Vagabonding at 60

On Tuesday we all trooped down to the ring road by the beach to watch the Olympic Torch Relay. It was a mob scene and it was impossible to tell whether or not the torch runners actually went by. About all we could see were a couple of Samsung and Lenovo floats with pretty girls waving to us from on high. The crowd was unruly, pushing and shoving. The police, who were few in number, tried to control the thousands of people, but were unable to keep them away from the path where the runners were supposed to be. What kind of a police state is this anyway? We later heard that because of the crowd, the runners were put in a bus and never did actually run along the intended path. Everyone was screaming GO CHINA and waving Chinese flags of all sizes. People were everywhere, including in the small trees along the road, some of which couldn't bear the weight and lost big branches.


The summer games are a very big deal here in China. Most people see this as their world debut and are very concerned that it comes off flawlessly. They have been deeply embarassed about the Tibetan demonstrations which, almost universally, they feel are unwarranted.

The next day we read about the big earthquake in Chengdu which didn't effect us at all in Xiamen. At first it didn't seem that bad, because the city itself was largely spared the worst of the damage. After a few days, however, it looks as though more than 50,000 people lost their lives, including many Tibetans. The Chinese press has been open about the whole thing, in contrast to previous disasters, and the premier flew out there and has spent a lot of time appearing on TV comforting babies and old people. They are obviously trying to prove to the world that they know how to handle themselves when something like this happens. The government is probably more sensitive to pr issues after their heavily criticized response to the Tibet demonstrations and their less than optimal response to the winter blizzards.


Many of the students seem openly moved by the loss of life, even to the point of tears. This is in marked contrast to their usual non-emotional demeanors. They have taken up a collection at the school to donate to the victims. On the other hand, they didn't really react to the loss of life in Myanmar, and the recent cyclone there, Nargis. They are much more focused on events in their own country, but perhaps this is no different than in most countries.

As one of the more mature students put it, this has been a difficult year for China. They thought they were going to have a smooth coming out party, but it has not worked out that way.

As a postscript, we learned that many local school children died in sub-standard buildings which didn't conform to code. In the school buildings built for the kids of government officials, almost no one died. There were many demonstrations in the weeks following the earthquake when this became apparent. A few low level officials paid the ultimate price, but when the demonstrations did not abate, higher ups in the party intervened and they were quashed by the army.

Last night, we went out to a classical symphony concert with a few of the other teachers. The soloist was a violinist from Chendgu, who played a very moving encore dedicated to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. It turns out that the piece was orginally written to commemorate the holocaust. On the bus ride home, we sat next to a member of the orchestra who told us this.

School has been chugging along, albeit somewhat boringly now that I have given up trying to shake things up. It has become obvious that no matter what your grade is in the class, if you show up some of the time, perhaps even if you don't, you'll "graduate" and be put in the more advanced class the following semester. Why, because your name is on the class list. This makes the whole testing process meaningless, but does not prevent many students from trying to cheat on the exams. Cheating in fact, seems widely practiced in many places. One of the students in my history class, a pretty girl who acts like a bimbo and who happens to work in the office, clearly cheated and was known to have cheated in the past. I gave her a zero on the test and she has been pissed ever since, but in reality it makes absolutely no difference. Does the school administration care ? Absolutely not, even though we all supposedly agreed to a no cheating policy. Keeping the students happy is what counts.

Last weekend we took a long drive with one of our students, QQ, to a beach known as Dongshen Island. The beach itself was cleaner and nicer than the beaches around Xiamen, but hardly the deserted island I was hoping for. I guess in this part of China at least, deserted beaches are an impossibility. Just too many people. Anyway, it was a nice day, with a great seafood dinner to top it off. A number of weeks ago QQ invited us to her apartment and seemed interested in spending more time with us. Then we heard nothing from her and assumed she didn't really mean it. This past weekend she confessed she felt embarrased because her English wasn't good enough. We assured her this was not the case and encouraged her not to worry about making mistakes. Anyway, she decided to go with us to the island ,and ever since then has been wanting to spend as much time with us as possible. She now seems totally excited about speaking to us. Quite gratifying considering how some of the other students have responded. She has some money, and is even talking about selling her apartment in Xiamen, worth almost as much as a NYC apartment, to come to the states and visit us. QQ is older than some of the other students, 27, or so, and had been living with her Singaporian boyfriend up until recently. She is clearly more adventurous than many of the other students and doesn't hesitate to say critical things about the government.

