Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.

A pig had been killed in our honour and, as we listened to the local “laba” bugle player and an elderly man singing along in Hani language, we tucked into its various organs! Within sight of the outdoor banquet, Mr Qing pointed out wild raspberries, a peach tree, coffee bushes and a large flowering cactus. We were shown how the elders wear one type of costume, the married folk wear another variety and the youngsters have a different one again. As we were toasted by each group of villagers in turn, the sun slowly set. There were photo opportunities everywhere.

One of the leaders on our table was the local vicar! JiangCheng county apparently has 40 Christian churches (protestant) started by American missionaries back in the early 1800s. It is still the main religion among the Hani and the vicar told us about 150 villagers regularly attend his services on a Sunday.

After the meal, we made our way to the basketball court which had been transformed into a makeshift performance space. The vicar led the community singing and there was music from the bugle-blowing man and a less traditional CD mixing desk! There followed various Hani dances and some of the girls had dressed as various other minority groups to put on an ethnic fashion show [see photo, above]! The crowd standing behind our front row seats were really enjoying it, shouting out encouragement in Hani language and bursting into applause now and again. Everyone was getting very excited by the time we reached the last dance and, before we knew it, the “foreigners” had been dragged out to join in! There was laughter all round at the five of us prancing and hopping about like mad folk! After the dance and the applause, the performance broke up, though the villagers happily milled around, grabbing us to say how much they appreciated our coming, asking for photos and giving impromptu dance lessons. The youngsters tried out some of their English and the two drunkest men just kept poking me and giggling! A couple of the English teachers I train were there too and they enjoyed meeting some new foreigners for a change. It was all so genuinely warm-hearted and welcoming - not at all forced or “touristy”. I overheard one of the "GAP" girls mutter, “..that was just the best night ever”, and she was right! Not bad for a Friday 13th!!

My trip to the VSO Conference in Beijing started smoothly enough with a 3 hour car ride to Simao shared with teacher Li (man), teacher Li (woman, no relation) and Ms Wu (very recently promoted to the Local Education Bureau). After a night there, we flew (45mins) to Kunming and met Sun Kang, a leader from the Provincial Education Bureau. He speaks great English and in conversation gave examples of how unlucky he’d been on recent trips (in Indonesia for the tsunami, in Vietnam during riots, in Thailand for the coup, etc). His jinx continued as our flight to Beijing was delayed by 1.. 2.. 3.. and finally 4 hours. At the airport we took an hour to find a taxi which then ran into a midnight traffic jam(?) and took another 2 hours to get us to our hotel. We finally arrived at 2am to find our rooms had been double-booked. And then I tripped and broke my ankle...!

At first I thought I had just sprained my ankle and continued to limp around for the three days of the conference. My talk on the first day went OK, and I learned a lot from the other talks (although some Chinese speakers were rambling a bit and, filtered through a translator, it often made it quite hard to follow ...and I was taking minutes). On the last day, VSO suggested it might be wise to see a doctor while I was in Beijing. He x-rayed the ankle as a formality though he suspected a sprain. But the x-ray came back showing a fracture, so on went the plaster! Crutches in tow I managed to get through the two flights and a 3 hour car ride back to JiangCheng, hopping up the 86 steps to my flat. I’ve been confined to quarters for at least this week - very frustrating when I had planned to finally launch my training here. Teams of Education Bureau colleagues are bringing me food, clean washing, bottles of water etc. So I’m trying to put my independent nature aside and allow myself to be “cared for” and “fussed over”!

​Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.

At 5.30am this morning I was woken from my slumbers by the biggest earthquake I’ve ever experienced. The one a fortnight ago was magnitude 6.1 and happened 250km away in Laos - this one was 6.4 and only 100km away (by comparison, the recent one in Kent registered 4.7). My VSO friends, the LEAF family, however, were less than 30km away and had breakages, a College-wide evacuation and lots of after-shocks. At the actual epicentre, a town called Pu’Er, 3 people died, 300 were injured and 120,000 residents were evacuated. My flat was shaken hard, and my heart was pounding for a while, but there was no damage. For a few minutes after the quake, there was an eerie silence. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, the croaking frogs, chirping cicadas, barking dogs and crowing chickens all started up once again ...and I duly went back to bed (before a number of concerned phonecalls got me up again!).

