Resources for Learning Chinese

For those learning Chinese out there, I thought I would mention some of the most useful resources I have found for learning the language.

Websites
ChinesePod
By far my favorite Chinese lessons. The lessons focus on spoken Chinese and are in podcast form, so they are meant to be downloaded and listened to on your computer or mp3 player. Each lesson focuses on a pre-recorded dialogue, which is listened to and then discussed and explained by the two hosts (one native English speaker and one native Chinese speaker). The lessons are divided into five levels, so they suit any level of Chinese learner, and the topics are a good mix of the practical and the interesting. I particularly like ChinesePod because the lessons are well-written and teach Chinese the way Chinese people actually speak it (I'm amazed by the number of Chinese learning materials that fail at this), the hosts are personable without being over-the-top, and they've created a community around the website. By this I mean there are discussions around each lesson on the website where users can leave comments and questions, and the hosts of the lessons and other employees will personally answer your questions. The lessons themselves are all free to download, but you need a paid subscription to get the extra materials (including the written transcript of the lesson dialogues). I'm familiar with some of the audio lessons you can buy at the store (Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, etc.) and have not been particularly impressed with them.

www.nciku.com
My favorite online dictionary. I particularly like the example sentences and the great tool for looking up characters by drawing them.

www.dict.cn
Another online dictionary that is actually aimed at Chinese people learning English, but is also great for seeing the words you look up used in example sentences (all with English translations).

Adsotrans
A useful site for reading Chinese, in which you can copy and paste several sentences of Chinese text and have them "annotated," meaning that you can see the definition of each word or phrase when you hover the mouse pointer over it. Much quicker than looking up each word in the dictionary individually. The only downside is that for words that have multiple meanings, the site makes the best guess of the meaning relevant to the sentence and shows you only that definition, so if it guesses wrong you are going to have to look up the word in the dictionary anyway.

Books
Oxford Starter Chinese Dictionary
The first dictionary I used, which is great for the beginner as it includes examples and notes about how to use words, lots of information on measure words, and sections devoted to things like talking about "time" or "musical instruments" in Chinese. Apparently there is a new version called the Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary, which I'm sure is worth checking out. The dictionary I use now is the confusingly named Pocket Oxford Chinese Dictionary, which is excellent but not at all pocket size. All of these dictionaries use simplified Chinese characters.

Reading and Writing Chinese
A great reference book for learning characters, as it does the best job of any book I've seen of actually explaining the logic and meaning behind the characters. Be sure to pick up the simplified character version for mainland China and the traditional character version for Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Intensive Spoken Chinese
The first textbook I used, and an excellent beginner's textbook for learning the spoken language (the characters are included as well, but not emphasized). The first book in a series, which is followed by The Most Common Chinese Radicals and Rapid Literacy in Chinese. The last two are also recommended, and the series is widely available for a low price in the foreign language bookstores of large Chinese cities.

New Practical Chinese Reader
A five-volume series of textbooks that I have encountered through my Peace Corps coworkers, who have been supplied with the books for their language training. I haven't had the chance to use the books much myself but I've liked what I've seen. I'm not sure that they are available in China, and I haven't been completely satisfied with any of the more advanced textbooks I have bought here.

Zhangye's First International Student

Originally this post would have been about moving to Shanghai. I had it all planned out: I was going to study Chinese at a university in Shanghai that has a large Chinese program for foreigners. The semester started at the end of February, and when it ended at the beginning of July I was going to finally return to America, together with Nissa. I would find an apartment upon arrival, having made appointments beforehand to look at several, and easily find part-time jobs teaching English to support myself. Tuition was expensive, I would have considerably more personal expenses including rent, and it would make my relationship more difficult, but I was determined to use my last few months in China to learn the maximum amount of Chinese that was possible. I'm also planning to take the HSK in June, a notoriously difficult exam to test the Chinese ability of non-native speakers. So in February I moved to Shanghai, took a good look around, and after three weeks I left.

Finding an apartment and my first job were not at all difficult, and I would learn a lot from my classes. But there many problems which I was not willing to overlook, mostly with the school. During my research I had heard many positive things about studying Chinese through a school--small, interactive classes that quickly improved your ability. With 15 hours of class a week, surely I would learn more than I could on my own. However, after our language tests at registration they put me in an intermediate class with 20 other students, mostly Korean and Japanese. Definitely larger than I wanted and expected.

In addition, the teaching methods were Chinese in all the worst ways. The teacher taught by painstakingly covering the textbook line by line, page by page, with many repetitive and dull vocabulary drills. The teachers spent a lot of time lecturing, and we had barely any time to practice speaking. Even in a three-hour "Spoken Chinese" class I don't think I was able to open my mouth and speak Chinese for more than two minutes, and quite a bit of class was time was listening to and being influenced by the mistakes of my classmates. The classes were also poorly coordinated--the Reading textbook was quite difficult, Listening suitable, and Speaking ridiculously easy. The textbooks were mediocre and uninspiring--dialogues and stories about making friends in the dormitory or moral lessons about why you shouldn't be lazy. Despite the school's receiving a huge amount of tuition from us (we were also overcharged for the textbooks), the only equipment in use besides chalk was a single tape player which didn't work. In over two years of learning Chinese it was the first time I was bored.

I also felt some disappointment with Shanghai, a city I had loved during my first visit as a tourist. Language practice was more difficult because the local people were much busier, less friendly, and much less impressed by foreigners in comparison to Zhangye. Many people either insisted in replying to me in English or didn't want to acknowledge that I was using Chinese, using hand gestures to answer my questions. I would have to work a lot of hours to cover my expenses, and commuting around the city was very time-consuming and exhausting, leaving me less time to study. And of course I missed Zhangye for its blue skies, superior food, low prices, and the friends I had made.

Luckily I had the option of getting a 70% refund (and I had only paid them half at that point) during the first two weeks of class, so I quit and made plans to return to Zhangye. Along with simply liking it here it is an excellent environment for Chinese self-study, and of course my girlfriend is still here finishing her teaching contract.

Upon returning, I had the problem of determining where to live, as of course I no longer have a school-provided apartment. It made the most sense to live with Nissa, but what would the school think about it? Our Miss Mao did find out, and summoned me into her office at the beginning of this week. I had no idea if she was going to kick me out or expect me to pay to move into my old apartment or what. It turns out she and the school don't care, but I have to simply go through the paperwork and be official.

I do still need to be part of some work unit or school to live in Zhangye, and studying Chinese in my living room doesn't quite cut it. So in classic Miss Mao fashion, she told me to write out an application--to study Chinese at Hexi University. So, to my great amusement, on paper I am Zhangye's first American "study abroad" student in the Chinese department of Hexi University. I'm tempted to attend Chinese department classes; maybe they won't notice me. I've been asked countless times in town if I'm a student in Zhangye, and finally I am.

Now that I don't actually teach at Hexi University it is easy to get a good two or three hours of study in during the day. I also have a private tutor, and am determined to learn just as much, spend less, and interact much more with Chinese speakers compared to Shanghai. On the side I tutor English and even teach Chinese to other foreign teachers. I also have a final chance to enjoy the wonderful local food. It feels good to be back.

Oh What a Nice Little Devil Your Child Is!

