Go fish

I took this last week before May Break to teach my Big Class students (5- and 6-year olds) the game Go Fish--a simple game of course, but a little tougher when you play it in your second language. I didn't know how the whole thing would go but I really wanted to give it my best shot, so I made a game plan.

I broke the whole thing down into simple concepts (such as making pairs and not having any more cards, etc.) and played smaller games all week building up to the final day (today) when we put it all together. Since it is English class, I taught them the question "Do you have a ____?" and how to respond, either yes (and then you give the card to who asked) or you say "Go fish!," which they said with all the gusto they could muster (really, it was quite a site to see). The week went great. They spoke a lot of English, learned some stuff, including a new game, and we all had fun.

I had other things planned to go along with the game but ended up throwing all that out and just playing the games building up to Go Fish every day, all week. I couldn't have been happier with this morning, which was our first go at the real thing. It was so, so awesome to see the kiddos saying "Do you have a 5?" to their friend, who would either wince and give up their 5, or they'd shout "Go fish!" They were so excited to make a pair and hated to give up their card to a rival student, and then whenever there was a disagreement they'd argue in Chinese. They would call me over ("Mr. Jon!") spout off something in Chinese (I would sometimes understand a little) to which I would respond "Mei shi" or "Mei guanxi, which mean "It's nothing" and "No problem" respectively, and then get them playing again. Most Kindergarten problems, after all, are nothing or no problem.

They played with a few modified rules, such as they only asked their person to their left if they had the card they were looking for, but no biggie, I was way pleased. This one girl would say "so cool" everytime I would shuffle the cards for them and they loved to say "I am the winner!" I don't really know if they always were the winner, but I responded with "Give me five" and a congratulatory hand slap. Such is a good day in the Kindergarten.

Walls

China builds it's walls for a lot of reasons. Privacy, protection, and keeping people in the right places (be it physically or socially) are a few. Keeping out foreigners was a great reason for one Great Wall. Basically, for thousands of years, if a problem has arisen in China, the solution has been, simply: build a wall. To keep people in or out.

An American friend who's lived in China for a lot of years tells the story of a strange man lurking in an apartment building scaring some of the residents. A meeting of the residents was called to find a solution and immediately someone said, build a wall! There was no mention of replacing the non-functional lights in the hallway or the other numerous problems that actually were safety concerns, instead, simply and naturally, build a wall! The wall was never built because other questions soon arose... we'll need a gate. We'll need someone to guard the gate. We'll need to pay this person, and pay for the wall. Who will pay for this? But all this shows the natural Chinese reaction and feeling of safety behind walls.

Today, walls are still being built all over the country, despite the many modernizations it's undergone in the past 25 years or so and is still undergoing. And, currently, a wall is being built right in my own backyard. An adjacent building to the headquarters of my comany here in Beijing recently put some windows in a wall of their own that looks right into our property. Whether for reasons of air circulation, for the view, or for other reasons (...the adjacent building with the new windows happens to be owned by the Public Security Bureau), the windows were put in and caused a problem for our company seeking to keep some of it's own going-ons private. Our solution? Build a wall!




Here's the progress of the wall construction (a couple of days apart), specifically so those windows don't see into our windows. Seems pretty funny to me, but it's certainly the Chinese way of doing things. Whatever view the PSB wanted, it's now just of some old-fashioned brick and mortar.

Easter Great Wall adventure

It all started last Saturday night at around 7 p.m. when myself, Dave and Ryan, and four girls, Janice, Karyn Marie, Shannon and Jess, climbed into a van we'd rented (for about $75 total... China = cheap) and headed north to the Great Wall. The ride took around 2 hours and we took the time to practice asking and answering ridiculous questions in Chinese, one of my favorites being "Ni xihuan jiqiren ma?" which means, "do you like robots?" I like the Chinese word for robot because it means "machine person" with the same word for person, ren, as American person (Meiguoren) or Chinese person (Zhongguoren). For some reason I think that's funny... I asked a Chinese person one time, "so it's like Chinese person, American person, machine person?" And they said no but couldn't convince me of any good reason why it's not just like that. I guess they're taking robots to their natural conclusion.

