Summer Update, Thoughts, and Qingdao (with pictures!)

The update with a few thoughts:

Classes will start August 31st, which means the week prior will begin my responsibilities with greeting new teachers, scheduling classes, and hosting our first staff meeting.  This also means that summer vacation is coming to a close.  

I have to say, it has been a very productive summer for me.  At about the eight month point, I realized I was at a huge loss for not knowing the immediate history of this place.  Here in China, it's as if all of our history dating back to 1776 were still alive and active in our collective memory, and this history has a direct impact on events going on today.  So I ran to a former professor, this time Dan Bays, for a read list to help me get a little perspective.  

Over the course of the summer, I've managed to digest Jonathan Spence's The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, Lao She's Rickshaw Boy, and I've just begun Peter Hessler's River Town.  In these books, I became exposed to many of China's important minds of the 20th Century, as well as the hearts of the average Zhou (pronounced Joe, a very common surname).  I was enthralled by the energy, the terror, and the hope that all seem to simultaneously characterize this place.  I was most enthralled with a turn of the century philosopher named Kang Youwei, so much that I dragged my dear friend to his place of residence in Qingdao when we went on vacation together (more to come).  

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say, I am now in possession of a Chinese copy of the Book of Great Community (大同书) - way above my reading level, but a prize to work towards as I could find no copies in English.  

I also realized I needed to get a little more serious about my studies and take advantage of the billions of native speakers I find myself surrounded with to really start practicing the language.  So inspired by a TED talk, I made my way to www.conversationexchange.com (I still need to buy these guys a beer) and found my prayers answered nearly instantaneously in the form of a young man my age who has lived in Dallas for three years and has returned to Zhengzhou, his hometown, for a short time before taking off to Australia for study, as well as a middle-aged man in another city who obtained his masters in Chinese literature.  These two have made for a perfect duo to help me with my speaking and writing, and I couldn't be more grateful!  The one off to Australia has even offered a replacement in his friend, who is living in Zhengzhou and has also lived in the US for some time.  

I also managed to add a few hundred more words to my working vocabulary, which I'm very happy for.  

Study, punctuated by visits from Felix, who was busy teaching a summer school program that his older sister runs, characterized the entire month of July.  I learned to enjoy cooking while listening to podcasts, I started being more deliberate about exercise, and I studied in typical fashion with bursts of diligence and bursts of procrastination.  Maybe if I learn to slow, steady will follow.

I feel like there's more to say, as my experience of the summer seemed like it merited more than the few short paragraphs above, but I can't think of much more, and I suppose I should be getting to the pictures sooner rather than later.  So with out further ado:

Qingdao

Qingdao is a beautiful coastal city in northern China.

It is looks out at the Yellow Sea, which separates the mainland from the Korean peninsula and thus is home to the largest Korean population of any Chinese city (which means Korean food).  Also, it is located in the Shandong province, which used to be occupied by the Germans during the colonial period where the West carved out slices of China for themselves (which means good beer).  Heavily influenced by German architecture, the area where the hostel we were staying in could only be described as quaint - an adjective I'd previously never thought I would use to describe a Chinese city.  

However, not an essential trading city like Tianjin (where you may have heard about the explosion), there is no high-speed railway connecting this city to the rest of China.  And not wanting to spend the money on a plane ticket, this meant the K-train.  We booked too late for a sleeper, so we were relegated to a 14 hour ride on the infamous hard seat car.  Infamous, to me at least.  

The full excursion lasted six days - two days of travel on either end with four full days in Qingdao.  

Our first day we didn't try anything too adventurous.  We were pretty tired after all.  Before leaving we had booked a hotel, but when we arrived, the receptionist realized that a foreigner was one of the two guests checking in and had to decline us.  Apparently in China, foreigners are only allowed to stay at three-star or higher hotels, which usually start at at least double the price we found this one for. 

So we quickly hopped on a cab and booted up the phone to find a youth hostel nearby that would give us a private room that we didn't have to share with strangers for roughly the same price as the initial hotel.  It turned out to be the perfect place, as it was nearly walking distance from a lot of the points of interest we wanted to check out - including the beach.

So after finding a place to stay, we took to the streets.  First stop: the residence of Kang Youwei.

The property itself was gorgeous, but I wasn't particularly impressed with the museum (partly because I couldn't read a lot of the information!).  But Kang Youwei really inspired me in my reading, and visiting his place of residence had the feeling of an academic pilgrimage.

As we meandered through the beautiful streets of the southern district, we found a place called Little Fish Hill.  It's a park that sits atop one of the highest points in the city, giving a spectacular 360 view of things.

It was a little foggy, so the pictures didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped, but the day was beautiful, and looking out over the red rooftops of such a charming city gave me a sense of being ready to settle down in a place of my choosing that inspires me.  After further study, I look forward to putting my roots in such a place.  

Finally we went to an area called Ba Da Guan, or the Eight Great Passes.  It's a series of streets with beautiful houses inspired by German architecture.  Many Chinese go to these areas to have their wedding pictures taken next to these quaint homes.  One in particular was turned into a bit of a museum as it used to the the residence of a minor Western royal (I can't remember who or from where).

