Friday, September 26, 2008

Enter Maki Combo

A brief explanation about the kids I teach: You see, they're non-native speakers of English. Not only that, they're the lowest level of non-native English, meaning just a step above ESL. Some of them have only studied English for a year or two, or English just isn't their thing, and since they're all about 15, it's getting late for them to have any chance of moving up a level, but a lot of them try really hard anyway, and I see them trying to understand.

So with that in mind, let me share some of the nuggets of wisdom I've been getting from my kids. Oh, by the way, the first week of school, all of them were confused by me. One girl even wrote in her English homework (I have her in my history class, but a fellow teacher relayed the message), "I have this new teacher Mr. Wong. He looks Chinese but he does not speak Chinese, and he from America. Maybe he is Native-American?"

I also fielded questions about why I went to America, do I really not speak Mandarin, and if I was maybe Filipino. They couldn't grasp the idea of a Chinese-American....does not compute, I made no sense.

Anyway, one of my assignments was to write sentences using a new vocabulary word: dangerous. These are some of the best answers:

"Don't get into there, there's dangerous."
"Sars is dangerous. It makes us die."
"That is dangerous to go alone to the jungle."
"It is dangerous that we explore inside the volcano."
"To fall 5 floor to 1 floor is to dangerous."

Yes, it is indeed dangerous to explore inside a volcano.

Now, let me introduce you to Maki Combo. She's one of my English students, a quiet, Japanese girl that sits with a couple other Japanese students. I call them the Japanese triangle: Maki, Riku, and Miyu. Maki became "Maki Combo" because that was one of my favorite things to order back home in sushi restaurants. Usually a maki combo consisted of a tuna roll, a cali roll, and an eel roll....mmmm. Anyway, this Maki Combo consisted of an extremely shy girl who would never talk. If I ever called on her, she would just shake her head and frown.

On the second day of class, I made them introduce themselves in front of class, and when it was Maki's turn, she said one sentence: "I am Maki...." then she looked around, and covered her face with a paper she was holding and turned bright red. I tried to get her to say at least one more sentence but she scurried back to her chair and covered her face with her hands...for the rest of class!

So, it wasn't much of a surprise when she didn't want to do her speech for the monthly exam. Not only that, she absolutely refused to try, even when I gave her the option to read her speech off a paper. The speech was worth 10 points on the exam, so she was almost dooming herself to a bad grade for the term. But nope, she didn't care.

One day passed, and I casually suggested that she could still do her speech with me, one on one after class or at lunch. Nope. No way.

Second day. Same. Maki Combo wasn't having it. I talked to her homeroom teacher, who then talked to her parents.

Third day. The homeroom teacher came back to me and told me that the parents said that they knew that Maki was shy, but they couldn't do anything to change her mind. But she'll fail the test, I said. They know, but she's too scared.......Now what?

Fourth day. I played pictionary with the vocab list, and I specifically called on Maki to draw. She was hestitant, but she did it: "laundry" was her word. When the kids guessed the word correctly, I could see that she was excited. And then, I was completely shocked when Maki raised her hand and answered two of the other kids' pictionary words. And she got them right! I felt a tide turning.

Fifth day. Friday. At lunch time I see the tops of girls' heads poking out from the office window. They peek in, then sneak away, then peek in again. I see Riku and Miyu, and some other students from my ecology class, but I wait to see if they come in. When they catch me looking, I hear screeches and they disappear, and then come back after a few seconds.

Finally, one of my ecology students comes in, Junko. "Mr. Wong, my friend is outside, and she wants to do her speech, but she is very nervous."

I jumped out of my chair. "Is it Maki?"
She nodded. "Yes."

So I went outside and Maki was there, looking petrified. "Um, let's go to an empty classroom," I suggested. I found a nearby one and closed the door. Her friends looked on from the hallway. Maki Combo figeted for awhile as she took out a notecard. She glanced up at me and I nodded for her to start.

