Beijing: Culture School

I have been a bad blogger. Nearly a month without a post. A little about my week in Beijing with my brother. More on the way.

Beijing in December is bitterly, ruthlessly cold. Through a down coat and double layers of pants, I still felt the wind cut through. A bit of Chicago in China, I suppose. That's the bad news about Beijing. The good news: The bitter, ruthless cold drives away tourists this time of year, so my brother and I had most of the country's great landmarks to ourselves.

We visited nearly all of the great sites. This was what I called a cultural self-education. The trip was particularly special because it was my brother's first time to China -- and I don't count our trip to Taiwan two years ago as visiting China, although most Chinese would probably disagree with me.

Our first stop was Forbidden City, home of emperors during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. For all its hype, the palace complex exceeded our expectations. Here I felt China -- at least during those 500 years the palace was occupied -- was the center of the world. We wandered hall after elaborate hall. The Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Central Harmony and then the Hall of Preserved Harmony and many, many more. All the halls just started to blend together in the end. I wondered how the eunuchs were able to find their way around back in the day. The English audio tour my brother and I listened to gave brief descriptions of each structure, but I can't tell you much now. What I can say is, standing on that ground, I was proud to be Chinese.



The feeling of awe continued at the Summer Palace, the playground of the emperors, and at the Temple of Heaven, the sacrificial alter to the powers above. Here the building for cleaning and killing the animals, the tracks to wheel them through the complex, and notice here the nine steps and nine circles of the Circular Mound Alter. The precision of the temple's construction and the complexity of the rituals struck a curious contrast to Chinese life now. In most Chinese cities I have visited, there is no order. There is no such thing as waiting in lines; there are cars that play chicken with pedestrians. I savored the quiet of the former slaughtering ground.

The Great Wall was my favorite. We climbed the stretch at Badaling, the most touristy part of the Wall but not packed on this day. It was so windy that I gripped the handrails as we climbed up or slid/ran down for a couple hours. Panting, calves sore, we stopped often for water and Oreo breaks and took in the scene. It wasn't the Wall so much as the view around us that made me think how far away I was from home and how exhilarating that was.

Dear pen pal

I got an enthusiastic "YEAH" when I asked my tenth grade students if they wanted to make American friends. Tucked under my arm was a first-class envelope from the USA; inside, 60 letters from eighth graders at a south-side Chicago school, the cause of weeks of my students' anticipation.

My friend is a teacher in Chicago. Before I even started teaching in China, we started discussing having our students be pen pals. Many of his students have lived in Chicago their whole lives and most have never left the city. The same with my students. The furthest they have gone may be the school we are at now. A pen pal would show them a slice of the world that they aren't able to see themselves. My friend and I weighed the option of going electronic. It would take less time and cost less money to send. But we are both a bit old-fashioned when it comes to these things and in the end we both favored traditional snail mail. There's an intimacy in handwritten letters that an e-mail just can't capture, a bit of magic in "being able to open letters that traveled all that distance," he pointed out.

Last week I picked up from the school office a plump cushioned envelope containing the letters and eight snapshots of the students in their classroom. The Chicago students introduced their families, listed their hobbies and asked what life was like in China or, as one student put it, "over there." They wrote about Chicago, nicknamed "The Windy City." "Probably because it gets really windy," one boy wrote. Another student wrote that Chicago has "a lot of big buildings. Like the Sears Tower in Down Town Chicago. We eat a lot of greasy food, which is why we are the fattest country in the world. What about you?"

The Chicago students' curiosity was evident in their questions. All kinds of questions, about family, school life, the Olympics (Did you see the Olympics? ... I saw the Olympics and it was really cool.) In one letter (in fact, in just one paragraph alone) a girl asked, "What is your favorite sport or thing to do? What kinds of food do you like? What things are popular in China? How's life and do you have any problems?"

Sentence by sentence, my students uncovered the meanings behind the crooked, rounded or scrunched up letters that looked so unfamiliar to their own neat script. Sometimes we ran into cultural hurdles, words that not even their dictionaries could explain. One Chicago student wrote, "How are you? I'm feeling chipper." ("Um, it's like really happy," I translated.) "And what are enchiladas?" one of my students asked about her pen pal's favorite food. My crude explanation: They're like flat pieces of bread with meat and sauce in the middle. It's a kind of Mexican food.

My students eagerly offered their friendship, as well as services as tour guides in the future. "If you come to China, I can act as your guide." They suggested seeing the Great Wall and offered to take their new friends to their hometowns for delicious food. They closed their letters with "Welcome to China."

Wandering the streets of old China

My school gives us weeklong breaks every month. I know, it's a bit ridiculous. It's an awful schedule for learning but an awesome one for making quick trips within the province, which is what I did last weekend.

Feng Huang -- which means phoenix -- has retained much of the feeling of ancient China, especially in its architecture. Overlapping rounded shingles, curved rooftop eaves, carvings of fish and animals, a Red Wall now faded to a muddied crimson. If you can ignore the Las Vegas neon lights at night, the village is quaint and quite charming.

Feng Huang is home to the Miao ethnic minority group. Tiny old women in turban-like hats hawk colorful woken mats and scarves and silver trinkets. It's easy to get lost (which we did the first night) in the narrow side streets and alleys lined with shops that sell more woken scarves, more silver trinkets, rice wine and candied kiwi slices (highly addictive).

Along the river, tourists can pay 3 RMB (the equivalent to about 50 cents) to don the attire of the ancients. OK, probably not even close to the attire of the ancients since these costumes were made of polyester, but I still felt like a princess for 30 minutes. (Yes, that's me in hot pink and sneaks.)



Maybe it's residual Maoist militarism -- it was also popular for women to dress up in olive military uniforms adorned with red Commy stars and pose with plastic machine guns. (Peek through the bushes like you're about to ambush the Japs!)

My favorite part of this trip (and probably my favorite part of life) was eating. At night the streets line up with outdoor grills with a sizable display of skewered vegetables, meats and tofu, noodles and rice, whole fish. Without the grill, it would look just like an outdoor market. The great thing about this type of ordering is you don't have to say a word, just place the skewers in a plastic basket and the man behind the grill will prepare to perfection with some sauces and spices.



The village is ideal for being lazy. Eat late, sleep in and walk around aimlessly. Click below for more photos from the trip.