Half an hour later, just along the corridor, Lily starts her lesson with a quick song. She is all smiles as her students belt out “Do-Re-Mi”. Excitement mounts as she pulls out a bag with something clinking in it. Empty bottles are produced and the new words, “tall, thin, short, wide, heavy and long” are taught. Large pictures of oddly shaped people are stuck to the blackboard and students are called up to write descriptions beneath each one. Lily then uses a “flip flashcard” to present a dialogue followed by a flawless pairwork session, full of encouragement and laughter. Everything is done in English – simple, clear English, repeated often and aided by body language. Activities from the colourful textbook are quickly completed and there’s time left for an “Anagram Game”. It’s a masterclass of Middle School teaching.
 
…same school, same grade, same lesson, different teacher – the lottery of which students get a decent chance to learn English and which students don’t...

However, none of them has any specific background in training and so they are keen, if a little nervous, to get feedback and advice. The present course has evolved into a largely didactic passing-on of how each lesson should be taught, right down to standardised gestures and umpteen steps for every moment of the class, which cannot be deviated from. I think I’d like to adapt it so that new teachers work out the most successful methods for themselves and, in doing so, understand why they are the best ways, more than simply being told so. This means having open-ended activities, worksheets to complete and group discussions where the new teachers can suggest their own answers and give their own opinions and ideas. Not a particularly Chinese way of doing things but one which, as teachers, we should already be encouraging our students to do in our lessons...

This visit will stay with me for the surreal moment at lunch, when I was asked by one of the teachers, “Are you Jesus?”. I assumed I had misheard, but she spelled it out for me “Yes, Jesus, J-E-S-U-S”. I replied that no, I was "Paul". “Oh. Well I am Jesus!” she continued. Fortunately, another teacher spotted my bewildered expression and explained that she meant she was a Christian! 

It turned out that three of the new teachers profess to be Christians - converts of their foreign “teacher” at College! I wonder how long their new faith will last, amidst the overwhelming religious apathy of China? Having said that, I was told that most of the Miao ethnic group in town are also Christian, having been converted by missionaries in the late 1800s! So, who knows? As you can see from the photo, I was persuaded to don traditional Miao clothes myself for a photo - a taste of things to come, with ethnic groups comprising 85% of JiangCheng’s population, the place where I will be based from this time next week.

Banquets sound great, right? Free, quality food, good company, no washing up, etc. Well maybe, but this term I’ve been averaging a banquet a day (including weekends) as a result of all the school visits I make, and they can sometimes be a real pain. The conversations can be all in Chinese for long periods, the food is often too spicy/bitter/sour or just downright odd (we had “tree leaves and crushed bones” yesterday!). There’s usually the toasting session at the end (being tee-total takes some effort in China) and there’s always a handful of men who see nothing wrong in puffing on their fags whilst others are still eating. However, I’ve become quite adept at pitching in to conversations, spotting the “dangerous” foods and avoiding alcohol without giving offence.   

However, I suggest that it might be her pronunciation that's at fault, rather than her students' listening! See how you get on with a few examples (as I heard them):

"of late" eg "your horse may be of late".
[Actual answer: "a flat" - eg "your house may be a flat"]

"bitten" eg, "bee has bitten a sea".
[Actual answer: "between" - eg "B is between A and C"]

"glum" - eg, "these students are inner glum".
[Actual answer: "column" - eg "these students are in a column"]

"bulgy" eg, "Mrs Wang is a bulgy teacher"!
[Actual answer: "biology" - eg "Mrs Wang is a biology teacher"]

                                                 ….so, how well would you have done??

For my own classes I’d put together a few little games. One was a snake which had swallowed the class. the only escape was for the students to move back through the snake’s body with the aid of a large dice and Halloween questions if they landed on certain spots. The other game was a version of “pin the tail on the donkey”, but with Dracula’s facial features. Hilarity ensued! But boy, a weekend like this does leave one exhausted. By the end, my limping and groaning was no longer just being put on for frightening effect!

​Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.

I was asked to do some oral English work today to help prepare half a dozen young men and women for their all-important IELTS exam which they need to pass to be able to study abroad. Unfortunately, the list of possible subjects to talk about had been translated from Chinese by a computer and most of the mangled topics left me scratching my head. See if you can work them out. My top ten . . .

