Kobe Bryant makes an appearance

It's been a fairly plain week (well, "plain" being relative to China), so I have no news to really share...which means I get to write about more reasons why I love living here.


First, I had some Freshman students show up to class for the first time last week. It's week six. I don't suppose I'll be seeing them much, which is too bad...they chose some ridiculous/great names:

-Kobe Bryant

-Tracy McGrady

-Tarantino

-Answer

I've decided that you'd also enjoy reading about more bizarre food flavors. This week's odd flavoring goes to: milk. Milk flavors you can find in China: "pure", grape (I think it's grape), walnut, hawthorn berry, and date (or that's what I've been told). Yogurt flavors: date, hawthorn berry, plain, and more to be discovered.

Yesterday I saw this written on a coat: "Basketball Mat1onal Team". What strikes me is the complete failure to grasp the fundamental difference between letters and numbers. I can understand mixing letters like "M" and "N", but putting a "1" instead of and "i"? Really? Fail. 


Earlier today I was buying some pens in a little shop. I always wander over the the notebook section of any such shop because the covers of these notebooks are always a goldmine of Chinglish. One notebook had a picture of blue sky containing various puffy clouds, two or three of which were in the shape of happy cartoon whales blowing heart-shaped clouds out of their spouts. Below, the words "Despite your curled sleep, have great dreams." were written. 


Another notebook cover was made to look like a newspaper collage. Four powerful, provocative, inspiring words were written on the front: "Tut's Pills", "Poetry", "Atom Bomb", and "Stocks". Their ultimate relation to one another eludes me, but I'm sure that if I just think a little harder I can realize the powerful message that these four choice words convey. 


The best, by far, were the next two notebooks. They were so amazingly awful in their English I had to buy them so that I could recreate them here. And aside from their lingual flaws, they succinctly represent a slew of Chinese mindsets--typically one of the following: be happy everyday; work hard everyday; work hard and be happy everyday to find success; make friends with foreigners; practice English with foreign friends, and; be successful and happy everyday. 


Here, in their entirety (with preserved spelling, punctuation, and grammar), are the messages these notebooks shared:
"Extensive speaking practor Is Important. Only speaking English, by Do Proction to in speaking English A good command of English in speaking you can studies by.. can you dnow to speak it.speaking to the foreigners. Have a SPEAKING ENGLISH is you want to with a foreigner.speak ENGLISH well. make a practice of speaking to English whenever you have the chance. Everyone can leam to spcak good English through simple repetltion. The more you practice, the better you can speak English SPESKING Lishon"


Notebook two:
"we want to live a happy-go lucky life. Every day should be nice as today! on Promise is yourself to book that a cant see no speaking practor is Important. in speaking English everyoneday to you practise, Everyone can't to spcak good can you dnow to speak it.speaking to the foreigners. English through simple repetltion.leam nothing can disturb your peace of mind.Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.Think only of the the ENGLISH everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the to better work only for the best,and expect on speaking disturb make a practice of everyone yourself that you have no time to criticize others. with a foreigner.speak everything on your side so The more best that is in you!"


Wow. These two are beyond fail. Certain things, like the terrible spelling of words like "repetltion", "dnow", "leam", and "spcak" can almost certainly be chalked up to misreading bad handwriting. I imagine that the one person in charge of writing these, ah, paragraphs was reading the English off a hand-written note he got from, say, a discarded napkin on the bottom of a bus in Tianjin. Think about it. "Spcak" easily is derived from a poorly/sloppily written "speak". I know my "Es" sometimes look like a "C". And of course, the "rn" in "learn" can easily become an "m" in "leam", so we see how this happens. But as for the sentence structure, I have no idea. None. I suppose the fact that these two notebooks had the "paragraphs" crammed into the shape of a heart on one and a spade on the other (as in hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades) explains the jumbled nature. But still. 


And one final piece: a video, from my Friday morning class. Their major is Home Service. I guess that's supposed to mean they'll be nannies, maids, or housekeepers, but in reality it means nothing. They'll be no more prepared for "home service" than I was when I was seven and I had been taught to vacuum the TV room.  That's definitely not a knock on their skills, not at all. It's a complete knock on the school. This is not an academically good school. I know it. The students know it. We all know it. These students learn nothing--at least in this major. When I say nothing, I mean real-world skills. Skills that will actually help them succeed when they leave this place. Skills that will not leave them disillusioned, frustrated, and depressed when the "to be happy everyday, work hard and succeed" method fails. Because it probably will in their context. 


This is an incredible source of sadness and frustration for me. I am sad and frustrated for these students. I don't want to be fatalistic, but these dear students are, most likely, headed toward a very difficult, agonizing post-college adjustment--and they know it. Many of my students have lamented to me about their perceived lack of skills and the fear they have for their imminent plunge into Chinese society. I hear the sense of loss and worry they carry. What a burden, especially since many of them also have the responsibility of caring for family members who either sacrificed a lot so my student could attend college, or are unable to care for themselves financially. And what can I do? They are at the hands of a poor undergraduate educational philosophy--if you can even call it that. A philosophy is usually something you've intentionally thought out. I can't be so sure the administrators at this school have ever done that. 


More on that later.


None of the students even like this "Home Service" major either. And why is this even a major? How can something like this actually be a major? And it takes three years! And when they graduate, most of them are not going to be in the "home service" field by choice, if at all. Most likely, they did not choose this major. Most of them were placed there. 


Again, more on that later. 


Before I veer too far off course and land both of us in a cavern of depression, justified anger, and empathetic woes, here's the video:

They make me laugh, and I need it sometimes. This video was (secretly) taken during the ten-minute break that is nestled between the two 50-minute sections of class. I love watching students interact with each other--they are such a funny group, Chinese college students. My candid filming was an attempt to capture them in their true form...which didn't change too much once they were discovered. The students with the pencils were practicing the "rubber pencil" trick I had shown them earlier. When I first showed them, most were taken in by it. They bought it. I though for sure they would have known this trick--but no. I had a good laugh when one of the students tried, to sluggish success, to figure out how I made the hard pencil "become" so rubbery. Within a minute I had almost all of them practicing the trick themselves. 


OK, so here's another video because I can't help it--you need this. Again, I surprised my students by not mentioning to them that I had planned to record them. Their reaction is priceless:

Moments like those bring me joy. Sure, I want to yell and scream sometimes because, well, because sometimes there are things to be upset about. But there's still time to be happy. (I feel like that should be on a shirt somewhere here in China.) It's the little things that keep you going sometimes.