Frustrating day...

This has been an extremely frustrating day. This week in class, I gave my students the assignment to find a partner and make a dialogue with each other. They had to use at least 10 words and phrases from a list of about 40. I thought I was going easy on them. In one class 4 boys sat and did nothing the entire 20 minutes I gave them to prepare. I didn't know this until it was time for them to present their dialogue. I called on them and one boy looked up and said, "No... I have nothing." As if I had startled him! He laughed and looked back down as if that answer was acceptable. Since all of them were not going to volunteer any information, I called on each of them and they all gave the same answer. I kept them after class and explained to them that it was unacceptable to do nothing in class. I warned them that with this type of behavior, they will fail the class. This same thing happened in every class. So very very very frustrating! They think they can get by with doing nothing because, well... they can in this country. It doesn't matter what I say, they know the oral English class is the least of their worries. It's the truth here. I'm not looking for pity comments about this, because it's just the truth, not me getting down on myself. The oral English classes just aren't that important.

Then as I was leaving my last class for the afternoon (I still have one more tonight) I got a phone call. A woman who had called Stan a couple of days ago asked if he could teach a speech class. He said he couldn't because he would have too many hours and that would be a breach of his contract. So, she called me. I only have 14 hours, I am supposed to have 16. She told me that I must teach this class and that the class is on Wednesday night, but that I have the choice of changing the time. I told her that Wednesday is the worst day to do the class, because that is when I have most of my classes. She seemed a bit put off to have to change the time of the class (but it's my choice to change the time...) Anyway, I told her Monday nights would be better. She said the class will start next week. I remembered then that we have a holiday coming up on Monday and Tuesday and don't have to teach classes. I reminded her of that. she asked if I could do the class on Friday nights. Friday nights!?! Really? I mean really? As you can tell, I'm having a bit of a bad day and everything is very frustrating to me. So I told her that a Friday night class would certainly not be the best time to have the class. Seeming put out again, she said we would just meet the next week after the holiday. fine. I asked her what the class is about. She said it is a public speaking class. Have I ever taught public speaking? No! Have I been through training for that? No! I told her I regretted to inform her that I honestly do not think I am qualified for this class. She laughed and said, "But you teach English here." I said, "I teach oral English. That is completely different from Public Speaking." She asked, "You are from America, right?" Me: "Yes." Her: Well, I know that you had to take a public speaking class in college. Is that right?" Me: "Yes, of course. This does not mean I am qualified to teach it after sitting through one class." Again, she laughed, "Well, I think it is good enough." Good enough? GOOD ENOUGH!!? She said she would send me the details. I said ok and hung up, defeated.

**SIGH**

These things happen ALL THE TIME, I just don't blog about them that much. But I think today I hit my breaking point. I'm glad I can have some time to cool off before that class actually starts because it makes me so angry that they are just looking for someone, anyone to fill the position. I am in no way certified, qualified, or have had the amount of classes needed to teach this class. It's not a self-esteem issue, I just don't have the training. But I will do my best. I know I will be fine, and I'm not nervous about it at all, just frustrated.

Whew! I needed to get that all out! Cuz now I feel a little better about it. If Stan had been here, he would have heard all of that and I probably wouldn't have blogged about it, Ha! But it is one of those things that happens here in this wonderful education system. I hope all of that made sense... if not, too bad. Ha! :)

Thanks for reading (if you got all the way through it) :) I love you all!

Say a Little Prayer

Yesterday (Tuesday) Stan was talking to his father on the phone while our tutors were here for our weekly Chinese lesson. He kept popping his head in to let them know he was sorry, but he needed to talk to his dad. They didn't mind. We were just about finished with tutoring anyway, so they just left. When Stan got off the phone he said, "I think I'm gonna go home." I knew that his grandfather had been sick for a while and recently had a heart attack and a stroke at the same time! So, I knew he would need to go home at some point, given his grandfather's health condition. He made arrangements with his classes last night, packed a bag and headed out this morning to Shanghai. It takes a good half a day to get to Shanghai from Xiasha, so he had to leave this morning for his 3ish o'clock flight. He will get into Nashville around 10:00 pm on Wednesday in America. It was a quick decision, but a much needed one. He will be staying in America for almost 2 weeks! So, I'm trying to keep busy! :) Please keep him and his family in your prayers! Thanks so much! I love you all!

