What happens when you let 60 Junior 1s play with buckets of water?

This.

Do a Deer...

This Sunday my students participated in a singing competition sponsored by the school. Each class sang a common song as well as an additional song of their choice and was conducted by a fellow classmate. To separate themselves from the other classes, some classes chose to incorporate choreography or dancers into the act. Below are a few photos from the day. I’d love to share some of the video I took during the competition, however, due to current blockage of Blogger by the Chinese Firewall, I am unable to.

Zhuzhou from Space

I went on Google Maps to look at Zhuzhou for the first time today. Google's satellite images are really quite amazing and I thought I'd share them with you. It's just too bad that there was some mild cloud cover the day the photos were taken.

Below is a picture of Yandi Square and a portion of the campus of Number 2 Middle School, where I live. The orange arrow is pointing to my apartment building. You can also see the top of the tower that I mentioned in my post on December 20th, 2008 about pollution.



This is an image of the area surrounding Jing Yan Middle School, where I teach. As you may have guessed, the orange arrow points to the school. In the center you can see the "playground" where you've witnessed students "exercising," playing basketball, and putting out fires.

May Madness at Jing Yan

The Junior 1 classes are in the midst of a very serious basketball tournament. This tournament is one of the more organized things I’ve seen Jing Yan do and personally, I’m pretty impressed. The students took the tournament to another level by getting NBA or CBA jerseys personalized for the event. I’ll keep you updated on the status of the tournament as things progress.

My favorite hero is...

The student seem to really enjoy handing in their work on the smallest paper they can find. While I only received one assignment on legal sized paper, I received plenty more on pieces of paper just as small as this blue one.

The list of favorite heroes continues with these gems:

My favorite hero is Bill Gates. He is from USA. He has a golden hair. He is smart. He is my favorite hero, because is the Microsoft CEO.

My favorite hero is Hu Jintao. He is kindly. He is friendly. He is my favorite because he love Chinese people.

My favorite hero is Zhou Enlai. He is from China. He is tall. He is kind. He is my favorite hero, because he is like country very much.

My favorite hero is Aishily. She is very lovely. She has golden long hair. She is a good teacher. She is my favorite hero, because she is kind. I love her!

And the kicker and my personal favorite…

My favorite is Martin.Luther.King because he is very great! He always help others. He is the first president of U.S.A. whose, skin is in black.

Describe Your Hero

This week my students and I are talking about heroes and superheroes. The lesson idea was created by my friend, David, and he's been so kind as to let me borrow it. The students really love talking about their favorite action figures like Kung Fu Panda, Pikachu, and Kobe Bryant. At the end of the lesson I ask the students to write 5 sentences about their favorite hero or superhero. While I'm sure to have more funny ones as the week progresses, I thought I'd get the ball rolling with this one. The following is the work of a student from class 11.

My favorite hero is Deng Deng Juan. She is my classmate. She is 12 years old. She has a fat face. She is a good student.

Team Building at English Corner

School Schedule

Like many other things, the daily schedule of Chinese schools is rather different from their American counterparts. While students arrive around the same time, the Chinese kids stay at school much later. The trade off, however, is that the Chinese munchkins get an hour and forty minute lunch/rest break. I spent a pretty long time translating the schedule into English for your enjoyment, so without any further adieu here it is.

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6:50 Wake up call
7:00-7:10 Wash face and brush teeth
7:10-7:20 Early Morning Exercises
7:20-7:40 Breakfast for Boarding Students

**Commuting students begin to filter in**

7:45-8:00 Breakfast
8:00-8:20 Monday Flag Raising
8:20 Prepare for class
8:25-9:05 Period 1
9:15-9:55 Period 2
9:55-10:20 Morning Exercises
10:20-11:00 Period 3
11-11:05 Eye Exercises
11:15-11:55 (Junior 1 and 2) Period 4
11:15-12:05 (Junior 3) Period 4
11:55-12:35 (Junior 1 and 2) Lunch
12:05-12:50 (Junior 3) Lunch
12:50-1:20 Noon break *
1:20 Prepare for class *
1:25-1:40 Time to read newspapers aloud, sing, and share school news *
1:45-2:25 Period 5
2:35-3:15 Period 6
3:15-3:20 Eye Exercises
3:30-4:10 Period 7
4:20-5:00 Period 8 (After class students are responsible for tidying up their classrooms, including taking out the garbage, realigning the desks, and sweeping the floor.)

