“Sixty Children!” – Fraulein Katherine

11/18/11

            It’s funny, some of us are finding our homestay parents much more overbearing than even our biological parents.  Andrew says we’re being “Tiger Mom-ed.” For example, when Michelle arrive fifteen minutes later than planned yesterday, she came home to a freaking out family who had already called all of our leaders and Chinese teachers. Some people find it frustrating, but when it’s just for a month, I find it pretty hilarious. Our fun night of photo albums and Google Translate came to an end, when I was told, “you go read a book now.” There is no bigger smile on my mother’s face than when she finds me writing at my desk. She always holds onto my arm when we cross the street. She  freaking takes the shells off the chestnuts for me! When I returned home from the theatre last night, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find her waiting up for me. It’s just that in CT, my parents just always asked me what time I got home the next morning. She’s even memorized my shower schedule. Which means I’m going to have to break the irregular bathing habits that I picked up in Ecuador. I’ve already told you about how I’m not allowed to do anything for myself. And G-D dammit my mother will get me to eat a tomato like an apple if it’s the last thing she does. But I will not eat that tomato because A) I am not hungry, and B) she did not cook that tomato, so should not be offended that I have no interest in eating it. I just think that so many miles away from our families, it’s nice to have people who care so much about us.

            Another perk of having a family that speaks no English is that they’re hell-bent on teaching me Chinese. I’ve never been great with languages, so I’ve decided this is a good thing. A shrill woman tapping at you incessantly to repeat is an excellent motivator.

            This Sunday I’m either attending a wedding with my family, or they’re leaving me to attend a wedding. I’m not sure which, but I really hope it’s the former. You see, “Sunday we are attending a wedding,” is quite confusing wording. I just need to find out in time to figure out if I need to get something to wear.

            For our work project in China, we will be teaching English in a secondary school. Allison, Connor, and I will be sharing classes of eighth graders (by the American grade system.) We haven’t started teaching yet, right now we’re just observing classes.

            The best way I can describe the school, is by telling you that they have military men come in to help the children practice marching. When I first entered the school gates to see hundreds of children marching in perfect time, wearing matching uniforms, I felt like Fraulein Maria. Except, instead of seven children, I will have several classes of sixty.

            Our first day we were just given a tour. The second day we sat in on two classes. Biology was alright, the kids were very friendly and had me looking through their microscopes. Chinese Lit was unbearable. I swear I saw Connor go for five full minutes without blinking. However boring it became towards the end, I was grateful to see what we’re getting into. It wasn’t at all like the experimental middleschool.  At the beginning of class the teacher shouted something, and all of the students rose and greeted him in unison. In fact, there was a lot of chanting in unison, and whenever a student spoke he or she rose. Unlike an American school, where a teacher can easily lose control of twenty students, the teacher had complete control over the sixty of them. Our Chinese teacher likes to say, “In America, the teachers are afraid of the parents. In China, the parents are afraid of the teachers.” No one spoke or whispered to their desk-mate during class; no one doodled. For forty minutes all of the students sat on backless stools, and at least pretended to pay attention. The one thing that I really didn’t like, was that it seemed humiliation was a form of motivation. Every time a student answered incorrectly, the entire class broke out in laughter. The teacher did nothing to stop them.

            I wonder what it’s going to be like teaching in a school that’s so different. In China, school goes from 7am until 5pm. Everything is focused on a big test taken the June before graduation. This test decides which caliber of university students will attend, or if they can attend at all. The entire last year of school is dedicated to reviewing for this test alone. It’s way more intense than the SAT. Additionally, if I’m going to be boring you with facts, the entire education system is much more focused on memorization and teaching-to-the-test than the American education system. Many complain that there is an extreme lack of creativity and independent thought.

            The children all seemed very excited to have us there though. Many came up to me  to ask me about myself after class. One even asked for my phone number. And the Chinese are so shy. Their English was very impressive. Now I’m less nervous about teaching a class where everyone stares at me blankly and has no idea what I’m saying. Perhaps we can do something fun for Thanksgiving.

            Today we couldn’t start teaching because the students began their three day Field Day on steroids. Their school is so huge that they had to rent a stadium for the event. We were invited, and put in the VIP section to watch the festivities. Today consisted of an hour-long parade, followed by endless races, long jumps, and shot-put competitions.

            Sometimes I wonder how on earth I got here. Never during my childhood did I ever believe that I would end up watching a parade led by a communist flag. What decisions got me to such a place? How can I keep on making these types of decisions in the future?

