Pornstar Names for Students

This morning I convinced one of my Chinese students to drop his conservative English name of Davidl Apologies to my colleague Dave Davies, but there’s nothing wrong with his old name; he just has more marketing potential with his new name. This is a Business English class after all!

David is now Mr. Happy. Mr. Happy has two classmates named Swallow and Fannie. That was a pre-existing condition, not my doing. But I do have two other gals considering the monikers Microphone and Doublemint.

Looking forward to the role-playing scenarios later this semester!

Blackmail, Chinese University Style

So I get a text message from a clerk flunky early this week, saying they have enough teachers at my university so they won’t be hiring me again this fall. Reminds me of the breaking-up-by-text-phenomenae explored in the film Up in the Air (with George Clooney). Lame, lame, lame. Considering they only have three foreign teachers here, and one of my colleagues has announced he is leaving, I started smelling something rotten after this text message.

Moon’em I thought, and sent out a few letters of interest that night. My prospects are bright away from this place. Only thing is I love it here, and hoped to guide my 2nd-year students through their 3rd-year literature curricula.

Tonight I heard from a 3rd-year student, that the administration is actually asking students to comment on whether I should be retained. So if I could kindly refrain from assigning homework, hint hint, maybe I could stay here.

Now that’s just bollocks. Blackmailing a teacher to not give homework, so that he can return next year only to teach another class where he ought not to ever prescribe homework ever again. No wonder China has never won a Nobel Prize; they are discouraging students from actually learning anything in their universities.

I’m supportive of student-centered learning, but student-directed slacking is for pussy teachers. So, while I will miss guiding my hard-working younger students next year, I will not let the hardly-working older students blackmail me.

Homework is necessary for cognition. The classroom is where guidance and exposure to information take place, but the real intellectual heavy lifting is with reading, re-reading, writing, and thinking that come with homework tasks.

How real is too real?

Geez did I make a mistake today. I thought I’d teach my sophomore students about the differences in risk-taking between Chinese and US American youth. A perfect chance to show them MTV’s Jackass Lost Tape, or so I thought. There was a scene where they were making omelettes by masticating the ingredients first, then upchucking into a mixing bowl before frying to a golden brown. Another scene showed two dudes and one chick competing to see who could drink a gallon-jug of milk the fastest. At least ten girls dashed back-and-forth to the W.C. in just one hour. Half of the audience kept their faces down during the puke-free rad skateboarding scenes.

Three conclusions were derived from this failed classroom lesson: 1) U.S. Americans have nothing to fear from the ChiComs. If they can’t handle blood and puke on television, do you think they can handle armed conflict with us foreign devils?; 2) China is not ready for MTV; and 3) English teaching is sometimes itself a high-risk activity!

Wuxi: Screw Tibet, Where’s My YouTube?

Right now in Red China we can see firsthand the outcome of socialistic policies. All you Americans take note. According to the news we get, the Tibetans are the shitdisturbers, and the Communist Party is the public’s protector, and YouTube is inharmonious.

Why the Reds gotta slaughter all those Tibetans? Are they gonna move on Taiwan next? Just give me back my YouTube and I won’t say nothin’.

March 17, 2008

Wuxi: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dog

It’s hard to think dialectically about China Triangle living, as even the cons can
be turned into pros. This is one thing you’ll learn if you move to China, that
every crisis provides an opportunity. Here are some of my wife and I’s
observations on what will happen to you if you emigrate to China:

Traffic: Hair-raising for pedestrians. You will develop a unique ability to walk
across traffic with the sleep still in your eyes. After a few taxi/bus rides
you will be numb to drivers’ shortcuts through opposing traffic and other
seemingly jackass moves. I already have dreams about being chased by the Reno
police back home for driving my sedan Chinese-style on Virginia Street.

Scooters: Most are electric which, while better for the air-we-breathe, are
silent projectiles that might bump you unawares. Some of them are “E-bikes”
which have a pedal assist. When the operator is not pedaling the pedals rotate
around the sides of the bike so be careful they don’t brush against you. It’s
kinda like being in the arena during Robot Wars.

Food: Requires bravery, an iron stomach, and an ability to recognize Chinese
characters. Outside of the touristy areas you no longer have pictures on the
menus so this is critical if, for example, you want pork 猪肉 instead of dog 狗肉 , as the left-hand radicals are similar.

Stares: The elderly remember the pre-Tianmen days when foreigners were all
suspect. So they will usually stare at you in public. Everyone else stares for
reasons of curiousity, I suppose. For example, your shopping cart will be
stared at constantly. It’s best just to smile, even if you want to slap them
around like I do when the perves stare at my wife. 你看谁？–, I ask …. who you looking at? Privacy is a little different here.

Garbage: You will find many public spaces are filthy, but private spaces are
spotless. So while you may take off your shoes to enter someone’s home, you can
spit and cough and vomit on the streets without repercussions. Go figure.

