Chinese Short Stories

I have been doing teacher homework where I have been reading and reading trying to find stories for my English short story class.  Last semester was pretty much a disaster where attendance in one class in the middle of the semester reached a low time self-esteem hitting low of zero students.  Ninety percent of the students out of three classes just stopped coming for the rest of the semester. 

 

What was I doing wrong? 

 

I have the class again but this time with juniors instead of seniors, and I will not be discouraged.  I will try to be all that I can be, a prepared teacher who has done her homework and planned a well thought out lesson.

 

This semester I have decided to compare Chinese stories with western stories that have similar themes. 

 

As I do my homework reading story after story from ancient China, with morals, happy endings and lessons on how to live life, how to treat your parents and the leaders of the country, I am having a hard time identifying with the characters, and often just want to stop reading and gouge my eyes out.  It makes me wonder, are the students also having a hard time connecting with the human behaviors in the western stories that reflect the raw reality and pain of life of people in a far away land? 

 

I think Lynn Holmes in her introduction to An Anthology of Chinese Short Short Stories selected and translated by Harry J. Huang, explains the difference between western stories and Chinese stories.  She writes, "...the purpose if there is one (behind Chinese storytelling): the expectation that each story will have a moral, a point, a positive value in our own lives or community."  In the multicultural society, she explains, "If fiction is designed to give us imaginative access to other selves, and since to be human is necessarily to suffer and to face the unpleasant, what we gain from our reading is an extra concentrated dose of simulated life."  There is quite a big difference between our cultures' literature.

 

I am hoping through this semester's class, I will be able to bridge the gap between the expectations of stories with morals and happy endings with stories that do not always show the rosy side of life, but the raw reality of it.  I hope that the students will be able to teach me about their literature and help me appreciate it more, and in turn I will attempt to help them appreciate and understand western short stories.

 

Wish me luck and stay tuned...  Will I drive all of my students away?  Will they keep coming to class?  What will I learn this semester?

Thank You Previous Volunteers

After being at this university for two years, I have realized how important the Tree House English Resource and Community Center is. The previous volunteers who started it and kept it going over the past years need to be commended. I strongly urge all volunteers to try to start their own English resource center legacy that could lead to great things for the future.

The Tree House is a great resource for students:

• It provides a selection of books that students are interested in at a level that they can understand. Without the resource center, many students would only have either Chinese and English cliff note types of summaries of major classics, inspirational English essays, or the actual classics that are too hard to understand. The Tree House with its variety of books motivates more students to read.
• It provides a space to practice English.
• It helps students become leaders.

The Tree House is a great resource for volunteers:

• When I first arrived at this university, I was a lost soul. The Tree House within the first month provides a community from which a volunteer could learn from.
• The Tree House instantly provides a secondary project as well as a place where volunteers can go and interact with students outside of the classroom to learn more about their needs and wants.
• It provides a constant group of workers who volunteer to organize and participate in Tree House activities. When we first introduced students to the idea of creating and managing a project, we were met with a lot of resistance, a lot of sighs of frustration and boredom. We plowed through though because they were the workers and were responsible for showing up to work. It was hard for them to see the end product, but finally big events were held and the workers could feel pride in coming up with an idea and seeing it to the end.
• The Tree House helped me get to know my site mate better. We might have stayed holed up in our own apartments if it hadn't been for the Tree House.
• The Tree House is the epicenter for everything we do here. We make AIDS/HIV posters. We talk about gender issues. We learn about Western manners. We organize dancing, game nights, and a nature festival. We hold post graduate mock interviews. We have weekly movies and annual culture parties. We hold reading competitions and create books of our own writing. We start clubs at the request of the students.

Because it is a physical place with students who fill it, the Tree House is a stable, constant, sustainable point that helps volunteers and students every semester create learning outside of the classroom. If I only had a women's club, a knitting club, or a writing club, those clubs would most likely disappear when I leave. The Tree House on the other hand is always there waiting for a new volunteer, for new students to enter and create something through their cooperative desire to learn and teach English.

