Terra Cotta Warriors (part two: the pictures)

Beijing Opera

I tried to like the opera. Really, I did. I went with an open mind, and I was actually excited to see it. Alas, I couldn't enjoy it. What I did like: the costumes were gorgeous, and the choreography was quite stylized and interesting. However the singing and the plot were ... different. First of all, let me start by stating that I really like western opera. My family and I go every year to the Met, and I love it. Everything about the experience is wonderful. So this was not an opera issue, but a cultural issue. And it was my issue, really. Chinese operative singing isn't really something I could get my head around. There is no harmony, for instance, and the scale they use is very different from the one I am traditionally used to. The plot was odd - there was a lot of time spent establishing the pedigree of one of the characters, and little in the way of establishing who the others were. Plus, characters were introduced, and then were never really heard from again. I can't quite figure out what the focus of the opera is supposed to be either. In western opera, the plots tend to be secondary (they are usually full of deus ex machina and all sorts of other devices that good dramatists hate to use (it's kind of like cheating). In western opera the most important thing is the music and the singers. In Chinese opera the focus doesn't seem to be the singers - only one or two characters have short little arias. The music is definitely not the focus, as it seems to be the same throughout the opera. Can it truly be the plot? Really? Anyway, if anyone happens to know, please let me know.

And again, I really tried to like it. Really.

21 July 2006 - Mao's tomb

This morning it was bright, clear and windy! It was still hot, but the skies were beautiful and blue. We walked down to Tiananmen Square, and got in line to see Chairman Mao's body in the mausoleum. Now that wasn't as easy as it sounds, Tiananmen Square is actually quite large, as is Mao's mausoleum, and we had to walk all the way around the mausoleum to find the end of the line, which then snaked all the way back around the mausoleum, through the front, where we snaked around another little courtyard. It's here that you can buy roses to put in front of a statue of Mao that's in the entrance hall to the mausoleum (Mao-soleum?). Then we were ushered two-by-two past the man himself, lying in repose in a darkened room. He's underneath glass, a light shining upon his face.

Frankly, it looks like he's glowing.

Then we all shuffled past and were deposited...

...in a gift shop. Lenin and Marx would be mortified.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the experience. There were a lot of flowers placed reverently in front of the statue, but I couldn't quite gage the mood of the people. Were they there in reverence? Were they bored? Awed? It was a surreal experience.

I'm also not entirely convinced it was actually Mao. Can a body last 30 years? (He died in September 1976)

I do not have pictures, as they are not allowed. We weren't even allowed to bring our bags into the line, let alone the mausoleum. Here instead is a picture of the line, and of use outside the mausoleum. You can see how windy it is.

20 July, 2006 - The Summer Palace

So today I hit my "too many people" limit, which I think is pretty good - 22 days in. I think everyone in China was at this place. Well, ok, 75% of them.

This is an enormous park in the northwest part of the city, and it's where the Imperial Court spent their summers. I can see why, too. It was gorgeous, and actually quite breezy in several spots, as it is situated on Kunming Lake. A nice vacation spot to get away from the heat of the Forbidden City. It was built in the 1700s, and damaged during the second Opium War in 1860. The Qing Empress Dowager Cixi refurbished it with money earmarked for the navy (she did build a stunning marble boat! see above picture).

We took a short boat ride across the lake, and then explored South Lake Island. it was quite pleasant, and a good deal cooler than the rest of Beijing, but it was so crowded that it was hard to really enjoy the park.

19 July 2006 - Temple of Heaven

I am pretty much templed out. I think the problem may be that I just don't understand enough about Buddhism, Daosim and Confucianism to distinguish the neat little details that must be in these structures, much as they are in European cathedrals (and I love me a grand old 1000 year old gothic cathedral). Nevertheless, the Temple of Heaven is neat because just before you enter into the actual temple, you are actually in a park, and there are hundreds (well, probably thousands) of people here, just hanging out. We saw people dancing, doing taichi, playing chess, playing music, singing, just plain hanging out. I think that this was my favorite part of today's visit because everyone was so relaxed and having fun. Oh yeah, the temple was pretty too.

Back in Beijing

Returning to Beijing felt a little like returning home - what had been alien a month ago is now familiar and comfortable, especially in comparison to Chengdu, out in the western provinces.

First order of business upon return was the Great Wall - because if you come to China and don't go, they make fun of you and take away your passport ("No more travel for you, you cretin! If you can't be trusted to travel responsibly...").

The Great Wall is called Changcheng in Chinese, and they started working on one section of the original wall around 2000 years ago during the Qin dynasty (same guy with the Terra Cotta warriors). One of the legends is that in addition to dirt and stone, the bones of the workers (peasants and political prisoners) are in the core of the wall.

The section we visited is at Badaling, and it was built during the Ming dynasty, and then restored in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. When you climb upon the wall you can turn either left or right. Right will take you on a more leisurely stroll, and left is the more difficult climb. Everyone turned left, of course. As far as I can tell, a big chunk of this portion of the wall is basically up. Like at a good 40 degree angle. No, I wasn't there with my protractor and compass, but let's just say it was a steep angle, shall we? There's a railing, but it was obviously designed with someone much shorter than I am in mind, as I spent a lot of time bent nearly double. And before you say anything, I'd like to point out that many of the Chinese people on the wall were hunched over, too.

Where the wall wasn't sloping upward were sets of stairs, many of which seemed to go straight upward at a 90 degree angle. And if that's not enough fun, the steps were uneven, some a few inches high and some as high as my knee. I did not travel all the way to the end of the restored portion, but I did pass three watchtowers, which I felt was a respectable distance. It was a rainy day, so it was cool (yay!) and misty, which made for lowered visibility, especially the higher you climbed. So, here are some pictures, but the caveat is that I did the best under the circumstances. And also it's very difficult to convey the depth of stairs, so you don't really get a sense of the view downward or of the death defying and exhilarating experience I found it to be. I am also no longer afraid of the elliptical machine at my gym - it doesn't begin to get close to the wall.




I will also add this: there's a Starbucks at the wall. Does anyone doubt the strength of capitalism? And if that's not enough, then there are all the vendors on the wall selling "I climbed the wall t-shirts. Yes, I bought one. Silly question.

In the afternoon we visited one of the Ming tombs - apparently 13 of the 16 Ming emperors are buried in these sites. They are based on a Confucian layout, and only three are open to the public. Only one has been fully excavated, and that's the one we didn't go to. The one we visited is Chang Ling, and is the burial place of emperor Yongle. It's in a pretty spot, but otherwise it wasn't very exciting - the emperor is under a burial mound at the bank, and it's covered with trees and grass. There was a museum with some really pretty artifacts, which you can see in these pictures here.

Chengdu Tea House

On one of our last nights in Chengdu (don't remember date, sorry), we went to a tea house. I was sort of expecting that it was going to be like a coffee house - we'd have tea, there'd be munchies, we'd sit and enjoy each other's company, and then return to our hotel. Well, I was definitely wrong. I don't know if this place was typical of teahouses (in fact, in retrospect, I suspect not. The guidebook said something about how tea houses are places where people sit for hours playing cards or mah jong, and as you'll see, that definitely wasn't happening here), but we had tea, and then there was a show. Within seconds of sitting down, we were offered massages, which I did not have, although a couple of other people in our party did. It was actually pretty funny to see - these three guys standing behind our friends massaging their heads.

The show itself was kind of like a variety show (the Chinese equivalent of Ed Sullivan?) with all kinds of dances, a magic show, music, etc. There were two sets of traditional dances, there was a magician (it loses a bit of something when you can't understand the patter) a gentleman who played traditional Chinese instruments, an woman who did shadow puppets with her hands, and something called vanishing faces.

The traditional instrument that has always fascinated me the most is the erhu. A few years ago I had a chance to see Lang Lang play in Philadelphia, and as an encore, he brought his father out on the stage to accompany him. His father played the erhu, and it was just lovely. The music at the Chengdu tea house wasn't as wonderful as what Lang Lang and his father played, but I'm not complaining.

There were also "tea pourers". I'm just going to let the picture tell that tale.

The last act was something called vanishing faces. Basically, there are dancers onstage in elaborate constumes wearing masks, and they dance to traditional music (actually, it wasn't so traditional, now that I think on it. It was more sort of cheesy 70s tv drama theme show-y. With a smidge of Chinese for flavor). There was also flame spitting, but that wasn't the coolest part. The coolest part is that while they were dancing, they would tap their forehead and a new mask would appear. I have no idea how they did it. I do have a couple of half-baked theories, of course.

