Boom Boom Beibei

Sometimes when I am walking around in Beibei I feel like I am in some sort of Charles Dickens novel.  Everything is covered in soot.  I keep my windows closed all the time because I don’t want to have to clean and wipe the whole apartment again after it gets all covered in it.   The sky is scorched out by the always existing smog (I have yet to see blue sky since I have been here).  Very poor air quality always has me coughing whenever I wake up in the mornings (it’s like smoking two packs of cigarettes per day).  Cheap manual labor is everywhere, the use of man power over machine power helps employ Chinas very large population.  There is massive coal usage, everything from making electricity to grilling the chicken on a stick that you just bought.  There is constant construction and you will find it in any direction that you look.  Beibei is in the process of building a subway system that will run all the way to the city of Chongqing.  Throughout the day I can hear and feel beneath my feet explosions (Boom Boom) from dynamite that are used to dig deep down into the ground for the subway tunnels.  There is a constant presence of beggars in downtown Beibei who have mutilated limbs from factory accidents.  Lastly, China is crowded and Chongqing province has a very high population density even for China (380/sq Kilometer). 

Now I don’t mean to paint a completely negative picture of China for you.  I am just trying to compare the setting of a Charles Dickens industrial novel to what I see in China.  I want to give you an understanding of the consequences that China lives with because of its need to develop so quickly.  The province of Chongqing is very important to the fast development of the western part of China, so as a result huge government and private investors pour tons of money into it.  Since my return to Chongqing province, I have been able to see how quickly that money got put to use (even though I have just been gone for two years).     

Not only have the cities developed, but so have trends and styles have as well.  I can remember even small things like finding a good cup of coffee being a challenge in Beibei.  Now there are more cafes than there are bubble tea stands and they look and feel like a cafés too.  Whenever I go to bars and clubs I can listen to music that is recently released.  Before, all you could listen to was pop music that was 8-10 years old (NSYNC and Backstreet Boys). 

I find it very fascinating seeing Beibei transform right before my eyes at such an explosive rate.  It will be interesting to see how much this place changes within my eleven month stay here.  Every night I fall asleep to sounds of Beibei growing, one stick of dynamite at a time.  Boom Boom Beibei.  

English Group

I was recently invited to an English group by a couple of my graduate students to participate in a group discussion about movies.  The group of students meet together every Friday night to practice their English with each other and discuss some sort of topic with every session.  Each of them prepare some notes about each discussion and they all take turns acting as a host who gives more background information.  To have the opportunity to get to know some of my students a little better in a more relaxed setting was way too tempting to say no.  So of course I accepted the invitation.

I was picked up by two of my students at the southern end of campus near Gate 6 (right across the street from where I live) and was brought to teaching building #33.  There I met up with the rest of the group, most of whom were my students.  All of the students had brought snacks: a large variety of fresh and dried fruit, nuts, and other random things to eat.  I was also treated with some hot tea that was refilled whenever the cup got empty.  I began the discussion by introducing myself (even though mostly everyone knew me) and then the discussion about movies began.  The host gave a very good introduction about the history of movies and then each of us went around in a circle talking about our favorite movies.  After we had come around the circle, I was flooded with questions which I gladly answered and I also asked several questions.  The meeting ended about two and a half hours later and I said my goodbyes before I was escorted back to Gate 6.   

I had a very fun night and was invited to come again to the next Friday’s discussion.  Hopefully I can also improve my Chinese with this group of students as I help them improve their English.  We shall see!

Military Training

Early in the morning I witnessed hundreds of young adults marching around the SWU campus in camouflaged clothing while chanting in unison.  Later I learned that these people were the first year students fulfilling their required one month of military training.  It’s kind of similar to one month of boot camp.  They have training early in the mornings, late in the afternoons and late in the evenings.  They learn how to march, stand in ranks and endure intense physical conditioning in the Chongqing heat and rain.  This requirement gives every student in China at least some basic military training that can come in handy if the government calls for a draft.  I don’t know about you but considering that china has the largest standing army in the world (2.5 million troops) and has over 40 million reserve or civilian guards I can’t help but feel a little nervous about being a citizen to a country (USA) that owes such a huge debt to China.

