Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in his majesty's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
5:13 pm	returning to GZ The rest of my trip to Chengdu was very good. I saw some old classmates and had tea with one of my old teachers. I went back to my favorite park Wen Shu Temple and ate at the vegetarian restaurant. While we were waiting for the restaurant to open we sat in the tea house and played with an old temple cat. I'm back in GZ now, the markets are all full of people now, off work for the Spring festival. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 9th, 2007
2:47 am	Going to Leshan My trip to Leshan went well. The main tourist objective of Leshan is its giant Buddha, which was really giant. In 2004 I went there on the way to E'Mei mountain with my classmates and we drove by the Buddha on a boat to save time. Seeing it up close was much more rewarding. The monk who commissioned the creation of the giant Buddha to serve as a marker along the foggy and dangerous river begged for 20 years to raise the money for the project. When some local officials tried to steal the money from him he told them they could have his eye but not the money. After he dug out his eye and flung it at them they ran away in fear. While we were climbing down the aptly named "path of birds" to the bottom of the Buddha a full water bottle in the side pocket of Josh's backpack slipped out and fell down most of the 233 feet drop. The bottle fell amidst a group of Chinese tourist who all immediately looked up...thankfully no one was hurt. On the way there I sat next to the driver and chatted with him most of the way. At one point we passed a tiny mountain village with some cool looking statues of a young man kneeling next to an old crone. The driver told me that it was a statue of an evil bandit lord who controlled the town in times gone by and that the old woman was his wife. The bandit lived to the age of 105, and in his long reign horded vast wealth of stolen gold and silver which he hid and was never found. The locals say that when he died no one knew how old he really was and that he had out lived anyone who could have refuted his claim of an 800 year old life. The bandits name was Pan Zu and the village is now named after him. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
6:10 am	I went to the Panda Breeding Research Institute this morning, it was much cooler the second time around as the pandas hadn't yet gone into there daily food coma. The highlight of the trip wasn't watching a Chinese lady play with baby pandas, a close second, but the amazing informational video about panda breeding in which a terrified first time panda mother tries to maul her baby. In all fairness panda babies are ugly and look like the chest poppers from "Aliens" if I wasn't prepared for some thing like that to come out of me I would try to maul it too. I also found a shop that sells my favorite bau jiu, a Tibetan brand that is unavailable in GZ. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
7:04 am	Green Ram Daoist temple I went to the Qing Yang Daoist temple yesterday. When I lived in Chengdu I always had this vague plan of going there and playing chess with the Daoist priests, but was too lazy to put it into action. It had all of the stuff that China temples have; giant statues, clouds of incense, and old people getting hopped-up on kungfu tea. While wandering around Josh and I bumped into what I assumed to be a lay Daoist Taichi class, they were practicing an odd form of push hands that the master later told me was unique to the Green Ram temple taichi. The teacher was the full time teacher for the temple and lived in the part of the temple that was devoted to Daoist medicine, and Taichi. He was very excited to practice his English which while limited, was pronounced very well, and in his halting way explained that we had just missed two guests, young Daoist priests, who had come from Wudang (Wu Tang) and Qing Cheng mountains respectively to demonstrate their Kung Fu. Then he showed us a short movie on his student's digital camera of the two priest playing their temple-style taichi forms. They were both very impressive. While he was demonstrating his kungfu to Josh and I an aged Tibetan priest came up and started to watch, after some polite conversation the Tibetan demonstrated his finger striking technique by thrusting his fingers against the top of a stone table and making the table bounce. The whole experience was very surreal. One had the impression that if one just sat in the tea house of this temple that you were bound to run into kungfu masters. It made me remember the old men on the Sichuan University campus who would fight together using their Taichi at full speed. Chengdu is definitely a city of hidden dragons and crouching tigers. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 5th, 2007
