I've been busy the last few days as I've been preparing and presenting a bunch of classes. The freshmen and graduate school classes started this week which added an additional 8 hours of class time to my schedule. Mondays and Tuesdays are by far the busiest but so long as I stay on top getting copies made and preparing plans in advance, I should be just fine. I introduced public speaking to my classes on Monday and amazingly it went really well. My students get a kick out of watching me "perform"...when I got to talking about delivery and good presentation body language, they were all giggles. They think I'm hilarious. I also performed a "good speech" and a "bad speech" and had them critique me. They were all about telling me exactly what I did wrong and counting how many times I said "um" and all of that. I was thoroughly entertained and pleased to see that at least they understood the concepts. Actual speeches by them start next time so we'll see how much the ideas stick and if they can apply them to their own speaking.

I'm really enjoying teaching this week. Last week, I wasn't as much. I think the key is preparation. I'm an organized person and it kills me when I'm not ahead of the plan. Good learning experience, to be sure.

Yesterday was a long but fruitful day. I had two freshmen classes in the morning at the new campus (about a 40 minute bus ride) then had to come back to the old campus for a grad school class, then had to go BACK to the new campus to meet with my Chinese tutor. Too much commuting and I have to use the public bus in the afternoon because the timing of the school bus doesn't coincide. Public bus is ALWAYS crowded and a little exhausting, but it's not that big of a deal, just a minor inconvenience.

I got off the bus about 6:30 last night and was walking to find some place to get some quick dinner when all of a sudden some jackass on a motorcycle comes up behind me on the sidewalk and starts blaring his horn. I glance back and move as is the protocol around here when I hear him yell "get the f*** out of the way" I was like wait a second, the Chinese don't yell at people, they just honk incessantly...turns out it was Stephen, my friend from Boston, passing through on his way to dinner with a friend. (It's ok, he was just joking, of course) He asked if I'd eaten and wanted to join him and I was like sure. And then he asked if I was comfortable on the back of a bike...Mom don't read the rest of this paragraph...and I said heck yes! and jumped on the back and scooted through town. Motorcycles, I have decided, rock my socks and Stephen offered to teach me how to drive when he found out it was my first time to ride one and I wasn't scared. *happy dance* Ok Mom you can start reading again now.

We went to an amazing Korean bbq place that is impossible to find, down a bunch of back alleys at the end of this dead end drive. It's a tiny hole in the wall place but is always jam packed and is better than anything you could get at some expensive restaurant in Korea town. Lucky me!

Had a very productive and illuminating conversation with Weige last night about some important issues. He's still not back from Guangzhou but should be returning within the next two weeks. To be continued...

Oh, something I thought was interesting/flattering. A few of my students have taken to giving me pictures of themselves with the hope that I will remember them forever. It's very sweet actually. It was funny too, I always take a picture of each of my students the first day so that I can use it for grading and stuff. Well yesterday, my second class thought it was only fair for all of them to take pictures of me. The paparazzi out en force:

As is true of any big city I suppose, there are certain parts of the city that you just know to go to if you need a certain commodity. For instance, if you want cheap department store clothes, you go to the Happy Family store at Zhong jie. If you want $.50 dvds, you go to Sanhao Jie and then start perusing the $5 dvds that are out and wait to be taken to the back office on the fifth floor where they keep all the illegal pirated $.50 stuff. (another recent adventure and although a bit sketch, definitely worth the price of goods) If you want fabric, you go to the Taiyuan jie, through a back alley to an unmarked market building, up the escalator to the third floor whereupon you find yourself in seamstress heaven. The fabric district!

Every kind of fabric you could possibly imagine is essentially at your finger tips. Want to make a suit? haggle a little and you can get yourself some quality threads for a very low price. I didn't believe my friend when she warned me how easy it is to go nuts up there. I bought material for four pairs of pants and three shirts and spent less than $30. I also got some bargaining practice and while I know I got a little ripped off because I'm a foreigner, I was able to bring down the prices quite a bit so I felt it was a good practice. I also helped Jill and Kurt get some good prices so all in all, a well spent morning.

Went to the tailor this morning to get measured and deliver all the fabric. In two weeks, I will be all decked out. I'm so excited. Fabric colors and types I want, styles I made up and clothes that will fit me exactly for CHEAP, all in all, cheaper and better quality than what I could buy in the stores. I love this place. At some point, I'm going to have some suits made for, get this, under $50. That's right, full on, handmade suits suitable for interviews for practically nothing in comparison to what I'd have to pay in the US. Stoked!

