Well, it's been a long time since my last report. Main reason is that we've had mid-semester exams: conducting and marking Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking classes for 120 students - and only 2 teachers!
It can be quite boring and frustrating reading students' analysis of a bar chart which showed 1986 education spend figures first and 1972 spend figures second (because less was spent in 1986 than in 1972), where so many students wrote "... the spend increased from 1986 to 1972..." when it should have been interpreted as "... the spend decreased from 1972 to 1986..."! As I later explained to the students, it's like saying "... from the age of 20 to 6 I learnt less every year at school..."!
Anyway, I now have to mark their assignments where some of the topics, resulting from questionnaire interviews, look quite interesting such as:
- The attitude of sex among university students living on campus
- Realization About Teenager Pregnancy
While the male students continue to be the instigators of extra-curricular activities, such as bike riding, some of the female students are beginning to warm towards me by bringing me nibbles in class - probably because they know I can't cook and take pity on me. Only tonight a sweet little 6 y.o. had pity on me at my favourite restaurant: I was head down doing what I thought was a pretty good job of raking up rice with chopsticks when I sensed someone quietly standing alongside me - it was a cute little girl with a big smile on her face and holding a spoon in her hand, ready to hand it to me. I graciously accepted it but continued to practice with my chopsticks. Fortunately, I had a little koala key ring which I later gave her, to her great delight.
Most of my excitement these days is riding my bike to and from school. After so many months in China I still cannot get over the sheer chaos and total disregard for traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and road rules/manners. I have had many close calls mainly with scooters, bikes and even pedestrians casually stepping onto the road when I'm trying to race the scooters. On that point I now keep up and/or pass most scooters, but boy do I do a lot of swearing in the process of trying not to be knocked over. Last week was my first genuine road rage when a young scooter driver took exception to my gestures when he almost forced me off the road: we stood still, side by side, with me gesturing and speaking in English and he shouting in Chinese. Fortunately, I was saved when dozens of scooters and bikes started tooting and ringing their bells for us to clear the narrow bike lane.
Things are looking up on the teaching work front: two weeks ago the company I work for (Yucui) sent me a draft contract to teach in Dalian next semester, as there was no work at Tongji University; last week it was revoked as as they are taking stock of who should stay with the company and who should go (such as my fellow teacher); this week I have been given 3 choices!:
- Apparently Tongji University has requested Yucui to retain me (nice of them)
- The Dalian English-teaching postion (my first choice) is still open to me
- Moreover, I have been asked whether I would consider teaching I.T. to the students in Dalian, as they would like an Australian teacher.
One thing I do know is that in the next week or two Yucui will send me to Hong Kong on business for a day, where I will opt to stay an additional couple of days, at my cost, to look around.
Finally, I experinced my first pub in China when I accompaned some of the younger teachers to their favourite haunt. It was to celebrate May Day (Labour Day) in China. I was proud of myself having stayed (and outstayed some) with the "shout" of beers and B52s until 2:30am. At 10 yuan ($2) a drink and a $5 meal I managed to spend 400 yuan - I don't want to count how many drinks that added up to! I vaguely remember the taxi driver taking me home, but the next thing I remember is waking up at 1pm, still half dressed! Pubs are not my normal scene...
Until next time... Renzo
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