Recovering...

Earlier this week, I came down with a nasty bug and was out of commission for a few days. I'm not quite sure of the origins since I'm pretty sure it was from a meal, but no one else became ill. Regardless, I was definitely not feeling up for class and had to cancel two periods and then be loopy for most of my Tuesday afternoon class.

While I did not have enough energy for class, I did have it in me to lie in bed and catch up on Project Runway Season 3, from last year, since I hadn't seen most of shows, as I was cable-less. I also managed to learn a children's Chinese riddle, which I attempted to recite, in Chinese, to my students in my loopy state, which did not go over well. My student asked me if I was speaking Chinese.

I think its so interesting that even though we, more or less, have the same animals all over the world, we have different animal sounds. For example, in the Chinese riddle, the frog says, "呱呱呱" (gua, gua, gua) which is different from how Americans view the amphibian's vocal contributions to pond life.

Also, at the beginning of the "semester" with my seniors, when they found out I spoke Spanish, they said, "oh, I hear that there are many beautiful Spanish songs, can you sing us one?" Unfortunately for them, I conceded and sang them "De Colores" which I successfully butchered. Regardless, there's all sorts of farm animal noises that stray from our conventional cock-a-doodle-doos and high-pitched peeps. Anyhoo, De Colores is a catchy tune, which you can hear in the movie "Romero," a powerful, life-changing film about Oscar Romero that takes place in El Salvador.

Surgery

I just learned how to say "surgery" in Chinese, 外科 (waike), no worries, I did not have to utilize my dictionary because I was in the hospital. So, dorky me thinks this is so cool because a literal translation is 'department of out.' In other words, the department where things are taken out, which believe you me, surgeons, more likely than not, want to do. 外科, pretty nifty, eh?

In other news, I am halfway done with my teaching marathon. I think between prepping for class, teaching, going to Chinese class, Chinese tutors, and studying Chinese, time has evaporated quickly. Its challenging to teach 5-6 different 2 hour lessons each week and while I already had a great deal of respect for teachers, it has grown exponentially.

For those of you interested: Project Runway Season 4 starts on November 14th. Its a fabulous show that showcases up and coming, talented fashion designers. Its interesting to see the process from the challenge to the sketches to the execution of a garment. Plus there's, of course, great drama and humor. I won't be able to watch it on TV, tear. However, I think I'll be able to find it on Chinese Internet. Hooray!

Guest teacher

Disclaimer: this happened 2 weeks ago and I forgot to tell you about it, so it goes.

Everyday, Jenny has a class in the afternoon for about 25 minutes, where she is free to teach anything. She usually does something English-related. I had previously been giving a spattering of American Sign Language (ASL) signs ranging from the alphabet to pineapple. Thus, she thought it would be interesting if I came in and did the alphabet and whatever else came up.

I was more than happy to do it as I enjoy hanging out with little munchkins. What I failed to realize was that it would be with 40 students during their last period of their day. They were quiet a handful, but Jenny is SO great at shuting them, uh, I mean, quieting them down. It was a lot of fun teaching them the ABCs of ASL and they went crazy over signs like 'hamburger' and 'pineapple'. (I found a website that shows ASL signs in video)

To top it off, at the end of class, the little guys and gals stormed the front room, shoving pens and papers into my hand, asking me for my signature. I felt like an instant celebrity and wanted to get out fast. Those little kids are strong! (and some need baths)

Its was a great way to spend the afternoon and Jenny has since told me that the kiddos are asking for me to come back. Maybe I'll ask my friends to be my bodyguards...

A Banana in Mini-English Corner

After class, I met with a student of mine so that she could practice speaking English with me. She ended up leaving around half-past 5 so that I could study a little bit of Chinese before I met with my tutor. As I was reviewing, a small band of students migrated in, eager to practice their English with me, before their English-Corner at 6pm. English Corner is weekly, where the foreign teachers and English majors meet and practice their oral English. I had met some of them before and I didn't mind taking a few minutes to converse with them.

They were very curious why I looked like them, but could speak English so well AND why didn't I speak Chinese. One girl said, "You are an ABC (American Born Chinese)!". I nodded my head, as I couldn't speak since my mouth was full with banana. She then pointed at my hand gripping the banana and exclaimed, "We also call you a 'banana'!". I sort of chuckled and slightly nodded my head.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, calling a Chinese person basically means: "you are yellow on the outside and white on the inside." Thus, you are a banana; you look Chinese on the outside, but your insides are white. I don't mind being named an ABC because for the most part that's true, but I feel that while I grew up in America, I definitely have some Chinese values and beliefs in me. While I know she did not mean that as an insult, I usually associate the labeling of 'banana' as someone who is not happy being Chinese and wanting to be "white"; this is NOT the case with me. Speaking of bananas, a few weeks ago, I took a picture of my twin banana (no, the banana did not look like me):

Although I am proud of being Chinese-American, in class today, a student asked me which country I felt more patriotic for: China or the United States. I explained to her that I was born and raised in America, so of course, I have more patriotic feelings for the U.S. (even though we've done alot of crummy things in a myriad of places in the world), but I am also extremely proud of my heritage.

We then talked about China-Japan relations. This was a huge issue for her, understandably so, as the Japanese have committed many, unspeakable atrocities, especially in Nanjing, which has been called "The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" by Iris Chang, in her book, 'The Rape of Nanking'. I highly recommend this book (while researching this a little bit on the web, I just found out, even though this happened in 2004, that Iris Change committed suicide, you can read about it here, if you have NY Times access, if you don't, sorry, I can't afford the $1,000 to share it with everyone).

