quick pics

tomorrow begins our 7 day intensive meditation retreat, but before then I just wanted to make a quick post with some pictures for ya! We will not be able to speak, make eye contact, use electronics, read, or listen to music during the meditation week, and falling asleep during meditation can elicit a smack from the "compassion stick" !









the first picture is the main gate of Fo Guang Shan.


the second and third pictures are from "Big Buddha World", a large area of the monastery compound and final destination for our pilgrimage at the end of the week. we have to make a prostration every three steps from the meditation hall to this area.

the last picture is my bed and daily garb!

The Concept

The Concept

After six intense, jam-packed days of trainings, classes, meditation and chanting practice, on the seventh day we finally have a day of rest (haha). I thought I would take a moment to explain the concept behind our specific program, and, in some ways, behind Chinese monastic life in general.

First, there are rules for everything. There is a proper way to hold the meditation book, a proper way to wear a sidebag, a proper way to pull out chairs before sitting down, a proper way to fold a blanket, a proper way for arms to dangle by my side, etc.

Before we leave our place of residence (a hotel-like building for pilgrims and lay-practitioners) each day, we line-up from shortest to tallest, men facing women (and with about two yards separating us). When the venerable of discipline approves of our posture, he tells us to 合掌 (hezhang, put palms together in front of the sternum), and then to 问讯 (wenxun, to bow and then rise, lifting the hands, with the pointer fingers together, up to the eyebrows before coming back down to the sternum). The first couple days (and even yesterday), we apparently were not in unison, so we had to continue to wenxun until all 61 of us bowed and rose together. Then the two lines of men and women file out and we walk in silence to wherever we are going.

The 61 participants come from 17 different countries and over 45 colleges. Just about everyone has some academic background in Buddhism, and a few of us have a background in Chinese language. We are woken up every morning at 5:30am by the drumming of a woodenfish, and then we complete an hour of Tai Chi and seated meditation. We then have a short breakfast before 3 hours of class, taught by venerable monks and nuns who often spend more time answering questions than actually lecturing content.

On some days we help with community service around the monastery, cutting grass, sweeping, or moving boxes. On the first day, my group moved boxes from one side of a storage room to another. I was sure that we would be asked to move them back to their original places, but it hasn’t happened yet, hah.

We are encouraged not to talk, to always keep our eyes down at a 45 degree angle if not closed, and we are told to always be mindful of our body and, to a lesser extent, our surroundings. We are getting into a pattern of meditation, breakfast, class, lunch, walking meditation, seated meditation, community service and/or project work time, dinner, extracurricular classes, dharma talk (question and answer), meditation, and then evening chanting (vespers). Between these events, we may have 10 or so minutes to ourselves, but we are reminded that every moment should be an opportunity to focus on our bodies and our selves (which do not actually exist, hah). Needless to say, the 7 hours of sleep is often not enough for the 17 hours that are crammed with activities and “mindfulness”.

At first, I was a little vexed with all the rules, and got very tired of being scolded for pulling my chair out too far from the table. However, I have begun to understand the concept behind all this structure, all these rules:

We are not supposed to think. The venerable of discipline and the other staff members are trying to train us so that when we embark on our 7 day silent meditation retreat, we will not have to think about how to lay a pillow, or how to pull out a chair, or how to wait in line, or how to do anything. We need to reach the point where we are only thinking about being. Just being. Everything else should just be an action our body moves through.

We are trying to limit the amount of external stimuli that could possibly move our minds. By looking down and never engaging or paying close attention to our surroundings, we can focus on ourselves and our mind and just be. By falling into a pattern that will repeat every day, our bodies will know how to respond when it is time to go to eat or get up from bed.

We have learned a few details about the intensive meditation retreat that will commence next Monday, but for the most part it is shrouded in mystery. The meditation hall has been described as extremely plain and colorless, and so silent that the only thing that you can hear is the ringing of your own ears. This will probably be the only chance in my life to be completely silent (and taken care of) for seven days straight.