1. "The Chinese spends preparing food the time many few, on what food packing whether to take to prepare food in the home, to eat importantly?"
2. "Artware"
3. "Periphery description one animal kind."
4. "What describes first space study period scene except college most importantly regarding students? You thought now looked for the work with before what had distinguish?"
5. "About the birthday, with who how to have crossed, to be how interesting with."
6. The modern family and the beforehand parents divide the work have anything to be different. After the children growing up, hoped government makes anything be possible to have the help family."
7. "Most likes time section."
8. "International society is the animal on which how to rescue these to border on the exterminates. What do you have to move?"
9. "Side you cross ocean, feels what kind, you thought that what the seashore life does have to the person body to affect?"
10. "A matter which co-operates with the human."

My INSETT training course in QiaoJia starts on Monday and I was due to be picked up from YiLiang tomorrow (I got back “home” this afternoon after a pretty torturous 18 hour bus ride). But now, all QiaoJia cars have been “grounded” until the registered drivers there have received “safety training”. So I have been asked to take a bus back to Zhaotong tomorrow morning (with all my resources, computer and hastily washed clothes etc) and meet some ongoing transport that QiaoJia Education Commission will have arranged. My relaxed holiday mood has been well and truly shattered!

It was supposed to be simple 1½ hour bus trip to Ganden Monastery - the second of the big three Tibetan monasteries - albeit a bus trip starting at 6.30am. Being so far West, but having to use Beijing time, Tibet doesn’t see the sun rise until about 9.30am in the Winter. So when the bus suddenly stopped after an hour it wasn’t immediately obvious why. But once we disembarked we felt thick snow underfoot and the bus driver made it clear that the road got too steep from here onwards. The pilgrims seemed keen to set off on foot but then they would, right? For them it was a religious mission...​

I quickly hooked up with two Tibetan teachers (brother and sister) who were able to explain in mutually clunky Mandarin that they’d been here before and it wasn’t too much further by foot, “....just 29 hairpin bends, but we can take shortcuts”! Because of Tibet's altitude I was gasping for air before we started. It was pitch black with slippery, ankle-deep snow. But thanks to the encouragement and helping hands of teachers “Jin” and “Zhuo” we made the two hour climb together in time for a steaming hot breakfast of dumplings in the monastery canteen. What a start to 2009!

“So let’s see. After a month with a broken leg, how can we make Paul's final day in plaster just that little bit more annoying? I know, why don’t we paint the railings by the steps to his flat overnight? Then he’ll have to hop up the 85 steps without any way of balancing. And if we don’t tell him, he’ll get his hands and clothes all dirty before attending class. Silver shows up well, let’s paint them all silver. But maybe he’ll smell the new paint .... I know, let’s strike him down with a heavy cold overnight so he can’t smell a thing. In fact, the paint fumes might even contribute to his sore throat. Yes, that ought to do the job.”

(Summer 2007) I had a little visitor to the flat today, and a more interesting one than the odd spider, cockroach or gecko. Whilst watching a DVD, a swift flew in through the open kitchen window, across the lounge and straight into a closed window – THUMP! He fluttered around quite a bit until, exhausted, he allowed me to get close enough to grab him and take him to the open window, where he flew off unhurt! There are hundreds of swifts around town at this time of year, especially around the rivers, flying low to catch insects – some just inches off the ground. Great to see, though not particularly welcome during an episode of Dr Who.

Teachers are frantically bombarding their students with Exam Practice Papers these days - some have been doing so for months already. Despite my best efforts, this type of lesson remains super-boring for the students and a preparation-free, revert-to-speaking-in-100%-Chinese lesson for the teachers. What’s worse is that the teachers and students believe fervently that wading through literally hundreds of multiple choice questions is teaching them something and will mean better exams results. I doubt it. And then there’s the papers themselves. Despite being produced by a wide variety of publishers they are all, without exception, appalling.

Check these out:

1. “Pick the right picture” (and all four pictures have photocopied as solid black squares).