Our other buddy , Marjorie, who I mentioned earlier, the one with the British boyfriend, has also continued to spend time with us. Some of the other students are not as friendly as they were at the beginning, perhaps because of the cheating incident and my previous attempts to challenge them to think. The most stand offish are the more advanced students, and while it is hard to know all of the reasons for this, they clearly detest history and spend much of their free time with Bob, the head teacher we try to avoid.

Our most fervent admirerer is still Happy, who, as it turns out, is also quite a rebel. Before coming to WECL she ran away from home and went to live with a relative after dropping out of high school. Her Uncle who has more money than the rest of the family, offered to pay her tuition here, but she can't afford to live in the dorms and instead lives in a tiny room in a poor section of town about a mile away. She is by far the youngest and poorest student, but she is high spirited and works very hard. Next weekend she will go with us to visit some ancient round house villages , called Hakka, in southern Fujian province. She has to cut class for a day, as our weekend starts on Friday. This is a big deal because Bob will be pissed if he find out that she is cutting class because of us. Of course, from our point of view, she will learn a lot more English from two days of conversation than in a class of 17 people.

On a different note, our Chinese is coming along, slowly. The language sounds less strange and I know perhaps 50 to 100 words which are frequently used. I can pick them out when others use them. Of course, pronunciation is still an issue with all of the tones. We can usually communicate what we want in a restaurant, though we still get the wrong dishes occasionally. Sometimes we ask them to combine different vegetables together, but usually the answer is mei you, or have not, probably one of the most widely used words in Mandarin. It seems that even if they have the vegetables, combining things in certain ways is simply not done. It's a yin-yang thing, and if it's not on the menu, which we of course can't read, you can't get it.

Tonight, we are taking one of the older night students out to dinner, because he has been helping us to get discount airline tickets from a Chinese only airline website.

I have settled into a routine for the last several weeks of teaching. Now I just read the book, or rather have them read the book instead of trying to be creative. Boring. I have given up trying to change their way of thinking and learning, though the evening classes continue to intellectually stimulating.

We are looking foward to visiting with our older daughter, Natasha, who is coming at the end of June with a friend from social work school. Love to all, Jon

Well, it seems my rebellious ways have followed me to China. Yesterday, we heard from one of the youngest and poorest students, Sunny, who we are taken under our wing because the other students won't talk to her much, that many students have complaints about me. Most of the complaints seem to be coming from the more advanced group ,who I have attempted to get to actually think about world events ,and have strayed away from using the boring and biased 7th grade American text that we have been given. Up until now, I have refused to simply have them read from the book, and answer the mostly moronic questions in the back. Instead ,now that we are discussing the middle east I have discussed Islamic terrorism and tried to generate discussions about how governments should handle it. I have, needless to say,been critical of the US response, but any slight implication that the Chinese response has not been ideal in all parts of the world, does not go over too well. I have largely avoided discussing Tibet, since I know how they all feel, but did mention that there is a Muslim independence movement in western China, something they should, but apparently don't know. I did not say that I agreed with this movement in any way, but apparently even mentioning it was too much. One of the students left in a huff when I called on her to ask her opinion and went into one of the beginning classes where she apparently complained loudly that what I was doing had nothing to do with the book.

This prompted some students in that class to complained that I didn't use the book with them either,which is usually far too difficult for them to understand, and instead and made up my own oral dialogs for them to practice. But again, they seem to want to stick to the script, relevant or not. Later that day, we were discussing manners in different countries and how people are expected to behave under different circumstances. One of the idioms in the book was cutting in line. After explaining what it meant, I asked whether this was an acceptable thing to do in China, and explained that it happened to me all the time, and people seem to think nothing of it. Well, it seems as though it is ok to cut in line, but not to talk about it. Several students seem to think I was putting down China, because I mentioned it. This criticism I guess, caused them to loose face, despite the fact that it had nothing to do with them. Nobody said anything about this directly to me, but apparently there was talk among the other students . Whether I hear about it from the head teacher, a controlling ass, remains to be seen. As Nanette mentioned, keeping the students happy, whether they learn or not,seems to be the main objective, as the school only concern is to make money. Quality is irrelevant.

