Adventures in Guangzhou!

The more I thought about it though, the more nervous I got. There is a section in my contract that specifically forbids any disparagement of China, the Chinese government, Chinese history, or Chinese culture. It's also worded in such a way as to apply to whatever they want. Basically they can reprimand me for speaking about virtually anything, but I get the feeling they just want to cover themselves. I started to feel apprehensive about getting in trouble with the administration though and had a few daydreams about getting hauled away by the local police. I mean, stranger things have happened! I know for a fact that there is a file on me at the police station because we had to register with them upon arrival. I'm guessing that there are also a couple students responsible for reporting any polemical comments that I make because, so far as I understand it, that's s.o.p. with foreign teachers. Who knows.

Anyhow, their presentation rolled around today and I geared up for whatever might happen. The introduction was relatively tame and centered more around his great accomplishments than any negative traits. Once the "guest speakers" began giving their spiel though, I was almost in awe. The girl speaking out in favor of Mao started listing off how he brought China into the modern age and liberated the country from the evil and corrupt Nationalists. After a couple more minutes of this, the other girl began speaking. She started off with the soft stuff, mentioning how Mao had some fidelity issues and went through four wives. I was wondering if she'd stop there, but she slowly started listing off his policies on shutting down schools, destroying temples & museums, and creating a food shortage. Noticeably and decidedly absent was any mention of killing his own people.

Once again I decided carpe diem and push the limits a tad, without really incriminating msyelf. Sitting in the "audience" among the rest of the students, I asked the members of the group what they thought of Joseph Stalin. I pointed out that he was not only responsible for modernizing the country and increasing industry twentyfold, but also for knowingly killing countless millions of Russians. Without so much as batting an eyelash, they all denounced Stalin and his methods as inappropriate and unacceptable. Interesting. I wonder what my students would think if they were privy to a more complete history of Chairmain Mao.

The second noteworthy presentation was the highly anticipated talk show of who is more attractive, Steven or me. The students who designed this one happen to be some of the smartest and funniest kids in the class so I decided to give them the okay for the topic, under the condition that if Steven were in the room he wouldn't be offended. They titled the show, "Who is the true lady-killer, Steven or Ari?" I laughed. In the end, it was a really funny show. They had the two guys each taking one side and the girls in the group were audience members. After all was said and done, they decided that it was a tie and that we are both the highest level of "lady-killer." Heh.

On a completely separate note, I found out today that the faculty and staff of HSFZ will have a track & field competition in a little over a month. Oh boy. Howard, my supervisor and friend, informed me of this news with full knowledge that I ran in high school and college and that I have an affinity for competition. With a big grin, he began to list off the different activities and even asked if I wanted them to set up a 400m hurdles race. Ummm, no thanks--I'll pass on that one. I definitely have the date circled on my calendar and I am psyched for the races, but I'm also well aware of how long it's been since I raced on a track.

I decided to find out for sure and headed out to the track tonight in lieu of playing football. I did a quick 400m warm-up and decided to get right to it. Thinking back to my very first track practice back in high school, I can still picture Coach Butterfield's weathered face announcing, "100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m." I mean if I could do that without ever having run before, I could do that now, right? I struggled through about half the workout and it wasn't pretty. Lets just say I'm quite far away from my days of running 50 point in the quarter.

That being said, I already feel self-imposed pressure to perform at a really high level when we have the meet. Besides my inherent competitive nature, I feel a strange sense of obligation to get out there and represent the U.S. against all of the Chinese here. It doesn't really make sense but I want to win in a bad way, to prove myself to the other teachers, to the administration, to the students, and to also to myself that I can still do it. Of course everyone told me that I was crazy to pack track spikes in my luggage before I left the U.S. so I took them out of my bag. Now I'm kicking myself!