"Lost" and Found

Goodbye Twinkletoes
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

We're saying goodbye to another of our illustrious English teaching staff, sad to say. David, my only fellow American, is leaving Haerbin and taking a position at a university in Urumuqi, the capital city of XinJiang province. This is western China, as in the Uigyrs and the Gobi Desert. But after a year here, maybe its a good change for David. Regardless, no one will ever be able to fill his dancing shoes, the guy was a complete animal.

As for myself, I've been incredibly slothful since I found the "Lost: Season 1" DVD box set. The show is pretty dang good. I've just this afternoon completed the entire season, which took me less than a week for 25 hours. Disgusting, I know. But the show was that good, that engrossing.

But now that my monkey is off my back, I will return to more normal postings, or so I at least intend to.

Chinese class is going well, and my ability is really improving again. "Teaching" is still frsutrating, but I continue to distance myself and prohibit from getting too invested in it, as the more anyone seems to try, to more everyone seems to fail. It is a disgusting and horrid attitude, but the only one that seems to work; the only one that will let you survive.

I got a craving for some KFC. Must go.

Smoke on the Water

As Seen In Tobin's Spirit Guide
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

Last week I went rafting with two of my good friends, ths Thursday I'll do it again with my entire office.

Tonight I was treated to dinner by the father of one of my youngest students, tomorrow will be another such dinner, and so on for the next week or so. Many of my older students are returning to college or where ever they might need to go, and they all want to have a farewell dinner. Good for me.

One student even told me I taught her more than any of her "real" teachers.

A coworker told me that my anger was my best attribute and one of his best hopes for the future of our school. (Uh Oh.) I had told him to expect to see it diminish in the near future, which illicited this comment. (Again: Uh-Oh.)

I've started a new Chinese class with a guy who seems to be quite like myself, but Chinese. I'm happy, if only that my energy will now once again be redirected towards more constructive efforts.

Finally: the verdict is in: a happy English teacher in China is one who forsakes any and all Western standards towards English. Its official. Just throw up your hands and give up. You'll be happier that way.

Unfortunately, I'm not one to give up, so we'll see how happy I am as time continues in the trenches of Haerbin.

I want a burrito real bad right now.

Breakthroughs and Collapses

F'd in the L
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

Spent some time this week on a rafting trip, which was a lot of fun, but not news. I had some ideas on the trip, more cultural studies, but I'll address those later.

One of my best friends has apparently been taken to a hospital for a collapsed lung. I don't know what that entails, but it doesnt sound good, and 6,000 miles away I'm left with little but my imagination.

I've also got a grandmother who isn't doing too well herself. She's the last of my grandparents, and while I left for China prepared for the worst, right now I really hope I don't have to deal with it from afar.

But the good news is that I think I have stumbled onto an understanding of all things Chinese. Oh, boy. So much makes sense to me now, but man, do I not like the forecast it would predict for the future. More later.

Animal House

That Place in China With No People
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

(My, hopefully, final piece on the Chinese education system as I have experienced it.)

Congratulations! You got into college! Or university! (Here, as in Canada, university is for 4 years and prepares you for professional occupations, college is 3 years and trains you for more practical positions in the workforce)

What's that? You want to be a Physics major? Sorry, your test scores were not high enough, and those who scored higher than you already took all the slots for incoming students in our Physics Dept.

Oh? Law? No, sorry. Thats full too. Yeah, Economics too. And you are too short to be a Basketball major I'm afraid.

I know! We have plenty of openings in our English Department! You can study Business English or Tourism English! What can you do with it? Well, the Olympics will be iin Beijing in 2008, so we need as many people as we can muster to direct foreign devils to the restroom, or perhaps serve the fat barbarians Big Macs or the Colonel's secret recipe.

Oh, you don't want to study English? Tough shit kid, this here be a planned economy, so get with the plan.

How many freshmen have this conversation? I don't know, but the vast majority of those that I taught did. They didnt want to be English majors, they were because their parents/school/goverment told them they had to be.

Do they want to listen in class? No. Talk? Well, in Chinese. Read? Ha! Read "Robinson Crusoe?" HAHAHAHA!

The English Department I have dealt with is unorganized and holds expectations so high Method Man would be impressed. Hell, AfroMan would be impressed. Lada-da-da-dadda-da.

