March 2005 Archives

We've put up all these photos of drinking beer, singing karaoke, visiting the big buddha and learning Kung Fu, that I thought I would take some time to let you know that we're actually teaching too! We're having a great time in the classroom--the students here are lots of fun to teach. Most of them are really enthusiastic and eager to improve and practice their English. Michael and I have both noticed that even when we're feeling lethargic or a bit blah before class or office hours, working with the students always leaves us feeling reenergized and in a good mood (a little different than my days at Webb!).

We've been working on roleplays in all of our classes. Whenever our classes don't overlap Michael and I go to each other's to perform short little scenes from a restaurant or job interview, etc. We teach the students some key vocabulary and then they come up with their own skits in small groups. There have been some really creative and funny ones so far, like the fly-in-the-soup restaurant scene where the fly turned out to be the manager's pet and she came over to talk to it.

In addition to our own classes we've also been visiting some of the other teacher's classes, since most of their students have never had a foreign teacher before. We've put together a little multi-media presentation (Ok, it's just photos and music, but 'mulit-media' sounds better) about our families, our wedding and our trip. It's been interesting and fun to try to explain all these different things to students with very limited English (these students are Japanese or Korean majors who haven't learned much English). Michael does a lot of drawing on the board and we've also had to act out a few things. Our most popular performances include me trick-or-treating on Halloween as either a ghost or a frog (depending on whether I have my scarf or hooded green jacket along with me), as well as Michael's demonstration of how people carry things on their heads in Africa and India (again my scarf comes in handy for this). Oh yeah, and Michael likes the face I make to show the meaning of 'gruesome' when we tell the story about Shah Jahan cutting off the thumbs of the workers who built the Taj Mahal.

After dinner we sometimes go back to the teacher's office to offer extra help to students if they need it (They all study in their classrooms until 8:30). The students mostly seem to want help with their pronunciation. You'd think this would be easy for us, being native speakers and all, but last night we ran into some difficulties. Michael and I discovered that we say the 'l' sound differently, specifically when it's in the final position in a word, like 'will' or 'fall'. It wasn't that noticible until we slowed down and exaggerated it, and found that our tongues do completely different things.

We spent a while debating and demonstrating in front of the poor student, who probably just became more confused. We continued the debate back in our room, and the only thing we could agree on was that the English 'l' is different from the German 'l' (English 'will' vs. German 'will' (want)). We concluded that it must be a difference in regional accent. Either that, or else ONE of us just learned to say HIS (or her) 'l's the wrong way. So how about a little survey? What does your tongue do when you say the 'l' sound, especially when it's in the last sound in a word? Does it touch the back of your teeth or does it curl up in the back of your mouth in some weird way so that you actually kind of swallow the sound? (No bias here!)

Just a quick note to say we've decided to extend our stay here in Yantai by one month, so we'll now be here until the end of April. We're really excited about our decision, it's the first time we've been able to it because in the past we've always had to catch our next flight or make it to our next volunteer program. It's nice to feel a bit more grounded for a while and we're starting to feel more and more at home here--knowing what buses to take, which restaurants are good, and hearing students greet us by name as we walk through the market.

Learning even a little bit of Chinese has proven to be pretty difficult and slow though. When we're on our own we end up either getting really creative with gestures and charades or showing the person we're trying to communicate with our notebook in which the teachers have written down some key phrases in Chinese, most importantly: dumplings and noodles. The words we do remember how to say are: hello, thank you, this, that, not too spicy, tea, beer, Austria and Australia (from explaining our trip), and some numbers. Hopefully our list will start growing over the next few weeks--another good reason to stay longer!

Part I:
From the business card of a restaurant (copied exactly):

Sculpting in Time
Beef-steak Italy Pizza Spaghetti
Ladies and Gentlements:
Are you going to share an unadu-
lteratod cafe with the form of Am-
erican countryside? Are you
going to share delicious Pizza? Are you
going to share fresh steak? Yes!
Welcome to Sculpting in Time

Part II:
Written on our pillowcases:

Best wishes
Do you like

Part III:
Dinner Scene

We were at dinner last night with some teachers and students from our school, talking about our favorite music, etc, and one of the students asks Michael,
"Do you like Lee ta Ree cha?"
"Little Richard??"
And the students repeats "Lee ta Ree cha"
And Michael again says "Little Richard??"
The student kind of nods his head yes so Michael starts saying "You mean the guy with the little mustache??"
The student nods again, so Michael starts thinking about it, "Um...Well..."
Meanwhile I'm trying to tell Michael what the student was actually asking, but he was just too into Little Richard to hear me.
Then finally the teacher next to us says it more clearly...
"Oh--Literature!"