The Joy of Cooking

I wouldn't say I am a bad cook -- just an infrequent one. I cook a few things and I cook them well, but my repertoire is very limited. When I told my students that the main dish I make is fried rice, they immediately offered to whip up a meal for me. Teach the teacher. I was in charge of providing meats and vegetables, and they would do the rest.

Unfortunately, I failed at even this simple task. I inadvertently bought pork instead of beef, marinated eggs instead of regular eggs and and probably triple the amount of potatoes we needed. Nonetheless, my students are resourceful. Seven students descended on my apartment. A few who learned the art of cooking from their grandmothers took charge in the kitchen. I stood idly back, admiring their skill aloud.

Another food shopping faux pas I made -- I did not buy enough peppers. So while my kitchen steamed and clanked with the sounds of delicious food being made, I scrambled to the street outside of the school hoping the vegetable vendors were still around. No small green peppers, the kind found in nearly every dish. But I did find a larger variety that is not as spicy. I was also lucky enough to run into my neighbor and Chinese tutor, Mr. Tang, who offered to lend me some spicy pepper sauce when he heard my dilemma.

Being the resourceful girls they are, my students were unfazed by my failed mission. They started chopping the too-big, not-spicy-enough peppers. I saw they had finished two dishes already and were making two more. I had bought an eggplant that I thought would just end up in the garbage since I was leaving town the next day for a week. But my students had cleared out my refrigerator, including the eggplant, and were making the most of everything I had.

We ate in the living room, toasting orange juice and milk. The girls were happy in a way I never got to see in the classroom. When we finished off every last bit of food, they started taking silly pictures of each other. During class, my students are one mass of faces and black hair. But here with a handful of them hanging out with me in my home, I could pick out the personalities -- the goofy jokester, the serious brooder, the nice girl, the shy girl, the leader of the pack.

They called their head teacher to tell her they would be late for the evening self-study. I was afraid they would get in trouble, but they insisted that they could take time off from self-study, especially now since so many students were sick and not showing up in the evenings. But they could not miss the second self-study period and reluctantly left after helping me clean up.

"We'll do it again," I told them as they left. "I will buy beef next time."

In the hot seat

I was trying to recall broadcast class from seven years earlier, trying to conjure my professional on-air voice. But for once I was not the one asking the questions; I was the one being interviewed. Some students had asked me to be a guest on the evening student broadcast over the school loudspeakers.

I stood in a cramped closet-sized room attached to the art building, inside just a couple of receivers and microphones and a fan in the corner. I leaned against the wall in the tight space with three senior students surrounding me and jabbing microphones in my face after each question.

I knew all of the students. One was my student in a senior 1 class. His English name was John. The other two were senior 2 students who had shown me around the city when I first arrived. Rachel was an outgoing, confident girl whose English was the best of all three. I had given the other girl her English name only hours before. Pippi after the children’s book character. The Chinese student Pippi was short and skinny with hesitating English.

John, Rachel and Pippi asked me how students could improve their English (speak more English, listen to more English, watch English TV and movies), where I had visited in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong) and how much I knew about Chinese history, including the dynasties (very little).

I could hear my answers echoing overhead through the loudspeakers. My voice sounded distant and unfamiliar, like I was listening to someone else speaking.

So far the interview was a breeze. Then Rachel asked me, “Because China has 5,000 years of wonderful history, do you wish you lived here as a child?”

I fumbled a moment, then found my voice and said, “I feel lucky I could live in the United States as a child and now live in China as an adult.” It wasn’t the most thorough or elegant response, but as simple as that statement was, it is true.

The interview lasted 15 minutes. At the end, the producer, also a student, said thank you and handed me a lollipop.

I walked with the three students toward the senior classroom building where they had to report for self-study period. Rachel had told me before the interview that this was her last broadcast show.

“My parents want me to stop. They want me to study more,” she told me as we talked through the now-darkened campus.

“Oh, but you’re so good!” I said.

I thought of saying something more, telling her that she should keep doing something if she loves it, of encouraging her to not give up on her dream. But I fumbled again and this time didn’t find my voice. She was 15 and her parents wanted her to quit. So I just waved and smiled to them as they climbed the staircase to their classroom building.

Panda Love

I wasn’t entirely convinced it was worth the 20-hour train ride to go to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, for one purpose and one purpose only -- to see China’s national treasure, the giant panda. But my friends were on a mission to adore, and I was on a mission to have a good time with them, no matter where we were or how far we had to travel. So a day after National Day, the five of us set off by sleeper car.

We headed for the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base the day after arriving in Chengdu. Because of the shrinking natural habitat of pandas due to development, breeding centers like the one in Chengdu are all the more important to maintain biodiversity. Some scientists estimate the giant panda will be extinct in two to three generations.

The pandas at the base might as well have been living in a bubble. Manicured lawns and bushes. Arched bamboo shafts along the path. The sprawling base contains several outdoor feeding and play areas for giant pandas and the raccoon-like red pandas, equipped with jungle gym and swings. We looked through a window into the kitchen where a woman wearing surgical mask and gloves was packing dough into mooncake-shaped molds. Panda bread.

“These pandas eat better that most people,” one friend noted.

I stood in the middle of a large and growing crowd outside the “kindergarten” pen wondering how these furry creatures could elicit delighted squeals from little kids to old men alike. I looked from the munching, hanging, climbing, rolling animals to the ogling crowd. I’m not sure if biodiversity was at the forefront of their minds when they watched the pandas straddling a tree branch.

But is the cute factor enough to keep a species alive that would be extinct otherwise? One BBC presenter has argued the giant panda is too expensive to try to save. He said the giant panda had “gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac.” He certainly has a valid point, but I think the cute factor is all too powerful.

It was in the Sunshine Nursery where I too fell into the trap of adorableness. Curled up in a moon-shaped crescent was a baby just a few months old, its black markings still covered by a soft white fuzz. And a whimper escaped me. I couldn’t help it. Something about that helpless little guy grabbed me and certainly biodiversity was not on my mind.

Back to the countryside

Having grown up in the suburbs and spent most of my adult life in a big city, I now jump at the chance to see the countryside. Maybe I hold too romantic a notion of what it is. I expect layers and layers of tree-covered mountains to disappear in fog, the river to flow lazy with its clear, cold water, the air to be so clean it is sweet.

One of my students, Huang Qiong, invited me her old home. She does not live there now, but her grandparents and many of her relatives still do. The town -- the name of it escapes me now -- was about three hours by bus. During the ride, Huang Qiong and three classmates played Chinese pop songs on their cell phones and sang along. They joked with each other, switching from the local dialect to Mandarin to English. (The English was limited to short phrases. "OK!" "Let's go!") School was on break for National Week and Mid-Autumn Festival, and our mood was light.

