One of the coolest buildings on campus is the new library and it is very popular with the students not only because it is quiet and filled with books and resources but also because it has heat and free hot water. Last week I went to check it out and walked through all of the eight floors. It is a beautiful building with interesting architecture including two spiral staircases in the main entrance that light up and change colors at night. There are lots of windows and the whole thing feels very modern and deluxe compared to other buildings on campus.



One of the current hot topics for my students is the issue of saving seats in the library. Since many students want to study there instead of in their dorms, space and seats are in high demand. To deal with this, students simply place a book or some papers on a chair or table to save their spot while they go to class, head to dinner or go back to their dorm. Some students even keep their books there overnight to guarantee a spot for the next day. In my opinion this is ridiculous and it frustrates me to hear students' stories of wanting to study in the library but not being able to find a seat and so on. But I realize that it has developed simply to solve a problem and to serve the needs of each student. I can't predict what I would have done in their situation. It is easy to tell them to just move the books of a 'saved' seat and sit down, but they don't want to make their classmates angry.


I have been to the library a few times this week to do some grading and the environment is nice. It was annoying walking around a few floors looking for an empty place but once I found one I remembered how nice it was to be able to study in a library. Aside from a few Chinese students talking on their cell phones and the rather chilly air (though it did feel warmer than a classroom I question the amount of heat that is being pumped through - I could only make it there for about 3 hours until I lost feeling in my fingers and toes) it felt good to be busy and productive in a place where everyone else was too. I even took advantage of the 'free' hot water to make some tea. My students advised me that next time I should go very early (before 8) to make sure and get a seat. Um, yeah . . . that's not going to happen.


Here are two (of several) journal entries about the frustrations involving the new library:

"Recently I have felt less interested about university life. When I was in high school I was always expecting university life. But now I am a little disappointed. In my imagination we can do something more interesting than having classes. But everyday we must have some boring lessons. At weekend I have to go to do work but I do enjoy my job because this really can improve myself and my ability. In fact I think our school can form more students organizations. Many students spend the whole day in the new library. Central air conditions system has been installed in the new library. It has been cold recently so many students rush to the library. Many of them even put a book on the desk to occupy the seat. I also like studying there not only because it is warm there but also the atmosphere of studying. In the library you can sit in the sunshine. It’s the happiness of studying or reading a moving story in the sunshine especially in winter. Wow. It’s wonderful. But as college students we shouldn’t study all day. While we should find more interesting things to do my roommate and I made a plan last week. We all want to build up ourselves. So we decided to climb stairs everyday. Now we are practicing our plan and I hope we can stick to it in the end."

"Every time I go to the library I feel a little angry. It’s not because that I hate reading. Library is warmer and quieter than dorm and books there are enough for me. I’m angry because many students take up seats by putting a book on the desk. Many students come to the library to study. There are not enough seats for them. So some of them take up the seats in advance so they can find a seat whenever they come. But I think this kind of action is unfair. Other students also need some places to do some reading but they can’t sit down. Someone take up the seat and they don’t come until very late. So that seat is always empty and no one can sit on it. It’s really a waste of room. One day I walked all the eight floors and couldn’t find one seat so I went to a desk and put the books aside and sit down. After two hours the owner of the book came and said it was her seat. I said, you shouldn’t have done this, you come so late. I don’t care it’s my seat. She replied rudely. I didn’t want to quarrel with her because that would disturb others. So I left and find another seat. Now this kind of action keeps existing and I really hope school can do something to stop it."

If it's a clear, sunny and relatively warm day in Changzhou, many dorms will look like this:


The students drape their comforters and clothes over anything and everything to dry out and air out in the sunshine. The students have to wash everything by hand since there are no washing or drying machines available to them (all of the teachers, however, are fortunate enough to at least have a washer).

The students don't have that many clothes; I would guess that most of them have about 3-5 different outfits. Because of the amount of work and time hand-washing requires and the fact that they don't own many clothes, the students go to great lengths to keep their clothes clean. They wipe their desk chairs off before they sit down, they never sit on the ground and many of them wear arm guards/sleeves which fit over the arms of their jackets to keep their sleeves clean. The student below is wearing sleeve guards over her jacket.


