School is going well. I told you that the university combined two Oral English classes into one on Mondays at 8:00. I have moved the smaller of the two classes to Monday at 2:00 p.m., so basically I am volunteering my time for two hours a week. It was just too hard to get anything done in a class of 60 when I was trying to listen to each of them speak at least once a week. I hope this will solve the problem. We’ll see tomorrow.
I told one of my writing classes a ghost story this week. It was in an essay by Mark Twain about how to tell a story. They read the first part of the essay together, but the ghost story was in African American dialect so I decided to tell it to them. I turned off the lights, but I put the words on the screen because they do not understand spoken speech very well still—let alone a strange American dialect. It is a story I heard at girl’s camp years ago, so you probably know the story: The Golden Arm. Well, I was really getting into it with the phrase: O-o-o-o-o--W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n—a-r-m? --and the students were huddled together, acting scared but laughing at the same time. When I got to the end, Mark Twain tells the reader to find a girl in audience, pause dramatically, and then say, “You’ve got it!” Well, I did that and the girl jumped about two inches off her stool. Everyone laughed. I hope that she was not traumatized by that experience. I don’t think they tell ghost stories here. I am just trying to share American culture with them because they are translation students and need to know these things for future reference.
I went on two shopping excursions this weekend. I am usually so busy planning lessons or correcting essays that I don’t get out much. However, with spring fever in the air, I wanted to stretch my legs a bit. On Friday we went down to Metro for the necessities of life: printer ink and raisins. I overheard one of the German teachers on the bus talking about German milk, and I found some in the dairy case. Since the Chinese milk is not refrigerated, I could already tell that this was the real thing. Then I drank a glass for breakfast the next morning. It was totally delicious! Rich, creamy, and no after taste. I have forgotten how good skim milk is when it comes from a COW. I have no idea where Chinese milk comes from—a BOX?
On Saturday I went souvenir shopping with the Phillippis at the Muslim market. This is the place where the merchant and the shopper bargain for the best price. I am not very good at it, but I did bargain a little bit. The discouraging part is that I would buy something for what I thought was a pretty good price and then go to the next stall and find out they were selling it for 10 or 20 yuan less. That is seriously two or three American dollars less than I spent at the other stall! So frustrating!
After we spent enough money, we went to Pizza Hut for lunch. The Phillippis ordered their meal, and then I motioned to the waitress that we wanted separate checks and ordered my meal. Evidently my sign language did not register because she thought I ordered what they were having plus what I ordered. So, I got two dinners. These experiences remind me that I am a foreigner in China. Can you believe that I sometimes forget that?
Afterwards we went to Dairy Queen for an ice cream treat. I love soft ice cream and,the ice cream tastes like the kind I get at home. (It could have something to do with the fact that Dairy Queen is an American company.) We were savoring our luscious dessert when we turned around and saw three white teenage faces. Then they opened their mouths to order and we heard that American accent. We talked to one of them, and he said they were on a “two-week field trip to China” from a high school in Connecticut. How would that be? Boy, we used to go down the road to the Environmental Center and think we were in Paradise. They landed in Beijing and spent a few days there and probably some other cities. Recently they had been in Xi’an for three days, and were headed back to Jinan to stay with a Chinese family with students from their “sister” school. Now that will be a “real” Chinese experience. I had to laugh because where else would you expect to find Americans teenagers on a sightseeing tour in a foreign country but in a familiar place like Dairy Queen.
Life goes on here just like it does where you are. I am happy to be in China and learning how to be humble and teachable. I hope that all is well with you.
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