This past month has been full of surprises. My life is feeling a little like the picture book "Fortunately, Unfortunately". You know, the pages alternating between color and black and white as a boy who is falling from the sky discovers he has a parachute but realizes that he's getting closer to shark infested waters.

Let's get the big one. I'm on my tablet tapping away with my thumbs because my computer was stolen. I've spent enough time on all the details of what I found so I'll just say that I only lost my computer, I'm lucky my backup drive and iPod which were also on my desk were still there (though I wished I'd synced my Dropbox and backed up more recently), the school has offered to help partly pay for a new one, and we're looking at options for the security and living situation of future volunteers. Aside from moments where I can't sleep because of a noise or heightened awareness when I come home and look to see if anything is different, I'm fine. I feel safe, it was partly my mistake for not locking the second door and changing the battery in my security camera so I'm extra careful about those now. I lso feel that since my computer was already taken well...they got what they wanted?

On a happier note, I found a Tai Chi instructor and I've made arrangements for weekly lessons. I decided to go with Yang style. I always thought I'd really want Chen style, which the instructor also teaches but both were quite hypnotizing and I started thinking that a style with emphasis on consistently slow and even movements may suit me better than alternating soft and hard movements. I may still try out Chen style, I think it would be valuable to learn about the oldest style which still retains more of the martial aspect of Tai Chi. The instructor was very nice, very direct, and very patient. He had short white hair, but a very youthful face. He even gave me a ride home and I enjoyed the cherry blossoms on the west bank of the river.

I also made a new friend. I haven't known him long, but it's a friendship I find myself valuing more and more for so many reasons. For one, I sense that he initially asked to exchange WeChat information to see if there was any romantic potential. We struggled to communicate through WeChat messages as I realized that I prefer written words so that I don't mishear anything, but he couldn't read Mandarin and was limited to leaving me voice messages. I went back to the grilled lamb cart downtown where he works and worried a little about whether I invited some pushy new creep into my life or if I'd get some thing about cold women like times when I've tried to express my disinterest in a romantic relationship. He asked me directly if I wanted a boyfriend. Not being able to explain that I'm not against it but it's not my top priority, or that it's easier for me to be friends and build trust over time, or list off any of the disgusting experiences I've had while traveling alone, I just said "I understand the question, but I don't know how to say it..." He gave a small nod and didn't push. It made me so happy when I realized I wasn't going to have anything on my hands like the man in Switzerland who told me how much he missed his good Japanese girlfriend and put his hand on my leg when I just wanted my train home. Or the man who asked if "horse penis" was a turn on the first time I went to Scotland. No demands, no anger, no shaming. I felt myself opening a little more and asked where he was from. "Hotan" he answered. I asked about his ethnicity, not wanting to make assumptions and he carefully said "Uyghur". As I spoke I realized that despite the large difference in circumstances between an American in Zhuzhou teaching spoken English and a man from Hotan selling lamb kawwap in Zhuzhou, what I did share with him was a language in which neither of us were native speakers. He knew 3 things in English and I knew pretty much nothing about the Uyghur language, but I knew what it was like to be far away from home and being proficient enough in another language to get by. He asked me if America was beautiful and  if Zhuzhou was beautiful. It seemed that even if I wasn't sure about anything romantically, we both wanted to know enough about each other to not break ties. I kind of liked that since we were both limited to simple Chinese, we were forced to speak directly and be as clear as possible. I decided to try reaching out a little more and taught myself to say "hello" in Uyghur (yaxshimusiz) the next time I saw him. 

