I don't think I'll have time to post about my last week in China until I get back to the USA (and back to a faster internet connection - YAY!) but I just wanted to leave an update that tomorrow morning I leave China and I will arrive at RDU on Saturday evening. It's been a sad day knowing that I'll never see a lot of my students here ever again but since BRS is an international school, most of them are intending to study at a university in the US, so I've invited everyone to come visit me! I'll have lots of updates and really funny pictures in the next post so stay tuned! Students in America, I will see you on Monday and I'm really looking forward to seeing you all!!! Goodbye China! Hopefully I'll make it back someday!!
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Two years ago I was in Costa Rica for Easter and now I’m in China! BRS is outside of the downtown area of Beijing, where all of the churches are, and it took us 2 hours to get to the church that we went to a few weeks ago. A friend and I were talking yesterday about how we take for granted that we only have a 5 minute drive to church and sometimes even complain about having to get up early, get ready, drive there, and that the parking lot is too far away from the church. When you’re in America it’s easy to say that you know that church in other countries can be inconvenient, but it’s another thing entirely to actually live it. When I get back to America, I don’t think I’ll ever think of church the same way again. We take for granted the privilege we have to worship freely and that it’s so convenient to find a place to worship. If you worship legally here, it can take as much as 2 hours waiting for a bus to get to the crowded subway and then walking to the church. If you worship illegally (at a house church), then you break the law and risk punishment. We decided that we would have our own service to celebrate Easter here at the school, solemnly mindful that if we were Chinese citizens we would have been breaking the law. My friend and I walked to the convenience store on Easter morning and bought grape juice and small rolls of bread. We all had lunch at the school cafeteria and when we got back to our lounge, we found out that the guys had put together an Easter egg hunt with the German Kinder eggs (that are now not sold in the States because of choking hazards since there are toys inside :( ! Then we had our service and my roommate Megan, who is Methodist, went through the sequence of home services that she does with her campus ministry. Madison was our worship leader and pulled up a couple of songs on iTunes that we sang to and I read the reading from Luke about the resurrection of Jesus. This service brought up another point: that in our service there were non-denominational Christians, a Catholic, and a Methodist and we all worshipped together. How often does that happen in the States? Being in a situation in which we don’t have the “luxury” (if that’s what it is) of dividing ourselves every which way into many different denominations brings us together in the one belief that we share and the one that matters the most: that Jesus Christ died on the cross as the final sacrifice for our sins and rose from the grave, almost two thousand years ago, to bring us eternal life and the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us. If we all had an experience like this one, in a country as a religious minority, I believe that it would be an experience that would bring us together in our similarities, rather than divide us over our differences, as so often happens in the States. I bet you can’t guess what we did next… We took the subway to the Lama Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing. According to dictionary.com, “Lamaism” is “the Buddhism of Tibet and Mongolia, a Mahayana form including non-Buddhist Indian elements as well as elements of the preexisting Bon shamanism.” Well that answers my question as to why there were figures with many arms (like you see in Hinduism) and why some of the scripts had writing on it that was not Chinese, more similar to Hindi. The Lama Temple was built in 1694 and it was going to be where one of the emperors of the Qing dynasty was going to live, before he took the throne. Then it was converted into a “lamasery,” a Buddhist temple. When we bought our tickets, we got a mini CD with it that plays traditional Chinese music (I think… I’m kind of paranoid about playing it on my computer until I get home. Viruses are rampant!) Then each person got a free bundle of incense. There were various stations throughout the temple where you could burn three sticks at a time. The Buddhists bow three times (kneeling or standing) at each shrine. There are offerings of fake fruit and people can leave money at the shrines. There is also a prayer wheel that people spin. I did not take pictures of the inside of the shrines to be respectful, but at the end of the temple there is a HUGE statue of Buddha (we’re talking 18 meters high) All of the old buildings (such as the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, etc.) that we've been to have this metal bar that you have to step over to get into a room. The people believe that it keeps out evil spirits. A funny sidenote: all of the classrooms have this 2 inch metal bar that we almost trip over every time we walk into a classroom. One of the student teachers here told us that it was to keep out evil spirits, like the one pictured above. I asked my mentor teacher if that was true and she said "Oh no! Haha that's just the door frame!" :)
And after we got back, Madison and I went to the student singing competition. Our mentor teachers performed at the teacher one last week. The one last night was awesome! The kids got really into it, with really great hip hop dance routines and great singing.