Antiquity: The Chinese have historically liked erasing history to modernize, and
this is sometimes depressing. However, you will find some relic
buildings,temples, and etc. tucked away in niches throughout the cities.
Usually, just when we are exasperated with the traffic and the smog and the
crowds of people we find something antiquated to relieve our stress. For
instance, behind a billboard you might find a Ming dynasty bachelor’s garden
with ponds and bridges and a teahouse. Or behind an industrial district you
will find an 88-meter Buddha on top of a hill looking over Lake Tai.

Cost of Living: We are amazed at how far we can stretch our salary. We earn more than an average white-collar worker in Beijing (5000RMB in 2007,
per the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) and much more than the average
entry salaries of my graduating students. The only hard part, according to my lovely wife, is tempering our western tastes to reap the benefits of our comparatively
princely pay. We should be able to save some money while teaching here, but
are tempted by clothing, electronics, antiques, and other bargains along
the way.

Clothes for Big Men: It is very hard to find clothes or shoes for big or tall men here. Once here, you can always find a tailor to customize your clothes, if you want, however.

March 6, 2008

Wuxi: Instant Coffee Rant (Why the Reds can’t crush U.S., Part 3)

Okay, it’s 9′ oclock in the fucking morning and fireworks are going off like it’s the rape of Nanjing with the Japs invading all over again. What gives here? Why they don’t blow their whole arsenal at midnight? Why couldn’t they put those firecrackers and M-80s to use two weeks ago to clear the road of all the snow they been whinin’ about? Why can’t my powdered coffee mix blend with hot water like instant coffee in the rest of the world? Why is Red China so bass-ackward?

New Year’s day in China. A bit like camping at Burning Man, only no hippies or naked people on bicycles. I’ll take the freaks back home, thank you.

February 6, 2008

Causeway Bay: There Was a Young Couple Who Lived in a Shoe (box)

We are laying over once again in Hong Kong, taking care of business. The business of finding a full-time teaching job for the academic year has really been what this southeast Asian foray has been about. So far we’ve ruled out the peaceful Islamic empire of Malaysia, the racist overseas Chinese in Singapore, and the military state of Thailand. All had some opportunities, but treat my wife like she’s a bar girl or house cleaner. Malaysia’s got a real problem with fair treatment of women, period. Singapore is truly more racist than the California foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Thailand is an overrated hippy hell-hole. China, despite being communist, has been a good host each time. Hong Kong would be great if we were part of the international banking elite, which we are not. Lest you think that we are rich and ambling about without a plan, read on

Cheapskate travellers in Hong Kong, whether on the Island side or the peninsula of Kowloon, know about mansion living. Mansions are huge labyrinths of tiny shoebox dwellings in high-rise roach towers, to put it mildly. For the price of a Travelodge room in the States, you get an ultra-efficient room that requires feats of contortion and acrobatics just to manage everyday business. I mean everday acts like taking a piss or a shower or even turning on the bloody television set or recharging a cellphone require planning, agility, and a tolerance for spinal compression. If I want to sit on the pot while my wife brushes her teeth, my legs will get wet because the sink is too small for her and my legs have to go somewhere. If I get up in the middle of the night, I have to be extra careful I don’t break her bones as I gingerly pass over her snoozing body. And hell if our towels or sheets ever get washed. We are constantly cooperating to keep things aired out and even have to change clothes one person at a time. If there is a fire in the building, we’re toast. God, I miss building safety codes and other things taken for granted in the good ol’ USA!

This time we chose a shoebox on the Island, so we can handle embassy business at various consulates without wearing out our heels on the MTR subway or sloshing around in ferry boats getting bumped by too many people in too much of a hurry. Causeway Bay, unfortunately, is not as economical as Mong Kok, because it is all about designer label clothing. Ack! It’s more fun to walk toward Wan Chai and imagine the old waterfront of the 1950’s, which has since expanded past Gloucester Road by development. The girly bars and neon signs and cheap eateries make this a real down-to-earth urban zone, away from the hoity-toityness of Central and the mid-Levels. It’s always the case, in my travels, that the red-light districts are where the real people hang out.

We were fortunate to have a lunch with my former Cantonese teacher, Hazel, and to say hello to Ricky, the elder tattoo master at Pinky’s Tattoo in Wan Chai. Ricky is the one who fixed my first misfit tattoo in 2005, and now he has me tempted to add a phoenix to my arm, for the price of a 10-megapixel digital camera. I told him maybe when we pass through again in the wintertime, after I earn some money teaching somewhere. We exhanged a few nice words, said “joi gin” and I know I’ll see him again. Good man, Ricky. Has decorated many a Triad in his day, and quite a few sailors and other derelict English teachers, I’m sure.