Last night, after a delicious noodle dinner (no drinks this time!) we popped into one of the music stores that was blaring Chinese pop songs out onto the street. I came across a John Denver CD with all my favorites on it: Leaving on a jet plane, Perhaps Love, Calypso... It even had Shanghai Breezes, the song that had been popping into my head whenever anyone here mentioned the city. We went ahead and bought it (for about $2.75, which Wendy said was expensive compared to other stores). When we got home I eagerly opened the CD and found a picture of--?????? Can anyone help me here?? Did John Denver ever go through a fat stage? Or maybe plastic surgery?? There's a photo like this on the inside of the CD case and then there's the poster that came folded up inside the case. When I saw the photo I was worried that the songs would be by some 'other' John Denver too, but I was relieved to hear his voice. I'm still confused about the photo though...

We've been invited out to dinner five of the eight nights we've been here--usually an elaborate affair in a private dining room and about fifteen to twenty different dishes to share, always very tasty! Tonight we went out with all the teachers and administrators of the college to celebrate women's day (I had already received a rose early in the day for the occasion, very sweet!). We all piled into the teacher's bus and drove to the "Red House Restaurant" where the festivities began!

One of the fun things about going out for dinner in China is the 'cultural drinking game' that takes place over the course of an evening. From the time the drinks are poured, toasts are made by hosts throughout the entire meal. Tonight they covered 'Happy Women's Day", "Thank you women", "Welcome to China", "To your health", "To new friends", and "Thanks for the song". We've been told that it's a sign of friendship and respect to finish your glass when someone makes a toast (luckily the glasses are only small wine glasses). As the night goes on, the toasts start to feel more and more like drinking challenges, as the "toaster" waits for a show of empty glasses from the "toastees". Some people try to cheat, but you're considered honest and virtuous if you drink up, even if it makes you sick. There were a few people who did end up sick, but it was openly admitted and there didn't seem to be anything shameful about it.

Everyone was all about singing songs tonight too, we'll try to put up some photos and sound. We ended up having to sing "The itsy-bitsy Spider" which we've been teaching in our classes (but we don't have a recording of that--sorry to disappoint!!) Actually, it's funny how often we've been asked to sing songs on this trip, we'll have to prepare a repitoire next time.

Thank you to the staff of Jian Wen University for a fun-filled evening!

Now that Michael has finished writing his ‘book’ about our last day in India, I can do a quick update on our time in China so far.

Our flight from Delhi to Beijing was on Ethiopian Airlines, which seemed kind of strange but we’d had good experiences with them traveling from Ghana to Uganda, so why not? The 6 hour flight seemed really short, probably because of all our long train rides recently. We had no idea what to expect in China or at our new volunteer situation. That’s the difference between traveling from place to place for a year and taking separate trips to each destination separately. If we were coming to China as it’s own trip we would have researched and read up on it as much as we could. But the way we’re traveling we’re always so busy trying to take in our current environment that it’s hard enough just trying to remember to confirm our flight. That was especially the case in India because we felt our time there was so short. We didn’t even look at the volunteer website again or read through past emails to find out the name of the school we would be teaching at—very unprepared. But I guess that makes it exciting, and that way we arrive without any expectations, which is often better anyways.

So we arrived at Beijing airport (very new and nicer than most in the States) at 6:30 PM. We knew there was an eight o’clock flight to Yantai but we didn’t have tickets yet so we had to hurry. Luckily we made it through passport control quickly (we were a little worried that they would make us show an onward air ticket which we didn’t have, and I had lost the itinerary that we had created the day before). We bought our tickets, bought a phone card, called the volunteer coordinator to tell him our flight, and made it to the gate just as the last bus was leaving to take passengers out to the plane.