I just want to thank the string of previous volunteers who left this legacy of a Tree House. It really made my Peace Corps job easier and the benefits that the students have received over the years from the Tree House are too numerous to count.

Dinner Party to Learn Western Manners

Two months ago, Monday night Tree House workers thought it would be fun to learn about Western manners and to learn how to cook a Western dish. They drew a vision map. Part of the vision was accomplished.

Over the past two months, they learned about western manners, planned a menu, picked out music, made lists of things to buy, created a role play to teach five manners, invited students to the Tree House to learn about western manners weeks before the party. Those who came to the Tree House and were able to describe the differences between a Western manner with a Chinese manner received an invitation ticket to the main event a real dinner party.

It was a three course meal:
1. Watermelon, cucumber, tomato salad
2. Ham and spaghetti
3. Cake

Over a period of 2 hours, three groups of ten students visited the Tree House at the designated time on their invitations, watched a role play and then practiced their western manners by eating a meal prepared by my site mate.

The role play consisted of 6 students: one student introduced the role play, four students played two Americans and two Chinese people exchanging ideas about manners, the sixth student had a hammer, would knock the students on the head when they did something wrong and then would reveal a painted sign with the rule for the correct Western manner.

(Which rule is being broken here?)

What were the five rules?
1. Napkin in lap
2. Pass food
3. Don't make noise when eating
4. Cut food into small pieces
5. No elbows on the table

All the students really loved the event. They thought the spaghetti was strange tasting. Some said it was sweet. Others thought the salad was strange mixing fruit with vegetables. They said it was salty. They thought it was inconvenient to have to use the right hand to cut the meat into small pieces then switch hands to use the fork in the right hand to eat with. They learned how to use a fork to spin the spaghetti into a nice little mouthful.

It was interesting to watch the students use forks and knives, to cut food, to pass food, to wonder how to eat noodles with a fork, to use serving utensils rather than their own. As someone who grew up using a fork and knife, I forgot just how different western manners are from Chinese habits.

I was really proud of the Tree House workers. I didn't have to do anything except make small talk with the students. The workers led the event and would tell the students how they could improve their Western manners.

Everyone hopes that next year there will be another dinner party.

Nature Festival

was a grand success. We danced a circle dance from Israel, a circle dance from Greece, and the cha cha. We hit three pinatas full of candy. We ate watermelon. We played games. We watched a few performances: flute player, singer who sang a song by Avril Lavigne, a hand clap "Miss Mary Mack", and "Going on a Bear Hunt."It took two months to plan, and the students who planned it were extremely proud. I think we were all amazed that an idea started in Chengdu with a Project Design and Management Workshop could lead to students drawing their own idea on flip chart paper and then moving it from theory to reality.

The method that was learned at the the workshop, gave structure to help everyone focus their ideas to create a project. Over the past two years we have tried to get students to plan culture activities, to think up ideas of how to improve the Tree House but often have failed. Following a few of the steps in the workshop book really helped us.The great thing about the Nature Festival project was that it combined Western ideas with Chinese ideas. My site mate and I were pushing the students' creativity to think outside of the typical activities that they do. Instead of just putting on a role play and doing a variety of performances, what else could we do? What else could we learn? How could we use English in a different way than English corner and free talk? It took time for the students to understand what we were trying to do which is why it took 2 months to plan the activity.

One difficulty that my site mate and I have always had in planning culture events for the students is making the party last for more than an hour. Having the students plan the whole event made it also very Chinese with LOTS of activities. We first pushed a Western idea on the students- think of something fun and different that would entice students to come and learn English in a non classroom way, to create a real English environment somehow. Then the students took the Western idea and planned a Chinese event. It was the combination of two cultures.

I think one reason that it was so successful was because we spent a lot of time planning, and didn't push for instant success. Americans usually are very efficient, can think up an idea, plan it and have it ready to go in a week or so. It took longer for our students especially since we were trying to plan something that was outside of their realm of familiarity.

