A few of my classes were a week ahead of all the others so I decided to do a lesson for them on fairytales. I started with the basics (which they knew) – prince, princess, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. Then I asked them to create their own fairytale. Well, I got some pretty hilarious stories. See below:
MY FAVORITE: “Long long ago, in a distant land called Karleneland a prince lived in a tower. He was very sexy and beautiful. He lived with a bad dragon. The prince wasn’t allowed to go out of the tower. One million years later Duck, another prince, who was very cool and handsome found the tower and the sexy prince. He fell in love with the prince. So, Duck went to the tower and fought with the dragon. Finally, the dragon killed Duck and married the sexy prince.”
Did you think this was a mistake? Did the students mean a princess was locked in a tower? NOPE. They meant a prince. It’s a homosexual love story. Yeah…my thoughts exactly.
And another: “Long long ago in a big house a girl was born but her parents died and her grandmother was very bad. She sent the girl to an enchantress and the enchantress was also very bad. The girl became a butterfly then she met a prince. She followed the prince. The prince was very surprised because the butterfly spoke to him. She told him all of her experiences and the prince was very angry. He found the enchantress and beat her. Then the butterfly became a girl and they were married and had a very good life.
There’s more: “Long long ago a prince and princess lived together on a small island. One day the prince got hurt and a witch was him so the witch helped the handsome prince. After a month the prince got healthy. During this time the prince fell in love with the witch. At the same time the witch loved the prince very much. So, the prince dropped the princess and went to another country with the witch.
Thursday 22 October 2009
Randomosity
There are many amazing things about China. It is truly a completely different world here. The smells are different (some not so pleasant), the air is different (sometimes not so clean), the people are different, the land is different, the animals, everything. I must say though, my favorite aspect is the random, completely spontaneous things that happen. Here are a few examples:
Example 1: The week I returned from my vacation, Joan called me and said there were some teachers from another school in Youxian that wanted to take us to dinner. So, I agreed. We went to dinner with a group of random Chinese educators and were then asked to go to their school to “meet their students.” Yeah, ok. Apparently, in China “meeting the students” means walking into a class of 50 completely unprepared and asked to give a lesson about the US. After my “lecture” we were invited to ktv and dancing with the headmaster, a few teachers and a group of students. Naturally, we agreed. KTV consisted of a lot of beer, singing My Heart Will Go On (I’m now a pro) and dancing to really strange Chinese techno.
Example 2: Again, this occurred at KTV on a random night. Derek came to visit Joan and me for the weekend. We decided to at least attempt to find a cheap ktv. We walked into this hotel/ktv. When we excited the elevator there was a small group of men waiting to go into their room. I simply said “Ni hao” and then we were invited to sing with them! As it turned out, it was a group of investors who were being taken out by a Youxian government official who used to teach English. So, again we sang My Heart Will Go On and drank a lot of free beer. This was an amazing night because Noel, the government official/ex-English teacher has a daughter at my school. He is extremely nice and has offered to help Joan and me out anytime we need it. He even offered to take us to a few places around Youxian that are very famous.
Example 3: Last night. Joan and I went to dinner at a restaurant in town. We go there for 2 reasons: Joan likes the food and I like the men who cook the food. As we are eating two young guys walk up to us and start asking us about the meal. As it turned out one of the guys was the boss of the restaurant. They sat down with us for 20 minutes and in their broken English and our broken Chinese we found out what was good to eat at the restaurant, exchanged numbers and were asked to go to ktv later this week.
Example 1: The week I returned from my vacation, Joan called me and said there were some teachers from another school in Youxian that wanted to take us to dinner. So, I agreed. We went to dinner with a group of random Chinese educators and were then asked to go to their school to “meet their students.” Yeah, ok. Apparently, in China “meeting the students” means walking into a class of 50 completely unprepared and asked to give a lesson about the US. After my “lecture” we were invited to ktv and dancing with the headmaster, a few teachers and a group of students. Naturally, we agreed. KTV consisted of a lot of beer, singing My Heart Will Go On (I’m now a pro) and dancing to really strange Chinese techno.
Example 2: Again, this occurred at KTV on a random night. Derek came to visit Joan and me for the weekend. We decided to at least attempt to find a cheap ktv. We walked into this hotel/ktv. When we excited the elevator there was a small group of men waiting to go into their room. I simply said “Ni hao” and then we were invited to sing with them! As it turned out, it was a group of investors who were being taken out by a Youxian government official who used to teach English. So, again we sang My Heart Will Go On and drank a lot of free beer. This was an amazing night because Noel, the government official/ex-English teacher has a daughter at my school. He is extremely nice and has offered to help Joan and me out anytime we need it. He even offered to take us to a few places around Youxian that are very famous.
