The star pupil in one of my classes asked me to go out with her family, and a couple of days ago I went. After accepting her invitation I felt a little weird, as I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hang out with my students, and she is only 12, so I wasn't really sure what we would talk about. I ended up having a good and interesting time. I went out with her mother, who is an internalist at Qingdao university medical school, her father, who works in the local tax department, her 9 year-old brother and her 15 year old cousin. Her family picked me up in their car and drove me to a plaza near number 1 beach. There we ate at KFC, because her family wasn't sure if I liked CHinese food. The meal was a strange combination of fast food and Chinese hospitality: the family ordered almost half the menu for me, and kept putting more and more food in front of me. In total, I ate a chicken burger, some chicken wings fried and baked, french fries, corn, pepsi, and ice cream. And that wasn't even all of the food they kept trying to give me. It was somewhat embarrassing, the mother would take food away from the children and offer it to me. When they heard I didn't have a cell phone, the mother offered me her old one, and even though I refused, she still said she would give it to me. After dinner, we went to Zhong Shan park, or "Yat sen" park named after Sun Yatsen (he is "Sun Zhong shan" in Mandarin). Currently there is a latern festival, I don't know if it is a local holiday or nationwide. The park was full of displays made of silk stretched over metal frames lit from behind with lights. Many elements of Chinese traditional culture were represented, like dragons, pheonixes, flute players, (although no erhus). We spoke a random combination of English and Chinese, both the parents actually spoke a fair amount of English given that both said they didn't speak any English at all. We talked a bit about religion, and traditional Chinese culture, especially the Zodiac. IT's funny. I'm never sure what questions are polite to ask people, but almost the first two questions people seem to ask me are "what's your religion?" and "how much money do you make?" The second is a little embarassing for me, considering I make more than most people in Qingdao. For example, my student's mother makes 3,000 yuan a month, 2,000 less than I do, and she is a doctor. I also served as a walking Chinese-English dictionary. It was good for my self esteem to realize that I knew so many words, sometimes I even surprised myself by saying the word. Of course, there were the words I didn't know, and sometimes some funny charades or explanations so I could try to think of the word. Some words I guessed on, I hope I am right. THe best was when my student asked me how to say "qi li" in English. I asked what it is, and she said it was an animal with the head and body of a dragon, fins, and the feet of a pheonix. I told her that there wasn't a word in English, let me know if I'm wrong.
We walked through the park and the parents took pictures of us in front of almost every single display in various combinations, one combination always being me by myself. When they send me the photos, I will put them on the blog. We went going even after they turned off all the lights, because the mother found that the silk reflecting in the flash still looked nice. We were not the only ones doing this, it seemed like everyone in the park had come there for the sole purpose of photographing their family in front of various different lantern displays (and often pushing other people aside in the process). I suppose I can never complain about the picture taking at a family function again, given that our picture taking routine pales in comparison. One really amazing display was one of a fish, dragon and pheonix (the three lucky animals) made entirely out of dishes. Plates were scales and feathers, and spoons made the legs, etc.
All in all, I had a surprisingly good time with the family. Now in another class a boy (who is actually one of the worst students in the class and constantly acting out) invited me to go to Lao Mountain (a famous small mountain nearby), so I'll see what happens with that.

driving

when crossing the street in Qingdao, one always has to look both ways before crossing the street, even if the street is one way or an alley. For example, the road in front of our apartment is a one-way road, with a big arrow painted in the middle of it saying what direction to go, yet regularly (meaning almost once a day) we see cars driving the wrong way down the street. This makes crossing the street somewhat difficult, especially as cars speed up when they see pedestrians instead of slowing down. I heard that if there is an accident, it is assumed to be the pedestrian's fault, so it doesn't really give cars impetus to slow down. Also, cars seem to be in an incredible hurry, which is ironic because the general craziness of the driving means that most roads are chronically clogged in traffic jams. Indeed, as Dan says, it seems like the driving is more reckless than fast. The other problem is that stoplights are apparently a fairly new thing in Qingdao, and some drivers seem to see them as optional. That means that even if the oncoming traffic has a red light, that doesn't necessarily mean that cars won't come whizzing by at about 50 miles an hour. We live behind Qingdao university, and at the entrance of the university there is a large gate with a paved taxi drop-off area. The area is marked off from the street by a large cross-walk, but I have seen cars, when there is a red light, speed up and drive on the cross-walk (as pedestrians jump out of the way) and then, with out slowing down a single bit, merge into traffic without looking and cut several people off. Cars use their horns the way ambulances use sirens, generally beeping at anything even remotely close. Sometimes in the busier parts of the city, cars drive and park on the sidewalk, so it is possible to be walking down the sidewalk and hear a beep from behind, only to turn around and find a black mercedes about 3 feet behind you. Even though the traffic is crazy, it is possible to kind of figure out a rhythm for crossing, or at least do what the other Chinese pedestrians do.

