting impression of the Chairman to be a grave error in judgment and a misunderstanding of the brutality he willingly thrust upon his people. And I’m speaking of the uses of his image in Western pop culture. In China, the confusion and continued loyalty to Mao are only slightly understandable to me, an outsider. But, let it be said that Wild Swans, just one woman’s account of the tragedy the Cultural Revolution made of her parents’ and friends’ and family’s lives, isn’t available to Chinese people. This particular copy was bought for a friend of mine in England and I’ve borrowed it from her.

I suppose this mini-tirade of mine was written out of surprise at my own ignorance. But I’d like to bring a strange loyalty of my own to light and through it, attempt to create a link to why information about Mao and his reign of terror is so difficult to access. Loyalties are strange beasts and it is impossible to ascertain their origins. I am from Alabama. Many terrible things happened in my home state, let alone my hometown of Birmingham. Some of those things continue to happen to this day, and so I find it easier to live in a city (Seattle) where my own points of view are echoed. And yet, to this day, the moment a harsh or critical word is spoken of Birmingham, Alabama or the South in general, I bristle and defend with an ardor that surprises even me. I don’t know where this loyalty comes from, but deep inside, I find that I’d take the bad with the good because I appreciate the good things about the South that outsiders just can’t and don’t understand. And maybe that’s why it is so hard to find a man or woman over 50 in China who will speak of Mao with bitter tones. There seems to always be deference, even if there is sadness and pain. Mao may have done atrocious things, but he also did things that brought light into the darkest lives, leaving them a dull shade of grey.

In my current mood of intense optimism, I look forward to learning more about Mao and the people surrounding him, helping him with his deification. The Cultural Revolution and Mao himself are still a curtained mystery to me, but I can almost sense the day when I will recollect his image as rooted in history and not as silk-screened on a T-shirt or an expensive canvas in an air-conditioned museum.

Posted by liltayinchina at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

WARNING: I have not edited these entries...nor have I taken a second look. I apologize for any rough edges that might grate against your reading sensibilities...wha?

It seems that I have been “blessed” with the presence of animals lately. Last week, the big news involved a mice epidemic, which has only produced one mouse thus far, and this weekend, I was made aware of a family of birds that have built a nest in my kitchen fan duct. I used to think of myself as an animal person, but that was when I had a cat and she must have scared off all the mice in the neighborhood, as I know she scared the birds away.

Last week, I was minding my own business, watching a crapulence-quality movie around 11pm when, to my surprise and eventual horror, a mouse ran across the room. It was tiny. And I mean TEENY-tiny, and yet, I still had that freak-response of “Ewwww! Get OUT of here!!!!” My heart was pounding, a physical representation of my irrational fear, I suppose. I only saw it from the corner of my eye, but it looked like a tiny, grey-brown spherical fuzz ball moving at high speeds. It ran underneath the coat rack/cabinet that sits next to my heater and is directly opposite my door. I immediately called Eileen to tell her there was a mouse in my room. I asked if mice could climb beds. I was really scared. It was so ridiculous, now that I look back on the reaction, but I think this is somewhat normal for a person so removed from nature. Okay, I wasn’t scared, I was afraid. I didn’t want to wake up because a mouse was making a nest in my hair. I suppose the fear comes from some inherent instinct that tells the brain that a mouse carries diseases, but can that really be the case?

While talking with Eileen, who was doing a great job of calming me down, the mouse ran back out from under the coat rack/cabinet, across the room and under the refrigerator. The fridge is right next to the door. I wasn’t sure if the mouse had left the room altogether or if it had simply decided to keep warm under the fridge. I wanted to put a towel by the enormous crack between the door and the floor (it’s a good two inches), but didn’t want to “lock” the mouse in my room, so I opted to sleep with the lights on and said goodnight to Eileen. I had just dozed off when I heard two guys from downstairs making their way to my floor. They sounded a little drunk and were exitible. I heard one of them say, “Let me at that mouse!” I crept out of bed, donned slippers (not until I’d checked them for living creatures) and then stepped into the hallway. Mustafa was holding a half-empty bottle of wine and Alex had a sheathed hunting knife. They had come to “kill” the mouse after Lisa and Colin had heard it in their room. I told them it might be the same mouse that was in my room. The noise-making had stopped upon their arrival and I questioned them about their weapons. Alex was sure in his intoxicated state that he could spear the mouse if the lighting was right and if given the proper chance. Mustafa proposed smashing a bottle over its head. I shook my own head and turned to go. Mustafa pleaded with no one in particular, “Well, since I didn’t have to break the bottle, is anyone up for a drink?”