I also met with a friend of mine whose business partner has a son whom he wants to learn English. The kid is five. We'll meet for an hour a week and I get to read to him and teach him the ABCs and all that. Really cute kid and very smart. As we were walking out today, he kept yelling and waving bye to me. We'll see how long my schedule permits it but it should be fun.

Introducing public speaking to my classes this week and then next week is vacation. Some of my students have convinced me to travel to a seaside city called Dalian for part of the break to visit them so I'm going to see about getting a bus ticket tomorrow. *crosses fingers as she prepares to brave the lines and the intimidatingly crowded bus station*

Went on an excursion today! The Chinese department cancelled classes and took everybody out to the countryside. We headed north out of town but beyond that, I have absolutely no idea where we were. Doesn't really matter though. It was a beautiful sunny day, lots of cornfields and wide open spaces and it was an opportune excuse to get out of the city for awhile.

Our first stop was a small elementary school where they escorted us into a classroom to teach a mini-English lesson. Us four Americans taught the kids "Take me out to the Ball Game" and the proper way to sing the ABCs and were just getting to itsy bitsy spider when the PA system came on signaling stress relief time. Yes that's right, the 10-year olds gave their temples and eyes self massages in time with the counting being piped in over the speakers. Our lesson was unfortunately over.

Recess came next and many of the kids found it highly amusing to chase one of the Japanese students who was with us around the playground. Darren told all the kids that he was a rabbit and that they should let the Japanese go free, but chase him as soon as he got a little ways away. It was very cute.



This is probably too much information for many of you but thought I'd share anyway because well, I was...proud? I've mastered the art of using the restroom in public. Yep, squatted right down next to another person and did my stuff. This is a big deal because there are no stalls in public restrooms...in fact, restrooms routinely consist of nothing more than a stone platform with a holes cut out. Needless to say, using one of these without shame is an important achievement.

After the school, we bussed to a nearby hill park where we were told to "go climb mountains but be back by 1." It was basically a walk through a foresty area but Darren and I found some stairs and hiked around to the top of some hills which afforded a pretty good view of the surrounding areas.



On the way back down, we were persuaded to pay 2 kuai and ride a donkey cart down the hill. Entertaining to say the least and the man even let us drive! Look how much fun Darren is having~ :-)


We had lunch after that which was basic countrystyle food (read: slightly more plain and far less greasy than what you'd find in the city. We had boiled sweet potatoes, various chicken, lamb and beef dishes, some vegetables, soup...to be honest, the food just kept coming and we left feeling quite satisfied.

We went to a vineyard after that where we got to buy some of the largest grapes I've ever seen! So tasty too! It was so peaceful and cool, I could have sat around under the grapes all day. A very contented and relaxing way to spend the day.



Paul and Jeremy (hiding in the back) are from America (Paul actually graduated from Willamette eons ago and Jeremy is from Indiana) and DJ is from South Korea.



In other news...

This week I met with my tutor for the first time. She's a second year student who's studying to teach Chinese as a foreign language so this will mean good learning opportunities for the both of us, methinks.
I got paid! (Woot)
I was published in the Shenyang Daily paper. They ran a story on Teacher's Day (National Teacher Appreication Day) and they interviewed a bunch of foreign teachers and did a little blurb on each of them. Nevermind that some of what they published I never actually said, I got my picture in the paper and it's a decent article so I can't complain. :-) If I run across a scanner, I'll post it here at some point maybe.
Freshmen and graduate school classes start next week and then we have a week long holiday for Golden Week (Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day coincide within 7 days of each other and so it becomes a long vacation and an excuse to travel. The department is taking us to Chunzhang next Friday for a few days of sightseeing which will be really fun. After that I think I might take some day trips to places around the province but nothing too long. I'm not real excited about traveling when everyone else is and so I think I'm going to use the time to get lesson plans and whatnot figured out for the semester so that I can spend free time actually doing things that I want to do. Here's to no more procrastination!

Hope you're all doing well~I updated the comment option on here so now anyone can write comments, not just people with blogs. I'd love to hear from you all!

I asked my students to write about their best friends. One of them shared a poem that she particularly liked:

To my dear friend--I will be there
If one day you feel like crying...call me.
I don't promise that I will make you laugh...But I can cry with you;
If one day you want to run away...Don't be afraid to call me.
I don't promise to ask you to stop...But I can run with you;
If one day you don't want to listen to anyone...Call me.
I promise to be there for you...and I promise to be very quiet.
But if one day you call me...and there is no answer...come fast to see me.
Perhaps I need you...

Excerpts of journals from some of my students (work in progress):

Today I am happy for having an oral English Conversation from Jessica. Jessica is the first young teacher for us. I like her very much. I think she is youthful energy.

