it would only be logical to relay these tales in chronological order. in this vein, i will begin with the party that rocked the p.r.c like none other before (except of course the communist party . . . yes, you can laugh) which was hosted by none other than the nine of us foreign teachers. we had noticed a lack of, well, informal social gatherings (a.k.a. keggers) among the faculty and staff here at the northeast hope international school. seeing a need for such an event (philanthropic as we all are), we decided to plan a party that would bridge the cultural gap between the west and east by incorporating some western style party activities (wine, hanging out, beirut, making fools of ourselves) into the chinese framework of dumplings, baijiu, and a much more formal definition of a party. the formalities were difficult to overcome, as we were not aware that the hosts were supposed to make a speech at the beginning of the party to welcome the guests. it became quite obvious that our guests (who were surprisingly numerous and consisted of various teachers, administrators, and the camera guy for the school television studio with his camera) were noticeably uncomfortable and unsure of how to act at the party. us, being oblivious to the formality mentioned earlier, continued drinking and trying to socialize. an hour into the party and the feeling of the room growing ever so awkward, ben was notified by bossman that no one would drink or eat until someone made a speech welcoming the guests. this duty performed by ben, the guests rushed the food tables, wine bottles, and beer bottles in a veritable feeding frenzy of chinese proportions. the rest of the night was spent talking with our co-workers, playing beirut, and eating the mountains of dumplings that i had slaved away in the kitchen making (read: opened a bag of frozen dumplings and plopped them in the steamer). it was quite a sight to see 30/40 year old chinese women, usually at the forefront of self-proclaimed sobriety, chugging cups of beer after a dirty ping pong ball had landed in it, or grown chinese men hugging each other in jubilation over the win of a beirut game. it was a perfect mix of west, east, and a few hints of college thrown into the mix. with the party a success, we were urged to plan more throughout the year. as difficult as it may be for 9 twenty-somethings to plan a party, i'm sure we can manage. that leads me to the subject of teaching . . . you know, the whole reason i am here.
so i finally began teaching full-time last week. i know, finally time, right? well as some of you may know, i have been given the pleasurable job of teaching 200 fourth graders (10/11 year olds . . . 9/10 year olds to us due to the chinese custom of declaring the newborn 1 year old at birth). now, i have a great interest in children and have worked with children of various ages before. coming to china, i was expecting the children to be extremely well-behaved and respectful. well, i guess biology varies little with culture because these children were anything but well-behaved. anxious, excited, and hopeful, i entered my first classroom. i set up my power-point presentation that introduced myself and told of my expectations for the class. i then asked each of the students to stand up and share a little about themselves. with each student unable to tell me where they were from, how old they were, or what their english name was, i grew noticeably worried that some of my students had never had english before. my fears were realized when one student, obviously the "class helper" (a.k.a. the apple polisher), stood up and explained that about half of the class consisted of new students and that many of them had never learned english before. this frustration was only exacerbated by the fact that these students felt that it was only necessary to scream, yell, throw things at each other, and hit each other on the head with blunt instruments. my voice has only as of now recovered from that first day of yelling. growing red in the face, i realized that this called for drastic measures. the rest of each class was spent giving those students without english names suitable monikers. feeling slightly down-trodden, my spirits were raised when a short, liberally proportioned boy stood up and stated that his name was "buick". the brief moment of humor cleared my mind and made me realize that these were just little kids with short attention spans and that i just needed to focus my teaching on other areas and use different strategies. the next few days proved to be very successful. it is going to be a difficult and time-consuming endeavor to teach these children a language that they hold only a cursory knowledge of, but i have always enjoyed challenges. besides, they are so cute and they like me, so it can't be that difficult, right?
with some bubbling frustrations, my birthday dinner served as a much needed respite for us all, as it fell in the middle of the week. i was worried that my birthday was going to feel a little lonely without friends and family around, but my fellow foreign teachers and chinese co-workers proved me very wrong. besides the slough of mugs, knock-off louis vuitton wallets, more mugs, and a tie, my dinner was complete with a cake bought by the president of the school and a crown that i obediently wore throughout the duration of dinner. with my crown, i ruled with an iron fist by doling out orders of songs to be sung by karaoke to me by various members of my fellow diners. it had a feeling of any birthday i would have had at home with a necessary and welcome chinese flavor.
oh and by the way, the picture of the noodle soup is part of a traditional birthday dinner. the egg signifies that life is cyclical and that everything will turn out okay eventually as life come full-circle. the noodle in the broth is actually one continuous long noodle signifying a long life. i ate all of it with a little help from my fellow diners.
now speaking of chinese flavor, or more correctly, chinese funk, i have become the possessor of just that: the chinese funk. this fact became apparent to me a few weeks ago when i opened my laundry bag in readiness to do a load of laundry and i was almost blown off my feet by the smell of one particular shirt that i had worn to a club. even after washing this shirt, there were still stains which smelled of garlic, chili powder, and my own signature stench all rolled into one. i did not think much about this at the time, as i felt that it was a mere anomaly. well, the past few weeks have proven that my body has now been taken over by the smells and fragrances wrought by the ever-flavorful food that i eat here. i have never been that smelly of a person, nor has my smell really ever been offensive to me. i wear one shirt now and grow teary-eyed when i lift it thinking i can wear it again. i wear a pair of pajama pants for bed and in the morning i feel like i must wash them. the schtank is overwhelming, but i guess it is just one more part of adapting . . . smelling like those around you.
in the end, these are all just occasions in which you just have to say, "zai nar pijiu ma?" . . .
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