In some ways this adventure has reached it’s most stressful point. We need positive cash flow, and we need to get out of this expensive city or wind up homeless. My back is killing me from being sandwiched between two walls at a distance shorter than my frame. Janice sees homeless people on the street and worries that we’re gonna be with them soon, me playing the erhu while she passes around a coffee can for change. I tell her not to worry; I will provide. Inside I’m scared, but I can’t reveal this or she won’t sleep well. This is truly rough.

August 13, 2007

Mongkok: Our First Shoebox

Back in Hong Kong, our favorite city outside of our own countries! More correctly, we are in the continental peninsular part of HK called Kowloon (9 Dragons). Last winter, we escorted my mom though many shopping districts here, from our base in Tsim Tsa Tshui; this time we are camped slightly north where less tourists live and throngs of locals come to shop.

Saw Die Hard 4.0 in Langham Place, after riding an escalator at least 4 stories high. Haggled for a new 802.11 card at the Mong Kok Computer Centre. Ate pork cheeks, fried fish skins, oysters congee, curry pies, and other local cheap eats. Explored the upstairs mystery shops in some of the electronics markets; found a few quality adult DVDs for our eyes only.

We were here for business, though: to find a job for the coming academic year. Talked with a recruiter about teaching in primary school; she quickly left for The Mainland and never followed up in email. Helped Janice start her own MySpace and Friendster pages. 24-hour wireless internet access is awesome!

August 8, 2007

Zhuhai: Land of English Schools From Hell

Zhuhai is a Special Economic Zone in China, behind the old Portuguese city of Macau. We are cooling our heels here while figuring out what to do next.

The bus ride here took us through the south side of the Pearl River Delta, where we saw more agriculture and less empty condo-building. Lots of fish ponds are extant, but Janice says they look uninspected and unregulated. She worked in such environments in her undergrad years at Mindanao State Unversity, where she was a marine sciences major, so I believe she knows what she’s talking about.

After checking in to our hotel, we allowed ourself to be fleeced by a taxi driver just to satisfy a KFC craving (everywhere we go the local fried chicken just doesn’t compare to the Colonel’s!). Then we supplied at the Jesco department store, had an ice cream on the street, and retired to our quarters for a long deserved holiday. Janice practiced her Hanzi (Chinese character writing) to augment her Mandarin language acquisition of the last 3 weeks.

On day two we slept in late, walked along the waterfront and then back to the Jusco department store for a McDonald’s lunch and to find some gifts for Ashley, my step-daughter in the Philippines. Had fun browsing in another upstairs stall in a computer mart for my slightly older godson (Lawrence, aka Little Lulu) in Texas. With my limited Chinese, I asked the proprietor something like “have no clothes kind of DVD you have not have?” Dang if we didn’t find a secret cardboard box with the most hardcore pirated skin flicks on earth. Little Lulu’d better hope our Filipino cousins don’t steal them first!

I’m reflecting on the role of social interaction in language acquisition, and how some of my informal techniques at the last summer school may have helped some kids out. They at least know more than the average KFC worker, who says “good morning” to foreigners no matter what time of day. If I return to primary education in China, I’d like to do some research in this area.

August 6, 2007

Dongguan: What if They Built a Suburb and Noone Moved In?

Dongguan is one of the major cities on the Pearl River Delta, in Guangdong Province of the People’s Republic of China, aka The Mainland. We are in a suburban area which is mostly empty, with construction of empty condos and shopping centers incessant. This place makes any allegations of Americans causing global warming with their SUVs and BBQs a moot point. Start unearthing asphalt in places like this, where edifices are built for speculation only, and stop bitching about my Lincoln Town Car in Nevada, I say!

Directly across from what Forbes magazine dubs the largest mall in the world, we are not convinced as we hark from the Philippines where mega-malls are truly MEGA and truly MALL. According to Merriam-Webster, a mall is either “an urban shopping area featuring a variety of shops surrounding a usually open-air concourse reserved for pedestrian traffic” or “a usually large suburban building or group of buildings containing various shops with associated passageways”; this place is neither reserved for peds or connected with passageways. To get around, one must hoof it through hundreds of meters of hot asphalt, or cross a busy expressway where crosswalks are merely suggested for the local leadfoot drivers. Additionally, the South China “mall” is mostly vacant, and those stores that do have merchandise are locked in darkened corridors with no sales staff in sight. Hands down, the ShoeMarts in the Philippines still hold the title of the world’s largest shopping malls.

More exciting than the faux world’s-largest-mall is the METRO, a single coop built in one building, where membership fees keep the cost down for everybody. If this sounds familiar it’s because it’s just like Costco in the States. This is a much greener alternative, and hella fun to push a cart around in looking for everyday practical items for cheap. And so what if it’s air-conned; half the fun is leaving the hot pavement of the South China Mall to browse in a refrigerator full of bargains.

July 12, 2007