National Day

October 1, 2006

Happy Chinese National Day. Welcome to my world.



For others it was business as usual.

Interview

This is the most advanced group of students I've worked with. Some of them have aspirations to study in America. These are a few choice moments from our mock interview sessions.

Songbird

Your moment of zen...



Yes, he is playing Kenny G.

September 18, 2006

I asked my students to come in Monday prepared to talk about their desired majors. It turns out I have a future civil engineer, a machinery automator, a horticulturist, an athletics director, a 3-D animation specialist, a cartoonist, an architect, a few capitalists, various computer aficionados, and one musician in my class. I searched out websites, CDs, and DVDs for each area of intetrest but only a few students took an interest, including one girl who was very eager to absorb a significant portion of my music library into her iPod. I introduced the musician to Kind of Blue.

Sunday School

September 17, 2006

I arrived at class Sunday morning at 10 a.m., a little worse for wear from toasting to new friends and whatever the night before. Despite my weakened state, I taught two and a half hours, talking at length, sometimes, only to myself. The students here don't always know what I'm saying but think it's impolite, maybe, to ask questions. I go through this in all my classes. I have a speech about how I can't read minds and if they don't understand something to ask questions and that I'd rather communicate in poor English than not at all and that it's okay to make mistakes. Then I make fun of them when I catch them not doing these things. They love it.

Some of the students are leaving for university in Sacramento in October. I'm excited and terrifed for them to go to America. I found out that I am the first American many of them have ever met. There was a Canadian teacher here briefly, and an African, but no Americans that they knew of. They mostly get Koreans and Japanese, some Russians. There are no westerners here because it's a county, not a city, and foreigners don't come to counties. Nobody told me.

They are quite possibly the most naive group of twenty-year-olds I have ever met. I want to fly over with them and make them sandwiches, buy them sweaters, take them to a ball game or something. I tell all my students that I hope one day we can eat hamburgers together in America.

They will be overwhelmed by it. Some may be eaten alive. Others will fit in. They already look and act California. I just wish I had more time to prepare them.

After class the head mistress and her cohorts took me out to lunch, the first all-women crowd I've dined with. They too wanted to drink me under the table. They seemed disappointed when I told them I didn't want beer after the previous evening's follies, just a Coke.

Sabado Gigante

September 16, 2006

Saturday marked the start of the unfortunately named "20 Day Economic Forum of the Developed Counties of China" in Rong Cheng. More importantly, it also marked the first of my five days of vacation. I texted my karate instructor's sister who speaks a little English and invited her to meet me for lunch. After a series of very confusing missives about whether or not I was scheduled to teach her class that afternoon (I told her I had no prior knowledge of it, but that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't me), she agreed and we met at the Jiaotong. She made me drive her on the back of my bike to a restaurant a few blocks down.

At the restaurant she ordered sweet poridge, fried dough, pork skewers, mushrooms and bok choy, a humongous vat of seafood soup, and corn on the cob, affter which she mentioned that it was all for me and that we had to leave in less than a half-hour to go to her English class that she thought I was supposed to teach. This is my life in China. A lot of food, not enough time to eat.

She made me drive her to her English class and then told me that I should get more exercise. I thought, but didn't say, that maybe she should get her own bike. I returned to the Jiaotong and got a call from her asking me to come back to school to negotiate teaching the class with the school's principals. Why we couldn't have done this while I was there, I don't know. I returned and made a deal to teach two hours a day for the following six days, throughout my vacation.

During the negotiations my cell phone rang. It was Mrs. Xiao calling to tell me that she was at the hotel waiting to take me to dinner with her husband, where was I? I told her that I was talking to some people and that I would meet her there in a half-hour.

I rode back to the Jiaotong where she was pacing the lobby anxiously awaiting my arrival. She was clearly excited to introduce me to her husband and high school sweetheart who runs a peanut oil factory near the school. I changed and hopped into their mammoth SUV. At the restaurant we were joined by the couple who had taught Xiao English 23 years ago. They had been teaching English for 28 years in Rong Cheng and had instructed practically everyone I know who speaks English in the area. This generational intimacy is something I don't see much back home. I also move every two years.

Ten of us sat around the table, me, Xiao, her husband, their daughter and her friend, the driver and his daughter, the English teacher couple, and their son, who left shortly after we arrived to go meet up with his boys or something. The meal was intense, as usual. We drank beer and ate a selection of sea creatures unmatched during my stay here. The newest and strangest entry by far was the centipede-like crustacean that tasted like crab.