Students are quite used to the idea of last minute planning since schedules in China are a big unknown, and events are often last minute with very little warning. (Just two days ago students learned about a speech competition that they have to prepare for. Write and practice a speech about Culture Smart Science Intelligent in two days.) So when we learned that the nature festival had to be changed from Saturday to Friday, the students were on top of it. Do this. Do that. Get this ready. Last minute planning is their strength, but what made this last minute planning different was that they had already spent two months thinking up different ways to hold the event. We didn't just plan a typical Chinese event, but something new. It was a combination of having two months to become comfortable with a new idea combined with the last minute planning that happens so often because of the scheduling unknowns.

We spent two months using English to plan an event. Then the event was a great success. Many students used English. More students are now aware of the Tree House and maybe are a little less afraid of speaking English and interacting with the foreign teachers. The vision we had in Chengdu to improve the visibility and attendance of the Tree House English Community Resource Center so that we could meet the needs and wants of a larger student population was accomplished. The vision the students had to hold a nature festival with dancing and games was successful. Two visions made into reality with one big bang.

Games:
1. English chairs (I learned this game in Guinea during PST.)

• Everyone sits in chairs in a circle with one person in the middle. (If there are 30 people, then you only have 29 chairs.)
• The person in the middle says a true statement. For example, I like ice cream.
• If you like you ice cream, then you have to stand up and find a new chair. The person who doesn't find a new chair, stands in the middle and says a true statement.

Because we were outside, we did not bring out 60 chairs. Instead we used newspaper as chairs and stood on the pieces of paper.

2. Blind obstacle course race (I learned this game in Africa too.)

• Create an obstacle course using people.
• One person is blindfolded, and their teammate leads them through the obstacle course using only voice directions.
• You can have several teams and have a race.

How to improve the event:

The one criticism I have is that I led the activities that had been planned by the students because we were outside and needed a STRONG voice to take charge and use English in a loud teacher way. I think next time we will try our best to have it more student led.

Work

I don't know if China has temp agencies, but there is a place where laborers gather on a corner of the downtown roundabout. I don't know if they are migrant workers or are farmers from the countryside. They all have the old Chinese bicycles, the Flying Pigeon, that were once a symbol of an egalitarian social system and usually have a couple tools like shovels and picks tied to the back rack. On rainy days there there are a lot of workers. On sunny days only a few. It reminds me of the times when I would sit at the temp agency in Alabama full of men in their work clothes and tool belts waiting to be sent out to work. If my language was better, I think it would be extremely fascinating if I could join those workers for a day, taking pictures and doing interviews.

During the lunch hour between noon and 2:30, everyone takes naps, even the guys who are paving the open market with sticky black asphalt.

This morning I've been lesson planning since 7:30 am. I have to teach a freshmen listening class tomorrow and because we have been working so hard listening to news broadcasts, dictations, and book work, I wanted to do a more fun class with either a 30 minute video or an interesting story. Lesson planning out of a book with a CD is so much easier than searching for material all over the Internet.

If the students' computer monitors had worked yesterday, today's planning would have been easier; however, I must plan for two types of lessons, one for if the monitors don't work and one for if the monitors do work. It is double the work.

I have finished a lesson plan using an audio clip from Storynory. Now I have to write a lesson plan using a TV show. I really really hope the monitors work tomorrow because the students deserve a relaxing funny video lesson. News broadcasts can be so boring but important since they will be on next year's national exam.

I also have a backup lesson plan in case the audio doesn't work in the listening lab. Experienced teachers learn to have several back up lessons in their bag in case equipment fails.

Also, people keep telling me, "You think too much; therefore, you will never be happy." Really?

Tree House Arts and Crafts

During Tuesday nights Tree House workers are planning a Nature Festival that will be held outside, games and dancing. They have been building and painting pinatas.

During every Freshmen listening class with a total of about 100 students, I announce all of the Tree House activities. During the Tuesday activity of arts and crafts, no one came except for the workers.