The Chinese language is confusing. Like any language very different from one's native tongue, a person who has never studied Chinese might be tempted to say Chinese words "all sound the same." But to a native English speaker there is a glimmer of truth in that--Chinese has only 400 different sounds (monosyllables). By comparison, English has 8,000, a full twenty times as many. That means a whole lot of Chinese words have the same sounds, but they are distinguished by the four tones in Chinese (high and level, rising, falling and rising, and sharply falling). This is pretty interesting for the linguist or dedicated learner but a small nightmare for the absolute beginner trying to learn Chinese pronunciation. How important are tones? A few examples of words with the same sounds that are differentiated only by tone (the marks above the letters show the tone):

小姐 xiǎojie - miss/young woman/prostitute (in northern China)

vs.

小节 xiǎojié - (in music) one measure
vs.
小结 xiǎojié - summary

打算 dǎsuàn - plan/to plan
vs.
大蒜 dàsuàn - garlic

上海 Shànghǎi - Shanghai (the city)
vs.
伤害 shānghài - to injure

公里 gōnglǐ - kilometer
vs.
巩俐 gǒnglì - Gong Li (the actress)

眼睛 yǎnjīng - eyes
vs.
眼镜 yǎnjìng - eyeglasses
vs.
燕京 yànjīng - Yanjing (city name)

贵子 guìzi - precious (such as a child)
vs.
鬼子 guǐzi - devil (such as a child)

要是 yàoshì - if
vs.
钥匙 yàoshi - (door) key

杯子 bēizi - (drinking) glass
vs.
被子 bèizi - quilt
vs.
辈子 bèizi - a whole lifetime

病人 bìngrén - patient
vs.
兵人 bīngrén - soldier

You'll notice that this is not a problem in written Chinese because the characters for these words are completely different (though getting the thousands of different characters mixed up is another story). To my surprise I haven't seen too many funny or embarrassing misunderstandings, although being simply misunderstood is par for the course. Once a student asked me if the food her and her classmates had just gone through the trouble of cooking for me and Andrew was delicious and I said "no," to her surprise and her classmates' amusement. When she said xiāng (delicious) I heard xiǎng (would like) and thought she was asking if I wanted any more. I read a story about a foreigner asking for a banana (xiāngjiāo) cake in a supermarket and getting a bizarre look because he had accidentally asked for a rubber (xiàngjiāo) cake.

But one of the better stories I can remember about confusing tones came not from China but from a friend named Jenny in Thailand, where the language is also tonal. Whenever she referred to Thai boxing, known as muay thai, it would get a great reaction from the class. It's not always easy keeping the students' interest so she would refer to muay thai as often as possible in class, only to learn later that the way she was pronouncing it she was not talking about Thai boxing at all, but rather Thai pubic hair.

Any other stories/easily confused Chinese words out there?

Chinese Words and Phrases 4: 和谐社会 héxié shèhuì

Hexie shehui means "harmonious society," and is a phrase that pops up a lot in China these days. One of the current favorite government slogans, it was adopted by the Party in 2004. In the wake of such rapid growth China is experiencing well-publicized social problems including a large gap between the rich and the poor, environmental devastation, and protests by Chinese who have been forcibly moved from their land in the name of development. According to the government "a harmonious society is defined as a socialist democracy, with rule of law, social justice, honesty and credibility, balancing human activities and natural resources." If asking citizens to help build a "harmonious society" sounds vague to you, apparently the government agrees, as according to China Daily the government has recently decided to create "an index system judging social harmony." Hm. Today the terror threat in America is the color green, and the social harmony in China is around 6.4 out of 10. Another popular government campaign is the "8 Virtues and 8 Vices" or "8 Do's and Dont's," which I spied in English during my traveling:

I'm intrigued by the Party slogans, and the propaganda, much of which is perfectly well-meaning. You just don't see "Cherish Life; Give Up Drugs" painted in giant letters by the government on walls in America, or billboards encouraging you to "Carry out the Three Represents." Signs like these would be mocked to death in the West. When I first started studying Chinese I looked forward to being able to understand the signs, posters, and billboards, which are pervasive. The most common theme is probably the one-child policy, with signs reminding the populace that "Having a girl is the same as having a boy," "Carrying out the one-child policy is every citizen's duty and obligation" and "Girls are the builders of our future." I'm not sure how excited many Chinese get about getting behind the slogans anyway; for instance, Chinese bloggers who get their blogs blocked now sarcastically write about being "harmonized."

Anyway, whatever President Hu Jintao and the rest of the Party meant by Harmonious Society, I hope it wasn't this:

Ningxia Travels I: Capitalism Run Amok, Pyramids in China

It is time again for the National Day Holiday in China, a time for the Chinese to reflect upon the founding of their socialist republic and the myriad way it has improved their lives. And what would make the dear Chairman prouder on the anniversary of his establishment of Communist China than sales, sales, sales!

I particularly like the man in the gorilla costume, let's see a close-up of that:

I've been in the city of Yinchuan for the start of the holiday and more than the pleasant museum and tranquil pagodas I can't help but notice the capitalist orgy taking place on the streets. Need a Nokia phone? A wedding dress? In the mood for audience participation, games, prizes, karaoke, or just silly dancing? The streets of a Chinese shopping district during a holiday are the place to be. Despite the sarcasm I do actually enjoy the oral assault and chaos you sometimes get in China, especially when I know I have a small, relatively sleepy city to return to. There is something to be said for the sight of adults old enough to have been through the Cultural Revolution giggling and fighting over the chance to thrown plastic rings at cell phones for a prize. Even during normal times Chinese stores know how to open or remodel in a grand way--giant inflatable archways, confetti, firecrackers, and for the really ambitious, cannons. Inevitably there is a also a mammoth stereo system playing upbeat pop or a stage with live karaoke singing.

As much fun as I'm having otherwise (is that a pizza buffet??) one of the main reasons to come to one of China's smallest and most obscure provinces is for a bit of history, in the form of thousand-year old pyramid-like tombs left by the Xixia kingdom. These are the centerpiece of the few remains of this fearsome and somewhat mysterious kingdom which at times rivaled the Chinese dynasties of the day, but was destined to be destroyed by Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In their heyday they controlled a sizeable piece of northwest China, including Zhangye.

In the end the real reason I came to Ningxia province is because no one else wants to. Traveling to and from a popular destination during a Chinese national holiday is between very difficult and a nightmare and only those with extensive experience in China can appreciate the feeling I had when I bought an overnight sleeper ticket for the train in less than four minutes. I also appreciate being simply a novelty rather than a target for harassment by vendors.

It rained heavily at the park today, and a group of us found shelter and entertainment listening to an elderly musician in a pavilion, which I probably enjoyed more than any of the ticketed attractions around town. Many curious locals have come up to talk to me and find out why I'm here; on hearing I was American one woman remarked "but aren't Americans black? Your skin is so white!" For the thousandth time a woman encouraged her shy child to "say hello to the American uncle!" and a woman suggested the violinist "play a song for our foreign friend over there." If willing conversation partners are one of the keys to learning a language, China might well be one of the best countries in the world to do it.

Guizhou Travels

note: if you are in China and therefore must use complicated means to actually read this and other blogspot blogs, I recently came across the best method I've yet seen


After my father and brother left I met up with friend/co-worker/bearer of confusingly similar name Danielle in Guizhou province. Before meeting her I killed a day in Tongren (铜仁). An opinionated woman who resembled Jabba the Hut told me about America over my bowl of local noodles. The only thing I understood was that America is not stable, unlike their stable China.

