Saturday, September 16, 2006
| 16 Sep 06 As I write this my neighbor Michelle, is playing Canadian band, Nickleback, loud enough for me to listen to. It is interesting. This apartment arrangement does have the effect of creating community. We do quite a bit with our neighbors; not only the westerners, but the others too. Yesterday we were assisted, for several hours, by the neighbor on the third floor. Yesterday was one of my slow days, I only have two classes on Friday, and both of them have an hour and a half of class time with a break in the middle. The first one is at 15:00 and the second is at 17:00. About 11:45 I was preparing to ride off in order to get something for lunch seeing as Zeneta was having some leftovers from the night before. I received a phone call from Mr. Lu, the administrator, asking me if I had any classes in the afternoon. Of course, I told him that I did, he then told me to wait by the phone. I got another call from him in just a couple of minutes. I was told that I needed to be in the office at 15:00. I pointed out to him that this conflicted with my class schedule. He told me to just tell them that I would not be there. This casual attitude that the administration has to the classes seems odd to many of us. Earlier the South African had been helping them, the administration, work on a poster and reached a point where he had to leave for class. As he got up to leave they asked where he was going; they seemed put off that he was going to leave them so he could go to class. In their mind, the poster was more important than the instructor being in class. I had also had an incident on the previous day, which I will relate, that also showed evidence of this odd attitude. The reason that I had to miss class was that Collin, Bronee, Zeneta, and myself all needed to go to the Public Security Bureau, (PSB). It had to do with obtaining our residency permits. It is essential that we receive these permits within thirty days of entering China. As it is, our visa is a single entry visa; this means that if we were to leave China we would have a hard time reentering. Once we are residents we will be able to come and go, from China as we please. Before I went to the meeting, I rode to my school and wrote a set of instructions, for the students, on the chalkboard. I also tried to inform the office of what was happening. However, the people in the office all clear out for lunch between 11:30 and15:00. This trip to the PSB was another exercise in, "hurry up and wait." We arrived a few minutes early, which surprised Mr. Lu. He commented, "oh' you are very timely!" The way that he made this comment made it clear the timeliness was not something that is generally expected. We then waited for the person who was to assist us at the PSB, Julia. She had to do some processing on our paperwork before we left. We were needed to be there in order to do things, such as sign the foreign expert documents. I also used this time to sign the official copy of my contract and to clarify the process by which I am to pay my utilities. It was then another suicide taxi ride across town. We took two cabs and were able to see Bronne, in the cab ahead of us, react as the cab she was in and a muni bus competed for the same space and time. The bus finally chickened; however, it was a close call. Or, it can be seen as just another cab ride. We then arrived at the first place, where Julia went inside and we sat in the cabs for about ten minutes. Then with no explanation, as to what that had been about, we hurried back across town to the PSB. When we got there we sat and waited. Julia had a form for me to sign and we gave her 400 Yuan, each, to give to the PSB for our paperwork, then we left there and walked a couple of blocks to the police photography department. Zeneta was surprised there because the photographer demanded that she pin up her hair and remove her glasses. The one that seemed odd was when they took Bronee's picture; they demanded that she remove her earrings. At that point we were done and we started walking to the Xiya supermarket. Xiya is the largest chain of supermarkets in the area; and, as I understand it, can be found throughout China. On the way there I saw the first thing that I was expecting to see in a communist country, a bread line. Of course, considering that it was free, I am not surprised that there was a line. Keep in mind that there are also a large number of bread shops. Of course, the bread shops are not free. In fact, bread seems to be kind of expensive. A loaf of bread is about five to six Yuan; or, about twice the cost of my usual lunch with two entrees. The bread here is also very sweet, I have yet to find any sourdough. Before going to the Supermarket, we made our once-a-week visit to KFC. It seems that Friday evening is the time that families with children show up there (and yes, there are a lot of children to be seen everywhere we go). Michelle and Zeneta had a good time trying to communicate with the children that came up to them. The staff there tried to shoo some of the children away, they were under the impression that the children were disturbing us. However, more children always came back. The day before this was a normal day at school. As I stated in the previous dispatch, I had intended to begin exposing the students to more Audio material in the form of radio programs. This was an utter and complete failure. The simple facts were that the students were not ready for such complex narratives, spoken at normal speeds. I only had one class before lunch; so, I had the lunch period to try to think of something to do with the time I had intended to spend with the radio program that would benefit the students. I decided to use rhymes. Michelle had a collection of sixty nursery rhymes. So, I borrowed a copy of those from her and planned to use them in class. I then rode off, as it was time to go. The first part of the class went fine with a review of the movie that we are watching. I had planned to use the rhymes after break. So, at break I set up the speakers and tried to test the rhymes. It was at that point that I realized that the rhymes were in windows media audio (WMA) format and I did not have a player to use that format. I was not able to download anything because the college is not set up of Internet access in the classrooms. Basically, plan and plan B had failed and the students were returning from break. It was time for the one shot secret weapon from my arsenal. It was time for Puff the Magic Dragon. That is right, I sang the chorus from Puff the Magic Dragon. I them played the song, and then I had the class sing the chorus as the song played a second time. The first time I sang the chorus I was obviously hesitant to sing in front of the class and when I finished the class applauded my attempt. In order to assist the students in the singing, I had written the words to the chorus on the board. I was caught a bit unprepared when some of the students asked for the rest of the words to the song. I didn't know them; however, I was able to tell the students that I would download the words and provide them at a later date. I have since converted the WMA to AAC, I have no trouble with AAC and MP3. I also worked out the process of the file conversion so that I will not have the trouble in the future. All I all, It seems that the song went over pretty well. The trouble is is teaching a class called Audio English and in providing them with material that is easy to comprehend. They have great vocabularies. However, they have never had the opportunity to listen to English speakers or to speak to a native English speaker and try to be understood. Today I, mostly, sat around the apartment and worked on this. I also added some pictures to the page, I hope you like them. I started reading, "The Dice Man," by Luke Rhinehart, it was in the pile of English books. I was told that the typical Chinese university has a large stock of older English books. That does not appear to be the case here. I also went with Zeneta to take come pictures around building, "One," on campus. I loaned my copy of, "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves," the one with Morgan Freeman, to another teacher. He is doing English Literature and is currently reading Robin Hood with his class. So, he is going to be showing the movie in the projection room (the class room with a projector).
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