We live in a cold place

So I appreciate the few of you that guessed about the Jacket. To clarify, I was asking for you to guess the look of the jacket as well as the two words printed on the sleeve but the confusion was my fault. Nonetheless, no one guessed either the jacket or the words, although there were a few good guesses. Amy’s guess can be seen here. What the jacket really looks like, it in action and another photo just in case you cannot read the letters in the first pictures. Here

I am lucky that we got the jacket when we did because it has turned cold. The weather forecast even included the word “Frigid”. Jason listed off the temperatures in one of his recent posts but to summarize: highs of 10F and lows of -4F with gusts of wind and very light snow showers. The coolest thing about this, pun intended, is that the university has recognized that it is winter and that the temperature will not go above freezing for the next few months. This means only one thing, or at least only one enjoyable one, ICE SKATING!

The grounds workers started to flood the field near our house at the beginning of this week. It is cold enough that they do not even need to erect barriers around the edges to keep water from running of because it freezes too quickly after leaving the hose. So to recap; they are making an ice rink… on a field… with a hose. What could be better than that?

The cold of course has downsides also. The main one being that it is sometimes painful to be outside. Slight breezes are brutal and exposed skin is dangerous. For weeks my teachers have been telling me very politely that I need to wear more clothes and until now I did not listen. Also, this is just the beginning. This week is the first full week of subzero temperatures we have another five or six to go and I am sure that the ones in the middle will be worse. I have decided that two things will keep me warm. The first is several layers and the second is cheap booze. So cheers to winter!

The other day I went for a walk in the forest park to take pictures at sunset it was dreadfully cold and I left at four and missed the sunset but caught dusk. I went again a few days later and took some photos. You can see them here. Also the first photo was taken last week out of our window.

I started private Chinese lessons on Tuesday and they are great. My teacher is a Vietnamese man that has been in China for a number of years. He is at this university studying Wood and Materials Science. He is here with his wife and one year old child. He has been speaking Chinese for several years and, according to Jason, he speaks very well. He lives on the third floor of our building and we will meet in his home to do Chinese lessons every Tuesday and Wednesday. On Fridays I will be helping him with his English.

My first day was mainly just pronunciation and tonal lessons, so not all that exciting, although since it is private he has started at the beginning which I believe is what I need. (I am a bit a frustrated with my Chinese courses at the university, but that is another matter entirely) When we study sometimes Wo Meng Xiang’s wife sits in with us and repeats as I repeat. She is also learning Chinese and has been for about a month now.

One of the exciting perks of the lessons is being around their child. He is just over a year old and is very shy. He is walking, and quite well, but he does not speak yet and is extremely quiet. I would say that vocally he is the exact opposite of Jack Carrica. Over all he is pretty cute and adds to the excitement of Chinese lessons, which after six hours of lessons a little walking distraction is just what I need.

One last note. Tonight we went to a traveling Chinese Opera on campus. The show was full of acrobatics, talented singers, and stunning costumes. It was quite a site to see and different from anything that I have ever seen before. Also, when we first arrived there something that has grown very normal happened. This prompted me to add to my list of things about China.

9) Since arriving I have noticed that many people stare at me. It is obviously not rude to do so in China, or maybe seeing a foreigner is just an exception. It is ridiculously bad. I preface tonight’s event only by saying that it has been a frequent occurrence. So here is how went down. Jason and I are shown to our seats by an usher and we are in a relatively empty row. I think that it was reserved for foreign students, but since the opera was in Chinese not many came. We were waiting for the show to start and I decided to look around the hall since I had not been in it before. I looked in front of me and to my left and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then I looked to my right and caught something out of the corner of my eye.

I turned around and what did I see,
two Chinese girls taking pictures of Jason and me.

There they were with their camera phones, at the same time, in the exact same way. When they noticed that I saw them, in the screens of their phones, they giggled, grinned, and attempted to hide though this was difficult because they were only a couple feet away. It was hilarious. I have decided that from now on whenever they stare I am going to stare back and whenever they take pictures I am going to take pictures. I will update you all on how it plays out.

Learning about what learning is like in China

Although you certainly already know, I must mention…Obama won! The reasons why I am thoroughly ecstatic about this can be categorized into two groups. The first consists of all of the reasons why I decided to vote for him in the first place. The second is based entirely on the fact that all of sudden people of all nationalities look at Americans, such as Jason and me, in a much more positive light. All I have to say about the latter is that if there ever was a way to begin repairing the reputation of the United States it was electing Barack Obama as president.

In other news, I have been in class for a bit over a week now and I can evaluate each of the classes fairly well. Also I must make a correction I have three classed not two. They are: Grammar, Speaking, and Listening. I have listed them in descending order according to quality, which decreases drastically.

Grammar- This class is taught by a teacher that is pays attention to all of the students in the class, includes me in the speaking, answering, and repeating drills, and on the whole is a pretty good teacher. She repeats herself to ensure understanding, writes new vocabulary on the board, and even gives us time to write it down.

The only drawback to this teacher is that she speaks in an octave that is several higher than my own. This is only a problem because occasionally I get lost in trying to correctly pronounce words and their tones and when I repeat the word after her I imitate, or attempt to imitate, her octave. The rest of the students think it is hilarious. I have decided to not take it too seriously and look at it as such: at least I can make people laugh without speaking the language, or rather BECAUSE I do not speak the language.