Ok... unfortunately not :( but apparently I was dressed like one! I had been on a quest for what I used to call a "Mulan dress" before I found out that it's called a "chi pong." I just really love the traditional Chinese dresses, they're so pretty! I was willing to buy a real silk one but then I found one for like $25 in a cute, hipster area of Beijing. I wore it to teach in last Thursday. As I was walking down the hall to get to my class, a group of girls were walking towards me and I could tell that they were suppressing laughter. As soon as they were past me, they started busting out laughing with another group of girls behind me. Oh no! They must be laughing at me in my dress! I was so embarrassed but I didn't have time to change. I walked into my class and no one said anything about my dress, except my teacher, who noted it when she came in. She really liked it.
Then when it was lunch time, I was nervous about walking through the crowded cafeteria in my chi pong because I knew I would get made fun of. But no! I had no reason to be embarrassed. I was embracing the culture and showing my appreciation for it and it really was a pretty dress (not to mention I had ironed it and didn't feel like ironing anything else). So I wore it and was attracting a lot of attention and feeling awkward. Then I walked past my mentor teacher and another teacher was looking at me and whispering to her. Aha! Busted! My mentor teacher would tell me what she was telling her about me! "She says you look very beautiful" said my mentor teacher. Ok, at least she's not making fun of me. Then another teacher said "you look like a Chinese bride!" OHH! So that's why everyone's laughing at me! I'm wearing a wedding dress! After she said that I remembered that the department chair had told me the other day when I wore it that it was a bridal dress but I didn't remember that until now. Well, all is forgiven. If I were in high school and I saw a student/teacher wearing a wedding dress and walking down the halls I would laugh too... although I think they thought it was even funnier since I was a foreigner. Here's a picture of the dress. It has a peacock on it. It's even prettier in person! :) Haha that was my Skype conversation with my brother while I was getting ready to go. I always think it's really funny when my parents or brother ask me what I'm doing that day and I have something really cool planned and then they have nothing to top it with, just "well I'm going fishing" or "I went to work." That happened a few weeks ago when I was telling my mom that I was getting ready to go to the Summer Palace and my mom was all excited about a pretty tablecloth she got at Big Lots :) I'm just kidding, mom. You know I'm glad you like your new tablecloth. Now that's our running joke, but hey! They'll get to go off on another fun trip one day while I'm back home so I don't feel so bad about laughing :) The Great Wall of China - "a dragon winding over the mountains"The Great Wall of China is listed as one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built to protect the border of China from invasion and to prevent northern nomadic tribes from crossing over and marauding China. Sections of the Great Wall are over 2,000 years old! Sections of the Wall are still being discovered today because some parts are in ruins. Less than 30% of the Great Wall remains in good condition. It was constructed by Chinese peasants, prisoners, and soldiers (that pretty much covers everyone!) and is made with local resources. So... can the Great Wall of China really be seen from space? This statement from NASA answers the question: "The Great Wall of China, frequently billed as the only man-made object visible from space, generally isn't, at least to the unaided eye in low Earth orbit. It certainly isn't visible from the Moon." This website explains further and has pictures of the Great Wall as "seen" from space: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html A great ending to a great trip! Well, before I shopped for souvenirs. At most of the touristy places they sell tons of really cool souvenirs and there aren't set prices, you have to barter. I'm really proud of how I bartered that day, I got some really good deals. The vendors try to rip you off, starting at a price that's like 5 times what you should pay for it. I'm not falling for it anymore! I'm getting good at it now, too. Here's how it's done: Have a price in mind (or start lower and work your way up to it so the vendors don't feel to bad), stay firm (or go up from your ridiculously low price if you're being nice), and if they don't give it to you for that price just walk away and if it's meant to be, they'll start yelling lower prices at you, "what was that? Oh you WILL sell it to me for that price? Deal!" I got that panda shirt for $3!