We will still love you

The other day we were sitting at Starbucks with our good friend Milissa, who is the manager at Startbucks. We were eating some dinner and just talking. Milissa was saying she was nervous about her driving test. (Side note: She is 27 years old and is just now attempting to get her license. Quite different from America, huh? And if you want to get your license in China, you must go through an agency to help you learn how to drive, and only after you have completed a program with them can you take your drivers test.) Anyway, Milissa was talking about how she hopes she can pass the test. That reminded Stan and I that we had gotten her a present as a “Yay you got your license!! present”. So we told her we got it for her and hoped that would be encouraging for her and motivation for her to do well! She was surprised and was so excited. Then she said, “But what if I will fail the test? Will you still be my friend and give me the present?” We said, “Of course we will still be your friend. We love you. In fact we love you unconditionally.” She said, “What is this one… unconditionally?” We explained what a condition is, and she knew what that was. Then we explained that unconditional love means no matter what the condition, I will still love you. You can fail your drivers test, but it doesn’t matter. We will still love you. You can be in a bad mood, and have a bad day and we will still love you. You can do something that offends us, but we will still love you. You can do something shameful and we will still love you. You can be mad at us and we will still love you. We can be mad at you and still love you. Anything that happens, we will still love you.

As we were taking turns saying all these things to her, she was nodding her head and every once in a while she would smile her big smile and say, “Yeah…. yeah.” She said, “Oh wow, it’s so wonderful! Unconditional love.” We exchanged smiles and agreed unconditional love is the best kind.

This made me think about some things. As the realization set in, it made me a little sad. I thought about the talk Pan Pan and I had a couple of weeks ago about the Chinese culture’s disposition on love and the way they use the word “love”. I told Stan that it makes me sad to think about how they are robbed of unconditional love. Pan Pan told me how many Chinese people feel about love, and everyone is different, but she said this is how the majority of people feel about love. So, when I tell someone in the Chinese culture about our Big Brother and His father unconditionally loving us, how can they help but want it and cherish it? Hold onto it forever and never let go? The problem is, breaking through the wall, which has been put up. This wall says that our Father is a big mean man in the sky who only wants to punish us for doing wrong things. This is not an easy wall to break down. It takes time, and patience and understanding. It takes a soft answer, not a harsh word. It’s difficult, but I’m happy He has helped me to realize He will still Love me, so I can share that with those in this culture.

Please keep these girls in your thoughts. Thanks for reading; I love you all!

Lessons learned from Pan Pan:

A few weeks ago I was able to have a long talk with a close Chinese friend and sister, Pan Pan. These are some themes from the conversation...

Love doesn't mean to them, what it does to us, Love you today, hate you tomorrow. "I love you" means I love you this minute right now, I might not later.

The girl who asked me to lie: I should let her know why I didn't lie for her. It's because of my believing culture, not my American culture. Because she said the girl probably thought that I wasn't gonna lie because I am American.

The Chinese people will respond to the Word. Don't get discouraged. He just tells you to do it, so don't get discouraged when they say it is stupid or childish. Do it because you love Him. If you get rejected, it doesn't matter. You are doing what He told you to do.

"What are they gonna do when you leave??" Many people say this to us about our friends who become believers while we are here. The question has to do with us "leaving them behind".
-Pan Pan said that she doesn't even think of that because "He will take care of me. He does. I believe He gave me you guys, and Amanda, and Erika," (And others who are believers here in our area.

She believes this because the people who showed her the Word moved away, and we came and when she moves to England, He will provide believers for her. She said she thinks for it a lot and believes He will provide. FAITH! I told her she doesn't know how much of an encouragement she has been to us. She says we have helped her, but she has been more of an encouragement to me than anyone. Her faith is soooo strong! Strong even if she had a supportive family, but she doesn't!!

These are just snipits from our conversation the other night. She has shed some light on the Chinese culture for us. She just amazing and we all love her to death! This wasn't meant for in depth detail, just to show you her thoughts. Thanks for reading and I love you all!

Chinese Mannerisms

China is on the other side of the world for a reason. They do things quite differently from us "westerners." This blog is not to complain about it at all, in fact this blog is just to talk about the differences. Some of them are funny, and some are interesting. These are things I have known almost since day one in China, but haven't done a blog about yet. Today is the day! I have a video of some of the things because it is very difficult to explain them in written words. Cathy, one of Stan's students will be helping me with this by exhibiting these mannerisms. The other things, I can just explain by writing. I showed this video in my class this week. I taught about differences in culture. They enjoyed it...I hope you do to!



Thanks for helping, Cathy!

I just have 2 more things and they are easy to explain. When a Chinese student, or Chinese friend calls me, I will touch the green answer button and before I can place the phone to my ear, I will hear, "-llo? Hello? Juliane? Hello? Hello?" Then I finally get the first chance to say hello and the conversation continues. Any Chinese person I have ever spoken with on the phone has never waited for me to say hello first. haha! It's so funny!