In the first moment of today class, she gave us some pictures to see. One of them was her brother’s. He is a handsome boy. But he is like his sister, Jessica. We think they are twins. To our surprise, he is only fifteen. If he in China, like his stature, we may think he is twenty-years-old boy. –Vivi

And other thing that gave me a surprise is Jessica’s 15 young brother because he looked so handsome and so tall, we never believed he only 15, so me thought: “Are the American boys growing faster than us?” --Amy


Today is a happy day. Teacher has tried her best to teach us something. She wants to make the class interesting. The result is that she has really done it. This class is the most interesting class that I have ever got because of the differences of culture, sometimes we wouldn’t feel the funny of it. Please believe me, it’s not your wrong, my lovely teacher. ☺

…You can also say something about your experience. To us, a 22 years old girl go abroad to teach is not a simple thing, I worshiped you very much. --William

Some observations:

I'm learning to read friendship dynamics here. Part of the trick for not going insane is figuring out people's intentions...I say that, only to realize that in the same vein, if you overanalyze everything you'll drive yourself completely batty and make yourself miserable. I'm vague, let me explain. Upon first look, it seems that many Chinese want to be my friend. I've gotten several emails from students stating how excited they are for me to be their teacher and they hope that we can be "close friends." While there is nothing wrong with this open friendliness (considering I will likely think of some of them as close friends by the end of this) I can't help but take everything with a grain of salt. Why are they REALLY so happy to know me? I'm skeptical because I am white and I happen to be a really convenient opportunity to practice English. I found there are some Chinese who are genuinely kind and interested in making my acquaintence, who may or may not want to practice their English. Unfortunately however, there are others who are kind of jerkish about it...they just talk at me constantly and expect me to listen while they practice their English. I'm happy they're so excited, but please, if you want to be my friend, let's have a real conversation.

Knowing a little Chinese has helped alleviate some of this feeling of always being the token white English speaker because there are a lot of Chinese who don't speak English well. Surely there are those who are just curious about a white person, but I'm finding a lot of satisfaction from friendships I have with people who don't seem to necessarily care that I'm not Chinese, who are patient and willing to help me learn and who aren't so damn eager to speak English.

It can be lonely at times because so many of my interactions border on superficial. I'm being patient though, I mean, I've only been here for three weeks. I think it would be far more difficult/lonely if I didn't speak Chinese and the only avenue for friendship was through English.

Another quick observation, the freshmen are on campus, but haven't started classes yet because they are in the midst of their compulsory military training. Required by the government, the freshmen are put into groups and marched around campus and made to yell 1234 every so often. It seemed sort of comical and trivial the first day when they just looked ragtag. That was until they started making them yell louder and learn kung fu. It's sort of intimidating to see these young, innocent looking kids all of a sudden in unison take a fighting stance and shadow box some imaginary oncoming aggressor. They've got kicks and throws and everything. I still want to see them goose step but seeing as they're not in fatigues or anything I'm thinking it's not quite as serious as that. In any case, I'll not cross them, though it is entertaining to watch from a distance.

Last night, some friends and I went to get massages at a place basically across the street from campus...I got a real Chinese head and hand massage for about 8 bucks. No way I could afford it in the states. There's a fairly large Korean population here in town and so I think at some point we are going to go and get really GOOD korean massages. If there's one reason to come to China, it's for the cheap massages.

Hope you're well!

Goodness much has gone on since my last post! Here's the rundown:

Classes continue to go pretty well, although it's interesting how much student's energy and enthusiasm contributes to how smoothly a lesson goes. I'm hanging in there but it's really hard to gauge how they will react or respond to my lesson plans. For those who read this who are current or former teachers, any ideas for producing interesting classes would be helpful. I sometimes feel like I might be really boring. :(

On Friday I didn't have any classes and since I wasn't quite up to running again, I thought I'd take a long walk. Well my walk turned into a 3-hour wander around a new part of the city and I still have no idea where I went but I did stumble across this huge open air market. Hundreds of people and vendors and everything you could possibly imagine from live chickens to beautiful vegetables to spices--it was amazing! I eventually found my way back to campus but when I asked my friends in the office where it was they thought I went (I gave them the best landmarks I could) they just laughed and were like yeah we have no idea where you went. Another friend of mine suggested I invest in a bicycle and get to know the city on wheels. I'm thinking about it.