So, having been duly forewarned, I will probably go back just using the book and give up my creative ideas. My evening class, by contrast, is a breath of fresh air. We can and do discuss just about everything including Chinese Nationalism and how people in China feel about outside criticism. They don't seem to care whether we stick to the book or not. On the other hand, these are working older people, who are using their own money to attend class after working all day. They are all highly motivated to learn ,unlike many of the day students. The school, ironically, cares less about them because they pay less money

, I guess it was a mistake for the powers that be to assign to me, a history and world culture class.. Sticking strictly to English, would have made it easier to avoid any controversy. Jon

posted by Jon & Nanette @ 5:59 PM 0 Comments
limitations in teaching more obvious

We've now taught here for about 9-10 weeks and have seven more to teach. We are very glad we only signed on for one semester. Because the school is private and parents pay for their children to attend and because it is a profit making venture for the school owners, the main goal of the school is to keep the students happy. This means they don't want to have to think about things. They don't like to be challenged (Except for a few students) , many don't want to take tests and so they are absent for the tests and are fine with getting a zero. They want to memorize from the books instead of using the ideas and events in the books to have discussions. This is harder for Jon than for me because he is attempting to teach history and current events from a worldwide perspective to the advanced students. This is impossible as one can imagine in a country in which discussing past events,current policies, and having any challenging ideas is unacceptable. Yesterday at lunch another teacher told the girls (Who are already given the message that making money should be everyones goal in life) that they should not marry for love, but should marry for money. I openly disagreed but she probably has more influence on them than I do.Despite all of this which is very upsetting, my students do appear to be learning English and enjoying my class. They are the mid level students and seem more open than the advanced students.Actually as I read this I realize that I feel somewhat homesick for a country where we can openly discuss and argue and criticize. I keep remembering Ed Ticson, my art teacher telling me he was afraid for me and Jon in China, that it would be hard not to open our mouths. He was right, it is very hard. Mia also said "Why do you want to be teaching English in China, why not Laos". Yes, she was right as well. I guess we can chalk it up to one of our learning experiences. We do need to struggle in this life to learn. This seems to be a pattern for us. Love, Nanette

posted by Jon & Nanette @ 5:27 PM

For our one week vacation we flew from Xiamen to Guilin, about 800K. The area around Guilin, including the tourist city of Yangshuo, is famous for its green karst mountains, straight out of a Chinese landscape painting.

We spent two days in Guilin, wandering around on our own in the city's extensive parks and along the riverfront. We found it to be quite an attractive city, but wherever we went, other Chinese tourists and some locals wanted to take their picture with us. We felt like celebrities.

Disney characters it seems, are very popular in China with both children and adults. Here is a view of them from another section of the park pictured above.

The riverfront had it's share of wooden rafts and boats, some of which were floating restaurants.

In our guesthouse, we ran into Karen, probably the only black Canadian teacher in all of China. She too worked for WECL, though in Beijing where they had another school. Just prior to our trip we happened to be looking at the WECL newsletter and saw her picture, and there she was right next door.

We soon headed for Yangshuo, about an hour by bus. The town itself is an interesting mix of Chinese tourists and western backpacker types, complete with "Western Street" because of the number of western shops and restaurants.







The surrounding area is indeed gorgeous, with very green karst peaks sticking straight up from narrow river valleys and rice fields.

We are staying in a charming, but simple hostel, the Yangshuo Culture House, which is a few blocks away from the hustle of the main drag. The food, all part of the deal, is fantastic, and at the family styles meals we met some really nice folks from Holland and elsewhere. Nanette had a brush painting lesson with the owner Wei, which he offers free of charge.

We went on a long bike ride through several villages along the Yulong River, with our young Dutch friends.








This is ancient China, full of rice paddies being tilled the old way, by farmers with water buffaloes.

Narrow and rocky paths took us in between the villages and almost everyone was friendly and smiling.

The people live in old brick houses or houses made from adobe with slate roofs, and most of them looked to be as old as the houses. The young have all moved to the city to find work. It was a delight to get away from the hordes of tour groups that fill the main streets of Yangshuo. We ate lunch near Dragon Bridge, several hundred years old, and watched the bamboo rafts ferrying other tourists up and down the river.

The following day, we went on hike starting at Yang Di and ending at Xing Ping. We were told it was 24K in total, but it didn't seem quite that long. The trail and dirt roads weaved along on both sides of the Jiang Li River, which we had to cross about four times. The scenery was breathtaking, with sheer, rocky cliffs with lush vegetation rising directly from the river. Waves of misty peaks stretched into the distance with the occasional Buddhist shrine impossibly perched atop some of the rock outcroppings.