Then it happened. For the first time ever: I actually heard Maki Combo's voice clearly...and her English was good! She told me about her Autumn Festival, which was the topic, and her sentences made sense, and had reasonably understandable grammar. When she was done, I didn't say anything for a few seconds.

She looked like she was ready to run away, but then I told her that her speech was an "A" speech. Her eyes widened. I continued and said that she shouldn't be nervous because her English was better than most of the other students' and definitely better than my Mandarin.

I couldn't tell if Maki was going to cry or if she was really happy so I thanked her quickly and said that she could go. She smiled and nodded. Outside her group of friends erupted into cheers and congratulations.

Maki Combo had done it.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

On books and food

Two of the most important things in our lives are books and food, and depending on the day, I'll gladly take books over food. We've been floundering on finding a good English-language bookstore in Shanghai--trying random places that maybe contain a single shelf of English computer programming books, but last week we did it; at least two stores with decent selections, and one with more than an entire floor containing English books!

Here we are at the aptly named Foreign Bookstore, which we found near People's Square. Cole, me, Chris, and Devon. We spent at least two hours here. Although the selection was good, the price of the books was actually higher than back home. When in desperate need though, I'll be more than willing to pay an extra $5 for a copy of Sputnik Sweetheart.


Later that night James and Stephanie, our dorm neighbors suggested that we go to this pizza place that was rumored to have REAL pizza. Not the gloppy plastic goodness of pizza hut, nor the tuna/pineapple/bacon China pie, but a normal, thin-crust pizza. And here it is, in all its glory.

Yes, it was that good. That's what happens after being deprived of decent pizza for two months.


The pizza crowd at Da Marco's: Stephanie, half my head, nicole, devon, jessica, and james.

Another staple for us has been the Food Republic food courts. This one is located under a giant metal ball of a mall (really). This is where I found Yoshinoya, CoCo's curry, and all sorts of dumplings.


Also in the metal ball mall is another bookstore. Go English books! (we're such nerds....)


Starbucks, or as we called it in Japan, Satarbucku. Brian wanted a glass of cold milk, but somewhere in the translation that became steamed milk. Trying to fix the situation, Nicole asked for some iced milk. So they brought us a cup of ice to pour the milk into (those practical Chinese). The result was...not so great (and thinking about the whole poisoned milk thing going on, Brian was probably better off).


Subway. I know I know, but don't hate yet. Try not eating a proper sandwich for a month, and then have Subway; then you'll know what I mean. It was amazing, and not only that. Here in China, they offer you bacon and egg with every sub. I ordered a turkey.

"Do you want bacon with that?"

"Sure do."

"How about on your veggie sub?"

"Do you even really need to ask?"


More books=happy us. Look, I have this crazy hair now.


In Old Shanghai, we declined to eat the ovaries and digestive glands of a crad. For more Old Shanghai fun, visit cole's site.


The perfect store for cutters. Mmm, makes me feel alive.


Dumpling makers in Old Shanghai.


Yoshi-
noya! Even better here than in the US. This is my chicken teriyaki, veggie, and beef bowl combo, w/ miso soup, and a tofu thing. All for about $4!

Engrish menu.
I wonder if there are still chunks of fruit in this? (sorry)


Chinese version of bibimbop. Very tasty, but missing the spicy pepper sauce.


Tiffany and cole. Such whities.



Ok, I have to go on for a little while about these. I've tried a few donuts here and there, but none have been right...until these. They were great, and not only that, everyone who worked there spoke perfect, native level English. Probably better English than we get at the Dunkin Donuts in Hoboken.

Fast food egg tart. Um...not so good. Really chewy crust and the filling is too soft and sweet.


Ham and Cheese at Swensens (sp?) a Friendly's kind of restaurant. Just like home.


And what I had there...a chili dog. Spicy but good, and I didn't feel sick afterwards. That's a winner in my book.


