Some Pics from Moon Festival 中秋節

^ Aaron and Anlison at dessert

^ Gang bei'ing (toasting) for a happy Moon Festival

At a beautiful lunch banquet with Anlison's parents and extended family

^ with a high-ranking military official, who is also the mayor of Zhuzhou I think.

^ Cheers!!!

^ walking around the park after luch

^ little tiger is stuck in the tree

^ fishing on a hot afternoon

^ pagoda... a landmark near the Xiang River

^ we won prizes for our incredible aim

^ at a delicious home-cooked dinner with Aaron's parents and grandmothers.

They were so sweet!

^ example of festival decorations found all over the city

^ with Anlison's family

^ delicious dessert at Aaron's place... fruit and moon cakes.

The moon cake on the left is traditional, whereas the one on the right is modern.

^ at the park's main gate

School begins at 6:50am and goes til 10:10pm here... crazy. I'm still in my office working on lesson plans and it's 8:20pm. The bell still goes off periodically to signal the beginning and ending of periods.
What a long day for the students!

Sháoshān 韶山

Today I traveled to Shaoshan, the birthplace of Mao Zedong, founder of China's Communist Party (CPC) and the People's Republic of China. It was a great day, despite being terribly sleep deprived. Proven recipe for a headache: have a few drinks at a party, get three hours of sleep, then get up bright and early to spend all day on your feet, and then have shots of Baijiu (白酒) at lunch. Baijiu means "white liquor", with a whopping 50-60% alcohol content by volume (or about 100-120 proof). Yeah... but I didn't drink by choice, it was gang bei'd upon me.

Anyway, the sights were really cool and I enjoyed spending the day in a more rural setting. Here are a few pictures from today.

^ Chinese word for "beginning" - shǐ
The first part of the character is nü 女, which means "woman"  

^ Walking around Mao's home during his early childhood years

^ With the monument at the town square

^ Jarret was brave enough to eat chicken feet

^ Place to give offerings and blessings to Mao

^ School children in the fields (there was some sort of documentary being filmed)

^ Feeding the huge orange fish (which I think were carp)

^ The big man himself, 毛泽东 

^ Beautiful painting of Mao's home in Sháoshān

^ Our breakfast was huge ~ pea/corn porridge, vegetables, noodles, egg, cucumbers, and more!

^ Lotus, a vegetable. We ate the seeds but you can also cook its roots. Yum!

And very healthy to eat during autumn, according to Chinese traditional medicine

^ Little boy watching the ducks

^ Small river in Sháoshān

Long Weekend

This weekend is a three-day weekend, which is extremely rare here in China. It is so nice to have an extra day off, and everyone feels the same way. Yesterday the kids got out of school 30 minutes early and you could just feel excitement in the air. ^_^  (Chinese smiley)

Last night I went to a banquet, spent some time people-watching downtown, and then watched a movie back at my apartment. It was super relaxing. Today I'm going with Anlison and Aaron to a famous local market. Hopefully I can get a few more things to decorate my apartment -- and some essentials like a body towel and sheets. Tonight is a party at Sarah's place on the edge of town, and then bright and early at 7:00AM I'm heading out with Jarret and a few Brits to Chairman Mao's hometown for the day. Should be an awesome weekend!!

Here are a few more pics from last night. The first is of the little shrimpies on a stick. Haha. The second is me and Jane, a fellow English teacher. The next pic is of two tables at the banquet holding up their drinks in gang bei style. They were a wild crowd. And the last two photos are of a bamboo root dish and a smattering of our community-style dining dishes, respectively. Yum!

^ buying decorations for my apartment

Zhōngqiū Jié (中秋节)

Today was a great day. My classes were mostly all behaved and we had a ton of fun learning and singing a song about weather. I've learned that the more animated a class is, the more students will want to participate. =)

I received lots more cards and moon cakes to celebrate Teachers Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, respectively. Also, I was invited to an 8th period formal celebration for all the teachers, complete with traditional Chinese dancing, singing, and an amazing banquet. It was really fun.