I feel a little nervous about the meditation retreat, as I still struggle to meditate for just half an hour during our daily sessions now. However, I have improved and am quite impressed that I can at least keep my lower back straight for 30 minutes now! I’m still working on controlling my mind and focusing on my breath, rather than merely thinking about my life and what I “know.”

One of my favorite aspects of life here at the monastery has been the dining ceremony; today, I was on the other side—I served the food, which was -quite- an experience. I hope to write an entry about that soon. In the meantime, I need to continue to focus as hard as I can, in every moment—I’ve realized that meditation is not something that only happens in a seated, lotus-posture. Meditation is something that monastics aim to engage in during their every move.

New Journey

Greetings all!

Unfortunately we are about to line up for standing meditation / march to dinner, so I cannot make this a long post. I just wanted to make a post more recent than November 2008, though!

This summer I am participating in the Humanistic Buddhist Monastery Life Program in Taiwan. We began the program two days ago, and life has been extremely... interesting... since then! Rules dominate everything-- putting the bag on the right side (as opposed to the left) of the body warrents a scolding, no slouching at any times EVER, and there is even an ettiquette for how to hold a book! But I'm learning a lot and will make another post soon. (However, we only have access to internet for 2 hours each day, but even that is not a given. I have no access to internet in my room or on my blackberry (ahh!), so I apologize if I'm slow to return emails or make posts!)

In late July I will move to Beijing, where I will begin a one-year (two if I like it and they like me!) fellowship at the Natural Resources Defense Council Beijing Office. I will be helping them on various projects, most notably their environmental law booklet, green buildings and sustainability program, as well as contributing to the organization's blog (www.greenlaw.org.cn).



Alright I must put on my rain-hat (think crouching tiger hidden dragon) and go back to the dormitory. Hope all is well and I intend to post again as soon as I have free time.

passing thoughts

Well, unfortunately I've been without reflective thoughts over the past 11 or so weeks since reaching Ha'erbin. Applying to jobs and writing personal statements has forced me to do so, however!

Below are three pieces I wrote recently about my experiences over the summer, recently in Ha'erbin, and during my stay in Malaysia.


I promise to make an actual update on my life sometime... but for the time being, everything is going well! Only 3 more weeks of classes before I go back to Beijing and meet my family members!

Love, and hope you enjoy:

1) article in UVA's Arts and Sciences Magazine Online: http://aands.virginia.edu/x14159.xml

2) I was standing against the wall in the dimly-lit basement of the student center at Harbin Institute of Technology, trying to position myself so that I could see the student performers “dance-off” at the other side of the room. I scratched my head in amazement—when I passed the registration table in the cafeteria the week before, I had no idea there would be meticulously choreographed ten minute performances, audience members toting signs of encouragement for their friends, or a panel of three grumpy-looking judges (strangely similar to So You Think You Can Dance). Maybe all those things were mentioned on the information sheet, but nine semesters of Chinese still wasn’t enough to read it all.
Before I had the opportunity to majorly diulian (“lose face”—basically, embarrass myself horribly), I had a tough time figuring out what those grumpy judges wanted to see. They had so much to choose from: a group of three girls wearing tank tops and army pants dancing to “Genie in a Bottle,” a couple who danced Merengue, an excellent rendition of the robot, three or four traditional Chinese and ethnic-minority dances, to name a few. And of course, the one and only foreigner, yours truly, who wiggled to silly indie-pop for less than a minute before scurrying off the stage.
I look back to that time of intense competition, the anticipation for the result of comparing apples and oranges, and I think it truly underscores my fascination with Chinese culture and society. History books always point to the Cultural Revolution as the time when China wanted to throw off its old culture and make progress for the new, but I see that tension still existing in China today, especially among youth. As a country with nearly three thousand years of written history, China now faces the pressures of modernization and catching up with the world. This pressure manifests itself in interesting ways—the Yi fan-dancer with her elaborate folk-garb clearing the stage for a sexy group of Christina fans made this clash of old and new more than obvious.
Living in China has provided me with a space to learn about the fascinating changes that have marked the past century, and particularly the last thirty years, of China’s development. For the past five months, I have been researching the impact of these changes on the rural family, working closely with marginalized, migration-affected children. Compiling these experiences and observations into a senior thesis will be challenging, but will also offer me an opportunity to achieve a deeper understanding of an important social unit in Chinese society: the family.
The more I learn, the more curious I become. Returning to China for post-graduate work at an NGO, a law firm, or a foreign affairs publication will allow me to use my skills to work closely with Chinese people to achieve common goals. I would be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes crave the comfort and security of speaking English in America, where I blend-in perfectly and, on a day-to-day basis, rarely face overt, tangible discrimination. But the insights I’ve gained from being a laowai (foreigner) in China have been valuable to my understanding of cross-cultural communication, American culture, and myself. I’m willing to risk comfort, willing to embarrass myself a thousand more times, for deeper insight into these topics; moving to the workplace in China is best way to accomplish that goal.



