Chinese Word of the Day: 无神论者
(wú shén lùn zhě literally "without god theory person") atheist

December 22, 2011 Another Christmas in China

I've heard people say that Christmas is only for Christians, and that unbelievers have no business celebrating this festival.  Of course I disagree.  Christmas has become a secular festival for many people, with roots that go back to celebrations of the solstice in pagan prehistory, long before the Christians decided to make the questionable claim that this is the day their savior was born.
     I love this time of year.  It's a time to remember the wonderful Christmases of my childhood, and to dwell on connections to friends and family.  It's a time to feel good about people, and to try to demonstrate that an atheist can find joy in life, and can contribute to the joy of others.

This seems like an admirable sentiment to me.

Speaking of which:  Our Christmas Bursary Deadline has been extended until Christmas day.  Scroll down for details.

It's Christmas in China.  I've been enjoying my full Santa beard, and walking around the mall enjoying the smiles and the happy shouts when the children see me.

 
Christmas trees in China seem to become more stylized each year.

The beard is now uncomfortably out of control.  It tangles and mats when I sleep.  I'll probably lose it completely for the new year.  But I'm keeping it for the moment, just so that I can be Santa in the shopping malls and get all this happy attention from the kiddies.

 
Playing Santa for the kids is one of the great joys of life.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 圣诞节
(Shèngdànjié literally "God" + "birth" + "holiday") n. Christmas

December 10, 2011 'Tis the Season Once Again

Another Saturday with a couple of hours spent in Starbucks marking essays and listening to Christmas music.  This year I've grown out my white beard and am enjoying the many smiles as I walk around in a red Christmas hat looking like 圣诞老人 (Shèngdàn Lǎorén,  Santa Claus).  Once again our thoughts turn to our annual Christmas Bursary

Five years ago, in 2007, Ruth asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I told her I didn't really want anything.  I asked her the same question, and got the same answer.  I don't know who made the suggestion, but this conversation resulted in a decision to give the money we would have spent on presents neither one of us wanted to students who are in need of some help.  We know that a little bit of money can make a huge difference to a struggling family.  So that first year, 2007, we set up a Christmas bursary fund, and gave away 4,000RMB, with another 100 contributed by two of the students,  陈 蓓 (chén bèi - Jill) and her boyfriend 尹 英杰  (yǐn yīng jié -Jack ). 
     We got so much pleasure out of this that we've done it every year since then.  And it's that time of year again.
 

In 2008, one of the other teachers, Reid Mitchell, kicked in 500RMB, and last year our friend Jin Bo added 500RMB to the fund.  This year we have a contribution of 200RMB from Sherry Martin plus an offer from Jin Bo again.  We're not quite sure how much Ruth and I will contribute.  In past years we've managed to give to just about all requests.  So we'll see what is asked.

Here's my note from 2008:

I can see how people get hooked on philanthropy.  We spent part of Christmas Day and Boxing Day handing out money.  Can't think of a better way to spend Christmas.  This year, thanks to the added generosity of Reid Mitchell, we were able to help almost everybody who asked.

The money went to:

     - help several students buy train or bus tickets to go home for the holidays.

     - buy a father a warm coat because he works outdoors.

     - buy both parents padded jackets against the cold.

     - buy a mother a pair of comfortable shoes.

     - provide fees for an English Translator exam, an Advanced Translation test, and an English
       Proficiency test.

     - buy medication to help a father quit smoking. (Even if it doesn't work,  the gift sends a
       message.)

     - pay some medical bills plus end of term living expenses.

Among the recipients in 2007 we gave:

             -To buy a blood pressure machine for a student's father and small Christmas gift for his
               girl friend.

             -To buy books,  pay an English test fee, get a medical check-up for mother, and buy a
               bicycle for father.

             -So that a student could go home for Spring Festival

             -To pay for a student's mother to see a doctor, pay part of siblings' tuition, and buy
               new clothes for parents.

             -To pay the fees for an Oral English test and repay a debt.

             -To allow a student to focus on studying for exams instead of being forced to take a
               job.

             -To buy a student a train ticket home and pay end of term living expenses.

None of these bursaries were huge amounts. The most we gave to any one student was 600 RMB. 

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Chinese Word of the Day:  魔术
(mó shù) n. magic; conjuring; sleight of hand

December 05, 2011 My Magic Trick

How often do I manage to invent a magic trick?  This is my first. 

I sometimes use a laser pointer in my class. These things are cheap.  About 10 RMB or a buck fifty Canadian at the campus stationery.  I have two of them, one for a backup.

                                                                                                                       -Ruth Anderson photo

So here's the trick: I stand sideways to the wall.  I have a pointer in each hand, but the one in my left hand is down by my side, out of sight, pointed at the wall behind me at about head height.  The one in my right hand also points at the wall, but isn't turned on yet.  I turn on the one in my left hand, pretending it is the one in my right, until I figure out where it is pointing.  Then I turn it off and turn on the one in my right hand.  I tell the students to watch, move the red dot around on the wall, then slowly move it across my head and into my ear.  Then I turn on the hidden pointer in my other hand, which has already been lined up at head height.  And there you have it.  The laser light is going in one ear and out the other to shine on the wall behind me.
     It's a very transparent trick, but good for a laugh when the students figure out how I'm doing it.  There's a second or two before they get that, and that's fun.

Comments on my Latest Chinese Chess Game with Chemist

Chemist and I play Chinese chess pretty much every day over the Internet.  He's a PHD in chemistry who lives in England, and one of the founders of the British Chinese Chess Club.  He's very good.  In fact, he's out of my league and I'm sometimes surprised he still plays with me, given that he just about always wins.  One of our latest games has been a fierce battle, and I've managed to hold him off, which occasioned the following banter with the moves:

Da Dawei:  I think if you move back in the corner again, the computer will declare this a draw.

Chemist: Yes, so let's try something desperate. (he sacrifices a pao and takes a shi)

Da Dawei:  Ah, desperation.  My personal weapon of choice.  :-)

I just thought I'd share that with you.  And "Desperation.  My personal weapon of choice." is going up on my wall as a wall plaque.

I may win the game in the screen shots, but the other game we are playing (the setup in the board above) he is slapping me around but good, as usual.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 抄袭
(chāo xí  "copy" + "make a surprise attack") v. plagiarize

November 22, 2011 Going to Hell in a Land Basket.

The sound of a student sobbing followed me out of my afternoon class today.  She was one of six in that class who got a zero on their long research essay because it was plagiarized from the Internet.  Not the whole essay.  Actually, in her case it was only a paragraph, but I'm sure there was more I didn't identify.  I never would have caught her, but her paragraph included the very distinctive line "Going to hell in a land basket."  Of course this is an error.  The correct phrase is "Going to hell in a hand basket."  This is not an easy line to miss, and when it showed up in one of the other student's essays, I compared paragraphs and found them word for word the same.  So either one copied from the other, or they both lifted that paragraph, which is not perfect English, from the same Chinese source.  I suspect the latter.  The student came to me before I left the class and pleaded that she had just been helping her friend.  But of course she couldn't tell me what "Going to hell in a land basket" means.  I find it hard to believe that she wrote it.
     This is the only part of this job I really hate.  I don't like being in authority.  I don't like being strict or tough.  But if I don't give the plagiarizers a zero, it isn't fair to the students who work hard to pass the course.  I have a total of fourteen plagiarized essays, out of about eighty, for the past nine week course.  Ruth has twenty, five in each class.  Since this essay is 55% of the course mark, a zero means the student will fail the course.
     One of the most discouraging cases was the student I made an example of earlier in the term.  I thought humiliation would be warning enough, but apparently not.  Whole pages of his long form essay were also lifted from the Internet.  After class he said that it was more or less accidental - he downloads all kinds of stuff and didn't really realize it wasn't his writing.  But I find this a little hard to credit.  Cut and paste is not easy to do by accident.
     This is the first time in a few years that I've taught a writing course.  I realize that one of the things I liked about teaching oral English was that nobody could plagiarize, and I could give high marks just for trying to speak English.
     I do hate being strict.  I want to inspire, not punish.  Bummer, as we used to say back in the sixties.  It still applies.