We didn't take too many pictures, but the walk was peaceful on the first night of our arrival.

The second day was beach day.  

It was great going for a swim.  We also visited the aquarium.  It was an overwhelming experience for me because it was so crowded!  We were nearly shoulder to shoulder in every part of the walk-through.  It was a strange museum, with life-size replicas of giant fish, and specimens preserved in bottles like some mad-scientist's experiment.  

But it did have one of those cool tunnel ways that take you under water to see the sharks and fish.

Day three was Mount Lao.  When you get to the base camp where you purchase your tickets, you choose from a few different areas to start your hike.  We chose the one that claimed to have a waterfall, which turned out to be very disappointing.  But we did get to see some beautiful scenery.  

But, like all things in China, it was crowded.

Not only that, there was rarely a stretch without vendors along the pathway selling junk tourist trinkets or some lovely tea (which I bought). 

After our full day of hiking, we made our way back to the city and partook of some delicious Korean food that had a few Chinese characteristics.  And after the meal, we took an evening stroll to May Fourth Square, a park right on the water that commemorates the rallies of May 4th, 1919 - an important day for China as students took to the streets in protest of China's ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, which included a portion that would have passed the Shandong province from German hands to Japanese.  And perhaps for the first time in China's long history, the government acquiesced to the will of the people.  

The statue is a large steel flame that attempts to capture the energy and spirit of the May Fourth Movement.  

Our final day was another peaceful day.  We tried to visit an art museum, as well as the residence of Lao She - arguably China's greatest 20th century novelist, but they were both closed.  So instead we took a cab to an area of Qingdao known as Pichai Yuan.  First, we visited Qingdao's Catholic church, a beautiful example of Western architecture that I really wanted to show Felix, who'd never seen anything like it.  

Then we made our way to another area of Pichai Yuan where much of the traditional Chinese architecture remains untouched by the bulldozer.

We meandered through the narrow alleyways and discovered a large outdoor restaurant that had nightly live performances.  So we headed home for a nap and returned for the six o'clock show.  I should mention that I had been eating nothing but yummy fish and seafood this entire time.  

It was available everywhere, and the restaurant we went to did not disappoint the taste buds.  It was also a restaurant that preserves a traditional atmosphere, including serving tea through kettles with extremely long spouts that supposedly aerate the water to make for a smoother cup of tea.

The performance was wonderful.  The stringed instrument is a traditional Chinese instrument, and the musician, who was quite skilled, played modern and ancient songs.  There was also a calligraphist who displayed his skill.  The murals were then auctioned later in the evening.  

And that was pretty much the trip.  It was great getting out of Zhengzhou and seeing some new sites.  In parting, I will leave you with one last photo where Felix and I are standing in front of the character for "blessing" as we pray that you, too, will be blessed.

Song Shan and Summer Vacation

Inspired by a former college mate and fellow world traveler, I am creating a blog.  This is going to be much easier during the summer than once school starts up, so we'll so how this goes.  I'll try and do this at least monthly.  I've been pretty poor with communication up until now, so let me just start here in the approximate present!  This might be a little long, but I know at least Mom will read it!

End of School

School finished on the 19th for me, and I had grades submitted by the next Monday.  It was a good year with lots of learning experiences.  First, my successes:

• gained experience at two different locations that were starkly different from one another
• had positive responses from all of my classes, including a class who collectively found another meeting time when they discovered I had a scheduling conflict in the second semester that would prevent me from teaching them
• was encouraged by colleagues to put my hat in the ring for the supervisor position next year
• was nominated by the current supervisor for the position next year
• got the supervisor position after my first year of teaching!
• am no longer a noob

EIE (the company I work for) puts on a pretty good show, and I pulled out all stops to put on a rigorous program, and most of the students responded enthusiastically.  They are so used to their teachers, especially foreign teachers, simply phoning in the job.  But many of the students responded with earnestness when presented with a genuine challenge, and many improved a great deal.  

These guys have been studying English for nearly 12 years through primary and secondary education.  As second year university students they need to cram for a national standardized test called the CET that they must pass at least at the fourth level for graduation as well as take four semesters of English during there freshman and sophomore years.  Our classes, however, are not CET prep courses, so my goal was to provide them with opportunities to implement their latent language abilities.  I minimized the grammar and vocabulary focus, letting them prepare that mostly on their own, in order to emphasize speaking, writing, and listening.  I tried many different things to keep the classes involved and motivated - a lot of these strategies I learned from the deep pool of experience in Dalian.  Something else that was important to me was to share my worldview through my lessons without being overtly preachy (a big no-no here).  These was an important element for me in order to keep me invested in the class, because - let's face it - teaching grammar can be a little dry sometimes.