15 July - Wenshu monastery

This is a Zen Buddhist temple in Chengdu. Our bus driver dropped us off at the end of the street, which was blocked off by construction - they were completely redoing the road. Completely. We walked through the construction to the Temple, where we got a chance to walk around. This temple was founded during the Sui dynasty (581-619, one of the shorter ones. The dynasties average about 300 years each, and there's about ten major dynasties from the beginning of their history until the fall of the Qing in 1911). The temple was destroyed during the Ming dynasty and then rebuilt during the Qing. It has five temples within its walls, and is an active site for worship. We saw a monk leading people in chant/prayer, and saw many people bowing and worship at the different temples/Buddhas within.

This is a temple that was well protected during the Cultural revolution, so it remains mostly intact from when it was rebuilt in about 1680. I can certainly see how this would be a lovely spot for contemplation and meditation away from the city noises - it's right in the city, but once inside you don't really hear any noise - an oasis of calm amidst a busy metropolis.

Dujiangyan Irrigation Project

It was a little unclear what we were going to do this day (Bastille day! A big bonjour to my French amis out there), except that I think we were told we’d be going to a mountain to see a temple. As it always is in Chengdu in the summer (subtropical climate, I remind you) it was REALLY hot and humid. We got to the bus and drove for nearly two hours to this dam/irrigation project. According to the my Lonely Planet guide:
“The Dujiangyan irrigation Project was undertaken in the 3rd century BC by famed prefect and engineer Li Bing to divert the fast-flowing Min River (Min He) into irrigation canals. Min River was subject to flooding at this point, yet when it subsided, droughts could ensue. A weir system was built to split the force of the river and a trunk canal was cut through a mountain to irrigate the Chengdu plain.
“Li Bing’s most brilliant idea was to devise an annual maintenance plan to remove silt build-up. Thus the mighty Min was tamed, with a temple erected in AD 168 to commemorate the occasion.” (p. 724)

It was pretty hazy, even up in the mountains, so my pictures didn’t come out as well as I’d like, but you’ll get the idea. The bamboo rope bridges are as scary as they look, I’ll have you know. It was still pretty fun to cross, despite repeated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom flashbacks (yes, I know, that was India. Same basic concept, only we didn’t have deranged priests chasing us. That I know of). At any rate, at the other end of the second bamboo bridge is a temple built into the mountain. To be honest, what I remember is stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. Uneven stairs. The temple was really pretty, but its unclear whether it was a Buddhist or a Daoist temple – perhaps it was Daoists, because it seemed like there were lots of different gods being worshipped there, but my eye is very unpracticed, so basically what do I know? We weren’t really able to find the top of the temple (you just go up, basically), but we did get directions froma woman as to where we could find a Mao statue. Why is this interesting? Because I was able to understand her when she said Mao’s name – I could pick it out of all the other stuff she was saying, which I thought was pretty cool.

Anyway, I was a mite grumpy at the dam (I was worried about all the climbing because I was just getting over a cold), but it was a nice day nonetheless, and people were still talking to me at the end of the day, so I can’t have been too awful.

Haggling

Haggling is expected here at all the street markets, and boy are there a lot of them. There are also tons of indoor markets as well. In these markets, you can find row upon row and stall upon stall of … well, frankly, Chinese crap. Chopsticks, fake Jade figurines, bracelets, stamps (so you can stamp your “Chinese” name on paper or something. They’re called chops), all kinds of Buddhas: traditional Buddhas, happy Buddha … I saw one that was just a Buddha head, and you could turn it around and see a variety of different facial expressions: happy, angry, sad, stricken, bemused … ok, I just threw those last two in there, but I wanted to be sure you were paying attention. You can get all kinds of Mao paraphernalia, including a lighter with his face on it. When you open the lighter, it plays the Communist anthem. It is quite possible the schlockiest thing in China, and I really want one. Darn the TSA and their pesky rules!

You can’t really go anywhere in these markets without someone trying to get your attention to sell you something. “Hello lady, look-a here.” “You friend, give you nice price.” I bought a packet of postcards the other day. The woman started out by asking 150 yuan, which is about $18. Needless to say, I wasn’t about to purchase postcards for $18, even if they were gorgeous. Anyway, I offered 20, and she started to come down in price. I stayed at 20 yuan, saying that’s all the money I had. At one point she said “Now you come up , you offer more”. Now here’s the key – and I kind of wish I’d had this lesson before I bought my car: Walk away. I told the woman I just had 20 yuan and I walked away, to which she said “ok, ok,” and I got the postcards for 20 yuan. Here’s the kicker – I think someone else in our group had gotten them for 10, and I was kind of mad. The bottom line of haggling is you really just need to be happy with the price you got if it’s something you want. Walking away is a really good technique though – I’ve found that for stuff I don’t even want, I’ve got people chasing me down to give me a lower price. While at the Muslim market in Xi’an (an experience, and if you ever get a chance to go, walk all the way through once, figure out what you want, and then go back and bargain), I was looking for a mah jong set for a friend. Most of the sets were plastic and not very nice. Some were what looked like bamboo and bone, but since I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I couldn’t be sure. The only thing I had to go on was the memory I have of my parent’s mah jong set which is actually quite nice with lovely images on the tiles. So I used that as a comparison against the sets I was seeing in this market. Most of them were nowhere near as nice as the one I remembered – they had fewer tiles, the tiles were smaller, the bone layer was very thin, and often they looked they weren’t attached very well to the bamboo. Plus, the pictures were often not very nice and not pretty, and were small and hard to see. So I finally found one I could potentially consider purchasing, and it came in quite a nice wooden box. So I asked how much, and he started off at something like 500 yuan, which was ridiculous, and $60 to boot so of course I said (playing the haggling game, of course) that it was too much. He offered something slightly lower, pointing out the nice wooden box (not, please note, anything redeeming about the actual mah jong set), and told me it was a good bargain. I didn’t particularly think so, and we went back and forth a couple of times. I then decided it was too much money for what it was, and not very nice, so I told him I wasn’t interested and I walked away. He started hollering numbers at me as I walked away: “250!” “200!” “Ok, 100!” It was quite a drastic reduction. I was not tempted by shoddy merchandise … no I walked away, and bought shoddy merchandise somewhere else. Don’t ask me what, I don’t remember.

I found shopping at the markets a little stressful, because for me, shopping is a tactile experience; I just have to touch. The second you touch something, the merchants are on you trying to sell it to you. The big thing at the Muslim market was silk pillow covers. I don’t know if they were actually silk, but some of them were quite pretty. Whenever I looked at them, because I wanted to see what they had to offer in the way of color and design, the merchant would come over to me and give me a running commentary on what each pillowcase design was: “Bamboo. Birds. Red. Dragon.” These were all things I could plainly see, and yet I got the information. I suppose it is part of the patter. It’s not unlike car shopping, I guess In the case of car shopping you get the rundown of all the features: 50 million horsepower! 20 cylinder engine! Sushi chef in the trunk! GPS system and satellite tv on the dash. With silk pillow covers you have far fewer options, so the salesperson is reduced to pointing out the obvious.

13 July 2006 - Pandas!!!

It began pouring practically the moment we left the hotel to go to the Panda reserve. I think pandas are native to this province, partly because a lot of bamboo grows here (I'm speaking from my vast biological and plant knowledge here). At the preserve they are doing a lot of research and are trying to repopulate pandas in China. They have a nursery for newborn pandas, and throughout the park you can see lots of pandas at different stages of life. There weren't any infants there, that I could see, and In don't hink they are born until later in July or in August. They also had red pandas, which were definitely not as appreciated as the other kinds of pandas. No red panda stuffed toys in the gift shop, to be sure. However, the red pandas are adorable - about the size of small to medium sized dogs. They look a lot more racoonish than I expected, with long, fuzzy, ringed tails.



We saw a few of them scuffling and playing, but I wasn't fast enough with my camera (between the umbrella, the tissues, the bottle of water and the camera, which I was trying desperately not to drop, it was very hard to get the best pictures).

Then we were off to see some serious panda. They were just so cute and magnificent at the same time. I was interested to note that we all spoke in hushed tones around the pandas, as if we didn't want to disturb them. I got a couple of pictures of some sleeping (so cute!!), but the highlight was getting the chance to actually touch the panda. For a donation, you can get into the panda area. While he is sitting on what I can only describe as his little panda throne and chomping away on some bamboo, you can crouch behind him, pet him and have your picture taken. How cool is that???!! You can't get anywhere near them at the National Zoo. I'm so spoiled now, I can just see it - I'll make catty remarks about how you can't touch the pandas whenever I go. Kidding! Anyway, it was a phenomenal experience, and I don't care that it was wet and I had a bit of a cold, because I will never be able to do something like that again. And to think I almost didn't do it!