It was, however, a night of firsts.

First time I gang bei-ed (making toasts/blessings in honour of other people...it's huge in Chinese culture and a sign of respect) and had to make toasts to important higher-ups in my school. Let's just say a lot of drinking was involved.

Hmmm. It was also the first time I ate bamboo root, which is actually pretty good. Not as good as the shrimp-on-a-stick, which -- get this -- is eaten not only with its shell on but with its head and whiskers and everything. Yeah.

I got asked to "see a film" by a fellow young teacher at the banquet, who was sitting with a few other guys flirting shamelessly with the blond-haired foreigner. Turns out he was married, making that a first too. "I think he wants to date with you!" joked Summer, my English-speaking liaison, "But he is married. I think he is making a joke with you." That's not awkward at all. He probably had a few too many Tsing Taos.

For the first time since arriving in China I had time to just sit somewhere and observe the things going on around me. I was in a downtown area after wandering around after the banquet, and I spotted a crowd of people dancing. So I walked over and sat amongst the locals to watch the dancing. I felt such a respect for the Chinese and an appreciation for their collectivism and culture. It was beautiful to watch men dance with their women, spinning them around and taking such pleasure in knowing all the steps by heart. (Most of the people dancing were my grandparents' age, but some were younger). Everyone was so graceful and enjoying the evening, not hurrying to be anywhere but living in the moment. On the sidelines were parents and children, grandparents, vendors, casual observers such as myself, and people setting up decorations for Mid-Autumn Festival. It was such a peaceful moment for me.

And as I was crossing the street to get home, a man walking from the other direction literally almost got slammed by a motorcyclist... because the guy walking was staring at me and wasn't looking at the traffic. It was both flattering and shocking at the same time. lol.

Below are a few pictures. The first is a Moon Cake (中秋节) - the traditional food given as a gift to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, or Zhōngqiū Jié (中秋节) in Chinese. Really delicious, save the cooked egg yolk in the middle of some varieties. The second picture is a few of the cards I received for Teachers Day. =) More pictures to come!!

Teacher's Day

Today was Teacher's Day here at Jing Yan, and in typical Chinese style I didn't find out until about an hour before the festivities. lol. It was mid-afternoon, and I was getting ready for my second class when four students burst in to my office, inviting me to their class parties during 8th period. "Sure," I said, "I'd love to come!"

The parties were great, albeit a bit awkward having to leave each one after ten minutes to divide my time equally among the four classes. In addition to hearing songs, poems, and blessings in English and Chinese, I heard a variety of traditional Chinese instruments played by several talented students. It was great. The kicker was when I was asked to sing in front of two of the classes. "Teacher Cait! Teacher Cait!" the students and teachers exclaimed. "Sing us a song!" I was then handed a microphone.

Okay, I think to myself. I'm not the greatest singer, so this'll be interesting. 
What on earth do I sing??


When in doubt, revert back to the song your grade nine teacher made you sing each morning in high school.

So I sing the Canadian national anthem.
In French.

Thus begins my singing career in China. ;)

勇 (yǒng) - courage, bravery

According to the classical Chinese dictionary, 

bravery is either the result of your heart's resolve

 or of your brute physical strength. 

I'm going after the first one.

Chronic Misbehaviour. Understatement of the Year.

Today was the most taxing day I’ve had yet. I had one class that went TOTALLY wild. Nothing I did would make them listen, and it got to the point where I was yelling at the top of my lungs “An-jin! An-jin!” which is “Be quiet!” in Chinese. “Ting bu dong!” the students pleaded, which means “I hear you but I don’t understand”. Yeah right. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what the universal sign for “BE QUIET” is…

It was an absolute nightmare. I stopped my lesson every five seconds because I couldn’t hear myself speak and I tried to quiet the 62 students who were throwing things, turned around talking, and studying other subjects in my English class. With water welling up in my eyes (which thankfully no one could see because it was dark for the projector) I went around and told every student to put his/her head down on the desk.