Ooh this trip was like 2 weeks ago but better late than never! On this day we went to the Forbidden City, Tian An Men Square, and the National Museum. I left the memory card for my camera in my laptop on this day so all of the photo cred goes to my roommate Megan! Sidenote: I disabled comments on the last post on Religion in China so that I have to approve them before they are posted, just so I can filter them and make sure nothing disrespectful was published. They have been arriving to me through email and I've enjoyed reading the comments (nothing disrespectful has been said, it was just a precaution.) The Forbidden CityI've been excited for a while now to get to go to the "Forbidden" City! Well yeah, it has a cool name and you feel like a rebel, like you're getting away with something, but it's also a really cool place because it was the imperial palace from the mid-Ming to the Qing dynasties. It was built from 1406 - 1420. It spans 7,800,000 square feet and has 980 buildings The Forbidden City is also listed by UNESCO as the "largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world." As you can imagine, it's called the Forbidden City because no one could enter or leave without the emperor's permission. 24 emperors lived in the Forbidden City, up until 1912 when it ceased to be the political center of China. The architecture is just incredible and it was very humbling to walk on the same streets that Chinese emperors walked on some 500 years ago. I'm telling you, the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is rewatch Mulan! I want to see how much I can understand from the movie now that I've been to China. Apparently the storyline comes from a Chinese poem. The teacher from BRS that came with us to the Forbidden City told us that we could learn a lot about the plot of Mulan from the trip to the Forbidden City. So rich/influential families sent their daughters to the emperor to become concubines and from these concubines the emperor selected an empress. Mulan's parents wanted to send Mulan to the emperor as one of these concubines and she didn't want to do this, choosing to fight in place of her father and eventually becoming empress that way (Disney couldn't include all of that and have the movie be G-rated!). When you get to the picture of the garden, the place where the concubines stayed is somewhere around there and it's called something like the "House of High Expectations." Tian An Men SquareThe name means "Gate of Heavenly Peace." To the Chinese, Tiananmen is important because it is where emperors stood to make proclamations to China and where Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China in 1949. It is the largest city square in the world, comprising roughly 109 acres! It was built in 1420, although it's burned down and been rebuilt several times. It served as the gate to the Imperial City, within the Forbidden City. Many of us also remember Tian An Men Square because this is where the student protest took place and countless students were massacred by the government in 1989. The students went on a hunger strike, wanting the government to speak with student-elected representatives and wanting free media. After almost 3 weeks of protest, the government sent in tanks. The government admitted a few hundred deaths, but the real number of deaths is likely to be much higher. This was a very sad event and brought worldwide attention to the supposed "Gate of Heavenly Peace." I was told that people don't like to talk about this event here, which is interesting because in America I feel like we talk about mistakes we have made, such as slavery, even in schools, but this event was relatively recent (only 2 years before I was born!) so that could be part of the reason why it's low key. The National MuseumUnfortunately we only had about 20 minutes to look around the museum. I think I could have spent the whole day here. I got tears in my eyes just looking at all of the beautiful ancient things on display. My mentor teacher told me that the students here complain that they have 5,000 years worth of history to learn whereas American students only have to learn 400 or so years worth of our country's history (if you start from the arrival of the pilgrims). I just think the Chinese culture is fascinating! I'm almost positive that anyone reading this knows that I am a Christian. Blogging entails sharing your life experiences and this post is very important to me (that's why it's taken me 3 hours to write!) so I'm going to share, hoping that you will take it for what it is, as my experiences, shared with a sincere and honest heart. Last Sunday I had my first experience at church in China, an experience that I've been looking forward to since I decided to go on this program. I never was and still am not concerned for my safety here as a Christian and although persecution certainly exists here, it has not and probably will not directly effect me during this stay. Before I came I did lots of research on what I should expect. All of this information should be accurate, since it comes from many different sources and I presented this information as a class project this semester. This is some of what I have learned: 1) The Communist Party of China is an atheist organization and has been in power since 1949. It still regulates the practice of religion. It has become gradually more tolerant over the past 20 years and recognizes and "protects" (to some extent and at their discretion) only five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism (the Chinese Catholic Church, not the Roman Catholic Church). 2) Protestantism is very broad and protection of "Protestantism" does NOT mean that Baptists, Methodists, Evangelical Christians, etc. are free to meet and worship. The Chinese government protects what is called the "Three-Self Patriotic Movement" and you must be over the age of 18 to be involved in these meetings. But what if you're a Christian but do not agree with the theology of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement or even if you DO agree with this theology but want your children that are under the age of 18 to be engaged in activities in the church? 3) I'm sure you've heard of Chinese "house churches" or "underground churches." Just like the names suggest, these are illegal gatherings and the people that are involved in them are risking the possibility of severe punishment, from fines to torture to imprisonment, and in some cases death (but this all depends on where you live in China; some places are more open than others and some officers pick other battles to enforce). 4) Enforcement of the policies are largely subjective. Officers of the law may turn a blind eye, let people off with a warning, or punish as harshly as the law allows. 