Du Fu's Thatched Cottage

Du Fu was a Tang Dynasty poet (712-770), who was actually born in a different province, but left to travel around CHina. He was captured by rebels and he eventually fled to Chengdu, where he lived in a thatched cottage for four years, where he wrote more than 200 poems. It's actually a park, with lots of walkways, a beautiful pond and a tea garden. There was a big pagoda called the Ten Thousand Buddha Tower,
and some really interesting statues that may have been petrified wood, may have been some kind of stone or wood, but were at least pretty cool.



It was really pretty there, but it was so hot that day it was sort of hard to enjoy the day. I wandered around with another Fulbrighter for most of the day, and then towards the end of the afternoon, we sat and had popsicles (yes, we each had two) in the tea house.

A poem:

Song of the Autumn Wind and the Straw Hut

An autumn wind ripped clear
Three Layers of Thatch from my hut
Spreading it over the river,
Along the banks, into the marsh
Or driving it up into branches
Of tall trees.

Over from the south village ran
A bunch of boys, seeing me old
And feeble, stealing the thatch
In front of my eyes; hauling it
off to their bamboo grove, I
shouting at them until my mouth
Was dry, throat sore; then
Going inside with a sigh, leaning
On my stick; the gale stopped
But black clouds gathered
Hastening the night.

I looked at my bedding quilt, now
As cold as iron, all torn with
The restless feet of my children;
Rain streamed through the roof
Like unbroken strings of hemp
Drenching all, and I pondered on
How much sleep I had lost since
This rebellion began, hoping
The night would pass swiftly
Wondering in my dream whether
It would be possible to build
An immense house with thousands
Of rooms, where all who needed
Could take shelter; a mansion
As solid as a hill, not fearing
Wind or rain; then thinking how
If only such could be,
Would I be content to see my poor hut
Demolished with I myself
Frozen to death.

12 July 2006 - Sichuan Normal University

We arrived here about 9:30 am, and got a brief introduction from a student of the English department. Her English was excellent. The campus is one of several, and there is another one that is under construction. This was our first full day in Chengdu, and I think we were wholly unprepared for the heat and humidity. Ok, I was unprepared for the heat and humidity.

What is interesting about the campus is that it is almost like a university/college town all enclosed within the unversity walls. We didn't get a chance to see any classrooms (they were doing student registration, I think), or dorms, but we did get a chance to see the buildings, including a primary school, a nursery school, and housing for retired teachers, who still do work/research on the campus. It was very hazy that day because it was so humid, so my pictures have a misty/grayish (or greyish, if you will) quality.

They had a wall that displayed the history of China:





They also took us to the second campus, but like the first, we didn't get a chance to see anything other than the outside. It may be a key university of the western provinces, but it is hard to tell, because we didn't see any classrooms, talk to any teachers, or any other students.

Here was my favorite building of the school:

Random thoughts on Chengdu...and I do mean random

Chengdu is the capital of Sichaun province, and while my guide book says it's a smaller city than Xi'an, it seems a lot bigger. It actually reminds me of New York, although I couldn't really say why, even if pressed. Maybe it's because the buildings are tall here (in contrast with the buildings in Beijing, which are wider than they are tall in many instances), and the area we are in has lots and lots of high end stores, including a Japanese department store called Seibu, which is across the street from our hotel. It might also be the sort of sour milk smell one has in cities in the mornings during the summer that makes me a bit nostaligic for NYC. Or it could be dementia, who knows?

It's incredibly hot and humid in Chengdu - it's a subtropical climate. You only have to stand outside for 10 seconds before you're drenched in sweat. I bought a pretty blue fan in the Muslim Market in Xi'an that've been using a lot.

Driving (or rather, riding) on the bus in Chengdu has been an experience. ON the way to the Sichuan Province Ed. dept, the bus driver had to ask for directions a bunch of times, and did about four or five u-turns, which on a bus is pretty impressive. As far as I can tell, you can't really make left turns here, but you can do u-turns. We got up to about 15, I think. The other thing that is terrifying is that cars don't give right of way to pedestrians (that seems to be par for the course in China), there are thousands of bicycles and modpeds in the streets, and buses and cars actually seem to keep going to make sure they occupy every inch of space they can on the road. They will get incredibly close to the next vehicle (think inches...no centimeters). When our bus driver executes u-turns frequently it looks as if there's going to be an accident because there are cars behind us and on all sides. The lane markings also seem to be somewhat optional.

I will say this for Chengdu - for all the busy streets there are a lot of great pedestrian overpasses that go in all kinds of directions so that you can wander from one side of the street to another without worrying about getting hit by a car. This is definitely an improvement over Xi'an, where there aren't even traffic lights or walk/don't walk signs. The intersection that we had to cross from our hotel in Xi'an to get inside the old city walls was the most hair-raising intersection I've ever had to cross, and we did it multiple times on a daily basis.

Leaving Xian for Chengdu (in the Sichuan Province) - 11 July 2006

We got our wake up call at 4:30 am, which is just so very early in the morning. (I suppose I could comfort myself with the idea that it was 4:30pm the previous afternoon on the East coast?) Xi'an had no traffic at all at that time. The city was barely waking up. At the airport check in was so easy, and there was hardly anyone there either, which was in stark contrast with the Beijing airport.

We arrived at the Chengdu airport around 9:30 am, I think and we were all definitely ready for a nap, no question. We got on our bus and were taken into the city, and we checked into our hotel, which was right across the street from an enormous Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn (I didn't realize those two companies were connected, I never really thought of them as being in the same class of hotels). Our hotel is right around the corner from a pedestrian mall/shopping area. Basically it's outdoors - as if they took all the stores in a mall and removed the walls and roof.



We went to lunch, and our first Sichuan food experience was not a success. Let me start by saying that Sichuan (you may be more familiar with it as Szechuan) province is VERY hot, and the food is as well, because, as our guide explained: "In order to get the sweat, you have to eat the hot, spicy food." However, they don't just do hot, spicy food in Sichuan. The very first dish they put down in front of us was chicken feet. Then they followed that with a bowl of tripe. Um, yum. I did not taste the chicken feet, I'll be honest. They looked like chicken feet, and were plae white and kind of pimply. I was willing to try stuff, because hey, half the reason we were there was for a cultural exchange, but they were chicken feet. Someone in our group did try them, and she said that they tasted just like you'd expect them to: like knuckles. Again, mm, yum. There was also some kind of pale green bumpy thing which they said was bitter herb. One person at our table tried it, and he said it was really bitter indeed. There was edamame, which I actually kind of liked - I didn't know they were a form of soy bean until later, but that was definitely something to try again in the future. There were a number of very spicy dishes that were so spicy that I couldn't eat them, and there was a dish of what they called bullfrog, which I actually thought was pretty good. It's hard to describe it, but it has a similar texture to crab, although the flavor isn't quite as strong. There were also a number of dumpling type foods that were quite good. They also had a bunch of bean curd/paste things that were really sweet, although they were brought out in the middle of the meal. Generally, the Chinese don't really do desert, although they do have these sweet courses in the middle of the meal. You always know the meal is over when they bring out the watermelon. However, that hasn't stopped Haagen Dazs from opening several stores in China - one in Chengdu and one in Beijing (that I saw - there could have been more, but I didn't see any).

After the meal we went to the Sichuan Province Department of Education, even though we thought we were going to have a free afternoon. I don't know if I said it, but in China there are three levels of control over education: National, provincial and local (cities, villages). In all honesty, I didn't get a whole lot out of the meeting with the dept. of ed folks, because I was so tired, but also becuase there were translation problems. Our guide, Jim, didn't know he was going to have to translate, so he was unprepared to do it. Plus it's really hard, I would imagine. I also think that some of the numbers and details we got weren't entirely accurate.

What I did learn that was interesting was that Sichuan has the second largest Tibetan population outside of Tibet and 75% of the population in this province is rural. They also have a much smaller teacher/student ratio (about 1 to 22, which is more than half what it was in Beijing or Xi'an, where it was about 1 to 50 or 60). I wonder how much of the rural population is really attending school.

