It's one month into my third year in a city I thought I'd live in for no more than two years, tops. We just received a new schedule for the rest of the term but otherwise I find I'm feeling pretty settled in. A lot has happened in the past month as things get sorted out and people meet and catch up. Every year, I promise myself I'll go out more and so far I seem to be doing good on that. I have no intention of becoming a boozier person, that takes even more recovery time than just hanging out with groups of people for one night but I do want to make sure I'm spending more time with other human beings. I'm not great with people, but I'll keep trying.

I finally made my way to Yanling with a group of other foreign teachers who teach in Zhuzhou. Every year, the city puts on a few events where foreign teachers go to teach at a school where students do not have a foreign teacher leading an oral English class for a day. This year was the first time they did an overnight trip. We went sightseeing for half a day in Yanling and taught classes the next morning after the opening ceremony and requisite speeches and photos. I was excited to see Emperor Yan's mausoleum, though being the important figure he is I doubt that this is the only place with claims to him.

Hello from the new laptop! My school gave me 1000RMB to put towards a new computer so I decided to just go for it and get a small one for 3500RMB. Somehow, I'd always assumed that "Computer City"  as it's called in Chinese would be far away but I've walked past it before on a long day when I just wandered through the city. For as much as I've growled and let things get to me that I shouldn't have, getting a birthday party invite out of the blue from the kind computer staff (who can't have been much older than me, or younger) reminded me of some of the wonderful things that come your way as a foreigner in Zhuzhou.

I've basically given away my weekends. I do an extra bit of teaching on Saturday mornings in exchange for lunch and cooking lessons here and there and on Saturday afternoon I also do an English Corner with primary schoolers. On Sundays, my one consolation is that I'm not teaching tai chi. I just get to be the student as shifu walks me through each step and teaches me a new warm up with each class. Then it's back to the work week. I love getting the last minute news that I have a day off on Monday or Friday. A day to sleep in and be tied to no one. Getting involved in something through clubs or volunteering is one way I try to work with my reclusive and introverted tendencies, but I still value a day of nothing at all. Maybe 4 years of living in a country where everything is closed on Sunday has influenced me too. I still find a small voice in my head that tells me that I have to get everything done on Saturdays despite being in China. It's funny to think of the things that stay with you when you've lived in another country for a while.

I've been stuck. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've lost sight of things and forgot how important it is to just focus on what's in your hands when things become less than ideal. A part of me knows it's a natural part of living in another country over time and that watching the novelty and the honeymoon period of adjustment fade is both frustrating and an opportunity to put things in perspective. Some might say the frustrations are just part of developing a more realistic/fuller understanding of the place I live in right now. I find myself getting a little vicious at times about things that are so small. Like when I go shopping for electronics and people try to find me something "more fashionable" or tell me I actually want this in red, not black, because I'm a young girl (but I'm a young girl almost always in dark jeans and something black). Or tired of last minute changes (though it's mostly OK, if I go to school and my class is cleaning, I had nothing else planned anyway so I may as well relax). I feel like I've never quite hit the high and fulfilling feeling that pushed me along last year, not to the same level or with the same frequency. On the other hand, Zhuzhou is constantly changing and I find new friends and people who fill my life and expand my understanding of life in China. There's P, the Uyghur man I wrote about last time who sells nan (at times, still looking for something romantic while I'm not sure). There's my neighbor who used to live in Dubai for work and now makes dumplings while creating spaces for people to practice speaking English. There's the Hui family from Lanzhou who greet me from their pulled noodle shop every time I pass. My "mom" and "dad" who run the tea shop where I get my caffeine fix and a lot of practice in speaking Chinese. Actually, I'm sure everyone on my street says hi to me now since I frequent their shops. It's kind of on purpose. One of my most rewarding travel experiences while I was in college was the summer I did an internship in Dublin, Ireland but found myself pulled into the songwriters and poetry community after joining a writers group. Since then, I've made an effort to frequent a place and be known or join something while I'm abroad.