Pretty Campus and a Music Class

On one of our last comfortable Fall days, we found this music class hard at it on the campus island when we took GouGou for another frog chasing adventure. 

 
With everybody practicing independently, the sound could only be described as definitive cacophony.

The instrument is called a 葫芦丝 (húlu sī)  Well played it is haunting.  Played by a beginner it
reminds me of a Shriners parade, or maybe a duck trying to mate with a car horn.

The frogs seem to be perfectly safe from our dog, excited though she might be at the prospect of catching one.

Subtle Differences:

Sometimes everything I find here seems just like home, but not quite. I found this ladybug on the teaching building window ledge.  Took me a minute to figure out what was strange about it.

Is this the colouring of a North American ladybug?  Doesn't seem right to me.

Gotta love the internet when I have a question like this.  A quick Google search turned up all kinds of North American ladybug pictures.  And just as I thought.  The Chinese guy has his paintjob reversed.  He's black with red dots, not red with black dots.  I wonder if she eats aphids like the bugs back home.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 鼓
(gǔ ) n.,v. drum

November 11, 2011  Singles Day

Why Singles Day?  Because it's all ones.  11/11/11  So happy Singles Day, China.  For the folks back home, I never feel comfortable saying Happy Remembrance Day.  How can one feel happy about all those dead soldiers.  I guess we are happy that the war finally ended.  For us, at any rate.  Armistice Day, 2011.  Lest we forget.

Here's Something I've Never Seen Before - Drumball

I wonder who thought up this one.  The drum is held up in the air by the team pulling the ropes, who try to keep the ball bouncing.

It looks like a great game for building cooperation and teamwork, and unless the team is competing with another team for time or height, it's non-competitive.  I wonder if this will catch on with the summer camp crowd back in Canada.
It was sports day today.  All classes cancelled, which didn't mean anything to us because we have no Friday classes this term.  Beautiful Fall weather, still not cold but definitely not summer anymore.  Clear air.  I just finished marking the last of my student essays.  Now it's just data entry and I can start thinking about next week.  This term is going by like the high speed train to Shanghai.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 俱乐部
(jù lè bù literally "all pleasure part") n. club,  social club
 

November 06, 2011  It's Been a Week?

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post.  I try to keep up, but we have been just so very busy this term, and right now I still have about 80 long form research essays to mark.  In another hour we'll have the second meeting this term of the...

Jiangnan University Tibetan English Club

We've been so busy this term that today will only be the second meeting.  We had a full house last Sunday.  I think everybody had a good time.

We took everybody's picture and made up an introduce yourself sheet, just to get started.

This week we have fourteen Tibetan students practicing their English while I type this.  I've left Ruth to do the heavy lifting on tonight's meeting.

Sherry's I'm Still Not Dead Party

Fellow teacher Sherry, a lawyer from Toronto, had a close call twelve years ago - a serious heart attack.  Her health is better now, and every year she throws an I'm Still Not Dead Party.  We were fortunate to be invited this year, and joined a small group at the German restaurant in Wanda Plaza where Sherry treated us all to a decadent dinner, followed by Starbucks Coffee, followed by chatting over two bottles of red wine at Sherry's place. 

Sherry, our host at her I'm Still Not Dead Party.

Great to take a break from the marking.  The restaurant was fun.  With it's pseudo-German decore and Chinese waiters and waitresses dressed up in faux German costumes. 

The Riding Crop Back Down Under

When our Australian friend, Marion, brought me this years supply of kangaroo skins for this years whip making, I gave her the riding crop I made last month.

Ironic that the raw materials were exported from Australia to China where they got value added before being sent back to Australia.

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We think her one snaggle tooth is very cute.
 

Chinese Word of the Day:  竞赛
(jìng sài) n./v. competition, contest

October 30, 2011  Another Man in China Contest
 

 *Your poster should convince students at Jiangnan University to wear a bicycle helmet or...
 Your poster should give university students a reason why wearing a helmet is cool 

     Reasons you might give for wearing a bike helmet on campus:
                      - it shows we value our brains and want to protect them.
                       -it shows we are smart
                       -it sets a good example for the Children of China
                       -we can be the first university in China where students wear helmets.
                       -we are the leaders of tomorrow, and wearing a helmet proves it.
                       -surprise me with a reason I haven't considered.
   Contest is open to all Jiangnan University students.
    Entries will be judged by emotional appeal, novelty, cleverness, fun and effective 
   delivery of the message.  Deadline for entries:  December 25, 2011
    Let's see if the marketing students can beat the design students.
   Winning entry will be produced and distributed on campus as part of the growing international  bicycle helmet campaign.

Since Pat Tobin from the San Francisco police department hit town at the invitation of the Traffic Management Research Institute here in Wuxi, I've been inspired to get going on my bike helmet promotions.  The first thing Pat did when he got off the plane was look around and notice that nobody here wears helmets.  Then he got in touch with me.  Since then we've been developing a promotional team and he's lit a fire under my efforts. 
     Last week I spoke with Mr. Yang, the head of campus security, and presented my bike helmet promotion plans.  Mr. Yang was very supportive, but suggested that the impetus for wearing helmets on campus must from from the students.  And of course he's right.

     Last week I had a student come to class with an explanation of why he had missed the previous week.  He said he had to attend a meeting of his student association.  I ask what kind of association, and he said it was the "Propaganda Department", a group that promotes Jiangnan University to schools and businesses.  So naturally I asked if I could talk to them.  That led to me crashing their awards meeting that evening, where I was very warmly received.  The student response to my helmet promotion plan was very gratifying.  If students are shown the big picture, they will support wearing bike helmets on campus.  The big picture, by the way, involves getting international publicity for this university, making it easier for the university to attract top level professors and incidentally making their degrees more valuable.      

A warm welcome from the Propaganda Society of Jiangnan University

     Pat feels that promoting bike helmets for adults is too controversial an issue.  There are a lot of anti-helmet activists in this world.  This is all too true.  You can find their anti-helmet anti-government-interference propaganda on the Internet very easily.  I think they are wrong, and killing people without knowing it, but they have their firm beliefs.  It's going to take a few well publicized fatalities to change their minds.  But few disagree that children should wear helmets, and chances are they will continue to wear them when they become adults.  So let's go long term with this campaign. 
     I still think that it should start with university students.  They are the ones who have invested a huge amount of time and money in their brains.  They are they future of China.  Their brains should be protected.  Then I realized that both ideas could fit together.  University students should wear helmets because they are the heroes to their little brothers and sisters.  They should set the example.

The English reads: " Little kids look up to university students. Let's set a good example."
An example of my own helmet promotion poster idea. 

So that's the story.  Enter the contest.  Show me how creative you are.  I'm hoping we get lots of entries and I'm looking forward to crowd sourcing this promotion.  Let's hear some ideas.
I've just started to use Google+.  If you want to join my Helmet Promotion Group, just sign up for Google+ and send me an email.