You can buy these sleeves in many of the local stores; they look like this:


The stores sell blocks of detergent to use for hand-washing which look like this:


And I thought doing the laundry with a washer and dryer was a pain! Laundry day takes on a whole new meaning and type of commitment here.

The semester is winding down and I only have one more freshmen class of oral exams left and then I am done. Although they were a little tiring the exams went really well and it was nice to be able to talk with the students one-on-one for a change. They students picked a topic from a hat as soon as they sat down in front of me and then talked to me for about three minutes about that topic. The topics were pretty easy and ranged anywhere from "tell me about your family" to "what is your opinion on adoption". Most of the students had a relatively high level of English and had no problem communicating with me. I kept track of some of the most common mistakes made while they spoke so I can look out for them next semester and also because mistakes are just plain interesting. Sometimes they can tell you a lot about the previous method of instruction or about the student's native language. Here are a few:

- the persistent and consistent mix-up of "he" and "she"
- the mix-up of "go" and "went"
- omission of articles like "the" and "a/an"
- confusion of "person", "people" and "child(s)" and "children(s)"
- use of "womans" instead of "women"
- saying "I will" instead of "I would"
- confusion of "much" and "many"
- the use of the verb "play" to mean "hang out" or "spend time with" (i.e. I spent the weekend playing with my friends)
- saying "knowledges" "attentions" and "informations"
- confusion of "good" and "well"
- constructing verbs like "catched" and "teached"
- saying "I and my friends"

Challenging pronunciation: r, l, th, and v
Tough words: world, clothes, thing, really
Overused words: lovely, beautiful, delicious, pity (as in "it's such a pity"), colorful
Favorite male quote: "I am most proud of my eyes which are big, round and bright like a fresh grape"
Favorite female quote: "I wish we could do oral exams like this every day - I love talking with foreigners!"

English is such a tough and frustrating language to learn because of all of its exceptions in grammar and pronunciation mainly because of the influence it still carries from other languages. I am impressed that my students can remember what they do and a lot of their mistakes are logical and still comprehensible. One of my favorite classes I took while an undergrad was "The History of the English Language" which detailed the journey of English through Old, Middle and Modern English. Today, Tally, one of my friends that I met in that class, sent me a quote about English that I think is fitting for this post. It comes from a book called The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South park.

"The result of all this improvisation, as everyone knows, is a language that isn't the least bit ordered, tidy, or rational. If some Intelligent Designer were to sit down to plan a language, surely He--She? It?--wouldn't have created this tangled mess we call English. If the language were logical, the verb to dust wouldn't mean both "remove dust from" (as in "dust the bookcase") and "add dust to" (as in "dust the cookies with powdered sugar"). The noun oversight wouldn't mean both "careful scrutiny" (as in "they agreed to submit to the oversight of the committee") and "neglectful inattention" (as in "they lost everything because of an oversight"). Cleave shouldn't mean both "stick together" and "cut apart"' bimonthly shouldn't mean both "twice a month" and every other month." But they do. The verbs loose and unloose shouldn't mean the same thing, nor should flammable and inflammable. And yet the do. The same illogic shows up in our phrasal verbs for the act of eating: eat up, chow down, tuck in, pick out. Which particle is the logical one for eating, up, down, in, or out? Reason tells us the same act can't warrant all four. But it does."

As for me, I'm glad that I already know English and am amazed that other countries readily offer jobs to me simply because I grew up speaking it.

On Christmas Eve, Pete, Sean and I went down town to the only Protestant church in Changzhou for their Christmas Eve service. The place was packed and we were lucky to get a seat. The service was interesting but very different from the big service at my church in Holland (namely it was in Chinese and there were no liturgical dancers, laser light shows, hymns on powerpoint, camels or bare-footed men in robes). I didn't really understand anything but I recognized the music (Silent Night and O Come All Ye Faithful) and it was cool to watch the adult and children's choir. We left after about an hour and went to get pizza at Pizza Hut where the waitstaff were appropriately outfitted in Santa Hats and had a jazzy Christmas music mix playing in the background. When we left there was a long line of people waiting to get into the church and plenty of police around to make sure the Christians didn't get filled with too much Christmas spirit, I guess.