The rest more or less comes down to E.M. Forster's  words to "only connect". The next time I greeted P. (his pseudonym from here on out), I did so with "yaxhimusiz" and got a small smile and an invitation to sit on a plastic red stool behind the grill in return. Every now and then he turned and we'd stare for a bit, the questions forming in my head must have been taking shape in his judging from the way his head moved. I confused the customers who tried to give me their money for nan and lamb and I confused some of the othersame behind the grill. P. had to tell one of his friends that I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. When he got a break from the rush, we established each others names and ages. He looked startled when he found out I'm 4 years older than him and I'm not sure if that's what made him ask if we could be friends. We spoke about each others languages, taught a few simple words to each other, asked about each others homes, and frequently just sat and stared at each other trying to figure out if there was a way to form the questions floating between us. We established that we both knew the word piao liang, and our conversation sounded quite cheery as we talked about beautiful things. Hotan was beautiful. Zhuzhou  was beautiful. America was beautiful. The weather was beautiful. I also found we both liked music, but we both had to concede "wo  ting  bu  dong" (roughly "listening not understanding"). Perhaps it was due to the language barrier, but I really enjoyed how honest and direct P. seemed. It really did seem that we were just two people who didn't know much about each others worlds and were  trying to figure each other out.  When I left, he asked when if I'd be back again tomorrow.

I've found myself opening up a little more each time. Despite my concerns about looking like a ticket to America and some of my past experiences being alone in another country, he's never laid a finger on me or done anything inappropriate. I've also wondered to what extent my physical appearance has played a part in all this. I didn't get the usual run of questions about being American while looking Asian, but P. doesn't  resemble what most people think of when you talk about Chinese people. I haven't mentioned I'm mostly of Han descent and I've never been asked. But this whole experience has made me happy. I've learned some complicated lessons while in China, and to bear this in mind while also becoming friends with someone else who is away from home and trying to get around on a limited vocabulary just makes it all seems so special.

"Only connect!"

To think you can make a friendship from a handful of words in a language native to neither of you. I don't know where I will be this time next year, but this is a lesson and a relationship I want to keep close to myself and remember what simple things are still possible in a complicated world.

 Well, hey. It feels like forever since I last wrote something. I've been feeling a bit brighter recently. Remembering that I chose to come back because one of the things I enjoyed was how much more my students would say each week and all we'd get to talk about, getting a little more, and the approaching Spring Festival have probably all helped.

Since the last time I wrote, I've enjoyed the Sheraton Thanksgiving buffet over in Changsha, visited a youth correctional facility, gone to an amusement park, finished all of Jessica Jones and Master of None, heard the investigation on my bank account was completed (charges confirmed to not be mine, as anyone who knows me would probably think it's a little out of character to spend hundreds on shapewear), finished giving out my second formal exam (which went well, no tears or alcohol), and recovered from some nasty cold which had me badly congested. There were times I knew someone had farted in the back of the classroom but couldn't really smell it, I just watched everyone go "ugh!" and make faces as I circulated. I was thrilled when I cleared up enough to smell my site mate's orange.

So I guess I'll step back to Thanksgiving week. On Thursday, I got to enjoy the Thanksgiving buffet at the Sheraton and I took the day off so I just relaxed and wandered a bit. There's a small coffee/tea shop called "Seven Teas" across from the middle school where WorldTeach holds orientation and it's a popular spot to grab something to drink while adjusting to the humidity. I paid the woman who works there a visit and she was happy to speak with me in Chinese for a while and even pulled out some green tea mixed with peanuts from her hometown and sat with me for a while before I left. Dinner was a whole 302 yuan this year, but I was looking forward to something other than steamed eggs, a stir-fried vegetable, and some rice (a standard dinner for me, and pretty cheap since an eggplant can easily feed me for two meals). I wound up staying the whole time from 5:30 until about 10PM with WorldTeach friends and caught a really late train back to Zhuzhou. I don't think I slept until 2AM and then I had to get up again for the school trip which was leaving school sometime before 7. Actually, I had been asked to go the day before (when most of the English teachers were going with the first group of students) but I was a little annoyed about asking for Thanksgiving off and facing the idea that I would have to change my plans at the last minute. I heard I would go with class 1416, but my liaison told me to go with 1411 because they heard I was going with 1416 and got jealous. Then an English teacher appeared on the track where we had lined up before getting on the bus and said her boss told her to look out for me so I could please come with class 1415 instead. My helpers in class 1411 started whimpering so she let me stay but did come back a few more times to see if she could convince me to come with her because her group leader was insisting that I be with an English teacher.