5) China is actually the third largest Christian nation in the world, after the United States and Brazil. The church in China is actually growing and cities such as Beijing are generally more tolerant than other areas of China, since they are in the international spotlight, hosting a constant influx of businesspeople and tourists with which the government wants to maintain positive relations. The church that we went to this past Sunday was for non-citizens of China. There were people there from all over the world and the service was in English. To enter the service you must show a copy of your passport to prove that you are not a Chinese citizen. Chinese citizens would not be allowed to enter. I was really taken aback by this policy but it is in place so that we can worship with less regulations as the other churches in China. A Chinese person visiting the United States told me and some others "there is no God in China." That statement is seared in my mind and I thought: how could anyone say such a bold statement, knowing that not everyone in China feels that way. And if there IS a God, then He doesn't just exist in my little community in the USA, but everywhere, including China. When I studied abroad in Costa Rica I grew so much spiritually. I was on my own and I saw how God worked in my life, from the very simplest things to the big things. Literally EVERYWHERE I went I had little hints of His presence: as small as a man walking past me whistling "Te alabaré" (English: I will praise you) in the bus station (one of my favorite praise songs that I learned in Costa Rica) to my grandpa dying on the very day that I flew home, after I had been praying throughout the semester abroad that he wouldn't die while I was gone so that I could attend and sing at his funeral. My friend called it "Christian radar" but I saw little hints of my family in Christ everywhere I went and I thanked God for surrounding me and showing me that He is with me no matter where in the world I go. I expected and looked forward to experiencing the same thing in China, but I have to say that during these two weeks here, I have not felt normal spiritually. I felt like a chunk of me was missing. I'm I talked to my mom on the phone on Thursday night and we prayed together that I would feel God's presence with me here, that I had just not been feeling. I tell you, our prayer was answered the very next day. As I was walking around in school, I saw a student with a Bible. I even asked him if that's what it was and he said yes it was and that he hopes that more will be manufactured in China. After school that day, our group went exploring on the subway and a woman walked onto the subway through the door directly across from me and began to read the Bible. It was very unusual for this to happen, let alone twice in one day after 2 weeks of no signs of other Christians, AND the very next day after praying about it! I was just beside myself. What I miss most about America is the openness to talk about religious matters, bringing up God in casual conversations, seeing churches as I'm driving down the road, going to Ratio Christi and church, all of those reminders that I'm not the only one. I'm actually used to being in situations in which I'm a minority, with my core group of friends in high school all being people of different faiths than me, I'm used to having long, interesting discussions about God in college with people that don't share my beliefs, and I've put on several programs as an RA that allowed us to explore religious and moral matters in a respectful, academic setting. Growing up, I did not belong to a church (unable to find a place where I and my family felt comfortable) but continued to grow in my faith on my own wrestling with questions, through my life experiences, and through Bible study. All of these experiences have caused me to grow in being able to stand firm (but always respectful) in my beliefs, even when I feel like I'm the only one, and not compromise my founded beliefs to fit what the majority wants me to do. That pretty much sums up my whole life, actually! In short, I find it interesting that I still feel out of sorts and actually, now that I'm reflecting on it, I think that it's not that I feel lonely that I'm a minority or that I'm missing my Christian community back home, but that I just feel suppressed in talking about matters of faith compared to what I'm used to. (Blogging is a really great way to organize your thoughts. I've been bothered trying to find an answer to why I feel the way I do this whole trip, but I think that's it, I feel suppressed). So, like I said, I arranged our group trip to church this past Sunday and after a slow bus ride and getting a little bit lost, we arrived 50 minutes late. The instant I walked into the church I felt at peace, at home. The minute we sat down in the sanctuary I began to cry and didn't stop throughout the whole sermon. The sermon was not that strong but that's not what affected me. I'm not someone who shows my emotions much, but over the past few years, I've begun to cry when I feel God's presence and when I pray, which is something that has strengthened my faith; it also shows that I felt God in that place. When I looked out at the attendees of all different ages and races, I praised God for the freedom that we have in the United States and as international tourists abroad to worship freely and was saddened for my brothers and sisters all over the world that do not have this basic freedom. I learned something else that was interesting. One of my NC State peers here told me that her Chinese mentor teacher was trying to explain a Chinese character to her and said "let me just explain it in religious terms: Jesus came down from Heaven... (and drew a line down)" and continued using a Christian analogy. I mentioned it to one of my friends here who is Chinese American and he said "Oh yeah, a lot of the Chinese characters are based on Christianity." That shocked me so I went online and sure enough, several of the characters do appear to have Judeo-Christian origin, which is really interesting to me! There are theories as to why this may be the case, but I don't know much about it so I can't defend it one way or the other. You can look into it if it interests you! I also can't claim that correlation between these characters and the Biblical stories means causation, but it looks like there must be something to it, since it's not just one but several characters. Look at the examples below (and don't judge my first attempt at drawing Chinese characters! :) 1) God warned Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and then would not allow them to eat from the Tree of Life after they had eaten the other tree's fruit. 2) The devil told them the "secret" that they wouldn't really die if they ate the fruit (that they would remain alive). After they ate from the tree in the garden, they used the leaves to cover up their nakedness. 3) 8 people traveled on Noah's Ark: Noah, his wife, their sons Ham, Shem, and Japheth and their wives.