It feels like there are things opening up to me only now, though I wonder if I should continue given all the swings and cycles I went through this time. A part of me says if I leave and try something else and find I want to be here teaching after all, then it's better to come back with purpose having other experiences with me. A part of me wonders about my chances of coming back if I leave. At times, I love this city and its surprises. At times, I'm anxious because I haven't been in the US for more than 3 months at a time for the past 6 years and there are times when I feel like an anthropologist rather than a local (to be fair, I think back on everything I learned about intercultural communications when I'm here in China too: high context vs low context culture, long term vs short term, Edward T. Hall's Silent Languages...). I also know how much I still haven't seen and keep finding. I feel like I've accomplished a lot of what I had in mind when I first signed up. I tried teaching, I grew in public speaking, I exercised a lot of what I learned about myself and intellectually while here, I've been finding my way in the Chinese language, I've made friends, and I've looked at one of my biggest anxieties (that I really was so sorely out of touch and spent so much time with books in some ivory tower that I had no real skills to offer to anyone anywhere) and seen it was nothing. I saw Xi'An and the terra cotta warriors, I fulfilled someone's prophecy that I would climb the Great Wall, I saw Guangzhou and Zhongshan, I started taijiquan, and after 4 years in Switzerland thinking hard about where I come from and where I've been, I found my way to a position where my own interests and education fit neatly with someone else's questions. I still have a ways to grow, but I've found confidence in my time here as I learned to trust myself and value things about myself I never considered to be real skills or talents. I know one of the most difficult things in going back to America when I was in college was coming back with the person I found while away, and occasionally feeling that with everyone's expectations from the past I couldn't always find room for that person. But that's also a comfort. To know that whichever direction I take from here on out, I take that person I found with me and all she's capable of. For all of its frustrations, I'll always be grateful to China for helping me find that person.

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.

​Time for that weekly update again…well, I’m getting ready to give my second exam and I think I made it too easy. We’ll see. I’m still waiting for feedback on October’s assessment and I’m going to do a practice test in early December so that everyone is ready for the final in January. I think next semester, I’m going to do something more informal like a written in-class assignment that they turn in (a letter with recommendations for solving a problem, a short story, etc.). 
I gave my first F to a class and am now preparing my speech/a time to discuss with my students why my job is hard to do without them. I really need to sit down with them and get the ball rolling on what changes need to take place. I also need to get on top of some things that have piled up, like filming myself teaching, getting everything corrected and given back to students and other things that are part of the job.
We have a class trip coming up around the 26th/27th. I’m going to up close to Dong ting Lake (which Hunan gets its name from, since the province is “South of the Lake” although Dongting is inside Hunan). The teacher last year said it was a very moving experience. Among the things students do is a visit to a prison where they listen to young inmates tell their stories. It will be a unique experience for sure.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet. I had a second break-in attempt since coming back to Zhuzhou this year, pushed harder to get my camera repaired after last year’s incident, discovered that it will cost me a sizable amount of money (but thankfully not the 2000RMB I was originally told), put aside 300 yuan for the all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet at the Sheraton in Changsha, and ate the rest of my extra money because China unleashes the snacker in me like nowhere else I’ve been. Recently, I’ve been eating a lot of táng yóu baba (糖油粑粑, a small cake made of glutinous rice and fried with sugar in the oil). The smell of chestnuts is everywhere, which reminds me of Ticino and watching the trees change there.

​I’ve also been eating seasoned grilled lamb skewers I confused the family that runs two carts selling grilled lamb skewers covered in spices. It didn’t sound like the man was speaking Mandarin when I asked how much for a skewer and no one really knew how to approach me. Even, less so after I said I was American. I’d like to go back since I know the meat is fresh (the goat’s head and the legs are usually sitting on the street next to the cart and has made innocent passersby scream every now and then, and I’ve seen a mountain of hair behind the head too). I just need to get over these awkward exchanges since no one really knows how to respond to me. I’m in this ethnic limbo I guess.

Here we go again. This past week, the Foreigners in Zhuzhou group held their first volunteer teaching day. As always, it's interesting to go to new places (often very lovely places) in Zhuzhou that I likely would not have seen otherwise and catch up with others who teach or work in Zhuzhou. though foreign teachers in China isn't all that new (I even read once that "my year teaching English in China" is a cliched genre), I still consider it kind of a strange and unique time that there are so many who come to China to do so. And the people that come here often have interesting histories or talents that they bring with them.