Shaanxi Provincial History Museum

We were supposed to go to this museum on the previous day, but for some reason we didn't - I think it had something to do with the bus. I'm not sure which day we went, but it may have been the 9th. Anyway, the museum is organized chronologically, and by dynasty. The exhibits are comprised mostly of artifacts from each dynasty, and they actually go from prehistoric times. They did have four terra cotta soldiers so you could see them from close up, which was neat, plus some kneeling figures from Qin's tomb. There was a lot of stuff from the Tang dynasty, especially the tricolor pottery stuff that they are best known for. They didn't have a lot of the stuff that I consider typically Ming - the blue and white vases, in fact they only had one. I think this is partly because the museum focused primarily on stuff found in Shaanxhi Province and the Ming and Qing dynasties had their capital in Beijing, whereas dynasties like the Qin, Han and Tang all had their capitals in Xi'an. I felt like there should have been more stuff there, but it was a nice museum in the end. There wasn't a whole lot of written history (but what they did have was both in Chinese and English, which was cool) for us to read, but the stuff was pretty neat:

Pictures! How do you know for sure you're in China?

When you see this:

University of International Studies, Xian

The University of International Studies in Xian is about 20 minutes outside of the city, maybe a little further. it is an enormous campus that is actually surrounded by several other enormous schools. This school specializes in foreign languages. We strolled around the campus a bit, and then met with the dean of the English department. He had some interesting things to say, but I was most interested in how he got his job. What I've noticed is taht there are lots and lots of people working everywhere. We went into a coffee shop, and there were about six people working there. it seemed as if one or two people took orders and made the drinks, while the other 3-4 stood around, cleared tables, etc. There are always people cleaning the streets (essentially by hand, or with brooms), and usually several per block. In fact, they often will have an umbrella under which to stand when they aren't cleaning the streets.

So my question is this: How do people get their jobs? Are they assigned to a particular field? A specific type of job? Do they choose? The dean said where he had worked, but hadn't really explained the process of how he got the jobs in the first place. This will have to be determined at some point!!

In the afternoon, we went to another Key School (these are the showcase schools). This was another high school, and it had many campuses around Xian. It is obviously very wealthy, or at least, someone put a heck of a lot of money into it, as have all the school we've seen. We had an opportunity to talk to some students, which was VERY cool, and as always, my favorite part of these trips. It's a shame that most of these schools are out for the summer, and we won't be able to talk with asw many students anymore.

The young woman I spoke with had chosen Helen as her American name, because she thought Helen Keller was "cute". I'm not sure what she meant by cute, but I'm thinking it's not the same as what we mean by cute.

We talked a little bit about her school and what she was studying (biology, chemistry, physics, English, Chinese, PE (yes, that's what she said), and computer science). She like computer science and English the best. She also said she had a hard time with English at first because she couldn't figure out the tenses. Apparently they don't have tenses in Chinese the way we do in English, so she spoke "always in the present tense."

We got started on Harry Potter - she's read them all, some in both English and Chinese. She is very mad at Snape right now, but I told her (thanks, Jason and Doug!) that we have to trust Dumbledore. (A little somethin' for the HP fans)

Anyway, that was definitely the highlight of the afternoon. We went to see the other campus of the school (big, wealthy, stuff, very little in the way of student work, except in the art room). It bothers me greatly that there doesn't seem to be a coherent history or Social science program in Chinese schools. In seems to be done sort of as an aside in both English and Chinese, but not at all in the way we do it. (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, btw, just a different thing) I also thing there is a lto more focus on pre-1911 history (pre the fall of the last Imperial dynasty) than on history since 1949 (beginning of what they call "new China"). Now in theory, one could argue that our hsitory classes, function similarly, but I think there's a great distinction there. We tend to teach our history warts (pimples might be more appropraite in contract with China's 5000 year history) and all, and I don't think that's really done here. A lot of people still seem to really love Mao (while many also seem to dislike him intensely, let's look at that too). Anyway, I'm still baffled. They seem very, very proud of their ancient past. The Tang dynasty (618-907 CE, if this History & Civ of China book is to be trusted) comes up a lot as the Golden Age of China. It is a puzzle to which I don't believe we'll get a satisfying answer.

Hot Springs/Huaqing Pool

After the T-C warriors, we went to the Hot Springs (over 100 degrees plus that day, no less. Nothing says "cool" like some hot springs). It turns out they were no longer in use, just a shadow of their former selves, as the case may be. They were used mostly by the Tang emperors (and empresses), and were actually in quite a beautiful setting at the base of a mountain. Chiang Kai-Shek stayed there during the 1930s and set up headquarters there. They so called "Xian incident" occurred here. It's a bit confusing as to what it actually is, based on the references I have here, which includes a "History and Civilization of China" book published in China. Based on the language, it's a direct translation from the Chinese (it's quite an atrocious translation, actually), and there's definitely a pro-Communist bias (shocking, I know). As near as I can tell, the Xian incident is a struggle between Communist forces and nationalist forces, all of which occurred at the same time the Japanese were in China. There was a lot of consternation about the lack of attention being paid to that fact among both the Nationalist and Communist forces, as well as the Soviets. (Japanese forces in China could have been a prelude to invasion of the Soviet Union, something they had been worried about since at least 1905 and the Russo-Japanese War.) Not very informative, I know, but it's kind of difficult when most of my options are in Chinese, and are ... shall we say a little biased? Take the following as an example:

"In June 1946, because of the perfidius Kuomintang, an all-out civil war broke out." (p. 232, The History and Civilization of China. Can't tell author, it's in Chinese!) The italics are my emphasis.

Anyway, you see the dilemma.

Terra Cotta Soldiers

The day we went here it was INCREDIBLY hot (actually, the guide book says that Xian is "bloody hot"). It was about an hours drive from our hotel. The soldiers were found by four peasants who were digging a hole for a well in 1974. They had the foresight to stop digging and contact some kind of authority to say "Hey, we found something!"

When you enter the parking lot there is an enormous statue of Qin Shihuang (1st emperor of Qin). We walked about maybe an eighth, maybe a quarter of a mile to the actual museum and the sites of the digs. They are still in the process of digging out all of the soldiers, but they think there may be as many as 7,800 in all. Qin Shihuang (not easy to type!) was apparently obsessed with his death (the idea of it), and had people start constructing the tomb well before his death. One reason for this obsession may be that he was an unusually cruel leader (well, ok, let's think about that, maybe he was just a wee bit worse than usual for the time, which was about 210 BCE), as was his son. The Qin dynasty was one of the shortest dynasties.

Once you enter the main park there are three main buildings. The one straight ahead contains the bulk of the soldiers. They are mostly facing eastward, because Qin Shihuang thought his enemies would come from that direction (perhaps he meant us?). As with everything in China, this main building was crowded at first. The first pit/vault is so large that even though there are large numbers of peole, it's actually possible to spread out and get a little personal space (a difficult thing in China. The concept of personal space here is verrrry than in the US). We entered the pit and most of the soldiers were facing us, although some are facing sideways. (I don't know why, so please don't ask) The picture everyone wants is the one where you face the whole pit. It took a ton of pictures, and I think some of them came out ok. I tried to get individual faces, because apparently each soldier is modeled on the faces of the builders. It was difficult because so many people kept bumping into me. In fact, at one point I was kneeling down to take a picture of one of the group of soldiers, and a tour guide backed over me. He was concentrating on whatever he was talking about with his group.

What is amazing and astonishing is not only the sheer number of soldiers, bt the fact that so many of them are still in such good shape. Ok, sure, so many of them are missing heads, and some of them are missing their hands, and they are all missing their weapons, but don't forget, these guys are over 2,000 years old.

The whole experience is kind of surreal, actually. Here's this emperor who manages to unit feudal China, who orders the building of his mausoleum to begin as soon as he becomes emperor. Besides the Egyptians, who does that? You'd have to be pretty damn morbid to have that be your focus. Of course, as I'm writing this, I'm reading about this in the book I bought at the shop ("Awakened: Qin's Terra Cotta Army", Shaanxi Travel and Tourism Press), and I see that later dynasties did this practice too (Han, Tang). I guess when you live in dangerous times and your empire could be overthrown by peasant revolt at any minute, this is probably a prudent course of action.

Qin Shihuang's tomb is actually 1 and a half kilometers to the west. Legen has it that Qin built his mausoleum with a river of mercury in it and arrows that would shoot out of the walls to protect against theives. Since the Chinese government isn't certain about whether or not this is true, they are moving very slowly on the excavation of the tomb. A river of mercury after 2000 years has got to be detectable in the environment, doesn't it?

Some stats about the tombs: (sorry for the metric)

Vault/pit 1: 210 meters long, 60 meters wide. About 6000 soldiers in vault one. Not all have been unearthed (it's an active archaeological site, although we didn't see anyone working when we were there).