On Christmas morning we went over to Ken's and had oranges, cookies and coffee while we watched "It's a Wonderful Life". Later that night we had a little Christmas party with the teachers and some of our Chinese friends. There were snacks (dumplings, candy canes, chocolates, cookies, fruit and homemade eggnog). We did a white elephant gift exchange which was a lot of fun. Sean ended up with a mug and I went home with a DVD of the Charlie Brown Christmas. Some of the more interesting presents were a Disney puzzle that depicted Shanghai, an Eeyore blow-up ottoman, a Playboy belt and wallet and Christmas-colored working light sabers. The guys liked their stockings from Santa and my parents and Peter gave everyone a wrapped bag of microwave popcorn. After the party Sean and I went back to my apartment to Skype our families who were just getting started with Christmas.


Some of the most favorite gifts that Santa sent us this year were: clothes, socks and underwear, fruit roll-ups, Twinkies, candy, books and games. A huge thanks and a big hug to everyone who took the time to send something - you made our Christmas extra special!

The banquets are fun because there is a lot of good and new kinds of food and it is nice to be able to talk with the other foreign teachers from Japan and Germany but they are quite different from dinners in America. The Chinese men go around the table handing out their business cards and there is a large emphasis on drinking and an even larger preoccupation with toasting. The Chinese don't drink like Americans; instead of having a large glass of an alcoholic beverage they have small glasses that waitresses constantly refill because the contents of each glass are consumed with each new toast.


This banquet was especially interesting because the president of the university attended. This raised the level of machismo drinking up quite a bit and the expensive baijiu was brought out especially for the occasion (the bottle the president is holding is worth about $100 USD). They gave us elaborate boxes of apples for a Christmas gift because apparently there is some connection with apples and peace in China.


After the banquet the other teachers and I went caroling in the dorms which was hilarious. The dorms are huge and high structures with a large courtyard in the middle so when we sang as a group in the center all the students could hear and see us. Last year the boys compared it to feeling like a rock star and I can totally relate as the students seemed way too excited to see Americans in Santa hats screeching out Christmas carols right before curfew. We always exited to a light show of camera flashbulbs and mighty roars of appreciation from the crowd. It was definitely a unique and entertaining experience and one that I won't forget.

Classes are wrapping up and I am knee-deep in oral exams during which most students somehow manage to segue into talking about the movie 2012 (as Peter also mentioned in his blog). It is also impressive how many times I have heard the go-to words "lovely", "beautiful", "interesting" and "colorful" or been confused about the gender of people in the stories of students (they persistently confuse the he/she pronouns) in the last 48 hours. But aside from a few tearful breakdowns and sessions where students shared a little too much personal information (see Ken's post on TMI) the oral exams have been a cool chance to get to know each student a little better, even if it's only for five minutes at a time.

One of the frustrating things that I have been struggling with, like I always did at OSU as well, is the collection of feedback, suggestions and evaluations of the course. I asked my students to write a final journal entry about how the course was for them with specific questions to answer. During the course of this semester I have found that Chinese students are quite honest in their writing and sharing their opinions about my class was no different. I would not recommend reading 220 evaluations in one sitting as even though I received some supportive and favorable comments I only remember the negative ones. I have also found it is hard to teach sophomores who had a strong connection with their first foreign teacher as freshmen last year - especially some of the female students who were completely enamored with them. Really. Some of them openly confessed to me in their journals that they weren't ready to accept another foreign teacher yet because their "hearts were still filled" with the last one. Yikes. Last year's teachers of my students, Ken and Dave, were highly favored and are proving to be tough acts to follow especially because I am in no way outgoing, sarcastic or politically/argumentatively inclined.