After dinner we drove out to the opening night festivites and walked around the blockades that had been erected to keep out non-ticket holders. The Economic Forum is an important event for Rong Cheng and a sign of its growing significance as a city of trade. I groan a lot, but for once, it appears, I am actually in the right place at the right time.

I found out that next year 1,500 students will be coming from Harbin University. That number might be off, my informants have been known to inflate, but any students from Harbin, which is a well-known university, is a big deal. The campus remains unfinished, but you can see how much they intend to build. Once I move, it should be more like I'm on a university campus, kids everywhere, other teachers. I tell myself I'll finally learn Chinese. In any event, I am close enough to the bottom to hopefully begin laying some groundwork.

TGIF

September 15, 2006

Check out my new digs. Nice, huh? Very Chinese prison cell. I always said I wanted to get in on the ground floor of something. To their credit, my hosts did tell me that it wasn't ready yet. I muscled my way in on the last day of classes despite their delicate protests. There was a team of Chinese laborers inside cleaning wet cement off of the tiling which looks like it will effectively conduct cold thorugh the floors this winter. I found out that the school was designed by an architect from southern China where the weather is warmer. I can't wait to see what they do with the place.



In class I requested the presence of the A/V guy to unlock the secret room so that we could watch cartoons. The A/V guy did eventually show up. He showed up and took the DVD player out of the room. I pushed my way past him into the secret room and made noise about the other DVD player in the back. He told me that it was broken and that he was the technician. I told him that I was a technician too, and that could he at least hook up the speakers to my computer. Everyone, to my dismay, completely ignored my pleas and left with all of the equipment.

In lieu of the projector, we watched the cartoons on my laptop with hardly any volume. If my students wanted to watch cartoons, we were going to watch cartoons. Interestingly enough, they didn't want to watch cartoons. They wanted cinema. My associate teachers had told me that the students wanted to watch cartoons. Fortunately, I do have a couple of long rambling dialogue movies that I brought with lessons in mind. Maybe I'll have my conversations, listening sessions, and movie screenings after all. We watched cartoons anyway. The students surprisingly preferred vintage Bugs and Popeye to the sleek modern fare. They have good taste at least.

We followed with an exceptionally vigorous game of Hangman. If anyone remembers any more games like this or others that you used to play in grade school, please let me know. They come in handy here.

Friday night after Tae-Kwon-Do, Xiao and the other three beginners took me out for beer and meats. They put lemon popsicles inside of the beer and ate chicken heads. I was just happy to be out.


My new pad

Return of the Meiguoren

September 14, 2006

On Thursday I made my triumphant return to Tae-Kwon-Do. Liang and Liang (you call everyone by their last names, and the Liangs are married) were happy to see me and I felt elated to be with people who are willing to sit and listen to my tentative experiments with their language. They are all the more important to me at this juncture because they do not understand a lick of English yet still choose to spend some of their time with me.

Dong-Dong showed up and he, Xiao, and I sat around for a while hashing out some Chinese. Xiao said she wanted to be my friend and asked for my number and e-mail. If someone asks for you number or e-mail then you're in. They may never call or e-mail, but they'll deal with you when they see you if you are a strange foreginer with no one to talk to.

Thursday night I stayed up late burning cartoons to DVD. I wasn't anywhere near as sore as usual.

Green Salad

Septemer 13, 2006

You can't possibly understand how much this means to me. I have not seen much of this in China, the elusive green salad. I see raw vegetables, of course, on street corners, at JiaJia, but never in restaurants, at lunches, during dinners, on my plate. The people of Rong Cheng cook most of their vegetables into a moist stew. I was discouraged from purchasing such simple amenities by my current living situation and lack of kitchen, but I'm past all that now.

The street vendor mistook my request for two tomatoes for two kilos or something, but I didn't want to fight her over it after she started yelling at me about how much I owed and the policeman walked up. She was yelling because, I think, she thought I might understand better, and the policeman just happened to be in the vicinity, and you know, you can never have too many tomatoes, so I just forked over a few bills and scampered off. Back at the Jiaotong, I washed the greens and ate them folded, dripping water over the sink.