**Commuting students begin to filter out**

5:30-6:00 Dinner
6:40-7:00 Evening Reading time
7:10-7:50 Self study period 1
8:00-8:40 Self study period 2
9:30 Get into bed and lights out

*It seems that boarding students and students who live close to the school are permitted to skip these activities to either nap in their dorms or eat lunch at home with their parents. (Lucky kids – the cafeteria food is barely edible.)

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Chinese teachers are required to be at school between 8:00am and 5:00pm. Because my sitemate and I are “VIPs”, we are permitted to come and go as we please as long as we’re present and prepared to teach our classes. It's a good deal.

Can you even imagine having such a schedule like this one in the US? I'd like to see it tried.

War at Jing Yan

Dear Obama:第二个

I got some late letters submissions that I’d like to pass on you now.

Dear Abama,
Hi! My name is Harry. James. I am twelve years old. I am from China. China is a very beautiful country. There are so many “flowers” in here. So our young people certainly are the “flowers”. My hobbies are writing, listening to music, watching TV and running. So I am writing well and running fast. I am a clever boy. So I like math. It’s my fevourite subject. But I want to be a writer, because I love every word.
I give best wishes to you.
A Chinese Children.
Harry. James

Dear Abama,
I’m a Chinese girl. I’m a student of 12. I live in Zhuzhou Hunan. It’s a beautiful country. I have some friends, they’re from Japan, Singapore, The UK and Australia. And I like make friends to each other. I want to make friend with you. Ok? Now, let me introduce myself to you.
I’m a girl of 12. I study in Jingyan Middle School. My name is Xie Ziling. I also have an English name, it is Angel. It’s very interesting, right? I like reading. Because it can broden my view, widen my knowledge, increase my eyes, open my horizon and improve my language. I can know about different culture. And I can also gain education which is mot available in the school and which is most importance to our future career.
There’re 4 seasons in a year but I know summer best. Because summer is very hot, I can eat many ice cream and big green watermelon. Swimming is my favorite soprts.
I hope we can make friends.
Yours,
Xie Ziling

Dear Abama,
I’m a Chinese boy. I’m 12. I’m a student of Zhuzhou Jingyan Middle School and I’m Evan. I like to play basketball. Do you like it? It’s a good sport. It can make me strong. I don’t have any penpal and I want a penpal in America. Can I make penpals with you, thanks.
Now. Let me tell you something about mine.
I have a small family, but I think my family is happy. There are four people in my family, my father, my mother, my brother and I. My father is a manager. He is good at work and he likes working. My mother is an accounting and she is a good cook of my family. My brother is a student in university. He is a good student. He can speak some language in English and a little French. We are happy together.
My school is the best of ZhuZhou City. I have eight classes in day. But I like English class best, because I like English very much. So, I learn English every weekends. I join in English club in school. I think I can speak English well, But only a little.
What about you? Can you tell me? Please write to me soon!
Best wishes for you.
A Chinese boy,
Evan

Dear President Obama,
My name is Zhang Siyi. My English name is Vicky. I’m 12 years old. I’m a Chinese girl. I’m study in Jing Yan Middle School. My hobbies are listening to music and drawing pictures.
I know you for a long time. You’re president of America. I think you’re very marvelous and successful. You’re famous in China. So, I want to ask you some questions:
1. When is your birthday?
2. Please introduce you by yourself.
3. Are you happy every day?
4. What do you think of China?
5. Do you like China?
I should be very happy if you favour me with an early reply.
I hope America can get along with China forever.
A Chinese Student,
Vicky

Dear Obama

During last semester and the beginning of this one I taught a small class to a group of select English students called English Corner. While this class was the bane of my existence at times, I generally enjoyed working with a group of kids that really wanted to work on their English skills. A few weeks ago I taught them about the structure of a letter and then I had them write one to me. The letters were mainly all the same, telling me their favorite color and asking what mine was. At the end of that class I told them the next week we would be writing letters to President Obama. The students were super pumped! They have heard a lot about Obama through the Chinese media and he is generally liked among Chinese populace.

Unfortunately, by the next week English Corner had been permanently canceled, to be replaced by an even more disorganized "English Club" and we were never able to write our letters to the US President. One student, however, took it upon herself to write a letter in her free time and gave it to me. She asked if I could still send it to him, which I will, but I decided to pass the letter on to you before I do because it is just so darn cute.

Dear Obama,
Hi! I am a lively Chinese girl, and my name is Kacie. It’s a great joy to write to you. Now, let me tell you something about myself.
I’m a thirteen-year-old girl in Junior One. Although my spoken English is not so good, yet I try my best to transtale some sentences. In class, I’ve a very good friend, who is warm-hearted and helpful to the weak. Therefore, I’m very proud of her. Oh, she has a lovely Chinese name as well, Yang Chunzi.
Would you like to know more about myself? Write to me soon, please!
Kacie

While I doubt very much that Obama would write back, I really hope that my students might get a form letter back from the White House. I’m waiting a few days to see if any other students write letters and then I’ll send theirs and Kacie’s to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. hoping to receive something as soon as possible.