At one point we waded out on the slippery rocks and splashed ourselves with river water to cool down, as it got quite hot in the afternoon. At the same time a few old village women were trying to sell us fried fish and rice wrapped in banana leaves, which we didn't eat, anxious to avoid getting sick. They got big kick out of the lawei swimming in the river. Modernity has not touched everywhere in this country, at least not yet.

We find that even the few word we can say in Chinese make a big difference when we are touring like this. We can ask for simple directions and even find the bus station. This might not sound like much, but to able to make ourselves understood with all of the tones, feels like a big accomplishment.

On another excursion we took a local bus, accompanied by Karen, Bart and Maleenja, our Dutch friends, to Putao,






and then another one to Shitoucheng, which was about 10k down a very bumpy dirt road. On the bus we hired an old wrinkled farmer, just how old we found out later, to be our guide for the day.







It turns out he was 83. He took us up a steep set of old steps, muddy from the humidity and clay-like soil. We went further into the mountains and entered a world of stone houses, narrow rock walled lanes, and verdant bright green rice field interspersed with well tended vegetable gardens.







We hiked for an hour or two when our guide asked if we wanted to have lunch. We realized later that he barely understood a word of Karen's Mandarin, because he only spoke a local dialect. Karen spoke better than we did because she had spent the preceding year teaching at WECL, but obviously it was of limited value in this situation. Somehow, we managed to communicate, as we continued walking up past the old stone gates of the town and then down into another valley until we eventually reached his house. Also made of stone, the primitive place was an interesting mix of the the very old and the relatively new. The walls were adorned with a big picture of Mao, and some other old Chinese Mandarins we didn't recognize. Nevertheless they had an old TV set, and yep, you guessed it, a cell phone. They cooked our rice and vegetables on an open fire while we took several pictures of the house, and the old NiNi's and YeYe's, grandmothers and grandfathers.





Bart happened to have a pink balloon, which he blew up, and one of the grandchildren was entranced for quite a while.








We debated how many westerners had made it into this town. Opinions ranged from once a day to once a month, or hardly any.

They brought out a live chicken and asked if we wanted that for lunch, which we declined, not wanting to witness the execution. We opted for vegetables and rice, but no matter, they butchered it anyway, carefully saving the blood, and then they ate it.




Our Guide Trying to Decipher the Dictionary

We soon had our illusions shattered of being the only westerners to "discover " the place, when another young American who spoke quite good Chinese walked in with his guide. . The guide said that almost 50 westerners a day came through the town, and not only that, lunch was going to cost us 100 Yuan, $15 US, and grossly overpriced in rural China. Sure enough, they asked us for 100 Yuen when we finished. At that point we began to think that maybe the old man rode back and forth on the bus everyday, just looking for tourists to guide and bring to his house for an expensive lunch. The Chinese are certainly very canny businessmen. It took a little of the joy out of the experience, but we still got some great pictures and had an enjoyable time tramping through the village and exploring the old stone walls and gates of the the town. When we got back to Yangshuo, the town was even more packed with Chinese tourists on their May Day holiday. It was wall to wall people, complete with firecrackers going off in great bursts, buses and cars honking adding to the general din.

Today we managed another nice bicycle ride to another nearby, but uncrowded village. We had lunch at a nice spot by the river, at a "farmer food" restaurant, though once again we were overcharged. We then pedaled through the narrow lanes and found an idyllic spot to dunk ourselves in the water. For about 20 minutes our only company was a water buffalo, also enjoying the coolness of the water. After that. a couple of cute, but rambunctious boys showed up and we skipped rocks in the river with them.. They each crunched loudly on cucumbers, spitting out the seeds and skin wherever it was convenient, sometimes almost on top of us.

Getting used to the lack of personal space takes some time. The Chinese, all 1.3 billion of them, seem to love a crowd which is just as well.

We have had very interesting discussions with some of my older students. One of them, who will remain nameless here, described the Chinese character as basically selfish, in that everyone just considers his own self-interest or the interests of his immediate family. He or she said that few people pay attention to the law, and that most everyone tries to get away with things and cut corners. We talked about the traffic situation in Xiamen as an example of this. Traffic laws are not enforced and pedestrians have no rights whatsoever. When two drivers get to a corner at the same time he said, each one doesn't wait for the light, and they both try to go first (basically a game of chicken).

