Today is my day off, being Thursday, so I am home alone with sometime for myself, between loads of wash. It's a gray, cooler day after about 4 days of very hot, muggy weather. It will probably rain, because it always does when I have a washday. Yesterday evening we went to a celebration, one of many to come in the next week, of the 50th year of the new China. It was a very enjoyable event. Due to the small size of our university, it had the flavor of back-home talent shows. The program opened with about 30 people, primary teachers and retirees, singing several songs. The teachers had competed in a singing competition on Monday, singing the same songs. Elementary school was actually cancelled because the teachers were singing. We then had a dance group perform with 6 lady dancers and about a dozen children, age 4 or 5. They were very cute, especially the 2 little boys, one of whom was in the wrong place several times. The parents and audience were very appreciative. A young boy, about 13 played an accordion, and then two little girls played the synthesizer. The first girl had trouble with the mike pickup and started over again after about 5 minutes of playing. The second girl was very good with a great ability to create a mood with her music. She had to be no older than 12. A group of retirees danced, and then Tim sang two songs. It was the first time one of the foreign teachers had ever participated in any kind of local celebration. It was the largest crowd Tim has ever sang in front, even though they didn't understand anything he said. The program continued for another hour and a half, with various singing, and dancing acts and ended with a skit about two cooks and the waitresses who worked with them. It was very funny, with the cooks wielding large woks as they danced around the stage.
The whole performance was the typical combination of ingenuity and glitches that we have come to recognize as so particularly Chinese. The backdrop was a beautiful scene of large interlocking circles of paper flowers, interwoven with tiny flashing lights. It was very beautiful. In front were three tiers for the singers to stand on, covered very nicely in red. However when the songs were over and everyone had left the stage, it became obvious that the tiers were covered in tissue paper that had been reduced to shreds and stayed in front of everyone the remainder of the program. The mikes were not consistent, sometimes cutting out in the middle of a song, often squealing shrilly. The sound system actually cut out when a little girl was being held overhead by two ladies. They didn't know what to do, but they finally had to put her down when their arms gave out. There were small children running across the stage between the acts, and occasionally during the acts. There are bats that live in the theatre and fly over-head as the performance goes on. Of course there is no air conditioning, so it can get very hot. I have still not invested in a good hand fan, which is definitely an item of need. Yet some of the acts were brilliant. The younger children were wonderful on their instruments and a lady with an accordion made the best train whistle and chugging sound I have ever heard. She was wonderful, but unfortunately the mike couldn't pick up most of her quicker fingerings. The ability and talent of these people never cease to amaze me.
The children in school come in all sizes. Most are slender, all are dark-haired. Curling and coloring hair has not reached our campus, thank heavens. There are only a few college students with dyed auburn hair. The children are accustomed to hard drills and memorization. The other English teachers have the children memorize the whole story in each chapter. They then have to recite it to the teacher for grades. Tim mentioned the same thing in college. He came into class one morning with the students frantically trying to memorize 2 pages of unimportant material for their next class. There are songs incorporated into their class work, but never any teaching aids of any kind. If I bring in pattern blocks to work with colors, the children go wild. I have been playing hangman with my older students, as well as Simon says, to get them accustomed to listening to English. They love these games, though it is sometimes hard to keep them controlled. I have found if I just sit down, they will gradually become quiet and we can then continue.
In most classes there is a child that is looked down upon and made fun of. Usually they are relegated to the last row, and are never called upon to participate. Some of the teachers have expressed a desire to reach these children, but mostly they become the brunt of the teacher's frustrations and anger. Often they are treated by a blow with a twitch, or an angry lecture at a minimum. I have found that the kids have adapted by living in their own world. Since the students all laugh whenever they are called upon, they no longer even pay attention. The first week of class I had a strong talk to each of the classes, and told them at no time were they allowed to laugh at their classmates. I try to give questions the kids can answer, and they are finding themselves successful and are starting to raise their hands and even offer an answer now and then. I hope I can make a small difference in their lives for the better. One young man in ninth grade who hid his head in his arms the first day I asked him a question, actually greeted me in English as he passed yesterday. It has been great to see the change in him already.
I have to end up with an amusing incident that happened over the past several weeks. As you now know, the farmers bring their chickens to the market live, to sell for dinner. One evening we spent a rousing several minutes cheering the chicken that got away. It was great to see it running through the grass, chased, but eluding, several of our fellow apartment dwellers. Taalan was the chicken's most ardent fan. In fact he often expresses himself very forcibly about how the Chinese shouldn't be killing all the chickens, ducks, pigs, fish, etc. I know it is the most distressful thing he has to cope with here. Last night at about 4 in the morning, a rooster started crowing right outside our window. It woke Tim and I up, and also apparently Taalan. When I went in at 6:45 he was lying in bed, awake. The first thing he said to me was "I want to kill that rooster!" I laughed and almost commented on how his tune had changed about animal rights since he went to bed last night. Sure enough, when we looked out the balcony window, there was a Rhode Island Red rooster, crowing away, it's feet tied together with a inch wide strip of cloth. He was given just enough room between his feet to wander around. I don't know if it was the same chicken that they were chasing earlier, but it was the same people and they were definitely not making the same mistake twice. For myself, every time I hear that rooster crow, I feel good he has still escaped the cooking pot.
Notes about this web page