With limited options that night I wandered into one of the only places open, a karaoke bar. A birthday celebration was in full swing and I was eventually coaxed into joining the party, and even talked into singing Chinese karaoke for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised when the men in the group insisted I drink slowly the whole night. I obviously wasn't in hard-drinking Gansu anymore. A fake platinum blond with a cigarette in the group who exuded old Hollywood cool eventually made sure I went home in a taxi, informing me that "this place isn't stable."

The next morning I watched a blind fortuneteller under the shade of some trees for an hour or so and chatted with the elderly Chinese whose had noticed me. One of them asked me "are you American or Japanese?" Later in the conversation he became confused and said "in your country..... you're Japanese, right?" I was once told a story by another foreign teacher about a blond woman arriving at a school to teach and being confused with the new Japanese teacher. The school also later insisted on giving the actual Japanese teacher a spoon during the first banquet, despite her insistence that they also use chopsticks in Japan. The blind man talked with me for a short time and while making polite conversation I almost asked "are you often busy?" but stopped myself; "busy" (忙 máng) and "blind" (盲 máng) are pronounced exactly the same in Chinese and "are you often blind?" didn't seem like a very polite question.

After several hours on the bus next to a drunk 65-year old philosophy professor who looked like Professor Snape from Harry Potter and adored America, I was in Kaili (凯理) where I would meet Danielle. This was the starting point for our exploration of southeastern Guizhou, home to a wide variety of ethnic minorities, including the Miao (苗族) and Dong (侗族). We passed a couple of very pleasant days in the villages of Xijiang (西江) and Zhaoxing (肇兴), where a way of life completely different from that of the dominant Han Chinese could be observed. We only saw a glimpse of two of the area's many cultures (by official count there are 55 minority cultures in China in all) but each had its own language, style of dress, and architecture, and I found the trip much more invigorating than the many hours of anthropology classes I attended in college.

In Xijiang we encountered a group of about 20 French tourists led by a Chinese-speaking man from Cameroon, and some miscommunication while they ordered dinner led to the unusual situation of A. the man from Cameroon speaking to the Miao hostel manager in Chinese B. the manager speaking back to me in dialect Chinese because I could understand her (only slightly) better C. me talking to the man from Cameroon in English and finally D. him translating back to his friend in French. After dinner I ended up with my first translating "job," as I was asked to expand their English menu by about 80 dishes, a good challenge. Earlier we had noticed a spontaneous but full-fledged game of basketball had broken out between five of the French and a Chinese team in uniform, with a referee and practically half of the small town watching and cheering.

In Zhaoxing I went out in the evening alone and befriended an entertaining group of young Chinese - four likable girls, a portly man from the Bai minority who sang when he lost in our drinking game, and a charismatic man from Guangdong with a serious smoker's voice who had driven by himself all the way from Beijing. Though I couldn't keep up the conversation was much more stimulating than normal (in a year and a half the only time I've seen discussion and even disagreement about the Taiwan issue) and it was one of my more memorable moments of the summer.












The bus rides on winding, bumpy roads through this part of Guizhou were memorable in and of themselves, both for the beauty of the scenery and the curious things the locals brought on board. During one trip a man was standing in the aisle next to me when an unmistakable sound come from the sack he was holding tightly in his hand: "meoooowww..... meoowwww......" When the ride got bumpy this changed into a frenzied "meeOOWWW!!!! mEOOWW!!!!" On various bus rides we saw chickens in a sack, ducks in a sack (one of them tried to bite a baby), and enormous fish in a sack. During a stop for food on one bus ride we heard the yelping of a dog, and quickly realized it was coming from a large, moving sack across the street. The sack, with no visible air holes, was tied to the back of a motorcycle that had just ridden in. This was definitely dog eating country and when two men took the dog out of the sack we thought we were going to watch them kill it on the street right then and there. They didn't, merely tying it up where it could pant and drool as it wished.

Last stop in Guizhou was Chishui (赤水), which is so close to Sichuan you could probably reach it with a baseball and unsurprisingly was the start of Hot Pot country, a distinctive Sichuan meal popular throughout China. Me and Danielle were intrigued by a paper-burning ritual by the river in honor of a deceased relative. It was not a gloomy affair, with the family joking around with each other and one middle-aged man looking simply bored as he fanned himself and rolled up his shirt over his large gut. The city itself was small and quite pleasant, and allowed for a couple of outings to nearby waterfalls and surrounding bamboo forests.

Chinese Words and Phrases 2: 帮我一个忙 bāng wǒ yīge máng

Bang wo yige mang means "help me out with something," generally prefaced by "could you..." and is a phrase to be wary of in Chinese. One of the unexpected bonuses of being a foreign teacher in China is the chance to be volunteered to help people you don't know improve their English. And thus a neighbor who is a chemistry teacher has dropped by with his 26-page research paper for me to look over before he submits it to a scientific journal. This is clearly a better use of my time than the 274 final exams I have to grade, and besides that makes for exciting reading. The title is "An Investigation on Synthesis and Photocatalytic Activity of Polyaniline Sensitized Nanocrystalline TiO2 Composites," and the first sentence is typical of the rest of the paper: "Polyaniline (PAn) sensitized nanocrystalline TiO2 composite photocatalystPAn/TiO2) with high activity and easy separation had been facilely prepared by in situ chemical oxidation of aniline from the surfaces of the TiO2 nanoparticles." I told him no on account of being too busy, leaving out the fact that I don't even understand it in English (my spellchecker backs me up by claiming most of these are not real words). Actually he's a perfectly nice guy who had me over for dinner the last time I helped him, but I have few outlets for sarcasm these days.

Chinese Words and Phrases 1: 减肥班 jiǎnféi bān

I'm going to try something new, which may or may not immediately succumb to apathy on my part (after all I am around a month behind on this blog). I don't expect there is a very high number of Chinese learners who read this blog, but I'd like to make a few comments every so often about a word I have come across and for some reason find interesting. It doesn't matter if you have any interest in learning the word or not; I'll try to choose words which are as "Chinese" culturally as they are linguistically. The first word I'm going to look at is:

减肥班 jiǎnféi bān
(note to the uninitiated): to the right of the characters is what is called pinyin, the official system in China for spelling Chinese words with the Roman alphabet. The marks above the letters represent the tone of the character: there are four tones in Chinese, meaning that each syllable must not only be pronounced accurately, but with the proper pitch in your voice. If this is confusing and you want to understand it, listen to this. I suspect that musicians and particularly singers make better Chinese speakers. So, a Chinese person just uses characters because they have them memorized, but those learning Chinese for the first time (foreigner teachers or very young children, who might not be as different as you would expect) need to see the pinyin of a new word to know how it is actually pronounced. There have been different systems for spelling Chinese words in the past, which is why Beijing was once spelled Peking and Daoism is usually spelled Taoism even though it is pronounced with a "d" sound.