I was at my wit’s end. Whatever patience I walked into the room with was long gone. But I knew I couldn’t let the students win. In essence, they were definitely up a few points, and they weren’t relinquishing power very easily. But when I finally managed to find the class monitor with “the Book”, they decided to pipe down, at least momentarily. The threat of not getting an “A” in the class behaviour book proved more fruitful than any of my previous tactics. The obedience was short-lived, though, and as soon as the bell rang I left class, too frustrated to stay and speak to any of the students. I definitely have to find their Head Teacher and have a chat with her. If there is one person who can scare the shit out of younger children, it’s their head teacher. I really pose no threat, since my class isn’t counted toward overall grades and I am just the clueless foreign teacher. The Head Teacher, however, can record misbehaviour on a student’s school record and impact his/her chance of acceptance to a top school for senior school (high school).

Sounds like I need to make friends with the head teachers of my “problem classes”.

Sigh.

In other news, my apartment is finally fixed. Yes, all my broken windows have been replaced, my toilet actually flushes and doesn’t overflow (which means I can take a shower now, too), lights have been fixed, and my fridge is in working order. And, most importantly, my A/C is fixed so I can finally sleep in my bedroom and not on the floor of my office. Things are looking up!

Now I’m going to join a local gym with my sitemate Nora. It’ll be great to start running again. =)

-Cait

My Flickr Page

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caitkooistra/

Update from China!

Ni hao! 你好

I haven't really had much time to post about my adventures thus far, but I hope to spend some time this week catching up on my blog! I have already taken on a Chinese name, 康天乐 (KangTianLe), which means "happy and healthy every day". The Chinese people are very into the meanings behind words, numbers, colours, etc, so supposedly my name is a very good name. And my phone number does not have any 4s in it, which is another bonus. (The number 4 is close to sounding like the word for "death" so it is very unlucky).

Right now I am at my placement site in Zhuzhou at Jing Yan Middle School. Zhuzhou (Chinese: 株洲; pinyin: Zhūzhōu) is a city of about 4 million people (not including suburbs and the fact that it's merging with two nearby cities! It's HUGE) and about one hour from the capital of the Hunan province. A river splits the city into east-west sections, and there is always LOTS going on. It is less crowded than Changsha, which is where we did our teaching orientation during August. I can't wait to keep exploring the city and making random Chinese friends - like the lady I met this afternoon at a tea shop, who made me sit down and drink tea with her. We had a great conversation, me with my broken Chinese and hand gestures, and her talking nonstop and trying to write things down for me. It was great... and definitely proves that good relationships (guanxi) can be formed without needing to be fluent (although it would definitely help).

I started teaching this past Monday, after previously assuming a start date of September 1. Such is life in China (unpredictable)... but I just go with the flow. This year I am teaching 18 classes of Junior 1 (equivalent of Gr. 7) per week... with 60-65 students in each class. It's quite chaotic at times, especially in the more rowdy classes, but I have managed to keep my sanity so far. We'll see how long that lasts. ;-)

My apartment is old but quite spacious -- I have two bedrooms, a study, a living room, one bathroom, and a small kitchen. It took almost a whole week of nonstop cleaning to get it "livable" but it has become homey since I've hung up pictures and rearranged furniture (and cleaned...). Despite broken windows, a non-working toilet, no internet, dust buildup from years of not being cleaned, gas leaking from my stove, and a plethora of other things that aren't in "working order", I have tried to stay positive. At least my apartment doesn't have a rat/cockroach problem, like my site-mate Nora's. She has been a great support, as we have both had our turns trying and wondering if things will get better here. She is teaching high school students at 二中 (Er Zhong High School), which is the campus where we live, and I am teaching middle school at Jing Yan, which is on the other side of the ZiangJiang River. My daily commute takes about 25 minutes on a good day, as I walk to the bus station and take it straight to my school. I might start biking, however, as Zhuzhou has an amazing public bike system -- basically there are bike stations all over the city and all you have to do is swipe your card. You can return them anywhere in the city. It's really cool! I will be posting more stories and pictures (goodness knows I have tons of crazy stories!) so keep checking my blog. Zai jian! (Goodbye!) 再见...