A front view of the school. Before I went to the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, I didn't really understand the significance of the layout of this gate but now I see that it is designed to look like the old royal buildings (like the ones in the Forbidden City). You can see the lion statues which I showed you from the Summer Palace, you can see lots of red, which is a royal color, and if you look on the roof to the right, you can see the animals lined up to show the importance of the building. The school is called Beijing ROYAL school because the ground that it is on used to belong to royalty.
Beijing Royal School (BRS) is a private school and tuition for high school students is $20,000 per year! Most other schools prepare students for the Gaokao, the Chinese exam that tests students and determines what universities they can go to, what they can major in, and ultimately what profession they can have. A lot of pressure is put on Chinese students to do well on this exam since it really determines their future. Especially with the One-Child Policy in China (which was recently changed to a Two-Child Policy IF both parents are only children themselves), parents are very invested in their child’s success in school and on this exam so that they can attend a good university, have a good career, and support them when they are elderly. BRS is an international school that prepares students to attend a university abroad in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia. So rather than preparing students to take the Gaokao, students at BRS are prepared to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), the SAT, and AP exams for college credit. All of these tests are taken their junior year and parents spend a lot of money sending their child to this school, so students put in long days at school. The school day begins at 8:00 am and the students have 4, 45-minute long classes. Then they have a lunch break from 11:40 – 1:30 pm. Students go to one of the two cafeterias, eat with their friends, take a walk, and then take a nap before their next class. Even the Chinese teachers take a walk and nap after lunch. They give the American teachers a hard time for not doing this because we get tired later in the afternoon. After the break, students have another set of 4, 45-minute classes from 1:30 until 5:05. The dinner break is from 5:05 until 6:30. Then there are 3, 45-minute classes from 6:30 until 9:05… and then homework time! There are 10-minute breaks between each class, so if students want to do their hw then, they can. They could also work during the lunch and dinner breaks and from my understanding 1 or 2 of the periods are “elective” or study hall periods, so if they don’t have any electives, they can work on homework then, or just not do it, which also seems to happen a lot, at least in the English class I'm observing! From the perspective of a teacher, the day is quite different. They don’t teach every class period. My mentor teacher teaches a total of 18 classes each week (13.5 hours of instructional time versus the 22.5 hours of instructional time in the United States). My mentor teacher and I only have 2 classes of 10th graders, so there are about 55 students, compared to the 90 my cooperating teacher and I had in NC, and there is MUCH less grading! I spent at least 4 hours grading every day in NC and here I haven’t graded a thing. That’s because we’re literally “teaching to the test.” It’s a TOEFL prep class so we just go through the book, doing the listening and reading exercises. The students stay in the same classroom ALL day long with the same classmates (for the most part from 10th to 12th grade). The teachers move from class to class instead of the students. On one hand, the classroom is more the students’ own space since they stay there all day so they feel comfortable there and they have their own place to store their enormous pile of textbooks. I mean, they have their desk cubby full of books, their desktop full of books, and some of them even pull up a chair next to their desk to put the rest of the books. I took a picture of the stack and I’m thinking about making a poster out of it to show my students in the US when they complain about “too much homework”! Also, rather than having the same class for 1st period every day, the same class for 2nd period, etc., the schedule follows a weekly pattern, but not a daily pattern. For example, on Mondays the students may have Biology during 1st period, but during 8th period on Tuesdays. An advantage to this is that they have a given class at different times of the day during the week, which means they aren't always sleepy during Biology since they don’t have that for 1st period every day, but a disadvantage is that there’s a lot of jumping around and teachers and students have to keep checking the schedule to see what’s coming next. The next pictures are of the classroom. I think it's funny that in every classroom I've seen, there are Christmas decorations everywhere. Actually, if you go into some stores and even at the national museum cafe, you can hear Christmas music playing over the intercom. The holiday doesn't have any religious significance to most of them, I guess they just like the pretty decorations! Students also wear uniforms here. The colors are gray and maroon and the uniforms are sweatsuits. Students can wear different pants or different shirts but they must be wearing something BRS-related. It’s a good thing the uniforms are so comfortable with the long days they put in! The students complain about the uniforms though because they think they’re ugly. This is a boarding school so the students live on campus. There are about 3,000 students here and from my understanding, even the little elementary school students stay here overnight. Most of the students go home on the weekend (the ones that live around here), but the ones that live farther away stay here on the weekends. This is what I eat for breakfast when I don't feel like waking up early to go to the dining hall. A croissant and a can of coffee. I thought that the brown filling was chocolate but it ISN'T! This interesting ingredient actually replaces chocolate in a lot of Chinese treats. Extra points to whoever can tell me what it is and why it is used instead of chocolate! (comment with the answer and I'll tell you in one of the upcoming blogs!)