I asked the students, "Why doesn't anyone come? Do they not like painting and doing art? Did they not understand my announcements about Tree House activities?"

The volunteer workers replied, "Art is for serious artists, so students aren't really interested in painting."

Success

Living in a new culture that has different expectations, different time scales, different priorities, as Americans we often feel frustrated feeling that nothing has been accomplished. A typical Peace Corps mantra is "Be flexible and redefine success."

I redefined success a lot in Africa. I redefined it in China. The new definition of success had a simplicity about it, a personal one on one type of impact. I felt successful whenever I would leave my African house, would meet a new person, would carry rocks with the community to the mosque, would help a student with a math problem. I felt success when someone finally understood my Chinese only after one try, "Where is the W.C.?"

In Peace Corps success often comes in little packages.

However this past week, wow... super successful! Incredibly so!

In April, we went to Chengdu for a workshop and planned a project to motivate more students to visit the Tree House English Resource and Community Center. It is now almost June and we are slowly reaping the benefits of participating in that workshop.

Tuesday's Tree House workers want to host a nature festival where there will be dancing. They invited a foreign teacher from another school to come and teach how us to dance. Friday night over 50 students came to learn a dance from Israel and Greece as well as the cha cha and the twist.

Saturday was knitting club. The girls are getting really good at reading English knitting patterns.

Monday's Tree House workers want to host a dinner party to learn about Western manners. Tonight about 20 people came to the Tree House to get their dinner party invitations by participating in a short lesson about Western and Chinese manners. At the desk students read about Western manners, discussed them with the teachers, and then wrote a few rules on flip chart paper. In the couch area, the Tree House workers planned a skit for the dinner party and picked out the background music.

Knitting Frenzy

Today is knitting club. To show the girls what they could knit after they finish their cats or felted money purses, I am knitting 4 small projects- a ball, a heart, a pumpkin, a pocket bunny. It is a knitting frenzy. Put on the music or a podcast and go.

Do you have any suggestions of small projects that beginner knitters would have fun doing?

Blessings of Dance

Tonight the Tree House was jamming to learn traditional dances from Israel and Greece as well as the cha cha and the twist.  The energy of a room full of 60 plus dancing students was one of pure joy, laughter, and smiles.  It was wonderful.

Tree House Project Updates

Monday Night:  Dinner Party

Students have designed a project to learn about Western table manners and are currently managing it.  They have discussed Chinese versus American table manners.  They have planned a menu for the main event, an actual dinner party.  They came up with a great idea that in order to participate in the dinner party, students have to come to the Tree House on Monday night to learn about western manners before the event.  Each participating student will be given an invitation ticket to the "by invitation only dinner party".  This is a great idea on so many levels. 

 

1.  We will know how many people will attend the party so we can buy enough food. 

2.  We can organize the students into different time groups so that we don't get 20 students showing up to the Tree House where the table only fits 12. 

3.  We accomplish our main goal of trying to motivate more students to visit the Tree House.

 

Tuesday Night:  Nature Festival

Students have designed a project to have an outdoor nature festival.  They have made pinatas and will soon paint them.  They  have invited a foreign teacher to come and teach them some Western dances.  The have made a list of games like watermelon eating competition and water balloon toss.  They have decided that their initial idea of planting a tree or flowers is not feasible because it is summer and not spring.

 

One interesting aspect that occurred during the planning of this festival was how we were reading the same words on the list of things to do but understanding the words differently.

 

1.  Invite a teacher to teach us how to dance.

2.  Invite a teacher to teach us about makeup.

 

When I read these words I assumed, we would be learning how to dance in order to teach participants at the nature festival how to dance so we can have a nature festival dance.  I also assumed we would be using the makeup skills to do face painting at the festival.  The students thought we were going to learn how to dance in order to prepare a performance for the festival and would have to put on a lot of makeup in order to be in the performance.  That was an interesting culture moment.