3)This August I had the opportunity to travel in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia before participating in the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations Academic Conference, which was hosted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was astonished by the diversity of these three Southeast Asian countries, and in particular Malaysia.
While I was walking around the city center in downtown Kuala Lumpur with my Conference roommate, an ethnic Chinese and Malaysian citizen, I was amazed by the different types of people I saw: break-dancing teenagers, Erhu playing Chinese men, Sari-wearing women. Kuala Lumpur is also a popular tourist location for many Arabs, coming from nations like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. This was the first time I saw a woman wearing a burqa, or even a niqab covering all but the eyes. Certainly, I had seen reports on television or in the newspaper that included photographs of this clothing, but what surprised me was the extravagance and seeming materialism of the men and children with the burqa-wearing women. The typical man accompanying a burqa-wearing woman was exceptionally well-dressed, sporting designer jeans and a fashionable name-brand shirt. The stark visual contrast between modesty and showiness in dress surprised me.
Coming from my background as an American with a shallow understanding of Muslim clothing and culture, I was challenged at first to understand this phenomenon. My initial, inward thought was, “Wow, those belabored critiques of Muslim culture as being unfair to women are right.” Prior to this experience, perhaps I was unaware that I even harbored these opinions; I knew I needed to explore the topic further.
I explained to my roommate that I would have expected more modesty from the male partner in a relationship that comes from a community in which modesty is “required” of women. My roommate pointed out that I did not see what these women were wearing under the burqa. In reality, he told me, they are most likely dressed in the same name brands and designer clothing, but these clothes are only for the husband to see. “Wearing a burqa doesn’t have anything to do with conservatism, it’s what they believe.”
After thinking more about this observation and conversing with other friends whom I met at the Conference and afterward, I began to understand that an assumption of “being forced” or even coercive passivity on the part of burqa-wearing woman is unfair. Furthermore, I realized that trying to glean meaning and insight solely from outward appearance is an incomplete and flawed approach to understanding culture.
This experience has made clear to me that open-mindedness and a willingness for self-reflection is critical to understanding how I react in new situations. This perspective has motivated me to be more sensitive to my limitations in understanding different cultures without asking others, sharing experiences, and starting dialogue.

pix website

Check out my flickr account--website is to the right!! I put up my pictures from Bangkok a couple days ago, and I'll be adding more pictures as soon as I get better internet

Today is the last day of the Harvard Project for Asia and International Relations (HPAIR) conference. Monday night I'm flying back to Beijing--and I'm so excited to go back "home"

I'll make a post about SINGAPORE soon. Hope everyone is well!

Stories from Bangkok

ahhh even in Singapore I can't add pictures :( So sorry guys. If you can, check out my facebook albums, for now, I'll have to look into creating a photo website for those of you who don't have FB. Hope it's an interesting entry anyway!


I spent last weekend in Bangkok, Thailand, and the greater part of the week at a beach in Krabi Province, Thailand. I’m now in Singapore and will be going back to Malaysia on Monday.

Bangkok was a fascinating experience for me, as it presented a completely different atmosphere, culture, and feel that was distinct from China in many ways. Of course, I shouldn’t have assumed the two nations would be similar, but I was still taken aback by all the differences I noticed. Thailand is the second (first being China) foreign nation/culture that I have been lucky enough to experience, and I’m just blown away by the diversity of life over here in Southeast Asia—Malaysia (for the one night that I experienced it) was also new and unique to me.