Jianfei means "lose weight," and ban means "class," as in a class at school. So jianfei ban means "lose weight class," or if you prefer, "fat class." At our university, and presumably others throughout China, if you fail PE class you must attend the fat class. I came across this word because a student I know but don't teach has to take part. Ironically, she is as skinny as they come, weighing no more than 110 pounds. It came up when she spotted her classmate in the fat class in the park and mentioned it. Why is she in the fat class? Because her PE teacher told her that if she didn't give him a "gift," he was going to fail her. She didn't, and he kept his promise. In America you could maybe count to three before that teacher was fired, but in China bribery is common.

My students often talk of their desire to lose weight, though many would be considered normal or skinny in America. Chinese people are also fond of referring to the general fatness of Americans, and have asked me why I'm not fat. Actually, my impression is that in Chinese calling someone "fat" is not nearly as rude as it is in English. My students use the word in English a little too freely, and as a general rule are not very politically correct (recently a student instructed to plan the China village in Epcot Center said he would make the walls yellow to "represent our yellow skin"). Anyway, the jianfei ban also reminded me of the time in high school when the bottom third of the gym class in swimming speed got held back for extra swimming lessons, and I just barely did not make the cut. But at least they still called it gym class.

Learning Chinese Doesn't Make You Crazy

疯

As time goes on, I feel that learning Chinese really isn't as difficult as people make it out to be. In the beginning things like pronunciation, tones, characters, and measure words are all big problems, but at the intermediate level I think it's probably a lot more difficult for a Chinese person learning English. Remembering two or three thousand individual characters to read a newspaper (and I'm definitely not there yet) may sound like an impossible task, but there's a logic to it all I think is really interesting. For example, a student recently sent me a text message in Chinese, and there was a character I didn't know, which looked like this: 疯. That might look complex, but when broken down is actually pretty simple and easy to remember. The outer part of the character is a shape that represents sickness and is seen in characters like 病 (sick), 瘦 (thin), and 疼 (ache). The inner part is the character 风, pronounced as "feng," which means "wind." When I looked it up it turned out to mean "insane," and is pronounced "feng," exactly the same sound and tone as in "wind." So, part of the character suggests the meaning (having to do with "sickness") and part of it suggests the pronunciation. Instantly remembered, whereas a Chinese student learning the English word "insane" needs to remember what probably seems like an arbitrary sound to them. Incidentally, now I know how to say "lunatic" (疯子) and "mad cow disease" in Chinese (疯牛病).

Full words are usually made up of two characters, and already knowing the meaning of two characters can make them extremely easy to remember. A student of English must memorize "confident" arbitrarily and know how it's different from "confidence" and "confidently," but in Chinese they all translate as one word, 信心 xìnxīn, to "believe" in your "heart." "Be careful" is 小心 ("small heart"), "everybody" is 大家 ("big family"), "archeology" is 考古 ("examine" and "ancient"), "computer" is 电脑 ("electric brain") and "safety" is 安全 ("peace" and "entire" or "all"). Names of machines and fields of study are generally very logical and simple in Chinese, such as "refrigerator" (冰箱, "ice box") or "physics" (物理学, literally "things-logic-study"). Verbs never conjugate in Chinese ("is," "was," "were," "are," and "am" are all the same word), nouns have no plural form, and I don't know the statistics but I'm sure Chinese uses a much smaller vocabulary than English. Also, Chinese grammar is far and away simpler than English grammar.

The sentence the student sent to me was roughly "Dong Yang [my Chinese name, 冬阳], I'm having a hard time, I don't know what to do about the TEM4 exam, I don't think I can do it, I'll soon go insane." The Chinese education system is very exam-intensive, and stress-inducing. My students are so worried about this upcoming national exam that when I asked them to make statements using "I hope..." back in December several classes said "I hope I pass the TEM4!" Learning English can be quite a burden for them, and I hope we as foreign teachers and representatives of the English-speaking world can provide some small amount of motivation and encouragement for them.

Chinese Small Talk

Saying "hello" can be more complicated in China than where I'm from. Hello in Chinese is 你好 nǐhǎo, which isn't complicated to say and is an easy greeting for acquaintances and strangers (and never have I so often talked to strangers). However, when greeting friends Chinese people don't like to say nǐhǎo, instead using their own brand of rhetorical questions. But rather than "how are you?", they especially prefer "have you eaten yet?" or "where are you going?" I've heard of uninformed Chinese students in Western countries asking everyone in English if they've eaten yet. Of course, sometimes it's 9 p.m. and you know exactly where your friend is going when you run into them, in which case I usually just go for the awkward smile and head nod. Also, incredibly obvious comments go over well. I would say by far the most common greeting from a friend you've made plans to see is "you're here!" When it's time to get going, it's general practice to announce "I am leaving," and small restaurants that are familiar with me will almost without exception say 走了zǒule, "so you're leaving" as I head out. Today while I was eating lunch a woman I recognized entered the restaurant with her friends. I finally realized she was the woman who sold me my cell phone. Our entire conversation, which she started, was literally "so you're eating food!" "Yep, I am eating food." These little exchanges are certainly nothing new to me, but I continue to get a kick out of them.

Trainsitting

I had top bunk on the train the next day for the 30 hour ride, which is less than ideal, as there isn’t nearly enough room to sit up in bed. There are seats by the windows in the aisles, but the Chinese thing to do is to hang out on the spacious bottom bunk whether or not it’s yours or you know the person. When I eventually descended to have my instant noodles, the three passengers hanging out on the two bottom bunks drew me into conversation right away, especially an older retired man who was with his wife. These conversations can be remarkably similar, so you get well-practiced at it and appear to have effortless Chinese skills, at least for the first 10 minutes. In order of likelihood, you will hear the following questions in the first 5 minutes of meeting a random Chinese person:

1. Which country are you from?

2. How long have you been in China?

3. Are you used to living here?

4. How old are you?

5. Where do you study/are you a student?

6. Are you married/do you have a girlfriend?

7. How much money do you make?

8. (in my case) Zhangye? Where’s that? Hm. Oh yes, Zhangye. Why would you want to go there? You should go to a big city, they have lots of foreigners.

I’ve heard of a foreign teacher who made a t-shirt with the answers to the common questions, just to make things easier. After a while, the old man remarked “our countries have a lot of communication now. Not like before—you don’t remember, you’re too young, but we were enemies,” adding emphasis by pounding his two fists together. “Mao Zedong—do you know him?—he used to say America was our enemy.” He said current president Hu Jintao is a good leader (enormous surprise there), and when he brought up Iraq I was very emphatic about how much I disagreed with the war and disliked Bush, that in fact quite a few Americans dislike him. He turned to the young man sitting next to me and said “Americans can say whatever they want.” Eventually those two had their own conversation about Chairman Mao, which unfortunately was too difficult for me to understand. During this time the old man split a small bottle of potent baijiu with me, quite pleased that I could drink the stuff without making a face. His wife also insisted I take handfuls and handfuls of peanuts. Out of politeness you should refuse these offerings at first, and in fact I don’t really like peanuts, but a Chinese person will give it to you anyway.

“Chatting” would definitely be one of the top pasttimes in China, and on the train passengers are quick to make new friends. To my surprise the young man asked if I had any Chinese books he could borrow, and as it happened I had just bought a Chinese/English edition of a book called Six Chapters of a Floating Life. He returned it the next day, and judging from its appearance it had accompanied him into battle at some point during the night. I remember watching in horror as my first Chinese tutor back in New York asked to see my book on characters, and immediately wrote in it and twisted back the pages as harshly as possible.

