completely unblogworthy

Here I am, in Shenzhen, China - a mostly unexplored city packed with interesting pieces of Chinese culture; just an hour from Macau, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou; and only a short flight away from a half-dozen Southeast Asian countries. And what did I do this weekend? Well, I finished a few loads of laundry. I corrected papers and wrote lesson plans. I booked flights for New Years and my month-long vacation after the semester. I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up some tape and body lotion. I made coffee, watched movies, and read.

Spending 48 hours without doing anything worth mentioning makes me realize: This is my actual life, and not a crazy extended vacation. But in a way, this is one of the coolest parts; I'll be able to travel for the rest of my life (knock on wood) but actually living in another country is a different story. (Plus when I think about it like that, it seems like less of a pain to sidestep the dirty puddles from my broken washing machine as I hang my clothes on my balcony.)

* * * * *

On a more exciting note, these are a couple sweet pictures from ThaiIand that I finally took from Andy's camera.

(another) weekend in Hong Kong

As an attempt to compensate for my wordy last entry, I'll let pictures explain my most recent trip to HK. Each is worth a thousand words, anyway - right? Plus it gives me an opportunity to show off the gloriousness of my brand new camera...

This picture defines Hong Kong for me: in a super-developed, bustling cosmopolitan city, a lone tai chi practitioner works his magic in the middle of an intersection. The passerby hardly seem to notice.

Our trip to Hong Kong intersected a protest of the "Mission for Migrant Workers." We couldn't really figure out what was going on, but there were countless Philippino immigrants lining the streets and indoor walkways, apparently readying themselves for some kind of demonstration.

My guidebook says that this construction site - on enormously valuable property right by the ferry terminal at Hong Kong Central - will soon become a huge museum/mall/theater complex. Since Hong Kong is the 6th most expensive city in the world (on average 20% more pricey than NYC), I can't even fathom how much this real estate must be worth. I took this photo because I'm sure if I come back next year, an enormous shiny building will have replaced this bulldozed crane village. Ahh, progress.

Lantau, the island that houses the Hong Kong airport as well as Hong Kong Disneyland, is a protected nature area and all sites above 200 m above sea level are protected from development. The effect is that the island, which is twice as big as Hong Kong Central, is full of beautiful views of a different kind: hilly forests and outlying islands.

Lantau Island is home to the world's largest seated outdoor Buddha. Left: Close-up on Buddha's face. Right: I am the Buddha.

My obsession with images capturing the effect of globalization continues. First, a giant Christmas tree juxtaposed with the Chinese flag (although yes, Hong Kong was a British colony, and the Hong Kong flag waving next to the Chinese one does make this photo slightly less ironic). On the right, a Starbucks just down the road from Hong Kong's giant Buddha. Double tall iced no-whip non-fat sugar-free-cherry mocha, anyone? With or without a little nirvana on the side...

running uphill, fast

Imagine you have never been on a treadmill before. You have seen other people use them and have a pretty good idea how they work, and you're interested to try. However, you can't really gingerly get onto a full-speed-ahead running machine, so you jump on and hope you can cut the pace. So far, so good - it's exhausting but you're figuring out how to save energy while running, and your form is improving. Then along comes a trainer, and pushes the little up arrow next to "speed." Before you know it, you're speeding along faster than before, which is tiring - but hey, you're ready for it now, right?

As soon as you've gotten your bearings at this new speed, another fitness trainer comes along. This time she messes with the incline, and soon you are running uphill, faster than you have ever run. And each time you get accustomed to this new pace, another trainer comes along to nudge the up arrow. "You can do it," you tell yourself, as you try not to think about how fast or steeply uphill you are running, or how out of breath you have become. And you warily look around for the trainers who will come up with a new challenge - wondering when the increase in difficulty will cross the line between manageable and just too strenuous to keep up.

This is my treadmill of teaching English at the ISS. Every day presents a new challenge: attendance sheets, new homework and testing requirements, progress charts in Chinese, rules for classroom decoration and cleaning, additional 3-period-a-week classes, meeting and projects for individual students, judging speech competitions, formatting lesson plans, regular evaluations of both teachers and students, IELTS practice standards, rules for when teachers must be outside and inside the classrooms, where classroom keys are kept, rituals for beginning and ending classes, discipline procedures, even rules governing the use of printers and copiers.