My student asked me about my feelings towards Japanese people. I explained that while I realize that the Japanese committed many atrocities, it happened in the past and I do not harbor any ill-feelings towards currently. However, I disagree with the Japanese government's policy about covering up what Japanese soldiers did during WWII. The government has given their citizens' a revisionist history of what happened. While I understand that the leaders want to foster nationalism, I don't agree with it. Japan, however, is not alone in rewriting history, I think many countries are guilty of this, especially the U.S. Nevertheless, people can still feel proud of their country and know what past atrocities have been committed.

On another note, one of the students guessed that I'm 19 years old, that kind of nice, I guess. I think my hair is getting out of control. I am in serious need of one, but I'm trying to figure out a different hairstyle. Any suggestions?

Chillin' Jilin Halloween Bash

Last night, our first shindig of the year was a success! We had a potluck Halloween party and invited our fellow foreign teachers, classmates and friends. Our costumes went over well with the crowds: Jim was a construction worker, Matt wrapped himself in toilet paper, to be a mummy, Kevin had a toilet seat cozy, toilet paper and a mini plunger to imitate a toilet and my costume turned out pretty nicely, as Astroboy, whom the Koreans call “Atom”.

At first I wasn’t sure how my costume would go over since it was black underwear over skin colored long johns, but I think the red soccer socks brought the costume together.

The food was great ranging from Vegetarian Chili to Korean Rice balls with hot sauce. Due to the international flair (Mozambique, Korea, Japan, etc) of the party, most everyone was communicating in Chinese; we named it "Chinese Corner", named after "English Corner", which we hold for the Chinese students during the evening. Pictures are below and posted here.











Ashley, Sannai, Wakana, and Joo






Lion and Moi
(There's an Astroboy sticker on my belt)











The Mummy and Ashley















"Death by Plunger"

Part of the world again!

Hooray! Yesterday, I came back from our almost daily lunch spot, which we have nicknamed the Muslim Noodle Place, and sitting behind the reception desk was a black case for me! I finally got the computer that UVM had sent me about a month ago.

Not having a computer was not the end of the world, but its much more convenient to have an accessible connection. Its going to be easier to plan for classes and I don't have to worry about getting all of my work done in hour blocks at the internet cafe.

To share the spirit of Halloween with our fellow friends here, we're throwing "The 2007 Chillin' Jilin Halloween Bash" tomorrow night. I was having a hard time deciding what I would be for the party. One day, we were shopping at Da Fu Yuan, which is a major grocery store where I saw my inspiration! I'm going to dress up as Astroboy! He is a Japanese cartoon character and one of his unique powers is using his hips as "a powerful machine gun".

我 叫 黄思金

Okay, I just figured how to use the pinyin-Chinese program on the computers here in the Internet cafe, with the assistance of Jenny.

I'm ecstatic of this new discovery because its another conduit for me to study. I'm also ecstatic because this keyboard does not have any spittle on the keys. The other day, I was writing an email to my sister, but every time I would begin a sentence or use a proper noun, my left pinky felt wet. At first, I ignored this sensation, but then after a few minutes, I wondered what the heck was going on. I looked down at the shift key and it was covered in some food particles in a small puddle of someone else's saliva. How pleasant.

Anyhoo, I wrote: 我 叫 黄思金（Wo jiao Huang si jin) which means "My name is James Huang" Well, my surname is Huang which means yellow. Then, si jin means to think of gold, which I guess means that I want to be rich or think of being rich, which is not really the case, but its a lucky name, I think.

Chinese Wedding (婚姻)

On Saturday, I had the privilege of accompanying my friend, Jenny, to a colleague's wedding. It was a pretty dreary morning, rainy and cold, but I was excited to see a Chinese wedding. The wedding started at 11:18Am; I am assuming ending in '8' because this is considered a lucky number, as in Chinese, 八 (eight), sounds like 发（fa), which means prosperity.



Jenny and I strolled up to the front of a restaurant, with our umbrellas in hand, waiting for the arrival of the lucky couple. There was a stand with firecrackers dangling from the top bar and a crowd of anxious wedding attendees armed with tubes filled of confetti.

The doorman lit off the firecrackers and we were all cheering for the couple as they stepped out of the car. The shiny confetti shot all over the happy couple and drifted on the wind towards us, covering us. Then all of a sudden, Jenny exclaimed, "ai! those are not my friends!". We were waiting for the wrong wedding party!

We quickly exited to the restaurant half a block down, finding 'our' lucky bride and groom. It was a good thing that we went to the wrong wedding because we had missed the grand, noisy entrance of our couple.

This wedding, like many other Chinese weddings according to Jenny, seemed pretty low key to me. There was an MC who ran the show and introduced the bride and groom, said some nice things about them, like how pretty the bride was and how lucky the groom was. There was a quick ceremony, officiated by some woman, and then some speeches by the parents and their bosses. Then, instead of a wedding procession, there was a dizzingly fast marching of food to our tables.



The wedding banquet was great and while did not consist of many options for the ovo-lacto-pesco-tarian, I was quite stuffed upon exiting the wedding which ended in a record short time, at 12:30. I think its the shortest wedding I've ever been to in my life.