I had a lot of people saying they would help me to understand what was going during the trip since we were going to a correctional facility to hear some young boys talk about what got them into the facility. However, when we got there and were seated in the auditorium (back in Changsha again) both my students assistants looked surprised when I asked them what the boys were saying. Only two came out and spoke, each with a shaved head and a grey uniform on. Both talked about getting into trouble with gangs and killing a boy. One told students to love their families. Another spoke about how the grandparents of the boy he killed came to visit him and see how he was doing in the facility. Then it changed to performances by the boys.

The first was a short skit. A boy gets into an argument with his dad and rips up his homework (I think) and runs out into the streets. He bumps into a group of boys who surround him and start pushing him. It finally builds into one of the group getting stabbed after which red and blue lights flash all over the stage with the sound of sirens playing as the boy makes a run for it but ultimately gets caught. From there, it went into a dance and some singing. ( A song called "Dad I love you", I think.) After that, they cleared off the stage and brought out a keyboard and we were treated to a performance. And it ended with a popular song I've heard on the radio here before we were told to move out a class at a time.

I sorted out some of my feelings and thoughts. When I heard we were going to the correctional facility, I assumed it would be a pretty stripped down thing. A plain room, maybe a mic, just young boys taking turns talking about what they'd done. I wasn't really expecting a warm auditorium, bottled water, dancing and pop songs. My first reaction when they started the skit was that it seemed interesting, unexpected. From there, I couldn't help thinking the pop songs were kind of weird, but maybe it was nice to see them doing things my students do at school even if I couldn't help noticing all the shaven heads, grey uniforms, and similarly stoic faces. I thought this must be a nice break for them since I imagined their lives to be pretty regimented. Maybe it was important to not only talk about what they'd done but to remember other things about, things that made them more human. But on my way out, I saw how many buses full of students were waiting for their turn to come in and see what we had. I began to wonder how many times a day or how many times in a year they do this presentation among other questions.

After the correctional facility, we went out for lunch and headed to an amusement park. It felt like a strange thing to follow the correctional facility. Oh, and since I didn't get much sleep I wasn't feeling great, I ran out of tissues and the other teachers said I needed to wear as many layers as they did or I'd get a cold (but it already seemed to have me). It was fun, it's been a long time since I rode a roller coaster or swings, but I was also afraid some ill-timed sneeze would leave me with a face full of mucus on a cold day. We spent the rest of the day out there before going back to school and the teachers all headed out together to get dinner at the Huatian Hotel, which I guess the school paid for as a kind of gift for the teachers taking charge of the students that day. The other teachers went out of their way to find something Cantonese for me, which I thought was both funny and sweet.  It was a pretty good start to my weekend, but I was really excited to go home and pass out. The cold was pretty bad on that following Tuesday, when I had only morning classes so I went home and played dead after lunch. What was supposed to be a short nap turned into me waking up past 7PM, running out to get dinner, and going back to bed for another 8 hours. I must have really needed rest and water.