As we walked outside to the bus we were hit by a blast of cold air—something we hadn’t felt in quite a while. It was a shock, but also exciting—that cold air smell was nice. The Chinese people on the bus kind of laughed at us and told us (without words) that we should put on some warmer clothes (we were wearing our warmest). The novelty and excitement about the cold quickly wore off as we stood shivering waiting for the driver outside the Yantai airport. We were driven to the college and Byron (Mr. Wong), a local English teacher, showed us to our room. The room is really nice—we have a desk, refrigerator, TV, computer with internet (though internet is not working at the moment), and most importantly hot water and heat! It stays nice and warm in here, but it seems to be the only place on campus that is heated. The classrooms and cafeteria are quite cold, and according to the students so are their rooms. On Wednesday we went shopping for some warmer clothes, that has helped and I think we are starting to get used to the cold.

I’m teaching 2 different classes of English prep. These students need two more years of English instruction and practice before they can go on to be freshman English majors. Michael is teaching the freshman and sophomore English majors. The students are between 17 and 22 and the class size varies greatly from 8 to 40. The college focuses mainly on languages (English, Japanese, and Korean) and prepares students to work as teachers, translators, tourist guides, commercial artists, and mainly flight attendants. Right now our schedule is pretty light and we’re feeling a little lazy (and a little bad too because we keep disappearing into our room to warm up). But starting next week we’re going to try to help out in some of the other English classes.

There’s more to say about the great people we’ve met so far and the great meals they’ve taken us to, but I think I’ll stop here and save some for later. Bye!

We didn't have a chance to write about our last few days in India while we were still there so we're taking the opportunity now. We have a computer with high speed internet access in our room at the college we're teaching at so expect lots of updates during March!

The India guidebook we used warned us every other page to be on guard for touts, con-artists and scams directed at tourists but we never had any problems--until our last night. The night before we left Delhi we had a late dessert and Chai at a cafe and afterwards I wanted to call my parents. We stopped at a call shop just around the corner from our hotel. We were told it was 20 Rupees (about 50 cents) a minute because of the "superior" quality of the phone connection. I decided the price was reasonable since I hadn't spoken with my parents in a while. 33 minutes later I hung up the phone and was presented with a bill for over 800 Rupees when it should have been about Rs. 660. Unfortunately, I had already handed my money to the cashier before realizing the error. I asked for my change but was told I'd have to come back in 30 minutes when the manager would be there.

Disgruntled, Megan and I headed to our hotel to start packing because we had an early morning flight and a taxi would be picking us up at 6AM. At 11PM I returned to the shop and asked the manager for my balance. He assured me that the extra charges were correct and that I was "mistaken" about how long I talked. I asked him to show me on the receipt where the length of the call was listed. He said the time wasn't printed on the receipt - just the total cost. Two American tourists who were also in the shop said "Oh, don't worry, he's our friend. He's not trying to cheat you." I wasn't convinced and continued asking him to show me how the cost was calculated but he ignored my requests. Getting frustrated, I walked back to the hotel and asked the two night managers for their opinions. They both said that I was, without a doubt, getting cheated and that I should go back and tell the guy I'd call the police if he didn't give me my money.

I had a decision to make: go after this guy and threaten him with the police to get back what was equal to about 5 bucks or go back to our hotel room with my tail between my legs while trying to pretend that getting cheated didn't bother me. When Megan and I travel we like to keep in mind that we may be the only Americans some people may ever meet - unofficial "ambassadors" of sorts. Our interactions could shape how people think of the US and its citizens. Therefore, we always try to be polite, courteous and helpful. So, stomping into the call shop, angrily demanding my money back and threatening him with the police didn't appeal to me. But if this guy was ripping me off he was probably doing it to a lot of other people. I thought it might be an opportunity for me to learn something about handling a difficult situation so I decided to confront him once again.

With my adrenaline pumping I marched back to the shop rehearsing in my mind what I was going to say. I entered and calmly presented him with his choices--give me the money he owed me or deal with the police. Unfortunately, he wasn't scared (as our hotel managers promised he'd be) and simply told me to go ahead and call the police--he'd tell them the same thing he told me. He obviously wanted to see how far I'd take things. I jogged back to our hotel and told the managers what happened. They picked up the phone, dialed and stuck the receiver in my hand.