Highlights:

• Though bingo was a bit rough at first, and it took students a while to catch on, once we got going and those who understood were playing the competition really started to build. In a few classes, I had 8 jump up at once and shout "BINGO"! I think it's just a really fun word for the students because they repeated it every time I said it while explaining the game.
• Volunteer teaching this week: It's always fun to do this. When you're no longer special or the novelty to your students that you once were, it can be really refreshing to walk into a classroom, be a new face, play games or teach idioms for a day, answer questions, and be the special guest. Maybe I should have just used one of my old lessons. Last year I played charades with a few classes but since we got the same verbs over and over again I wasn't sure that we were really having fun. This time, I taught a lesson about color idioms but it seemed a bit much for the first class (who also needed a bit of time to warm up to me, and were probably pretty self-conscious since their school sort students out into high and low performing classes and they had already been identified as weak in English). The second class ran with it more, but they were also 9th graders and a year ahead of the others. And of course, I left time for questions. We took a photo together, a student asked for a hug and I said "Sure, why not?" and they got me to sing the alphabet so they'd know about some of the differences between how they sing and how we sing it.
• Running around with other foreign teachers for a day. I'm not super social, I tend to move around a lot on my own on a whim. For better or worse, some don't think highly of me skipping out on going out for drinks at night or other stuff but I know from experience that for as much as I love seeing everyone, I eventually hit my limit and start thinking about going home, reading a book, watching a movie, or writing another lesson plan. Volunteer teaching allows me a space where I can meet others in Zhuzhou on some common ground and know that even if it's an all day thing, there is a set end where I can recover alone with a notebook, pen, and some music. I feel like I'm finally at a point where I've learned to manage my introverted tendencies with everyone else's need to see me come out more. The company is great, but I don't always have something to say. It kind of weirds people out when I'm quiet for too long.
• I met the mom of one of my students. She says he talks about my class. She didn't know I was his teacher last year too. She said he never talked about oral English. But that may also be that last year, I had a lot to learn and unfortunately, his class was one I didn't see much because I always seemed to have things come up on Thursdays. It's cool to know that he talks about class at home, but now I wonder what other students say to their parents.
• We made "pumpkin pie" on Friday too. Though it turned out to be pumpkin batter that we pressed into cakes with our hands, rolled in sesame seeds, and fried. I actually ate all of them before dinner, and still had room for dinner. I guess mine looked especially good. I soon found myself among hungry people and one woman was excited when I said she could eat one.

This past week was a lot of walking. My Monday was a mess and I'm nervous because I wanted to be better with classroom environment by the time of my next observation. However, it actually seems worse and I can't seem to clamp down on the noise or the homework or anything. So I asked the assistant field director to come to one class in particular where students stand by the door when class is nearly over and students sometimes stand up and stretch in obvious defiance of me before slowly sitting down.

So teaching was rough, on Thursday, the school held its annual long walk. I was told to come to the school at 7:30AM. When I arrived, I was asked which class I was with. I had no idea and said "I was just told to be here at 7:30" and they told me to go find grade 7, class 13. In the end, a very kind English teacher walked me over to a class where the head teacher was their English teacher so I got to walk with class 8 for 33km (though the little passport we had to carry and get stamped at various checkpoints said 38). We talked, we ran, we snacked, we listened to music, I talked to the teacher some, and after a long sweaty, at times frustrating, walk in which we were accompanied by parent volunteers, staff, a mobile toilet truck, and water stations all along the way,we finally arrived at Fantawild, the amusement park here in Northern Zhuzhou. 