Love,

Katherine

P.S. I’m not a communist, I just think it’s something interesting that most Americans will never experience.

a Rich experience

11/16/11

One of the best parts of our situation in Kunming is that we are surrounded by universities, the perfect setting for making friends. Our first Thursday here, they took us to the English Corner at Green Lake Park, where Chinese learning English meet to practice together. Of course the second we arrived we were mobbed by eager English speakers. I believe at the height of it, each of us was working our own group of about eleven. I was lucky enough to meet Rich (not her Chinese name) and her friends, a group of eighteen-year-old Hindi majors, who attend the same university as I do for Chinese lessons! Let me tell you, Hindi majors are way cooler than Key and the other Tai majors. Psssh Tai majors.

People here keep saying how shy the Chinese are, but I don’t believe that’s true. I believe the Chinese believe they’re shy. So far I’ve been approached numerous times by mothers wanting their children to practice greeting me in English, Key and her gaggle of friends, and a collection of other wonderful randoes on the streets. Although, perhaps I get this kind of thing more often because I look so completely non-threatening. But I digress.

Within half and hour, Rich had invited me to a food festival, promised to take me to her yoga class, and taken my (well TBB’s) cell number. Cynical me, I never expected her to call, but what do you know, Sunday she and her friends took Andrew and me to the food festival! It was a blast! She and her friends were hilarious, and immediately she had linked her arm in mine, and was telling me which foods to try. I tried octopus on a stick, the world’s smelliest tofu, pear tea, fish-ball soup (like the world’s worst matzo-ball imaginable,) candied fruit on a stick, painfully spicy noodles, sweet rice cakes, cotton candy (just for S’s&G’s,) and some strange Tai thing with egg, beansprouts, and ketchup. I don’t know how smart it was to eat octopus from a street vendor, but I’m pretty sure that after Ecuador I have an iron stomach.

Next we went to the park, and stumbled upon some Miao (a Chinese minority) dancers, in full garb.  Many people were joining in, and once again with the shy thing, “no I couldn’t. I’m too shy. Here hold my things, step ball change.” It was a great time.

The only part that made me uncomfortable, was that they wouldn’t let me pay for anything. Rich kept saying, “but you’re my guest.” It must be a cultural thing. Regardless, to ease our guilt (as well as for our own enjoyment,) Andrew and I are taking our new friends out to Salvador’s (an American restaurant) for lunch tomorrow.  Can you believe it? I made Chinese friends! 

Monday was my first full day in homestay. I woke up, and for breakfast was severed something brown that looked like meat, but did not have the taste or texture of meat. It was fried, and sort of sweet, and sort of sticky. I have since asked my teacher, and found out that it’s fried jellied lotus flower. It doesn’t taste at all bad, but I’m still not sure what lotus flower is.

            Afterwards, my mother gave me an apple for snack, and walked me to school (to show me they way.) It’s an easy twenty-minute walk, about the same distance as from my house in CT to Weston High. It’s also about the same distance as my home in Los Naranjos was from the cultural center. It’s surprising how much quicker it goes when there are no crazy hills to climb, insane dogs, wet work boots, or a full day of physical labor holding you back. Anyway, my mother gave me a hug to say goodbye, and I was truly touched.

            I came home that night, to find several guests in the living room. There was an old man, a man in his twenties, and a middle-aged woman who didn’t stay for very long. The man in his twenties was very nice, and I was so excited to finally have someone at the dinner table that spoke English! He cleared so many things up for me, meanwhile serving me large quantities of food with his chopsticks. The woman in her twenties is the girlfriend of the man who drove me home, my homestay brother. Turns out, she doesn’t live with us at all, she just spends every waking moment here! The old man is my homestay uncle. And although they had me going for about half an hour that my brother and the English-speaking guest were brothers (despite the two foot height difference,) I finally discovered that they are coworkers. I think my brother is holding back on me, I think he knows more English than he lets on. Oh well, at lease my homestay coworker takes an interest in me.

            I’m really enjoying my family, the one thing that frustrates me sometimes is that they won’t let me help with anything. I can’t set the table. Every time I try to clear they signal for me to put it down. I’m not even allowed to do my own laundry. I’m very interested in learning Chinese cooking, but even when I phrased it this way to my mother she wouldn’t let me help cook. Charles (the Chinese teacher) says it’s because I’m their guest, and that’s simply the culture, but I feel so useless. Also, I really want to learn to cook Chinese food!