Anyway, back to the story: the van arrived at a hotel adjacent to the wall where we settled in for a few short hours of sleep. The place was better than I expected for $10 a bed, but as we guys headed downstairs to see where the girls were staying, we ran into a huge, sacry rat, literally, hopping up stairs. We decided not to tell the girls about said rat, and we realized this was definitely a good idea when a few minutes later they freaked out about a bug. We settled into bed at around midnight with our alarms set for 3:30 a.m. to beat the sunrise. This is an awful short amount of time to sleep ever, but especially when you have the oppurtunity to sleep in a comfortable bed (the most comfortable I've been in in China), all 3 and a half hours of it. Ugh.

We headed out into the darkness and towards the wall, realizing we were a little unprepared for the climb ahead with only our cell phone flashlights and iPod screens. Ooops. We walked about 15 minutes down the road to the spot where we were supposed to be able to get on the wall, though the near side looked impossible. It was a little too dark to see anything very well, but we could see the one thing that stood in the way of us and climbing the wall on the other side: a small reservoir and dam which was quickly dubbed "The Scary Dam" by me and Dave. And it was scary. In truth, the top was maybe 5 feet and the fall maybe 100-200, but trust, me, at 4 a.m. with my cell phone lighting the way, I was freaked.

Here is Scary Dam in more light:


We made it across Scary Dam and closer to the wall, only to find the path we were looking for was not so clear as we'd hoped. It led up the hill to a point in the wall we came to refer to as Scary Window, a small window in a tower about 6 feet off the ground. Ryan climbed in, again with only a cell phone as flashlight and came back to tell us that he couldn't find a way out the other side and onto the wall, as we'd hoped. We decided to head back down and back across Scary Dam to try the wall on the other side, as we really didn't know how to get up it here, and it was nearing 5 a.m., the time we thought the sun would rise. The choice between Scary Window and Scary Dam was a tough one.

We hurried back to the street, at which point Ryan, Karyn Marie and Jess decided they wanted to give the wall one more try. I, meanwhile, led the camp that was more than content to stay away from Scary Dam again, forever. We climbed the hill on the other side of the road to the point where at least we were looking at the wall. (It turned out to be a great view!) We stayed there as the clouds covering the sky lightened (there never really was a sunrise) and we watched our little speck-looking friends from across the valley successfully find a way onto the wall (through that same tower and Scary Window), climb up to the top and then, somehow, back down again. I was happy to be eating donuts at my spot on the hill. At one point it did turn scary on our end, though, as Shannon found some loose rocks and went into a split as she slid a few feet... ouch.

It ended up being a nice morning. We discovered some interesting things later, including this Chinglish sign telling us that the wall we crossed the dam to climb was indeed "closeo."



We also met this Chinese guy with a 7-month old St. Bernard pup named Rex. Rex and his owner were a riot (owner not pictured).



At about 7 we loaded back into the van and returned south to be home in time for church. On the way home we told our driver about some of our adventures, and we told the girls about the rat from the night before. I tried to tell the driver what we'd seen but didn't know the Chinese word for rat. Instead, I said "big, scary mouse." The driver was adament in telling me, however, that it was not a mouse I'd seen. Because, and I quote, "mice are very cute." Hun ka ai was the word he used, the same I'd use to describe a little kid or a puppy. He was right though, the hopping rat was not very cute. And it wasn't a mouse either.

And that's the end. A great time was had by all. And despite the lack of sleep, it was a great Easter morning. Last couple pictures: Here's the wall at first light, and here I am back on Scary Dam, reliving and facing my fears.

Sun, sand & lemonade

My kiddos found a great way to make those proverbial lemons (lots of sand everywhere) into lemonade (finding a stick and drawing some pictures) here on the school's playground... this is not a sandbox, by the way. They were kept inside for a few days--as if Chinese people aren't freaked out by kids being outside anyway--thanks to the dust storm / sanding craziness... I'm still not really sure what to call it.

The weather since then, though, has been great, thanks to the government finding their own way to clean up Beijing (as seen in link) by shooting chemical rockets into the sky--I'm not joking--making some blue, cloudless skies (and just a little rain) the past couple days. Like I used to joke about Geneva controlling the weather, China really does. I'm not complaining though, at all. I got some sun out of the deal and despite the fact that the sand isn't going anywhere, sand and sun is always a good combo.

Now all I need is some of that proverbial lemonade.