I asked how selfishness fits with the desire to save face, and the concern about what others think of them. The Chinese character is very complicated (s)he said, agreeing with me, that there is a kind of built in contradiction between being selfish, trying to get away with things, and concern about what others will think. It seems that if you can get away with something without anyone noticing, then face saving is not an issue. I asked about the contradiction between a very controlling government, and a people that are always trying to break rules. He/She nodded and agreed that here was another complicated issue. From his/her perspective Westerners are much more likely to obey the rules and do things fairly. Perhaps he/she said, because there are more negative consequences if they get caught trying to get away with something. From this I understood that you can get away with a lot here in China, so long as you don't challenge the government openly. Nobody seems to care about enforcing the laws and that is one reason why there is so much corruption. Of course, if there is a public scandal and you happen to be the fall guy, the consequences can be lethal.

Perhaps there is an inverse relationship between rigid centralized authority and individual rule breaking. The more tightly controlled you are from above, the more you try to get yours because there is so much inequality built into the system. Or maybe the Chinese have always been ruthless businessmen? As everyone knows by now, quality control is often lacking. I have experienced this in a direct way. So far we have had to have an electrician come into our apartment three times, to repair switches and lights, not to mention the lock on the front door which is about to break. When I told people in Cihina that I lived in a two hundred year old house at home, they were amazed. They said no one lives in a house more than 20 or 30 years. After that they tear it town. The implication was that they tear it down because it was put up so badly that it might fall down if they didn't. Planned obsolescence is a fine art here, or maybe its not planned? The constant construction is not just because of a fast growing economy.


The longer we are here, the more I realize just how conservative a society China really is, and not just the government The other night, we read a short article on values. I won't go into detail, but there were three classifications, and when I asked the students in the class where they would put themselves, all said they were traditionalists, whose main characteristic is an adherence to traditional values such as hard work, obedience to authority, and doing things the way they have always been done. They all talk of being raised by parents who on the one hand, would overprotect them to the point of cooking and cleaning for them while they were in college, but on the other hand expected total obedience. Any questioning would result in a beating. It is not just the education system that stifles individual creativity, but also the family structure remains highly rigid, based on Confucian values.

Children are taught that their parents always know what is best for them, and from a very early age parents decide what their their children will study, based on their test scores. These tests are based on rote memory . It is almost impossible to switch fields at some point later in life, because most kids are exposed to a very narrow range of ideas and information. As one person in the class put it, from age 4 or 5 children are pushed to enter a race for a good job or career so everything is scheduled for them. They have almost no time to have fun and and really not allowed to be children. Independence is simply not valued. This is slowly, very slowly, starting to change, but the pressure not to disappoint your parents who have sacrificed so much on your behalf is enormous. Even if your family has money, and you don't have to worry about a job, there is still enormous pressure to live up to your responsibilities and continue to expand the family business. Boys feel this more than girls, because they are still heavily favored and more is expected of them. Given all of this, it is really not surprising that the government can continue to operate in the way that it does. And this is not to say that on an private basis people don't question the government, but they have obviously been raised to obey authority and focus on their families.

One night someone asked me to teach more "business English", not surprising since all of them are in one kind of business or another. I suggested that we might want to brainstorm different ideas about how to do this. I explained what this meant, and they agreed it was a good idea. I asked whether brainstorming was ever something that was done at their workplace, and the answer was a definitive no. It was clearly a very non-Chinese idea.

China seems to be at a crucial time in its long history. Either it will continue to open itself to new ideas which will inevitably force greater changes, both in the government and the family structure, or the forces of conservatism, so strongly rooted in the fabric of Chinese culture, will reassert themselves, and China will shut itself off from the world, as it has many times in the past. Probably the most likely outcome, at least in the relatively short term, will be a constant push-pull between these different forces. As long as this it the case, it will continue to hamper the ability of the Chinese people to respond to world events, economic and political, in innovative ways.

You could argue that these same forces are at work in many parts of the world. It seems that the fundamentalist and traditionalist thinkers are in the ascendancy, at least in the United States. When it comes to conservative social, and increasingly even economic values, large segments of the US population are not so different than the Chinese.


