Finally - my babies!

My family, god love them, does not have a car. Other PC families have cars, so I did my best of mooching rides to any cultural destinations they might experience. My efforts paid off for I finally got to see the pandas. Chengdu has a world renowned facility to breed and raise pandas. Currently they have 40 at site - about 6 a year old, and 4-5 from 1 week old to 3 months old.

I was prepared. I brought all my money in order to hold one of the babies. This was something I needed to do in order to hit all my 5 essentials in my life (adventure, learning, making a difference, kids and animals). My friend Mike's family took us and paid for us. Extremely out of left field and completely appreciated.

We had a private tour - a lovely lady who took us around the grounds. When we got to the nursery I was googooing the babies and then someone whisked us off to put on scrubs. They sat us on a chair and gave us Xiao Wangzi - "Little Prince" - he was one of the smallest pandas ever to be born there (only 49 grams!), but now as a year old little tyke he is of normal height and weight. They placed him in our laps and gave him a honey dipped eucalyptus branch to gnaw on. God it felt good to hold him. I just cooed in his ear and watched him with awe. I wanted to reach out and grab his ear and nibble on it and roll around with him. Only two months away from animal love and I was feeling the DTs. I only got to hold him for about a minute or two but it was worth every second. I was skipping and singing the entire day. We took Mike's dad out for rice noodles and a small token of our appreciation.

It was really hot, so the pandas hung out inside, but I plan on coming back in the winter and seeing them again, and perhaps another snuggle with my xiao wangzi.
-- Be good, Katie

Site Visit Review

A total of 50 hours in transit (via train, bus, cab, minivan) in five days. And now I am back in Chengdu.

Our waiban (Foreign Affairs Officer) picked us up at the Lanzhou train station and took us to the campus located in Lanzhou. We checked in to the Guest House and had a nice meal. Lanzhou University has 8 campuses - the one where we were staying was the Masters/PhD campus. Our campus (yuzhong) is for Bachelor's and is located 50 kilometers north of Lanzhou. The next day we arrived at our campus. Two fourth year students (Malina and David are their English names) gave us a tour of the campus and surrounding town. The campus is lovely - surrounded by NM like mountains, clear blue skies and dry sunshine. Our apartments are in the foreign teachers building. Downstairs are two Japanese teachers - across from us will be two German teachers. The apartments themselves are gorgeous - hardwood floors, airy and comfortable. The previous PCer left some winter coats, boots, bowls, utensils, movies and a guitar for me to enjoy.

We spent the rest of the day just enjoying our own space. To sit and space out. My campus also will be opening up the brand new indoor swimming pool this semester. And I am just down the hill from it.

I will be teaching 4 classes of Oral English to sophomores and 2 classes of Writing to juniors. The writing class is more formal - CVs, essays, etc. but I am looking forward to it. The writing classes will have around 50 students and the Oral English classes will only have about 26 students. We will also be having at least 2 office hours and 2 1/2 hour English Corner every week. Not a bad schedule. Also, they are working on finding us Chinese tutors.

We also inherited an English language library that the previous PCers started. Our job is to expand its hours and inventory.

David and Malina both said that most students think the University is amazing in terms of teachers and education, but the common gripe is that there is nothing to do. They're right. The town consists of 2 streets with fruit vendors, salons, small stores, restaurants and one small supermarket. To me this is heaven. The best part is that it only costs 6 RMB to take the bus into town. AND! As teachers we can stay at the guest house for free. So, if we want to hang out with the other PC people in Lanzhou but don't want to take a bus home, we can stay in Lanzhou.

The next day we went back into Lanzhou to meet our counterparts - Chinese teachers who teach English. Lucinda and Alice are wonderful. They gave us textbooks, our schedule, answered all our questions and then some. Very personable, sweet and eager to work together. That night we got together with some of the other PCers (12s and 13s) for pizza and beer gardens.

Thursday came as did Lucinda and Alice to take us hiking. Lanzhou runs along the Yellow River of the Mother River of China. On either end of Lanzhou (population 3 million) rests a mountain. One mountain is GauLan Mountain - a place of many Buddhist temples, a zoo, aquarium and tea houses. This is a popular place for many retirees who practice their Tai Chi, fan dancing, or impromptu opera performances. I love this place. This will be a great place to unwind.

Then we hit the next mountain, the White Pagoda temple mountain - Daoist temples with some amazing natural stone museum and gourd crafts.

About 1 in every eight Lanzhou-ian is Muslim. The food up there is not as spicy but oh so good in its own right. The lamb skewers bbqed and put into grilled flatbread is my new favorite. Or the beef noodles are known as a Lanzhou specialty.