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

As I mentioned in my post about student janitors, the students "occasionally" take a break from their duties to have some fun. As I was walking down the stairs to go home today, I happened to catch a few boys creating a game with a ping-pong ball and their brooms.

The Grubes of Jing Yan

Speaking of the few employees hired to repair school equipment, I saw two of them hard at work on my way up to the office today. I'm sorry the above photo is a little blurry. I actually did get a clearer shot, but I thought this one illustrates life in China a bit better. As you may have noticed, the first man is welding a chair while smoking a cigarette. He has tossed his welder's mask aside, so that he can more clearly see what he is doing. I guess that's a good idea, because he is welding about 2 inches from his colleague's foot. The photo doesn't show that all of this is happening about 5 feet from a classroom full of about 60 students.

Maybe it's a good thing these guys aren't responsible for more around the school.

Student Janitors

At Hempfield High School, there is one man who has become somewhat of a fixture in the lives of the students, staff, and faculty alike. Now in his mid 80s, Grube has been working for the school district for as long as anyone can remember. He can been seen all throughout the building, pushing carts full of papers, drinking coffee, and chatting with the secretaries. As a member of the janitorial staff, Grube and his colleagues are responsible for the cleanliness of the school building and grounds. They repair desks, install TVs, and clean the building every single day. American schools, like Hempfield, would be left with quite a shock should the janitors fail to show up one day.

Chinese schools, however, are used to an absent janitorial staff. In fact, they do not even employ people to tidy up the school. How does the school get cleaned, you ask? The students do it. About three times a school year, on a rotating cycle, each class is excused from their studies for two days to clean the school. They pick up leaves from the basketball courts, mop the hallways, sweep the stairs, dust the handrails, and do mild landscaping in the school garden.

The students tell me they like cleaning, but I suspect it’s more likely they enjoy being able to walk around the school with a broom almost unchecked. Though the head teacher of the class assigned to cleaning duty is probably responsible for his or her students, I rarely see them checking up on them. Therefore, it is common to see boys fighting with the mops rather than actually removing dirt from the floor or see girls adjusting their hair with the help of their friends. This is, however, not to say that the school doesn’t actually get clean. The tile floors of the building where my office is located is mopped every single day, as are the stairwells and hallway floors. I just have come to believe that the students are skilled at messing around just enough that there is still enough time to do their assigned task.

I’m not sure if the students are learning anything about hard work or household management through being responsible for cleaning the school grounds, but I’m certain that they enjoy the much needed pause in their breakneck schedules. And I’m sure their parents enjoy the lower tuition cost that is a result of the school needing to only employ one or two repair people, rather than the entire janitorial force needed in US schools.

While this system works in Chinese schools, I highly doubt it would function even reasonably well in the halls of Hempfield High School, or most other American high schools. Looks like Grube’s job is safe.

Eye Exercises

Back in December I started a series about school life in China. You may think that the series was canceled after the pilot episode, as I seem to have dropped the idea. This, however, is not the case. That time of year was busy with other activities to post about, as well as a major trip to plan. Now that that’s all over, I want to get back to the work on the posts that I had planned.

***

Each country and culture has its own way for students to relax during the school day. During my time in Germany, I learned that students believe that it is beneficial to open the windows (no matter the weather) between classes to clear their heads. In the US, students take recess and “passing time” as down time between classes to relax and talk to their friends. Likewise, Chinese students have a 10 minute recess type break between each class, during which they enjoying playing basketball and jumping rope. These break periods are vital as the students remain in the same room throughout the day and it is the teachers who do the moving.

The Chinese, however, take de-stressing during the school to another level. Two times per day (or three times for the boarding students) the students do eye exercises. The exercises are lead by the recording of a women which comes over the loud speaker. She starts by instructing the students on what exercise they will begin with and then counts to eight eight times. I imagine she says something like, “Alright students, now we’re going to rub our eyes for the next five minutes. Don‘t roll your eyes at me! Here we go. Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba. Er, er, san, si, …” She then goes onto the next exercise; there are four in all. The students don’t actually need to be reminded what exercise they should be doing, as they’ve done them in the exact same order multiple times a day for the past 6 years of their lives.

While a majority of the class is stroking their faces, one or two of the students are patrolling the classroom with a notebook, making note of the students who are not showing the exercises the seriousness they deserve. Yet another group of students comes around to each classroom to ensure the monitors are doing their job to report misbehaving students. Should the individual classroom monitor be caught not reprimanding their students properly, he or she would be severe punished. The Chinese are certainly not creating a society that encourages citizens to spy and tattle on their neighbors with this discipline method. How could you even think that?

Well, now that you’ve read my description of what eye exercises look like, why don’t you watch for yourself? If your eyes are feeling the strain of a hard day’s work, feel free to join in. Just follow the students and listen to the soothing music.

According to this article in the New York Times, it appears that the Chinese might be on to something with their multiple breaks and eye exercises. Who knows, maybe American students will spend time massaging their faces as well in a few years.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

This week I have been teaching the students about body parts. This consists of me singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” 72 times, leading 12 rousing games of Simon Says, and allowing the students to draw on the board. Like twelve year-olds in any other country, they find it exceedingly funny to draw a pig nose and vampire teeth on the stick figure on the board. Some of the bodies actually came out pretty well, so I thought I’d let you take a look at one.

Welcome to the middle school classroom in China! (Notice the claw-like fingernails and bearded stick-person who is also wearing a skirt. Perhaps it's a kilt.)

Legend tells of a legendary warrior…

About one day before it was too late I found out that I was required to give final exams to my students. Not just final any exam mind you, oral final exams, which means I had to speak to all 720 of my students one-on-one. I decided the most efficient and painless way to do this was to bring the students out into the hall nine at a time and have them fill in the following prompt: “Hello, Teacher Ashley. My English name is _____. My birthday is _____. I like to eat _____.”

You may be wondering why I would bring them out nine at a time. This was done for several reasons. 1. There is less dead time taken up by switching when the class is broken up into only six groups. 2. There are 9 students seated in each row. 3. Chinese students are “all up in each other’s business,” as some might say, so they have no problem testing in front of their peers. It’s normal for others to know how you did. Their grades for each class are posted up on the wall, listed by name, so it’s no secret which students are doing poorly. Well, it’s a secret to me, as I can’t read their names, but that’s a different story.

My final exam testing plan worked beautifully. I was able to test up to 64 students in less than 40 minutes and the students did very well. While I was testing students in the hall, I had to figure out a way to entertain the other 50 of them. Before Christmas I decided to show them a few Christmas specials, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and The Snowman. After Christmas, however, I needed to find something else, so I turned to 功夫熊猫, which most of you know as Kung Fu Panda.

I’d never seen the film before showing it to the class, but I knew that they would love it. I finished the exams quicker than I had originally anticipated, so I ended up watching a majority of the movie close to 10 times. The movie’s really pretty good. It should tell you something that I haven’t gouged my eyes out yet; I watched it every day for the past 6 days, plus several additional days last week.

In many ways the movie, which is set in China, gives a pretty good representation of what it’s like to live in China. The country is populated by talking animals, everyone worships the Furious 5, and ducks have pandas as children. Just kidding. In all honesty though, apart from the obvious things, the movie is rather realistic. Noodle shops are popular, children love kung fu, children of shop owners are often expected to carry on the family business, and the mountains really are that beautiful. Disney obviously did a great deal of in country research before making this film. I was actually surprised how “China” it is. I think I might be in the perfect position to enjoy this film. No only do I speak fluent English and understand American humor, but I have a greater understanding of the Chinese culture and lifestyle than the average person. So if you’re in the mood for a good animated movie about China, Kung Fu Panda is my recommendation of the moment. I’ll have to watch Mulan again to see how she stacks up to my Life in China Test...

You're Too Old

Since many of you like to see me make a fool of myself, I thought I’d thought I’d post the video of my portion of the skit I was in with the Junior 1 teachers.

Background: The man in the orange shirt has a special cell phone that allows him to “order” women. He ordered several other girls, which he turned away for various reasons. He then orders an English speaking girl (me) and is just meeting her for the first time.

Translation:
Man: Excuse me, excuse me … [something actually I don’t understand].
Me: I don’t speak Chinese.
Man: What? You don’t speak Chinese?
Me: Umm, I don’t understand you. I don’t speak Chinese.
Man: Oh, she doesn’t speak Chinese. Go home. I don’t want a girl that I can’t talk to. Go. Go.
Me: You’re too old. I don’t want you. I’m leaving.

Continuation: The man chases me off the stage shouting, “What?! You do speak Chinese? Come back! Come back!” He eventually gets over me and ends the skit with another girl.

Hope you enjoyed watching me act like an idiot in front of my colleagues... again.