The Toilet Seat Saga

I don't know where the design for our "western" toilet came from.  They are not installed like the ones back home in Canada, and I was very disappointed to find that the brass ring and wax seal that fellow teacher, Wayne,  brought me from Canada is useless here.  There is no horn on the bottom of the toilet.  Toilets here are set in cement directly on the tile floor.  No wax seal involved.  Then there's the seat...
     The standard issue toilet seats that came with our apartment are not adequate for a waiguo posterior, at least not for mine.  We've gone through about five of them.  The longest lasting one broke in such a way that, while a bit uncomfortable, it wasn't going to break further.  It's plastic support posts had pushed up through the seat, taking the pressure off the rim.  But then the top cracked and broke.  That made it both uncomfortable AND ugly. 
     This fall our friends were visiting, so we had the toilet seat replaced by our building maintenance man.  The new seat didn't last a week.  It was disheartening to be sitting on the john and hear the new seat crack beneath me with the sound of a loud branch snapping.  It cracked right through on both sides and was held together with duct tape for the last month of service.  Finally we told our building people that we'd be happy to pay for the cost of a quality toilet seat if they would just find and buy one for us.  They couldn't do that.  So we found and bought one for ourselves.

No, not a murder victim nor incapacitated by drink.  Ruth installs the new toilet seat.

That lead to the problem of installation.   At first I thought that the holes were completely inaccessible from the bottom.  The old seat screwed directly into rubber inserts that went into the holes.  But with inspection we discover that one actually can reach way behind the toilet, through a tiny gap near the wall, and back again to reach the plastic bolts. Normally I am the plumbing guy in this relationship, but not for this job.  My forearm is too long and thick to snake through the maze. Nice to have a wife who is not afraid of getting involved in the uglier stuff.
     The new seat is disturbingly similar to the old one, in that it is hollow plastic.  I was told that it is thicker and stronger.  So far it feels good.  We're keeping our fingers crossed.

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Happy Birthday to me, and it was.

Chinese Word of the Day: 东洋鬼
(dōng yáng guǐ literally "east ocean ghost") = Japanese (coll./derogatory)

October 25, 2011  Another Birthday

I had a few days with the Beatle's song, "When I'm Sixty Four", running through my brain, but Ruth demonstrated her willingness to "still feed me" by treating me and our two wonderful Chinese teachers to a dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant.  All you can eat and drink saki, sashimi, sushi, and grilled to order before your eyes for 168 RMB (about $27 Canadian).  That's expensive for China, but a real bargain back home.  We're particularly happy with our restaurant now that they've gone non-smoking.

Chinese students always tell us they don't like Japanese food, but change their minds the minute we get them to try it.

The advantage of treating our teachers to dinner was that we had a whole evening of talking nothing but Chinese.  That's hard to do here, since everybody speaks better English than we speak Chinese. 

Our teachers took each other's pictures.

Cao Jai Xin gave me a new song to learn as a birthday present.  I'm almost at the point where I can remember every word, but not up to speed yet.
 

*Note:  I'm never sure about the best way to translate something like this.  This time I've opted to translate word for word in the order in which they appear in the Chinese.  Apparently this isn't the way to best understand what the song means.  For example, my teacher translates "True love pass through only can understand" which is the word for word translation as: "only when truly loved, can you understand".   But if I do a translation by meaning of the lines, the individual characters mean nothing and it 's very hard to learn them.  This is one reason why Chinese is so very hard to learn.  They all speak like Yoda in Starwars.  But I do love this song.

And Ruth took their pictures taking their pictures.

Grilled at our table, fresh and delicious.

It's possible the saki is showing in this picture, though they didn't have much.

School Outing

We've been having very comfortable temperatures, though these last few days the nip in the air tells us that the colder weather will soon arrive.  Last Sunday the administration took us on an outing to a nearby adventure park called Mashan.  Ruth and I didn't get involved in the games, but spent our time on the sidelines marking essays.  We enjoyed the day immensely anyway.

Everybody else seemed to have a lot of fun playing soldier with the laser tag weapons.

 
Our boss, Ms. Liu (yellow shirt third from rear) is always ready to join in the fun.

Much of the equipment seems designed to foster team work and team support.  For example, there's a wall that is impossible to climb without a team. It's a great family playground with a lot of military involvement, all kinds of adventure equipment including tight ropes and very scary climbing gear. 

It's interesting the way confidence and team building activities invented by the military can work so well for kids and families.

We did join in the final activity of the day, picking a bag each of oranges fresh off the tree.

I don't know why oranges taste better when we pick them ourselves, but they do.
     Just before boarded the bus to leave the camp, Ms. Liu, our dean, was kind enough to sing the new song into my little camera.  Interesting to discover that she sang it exactly in the key of A, and that I can chord along on the guitar.  This has been a great help in learning the melody.  So thanks, Ms. Liu.

Today's Bug

This grasshopper is obviously a different species from any I've seen before.  It's very slender, about 4 inches long with antennae that look like horns.  Amazing the way it blends in to the shrubbery. 

Nearly invisible at the center of the picture on the left.  The picture on the right gives a better look at the critter.

Plus bugs I've never seen before.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 会议
(huì yì) n. meeting

October 21, 2011 Meeting the Director, Campus Security

Sally Wu, the newest member of the bike helmet promotion team, and I met this morning for a few minutes to discuss what we were going to say to Mr. Yang, head of security at Jiangnan University.  We decided we couldn't expect much to come of the meeting.  I said all I wanted to do was introduce the idea of promoting bike helmets on campus,  and see what Mr. Yang thinks.  We weren't expecting much.
     What we got was just as good as it can get.  Mr. Yang is a vigorous and energetic man, very charming and friendly. He started by telling us that he'd seen the China Daily write up about my helmet promotion, so he knew who I am and wanted to thank me for my concern.  He also mentioned that he'd been to UCLA and seen that all the students wear helmets, so he is aware that this can happen here.  He also talked about seeing the bicycle club on campus, which has about thirty members, and noticing that all of them wear helmets.  He said that if he were a student he'd definitely be joining that club.

     I told Mr. Yang about Pat Tobin being invited here by the Traffic Management Research Institute (TMRI) and how Pat came to contact me.  Mr. Yang is aware of the instituted.  I told him that, because of Pat's introduction to TMRI, there is a possibility (note, I emphasized that it's just a possibility) that TMRI could be persuaded to buy helmets for all the students as a pilot experiment to measure the student and public acceptance of bike helmets.  I also told him about my in-class polls of student opinions, and that the students will support a rule to make wearing a helmet on campus mandatory, provided they are given the big picture.
     Mr. Yang asked if this was a project coming from TMRI, and I said no. That this is a proposal coming from Pat Tobin, me, Grace (Pat's translator with TMRI) and Sally.  TMRI doesn't even know about it yet. We just want to see what he thinks of the idea. He then suggested that we should talk to student societies and get students behind this pilot project.  I asked if he had any suggestions about where to start, and he said there are several student groups closely associated with campus security.  He also said there is some kind of initiation coming up next month, and he'll arrange to have me invited to speak to the students.
     All in all it was a very encouraging meeting. The feeling I get from Mr. Yang is that he is on board with the helmet project, and will do whatever he can to help us make things happen.  I think our team is growing.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 行骗
(xíng piàn) v. cheat; deceive

October 18, 2011  Winding up the Clement Visit

On the last day of their visit, we went down town with Dave and Elizabeth to show them Nan Chan Si, the Nan Chan temple shopping area.  This area used to be heavily textured, grimy, and fascinating with a rabbit warren of shops and stalls.  We really liked it the way it was.  While the market has been gentrified recently, and now resembles any number of similar shopping areas in cities throughout China, it still has interesting shops and things to see.