4:15 am	I am in Chengdu, again, on a quest for hotpot. Arivail should be meeting me shortly and we will begin sampling the bounty of Sichuan. I had forgotten how distinct the Sichuan dialect is, on the train up I shared a car with several young teachers from Sichuan who were thrilled by my mispronunciations of Mandarin which they took to be Sichuan dialect. I never would have guessed that my time here still affected my pronunciation. The air here is incredibly clean compared to Guangzhou I thought Chengdu was so polluted when I lived here. When I leave China one of the things that I will miss most is not being close to Chengdu. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 7th, 2006
10:23 am	For the October holiday I went with a group of teachers from my old job to a near by beach for a few days of sunburn and hangovers. It was an odd place, at once beautiful and gaudy. I woke up one morning to see hundreds of red baseball caps from a Chinese tour group flouting in the waves. People in speed boats would zip through the swimming area to slide up on to the beach where children played and at night drunk vacationers played with fire crackers. The highlight of the trip was finding a human skull, half buried in the sandy embankment. The back had been broken inward and although we did not find the lower jaw the upper teeth were perfect, and diminutive. When we asked the the locals to borrow a phone so that we could report it to the police they said their was no need and not to touch it, that would be very bad luck. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 9th, 2006
5:01 pm	Yesterday for the first time in many weeks I sat in a coffee shop and read a Chinese Kungfu novel. It dawned on me as I was doing so that I was happy. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 12th, 2005
7:41 pm	adventures of Mr. Browns fourth grade class Peggy One day. When I am playing was playing with my friends, a space ship fell down. An alian got down from the space ship, and says:"Hello every one! My name is Mr. Brown!" We are very scared. I ask:"Can you take us to the space, sir?" Mr. Brown says:"Of course, I have nine spaceship!" We should:"that's great!" We go in to the space ship. Mr. Brown close the door, then the space ship lift off. Candy says:"Look, Mr. Brown we are above the clouds and all the planes! Mr. Brown smile and says:"Right we will see the moon and the stars very soon." the space ship become slowly and slowly. we see a big white ball. Tyler ask:"what's that? It looks strange!""It's the moon. My home is there.""Realy?""yes, let's go and have a look!" Mr.Brown jion the space ship to the moon very quickly. Very soon, the space ship stop on the moon. We get down from the space ship. But we are flying in the air. We should:"Help, help, Mr. Brown!" Mr. Brown says:"Don't br scared, here is a space suit, It's very heavy. We walk on the moon, and looking to the earth. the earth is blue, green and yellow. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 11th, 2005
10:27 am	The adventures continue By Rambo Today I drive space ship. Come ymto space. Discoves UFO drive spaceship. Aliens use ray gon. I dodge. Alien chase I. I discoves sun. Sun very sweat. I discoves Alien spaceship come ymto. hey I think Use fire burn to death. But too late alien use raygon dead. I come to discoves Alien base! I scared. I think, think, hey Alien scared fire I see fire, after i drive Alien car. Alien discoves. I use raygon deadI see Alien very dangerous. I patient learn only ...... wa very, very,very handsome. but he break. I very [picture of crying baby]. I discoues Alien. I use handsome [picture of pistol] raygon yes! Alien dead yes I happy. Yes, I happy I drive spaceship back home. MY NAME IS : RAMBO When ever I ask the class to write some thing Rambo lets out a cry of genuine despair and bangs his head on the desk or chalkboard. When he speaks in English or Chinese the most he ever says is "No" or "Teacher, Rambo no can’t!” He might be the most inarticulate person I have ever met. Rambo was hand picked by the school to participate in my reading class because of his very high test scores. He is the academic leader of his grade; he is also about twice as big as the rest of the class. The reading class is extra curricular and there is no Chinese supervision so the students can sit wherever they like. The boys constantly fight and swear, so Rambo and the girls all sit on one side of the class. During the five-minuet break Rambo draws fascinating concentric patterns on the board, with a lazy smile on his face. When ever we do activities out of the text Rambo sits quietly in his chair with a far away look on his face, because he read the whole book in the first week and did all the exercises. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 10th, 2005
10:06 am	Adventures of Mr. Browns fourth grade class Tyler In the evening, I have a good dream. It's this: I am a super Tyler, I go to help the people...... One day, a city has a ghost, it's very terrible. Every year, he must eat a baby. One day, I become a super Tyler, I am go to ghost's home die with he. But I must have a good idea. I think: he eat many babies, I must kill him. I first go to fly, eat some gold, second I kill gosghost. The ghost is sleeping I kill with hehim. The sitin the city people is very think with thank to me (the sentence "I am go to ghost's home die with he." I think works out like this: 1. I am go to ghost's home die with he. 2. I went to ghost's home die with he. 3. I went to ghost's home die him. 4. I went to the ghost's home to kill him. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 2nd, 2005