Sometimes when I study Chinese I do it in public, increasing the chances that curious onlookers will try to talk to me instead of staring and moving on. On the second day of the train ride, I was looking over a book on Chinese radicals I bought in Beijing when the young girl next to me, who had been sneaking glances for a long time, finally started up a conversation. Zhangye was actually her hometown, but she was going farther to Dunhuang where she worked at a travel agency. English had been her major but she hadn’t used it in three years, so she would pepper her Chinese with very occasional English words, i.e. “wo qu le Beijing zhao gongzuo le, gen wode younger brother.” At one point we were talking about the stereotypes people have of our cultures, and I was explaining that American movies exaggerate, and we don’t really all have massive incomes or shoot at each other on a daily basis. She responded “yes, from watching your movies I feel that America is very dangerous. And that black people are very frightening!” China is not the most racially tactful place I’ve seen, and they are fond of referring themselves as having “yellow” skin. After a couple of hours I didn’t have much left to say, so she retired to her bunk, and the last I heard from her was when she offered me a drink, excitedly pronouncing one of the English words she remembered: “Pepsi Cola!” And somewhere a Pepsi executive got his wings.

America

When I arrived in JFK airport in New York City, I had been abroad for just over a year in Thailand, Cambodia, and China. I hadn't slept during the 13 hour flight from Beijing, and had barely slept the previous night in soft seat class from Shanghai to Beijing. Depending on Daylight Savings Time there is a 13 hour difference between New York and China--I left China at 1pm on January 21st, and arrived in America at 1pm, January 21st. I was excited to see my family, but was also feeling a little exhausted and apprehensive. The first thing that struck me, besides the English in the airport and Caucasian overdose, was that I could see small changes in my family. I had never been away long enough to see differences, and my 10-year old brother Matthew in particular was noticeably taller and more mature. My other brother Erik, 21, was away for job training but my grandmother also came along from Long Island to see me. The entire first day in particular felt surreal, as I observed America with the eyes of a quasi-outsider. Little things struck my interest that just aren't seen in China, such as my father trying to give a tip to a man who retrieved a bag I had left behind. Prices were even more shocking than expected, and Americanisms like "buddy" truly stuck out.

From the airport, we drove the 3.5 hours back home. My hometown of Binghamton, New York has the unique talent of triggering no emotional response at all. I had come home for the people, not the place, though I'm very fond of our house itself. It's really just the city I don't care for, as the surrounding countryside is nothing to criticize and positively bursting with nature in comparison to China (the picture is from a local park). I don't mind my "plank bed" in Zhangye, but my bed home was fantastically comfortable. The comforts of home were immediately apparent--a well-stocked refrigerator, television I wanted to watch, and high-speed Internet. In public, I could buy bus or train tickets with ease, and bathrooms had toilet paper and had not only been cleaned, but probably pretty recently. I over-indulged in food I had missed, particularly anything Italian, but after the spice of China much of it lacked punch. Our eating habits are exceptionally different from the Chinese, and dramatically less healthy. "Dessert" as we know it is just about non-existent in China, and I sometimes wonder what food Chinese children beg their parents to give them. I had never second-guessed it before, but I was constantly wondering why as a nation we have so little real interest in keeping a healthy diet. People looked different to me as well. Besides the obvious weight and health problems in America, much more obvious to me now, American features looked almost alien, and I noticed something that Asians have always focused on--we have big noses.

I spent four weeks in America. Most of the time was spent relaxing at home, but I also traveled every weekend to see some of my friends who had left Binghamton (which includes essentially all of them). I covered a fair distance, from the subways of New York to the grad student apartments of University of Notre Dame to the palm trees and Spanish influences of Miami. The Miami trip was the least expected, as a family trip to the Everglades enabled me to also visit my farthest close friend. My best friends remain those from high school, and time with them was short but well worth the journey. There were reminders of what I liked about America that I had left behind--playing live music, crossing state lines for a Shins concert, enjoying a cold Guinness in a pint glass, good conversationalists.

However, my interest in China never faded while home. I studied Chinese, I read about China, I watched movies about China. "I guess it's all China all the time?" my mom remarked at one point. I researched China Studies graduate programs, something I still have a serious interest in. As expected I also had a few China encounters. Interestingly, while Chinese citizens often overreact to a Chinese-speaking foreigner, the handful of Chinese in America I approached in Mandarin showed only faint surprise and interest. Only one mirthful old woman, from Xi'an and just visiting family in America, was happy to have a conversation with me in Chinese. While we visited family in Florida I also met an aunt's friend and her 3-year old adopted daughter from China, who had left at age 1 and didn't speak Chinese. She was certainly a child of America, interested mainly in playing with the cat and getting dessert. When her mother asked what she wanted to learn in Chinese from me, she shouted only "cupcake!" with arms outstretched towards the kitchen. The irony of me teaching a Chinese girl the Chinese language did not go unnoticed.

I said goodbye to my family in Florida, taking a flight from Tampa to New York in time to catch my plane from New York back to Beijing. I had been away a long time and there were friends and family I didn't have a chance to see, but I was also ready to go back. America feels like home and I'll probably be back for good, but in the meantime China has a powerful hold on me yet.

Sickness and Joy

Sometimes I have the feeling people in town want to talk to me, but are hesitant at first. I generally eat out by myself (when I say "generally eat out", I mean every single day, twice), which is of great amusement to my students because 1. I freely admit to having no cooking ability and 2. doing anything without the company of at least 1-3 other people is perplexing to most Chinese people. Sometimes I try to initiate conversation in restaurants by asking what a character is called that I've seen on a sign and written on my notepad, which generally fails but at least is educational. Tonight I ate at a restaurant with no customers but a friendly-looking staff of one, who was happy to identify a character called tie and recommend a dish but opted for 15 minutes of awkward silence afterwards. But just as I was about to leave she excitedly came up to me with a magazine, in which she found that character used in a sentence. I'm constantly wishing I was a better conversationalist; this led to all of 20 seconds of speaking practice in wish I confirmed that yep, I teach at Hexi University, and could think of nothing more interesting to say than "studying Chinese is hard, but I like it". Chinese is a wonderfully practical language though; learning the mystery character of this outing confirmed that the little stick-on photo booth pictures that are popular here are called tie zhi xiang, "paste-paper-pictures". The dish I ate had cashews in the name, which I had to look up, but are literally "fruit waist"; sometimes the logic escapes me.

During the last few days I've been sick, for perhaps the first time that I can blame food, though I have no idea what the culprit was. I cancelled my Monday morning class halfway through, as me and my stomach weren't really in the mood for the unenthusiastic class 8, an announcement which was met by great indifference. But as I suspected, motivated student Charlie volunteered to help me visit the doctor on campus. The staff was of course amused to see me, and after 1.5 minutes of translated consultation, loaded with me up with no less than four medications, setting me back approximately $1.12. Seeing my bottle of water, they also warned me at least 5 times that cold water is bad for my health, and to drink only hot water. Chinese people are very insistent in general that cold drinks are bad for you, making them annoyingly difficult to buy sometimes. On our way out, Charlie prevented me from buying fruit ("it's too cold! You must eat hot food"), so I had go out again later to stock up on fruit. The two Chinese medicines looked deceptively like balls of chocolate, but my taste buds were quick to suggest otherwise; they did warn me "it will be bitter". It worked, at any rate.

