Today I was invited over to Mr. Yang’s apartment for lunch. Mr. Yang is now my Da Ge Da (the oldest brother) because at the last two dinner parties he was the oldest one present (and the most distinguished host (next to Vice-President Wei on Friday night of course). Mr. Yang is the Chair or Dean (or both) of the Literature Department at Zhaoqing Institute of Education (ZIE). He lives about a mile away in an apartment building built especially for teachers and other government officials. Mr. Yang met me at the front gate, and we walked to his apartment. It was very warm (later we discovered that the noon temperature was 37 C (99 F), and, of course, it was incredibly humid. Mr. Yang had his umbrella (everyone, except Americans, carry umbrellas at all times to either shield one from the sun or from the rain). He shared his umbrella with me, and we walked across the field rather than follow the road. As we walked I listened as Mr. Yang talked about how he usually rides his bike to school and home; how he enjoys walking in the field after dinner at night; how warm it is; and how he was looking forward to showing me his home. When we got to his apartment, he had to call up to his apartment to be let through the security lock of the entrance – just like at home. However, what isn’t like at home is that apartment buildings have no lift (elevator). And, of course, Mr. Yang lives on the 8th floor.
When we arrived at his apartment, his wife, daughter and son greeted us. His daughter Sandy was in Mark Widdel’s class last fall. She was the one who told us that the outside temp was 37 C (and the temp inside the apartment was 32 C – 88 F). They had fans blowing, and I was immediately offered a Coca-Cola. I was seated in a wooden chair (no cushions) of which there were two on either side of an occasional table. I think they were bamboo, but, of course, when I asked what type of wood the chairs were made of, I received that puzzled look, and the response "wood" (see China Two for discussion of genus and species). Opposite the chairs in the living room was a matching sofa (no cushions). Both the sofa and the chairs had an intricate nature scene cut into their backs. There was a coffee (or I suppose in China it is a tea) table in between the sofa and chairs sitting on a hardwood floor – what kind of wood??? I found it a little ironical that here was the perfect place to find an Oriental rug, but alas, the floor was bare. There was a TV on in the living room, with a German Soccer League match in English. It was a Hong Kong Channel. Mr. Yang’s son likes soccer, as well as basketball and ping-pong. Mr. Yang’s wife and daughter were busy in the kitchen preparing lunch. Mr. Yang got on the phone and called Mr. Lu telling him that I had arrived. Shortly later, Mr. Lu arrived with his wife and their two-year-old daughter – what a cutie! After a few pleasantries, we were invited to the table for lunch. Usually every meal begins with cha (tea), but fortunately they offered pujiu (beer – no ganbei) and cola.
The first course is usually soup – today’s soup was melon soup. Several platters of meat are placed on the table, and just as at the banquets, you peck at the platters with your chopsticks. Only there is no swiveling platter on the table at home, so one must reach for one’s food. After the meat comes the vegetables, and then another round of soup. One always washes dinner down with cha (tea) – I learned later in the week that one never drinks during the meal, but only after. A student chastised me for doing so, and when I asked why, her response was because "that is what my mother and doctor told me."
After dinner we retired to the living room for a few minutes. Mr. Lu and his family had to leave because it was their daughter’s naptime. Mr. Yang and I also left. In China there is no lingering around. All the socializing takes place at the dinner table. When dinner is over, it is time to leave. That is why even at the banquets I went to last week, I was home by 8 or 8:30. He provided me with an umbrella to shield me from the sun on the way back. I suppose it helped a little – though it was hard to tell. To the west lies Seven Star Crag Park, and along the way, we paused, and Mr. Yang pointed out the Crag known as the Sleeping Buddha, because its shape looks like Buddha lying down (sort of how like the constellation known as Orion looks like a hunter). Actually, it does look like Buddha, or at least in the heat one ought to be contemplating the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. By the time I made it back to my apartment, the salt from the sweat was burning my right eye so bad, that I could hardly hold it open. For the first time since arriving in Zhaoqing, I turned the air-conditioner on during the day, and laid down for a nap.