Vault/pit 2: 1000 figures

Vault/pit 3: 68 figures, one war chariot

I did mention I had a ton of pics, I'll bore you with them when I return.

Xian

This is really the end of the world – the Silk Road ends (and I suppose, begins) here. At least according to the Chinese. There’s a statue facing west that marks the beginning of the Silk Road. The statue is of a general, and don’t ask me what his name is because I don’t know – they told us on the bus on the way from the airport, and I didn’t have anything to write with at the time. The central part of the city is surrounded by a wall. The wall was built on the foundations of the old walls of the Tang dynasty forbidden city (more on the Tang later, REALLY) by the Ming dynasty. It’s quite a thick wall (two chariots can drive abreast on it, should they choose. And if you happen to have a chariot handy, I suppose), and pretty high as well. (have pics, I think). Our hotel looks out on a portion of the wall, and we actually have a great room right in the front of the building on the 7th floor, so we can see all sorts of things from here. Every night they have what can only be described as a big conga line party. It’s basically a big dance party that goes around the park for hours and hours. Well, it’s probably not as long as all that, but it seems like it goes on for hours. Luckily I’m still so exhausted in the evenings that basically I get into bed and I try to read my book and I can’t keep my eyes open. Next thing I know it’s morning. As I type, they are out there right now partying up a storm.

Xian has a relatively large Muslim population for China (the Hui people). Apparently, Xian also has a large Christian population. Inside the wall in the older part of the city is an interesting combination of ultra modern and ultra expensive stores. They have a fancy schmancy mall that reminds me of Tysons II. Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Versace and Ralph Lauren. You get the idea. Further on down the main road is the Bell Tower. It was built in the 14th century and then rebuilt in 1739. They ring the bell at about 8 o’clock each night, and you can hear it from quite a ways away over the din of the city. It is quite a deep sound. If you walk a little further beyond the Bell Tower off to the left is the Drum Tower. It is smaller than the Bell Tower, and marks the Muslim Quarter. There is an alleyway off from the tower that is called the “Muslim Market”. There is stall upon stall of Chinese crap. (have pics) Mah jong sets? They have about fifty billion. Mostly those are plastic crap, although some people are claiming they are bone and bamboo. They have lots of stalls with Chinese art, some of which is really nice, and some of which is not. There are lots of silk pillow covers, which I am quite tempted to buy, but I’m afraid I’ll get a gorgeous one that won’t go with my couch, so I think I’ll just not buy one. There was one thing we looked at today that I was SOOOOO tempted to buy. It was a lighter with Mao’s picture on the front. When you opened the lighter, it starts playing the anthem. You can buy just about ANYTHING you want with Mao’s picture on it. Not sure how that goes along with the whole communism thing he tried to get going, but I have a feeling he’d probably think that this was cool. Actually, I know he would – he would totally dig the fact that his face is on every piece of kitsch in China. What is incredibly disconcerting about the Muslim market is that you cannot touch anything without a vendor coming up to you and saying “You like, give you good price. Cheap. You name price.” It’s getting to the point where I’d really like to go somewhere without having someone come up to me and offer to give me a good price. Several times when I was looking at the silk pillow covers, the vendor would come up to me and start a running commentary on what was on the cover. “Bamboo”, “flowers”, “birds”. It’s a bit odd. You have to haggle for everything, and I’m just not sure if I’m any good at it. At this point I think that things are cheap enough that it really doesn’t matter, but you have to haggle no matter what. They offer a price, and you have to offer half, and then they offer a price, and so on. I hate it, really. I never really know when to stop, or when it’s appropriate. I’m sure that I could have gotten better prices for a lot of the stuff, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

Chengdu

Arrived safely in Chengdu. Surprisingly, it's a much larger city than I think any of us had been expecting. It reminds me of New York in a lot of ways - especially this morning when I went out at 7:30 to Starbucks (I was desperate, ok?). At any rate, not much time this morning, because we're off to Chengdu Normal University (I think) in a little while. Apparently in what can only be Chinese logic, I can't access my e-mail, but I can access blogger. I will update with more stuff later, I have a ton of stuff to post.

4 July Geely University

Geely Automotive University is about is about an hour and a half outside of Beijing by bus. It seemed to be really far away, but traffic was really horrible, as we’ve come to expect from Beijing. They have about 20,000 students, and expect about 10,000 more to enroll next year. They recruit their students, and are a private university. Geely automotive group is a (shocking, I know) car manufacturing company. Their cars look a little bit like Toyotas (ok, that may be blasphemy, but it’s the best I can do on such short notice). They have invested their profit into creating this university, which has 16 colleges/schools, including the following:

a. Euro-American colleges (specializes in training young people to go abroad to further their studies)
b. Foreign language school
c. Law
d. Finance
e. Journalism
f. Automobile building (natch. One would HOPE that there would be an automotive school in a university funded by an automotive company!!!)

Geely means “Great Fortune” in Chinese, and with good reason. The campus is quite large, and it is vastly undeveloped at the moment. They are in the process of building their library, which has a distinct resemblance to the Capitol building in DC. I’m not sure if I got a picture of it…in all honesty, I am writing this days after the visit, and so my memory of the event is a bit fuzzy. I did take notes, so no fear, dear readers.

Geely is a private and independent car company, a rarity in China, to be sure. Most other companies work in a joint venture with the government. I think most businesses in China are still joint venture, although many more are becoming private, I think. The leader of our group, Jian Wang, is one of the founders of the university, along with the Vice President, Professor Chen. Prof. Chen spent two years at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and his English was excellent. Prof. Chen was among those who were to be “re-educated” by the Red Guard and his own students during the Cultural Revolution. What I find interesting about many of these experiences is that the people who were affected by this (Jian is one of those, more on that later), often will mention what happened to them in a casual way and then not want to discuss it any further. I completely understand them not wanting to discuss it, but I’m kind of surprised they’d mention it at all, especially given how private so many people are here. Anyway we got a ton of statistics about university life in China, and I promise I won’t bore you with them.

We did learn some interesting things about Chinese language instruction: in the 1950s and 60s, Chinese language instruction was really disjointed – you learn a particular set of things at the primary level, and then when you go onto the next level, you go back to the beginning, and so on and et cetera. (Sound familiar?) Zhou Enlai (who is quite revered in China… more on him later), said that language instruction in China needed to follow the “One Dragon” approach – you start at the head and continue in an organized fashion to the tail, making sure that it’s all connected and that it makes sense. I thought this was wonderful, and BOY do we need that in the States. And not just for language instruction, but for history instruction as well. Why is it, exactly, that school children need US history three times? Why do they have to learn about Egypt twice? Why not have an organized set of curricula that spirals upward and toward a common goal of creating a functioning citizen. More on that thought later too. I know, I’m making lots of promises.

Anyway, I think the best part about the whole trip to the university was the opportunity we had to meet with a student at the university. We met a young woman named Maggie who was incredibly sweet. She was at the end of her first year of studies. She was studying English, and was of course, very modest about her knowledge of the language. She reminded me of several students that I have had in the past – she was very chatty about everything. She is one of those students who in the States would probably talk all the time in class (and about nothing, really), but you can’t be mad at her because she’s just so sweet. She took us on a tour of the campus (a brief one, it was BLOODY hot that day, and incredibly smoggy…they ain’t got nothin’ on LA), and then we went back to the conference room. She was supposed to give a speech at their graduation ceremony which was held that afternoon. Turns out we were invited to that ceremony, which I was pretty horrified about, because we didn’t know that we’d been invited, and I was wearing jeans, as were many other people. Anyway, she asked if we would listen to her practice her speech. We said sure, and asked her if she’d written it, and she said no, her teacher had written it, and just told her to give the speech. She gave us the speech, and it was really wonderful. Pam gave her a couple of pencils as a thank you gift, and Maggie ran off to the store to get us these little friendship/luck charms.

DISASTER!!!

I dropped my camera. Now it doesn’t seem to show anything on the LCD screen. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The good news is that I still have the old pictures, and I can still see those, but the camera seems to no longer be able to take new pictures. More good news: I hear they have cameras in China. We're going to the mall after dinner to see if A) they can fix my camera, and if not 2) I can buy a new one. :( Just in time to go to Xi'an and see the Terra Cotta Warriors.

DISASTER!!!

I dropped my camera. Now it doesn’t seem to show anything on the LCD screen. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The good news is that I still have the old pictures, and I can still see those, but the camera seems to no longer be able to take new pictures. More good news: I hear they have cameras in China. We're going to the mall after dinner to see if A) they can fix my camera, and if not 2) I can buy a new one. :( Just in time to go to Xi'an and see the Terra Cotta Warriors.