I also visited the Chinese pharmacy in search of an herbal sleep aid. I'm glad I made a point at the last second to distinguish between a mild calming effect and a heavy sedative. My short but informative experience in China has taught me to ask for less. Always ask for less. The pharmacist recommended a whole box of Zhi Bao San Bian Wan. My internet search has furnished me with this equally perplexing translation: Priceless Treasure Three Whip Pill. According to my contacts in the homeopathic heallth community, I have purchased pills for impotence. The confusion persists.

I set out on a mission recently to demand that the school provide me with Chinese lessons. After a month of trying to figure things out on my own, I have figured out that I need help. I think I've pinpointed my exact problem with the language. It's that I can't understand what anyone's saying. More specifically, I'm having trouble singling out individual sounds from the normal flow of conversation.

Some of my colleagues here at the Wei Hai Engineering Technology College have a way of, how shall we say, avoiding the issue. Allow me to explain. I have two main contacts at the school, Mrs. Tiao and Ms. Chu. They're English teachers and now serve as my in class translators, as well as my reluctant liaisons with the administration. Upon arriving at school, earlier than usual I might add, I asked Mrs. Tiao if she knew if Dean Jiang was in. She asked why and I told her that I needed him to arrange for scheduled English lessons. She responded by telling me that they were going to put a table in her office for me. I admired her attempt at a brush off but told her that wasn't enough. She made motions toward the telephone, then she deliberated with the other teachers in the office about the request (there are three, sometimes four), then she dodged the situation altogether when the "class is starting" music began (I'll have to tape this for you) and we walked to class. Everything here must be done with kid gloves.

During break I made efforts to pry information from my hesitant colleagues, including the poli-sci teacher who sometimes attends my lectures, regarding the country's limited success with environmental law. I read about it in the Times recently. The poli-sci teacher remained eerily silent (I think her English is not so good) while Abbott and Costello stumbled over each other trying to put a positive spin on a negative situation. I wasn't swayed by their argument.

After class I brought up the lesson request again when Dean Jiang showed up to drive me back to the hotel. I kept talking English at everybody until Xiao feebly translated my request. Jiang responded that I could start when we return from vacation on the 20th, a week from yesterday. Did I mention I have five days off starting after class on Friday?

And so I have a compromise, and a week more to stumble unaccompanied through my own personal bewilderment.

Within no more than 10 minutes of returning to the Jiaotong that afternoon I received a phone call on the hotel line requesting that I come to the front desk. There, one of the many school teachers who doubles as driver waited to take me back to school. I asked him why, I just came from school. He explained, and, not really understanding, I assumed that they had taken my plea into consideration and were going to begin my Chinese classes sooner rather than later.

Wishful thinking on my part. Instead I met with President Shi who was excited to give me a copy of the school's publication of The American Community College Student Experience, a book he co-published with my father's college. We talked and I pitched my lesson request and he seemed sympathetic to my plight. He told me that I would be moving out of the Jiaotong and into a two floor apartment currently under construction at the school in 10 days. I nodded, curiously, wondering what this really means for me, and what strange, new challenges this will bring.

Shi then took me, Jiang, and some of the school's professors, including Mr. Joon, who I haven't seen in weeks since he traveled back to Korea for mysterious reasons, out for beer and dumplings. They are forever amused by whether or not I find food delicious. I was fairly exhausted and not very amused at this point after staying up late shuffling files and burning DVDs to make room for cartoons I was downloading for the last day of classes before vacation.

The festivities ended and I returned to the Jiaotong, again.

A whole lot of lathing going on...

September 12, 2006

Yesterday I was granted a tour of the school's engineering facilities, discovering, to my chagrin, that English is not my students' main focus. For those of you as unfamiliar with lathing as I was, I have supplied a definition below.

lathe (NOUN):

A machine for shaping a piece of material, such as wood or metal, by rotating it rapidly along its axis while pressing against a fixed cutting or abrading tool.

I also got my hands on some Chinese tunes.

Teacher's Day

September 10, 2006

When I walked into class today my students stood up and, in unison, wished me a Happy Teacher's Day. I asked them if they got me anything. They didn't. In commemoration of the Day of the Teacher I was notified that I would teach two more days this week, bringing the grand total up to twelve days in a row, the remaining five days beginning at 6 a.m. How thoughtful.

On the ride home I notified Jiang, the driver, that I had a caught a Chinese cold. We made a pit stop at a local pharmacy where Jiang and the doctor evidently have a pretty cordial relationship. We walked out without paying, and, I'm not sure what Jiang said to the person at the counter, but I'm almost positive it was the equivalent of "It's on him."