We move back to Lanzhou in early September - just two weeks. Two weeks and I begin teaching again. I cannot wait. Now it's time to study - our final LPI (language proficiency interview) in Tuesday. Wish me luck! Be good, Katie

Lanzhou Daxue

http://www.lzu.edu.cn/notice/English/default.htm

Population of students: 43,756
8 campuses: I will be at the BA level campus which is about 45 minutes outside Lanzhou (capital of Gansu)

Lanzhou University is one of the top universities under the China Ministry of Education.

Possible classes I will teach: Oral English, English Writing, English film, Culture

Possible secondary projects: DRAMA CLUB, maintain English language library previous PC created, establish hours, activities, etc.
(read between the lines - this place is perfect for me!!!!)

We leave for a site visit this sunday - 22 hour train ride. We'll be at our site for about a week - checking out the campus, the city, getting schedules, resources, cleaning our apartments, studying for our LPI (language proficiency interview) that is the next week.

-- Be good, Katie

Model school and then some

Today was the first day of model school - meaning we get a three week boot camp to teaching oral English with a small class that volunteer to be there to learn from a native English speaker. We team teach with another PC13. My dude is Nate, a Virginia native who is tall, redhaired and just as goofy as I am. We are teaching 18 middle school students.


We went a little crazy with our lesson plans. PC tells us to use this time to experiment with teaching techniques and to fail and make as many mistakes as possible so that when we get to site, we'll be rock stars. Some PCers are bouncing around with lessons, but not us. We have all three weeks planned: The first week is all about getting to know each other as a class; second week is all about getting to know American culture (weddings, sports, slang, holidays, family, etc); the third week is a larger picture of the world and learning to be global citizens. This class is a bit different than what we'll see at our site - there is an equal balance between male and female students. Most times at site, the class will be heavily tilted to the female side.

The students are great and are all over the place in terms of speaking ability. It should prove to be a great experience. I am excited to work with Nate. He's a neophyte who is eager for me to kick his butt. He's also willing and strong enough to kick my own heiny when needed.

I'm looking out my bedroom window at the moon, which has been obscured since we got here. As I was taking my after dinner walk, I got to see stars and families walking backwards, fanning their children, dodging students on mopeds (aka silent assassins - you never hear them come).

The weather has been quite lovely these past few days. Low humidity, light drops of rain, hint of a breeze. Nothing compared to the flooding in some parts of this province and farther southeast.

Language is amazing. Only three weeks and I feel flabbergasted that I can communicate as much as I can. We're only learning the pinyin, not hanzi (Chinese characters). You feel that you can communicate somewhat but you're illiterate. You can't read a menu, a store sign, a receipt, but you can memorize what is milk versus what is yogurt; usually in the same packaging. You can ask for your favorite dishes at a restaurant. You can figure out what is a tailor or a shoe store or an internet cafe. A month ago I only knew "ni hao".

As I'm writing this, my home stay sister and my mom come in and give me a wooden beaded bracelet and a monkeys sculpted out of bone climbing up a silk red rope to represent that they hope I go "up, up". When you live in the moment, things like this hit you in the heart like a medicine ball. You reel in the moment slow-mo and enjoy the discombobulation.

It makes you cry.

It makes you remember the other moments when you thought that you were a 'tard and were not learning enough, fast enough, integrating enough, thinking that you would have to go home in shame, thinking that you failed. Or the other moment that you thought you were the best person in the world, picking up Chinese so quickly, thinking that you were special, extraordinary (forgive me, I just watched the entire first season of "Heroes" and it's clouding my worldview).


Assimilating into the Chinese culture is like being a triangular block fitting into the circular hole - you fit somewhat, but you miss the intimacy, the feeling of being completely surrounded by the known. As long as you know that and not try to inflate your sides to be something you're not, you'll be fine.
-- Be good, Katie

PEACE CORPS CHINA

Also know as U.S. - China Friendship Volunteers

Since 1993 423 volunteers have been teaching oral English in the following provinces and municipalities - Sichuan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Gansu with Gansu being the youngest one.

Current # of volunteers in China: 94 (plus 64 from the China 13s)

How PC is different from other foreign teachers:
invited by the Chinese government
required to learn language and culture
expected to integrate into community
required to do a secondary project - whether that be running a drama club (hint hint), tutor group or other extra-curricular activities) work with counterpart to make sure implementations you make will sustain after your service is over

Teaching load 14 - 16 hours
Class size 35 - 40 (sometimes as large as 60 - 80)
Multi-level students
BRING IT ON!!!!! We find out where we're going on August 14th. Until then, we learn patience........

Summer Project

Right when we got to Chengdu, a 3rd year PCer asked me and three other PC 13s to do a presentation at his university. Every summer for 2 weeks PCers do a summer project, which is usually working at a university outside of your site teaching English to middle school teachers. We as 13s don't do one until next year, but because the four of us have middle school experience, they wanted to use us this year.