Delhi Police: "[Something in Hindi I couldn't understand]"
Hotel Managers: "Tell them you're American and that you're very mad. Tell them you're going to call your embassy you're so upset. Be strong!"
Me: "Ah, yes, hello. I'm an American tourist and I've been overcharged by a phone shop..."
Delhi Police: "...what do you want us to do about it?"
Me: "Uhhh...Well...I thought..."

One of the hotel managers grabbed the phone from me and started yelling into the receiver and waving his arms. He spoke in Hindi so I understood only a few words every now and then. Words like: "American," "embassy" and "police." The managers were more upset than I was and were saying that unless the police acted swiftly I'd contact the US Embassy which, according to them, would result in some kind of international crisis between India and America. Whatever was said worked because they reported triumphantly that the police would arrive in 15 minutes to save the day.

As we were waiting the hotel managers advised me to be harsh with the police when they arrived. "Tell them you're very mad and that they'd better follow you to the shop. Be strict with them so they know you're serious." I told them I'd rather not insult the very people sent to help me. "No, no...pretend you're mad at them! You will not get just 200 Rupees back, you will get 600 Rupees--you'll see!"

10 minutes later a police van pulled up with all its lights flashing carrying 3 armed officers. I thought it seemed a bit over the top for a simple complaint about a phone call and secretly wished I were back in my hotel room. The managers from the hotel immediately took over and explained the situation in Hindi to the senior officer. He didn't seem pleased to be bothered with such a trivial problem. Nonetheless, he accompanied me with another officer to the office. By now we'd attracted the attention of every person (and every cow) in the street and had quite a crowd of onlookers. We entered the shop and, throwing his clipboard down on the desk, the senior officer started yelling at the phone manager. The manager claimed he told us it'd cost 24 Rupees per minute and, miraculously, was able to push a few buttons on his register and found the exact length of my call despite not being able to do that for me when I requested it previously.

I argued back and forth with the manager in English and he argued with the police in Hindi. The hotel managers had also followed us to the phone shop and I asked them if they understood what was going on. They just looked at me blankly and didn't say a word. Only a few minutes before they were encouraging me fervently to "fight the corruption!" and "stand up for your rights!" but now they stood silent because they didn't want to criticize their neighbor publicly. It was 2:30AM at this point and I was physically and emotionally drained. The police persuaded the shop manager to refund me part of my money (75 Rupees or about $1.87) and I signed a two sentence statement to the police saying that I was "satisfied" with the outcome. I had left Megan in the hotel room 2 1/2 hours earlier and she had no idea of what was going on. Upon returning to our room Megan said she was beginning to seriously worry that maybe I'd been kidnapped, mugged or beaten up by the phone guy. It was a surreal experience and, after finishing our packing, we fell asleep at 3:30AM.

As if the drama from the night before wasn't enough--we had another altercation on the way to the airport. The taxi we hired for 6AM ran out of gas 5 minutes after we got in. Megan and I had to push the car for about 10 minutes until a friend of the driver showed up with his own car and used it to slowly push the taxi tug-boat style to a gas station. Because we'd paid a lot for the taxi service we were seriously ticked off and told the driver that we expected some money back. He laughed at us and said "No, no. Get in. We're going to the airport now." We stood at the gas station trying to tell him how wrong it was to treat customers this way. We asked him for his cell phone so we could call the hotel to explain the situation but he refused. He got into his taxi and started driving away so we quickly jumped in and sat in silence for the rest of the trip.

When we arrived at the airport 30 minutes later the driver started unloading our backpacks from the trunk. Megan jumped out and, confronting him one last time, said, "Either give us back some of our money now or let us call the hotel on your cell phone to ask them what should be done. If you don't do either of these things then we'll really be mad and we'll call the hotel from inside the airport and tell them how badly you treated us. The choice is yours." He took out a crumpled 50 Rupee note, stuffed it in Megan's hand and drove off grumbling to himself.

Looking back, Megan and I think we might have attracted these experiences to ourselves through our moods and thoughts. We were sad to be leaving India so soon and we were feeling the negative emotions associated with leaving a place and people that had become familiar to us. We were going to China - a country we knew little about where we didn't speak the language and was full of uncertainties. We've learned that in the future it's probably best to relax and keep our schedule simple a day or so before we travel someplace new. It should help us stay in a positive frame of mind and attract the right kinds of interactions and experiences.