I think we stayed here for about an hour to rest, eat lunch, say hi to friends, take pictures, and get harassed by giant candy canes on stilts and a few clowns. Class 2 asked if I liked them because they're head teacher had told told them that I didn't. I said I liked them, just not the noise I deal with everyday. I wonder if that's part of the problem. We walked another three hours where there were buses for each class waiting and rode back to JingYan. I was sore, and didn't want to walk anymore but somehow made it back home and up all 6 flights of stairs to get to my apartment. Then I realized I didn't have much to eat and debated going out to get a foot soak. I just got some hot and sour noodles and sat with as much cushioning for my feet as possible. On Friday, the students had some event going on so we had no classes. I rested, cleaned around the apartment a bit, took a nap, listened to the Sporkful as they discussed the best way to make bacon and oreos (Do you put the bacon inside? Oreos on a plate with bacon to make a smiley face? Do you wrap the oreo in bacon? Maybe you wrap the oreo in bacon and then deep fry them both.), did laundry, read, worried about the flight I booked to Japan (because I requested a refund online but sense that I may need to call to clarify things because nothing's happened), sent my resume to a woman I knew was looking for English teachers in Zhuzhou (but now have to give her more information about myself and proof of my education), and didn't do much otherwise. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my feet aren't too sore the day after. Then again, I went to bed pretty early so I wasn't standing on them for at least 8 hours.

It was pretty satisfying to see how happy my students were when I remembered names and when I asked why class 8 always answers my questions with "Zombie-pig-man":
"Teacher, do you like zombie pig man?"
"I don't know him. I just hear about him every time I come to your class."
"Oh."
But they giggled and talked about him anyway. It's good. This class has gotten so much better over the course of the year and it was great to catch up with them. I can't wait to see them on Monday.

I know I'd said I'd write about Hengshan and I will soon. But between the mountain and Fantawild I'm a little worn out. Thankfully, I walk everywhere anyway partly just to see what's out on the streets. I'm used to walking for hours, but the difference is I don't normally do more than say, 2 or 3 hours at a go. And usually within the same radius around my apartment: the exit/entry bureau, the Xiang River, the park,the school, roast duck stalls, the big shopping street near the train station...So I just told myself not to think about time or distance and to just keep moving and that seemed to work pretty well for me. The hard part was when one student kept telling me I looked terrible and asked if I was tired. I had to keep moving or go crazy while remembering she was just trying to be nice.

As far as teaching at my middle school, it's been a pretty short week. Although, playing 20 questions actually went pretty well despite the students not knowing the names of too many objects. I should have taught them more words for objects like rubik's cube, jump rope, candy, etc. But once they realized they had to guess what they're classmates were thinking of, not only did they become quieter as they listened to each other, I really felt like I'd done my job because it was my students communicating with each other instead of me talking (I always have independent activities and time for them to talk obviously but this one seemed to engage them more). Although the kid who chose the bow from "Green Arrow" stumped us all so I gave him 2 points.

My week was marked by foreigners in Zhuzhou events both on Monday and on Friday. I was looking forward to the ceramics expo in Liling, but we arrived on the morning of the last day. Still stuff out on the floor, but a lot of empty booths and shelves since a lot of people were packing up . And then we were a bit late to the museum so we had to rush through it and didn't see much. There were a few nice pieces, the biggest ceramic jars were all for alcohol, and we saw some ceramics done so finely that they were used for lightbulbs because they were so thin. I was looking for a gaiwan and saw some nice celadon sets that were cheaper than I expected, but nothing really caught my eye. I talked to one of the teachers I haven't seen much since getting separated into our sites and these events are always interesting for me because I get to meet people working in Zhuzhou who aren't necessarily teaching, though there are a number of teachers. I met a family with a Chinese wife and a German husband and their young daughter. The husband said he'd been here for 4 years and hadn't learned much Chinese. He said his daughter always calls him very lazy in Chinese. I met another man working with China Southern Railways too. I may have mentioned this before, but Zhuzhou is probably the biggest transportation point down south. Sometimes people have to come here from Changsha to get a train because we have so many connections that pass through here.