Things are different with my sole freshmen class and I was already feeling a little shaky, tired and emotional this morning after listening to 35 oral exams when I walked into their class. I started class about the environment and was very happy to take a break after an hour of teaching to eat my orange. All of a sudden students started bringing gifts and cards up to my desk and I was totally shocked and surprised. To cries of "open it" and "read it" I opened my strange and interesting gifts and read the cards aloud and promptly started crying. I didn't mean to and I didn't want to but I couldn't help it and I explained to their confused expressions that I was just a little overwhelmed and very grateful for their show of kindness to which one of them replied "we hope our gifts make you feel warm while you are away from home on Christmas". The piles of crazy cell phone charms, unrecognizable candy, coffee, tea, candles, combs and decorative light shakers (?) made me realize that I think these students have more Christmas spirit than I am feeling right now. I am impressed and humbled. (Sean also received gifts from his students including a cactus dressed as a Santa and a large, stuffed Santa himself.


Finally, I would encourage you to read Ken's and Daniel's recent posts about being an American in China because I think it accurately (and humorously) describes the sometimes ridiculous treatment of Americans living and teaching abroad here.

Thanks for reading this long post and thanks to all who sent Christmas cards and packages. We miss you a LOT! Merry Christmas!

It's been a relaxing weekend filled with a little bit of Christmas spirit here in Changzhou. On Friday night after work Sean, and I met Ken at the DVD store to pick up some Christmas classics. That night we enjoyed an evening of Home Alone, which I hadn't seen in years but was still hilarious and heart-warming. Saturday, Qin Chen took us all to a tea house downtown where we spent the afternoon trying flower tea (very cool-looking - it tastes like you are drinking perfume), sipping coffee, eating ice cream, cracking open sunflower seeds and nibbling on the constant array of snacks that was brought to us. In many Chinese tea houses you pay one price and then you can get as much as you want off of a certain menu.

I went to work on Saturday night and as usual the five engineers just wanted to ask questions about American culture. Tonight they were especially curious about cars (how much do they cost? how much does gas cost? does everyone have one? etc.) guns (does everyone have one? how much do they cost? why does the government allow it? etc.) houses, average incomes, cell phones and computers. Fortunately, since I don't know Chinese the question and answer sessions have to take place in English so there is at least some learning going on.

After work I went over to Ken's because he was hosting another Beer Club. This meeting the beer of the week was Pabst Blue Ribbon and the game of choice was beer pong. By the time I made it there, however, the students had transitioned into playing another, incomprehensible Chinese drinking game which lasted until they had to leave in time to still make curfew. After everyone left and Ken's floor was properly covered in spilled beer as usual, we all sat down to watch the Christmas movie, Love Actually (love it!).

Today (Sunday) will be spent grading and probably napping. I'm also going to try and think of some interesting topics for oral exams next week so I don't go insane while listening to 225 of them. Here we go.

In my last class this semester I talked about Christmas and New Years and we did a lot of activities related to the holiday season. It was really fun sharing some of the traditions and seeing their opinions, perspectives and surprise on some of the more imaginative Christmas beliefs (A jolly fat man lives at the North Pole with elves? A flying reindeer with a red nose? Covering your house and trees in tiny lights? Hanging your socks on the fireplace?) It made me realize that to an outsider, a typical American Christmas might seem a little nuts. This made it all the more fun and entertaining to share, however, and the students' obvious favorites of the lesson were singing Christmas carols (no surprise there - they sing every chance they can get) and talking about kissing under mistletoe and at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve.


First we played a trivia game about Christmas and then I went over the answers and showed them pictures of some key elements like elves, candy canes and Santa with his reindeer. Between each game and activity we sang a new Christmas carol like Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Deck the Halls, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, O Christmas Tree etc.


Then I asked them to think about the quote "No two are alike" and share what different things come to mind. They said that in China this phrase is often used to describe leaves and eggs. I said that many Americans believe that no two snowflakes are alike and that a common activity during the holiday season is making snowflakes to decorate your house. We spent the next 10 minutes of class making snowflakes and listening to Christmas music and they had a blast. It was really cool to see them be creative, relax and have a little fun. Some of the snowflakes turned out pretty impressive!