Now that my head feels much clearer, I'm looking forward to Spring Festival. I'm looking at going to Vietnam, Shanghai, and possibly Osaka to see an old friend who is also teaching. I wanted to do Xian, but the train tickets going to Xian are already gone. The only ones available are the trains that are leaving. I really wanted to go to Yunnan again,but I have this list and it's taking me towards the East rather than the West side of China. The ice festival in Harbin sounded really cool, but I think I've had enough of cold and wet already and the idea of going all the way up to Heilongjiang isn't super appealing (though it looks pretty). I've been powering through test corrections, watching Netflix, feeding my tea habit (at the moment, I've been drinking a lot of Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong/Lapsang Souchong because they smoke the leaves during processing and it's great on cold rainy days), and reading a ton of books. Huan Hsu's "Porcelain Thief", Sherry Turkle's "Alone Together", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (last 500 pages and pretty much all the major characters are dead now), and "Successful Classroom Management". I've also caught up on the China History Podcast while correcting, which has been great. I'm sorry to say I still haven't put in a ton of time on improving my Chinese but I do notice my conversations are getting a little longer and a little more sophisticated. It's certainly a step up from my first few weeks last year as I tried to remember my high school Chinese and pointed at things while saying "Zhege" ("this") and rubbed my fingers together to ask how much it cost.

Again, I'm sorry for the long space between updates. My original intent with this blog was to do something each week within 500 words or less but I haven't been very good at that. I don't even write in my pen and paper diary as much as I used to though I feel better in general when I take my thoughts and put them in there at the end of the day. Sleep better when my head isn't full of things, all electronics have been shut off for the night, and it's just me writing for myself. You know, write out questions or ideas without worrying about what others might say like I would have to when I post things online, remember mundane things without filling someone's feed and all that. For a while, I guess I forgot that my tendency to reflect is one of my strengths. In the future, I'll do a little better to keep posts coming, especially over Spring Festival. For now, I will leave you with the Christmas tree that's been set up across the street:

I’ve finally done the rules talk with everyone. I need to adjust some of my lessons since not everyone is doing the same thing each week. I found and downloaded the ebook “The Reluctant Disciplinarian”. I really want to make this the year when I’m in control of my classroom. Teaching really shouldn’t feel like going into battle. Obviously, I’ll need to adjust some of the advice given that I am not fluent in Chinese nor are my students fluent in English but I did come away with some key thoughts.

In particular, I’ve thought about the need to be in charge. Teachers need to have high expectations and this book reminded me that students in turn have expectations of me. Students will test you and want you to pass the test. In light of this, some behaviors I’ve observed make complete sense. That’s why a student who quietly motions for me to count down or to take class points one week is pumping air into a water bottle with a bicycle pump on another day. I used to think “They have their days because they’re kids” but that’s only part of it. They need me to be that authoritative presence. They know that discipline is part of the job. They expect it. I’ve also tried to do a little more of what “real teachers” do to set those expectations better than I did last year. I gave my students homework. A small assignment, but I wanted to set that precedent now. Everyone who had their nametags and brought a notebook received a stamp, which in turn encouraged everyone to bring notebooks. I’m not sure everyone actually bought one, but things definitely changed when I and checked in to see who was taking notes. Things were more focused, quieter, more like what I expected from students. I suppose there is truth to the idea that while I am free to be the fun teacher, I still need to make it clear that I have the same expectations other teachers do. Students don’t openly say it’s for the better, but I sense a change. Maybe I’ve finally earned some respect. One of my classes got a C, then a D. They weren’t happy, but no one argued with me. I asked their other English teacher if I could watch her at work she mentioned that they’re tough for her too. She frequently walks away mad because of the noise. I’ll take notes on how she handles discipline. It would be good to identify a head teacher and observe his/her class too. Even if they are not an English teacher, head teachers are responsible for class discipline.

                “The Reluctant Disciplinarian” gave me no miracles but it reminded me of what I can do and need to do. I do not have the fresh start now that Rubinstein did, but I do get the pleasure of seeing how both my students and myself change over two years.