 

Creative Writing Club

Currently we are trying to write compositions and poems to put into the book, but I have suddenly lost a lot of participants.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog about how my writing esteem has taken a hit through writing club because I have to pick something to publish.  Well guess what.  It has happened to my students too.  They feel a lack of confidence.  They don't want to submit their writing to be published.  All the free writing we did this semester, all the little gems written did not give their writing self-esteems a boost.  I am not a critical teacher, but an encouraging one.  We did no editing during writing club. 

 

The problem is the idea of having other people read your work is just scary!

 

Buying of books with RELO grant

Our Amazon China shopping cart is full with about 1600 RMB worth of books and about 200 RMB worth of shipping; however, we have not ordered the books yet because if we ordered them today the books would arrive in August when the school is totally shut down and closed.  No one would be here to receive the books.  We are waiting a month to push the shipment date towards September.  Good thing I am doing a third year with Peace Corps at this site.

News

that would have made a BIG difference this semester!

This spring I taught a senior course titled English Short Stories which had an enrollment of 100 students. Twelves hours a week, I would show up regularly to the classroom and sometimes zero students would appear, sometimes one, at the most 5. It was a frustrating semester.

Last night I learned some news that would have made ALL the difference. I could have been less frustrated. I would have made the class less academic but more like a book club. I would have combined all the classes into 4 hours a week. Instead of teaching the same lesson plan three times a week to an empty classroom, I would have only taught it once a week to a somewhat fuller class.

What was the big news?

The information that no one thought was important enough to tell the teacher was

The English Short Stories course is an informal course with no grade or final exam.

ARGH!!! My students spent $5 on photocopies for the course, and I spent over $100 this semester making photocopies for the students because there was no book. I didn't want my course to cost too much money out of their already empty pockets. If I had known it was an informal course, I could have found a way to make it cheaper for all of us.

To Beginners Learning to Draw

I do not have a natural talent for drawing.

When we were growing up, my brother was always putting pencil to paper, using crayons to decorate self-designed tennis shoes and cars, using pen to create elaborate wars and battles. He was naturally talented. I could draw a rectangle with a triangle roof, a circle for a sun, and stick figures of different heights to represent mom, dad, my brother and me.

In college after a breakup, to fill the empty time I bought a book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Edwards, and tried to learn how to draw. I started learning how to see angles, shapes, and relationships between lines.

It has been 10 years since my first attempt at learning how to draw.

I have taken up the pen and pencil again and am amazed that I am not back at square one, am amazed that I haven't forgotten everything that I know about drawing. My ability to see and to draw what I see comes to me faster than it did when I was 19. My drawings are no longer just simple line drawings but actually sometimes have some shading. I never understood shading before, but suddenly it has started happening. I still have a lot to learn. I make a lot of mistakes, yet my bag of drawing skills is becoming more full.

Even people who are not naturally talented artists can learn how to draw, how to paint, how to color. So if you are just starting to learn how to draw, don't get discouraged. If you keep practicing, if you keep drawing, your skills will improve.

Productive Office Hours

The Tree House was hopping busy tonight.

We had one corner of freshmen knitting kitties.

In another corner two freshmen were making Friday night's movie poster and planning next week's Free Talk.

In another corner a non-major was talking to my site mate.

Then next to me a freshman was telling me how to cook spicy noodles.

Then a teacher came in and asked if I could help him with some questions about Roald Dahl's "The Umbrella Man" that he is trying to translate into Chinese.

And to top it all off seniors were coming in and out of the library to have their English Short Story notebooks graded.

Learning Math in Knitting Club

Today 5 of us walked to the knitting store and bought an array of colors to knit stuffed animals, cats and small felted money purses. We got ice cream on the way back and then went to the garden where 18 girls were waiting for us plus shockingly one boy. I did tell the boys that they could come even if they didn't want to knit. They could talk and eat the provided snacks. What was even more shocking was this boy could knit, both the knit stitch and the purl stitch, asking if he could knit a kitten into the purse. I was like wow.. that is hard, but if you want to go ahead.

We learned how to read a simple knitting pattern.

