Adventures in Guangzhou!

It comes as no suprise to me, but I have decided that I am a much better history teacher than I am an English teacher. Not that my English classes are going bad by any means, but I feel so much more at home teaching history. We're on to World War I which I really do enjoy, especially in how it relates to WWII (Versailles as the thirty year truce--brilliant). This course I am designing has even given me the opportunity to explore some new aspects of media and American culture that I didn't know much about beforehand. The music from the teens is a riot and it's very cool to see aspects of jazz, brass band, and country in the pop tunes. I'm really excited to show them the transition to Big Band and vocal jazz in the next couple of weeks. If I'm feeling really daring, maybe I'll even teach them how to dance the Charleston...

I met with tutor #2 yesterday and decided that I'd take her on. "Cherry" is a graduate student in English at South China Normal University and is very sweet. She speaks really well and seems genuinely interested in tutoring me, though she is a bit shy and sheltered. She did her undergrad at Central China Normal U. in Wuhan and seems thoroughly intimidated by Guangzhou. I don't know where she gets her fears, but she has already told me that it's unsafe for women to walk around alone in Guangzhou. Ever. Under any circumstances. Now I don't doubt that you need to be careful in a big city like GZ, especially if you're a woman by yourself, but I think she's taking this a little far. She won't walk outside the gates of the University herself, event to head across the street to the convenience store. As far as Steven and I can tell (she's working with him as well), the first time she left the confines of the University was to come see our place at HSFZ last week. This big adventure was a trek taking all of three or four minutes, walking down the sidewalk. Steven even had to walk her back and it was during the day! I can't tell if this is indicative of Chinese women at all or whether she's just particularly scared. I'm trying to remind myself that there are inherent gender differences that I will never experience or even relate to, but I think she needs to explore more of what the city has to offer.

Regardless, she has much more of a structured plan for teaching me which I like. I think I may ditch my other tutor depending on how our first few lessons go. The downside is that she's so busy that she can only see me once a week. She told me not to worry though, that she would get me books and assign me daily homework. This I can deal with. I think I will be taking a page out of the Aaron Schwirian training manual and teach myself for the most part. I have been frustrated enough by my inability to communicate that I think I will be disciplined enough to get going on a more serious level. Sidenote- on my way to pick up the textbooks from Cherry this morning I saw another throng of students in military dress doing drills. I asked her about it and she said that all freshmen have to go through about 20-25 days of required military training at the beginning of college. Wow. I'm trying to imagine orientation at Wesleyan involving marching drills and M-16 training. Not surprisingly, I can't picture it. China isn't at the level of Israel with required military service, but it's definitely a lot more than the U.S. I'm wondering how the students feel about it...

Not that I needed much convincing, but my PiA mentor (and eminent China scholar) Professor Lynn White convinced me to head up to Hangzhou and Shanghai for the Chinese National Day Holiday next week. His descriptions and suggestions on what I could do in Eastern China are too enticing to ignore so I will be off on a 23 hour train ride to explore. Thanks, Prof. White! I'm hoping to rendezvous with a few other PiA kids along the way as well. Who's with me?? Lets go swimming in the West Lake! I'm not sure that's even legal but I'll figure it out. Sidenote- why is it called the National DAY Holiday when it's a week long? Got me.

Since I am starting to participate in rudimentary conversations with my coworkers here, they have decided that I need a Chinese name. Sure, I'll go along. Having no idea what to use, I asked for some assistance. The majority decided that I should be called "Yali," which means pressure, but that they shorten to "Ali" to sound like my English name. I like the idea of learning how to say "I shook up the world!" in Chinese and repeating it everytime I say something correctly. Way to represent the U.S., huh?