That afternoon, I went with a friend of mine from Boston who's been here for four years to meet one of his friends who's apparently really into the Chinese punk rock scene. He owns a little clothing shop not too far from campus, has tattoos of Chucky and Chucky's bride on his forearms, is named Freddy and is probably one of the sweetest people you could ever want to meet. Go figure :)

The teachers had a meeting that afternoon wherein we received updated schedules...They added three more classes to my load so I'm up to 20 hours of teaching and oodles of students whose names I realistically have no possible chance of remembering. Boo. I'm going to have to rethink the whole assigning journal and writing assignments for every class. Freaking takes forever to grade. It was also National Teacher's Day this weekend so in honor of the event, each of us was given a box of 40 eggs, a box of milk and a bouquet of flowers. Apparently the dairy items are pasteurized and don't need to be refrigerated. Nevertheless, my fridge appears to be quite full.

That evening, Stephen, my friend from earlier, invited me to Sichuan hot pot (spicy yumminess) to meet some of his Chinese friends who wanted to meet me. I realized I was going to get a crash course in dining and drinking with Chinese men when the waiter wheeled up a cart loaded with a full case of beer. The Chinese love their alcohol (especially the NE) and tonight was to be no exception.

I preface the following with this: when in China, drink, laugh, eat with friends, be merry! So here's how it works: everyone gets a glass (about 6 oz or so) and it is the host and his friend's job to keep everybody's glasses full while toasts are offered for anything anyone finds important. Which literally becomes everything. You are expected to "ganbei" or dry glass for every toast you're a part of. So we started with a toast to good friends, then to beautiful women, then toasts just between the host and every individual at the table and so on and on and on and on...at one point, Stephen got a drop of spicy hot grease in his eye from the hot pot and naturally we all laughed and had a toast to grease in the eye while he went and rinsed his eye out. We had another toast upon his return.

Needless to say, we were feeling pretty drunk and happy by the end of the meal when we decided to head to the night club where Stephen is the manager. Thank goodness for my newly discovered alcohol tolerance or it could have been a real short night. More drinking, dancing and whatnot at the club and since I apparently hold liquor better than my Chinese hosts, after awhile our group became two. (Jeremy, an American friend) and I met some others at a nearby bar and ended up talking until 5:30, found some breakfast of baozi and dumplings, then headed home at about 7:30...So much alcohol, but with good friends, food and laughter, such is the way of Chinese happiness and thus we were happy.

I rested most of Saturday, then toured the Imperial Palace (think Forbidden City in Beijing, but slightly smaller and way less crowded) with Jill and Hans Sunday afternoon. Stephen called me later and said Weige, the guy I had met on Friday was wanting me to come hang out (apparently friends were having a birthday celebration) and so I went and joined for karaoke. Well, the reception I received when I walked in the door! Weige's friends like me because apparently I make Weige very happy. Very. Happy. It was cool because we discovered we both speak Japanese so our communication consists of an ironic Chinese/Japanese mix which actually works really well. To be honest, I like this guy and to hear his friends tell it, he's an amazing guy. 30, good career, sweet and caring, easy on the eyes, genuine and well, apparently my new boyfriend. When in China...

I made it through my first day of teaching! I had three classes yesterday, all Oral English. They went fairly well, although it's interesting how a lesson plan will be aces for one class and all sixes and sevens for another. The challenging thing will be incorporating and accessing all the skill levels in one class because there is such a difference between the strongest and weakest students. In any case, my students seem to like me so hopefully I can bank on that for awhile until i can figure out how to get them excited about English. I took pictures of everybody so I can start learning names...last count I will have 210 students this term! YIKES!!



All were surprised to hear that I was so young. For the most part, these kids are all 20, 21 years old. In every class, there was at least one person who asked if I had a boyfriend. YoYo was the first to ask...he prefaced it by asking what I think of Chinese men. I asked if he knew of any nice Chinese men he could introduce me to. He just giggled and turned red.









Speaking of the boyfriend thing...I think I'm going to try my hand at this dating thing. No students of course, but I mean really why not? Could be a lot of fun right? I've been assured finding a Chinese boyfriend will be easy so we'll see what comes of this. Wish me luck! :-)



Gah, this cold is killing me. Jill gave me some tea and amoxycillin and I've been eating nasal decongestants and drinking hot water and soup like it's going out of style. I was so wiped out yesterday after teaching I came home and slept for like 14 hours and I still don't feel much better.



This is me needing another bowl of soup...or a gun to my nasal cavity. Either one would probably make me feel loads better. Anywho, time to face the world. Take care, all!

