False starts

I've had a few false starts with my Chinese studies. I think the hardest part is finding the most efficient method to learn. I gave the program supermemo a try, but the user interface is unusable. It's just not worth it. Luckily, I have found another program called Mnemosyne. The user interface is actually usable, and it's free. Right now I am working on the 2000 most common Chinese characters. On the other side of the equation I am working with a tutor. We have been focusing on pronunciation and writing. She is a very patient teacher and is thrilled about my enthusiasm and dedication to learning Chinese. My teacher will not be in Zhangzhou during the summer, but she promised she would help me find a tutor for the summer.

I am not interested in learning survival Chinese. I am aiming for near native fluency. This requires a long term commitment but I think in the end, the effort will pay off. I have been scouring the internet on the best methods to learn languages. One of the best websites I found was All Japanese All The Time. The author claims to have attained near native fluency in Japanese in 18 months. While this claim must be taken with a grain of salt, I can't help but hope this is possible. He suggests trying to learn entire sentences instead of single words. If you can memorize and understand 10,000 sentences in the target language, then your brain will be able to make connections it otherwise would not if you just memorized individual words. I think it makes sense. Just because you know 1000 words doesn't mean you can put them together in the correct order. You could study grammar, but then you have to think about the grammar rules while you are trying to put together your sentence. Too see how ineffective this is, go to South Korea.

The author of the website strongly advocates using the spaced repetition system for memorizing. This method is used in the supermemo and Mnemosyne programs. While supermemo is a terrible program and costs money, I still think the idea behind the program is sound.

My current plan is to continue meeting my tutor twice a week. Once I have learned 1,000 characters I am going to switch to memorizing entire sentences...10,000 of them. Ambitious? You bet your ass.

My health

My health has been great lately. I haven't been sick the entire time I've been here. I'm quite surprised at this considering I was sick every single month in Korea. A few weeks after I'd get over a cold, another one would hit. It probably has to do with the age groups I'm teaching. Primary and middle school students are little disease spreaders, while young adults are usually more healthy.

Lay's

Italian Red Meat Flavor....they didn't taste very good.

Racism and xenophobia

Two very ugly words and something you need to learn how to deal with when you do not look like the people who live around you. Today was the second time I had to deal with racism and xenophobia in China. I have, however, learned the magic trick. Smile at them and say hello.

I was in a restaurant minding my own business when three men about my age walked in and sat down across from me. I noticed right away they kept looking at me, pointing, and laughing. I have learned that it's important to not assume they are purposely being mean. On the contrary, they could be talking about something completely unrelated to me. After a few minutes it started to bother me, so I broke out my secret weapon. I waved and said hello. It worked because a few moments later two of the three men were looking down at their ice cream cones with shamed faces. The third was determined to keep them riled up but the other two had lost interest in the foreigner. By not engaging in a staring contest or escalating the situation I showed who the mature person was. Never ever assume the legal system or bystanders will ever side with you when you are in a foreign country.

Unfortunately for foreigners, and China, anti-foreigner sentiment has been rising lately. I hope it doesn't ruin China's image to the world.

My first Chinese lesson

I had my first Chinese lesson today with one of the administrators in our department. It all started because I asked her if there were any schools in Zhangzhou to study Chinese. She asked a student who was also in the office and unfortunately there are not. So, she offered to teach me. At first I was skeptical because these things usually turn out in one of two ways. First, either she will turn it around completely and I'll end up teaching her English. Or, she is looking for a boyfriend and little language learning will take place at all. This happened to me all the time in Korea (usually the first one). Anyway, I decided to show her how serious I was about it and asked her how much she wants for the lessons. She said it would be free. A few days later I went to her office and found out she had bought me some books and supplies for our class. At this point I knew she was just as serious about this as I was. She ended up buying me two children's books for writing and simple vocabulary. Yes, I am now a Chinese child. We spent two and a half hours practicing sounds and basic writing.

Learning Chinese

In Korea I was always struggling with the motivation to study Korean. I had books, plenty of online resources, plenty of willing teachers, but no time. I worked 6 days a week and was exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was study. Besides, I knew I wasn't going to stay there much longer, it's just such a difficult place to live.

In China I have plenty of motivation to study Chinese. This isn't the type of country you want to live in without knowing the language. Many people do live here 5, 6 even 7 years without learning Chinese. However, I find one of the big regrets people have is not learning the language. The problem I have here is, how do I begin? I have a book and some audio, but my study habits are horrible. This is going to be really hard to explain so bare with me. I need structure outside of myself to force me to study. I want to study, I REALLY do, but it's SO much easier to not study. Path of least resistance. I need to go to school, but this city is too small so I can't go to school. I want to make flash cards but then I have to go hunting for them and take the time to write them up. My only option is to use some kind of computer software. Well finally I found it. It's called supermemo. I can create my own vocabulary lists and it schedules repetitions for me. All I have to do is click on the icon and sit in front of the computer. I will need some help with pronunciation so I'm also using a website called chinesepod. Plus, one of my co-workers agreed to help me study Chinese. We'll see how that turns out. But, the good news is I have the motivation, and now I also have the structure to begin my study. My current vocabulary list has about 80 words.