And in the interest of including a colorful picture in this post, allow me to introduce you to Joy (on the left, Dr. Seuss outfit), the least jaded person I know. Joy is one of the most appropriately named Chinese students I've met, and I recall her saying something like "everyday is sunshine and happiness!" when I first met her. She apparently has been fearing for my warmth and ability to survive by myself, as last visit she presented me with a gift of long underwear and a note that ended "forever and pure friendship!" My cynical nature was wary of her at first, but I've decided I like her after all. She is one of a group of excitable non-English major students me and Andrew are friends with and affectionately refer to as the "teenage daughters", who now that I think about it I think I've mentioned before. Now she is also a second Chinese teacher to me and Andrew, along with our demanding and quick-talking Lina. I like lessons with Joy because she refuses to speak English unless I am hopelessly lost, and because I can say "now let's just chat" after I run out of questions after 11 minutes. Lina's two-hour lessons from my textbook can be intense. Joy is often accompanied by daughter Fiona, who tends to say "I'd like to use your computer!" and disappear for 40 minutes, and never knows what I'm saying in Chinese.

Foreigners speaking Chinese seem to encourage one of two extreme reactions: 1. very complimentary, and very patronizing congratulations on being able to utter "hello" or "I want a bottle of water" (most common response), or 2. the assumption that you are fluent. A few students in one of my most likeable classes announced "let's have a meeting!" to me during the break, and the monitor went on for several minutes to me in Chinese about a plan the school had for helping poor students, of which I understood almost nothing. My guzheng music lessons are made that much more difficult by attempting to process both Chinese and a new instrument, but I do like that they treat me like a person and have the patience to explain everything and help me look up words in the dictionary. I like the girl who teaches me (who, like all the students there, is very pretty, which is kind of distracting to the intense concentration necessary), who has begun going so far as to try to explain the old Chinese stories behind many of the songs. Of course, I infinitely prefer conversations above my level to reaction #1; as Andrew said after seeing a foreigner who spoke little Chinese get showered with praise for saying ni hao! (hello), "sometimes I wonder, what's the point of studying?"

The Friendliest Man in the World

There are a few characters on the school campus and around town that me and Andrew and a few of the other teachers know. We tend not to learn their Chinese names, and instead they are referred to by titles such as the Friendly Man, the Friendly Man's Daughter, the Apricot Tea Lady, Mr. My-Head's-Going-to-Explode, the Honest Widow, Fruit Man, The Man Who Pretends He Doesn't Speak English, or the Cool Girl in the Photocopy Shop. Mostly I've befriended a few of these people through Andrew, who talks to absolutely everybody in Chinese and on most days will have hours of random conversations. In quite a number of my Chinese conversations, maybe most of them, I am asked "where is Tian Ming [his Chinese name]?", "why didn't you call your Scottish friend?", or simply reminded "Andrew's Chinese is really good!" in case I had forgotten or not noticed. However, this works out well for me, as I am so poor at starting conversation with strangers in any language, and being friends with Andrew is definitely good for my Chinese.

Two days ago I was walking across campus to get some lunch, when I ran into the Friendly Man going in the other direction. The Friendly Man owns a convenience store near our apartments and is just as excited to see you the 42nd time you enter his store as he is on the first visit. I can't go in there if I actually intend to buy something and leave within 5 minutes, because he insists I have a seat and attempt to chat for at least 20 minutes. He is a good source of conversation practice because, as Andrew once said, "he doesn't mind having a boring conversation".

He was in a particularly friendly mood that day, so friendly that he actually invited me to his home to have lunch with him. This was the first time I had seen his home, and one of a fairly small number of invites to homes. His apartment wasn't half bad at all, and as is common was decorated with a few odd bits of Western culture, including a calendar with sports cars and a large framed picture next to the television of two Western children kissing. Chinese hospitality to a foreigner is often excessive by foreign standards - of the three dishes he made one was an entire fish, which he refused to touch and encouraged me to eat to the point of annoyance. I would have really rather he didn't, since I don't even like fish in China (usually too spicy and dealing with a thousand deadly bones with chopsticks is not my idea of a good time). The fish was probably for the family dinner, and though the generosity is appreciated I wish more Chinese people realized that most foreigners would prefer to have less of a fuss made out of us.

Last weekend an English speech competition was held in Lanzhou, with competitors from all over Gansu province. Three students were sent from Hexi University - two third-year students and a second-year student of mine named Catherine. To my surprise and delight, of the 53 competitors 2nd and 3rd place were taken by two of the Hexi students, with Catherine coming in 3rd with her speech about the Olympics. Me, Gary, and Danielle had all helped them with their speeches and pronounciation, and it was a nice "teaching is rewarding" moment to hear of their success.

In last week's attempt to have the students think creatively (and with any luck amuse me at the same time), I followed up a reading about a digital project to contact life in space by asking them to discuss what they would send into space to represent their lives, and then write their lists on the blackboard. Many of the ideas involved photos of friends, family, babies, and the ever-popular "delicious food", and a few that me and the class got a kick out of included "a love letter to a dashing man of outer space", "beef noodles [popular local dish]", "to send Nancy and her Mr. Right to outer space", "Zhangye's mosquitoes", and "Dan's big head photo [as in the miniature photobooth photos that are popular here]". I also had them write poems in the style of a poem written by an 8-year old called "What I Would Take Out of the World". Most of the things the students would take out of the world were idealistic and serious, such as poverty and war, but there was one that made me smile written by four girls:

We would take men
Out of the world
So we don't have sad
and tears
and no marriage

Americans Are Bad

Today, the school gave me a bicycle. Again. Actually, it's the same one given to me at the end of last semester to finally replace the one that was stolen, but this term I was told I couldn't have that one for reasons unknown, waited for the new one for two or three weeks, and was finally just given the same one again. Chinese people find it amusing that we only ride bikes for recreation in America, especially when I describe loading bikes onto a car, driving the car to a park, and then riding them. Even in a city as small as Zhangye, riding a bike is not relaxing: I have to be aware at every moment in order to dodge the various pedestrians, bikes, motorcycles, cars, donkeys, and carts of fruit that block my way. But it's still about the only exercise I enjoy, and I can venture farther into town and break the monotony of the area outside the university.

This evening I decided to branch out and eat at a restaurant I'd never been to in a different part of town. The staff at restaurants here are often less than subtle about their surprise at seeing a new foreign customer, and about halfway through the meal I could hear the server excitedly re-telling the entirety of our dialogue when I ordered to the rest of the staff, emphasizing the part when he asked "big or small?" in English. The Chinese are the anti-French in that they don't speak English but they love to use it.

