Adventures in Guangzhou!

• Players are given 5 cards each.
• Choose one person to give them out, called the "dealer."
• Each person chooses one card to place in the middle.
• The highest card wins, with Ace being the lowest card and 10 being highest.
• Playing any diamond card is "trump," which means it beats everything else. If two people throw trump cards, the higher card wins.
• Winning a hand is called a "trick."
• Whoever wins the most "tricks" will move clockwise to the next table at the end of the round.
• Whoever loses the most tricks will move counter-clockwise to the next table.
• Everyone else stays at the same table.
• Ties are resolved by paper rock scissors.
• Each round will be about 4 minutes long and each round will consist of any number of games that the time allows.
• After the initial round, players will not be allowed to see the rules or speak to each other. Gestures and pictures are allowed, but players are not allowed to use words.
• The game "winner" will be the person who has won the most tricks in total.
• The dealer can be anyone at the table and the person who plays first will be to the right of the dealer .
• The first player for each trick may play ANY suit. All other players must follow suit (play a card of the same suit). For each round, each player plays one card.
• If a player does not have that suit, a card of any suit must be played. The trick is won by the person with the HIGHEST card of the ORIGINAL suit.

The twist was that each group had slightly different rules. While the rules above state that diamonds are trump, other groups had hearts, spades, or clubs as trump. While the rules above state that Ace is the lowest card, other groups rules stated that Ace was the highest. And so on. The kids were excited about the game and seemed keen on memorizing the rules before I took the sheets of paper back.

Of course the excitement and trauma starts in the second round when certain players have to switch tables to new groups, when they're playing by different rules. I found it extremely interesting to watch their reactions both when there were disagreements and when they raised their hands to ask clarifying questions (that I ignored). It turns out that it was the students with the best English who had the toughest time with the game, positive that they had learned it right and that everyone else had screwed up learning the rules.

The best moment was, of course, at the end of class when the game ended and I asked them guiding questions about what they were feeling and what happened. When I admitted that each table had different rules it really blew their minds. I think some of them really learned about how to communicate in ways other than speaking and about what it's like to be in a foreign culture--something that rarely happens in China.

In other teaching-related news, I have been teaching a Baseball class this term complete with the rules, music, movies, literature, and slang of America's pastime. After finishing "Field of Dreams" the week before, it was time to put it all to use and we headed outside this week to actually baseball! Okay, so it was whiffle ball, but close enough. One particular section of the class really took to playing and we went on to play for two hours instead of the short forty-minute class period.

A few of the boys came to me yesterday and said that about a dozen of them had gone out and bought a bunch of gloves, bats, and balls and were starting the first HuaFu baseball team in school history! They also asked me to be their coach, which I am ecstatic about, except for the fact that I have really limited time over the next couple of weeks. I am going to go out of my way to help them, though. I have visions of major league baseball really taking off in China sometime in the next few years and these kids being pioneers. I hope they stick with it...