    
The market wasn't crowded on a Sunday, at least not in the entrance area.

One things I will admit is an improvement is the presence of shiny new tour boats that now ply the canal.  They are a little expensive, at 60 RMB per adult (just a bit light of $10 Canadian), but I love a boat ride and the town from the water is picturesque and fascinating. For a mere 100 RMB you can get off the boat at several stops and tour museums.  But time being limited, we opted for a simple ride.

  
The workboats are a striking contrast to our clean and shiny tour boat.

I rarely see a sign here that is in native speaker English.  The best of them get the idea across, but there is always something just a little bit wrong.  Not that I'm complaining.  I think this is a major charm of China and should be encouraged.

After the canal tour we went to dinner in a revolution themed restaurant that harkened back to the days of the red guard and revolutionary zeal.  And after dinner we wandered the temple area at night when it turns into a fairyland of lights and colours.

  
At night, Nan Chan Si is a fairyland of lights and colours

 
Elizabeth takes a picture of the canal with it's illuminated roof lines.

 
Pause here for a second and really contemplate this picture.  It has amazing depth.  I love the circle of light under the street lamp upper right.  This is a view of the canal, with the tour boats, and Nan Chan Si in the background. 
Wuxi is becoming a beautiful city.

On Monday, October 10, we had classes in the morning but we'd arranged for our driver to pick Dave and Elizabeth up at their hotel on campus.  Our friend Panda went with them to the train station to make sure they got their tickets okay and caught the right train for Shanghai.  We met them there on Friday.

I was very pleased to be recognized and greeted by my favorite bellhop.

We stayed at the Lijing Hotel as usual, a very reasonable hotel for Shanghai at 350 RMB per night (roughly $56 Canadian) for a room for two.  Dave and Elizabeth had a room just down the hall, and we managed to get in some pickin' and grinnin' with me backing up Dave's guitar with my violin.  On Sunday we had lunch with our former students from Weihai, Jenny, Simon and Harry (Formerly Hawk, and we all told him to go back to that name even if it is unusual for a business person.), now all successful business people in Shanghai.  As always it was a joy to see them again.  On Sunday afternoon we went looking for the butcher shop I'd seen near our hotel on a previous visit.
     I need sheep fat to make plaiting soap and leather dressing for my bullwhip making hobby.  You really wouldn't believe how hard this is to find here, given the number of Muslim restaurants that serve lamb.  But I've been unable to find a source in Wuxi, and last year had to resort to buying a very expensive mutton roast just to get the fat.  So I wanted to find that butcher shop.  Fortunately everybody was willing to go for a walk after lunch, and we managed to find the place on our loop back towart the hotel.

 
I think I actually posted pictures of this butcher shop on a previous entry, which didn't mean I knew where to find it.

We headed back to Wuxi on the fast train Sunday afternoon.  Dave and Elizabeth had one more day in Shanghai before flying on to Tokyo to continue their orient tour.  My jin (Chinese measure of weight equivalent to half a kilo or about a pound) of sheep fat, 10 RMB or about a buck fifty,  has now been rendered and is waiting for the soap and secret ingredients to be added.  Tonight we meet our Australian friend, Marion, for dinner and she'll deliver two more kangaroo hides.  I'm planning on giving her the riding crop I just finished.

Giving Students the Big Picture

For several years now I've been working to promote the use of bike helmets in China.  I've come to the conclusion that few will wear them because of concerns for safety.  But they will wear them if helmet use is seen as a sign of intelligence, of being upwardly mobile, of having a future, of.... being a university student.  This has to start somewhere, and it might as well start at this university.  So I have formulated a plan, and this past week I explained it to my three of my classes.
     I began with a pitch for helmet use, and a vivid description of what brain damage can do to a student.  I explained that brain injury is an invisible problem in China, because when a person is injured they are taken care of by their family and consigned to whatever work they are still capable of doing.  Nobody thinks about how they became disabled, and half the time their disability isn't obvious.  They've just lost functionality that everybody assumes they never had. I also explained that cultures change, and that nobody wore a bike helmet in Canada when I was a child, though everybody wears one now.  Then I went on to explain my plan.

My plan has two essential elements.  I need a sponsor who will supply helmets for free to the students.  Then I need the university to make a rule that students must wear a bike helmet when riding on campus. This plan will not work without student support, so I wanted to see if my students would support it, once they see the big picture. This plan will also lose a lot of its value for the university and for students  if we are not the first university to make the rule, thus garnering international publicity and "brand value"..

My first time through the pitch resulted in unanimous support.  Very encouraging.

Second time through showed me that I can expect some resistance, which is only to be expected.  Not all the students can catch the vision.

I don't know whether my pitch was less effective for this class, or whether the class is just more resistant to a sales job, but I barely squeaked by with a majority vote.

     My students don't see a big need for bicycle helmets.  Like most Chinese, they see them as unnecessary.  But they did understand the promotional value of having such a rule, and the increase in value of their diploma if their university were more famous.  This may explain the support they gave my plan.
     I have an appointment on Friday to talk to the head of security for this university.  I'm not expecting much to come of that meeting, but I do want to sound out his attitudes.  Apparently he's the man who would make the rule, or at least propose the rule to the university administration.

A New Way to Cheat - Use Technology

I'm teaching an English essay class.  We've had several cases of plagiarism already this term, but today I discovered something new.  One of my students admitted that she had written her essay in Chinese and then used the computer auto-translate software to turn it into English.  Well, sort of English, which is why I called her on it.  I recognized it as an auto-translation.  Computers simply can't translate Chinese into English yet, and the result is invariably incomprehensible.    
     My student didn't think she had done anything wrong.  After all, it was her original work, her original thinking.  She didn't seem to get that the purpose of the course is to teach her to write English, not to write Chinese and have a computer convert it.  Hopefully she now understands this.

This amazingly green caterpillar was on the curb outside the International Cafe on campus.  I'm always delighted to see wildlife here, especially colourful critters like this one.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 裸婚
(luǒ hūn literally "naked wedding") idiom for marrying a poor man - no application to the weddings we've attended recently.

October 10, 2011 Dining with the Big Potatoes

These posts are now in scrambled chronological order.  It's been a very busy couple of weeks.  Back on September 28th we rushed home after classes. I caught a quick shower, changed into more formal clothes, and we headed for the North gate where a bus was waiting. Once again we were invited to mix and mingle with the foreign business people of Wuxi, as guests of the local government on the occasion of the 62 anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.  We always appreciate this chance to meet people here.

To get a sample of the band's performance providing the ambiance, click on either picture.

We also appreciate the amazing food.  I ate a lot of sashimi that night.

  
The wine bar provided bottomless glasses to go with the food, almost making me regret my recent decision to stop drinking.

October 3, 2011 Jin Bo and Yang Jing are Married

Yes, that's the guy.  Our dear friend Jin Bo finally tied the knot.

 
It was another wonderful wedding, and we wish the young couple every happiness.

  
It was a beautiful wedding, and the food was fantastic, as usual.

A Visit from the Chosen Family

Dave and Elizabeth Clement are co-owners with Ruth of her house in Winnipeg, and members of her "chosen family".  They stopped by in the middle of a holiday that started in St. Petersburg, Russia, where they boarded the trans-Mongolian to Beijing. We had the holiday week with them here in Wuxi, and we'll be joining them in Shanghai on Friday.  After that they are going on to Japan before flying to Vancouver and taking Via Rail back home to Winnipeg.

Ruth's housemates from Winnipeg arrived for a week long visit.