The population of Thailand is near 62 million, and the capital is located in central Thailand at Bangkok. Bangkok is a “tourist name” that is only used internationally. Thai people call the city Krung Thep, which is short for the unbelievably long full name: krung thep mahanakhon amon rattanakosin mahinthara yuthaya mahadilok phop noppharat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amon piman awatan sathit sakkathattiya witsanukam prasit.

Wow.

The language was perhaps one of the most interesting, and for me, most frustrating parts of my experience in Thailand. The script of Thai is beautiful, involving over 40 consonants and over 30 vowels, combined with 5 tones that are marked over consonants to create a pretty complicated language. I would say the majority of people I interacted with had a basic handling of English, but they often would slip back into Thai at random intervals, or their English was very heavily accented so I didn’t quite understand. I remember once when I was trying to bargain for a shirt, I could have sworn the saleswomen was speaking Chinese to me because she kept saying [what I heard as] “ni kan ni kan” (which in Chinese means, “you look you look”). After I heard that I excited replied in Chinese to her, because I just wanted to be able to use my—if I do say so myself—rather good Chinese bargaining skills, but then she just gave me a confused look. Either she was using Thai that sounded similar, or she was saying “can” as in “can you buy it for this price?” I tell ya, not being able to communicate, especially during bargaining/making purchases was very very frustrating, and I felt more like a foreigner than I ever have in China.

Another funny thing about the Thai language was the way Thai people answer their cell phones. They often say “Huhlllloooooooo”, with the first part (“heh”) dipping down and then the “low” part rising up from the bottom pitch. Strange to hear something so familiar but then not quite the same.

My classmate from UVA, Oh, picked me up from the airport and we went to Siam shopping center, which is apparently one of the largest or the largest shopping centers in East Asia. It was an enormous complex with multiple buildings and name brands I’d never heard of and food court after food court after food court. Just paying for parking was interesting, because the service person put her hands together at her chest (as if in Christian prayer, with the fingers straight) and then leaned her head downward, almost touching her nose to her fingers. This is called wai and is a way of showing respect in Thailand. Usually service people/sales people will do a wai and the customer can either wai in response or just nod the head. Also, whenever a younger person is introduced or says hello to someone older, he or she should definitely wai.

After Oh and I had chosen a restaurant in the Siam Shopping center, I encountered another difference that I wasn’t accustomed to. We ordered a curry and a salad, and I was surprised that we were each given a fork and a spoon—no chopsticks and no knife. I started using the spoon as a knife with my left hand, and then used the fork how I would in America. Oh laughed at me and told me I had it the opposite way around—the spoon should go in the right hand and the fork should be used to scoop food onto the spoon before eating it. I suppose it shows my ignorance, but I had no idea people ate with spoons and forks in such a way!

I arrived on Friday, and the following Tuesday was the Queen of Thailand’s birthday, so pictures of her (and the King, and other members of the Royal Family) were all around the city. Neat Fact that Oh told me: the King is said to always have a camera, pencil, and map with him whenever he goes out.

I had read about the seriousness of respecting the royal family in my guidebook, apparently stepping on a dollar bill (which has the king’s face) is a serious offense and punishable. Oh told me that people do take it seriously, but that he has rarely heard of these types of occurrences.

On Friday night, we went to a bar in the gay district in Bangkok. We were lucky to arrive right at the beginning of a Cabaret show, which was quite an amazing sight. The stage had about six or so performers at a time, dancing precisely choreographed numbers behind a diva singing her heart out. Before I had heard about the “ladyboys” of Thailand—men who either cross dress, had a full sex change, or somewhere in between—but wow I was stunned to this performance in real life. Some of the performers were GORGEOUS—I would really never imagine that they once before, or even at the time, were men. Perfectly formed bodies, too! Even thought the club was packed and we only had a half-view, it was really exciting, and also punctuated by some comic relief when an extremely large ladyboy (she was probably near 300 pounds) would come onto the stage and sing very romantic songs in her long, elegant dress. Quite an experience.