**** UPDATE ****

We went to Wangfujing Market (a pedestrian mall not far from our hotel) to see if they would be able to fix my camera. They said no. I'm convinced, however, that the only reason they did was because it was easier than trying to explain to me (who understands not a word of Chinese) otherwise. I ended up having to buy a new one. This new one has 5 megapixels - one whole extra one from my old. Woohoo!!

Chinese Education

On Friday (which was Thursday night for you folks!), we went to Beijing Number 12 Secondary School. The school is for students who wish to pursue an education beyond the nine compulsory years of education, which begin at about age 5. The school we were in was a model/sample school, which means that it is probably one of the best secondary schools in Beijing, perhaps even in China. The school has 2000 students between the ages of 15 and 18. There is about 160 (plus) staff. Anyone going to secondary school (above and beyond the 9 years) is trying to get into a university, and almost 100% of the students in this school go on to college/university.

Just to give you an idea - every student must take an entrance examination to get into colleges or university in China. The exams take place over the course of several days, and the pressure on the students to perform well is intense. Students come out of the exams weeping from the strain. And on a side note, they recently mandated that you can't have air conditioning in the urban school exams, to make it "equal" with the rural schools, who don't have air conditioning. Right. Because that's the only thing that is different between the schools in the cities and the rural provinces. In Beijing and Shanghai, 70-80% of students who take the entrance examinations pass, whereas in the provinces, there's a 30% pass rate. And it's the air conditioning. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "no child left behind", doesn't it?

Anyway, students in China take three main courses in their schools: Math, Chinese and English. At this school they have one slot in the afternoons for an elective, which could include one of the following: Something call Science, which encompasses physics, chemistry and biology, or something call Art, which encompasses history, philosophy and politics. At Beijing No. 12, students could also take psychology (the only other course that was mentioned specifically), and are required to take something called "Body Shaping", which is a combination of dance, martial arts and ballet. As part of their graduation requirements, they have to create and perform a group dance, and in order to receive passing marks, their peers have to say it's good.

A typical day goes something (sort of) like this:

7:35: school starts. Periods are 40 minutes (which is shorter than at other schools)

They will have two periods, and then at 9am they will have their morning body exercise (which is graded).

Periods 3 and 4 will follow soon after, and then there's "eye exercises" after that, to prevent becoming near sighted. I haven't decided whether this is successful - I see glasses a lot, but then I see a lot of people without, so it's hard to tell.

Between 12 and 2 they have break/lunch/nap, and then between 2 - 3:30 there are two more periods. After 3:30 would be the elective class. If they live on campus (at this school about 1000 students do), they would do sports. We saw students playing basketball, mostly, and some doing some dance stuff, but we were there during break, rather than during the sports period later in the day. We saw facilities for track, soccer, swimming, and dance. Others who don't live on campus would go home. In the evenings between 6:30 and 9:30 is a self-study period to do homework. Some teachers stay on campus to help the students work.

Students stay in one classroom, and teachers travel from room to room instead of the other way around. Teachers teach about two classes a day, but they have a total of 120 students.

What's unclear to me is how that really works - if they are really only taking 3 courses, plus an elective, it seems like there are too many periods in the day. There wasn't enough time to ask enough questions, really.

Students are in school from 1 September until 10 July. They have a six week break in the summer, plus two one week breaks, one in October (Independence day) and one in May (National Workers Day). They also have occasional days here and there, much like our Columbus Day (surely not Chiang Kai Shek day?).

We asked about discipline: apparently they have a problem with mobile phones, the way we do. Teachers can take away the phones until graduation (!! Imagine trying that in the States!). There is a problem with girlfriends and boyfriends (and that was as explicit as the assistant principal at the school would get. I'm assuming there's more to it than just "you can't have a boyfriend/girlfriend", but you know what happens when I assume, right?), and parents and teachers work together to stop it, because it interferes with studying. (remember the exams?) We asked about drug problems, and were told "No.", with no further explanation. Fighting is a problem, however.

There's more about teachers in China, and I will keep you posted on that later. I've bored you enough.


Chinese/English phrase of the day: "Do Not Distrub" (read it carefully!)

Hope this works...

Ok, first of all, I hope that this post works...no censoring, please! Second of all, most of the options on this webpage are in Chinese, so I hope when it comes time to post, I click the correct button!

Anyway, we have had an incredible few days! First impressions: It is very, very polluted, and I have had a minor sore throat until today, when I noticed that suddenly I didn't. So my body has finally realized that pollution is the word of the day, and therefore we must adjust. Everything is HUGE - the streets are very broad, and the buildings are very large. Mentally I'm associating this with Soviet architecture, not thatt I have a whole lot of experience with Soviet architecture, but that's what I'm going with. Even the distances are vast. A block is about a half mile long. So we are about blocks or so from Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City, which is about 1.5 miles.

The people are FASCINATED by us. Yesterday we walked down to Tienanmen Square, and were stopped many times by people wanting to have their picture takenwith us. They have no problems just stopping us and asking for a picture. They also have no problems touching - their sense of personal space is a lot different than ours is. And it was HOT yesterday (90 + degrees and sunny), so that personal space thing was kind of an issue. The other interesting thing is the pointing and staring. There's a lot of it. You know, we kind of stand out. And many, many, many people would turn around to stare at us. Several children pointed at us and brought us to the attention ofwhomever they were travelling with. Apparently the pointing and staring thing is ok. It's disconcerting. They all want to say "hello" and ask us where we are going and where we are from...many of them speak far better English than I speak Chinese. (I've gotten down "Hello" and "Thank you").

By the way, my favorite person in Beijing is the woman who brings me coffee in the hotel restaurant in the mornings. And she knows it. I've been practicing my "Thank you" on her quite frequently.

Today we visited the Forbidden City. It is VAST. And that word doesn't even begin to describe the size of this place. And we didn't even examine the buildings off to the sides, such as the concubine quarters, we just walked straight through (a distance of about 3.5 miles or so, I think). I was disappointed because much of the City is being restored (for the '08 Olympics, of course. And there are people out hawking souvenirs ALREADY), so many of the buildings are behind scaffolding. What has been restored is beautiful. I took about 75 pictures (really), and I am not sure if they all will be good - the problem I had is two-fold. One, I'm sure you are aware of: there are a lot of people in China. So there are a lot of people in every single place you go, so therefore, there will be a lot of people in the pictures. It's just unavoidable. The good news is that you might actually be able to get a sense of scale. The other problem I had goes back to the vastness of the buildings - you just can't get far enough away from them to really get the whole building into the picture. So I did the best I could, and then I bought postcards. You'll have to wait on pictures until I return, however.

Tomorrow we have two lectures - one with the vice minister of education, and the other with the vice president of the China Women's Federation, and those both will be about education. More later on that, and about our visit to the school yesterday (fascinating! can I use that word too much, do you think?).

So explain me this...

I'm trying to sell my condo so I can get a bigger place (too many books, natch). Yesterday someone came to see it and said they liked it, but it was too small. Um, hello? It's a one bedroom. That's the point. It's supposed to be small. What were you expecting, a palatial condo with a reading room and jacuzzi? Seriously, what exactly were they thinking they were going to see?

Celebration to excess

Yesterday was my birthday (hey! Where's my present??), and I had not one, not two, but THREE pieces of cake. It's a bit much, don't ya know?

Cake number one: Student made. She made it for me so we could have it during their final presentations yesterday. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Tasty. The other students in the class were much appreciative of it - they swarmed around it like moths to a lightbulb. Or whatever metaphor you wish. Sorry, simile. Mrs. Green would be so embarrassed. She was my 12th grade English teacher. She was awesome, by the way.

Cake number two: As part of department celebration. Birthdays here are not so much about the person whose birthday it is, as they are about the opportunity to eat cake. The fact that it was my birthday was just an excuse for incredibly rich chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Again, tasty. (Hard to go wrong with chocolate)

Cake number three: With my string quartet. At least that followed a good 2 hours of music playing, and Schubert too, which hopefully burned a bunch of calories. The Schubert was basically one hour of non-stop playing. So i don't really feel guilty about that last piece of cake, but I definitely feel decadent. No more cake for me for a while, I think.

The cool thing is with the three cakes, I got serenaded three times. No, I lie. Four times of "Happy birthday". How's that for a celebration???

By the way, if you were hoping for some kind of reflection now that I'm firmly entrenched in my 30s, you can forget it. I am not feeling very reflective at the moment (in fact, I think the Schubert may have done me in ... my arm is killing me. One shouldn't really take on Schubert like that without working one's way up to it).