300,000

Disregard my post from yesterday. A couple emails I recieved this morning (citing news sources) said it's more like 300,000 tons of sand. Yikes. It's a blue sky day here regardless, clear with a few clouds, and hopefully not too much of that 300,000 tons ended up in my lungs.

Update on the dusting

Or sanding, or whatever. Estimates are coming out that about 20,000 tons of sand were dumped on Beijing Sunday night. Keep in mind this isn't like snow, it won't melt and go away. That's 20,000 more tons of sand, dirt and dust here to stay. Sure you can brush it off your car, but really, it's not going anywhere. Thankfully, no more has fallen... yet. Or, as one of my colleagues said yesterday, "Beijing is very dirty."

Dusting

We had an interesting weather phenomenon here in Beijing today. I woke up this morning to yellow skies and brown. Lots of brown. Last night, Beijing got a dusting--not of snow--of dust. There have been sandstorms recently in the Gobi Desert and as a result, the sand kicked up made its way southeast to Beijing and last night fell on the city. Here's an example of what everything (and I mean everything) looked like:



This car is black. Imagine waking up in the morning to brush dirt/sand/dust (whatever you want to call it) off your car, or making dirtprints walking down your driveway or out of your apartment complex. Pretty wild stuff, and apparently spring in Beijing is famous for it. This might mean I'll have to learn the Chinese characters for "wash me."

I spent Easter Sunday morning on the Great Wall, by the way, saw the sunrise and have stories and pictures to come... Hope you all had a blessed day. He is risen indeed!

Beijing bicycle / "Climb the mountain"

April in Beijing has been great. We've had some cold and some wind the past couple days, but, especially last weekend, the weather has just been awesome. Chinese people love to be outside and are whenever possible (...there are way too many of them to all be inside, anyway) and when they're outside, two of their favorite things to do are, as they say, "riding the bicycle" and "climbing the mountain." I guess riding a bike though, for most, is more of a necessity thing, but for me, Dave and Ryan last weekend it was a fun time. We borrowed some bikes and headed out towards Bei Hai Park, just north of the Forbidden City, to explore some nearby hu tongs, the neighborhoods that make up Old Beijing. It's awesome to see a big city by bike, to weave in and out of traffic, and when you're in Beijing, to experience what millions of Beijingren do everyday. The hu tongs were awesome (the last time we saw them we'd paid some ridiculous amount of kuai for a rickshaw tour... I definitely recommend by bike) and the weather between 5 and 8 p.m. last Friday (while we were riding) was, no joke, the best I've seen in China, ever.








The following day I was invited to, as the Chinese say, "climb the mountain." I love the expression: pa shan in Chinese. The invitation goes like this, "Are you free Saturday? Do you want to climb the mountain?" I mean, how can you turn that down? Really. Sure it's because Chinese English speakers love that particular definite article, but how can you pass up climbing THE mountain? That's a challenge to my manhood if I've ever heard one. The invitation came from my English boss lady in the Kindergarten, Jennifer, and I headed up to Chang Ping, the town where she lives with her husband, to climb the mountain with them, two of her friends, and my fellow Kindergarten teacher, Michelle. We had a good time, succesfully reached the summit and enjoyed the view from the top of the mountain overlooking the Ming Tomb Reservoir. The climb consisted of walking up a pretty steep road and about 1200 steps. A good day's work in my opinion. The reservoir area was pretty cool, and I heard a spot where they'll do some cycling and running in 2008. And, it sure was fun teaching my Chinese friends to say "reservoir." Enjoy the pictures!

Black & goldfish

I finally broke down and bought a pet in China. Actually two of them. My roommate’s just happy it wasn’t a dog, instead, two ordinary Chinese goldfish: one orange, one black. Over lunch break today, I was out buying bing down real China street when I came upon a man selling fish from a cart. I asked him what they ate and he showed me his stash of fish food, so I said, “give me two.” Now Jin Jin and Yu Yu are living in a bowl (also purchased from fish-cart man) in my room. Brilliant.

Being Chinese fish, I wanted to give the fishes good Chinese names, and settled on Jin Jin and Yu Yu for a couple reasons. It’s popular in China to give your kids double names, like Huan Huan or Ling Ling, sort of like a cute name for a kid or whatever. Americans do the same thing with pandas. And on top of that, “jin” (prounced “gene”) means gold, and “yu” (prounced “you”) means fish. Gold Gold and Fish Fish, basically, in cute sort-of little kid way. Couldn’t get more China than that. Jin Jin’s the gold one and Yu Yu’s black.