As we were weaving in and out of the night market stands (EVERYTHING was being sold at bargain prices—shirts, jeans, DVDs, souvenirs, socks) on the way back to my hostel, we came across an elephant on a leash. Earlier in the day I saw a man riding an elephant on the busy streets of Thailand, and Oh told me that keeping elephants in the city is actually illegal according to Thai law, falling under cruelty to animals. So, I felt bad when I encouraged the whole situation by paying 10 baht to the “owner” so that I could feel the elephant. Well, the elephant must have been starving because it ate the food out of my hand as soon as I took it out of the bag. Hahha, what a tourist moment.

The next day Oh and I went to the Grand Palace, the (very) old home of the King and Queen. As we were walking to get a taxi (Oh was not a fan of the very touristy “tuk-tuks”—motocycle taxis, and in fact I’m glad we didn’t ride them, because I met not a few other westerners like myself who said tuk-tuk drivers “took-took” (hah) them to random places to buy stuff, rather then going to the actual location asked for by the passenger), but so we were walking and all the sudden we heard the screams of several teenage girls. We looked to our right and saw several girls running together—toward the entrance of a hotel. Naturally, Oh and I started running as well, even though we didn’t have the posters in our hands that many of these probably middle-school or high-school aged girls had. We soon saw the fronts of the posters, and it looked like some sort of Korean celebrity… maybe he was staying in the hotel or something. But by the time we got closer, the girls seemed to have given up and then walked back to the shade—waiting, waiting for the next time when he might come down to the first floor. Another funny experience.

It is only used for special ceremonies now though. In the palace compound is Wat Phra Kaew, one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to yet. Pictures do all the talking here.


We also went to another very very old Buddhist temple, Wat Arun. Buddhism is the State Religion in Thailand.

It was particularly interesting seeing these temples to me, because in Thailand and many other South and Southeast Asian countries they practice Theravada Buddhism, which is different from Mahayana Buddhism which is practiced in China, Korea, and Japan (and other regions). (And of course both of these are different than Variyana Buddhism, which is practiced in Tibet.) The main difference, if I’m remembering correctly, is that Theravada Buddhism focuses mainly on the actual teachings of the Buddha himself and thus encourages individual salvation and enlightenment, whereas Mahayana Buddhism posits that there are several Bodhisattvas who are also very influential to believers. A Bodhisattva is an individual who has almost reached Enlightenment but then decided not to fully renounce the world and in fact stay on in the world to help others achieve Enlightenment. Any of my Buddhist friends, or anyone else in-the-know, please feel free to comment to correct/supplement this brief description!

In general, though, I would say that these two temples I saw in Thailand were much more ornate than those I’ve seen in China. The details and amount of ornamentation surpasses many Chinese temples in splendor and, well, shiny-ness.

Saturday evening I went with my other UVa classmate, Napatra, to Siam Shopping Center again just to walk around and buy some street clothes (all of which I’m very proud of because they’re so hip!). We saw a really neat photo exhibit about the importance of environmental protection for a sustainable future. We also came across a very strange event taking place in a public space outside of the shopping mall: a Japanese Anime Dress-up Competition?! Look at some of the crazzzy costumes people were wearing:


The next day Oh took me to the Old Parliament building to see an exhibit about some artisan creations for the King and Queen. On the way to the exhibit, we had to take a detour because there was a protest… perhaps against the Parliament, my friend thought. There are many complaints against corruption and manipulation of rural peoples during election time. The exhibit itself was amazing, some really beautiful pieces of work—unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside, but I took these from the outside. Very interesting to architecture, too, eh?

One thing that left me confused about Thailand was the seemingly contradictory ideas about gender. While one night I was able to see the thriving ladyboy culture, the next day I was witness to the strictly genderized requirements of temples and buildings like the Old Parliament Building. Men had to cover their legs, so they could wear pants or, if they forgot to wear pants (like I did at the Old Parliament building), he could buy a piece of cloth to tie around the waste. However, women had to be wearing skirts at these locations—even if she was wearing pants. Seems kind of gender reinforcing, doesn’t it?