The timing was perfect.  We had seven days off for the National Day holiday, so we got to hang out with Dave and Elizabeth and show them our corner of China.

Blue Bar

We planned a visit to the Blue Bar, and I decided to take my guitar and fiddle, just in case I could showcase our friend for a performance.  That turned into a two set gig, with Dave wowing everybody with his fabulous voice and guitar playing.

October 06, 2011 A Day Trip to Nanjing

I've been wanting to get back to Nanjing to buy some more silk shirts at the temple market, and Dave and Elizabeth's visit provided the perfect motivation.

The man leading parade while riding a chicken occasioned much discussion.

We were all amused to see this blind beggar soliciting a donation from our blind friend.

Zhang He's ship would dwarf the Nina, the Pinta, AND the Santa Maria.  It's huge.

Barbeque on Shi Tang Jie

The village may be a pile of rubble, but the street life is hanging on.  We enjoyed an evening of street food with Dave and Elizabeth and our friend Jenny.  Atmosphere all over the place.

October 08, 2011 Guests in Our Combined Class

Dave and Elizabeth joined us for a Saturday class.  It's supposed to be a writing class, but since this was the only make up class for the holiday week, we decided to make it a culture class.  Our guests fielded questions about their lives in Canada, and Dave sang some Canadian folk songs.

 
To get a short sample of Dave's performance, click on either picture.

Dave and Elizabeth are now in Shanghai.  We're going to join them for the weekend.

I Love Chinglish

 
Some Chinglish is just slightly wrong.  Just enough wrong to be charming.

Other signs need some real translation before they make sense.  The top line of Chinese characters say bǎo chí qīng jié (maintain clean/sanitary) and the bottom line reads qǐng wù cǎi tà (please don't stand on).  Usually I can find some connection between the Chinese characters and the translation.  For example 碰头 pèngtóu means both "bump head" and "meet somebody", so "Beware of to Meet" is not a big mystery in a sign at the top of the stairs.   Similarly, 地滑 (dì huá) means both "land slide" and "floor slippery", so a sign in a shower reading "Danger Landslide" is also easy to understand.   But in this case I have no idea how cǎi tà which means "stand on", got translated as "stampede" unless it was the next entry down in somebody's electronic dictionary.  That kind of thing happens.  Of course they are always covered with a graphic like this one, and who could mistake that for a anything but a person standing on a toilet?.

But then some signs make no sense at all, given that there is no place anywhere around this sign where one might put up a tent, makeshift or otherwise. 

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Chinese Word of the Day: 洋洋大观
(yáng yáng dà guān literally "ocean ocean big view")  spectacular; grandiose

October 2, 2011  Deeply Honoured

Finally, the event we've been waiting to attend for a over a year - Wang Tao and Lu Ying's wedding.  And what an event it was.  This was a wedding produced like a Hollywood spectacular, directed, stage managed, and performed.  While I did not have the romantic lead, a roll which Wang Tao performed brilliantly, I got the part of the wedding officiant, which was enough for me.  What an honour.

The grand ballroom of the five star Sheraton, decorated and ready for the big event.

 
This was the rehearsal.  For the actual event, my notes were in a pink binder.  The director paid attention to details.

These pictures were outside the ballroom.  The bride and groom looking like movie stars.

Wedding director at work.  Weddings as performance art.

The bride and her father ready for their dramatic entrance.

I want a copy of the video.

And on the day, go big of go home.  Fog machines and dramatic lighting and music.

 
To describe the food as a gourmet feast would be damning with faint praise.  It was incredible.

                                                            -all photos on this post by Ruth Anderson unless otherwise noted.

After the main event there were performances and door prizes.  This one made use of mobile phones.  The MC read out a phone number, and all the guests tried to punch it in at once, with the guest who got through winning the prize.  Ingenious.

                                                                                                                  -photo by helpful stranger.
"You Belong to Me, by Peewee King.

At this kind of an event I always feel like the performers in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral", the one that had the guests making gagging motions.  I just never know what we sound like, and always have doubts about the sound mix.  This time was no exception.  It's hard to sing when my guitar is given dominance over our voices.  But we love to perform, and as long as we're invited we'll sing "our song" again. 
     Wang Tao was a freshman when I started teaching at Jiangnan University.  He has become a great friend, and I was so honoured to be asked to officiate at his wedding.  Now the young couple are off on a multi-country European honeymoon.  We wish them every happiness.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 古/骨董
gǔdǒng n. ①antique; curio

September 30, 2011  We're on a Break

We have a week off for the National Day holiday.  It would feel more like a break if I didn't have four classes of essays to correct and mark.  This almost feels like working for a living.  It's going to be a busy holiday.  I'm being the offiant at our friend Wang Tao's wedding on Sunday.  I'm sure there'll be a post about that.  Then we have been invited to Jin Bo's wedding on Monday.  Also on Monday, our friends Dave and Elizabeth arrive after the trans-Siberian railway delivers them to Beijing and they fly to Shanghai.  Dave and Elizabeth are co-owners of Ruth's house in Winnipeg.  Great people.  We're looking forward to the visit, and since Dave is a world class folk singer guitarist, I'm looking forward to some music.

Have You Seen This Rhinoceros

Pat, the Bay Area police officer mentioned in an earlier post, picked up this sculpture while he was here at the invitation of the Wuxi Traffic Management Research Institute.  Now that he has it back stateside, he's curious about what he bought.  If anybody reading this can identify this sculpture, and take a guess at it's age and provenance, Pat would really appreciate hearing from you.  I can pass on any information, or just say hi in the comments below.

    
                                                                                                                     -Pat Tobin photos

The body of this little beast is stone, possibly jade, and the head and legs are bronze.  The hind legs have come off, and won't be reattached until something more is known about the sculpture. It could be a priceless museum piece, or it could be a bit of tourist kitsch.  Pat would like to know which before he cleans it and uses modern glues on it, thereby possibly reducing its value.  Whichever it is, I think it's a great souvenir of China.  Please let me know if you can tell us anything about it.

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Recycling pick up day at our apartment block, Jiangnan University.  The garbage is carefully sorted here, and everything gets recycled. 

Chinese Word of the Day: 剽窃
(piāo qiè  literally "steal" + "furtively") v. plagiarize

September 27, 2011  Hold my Sign

I had my first case of blatant plagiarism this week, a cut and paste from Time Magazine of all places. 

Not only is this obviously the work of a top level professional writer, far better quality than any of my students can produce, but it equally obviously refers to American values and feelings.  It took me a nanosecond to recognize the fraud, and less than a minute to find the original on the Internet. 

I'm hoping that this particular student has learned his lesson, and that the rest of my students will benefit from his negative example.
     I used the "teachable moment" to show the class how well a professional writer creates an introductory sentence leading into his thesis statement.  I'm trying to get them to understand this most basic of all structures for just about everything.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 头盔
(tóu kuī ) n. safety helmet

September 25, 2011  Weep for America (Again)

This past week, Troy Davis was executed in Georgia.  Davis was quite possibly innocent.  He was convicted on the basis of a very shaky case and most of the witnesses have recanted their testimony and stated that the police pressured them into their initial accusations.

Should America have executed this man?

Though I don't agree with capital punishment, and am happy that my country does not allow this state sponsored murder, I can understand the death penalty for situations where there is absolutely no doubt at all about guilt.  But the ultimate penalty in cases where a man has protested his innocence all along, and where the proof of his guilt seems even slightly questionable, this is simply and obviously wrong.
     It's all over now for Troy Davis.  He's dead.  But I can't help thinking about the reputation of America, and how it suffers when this kind of an obvious injustice is allowed to happen.  Americans love to point at China and smirk about how barbaric they think the Chinese justice system is.  Don't they see how barbaric they themselves look to the world?  In the wake of an event like this, to me America look like Iran.