While we’re talking about black and gold (fish), I watched the Steelers World Champion DVD the other night and loved it (thanks, mom and dad). It’s been well-documented that I hadn’t seen any games prior to the Super Bowl, so I was on the edge of my seat the whole while, up and down with the crazy ride that was this year’s Steelers . It’s done by NFL Films so, of course, it was just awesome. They’ve got these things down to a science, and did a great job with the Bettis / Cowher story lines especially. A must-see.

Are you cold?

Chinese people have this thing about always wearing enough clothes. And they're really verbal about it, because they care of course. I have this thing about wearing short sleeves. I really like it. What follows is a funny exchance between me and a 5th or 6th grader in the hallway earlier today.

"Are you cold?" the girl says. She asks me this because I'm wearing short sleeves, and it's far too early in the year to be in short sleeves, no matter the weather. She's not really asking me if I'm cold, she's indirectly telling me I'm not wearing enough clothes. "No, I'm ok," I say. "Maybe a little," I confess, not wanting to be too direct/American. "I no like you have a cold," she says in a motherly sort-of very honestly concerned voice. Thank you, that's very nice, I reply and walk away. Short sleeves always makes you sick, you see, as does drinking too much cold water, by the way. (Chinese people drink their water hot.)

Later, I just so happen to pass this girl again in the hall. I'm wearing a light coat and this time I stop her. "Hi, I'm wearing a coat," I tell her, stating the obvious. She takes a hold of my arm, looks me straight in the eye and says, "It's because you are cold."

I guess she was right in the end.

Field trip fun

I'd been needing a field trip. Today could not have come at a better time...

We went to a nearby park, "Beijing International Sculpture Park" or something like that. The kids took along drawing pads to draw what they saw: birds, buildings, trees... and, curiously, though today was smoggy, nearly every one of their pictures had a big similing sun (guess you see what you want when you're five). They told me some Chinese word that meant "draw what you see," but I don't remember it. I chilled and caused trouble as always.


Above is my "pre-school" class, meaning next year they'll go on to first grade. There are three years of Kindergarten in China, so not all of my students will. These two boys below are named Tom and Scott (good names, huh. They were real enthusiastic about this picture, as they often are about English class.


This next guy is named Hanson. Not sure where he got the name, but he's way cool. Following Hanson is Elephant (his Chinese name as well, so that explains that), then Sunny (even cuter in person) and Kevin (a corker indeed).





Here they are hard at work...





And finally, showing off the finished product. This last guy is one of my new students this semester, Jake, or as he says, Jaker. He's got a great personality, already one of my favorites.

More pictures

And I guess that's it. Ollie pitched well in the opener, I see. He's gonna be huge this year... I really think so. The bad news: Casey grounded into two double plays and the Brewers walked Bay three times. As they say here in the Chiner: bu hao.

Nightmare averted

Congratulations to Pirates OF Nate McLouth and wunderkind reliever Matt Capps for making the Pirates 25-man roster. They'll head north to Milwaukee for Monday's game and I'll sleep better knowing Nate will see some time in center and lots of time off the bench, accoring to Post-Gazette reporter Dejan Kovacevik (see link).

On an unrelated note, despite Internet reports to the contrary, the bookstore at Xidan is way, WAY better than the foreign language bookstore at Wanfujing. Right off the subway at Xidan, find the Beijing Books Building, then head to the basement floor for a wonderland of English books from Harry Potter to Amy Tan to a veritable Barnes & Noble "Summer Reading" table of great books, from the classics to current best-sellers. They even had Dave Barry. I was real impressed upon my visit this afternoon. Speaking of new releases, has anyone read the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel? I almost picked it up but decided to wait. Needless to say, I was happy to find a new place to fill some time and spend some kuai.

On the missing home front, it'll be tough to miss Opening Day around the baseball world this weekend. Watch lots of games for me, cheer hard and go Bucs! Oh, and if anybody's got a copy of last year's Cabinet April Fool's edition, check it out and have a laugh for me. I thought of Stewie's giant mug today and smiled.