We stopped finally on an unpaved street lined with small stores selling clothing, shoes, snacks, meat and vegetables. Huang Qiong bought a slab of beef from a woman selling vegetables on the street. A cow leg dangled on a metal hook. The woman grabbed the bone with her bare hand and hacked with a cleaver. The five us walked down the road and was approached by an old woman with a bow-legged gait.

"My nai nai," Huang Qiong said. The woman was her father's mother.

The woman was a full head shorter than I. She grasped both my hands in hers. Her hands were small and round and rough. She smiled a yellow-toothed smile and said something to her granddaughter.

"She said you can't understand her, can you?" Huang Qiong translated. I turned to the grandmother and shook my head.

Nai Nai left us and we veered off the road onto a dirt path that wove through the tall grass. An unpicked squash lay unpicked on its side. About twenty meters down the path were a row of one-story cement homes. We walked through an open door into a small unlit room with a table in one corner and a wok over coals in the center.

In the room was another old woman with a weathered face but still mostly-black hair.This was Huang Qiong's wai po, her mother's mother. Wai Po led us into the back room, smaller with a table and benches along the wall, just big enough to seat the five of us. My students and I cracked peanuts and ate spicy seaweed and tofu as Wai Po prepared our lunch. From the other room came sounds of chopping and sizzling.

Everything cooked for us came from their own land. Rabbit with hot peppers, beef and celery, tofu. Even the rice was from the family's land. My friends and I always say you can tell when food is made with love, and this meal definitely was. Wai Po did not eat. She was waiting for Huang Qiong's grandfather to return from working on the land. She stood next to us and urged us to eat more, eat more.

After lunch, we took a ten-minute bus ride to one of the mountains where Huang Qiong said we could ride a boat on the river and get a better view of the scenery. The river was dammed where we entered, so we climbed what felt like a couple hundred stone steps to the river bank. My students told me not to talk. If the people who owned the boat knew I was not local they would charge more money.

The two women who sat on stools next to their boat wanted 50 RMB, about $7. Huang Qiong told them she rode the boat for 30 RMB last year, but the women would not budge on the price. So instead we left the boat ladies and started down a mountain path that took us to a cave Huang Qiong wanted to show me.

We walked for half an hour came upon a couple houses along the road. I was reminded again not to talk and to hide my bottle of water, apparently a sign of a non-local. Huang Qiong spoke with the couple in the local dialect and paid them. We continued along the path. Huang Qiong later told me that she paid 30 RMB for the five of us; usually the couple charges a couple hundred for entrance to the cave.

According to a granite slab outside the cave entrance, Fair Cave was formed centuries ago. Made of limestone, the cave was 200 meters long, 60 meters high and 30 meters wide. The sign continues, "Some earth and stones on the top of the cave have been eroded, just like opening many windows into the outside road. The exit of the cave is such a marvelous window which [sic] a waterful [sic] called 'longeviity waterful' runs down from the top of the cave. It is a magic heritage created by nature, which ranks to [sic] a world-class geologic relic."

The cave was cool inside and we clumsily walked over the rocks of a dried-up stream. The cave exit was in fact "a marvelous window." Soft, white light poured through an opening above and the stream reappeared. In that moment, I forgot where I was. I forgot I was an American in China. I forgot I was a teacher and they my students. We were all children, running over rocks, dipping our fingers into the ice-cold water, in awe of everything around us.

WARNING: I have been traveling for the past week and a half, so there is a backlog of posts.

My day as a country gal

My neighbor Zhou Jie -- Big Sister Zhou -- invited me to the countryside for a birthday bash. Her friend's mother was turning seventy. Zhou Jie said I probably had never seen the countryside here. I told her I had barely seen the countryside in America. She said the celebration would be very re nao -- lively.

Two of Zhou Jie's friends picked us up in the morning from downtown Lengshuijiang. As we drove, the road became one lane and then narrowed. I stared out the window at the small crop plots and the wooden houses built throughout the terraced green hills. The huge black SUV we rode in seemed out of place in this simple landscape.

We drove for an hour before we turned off the narrow road and pulled onto a winding dirt path until there was nowhere to go by car. Then we climbed a hill and followed a rock-strewn footpath toward the sound of a marching band. On an outdoor stage a dozen men and women in red military jackets and caps played their rusty trombones, trumpets, baritones and a booming bass drum.

We followed the path as it curved around a lily-covered pond and through a giant inflatable arch before reaching a two-story brick house. Along the way, the path was scattered with red paper -- firecrackers. The men unfurled and lit the firecrackers, then ran up the hill away from the smoking and popping.

On another outdoor stage closer to the house, women wore the traditional qi pao dress and waved bright red scarves. A man on a stool in front of the stage played the erhu, the quivering two-stringed instrument sometimes drowned out by the pop!pop!pop! of firecrackers.







Huge red and yellow banners with Chinese characters covered the front of the house. At the main door sat a woman accepting cash-filled red envelopes, birthday gifts. Surrounding her on the front porch were about ten small tables with people seated playing cards and eating sunflower seeds and peanuts.

We squeezed into the main room of the house, a large space with concrete floors and bare walls. An eight-tiered birthday cake was displayed at the back of the room and in front of it sat the 70-year-old mother surrounded by her great-grandchildren. Before we ate, the mother's eight daughters performed a song and dance with the erhu in the main room. Then each of her children's families bowed before her and wished her a happy birthday and good health.




Before the speeches ended, Zhou Jie, her friends and I sought out a table, knowing the food would be served soon. Tables and benches appeared in every room of the house. The 500 guests found seats on the front porch, in the house or in neighbors' homes. Then we feasted for two hours. First there was chicken, turtle, rabbit ears and pork. The pig was the family's own and had been slaughtered that morning. Later the pig's intestines were served with some celery-like vegetable. When we all said we were full, more food came. Shrimp, duck, fish. The food tasted real, from the earth. Nothing processed.

I spent a sleepy afternoon watching the women play mahjong while the rest of the guests watched a countryside singing and dancing troupe perform on the outdoor stage. The women played mahjong through the performance and until the sun went down. Then we ate again, more chicken, shrimp, fish, and also winter melon soup, a favorite of mine.

As we prepared to return to the city, we heard a boom overhead. I looked up as hundreds of yellow and red and purple lights burst and then fell toward the earth. We watched the fireworks from the car and then slowly went back the way we came on the darkened dirt path.