Teacher's Day was in full effect at the Jiaotong, replete with karaoke and a live band in the lobby. I vacated the premises for a few hours to work on my Chinese.

Recovery

Views from my hotel room

September 8, 2006

I slept like a dream last night. The simple truth about my life in China is that my outlook correlates directly with how well I sleep. In class today I mentioned that I had a DVD to show the students of some of the taping I did. They called in the school's A/V speciaist who showed up and unlocked the secret room behind the chalkboard that held the video equipment. I followed him into the room, trying to scope out their set up, but he told me to go back outside and continue with class. Difficult to do during the lowering of the projector screen, which seemed to last an eternity. I began to notify everyone that the piece was extremely short, but it was too late. Curtains were pulled, lights were dimmed, and close to 90 people sat in silent anticipation. What took close to 15 minutes to set up, during which all expectations soared wildly out of control, was over in approxiamtely 49 seconds. I have never seen anyone more disappointed in my life. They looked shattered. Everyone. Teachers, students, the A/V guy. It was heart breaking. I tried to recover, telling them that we could do more in the future, but I had already lost their trust. Nevertheless, I forged ahead in the awkward silence, only my voice ringing out in the eerily quiet auditorium. The pain eventually subsided and together we conjugated.



I spent the afternoon and evening at the Jiaotong, alternately sleeping, lounging, consolidating my notes, rearranging my room, and catching up on correspondence. I ordered lunch and then had to put the smackdown on the hotel staff for not serving what I ordered. They were surprisingly sympathetic.

One Month

September 7, 2006

Yesterday was another two karate class day. I've never had this happen before, but I had trouble sleeping last night because I hurt too much. I couldn't find a way to lay where my body didn't ache. I have knots in my chest and left tricept. I woke up at 6 a.m. to my one month anniversary in China.

We moved out of nouns and pronouns and into verbs in class today. I anticipate a long arduous road to sentences.

After class I went back to my hotel room and crashed until my next karate class. I had planned to struggle through one session today and tomorow and take the weekend off. I opted to take the bus instead of riding my bike becasuse my legs were killing me. This being my first solo bus ride in China, I wasn't expecting the strangeness that ensued. A chubby Chinese man saw me board and called in English, "Please sit here," in a seat next to him. Naively, I did. He asked my name and I told him, harmless enough, then he asked if I had a mobile phone. I lied and told him no, not wanting to make any new friends today. He asked me to write my name in his book, which I did, somewhat unwillingly, not seeing a polite way out of the situation. I was hoping my stop would come before things got uncomfortable, which they did.

He asked me if I smoke, which I'm beginning to think is the kiss of death in China, and then if I drink. He told me that we would go hang out together. I told him no, thanks, I've got my own things to do. All the while he is looking me up and down and practically salivating. I try to ignore him. He asks if he can take a look at my hair. I say, "You're looking at it," then I see him lift his hand to touch it. I back away and put my hands up in self-defense saying, "No, no, no, no," feeling violated at this point. It was during this interlude, I believe, that I missed my stop. I go to the front of the bus to try to get off and the ticket lady starts playing dumb. "Ting bu dong," she says ("hear no understand," the official motto of Rong Cheng). I start making getting off the bus motions when I hear chubby in the back calling my name softly, "Adrian, Adrian," and pointing at the seat. Thorougly creeped out at this point, I disembark at the park I was previously kicked out of, a significant distance from the gym.

I backtrack and arrive a little late, not clearly explaining why, not really wanting to either. During the warm-up and stretching routine they get a look at the bottoms of my feet which are swollen and blistered and call off the lesson, telling me to take a few days off. I will gladly comply. I look forward to taking about 400 mgs of ibuprofen (which I forgot I had last night) and painlessly drifting off for a few hours.

Makoto

September 6, 2006

"The focus of makoto varies in different periods of history, but its common denominator has always been a purity of motive, which derives from man’s longing for an absolute meaning out of time and from a realization that the social, political world is essentially a place of corruption whose materiality is incompatible with the demands of pure spirit and truth.

Rejecting this grossly material world in which he finds himself, the man of makoto proceeds not by logical argument, pragmatic compromise, or a common sense effort to attune himself to the 'movement of the times,' but by the force of his own true feelings. Instead of depending on careful, rational plans and adjustments, he is propelled by unquestioning spontaneity…'Sincerity' in the words of a modern Western observer 'spells readiness to discard everything that might hinder a man from acting wholeheartedly on the pure and unpredictable impulses that spring from the secret centre of his being.'