- Cait

My Mailing Address in China

412007

湖南省株洲市

株洲市第二中学

师信箱 Cait Kooistra

Cait Kooistra Teacher Mailbox

Zhuzhou Number Two Middle School

Zhuzhou, Hunan 412007

People’s Republic of China

BBC Documentary: Chinese Schools

Please pray for the thousands of Somalis suffering the worst famine the country has seen in almost 50 years. There is a photo essay by Foreign Policy that offers a humbling look into the famine.

Society 6

If you're into colourful, vibrant graphic arts then you should check out Society 6.
Featured on the site is amazing art like the picture below.

Coldplay's New Song...

And check out their website to download a free album! :)

Happy hour is always enjoyable with Mueller... she is one of my favourite people in the world, and I love her to death. I'm here living with Kristin, Emily, and Joel until I graduate and move to China. Which is on August 2nd... coming up quickly! Today, after my current international affairs class, I'm heading up to Richmond with my mum for Cheryl's wedding. :)

Long Island Iced Tea

The worst day ever was made ok...thanks to taking shots with Kristin.
"Oh to hell with it..." LOL. If I survive tomorrow I will be pleasantly surprised.

Zhōngwén, 我学中文

Food Crisis

The problem? "The more the price of food commodities increases, the more money pours into the sector, and the higher prices rise. Indeed, from 2003 to 2008, the volume of index fund speculation increased by 1,900 percent. ... 

The average [North] American, who spends roughly 8 to 12 percent of her weekly paycheck on food, did not immediately feel the crunch of rising costs. But for the roughly 2-billion people across the world who spend more than 50 percent of their income on food, the effects have been staggering: 250 million people joined the ranks of the hungry in 2008, bringing the total of the world's 'food insecure' to a peak of 1 billion -- a number never seen before." 

A potential solution? A ban on long-only trading in food commodities for investment banks. Meanwhile... "the index funds continue to prosper, the bankers pocket the profits, and the world's poor teeter on the brink of starvation."    ~Read the Foreign Policy article here.

中文 Class

This is an example of how overwhelmed we all are ("we" being me and the other 7 students in Chinese for 6 hours per day).

  Steven (Chinese TA): Let's go over the sentence patterns.
  Lauren (Classmate): Glory to God in the highest.

Haha..... I guess you had to have been there. *sigh*

One more week of Policy... let's hope I can make it! Ahhh.....

Policy is making me delirious...and this is my random thought of the day

My inherent socialist nature became very obvious when I unconsciously ate a red and green M&M to even up the colour distribution in my hand. Is that reading too deep into a somewhat mindless activity? Perhaps. But I still have two papers to write and a presentation to prepare for... and it's 3:20AM. A bit of creativity is definitely in order.

Policy

Currently I'm taking a hard-core business class called "Business Policy". It's basically feared among all business students...and it's usually the last business course one takes before graduating. All I can say is that I'm exhausted; it's a lot of work! However, it'll go more smoothly (smoother??) now that I have a new laptop -- a Macbook Pro, specifically, yay! -- so I won't have to spend every waking moment in the Walker Memorial building.

In other news, please pray for my Grandpa Kooistra, as we just received news that he has an aggressive cancer spreading throughout his body.

