Our final weeks in the semester have arrived with astonishing speed. Soon many of us will be doing traveling in-country or visiting other countries nearby. My friends and I have toyed with the idea of going to Vietnam for the holiday season and perhaps catching some sites in China along the way.
In my classes I have begun gearing up the students for our final, giving them review lessons and testing their comprehension. For the greater part of the semester I had been giving them a different lesson every week, each based on a subject I believed they needed to improve. This week I had chosen stereotypes and we had gone over many different aspects of the meaning and words used to describe how stereotypes arise. In many instances I challenged students to provide examples from their daily life. Of course few of them had any experience with race but ethnic and gender discrimination was not by any means unknown to them. I had a few interesting responses. One of my students mentioned that she was tired of people telling her she was supposed to be a housewife, a common role for women in modern China that is slowly fading away. Another recounted frustrations with parents who would not trust her with making responsible decisions. In not just one class I was caught off guard by ranting students angered that vampires are treated so unfairly by humans. Why didn't people understand that under that hard shell exterior some vampires were actually nice? It was a reminder to me that my students had an unhealthy obsession with shows like vampire diaries, and it was useless to do anything but nod your head and thank them for trying.
As I have mentioned before many of my students are females preparing to be high school English teachers. Though many if not most wish to pursue work in a big business or to travel abroad for foreign teaching, few of them are willing to take the risks involved with finding a private sector job. For this reason many students have revealed to me feelings of being trapped or driven into a narrowly defined life. In my talks regarding stereotypes I often encountered student feelings of helplessness, and our discussions revolved around collectivism versus individual independence. My attention was peaked several times when students responded to a few of my simple words of comfort, such as every one has their own experiences and their own individual problems, so it is normal to feel alone and confused at times even if your friends are not. I caught several students looking at me blankly, either because they didn't understand my words or the meaning behind them, but I was happy to see that several were deeply interested in the discussion.
This past weekend I spent some time in Chongqing, one of China's directly controled municipalities (直辖市）, that lies in central China. The city is large, very large, and for that reason (among others) it is also perhaps one of the most polluted. But the city offers many amazing sites including an opera house and a city center packed with enormous skyscrapers and western restaurants.
I was there visiting my friends Richie and Katie, a young married couple living together as PC volunteers. Due to the size of the city it was host to quite a few Peace Corps friends, all serving in and around the city. We spent the days touring around the center city and observing areas under construction, one of which was only in its initial stages. A trench a mile wide and several thousand feet deep was being dug by individual construction workers, each resting on a drill that was loosening up the earth. I was astounded at the size of it and the mishmash of workers making seemingly miniscule attempts to dig such a massive hole. But as with many of the most miraculous works in China, construction feats are often conducted with blinding speed and an army of workers.
At night we visited other volunteers. Our activities are usually surreal, with Chinese friends and faculty gathering with American volunteers for beer pong or drinking competitions. In our defense we do not have these gatherings often so we do not feel ashamed in mixing a bit of American alcoholism and traditional games-beer pong of course being one of them. And our Chinese friends were more than willing to join in. Other activities usually include clumsy dancing to songs we used to hate in the states and random drunken tests of strength that end in someone getting hurt. I'm usually disappointed if I dont get at least one bruise from the antics, and chastise myself by trying much harder to "enjoy" myself the next time.
This last week my students will conduct their finals in a play. My Christmas plans are likely to be a return to Chongqing, where I can celebrate with several of my friends and enjoy some semblence of a Christmas here in China. I have high expectations as many of my closest Peace Corps friends will be there with me.
I hope that this Christmas season is filled with happiness for all of you back home. I wish I could be there with you but alas I am not able to return from this side of the world. Please wish everyone a merry Christmas for me!
Happy Holidays!
祝你圣诞节快乐！
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Turkey Substitute
Several weeks have passed since my last entry. In that time I have become much closer to my student friends and experienced quite a few Chinese traditions that I had not yet encountered.
One such occassion occured just before the Thanksgiving holiday. Our foreign affairs liaison had invited us to a dinner with several of the university department heads to celebrate our American holiday. We understood that it was unlikely that they would find a turkey so our expectations remained moderately low in terms of finding anything "American" looking on the menu. But as our experience had proven on many occassions, Chinese menu's can always find a surprising substitute.
The morning we left our caravan of roughly four freshly shined cars set off from the finely paved city center streets to the outskirts of the city, where dirt roads weaved and winded around vast farm fields. The crops were low, mostly consisting of chives, rice, barley, tea and sesame, and for miles our eyes could graze the countless fields. The passage of our cars did not stir many of the scattered farmers whose broad cone shaped straw hats still protected them from the intense south China sun. I couldn't quite make out their faces but I was sure it was heavy with responsibility and experience. The lives of farmers out here away from the city was in many ways still the same as it had always been. Why they hadn't looked up at our noisy passage was soon revealed to me as I sat back, turned my head and glanced out the other side- Yibin's new airport stretched for miles in the other direction. Local villagers were probably not surprised by much anymore.