Why am I always surrounded by a dozen middle-aged men?

(Always might be an exaggeration, but this has happened three times. I call that a trend.)

The first time: It was the day before classes started. As usual, I went to the teachers' dining room for dinner. The dining room is two small rooms with an adjacent kitchen, where the teachers serve themselves. But that day the tables in each room were covered with about a dozen dishes -- bullfrog, duck, pork ribs.

One of the school directors waved me in the direction of the smaller room. Soldiers were seated at the table with school officials. The soldiers were at the school to train new students. Everyday I had woken up to military music blaring from the speakers. I took a seat between two of them, both stripped of their military jacket and wearing black undershirts. They were about 20 years old, tanned, cigarettes tucked behind their ears.

Before I could pick up my chopsticks, a man from the other room came to the doorway . He was in his forties, thin, hair disheveled and wearing a blazer that was probably two sizes too big.

"Li Zhao Li!" the man shouted. My Chinese name.

"We are family!" he said and waved me over. I had never seen him before.

"My family name is Lee too," he said. "You can call me big brother." Then he turned to everyone and announced, "I have found my little sister! She has come all the way from America!"

The man pointed to another man to his right and said, "He is Lee too. Call me Big Big Brother and call him Little Big Brother."

I sat between my two new brothers as they pointed to the dishes and said, "This is good. Try this."

They kept filling my shot glass with beer.

"Are you drunk?" my big big brother asked me.

I had had four shot glasses of beer. "No," I said.

I noticed that I was the only female teacher at the table and probably the only one under the age of 35. These teachers I now ate with I had not seen at the dining hall before. I assumed most were married and ate at home. I wondered if the younger, single teachers I normally ate with were told not to come tonight. I was not told to come or not to come.

The second time: After the Teacher's Day assembly, Big Big Brother Lee invited me out to dinner with some other teachers. A student was treating.

One of the teachers drove us into the city. We climbed a staircase and were led into a private room. Someone opened a bottle of baijiu and started pouring. Someone else opened bottle after bottle of beer.

"Can she drink?" one of them asked, referring to me.

"Yes, she can," Big Big Brother Lee answered for me, and a bottle of beer was placed in front of me.

The teachers started talking about the new headmaster, who had given a speech during the assembly. The headmaster's speech was completely incomprehensible to me, the Hunanese accent so thick that I couldn't even pick out individual words. The teachers I sat with spoke in the local dialect and sometimes switched into the standard Mandarin. I lost track of the conversation, only entering the conversation when they said, "Gan bei." Bottoms up.

Again, I looked around the table and realized I was the only female. Even the student, a girl, and her mother were not eating with us. They were eating in another room. I had unknowingly entered an all boys club, yet I was not pushed out nor did I want to leave. The food was delicious and the alcohol flowed. I felt full and satisfied and a little sleepy inhaling the cigarette smoke.

After the meal, the student's father passed out boxes of cigarettes to each of us. "I don't smoke," I said in Chinese when he came toward me, but he pushed the box into my hands. It was like an invitation to stay in the club.

The third time: Two days ago I ran into Big Big Brother Lee in the senior one office building between classes. He told me to go to the school gate at noon. We were going out to lunch.

At noon I went to the gate. A teacher was in his car with the passenger door open. Get in, Big Big Brother Lee said. A few other teachers got into the backseat. The driver, Mr. Wang, spoke English and asked what I thought of Lengshuijiang.

"It's a bit dirty," I said.

"Yes, it's very dirty," he said. "There is a factory in the city. Lengshuijiang is developing but at the cost of people's health."

We drove past giant concrete cylinders by the side of the road. As we entered the downtown area, the air became grittier. I looked out the open window and could only see brown dust.

At the restaurant we were again led into a private room. Some teachers were already waiting on the couch, smoking and eating sunflower seeds. A TV on the wall was tuned to a news channel but no one watched. I looked at the screen. A woman was being dragged out of a house.

As the first dishes arrived, everyone found a seat at the round table. One of the men, a teacher from another school in Lengshuijiang, said something about me in the local dialect. A teacher next to me translated.

"He says you are the highlight of the table."

I smiled and awkwardly sipped my water. Generally the men did not talk to me during the meal, only when they wanted me to drink. The teacher to my left -- a short, skinny fellow who looked 22 but was actually 40 -- kept my glass full.

"She can drink," I heard someone say about me as I downed another glass.

It was 1:30 p.m. when we got back to campus. I had eaten my fill of river fish and rice-covered pork ribs and duck. The teachers who ate at the dining hall would have had plain rice, pickled vegetables and maybe some soup.

Teacher's Day

Sept. 10 - I was walking back to my apartment after lunch with a couple of teachers when we passed a blackboard with an announcement written on it.

"There's an assembly this afternoon," one of the teachers translated for me. "I think you will have to shang tai." Be on the stage.

"No one even told me about the assembly," I said, but I already knew my fate was written. I would end up on stage in front of thousands of students at some point that day.

I had two afternoon classes and then walked with my students out to the playground. Students carried their stools from the classroom and were lining up facing the outdoor stage.

I spotted Peter, an oral English teacher.

"You should be up there," he said.

I knew that. I was just trying to avoid the inevitable. Instead, I said, "No one said anything to me," as if that might get me out of it.

"Mr. Pan [my school liaison] has not told you?"

"No," I said, just as my cell phone rang. It was Mr. Pan. He wanted me to report to the stage.

My name, in English, was on a placard on a table on-stage. I sat next to head masters, department directors and other important people who I had not seen before. The important-looking men made speeches. For the most part, I understood nothing. They spoke with a thick Hunanese accent or possibly a dialect. I couldn't tell the difference. I zoned out. I tried to look alert in front of all those staring eyes and tried not to think about having to pee.

Each teacher at the school received 800 RMB for Teacher's Day. They are expected to donate some of that back to the students. I had not received my money yet, so Mr. Pan gave me 400 RMB from his wallet and told me to give it to the students. I would get my remaining 400 RMB the next day.

After the speeches, each person on stage brought their envelope of money to a man sitting next to a box on the stage. The man announced the amount each donated and then we dropped the envelope in the box. Considering most teachers gave 100 or 200 RMB, my "donation" looked very generous.

Despite my dread of having to be up front and center, things could have been much worse. I have heard that some foreign teachers are expected to give speeches at such events. I even heard of one teacher at another site having to sing -- in Chinese.