Sunday evening (still September 12), and every Sunday evening, at 7:00 PM is "English Corner." It is a time when the Chinese students studying English can come together to work on their English in a fun sort of way. For example, one of the activities that we did was everyone was given a sheet of paper with 20 statements. They were statements like: "Find someone who has flown on an airplane." "Find someone who has been to Hong Kong." "Find someone who owns a microwave oven." Etc. etc. When they found someone, they would have that person sign their sheet. When their sheet was completed, they turned it in for a prize drawing. I gave away some pens (kindly donated by MnSCU at the state fair), some Anoka Ramsey Community College pocket folders, an ARCC spiral notebook, an Explore Minnesota Travel Guide, an ARCC book bag, and the most popular items were Phi Theta Kappa posters donated by Tammy Harvey at the International office. Fortunately, Tammy gave me a bunch of posters, because these students love to hang posters in their dorms, and especially posters with English on them! I should also mention that Tammy donated Phi Theta Kappa T-shirts to our group which we use as our basketball jerseys, as well as some notecards (we already gave one box of cards to Mrs. Guo for Teacher’s Day). It was a very generous donation to the program, and Tammy deserves a lot of credit. But, alas, I digress. The students were pretty excited about all of the prizes – so much so that when I ran out of stuff, I ended up giving away the plastic ARCC Bookstore shopping bag I carried everything with. We will have English Corner just about every Sunday evening.
We had our first major crisis on Tuesday. We had to take one of the students to the hospital because of severe abdominal pain (the student is fine, but to protect the privacy of the student and to avoid embarrassing the student, I will simply refer to the student as the student). Mrs. Guo (gotta love her) and I took the student to Zhaoqing Number 1 hospital – the finest hospital in the district. They had to run a series of tests, but to no avail, they could not determine the source, or cause, of the student’s pain. Funny thing about WESTERN MEDICINE – when someone is in pain in the west, doctors will quickly administer pain killers. Chinese doctors think this is silly. How can you tell if someone is getting better if you have masked the pain? How can you determine what is causing the pain, if you mask the pain? Unfortunately, if you are use to western medicine and want the pain killer, you can have a very frustrating time.
Mrs. Guo (gotta love her): She is old China (I will explain this in the book I write about China when I get back). At one point we had a chance to run off and buy a soda. "My Treat" (although I had to fight her for that). She took a Coca Cola, and I took a Pepsi. As we turned away from the soda stand, she was puzzled as she studied my can. And, then she asked, "Is that a Chinese brand of soda?" And I thought I didn’t get out much. Again, though, I digress.
Mr. Lu and Mr. He (pronounced huh) showed up at about 10:30 PM. Mr. He is the Foreign Services Director at Zhaoqing Institute of Education (ZIE). In appearance he reminds me of John Stanton. He doesn’t speak much English (he can use words, but not in sentences – sort of like my Chinese), but you could tell by the look on his face that he was deeply concerned and that it pained him to think that his sincere concern that he wished to express to me had to wait for a translation. After about an hour, he made Mrs. Guo and myself go get something to eat. We found a restaurant just down the street from the hospital. Mrs. Guo ordered us some beef and noodle soup, and, of course, there is always the cha (tea). The tea they brought us was only luke warm (instead of the scalding hot tea we usually got), but because the weather was so hot I wasn’t going to complain. This is when I got the lecture on the medicinal qualities of cha, and how they are enhanced by the cha being hot. And that is why the Chinese do not mind, nor do they think it is absurd, to drink hot tea on a very hot day (similar, I suppose, to a Minnesotan drinking an ice cold beer while ice fishing – the medicinal qualities).