2. Many multiple-choice questions have two or three quite legitimate possible answers. For example, the perplexing...
 Anne and Jenny are my ______  
(a) teachers (b) friends (c) sisters (d) brothers

3. And often, the answers are just plain wrong. I saw these “correct” answers today:
 She has carly hair. (well, Carly does...)
 Is the weather like today? (what?)
 Eating apples can made you healthy. (you make a mistake!)
 I’m poor so I can’t play for it. (play for the FA Cup, perhaps?)
 He’s a straight man. (maybe this one is intentional?)
 She is learning Italian dish. (a cook maybe?)
 I’ll retire and grow lives. (Nope. Not a clue on this one!)
 Penguins are the kings of cats (my personal favourite  ...!?)

4. Even the “English Language Revision TV Programme” regularly makes a hash of things:
      He ________ harder last year than before.
      (a) study  (b) studies  (c) was studying  (d) studied

What do you think? Both (c) and (d) look fine to me, but the programme insisted the right answer was (b)??

Today was another teacher-training trip to a remote school in XiaoCaoBa village.

Despite a hold up from an accident ahead and two small landslides we arrived in under two hours. After the debacle of my last school visit (“teaching a lesson” to 600 students in a playground), I had made it very clear that I wanted to teach my well-prepared model lesson to a single Grade 1 class using textbooks and a blackboard. So my heart sank when we drove into the school to see another playground full of students waiting excitedly for a lesson. I calmly explained yet again the differences between a model lesson (primarily for teachers to see new teaching methods) and shouting at 800 students in the open air (primarily for “look at the strange foreigner” reasons). As ever, I compromised - 20 minutes chat and a song for everybody, then Grade 2 and 3 students left so that I could give my model lesson to the remaining 250(!) Grade 1 students, sharing textbooks, aided by a tiny blackboard! Not ideal, but what can you do?

In the afternoon, I observed two very different lessons. The first was a 45 minute grammar monologue totally in Chinese – simply appalling! By contrast, the second was a fantastic lesson with a song, a game, flashcards and superbly executed pairwork. One of the things I like about my job is the frequent need to think on your feet and solve problems given very little time. So, as all the English teachers and I walked back to the staffroom for my feedback session, I had to think of a way to tackle the “excellent/excrement” nature of the lessons without leaving anyone upset!! I started with a big smile (always helps!) and congratulated both teachers on the clever way they had shown us the differences between the old and new teaching methods! I went on to contrast all the bad things about the old way with all the good things about the new way. And finally, I thanked both teachers once again for making this so clear to us all in their lessons! Amazingly, both left with big smiles on their faces as if it had, after all, simply been a well-coordinated demonstration!

Last week, reporters from "China Central TV" spent a  day shooting a fly-on-the-wall piece about “a day in my life”. They filmed me getting up, making a coffee, heading for the shower, arriving at school, observing a lesson, being driven to a remote school and teaching a model lesson! The following day was a more formal interview and then they packed up and left to edit the piece.

Today my 25-minute documentary was shown for the third time in a week! I'm told the channel has an audience over 20 million! The programme was really professionally produced and the editors had cleverly managed to link the work (and play) that I do with another VSO volunteer (and good friend) Lesley, even though we live in separate towns and have different roles. Now, strangers keep coming up to me and saying, “I saw you on TV”! I may even have my very own stalker – a woman from Shanghai watched me and somehow got my phone number … “I will call you every day” she promised …yikes! Oh, and if Spielberg is reading this (I’m told he keeps up with my news), I’m now available for motion picture work if the script (and price) is right.

Last night I slept in a hotel I’ve never slept in before, with the curtains closed and no noise outside. Just before I went to sleep I changed my alarm clock from 7.00am to 6.50am to give me a few extra minutes to check out and catch my early bus. I slept soundly but, at some point in the dark and quiet, I woke up and reached for  my clock to see what time it was. The exact second I touched the clock, the alarm went off. It was precisely 6.50am! Now explain that to me!? My alarm clock is digital, so no clicks or tick-tocking to mark the time and, back at home, I never awake before my alarm. But here, it seems my internal body clock was not just aware of the approximate time to get up but knew, to the exact second, when 6.50am would be!? If the event were more “significant”, one could easily attribute supernatural forces to what is essentially either an amazing feat of the body, or a total coincidence. Strange.