2:03 pm	lu shang zhi xing zhe jie zhi zhi So I have applied to three grad programs: the Chinese University of Hong Kong for an MA in translation (cuhk), Columbia for an MA in Chinese literature and language, and the University of Iowa for an MA in Chinese classical literature. There is still a little work to do with regard to all of them but I can get them done before the deadlines. If I don' get in anywhere then I am going to go Beijing or Urumuqi to study more Mandarin or Uigar respectively. Recently I had to write a hundred and fifty report cards for my kids, which were to be unique and not directly critical (so as not to offend); Chinese criticism is by turns very direct and painfully oblique. After two weeks of soul numbing struggle to say unconditionally positive things about the English progress of seven and a half score pupils I will never look on praise without a heavy dose of incredulousness ever again. I have also discovered that truly there is no anonymity to be had in China no matter the size of the city one lives in. Everyone around the schools I teach at call me teacher if I stop to buy things at a store. Once in a completely different part of the city while drinking some beers with some highschoolers (no drinking age in China) one of them asked what I did for work and another one piped up, “He teaches English at Dong Chuan elementary, every one knows him there.” (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 21st, 2005
5:45 pm	Shame and Glee I teach the very same way I run role playing games. Most of the public speaking/ hoard guiding that I have partaken in as been under the might auspice of the D&D. For those who suffered through many years of my awful improved game sessions that were lead by only the thinest and most arcane of goals you all know exactly how good and bad a teacher I am. However I am comforted to know that I now have strong guide lines to run my classes by: I could list them all but they are numerous, contingent, personal, and with out use to those who have not lived them. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 9th, 2005
9:26 am	sick in GZ I got up this morning and puked my guts out; then I put on my work cloths, brushed my teeth, and went to work. I have thinking about going back to school...at Iowa. I think that if I could find a job as a Chinese teacher in southern Italy I might be the happiest failed scholar ever. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 29th, 2005
11:43 am	What have I been up to pray tell? Escaping a Chinese materialist cult. Following rumors of Gong Su in GuangZhuo(kungfu duels). Dressing up as cartoon characters for my students and challenging Chinese conception of national identity. How is that for a weeks adventures! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 22nd, 2005
11:49 am	My third graders are so smart...especially the poorly behaved ones; the worst is named Shawn, his English bites, but when ever I present an idea or game in class he asks pointed questions in Chinese. I was playing a game in which I pretended to be a police officer and drilled the students with questions like "Where were you?" or "what were you doing?" The first thing he shouted out was "The police would never ask us all in the same room together." and then "What room did the man die in, how was he killed?" A few days later he picked up on the fact that I some times contract my "you's" to "ya's" As in "do ya want to play ball?" It is a shame that his deviant behavior has him labeled as stupid by his Chinese teachers. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 20th, 2005
7:37 pm	An other update from the future From time to time I ignore every sensible thought I have ever had, and take a motorcycle taxi across the city of GuangZhuo. The main attraction of the motor-taxi is that they obey even fewer laws than regular taxis and cost less if you are good at bargaining. The rides are all ways filled with adventure, and being on the highways in the open smog-filled air is breath taking in more than one way. As I glide through the miasma I think was it really so important that I will risk my life to get there on time? The moon festival past with out major event, I sat out in front of my apartment with Josh, Beth and a slew of other foreigners drinking and singing off key. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 18th, 2005
