Shifeng Park, Zhuzhou

Today Josh and I went to Shifeng park... we biked all the way there from ErZhong and then spent the afternoon basking in the sunlight, walking the park's trails, taking pictures, and "chatting" in broken Chinese with locals. It was a beautiful day - much warmer and sunnier than I could've asked for. :)

^ balloon man

^ enjoying his baozi (steamed bun)

^ Chinese cities are constantly under construction.

Notice the construction site right across from the park entrance.

^ love the English on this garbage can

^ sand art at the park!

^ painting a Disney character :)

^ buying a goldfish with her parents

^ playing in plastic water bubbles. love it.

^ view of Zhuzhou city from the path

^ blossoming trees

^ on our walk ♥

^ cherry trees... beautiful.

^ another construction site.

a pool and water playground coming soon!

(c) Cait Kooistra

I cannot fully explain just how crazy of a day I just had! (Side note: it was the first sunny, warm day in months... it was great! I finally saw the world in colour again!). We went for a short bike ride to enjoy the weather.

We decided to spend the afternoon and evening in Changsha, about an hour north of here. So we took a coach bus (much easier than taking the train) and enjoyed seeing the scenery along the way. It's really beautiful seeing more rural landscapes once exiting the big cities.

After arriving, we spent the whole day walking around and exploring. We ate at a delicious northern-style restaurant, ate Belgium chocolate ice cream bars, strolled through a beautiful park (complete with a pagoda, lots of walking trails, and a creepy/unkept fairground and amusement park area). We were really tired after walking for so long! We finally decided to head home via a train... until we get to the train station.

It turns out I'd left my ID card at home and so when we got to the front of the ticket line I was unable to purchase a ticket. The bus station was closed since it was around 10:15pm. The taxi back to Zhuzhou would've cost at least 150 yuan. I was quite pissed at my irresponsibility, especially since we were exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

But, we're not ones to easily give up... so Josh and I headed back into the station, waited in line, bought one ticket with his ID, and then went to a different line to buy another ticket with his same ID. Aaaand it worked! I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until we were boarding the train 45 minutes later.

Turns out his ticket was for tomorrow night, so the lady wouldn't let him board. I was trying to explain, in my broken Chinese, that we needed to travel together and that we thought we'd purchased two tickets for tonight. She kept firmly saying he had to go back to the ticket office and have his ticket changed (which would've put him on a later train). Chinese people love drama, so we gathered quite a crowd of onlookers who were keenly interested in hearing the foreigner try to speak their language. Fiiiinally, after much insisting by us, the lady went to get her male superior, who came over to hear our situation. Thank God he gave us the benefit of the doubt, waving us onto the train. We had "standing room" tickets anyway, so it's not like anyone was losing a seat because of this.

Let me tell you, were we THANKFUL we both got on that train. We got back into Zhuzhou around midnight, walked to a bus stop, got some late-night food, and the headed back home for some ZZZs.

What a day.

Greetings From My Students

March 23rd, 2012.

中国湖南株洲市景炎中学

我的学生。。。九班

Would You Rather...

Today I taught a lesson on how to give people choices and how to choose. The grammar structure I used was: "Would you rather... (a) or (b)?" I thought this could be a fun lesson considering that Chinese students have extremely rigorous schedules and limited choices in their daily lives.

Consider the following situation as an example.

When choosing what to do for after-school activities, a typical American or Canadian middle school student would have the "dilemma" of asking himself, "Should I hang out with my friends first or go skateboarding before doing my thirty-minutes' worth of homework?"whereas a Chinese middle school student, after being given specific dinner hours and sitting through mandatory self-study hours in the classroom, would ask himself, "Should I study for the upcoming (mandatory) national Physics contest, study for the Zhōng Kăo (the exam that dictates the high schools for which a student is eligible), do my seemingly endless amount of homework, or increase my nightly sleep average of six hours to seven hours tonight?" Yeah. Crazy.

Since most Chinese students have their entire day planned out by others, (dictating when they can eat, shower, study, or see their parents) I thought this lesson would provide an opportunity for kids to have fun and be creative with asking "would you rather" questions.

So I began by asking questions like "would you rather eat cake or pizza?" and "would you rather go to America or England?" After walking around the room to gauge student responses (they'd hold up their fingers to display their choice: one or two) I gave the students a chance to craft their own questions.

A few questions were predictable, being similar or complete replicas of my "example" questions. Some, however, were really interesting, especially when presented to the class.

"Would you rather have love or money?" As I walked around the room, I noticed a weird pattern. The boys all had two fingers in the air while the girls proudly held up one. (There were a few cases of girls with "2" and boys with "1", but it was rare). Students started chanting in favour of their chosen response. "Money, money, money!" the boys shouted. "Love, love love!" the girls shouted, each student trying to be louder than the others, waving their hands in the air.

"TWOOOOO!" a boy yelled while thrusting a peace sign in front of my face. After what felt like an hour of this (in reality it was probably 60 seconds), the girl who created the question stood up. She sat in the back of the class. Students gradually quieted down and turned toward the girl, who started pleading in Chinese to her classmates. (This is what I imagined her to say...) "Why would you choose money over love? Don't you know the real meaning of life?" She was smiling and laughing at people's comments, so I knew she wasn't taking this over-the-top serious. But she made a point.

Another girl stood up and said, in English (which I was proud about!), "But we need money!!!"

