A week in the life ... would you like to make a speech?

This past week was filled with events that could only happen in China. Here goes:

On Thursday I went to my first student-organized class party, for class 07-1. I really didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be fun. All the students performed songs, skits, or recited poetry. One of the skits involved some Chinese history, and many of the songs and poems were about love. Love of what? Well, love of country. At the start of the party, two large Hanzi characters were artfully written up on the board : 爱国. Love of country; it was the theme of the party. Another older class stopped by to check on the freshmen to make sure they were behaving. Toward the end, I was asked if I could perform, but I politely declined, as I hadn't prepared anything ... any may never. But then again, maybe I will. It won't have much to do with patriotism in China though.

On Saturday evening, we were invited to 'English Corner,' which is reputed to be a time where students can get together and practice speaking English in a conversational atmosphere. When we, and the students, showed up, we all found out that instead of English Corner, the English Club was hosting a lady doing a pitch for the upcoming visit of Li Yang, wonder creator of the English learning method 'Crazy English.' He devised it back in the early 90s to help Chinese students to both improve their English and overcome shyness when talking to native English speakers. His method involves many skills, but the basis of it seems to be just shouting English loudly in isolated places. There are quite a few critiques of his method online, but also it goes against the Chinese values of humility and reservation, so it's certainly not accepted by traditional teachers here. Nick and I are not fans of the method because it still doesn't have students practicing in a communicative way, or using appropriate body language. Li Yang uses his own sort of body motions for the different sounds, but they don't reinforce meaning outside of repetition (which is just a rehashing of traditional Chinese teaching methods). Tonight we were even asked to be a singing act to open the show! No way!!!!!!!

Well, after finding this out, we still stayed for awhile. The students tried every trick in the book to get us to sit in the front, give a small speech about learning English, and to drink the hot water they had lugged from somewhere. We stuck to our guns, having come for light conversation, and repeated over and over that no, we were not prepared for this, and no, we are not making a speech. Nick and I both know that anything we are invited to that is described as a 'party' likely means that we will be asked up on stage to do something or other. This was the first time it happened to us, for real. We're going to attempt to establish a precedent of requiring notice before being expected to give a speech, perform, or otherwise take a leading role in some large group (200+ students) activity. Welcome to China.

Sunday we had a wonderful day. It started out with an 8 A.M. trip to Nan Guo temple, perched near the top of a hill in Tianshui. The hill has some restaurants, a hotel, a flower garden, and the temple at the top. We hiked up the road for maybe 20 minutes after the bus ride to the bottom of the hill. The temple was great at 9 A.M.: empty, smelling like incense, and very peaceful. Our two students hosts were wonderful and translated signs to us. One of the students was a Buddhist and did the repetitive bows to the various idols. She asked us if we wanted to, but after a short conversation about being our being Christians, she didn't ask us again. She said "So you can't ..." and I said "So, we don't want to!" We walked around the temple for about 45 minutes. I think if I need some solitude, I'll go back there in the early morning - there is nothing like a 2200-year old tree to make you feel like there is some order in the world.

After that, we were invited to the home of sister of one of the students, where she made us a famous noodle dish from scratch. It is called 炒面片 (chao mian pian "chow me-en pee-en"), which means fried, chopped up noodles. It has a plethora of vegetables added, and also some spicy peppers and bean paste for flavor. Nick and I took some pictures, and help rip the noodles by hand before they were boiled. It was a great time, and we were truly grateful for the gesture of being invited over, as well as the privilege of learning how to make this great dish from scratch!