Badminton Beauties

I've learned two things about myself: I love playing badminton and I suck incredibly at it.

But that's OK. Badminton has been a great way to meet people, especially students who I don't have for class, like these ladies. They are seniors who often play in the courtyard between the teachers' dormitories. I like playing with them because they are not as competitive as the teachers and some other students, so that means they don't mind playing with am amateur like me.

In the hour after dinner, the students have the only free time of the day before they must report to their classrooms for two hours of self-study. In this hour, the playground is packed. Several full-court basketball games are always in progress with students lined up along the sidelines watching. I have yet to play ping-pong because the outdoor tables are also always in use at this time. Badminton has been my go-to sport because you don't need a court, just two rackets, a shuttlecock and a narrow strip of space.

A pagoda with a view

Downtown Lengshuijiang is pure grit. Smokestacks from a coal-powered factory cough up clouds of gray, and thick black exhaust trails the buses. There seems to be a road construction project on every street. Broken-up concrete piles up next to trash.

But a respite from this industrial backwash does exist. In the middle of the city is a hill; at the top of the hill a pagoda.



The climb to the top takes about 30 minutes. Along the way, I realized I could inhale deeply and not have to hack up half a lung after doing so. I realized, too, I could hear birds chirping.

At the top of the pagoda, I could see the river curve through the city and into green hills. Buildings and houses became more sparse until there were only layers of trees upon layers of trees.

After feeling isolated and lost and lonely for a few days -- and doubting myself for coming to China -- I was reminded that I had made the right decision.

First day of school

Sept. 3 – In the classroom, I've discovered, another personality takes over me. I lose a sense of myself and am just focused on communicating an idea, or sometimes just the meaning of a word. I am not that timid Midwestern girl who came here. I am loud, I crack jokes and I don’t take no for an answer.

There's no room for weakness in the classroom. I have at least 60 students. My classes today were with vocational students. They are in senior 1, equivalent to high school sophomores. The vocational students are studying to become kindergarten students. Most of the students are girls, but in my first class, the handful of boys seemed to have to prove they were truly boys. They were mischievous and obnoxious. They talked, they joked and they said over and over, “Ting bu dong.” I don’t understand. If this was a taste of the rest of the classes, I was doomed.

But my second class went much more smoothly. There are more girls and only six boys (out of 60 students), but the boys mostly kept quiet. The class applauded before and after class. When I needed help hooking up my laptop to the projector, a group of about nine girls huddled around me to try to help. I stayed past the class time into their study period because they insisted seeing pictures of Chicago that I had on my laptop. As I left, I said in English, “See you next week!” I heard one of the girls say, “That’s too long!”

I just got killed on the badminton court by a middle-aged chemistry teacher in heels

First, I must admit that my right forearm is sore and a bit shaking right now, so much so that it is a struggle for me to type but I will soldier on.

I am in pain -- and slightly humiliated -- because today I was destroyed in badminton by Mrs. Wu. She is a 20-year veteran of the teaching staff here and, apparently, a badminton badass.

After dinner a couple of senior 2 (high school juniors) asked me if I was busy. I suggested badminton. I had been wanting to play and the new rackets and birdies I bought last week had yet to be taken out of the case.

Next to one of the students' dorms are a couple of courts. The net is just a string tied to two poles but it does the job. The boys and I played for half an hour before Mrs. Wu appeared, watching from the sidelines.

She was dressed in a pretty green top, black slacks and heels. She smiled as she watched and commented on her students' shots.

I walked over to her and asked in Chinese, "Do you want to play?"

I expected her to decline but she agreed immediately. The boys stepped aside and Mrs. Wu and I took the court.

From the start, I knew she was good. She whipped the birdie at me hard with little effort, only swinging her right arm. She looked relaxed and wore an easy smile the entire time we played.

I, on the other hand, felt my competitive juices flowing. I put my whole body into every shot. My face was tense and I grunted. My shoulder started to burn. My thumb was red where I gripped the racket. I could feel my sweat soaking through my shirt.

But even when I tried to slam the birdie across the net, the birdie only floated down.

"Do this," she said, and flicked her wrist.

So I did and it worked. The birdie started floating closer to the net. But my sudden improvement in playing only made Mrs. Wu increase the difficulty of the return shots I had to make. She sometimes rocketed the birdie so high to test my timing, or tapped it so lightly that I had to dive forward. All the while, she stood in the same place, right arm easily swinging.

"We play every morning here. You should come," she said. At 6 a.m.

When we finished our game, she again encouraged me to join the game. I said I would come.

"But I won't be as good as all of you," I said.

Mrs. Wu only laughed. She knew that already.

Roller bootin' (Part II)

The night after our first roller-skating excursion – despite hip soreness and the threat of toe blisters -- Allen and I decided to skate Lengshuijiang’s other rink.

This rink is located under the bridge that crosses the river, the Zhijiang. The rink is a rectangle with a pool in the middle that is fenced off. Along the perimeter of the rink is an iron fence and beyond that a trash-filled bank and then the river.

It was a perfect night for roller-skating under a bridge. It had rained the entire day and now the city was crisp, almost cold.



The rink is special because there are several ramps. A couple ramps were deep valleys that the skaters had to run up once they got to the other side because the angle was so steep.

The level of skating here was much higher than at the underground rink. Some teenage boys were skating backwards at high speeds and coming to a stop by sliding one leg out. They easily conquered even the steep ramps.

I was able to skate both steep ramps, although not as gracefully as the teens. The first time I got stuck where the ramp dipped down and had to be pulled up by Allen and two little girls.

Then I tried going over a series of hills and bumps. Although unbalanced, I stayed on my feet. I can do it better, I said to Allen. I started off faster to get over the first hump.

I easily flew over the second hump but when I reached the third hump, I felt my upper body tilting backwards. Suddenly I was parallel to the ground. And then I landed on my butt. Hard.

“Are you OK?” Allen asked. He pulled me to my feet. “Does anything hurt?”

“Only my pride,” I said.

I hung back as the little kids grabbed the back of Allen’s T-shirt and formed a skate train. Soon eight kids had formed a line behind him. They whipped around the steep ramp and, coming around the corner, lost a few kids at the end. They ended up in a heap on the ground.

The kids were fine. They got to their feet and chased after Allen again, shrieking and laughing.

Minutes later, Allen shouted to me, “I lost my wheel!”

“What?”

“My wheel rolled into the river,” he said.