Post-Exam Ponderings

It's been a few days since the chaos of Spring 2011 ended... and I find myself caught between wanting to veg and being excited to delve into a few books. My first summer class, Business Policy, is starting this coming Tuesday, so I won't have long before the madness begins again. But hey -- there is light at the end of this academic tunnel. Wooho!! And congrats to all my friends graduating from Lee tomorrow morning. I'm so proud to have gotten to know you!!

Osama Who?

Chart taken from BBC News Homepage:

The Script ❤

This is Why I Love Being Canadian

Canada Votes

Useful resources during election campaigns:

Youth Nation 2011 - Toronto Star
Canada Votes 2011 - CBC News
Parties & Platforms - The Globe and Mail

Rainy Day(s)

This week has been so dreary -- rain, rain, and more rain. Yuck. Oh well... I just hope we have lots of sunny (and warm) weather after this week. This week has been crazy, as far as schoolwork goes. I had a huge exam last night on stock and bond valuation. It was lots of math, but I think I did really well. I love that stuff. Maybe one day I'll be a CFP or a trader or both. Along with being a bartender, of course. Ha.

Last night I got to speak with my brothers on Skype, which was awesome. I am so thankful for that program. How cool is it to be able to have a face-to-face conversation with someone in another country? And be able to show them around the room, even though they're thousands of kilometres away? VERY COOL. ♥ I love my family.

Georgia Marathon

I'm heading to Atlanta to watch my uncle compete in the Georgia Marathon this weekend!! The weather is so gorgeous - I'm loving the shorts, sandals, and t-shirt!! Finally, I can study and nap outside. :)

Wall Street Journal

Chinese Property: The Most Important Sector in the World → click HERE for Wall Street Journal article.

HBR Management Tip of the Day

MARCH 14, 2011 Don't Let Your Job Define You Getting consumed with work is easy to do, especially when you spend most of your waking hours working. But people who only talk about their jobs are boring and one-dimensional. Here are three ways to detach yourself from work and create a more reasonable balance: Assess how much time you spend at work. You may need to put in long hours at times, but make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Don't stay late to impress others or because you can't manage your time well. Banish time-hogs. If something or someone is wasting your time, get rid of it. Stop attending unnecessary meetings, limit face-time with your demanding direct report, or stop visiting distracting websites. Treat non-work time as sacred. Protect your time outside of work for your health and sanity. You will only feel refreshed if you truly disconnect and recharge.

Polo Jersey - RL

Chillaxing in ATL

Chilling this weekend... listening to Elton John, Coldplay, Midway State, Jack's Mannequin... =)
It's storming in New Orleans this weekend so we ended up not going to Mardi Gras. However, I did have a great day helping my dad with some mechanic-y things. We went to Home Depot and an auto parts store, and then took apart the golf cart. It was quite fun. =)

Almost. Spring. Break.

Tomorrow is when the chaos begins! (In a good way, of course). I head to Atlanta to see the fam -- Al and Christine drove down from Ontario, and Randy and Lin are flying down from Christchurch -- and then very early Sat morning I head to New Orleans with Kristin, Em, and JD for Mardi Gras. =) Back to work at ExecPlans on Monday, then to Washington DC on Tuesday/Wed/Thurs for Care Int'l conference. This is going to be an awesome week!!

Music-wise, I have a few favourites I'd like to pass along... I can't stop singing Eyes Wide Shut by JLS. Here are a few others: Blind Faith by Chase & Status (ft. Liam Bailey). Solitude is Bliss by Tame Impala (from Australia). Pretty much anything mixed or mentioned by Zane Lowe. What Else Is There? by Royksopp (from Norway). Light of the Morning by Band of Skulls. I also love their song I Know What I Am... and several others. The funny thing about Band of Horses is that I actually saw them play a show in Atlanta but had no clue who they were... and I didn't even like them when I heard them. They were the headliners when Alex and I went to see Metric last year. Also check out WILD NOTHING. Great band. Summer Holiday and Chinatown are my favourites.... it's just so lighthearted. =) And they were great live. Peace!