Example 3: Last night. Joan and I went to dinner at a restaurant in town. We go there for 2 reasons: Joan likes the food and I like the men who cook the food. As we are eating two young guys walk up to us and start asking us about the meal. As it turned out one of the guys was the boss of the restaurant. They sat down with us for 20 minutes and in their broken English and our broken Chinese we found out what was good to eat at the restaurant, exchanged numbers and were asked to go to ktv later this week.
Revived
Well, like Oliver Twist Untamed has been abandoned for quite a while. Time to give her some water and watch her grow. I’d like to say I was busy dissolving the cultural and linguistic barriers between the U.S. and China. Or maybe that I’ve been spending all of my free time volunteering at the local orphanage. Perhaps I was studying the language of the great country I’ll be living in for the next year. I’d like to say one of these things is true. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the matter is I’ve created my own personal prison within my spider infested apartment. What keeps me locked up you may ask? The simplest answer would be copyright laws (or lack thereof). China’s inexistent copyright laws have allowed me to create an American utopia full of vampires, sex, plastic surgery and the occasional theoretical physicist (AKA True Blood, Nip Tuck, Entourage and Big Bang Theory). Furthermore, youku.com (China’s version of youtube) is another amazing example of China’s inexistent copyright laws. I can watch anything I want (currently loading Titanic). I even get to watch the CW’s Vampire Diaries. Lame, I know but I love it!So, while I wait for Titanic to buffer I’ll take a few moments to tell the 7ish people who actually read this about my vacation. Because I am a special foreign teacher I got extra vacation days. My school was only closed for 4 days, but I was off from the 30th until the 11th. I went with a small group of people to Chengdu and Xi’an. To get to Chengdu I took a 19 hour train ride. Luckily, we had soft sleepers (the most elegant way to travel by train). It was a small room with 4 beds, a table and a love little window. I took the initiative to download the majority of season 2 of True Blood so our little posse watched 8 hours of Vampire sex, took 1 hour for dinner, and then went to sleep. We woke up in a beautiful city of 14 million people. The first moments in Chengdu were extremely scary. As we were leaving the train station I realized I didn’t have my wallet…or my passport…or my debit card…or my id…Like the idiot I am I keep everything together. So, two of us rushed back to the train praying it hadn’t left yet to search for my lost items. THANK THE LORD, after looking for a few minutes in our room someone found it. Major catastrophe avoided.
Everything about Chengdu was amazing. The weather was great, the air was (surprisingly) clean, and most importantly there were PANDAS!!! Lazy little bastards, but cute as hell. We didn’t eat much Chinese food because there was this amazing Tex Mex restaurant with real ground beef, real cheese and real margaritas. Quite pricey but totally worth it. Chengdu also has a large Tibetan population so we got to try some of their local dishes. Let me just say this: Tibetan food is absolutely heavenly. They eat a lot of Yak which is delicious. Somewhat gamey, but amazing none the less. Besides, I just like the idea of saying I ate yak.
I left Chengdu with one thought: I want to live here. Sorry, fam. Next stop, Xi’an – home of the terracotta warriors. Travel during national week is a pain in the butt. The trains are packed and it’s very difficult to get a good ticket. We were lucky enough to get hard sleepers. The train ride was 13 hours long. Hard sleepers are interesting. There are no doors or rooms in the car, only a bunch of bunk beds, 3 beds high. We all got top bunks. So, the first problem was actually getting up to the top. I’m 5’8 or 5’9 and I had to reach to even touch my bed.
The Chinese people were looking at me like I was crazy because I couldn’t figure out how to get up the makeshift ladder. The major problem is that the bed is only about 2.5 feet from the ceiling. So, once you make it up the ladder you have to shimmy down the bed and just lay down the entire time because there isn’t room to sit up. Just imagine a coffin. Yeah, let me tell you that was a fun ride! Actually, it wasn’t that bad. I took some ambien and went to sleep. When I woke up at 5 am we were pulling into Xi’an.I didn’t like Xi’an. Number 1, it rained the entire time we were there. Number 2, I was sick for the majority of the trip, and Number 3, the people kept trying to rip me off! Thus, I won’t spend much time on this portion of the vacation. I saw the terracotta warriors which I interesting for about 5 minutes. Highlight of the trip: Budweiser and Subway.
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