The materials supplied are worthless. The Speaking books was finished in roughly 4 classes by the average teacher (the term is 18 weeks long, and a Speaking class meets twice a week, a Reading class once) while the Reading Class materials are of an amount insurmountable for the foreign language student.

Especially for a student who already has about 40 hours of class a week.

Even more so for a student who already has about 40 hours of class a week and doesnt want to be studying English in the first place.

And then there is the kid who already has about 40 hours of class a week, doesnt want to be studying English in the first place, and knows that HE CANNOT FAIL. Why? Because the school won't let him. Why? The school will lose face. So they keep giving him easier exams to pass until he finally gets one right. Sure, he's learned nothing, but he's passed on to the next year to dick around in someone else's class.

My experience teaching at a university in China could be summed up in one word: Sisyphusian. My "best" classes were when I didn't teach anything. My students were happiest when I spoke Chinese, not English.

Its great for my Chinese, but killer on my self-respect and self-worth.

Plus there is little to any way I can relate to these kids, college kids, as their college experience is more akin to my time in 4th grade than my time in college. This might seem a bit mean, but take an average Chinese person, well, a young one, and subtract ten years off their age and you'll arrive at their maturity level. I stopped treating my coworkers like my peers and started treating them as though they were my sister's age (though not like my sister, as I give her no easy breaks) and things started working. In my "adult" class, whenever I am losing their interest I simply mutter "fart" in Chinese and they lose it and hit the floor laughing.

There are exceptions to all these whinings I've been detailing here, and yes, I am one who is no stranger to hyperbole. But I want to, my reader, to understand just what I'm facing here. Maybe you will too. Maybe this will help you prep for your own adventure. Maybe not. At the least I hope it renders better questions for my return than the open-ended "What was China like?"

Sui bian. Cha bu duo.

Dog Days of Disillusionment

Say your last words, you delicious chicken-nugget-to-be
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

God, its just been hot, sweaty, and slow around here for a while now.

The temperature hovers around 30 C, which is in the 80's, but the humidity is 80+% everyday. That is a killer. And it means I've been spending more and more time doing next to nothing. Luckily, I can read/study/watch TV all while doing next to nothing. However, in this weather, even if I am just reading/studying/watching TV, I'm breaking a sweat. Disgusting.

I've also been a little down on teaching lately. Not so much down on teaching as a whole, because I really like teaching, but more so towards teaching what I have to teach and just how I have to teach it. I guess a lot of my problems come from administration, but as my venerable aunt Kaethe, who has been teaching every since I could remember, the teacher/administration rift is not particular to my school or China, but has existed since a time before time.

I don't want to spend much time dwelling on my disappointment, as the better story will emerge next week after our staff meeting. All of the foreign teachers have some hefty opinions on the way things are being done, and the Chinese staff themselves are all divided amongst three prevalent factions, so the time is right for a Mongol to sweep in and erect a great and new Xanadu of private English teaching.

Or everyone is going to realize that it just isnt worth giving a damn and collectively throw our hands up in the air to an excited chant of "cha bu duo!"

I do find it hysterical how many businesses fail here, not just because the "private" sector might be relatively new, but because there is a simple lack of business sense. Many schools/stores/restaurants/businesses spend a ridiculous amount of money (often more than they can afford) on an opening celebration, then they painstakingly deliver service for a few months, and then at that time the management decides they've got their customer base locked up and they cut back on everything, often to the point of making it worthless to return to that establishment, as a brand new business of the same nature probably opened up right across the street within the past week.

It is difficult to build customer loyalty here, due to the large selection of similar locales and the general lack of foresight. But I digress. That is a rant for another time.

Somebody out there send me some email about what is happening out West.

I'm All Out of Love

I'm So Lost Without You
Originally uploaded by billmcgonigle.

Ok. So the picture adjoining this post is from a drunken karaoke night. Get over it.

Tonight, in the new philosophy, was a night of poker (walking away with cash, thank you) which simultaneously inorporated a housewarming and a booze-stealing (somebody else's house, but I took a bottle chianti from the front lobby of our second branch where it was doing nobody and sort of good); some short bar hopping; and then the requisite chuar (meat on a stick).

I'm going to bed happy.

(PS: I have to return the empty chianti bottle tomorrow. No one heres knows the difference between an enpty or a full bottle of wine.)