My world culture class with the advanced day students continues to be a challenge. At the end of each chapter in the book there are a couple of "critical thinking" questions, and I said that I would ask these same questions on a test, which the school administration scheduled in two weeks. I went over the answers in class, but many did not understand the concepts, although they did know the meaning of the words. Of course, most of them made it clear that they had not read the book as it has nothing to do with learning English per se. I typed out a study page which contained all of the important information, and they seemed happy with this. I will obviously have to give up on my fantasies of getting them to think critically.

For the most part, they are ignorant of world events outside of China, and many don't seem to care. For example, very few of them know about the genocide in Rwanda, and they don't know that Laos and Burma border China. Of course, plenty of college kids in the US know little about events in Africa and nothing about Chinese history, but I think that more of them would be able to pick out the important things to talk about in an oral report. It's not that these kids are stupid either, but they are used to sitting in large classes of more than 50 students and being lectured to. Their role has just been to memorize whatever their teachers have told them, and they are heavily criticized for making any mistakes. This is not an atmosphere which is conducive to independent thinking.

Speaking of which, we have questioned the administration as to why tests are necessary at all. Many of the students don't take them seriously and know they will "pass" no matter what their grade happens to be. The powers that be at WECL however, want to maintain that this is a real school and how can they do that without tests. Bob, the head teacher, has turned out to be a very controlling anal type, who is full of unhelpful advice and totally unreceptive to new ideas. We try to avoid him as much as possible, but with a staff of six, this is not always easy to do. The other teachers have also been a bit of a disappointment. You might think that anyone who would choose to go abroad to China and teach would be interesting and adventurous, but that has not turned out to be the case. We prefer spending informal time with the kids and going out to dinner with them, which we do often. As it turns out, we spend more time with the less advanced students since we teach more classes with them, and since Bob has more or less corralled the others into his orbit.

The four months we have signed up for will be the right amount of time. We soon get a week off and will fly to Guilin. That will be a welcome change.

We have begun to settle into somewhat of a routine. We usually eat breakfast at home, and then do some yoga and exercise before going off to teach. For both lunch and dinner, we eat out in one of the many restaurants in our neighborhood, and by now we have sampled most of them. The locals are starting to recognize us as the Meiguaren, Americans, who are teachers in the local English school. They put up with our incredibly bad Chinese, and it is always an adventure to see if we actually get what we try and order. Nevertheless, everyone is always smiling and welcoming, and seem to get a kick out of us attempting to speak Mandarin.

For example, the Uighur place just around the corner, makes great stuffed pita bread with spinach, (my usual breakfast) and also specializes in long homemade noodles with soup or other toppings, including what tastes like pot roast. The staff always laugh when we try to explain how many pieces of bread we want to buy, and we usually end by holding up our fingers. Unfortunately even that doesn't always clarify things in China. They seem to have a different way of counting with them. It was many weeks before we figured out that we could order a cucumber and tomato salad, something of a rarity here.

They also know us in the Dongbey restaurant, or Northern Chinese, where they make excellent jowza, or dumplings, not to mention whole sea bass with tofu. They speak of us as that romantic Meiguaren couple, as we sometimes eat there by ourselves. That is unusual as eating is such a group activity.

The beer man in the local package store knows us too. As we pass his shop everyday on the way to school, he always waves and says hello. Tsingtao, from Quingdao, the local brew, is dirt cheap though the alcohol content is similar to the beer I used to drink as a freshman in the college bars of Madison. It has been around since the German's first introduced it in the early 20th century.

After lunch, we have taken to sitting on a bench in the middle of our apartment complex to soak up a little sun. Many grannies with their kids come over to us to say hello and good bye in English, and in our building people go out of their way to be friendly and to make contact with us. Unfortunately after the initial ni hao, or hello, we are at a loss , and their English doesn't seem to go much further. Perhaps after another few lessons...Despite our ongoing presence in the neighborhood, we remain something of a novelty. There are few westerners, and little kids in particular, stop and stare quite openly, and then call out to us to practice their few English words. We try and answer them in Chinese.

On several mornings we have gone down to the ocean which is not far from our apartment.







It is a nice place to walk and get exercise. One time we inquired about renting a bike, but it seemed like the concession man thought we wanted to buy it rather than rent it, as he told us the year it was made as well as giving us the price. We didn't have our dictionary with us, so decided to put that off for another day. We did walk down far enough to discover a small amusement park, not unlike the kiddie places near us in Albany. They even had the same carnival music playing, along with shoot em up and knock em down games with balls. The place looked like they were gearing up to open for the spring season. On the way back, we passed several water trucks that clean the streets, all to the tune of happy birthday.