China countdown - I leave a week from today. I have my shots, I have all my luggage (I think), and I'm collecting the toiletries I might need. I think. I've got a 1 gigabyte memory card for my camera, so I'll take tons of pictures, I promise.

Catch the fever!

I admit to being a victim of World Cup fever. Not one to really watch much in the way of sporting events (I've been known to go to a baseball game once or twice a year, and I think I've actually been to one NBA game, oh, and of course the Harlem Globetrotters, that's more theatre than sport, isn't it?), I will acknowledge that I enjoy watching (true) football, and I do enjoy World Cup. I don't know that I will spend my time sitting in my living room watching the games on my own, because that's just not fun (and frankly, a bit sad). But if there's a chance to, I'll watch a few games with friends. I'm also excited to see that the Czech Republic is ranked two, right behind the standard number one team, Brazil.

To that end, here's a fun video clip about football. It includes footage of Brazilian player Ronaldinho, who apparently has his own Wikepedia entry.

I have several students from Central and South America, El Salvador and Uruguay in particular, who have been "feeling ill" since about Monday ... the football flu, as it were. They're actually cute about it. My advice to them was to not overdo it - the doctor's office is worse than school if your aim is to watch the games!

Let me know...

What you think of the new template. I'm not sure I like it yet.

So much to do… Everyone keeps asking me if I’m all set to go. Well, the answer to that is a categorical HELL NO not yet!!

Here’s what’s on the agenda first:

1. Get my vaccinations. That’s today's fun. Right now, according to the CDC website, I should get the following vaccinations:

Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B – if having sexual contact with the local population…ummm…ok, no comment.
Japanese encephalitis – if visiting farms
Malaria – if traveling to a malaria-risky area. And there’s no vaccination, just get a prescription anti-malaria drug
Rabies – if extensive outdoor rural exposure
Typhoid
Tetanus, diphtheria, measles

I believe that this afternoon I will be getting three shots. I know I need tetanus, haven’t had one since college. I’m good on measles and diphtheria. I am not planning on having “extensive outdoor rural exposure”….In fact, those of you who know me know that I don’t really do rural. No, I’m a huge fan of indoor plumbing. Hooray for the flushing toilet! So no rabies needed. Not planning on farms, see above, so no Japanese encephalitis (there’s a specific Japanese one?), which leaves me with Hep A, typhoid and possibly malaria. I don’t know about that, but since it’s not a vaccination, that won’t be an issue shot-wise. I’m mostly worried about my reaction to the typhoid. Not sure why – I’ve never had any Hep shots, so not sure how my system will react to that either. Perhaps it’s the reactions I’ve been getting from my friends who have had these shots before when I say that I need a typhoid shot: “Oooh.” This is usually accompanied by a pained expression. One friend “got sick”. She didn’t say more than that.**

Now, if all goes well, maybe I’ll just show up at the travel clinic today and they’ll say “Oh, you only need this one”, and then I can go on my merry way. See, it’s not having a shot that I’m worried about. It’s all three at once that’s kind of freaking me out.

NOT ENCOURAGING!

2. Get the extra $1000. The guy who got the grant from Fulbright asked for $90,000, but only got $80,000, so there’s an extra bit that we need to pay for visa apps, entrance fees, etc. I have sent a letter of request to the PTSA. I understand they met last night to discuss my request. Let’s hope they thought kindly on me. And that whatever amount they come up with, my principal will find a way to cover the rest.***

3. I should probably see my doctor to get two things: antibiotics and sleeping pills. I don’t sleep on planes. I can sleep just fine in cars, but not planes. I also get very, very antsy and irritable towards the end of long flights. And by long, I’m talking flights to England. So now let’s just see…I believe that my last flight to England was 7.5 hours. I think my flight to China will be 14 hours. You see my dilemma? Anyway, I’m hoping that won’t necessitate a doctor’s visit, but I think it might.

Um, I’m leaving June 27. So there might not be time for number 3.

There’s more. Let’s get through number one first shall we?

**Update: got the skinny on the typhoid vaccination from a friend of mine who spent her stint in the Peace Corps in Lesotho. She has gotten vaccinations twice for typhoid, and she said both times she got ill from it – queasy and feverish, but that it wears off in a few hours. So I’m feeling a little bit less nervous about that shot. (just a little) Phew!

***Update: The PTSA came through! Well, on half, but awesome! Woohoo!!

Did I mention...

That I'm going to China this summer? For a month?

Ok, I was hoping to include a fab picture of the Great Wall (one of the many sites we will be going to see), but my computer is not cooperating.

I hope to have relatively frequent access to computers, so I can post often about our adventures.

More frequently than I post now. When I have access to a computer on a daily basis.

Really.

I promise.

The personality of a class

It's funny how one class can have such a different personality than another. This is never more apparent than it is with my two AP Psychology classes this year. My second period has 29 students, many of whom are bright, curious and funny. My sixth period has 24 students, many of whom are also bright, curious and funny. However, my 2nd period is a vastly different group of students as a whole than my sixth is. In my second period class it always takes much longer to complete a lesson. With my sixth period, I am frequently done early, whereas I'm always sneaking a little time from the announcements (shh! don't tell the principal!) to finish up the lesson. Why is that? Well, first of all, any class that has 29 students is going to take longer to do anything - presentations, handing out papers, attendence, etc. But what I've noticed is that the students are just genuinely more curious about the subject than my sixth period is. They ask more questions. They ask more thoughtful questions. They discuss the topic with each other more (and ok, yes, sometimes it just takes a bit longer to get them focused on the topic, but that's to be expected from any class of 29 students, really).

Here's an example:

I assigned debate topics to groups of four students. They were to present their topic, state their opinion, try to persuade the class, etc. The guidelines gave them 30 minutes to have the debate in front of the class, and then they were to take questions from the class, so all in all, they would probably go a little longer than 30 minutes if they followed the guidelines of the assignment.

In my sixth period, we got through four of the groups in about an hour. And while that averages 15 minutes a group, I can tell you right now, that only one group took about 20 minutes, while the other three groups took at most 10 minutes. At the end of each group's turn, when it came to ask questions, it was the typical cricket chirp response (that would be a great giant silence, in case you were wondering).

Today in my 2nd period, we got through three groups. And I had to cut off two of the groups and the question/answer period at the end because we were running out of time.

By the way, they had the same list of topics:

Should the insanity defense be used in criminal trials?
Should animals be used in medical testing/experimentation?
Are humans naturally good?
et cetera and so forth.

So why does this happen, one wonders? What magical grouping of children did I get in 2nd period that I don't have in 6th? I am quite convinced that i have some of the brightest students in the 11th grade class in my sixth period. I have some very bright students in my 2nd as well, but I think that I have something like 8-10 out of sixth, and 5 or 6 in my 2nd. That's nearly 40% of my 6th period and 20% of my 2nd. So what's the story? Here are some theories:

1. Time of day: I have my second period first thing in the morning: 7:30-9:05. Ok, this could actually be an argument for less of a stellar performance, especially given all the research on sleep and teenagers recently. But, I'm getting them first thing, they haven't gone to any other classes, and so maybe haven't had a chance to be exhausted by the rest of their day yet.

2. Number of lower performing students in the class. The percentage of students in my 6th period who have lower skill levels, and weren't prepared for an AP level course is higher than it is in my 2nd period. I also think that many of the students in my 6th period aren't really that interested in the course, and therefore just don't care to participate as much as in my 2nd period. I also think I have a higher number of "performers" in my 2nd period - they are more willing to talk, more willing to take chances than in my 6th period.

3. Time of day part II: By the time I get to my sixth period, it's already the third block of the day (it's 11am), and I'm tired, so perhaps I'm not conveying properly my ideas about how the assignment should go, or something like that.

So the question remains, as it does for any good teacher, how can one avoid this syndrome? How can one alter the personality of a particular class so that the lesson goes equally well in one class period as it does in another? Ah, the eternal question.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

My dear AP Psychology students,

Please, please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do NOT prescribe a prefrontal lobotomy for anxiety!!!

Every year for the last five years that I have used this one essay that asks students to describe treatments for anxiety, my students have leapt right onto the lobotomy (or just as bad, electroconvulsive therapy) bandwagon. Why? Are they so quick to think that brain surgery is a great idea, and would really help some poor soul who feel anxious all the time? Brain surgery? Really? Something that is irreversible?

Really? And especially given that without fail every time we talk about drug therapy (the appropriate answer, just in case you were wondering), they all remember the commercial for the drug with the little bouncy ball thing:

See, and now you can see why I'm worried.

