Last year, government offered foreigners a free trip to Nanjing as long as we attended a job fair. The trip included food, lodging and sight-seeing for two days and a few of us teachers decided to go including me, Sean, Peter, Jordan and our supervisor, Teddy.


Nanjing is a really cool city and just happens to be the city where Max, our Chinese teacher, is from. He decided to come on the trip as well to hang out and act as our personal tour guide. Nanjing is a really neat city; it used to be the capital of China in in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and also in the early years of the 20th century. The city is cool because it is still enclosed by a wall, it has a lot of beautiful parks, it's on the river and it is a prosperous economy with a lot of high-ranking universities.


After a very early start and about a two hour drive, we made a brief appearance at "The 4th Yangtze River Delta Job Fair for Foreign Professionals." After lunch we went to the Botanic gardens and walked around for awhile enjoying the blooming trees, great views of the river and even got to observe some wedding photo shoots in action.


We finished up the day by visiting Yuejing tower which involved a bit of a climb up to the top of a hill for some hazy panoramas of the city. Unfortunately, the tower is not authentic - it has been redone extensively and looked a little chintzy, but it was fun anyways and free so we couldn't really complain.


After dinner, Max wanted to take us to his favorite German bakery near his high school. We were more than willing to join him for a cup of real coffee and some blueberry cheesecake - delicious. Following dessert, we headed to the bar district - called 1912 for some drinks and dancing. It was a really fun and particularly late night. As you can see, Jordan was having an especially good time as well as Peter who spent a lot of the time dancing on the elevated platforms.


We all missed some of the activities the next day due to sleeping in late but joined the rest of the group at lunch for a quick bite to eat and then another excursion to Zhonghua gate castle - part of the original wall. The wall was outfitted with plenty of not-so-real-looking guards for our touristy viewing pleasure. Peter and Max spent most of the time doing kung fu at the top.


All in all it was a really fun trip packed full of activities and good times. I think the best part of the trip for everyone was just the chance to get away from campus and explore a new place together. Here's hoping that the government decides to take us to another city this year!

On Sunday I lucky enough to be able to hang out with the girls - Xing xing, Qin Chen, Zhen zhen and Zhao Min. First we had big meal together at one of the restaurants on campus along with Jordan and Sean. It is always extra special to go out to eat with our friends because they always know the tastiest things to order and lunch was awesome.


Sean had to tutor someone down town and Jordan had some lesson planning to do so the rest of us just hung out, chatted, snacked and played some games all afternoon. I had a lot of fun especially when we were attempting to play Mad Gab and Catch Phrase - two games tough for native English speakers - but the Chinese ladies were impressive (and very competitive I might add) and if they didn't know a word they just broke it down and it explained it part by part - it was pretty cool (ie cartwheel or tombstone).


I feel fortunate to have such a cool group of friend who are willing to hang out with a foreigner even when it means that they have to speak in English a lot. Even so, it was really cool to hear real Chinese spoken between them - it definitely doesn't sound like my language-learning CDs!

After several card games we went to dinner on campus and then I headed back to finish some grading before Monday's class. It was a fun Sunday =)

Last Saturday Sean and I decided that it was time to visit the Shanghai World Expo especially because it was one of the last days that it was open. Someone had given us free tickets last year which helped a lot since the price of 160 rmb (about $23) was pretty hefty. We bought train tickets and planned for a day trip only since the cost of places to stay in Shanghai have skyrocketed due to the popularity of the expo.


All week long when I told people I was going to the expo they warned me that it was going to be very busy and that it was going to rain. My spirits started to sag even more because whenever I asked how others' experiences of the expo went the responses went something like this: painful, long lines, boring, impossible to see everything, expensive food, crowded pavilions etc. My students advised me to wear comfortable shoes and bring my own food along with a container for free water provided. Sean was not exactly thrilled about the expo either since it meant he had to get up at 5:30am on a Saturday to wait in long lines to see museum-esque exhibits. I believe his exact words were, "It's like waiting forever at Disney Land but at the end of the line there's no rides . . . just an exhibit."


But it is always fun to do something different and explore a big city and we planned to hang out in Shanghai and avoid the crazy entrance crowds in the morning. Unfortunately, it rained. I mean it really rained; it seemed like typhoon Megi had altered course and hit Shanghai. Downpour and gusty winds blew our umbrellas around like crazy and we were soaked the minute we stepped out of the metro. We were hoping that the rain would deter some of the Chinese tourists but alas, no such luck. Chinese people are tough and resilient and the expo was packed with record numbers in attendance.


After tooling around some bookstores and stopping for a donut we made our way to one of the entrances. The expo is huge; there is way too much to see in one day - in one week even. Our plan was to walk around and look at the outside of the pavilions and maybe stop in one or two that had shorter lines or looked interesting. There were people, puddles and umbrellas everywhere; the only thing worse than a mob of people is a mob of people who are shorter than you with umbrellas. Sean and I were lucky that we escaped without any eyes being poked out.


We started with the USA pavilion because you didn't have to wait in line if you had your passport. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is. The lines for the bigger pavilions (Germany, Mexico, Spain, Canada etc. exceded 6 hours. The smaller pavilions like Hungary were only about 3 hours. The USA pavilion was really cool and included 3 short films: a welcome film with an initial greeting by Kobe Bryant and Barack Obama, a video about the "Spirit of America" and a 4D music video about working with your neighbors to clean up your neighborhood. The "4D" meant that our seats shook when it thundered and it "rained" on us during the part in the video when it stormed. Everybody loved it. Kobe and a 4D movie with special effects: give the people what they want.

After the USA pavilion we slogged our way around the elevated walkway to get a view of all the pavilions from up above. Eventually we chose to stand in line for Brazil and the giant pavilion of Central America. The pavilions were pretty cool though very crowded and full of gift shops but the main attraction for many Chinese tourists seemed to be getting their fake passport stamped. The Expo offered many editions of fake passports that you could get stamped while visiting each country's pavilion. The passports weren't cheap and some countries even charged about a dollar to put a stamp in it. Even so, the lines for the stamps were long and passport sales were booming. I guess when it is difficult to obtain an actual passport in China, using one at the Expo is the next best thing and quite frankly, a genius move in marketing.

Last year there were a few times that Sean and I wished we had a Chinese credit card to pay for things online (mainly flights). Our university gives us each a bank account and a debit card, but you can't use the debit card on the internet or over the phone.

Last week, Sean and I decided to plan a trip to South Korea during a week when our students have some "practical training" instead of our classes. Combining the weekends and some days off we can travel for about 10 days. To buy tickets we have a few options: find a travel agent that speaks English and pay in cash or use one of our American credit cards to buy the flight on elong.com (Chinese expedia). Since I don't really have a way to pay off my credit cards easily from China, we would rather just use the money that we earn here. I called the internet company and they said that we could go to our bank and they could do a money transfer.

So today Sean and I walked to the bank and asked if they could do a transfer for us. At first they said no, not surprisingly. We asked if they could sign us up for internet banking so that we could do transfers by ourselves and they said no because it would be too "complex" for us. This is something about how Chinese businesses work that is continually frustrating for me. It seems like the rules can always change or more accurately, sometimes it seems like there are no rules. Not wanting to give up so easily we persisted and insisted that we could, in fact, handle internet banking.

The manager finally relented and they quickly and relatively easily signed us up for internet banking. After the process was done the manager said that she would also do the transfer for us but "just this once" and all for about the cost of a dollar. Sean and I were pretty happy that we were able to book tickets and then transfer money all without the help of a student or friend. Sure, the bank "lobby assistant" could speak fairly good English and I had to call the English helpline at elong, but even so the whole excursion still probably took about 2 hours. Even managing the little tasks in a foreign country seem like a big accomplishment when you can do it on your own.

Two things that I thought about during this adventure:
1) Sometimes I think Chinese businesses just say no to any services to foreigners because we can be a complicated pain and hassle to deal with
2) I wish I would have bugged my manager more last year about internet banking and money transfers because now Sean and I can do everything on our own

Every week at my second job I have to give one or two English Corners. English Corner is a one hour session that any student can attend and it is supposed to be interesting, fun and informative. I like doing the English Corners at Web because I can choose any topic I want, the students that attend do so on a voluntary basis and are usually extremely attentive with fairly high levels of English. Since they take a little preparation, I normally just teach something I have already done in the past at the university and this seems to go fine. The problem is, I am running out of topics as I also utilized this strategy last year.

Last week I tried something that had worked well with my sophomore students. In my experience, the students generally like anything that is different from what they could find in an English textbook like idioms, slang, dialectal differences etc. For my last English Corner I talked about chatting or texting in English. I don't think it is a very practical or academic topic but the students at Web really liked it especially since they use a lot of abbreviated language in Chinese when they text on phones or chat online.

First I went over what basic "SMS language" is (thank you Wikipedia) and covered some basic rules. For example when chatting and texting many people don't capitalize, don't use punctuation, eliminate vowels and use a lot of abbreviations. I gave them some basic clues like r=are, 2=too/to, y=why, 4=four, c=see, u=you etc. and then I let them try some on their own. Here is the list I gave them: btw, tgif, asap, fyi, l8r, bff, lol, xoxo, omg, jk and idk. They absolutely loved it! I gave them a few messages to decode and then had them try and write their own.

Afterward we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of texting language and it turned out to be a really good discussion. I even learned that many Chinese are worried about losing their memory and ability to write the more difficult characters as most people only use computers and phones to write these days - kind of feels like us and spell check! In the future I'll be looking for more interesting topics like these; even if the topics seem a little silly, the fact that students get excited and involved means that there will be more English speaking going on.

Last year Sean and I had a lot of fun doing Halloween parties in our oral English classes. We played games, decorated orange balloons as if they were pumpkins and talked about what costumes we would choose if we went trick-or-treating. This year, in culture class, I am not doing as much as last year mostly because I have all the same students who I celebrated Halloween with last year.

My Tuesday culture class, however, is a week ahead of all my other classes and I needed something extra for them today. I ended up doing an advanced Halloween lesson which was pretty fun. First they played a game which tested their knowledge of Western holidays in general and then we talked specifically about Halloween since it is coming up soon.

I showed a powerpoint with some more advanced vocabulary like: goblin, vampire, ghoul, coffin, cauldron, zombie, alien, werewolf, Frankenstein, mummy, monster, wizard etc. The powerpoint also had some pictures of my past costumes and jack-o-lanterns. Then we played Taboo with the new words to review them (one person describes the word to the class without saying the word and the class has to guess).

The last game was something I had never tried before in class - a crossword puzzle. I never used them because there is not much speaking involved and in the past I taught oral English. Since it was a culture class, I figured a crossword puzzle was ok and to my surprise it went great! I gave them a really tough one and they worked on it in pairs for 30 minutes straight! Nobody was even packing up when the bell rang which made me happy. I told them that if anybody could bring me back a finished one the following week I would give them a Halloween surprise . . .

You can give it a try yourself if you want. There is an advanced one (called the "ultimate puzzle") which I gave to my students and an easy one if you have lower level or younger students (click "Halloween crossword for higher levels"). I love Halloween =)

Studying language is so cool not only because we use it ever day but also because it is always changing and evolving. It is always interesting to see what new words are being added or what words have become popular. When comparing two languages like English and Chinese it can also be entertaining to see what one has shared or borrowed with the other.

There are many words that English has borrowed from Chinese. A few common Chinese loan words in the English language are: bonsai, China, chop chop (as in hurry), chow mien, feng shui, ginseng, gung ho, Japan, ketchup, kung fu, silk, soy, tofu, tycoon, typhoon, wok and yin yang.

I just read an article in China Today about a recent concern regarding how many loan words Chinese can borrow from English while still keeping its integrity and purity. This is not a new argument and it is one that many other countries have dealt with and are dealing with now. What usually happens is that the stronger language loans more words than it borrows. It might seem logical that when compared with English, Chinese is the stronger language since it is spoken by more people in the world than any other language and has a relatively uninterrupted linguistic history. But in fact English is the stronger language in this case because whereas the majority of people that speak Chinese live and stay in China English speakers make their way around the entire world.