The next morning, Eileen confessed that she might have seen the mouse in her kitchen as she was preparing to leave. She’s closed the kitchen door and put a towel by the crack at the floor. At lunch that day, we spoke of the mouse situation. Eileen and Matthew went to a hardware store and purchased several sticky-mat traps. I was a little horrified by the callous nature of my roommates. Eileen was willing to throw the sticky-mat into the trash once the mouse was caught. Traumatized, I asked, “And you’ll just let it starve to death?” Matt suggested that she put some paper on top of the mouse, once caught, and smash it with a heavy object. Eileen objected to this option because of the potential for oozing blood and/or guts. She then offered that she’d fling the trap from her fourth-floor window, but was worried it would stick to the sidewalk. Now, I suppose I’m the worst of them all because I’m a hypocrite. I loved the idea of the mouse problem just “disappearing” but refused to put one of the traps in my own apartment since I wasn’t willing to deal with the consequences of actually catching a mouse.

As it turns out, it was over before it started. Eileen returned home, set out two traps, left for an hour or so, and returned to find the mouse stuck to one of the traps. She called Matthew to come help with “disposal” but he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. So she called Colin and he killed it for her.

There have been no more mice in the apartment building since that one was caught and killed. We have since decided that it was a lonely wanderer, looking for food and shelter. It must not have had family nearby.

A few days after this incident, I was with Winnie in Hankou. We passed by a small pet shop and I walked up to the cages holding mice, hamsters and guinea pigs. It was embarrassing to feel complete calm and ease with a mouse when a cage separated me from it. I have no doubt that our dead mouse was even cuter than these mice bred for captivity. And yet, because it could roam free, I was terrified of it. I’d like to say the whole experience taught me a lesson, but alas, I keep the towel by the door for fear of having to sleep with my light on again. Did you know mice can slide its way through any hole that a pencil can?

Birds

There is a fan with an open-air duct right above my wok in the kitchen. There are at least two screens filtering air in and out of the kitchen, but screens do not filter sound. One morning, I was reading in bed when I heard a loud thump and some fluttering coming from the kitchen. Cautiously, I approached, only to hear more thumping and suddenly hysterical movements. After several experiences with the same, I’ve concluded that a family of large black and blue birds with yellow beaks has nested in the duct. I’m sure they’ve done some scouting and have noticed that my fan is never on, making the area superb for a nest and raising a family.

This is the kind of animal interaction I delight in. Early in the morning, I hear all kinds of cheeps and warbles and trills from the babies and occasionally, some frantic trilling from the mother. The best part of having a nest that you can’t see is trying to determine what’s going on when you start to hear activity. I’ve determined that the babies are learning to fly because first comes all kinds of arguing and then silence and then a loud smack and thump that sounds like an inexperienced landing and then more arguing. In the last two days, it has been awfully quiet. I wonder if the babies have all finished their flying lessons so quickly? If so, I can get back to using the fan. Goodness knows I’ve missed my Chinese cooking experiments. (Ha-ha.)

Posted by liltayinchina at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

No, I don't have internet access at home still. I'm at school this afternoon grading 120 activity books so that my co-teachers don't yell or pout tomorrow. They should have been finished last Thursday but I've been behind and unfocused. On Friday we went tree planting, an annual tradition for Wuhan's foreigners. The man translating the Mayor's greeting put it as, "Not only do we receive the volunteer labor, but you also have a chance to enjoy Wuhan's beautiful countryside." Now if only I had enough time to outline the various misnomers in THAT sentence...

But let me get back to my good news. Since I grossly took my internet access for granted, I was feeling guilt ridden this weekend and decided to write to get some steam out. I wrote four blog entries! Now, if ever there IS internet access at home again, you'll get to read them. In the meantime, I'll try to write from school from time to time. I can't believe it is almost April. My mother's fiftieth birthday is tomorrow (today for me) and this time last year, she and I were enjoying the cherry blossoms around the lake near the Jefferson Memorial in D.C. Today I enjoyed the cherry blossoms at Wuhan University. I'd heard about these famous trees, given to the University by Japan as a peace offering to make metaphorical amends for the atrocities conducted by the Japanese during WWII and I was determined to see them before the blossoms turned into spring snow.