Selfless dedication, or in more accurate psychological terms, belief in one’s own selflessness, is a further mark of the sincere man…The sincere man has freed himself from the besetting sins of 'egoism' and worldly ambition and is undaunted by the danger of personal risk and sacrifice. The purity of his intentions is revealed in action, usually of a dangerous nature; talk, unless reflected in deeds, is always a mark of insincerity and hypocrisy.

Sincerity precedes not only the realistic demands of established authority but also conventional rectitude; for its ultimate criterion is not the objective righteousness of a cause but the honesty with which the hero espouses it…

In his struggle against corrupt political power the hero’s main weapon is sincerity of resolve. Though at first he may achieve impressive (even miraculous) results, his noble renunciation of everything temporal and impure disposes him to defeat…"

- Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure

Payoff

September 5, 2006

I found out I changed someone's life today. My good friend Dong-Dong told me tonight in not so many English words that he quit his illustrious job at the Jiaotong and is going back to school to study English, with Mrs. Soon no less. I feel deeply moved, to say the least. I'm not sure what role I played, but my being completely helpless in China may have been an influence on someone.

I'm sad to see all my friends go, but it seems that I've been adopted by my Tae-Kwon-Do instructor and his clan. After my 7:50 a.m. class at school this morning I was deep into trying not to move too much when my gym called to tell me that I had a lesson. I tried to bargain for the 6:30 p.m lesson but they were adamant that I go to the 2 p.m., for which I was already one half-hour late. My karate garb was in the hotel wash and I practically had to fight them to get it back. When I arrived, my three instructors, the lead instructor's wife, sister, and gym woman were all sitting at the gym's full-service bar waiting for me. I tried to explain my confusion regarding scheduling and in the process found out that I do indeed have two classes a day and should just come anyway to pracitce Chinese with them and hang out. That's where I was until about 9 p.m. tonight when Dong-Dong rolled in to tell me the news.

Luckily I was able to skip the second class after we went out to eat and I gorged myself at the behest of my instructor. Near the end of the first class I tried to explain to them that my legs didn't function properly anymore, to which they responded that this was good and that I just needed to take a hot shower, sorely underestimating the situation.

The Bludgeoning Continues...

September 4, 2006

I don't have any word to describe it except brutalize. They brutalized me today. The pummeling actually began yesterday. I went to the gym thinking I might get a little workout, a bit of a warm up for my Tae-Kwon-Do class which started today. Things, unfortunately, spiraled out of control, as they have a way of doing in China. There is no half-way.

The Chinese have a way of sizing me up by looking at me, like I am a prize horse. They look me up and down, they talk about me to their friends while I'm standing right there, what I know, what I don't know. I really don't know much which makes it worse. The gym woman, as I like to think of her, gets up from her chair where she's talking to her friend and comes over to assist me while I take off my shoes to don flip-flops, as is gym policy. She sets me up, mostly against my will, with a large man named Xian-Ba-Wen (or that's how it sounded to me, anyway. There tends to be a huge gap between how words sound to me and what they actually are). Xian-Ba-Wen proceeded to slowly wear down every major and some minor muscle groups in my immediate possession while gym women and her friend examined and talked about me. I left fairly exhausted and fearful of how I would feel the next day.

I woke up early to prepare for my first ever Tae-Kwon-Do class in China. I have come to find out that Tae-Kwon-Do is a Korean style of self-defense, and now have the distinct pleasure of being yelled at in two languages, neither of which I understand. By the end of the stretching and warm up sessions I was reasonably tired and sweating profusely. The follwing 45 minutes of punching and kicking the air in front of me while trying to figure out what my instructors were saying capped it off. The head instructor, his wife and 7-year-old child (who, incidentally, makes me look like some kind of abomination on the mat) took me out to lunch afterwards and bombarded me with the names of things in Chinese, making me repeat them and recite them from memory, and taught me how to properly use chopsticks. The instruction, I gathered, doesn't end in the classroom. They told me to come back that evening at 6:30, presumably so that I could catch up with the other students.