When we got back to the hospital is about the time that it was decided that they were going to admit the student and keep the student overnight. It was decided that Mr. Lu and I would stay the night, and that Mrs. Guo and Mr. He would return to the school. Mr. Lu, pronounced like Loo in Loot not Lew, (gotta love him – and you will, he is coming Monday!) and I spent the night on the balcony of the hospital room. We talked about the students, the weather, families, homes, China, America, culture shock (Minnesota winters in particular), and just little things which I have noticed between our cultures in my short little visit here. It was our first chance at a simple, liesurely conversation that was only interupted by his going back into the student’s room and checking the IV and calling the nurse when the bottle needed replacing. It was the silver lining in the cloud because I am grateful that I got to spend the time with him, and I am looking forward to his still being in Minnesota when I return.
As it turned out, the student had a bladder infection, but, because the Chinese give antibiotics intrevenously, the student stayed in the hospital for a couple of more days. Mr. Lu, Mr. He, and Mrs. Guo were really fantastic. They made sure there were at least two Chinese students who spoke English at the hospital at all times! Even through the night! Although, while their English is quite remarkably good, you can tell that their studies do not focus on medical terminology. So, for my class of Chinese students, I gave them a vocabulary list of medical terms on Friday and we will work on learning and using those terms quickly (just in case I’m the next one in the hospital).
And that takes us to class. I have 43 students (4 boys and 39 girls – in China it is acceptable for a teacher to call college students boys and girls, so wait to sue me until I get back) in my class. The ratio of boys to girls is about the same throughout the whole English Department (there is probably a total of 150-170 students studying English here). And the girls, for the most part, speak really good English. The girls are not afraid to engage you in conversation. The boys tend to be shy, they sit in the back, and they are less likely to come around to the dorms to visit. My class consists of 2nd year students and so it is mostly for working on oral skills. Friday evening, Matthew (one of ours) invited about 15 boys who are in their first year over for a tea party. Matthew rooms with Robert in the apartment next to mine, and their apartment was packed. Well, the girls came around at their normal time and were surprised, and perhaps a little dismayed that the boys were here. So, three came over to my apartment and asked to watch TV. Another four came over and wanted to look at my pictures (Every time we came to a picture of Denise, my wife, I would use a different adjective to describe her…"this is my adorable wife", "this is my smiling wife", "this is my beautiful wife", etc. etc. and they hung on every word, and remembered every adjective I used. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to play cards (fortunately, I brought two decks so we combined them), and I taught them "Go to the Dump." They had to use formal English to play though, so it went something like this:
"Joey"
"Yes, Amy"
"Do, you have a seven?"
"I’m sorry Amy. I do not. You will have to go to the dump."
Any violations of the proper use of English cost a person their turn! Well, the girls kept hanging around my apartment waiting for the boys to leave, but pretty soon the karaoke started, and they were all singing Simon and Garfunkel hits, and then the Beatles, and then something else and then all over again. IT WAS ALL THAT IS GOOD AND RIGHT WITH THIS EXCHANGE PROGRAM! The girls could not out wait the boys, and they went home. And I fell asleep listening to "the Sounds of Silence." Later the next day Pamala (one of ours) asked me, "Don’t you think Denise would kill you if she knew you had seven Chinese girls in your apartment?" To which I responded, "I’m only in danger if I have ONE Chinese girl in my apartment." Thank God they travel in packs!
Saturday evening Matthew invited the same boys over for movie night. Only about ten showed up, but it was enough to convince the Chinese girls to go to the disco! So, it was pretty quiet in my apartment. Jen and Pamala came up to use my computer to do some e-mailing, and then Mrs. Guo popped in! Matthew was using her DVD player, and so her son was at Matt’s (Matt was serving Oreo cookies). So while Jen and Pamala did their e-mailing, I showed Mrs. Guo some of my pictures and we talked about names, and how people name their children. We talked about Mid-Autumn Festival and Labor Day, May Day and Memorial Day, Spring Festival and Easter, Valentines Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. We talked about Fables, and their meanings, and discovered that while some of the fables are different between our two cultures, their point seems to focus on the same virtues (we are more alike than what we may perhaps think). At 10, Mrs. Guo left to round up her boy, I did some quick e-mailing, and that concludes China Three!
Zaijian,
Gordy