I am so entertained by Chinese television. Forget the fact that I can only really understand about a third of what's going on. That's still enough to be amused by it. Thankfully, they subtitle just about everything so you can read and listen to the mandarin all at once. Good for learning. I found one show last night that was kind of a cross between the Dating Game, American Idol and the Gong show. I'm planning on doing a lesson or two on dating and relationships for my English class and I'm toying with the idea of having them act out "Superdate!". Sometimes they'll also have token foreigners on talk shows or the music programs and I've found their Chinese is quite a bit easier to understand. Even if they are just singing dancing monkeys making the rest of us feel inferior...(shakes fist) I'm watching a program where they've got this American talking about all sorts of things, but then every so often they'll break for a musical interlude where they'll have the silly man dance and rap in Chinese. That's right. And no, white man still can't rap.

Race relations here are interesting...Living in the foreign students and teachers' dorm, I've met quite a lot of folks from all over the world. Lots of Aussies and Russians, a handful of Africans and the rest are mostly Japanese and Korean. I met a girl from israel yesterday though! I say things are interesting because of the way we all get along. The Aussies and Americans get along with each other well, the Asians tend to stick together but are generally friendly and no one likes the Russians because they don't smile back and are just aloof and altogether unhappy looking. They're not all that bad, there is one girl who's eager to meet people but for the most part, they stick together and keep to themselves and look as though they'd rather be anywhere but here. Apparently there's a pecking order as to who can date whom around here as well but it mostly pertains to the Russian men as they think they're better than everybody and will only date other Russian or Chinese women. Silly Russians.

Speaking of classes, I start tomorrow! I have four preps but a total of seven classes! So I'm looking at learning between 150-170 names this term. Thankfully they have English names or else I'd be ska-rewed. I teach M-W in the mornings, mostly. Th and Fri are free so I'm looking forward to being able to do some traveling with my four day weekends. But, get this! I have class on Christmas! Sigh, maybe Santa speaks Chinese?

I'm fighting off a cold at the moment...I've been told by one of the other Americans that I'll likely be sick for at least the first month. Joy. Along the medical front however, I got my test results back from my recent exam and apparently I'm not afflicted with any menacing psychoses or contagious infections that will be detrimental to Chinese society. They even let me keep my x-rays! When Ariel gave them back to me, I proceeded to turn to Hans and asked if he'd care to see my chest. There was a moment of silence while what I said registered with my Chinese friends and then we all broke up laughing. I'm not sure if they quite know how to take me just yet. :-)

For those of you that are wondering, my mailing address and phone number:

Jessica John
Liaoning University
International Exchanges Department
c/o Ariel
No. 66 Chongshan Zhong Road
Huanggu District, Shenyang
PRC 110036

Skype: (by far the easiest and cheapest way to reach me, internet phone) (503) 616-3052
Mobile: 0086-134-7888-4704 I think this will work, I'm still not certain if I have an international SIM card though.
Apt.: 0086-24-8681-6349

And now a few more pictures from a walkabout earlier today and this week:
Construction, as seen here, is rampant all over the city. And it's SO FAST! The Chinese solution to something like building a building is to throw hundreds and hundreds of people at it. The word is still out on the quality of these buildings but they sure do look nice when they're done. All foreign owned property. So much foreign money is being invested into this city and other cities all over China. Incredible to think what the economic future for China will be like.

The building I'm going to be teaching in. Swanky, huh? It's on the new campus which is just gorgeous!

No shortage of workers in China, this one's keeping the old campus looking splendid.

The main administration building on campus, just inside the front gate.

A quiet place.

With the help of a friend, I was able to get a drinking water service established at my apartment. I frankly got really tired of drinking the boiled water because there's a lot of minerals and crap in that stuff so it tastes kind of thick, like you're drinking freon. After several people told me that I was quite brave for drinking the tap water, I decided I'm just too young to die so I now have a fun little water cooler dispenser thing. (It's smiling for the camera...sort of)

The lesson planning is going pretty well. I'm so excited to teach. I put my syllabus together yesterday and realized I'm really going to work these kids. I'm going to introduce them to public speaking and I'm going to have them give presentations and they'll have all sorts of in class discussion activities and journal assignments at night for homework. I'm going to make them work, but hopefully they'll feel it's worth it in the end. I get the sense that the other teachers aren't doing nearly as strenuous of a curriculum but hey, my students can thank me later. ;-)

This pic is for Mom...he was most excited to have his picture taken. hehe

And now, as promised, the first installment of CHINGLISH! Two today...

On a sign for a school: Talenty International Education
On a building, displayed next to several phrases of inspiration and aggressive corporate values: Make superegos. (I looked up the actual translation later, something like "surpass oneself" or "exceed your perceived limitations")

Hope you are well!