Speaking of trains and connections, during Friday's event for foreigners I had a great conversation recently with a man who's been here for 13 years. He mentioned that you only get a passing view of a city from the trains and don't always get to see everything going on in there. Maybe he meant that because of all the people that must pass by Zhuzhou when they ride the train but never get off on their way to Changsha, Guangzhou, Kunming, or other places more popular as destinations than as stopping points. I was really fascinated to hear everything he had to say because for the most part, I've noticed/encountered relatively young people who stay for 5-6 years and then seem to move on to other things (though there is a group of people who started a company in Changsha, a few of whom used to be in WorldTeach). To find someone clearly at a different stage in his life from many of the other younger people I run into both because of the opportunities available here in China for foreigners (teaching is the most common, it's usually a little harder to find work in other fields but not impossible and that while most seem to like it here and stay for longer than they planned, they seem to move on to other things) presented a unique opportunity. I asked him what brought him to China. He told me that many people from his home country (Morocco) generally go to the US or Europe for work or school, but he saw a growing China and came out of curiosity. He intended to stay for a year or two, then to go to grad school in Belgium. Now he's married and has an 8 year old daughter. I asked him about the biggest changes he's seen in his time here. And like with many things, the biggest changes are the smallest. The first thing he did was point out of the bus windows and talk about the cages for air-conditioning units and how the government had paid for metal bars and things on all the windows so that things wouldn't fall out on the street anymore. The next thing he talked about was jaywalking, "It's much more controlled now. We had guys standing on the street and they would ask jaywalkers for 20RMB. And then people would run away or stop jaywalking not because they didn't want to pay, but because..they felt very silly..." he put his hands against his face so I asked "Embarassed?" "Yes". He told me that the Xiang river used to be a total mess. Things stuck all over the banks, dead animals, junk, bikes and other things used to float through the river. He told me about the efforts to clean up the river around Zhuzhou to make the most impact. If they cleaned up further downstream then the dirty water from here would still come down to others. He told me about the factories that have since moved and how awful the northern part of the city was when it had a chemicals factory. He told me all the chimneys (except one) have since disappeared. Since we were riding on a bus back into the city and I saw the cars around us as we went on the bridge over the Xiang, I asked him if there were more cars. "Oh yes. Many more. And many more kinds of cars." He pointed out his school and the dorms, the opera house in construction, and I asked him about Yandi Square. He told me the statue went up the year he came to Zhuzhou, but there was no square. It was all fields and some graves. I find it hard to visualize. I actually found someone's site where they posted photos they took years ago and compared them to the photos they took on a recent trip, but I still struggle to think about what it must have been like. When I go to YanDi Square now, it's clearly been designed both as a place of leisure and a bit of a tourist spot but there are still things in construction such as the opera house and a concert/arts hall. Those fields have been turned into a lake. The whole set up is near a museum/development exhibition hall which I've only been to once. Listening to my new friend made for quite a story and a chance to get an understanding of this place that I really haven't had access to too much.


It was a long conversation that took course over dinner at Songxizi and the bus ride back into the city. And I guess I'll now have to work backwards to talk about that long but very satisfying Friday. So I and the other teacher here agreed to take part in a program with other foreign teachers to teach in a school that was still in Zhuzhou county but outside of Zhuzhou city. We were assigned to LuKou Town. I got nervous and started to overthink what I needed to do a little bit but then looking at my lesson plan and powerpoint realized that I'd done what I could to teach new words and play charades, but that at this point I was just going to have to deal with any problems when the problems came. I was a littler nervous because I was teaching 8th and 9th grade for a day. It was weird. I didn't have to write and show so many pictures. I just said "take out a piece of paper" and pulled a piece of paper from my notebook "write one verb" and wrote the word swim "now fold it", and showed them, "and put it in this bag". It went smoothly, but the same verbs (fly, play, make, do, swim, sing, dance, run, jump, fight, write, read, watch) came up over and over again so after 20 minutes, I let the last 25 minutes of class be about questions. The 8th graders seemed more willing and warmed up to me more than the 9th graders. I think the same 4 outgoing 9th graders asked me questions over and over again. The 8th graders were so ready to ask me anything some pulled out their textbooks and scoured for a topic. It was really fun. And lunch was awesome. I finally tried hongshao rou while another guy with my name started singing "If it's good enough for Mao, it's good enough for me." He was a character. I knew I'd like hongshao rou before I ate it because everytime I see a picture of Mao's favorite dish it's always cubes of braised pork that seem to be mostly fat. The texture, the flavor, and all of it was great but we all resisted eating the whole thing since our table was so crowded with other foods. Then we went back to organize a question and answer session with the students