Language misunderstandings remain commonplace. For example an electrician had to come to our apartment the other day to replace a switch that was bad. We spent about five minutes trying to say we were sorry for being late, in a mix of Chinese and then English. Finally he nodded, and also said sorry, in English, perhaps imitating us. This was apparently the extent of his English vocabulary, because when he finished the job, he handed me the switch and didn't say anything. Thinking he wanted me to throw it out, I went to do so when he started vigorously shaking his head. He took the switch out of my hand and put it on a shelf. I still have no idea why, but obviously throwing it out was not a good idea.

It seems like much of our free time is spent eating. This is the primary form of entertainment for the Chinese as well. There are literally 15 to 20 restaurants on every block. One of the ways to say hello in China is chu le ma, which means, have you had your rice yet. Chu la, we reply. Yes, have eaten. Surprisingly, most people are thin, perhaps because they don't eat dessert. Last night we went to an out of the way barbecue place in a downtown alleyway. We would never have found it on our own, but we went with one of the Chinese staff at the school, James, as well as Morgan, the young English teacher who speaks fluent Mandarin. James picked out the food, which was a large selection of veggies, meat, seafood, and tofu, called dofu here, so it is one of the few words we can remember easily. We then sat around a large frying pan heated with gas from below and cooked our dinner. We must have had about 10 courses altogether, not to mention almost a case of beer. After eating, we sat around the table and played liar's dice, not unlike poker. It is based on bluffing about how high a number you have rolled. The loser says gombey, bottoms up, and has to drink another bottle of beer. They went easy on me as I was an old lawai, foreigner. There was real mix of people, some dressed in suits, others in jeans, but all obviously local. It was a great evening, but I had to run more the next day to work off all that beer.

We went by bus by ourselves to Gulanyu. This small island is a five minute ferry ride from downtown, and was settled mostly by rich foreigners in the late 19th century. They built mansions, churches and even music schools. For a time it was known as the piano island because of the classical music that could be heard wafting above the sound of the surf. Although far more touristy now (Chinese tourists that is) it remains charming with old buildings, plenty of which are in disrepair, winding narrow alleys, and blessedly, no cars. It is quite hilly, and we spent a couple of hours just wandering around. And of course, there are lots of restaurants facing the harbor

We have continued to explore other parts of the city on our own as well, and we have been largely successful in taking the buses around town and getting back to our neighborhood, Chow Fu Chen. Only once or twice have we had to resort to taking cabs and showing them the business card from the school, which has the address in Chinese. The buses however do not always go the same route because of all of the construction going on, which confuses things even further. Literally every 15 minutes there is a huge boom and an old building comes down. Seemingly just as fast, a new one goes up, and although Xiamen is relatively unpolluted compared to other Chinese cities, the construction dust in the air is noticeable. Crossing the street on foot can be challenging, as lights seem to mean nothing. Buses in particular routinely go through red lights, and cars often drive and park on the wide sidewalks. This may be one of the few socially sanctioned ways of rebelling.

Life here reminds me a little of the movie Being John Malkovitch. Playing himself, he gets stuck in a elevator between floors, and is forced to live in a topsy- turvy world on floor 7&1/2, where nothing is quite what it seems. He lives like this for quite a while before falling into a hole, and ending up somewhere near the the New Jersey Turnpike not far from the Lincoln Tunnel . I'm not sure we'll end up there, at least I hope not, but life here is similiar to floor 7&1/2. It's always intriguing, but accomplishing everyday tasks you take for granted takes much longer because of the language issues. In another few weeks, we get time off and are trying to decide where to go. Traveling will certainly be an experience, because in many places in China they only speak a local language, very different even from the few words of Mandarin that we struggle with. We have certainly been to many places where English was not widely spoken, but it seems different here, despite the fact that many young people have studied English in school for years.

Chinese, at least to us, is an amazingly circuitous language. It's hard to say anything simply, even harder to pronounce, and of course, impossible to read without spending years becoming a calligraphy artist. I'm sure that the language and its intricacies effect the way people think and act, or is it the other way around? In some ways, China is less different and certainly less third world in Xiamen, then other places we have been, and yet in other ways it is the most different and hardest to comprehend.

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