About 2 days ago though, we walked by an accident where a pedestrian was hit by a taxi which had been turning onto a small side street without stopping or slowing down. The man lay motionless on the ground, and an ambulance and large crowd stood around. It was a sobering reminder that figuring out how to cross the street most times doesn't make us invincible, and we always need to be on our guard

Today I asked my students what their favorite toy was in my class of 8-10 year olds, and one boy answered "ipod." WWMS? (what would Mao say?)
In the same class, were were learning ages, and I made them guess how old I was. The first guess was 17, and the next guess was 34. I guess If you average the two out you might be somewhat close. One kid guessed I was 11. I think his English might of been off, because all the other kids laughed and he looked embarrassed.

This past week, I started one of my summer courses. Next week, the other two will start. So for the next 5 weeks, I will teach M-F from 1:15-8:30 with a half-hour break for dinner. On Saturday I teach 8:30-5:00 with a 2 1/2 lunch hour break, and on Sunday I teach an evening class. It adds up to 40 hours a week, which is a lot of teaching, but the worst is never having a full day off. It's just for 5 weeks, and then my class load decreases, and after 6 weeks, I go back to just teaching on weekends. The one nice thing is that because in our contract we only have to work 80 hours a month, we get paid lots of overtime for working so much.

random bits

In one of my classes we were playing a game at the end of the class which involved dividing the class up into two teams. I let each team give themselves a name, and one team, headed by a very outspoken and somewhat cheeky girl, chose the name "Mao Ze Dong." The teaching assistant, a student from Qingdao university looked fairly shocked. The other team, which consisted mainly of boys, picked the name "AC Milan" after a soccer club. It's funny. The students in the class were all about 10-12, born 20 years after Mao's death, and the TA and I being in our very early 20s/late teens were born about 10 years after his death. It's strange to think that even though Mao had an incredible role in shaping China in the second half of the century, there are now two generations for whom Mao was never a presence. It was hard to tell if the girl was being irreverent or defiant or respectful or just trying to get a rise out of us in choosing that name. Playing along, when calling someone from the team forward I said, "Mao Zedong, come to the front of the class." All the students and the TA started to laugh, and I too couldn't keep from giggling. It was so strange to stand in a Chinese classroom and giggle at the thought of Chairman Mao.
China in many ways does not really seem all that communist. Around me, college students are chatting on-line and playing video games at the internet cafe, and consumer culture seems to be all over, there are billboards and advertisements posted everywhere, outstripping the occasional government slogan in every way. Across the street from our school is JUSCO, and upscale shopping mall full of designer shops and a large department and grocery store selling almost any product one could want, from barbeque grills to cell phones to lego. Of course, just because there are tons of material goods does not necessarily make a place capitalist (well, maybe it does, but I don't think the veneer of consumer goods necessarily means that CHina is just like the U.S.). It was interesting, I asked another class I had today of kids about 11-13 what they wanted to be when they grew up. Many kids said web designer (a vocab word), several said doctor and teacher, and one kid said beggar. All the kids started laughing and being silly, and one boy shouted out president. I asked him if he wanted to be president, and he looked really shocked. I asked the kids who wanted to be president, and they all laughed and shook their heads. I told them that in America many children want to be president, and they were really surprised. I then asked them if they wanted to be chairman, and they all shook their heads no. I suppose if the chairman is some old man who you can't elect and is swathed in numerous layers of corrupt bureaucracy, it's not a position to really try to aspire to. Maybe it's kind of like wanting to be the pope when one grows up.