Because I'm not out-going enough and I have trouble making small talk in any language, I don't get nearly as much conversation practice in Chinese as I should. Zhangye is lacking in things like teahouses, but outside the Great Buddha Temple is a shady walking street with benches, and occasionally I study Chinese there as conspicuously as possible in the hopes someone will come up to me to talk. Tonight I had one success, as a middle-aged man rode up on his bicycle to start a conversation. He immediately pulled out a soiled packet of "Sweet n'Low" sugar, all in English, which he proudly placed in my hands. In fact, I had trouble getting the (limited) conversation off the subject of the sugar, and he kept repeating a single, urgent question, which to me meant only "sugar youbing?". He was obviously convinced I would suddenly understand the words if he just tried hard enough, and he recruited a man riding a bicycle-powered garbage cart that passed by. I asked him to write his question, but he said only "my writing is not good" with some embarrassment and it became obvious that neither of them knew how to write. After the two had an extensive conversation about whether or not I could understand Chinese, rather than actually talking to me (this is common), Cart Man asked where I was from, and declared "Americans are bad!" as he rode away. I've heard little anti-American sentiment, but I'm sure that has as much to do with my limited Chinese as the open-mindedness of locals. In the end Sugar Man still didn't give up - he asked me to come again tomorrow, when he'll have someone else write out the question for him.
(note - he wasn't there but I later figured out he was asking if we have "diabetes" in America)

Some Boys Like to Collect Girls' Underwear

Learning Chinese is best undertaken by masochists. The spoken language has four tones, which must be pronounced clearly and accurately to be understand and to distinguish the many similar-sounding words (the sound shi can mean "to be", "ten", "time", "city", "to try", "an event", "lion", "wet", "teacher", "lose", "reality", "knowledge", "stone", "food", "arrow", "style", "the world", and many other things depending on context and pronounciation). It's the only major world language with no alphabet, and thousands of characters must be memorized before you can start reading and understanding Chinese. Mastering a word in spoken Chinese tells you nothing about how to write it, and there's no way to be certain of how to pronounce a character you've never seen before. Spoken and written Chinese are separate enough that it's like learning two difficult languages, and experts describe Chinese as around five times as difficult to learn as Spanish. Local dialects are so varied that Chinese people can find communication with people from other areas difficult. That said, I came here for a challenge, and I enjoy the punishment. I'm trying to re-double my efforts after losing ground while traveling, especially when I have trouble being understood and my Chinese teacher says things like "I see your listening hasn't improved over the summer."

Of course, learning English is no simple task for Chinese people, and all of them have to do it. They have the most difficult time doing it, as the total lack of grammatically correct English in public in China goes to show; even a large, fancy, and surely expensive hospital sign set in stone in Zhangye says "Zhangye city mumicipality." I could probably count the number of absolutely perfect English sentences my students have written on one hand. This week some students went over an old reading final exam with me, and some multiple-choice questions had either no right answer or several. Sometimes I have a very frustrating time getting my students not to speak Chinese when doing big groups activities, so I'll have to keep with smaller groups. One of these small group activities this week required students to answer the question "what is the strangest hobby you have heard of?". Many involved eating something, whether it was glass, soil, stones, or centipedes. A couple described things that would include my family - having a snake for a pet and enjoying fishing even if you don't catch anything. One shy boy stood up and said "I have heard that some boys like to collect girls' underwear."

My first few days back in Zhangye after traveling felt strangely underwhelming, but I knew once the teaching started my enthusiasm would pick back up. All in all I consider my students some of the most wonderful people I've met, and I enjoy things like office hours that ought to dreaded as "work." Usually an ideal group of only 4-10 people show up for my office hours, and last week's were particularly good, as a few students vented intelligently about some problems with Chinese teaching methods (namely, 'memorize and be quiet') being used for language and their appreciation of what the foreign teachers do. One of my favorite students wanted to ask if I knew about an English book she had heard about, that she wanted to look into because the main character was a rebel and older Chinese critics warned against it. She didn't know the English title, but she said the author's Chinese name was something like "Sha Lin Jia", and I immediately perked up and asked "do you mean Salinger??". She indeed meant The Catcher in the Rye, so I let her borrow the copy I brought, which made my day.

There is a holiday in China called Teacher's Day, which happened last Sunday. In America those kinds of holidays tend to get marked on a calendar somewhere and never brought up, but this one seems important in China. A few students stopped by to see me and give me fruit, and many called to wish me a happy Teacher's Day. Both of my new classes gave me nice gifts - a stylish thermos, and by far the most entertaining, a toy guitar that lights up and plays children's songs when you touch it. The English department also had an extravagant hot pot dinner for all its teachers, in which the foreigners were placed together in the same room and the few Chinese teachers joining us said little. There was also the expected 30-course banquet for welcoming the new teachers (an older couple from New Zealand via Northern Ireland and a young Peace Corps volunteer) a mere two days later.

Finally, there was another performance with the "Guitar Club" Saturday evening, which was mentioned to me in a phone call three hours beforehand. Luckily two student friends happened to be in my apartment, and Xiao Ma's garbled Chinese was translated to me. This was at the Zhangye Medical College, a few of whose students I have met through the teacher Julian last term. Being nursing rather than English majors, they made my students sound like members of the House of Lords. Perhaps because they get less entertainment than Hexi (not that it's exactly a non-stop party here) they were so enthusiastic as to give the impression Chinese people do like rock music. I was told to play a song on my own towards the end, and Xiao Ma felt the need to summon an English-speaking teacher on stage to talk to me. She started with ni hao (hello), so I said ni hao in return, which was all it took to excite the crowd. She said in English, "your Chinese is very good!", and as I haven't let learned "don't patronize me" in Chinese, I only replied "I think it's just ok." I was asked to tell the audience about myself, and had to ignore Xiao Ma's scolding in my right ear about not saying it in English; I'm here as a teacher, not a novelty act. Though I've matured well past the point of enjoying guitar heroics, after so many performances of strumming on a barely-audible acoustic to songs that are absolutely boring for me to play, combined with many listless hours among a group I can't communicate well with, I felt a patriotic duty to show them how we play in America, and pulled out every obnoxious rock star behind-the-head-as-fast-as-possible-show-off move I could remember. This went over well, and someone shouted something like "one more song, how about it!", so I played and sang the one White Stripes song I know the words to, which received noticeably less enthusiastic applause. The quest to find an English singer has begun in earnest.

Dragon Boat Festival, sans Boats or Dragons

There happened to be back-to-back holidays last week: first the Dragon Boat Festival, and then Children's Day on June 1st. The main feature of the Dragon Boat Festival are the dragon boat races, which in the middle of a desert are of course non-existent, so people here just eat the traditional zongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) and tie string around friends' wrists for good luck (no one told me I was supposed to wear it for a month so I cut the first one off immediately the next morning). For Children's Day I spent the afternoon in Ganquan Park, for the first time in Zhangye fighting through a crowd, for tickets into the park. One of the more maddening Chinese habits is the lack of lines: if a lot of people want something at once it turns into complete chaos. I told my students we should have had the day off because they are often as excitable as children. Last week also had a few amusing moments in class as I taught them American slang and had them use it; there's something wonderful about a job that involves hearing "let's go the canteen, it's totally fabulous. The food is to die for" from a Chinese English student. There was also a group that had obviously learned some slang from somewhere else, but God knows where, as they ended a skit about a bothersome friend by telling him "Fuck off!". Me and Andrew also finally saw the student dorms: eight beds to a room, no desks (certainly not things like computers), and washing clothes by hand in a basin (they often just wear the same clothes everyday).