I remembered how curious and active my students were when we first met, so I was looking forward to being the new face on campus again. What I didn't think about is how much bigger the school would be (it was a public school and I think it covered primary to middle, if not up to high school) and how we would be mobbed by students who wanted us to sign their notebooks, their jackets, their English books, and sometimes, themselves. It was crazy to leave lunch and get to where we needed to be. I'd already allowed my students to ask me questions in class but there were so many people still who had questions. Some of them surprised me actually, one very outgoing girl with very good English in my 9th grade class asked me what I thought of LGBT and not really knowing the views I would encounter (I've heard that because China doesn't have the same religious context, it's generally more open but I also know that there are people who don't know much or don't understand, and then there's the traditional idea of family too...) I just said "I know what it is, but I don't know very much about it". But I probably should have guessed from her question that she asked because she knew something. She told me after class that she was a "B" and I was pleasantly surprised to find someone so young and so open about who she was. But it may just be that I'm a foreigner and a number of students have told me they feel free when they speak English, so there's that to consider. The sense of freedom is part of why people say such strange things in English sometimes. We talked about South Park, if I like pandas, my favorite drink, where I'm from, what schools in America are famous, if I like Chinese food, if I like China, if I liked the school (they asked me this during my first class when I'd been there for a total of 20 minutes), if I liked la tiao ("What's la tiao?" "This! Try it!"), and if I could accept some gifts from the students. It's always a little weird to be such a huge celebrity for a day on account of nothing more than you being a native English speaker or from another country, but I'm now the proud owner of a handmade pair of earrings and two hair pins, a Chinese chess set from Zhuzhou's top chess player, and a drawing of a tired kitty. I let them have my QQ number too so now I have over 30 requests that I need to add to my contact list. It's always hard to juggle being available to students with your own need for time to yourself but these kids don't have a regular oral English teacher so I thought I'd let them at least write to me every now and again. And they were so welcoming and such characters, I'm not saying no to them.

So that's a very brief summary of my week. On Friday, I had to leave my apartment at 7:20AM and we got back to the city at around 7:30PM so that day alone was pretty packed with new sights and new faces. We had to get up early on Monday too but besides seeing the expo and the museum before they closed for the day, we didn't have a lot of commitments to meet. And we were done after lunch. But I do have some photos of those excursions so I guess I'll spare you all having to read more text when I could just show you people making soy milk.

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:

I was supposed to get paid yesterday, but due to some difficulties with the name on my account I still only have about 10 kuai from when I first opened my account. It turns out that after they demanded that I fill out the forms again because they wanted my name to look exactly like it did on my passport (I left out my middle name) they left out a space so that my first and middle name were smashed together. Now that I have that figured out, I should be getting paid my first full stipend soon. Otherwise, my account will have about enough for 5 pieces of stinky tofu and a sprite, which still leaves me with 1 kuai for the bus ride back to my apartment. That had better be some awesome chou doufu if that's all I have and do with that money.

Anyway, it's my third week in and my classes are still very noisy. I love their energy and their mischief tells me just how clever they are. But I still need to control my class. I hate taking points, but I'm going to have to be even tougher to ensure I have a quiet and focused classroom. I also want to be sure that it's a safe space for people to make mistakes. I took the advice of my field director to randomly call on people after students speak and ask questions of different students. I don't have the incredibly quiet classrooms that I hear when I pass my students and they are with their other teachers yet, but the noise did change quite a bit after I started pulling names from the name bag I had students create on the first day. I have their names in Pinyin and Chinese so even if they try changing English names without telling me, I will find them by their Chinese names. That and they should have the name tags I spent over a week cutting out and creating for them. The names I got seemed a little less wild than some of the other teachers, but part of that may have been that I let them pick from a bunch of names I had written and cut out the weekend before. Unfortunately, I ran out of names in one class and wound up reusing some of them. One of my classes has about 5 Olivias.

I'm not where I want to be yet, so I have to keep reminding myself to be firm, clear, and consistent. If I have to tell my class to be quiet 3 times, I take a class point away. If I catch individuals, I card them and they have to come see me after class. I'm now creating a poster so my classes can see how well they are doing relative to each other. Hopefully, the competitive drive will boost classroom behavior. And stronger lesson plans. I think at the beginning of the week, I made it too hard or too hard to understand. Then I made it too easy so students found themselves with free time to goof off when they were done or bored. I need everyone engaged all the time. I'm not giving up until I've shown these kids that I deserve a quiet classroom like their other teachers. I'm worried that students are hitting each other when my back is turned, and when other students tell on them, I struggle to penalize them because I didn't actually see what happened so I usually wind up saying "I need you both to work and keep your hands to yourself or I will be back".