Today it was warm and muggy and hazy all over Wuhan. We took a taxi to the University and were dropped off across the street from the entrance. The street in-between was a moving, seething mass of students and visitors and tourists making their way through the ticket lines up the wide avenue beyond the University's main gate. Suddenly struck dumb, Eileen and I found it difficult to make moves to get through the gate. Finally she directed me to a booth where two women were selling tickets and she purchased two. She then guided me through the entrance, handing our tickets to two young ticket-takers. Next we found a bus crammed full of people and added ourselves to the crush. The bus inched its way along the wide avenue, honking maniacally at people who accidentally stepped in its path.

And then we glimpsed the first tree. My reaction was much like the one I'd have as a young girl driving south to the beach and catching sight of the first palm tree. Little did I know this tree was one of the main attractions. The bus let us off at the dead end of one street and the beginning of another. We were on top of a hill and the new street took up much of the view. To one side was a large lecture hall and planted in the grass beside the hall were several cherry trees in full bloom. Though the trees were beautiful, Eileen and I found ourselves marveling at the amount of people in sight. For every blossom in the tiny pseudo-quad there were at least three people. And these people behaved so strangely around the beautiful trees. Women were plucking branches down to their faces to flutter eyelashes behind while a photo was snapped. Boys slapped the lower-hanging branches with discarded sweaters and leaflets to watch the petals swirl down in a violent storm of white and pale pink. Men scrambled up trunks to hoist girlfriends mid-air while three camera phones sang a ditty to indicate the shutter's action.

One extremely boisterous female student hollered upon seeing Eileen and I, "Oh you so beautiful and now we take the photo with our friends. Stand there. Still please. And smile. Now another. Please wait, here are more friends. Hallo! Hallo!" Eileen mumbled to me that we should eat it up and enjoy the attention though neither of us particularly understands such attention. We smiled fixed, strained smiles for about nineteen photos and then made our apologies in order to escape. Eileen wanted a photo of her pretending to eat some blossoms but every time we tried to surreptitiously borrow a tree for humorous photos, ten to twenty pairs of curious eyes would be on us. In one desperate moment, I shouted, "What's that over there??!", pointed in the opposite direction and with one hand still pointing, snapped a shot of Eileen pretend-munching on some delicious-looking blossoms.

I feel that I have not only taken the internet for granted but also my dear Seattle. My goodness I live in a beautiful city when I'm not calling China home...(Birmingham is lovely too, of course)...I mean, we all paid 10 kuai, which isn't an arm or a leg or even a finger, but it is paying SOMETHING, just to see these trees that were plopped in this tiny space of dead grass by a big road. And SWARMS of people were there. Later, we met some friends who told us that traffic all over the city was being affected by people going to see the trees today. The UW campus has a lovely quad with even lovelier cherry trees and they are on view for anyone willing to simply walk onto campus. It all depressed me a little bit, and I suppose my real reaction should have been gratefulness at having the chance to see any trees at all here in Wuhan. I guess I was struck, yet again, by the imbalance of what I have and what others don't have. In this case, what I have may seem trivial to some, but pristine nature in your backyard is a TREASURE and those of you reading this ARE lucky to have it. I think we should all contemplate the beauty of our surroundings (or lack thereof) as spring awakens all around us. For me, I've got the baby birds in my kitchen vent (oh wait! That's a blog entry I've written but haven't posted yet...)

Oh well, on that note, I'll go back to grading...

 

Posted by liltayinchina at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm at school right now using the computer because my access is GONE at home. And, the only reason I'm just now writing to explain my disappearance is that I couldn't access it going through GOOGLE and then trying to log on. I had to wait for a comment to arrive in my inbox and then access the blog that way. What a mess! Boy did I get used to an Internet-heavy life. As it is now, I've got a lesson to plan and can't sit at the computer for very long anyway because there are twenty-five other teachers who need to use it for test-making, etc. So, goodbye blog...for now.

It was fun while it lasted...