We had to do calculations in order to make buttonholes. I bet it was the first time in a lot of the students' lives to ever have to actually do a calculation in English for an actual real life purpose. They didn't understand the English I was using.

What is 24 divided by 2?
What is 12 minus 2?
I wonder if they have ever learned
how to do math in English.

The RELO grant wanted the project to be directed to English learning. This Saturday while knitting we learned how to do math in English.

Hodge Podge of a Day

Successful Lesson Plan

(even though there were only 5 students)

Last week we studied Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman's "A New England Nun" about an American woman who waited 14 years for her fiancee to return from making his fortune. Then today the students read a short story by a Chinese author Xinran who wrote the book The Good Women in China. We read the story "The Woman who Waited 45 years." I wanted to compare the two women who both were waiting for their fiancees to return.

I taught the story about the American woman and the students taught the story about the Chinese woman. It was the first time the students didn't stop for their 10 minute break instead they continued reading even after I said, "Time for break."

Then when the students became the teacher, it was the first time in the past 8 weeks that every student opened their mouths to answer the student teacher's questions. It was the first time that students volunteered information as I became a student learning about Chinese history and culture from the time period of 1946-1976. It was the most lively discussion we have ever had in the classroom.

I have learned that if I ever teach an English short story class again, I will teach stories in pairs, a western one and a Chinese one, comparing the differences and similarities between the two stories that share a similar universal theme.

Student's Question

During today's break, a student asked me, "Why do you wear boy clothes?"

I answered, "I like clothes that are of a single dark color and in China these types of colors are typically associated with males. I don't like a lot of color, prints, or decorations. Americans often like simple styles rather than flashy, doesn't necessarily mean that they are male clothes. I do like feminine clothes like skirts and sun dresses but often my feminine clothes are ethnic, styles from Africa. Also, in China I feel like feminine clothes won't fit me because I have broad shoulders."

The student commented, "Your dresses and skirts are too long."

I started wondering, hmm... in America I often do dress pretty masculine even for America, but wouldn't you say that American women dress more Chinese masculine than Chinese feminine? If we remember the 2008 Olympics, the American athletes, male and female both wore the same khaki pants and dark blue blazers.

I think in America there is less of a divide between masculine and feminine styles compared to China? Or have I forgotten what American fashion is like? In America are we as gender specific with fashion compared to China?

Cafeteria

The one thing I despise about eating noodles in the restaurants surrounding the university is there are no vegetables nor meat in the mix. You might get a teaspoon of ground meat, a spoonful of egg and vegetables. You will get plenty of oil and red pepper though. Blech. Noodles and oil is not what I call nutritious.

Today during the 10 minute break in the 2 hour lesson, I asked the students, "What should I have for lunch today?"
They answered, "NOODLES."
I answered, "What kind?"
They then went through about 10 different noodles dishes and I told them I want the noodle dish with the most vegetables.
Their instant reply was, "Cai gai mian 菜盖面. You can order it in the Muslim cafeteria."

Around 12:30 after the crowds of students had finished eating, I went to the Muslim cafeteria and ordered. Out came a plate of freshly made linguine type of noodles and the worker asked me which vegetables I wanted. I pointed to the various trays of Chinese food all made from vegetables- battered fried eggplant, stir-fried celery, stir-fried mushrooms, ma pa tofu, and green onions.

I got my wish, a plate full of noodles covered with vegetables instead of oil.

Designing Projects

Two weekends ago, four of us, two PCVs, one student, and one teacher went to Chengdu for a Peace Corps workshop called Project Design and Management Workshop. We filled flip chart paper with ideas, visions, resources, plan of action, and budgets.

Our vision is to have a library that doubles as an English community learning center that meets the needs and wants of a large number of students and teachers. Right now we get an average of 11 visitors per night and want to increase that number. We planned a project where our Tree House volunteer workers would design their own project, creating an activity that might motivate other students to visit.