Speaking- This class is taught by a teacher that also pays attention to all of the students to in the class, with the exception of me. She has taken it upon herself to decide that I am a problem because I am not at a level even close to the other students and therefore should be ignored. If I do say so myself, and I do, she has done very well in carrying out her decision. She did slip up on Friday when she took 30 seconds to tell me to start at the beginning of the book over the weekend. This is of course something that I may have thought of on my own. I should say that, contradictory to her overall treatment of my situation, she is quite nice and the other students think that her teaching is alright. Alright is defined in comparison to the other teachers, grammar being very good and I will get to listening next.

Listening: This class is horrible and not just because of the teacher but also because of the format of the class, which may or may not be designed by the teacher. First, I will describe the teacher. She is very loud and gets louder every time she has to repeat herself, which is often because does not ever repeat herself exactly. Instead she rephrases herself and this tactic could be helpful if the problem was that we, as the students, did not know the words that used the first time. In my case this is true, but it is not the reason why the other students did not understand. The reason why the other students cannot understand what she says is because: (I paraphrase this) the teacher speaks extremely quickly and has a very thick accent as she is from southern china and does not speak putonghua (standard Chinese) as her native language. So it is easy to understand why her method of speaking louder, in different words, and just as fast, does not help.

I mentioned before the teacher is not the only reason for the failure of the class, because the format of the class is also terrible. This class is centered only on the student listing to and understanding mandarin language. To facilitate this, the teacher has a small boom box with a cassette player in it. At this point, I will mention that the word “boom” in boom box is misleading in this case as the max volume is slightly quieter than normal speech and significantly quieter the booming voice of the teacher. The extent of this problem is emphasized by the fact that the teacher sits in the front of the room with the “boom” box pointed towards her, and therefore away from the students, to allow easy access to the play and stop buttons. This is coupled with an already poor quality cassette to add all new layers to what is meant by when the student is asked to listen and understand.

I have decided that I will not stop going to my listening class for at least a week. I have good quality recordings at home, which I will listen to on my headphones, as a substitute. When I told the other students what I was going to do and why they said they also did not understand much of anything that was on the recordings but went to class anyway. I am not sure why they still go. It could have something to do with attendance. They tried to convince me to stay, but they did not present any consequences that I did not already account for. The main one being that I would no longer have the teacher as a resource, but I do not really see this as a consequence.

Other exciting things include the possibility of a Saturday hockey league with this, extremely proud to be, Canadian fellow and maybe a few other Canadian but mostly a lot of Chinese. When we found out about hockey and told Dereck, the Canadian, we would like to play his response was something along the lines of, “That’s great eh! You know how to play, eh?” We told him that we could skate and had played street hockey, field hockey, and broomball. His response was, “That’s great eh! Most of these Chinese don’t know one end of the stick from the other eh!”

This Saturday hockey was cancelled, but hopefully next Saturday it will happen. You may have guessed that I paraphrased the above dialogue, but I did so for good reason. What his actual speech lacked in “eh’s” his actual persona (complete with Canadian, rubber, wristband) made up for.

The last bit of news has to do with the weather. Jason and I have been watching the local weather here intently and we decided two things. First, the fact that the local weathermen are awful and constantly project that eight days from any day the temperature will drop ten degrees from what it is currently. Is and continues to be the trend of the ten day forecast. Second, regardless of the incompetence of the weathermen we know:

1. It is very cold.
2. It is very, very cold at night.

And finally

3. It is only going to get colder.

The outcome of this was the decision to go coat shopping for me. I now have a coat and I will post a picture of it in a few days but for know I would like you to guess what it looks like. I will give you a few hints:

1) It cost around $50. (yes that is in dollars)

2) It has fur on it, though it is not real fur. What do you expect for $50?

3) It has two words on a rubber tag on the left sleeve. The first word starts with an ‘F’ and is seven letters long and the second word starts with an ‘L’ and is six letters long.

I will accept both written and illustrated submissions.

Class is in session!

Today I went to my first day of classes. There are two very important things to note about this. First, the teacher does not speak English and neither do the students. Second, the class has been in session for 8 weeks already. So, to say the least, I am behind.

I have class for four hours Monday through Friday. This consists of two classes. At eight I have “speaking” and at ten I have “listening”. The speaking class was alright because I could pronounce the pinion and keep up with the rest of the class, although I was not able to read very many of the characters. The only difference between the other students and me was that I had no idea what I was saying.

The listening class is taught by a different teacher who is much less jovial than the speaking teacher. The class followed the same attitude of the teacher. The entire two hours was spent listening to short sections of a cassette over and over and answering questions about what we heard. As the Korean girl next to me described it, “this class … annoying”. I agree.

I was told that there were six people enrolled in the class and there is a rumor of students not going to class here. I was surprised to see there were actually six students in the room when I arrived this morning. (I was late because when I registered, I was either not given a schedule or somehow Jason and I misplaced it. So we had to search for the room.) The class make up is as follows:
1 old woman that I have no idea what nationality
1 Russian guy who is in his mid twenties and works somewhere around here
1 Sudanese man who is here for his Ph. D in civil engineering
3 Korean girls, all in their early twenties

Also, I mentioned that I would get a picture of the dog but Jason already has several. They are here and here.