I have yet to find normal-tasting China ice cream. All of it ends up being icy and watery.


The drink line up. A snap shot of our fridge. Soy milk, diet coke, milk tea, kagome grape/veggie drink, mango drink, ice tea, orange juice, and green tea drink.

Wonton soup from a nearby restaurant.


Yogurt. Not that bad, which equals good here for dairy items.
Drink soy milk, it's good for you.


Perhaps my favorite sick food. Tomato and beef with egg over rice.

One of cole's favorites: cold noodles with cucumbers.

And that's it for the food and book post. In the real world, we're about to give our kids their first monthly test, and then we get Golden Week off. Cole and I are heading down to Singapore, where our mail goal is to relax and stuff our faces with all the different types of cuisine they have.

Despite all the enticing food here, I'm wasting away. Down two inches for my pants and now everything is too big on me. Maybe Singapore will fix that.








Saturday, September 13, 2008

Welcome to Shanghai, settling in (the long first month post)

At this point, not quite one month into my stay in Shanghai, I have:

-eaten hundreds of dumplings (and have gotten soup dumpling on at least one pair of shorts)
-slurped countless yards of noodles
-defrosted three packages of frozen pork buns
-taught 111 students 2 weeks worth of material
-taken approximately 40 cabs, 8 buses, and 5 subway trips
-gone to three banquets (where I've ingested more types of animals than I care to list at this moment)
-graded over 111 essays
-gotten lost in Shanghai twice
-and received more stares while walking in the street with cole than even I expected.

oh, there's more. Like our first Pizza Hut experience, which apparently is an upscale restaurant here in Shanghai, our trip to the North Korea-South Korea soccer match, my first day teaching ninth grade at SHSID(so so bad), my discovery of real cereal from the US (that Basic 4 will set you back $12 though), our visit to Old Town Shanghai, my encounters with all the people here who talk to me randomly because they think I understand (do not be fooled by the Chinese exterior, this boy was brought up in New York and New Jersey), but also the two amazing times I was able to speak Cantonese (really it was great, suddenly, I became a real person)....but for now, I'll take you back a few weeks, when we were still fresh from visiting Kyoto, and waiting in Narita airport.

This was our train ride to the airport. Looking pretty happy.










When we arrived at the airport, we went straight to pick up our luggage, which Narita had been holding for us for our entire trip through Japan. Not only did they have all of our luggage, getting it back was insanely easy and the woman didn't even charge us the full price. I love Japan.



When your luggage weighs more than you do, I think it means you've packed enough. Notice cole in the upper left hand corner changing our yen in yuan.






A nathan's hot dog before leaving. I can't tell you how surprised I was that they had these in the airport. My first hot dog since leaving the US, and only once since being in China. Tasty but no kraut.




A few hours later we were there. Shanghai, China. Sky, suspiciously clear, and air cooler than expected.
I've already recounted in my previous wordpress blog about the Shanghai airport experience (don't mess with Chinese grandmas was the take home lesson), so we'll head straight to the hotel in Pudong.


Upon entering the Radisson hotel, we were greeted with this giant thumb, towering over us, as if it were a reminder of where we stood in the grand scheme of things in China. Yep, right under that thumb, lest we forget.

























Ah, the first diet coke. Tastes...interesting, like many of the water-based drinks in China. As for Pudong, it was...well, it was full of buildings and shiny new expensive shopping areas devoid of shoppers. This was also where we experienced our first culture shock, namely, our venture into a Chinese department store.

These days we're used to it, but that first day was crazy. The constant stares, all the questions they asked me in Mandarin, and people's tendency to crowd around us. We were frightened off like Nicole when she's near a needle. Clearly, we were not ready for China.




But, orientation loomed at Shanghai High School, and a day later we arrived to the campus.