I also want to mention that for all of us in the group, a lot of the generalizations we had made about Chinese students were shot when we actually observed in the classroom. We had expected that the students would all be sitting up straight, listening to the teacher, taking notes feverishly, have their homework completed, and that we would not have any discipline issues. That is NOT the case! Students in China are just like students in the US, there are lots of students sleeping in class, they talk while the teacher is talking, a lot of them are not taking notes, and actually about 4 out of the 25 students in my first period do their homework. From what I gathered from my discussions with the other NC State students and my own observations, classroom management is pretty much non-existent. Students sleep if they want to sleep, they don't do the classwork if they don't want to do it, and they're free to zone out and the teacher just goes on teaching. It's very different from what I'm used to. But just like our generalization of students does not fit the students in our classes at BRS, we have to be careful to not make a generalization about all Chinese high school students based on what we have observed here. This is a boarding school with long hours, so maybe at the public schools (which have hours that are more comparable to our hours in the States), the students are more awake and engaged and have more time to get their homework done before class. I'm fitting right in with this hard-working Chinese schedule! I don't have near as much work to do as I did when I student taught in the US, but I have a mountain of odds and ends I have to get done before I come back and graduate. One piece of advice I’ll give to anyone that has the opportunity to travel or study abroad: get your other work done BEFORE you go abroad!! I’ve been working on my edTPA portfolio, the homework and final project for my online class, and my 30-page research paper for the Honors Program while I’m here, so although I'm physically here, I don't feel as mentally "here" as I would be if I didn't have this pile of work. Rather than learning Mandarin, observing other classes, or playing table tennis or badminton with the students after class, like I would if I didn't have all of this work to finish up, I just come back to the room and get back to work on my breaks. I know that I was working all the time during my student teaching in the States and couldn't have gotten all of this done then, so I don’t have any regrets, but I do wish I had less side work to do so I could immerse myself further. But the good news is that I finished edTPA and all of the work for my online class last week, so now I just have to finish up my Honors Capstone paper! Most of what I’m doing is observing my mentor teacher, although I have taught 2 lessons at this point and will teach a few more in the coming weeks.
On Saturday, 3/29 we went to the Summer Palace and it is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been (tied with Cerro Chirripo in Costa Rica). Construction started in the Qing Dynasty (1750 to be exact) and it was first designed to be a place for royalty to come and relax and entertain and then became a place where the royal family actually lived. So most (if not all) of the old buildings in China have animals on the corners of the roofs. You can tell how important/ornate a building (and the business done inside) is by counting the number of animals on one of the corners. The maximum number of animals is 9, or 10 if you count the man on the phoenix (we saw buildings with 10 in the Forbidden City) and, from my understanding, you start counting with the phoenix with the man riding it until the last animal before the dragon. According to something I read online, the position of the animals is an implicit warning that if you do not do your duty, you are in a precarious position, because not only are you on the edge of the roof, but you also have several animals lined up in pounce-position to get you if you do not do your duty. That makes sense because the more important your duties are in the building, the more animals there are on the roof, which means the punishment is more severe. Generally, things are more subtle/implicit in China. This is a subtle indication of importance, not as in-your-face as some other cultures (the impression that the Chinese have of American culture, according to Chinese people I have spoken with here).
This is the boat we rode in around the lake. So this lake is man-made, which is really impressive because it's huge! I was told that all of the dirt that was dug up was mounded up to form a mountain (and I assume that it's the mountain where one of the Buddhist temples is). I'll show you that in a minute.
A beautiful stone depiction of a dragon and a phoenix. When together, the dragon often symbolizes the emperor and the phoenix symbolizes the empress. I read that when the dragon and phoenix are depicted together, it is a form of yin yang, harmony between the powerful dragon and the virtuous phoenix.