1:32 pm	Today is the Mid-Autumn festival, but our apartment complex had there celebration a few days ago, Josh and I backed block one in the inter-block tug-o-war. The next day we took our favorite door guard Gan YeTian out to dinner, at first he was very shy but slowly he relaxed and we talked about his life in Shan Xi and an interesting conversation about tattoos. He told us that the tattoo to be most feared was the butterfly, which is a gang tattoo for a very violent group. As our meal drew to a close he got very nervous when a group of men came to sit down by our table in the totally empty restaurant. When we left he told me that they were Hei shi hui (which is Chinese for BLack Society or organized crime). In better news my upstairs neighbor is a Belgian man who is teaching me French in exchange for Chinese lessons. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 16th, 2005
9:40 am	On my way to work every day there is a girl of nine or ten and her father sitting on a foot bridge begging. The girl has the worst burn wounds I have ever seen. What is left of her skin is stretched so tight over her, that I can make out individual tendons and veins, she can not walk, her father has to help her pee or defecate, which she does on the street. On the blanket where they lay there is a picture of her before the flame. Signs of infection are every where, some day soon, very very soon she will die. When I search my feelings, I find nothing, only an abscess where compassion once dwelt. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
2:46 pm	The big story of the last week or so, is that I called 102 (Chinese 911) when my teaching assistant collapsed in class and could not be roused. My kids freaked out when a hall monitor and I carried her down three flights of stairs together at the request of the Ambulance Dispatcher. Otherwise all is well, if slow, I have made friends with some of the street sweepers on the way to work and with a group of young professionals that always eat at a BBQ place next to my house. Josh saw the security guards practice martial arts in the compound, it sounded neat. All the security guards in GZ carry red and white metal staffs, I really want to see them train with them, from the way the y carry them around I think they might use them in a double ended fashion like a quarter staff. I am thinking about going back to ChengDu for the October holiday. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 26th, 2005
10:55 am	Enter the edutainer... Of the ten classes that I was scheduled to teach on my first two days of work only two of them actually happened, but for the most part they went all right. I am teaching two schools with a total of eight classes; four first grade classes, two second grade classes, and a single third and fourth grade class apiece. My curriculum is sesame street themed which is kind of fun in some bizarre fashion. There has been some confusion over a new law that prevents outside companies from teaching directly in the school, and the company decided that it would just send a newsletter home with the kids who where taking the class on the first day explaining the law and that the kids would have to go to a building just off campus, but across a busy road, to go to class, the parents flipped out. They poured into the classroom and started screaming at the TA's who were the unfortunate bearers of this news, and then they started yelling at each other because three fourth of the yelling and explanation was in Cantonese and the contingent of outsiders couldn't understand what was being said, all this happened before the class was let out and so the kids, feeding off there parents energy, went nuts too and started fighting each other... In my classicaly short-sighted way, at the point that I saw two of the kid kicking each other in the head I decided that it was time for a short speech, in which I explained the benefits of talking about this later. I was a little terrified as the whole room quietly listened to me, and was even silent after I was finished. The silence lasted only a moment before they laughed as a group and then went back to fighting. At least it relieved some tension. Afterwards the Pricipal came in to watch the carnage and we joked about the lot of educators and what the best local beer was, while the yelling match went on for another hour. In the end it was acually somewhat enjoyable. Random parents would come up and talk to me, one woman was mad because I had changed her daughters English name from Tippi, according to her the name of a French author, to Nancy. I didn't know how to tell her that I was pretty sure that it wasn't an english name, or that more importantly her daughter pronounced it Titti, which I though was unfortunate. Another mother told me that her son's english was already much better than the rest of the class and that the very first lesson was too easy, if it was the case I don't know but her son didn't appear to be able to answer questions like, "Hello, how are you?" but I dutifully took note of it on the off chance that he was just shy. My neighborhood rules there is a little hidden park where old men play ping pong in their boxers in the morning, there is a group of rowdy PE teachers who drink on the sidewalk outside my apartment complex, I have had a game with the local chess players, and am just making friends with the neighborhood in general. (5 Comments |Comment on this)