In my last year of college I got to hear travel writer Diccon Bewes discuss his new book Slow Train to Switzerland and discuss Switzerland's important role in developing modern tourism. At that time, I didn't realize that I would be in China eyeing the price of slow train rides across the country but now after having spent a month on the move through trains, buses, boats, and a plane (and having passed through all of Guangzhou's train stations) I've been reflecting on what I've learned since October. I also picked up Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster. At times I'm impressed by the depth of his reading, then I think he's a bit frustrating as he hides his identity from other tourists while writing some biting things about them (though I too have had my moments where I got a bit frustrated with other foreigners here in China). His voice is quite different from Bewes, whose worked I enjoyed for its detail and humor in writing about Switzerland, but perhaps I can partly attribute that to the subject matter. At times I've struggled with Riding the Iron Rooster because it wasn't immediately obvious to me that this was written during the 1980s. Barnes and Noble put its publication information as 2006 but my suspicions were somewhat aroused by the descriptions of urban living and what really made me look up the date of writing was when he mentioned listening to the BBC through his radio and the days leading up to news of Chernobyl. Some things were certainly familiar enough, the loud build up to someone spitting in public for one but until I had seen a book review from 1988 I just felt that the two of us had seen totally different Chinas. Now I know, given the span of time between 1988 and 2015 the China Theroux traveled around by train for one year and the city I live in are different worlds. One of the teachers pointed out Shennong Town once and told me that none of the big shopping centers, the park, the square or any of that had been there 10 years ago. 

I'm not through with it yet, I've just gotten past the part where he rides the Iron Rooster and makes his way to Xinjiang accompanied by a man who has been appointed to stay with him throughout his trip. I remember reading once in Lonely Planet's guide to travel writing that Theroux was a master of using dialogue to bring readers into a place. I have found the conversations he brings into his work to be interesting, but often I think the questions he asks are a bit strange. I've been looking forward to starting each new chapter for what it might reveal but at times I can't help agreeing with some of the reviews I've read about Theroux's condescension. The people he meets are fascinating and the information he brings in to contextualize some of the conversations he has is well woven into the book, but his descriptions of some of these people aren't terribly flattering either. Maybe I can better form my thoughts on the book as a whole when I've finished reading. There's something else he wrote that's supposed to be his best work, I've been thinking of looking for his other writings to get a fuller sense of the kind of traveler and the kind of writer he is. I've also downloaded Pico Iyer's Video Nights in Kathmandu onto my nook. I feel like I've heard the name enough to wonder what he wrote about and as it's part of a collection of writings on the far East it may be relevant. I have to admit, seeing Zhuzhou mentioned in Theroux's book has partly won me over to Riding the Iron Rooster. I'm sad to say though that thus far it's only been a train stop where he said goodbye to a man getting off a train for a connection to Changsha.

I'll be getting on a train (火车 huo che in Chinese, literally meaning fire cart and I remember it as one of the first words I learned in a book my grandpa gave me about reading Chinese) tomorrow evening. WorldTeach is holding a mid-service conference and though the bus station is next to the school my first instinct in traveling is to book a train ticket. Maybe it's the result of being in Switzerland for four years. So, it's off to Changsha for a weekend where I'll be doing a short presentation/leading a discussion during the mid-service conference. It's not terribly exciting. It's about effectively opening and closing your lessons but I've been surprised to hear others talk about how they're not sure about how exactly to close up a class and organized lesson plans have become a strength of mine. I guess it helps that in public speaking we were asked to do something similar to the lesson planning template that we were given during orientation. Basically, we had to outline what we wanted to say in full sentences and write in any gestures we would use so that we could both give a clear speech with deliberate movements and speak more naturally than if we were reading a thick essay. Hopefully, I can be of some help to someone but as of right now I'm a little nervous with making sure that I am where I need to be when I need to be there. I also don't want to be overly redundant when I know I'll be in a room full of people with as much teaching experience as I have so I'd rather talk about what we've all tried and some of the procedures we've developed.