Maybe this would have helped...

In class today we asked our students: "What was Ronald Reagan's policy in the 1980s towards the USSR?" We were looking for something along the lines of "Massive military build up". One of our students replied "Coupons!"

Let the whipping begin…

I am beginning to understand the impulse behind the Flagellants. At their height during the incidences of the Black Death in the Middle Ages (1348 ish), they wandered from town to town, whipping themselves because they believed that the plague was a punishment from God. They would often beat or even kill those who opposed them. And of course, in the process of traveling around the countryside, whipping themselves eagerly, they probably brought the disease with them.

So, why do I say that I understand the impulse that drove these people? Well, I’ve begun a sort of mental flagellation as I watch my students prepare for the AP exam. I’m reading through their essays right now (well, obviously not RIGHT now, as I am typing this instead of actually reading their essays), and feeling that given that the AP exam is next week, and that we’ve been doing essays and talking about this content all year long, these essays should be much better than they actually are. And yes, I am aware that the previous sentence was probably a run-on, thus the irony of me saying that my students wrote bad essays. I never said I was perfect. Plus, the essays these students are supposed to write aren’t really about grammar and good writing, but about knowing content and being able to express that knowledge and apply concepts in a written format.

Get to the point, I hear you cry. What on earth does all of this have to do with the Flagellants? Or are you just trying to impress us with your knowledge of history??

Well, yes. Of course. But I digress.

Where do the Flagellants come in? They come in because as I read these essays and watch my students take their practice AP test, the thoughts that are running through my head are:

“Have I done enough to help these students? Probably not. I didn’t spend enough time on [insert topic here], and it’s my fault they don’t understand how to answer this essay. I didn’t have enough time during the year and I was distracted by all the things we had to do to get this department and school up and running (‘We’re a work in progress!’), and so therefore I have done these students a disservice. It’s entirely my fault that they are not going to do well on this exam.”

Why is it that teachers take so much of the blame on themselves for something like this? Rationally, logically, reasonably, I know that I did a decent enough job teaching this content. Decent enough. That's the rub, isn't it? Is decent enough ... enough? I did not do as well teaching them this year as I did last year, for instance. Or, at least, according to my subjective view, I did a pretty darn good job teaching AP Psych last year. However, the scores show that my students didn’t do any better last year than the students the year before. I do feel that I definitely did a lot worse teaching them this year, though, and I worry very, very, very much about how they are going to do on this exam next week.

So again, I ask, why is it that we shoulder so much of the blame? There are so very many factors that impact how students do in my classroom that have nothing whatever to do with me or with what goes on in my classroom. Home life. Extra curricular activities. Geo-political events (ok, well, I don’t know how much that impacts my students, but it looked good). Individual students. The skills they had when they came to my classroom. All I can do is impact them in the 95 minutes I have them every other day.

So yet again, I ask, why do we blame ourselves so much? Why do we whip ourselves the way the flagellants whipped themselves? How do we stop blaming ourselves, and by doing so, will we become worse teachers, or will it not impact our instruction at all?

What do you think, dear reader?

Spring break!!!

Pics from the Dominican Republic! Ahh, seven days of lazing on the beach.


You can check out http://flickr.com/photos/jesstchr/130196573/ for more pictures.

I demand a recount!

I don't get 57%! Ok, so I'm upset by this...why? Explain to me - I don't even know what the score even means. This would be what we in the ed biz call a "bad assessment."


The Completely Pointless Personality Quiz

Seven brides for seven brothers…

Seven Things to do before I die

1. Get a PhD in history
2. Travel to India and explore
3. See Machu Picchu
4. Perform a complete shoulder stand in yoga without breaking my neck
5. Go hiking on a portion of the Appalachian Trail – preferably not the incredibly dangerous bits. :)
6. Live in London
7. Find the man of my dreams


Seven Things I can’t do

1. Perform a shoulder stand in yoga without breaking my neck
2. Drive a car with a manual transmission
3. Sleep on airplanes
4. Turn down queso dip when offered
5. Speak fluent French – just “restaurant” French (I know enough not to order the cow brains)
6. Run
7. Focus on grading papers at home

Seven Things that attract me to Europe

1. My family living in England
2. My family connections in Austria and the Czech republic
3. History (natch)
4. The beautiful architecture
5. The beautiful landscape
6. The diversity of cultures
7. I feel at home there

Seven Good Books

1. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
2. Harry Potter
3. Nearly everything by Steinbeck
4. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
5. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
7. Oxford Children's History: Earliest Times to the Stuarts

Seven Good Films

1. Singing in the Rain
2. Back to the Future
3. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
4. Ghostbusters ("Nobody steps on a church in my town!")
5. Arsenic and Old Lace
6. Charade
7. Sabrina (the one with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, not the remake, even though it did have Harrison Ford)

Seven Things I Say

1. “Ladies and Gentlemen…”
2. “Chill out, yo”
3. “Like, oh my gawd!” (in an ironic Valley Girl way, thank you)
4. “If we can focus, please”
5. “Sweet Georgia Brown!” (don’t ask me why, I just do)
6. “Right, so where was I?”
7. “Ooh! Shiny object!”

Seven Blogs to Tag

Gawd. Seven??

1. Sarcasmo’s Corner
2. dreams and bones
3. I’m a novelist
4. Denmother2525
5. Intellectuals Inc.
6. dietgirl
7. Pound

Tag! You're it!

After weeks of wondering what the heck “being tagged” was, or even what a “meme” was, I have been tagged not once, but twice! The first one is from Leslie, which I will tackle today. I’ll tackle the second one later this week.

And we’re off!

1. Name five of your favorite books

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

You realize of course, if you were to ask me this same question tomorrow, next week or in a month’s time, this list would be entirely different.

2. What was the last book you bought (or brought home from the library)?

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

3. What was the last book you read?

A Wild Sheep Chase I finished it last night. An odd book, and I’m not quite certain what the heck was going on in the end. I was also very taken aback by the fact that very few characters had names, and those that did were named things like “The Boss” and “The Sheep Professor”. No women had names, they were all “she” and “her”. I’m trying to decide whether that’s hiding misogynist tendencies, or what.

4. List five books that have been particularly meaningful to you.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - This actually is not so much because of the book itself, the writing or the story, but the experience I had while reading it. I was the sponsor of the student book club at my old school, and last year the students chose to read Reading Lolita in Tehran, and then chose to read Lolita itself. I was impressed by the fact that they not only chose to read the book, but then actually stuck through it, and had thoughtful things to say about the book at the meeting. For me that was a great teaching moment. I was able to help guide the students into taking on a scary challenge, and they rose to it. I felt very proud of the students at that moment.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Doesn’t everyone read this in high school? I know all of my friends did, in fact I remember several of us torturing our 11th grade English teacher with the relationship between Guinevere, Lancelot and Arthur. Zimmer Bradley’s particularly interesting take on it was quite the shock for Mrs. Douglas. By the way, Mrs. Douglas: Sorry!!! You were a good teacher; I didn’t mean to behave so badly in class. Although I really did hate reading The Scarlet Letter.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien – I read this in fourth grade. The teacher asked us to begin reading the first chapter, and she would let us know when to stop reading. I just read and read and read, and the next thing I knew, my teacher was telling us to stop reading, and I had completed almost four chapters. I loved this book, and it made me realize that I loved reading, too. I was quite sad when I saw the movie, because it was so different from the book (my first experience with bad film adaptations! I’ve yet to be fully satisfied by those…another reason this book is significant, I suppose!).


The Roosevelts: An American Saga by Peter Collier – This is one of the first books of history (ok, technically it’s biography) that I read for pleasure. Ironic that it’s American history, given that I actually don’t really enjoy much about American history, and really like European and Global history the best. I’ve always been fascinated by Teddy Roosevelt, partly because we used to live on Long Island, near his house on Sagamore Hill, and we’d visit pretty frequently. I have a great many happy childhood memories of wandering around his house and the beautiful grounds. This book also gave me a healthy respect for FDR as well. I put it here because it also began my foray into reading history JFF (just for fun, something we crazy history teachers do!).

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne – Does this really need explanation? Winnie-the-Pooh is such a lovely, lovely character, and the writing is so appealing. Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Besides, isn’t it time for elevenses?

5. Name three books you’ve been dying to read, but haven’t gotten around to.

Here’s what I have on hold at the library (I’m waiting for them to become available):

PostSecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives by Frank Warren
Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie
The Cell by Stephen King

I shall tag Ann and Sheila.