Last but not least, I think maybe even my friends and family know this in America about Chinese people. They claim no personal area around them to be their own. ei: They ain't got no bubble! :) There are so many people in China, they can't have a bubble. They get used to being around a lot of people, so when they do have a lot of free space, they don't use it to it's fullest, like American's do. For example, in class when I break them up into groups, maybe there are 5 girls in a certain group. There are 4 chairs/desks bolted together in one row in the classroom. Instead of using the row behind them, they might all 5 squeeze into the 4 chairs available. There might be a whole row they could use, but they will gladly, with no protest share the 4 chairs. I mean, they are all small (skinny) enough to do it with ease, so I guess they think Why not? Well that about sums it up. I'm sure there are some things I am leaving out, but I just wanted to focus on the physical mannerisms they do differently.

I hope you enjoyed the video and reading about the differences in culture! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think about me in China! I love you all!

Honesty

This day was so ironic, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. After being here for almost 2 years, you get used to some things. For example when a student texts you (after he/she has failed your class) asking you to give him/her a second chance at passing the class. Another example: Asking a student a question, but they are too shy and just look down for an agonizing amount of time in silence... maybe hoping I will disappear? I finally break the silence but it is followed by the same agonizing silence until his/her classmate gives me the answer for him/her. Well, I could go on and on, but I won't. Today something happened that I thought might eventually happen, but hoped it would not. The relationships we gain with the students are great, but sometimes those relationships are used incorrectly by the students. This does not happen very often, but regrettably, today it did.

Stan has three students in two separate classes who would like to be together. Their schedules do not jive with Stan's schedule, so they asked if they could take me as their teacher. I said that would be fine and for them to come see me before my afternoon class. One girl came early and spoke with me alone. She explained what she and her friends wanted from me. I will not quote because it might be too difficult for you to understand. I will only explain. She wanted me to teach her and her friends for this entire semester and then give them a grade. But I should not give their grades to the school; I should give the grades to Stan and he can turn them into the school. I asked her if that was okay with the school. She said she did not know. I told her to ask someone from the English Department and then to let me know. She nodded and sat down to wait for her two other friends to get to class. When the two other girls arrived, I motioned for them to come to me. One girl was speaking for both. She explained what I should do, just like the first girl. I gave her the same answer. Her English is better, so I will quote her.

She said, "I already know it is not alright with the school. They will not allow it."

I said, "Oh Okay, I will not do anything dishonest. I am sorry I cannot do it."

She replied, "No, you don't understand. I want to be in the same oral English class as my friends [motions to her friends] but we cannot attend the same class for Stan's class, so we thought we would ask you."

To which I replied, "I understand perfectly well what you are saying and I am saying I cannot do something that is dishonest. I will not do it for you. I am sorry."

"But what will we do now? We want to be in class together and we thought you and Stan could pretend for us and tell the school he taught us."

*Biting my tongue* "The answer is no. We will not do that for you. You have to leave, because I must start class now. I am sorry."

"Ok... we will just go to Stan's class...[whiny noise that is difficult to describe but commonly heard among students]...bye bye."

Do you want to know what I taught about today? Honesty! Irony at it's best. The entire class was about honesty. I should have told them to stay for class. Like I said, I knew something like this would happen. Stan and I had made friends with this particular girl in class last semester (we both had her for class) and it seems she saw that as an opportunity to take advantage of that friendship. Sometimes that's what happens, "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." She didn't seem to feel embarrassed at all about asking her teacher to lie. That is the astounding part to me. It doesn't hurt my feelings that she took advantage of the friendship. I am surprised she showed no shame what-so-ever!

Apart from that, the day went well! Classes went well and we had good discussions about honesty. Just sending a piece of China your way! Hope you enjoyed it! ;) Thanks for reading and I love you all!

Teaching Re-cap 3-4-11

This week with my classes I put them into groups and had them come up with an English family name. I told them they were all going to be a family. Each person in the group represented a member of the family. They had to choose what they wanted to be and how old they were. They had a blast with it! I have some pictures of some of the classes last names. I don't have two of my classes because I was sick earlier in the week and didn't go to those two classes. I'll have theirs later.



The Ma Jiang family chose this because their father gambled all his money away on this traditional Chinese game, Ma Jiang.




The hotdog family chose this name because they love hotdogs.



They chose Lolitata because it sounds like Lady Gaga to them. Oh my...
And the group that chose Helis chose this because each letter in the name was the first letter of everyone's name in the group. Pretty good, I thought!

Some of the names they came up with on their own, and others they had heard in their favorite American TV show or movie. Smith was in almost every class and their reason was "because of the famous movie 'Smith's'" What they meant was "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". Apparently they love that movie. Anyway, that's about it. I hope you enjoyed their last names as much as the first names last week! Thanks for reading! I love you all!