I have talked to many graduate students about their military training experience when they were first year college students and I have gotten a mixture of opinions.  Some had an overall enjoyable experience while others seemed to completely dislike it.  The ones who said they enjoyed it said they had gained several benefits from the experience.  They had the opportunity to meet many people and make many friends, learn discipline and time management skills, were able to get into good physical condition, and gained some vitality out of the whole ordeal.  Of those that disliked it mostly complained about how officers would yell at them or about how hot the Chongqing weather was.  And in defense of the students who complained about the hot weather, in September sometimes the temperature reaches over 105F with over 90% humidity and the military training is never postponed.  The students still march around and stand in ranks for several hours out on the soccer fields regardless of the weather.  I can recall seeing students faint in the heat while standing in their ranks and then being carried away to some shade in a stretcher. 

It is very entertaining to watch some of the military exercises.  One of the most fascinating exercises that I saw was a very large group of young men dressed in camouflage uniforms practicing Kung Fu all in unison on a soccer field.  They all would hold still in some sort of position for a few seconds until an officer would yell “HO!” and then in response the whole soccer field would yell “HO!” and change into a different position all in unison. 

The first year students have just recently finished their military training here at SWU and can now blend in with the rest of the students.  It is kind of scary to think that China has so many of its citizens with some military experience (even the students) especially when much of the world is in indebted to China.  I think it is very important during these hard economic times to learn as much as I can about the culture and language and to make friends here so as to strengthen friendly diplomatic ties between us and China.  This is however “The Asian Century” isn’t it?

First Week of Teaching

My experiences with teaching English in China have always been a mixed bag of experiences, but have always been very enjoyable.  Last time I was in China I had the opportunity to teach some college students at Southwest University and with junior high school students in a small rural town called Shehong in Sichuan province.  Teaching English in Sichuan was my most memorable teaching experience in China.  We were not given any kind of teachers training when we arrived to the school.  We were given a text book and were instructed to teach one lesson per forty minute period (we taught nine periods total in one weekend stay).  I had never taught a class in my life and after looking at the lessons, I figured it was only going to take maybe ten minutes to teach each lesson.  Somehow I had to figure out how to use up the remaining thirty minutes of class while being under the pressure of having to teach a class of 40 students.  I ended up having the students play games and have competitions in front of the class to test their knowledge of the material.  I also remember a photographer constantly taking pictures of me the other CSBSJU students while we taught the English lessons.  I kind of chuckle at the idea that maybe there is a billboard somewhere in Sichuan with my picture on it that advertises English learning opportunities at that particular school.  I cherish my teaching experience in Sichuan and little did I know that I would be experiencing a very similar situation two years later at Southwest University.

I just finished my first week of teaching at Southwest University.  Let’s just say it was a big learning experience for me.  When I first got here I was expecting to go through some sort of teaching orientation (because we teach graduate level classes) to allow me to get an idea of how to teach.  Unfortunately we didn’t.  If you have a bachelor’s degree from an English speaking country, you automatically are an expert at teaching English.  All I did was introductions for all of the eight classes that I taught.  As much as I hated doing cheesy introduction games I started each class off with a guessing game.  I started by briefly introducing myself and welcoming the students to their Conversational English class.  Then I wrote ten statements about myself on the board.  I would write five true statements and five false statements on the board.  To add a little humor to my introduction some of the false statements were as ridiculous as “I have been to the moon”, or “I am thirty years of age”.  Then I had the class try to figure out which statements were true and false.  After that I had the students do the “two truths and a lie” exercise one at a time in front of the class so that they could introduce themselves to me and the rest of the class.  Of course I wouldn’t make the whole class introduce themselves partly for my sanity and for the class’s as well (the class size ranges from 35-65 students).  After the forty minutes we get a ten minute break before we start a second forty minute period.  I would use the second period to allow students to ask me questions about anything they wanted to know or to just start up conversation.  Now teaching did not always go so smoothly.  I could go into every classroom with some sort of plan and still have to change it and modify it.  It was very stressful when a class was not as talkative as the others or was not as skilled in speaking English as the others.  But, in the end everything still seemed to work out just fine and the students seemed very excited about the class.  We shall see how the next couple of weeks go.