In news about Zhuzhou, I saw sun and parts of blue sky for the first time in two weeks today. I was told it will still be quite cold for at least another month and then Hunan will once again turn into China's oven and the walls will swell with heat and humidity. We had English Corner for the first time this term and it's quite different from last term. More students, more formalized, more observations from other teachers coming and today our lesson plan for 40 minutes had to be changed to accommodate the visiting parents and school board members who are obviously highly important guests. So to make sure they saw us in action and saw what the school had to offer, we were told that class couldn't just end at 5pm. We had to continue holding English corner until we were told to stop and all the groups had had a chance to peek inside. It was a bit frustrating to have to think of something to do for an extra 30 minutes, but what school wouldn't want to show themselves at their best? And even more so in a culture where displaying that best and maintaining "face" is such a big concern. There's truth to the cynical view that we're here to add to the school's prestige because it's a private school that also has native English speakers that students can speak to, but at the same time I haven't felt overly cynical about that because I've found teachers quite willing to help whenever I've had questions. I think even with the greater presence of pomp and circumstance around certain school events such as the beginning of a new term or with greeting important guests to the school, the teachers are quite genuine in wanting to be better teachers and I guess in helping me that's also helping their students more fully take advantage of my presence. Is our school proud of having foreigners? Yes. Do we feel frustrated at times by last minute requests, teachers who keep their distance because they don't speak English well or speak it at all so they're not wholly comfortable sitting with us, and the knowledge that as oral English is not a zhongkao or gaokao subject our classes don't take quite the same priority that other classes on the test will? Yes. But from stories I've heard about the situations of others I'm in very good hands. I've never once felt that I wasn't and though there were problems with my visa in October, I saw how hard WorldTeach, JingYan, and the Hunan Dept. of Education worked to ensure that we were able to continue. Which was great because it would have broke my heart to be turned away a second time and not only that, face difficulty in coming to China later because of an innocent mistake. I think WorldTeach is taking applications for next year so if I want to come back to Hunan through WorldTeach I will need to act fast. As it is, I feel quite content either going home with my experiences, the better sense of self, and the greater trust in myself I sense I've developed or in coming back and being a much more polished teacher with a better understanding of what to look out for.

It's interesting to think through all this now. I remember how it used to surprise when I'd hear about a Chinese-American that moved back to China or read something in a history about cases of families moving back. I'd heard so many times that the US presented so many opportunities that people gave up all kinds of things to come here so with that understanding, knowing that people went back surprised me and raised questions. Undoubtedly, there are still more opportunities to do as a you wish but I've also learned about the appeal of being someone who looks like 95% of the population of China. I guess for those who had the choice to stay or go, there was also value in being in a country where you weren't alien, in knowing that you are a Chinese person in China. Not promising that everyone gets to do anything they can dream of, but at the basic level of education I can say that you're more likely to get second chances for a college education if that is what you seek either for your own emotional and intellectual development or for the boost it gives to your earning potential. I've found myself remembering a professor who once said that Americans had no right to happiness, but that we did have a right to its pursuit. Before coming here, I read in guidebooks and heard from online sources that Asian-Americans would not be treated the same way as other foreigners in China. I remember phrases like "met with a mixture of admiration and resentment" and of being alone in a long lost home, of not being treated with the same reverence and excitement that other foreigners were treated to. I have yet to be met with said mixture of admiration and resentment (or I'm not in the loop enough to hear it) and as I've worked my way through books about China I've started to wonder about how many Chinese-Americans or Overseas Chinese as we're called in Chinese contribute to these travel resources. Is it just that we relate differently and that our take on China isn't quite the same as a number of other tourists? Is that why some guidebooks leave a special box on what to expect as a Chinese-American in China while some mention nothing of the changed relationship and perceptions of overseas Chinese in China? I think the only work of travel literature about China written in English by an Asian woman is To the People, Food is Heaven and I don't remember her mentioning anything about resentment in her book either. Then again, Hunan's history is a bit different from places such as Guangdong so if I spent more time down south it may be a different story. If anything, I've encountered curiosity and confusion that sometimes ends with "xinjiang ren ma?" as people put my bad Chinese together with my predominantly Asian face and arrive at the possibility that I come from Xinjiang province, the province in China with the most minority groups.