It's always entertaining to be at the mercy of non-native English speakers. On Saturday a trip was arranged for the foreign teachers by Miss Mao, and we didn't really know what was coming next until we saw it with our own eyes. She had first told me only "we will go to an interesting place... meet at the big tree at 8:30", so she had me hooked from the start. On the bus (we had no idea we were taking a private bus, even after seeing the bus sitting on the campus) she expanded that to "we will go to the countryside.... the hills are different colors". If I had any reservations before, now I was definitely excited. The second and most random stop (there would be many) involved us getting out to look at an office building for a farmer's union for approximately 2.5 minutes, and then getting right back on the bus. After a number of short stops at farmers' homes (more interesting than the union building), we eventually arrived at our destination, which after all was a pretty spectacular landspace of large multi-colored clay formations out in the middle of nowhere (well, even more out in the middle of nowhere). That's the closest thing I've seen to the American West; most likely I'll end up being better travelled in China than America. Lunch was fancy and elaborate (wouldn't have it any other way) - two of the notorious "big plate of chicken" dishes were just the appetizers. I also met Miss Chen, the reclusive teacher from Hong Kong, for the first time. I had had three dramatic sitings of her without seeing her face, and I half-hoped I would go the entire term without meeting one of the foreign teachers (and no one is sure why she is considered a foreign teacher).

In the continuing series of children's performances in the square, I caught a few minutes of what turned out to be Snow White. Chinese children are amusing when dressed in silly costumes, but I think none more so than as the Seven Dwarves. I was mobbed by about 15 senior middle school students in the audience, who fetched another 15 or so and their teacher to come talk to me. Chinese people are probably the most complimentary on Earth; foreigners that can speak any Chinese in China are praised with "your Chinese is great!"; foreigners in America that have any trouble speaking English are often despised.

Also in the square, I had one of my better language adventures so far. An old man was writing calligraphy on the pavement with a water brush, so me and MoMo went to watch. When he found out I knew a little Chinese he and a few passer-bys watched in amusement as I wrote some characters on the pavement. So he started writing sentences to me, such as "which country are you from?", which I in turn answered with the brush. It certainly didn't hurt that MoMo was there to help me. When he left, he didn't say anything, writing only "goodbye, American friend".

3 Little Devils

I think I had my first real "conversation" in Chinese tonight, at the Friendliest Man in the World's store that is right near my home that me and Andrew frequent. There was a woman there tonight who teaches Culture and Russian that was keen to talk to me, and as she is originally from Shanghai her Chinese was much clearer to me than the local Zhangye residents. She said she can't understand the local dialect either. That's not to say I understood even half of what she said, but we talked for perhaps a half hour and exchanged more than the basic "I'm from America and yes, I can use chopsticks and I like Chinese food".

I socialized for the first time with my co-teacher, the Chinese English teacher assigned to me that, in theory only, tells me what's going on. He wanted to take me to dinner, which sure enough was at a very fancy restaurant, with a taxi ride there and back despite the walk being only 10 minutes. We had some decent conversation and his English was surprisingly good (if that sounds like a strange thing to say about an English teacher, you obviously haven't been to China), and he had had some experience with foreigners when he spent a month in some sort of cultural camp with Americans. Perhaps to display his familiarity with our alien customs, when the food came he asked if it would be alright if he ate straight from the same dishes as me - in China the dishes are communal without exception, and this would be as absurd as asking a Chinese person in America if it was alright if we used forks.

Last week there was a knock on my door when I wasn't expecting anyone. To my surprise, when I opened it three small girls came running excitedly into my apartment, and casually took their seats on my furniture and made themselves at home. They didn't speak English, and the fact that I didn't understand much of what they said didn't stop them from addressing me as waiguoren (foreigner) and asking constant questions. I (foolishly) took out my camera, which somehow didn't get smashed to bits in their excitement. After a whirlwind five minutes, they left as quickly as they came. And then another five minutes passed, and they reappeared at my door, but with a ping-pong paddle to give me. This time I was sucked into at least 15 minutes of hide and seek in my apartment, with the girl I could tell was the ringleader continually pulling my sleeve and whispering long suggestions in Chinese that I didn't understand.

And finally, in things possibly worth mentioning that come to mind, in a very Chinese shopping experience I bought a pair of pants that had no pockets whatsoever. I didn't realize this until the next day when I tried them on, because they had what appeared to be pockets, only they were securely sewn into the pants. I was unsure if this was the Chinese lack of attention to detail, a new fashion trend, or a company that relied on fools who didn't look very carefully in the store. When I took them back and explained my pants had no pockets, the woman said "they do so have pockets!" before taking a look and exclaiming "oh!" (well, a Chinese equivalent), and then fixing them with her scissors. So, it was my first guess after all. China is best enjoyed by the good-humored, and I'm always amused by the way things are done here.

Dust Storm

With so few clouds the weather can change very dramatically here, but so far never as severely as in the last few days. Up until three days ago, there was a streak of t-shirt weather that left me with some color on my face, and I confidently retired my winter coat out of the main closet. However, I woke up yesterday to see my first sandstorm raging outside. These are not uncommon in the spring around here, but I was quite taken by surprise. Basic visibility was fine but the horizon was lost in a hazy screen of dust and sand, and with the sun completely out of sight the temperature absolutely plummeted. I could smell dust all day, and sand has infiltrated every room of my apartment. Today there is no sandstorm, but the weather is absolutely freezing, to the point of seeing my breath and shivering in my winter coat this afternoon. Last Thursday there was also an earthquake during my office hours, and though I felt the building shake briefly it was so minor that I wasn't certain it was really an earthquake.

I had another "only in China" moment the other day. I had purchased a backpack from one of the bigger stores in town, and had a sizeable tear in it in less than one week (you get what you pay for). At the guitar shop I asked where I could get it fixed, and lo and behold there was a dusty old man in his blue Mao suit sitting on the next street over with an ancient sewing machine and thread. He repaired the bag, which set me back about 7 cents US. I also finally concluded the adventure that has been setting up office hours. The first five weeks, I had the following conversation with the English Department every week:
"I'd like to set up my office hours"
"Oh..... ah, well we haven't been able to set those up for you yet. Come back next week"
Finally, the head of the Office told me to just set them for whenever I wanted to, exactly what I knew would happen since week 1. When I showed up for my first office hours, the door was locked. I kindly asked across the hall in the English Department if they would unlock the door for me, to which I was told "ah, well we don't have a key. Other teachers have all the keys. I know this is very inconvenient for you". They then set about calling all the foreign teachers, who were all in class. It had obviously not occurred to them at any point previously that I might need a key.

My Chinese is slowly improving, such that I can make such intelligent observations as "the weather is really cold today!". My vocabulary is a bit selective; I can say "fly a kite" and "play this part on the guitar four times, but more slowly" but not "menu". And if I still don't understand people very well, at least my vocabulary has improved for telling them so. It's still frustrating not being able to really communicate with Chinese locals, especially when they are really keen to. About a month ago I went into a restaurant across from the school where the older couple running it were really friendly, and after about 7 misfires I finally found it again today. If you don't read Chinese well, it's astounding how difficult it is to find a place again, even if you know the street it's on. Every place looks the same, and the little noodle restaurants will have a heavy curtain, characters all over the window, and the minimum of lighting inside in order to effectively prevent you from knowing what's inside. Anyway, after stopping in only once about a month ago I got warm smiles of recognition from them and some attempted conversation, and I'll be sure to stop in more often. Zhangye is small but I still find small surprises (I was shocked to discover an entire street of classy wine bars, and there is a street with bizarre Michael Jackson video-esque neon pillars that change colors), and I expect I'll miss it when I'm gone.