One skate only had three wheels. A boy handed Allen the bolt but the wheel itself was long gone.

Allen exchanged his skates for another pair and was back on the rink with the kids trailing behind him.

Roller bootin' (Part I)

Lengshuijiang has not one but two roller skating rinks. The first rink I visited is located underground in what my liaison’s daughter said was a tunnel used during the war. She wasn’t sure which war.

Next to a KTV (karaoke bar) was the entrance to the tunnel. After walking a few feet into the darkness, the air suddenly became cold and damp. It smelled stale. I felt like we were walking into a mining shaft.

Sometimes the gray rock surrounding us opened into a small room where people played pool. Ahead we saw the red-lit outline of a roller skate.

It was difficult to tell the size and shape of the rink. Columns of rock rose in the middle of the rink. The rink had muddy streaks, sometimes puddles. The conditions were far from ideal, but it was roller-skating nonetheless.

I told my liaison’s daughter and niece that my friend, another teacher in the program, was visiting the next day. We wanted to come to the rink to skate.

My liaison’s daughter and niece did not say anything at first. But several minutes later, after we had left the rink and were waiting at the bus station, my liaison’s daughter said, “We don’t think it’s safe for you to go skating.”

“Why?” I asked.

“There’s bad boys who go there,” she said.

“Bad boys?”

“Yes, bad boys. They will steal your money. They will hurt you.”

I asked if they had weapons. No guns, she said, but maybe knives.

“Will they stab us?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said.

My friend, Allen, and I went anyways. (His text to me: I’ve felt pretty iron deficient lately so I’m sure a good shankin’ could help.)

It rained much of Saturday. When we arrived at about 8:30 p.m. the entire rink floor was slick with water. We each received a pair of rental skates, both pairs soaked through. We also received two plastic bags to wrap around our feet.

The rink was an oval doughnut shape with three hills at one stretch. Chinese music blasting out of a speaker echoed against the cave walls. We skated faster and faster, the wheels of our skates sliding easily over the wet floor.

In the end, we were never knifed, and we didn’t see any bad boys, only 12-year-old girls who held hands as they skated.

Little Visitors

Since I arrived, the little girls in my building complex have visited me. Sometimes three times a day.

Unlike the adults, the girls readily accepted the fact I'm both American and Chinese. Meanwhile, adult responses: You don't look American! What country is your passport? Are your parents Chinese? You look just like one of us!

Three girls consistently come, usually two at a time. The first night the girls asked how old I was. Then they asked if I was married.

"Why aren't you married yet?" they asked.

"In America, women marry later," I said, which I'm not sure is true.

Next question, "Do you have a boyfriend?"

They are very curious little creatures, opening cupboards and drawers. Yesterday I had the AC on too high for their liking, so they took blankets from my armoire and covered themselves head to toe. Today I offered them watermelon slices and ended up wiping up seeds from the floor. They are rambunctious but lovable.

The girls' English is close to non-existent, so most of our conversations are in Chinese. In some ways, I prefer talking to them because they speak more Chinese to me than some of the adults. Because I am labeled the 'foreign teacher,' I think some adults think I cannot understand Chinese. The adults either don't know enough English to speak to me at all, speak to me in broken English or speak to me in very slow, exaggerated Chinese.

To Lengshuijiang

Aug. 23 – I arrived in Lengshuijiang last night. The city has about 200,000 people and the campus of Loudi Foreign Language School is one kilometer from downtown Lengshuijiang.

The apartment is on campus and has more than enough room for one person. There is a living room, office, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and a small back porch where clothes are hung to dry. The building is old but clean. Plus, I have air conditioning, a washing machine and Internet.



The drive from Changsha to Lengshuijiang is only three to four hours but I did not arrive until after 9 p.m. My school liaison and the vice-head master of the school picked me up from Changsha yesterday in the morning. They came with a private driver and took me out to a lunch and then a foot massage.

There is a city called Loudi about one hour’s drive from Lengshuijiang. Both cities are located in the county of Loudi.

We stopped in the city of Loudi for dinner. The roadside restaurant had individual rooms with round tables, rather than one large dining area. We ate a chicken that had been butchered earlier that afternoon, baby shrimp with chopped greens and egg soup.

“Mei you gan,” the vice-head master said, flipping over pieces of chicken with his chopsticks. There is no liver.

He called in the manager, who then flipped over pieces of chicken with chopsticks. It must be chopped up, she said. There’s definitely no liver, the driver said. How do you order a whole chicken with no liver, Mr. Pan said. (I am paraphrasing the conversation because it was all spoken in the local dialect.)

The manager then brought in a small plate with chicken liver, green onion and pepper.

“We just killed a chicken so you could have the liver,” she said.

I ate a piece of the liver that two chickens had to die for.

TOP PHOTO: Apartment building #16 located next to my apartment building. I am in building #15 on the fourth floor.

Last Morning in Changsha

Aug. 23 - For the first time in three weeks I woke up early enough to go for a run. Today is my last full day in Changsha before leaving for Lengshuijiang.

It was after 6 a.m. when I left the hotel. The sky this morning, as always, was still so overcast I could not tell if the reason was pollution or rain clouds. For once, though, the air was light and cool.

On my way to the school track, street vendors had laid out vegetables on the sidewalk – bitter melon, squash, bunches of leafy greens I had no name for. A butcher hacked at a thick, red chunk of meat on a cutting board set on a cart. Sellers with rolled up sleeves and rolled up pants legs sat on low stools scraping scales off fish, the glistening guts piled on newspaper. A crowd had gathered around a man selling some kind of Chinese medicine. He spoke in a thick Hunanese accent.

I spotted Lai Xiang and Yang Ying, my new friends who work at the hotel, walking toward me.

“We were running,” Lai Xiang said. They had woken up at 5 a.m. and were heading back to the hotel, where they lived, to take a nap before their afternoon shift.

They followed me to the school track and stretched as I ran about five laps before I was winded. We walked back to the hotel.

“Don’t forget me!” Lai Xiang said as we parted ways in the hotel lobby. I promised to call them when I was back in Changsha.

Along the Xiang River

The largest river in Hunan Province, the Xiang flows through Changsha and eventually into the Yangtze. Along the tree-shaded path by the river, people sit and drink tea. They play chess on grids drawn on the ground or sleep, heads covered with towels, on benches.