On another note, I bought a bathing suit the other day, it's two pieces, one which consists of a long top that comes down to my belly button, and the other which is a bathing suit bottom with a skirt over it. All in all, it maybe shows an inch of my stomach and covers my upper thighs. It's in a red and white hawaiian print. Chinese women wear quite conservative bathing suits, most of them have skirts or short-type bottoms, and look like American suits from about 50 years ago, except in really bright nylon. The men on the other hand, only wear really skimpy speedos. (Dan was not willing to follow local custom). The beaches are nice, not white sand and clear blue water, but perfectly good for spending a day lying out or swimming (there is a mark-up on the ice cream, unfortunately). The beaches are fairly crowded, but not nearly as bad as I thought, there is plenty of room to find a spot and lie fairly undisturbed, except for the people stopping to take photos. The beaches are actually more crowded on cloudy days, because people prefer to go to the beach when it's less hot and the sun isn't as bright. Also, most people lie under umbrellas to avoid getting a tan. Tans, especially for women, are not very popular, yet lying on the beach is, so it can be difficult to reconcile the two. Most women in Qingdao carry parasols to keep off the sun, which is actually very practical, because summer is monsoon season and it can start raining at pretty much any moment, so most women have complete all-weather protection.

so, we actually do do other things besides eat, but one last thing about food. We were in the grocery store with a Chinese girl we met, and there was this large bin of what looked like little hard candies in bright colored wrappers, except the side of the bin said "beef." I asked our friend if they were really beef flavored, and she said that they were. She said that now many young children preferred to eat candy to nutritious food, it was hard to get them to eat anything. These were little beef "hard candies" so parents could trick their children into getting a nutritious protein-filled meal. I didn't buy any, but maybe when I return to America I will bring some back as a gift for all my friends and family.