Signs of Change

I had to yell "stop" at this bike rider so that I could take his picture.  This is only the second or third time we've seen a Chinese person wearing a helmet, but I'm convinced this will become much more common in the near future.

These students have a huge investment in their brains.  It's sure good to see one of them who values that brain, and wants to protect his investment.

So many bikes, so few helmets.  These are just the ones that have overflowed the parking garages.

Another Guitar Student

I don't charge for guitar lessons, but I have several students, including Panda, Prince, Jimmy, Jocelyn and now Johnwes.  I tell them that getting started is the hardest part.  Once I can get them to change through the chords of the key of C, they will find that learning new chords goes much faster.  I give them a print out of several keys, a couple of progressions, and show them how to tune and practice.  Then it is up to them.  So far Jimmy has made the most progress, and can actually play along with a couple of songs now.  But all of them seem to be working on it.  I find their progress very gratifying.

GouGou thinks maybe food is involved here.

I like the idea that I may inspire students to take up the guitar.  It's certainly been a friend to me.

An Afternoon on the Lake

We're into the best weather of the year now, with the heat and humidity much reduced but still shirtsleeve temperatures.  My 三轮车 (sān lún chē), three wheeled bicycle truck, has been sitting in the parking garage gathering dust and collecting garbage.  It had three flat tires, one of which had a broken valve stem, and a loose pedal.  So getting it mobile again took walking it to the bike shop for a new inner tube and pedal pin.  Our friend at the campus bike store, the man who gave us GouGou five years ago, did the repairs and initially refused any money.  I managed to get him to accept twenty yuan, just slightly less than three bucks Canadian.  And with the trike functional again, we could load up the inflatable and head for the lake.

 
GouGou loves a boat ride.

It's been a couple of years since we've had the boat in the water.   We were soon inflating the boat by the library and off for a gentle paddle around GouGou's island.

One end of the lake is now thick with lotus leaves.

Ruth and I were marveling at the way the water beads on the lotus leaf, but had no idea there was a name for the phenomenon.

Water on a lotus leaf beads but does not spread out at all.

What a coincidence to chance upon this video the very next day.

Using Up the Scraps

I had some kangaroo skin lace left over from making my last bullwhip.  This past summer I bought a bike flag at Canadian Tire, because I couldn't find one here in China.  The fiberglass pole for the flag became the core for this riding crop.

  
My apologies for the picture quality.  I can do better, mistress.

I'm quite pleased with this.  It was fun to research making it, and fun to realize that the double flap of leather at the tip is really like a clown's slapstick.  It's there to make a loud noise, and it does. As long as one doesn't hit with the cored section, the noise is very effective with very little pain.  Now all I need is a horse or, failing that, somebody to give this away to.  One candidate for gifting is our friend Marion, who will bring me two new skins from Australia when she comes to teach in Wuxi again in October.  She'll look good with a riding crop in hand, and it should add to her authority.

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Chinese Word of the Day:  政策
(zhèng cè literally "government" + "plan") n. policy

September 17, 2011 To the Academic Community of Wuxi. Help!

Late breaking news.  This panel discussion has been postponed.  Everybody stand down.
I just got a phone call from Grace at the Traffic Management Research Institute. 
There is not enough time to alert all levels of management to this panel discussion.
Ideally, the panel will happen in the future, but with more advanced planning, so if
you are interested in being on it, I'd still like to hear from you.

A surprise phone call on Friday led to a dinner with Pat Tobin, a traffic management expert from the San Francisco area who has come to China at the request of the Traffic Management Research Institute in Wuxi.  Ruth and I had dinner with Pat last night, and he asked for our help.  About the only help I can give him is to pass this along to you.

Left to right: Grace from the Traffic Management Research Institute in Wuxi with Pat Tobin, a traffic management
expert from the Bay Area, with a request... 

Mr. Tobin wants to put together a panel to discuss ways of promoting the use of bicycle helmets by the children of China.  He has asked me to find an academic who would like to participate in this panel discussion, somebody who could bring a sociological, psychological, or anthropological perspective to the discussion, somebody who could possibly talk about the difficulties and opportunities in changing a culture.

Ideally the panel will take place between 9:00am and 10:00am on Tuesday morning, September 20,  this week. This time could be shifted to anytime between 8:30am to noon or 2:30pm to 5:30pm, depending on the availability of panelists. 

The panel will speak to senior police officers representing all of China. The goal of the panel is to convince police officers that children ten years and younger should be wearing helmets when on bicycles, or passengers on scooters.  Mr. Tobin believes that once the police officers are convinced, there will be no resistance when the government sets a standard for children's helmet use.

This is an opportunity for somebody to make a real difference in China, and influence policy development that will save young lives.  You can't find a more worthy cause than this.  Please contact me directly if you can participate, or have a suggestion for a panelist. 
                                     David(at symbol)themaninchina.com

NOTE and update:  This panel discussion has been cancelled for now, but ideally the event will be revived in the future, with more advanced planning.  So if you are interested in being on the panel, I'd still like to hear from you.

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Congratulations, Lambton College at Jiangnan University

On Saturday afternoon we were invited to attend a celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Lambton College at Jiangnan  University.

I was impressed by the truly international scope of this institution, with affiliation and representation from universities in both Canada and the United States.  It's an honour to become a part of this educational achievement.

Definitions in the Writing Class

This past week in my writing classes we talked about definitions, and the students have been assigned the writing of a short definition essay.  It was another occasion for me to use my discovery that Chinese students have been given a very strange, from a Western point of view, definition of "individualist".  In fact, they ignore the denotation in favor of their own, very Chinese, connotation.

As I called attendance, I had the students fill in the blank on this sentence:  An "individualist" is _____________.  The results were predictable. According to my students, an individualist is: selfish, a person who just does things for himself, always thinks he's right, likes stealing things from others (that one was a first, and a surprise, as was one given in another class, an individualist is "a jerk".), make themselves the center of the world, thinks his/her benefits most important, and on and on.  All negative in the extreme, except for the one student who filled in the blanks with "can be a team player but still thinks for themself".  Otherwise uniformly and scathingly negative..  I would be shocked if I hadn't done this exercise with many classes.
    This let me go on about the difference between the denotation of a word, in this case "a person who thinks for themself and doesn't follow the crowd", and the connotation, which is what the students gave me.  I have three standard examples to illustrate the Western connotations of the word individualist.  1. the student who returns to their dorm to find their roommates all smoking.  An individualist tries to talk them out of starting the habit.  2.  the Vietnam War protesters in America, who were capable of organizing, joining together and working with others, and many of whom paid a high price, jail for burning a draft card,  loss of friends and family, accusations of cowardice and lack of patriotism,  for refusing to fight in an unjust war.  3. the hero who risks his life to stand between a lynch mob and their victim.  All of these are examples of individualists who are perfectly capable of caring about others, joining a team, working for benefits other than their own.
     A definition essay is expected to be more about connotation than denotation.  I'm looking forward to reading what my students submit this coming week.  It's a window into Chinese culture.

Oh Happy Dog

The weather here this past week has not been all that hot, but the humidity has been oppressive.  I drip with sweat in front of my class.  After classes on Thursday we decided to take GouGou for a visit to the former peninsula, now an actual island, in the campus lake.

Such a joy to watch our dog enjoying herself.  Her rushing around madly, wading up to her belly just off the shore, and rolling ecstatically in the grass give us a great demonstration of living in the moment, for the moment.