Along the Xiang River, I passed men writing Chinese characters on the ground but instead of ink or paint they use water. Sun-darkened men with wheeled carts sold stinky tofu at the curb. Performers in thick make-up performed Chinese opera, while onlookers drank tea, long green leaves sinking to the bottom of paper cups.



In Changsha, between the east and west banks of the Xiang River, is Juzi Dou, or Orange Island. There used to be a charge to enter the island, but now anyone can walk across the bridge and enter what feels like a private yard. The island is named for its orange trees, although I only spot a few trees with round green fruits I think are oranges. I had imagined walking through an orchard and picking oranges straight from the branch.

The broad leaves of bright pink lilies floated in a pond with a fountain. Tour trams were parked below an overpass but there were few people on the island. Most of the people I saw were workers in broad straw hats tending to bushes and lawns. The path next to the water was clean of any garbage. An occasional breeze swept aside the heat.

Girls' Night Out

Aug. 16 – I asked a young woman at the hotel reception about the underground shops in Changsha.

“I take you!” she said with an eager smile.

Her name was Lai Xiang. Nineteen years old, she was tiny, with long bangs that hung over her round face. I said I could figure out how to get to the shops if she gave me directions, but Lai Xiang insisted that she take me herself.

Later in the day, a couple of English teachers and I met Lai Xiang and about ten of her friends in the hotel lobby. We took the #1 bus and got off near what looked like the entrance to a subway.

As we descended the stairs, the thick Changsha heat thinned and an underground world of clothing, shoes and jewelry emerged. T-shirts printed with “Boyfriends are recyclable” or “Vivienne Westwood” (not actually by the designer) were packed into shops the size of walk-in closets.

I ended up with three dresses, each one costing less than $7 U.S. Lai Xiang bargained down the price of each dress to less than 50 percent of the original asking price.

Without windows, we spent two hours underground without noticing the time pass. By that time, all of Lai Xiang’s friends had left to meet with other friends. The only one left with Lai Xiang was Yang Ying, another girl who works at the hotel.

Tired and hungry, we headed to Buxingjie (Walking Street) for a hot pot dinner. In the middle of the table sat the pot of boiling liquids. The pot was split into two to allow for two kinds of broth. On one side was water with dates and ginger for flavor. On the other side was a dark red broth with dried pepper flakes floating on the surface.

We dumped bean sprouts, cabbage, sausage, beef slices, lotus, noodles and dumplings into the pot. As we ate, I thought, Hot pot is Chinese people's soul food.

The night a scooter collided with my knee

Aug. 14 -- A ban here on gas-engine scooters means all scooters are powered by electricity and therefore very quiet when people ride them.

After an afternoon of observing classes and then meeting with other teachers in the evening, I headed back to the hotel. I decided to stop first at a nearby shop to buy a bottle of water. Before crossing the street to the shop, I looked left and right and -- when I should have looked left again -- I stepped into the street.

Changsha traffic is not like any traffic in the United States. Even in Chicago, lanes are generally respected. In Changsha, scooters and cars and buses swerve around pedestrians and each other. The concept of right of way does not belong to pedestrians or cars or scooters; rather, everybody believes they have the right of way.

A few people around me shouted before I realized what had happened. Suddenly I was nearly on top of two men riding a scooter. And my right knee was throbbing.

I was still on my feet and touched my knee. No blood. I bent my leg. No broken bones. The men backed up their scooter to check on me.

“There’s no problem,” I said to them in Chinese, and they rode off.

China’s wars, cat-women dancers and Mao comes back to life to tell a few jokes

Aug. 12 –Our Chinese teacher said it was a Chinese cultural performance. There will be singing, dancing and comedy, she said. I call it a variety show, emphasis on variety.

In a hall that seated a few hundred, the show opened with young women dancing and holding the ends of bright pink silk that dropped from the ceiling. Fog floated across the stage.

Then, a thin, androgynous man in a tight white suit sang a pop song with back-up dancers (possibly the same women from the opening) wearing cat masks and tight leather outfits.

Then, the host joked around with the thin, androgynous man. I can only tell you they were joking because the audience was laughing. I did not understand the jokes.

And then -- after the jokes, after the leather-clad cat-women dancers – the host narrated the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Against projected images of soldiers in battle, a black and white photo of a heap of massacred bodies during the Rape of Nanjing, the host spoke of the bravery of Chinese soldiers against the Japanese, against the Guomindang in the Civil War and of the great leadership of Chairman Mao. At least, that’s what I gathered from the images and the phrases I picked out. After this grand story-telling, the actor playing Mao walked out into the audience and picked out a few audience members. Again, I did not understand what Mao was saying but gather he was joking because the audience was laughing.

The show returned to more singing and dancing, including a woman who chugged a beer before launching into a slow love song.

Our kung fu teacher, who was with us in the audience, said he was a friend of the host’s and went onstage with a few of the English teachers to demonstrate a kung fu routine. (I got out of going onstage by pretending I was going up and then slipping back into my seat.)



NOTE: I have been battling a proxy snafu that prevented me from accessing my blog, plus intermittent Internet access; thus the flurry of posts now.

Club Culture

Aug. 9 – . Shui Mu Nan Hua is the best club in Changsha -- best in the sense that it is the most expensive and perhaps the flashiest. At the club’s entrance, a lighted staircase winds up alongside a window displaying shelves and shelves of alcohol.

Our Chinese teacher had hired a driver to take us to the club and had reserved a booth. Thin wedges of watermelon were laid out on a platter. Young male attendants poured whiskey and red tea, mixed at our table. We toasted to our visit to China and new friendships.

Young women in black bras and shiny, draping fabric moved from booth to booth taking shots with the men. Although music in English and Chinese blasted, no one was dancing until our kung fu (and dance) teacher arrived. In fact, he did not walk into the club so much as shimmy to our booth.

We were all exhausted from a long week of training and culture shock and jetlag. The pollution and spicy food had taken a toll on most of our bodies.

“Everyone dance one by one!” our Chinese teacher said.

“I don’t dance,” I replied. Not a good enough reply.

One of my teacher’s friends, a chubby man in a white polo shirt, grabbed both my arms and pulled me from the booth.

“Help me,” I mouthed to the two other female teachers in my Chinese class. They stood next to me as the song ended and we waited for the next one to begin. I only hoped the song, if not familiar, had a decent beat to dance to.

Madonna saved us. We all sang along, “I made it through the wilderness ..."