We got to see a brief opera show! This is actually a man playing a woman's role. We were all staring at this person, trying to figure out the gender so I asked one of the Chinese teachers that was with us. She said that sometimes men play women's roles and women play men's roles because if they can successfully play the other gender's part, it shows that they are really talented actors/actresses. It's easier to play your own role than another's.
Ok so I find this really funny/sad... after a wonderful day of learning about Chinese culture, seeing amazing, world-renowned architecture, taking great pictures, and finding some bargains, what could a tourist possibly have to complain about?! I mean really!! But apparently it's a big enough thing to have a tourist complaint hotline and a box office... Well this was my favorite day in China so far, the views and architecture were just breathtaking. My next post will be about the school day, pictures of the school, and food! Stay tuned!
The headmaster at our school is named Mr. Wang and he owns a lot of the property in the area of our school, including the school itself, the hospital in our district, and everything in between. On Thursday night (3/27) Mr. Wang took all of us student teachers and our mentor teachers to one of the most expensive restaurants in Beijing. It was a really cool experience! We all sat around a table and each table had its own chef that grilled the food right in front of us. He put the oil on the “table” and lit it and we all gasped, not expecting the flame to get that close to our faces but it was a cool experience. They brought plate after plate of fish and meat to grill for us and by the time we were too full to take another bite (after about 8 courses), they still had about 5 courses waiting for us that were already paid for. We felt bad about wasting the food but it was just too much to eat!! Here are some pictures from that night: And a picture of my scorched hair, which doesn't look so bad here! And a group picture with Mr. Wang! (my mentor teacher is the 2nd one on the left) I got to meet and observe my mentor teacher on Friday (3/28) and she is so nice! She even got her Master’s at Indiana University where my mom and aunt went to college and Bloomington is my mom’s hometown. What a coincidence! We will be teaching 10th grade English, a preparation class for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), which is a test that foreigners must take to attend a college in the United States to prove that they can function well enough in the language to succeed at an American University with classes in English. I attended 1st and 2nd period and 1st period was really sleepy and kind of disengaged but when I got to 2nd period, the atmosphere was completely different. I walked in and everyone said hello and two of the girls asked me to sit next to them and brought me a chair. One of them said “Teacher, you are so beautiful!” I was feeling self-conscious (and the scorched hair didn’t help!) Haha so their warm welcome was really nice. I went to the front of the class and introduced myself and when I sat back down, my mentor teacher said “everyone envies you for your fair skin!” At the end of class, several students huddled around me and wanted to know where I was from, how to say certain words in Spanish, even my phone number, and went on and on about the way I look. It’s really interesting because in the United States, tan skin is the ideal and us fair skinned people have a hard time, but here in China the people idealize fair skin. Haha I finally fit in with my “alabaster” skin! :) If you go to the pharmacy for some lotion you have to be careful because lots of them actually have bleach in them to whiten the skin. I’m not even using lotion because I’m afraid of getting that kind by mistake (I can’t read Chinese characters ya know…) and I don’t need to be any whiter than I already am! My first thought was that maybe the Chinese culture idealizes whiter skin because of western influence, but then I remembered Mulan (one of my favorite Disney movies, and honestly one of the reasons why I picked to come to China instead of the other options…) and how the women put white powder on their faces to look more “beautiful” and I realized that although western influence and media may have something to do with the desire to have lighter skin in modern-day China, that’s definitely not the main reason; it goes deeper than that and has much older roots. The reason is likely because a long time ago (well, even today to some extent) darker skin was indicative of working long hours in the sun (working class) and lighter skin was indicative of not having to work out in the sun (upper class/nobility). In the United States, the situation is similar with some African Americans. Since I’m so light-skinned, this conversation has come up many times with my African American friends, but similar to the Chinese, many African Americans (although not all) tend to favor lighter skin, limiting time outside in the sun or wearing long sleeves even when it’s hot. This is not the case across the board, but I have noticed it to be true for many of my friends that have dark skin, not wanting to get too much darker and this may have similar roots to the Chinese, going back to darker skin meaning more time working out in the sun and lighter skin meaning less/no time laboring in the sun. (For Dr. Ivonne: This is an example of ANALYTIC COMPETENCY because I was seeking to understand the central beliefs and values that the Chinese have about beauty and where that came from and compared that to our culture in the United States, with respect to some African Americans and skin tone). On Friday night we went to a place called Shichahai, which is a really beautiful and artsy area! There are two lakes surrounded by restaurants and shops and at night the little town is all lit up and it’s just BEAUTIFUL! I was standing around taking pictures and a girl came up to me and asked if she could interview me for one of her college projects. She wanted to know what my best April Fool’s prank was, if I had ever told a white lie, and how my parents first told me about my cultural heritage. Haha with all of those random questions, I’d like to see what the assignment was! While we were talking, this guy comes up to me and holds up a camera. I thought he wanted me to take a picture of him and his friend but no! He wanted his friend to take a picture of ME and him together! This was the first time (now of several) that someone has come to me asking for a picture with me. I’m definitely NOT the prettiest one in our group but for some reason I’m the one people are singling out to comment on and take pictures with the most. I think it’s because I’m the palest one out of the 10 of us and I have reddish hair. I’m starting to keep count of how many times people ask me for a picture and so far I’m at 10! This turned out to be a really long post with all of the pictures, so before the internet goes out again, I'm going to post it and do a "part 2" with the rest of what I wanted to share!