It rained last night.  Today the humidity is down and it feels a lot cooler.  We're into the delightful Fall weather at last.

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Hard to believe we're in China sometimes, but the Chinese characters give it away.  No Smoking signs in restaurants are still very rare, very new.

Chinese Word of the Day: 吸烟
(xīyān literally "suck" + "smoke") = smoke cigarettes

September 11, 2011 The Changing Face of China

Last night as previously posted we went out for dinner to our traditional birthday celebration eatery, the Teppanyaki Japanese restaurant in the new Wanda Plaza.  As we entered I made my usual request to the young lady at the door:  "We don't want to smell smoke.  Please don't seat us among smokers."  She told me that nobody smokes in the restaurant.  At first I thought I had misunderstood her, but after we were seated I started to notice the new No Smoking signs on the walls.  And, wonder of wonders, the signs were being obeyed.  Nobody lit up during the whole time we were there.

What a difference this made to our dining experience. The price has gone up, from all-you-can-eat-and-drink for 150RMB ($23.41 Canadian) when we first found the place four years ago, to 168RMB ($26.21 Canadian) today.  Still, that's with no added tax and no tipping allowed, so given the amount of expensive fresh sashimi that we managed to tuck away and a couple of bottles of sake, this is a great deal.  Maybe we can't eat there every night, but for special occasions the place still gets my vote, even more so now that I don't have to worry about smokers polluting my air while I eat.
     After dinner we took in a Chinese movie:  大武生 (dà wǔshēng "big warrior" a role in traditional Chinese opera") English title "My Kingdom" at the Wanda Cineplex.  Typical revenge plot with much acrobatic kung fu and glaring face offs. 

We weren't  impressed with the story. The cutting in the fight sequences was slick, but Ruth wanted more wide shots and clever choreography, and some of the imagery was tacky, with costumes looking moth eaten at times.  The performances seemed to be a steady stream of deadly serious posturing, much like Beijing opera itself.  Still, it was fun to see the Shanghai movie studio we toured two years ago on the screen, and the depiction of old Shanghai.  It was also good to be immersed in Chinese for an hour and a half.
     We caught Starbucks just before it closed, and I fell further off the wagon by ordering a vente latte, my first coffee in a couple of months. Then we were politely asked to leave so that the staff could go home. 
     I flagged down a taxi.  When I got into the cab, I noticed that the driver was smoking.  I asked him, rather more harshly than I intended, to put it out.  Not the way to make foreigners popular in China.  The atmosphere in the taxi was frosty for the ride back to our campus.  No doubt in a year or two it will be illegal to smoke in a taxi in China.  Much as I hate inconsiderate smokers, I have mixed feelings about the changes.

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Chinese Word of the Day:  生日
(shēng ri literally "give birth" + "day") n. birthday

September 10, 2011  First Week at Lambton College

We've just completed our first week teaching the Lambton students, and I'm much relieved.  The reputation of Lambton students is, to put it gently, not great.  For the five years while we've been teaching at Jiangnan University we've heard a fair bit from the previous Lambton teachers about their terrible students.  We were told to expect a bunch of 小皇帝 (xiǎo huáng dì), infant emperors, spoiled children.  We were told to expect unmotivated students with attitude problems, "poor little rich kids" who are being shuffled out of the way so they can be further ignored by their wealthy and busy professional parents.  I'll admit that we had low expectations, and were prepared for the worst.  I'm very happy to report that our students have not met these expectations.  So far they are at least as studious, polite, and attentive as were our wonderful Jiangnan University students.

Yes, a student appears to be sleeping, But this picture was taken was during a break.

This term we are teaching nothing but writing.  I will admit that I don't really like teaching writing.  For me, writing is an intuitive process born of many years of extensive reading and daily practice.  To teach a formal approach wherein one starts by thinking about the broad subject, then narrows that to a limited subject, then decides on an opinion and finally writes a thesis statement, seems totally artificial.  Isn't this is a tedious way to take all the joy out of writing? 

       Subject     Limited Subject        +    Opinion               =     thesis statement
       Sports      Playing a team sport         has a lot of benefits      Playing a team sport
                                                                                               teaches a person self-   
                                                                                               discipline, cooperation, and
                                                                                               leadership.
                        -from the Mosaics "Focus on Essays" textbook.

There are also rules in the textbook which seem arbitrary and pointless, such as the rule that the thesis statement should be the last sentence in the first paragraph.  I see nothing wrong with having the thesis statement jump out in the very first words.
     My other problem with the way we teach academic writing is that it seems so eighteenth century.  In all previous history, writing was a linear process.  A writer had to think about what to say first, then second, then third, and laying out thoughts in the wrong order meant tedious revision and rewriting.  The computer and word processing has changed all that.  Now writing can be, indeed should be, a non-linear process, much more like painting a picture. We should be teaching students to simply throw down thoughts, without worrying initially about structure and organization.  Once enough thoughts have hit the screen, an obvious beginning will emerge, and that can then be easily shuffled to the start of the work.  We should be teaching students how to recognize that beginning, see what thoughts follow and support it, effectively use cut and paste, and edit and revise quickly and efficiently.  They all own laptops.  Why are we teaching them a writing process invented for the quill pen and ink well.
     Ruth is much more accepting of the textbook approach.  She tells me that I am an accomplished reader and writer who writes intuitively, but that our students need tools to help them organize their thoughts and judge whether their writing is acceptable.  I do see her point.  I also have a syllabus to follow, and a textbook.  I shall follow it, and use it.  But maybe I can also convince the students that writing can be fun, liberating, even exciting.
     I've invited all my students to bring their laptops to class.  I think the best way for me to teach them to write would be to encourage them to increase their typing speed.  Anything they write in the future, whether at university or in the workplace, will be typed.  Efficient typing will be an invaluable skill.  I type almost as fast as I talk, and this makes writing fun and painless.

Results of an informal student poll on their favourite season.  No consensus here.

To break the tedium of sitting in a three hour class, I occasionally invite my students to come to the front and vote on a question or issue.  Above is the poll on their favourite season.  Maybe this will become an essay topic in a future class.

A Word about Proo freading

I asked my students to read the words in the triangle below.  

I was delighted to find that they all made the same mistake you probably just made when you read it.  If you read it as: Paris in the Spring, you should read it backwards word by word.  Reading it "wrong" does not mean that you are a bad reader.  In fact, it means the opposite.  It means that you are a very fast and efficient reader.
     The fact that my students read it wrong indicates that, even though they are not reading their own native language, or even a writing system similar to their own sinographic system, they are still very proficient at reading.  If they had read it slowly, word by word, they would have read the additional "the".  But we don't read that way.  We read what we expect to read, based on structure and context.  This is why proof reading is so very difficult.  I hope my students got the point.

Ruth's Birthday:  Happy Birthday Darling

Ruth's birthday was on Tuesday, September 06, but we were up to our eyeballs in our first week of teaching, so we postponed the celebration.  Last night we had a few of our fellow teachers, and one favourite former student, over for an ice cream cake, some good conversation, and a bit of fun with Jin Bo's Kinect game.  A good time was had by all.

 
-Janice Seto photo.                                            

Tonight I'm taking Ruth out for Japanese.  It's becoming a birthday tradition.  The new Wanda Plaza has a Teppanyaki restaurant with an excellent variety of fresh food grilled at your table.  I haven't had an alcoholic drink since I went teetotal back in July, simply because my spreading belly has an obvious cause and I'm tired of packing it around.  But this evening I may fall off the wagon.  What's the point of an all-you-can-eat-and-drink price if you don't eat and drink?  I think the occasion calls for one small bottle of sake.  I shall limit myself to that.