Following lunch, I went to the Dean's office and found out that I will be teaching more classes. They asked politely and I accepted. That is mainly why I am here. I'll be teaching four classes on some days and I'll also be teaching the school's administration, which should be interesting. I've developed a first lesson routine and have gotten relatively good at simultaneously entertaining and teaching. Regrettably, today also marked the day I lost my translator, the wonderful Mrs. Soon. Two of school's English teachers have stepped up to the plate and seem to be getting the hang of things.

I returned this evening for my second karate lesson. There was a class of beginners who had the agility of wood and made me look especially good during warm-ups. It's amazing to me how rapidly the body adapts. Though I hadn't practiced at all in the invtervening 7 hours, I had soemhow improved. The muscles remember. Things were going well until the head instructor showed up. He zeroed in on me and pushed me to my limit for the night. My upper thigh was screaming in agony at one point as he had me practice a kick over and over again until I at least understood what I was supposed to be doing. When I actually had to hold my leg up we swtiched to the other one. When class ended everyone circled around me and spoke Chinese at me. Eventually they tired of that, realizing that's it's not that much fun when the foreigner doesn't know what you're saying. After sufficient humiliation the party broke up and I was allowed to return to my hotel room.

The Weekend Cometh

September 2, 2006

After only 21 days of assorted work I have arrived at my first full two-day weekend where I have no scheduled engagements other than those of my choosing. Nobody has infringed on my time, called me, showed up at my door, or otherwise barged in unannounced on my life. I've crossed the first threshold.

After I bungled my first ever Chinese date I walked into a class full of restless 18-year-olds about to begin the first weekend of the school year. They didn't remember any of the previous lessons and it's quite possible, we found out, that many of them can't read the English alphabet. I told everyone about my date during break and showed them video of Beijing, a place that, strangely, I have visited and many of them haven't. The Chinese-English teacher was upset with me regarding my use of the words meats and breads and Mrs. Soon followed everything I said by saying, "The English say..." I positively couldn't wait for class to end.

I returned to my room and lay down. I had a half-hour before Dong-Dong and I were supposed to go to the park. My eyes were tired but I was too keyed up from the day's events to rest. Part of me wanted Dong-Dong to be late, but Dong-Dong is always right on time. My bell rang at exactly the right time and I invited him in and told him the story. We laughed and it came as a relief to me to have a regular friend in China.

On the way to the park we passed Hao Di Fang while the staff was having its pre-dinner warm-up on the street. I waved to Yuan and she waved back. She looked miserable. When we arrived at the park I asked Dong-Dong what we were supposed to do there. He asked me what I do when I come to the park. I told him I read. It turns out he thought I always go the park because there's something going on, and I thought he was taking me to the park to show me something. Really there wasn't anything going on at the park. We sat and practiced Chinese and he told me that we were going to party with the hotel girls that night. This, I thought, sounded like fun after a truly dreadful day. We also made arrangements for him to set me up with Tae-Kwon-Do lessons.

We met up with Jin Juan, her boyfriend Ping, and Xiao Wei that night at the hotel. On the walk they discussed where we should go and suggested Hao Di Fang. I told them that this was a terrible idea and that this girl did not want to see me any more that day. They discussed other places but Hao Di Fang, I gathered, is the spot in Rong Cheng. They said who cares, and I said yeah, who cares, whatever, and we went to Hao Di Fang.

There was a terse exchange at the entrance, she was still clearly upset about lunch, but we walked on by and I finally made it to the upstairs tables. I knew they existed, but up until this point I had never actually seen them. We sat in a booth and they asked me if I like China and I told them that China is difficult but I find it interesting. They asked what I meant and I told them that everyone stops and stares at me in the streets and that every day China likes to punch me in the stomach a few times. They enjoyed this. The waitress arrived with a pot of tea, on the house, courtesy of Yuan. A peace offering I guess.

A waiter came and informed us that our karaoke room was ready. I sang Stand by Me. I don't know what they sang, but it was fun. On the way back to the hotel Dong-Dong agreed to take me to the gym on Saturday. At the hotel we went up the back stairs into the office where Ping works and ate fruit that Hao Di Fang gave us. They cut open a melon that turned out to be a little bitter and everyone spit it out and they took all the rinds and the remaining half of the melon and threw them out the window, presumably into a garbage below. Despite the bitterness, it was no-holds-barred the sweetest melon I've ever had.

I slept in the next day and laid around catching up on my blogging until Dong-Dong showed up at ten on the dot. We rode a bus out to the gym which is on the way to the park I got thrown out of. There was some over the phone haggling between Dong-Dong and the Tae-Kwon-Do instructor that eventually brought the price down. The instructor's wife ran the counter and commented on my belly.

