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YANGZHOU IMPRESSIONS #2
Life continues to go well here in the ïzhou, as Todd calls it. Another week has gone by and I wanted to share with you some of my impressions of this bustling, developing, energetic city.
Hospitality:
My colleagues in the English Department have been most gracious in inviting me into their homes for a meal. Last Monday, Mrs. Ding, the head of the English department, had me over to lunch with some of the other teachers as well as their husbands. One husband conspicuous in his absence was this yearÍs exchange teacher to Staples, who is sometimes referred to here by his English name "Chris". His wife "Jan" is a kind, intelligent woman who teaches in the department; we were joined at lunch by their son, a cute, energetic young boy who was dressed in his Young Pioneers outfit and spent most of the meal playing with his toys in the kitchen. In China, lunch is the big meal of the day and school is therefore recessed from 11:30am to 2:30pm so that students and workers can have both a large meal and then a nap. I could get used to this!
The next day, I was invited to lunch at the home of "Marie", another colleague, who also invited "Albert" and "Hazel" from the department to join us. (Every time I call her Hazel, I have to suppress a smile as I picture Shirley Booth playing the maid from that old TV sitcom.) In any event, I was impressed when Marie told me that she had purposely left her moped at home and brought her old bicycle so that I would be able to keep up with her for the ten minute ride home. Mopeds are becoming more fashionable here in Yangzhou, something which Chunhong laments due to the pollution it causes. While I may have been impressed by her moped, I was downright amazed at MarieÍs beautiful, spacious apartment. The apartment house was built two years ago and construction continues everywhere around the building, as it does everywhere in Yangzhou and throughout China in general. There were two bedrooms, a guest room, a study, a kitchen, dining room and nice-size living room as well as one and a half baths! I was given green tea from the hot/cold water cooler and Marie popped in a Tom and Jerry VCD in her entertainment/console while they started with the preparations. She told me that she was a strict mother and wouldnÍt let her son watch cartoons unless all of his work was done. She then made reference to her husband, who is the president of his own company, which immediately set off bells and the expression "New China" written in neon flashed in my mind.
I joined in when it came time to make the dumplings which were quite delicious. Hazel, who will be married on November 6, said that her fiance would drop by and sure enough, in walked a fashionably-dressed, young man in his mid-twenties who works as an anchor for a local TV news station. His English was quite good and he told me that he had interviewed both Joe Arcudi and Diane Farrell when they had come to Yangzhou. I felt a special bond with these people as we talked and chowed down dumplings, each of them somewhere between their mid-20Ís and mid 30Ís. Since we figured out that MarieÍs birthday is November 4th and mine the 5th, with HazelÍs wedding falling on the 6th, we assured each other weÍd get together again to celebrate as I took my leave.
Finally, this past Saturday, I was invited over to my neighborÍs apartment across the hall for lunch. Mr. Zhu, a political science teacher at the school, has been assigned as my helper and has proved invaluable when there was a water leak on my kitchen floor and when my hot water went off for a few days. He is my age, having been born a month and a half before I was, and lives with his wife, nine year old son and his mother.
Things seemed to be back to semi-normal after a recent family tragedy. About ten days ago, I heard this terrible, anguished scream and ran to the peephole on my door. Across the hall, I could see the front door open to my neighborÍs apartment, a normal occurrence since itÍs still very warm here in Yangzhou. There at the kitchen table sat Mr. ZhuÍs wife, Wang Xiu-Fang, veritably keening. My heart sank. Mr. Zhu had told me upon my arrival to Yangzhou that his wife was in her hometown visiting her father who was suffering from lung cancer, a common illness in a country where the population of smokers rivals if not surpasses the population of the United States. In any event, there was Ms. Wang crying at the table, being comforted by her mother-in-law while Mr. Zhu talked on the telephone. His son, Zhu Peng Fei, could be heard crying down in the stairwell, most likely from fright at his motherÍs condition than from the actual death of his grandfather. By the next morning, the family had left and didnÍt return to their apartment for several days.
Ten days later, however, Ms. Wang seemed to me to be in much better spirits as I devoured her delicious equivalent to baby back ribs and chicken wings. We joked about Clinton, with me doing a mock imitation of him saying "IÍm sorry, IÍm sorry" to everyone in sight, which they loved. Mr. Zhu thinks that if Jiang Zemin had done the same thing, the Chinese people would be angry with him also. But they still think that Bill Clinton, like Jiang Zemin, is a great man and theyÍre still very impressed with his recent visit to China. Throughout the meal, I tried out some of my evolving Chinese on them to which they alternately laughed and then encouraged me.
Chinese Language:
Last Wednesday, I decided that I needed to leave my apartment and try out some of my evolving Chinese, with comical results. That morning, I had read my One-A-Day calendar and had happened to notice that it was Colonel SanderÍs birthday. My God, I thought, a veritable American National holiday!! That night, I went to Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner, something that IÍm of course trying to wean myself off of. I approached the cashier to give my order and showed him the ripped-out page from my calendar and said "Today is Colonel SanderÍs birthday" in Chinese, pointing to the picture of the Colonel on a napkin for emphasis. After the requisite period of looking at me like I had two heads, he finally smiled and seemed to understand me. The rest of the workers crowded around and he explained to them what I had said. I started to sing "Happy Birthday To You" and all of the young woman giggled and probably thought, "What a funny Western man!". As I walked away with my chicken sandwich, I gave the cashier the page from my One-A-Day calendar as a keepsake.