Posted by liltayinchina at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

…and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a different thing. Okay, first things first: my developed English skills have all but disappeared. Basic language function is still available to me, but beyond that, I find I’m often verbally challenged. (Suddenly, I’m figuring it out…maybe this recent language failing is the culprit in the lack of blog entries of late…that and the lack of Internet…which I’ll get to in a short while…)

Okay, so everyone has noticed, and some hostilely-so (thank you very much!), that there has a been a dearth of entries. Well, I have no excuse. Actually, I have seventeen, but none of them are legitimate or worth your time if you are reading this. So I’ll continue. I’m sorry. I will try and find words again, but they seem to have dried up during this ever-so-dry winter here in Wuhan. Spring is coming, or might already be here, so maybe some moisture will loosen the words that I know to be there…somewhere…

Secondly, let me apologize for all of the ellipsis usage. Again, no excuses.

So what is really different, you ask? Well, I feel confident as a teacher, and that’s extremely different. And let me qualify this for all of you REAL teachers who might be reading this: I feel confident as a teacher of English to 1st and 2nd graders under employers who do not feel that I need to drastically improve, as long as I make beautiful teaching aides, show up to class enthusiastic and try my hardest. And this, I can certainly do.

There’s a lot more to say about school, but since the Internet is down and I can’t even post this, I’ll make it short and keep trying until I go to bed. And if it gets up, well, then I’ll have more incentive to fill you in. Or something.

The Internet. When I first moved here, I thought I’d maybe be able to contact the outside world once or twice a month. Instead, I became comfortably used to logging on at all hours and posting my thoughts ad-nauseum. Well, of late, the Internet has been shady at its best and doesn’t appear to going back to the golden days of yore. If I do lose my previous Internet freedom, I can guarantee less posts and even less communication than you already receive from me. I don’t have Internet at school and don’t plan on discovering one of the four Internet cafes in Wuhan, I’ll tell you that for sure! So let’s all cross our fingers that the wires play nice and that all goes back to “normal”.

My favorite restaurant. It’s gone. It’s so gone that some people were cleaning it from ceiling to floor today when I passed by on my way to school. And I know that the previous owners wouldn’t dare to defile the grease stains and oil-tar and dust-feathered crevices and furniture and empty beer bottles waiting to be picked up in the nooks so, like I said, it must be dead-dead. I’ve done a bit of “detective” work and here are two of my most recent findings: there was a giant leg of meat (animal unknown) with a giant metal hook in the flank, strewn in the garbage-dotted grass between the main street and the cobbled alley where the restaurant resides. The meat didn’t look rotten (though how would I know what dried, rotten meat looks like??) and yet someone had determined it useless. Now, a restaurant going out of business might throw out an extra hunk of dried meat if it weren’t coming back and if it couldn’t take all of the dried meat made in preparation for next winter. My other clue was a small piece of paper that was taped to the roll-down door of the restaurant, which had a few simple characters and a telephone number. It looked an awful lot like a moving notice and maybe the number was there for potential renters. Anyway, whatever the excuse, the restaurant has been closed for six weeks and doesn’t look to be coming back.

And now for a positive change (or two, actually): all of the foreign teachers are playing nice since the vacation and I got into the China Studies program at the UW!!! Yes, the former seems a little dull in comparison to, “My life is FINALLY sorted out!!!”, but in fact, the former is really important to my overall wellbeing for the next three months (only THREE!?!?). It seems that we’ve all grown up a bit and are too tired to be at odds anymore. This is a very pleasant turn of events. Although I don’t plan on hanging out with my fellow foreigners any more than before, I do enjoy the pleasant attitudes in passing.

And yes, I got into the UW program…again. This time, of course, I’m accepting and I’m very excited to be returning to Seattle, my friends, and my other life. This time in China, while short, has also been long and has helped me realize many, many things. I’ve also been introduced to a culture I’m fascinated with and can’t wait to continue studying and absorbing.

Alright, that’s enough for now, I suppose. I’m a little rough. I can’t believe how much I was doing this before. What happened, I’ll never know. Or maybe I will. BLAH-DI-BLOO-BLAH. I better start reading the dictionary or something to help ease back into Western functionality…or not. Ha, ha!

(Am I really ending on this note? I suppose so….Another good reason to start writing again…durn ellipses!!!)

Posted by liltayinchina at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)