Later on in the afternoon Dong-Dong showed up with a white karate jumpsuit. I felt strange and elated that somehow, by whatever grace and good fortune, I have befriended this person who gets things done. He also had two apples, which I have added to my collection of apples that people bring me in the afternoon.

A Tale of Two Sisters

September 2, 2006

I only hope I do this tale justice. It all began on my first visit to the Leisure House. There was one stand out performance, a young woman with a winning smile, exactly the person you'd like to see over a cup of coffee. She wore a little blue dress and gave the impression that she ran the place. She waved to me when I left, and to let you in on a little secret, when everybody stares at you but nobody waves, it can get a little lonely. It was a nice gesture.

A few days later I visited a different cafe, Hao Di Fang (A Good Place), alone for the first time, and, on the way to my seat, I could swear I saw the same exact girl wearing the same exact dress. There are curtains separating individual nooks at Hao Di Fang and the workers kept walking by and lifting my curtain to look at me like I was some kind of circus animal, but I never got a good look at anyone. On the way out I saw her behind the counter but she didn't recognize me. I asked her in English if she worked at the other cafe too and pointed in that general directon. She got very excited and pointed and said, "Sister, sister!" One of her co-workers chimed in, "Twins." "Wow," I said, "Twins."

This short series of events launched a two-week-long exercise in futility. I frequented both coffee shops, truthfully, in order to get out of my hotel room, but, I won't lie, I wasn't exactly displeased either when I saw the twins. I ususally spent epic amounts of time at either location deeply engrossed in work. Except for this one time...

This was the one time I wanted to get in and out of the coffee shop in a rush. I purposely didn't bring a book for that specific reason. I just wanted one cup of coffee, a little afternoon pick me up before going back to the hotel. I ordered and I waited. And I waited. Normally they are quick with the coffee, they have it right out, but this particular time they were taking forever. I was in the throes of boredom when she walked past my booth and turned around. I almost didn't recognize her at first in street clothes. I waved and she waved back, extra excited I thought. All of a sudden I wasn't so bored. Then, out of nowhere, she comes over to my table and, leaning on it, she starts talking to me in her best broken English. I'm about as thrilled as you can be. I ask her name and she tells me it's Dong Yuan and that she works at the other coffee shop. Her sister's name is Dong Fang. Just when we're getting somewhere she tells me that she "go work" at the other cafe, and that while she work, I should go by and "play." I tell her okay, sure, that's a great idea, I'm there and all.

She leaves and I'm thinking about going right over in a little while when I get a call from Mrs. Soon. One thing led to another and that night I ended up having dinner with the school's administrators. The next day I'm a little hung over and tired and it's my first day teaching and I'm feeling a little disheartened by the student's lack of English prowess and decide against going to the coffee shop. That night I practiced Chinese with Dong-Dong for three hours.

The next afternoon I visited the coffee shop. I see her, she's on the phone, she waves, I wave, I go to my secluded area. I order coffee and, apparently, popcorn from the waitress. She leaves and Yuan soon returns with my order. We make sounds at each other, I'm sitting, she's standing, and she keeps brushing my knee with hers. She pours my sugar in my coffee, she reaches over me and opens my bag of popcorn...I'm not Chinese, but I'm not stupid either. I show her the business card of the school where I'm working and she grabs it and holds it tight and asks if she can keep it. I tell her it's not mine, it's Jiang's, but I write down my name and number on a piece of paper and give it to her and mention that I live at the Jiaotong Hotel. She says, "Oh, Jiaotong," and nods her head like she knows where it is. She tells me her English isn't good and I say that's okay, my Chinese isn't so good either, and it sort of winds down after that. I didn't see her again that afternoon.

I wait about three days before returning. The meal pictured was served to me that afternoon. I mistakenly ordered about 20 meat skewers and a plate of fruit from the waitress. Again, Yuan came in with my order and said that she had tried calling me but that it was the wrong number. I show her the card with my number on it and it turns out that, the way I write, my fours look like Chinese nines. This time she gives me her number. We chat some more and I show her all of my Chinese vocabulary that I'm working on and we experiment a little with the dictionary, but then she "go work" and that was that.