I've been in China 2 months now and I was in Korea for 1 year. I already know more Chinese than Korean.

Graffiti

Graffiti that just recently appeared in an alley near my school.

The mythical laowei

Damn the mythical laowei sounds like a great blog title. Anyway, I want to tell you about 4 recent sitings of the mythical laowei, known in English as "the foreigner".

Today in a Zhangzhou KFC, a young boy around 9 or 10 years old spotted the mythical laowei eating food in his natural habitat. What was the boy's reaction? He stood literally 2 feet away from the mythical laowei for approximately 5 minutes while the laowei tried to quickly but gracefully finish his food.

After leaving his natural habitat the mythical laowei started his long journey back to his adopted home when a young mother spotted the elusive laowei and forced her very young kindergarten aged daughter to look at the never before seen mythical creature. Her eyes widened in shock and awe as she spotted the lone laowei while her mother quite forcibly pushed her little head in the laowei's direction.

Two other instances have recently occurred that require documentation. The first happened while the laowei was trying to cross the street without being killed. As soon as he made it across in one piece he found a father pointing straight at him not 5 feet away while his young daughter stared at him in fascination and fear. She will not soon forget the mythical laowei.

The last instance occurred while the laowei was shopping. One of his co-worker's friends saw him. She excitedly told the laowei's co-worker, "Look there's an elusive laowei over there!" The laowei's co-worker replied "Maybe it's one of the mythical laowei's at our school!" She quickly maneuvered to get a better vantage point. "Yes, that's a laowei at our school! His name is Kevin!", she reported excitedly. However, she was much to shy to approach him outside of school, even though they have spoken on numerous occasions before. She did however have the courage to report the incident to the laowei a few days later.

My job and students

I guess I'll tell you a little bit about where I work and the students I teach. The school I teach at is a very low level college. We have about 12,000 students and 700 teachers. If I were visiting different schools looking for a job, this school would be the last on my list based on appearances. It is currently a giant construction site, but when it is finally finished it should be a pretty nice school. There is one building on campus which is incomplete and construction has stopped. Nobody can tell me if the building will ever be finished. It has something to do with the last president of the school, according to rumor, he is now in prison.

The program I teach in has the lowest of the low as far as students. These are the students who completely failed the national exam, but their parents have enough money to buy them into our program. So, students are either in this program because they failed the big exam, or they are in it because their parents are forcing them into it. This doesn't make for a very good teaching environment. I'd estimate that one-fifth of my students are pre-intermediate level and are interested in learning. Another one-fifth are pre-intermediate level and are only somewhat interested in learning. One-fifth are beginner level and are only somewhat interested in learning, and the rest are completely uninterested in learning. Despite this fact I am still able to have fun when I am teaching them and enjoy my job. My philosophy is that if the students want to learn they will, if they don't want to learn they won't, but either way, I'm going to enjoy my life.

The class sizes are between 40 to 60 students. The maximum number of students recommended for the type of teaching I do is 25. Teaching 25 students ESL is challenging, teaching 60 is stupid. They aren't motivated enough to do pair work or group work, and only speak English when I talk to them. In one of my classrooms they decided to ban the teachers from using the chalkboard and computer/projector due to chalk dust damaging the computer. Oh yeah, two of my classes have no books. So, let's go over this for a second. Two classes back to back, 1.5 hours each, no books, no computer/projector, no chalkboard, all the students failed the national exam and 50 students on average for each class. All I can do is laugh.

Reflection

Reflection at Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen.

My internet connection is back

There are sweeping changes taking place at my school. We have a new president, new buildings, lots of construction, and they just changed some settings on the network. In order to connect to the internet I have to install and run a program called H3C Client. It authenticates to the network using 802.1x protocol. It's a windows only program, and it sucks. They used to have a generic login password for every computer, now they have a unique login and password for every computer.

Besides the fact I have to use windows on my brand new MacBook Pro, the internet is incredibly slow, and they are blocking almost all the ports. I cannot download torrents or anything else. It's like I'm living at my university again, except it's in a developing country.

My rhythm of updating my blog has been broken, but I will try to get back into the habit.

Spitting

Spitting is pretty common here and to tell you the truth it is REALLY starting to get on my nerves. I live next to an older couple who are probably in their 60s. One day I walk outside my door and see the old lady leaning slightly over the balcony on our sixth floor. She seems to be looking into the distance when all of a sudden she starts hocking up the biggest, nastiest lugie you ever did hear. Then she lets it fly, sailing over the balcony onto the ground below, while trying to see how far it went. Every morning as I'm getting ready for the day I can hear her come outside to hock up another one. It even happens in fancy restaurants. One of my ex-friends used to take me to her business meetings. One day we went to a super fancy restaurant with a private room and our own personal waitress. All of a sudden one of the super rich businessmen hocks up some phlegm, and without even hesitating, deposits his phlegm right onto the floor of the restaurant...

Think about that the next time you're eating pigs tongue and raw fish at a super fancy restaurant.

Bon Appetit!

An advertisement in Xiamen

Potato CHIPS

Tomato ketchup flavor potato chips, so tasty!

Starting a new business

This man is starting a business in Xiamen. He is burning fake paper money outside his new store for good luck.




Good luck on your new business!