YAY!!! Internet's working again! :D Don't worry, I'm still alive! Sorry for the lateness of this post but the internet connection has been really weak and it wasn't letting me on! I like the format of Weebly a lot better than Tumblr but Tumblr seems to connect to internet more consistently so I'm using both sites. Same posts, two different sites. Anyway, I think it’s interesting that I lived in Costa Rica for 5 months as a foreign exchange student, rather than on a program with other Americans, without ever experiencing severe culture shock or EVER getting homesick and now, even though I have the security blanket of only being abroad for 5 weeks and being on a program with other Americans, I’m feeling a little homesick and sometimes overwhelmed. I attribute this to three things: 1) I am coming off of a lot of hard work student teaching to a slower pace, 2) I am missing my students and cooperating teacher in the US a LOT, and 3) I don’t speak the language and it’s not like I can even wing it when I read a menu or a label on something because I can’t read Chinese characters. The first four days I was feeling a little melancholy but I think I’m moving forward now. After all, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I want to make the most of it! And I’m lucky that I get to see my students and CT in North Carolina when I get back!! I have a few random things to mention in this post and then from here on out they’ll be more thematic! So, when I arrived at the airport last Sunday I got to exchange my American money for Chinese money and it’s SO COOL! The currency here is called Yuan (or RMB, shorthand for renminbi) and each American dollar is worth approximately 6 Yuan. So if a sign says something costs 30 Yuan, that means the product is worth about $5. Something else that’s interesting is that other countries have differently shaped outlets with different voltages. When I was in Costa Rica, the outlet size was the same and I could just plug all of my appliances into the wall like normal, but here in China the shape is different and I had to buy an adaptor/converter so I could plug that into the wall and then plug my appliance into the adaptor/converter and then the appliances are supposed to work like normal, but… I had a little incident. On my first day here, I was getting ready for my day and I blew dry and straightened my hair like I usually do but when I was finished… my hair was scorched! Apparently the voltage is a lot higher here and it messed up my hair :( I’m not happy about it but I do kind of laugh at the situation. I bought some conditioner and a spray and am only blow drying my hair with cold air so hopefully within a week it’ll be back to normal… Another difference is that you’re not supposed to drink the water from the tap here so we have to drink from bottled water or juice. But the juice here is AMAZING! It only costs like 30 cents for a bottle of lemonade or grape juice or flavored water, literally whatever flavor you want. I know I’ll miss those when I get home!
I’m going to post pictures of food soon (I’m waiting for more info about schools here so I can post it all together) but it’s really good! I usually don’t like “Chinese” food in the US but the “Chinese” food we eat in the States tends to be Americanized. It’s not as fatty or salty here. For breakfast (at least here at the school) there are little buns with meat and onions inside – delicious!, some kind of soup, Chinese donut-like pastries, and shredded potatoes (kind of like hash browns) For lunch and dinner people eat a large portion of rice, some kind of meat or fish stir-fried with vegetables, maybe some soup, and a green vegetable (I think I’m seeing a lot of leeks). The food is really good but I’m still kind of a picky eater (not in a bratty way but I’m just a little cautious) and I’m still losing weight like crazy! I lost 12 pounds during the 10 weeks I was student teaching in the US and the pants I wore yesterday were suddenly like 2 sizes too small so at this rate, there’s no telling what I’ll look like when I come home! (And I’ll start going to the gym this week too!). Hopefully the internet will cooperate and I'll be able to put up my next post in a few minutes... |