Tonight, our Monday night Tree House volunteer workers started designing their first project. Their vision is for Mondays to be Food Night. They want to host a cooking show and have a manners dinner party.

I wonder what Tuesday night will be.

Knitting in the Garden

This morning, after spending two hours on my bike in the quiet of my mind and the silence of the countryside, with dirt and dust surrounding me, I realized that I am awfully irked and tense this semester. Teaching 12 hours a week of senior classes where 0-8 students attend has been frustrating.

My motivation to teach and to do secondary projects has waned.
If no one wants to learn, why teach?

Today I waited in the garden for students to gather for the 2nd official meeting of knitting club, expecting no one to show. I hadn't posted any posters. I hadn't told anyone. I was just hoping that the 10 students who attended the first meeting would show up again, but a large part of me doubted the students. After one holiday weekend and after spending another weekend in Chengdu, two weeks had passed since the first meeting. Would anyone remember? Would anyone want to come? Would the knitting club just fizzle after one meeting?

Eighteen girls showed up.
It warmed my heart.

Only three admitted to being able to knit. The rest denied the fact that they had ever knitted before; however, I was a bit suspicious. Either they were all naturally talented, had learned how to knit through osmosis by watching their female relatives knit during their lifetimes, were super fast learners, or fibbed a bit about their knitting skills. All of them after one lesson had a small knitted swatch with very little teaching from me or from the three who admitted to knowing how to knit.

It was a brilliant learning English outside of the classroom opportunity.

They all spoke English, teasing each other with playful comments like "You're a grandmother." "So ugly." They learned new vocabulary- knitting, yarn, needles, knit, purl, cast on and cast off. They used the vocabulary they knew to express themselves, "Put the stick in the circle."

Next week I wonder how many students will come. We will start our projects. Some are even interested in knitting sweaters for people who lost everything in the recent earthquake. I suggested we start with hats.

After the third knitting meeting, I will be out of town two weekends in a row again. Will the knitting club die?

The last semester as a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) is great because you know your community, you know what they want, you know how to get things done. Secondary projects have the potential to be very productive during the last semester. You know what you are doing; however, during the last semester as a PCV you have the potential to be out of site a lot. There is a COS (close of service) conference and you want to use your last three day holiday weekends to see different parts of China for the last time before returning to the USA. The last semester is great and also not so great.

Life Tidbits

Chengdu

During a weekend trip for a PC workshop on designing secondary projects, my sitemate, a Chinese teacher, a Chinese student and I brainstormed ideas of how to improve the Tree House and how to entice more students to visit and practice their English

1. Feng shui the library room
2. Host activity nights planned by students

Weather
cold with about an inch of snow

Apartment
no heat
using a sleeping bag and lots of layers
Knitted goods are useful for moments like these.

Monday's class
one student

Wednesday's class
zero students

Emotions

Angry
What is the point of teaching in China if no one comes to class?

Disordered
I have started packing trying to order my house, throwing away stuff, and trying to figure out what is really important to keep.

Excited
There is a new excitement in the Tree House to learn English outside of the classroom.

Blah
Tired of cafeteria food and noodles.

Stressed
I need to return to Chengdu to get medically cleared so I can stay for a third year. This means I have to miss classes.

Lost
Currently I have a lot of questions running in my head about relationships, identity, life in China, as well as getting lost in the realm of Internet.

Unhappy
I have not been able to find time to study Chinese this semester because of my full plate.

Scared
Do I really want to go back to the USA for a month home leave?

Chinese Post Graduate Interviews

Several seniors have come to the Tree House to ask for advice about their post graduate interview. They passed the written portion of the post graduate exam and now just have to pass the oral interview.

As an American, when I hear the word interview, the image that comes to mind is one person asking a lot of questions and the other person answering trying to impress the other and sell themselves.

In China, I am not sure what a post graduate interview is.

The students also do not know.

Student: Can you help me write my introduction?

Me: How long does it have to be?

Student: Don't know 10 minutes?

Me: How long is the interview?

Student: Maybe 20-30 minutes?

