Many Americans are _______.
Well, whoever it was that said you can only accomplish one thing per day in China would've had to eat their words today. We worked until lunch, got bicycles in the afternoon, and recorded audiotapes tonight before dinner.
We were picked up at the campus by two nice Chinese men and briefed about the script in the car on the way over. We walked into Jinan's broadcasting building, shook hands with more Chinese men and then took our seats in a recording studio. We sat at a table with microphones stretching in from overhead, bottles of water on the table and bright desk lamps. The room was cool, dark and quiet with a big window where a technician, a translator and the 'man in charge' sat watching us. Josh did some great impressions of Ted Koppell while we waited nervously for directions. I should have known right then that this would be his calling. With his perfect pronunciation, good flow and emphasis on the right words, they kept telling him he was "wary eggsellent" and that his voice had "magnetism". We read 14 pages of directions, dialouges and short essays. Some we read "like actors" and some at an amusing slow and unnatural speed. We glossed over several grammatical errors and one made-up word because it was getting late and they wanted to go exactly by the script. I read one sentence that said "They dad invited another woman to the dinner." Josh was told to re-pronounce 'looking' as 'luke-ing'. It was quite an experience. We finished at 8:30pm with 800 quai (US$100) in our pocket. Thats enough money to go out for joudza every night until Christmas. We won't do that, of course, but you get the idea.
Right now, Josh is watching Lawrence of Arabia. We found a place with boxes full of DVD's for US 85 cents. I picked out Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I think that price fit the product. Absolute rubbish!
Classes have been going really well. Today, I brought in some articles that I clipped from the China Daily and passed them out to groups of five with some provocative discussion questions attached to the article. Each group picked a spokesperson who summarized the article and addressed the attached questions. These articles were about marriage, children mimicing their parents' bad behavior, the US in Iraq, and Yao Ming's (famous NBA star from China) salary. This brought up lots of fun vocabulary words. I tried to explain 'flipping a coin' and 'is the glass half full or half empty?'. The term 'custody battle' came up. I acted the parts of the child, the judge, the parents and the lawyers in a little impromptu skit. Great fun. Getting the students to volunteer an answer to a question is like trying to pull eye teeth, but getting them to laugh is like taking candy from a baby.
For the last ten minutes of class today, each group had twenty seconds to complete the sentence: Many Americans are ____. We talked about their answers and feelings towards America/Americans.
Many Americans are....."independent thinkers", "open minded", "don't like saving money in the bank", "indulgent" (that was a vocab word from earlier in the class), "humourous", "homeless".
Did I mention that I rode a bike yesterday? Yep, to the vegetable market. I was petrified to give it a go, but now I think its as safe as being a pedestrian around here. In fact, I think it could be pleasurable if there weren't taxis and buses four inches behind you blasting their horn for six seconds at a time. I had so much fun that I suggested to Josh that we try and lay our hands on some loaner bikes for the year. With a little help from Josh's friend, Sean, we communicated with our land lady, Ms. Liu, and she took us to a graveyard of bicycles from foriegn teachers' past. We washed a couple with soapy rags, pumped up the tires and parked them on our balcony. We just might even ride them tomorrow!
Time to go to bed, so I can get up tomorrow and do it all again. Happy Birthday, Ede!
We were picked up at the campus by two nice Chinese men and briefed about the script in the car on the way over. We walked into Jinan's broadcasting building, shook hands with more Chinese men and then took our seats in a recording studio. We sat at a table with microphones stretching in from overhead, bottles of water on the table and bright desk lamps. The room was cool, dark and quiet with a big window where a technician, a translator and the 'man in charge' sat watching us. Josh did some great impressions of Ted Koppell while we waited nervously for directions. I should have known right then that this would be his calling. With his perfect pronunciation, good flow and emphasis on the right words, they kept telling him he was "wary eggsellent" and that his voice had "magnetism". We read 14 pages of directions, dialouges and short essays. Some we read "like actors" and some at an amusing slow and unnatural speed. We glossed over several grammatical errors and one made-up word because it was getting late and they wanted to go exactly by the script. I read one sentence that said "They dad invited another woman to the dinner." Josh was told to re-pronounce 'looking' as 'luke-ing'. It was quite an experience. We finished at 8:30pm with 800 quai (US$100) in our pocket. Thats enough money to go out for joudza every night until Christmas. We won't do that, of course, but you get the idea.
Right now, Josh is watching Lawrence of Arabia. We found a place with boxes full of DVD's for US 85 cents. I picked out Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I think that price fit the product. Absolute rubbish!
Classes have been going really well. Today, I brought in some articles that I clipped from the China Daily and passed them out to groups of five with some provocative discussion questions attached to the article. Each group picked a spokesperson who summarized the article and addressed the attached questions. These articles were about marriage, children mimicing their parents' bad behavior, the US in Iraq, and Yao Ming's (famous NBA star from China) salary. This brought up lots of fun vocabulary words. I tried to explain 'flipping a coin' and 'is the glass half full or half empty?'. The term 'custody battle' came up. I acted the parts of the child, the judge, the parents and the lawyers in a little impromptu skit. Great fun. Getting the students to volunteer an answer to a question is like trying to pull eye teeth, but getting them to laugh is like taking candy from a baby.
For the last ten minutes of class today, each group had twenty seconds to complete the sentence: Many Americans are ____. We talked about their answers and feelings towards America/Americans.
Many Americans are....."independent thinkers", "open minded", "don't like saving money in the bank", "indulgent" (that was a vocab word from earlier in the class), "humourous", "homeless".
Did I mention that I rode a bike yesterday? Yep, to the vegetable market. I was petrified to give it a go, but now I think its as safe as being a pedestrian around here. In fact, I think it could be pleasurable if there weren't taxis and buses four inches behind you blasting their horn for six seconds at a time. I had so much fun that I suggested to Josh that we try and lay our hands on some loaner bikes for the year. With a little help from Josh's friend, Sean, we communicated with our land lady, Ms. Liu, and she took us to a graveyard of bicycles from foriegn teachers' past. We washed a couple with soapy rags, pumped up the tires and parked them on our balcony. We just might even ride them tomorrow!
Time to go to bed, so I can get up tomorrow and do it all again. Happy Birthday, Ede!
posted by B | 2:46 AM
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