They roamed the streets of her hometown, knocking their sticks along to lay a path in that endless shade. What they could not see with their eyes the cards showed them by touch. Lu Jun was little when her mother made them show her her future. They rambled on for awhile, illshapen words boiling down to one sentence: she will be happy at a great school.
She never forgot this.
In primary school they took their les…
A few weeks ago I finished my first academic year of teaching Oral English at a university in the Middle Kingdom. There've been ups and downs, yadda, yadda, but it's been, overall, good. Even the work has been okay. Here's a short piece I wrote back in March about my favourite lesson.
This week, in the often frustrating battle to make my students speak English, I’ve been doing a speed dating exercise with my class…
I'm a week away from finishing my first academic year as what can loosely be described as a university teacher in China. Someone told me that I should write some kind of retrospective/memoir, but that sounded like far too much work. I mean, I'm on holiday in a week. I've begun the wind-down and I'm feeling far too lazy for any actual writing. So, in lieu of me working, here are a few of my students' odd comments and …
One thing you find out pretty soon if you come into contact with Chinese society is that although most Chinese may not follow any organized religion, that does not mean they are immune from holding superstitious beliefs of all kinds. Superstitions relating to traditional Chinese medicine or to feng shui are of course widespread, although in some cases they arguably do contain a kernel of truth. What is more striking …
They want to help. They really want to help. And whether you want it or not, they are going to help. It’s one of the best things about being in China, and one of the worst. There are always people around willing to lend a hand. And not just willing. They are determined.
When we went to the Longmen Grottoes last Friday, we did our usual thing of strolling out of the station and looking a bit lost. In the past this …
Some days it just feels like this:
…
While most laowai are probably familiar with the phenomenon of the “ant tribe,” a recent article in The Economist introduced a number of other “tribes” of stressed-out young Chinese struggling to survive in the urban jungle.
Perhaps the most unusual is the “crush-crush tribe” (捏捏族), who release their frustrations by hiding in supermarket aisles and crushing packages of instant noodles.
The crush-crush tribe…
I've taught English to two-year-olds in split bottom pants. The trick there is not letting them sit on your lap for storytime.
I've taught English to bartenders and asked them to repeat after me. Bud...Wise...Er...
I've taught businessmen and doctors, flight attendants and fry cooks.
I've taught Little Emperors in large classes, I've taught university students and training school students and done English Co…
Keith, already suspicious of John, is doubly suspicious now that John missed their dinner appointment. On a rainy Friday, he wonders about John's motives for being in China, as he implements a fresh idea into the classroom: a poetry exercise, where the students go outside, and use English to write a poem about what they see.
Keith started class. He did Tongue Twisters. He had arranged them in such a manner tha…
Our hero is John, who is wandering through life without purpose. This wandering led him to a humanities degree, then to unemployment, and finally, to the great refuge of unemployed humanities majors: ESL in China.
Though Wuhan later becomes an existential swamp for John, here at the beginning, everything is new and exciting.
This is John's first day of teaching, where the incumbent dancing laowai, Keith, school…
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