After making snowflakes I had them try an activity in which they had to describe some simple Christmas pictures to their partner to see if they could copy them correctly. After struggling initially they caught on and eventually most produced a motley version of a snowman and a Christmas tree. To conclude the class we went Christmas shopping. I divided half the class into store owners and half into shoppers who had $100 to buy gifts. We practiced some English buying/selling/bargaining phrases and the activity was a huge hit. For the next 25 minutes the class erupted into a chaotic shopping frenzy complete with copies of U.S. money flying around (for those of you from OSU who are reading this and have taught Chapter 5 of Amistades you can relate with being up until one the night before cutting out bills).


It was a really fun class and a good way to end. Next week they have their oral exams in which they will talk with me for about 3 minutes each about a topic they pull out of a hat. I'll let you know how it goes =)

Our last day in Suzhou we spent exploring a famous garden, eating in Andy's favorite noodle restaurant, visiting his high school, walking one of the oldest and well-preserved roads in the city and hanging out in a cozy coffee shop to read and play Scrabble.


First we went to the Garden of the Master of the Nets which is considered to be the best-preserved gardens in the city. It was laid out in the 12th century and later restored in the 18th century as part of the home of a retired official who became a fisherman (hence the name). The garden is composed of living quarters, meeting areas, the central and main garden and several small courtyards. The garden is famous because of its intricate design and use of space. Each part of the garden represents one season of the year and in the autumn part during the Autumn festival you can actually see three different moons (one in the sky, the reflection in the pond, and the moon in a nearby mirror). The gardens are elaborate and beautiful and full of bamboo groves, ponds, rocks, pavilions and bridges. There are also many windows that frame certain parts of the garden (Andy called it 'living artwork on the wall').


After walking around in the garden we visited Andy's high school which also had many gardens, ponds and pavilions and then had noodles and beef in a soup which was tasty. Our final stop for the day was walking around some of the older streets and canals in Suzhou which was really neat. When we got too cold we stopped for coffee at a little cafe and enjoyed a game of scrabble while listening to a Chinese jazz singer.


We returned to Changzhou by train in the evening tired but satisfied with the trip. It was so cool to be shown around by a local. I told Andy that I would take him around Holland any time he wanted to come and visit. I hope some day he can.

Adventures in Suzhou continued on Saturday when we explored Tiger Hill which is a huge park and gardens surrounded by canals. It is famous because it houses the tomb of the founding father of Suzhou, He Le (who is said to have been buried with a collection of 3000 swords and to be guarded by a white tiger according to both Andy and my Lonely Planet book).


Walking around the gardens was fun and there were many bridges (crossing a bridge in Suzhou is thought to bring you luck and wealth), moon gates (rounded entryways and arches) and also a giant leaning pagoda on top of the hill. The Cloud Rock Pagoda was built in the 10th century and started leaning around 400 years ago. Andy said that the tip of the pagoda has tilted about 2m away from its original position.


After exploring inside the gardens we walked around the hill near the canals. It was nice to be in an open area with lots of trees instead of the constant urban environment that is Changzhou. We even took a little boat ride during which Andy translated comments and stories from our strong and extremely fit 72-year-old oarman while he paddled us around Tiger Hill.


We had lunch in one of Andy's favorite restaurants that served traditional Suzhounese food. We had sweet, ginger-fried eel, sweet pork (tasted like ribs), beef (tasted like pot roast) and more common dishes like egg with tomato and cabbage.


After lunch we visited the Suzhou museum which was awesome. It is brand new and had impressive and elegant displays of artifacts from the area complete with English translations. Andy describes it best when he says he likes it because it "combines a modern building with history inside and nature outside". The museum is built around a garden (of course) with crystal clear pools, sleek bamboo and creative rock formations. The total effect is pretty stunning and we spent the better part of the afternoon there (especially because it was cold and rainy outside). Another thing that made the museum cool was that it was free.


After the museum we got dinner to go which were tiny cooked buns with a delicious sweet meat and sauce inside and spent the rest of the night hanging out and relaxing while Andy told us about our plans for Sunday, our last day in Suzhou.