a little bit of everything

My first full week of class is behind me. It was a long week. I am scheduled to have 7 sections of Oral English. Most Chinese classes are actually two 45 minute class periods with a 10 minute break in between. So I technically teach roughly 14 hours per week. However, 3 of my sections are freshman English majors, who do not actually begin class until the end of September because of military training. So I have yet to meet the freshman. The other four classes consist of non-English majors, 3 sections from the College of Economics and Trade, and 1 from the College of Mechanical Engineering. The Econ/trade students were wonderful, and I am very excited to get to know them better. (one section gave me quite the welcoming – I walked in the room and one of them stood up and shouted, “ I must say, thank you, our teacher!” and then everyone else stood up and applauded.) The engineering students are also very polite, but their interest in learning English is not very high because they don’t really need to know English for their career. The reason they sign up for the class is that they are required to take a national exam for English that basically gives them a special endorsement for their resume. And getting a good job in China is extremely difficult, so anything they can do to improve their score helps.

What else? I am settling in my apartment. I am still trying to decide/decipher what I need to buy and what I want to buy. Peace Corps gives us a “settling in” allowance, and technically we can spend it on whatever we want, but we do have to tell them what we buy and they determine if it is a necessity or luxury. The main problem, I guess, is that there is just so much available in China. The consumer choice is shocking. Well, not really shocking – it is basically like the U.S. It is just not what I had expected. I think most of my allowance is going to end up going towards things/equipment for my kitchen (pots, pans, olive oil, etc.) Probably my guiltiest pleasure so far was the black peppercorn grinder I bought at the Metro station. I couldn’t resist it! And yesterday I went and bought one of those 4 RMB (which would exchange to roughly 75 cents) baguettes and dipped it in olive oil and freshly ground black pepper! It was heavenly! But, rest assured, I am practicing Chinese cooking too.

Some other exciting things – the department of Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) asked me to provide come tutoring classes for the staff of the office on American culture. It is basically an informal class/discussion group for the staff to practice their English (which is all ready fantastic) and to learn/ask questions about the U.S. I was really nervous for it because it was attended by the head of the department, along with about 10 others. But I became oddly at ease when I arrived at the office and they led me to the conference room where they have pictures and items from all their partner universities and there on the wall was a pennant from St. Cloud State University. I could hardly believe it – of the thousands of universities I could have ended up at in China, I get the one with the SCSU connection. Random!

The session went well, and now we will meet every week for 2 hours and I will prepare questions/ideas having to do with an aspect of American culture. The group chose “sports” for next week’s topic, which I am hardly qualified to discuss – anyone who reads this with at least some interest in American sports culture and wants to give me some input, it would greatly appreciated! I was relieved when it was over and I wanted to spend the rest of the week working on my course outlines for the semester. And then my phone rang.

It was the FAO again, this time wondering if I would be willing to judge a speech competition the next day (Friday). So when the time came I headed to the building where the competition would be held and met a few teachers from the Foreign Language Department. They took me to the classroom and when I walked in everyone stopped what they were doing, stared, and gasped. I just smiled and then noticed a table for the judges with nametags, my name in front of the middle seat. After a special introduction from MC, I listened to the 25 contestants give their prepared speeches for the competition, which is actually a qualifying round for a national television competition. During one of the first couple of speakers, my counterpart leaned over and whispered, “By the way, when the students are finished speaking, they would like it if you could stand up and give a speech and make comments about their performance.” Yikes! We had been warned repeatedly during PST in Chengdu that things like this would happen, I just didn’t expect it to happen my first week at site!

So, the students finished, I stood up and thanked them for inviting me and told them they were very impressive. It was very brief. It was completely overwhelming. Thinking that my job was done, I sat down, glad that my first impromptu speech in China was over. The students that made it to the final round gave their impromptu speech and soon the contest was done. I had forgotten about the giving of awards. As the winners were announced, it was also announced that I would be presenting the certificates to the 1st place winners. And then came the pictures. And then the students presented me with a token gift for taking part in their competition. And then came the inevitable question, “How tall are you?”

Oh, China.

After the competition, the FAO held a special dinner for all the foreign teachers in honor of the Mid-Autumn festival, which is celebrated this weekend. Consequently, I figured out today that we don’t have classes on Monday due to this very festival. Better I find out today than Monday, right?