Kenny G.

Sorry I haven’t written a blog for over a week, I have been gathering too much information at a time for future blogs.

You all know Kenny G., the adult contemporary and smooth jazz saxophonist.  He made it big during the 80s in the United States.  You may have heard his music randomly played in an elevator, or the mall, or at some downtown café.  His music is very distinguishable, where ever you may hear it, you will know “that sounds like Kenny G”.  Anyways whenever I mention Kenny G. in conversations I get a lot of rolling of the eyes and shaking of heads.  At least in the past decade, I can’t really remember hearing any of Kenny’s music in public.  For a while, I had forgotten about Kenny G. 

It wasn’t until I studied abroad in China in the fall of 2009 that I heard his music again.  It was very strange when it happened.  I was walking down town with some friends in the Chongqing heat and we heard one of Kenny G.’s hit singles playing inside of a small socks shop.  Even amongst all of the Chinese pop music blaring out of every street shop I could still make out the smooth jazz saxophone.  I couldn’t believe my ears!  In all places for Kenny G.’s music to exist, it was in downtown Beibei in a tiny street shop.   And of course when I recognized the song, I just shook my head and rolled my eyes.

Once again, as you all know I am back in Beibei and Kenny G.’s works are still being played in downtown shops, in elevators, in the halls at Southwest University in between classes and at big shopping malls.  You can actually buy 8 track tapes of Kenny G. in some of the big shopping malls in downtown Chonqing.  As I see and hear his musical works here in China, I still roll my eyes and shake my head.  But now I can’t help but also give a little chuckle thinking of the idea that the Chinese have become the later fans of his works.  Even Chinese jazz pop ballads that you might here on the radio sound very similar to the smooth jazz style of Kenny G. 

I love finding these random bits and pieces of western culture that don’t seem to fit in here (to me at least) and I love being able to recognize that things get “Chinafied” here.  

Guanxi

There is a thing in China that you build with the people around you or that you build with people before you get down to business.  That thing is called Guanxi (pronounced Guan-shee).  Guanxi means "relationship" or "back door", like you have a good enough relationship so you don't need to use the front door anymore, you can use the back one.  When you have Guanxi with the family that owns a restaurant or a shop clerk, you get better service.  Like I said earlier its also important to create Guanxi before business, that way you become friends before you become business partners.

Last Wednesday night I was invited to a dinner with some men from the recording studio at Southwest University.  They had invited four of us (two females and two males) to have a festive dinner at a fancy Chinese restaurant.  Eventually they wanted to have us come into their studio and do some English dialogue recordings for one the areas middle school English departments.  Of course I felt compelled to accept the invitation despite my suffering from a bit of travelers diarrhea.  What I was worried about was the amount of alcohol that you must consume during this Guanxi building arrangement (when building Guanxi for business, usually there is a lot of alcohol being consumed in the process).  Upon arrival to the restaurant, we were escorted to a private dinner party room.  At first we ordered several cold appetizer dishes and of course baijiu and beers.  Baijiu is a chinese liquor that they make by fermenting and then distilling rice and the alcohol can range from 50-70% alcohol.  Even knowing that I was not going to get out of drinking a lot of baijiu, I requested to just drink Coke with the meal.  And like I expected my request was rejected by one of the smirking Chinese men.  The meal consisted of dozens of dishes, many wine glasses of baijiu and beer and toast after toast of the recorders thanking us for coming to dinner and us thanking them for dinner.  After the meal, the smoking of cigarettes began.  Now I am not a cigarette smoker, but I have learned that it is important to be culturally sensitive at certain times, building Guanxi being one of them.  I pretended to smoke and blew smoke rings and had many good conversations, after all everyone had just consumed quite a bit of alcohol.  I definitely thank my genetics and my college drinking experience to get me through situations like this.  Finally, right before we left, we had one last toast, "After today, we are friends".