I've been thinking about a lot of things this week and I still haven't quite gotten over the shock of realizing I have no more than 13 weeks of teaching left. While asking myself what to do when this comes to a close is exciting, it's also going to be very tough to leave with everything I wanted to talk about and the students who have put up with my off days and my struggles. I know the colleges around here are frequently looking for foreigners to teach English so maybe I should start looking at that as an option for coming back, but I'm also open to the idea of working and saving to come back in a year or two. Who knows? I've heard different things about teaching college, that it's frustrating because they've passed the gaokao and don't feel the same obligation to come to class, that they are more willing to work with you because they don't have that same obligation to exams that they did in middle and high school, that they are serious students, that they have money and don't care...but I also know that all college students still have to pass the college English test regardless of their major so I imagine that adds some incentive to stay in English class. I have the experience now and am more open to the risk since I've discovered that compared to some who take on teaching jobs I was pretty well informed of the challenges before coming here. But I think that's why I encouraged to try for the job again, because I applied and made it clear that this was something I wanted to do with the full knowledge that living in another country is not easy and that my appearance could change the way locals interacted with me. Since I'm going to be in Changsha with all the other teachers and the field director, that might be a good time to start asking about the possibility of doing this again. I know I'd like to see more of Zhuzhou and all the changes that happen around me are fascinating. My Chinese still needs work and I'm always sensing how big this country and how much there is to it, and I've been enjoying the anonymity I have here that I clearly didn't get from men who shouted "Hey China!" from across the street. Not to mention, the ready availability of tea and teawares of varying quality. Sometimes I sense it's less the drinks themselves that interest me than the whole culture and ritual, the contemplation, and attention to detail. But of course, it doesn't hurt that all that comes with a hot drink when you've boiled the water to the right temperature, washed the leaves, brewed and re-brewed for a reasonable amount of time, watched the leaves unfurl and finally poured it into a cup consumption.

To tie things up here, I guess I'm just at a point where I can hear the slow trains of my time in China calling out the next stop and while I'm not super anxious, I am listening for the station I'll be getting off at for the next connection, whether that be another chance at teaching here or taking my new confidence to other places.

So I'll be showing a movie to my classes this week ("Frost the Snowman") and will have to spend next week telling students what's on their final exam and letting them prepare in class. I wish I'd received more warning on when my grades were due, but that's how it works here. I still don't know when school starts again. It probably won't be too difficult, but with an average of 57 students a class I will need two class periods to ensure that everyone speaks. (Each period I teach is 40 minutes long, and I only see each class once a week.) But as I wrap up with my students and try to find a suitable, short oral exam (I'm thinking that since I asked them for their names on the first day, they can introduce a classmate and tell us a little about him/her, it'd be a way to come back to day one and include some of what they've done and learned in my class or their other class) I've begun reflecting on the ups and downs of this term.

• Pleasant surprises: Despite having read about how Chinese-Americans in China are met with "a mix of admiration and scorn" I've found that a good number of people seem open to me being an American of Chinese descent. It probably helps that I speak some Chinese and can say that I'm American and I studied some standard Chinese though.
• The students. Creative kids, really sweet, really smart.
• How open the other teachers have been. And the teachers at my school have surprised in wonderful ways as well. For the most part, Chinese teachers just read or lecture (from what I understand) but my colleagues have shown a real effort to help me get better and have surprised me with their variety of methods.
• Finding that my kids actually really love my class and are very happy to see me every week.
• Chinese food. The variety, the taste, the textures. There's no way I can cover everything available in Zhuzhou alone but going out around the train station at night when all the booths are set up with their goods is incredible.
• Despite the air quality on some days, I do like Zhuzhou. It's relatively clean, has a lot going on, is pretty well connected to other parts of China through its trains and does feel different from Changsha which at times was too much for me.

And now some of the tougher things: