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.

Zhuzhou Children's Institute

(A volunteer attempts to console a resident of the Zhuzhou Children's Institute)

Every year over 8,000 Chinese babies are given US visas when they are adopted by American couples. For every baby who moves to America, thousands more are left behind to grow up in Chinese orphanages. Ironically, a majority of these orphanages are located in the Hunan province and since Zhuzhou is one of the largest cities in the province, it is home for thousands of orphaned children.

My friends and I have been trying our best to visit one of the children’s homes in the area, but thing after thing just seemed to get in the way. Finally, last Sunday we were able to coordinate our schedules, the kids’ illnesses, and public holidays to allow us to visit the Children’s Institute of Zhuzhou.

I’ve never visited an orphanage in any country, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I imagined nightmares of the hundreds of children in tiny cribs, cramped in small, dark, damp rooms who were all crying at the same time. I’m happy to report that the Children’s Institute didn’t resemble my delusions in the slightest. The building was light and airy, with pictures decorating the walls and colorful blankets on the beds. There was a large, bright play-set in the courtyard for the kids to slide and swing on. It seemed like a very enjoyable place for the children to live.

All of the children at the Zhuzhou Children’s Institute were mentally or physically handicapped in some way and were a joy to spend time with. The seemed starved for male attention, so they attached themselves, the boys especially, to all the guys who came with us. We spent some time with the older children outside around the play-set, before going inside to see the younger ones. It was heart breaking to see the children who are completely unable to sit up and so spend their days lying in a small crib-like bed with a bedmate. I can’t imagine what they must be thinking. They seemed all unable to talk even though they were five and six years old. The walls and ceiling of the room were stark white, so my friends and I are devising a plan to make mobiles to hang from their beds or affix brightly colored shapes to the ceiling to give them something to look at.

While we were at the Institute there were about twenty Chinese volunteers visiting as well. I’ve talked to several Chinese people who were all completely unaware of the presence of a single orphanage in Zhuzhou, so I imagined that there would be a bleak lack of Chinese volunteers in the children’s lives. I’m happy to have been wrong. Most of the volunteers were college aged people who spent time singing children’s songs with the older residents. It looked like a good time was being had by all. While foreigners, like my friends and myself, can spend time with the children, we can’t sing songs and talk to them all that much, so it was good to see that someone was able to do that.

After my visit I felt happy and tired; happy to see the children being cared for so well and tired out by all the excited kids. The visit is definitely one I hope to repeat many times in my last few weeks in Zhuzhou.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What Is Rude?

If I walked up to you, tapped your stomach, and said, “you’re a little fatter than you were,” I’m sure you’d think I was rude and I would have to agree. When a Chinese person does and says the exact same thing, they do not consider themselves rude. In the Chinese culture, excessive bluntness is not considered impolite in any way, so things that I consider offensive are said to me and my friends almost daily. It’s moments like these that I remember that what is and isn’t considered rude has changes not only from time period to time period, but from culture to culture as well. And it’s not that one is more right than the other, they’re just different.

I’m not going to lie; there are times that this specific aspect of Chinese custom really gets on my nerves. Most days, however, the “rude” things people say are just make me laugh. Here is a quick list of such comments from the past week:

1. Your nail polish is strange and ugly.
2. Do you think you are a little fat?
3. The class you teach is a joke.
4. Spoken English is broken English.
5. The pork is very hard.
6. He said that he thinks you are fat.

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.

Drink Hot Water

Certainly no matter where you are around the world, people will have suggestions to offer on how to cure a cold. In the US, I believe the most common pieces of advice would be drink more, take some type of cold medication, and get as much rest as you can. As many things are different than that of my home country, it’s not surprising that the Chinese have very ‘unusual’ suggestions on how to cure the common cold. The following list is a collection of suggestions which were either given to me or people I know.

1. Drink hot water.
2. Drink hot water with honey in it.
3. Drink hot water with medicine in it.
4. Drink hot water with lemon in it.
5. Drink hot water with salt in it.
6. Drink hot water with tea.
7. Don’t drink hot water.*
8. Don’t drink tea.
9. Drink room temperature water.* (You would have to microwave water to get it to “room temperature,” as the weather here is so cold that room temperature water is actually rather cold.)
10. Drink cold drinks.
11. Don’t drink cold drinks.*
12. Drink juice.
13. Only drink water.
14. Eat meat.
15. Don’t eat meat.
16. Eat spicy foods as long as your stomach feels ok.
17. Don’t eat spicy foods, regardless of how your stomach feels.
18. Take a rest.
19. Eat oranges, but not too many because they give you acne.
20. Eat some vegetables, but not too much eggplant because it makes you skin darker.
21. Make sure to keep the doors of your classroom open to protect against the flu.
22. Go to the hospital where they will most assuredly give you an IV.

* The stared suggestions were offered to one of my students, who was so sick that she was crying in my class. Rather than send her home or let her rest in her office, the nurse (the medical professional employed by the school to assist over 3,000 students) told her these things.

Clearly old wives tales persist in China. It is amazing the number of contradictory suggestions I received this week, most of them dealing with the temperature of my beverages and what should be in them. Several people encouraged me to visit any type of medical professional. And one other person suggested a mystery medication that is put in tea. The rest would just have me drinking some type of fix all drink, though what exactly that is varies. This all leads me to believe that world wide study on the topic of the common cold would be incredibly interesting.

A Friend Who Knows How We Feel!

Being a foreigner in China poses a unique set of problems that not many can relate to. As I mentioned in this post back in early December, Mickey Mouse is one of the few that can. You can, therefore, imagine my surprise when my friends and I came across him and his girl, Minnie, while walking around Zhuzhou this morning. As we are both often photographed, we decided to get a quick shot together!