I also had an opportunity to teach a graduate class of English major students in a masters program.  This is where I truly had an my first opportunity to truly "preach".  The class was a speaking class.  It had no textbook and its only guideline was to get the students speaking.  So I turned it into a Public Speaking class.  Here I was able to talk about worldview (cosmology, ontology, epistemology, etc.), organizational skills,  and critical thinking skills.  I spent two class sessions on logical fallacies and reasoning.  They learned about Aristotle and his influence in Western rhetoric.  I was able to challenge both their sophisticated knowledge of English and challenge them as students, hoping to equip them with what I feel are essential skills.  

I planned this class week-by-week, spending hours creating lessons from an online text that a former professor recommended and grading their performances, providing specific performance feedback and correcting grammar mistakes on their submitted speeches.  And I loved (nearly) every minute of it!  Here, I felt the beginnings of the true potential of teaching as a profession.  Here, I started teaching beyond google facts - teaching the important stuff like how to be a Christ-like human being.

But I had to grow a lot this year.  My biggest battle was stage fright.  These guys were nothing compared to the seventh graders in small-town Midwest that I substitute taught for ten weeks (all of whom I love and miss!), but I still had my insecurities.  Most of it came from not having my bearings.  I went from being in complete control of a store that I was quite successful at to leaving the country, my friends, and my family in order to start an entirely new profession.  There are so many little unspoken things that go into classroom management that you just can't prepare for.  What do you do about cell phones?  How do you deal with late students and the chronically late?  How do you motivate a quiet class when it's time to speak?  I feel like I have a handle on these things now, and that will make next year much smoother.  

Summer Vacation

But now summer vacation is in full swing.  I've enjoyed lounging around, and playing good 'ole Civ IV.  For a few days straight.  I also went to the nearby mountain a few weeks back with a couple of friends, which I will tell you more about later.  But now it's time to study.  

My hope is to stay here for a few years to improve my language ability in order to pass the HSK 6.  The HSK is a national Chinese language assessment test that China offers which allows everyone to know where you stand with your language skills.  Level 6 is the highest level, which would have been a challenge for me after graduating college, let alone eight years after the fact!  This might actually be a pipe dream, but I'm working hard at least two hours a day to improve my vocabulary and listening this summer.

Why am I doing this?

Because I want to go to Xiamen University's Confucian Academy.  Their Chinese linguistics master's program is world-class.  Successfully completing it would open many doors for either jobs or further study.  

It also aligns nicely with another timeline.  

I've made a good friend here in China.  We spend many of our weekends together, often practicing our English (he's an English major) and Chinese, showing each other movies, and cooking for each other.  He's been a big help and source of support for me here in China, since we are so much on the same page with values and sensibilities.  

And he's got about three years left of his undergraduate program.  He also wants to teach, so he will want to get his masters as well.  And because we are in quite possibly China's most boring city, he is eager to leave.  So we may very well go to Xiamen together, if we have the opportunity.  

So I need to study.  I have three years punctuated with lots of work in order to get my Chinese up to speed.  And aside from a beach vacation in Qingdao with Felix (the friend I mentioned), this is my summer plan.  Wish me luck!  

Song Shan

Finally, as promised and if you still have the endurance, here are some pictures from Song Shan - one of China's five sacred mountains.  This is the mountain where the Shaolin monks are!  I've heard the Shaolin temple itself experienced a huge break from it's history after the establishment of the PRC.  Being a communist revolution coupled with China's longstanding tension with organized religion in general, they had little love for the temple's practitioners and eventually turned it into a pale, sterilized reflection of what it once was (because religion is so bourgeois) .  

However, there are still many villages along the mountain with people living and farming.  Many of them still actively practice a form of Daoism, which we saw a little bit of going up the mountain.  My friends and I didn't want to intrude on their ceremony, so we just watched the National Geographic event going on as we were passing by.  

Here are some pictures:

It was really nice to get out of the city!  I didn't realize how much I missed living in the quiet countryside with my dad last year!

The beginning of summer really made this a beautiful time of year.  Here are some flowers that were a wonderful contrast to the bricks and cars in the 10-million-strong city I'd been living in for the past 10 months.  

 Kenny and George, two coworkers and good friends, at the start of the trail.  Kenny's from NYC and George is from Ireland.

This was a challenging hike for me with so many steps!  But it had some gorgeous scenery.  Here are steps that lead you through a deep crevice in the mountain.

Here's a better picture of the crevice.  The walls went up really high on both sides, making this feel a lot like Lord of the Rings.  A really unique climb!

Some wonderful sights!  These pictures just don't do it justice.  

More stairs.  So many stairs.  I hobbled for about three days after this hike.

Nearing one of the villages.

As I got higher, we encountered a pretty thick fog.  I was grateful for it because it was so cool, and I was so drenched in sweat (secret: I was not in shape for this hike!).  It also gave a cool, mysterious feel to the whole thing...

...as well as completely hid the view from us once we reached the top.  But, like I said, I was grateful.  I'll go back another time for the eye candy.

We traveled about three hours to get there and hiked up and down for about six.  We fast-tracked it home, but with the three of us it kept the price of the cab down.  It was a long and challenging day for me, but I really enjoyed getting out of town for a little, the feeling of accomplishment reaching the top of the mountain, and spending the day with these friends.  It was the perfect way to start a summer vacation.