The class immediately erupted into more loud chatter about the love or money dilemma.
I thought it was time for another question, so we moved on.

Next question: Would you rather eat pizza or rice? (many pizza lovers, but equally as many loyal rice-eaters). Would you rather see koalas or pandas? (a few chose to see koalas, but the vast majority stuck with China's acclaimed pandas). Would you rather go to America or Singapore? (it was a 70-30 split, most wanting to visit the US but some choosing Singapore "because we can speak Chinese there!"). Would you rather never eat or never sleep? (Mixed feelings about this, but I'd say around 80 percent chose to never sleep). Would you rather do homework or watch a Mr. Bean movie? (I admit to using 5-minute clips of Mr. Bean as a "behave yourself in class" bribe... so all but one student chose the movie.)  =)

And that, my friends, gave me some pretty valuable insight into how my students think!

G.K. Chesterton Quote

Thought of the Day: "The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost."

Cherish every day as a gift.

Forgive others, for it leads to peace 

(internally and within relationships).

Above all, give thanks to God for all your blessings.

And don't be too proud to admit you need help.

That's what family and friends are for. :)

China Road

I've recently started reading a book titled "China Road", which is written by a British NPR journalist posted in China for 6 years. He offers amazing insights into this complex society by reflecting on its past and exploring present and future phenomenons.

One of the most interesting facts that has caught my attention was this excerpt:

"Any cases of [persecution] that even see the inside of a courtroom are manipulated by the [Communist] Party, which appoints all the judges. Chinese courts have a conviction rate of more than 99 percent. Beijing still runs a system of labour camps, to which any member of society can be sent, at any time. Tens of thousands of people are still sentenced to 'reform through labour' every year." (Rob Gifford)

I recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about China (and about the journalists's crazy experiences on his road trip from Shanghai (east coast) all the way to western China's border with Kazakhstan).  Although it was written in 2007, most, if not all, of it is quite relevant today.

Eating Hot-Pot

On Friday night we had a delish hot-pot dinner with some other foreign teachers in the city. Soooo good! And then we headed to the university to watch an English Singing competition. :)

"One Life" Video

I've got one life and I'm gonna live it right. :)

＊Hot Springs＊

I just returned from a weekend trip to the Jiangxi province, which is the next province over (to the east). After waking up at 4am (did I say "waking"?... I meant to say "we dragged ourselves out of bed") we headed to the train station on bicycles. I've never wanted to upchuck my breakfast so badly while pedalling in 1st gear up that huge bridge. Ohhhh the things we do to save money. haha.

Anyway, after 2 hours on the train we got off at YiChun (宜春), a small town in the northwest corner of the Jiangxi province. After conversing with some local shopkeepers, we figured out how to avoid the expensive 40-minute taxi ride to the hot springs... We hopped on a few local buses to get to Ming Yue Shan (明月山 - Moon Mountain) for a fraction of the cost. :) After walking through town we managed to get a hotel room (at a discount, thanks Josh for your powers of persuasion) -- all of this being in Chinese since the area is not a destination frequented by foreign tourists.

We spent the entire day at the Tian Mu Hot Springs resort, complete with an unlimited supply of watermelon, coffee, milk tea, and hot milk... not to mention lots of hot springs, saunas, pools, and areas to lounge around. We stayed til almost 9pm before walking back to our hotel. It was a great weekend!!!!

^ small town near YiChun, Jiangxi (江西宜春）

^ sign in our hotel

TIAN MU HOT SPRINGS 天沐温泉

^ Chinglish never fails to entertain...

 ^ we had to wear these ridiculous silk-like outfits for lounging around outside the pools

^ heading home :)

Fresh Fish. Literally.

About two weeks ago I went out for dinner with my Chinese friend and her husband. She knew about my fondness for eating fish, so we went to a right-beside-the-river restaurant heralded for its fresh fish. Little did I know just *how* fresh it would be!

Upon walking into the restaurant, one walks into a room with a deep fish pool...where you literally point and choose what you'd like on your dinner plate. The fisherman uses his net to grab the desired fish while a lady frantically writes down the order on a clipboard. In a matter of seconds the fish is tossed to the on-site butcher. Cue the chopping! Chop-chop-chop --- there's blood everywhere, and the fish is ready for cooking. At that point you're ushered into the dining room where you wait for your fish and the other dishes. It was quite an experience, to say the least.

Student Artwork

After a somewhat difficult class (meaning way too much student chatter, some kids throwing things, and overall just a bit chaotic), a student came to the front of the class as I was packing up my computer. I noticed a paper in her hand and a big smile on her face. She proudly presented the following drawing:

I had to pull up the contrast on the drawing to make it visible (sucky screen shot on my mac)... but it's still super cute. Don't know how I feel about students using my class time to draw, though...haha. Middle school children will be middle school children. :)

----- SICK :/

I've spent the last four days straight in bed trying to fight off strep throat and an ear infection. I can't remember the last time I had to take this much time off work or school. Josh is sick, too...  We did, however, make a kickin' homemade chicken-and-veggie broth-based soup yesterday, which will hopefully last us the entire weekend. The forecast for the next 2 weeks in Zhuzhou is RAIN, RAIN, and more RAIN. Translation: cold, damp, and perfect weather for getting or staying sick. Hopefully warm weather follows soon!!!!!