Swearing In Ceremony

Well it's official; I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer. The US Ambassador to China, Clark T Randt, Jr. swore us in. We had a few more speakers and then each site did a small presentation - slide show, skit, etc. Our site did our favorite "Tian Mi Mi" - we added a couple of fan dancers and two solos - my friend Kehl and I. It was a lot of fun. The audience loved the song and clapped along. We had a buffet of Italian, American, Chinese and Japanese (sushi!!) foods.

Now we are relaxing and preparing for the 22 hour train ride tomorrow to Lanzhou. PC gave each of us two huge rice bags full of medical equipment, hepa filters, and water purifiers. Along with all the books I borrowed from PC head office library, the bedding I bought at IKEA (I realize - surreal) and all my other crap, I will be pleased if I am able to be supine on the ride at all. I start teaching on Monday. Woo hoo!! I cannot wait.

I actually felt it - becoming a volunteer. A shiver, small breeze. It was pretty powerful. Though you realize all that you've gone through and realize that it has only been two months and I still haven't started working as a volunteer officially. Two more years. It is so exhilarating and exhausting and overwhelming. I have done so much, yet this is just the beginning.

Stay tuned, loved ones.

Host Family Appreciation

Last night was Host Family Appreciation night. We met at a large banquet hall. All 20 of us with our parents and siblings gathered for an amazing meal. The banquets are usually bountiful with at least 15 different dishes to try, but last night we had at least 30 - some of our favorites and some of them came out of left field and left a big smooch on my heart they were so good. Most of the PC ladies wore our Qi Pao that we had made (traditional Chinese dress). I had a dress and a blouse made. The dress is for next week's swear-in. We looked hot.

All 20 of us sang a popular Chinese ballad from the 90s "Tian Mi Mi" - My Sweet Honey. It's a beautiful song. Can't get it out of my head. The banquet was a success. Afterwards we retired to our favorite garden of beer - this has been our place to get together, eat shao kao, drink Snow beer, celebrate birthdays and just enjoy our little neighborhood of Shiling Town. The other PC sites in Chengdu are located downtown so they get together a lot in western restaurants and bars; not us. I am so thankful for that.

As we were drinking and eating, a party of men stopped by, offered us beer, cigarettes and told us it was their friend's birthday. About eight of us made a beeline to his table and sang Happy Birthday in English then Chinese to him. Then we brought down the house when we sang "Tian Mi Mi" again. The crowd adored it. We ganbei-ed to his day of birth, to our beer gardens, to each other, to the stray dogs and cats, to the old ladies polishing our shoes as we imbibe.

Tonight my friend Amy and I took our families out for Huo Guo (hotpot). It was lovely to hang out with them and treat them to such a delicious and spicy meal.

Now at home, my family just gave me two bags of Sichuan specialty foods, a necklace, earrings and their wishes to maintain our connection. I plan on seeing them whenever I'm in Chengdu, which should be at least twice a year.

Tuesday we leave for the hotel. It has been exhausting, frustrating, exhilarating, comforting and overall an extremely incredible experience living with our families.

Saturday we leave for our apartments. I am so stoked to get to Lanzhou and start teaching and enjoy the solitude of my large apartment, but I will definitely miss my family here.
-- Be good, Katie

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........