I wish I had had more time to spend in Bangkok—I know I still only scratched the surface of a very unique culture very rooted in history. The stories Oh told me about past Kings of Thailand were pretty amazing, and it was very eye opening for me to see such a large, distinctly different city in another part of the world other than the States or China.

HUBEI conference and summer camp !

Ok, unfortunately this hostel computer in Bangkok is not allowing me to add pictures. Maybe I'll try again in a second, but if it doesn't go through, you'll just have to read the book and use your imagination!


We arrived to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central China, on the 23rd of July. The next day we would participate in another four-day education conference hosted by the American NGO, Education and Science Society (ESS), and make the same presentations to rural educators, principles, and members of the Hubei Education Bureau. I felt much more comfortable with my speech and powerpoint after having survived the first take in Haikou, so I was excited (and also relieved) to be presenting on the 3rd day of the conference.

Four of the ESS members that also came to participate in the conference were from Washington State and spoke nothing more than “thank you” and “one bottle of beer” in Chinese. Therefore, all the ACC FS students in my program were expected to serve as their translators at least once. On the first day of the conference, I was assigned to be the translator of an elementary school educator who had over 20 years of experience teaching in Seattle.

A picture of the four educators from the Washington.

The opening remarks of the conference were fairly easy to translate to him, mostly because everyone was just saying the same thing over and over again: “We are so honored to have this opportunity blah blah blah, we would like to thank blah blah blah, China has modernized so quickly and improved so much but can still get better blah blah blah.” This is my first experience translating on the spot, however, so it was tough getting used to the Need For Speed. I never realized how hard it can be to explain exactly what is being said in another language—very frustrating because I felt like I understood about 98%, but then I found I couldn’t share that information! Haha, it was a challenge, but very interesting.

After the opening remarks were made, a journalist tapped me on the shoulder asking if she could ask the “foreigner teacher” some questions and have me translate for her. I couldn’t really say no, so I did my best to help the journalist understand how American elementary schoolers are evaluated by teachers, the curriculum requirements and accompanying standardized tests, and teachers’ methods of disciplining children in the classroom. This was a crazy experience because both the journalist and the American teacher were looking at me so intently, even when I wasn’t speaking a language they understood. I sweat a lot, but I –hope- I did a fair job! Either way, as the middle man, my name wasn’t taken down so I’m off the hook right?

The next speaker was a very famous neuroscience/psychology professor from Taiwan, Professor Hong Lan. She was to be the main focus of this conference, providing insight into the way the mind works and effective ways of fostering healthy learning environments for children. In total she gave 5 different talks, topics ranging from sleep/dreams to language acquisition to male-female brain-size differences. The speech that I was forced to translate was about understanding the world from a child’s perspective and the importance of encouraging children to explain their answers, rather than scolding them if they do not answer correctly or ideally, etc. Translating this speech was reallllly rough because not only did this professor speak very quickly, she also had a slight Taiwanese accent and her powerpoint used all traditional characters, many of which I could not identify. When she started talking about different regions of the brain and the showing slides of different brain scans, I had to apologize to my American teacher because I had no better idea than he had.


In Hubei many of the Chinese participants in the conference were very excited to interact with us American students and took every opportunity they could for “cultural exchange.” For example, after the first night of our presentations (the topics that day were The Importance of Art/Pictures in the Classroom, Supplementary Arts Education in America, Health Education in American Public Schools, and How Teachers Use Games to Educate), one Chinese principal asked the four students who had just presented, “So, what’s your opinion on the American War for Oil?” Someone also asked, “Are there a lot of gay people in America? How are they received?” So, although totally unrelated to education or the powerpoints that we students had spent so much time preparing, this experience showed the curiosity and interest of many of the Chinese participants. Of course, we are hardly qualified to represent the views of all Americans (especially in our clumsy Chinese), so some of my classmates were frustrated that the topics strayed as they did. Personally I think it was a good and interesting opportunity for everyone.

Huijun and Bingbing answering questions written by the audience after they had finished presenting.