Our campus is a weird mixture of carefully maintained and manicured grounds, and new industrial construction. The surrounding area is...well, it's not quite what I expected. In our office at school, we've affectionately named it the "Baise ghetto" though in reality, the neighborhood couldn't be safer (the only danger being the very real possibility of getting run over by a car/bike/scooter). The best way to describe it (until I take a few pictures), is that modern development has not hit this area yet. Seeing geese getting plucked on the streets is common, and little mysterious hole-in-the-wall shops line the sides of the busy road.


This is outside or our dorm. Most of the buildings in here look just like this.











Saying that our apartment was dirty is an understatement. Sure, we did get the new dorm building, but that also meant that it was literally fresh from construction. Layers of grit and dirt covered everything. There are some stains that are permanent, so much so that I've considered naming them. Morning, unidentifiable smudge (Schmeary perhaps), evening, left over plaster and grout (Richard maybe).


The cleaning took us weeks (up until a few days ago).





Our room in it's original state.









Ah, frozen pork buns and soy milk. The Asian in me is home.




It rains a lot here.





A frog friend on campus. The campus is full of random animals: bats descend and dive-bomb us from the trees, feral dogs and cats roam the grass, and there has been at least one sighting of a small red fox. To the right, a typical lunch here at school (at least it's free).

Orientation went by quickly. We met a number of our fellow outcast/idealistic/seriouslywhatwerewethinkingwe'reinchina! teachers, and had numerous banquets. (sorry, but this is the brief, I got to teach tomorrow morning blog version).








Hanging with some of our new buddies.








Nicole getting her picture taken with the school principal and the head of the English department. Hmm, they were much more interesting in taking pictures with her than with me....



We did go out a little, once to Xuejiahua, a main shopping area (with a Best Buy, Applebees, Dairy Queen, and also where I found glorious, glorious real cereal).











I won't lie. Our first night at school we ate at McDonalds. Yes that's right. The Golden Arches, Mickey D's, MacDougal's. The menu was easy, and we knew what everything was. That was enough reason for me. And yes, a few days later we had Pizza Hut, one of the most expensive meals you can get near campus (no joke). The Pizza Hut's take-out waiting room was nicer than many hotel lobbies. The pizza was exactly what you would expect from Pizza Hut.









On the last day of orientation, we were taken on a river cruise through the French Concession area of Shanghai. Fancy. That building with the flashing lights is a Citibank.








We also celebrated Teachers Day in Shanghai HS, which involved all of us teachers going to banquet (on the way our bus hit a truck and we had to wait for the police to sort it out, seriously, the way they drive here is some kind of combination of drunk/getting your pregnant wife to the hospital (thanks josh for the description). But wait, this wasn't just a banquet, this time there was a bonus...they gave us all two pillows each as a gift. That's Josh next to me. looking pleased with our new sleeping apparatuses.

Not only did we get two pillows, on teachers' day some of our fellow teachers performed in a talent show.


The first day of school. Pretty spiffy no? This is right before I had one of the worst days ever. In retrospect, most of my classes went well. My two English classes are fine (stories about them forthcoming), as is my Ecology and Evolution, and my History class. No....it was my writing course that killed me. Why? Because, only after teaching a solid 10 minutes, did I realize that I was actually supposed to be teaching psychology. Psychology!




So so bad. But, I cried about it enough on my other blog. For this one I'll have to learn to let it go (oh so so bad).

One thing that made me feel better was seeing this. One of the girls in my English class drew illustrations of my class rules.
No Drinking or Eating
No Cell Phones
Only English in class








Well, that's about it for now. I know this post is lacking wit and/or cleverness, but teaching is a killer on creativity (and on proper proofing, errors may be abound). Eventually I'll get caught up to the present. Lots more pictures and videos to come. Sorry for the long break between posts. Life is almost normal now. (and sorry everything here looks crazy, can't figure out how to work blogger yet...)

Smell ya later. (oh, and if the videos don't work, go to my youtube page, I try to put them on there too).