That night I tell Dong-Dong the story, no small feat in itself mind you. Dong-Dong and I have had some marathon sessions in order to get a single point across. The truth is that I fight tooth and nail for even a shred of understanding. It is a constant struggle to simply communicate, a wholly ironic situation not entirely lost on me. I explain to Dong-Dong that he needs to tell me what to say on the phone the next day...

Class isn't until two that afternoon and I'm slow getting up. I put off the phone call for as long as I can, nervous, of course, about saying anything in Chinese that could potentially get lost or misinterpreted over the telephone. She picks up and I go blank staring at my sad little sheet of notes. I stutter through it and she says a number of things which are completely over my head. I say in Chinese, "Uhm, can you come to the Jiaotong Hotel," to which she responds in a flurry of semi-irate Chinese even more things that I don't understand. I reply, "Hao or bu hao." ("good or no good," with the "or" delivered in impeccable English) She responds, "Bu hao! Bu Hao!" I'm reeling in the face of this onslaught when she essentially says to meet her at Hao Di Fang for lunch. I struggle with the time but we eventually agree upon 11:00. Or 11:30. A.M. or P.M.

I show up at Hao Di Fang with my best don't care attitude at 11 a.m. and then convince myself that what we actually said was 11:30 (it was 11) and walk around the shopping district for 15 minutes. I return and sit on the stairs next door to Hao Di Fang. An older Chinese gentleman on the sidewalk starts calling to me in Enlgish, "So nice to see you." I stand up and greet him and we talk momentarily, he used to be an English teacher, before another English teacher friend of mine, Patrick, walks up and enters the fray. We deliberate over the time issue and Patrick agrees to talk to Yuan on the phone for me. I'm half-expecting her to bail when he hangs up and tells me, "She will come immediately."

She shows up with four guys and waves to me, then motions that she is going to put her bag inside. The guys and I are staring at each other uncomfortably so I walk up and introduce myself. They tell me to please wait. They gesture for us to go inside and we stand around awkwardly before they are seated and then Yuan leads me to a table above where I usually sit. She asks what I'd like to eat and I tell her that I can't read the menu, it's in Chinese, and that maybe she should order since she works there, all of which I don't think she understood, so I start saying, "Haochi! Haochi," which literally means "good eat," but is translated as delicious, so, like some sort of buffoon, I'm sitting there saying "Delicious! Delicious!"

She orders and we go back to trying to talk to one another. She's visibly excited to see me, but somewhere between flipping through the dictionary and notebook, the serving of various random foods (hot chicken foot, squid and noodles, fried rice, and ice cream, simultaneously, and all for me, I discover), and my catastrophic mispronunciations, she began to get flustered. Early on I had explained that I had to leave for class at 1:30, which she (somehow) mistook for 12:30. We had also taked about singinig karaoke, which I thought we were supposed to do after lunch. After so many mouthfuls and witnessing the date's extrordinary plunge to unfathomable depths, I decided it was time to move on to the karaoke part. We stood up and she ushered me to the door of the restaurant and said, "Bye!" I tried to stop her, telling her that I still had another hour. All of her friends and co-workers stood around us curiously observing this nuclear meltdown. We stepped outside at her request and I was able to diagram my hours of operation for the afternoon.

She led me back inside to the table, giving the "what did I get myself into?" eyes to all of her friends, breathing rapidly, and patting her hand on her heart. It seems that no one had mentioned to her that I am a walking disaster. At the table I made one last ditch effort to salvage everything by dropping the karaoke bomb. She seemed so upset at this point. I later learned that we don't do karaoke in the afternoon.

Upstairs in one of the karaoke suites I offer to sing her a song and she flips through the song book briefly before throwing it down on the table and saying that there are no English songs. The karaoke assistant turns the televison on and nearly blows us out of the room. After turning down the volume he steps out and she throws her back against the couch in submission. I tell her, "Come on, let's get out of here."

Yes, it keeps going. Outside things are momentarily better. It's a gorgeous day and I say so and tell her that we should have gone somewhere else besides her place of work to eat. She doesn't understand. She takes me to the bakery where her friend works and tells her friend the story. I peruse the baked goods. Her friend tries her broken English out on me and it occurs to me that not everyone is well-suited to teach or listen to beginners. We leave and I try to explain to her that, though I like her, it is difficult, almost painful actually, to continue this particular conversation any longer. I illustrate the last point by performing air harakiri at a Chinese intersection. She is not amused. I'm struck with the realization that my ambitions far outweigh my abilites and I wonder for how much longer this will be the case. The date officially ends one half-hour early.