The Exception

To every rule there is an exception. Naturally, Inability-to-plan-itis is not immune to this phenomenon. In this case, the exception is what any Chinese English-speaker would call “performances.” As someone who is fluent in Chinglish, I would translate “performance” as “a variety show” in standard English. The Chinese have no problem planning their beloved performances far in advance and as long as they hold a particular performance in high regard, it will go off without a hitch. (Note: In Chinglish, a performance is made up of many small performances. Please don’t be confused.)

Variety show is, in my opinion, the best way to describe these performances. There is always a few host and hostess that introduce the extremely varied acts. At first I thought that signing, dancing, and putting on skits were acceptable acts for a Chinese performance. I later learned, however, that a fashion show and “an interesting conversation with a very handsome man” are fabulous ideas for performances as well. The Chinese also love a performance where one student sits behind a chair and talks, while a second student sits on the chair and acts out what the other students is saying. This is by far the most confusing type of performance to a westerner. I haven’t met one who understands why that is funny.

The day Amy and the other school officials picked Kelly, Ryan, and I up in Changsha, Kelly and I were told that we should prepare a performance for the New Year’s Eve party. Although we were ignorant at the time, this announcement should have clued us in to how important performances are in Zhuzhou. The school is unable to tell us more than a few hours in advance that school is cancelled for the day, but they know months in advance that a performance will be held on December 31st, and that Kelly and I will star in it. Oh, Inability-to-plan-itis!

A few days before Christmas, my friend Bridget invited me to a performance at Nanfang Middle School, where she is one of the foreign teachers. This was only my first real taste of Chinese performances and should have been my second warning as to what I had been signed up for on New Year’s Eve.

When we arrived at Nanfang’s Christmas performance security guards were stationed at the doors of the gymnasium to keep the older students out and to let all the little primary school students who were caked in makeup in. This was a serious matter. The place was packed with the primary and junior school students, more than I could imagine. As a foreigner, I was given a place of honor at the front and a lovely wallet as a Christmas gift, even though I have no connection with the school. For the next three hours I was treated to a string of acts put on by the students of the school. A rock band with 12 guitars, skits in Chinese and English, a fashion show, and dance groups ranging from exercise routines, break dancing, children’s dancing, and dancing far to sexy for any American high school filled out the program. It was a fun evening and it should have tipped me off as to what to expect at the Jing Yan’s New Year’s Eve performances.

In the morning of December 31st, Kelly and I walked with the 3,000 students in our school about a half of a mile through town to a Factory 602 (inventive, I know). Once there, we entered the basketball gym where a stage had been set up for the occasion. For the next three hours, a select group of students put on a show for their peers. I have to admit that these performances were not as interesting as those as my last performance. The students were competing in some type of competition that I was never really able to figure out. For some reason the same kids appeared on stage over and over again. Additionally, the number of skits and other language-based acts were a lot larger at this performance than at Nanfang. Chinese language skits are only interesting for so long. This wasn’t even the show that Kelly and I were instructed to perform in. That one was in the afternoon!

Later that day, Kelly and I went to the Huatian Hotel, the nicest in Zhuzhou, for the teacher’s performance. The acts were more of the same type of thing. I participated in a skit with the Junior 1 teachers and well as sang a song with Kelly. We decided to sing a song that was popular in Europe in 2003 and is now popular among Chinese middle school students and in the clubs called “God is a Girl.” I’m not sure how we did. While some teachers complimented us on our singing, I don’t really think it was a hit. We’re beginners at this whole performance thing.

Whatever you call Chinese performances – boring, mildly ridiculous, overdone, silly – you can’t call them disorganized. These shows are planned at least weeks in advance and often the highlight of a particular holiday season. One has to wonder why these performances so important and how they get planned so well. Nobody plans anything else throughout the year, so how does it all get done? And if things can be organized for this one event, why can’t it be done for other things, like the school calendar? Oh China! Oh Inability-to-plan-itis!

Another "Lovely" Card

I got another cute student card that I couldn't help but pass along. Although there are large chunks that I generally have no idea what he's talking about, I did grasp the meaning of some of it and he couldn't be more thoughtful and kind. Sometimes 7th graders can be so adorable.

Kelly and Ashley (receive)
Peter (delivers)
Approaches a season in this snow falling thickly Christmas day;
I wish Kelly and Ashley can treat in China very am all happy;
Because here has your lovable student; Please do not have to light a fire in the Christmas day night in the stove,
Otherwise you can see to one the old parson cames from Africa;
Please do not have too to think you far in US's family members;
Because China also is your family;
Certainly I also must thank your guidance;
Finally wishes your Christmas to be joyful!
You student: Peter (First day a grade class)
on December 25, 2008