food

so, upon several requests, I am writing a blog about the food. Someone else who will not be mentioned, who has currently not quite been carrying his or her weight with the blogging, will have to blog later to give a different fresh perspective. I have to admit that my view of Qingdao food has been colored by the semester I spent in Beijing. In some ways, Beijing and Qingdao have similar styles of food because they are both part of Northern China and belong to the Northern school of cooking. This style is a bit heavier and wheat based instead of rice based. The main meats are pork and lamb, and chicken is less common. Foods are often more vinegary and salty than sweet or spicy (though there is a good spice to many dishes). Steamed buns and dumplings and pancakes, especially with egg and scallion, are common. Because Qingdao is on the Yellow sea, seafood is also very big here. The food however, and I can't tell whether this is an overall phenomenon or just because of my inexperience/ineptitude with the local cuisine, does not seem to be nearly as good as it was in Beijing. In Beijing, the dumplings were incredible, especially spinach and egg, pork and scallion, lamb and carrot, and mushroom dumplings. Here, the best dumplings we've had have been fish dumplings (and some pretty good cucumber and egg dumplings), but the lamb dumplings have been a disappointment, and when we've tried to order spinach dumplings, the waitress looks like we've asked for something completely unheard of. In general, it's been really hard to find tasty vegetable dishes. There's a group of hole-in-the-wall restaurants near our house (we live right behind Qingdao university, so they seem to cater to the college student crowd) that have a pretty nice cucumber and garlic dish, although I have had better versions in Beijing (not to be a snob). I surprising number of restaurants do not even have spinach or broccoli, both quite common vegetables, and the cabbage dish I ordered at one restaurant was basically cabbage soaked in vinegar. A part of it is that it's kind of hard to order in China because the waitress hands you the menu and then expects you to order within about 5 seconds of getting the menu, and dishes aren't necessarily named descriptively, or you have to be very familiar with it to know that "5 treasure eggplant" means fried eggplant with peanuts, or whatever it is. I've seen other people eating what look like very good vegetable dishes, so it's very possible that I am just ordering the more disgusting dishes on the menu. My friend goes into a restaurants, makes a quick survey of what other people are eating, and then orders by pointing at something someone's eating that looks good and says "I want what they're eating." So far that seems like the best method. We also are having a hard time finding good restaurants. Our school is in a somewhat posh area with lots of 5-star hotels, an upscale mall, a versace store (the real thing) and close to a large Korean neighborhood (there are lots of Koreans in Qingdao because it's basically just a short trip across the Yellow sea from Seoul). That does not mean it's a good place for restaurants, because most restaurants are not that great and a little pricey. We did find a good cheap noodle place, but if one doesn't want noodles everyday, one is out of luck. There some Korean and Japanese restaurants close by and lots of western fast food chains, like Popeyes, KFC, and MacDonalds. There are also lots of coffee houses, usually named things like "American Coffe house" or "Starbugs coffee" Coffee is also quite expensive, at about american prices. (An average lunch costs between 5-15 kuai, or 75 cents to two dollars, and an average dinner costs between 10-25 kuai, or a little over one dollar to about 3 dollars, although at western places or japanese/korean restaurants, a dinner could be 40-60 kuai, and at most small places you can get a meal for 5-8 kuai, and on the street you can by filling snacks or a small meanl for between half a kuai to about 3 kuai. Kuai is slang for yuan, or RMB, and the coversion rate is 8.2 kuai to the dollar). So basically, you can eat really cheaply or spend quite a bit of money. We (being the people in our apartment) are still searching for the perfect little family restaurant with really good food at reasonable prices, but it's hard, again, especially because our school is in a business district. I prefer the cheaper food, as it is generally better and more authentic. Also, fruit is usually very good and really cheap, it's sold on the street for about 2 kuai a pound, and I have been buying lots of plums. I bought some nectarines and cherries, and they were okay, but not as good as the plums. Watermelon is in season, and we had some at the 4th of July bbq, it was very good.
Ice cream is very popular in China, you can buy it on almost every street corner, and in a country where it's not really acceptable to eat while walking around on the street, ice cream seems to be the main exception. In general the ice cream is not as good, none of it is at all creamy or really rich, and the chocolate tends to be waxy and flavorless. My favorite type of ice cream is actually a milk flavored popscicle with raisins in it, I think they might use condensed milk to make it. I also had a cheese flavored ice cream bar that was surprisingly good, the middle tasted a little bit like cheese cake, and the chocolate coating was somewhat creamier and dark chocolate. The worst ice cream I had was an ice cream bar with a fake banana filling, the banana tasted very chemically, and the icecream was really icy and the chocolate chalky, I couldn't eat it. In general though, I do enjoy the icecream, and it makes a fine snack, especially considering it's in the 90s everyday and very humid. Some ice cream I haven't yet dared try, such as the ice cream with a picture of corn on the outside. Somehow, I don't think corn ice cream would be very good, no matter what the permutation.
So, I'll write more about food at some other time, and perhaps someone else who will not be named will also write about his perspective.

names

so, I wrote a post about two days ago, and the internet crashed and the post was lost, so I've been kind of bitter towards the computer, but here is the second-go. We just finished taking the IELTS test, an English proficiency test aimed for students going to Britain, Australia or Canada. It was kind of like an easy SAT reading comprehension, with an actually surprisingly muffled speaking part. I kind of zoned out a little on the speaking, I hope I didn't do too poorly. The rationale is because we may have to teach it, we have to know what it's like. This afternoon we are going to a 4th of July beach barbeque, hopefully it will be fun. I don't really do much for the 4th of July in the states, so it's a little funny to be having a big celebration now half-way across the globe in China, especially because many of the teachers are from England, Canada and Australia (there's also a teacher from Denmark).
My original post was about names though, which I have to admit, are very odd. I don't know what it is about choosing English names, but it seems like a completely different set of names sound good to the Chinese ear. About half the girls are named either Linda or Wendy, and there are lots of boys with names like Wilson, Bill, Dick, etc. My TA's name is Jelly, and I also have a student named Mirror. Other TAs are named Lavender and Cici (a somewhat popular name here) There's also girls named Coco, Yumi, and Drew, and boys named Set and Sketch. Most extreme is a boy named PS2, or Play Station 2, and one named Shaq (after the basketball player Shaquille O'Neil for those who don't know). I hope my Chinese name, Yan Li ning, doesn't sound quite as ridiculous or outdated to Chinese ears, I quite like the sound.