TeacherÍs Day:
Last Thursday, September 10, was Teacher Appreciation Day throughout all of China. What a great concept!! This is an idea whose time has come. Students give their teachers cards, presents, drawings, etc. and wish them well throughout the day. Among my gifts was a new holder for my tea glass, a big yellow piggy bank in the shape of a mouse, a bouquet of flowers, a series of intricate paper cut-outs and a wall plaque with a little wooden Chinese girl and the Chinese characters for "Students have a lasting respect for their teachers". For you poetry fans, two of my many cards had the following inscription:
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy teacher, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought. Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought.One of my students even designed a "Teacher Appreciation Day" greeting card at a web site on the Internet and sent it to me by email.
That evening, after classes, all of the teachers were invited to the TeacherÍs Club. Alas, the dreaded karaoke machine! I was coaxed to sing another rousing rendition of "Edelweiss" with a colleague. The song started out well; however, about halfway through, I had this waking vision which was unsettling, to say the least. In my vision, I was about to perform a karaoke number, except that suddenly I was transferred in my mindÍs eye to the stage of the Chinese Gong Show. The music started for Morris AlbertÍs "Feelings", one of the few English language selections on the schoolÍs karaoke machine. But before I could finish the first line, (ïFeelings, nothing more than feelingsƒ.Í) there was a huge gong and I lookd up to see the school principal dressed as the Chinese emperor ordering me off the stage. (It took me several days to recover from this trauma.) To calm my nerves, I went into the other recreation room and played a little ping pong and joked with the other teachers. Mrs. Ding, the Department head who had me over for lunch, was playing a card game with three other teachers, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. I respect the fact that sheÍs the only woman on campus who has the nerve to smoke, at least openly; young women who smoke are thought to be improper in China, but Mrs. Ding seems to be looked upon as an older woman who has earned the right to do as she pleases. Finally, all the teachers were given a bag of pears and we were on our way.
That night, Chinese TV featured a Teacher Appreciation Day special which featured an MGM-style cast of hundreds evidently singing about the virtues of being a teacher. It also featured a portion which resembled a televangelical revival hour in which students were paired with their teachers and talked about what an impact the teacher had had on their lives; one girl was even crying! I think that this program took the same time slot as, say, "Home Improvement" does back home. I hope that the Westport school district will seriously consider some version of Teacher Appreciation Day next year. Working with the Chinese exchange teachers, I think we could make it a memorable, perhaps annual event.
Office Hours:
I really enjoy my time with those students who come to see me of their own free will to practice their English. Considering how busy they are, this is quite a sacrifice of precious, free time. Last Tuesday, one seventeen year old student, "Ball", showed up a bit early and wanted to discuss something with me. It seems that her Chinese teacher, a 28 year old man who is "too strict", according to Ball, had told her that she could no longer wear her baseball cap to class and that she was not to return to his class until she died her hair from a light shade back to its original color. In English, we ran through some hypothetical dialogues of how she could respectfully tell her teacher that she felt he wasnÍt being fair to her. I knew I was treading on thin ice since IÍm not yet familiar with the relationship between a Chinese teacher and a Chinese student. In the end, she elected to write him a letter expressing her feelings in a calm, respectful way and I breathed a sigh of relief to myself.
By the end of the week, there were nearly twenty students who had shown up for Office Hours. Two young female students, both nervously giggling, asked me if I had seen the movie "Titanic" which is very popular is China. When I confirmed that I had, they shuffled their words and then finally asked me what I knew about the actor who played "Jack". "My God", I thought to myself, "I could just as well be back in my Computer class at Staples, asking a couple of sophomores to please do their work and stop downloading information off of a Leonardo DiCaprio website." The only exception is that American teenage girls are a bit more sophisticated about the opposite sex since Chinese students are not permitted to date until after they leave middle school (our "high school") and go to the university or the work force. When I asked the two Chinese girls if they thought "Jack" was handsome, they got all embarrassed and said that they had some "friends" who liked him. Mmmm Hmmm. They also wanted me to give them "family names" for their English first names. Some of my favorites: Reed Awright, Penelope Pitstop, Lucy Diamond, Forrest Gump, Indiana Jones, Michael Owen (British soccer star), Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson and Truly Scrumptious. On Friday, there were too many students to comfortably stay in the office without disturbing other teachers, so we went to McDonalds on one of the studentsÍ suggestion. We had a nice time all crowded around speaking English but decided that it was a bit too expensive for them and that next Friday, we would find a more reasonable Chinese restaurant where we could eat lunch together.
Closing:
In my next installment, IÍll tell you about how four students brought me to show me West Slender Lake Park and how that night I went to my first Chinese disco with some friends from work. As IÍll be going to Suzhou and Shanghai for a several days this weekend, IÍll write again when I get back with some fresh impressions. In the meanwhile, IÍm finding my ChinaNet internet address easier to access, so if you could make it a point to send future mail to Fray@Public.yz.js.cn, IÍd appreciate it. If this changes, IÍll let you know. Also, IÍll still be receiving mail at Frayc1105@aol.com if you lose the former address. In addition, IÍm signed on to AOL Messenger for anyone whoÍd like to have an IM session. It gets lonely here sometimes, but IÍm meeting lots of people and IÍm really enjoying my time with my students. I look forward to hearing from any and all of you. Take care of yourselves and let you know if youÍd like to be added to /taken off the list of "Impressions of Yangzhou " recipients. Zaijian!
Copyright 2001 Staples Online. No text, graphic or file may be reproduced or copied without the expressed written permission of Staples Online and The Westport School District.
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