            Ooooh, and about the laundry. When I got it back, I was wondering where all my socks had gone. They showed up the next day. The Chinese Foot Intricacies continue! Charles said that the Chinese always wash the socks separately. How interesting is that?

            I’m starting to realize that getting a family that doesn’t speak any English was actually a blessing. From the stories of my TBB peers, it sounds like the families with some English skills are just using their homestay students as private English tutors. Whereas my family seems genuinely interested in me. I have never seen anyone spend so much time examining a photo album. I believe my parents spent a good forty-five minutes looking at each picture two or three times, and asking me to describe the situation via Google Translate.  Halloween was a tough one. The next day when my mother had a friend over, she even had me pull it out again, and they spent a while going through it. Another plus about the English thing: unlike my peers, no one’s asked me how much money my father makes. Once again, it’s cultural.

            Well, I’m learning to hold my bowl to my face as I eat, and throw my bones on the table. I’m also forcing down chicken feet, which are cold and don’t look nearly as bad as they taste. That’s all for now!

Love,

Katherine

Mama

11/14/11

Dear Everyone,

            I can’t remember my old standards, but by my post-Ecuadorian ones, I am living in the lap of luxury. For the first time in ten weeks, I have my own room! My own desk, with my own lamp, my own drawers where for the first time I can unpack my clothes. Across the hall is a bathroom, with not only a sit-down toilet (most places in China have squat-toilets) and a mirror, but a bathtub! For a city apartment, I think this place is on the very large size. Besides my bedroom and the bathroom, there are two much larger bedrooms, a nice sized living room, a dining room, a small drying room, and a strangely long and narrow kitchen. Everything is nicely furnished, even if a little doilied for my taste.  And despite the ashtrays everywhere (including the bathtub,) it smells remarkably fresh.

            Today we sat like puppies in a window, sweating in the freezing cold, waiting until five for our families to pick us up. My mother came to fetch me, and I became even more nervous when I realized that she speaks zero English. But she seemed very excited to meet me, and led me out of the room by the elbow, chattering all the way. She told  me to call her “Mama.” It was very reassuring.  Before we left, she even asked one of our language teachers if I like spicy food. With Yunnan’s obsession with spice, thank goodness for that!  I just keep telling myself, with no one speaking English, it’s more of a “cultural experience.”

            We were driven home by a man who did not introduce himself, in a pristine Toyota sedan, with two sets of seat coverings. When we arrived I met my host father, who seemed very enthusiastic. He putters, my host father, a paired with my host mother’s chattering, they are a very endearing couple. I also met the driver who appears to be in his mid-twenties, and a woman also in her mid-twenties who shares his room. I’m not sure if they are my homestay brother and his wife, my homestay sister and her husband, of simply homestay tenants. Either way, they did not seem very interested in me.

            Dinner was wonderful. I hadn’t expected so many options, but there were as many dishes as at the Lazy Susan restaurants. There was a delicious chicken with red peppers, a less delicious meat I think was also chicken with something else, and even a third pretty horrible boiled chicken. There were also stringy potatoes, something I think was lotus, and the best beans of my life. My mother was even kind enough to leave out the spice, and put it in a dish on the side. Here, everyone serves themselves with chopsticks. Some food goes into his or her bowl, some goes straight into the mouth. Originally they left me to serve myself, but when I didn’t eat a satisfactory amount, they started serving me with their chopsticks as they served themselves. It was sweet though, they only served me the dishes they’d figured out I’d liked best. I was doing so well with the chopsticks, until it came to my bowl of rice, which wasn’t quite as sticky as in the restaurants. They handed me a spoon! I was very sad.

            After dinner, I tried to take off my coat, but somehow, without using any English, my mother managed to communicate to me that I had to put it back on or I’d get a cold. Charles, my Chinese teacher, had warned me about the Chinese fear of cold. They don’t even drink their water cold. So in Kunming where no one has heaters (there’re only a couple of months of moderate cold,) everyone goes around with their coats on 24/7. Charles also correctly warned me about the Chinese shoe intricacies. The moment I walked in the house, my street shoes had to come off, and I was handed a pair of slippers. For once in my life they actually fit! But I’m really going to have to kick my habit of sitting on one foot. It’s much too close to showing the soles of my feet, which is apparently a huge insult in Chinese culture.

            But back to after dinner. I spent a good deal of time on Google Translate with my homestay father, asking questions. Meanwhile, my homestay mother tried to force-feed me fruit, nuts, and candy. It was actually really fun.