This week has abnormally quickened my treadmill pace, due to two new ingredients of stress:

1. Kung fu practice, or "how to take the fun out of just about anything"

First, after watching us practice last Friday and deciding we weren't good enough, the school headmaster, Alan, decided that all the teachers need to practice the kung fu dance every night this week for an hour. Besides adding an extra couple hours to my already long workday, his presence in the room during our practice has changed the entire dynamic of the dance. On Monday, after going through the dance a couple times, he reorganized our line-up by skill level - with the exception of putting me in the front row; guess my whiteness supersedes my awful kung fu dance ability - and then gave us a long speech in Chinese.

I couldn't really understand most of what he was saying, but judging by the downcast eyes of the other teachers and their very solemn return to the dance floor, I don't think it was utmost praise. After his speech, he approached me with a huge plastic smile and said, "Did you understand? I just said, everyone who does not yet know the dance needs to stay after practice." Needless to say, no one left.

Normally I could care less about people watching me dance. But when the male teachers left the floor, and I was left in the front row, I could feel Alan's eyes on me and I just started to crack. I can't explain it any other way, except that I realized I was sweating and actually trembling, and suddenly came to the realization - if I don't get off this floor right now, I am going to cry. Cry I did not, but get off the dance floor I did... And cowered next to the piano with my tail between my legs. Conclusion: I definitely am not quite 91% Chinese.

Since then, the dance has become fun again - I think everyone went home and practiced on Monday night, so by Tuesday we looked much better. Alan was excited about our new abilities, so I guess his seriousness was effective. Also Jaris's added sound effects to our kicks and punches cracked everyone up - even Alan. I am going to practice again as soon as I finish this blog entry, and am hoping the tone from Tuesday continues tonight...

2. Blood and plexiglass: English Corner adventures

My other treadmill-speeding incident occurred yesterday afternoon. Well, actually it began last week, when one of the foreign teachers at the LC (Allaina - check out the Yangshuo/Guilin entry from Sept if you'd like a refresher) got fired because two students got in a fight in her class. I know little about it except that one of the students was bleeding, and his parents were critical of Allaina's treatment of the situation. It was a real wake-up call; kids get rowdy and out of hand pretty regularly, and even the LC director admitted it "could have happened to anybody." But when parents get involved, it leaves little recourse for the school.

So maybe that adequately foreshadows what happened in my class on Tuesday. Basically, five minutes into class, one of my chronically out-of-control, refusing-to-speak-English, 7th-9th grade students ran to the front of the room while I was writing on the board. She reached/leaned/jumped across my desk to get a pen, and on the way managed to shatter the plexiglass covering my computer monitor as well as cut open her finger.

I don't remember what I yelled, but it must have been pretty loud because Jaris came running over from his classroom next door ("ready to lay the smack down," he told me later) and watched my students while I stormed upstairs to get someone with more power and authority. I found the 3 bigshots in our school all in a meeting, which I interrupted with the words, "I have a serious problem in my classroom."

For the first time, I am incredibly glad to be in the ISS and not the LC. I've been somewhat envious of the LCers, since it is less work, less formal, less time commitment. But the ISS is a real school, where the administrative staff interacts regularly with teachers and has personal relationships with almost every student. So I didn't get fired; on the contrary, after I sent my "Incident Report" to Sissy, she approached me to make sure I was okay, and also to let me know that I should expect a formal apology from my problem student. So maybe the incident made me cry for about an hour and drink two Belgian beers, and I would still include it on a list of stressors, but it also made me thankful for being in a school with staff who actually support the teachers.

* * * * *

And yet even as my treadmill sometimes seems to be reaching the breaking point where I must get off or collapse, there are always moments - feeling little arms hugging my legs and turning around to find Coco behind me; reading an argumentative essay on why it is better to go to school than live on the street because "if I live on the street I could not see beautiful teacher Amber"; watching my Year 2 students dominate a difficult test and realizing hey, I taught them all of that. So yeah, the treadmill is moving quickly... But it can't be all bad if there are moments I forget I am on it.