My presentation this time went quite well—no bug swallowing or anything. I think I spoke a little faster and didn’t sound quite as nervous. Two people also told me that it was a suiting and interesting topic for Chinese education. In addition to this, several other questions about American education system and teaching styles were asked, for example, “Do American schools include ‘Patriotism’ or ‘Morality’ classes?” The guy that asked this question actually found me after we had finished the entire session and asked for my email. He wanted to discuss with me the situation in Tibet and American understandings of Mao Zedong and modern China. Pretty awesome opportunity, I think!

Here are some pictures from our presentation session:


Another question posed was, “Many Chinese students currently lack the ability complete tasks by themselves and always need the help and/or approval of teachers. Can you give any suggestions as to ways that teachers can encourage students to develop this ability?” This was kind of odd for us to answer, given that we are not teachers, and even our 3 day experience teaching at a summer camp in Lingao couldn’t really shed much insight. We did our best though—I said that fundamentally this issue is related to students’ self-esteem, because if they are confident in their own answers and other abilities, they won’t feel the need to seek ask the teacher as many questions. My suggestion was to always encourage kids by saying things like “great!” or “fantastic,” because such comments would always elicit a huge smile from the kids in Lingao, and sometimes they would even whisper to each other, “Teacher just said we are fantastic!”

After the conference ended, we went to Xiaochang, an impoverished and relatively new county about an hour and a half from Wuhan. We had another 3 day summer camp, teaching the same classes (Geography and Art for me) to 5th and 6th graders. The kids in Xiaochang were interesting, but unfortunately, when compared with Lingao, less surprised and enthused about some of my activities. I was also somewhat startled when, in 5th grade class 4, a student’s cell phone went off and he excused himself to talk with whoever it was. Especially in Art class, I would offer to give the students some markers/colored pencils that I had bought in Beijing, but the kids would say, “Oh, um, well, I have my own, thanks.” In geography class, there were also some big time Wiz Kids, who knew where everything was on the Chinese AND American map; when I asked them how they were so smart, they said, “We have our own maps at home.”

Some of the students were really creative though, and really got excited about presenting their completed maps to their classmates. For example, one group who was presenting about tourist attraction in Hubei really took on the role of a tourguide, offering supplementary information and really selling the locations! Also, quite a few kids really got into being ‘meteorologists’ and telling us the weather of some of the major cities in Hubei.

Once again, though, there was always the bad occasional bad class. Always seemed to happen in Art for some reason… the creative energies that I was trying to unleash were just too much sometimes, I guess, hahah. One class in particular, when playing the “art pass” game, turned into a big fight. The gender boundaries are pretty divided in Xiaochang, and the boys and girls are rarely willing to work together or even sit together. So when the activity started, all the girls were drawing pretty young ladies wearing dresses and big houses with trees and birdies… but then five minutes later when the piece of art arrived to the guys, one student thought it would be funny to draw poop all over the house and trees, and even made it look as if the little princess had pooped her dress. Of course, once this happened the idea spread like wildfire and suddenly I had seven 11 year old boys drawing large piles of shit everywhere. Soon enough a girl stood up and ripped her original art piece out of the hands of her classmate and started hitting him over the head and everyone started screaming. I put a quick end to it by telling them 如果你们会是这样子的，你们就可以离开！我没想到你们这么缺乏合作的精神！把所有的画画还给老师！ “If you’re going to be like this, then just leave! I had no idea you guys lacked such an ability to work together! Give all the art pieces back to me!” At that point we still had 15 minutes left of class because the activity was cut short, so I had to think quickly about what we could do. Then I remembered a favorite game from elementary school, Heads Up 7 Up. Luckily they understood the directions that I spat out without thinking, and they had a fun time playing that for the last couple minutes before the bell.

The students all gave us lots of gifts and held a final performance for us before we left their county. It was pretty wild—lots of crazy, but well-rehearsed, dancing performances.



Well, those are some of the most memorable experiences with the ACC teaching class and giving the large presentation. After we finished the 2nd day camp, we went to the 3 gorges dam and Mulan mountain lake (yes, Mulan like the Disney movie)! Honestly though, both of those places weren’t all that interesting, and I’ve already written a novel here.

I arrived to Thailand yesterday, which has been really fascinating so far. I will make a post soon about some of my experiences here before going over to Malaysia next week!