Maybe I'm really not trying hard enough. I don't know, that's sometimes the impression I get talking to others: that I'm too kind when I need to slam things on their desks  and let them know they are in trouble. I do want them to know they are in trouble and for my class to see that there are consequences, but I don't want to shame them or kill their enthusiasm either. They're not bad kids, but I need to be a better teacher.

This has probably been one of the most frustrating and one of the most rewarding weeks as I condition my students to enjoy English but behave well in class. I love it when they're excited like when we went over family members using the Simpsons and especially the reactions of all the Lisas in my classes, but dang. When your smallest class is 55 students you cannot tolerate talking. At all. Get it immediately or you'll find it growing. The last thing I need is 55-60 students distracting and disrupting each other.

Fall seems to have finally reached Hunan. We had rain yesterday and it's been cool enough that I don't need the A/C or my desktop fan like I used to. I was enjoying an unhealthy lunch from the school cafeteria consisting of fried chicken and some spongy cake thing with cream inside while listening to the music they play during lunch break. Yesterday, it was Taylor Swift and the High School Musical soundtrack (the American one, I haven't heard the Chinese High School Musical soundtrack here ever). It's funny to me. Most people talk about getting used to the smells in China. Though there were certainly some I had to get used to to begin with, smell actually hasn't been as big for me as sound. China is very much an aural experience.

Sounds that have become a part of my everyday life in Zhuzhou:

• Motorcycles honking as they ride behind me on the sidewalk
  
• Cars honking all the time to tell people and other cars they want to go ahead
  
• Enrique Iglesias's "Escape"  playing at the accessories shop across the street everyday
• Some song at the Vanguard shopping center that has the words "I know that, I've gotta get out of here" that plays every time I'm there
• Firecrackers/fireworks. From early morning to late at night. While this isn't quite daily, it is regular enough that I don't run around looking for the source when it happens. Most of the time, it's off the top of  building nearby but one morning I got up extra early because the light was flashing through my curtains and later walked to the stationery/convenience store behind where I live and found bits of red paper strewn everywhere.
• The school bell. Except that it's not a bell. When I was in middle school, the submarine beep meant it was time to run off to your next class. Here, it's the teachers that move from classroom to classroom and I know my work is done when I have managed to wrap up just as I hear a piano start Beethoven's "Für Elise". I have also heard a piano version of "The Ash Grove" which I think signals the end of lunch and the beginning of the nap period.
• There is also some lively tune they play for the students eye exercises along with a woman's voice going "yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba". The students have 5 minutes for these eye exercises and they do them twice a day, though since my earliest class is at 10:25 I've only heard it before my 16:00 class.
• "Teacher! Class is ended!" if I continue speaking after the bell.
• Fast-talking store employees advertising aggressively, but with such incredible speed and clearness to their voice that it's really an art.
• The "Xiao Ping Guo". Because it's viral and everywhere. Whether it's a street food stand, middle-aged women dancing out in a square in a large group, my students during their music or dance class, a dance competition, or a nearby KTV, "Xiao Ping Guo"  by the Chopstick Brothers has also come to take its place in my daily life
• The incredible enunciation and rhythm produced by the other English teachers' classrooms. I often hear one teacher come in with his mic and very calmly and clearly recite the vocabulary the students need and have them chorally repeat it. It's amazing. It's completely the opposite of my classroom where I often feel choral repetition is the only time I have for getting all my students to focus and participate. But to keep them engaged I'm going to have introduce something a little tougher or include a few more words.

I imagine this is only the beginning to a growing list of noises. Forget China's smells, it's the sounds that seem to be making an impression on me.

I have a ways to go, but I've already been in Hunan for over a month. My vocabulary grows with every trip to the grocery store and with the assistance of my energetic, bright, loveable, but often mischievous students. I hope to grow as a teacher and make it very clear that helping me with Chinese is only for before or after class. As their English teacher, I'm there to speak English and make sure they do too.