The Chinese language has borrowed many words from English in a few different ways. Loanwords can be incorporated through transliteration (what it sounds like) like jipu (jeep) and tanke (tank) or through semantic translation (what it means) like huoche (fire vehicle = train), feiji (flying machine = plane) and diannao (electronic brain = computer). The "worrisome trend" that the article mentions is that more and more English words are appearing in Chinese texts without first being translated into Chinese. "Can the slavish copying of foreign words in the Chinese text symbolize progress?"

While I think that loan words should be made to fit the native language in a way that makes sense, this particular problem is just one of the many issues and challenges that translators face. Many of our English major students have a focus in translation and it is always interesting to see how they communicate difficult foreign words or concepts.

Here are some more loanwords in Chinese - most of them are transliteration and if you follow the sound rules for pinyin you will find that they sound quite similar.

sofa/shafa, coffee/kafei, pizza/bisa, hamburger/hanbao, chocolate/qiaokeli, aspirin/asipilin, vitamin/weitaming, cool/ku, poker/puke, engine/yinqing, motor/mada, radar/leida, model/mote, shock/xiuke, salon/shalong, neon/nihong, shampoo/xiangbo, cartoon/katong, rally/lali, yoga/yujia

I first met Ophelia at English Corner where she caught my attention because she was outgoing, fun, bubbly, full of smiles and very eager to speak English with me. I noticed immediately that she was a natural leader of the group of shy Chinese students that huddled around me and was always helpful to her peers while moving the conversation along by asking questions, changing the topic or saying funny things to keep the group laughing and relaxed.

One of the things we talked about was cooking and Ophelia shared with me that she was a very good cook. She explained that since both of her parents had to work late in the fields, she was often in charge of preparing meals and taking care of her younger brother. Because of all the practice, she knew how to make a lot of the traditional Chinese dishes by memory. As soon as she could sense that I was interested, she suggested the idea of a cooking lesson and I readily accepted.

On the day of the lesson, Ophelia called to ask if she could bring a few of her roommates and advised me to bring along some plastic bags when we met up. She explained that we had to go to the market first to pick out and buy fresh ingredients. I met up with Ophelia, Moss, Lisa and April after classes and we walked to the market together. It was an overwhelming and exciting learning experience just visiting the market and I felt so fortunate to have native Chinese speakers with me who knew the names of the countless unrecognizable fruits and vegetables and knew how to barter with the vendors as well. We bought fresh eggs, tomatoes, eggplant, greens, chives, scallions and pork along with flour to make the dumpling dough.

On our way back to my apartment, Ophelia reviewed the process for putting the meal together. First we would make the dumpling filling and roll out the dough that would eventually be shaped into dumplings. After the dumplings were cooking we would make the other two dishes since they didn’t take as long and tasted better hot off the induction cooker.

Once in my kitchen, Ophelia was all business and I quickly moved from being English teacher to cooking student. It was fascinating to watch the way she moved around from counter to counter and bossily kept her roommates busy chopping, stirring and peeling. One of the most interesting things I noticed was that she used chopsticks for everything - tasting, stirring, transferring, mixing and testing. When I suggested a colander and measuring spoons and cups she didn’t even know what they were! Ophelia measured everything – oil, salt, garlic and ginger purely by instinct and practice, which made it hard for me as I was scrambling trying to keep up and write down everything she was doing so I could repeat it on my own in the future.

When we were ready to make the dumpling dough she asked for a beer bottle. To my surprise she ripped the label off, washed it in warm, soapy water and began to use it as a rolling pin. I learned how to feel if the consistency of the dough was just right to begin cutting out circles to shape the dumplings. The most enjoyable aspect of my cooking lesson was that it was a collective effort. The girls were obviously having a blast and while we worked we chatted about school life, family and of course, American food. Making dumplings is a very time-consuming process and the many hands made the work go quickly.

Although I couldn’t shape and pinch my dumpling dough well enough to meet the group’s satisfaction, I assured them that it didn’t matter to me since I was sure it would all taste the same. The way their careful fingers deftly shaped and squeezed the dough made it seem like they had done it hundreds of times before, and they probably had. When the dumplings were boiling (they are done when they float) we started working on the dishes with eggplant and peppers and eggs and tomatoes. While Ophelia finished cooking, I set the table and put out dipping sauces for the dumplings.