Mianyang Normal University is about 90 minutes north of Chengdu located on top of a mountain. The campus is small - only 1,500 students go there. Normal means that it is a teacher's college. In front of 150 middle school teachers the four of us talked about US Education (funding, history of, etc.), American educational culture and Language Arts teaching techniques.

We were picked up and first taken to a People's Park that had an amusement park, tea houses and mahjong tables everywhere. Then the four of us were treated to a very lavish buffet at a $1,000/night hotel with the president's wife and the waiban (foreign assistance officer). Ice cream, french fries, steak, all the western food that you forget about when you are loving Sichuan cuisine.

Our 2 1/2 hour presentation was in a large lecture hall with huge fans competing with our voices. The microphones were sketchy. The teachers wanted us to speak slower and louder. By the end of the presentation, we were all dripping with sweat. We had a Q & A session afterwards. They asked about teachers in the United States and were they respected, what was teaching at a high school like and to explain about extra-curricular activities. Chinese education takes the educational philosophy of "sage of the stage" - teachers are in charge of the students' education and the students are tabula rasa. We talked about the current American educational philosophy of "guide on the side" - teachers are merely advisors and students are in charge of their own education.

Afterwards, the waiban gave each of us a gift of a Chinese opera mask. We all agreed that we could totally do the lecture tour - fancy dinner, great audience, swag afterwards.

It was pretty incredible. It got me extremely excited about teaching. We start model school Monday. This is the 2nd year PC has implemented this program. Team teaching oral English to a class of voluntary students. I got a great guy who has taught before, but is really eager to work together. For the next three weeks we will be teaching for 1 1/2 hours to 15-20 middle school students, 1 1/2 prep time and 1 hour of reflection and evaluation. Then 2 hours of language. I was first hesitant to reduce my language class hours from 5 a day to only 2 ( I love my teacher Liu Laoshi), but getting into our classroom and our class list and realizing that this is a time to experiment and to hone our TEFL skills really revs me up.

Most of our students will have English names that they have chosen, but some won't. Based on the students' choice they can either chose one for themselves or the teachers can name them. I started to think I could use some of my students' names from Denver. That thought brought me down to the missing - how much I miss them, miss teaching them, being in their lives. I got out my pictures of my classroom and my AVID kids. My heart tightened. I have the best students EVER!!!


Honestly.....

Ni Hao from Chengdu!

I have never been hotter in my life! For the next two months I will be living with this amazing law professor named Xiaoxia. She's my age and single ("haven't found the right man") in a 3 bedroom apartment on the fourth floor. Her parents live with her, but for now they are taking care of their granddaughter while Xiaoshia's brother is in Beijing. She is teaching me how to cook Sichuan cuisine - which is supremely spicy and amazing! Tonight she went to the market, picked out a fish and cooked it whole and made a delicious soup with garlic ginger hot chilies and some secret ingredients. The other dish was a succulent eggplant dish. I think I have found my new favorite food.

For the next two months the 20 of us have three hours of Chinese language and then lunch at one of the thousands of restaurants here and then 1 1/2 hours of classes to help us lesson plan, work with low level learners, Chinese pop culture, etc and then another two hours of language. Honestly, I could do another 2 hours of language. It's fantastic and exhilarating to learn. I love languages but this stuff kicks! Our teacher is Liu Rui and is so on her game. She's tough, rigorous, super smart and freakin funny. We periodically teach her American slang. Each group is about 5-6 people. My group has two other women and 3 other men. Each one is a die hard learner like me. Liu Rui not only teaches us the language, but she makes it accessible which then becomes ours.


Tonight I walked around the city with another PCer. Night time is when this place really wakes up. Fruit sellers with their wheelbarrows and cart of fruits and a bullhorn playing a loud recording "peaches peaches peaches!!" "watermelon! watermelon!" Families and small children are gathered around hot pots (Sichuan specialty) - skewers of pork, tofu, chicken around a pot of boiling chili oil. People selling stationary, pens, DVDs, shoes, anything. I went on a walk earlier in the day and you never see as many people out as you do at night.

Great story: one of our homework lessons was to talk to our home stay families and take a picture with them with us and ask them where can we print the pictures and bring the picture to class today. It was an exercise on talking with our families (most speak little to no English) and to have a picture of them so we may use it in our conversations in language class. I ask Xiaoxia about where I can go to print a picture. Instead she takes me to a street studio and had our pictures taken professionally. I totally got extra credit for that!

Chengdu University bought this property on the outskirts of the city in 2002. It has cafes, restaurants, pool, table tennis courts, basketball courts, indoor stadium, 2 lakes and some amazing architecture. In three years they are expecting the student population to double. We live in teacher housing on campus - probably similar to what I will be living in when I get to my site.

Right when I got home tonight from my walk, Xiaoxia gives me some watermelon and we sit and pass the dictionary back and forth. I tell her "thank you for hosting me and for letting me live with you." She says "we are good friends. No thanks is needed."