Me: What do you want to tell the interviewers?

Students: My background, age, name, why I want to go to graduate school. I am a hard worker and a good student.

Me: Is it a speech? Will the interviewer interrupt you?

Students: No. I don't think so. I think they will ask questions after my introduction.

Me: What kind of questions?

Students: I don't know but I am really nervous that they will ask me general knowledge questions that I don't know the answer to.

I am not the right person to be giving the students advice about a post graduate interview that neither of us have any experience with.

Reading their introduction speeches makes me think about an English speech competition. Whoever does the best 10 minute speech, will win. Most of the speeches are exactly the same, flowery words saying nothing specific, general adjectives that can describe every student I know. "I am a diligent, hard-working, dedicated girl who has perseverance. I want to further my education to better myself and gain knowledge."

The winners of speech competitions are the ones who catch the judges ears by their presentation skills plus their English pronunciation and fluency abilities not by what they are actually saying especially since most of them are saying the same thing.

I wonder is that how they pick the post graduate candidates, presentation and English skills rather than the content of their introduction speech?

Bad volunteer?

After struggling with one of my senior classes, this week I finally had 12 students with enough books that everyone was sharing one between two. Compared to last week where on one day I only had one student and on the next I had 16 who only brought two books, Monday's class was excellent.

So yay!

Yet my spirit feels a heavy nay.

I am tired and exhausted.

I have not had a weekend yet.
Yep no weekend
where the time is only for me,
no work responsibility.
What do you mean? No weekend?
Didn't you just finish Saturday and Sunday?

Yeah, but I was working on Saturday and Sunday, preparing for clubs, for lessons, then having knitting club followed by writing club. The weekend was not my own but filled with scattered work.

In one week, I have spent 34 hours interacting with students. It is draining. When I have free time for myself it is not really my own because I have to prepare lessons and activities. My schedule is scattered so even though I get big chunks of free time, it still feels like I am working all day from 8 am-7 pm. There are very few moments where I feel like there is no responsibility on my plate except when I lay my head down to go to sleep.

This semester reminds me of how parents are always on. They go to work and when they come home they have their kids to be responsible for. My time is filled with students morning, noon, and evenings. I get moments of free time, but haven't learned how to use them to unwind and re-energize.

I feel like I need a full day without social interactions with students, without feeling the stress that I should be preparing for lessons and clubs. I need solitude from the patience and engaged attitude one needs in order to have English conversations with English learners. I need a moment of rest from the not very intellectually stimulating interactions where the focus is on the student. I need to be able to leave work at work, but as a volunteer in China my life and my social interactions are work.

Over the past year and a half I have had a light teaching load of 10 hours a week; therefore, I filled the time by interacting with students outside of class in the English community center. This semester I have jumped to a teaching load of 16 hours a week and still feel responsible to maintain the interactions with students outside of class.

The question I need to ask though is when is too much too much? Maybe I should cut back? As a volunteer should I drive myself to exhaustion turning into a drained shell of a person unhappy, stressed, going to bed early and having anxiety dreams, feeling the dread of each day, feeling like a machine churning out English learning conversations?

Teaching volunteers in China are responsible for their primary job of teaching English in university classrooms. Plus there is a slight push to do secondary projects. Volunteers can feel pleased with their volunteer service if they are successful at their primary job even if they only do a small secondary project.

My dilemma is will I still be a good volunteer if I cut back my secondary projects from 18 hours a week to maybe something a lot less?

I fear that if I stop going to the Tree House the students will be disappointed since many of the workers volunteered to work in the library in order to have weekly conversations with a native speaker where they have to be there because it is their job.

When I asked one of the Freshmen assistant managers, "Do you like being responsible for opening the door twice a week and having to sit in the Tree House for four hours a week?"

She replied, "Yes I do because it forces me to go to the Tree House to practice my oral English."

If I cut back my secondary projects from 18 hours a week to something a lot less, students won't get to interact with me as much on a one on one level, will I still be a good volunteer?