The Big Wheel

Aug. 9 – The biggest Ferris wheel in Asia is not in Changsha, as we were told by one local. (Singapore has the biggest in Asia and the world.) Changsha’s Ferris wheel, for a price of 50 RMB or $7, still offers the rider a view of the city completely different from ground-level.

To ride the Ferris Wheel, one must enter through the Sea Holic Hotel. A black stretch Hummer with the hotel’s name on its side was parked in front. Five of my fellow teachers and I got off at the fourth floor of the hotel to use the rest room before riding the Ferris wheel.

We entered a bright, glittering dining area. Chandeliers cast a golden light over the few diners there. A grand piano stood in the common area to the rest rooms. The rest rooms themselves were as luxurious. Western-style toilets, cloth hand towels and liquid soap. (I have gotten in the habit of always carrying around toilet paper, antibacterial gel and wet wipes.)

We were the only ones riding the Ferris wheel that night. The wheel is next to a sports stadium and, at the top of the wheel, we could see people inside the stadium practicing formations. As we rose higher and higher, we passed a crane next to the hotel where a building rose from the sidewalk. Below, the lanes of traffic did not look so perilous; from high above, the lights from cars and busses and scooters arranged into beautiful swirling patterns.

From the top of the Ferris wheel, Changsha looked like any other developed city in China. The darkness of night veiled the stained buildings that looked colorless in daylight and the layers of gray smog that always hung in the air. All we could see were the many city lights sparkle.

We Will Rock You

Aug. 7 -- We had front-row seats to the show of the summer – a talent show by summer camp students at Changsha No. One Middle School. The line-up included singing (mostly love songs), dancing (think sequins) and a magic act.

When we looked at the program schedule we realized the fourteenth act in the show was a performance by us, the foreign teachers. No one had told us ahead of time. A group of the foreign teachers got on stage and sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” a cappella. (Great job performing on the fly!)

The entire auditorium of students stood up for the finale, “We Will Rock You.” (Video on the way). Queen would be proud.

Kung Fu Dancing

Aug. 7 - Our Chinese language teacher brought her friend, a martial arts expert, as a guest teacher today. Xi Bei Laoshi gave us a lesson in shaolin kung fu . . . and hip hop dancing.

As he blasted Ne-Yo, Snoop Dogg and Leona Lewis, we pelvic-thrusted and neck-popped our way through most of the two-hour class period.

Near the end of class we finally did have our kung fu lesson. The photo above is from a kung fu lesson he gave to all of the Chinese language classes in a courtyard of Changsha No. 1 Middle School.

NOTE: I have a way to access the blog (at least for now), so I'm planning on updating more regularly.

Changsha morning

Aug. 3 – True to my first impression that Changsha does not sleep, the city in the morning was fully awake by the time I was up at 9 a.m. In daylight, Changsha is gray and hot and wet. After walking outside for less than 15 minutes, my face and back were soaked. Whether from the humidity or neglect, the faces of many apartment buildings are ragged with peeling paint. A heaviness presses down.

Cars, scooters and bicycles compete for the road. Small children ride in scooter drivers’ laps, no helmet, no seatbelt. Since my arrival the previous night, I have twice seen a scooter or bicycle nearly careen into one another. Scooters and even cars (illegally) drive on the sidewalk.

At noon, we ate beef noodle soup in a tiny shop near Changsha No. 1 Middle School. The man who works at the shop (and who I think is the owner too) pulled the noodles to order. In his hands, the thick ball of dough was multiplied into a bundle of thin, perfect noodles. A light rain fell as we ate.

First Taste of Changsha

Aug. 2 - Twenty hours after leaving Chicago, I arrived in Changsha Sunday night. Although probably unknown of by most Americans, Changsha is a big city, with a population of more than 6 million.

Changsha does not appear to sleep. Even at 11 p.m. the streets around the hotel were bustling. People sat on stools drinking cold beer on the sidewalks outside restaurants and even below a street overpass. This “fourth meal” is very popular, and the locals have a strong drinking culture, said Sean, director of teaching, who picked me up from the airport.

I got my first taste of Hunanese food that night and it did not disappoint – fiery hot. Sean and I walked down the street from the hotel to grab a bite to eat. He ordered a dish of pork with green peppers and another of eggplant and green beans with red chili peppers (or as Amy calls it, aubergine and green beans). Both dishes were swimming in oil.

Next to us, a table of people dug into a plate of steamed crawfish. Throughout our meal, a man -- thick glasses covering most of his face and a fanny pack slung around his waist -- came into the restaurant with plates of stinky tofu.

“Chou dofu?” he asked in our direction. I shook my head. I was not ready to try the blackened blocks, at least not that night.

We took a brief walk around the block, Sean pointing out noodle shops, bakeries, antique stores and Changsha No. 1 Middle School, where orientation will be held for the teachers. Within walking distance from the hotel seems to be everything I can imaginably need or want, including American fast food. But my first meal in Changsha was so tasty I think it will be many months before I crave Pizza Hut.

Great China Firewall

NOTE: I have been unsuccessful at breaking through the blocks on websites such as Facebook and Blogger. Someone is publishing my posts for me, so the publish date may be later than the date noted in the posting. Fortunately, I still have access to gmail.

Into the heat

When I've told people I am teaching English in Hunan Province, those even slightly familiar with the area say, "Oh, the spicy place." Hunan is known for its hot weather, hot food and hot personalities. (Perhaps the most famous Hunanese is Mao Zedong.)

On Aug. 2 I arrive in Changsha, the provincial capital, for three weeks of teacher training and orientation with WorldTeach. My school placement is in the countryside, in a town called Lengshuijiang, which translates to "Cold Water River." Lengshuijiang is about 150 miles southwest of Changsha, or a four-hour bus ride.

The previous teacher at the school tells me in an e-mail that the city is small but has everything I need, including two bars and a roller disco. My school is Loudi Foreign Language Middle School. The classes are huge -- 90 students. And in comparing countryside to city students, she wrote, "You won't have a problem with shy students," and "They are loud and in your face." She assures me I should not feel overwhelmed.

I will try to update this blog more than once a week. However, WorldTeach has warned the teachers that many popular sites are currently blocked by the Chinese government due to the recent ethnic clashes in Xinjiang Province.

According to an e-mail from WorldTeach, blocked sites include:

Facebook
Youtube
Flickr
Blogspot
Wordpress
Livejournal
United Nations News
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Huffington Post
Anything related to Tibet, Taiwan, or Human Rights
Practically all blogging sites

I hope I can find a way to get around the block. If not, look out for e-mail updates from me.