As we sat around the steaming table ready to eat, I thanked Ophelia and her roommates for giving their time to help me cook. After trying each dish and proclaiming it to be incredibly delicious, Ophelia, in typical Chinese modest fashion said that it was not her best and that she shouldn’t have added as much salt as she did. I protested and said that it was some of the best Chinese food I have ever tasted and indeed it was. I hope that by the end of the meal the huge dent in the pile of dumplings and my bulging stomach convinced her that the cooking lesson was a definite success.

Since we are familiar with our school and Changzhou and have many lesson plans that we can use from last year, there really is no excuse not to devote a lot of our free time to learning Chinese. This year Sean and I are trying harder to stay motivated practicing Mandarin. The five of us have continued our weekly classes with Max and I have started meeting with my tutors from last year once again. In addition, a few of us are going to start attending classes that the Changzhou Institute of Technology offers for foreigners interested in learning Chinese. My second job, Web, is also offering a free weekly class. My goal is to take and pass the most basic level of the HSK exam - a test of the Chinese language for foreigners. Gulp.

After the wedding, Qin Chen, her parents, Sean and I took a taxi to Qin Chen's house where she grew up in the country in a small town called Qu Tang.


It was really neat to be able to see the house where our friend grew up. There is definitely a big difference between the small, quiet, rural town of Qu Tang and the crazy, bustling, modern, urban jungle that is Changzhou.


When I asked Qin Chen which she preferred, I totally thought she was going to say that she would rather live in the city. But instead she said she preferred life in the country because it was "more simple and quiet."


Qin Chen gave us a tour and we saw the traditional kitchen and rustic bathroom (she wouldn't let me take a picture because she was too embarrassed) which was basically a cement hole in a separate building in the back of the house. The dining/living room was at the center with bedrooms on either side. The beds were really high with mosquito netting on all sides. Qin Chen said I could use the chamber pot at night if I had to go instead of venturing out by myself in the pitch black and I was definitely glad she showed it to me because I totally put it to good use.


Before we cashed in, we looked at pictures on her computer and sampled some of her dad's homemade alcohol - basically a mixture of bai jiu, herbs, roots, spices, berries . . . and many other things I can't really identify. He swore that it has cured neighbors of illnesses but just one sip almost knocked me out!


We got up at the rooster-crowing time of 5:30 am so we could eat at Qin Chen's favorite breakfast place in her hometown - a dumpling soup shop. After some tasty hot bowls, we got on our bus at 7am for a 3 hour ride back to Changzhou. It was quite a trip!

After hanging out down town all day it was finally time for the real wedding festivities to begin and we headed over to the banquet hall.


The first thing we noticed was the wedding car outside; it was decorated in red ribbons. I have seen wedding cars around town many times in Changzhou and usually they are more elaborate than this involving lots of pink and red bows and ribbons.


The second thing we noticed was the immense size of the hall and the incredible number of tables that were set for the wedding. The guest list was 900 people! so the banquet hall had to have 90 tables of 10 - it was crazy. Each table had 10 place settings with a favor (candy), juice, bai jiu (alcohol) and two cartons of cigarettes. The wedding began at 7pm and while everyone was sitting down and getting settled, people came around to our table to give each kid a crown. Mickey and Minnie Mouse even made an appearance and handed out gifts and candy to all the children. I started to feel like I was in Disney World, but that was just the beginning . . .


At 7pm, we were welcomed and greeted by a friend of the groom who stood on a huge stage. Then we were treated to a pre-dinner show consisting of a scantily clad exotic dancer who danced on the elevated and colorfully lit runway and then on to the stage - the crowd loved it!


After the dancer the groom arrived on stage singing and walking toward the bride who was walking with her dad down the runway. She was wearing a traditional western white gown and he was wearing a suit. The groom met the bride and then walked her the rest of the way to the stage where they were introduced as a new couple. At this point there was lots of confetti, bubbles, indoor fireworks and sparklers and a fog machine working overtime - it was very dramatic. I would probably call it more of a wedding extravaganza rather than a ceremony.