            On a separate note, I miss the holiday season, I really do. After Halloween the lights are supposed to go up, the carols start intermingling with the regular songs on the radio, and oh, snow! But none of that’s happening here. When I saw a Starbucks, all decked out for Christmas, much to my leaders disgust, I just had to go in. They had red Christmas cups, and the special holiday flavors I love so much! They were playing Christmas carols, and it was just so warm and peaceful. I just wanted to lie down and take a nap in the only place of holiday spirit I may see all year. It made me a little homesick, but the good kind of homesick, I think.

Love,

Katherine

Food (No Really, That’s It)

11/11/11 (Singles day in Kunming)

Oh the food; the food has been excellent. Well, not the cafeteria food, but you know. I believe it is a universal truth that cafeteria food is horrid.  Real Chinese food is very different from American Chinese food. Except for those duck pancakes. Those are pretty much the same.  Half the time I have no idea what I’m eating, but that’s also because twenty-five percent of the time the food does not exist in the states. For instance, I was served something last night that translates as “arrowhead.” And there is always so much of it. At restaurants (where the NGO officials have ordered for us) the food just will not stop coming. And of course it’s delicious, so you just keep Lazy Susaning it around.  What tends to stop me is the spice. Apparently Kunming is “obsessed with spice.” One of the few Chinese words I know is “la” (with an angry accent,) meaning, “spice.” My lips are constantly swollen, but at least it’s training for India!
            I have to say, one of my favorite things has been the street food. I stumble out of bed in the morning, and buy a sugared ball of rice, with a non-sugared churro-type-thing on the inside. That’s if I don’t want the cafeteria’s option of spicy noodles or spicy noodles. I’m slowly getting used to it. I’ve decided to try every type of street food there is. In New York I would never eat street meat, so I don’t know what’s possessed me to do it here. My favorite so far, has been boa zi or steamed round dumplings. Apparently you can haggle over everything here, even street food. This I found out when trying to get two dumplings instead of four, and ended up getting four dumplings for two Yuan.

            That’s another thing about the food, it’s all so cheap! I can get nine dumplings for five Yuan (under $1.) There is no way I can use up all of my food per diem.  I’ll just have to abuse it on coke zeroes (they don’t have diet coke here) and bubble tea. China is just plain making me cheap. A meal at the American restaurant costs about $10! Now at home that might be cheap, but here it’s $1 or no deal.

            We’ve also been taken to several vegetarian restaurants (for the Buddhist monks,) and those meals are quite interesting. All the tofu is shaped to look like meat. An entire plate will come out shaped like a fish, head and all. I’m not a fan of tofu, but the vegetables have been the best of my life.  Oh, and sweet sticky rice that comes in a pineapple, beautiful! Of course we get a bowl of white rice with every meal, but this is different.

            We asked our Chinese teacher why the Chinese don’t get fat eating so much fried food. Apparently, they use a different, less-fattening type of oil that’s illegal in the US because it needs to be cooked over an open flame. I’m not so sure about this… With the traditional food of Kunming being a fried pancake with egg, spices, and potatoes, freshman fifteen here I come!

            Okay, I know I promised this would just be about food, but I should probably talk about the experimental minority school they brought us to as well. I’m not sure how it became a minority school. I know they didn’t just separate the minority students out, because some majority students also attend the school. Perhaps it’s because instead of uniforms, many of the minority children were in their traditional clothing. As for why it’s experimental, Yunnan prides itself more than anything on its minorities, and this school seemed the right place to start. Chinese schools have often been criticized for there lack of creativity, and this experimental school is a step towards rectifying that. The class we sat in on was truly captivating. The teacher was so enthusiastic, and all the little children in their homemade bird hats were completely with her. There were birds flying across the white-board, and I could see how magical it was for the students learning to read.

            They pulled out all the stops for our visit. Their best English students greeted us and sang to us in English. We were all given beautifully decorated cards with messages like, “I wish you healthy, happy day. Welcome to our school! Do you like my school? Hi! My name is Song Xin Yu. I come from Jing Xing School. Four class five grade. My favorite food is fish, green beans and egg…” It was shamelessly adorable. Then they put all of us Americans on a stage in front of the entire school, and made us follow them as they danced several traditional minority dances. It was hilarious and humiliating. I think it’s beautiful that they all had to learn everyone’s traditional dances. I wish we could be teaching there!

Love,

Katherine