I had a bewildering, but very
amusing, conversation while
in Beijing recently:

Me:                 So what do you do?
Chinese lady:  I’m Harry Potter
Me:                 You mean you LIKE Harry Potter?
Chinese lady:  No, I AM Harry Potter!
Me:                 Really? So can you do magic spells?
Chinese lady:  Pardon?
Me:                 Spells. Can you do spells?
Chinese lady:  Certainly. R-E-P-O-R-T-E-R.
                                          I’m Harry Potter …for a newspaper.
Me:                Oh. You’re a reporter!
Chinese lady: Yes, I told you. I'm Harry Potter.

The final destination on my tour of remote countryside schools was LongJie (Dragon Street) Middle School. It’s very poor. The photo shows a typical dormitory - 12 students living in a room the size of my kitchen. As usual, the day started with 2-3 hours in the car, then observing 2 lessons and giving feedback. After lunch, I did 2 model lessons and an hour’s training. Then supper and 2-3 hours onward journey.

The observed lessons today couldn’t have been more different. The first was a new teacher, with the English name “Shrimp” (!?). She was teaching a Grade 1 class - students who had been learning English for just a week. Shrimp’s English is excellent and she kept it simple and clear. The students eagerly volunteered to come to the front to recite simple greeting dialogues and copied down new letters of the alphabet into their notebooks. The second lesson was from a more experienced teacher called “Ryan”. 90% of it was conducted in Chinese, and it involved the teacher, and later the students, drawing various things on the board and on paper. I was trying to work out the point of it all (with my limited Chinese) right until the bell finally rang and the lesson was over. The other teachers observing the class with me also left very confused. One asked me, “Was that an Art lesson or an English lesson?”. I managed to catch Ryan alone later, but when I asked him about the lesson he suddenly started crying! Once composed, he told me he had planned a lesson from the textbook, but changed his mind at the last minute and decided to try an idea he had read in a newspaper!? The other English teachers had apparently criticised him after the lesson and he now wanted to apologise to me! I ditched my planned feedback about “Teaching Aims” and “Lesson Plans” and tried to encourage him instead. I commended his willingness to try new teaching ideas(!), his bravery in letting others watch the experiment(!!) and assured him that for every failed idea there’s a successful one (right??). 

My own self-esteem took a battering between afternoon lessons. I had a bit of a wobbly tummy and had to rush to the school toilet. Staff and students share the same block - a series of holes in the ground with no partitions, let alone cubicles! Now, the sight of a foreigner in your school is enough for stares in itself, but a squatting foreigner trying to keep his balance amidst the filth is simply too much to miss, and I managed to attract a crowd of 10-15 gawking boys as I did my business! I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me …until I remembered what lay beneath!

Despite only arriving in my new V.S.O. placement a week ago, I’ve been told many times that YiLiang's claim to fame is the nearby "XiaoCaBa" area of pristine, ancient forest and the TianMa grown there – a herb that cures all ills. Today I was woken early and told to be ready by 9.00am for the drive to XiaoCaoBa; “one of the most beautiful places in the world”, I'm told. Somewhat inevitably, 9.00am comes and goes…

2.30pm Someone finally collects me and takes me to a car park.
2.40pm No sign of our car. I'm told to wait in a restaurant.
3.00pm Car arrives. I'm told to continue to wait in the restaurant.
3.40pm Car leaves for an extremely bumpy two hour journey through forests.
5.30pm We arrive (I think) - the whole area is covered in fog. There's nothing to be seen. I'm told to wait in a restaurant.
6.00pm We eat a meal.
6.30pm I'm told to wait in the restaurant.
7.00pm I escape from the restaurant, walk up a muddy path and find a crab.
7.30pm I'm “recaptured” and told to wait in the restaurant.
8.00pm We finally leave the restaurant to go to an allegedly famous "Bonfire Party” in a large field. It starts raining.
8.30pm Torrential rain. The huge bonfire goes out. The party is cancelled. We try to leave, but our car gets stuck in mud.
8.45pm Our car gets onto the road, but is blocked by other traffic also trying to leave.
9.20pm We begin an extremely bumpy two hour drive back in the dark.
11.30pm I finally arrive back at my flat feeling sick and dizzy....

Next Day...
6.30am I'm woken abruptly and taken to school.
7.00am I'm told to give an impromptu speech in English and Chinese to 2000 students about how beautiful XiaoCaBa is!