We arrived at our destination a few minutes later. The restaurant was the largest in a small village. Though technically we were still in Yibin the villages surrounding it were far removed from the business of the city. The restaurant was one large building and a small courtyard for large gatherings. To come upon this place with your American eyes you might not immediately consider it a restaurant. In fact upon first glance I was convinced we had come upon a lumber yard, as several of the "walls" were in actuallity high piles of long wood logs. My intuition told me that the owner had mixed winter practicality with new private dining areas.
The aroma of cooked meat pervaded the area. In one corner a fire had been made and several spits had been laid across with an unidentified meat. Later I would discover that this was goat, the main course. By nightfall nearly thirty faculty members from all departments had gathered along three rows of benches, each with a nice big goat on a spit in the middle. The food was surprisingly tasty as it had been glazed over several time with herbs and spices.
Meanwhile, as is customary in China(and especially in Yibin), we drank Chinese wine and beer which flowed endlessly from a back room. There was a great deal of toasting and laughing, and many of the other faculty members were anxious to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. Though it was difficult to discern why so many had turned out for such an American holiday we were grateful for all of their warm wishes.
It was not always easy keeping the conversation interesting, especially when many of the teachers only spoke Chinese, so we played simple drinking games and laughed at eachothers mistakes. I attempted to tell a few irish jokes, "have you heard the one about the Irishman who thinks the hardware store is a bar?" I asked them in Chinese, and when I had finished they seemed thoroughly pleased, though they most likely knew little about the Irish, or a bar.
We left that night with our bellies full and more than a little tipsy. The faculty members wished us a happy Thanksgiving one more time and bid us farewell. It hadn't been turkey but the food had surpassed our expecations and more, with plenty of the holiday cheer to go with it. And though I would be enjoying real turkey with friends the following day, I couldn't help feeling like I had had a real pilgrim experience in Yibin.
One such occassion occured just before the Thanksgiving holiday. Our foreign affairs liaison had invited us to a dinner with several of the university department heads to celebrate our American holiday. We understood that it was unlikely that they would find a turkey so our expectations remained moderately low in terms of finding anything "American" looking on the menu. But as our experience had proven on many occassions, Chinese menu's can always find a surprising substitute.
The morning we left our caravan of roughly four freshly shined cars set off from the finely paved city center streets to the outskirts of the city, where dirt roads weaved and winded around vast farm fields. The crops were low, mostly consisting of chives, rice, barley, tea and sesame, and for miles our eyes could graze the countless fields. The passage of our cars did not stir many of the scattered farmers whose broad cone shaped straw hats still protected them from the intense south China sun. I couldn't quite make out their faces but I was sure it was heavy with responsibility and experience. The lives of farmers out here away from the city was in many ways still the same as it had always been. Why they hadn't looked up at our noisy passage was soon revealed to me as I sat back, turned my head and glanced out the other side- Yibin's new airport stretched for miles in the other direction. Local villagers were probably not surprised by much anymore.
We arrived at our destination a few minutes later. The restaurant was the largest in a small village. Though technically we were still in Yibin the villages surrounding it were far removed from the business of the city. The restaurant was one large building and a small courtyard for large gatherings. To come upon this place with your American eyes you might not immediately consider it a restaurant. In fact upon first glance I was convinced we had come upon a lumber yard, as several of the "walls" were in actuallity high piles of long wood logs. My intuition told me that the owner had mixed winter practicality with new private dining areas.
The aroma of cooked meat pervaded the area. In one corner a fire had been made and several spits had been laid across with an unidentified meat. Later I would discover that this was goat, the main course. By nightfall nearly thirty faculty members from all departments had gathered along three rows of benches, each with a nice big goat on a spit in the middle. The food was surprisingly tasty as it had been glazed over several time with herbs and spices.
Meanwhile, as is customary in China(and especially in Yibin), we drank Chinese wine and beer which flowed endlessly from a back room. There was a great deal of toasting and laughing, and many of the other faculty members were anxious to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. Though it was difficult to discern why so many had turned out for such an American holiday we were grateful for all of their warm wishes.
It was not always easy keeping the conversation interesting, especially when many of the teachers only spoke Chinese, so we played simple drinking games and laughed at eachothers mistakes. I attempted to tell a few irish jokes, "have you heard the one about the Irishman who thinks the hardware store is a bar?" I asked them in Chinese, and when I had finished they seemed thoroughly pleased, though they most likely knew little about the Irish, or a bar.
We left that night with our bellies full and more than a little tipsy. The faculty members wished us a happy Thanksgiving one more time and bid us farewell. It hadn't been turkey but the food had surpassed our expecations and more, with plenty of the holiday cheer to go with it. And though I would be enjoying real turkey with friends the following day, I couldn't help feeling like I had had a real pilgrim experience in Yibin.
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