February 2008 Journal

I haven't updated in a LONG time - Wednesday February 6th, 2008

I'm bad at updating this site sometimes because I get busy with things. So now, I have a lot of ground to cover. I'll try to organize this topically:

My Birthday

On January 7th, I turned 25 years old. The actual day of my birthday, I didn't do very much. I cooked a delicious dinner for myself, I watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and I had some imported merlot. The night before my birthday, however, was quite a party!

I invited my favorite students and Chinese friends over for a small party. Most of them brought me gifts. I ended up with some stuffed dolls of those Olympic characters, two homemade scarves, a little purse, a desk organizer thing, and get this: A PSP! One of my rich students bought me a brand new PSP for my birthday. She was really embarassed about spending so much on a gift, so she made me wait to open it until everyone else had left. But wow, a PSP! I must be a great teacher.

Finals

On January 7th - 11th, I gave finals to my classes. I tried to emphasize on the first day of class (and on every subsequent day) that exams didn't concern me - attendance did. I told students if they want to learn better spoken English, they should attend class every week and practice. I told them that 99% of their grade was attendance and 1% was the final. EVEN STILL, I had about 100 times more students show up during finals week than during any other time. Some of the students I don't even remember seeing before the last day. Anyway, I made up some lame questions, sat with each student and did a personal interview with them, and ranked their English skills on a scale from 1-15.

I really didn't care about the grades that I turned into my boss. The University is so unorganized that they didn't even give me a class roster. The University doesn't have a list of students that are enrolled for my class. They expect ME to provide the list by asking the students in my class to sign up on a piece of paper. So students who never came to class and don't speak a word of English will be passing my class because I, as a foreign teacher, have no authority to flunk somebody. All I can do (and did) is delete their names from the grade sheet so that they don't get credit for attending my elective class. It will be like they never registered for it in the first place. If they complain to somebody, it's not like they can look it up, because a class roster doesn't exist! I'm sure the University will just give them a passing grade anyway, because 1) they don't take their foreign teachers seriously, and 2) the Chinese education system is the biggest jumbled mess of memorization and recitation that I've ever seen. Grr, oh well. I didn't move here because I wanted to change the world through teaching. I don't even like teaching. I moved here for selfish reasons, so I should learn to just "let it go" and not worry about the small burden of teaching once in awhile.

Beijing

January 13th - 21st, I traveled to Beijing with my friend Maia. We started in Nanjing and took the overnight train. Arriving around 7 a.m., I promptly got us lost looking for our hostel. We eventually found it with the help of a Chinese man who was trying to get us to stay at his hotel instead. We had a nap and walked down to Tiananmen Square. At the Square, a Chinese man came up to me and said, "Do you know what happened here in 1989?" I proudly replied, "Nothing happened." :) w00t I'm Chinese.

We visited the Summer Palace. It was gorgeous! I want to see it in the summer. It's on a big lake, there's a small island with an amazing bridge to the main land, there's a big palace on top of a hill, there are paths curving every which direction over a mountain - I don't know, it's just really cool. Too bad it's so far from downtown Beijing.

We also hit up the Temple of Heaven. It was kind of worthless. Of course it's been "refinished" (i.e., rebuilt), the last session of which happened in 2005. It's an ancient Ming Dynasty temple for harvests ... finished in 2005. Sorry, but it's hard for me to get excited for ancient artifacts that are 3 years old. That's a huge difference between Western and Eastern culture: we think historical sites should be "authentic" while Eastern cultures think they should be kept in perfect condition through reconditioning.

The Great Wall has a big neon sign advertising the olympics. Right next to the Wall: "One World, One Dream. Beijing 2008." I am so sick and frustrated with all of the Olympic advertising. We get it... you get the Olympics, congratulations. Does anybody really care where the Olympics are held? I mean, we have the Olympics as a method of preserving sports that can't make it on their own anyway, right? Curling and gymnastics and weightlifting - sports that ESPN doesn't show because they're TOO BORING. Group them all together - sorry, but it's still not interesting to me in the least. And even less interesting to me is the country that's going to host this bad collection of sports. Congratulations China, you get to host the world Ping Pong Championship during the Beijing 2008 games. I'm sure 6-year-olds around the world will be so anxious to tune in. Gaahh, stupid olympics. Anyway, I went to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. It's been rebuilt like most Chinese monuments. It has a neon sign for the olympics, it has wired speakers running its length playing "traditional" Chinese music, and it's full of vendors yelling, "Hello!" at me trying to get me to buy a "Certificate of Accomplishment" proving that I climbed the Great Wall. Oh, Chinese vendors... ruining world heritage, one UNESCO site at a time.

(When my friend Aubrey visits from the U.S. in a few weeks, I'll be back at the Wall. I'm taking her to an unimproved section for a 10k hike along the wall. I think that'll be a lot cooler than the Badaling section.)

The Forbidden City was the single biggest disappointment in Beijing. First, most of the buildings were covered in scaffolds because they're all being rebuilt and repainted before the Olympics. China wants to put its best face forward to the world at the Olympics, so their cultural heritage sites are all being rebuilt and the history behind them is being rewritten. Fun stuff. The Forbidden City took me about an hour to walk through the entire thing. It was boring. Half of it was closed due to the construction. The other half wasn't interesting in the least. Don't go to the Forbidden City.

The souvenir shopping area located south of the Qianmen bus station was great! I loved shopping back there. The most fun I had in Beijing was shopping with Maia in a small snow storm near Qianmen. I got some great gifts for people back home, I haggled with some fun vendors for WAY too much time ... it was just a good day in general.

I had Peking Duck in Beijing. Another thing to check off of my list of "Things To Do Before I Die."

I also spent a morning in a big antique market looking at really cool, really expensive Chinese antiques. I caught a cold. I played in the snow. I met some great people at my hostel (from Wales, Poland, Canada, Sweden, and China). Two Swedish girls thought I was Swedish - they didn't believe me when I said I was American. What do Swedes look like?

Anyway, after 7 days in Beijing, we took the overnight train back home.

My Passport

You know the one thing you shouldn't do when you travel? Don't lose your passport. I lost mine. I had to cancel my trip to Hainan and instead I had to spend the last two weeks here in Zhenjiang. First, I had to get a police report stating the passport was lost. Then I had to give the report to the local newspaper and get them to print a notice saying a passport had been lost. Then I had to take the newspaper clipping to my local Entry/Exit Bureau to get an official form with a red stamp on it. I had to take that form with a new passport application to the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai to apply for a new one. (I had to pay the $97.00 fee.) Now I have to wait until Chinese New Year is over so I can go back to Shanghai to pick up the passport. What a mess it's been. Luckily, I have a new one waiting for me to pick it up in Shanghai.

I can't believe I lost my passport. I never lose anything. What a mess.

Anyway, that's about everything I've been doing lately. Since I can't travel more until I get my passport, I've been stuck at home playing video games, watching movies, and just hanging out. I decided that instead of slacking off so much, I should update this page finally.