The bride and groom performed some traditions on stage such as exchanging gifts (she gave him his favorite dessert and he gave her a guitar). Then they drank bitter coffee while their arms were entwined to symbolize the fact that "sometimes life is bitter but it is better to go through it together." After lighting some candles and feeding each other cake they stepped down and we all enjoyed a pretty incredible dinner.


During the dinner there were more shows onstage including: a yo-yo guy, a saxaphone player, a magician and a singer and Mickey and Minnie made another appearance. Dinner was an amazing banquet with lots of seafood - everyone was particularly excited about getting individual crabs though not everyone knew how to eat them. Things got a little messy. After dinner the bride changed into outfit number three for the day: a red and gold evening gown.


When things were winding down, we saw a video of the bride and groom acting out a few scenes in their future life together and then everyone left. We were the only foreigners there and the other guests were very curious and interested to know what we were doing there - including the bride and groom who wanted their own private picture party with us. They were very welcoming and gracious and invited us back to visit them in the future.


After the wedding we went to Qin Chen's house for the night and I thought a little about my upcoming wedding. Perhaps a Chinese person might be a bit disappointed that my wedding is not going to include dancers, fireworks, fog, confetti, bubbles or Disney characters and my guest list is nowhere near 900, but that's ok with me =)

On Sunday we had a slow start to the day and ended up heading directly to a neighboring town for the start of the wedding festivities - a banquet-style lunch.


I was a little worried about being rude because Sean and I hadn't exactly been invited to the wedding nor did we know the bride or groom. Qin Chen assured us that it would be fine since we were friends of hers and we were going to be taking the place of two other relatives who couldn't be there anyways.


The continuously entertaining thing about being in China, or in any other culture for that matter, is that your expectations are rarely ever accurate and most of the time it's simply better to avoid any predictions whatsoever of future events. Attending this wedding was no exception and was filled with plenty of surprises, miscommunication and awkwardness along with lots of fun.


Upon entering the lunch we found out that a) we were horribly late b) all the guests had been waiting for us c) We were to sit at the head table with me sitting next to the groom's father d) I was pretty under-dressed in jeans and a t-shirt (I didn't know we were going to lunch, I had thought we were only going to the evening part of the wedding . . . oh was I wrong).


But things went fine and it was fascinating to watch the events unfold. Lunch was served which involved layer upon layer of fantastic dishes stacked on top of each other; there was definitely no shortage of food. By the end of the day I would feel as though I had gained five pounds especially because of the overly worried and hospitable Chinese people at my table who felt obligated to pile things on my plate in an attempt to make me eat more.


The bride and groom entered and looked amazing. She was wearing the traditional red Chinese qipao and the groom was wearing a suit. They went around to each table, toasted everyone, collected their hong bao and gave each person a small gift (pink hand towels in this case). A hong bao is a red envelope which contains money and is given on special occasions like weddings and Spring Festival. I have asked students how much Chinese people give for weddings and in my opinion they are way more generous than we are. Even if the wedding is fairly extravagant, most Chinese couples make money on their wedding and use what they are given to buy an apartment and start their new life together. In the Chinese tradition, the groom's family pays for the wedding and the bride's family has to give a nice gift to the couple (kind of like a dowry) which might include anything from a new washing machine to a new car or a new apartment.


After lunch we walked around the little town and were frequently stopped and asked to take pictures with people we didn't even know. When this happened, a circle of 20-30 people would form to stand around and gawk at the foreigners. Living in Changzhou, it is easy to forget that in many parts of China foreign visitors are still an anomaly.


When we tired of fighting off the crowds, Qin Chen, Sean and I retreated to a nearby restaurant to hang out and relax. While waiting for the next part of the wedding to start, Qin Chen taught us how to play Chinese Poker which was a lot of fun but way different from the little bit of poker that I am familiar with. There are a million crazy rules (Sean swears that Qin Chen was making them up as she went) and she warned that there are regional variations as well if we ever dare to play outside of Jiangsu province.