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Chinese Word of the Day: 不可能的
(bù kě néng de) adv./adj. unreal; impossible

September 06, 2011 Back in the Saddle Again

We've been very busy, but slowly all the tedious details of getting settled in for another term, things like getting the banking arrangements sorted out, are falling into place, and I'm almost feeling like things are under control.
     Last Sunday morning at nine o'clock, all of the Lambton teachers gathered for an orientation session.  We were given a package containing the text books we'll need, our schedules and class lists, some basic supplies, the forms we will have to complete, syllabi for our courses, some information about the facilities, printouts to hand to a cabbie to get the newcomers to various locations in Wuxi, and general information such as translations of the air conditioner remote control.  It was the most complete orientation we've experienced in China, and very helpful.  Of course the fact that this meeting didn't happen, and we didn't get our schedules and class lists, until Sunday morning meant that we were very busy Sunday evening preparing for our first classes. We had a three hour class scheduled for Monday morning, followed by a two hour class Monday afternoon,
     We've now met all four of our classes, and so far they seem to be good, serious students.  We're looking forward to this term.
     As part of my "getting to know you" first class, I did a couple of informal polls of the students.  The results of this one are a little disturbing.

I suppose this result is not unexpected.

My pitch to the students is that life is much tougher if you are someplace you don't want to be, doing something you don't want to do.  In reality, none of them have to be in my class.  They could, if they really wanted to, get a job - maybe sweeping the street or searching through garbage cans for discarded bottles.  There is always an alternative to being where they don't want to be.  But if they have good reasons to be in my class, it will make their life a lot easier and more fun if they decide they want to be there.  I have no idea how much impact my pep talk will have.  But I feel sorry for students who don't want to be doing what they are forcing themselves to do.  It just makes life much tougher than it needs to be.
     This next poll was much more encouraging.

I used the "I have a dream" sentence  to illustrate the fact that, contrary to what they've been taught, the best sentence is not necessarily very long.  The average sentence length used by best selling authors is seven words.  I'm trying to sell them on the simple declarative sentence.  My fear is that getting them to write well in English will not get them high marks in China, because the examiners here take long, complicated sentences to be a sign of writing competence.  But if they can write a simple declarative sentence, it's easy enough to add modifiers, phrases and clauses to make it fit the expectations of those who mark their test papers.

September 04, 2011 What?  Still Not Fluent in Chinese?

This summer, a relative expressed surprise when I told him I'm still not fluent in Chinese even after seven years of fairly constant, though not intense, study.  Here's a very entertaining article that goes a long way to explain why.
     One thing the author doesn't mention: Most people assume that Ruth and I are immersed in Chinese, since we live in China.  The fact is, all university students have much better English than any beginner has Chinese.  They also want to practice and use their English.  All conversations default to English as soon as we have any difficulty saying or understanding something.  So practicing our Chinese takes constant effort against constant resistance.  We are making progress.  Slowly.  Glacial progress it seems at times.  I think I may be fairly fluent in another, oh, twenty years or so.
     The article on the difficulties of Chinese came to my attention at the same time as this one, which makes the point that, with the advent of computers and telephone text messages, even the Chinese are forgetting how to write Chinese. 
     It's tempting to see the Chinese character writing system, beautiful and culturally significant as it so obviously is, as an archaic and impractical cultural antique that should be scrapped in favour of a phonetic system.  The fact that Chinese children spend their first few years in school doing nothing much more than learning characters could be seen as the biggest waste of human resources on the planet.  I was surprised to learn that the school kids do not start with learning characters, but with pinyin, the phonetic version of the official 普通话 (pǔtōnghuà) or common language, commonly known as Mandarin.  So a Chinese child first learns to talk, then learns a phonetic writing system, and finally learns the Chinese characters and writing system, about the time they are ready to start learning English.  One wonders why they go that third step, but my friends here, in fact all Chinese, have incredible affection for their written characters and traditions.  They've made a huge investment in learning their characters, and I think are rather proud of the fact that very few foreigners manage to do it.  Any hint that characters belong in the realm of art, and that there are practical reasons to adopt a better writing system, is greeted with pure hostility, if not outrage.  I'm certainly not going to be the foreigner who makes that suggestion.  That would be cultural insensitivity of the worst kind.
     Things usually get better over time.  Not so with Chinese characters.  Take a look at the ancient symbol for "eye" and compare it to the modern, "simplified", Chinese characters.

Here's the ancient symbol for "eye".  You can recognize it, right?

  yǎnjing n. eye
And here's the "simplified" modern version of "eye".  Do you see this as an improvement?

My own theory is that Chinese characters were made intentionally difficult by scribes and rulers in the past to foster job security, and that consideration will eventually be given to scrapping the whole system except for artists and poets.  Not a popular proposal here in China.  I'd be against such cultural vandalism myself, no matter how much sense it makes.  But we will see what the future holds for these beautiful written characters that cause so many people so much trouble.

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                                                                                                                                -Ruth Anderson photo

Chinese Word of the Day: 修理
(xiū lǐ) v. repair; mend; fix

September 02, 2011  Back Home in China

We had an uneventful flight if you don't count spilling an entire glass of red wine into my lap shortly after takeoff from Vancouver.  Fortunately I had my tai chi suit and slippers in my backpack so I spent the flight in comfort, though uniquely attired.  By the time we landed, my pants and underwear were dry again.  Once again, the flight wasn't long enough for me.  A few movies, one of them excellent ("Secretariat" a biopic about the famous racehorse.  Good stuff.) and all too soon we were landing in hot and humid Shanghai. 

 
Once again, GouGou has had loving care during our summer vacation.  Our young friend, Water, enjoyed her                                                            company for the summer.                            -Ruth Anderson photos

Our dog was very happy to see us, and delighted with the dog toy my sister Susan bought for her.
     I've been recovering from the jet lag, getting unpacked, helping a new arrival get her bearings and acquire a phone card, with Ruth's help fixing our plumbing (new tap for the kitchen sink because the old one was spraying water everywhere, and a new shower head swivel for the bathroom so the shower doesn't come out horizontal and spray the counter) and getting my camera in to the repair shop.  The camera is now repaired, with a new lens at a cost of 709 RMB ($109 Canadian).  Hopefully I'll get another couple of years out of it. 

Getting back into the swing of things. 

A dog on the window ledge.  Panda, who slept on a mattress on our floor last night,  having breakfast before leaving to visit her home town and family, and Ruth back on the elliptical trainer.  My turn as soon as I finish this post.  Tomorrow, Sunday morning, we have a meeting with our new administration and will find out what is expected of us this term, get our schedules, and be ready to hit the decks a-running on Monday morning.

As Expected, "Our" Village is Gone

When we left for the summer, this was a row of inexpensive restaurants.  Now it's all that's left of the
                                                                    village, and on its way out.      -Ruth Anderson photos

The charmingly textured village of Shi Tang Cun, a touch of old China and our usual spot for a street barbeque close to our campus is now all but completely gone, along with the farmer's market and all the shops, stores and restaurants.  Flattened.  旧的不去，新的不来。(jiù de bù qù, xīn de bù lái)  Old not go, new not come, as the Chinese put it.  In a country with so much antiquity, clinging to the past would be suffocating.  But still we shall miss "our" village.  A large and modern apartment complex is not much compensation.

Panda Likes Dogs

Here's a little retrospective on Panda's summer among the dog lovers of Canada.

  
Mostly she likes big dogs.

But a small dog will do in a pinch.

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Read more - Our Summer in Canada with Panda 2011