Well it’s back at ‘er. The semester started with its usual fanfare of meeting the new students, introducing myself, and introducing them to the load of homework that I’m going to dump on them this semester. Soon they will think high school was easy and soon they will have that grizzly student look in their eyes, you know the one, dark eye circles, glazed over look that hits so many students their first year. The learning curve from high school to university, suffice it to say, can be a large one for some students.
My first class is usually spent introducing myself (including why I came to China and whether or not I like Chinese food, standard questions for any foreigner in this country) followed by a run-through of the syllabus. The presentation I give is actually a mixture of about me and about Canada with a few quiz-like questions thrown in to keep the students from falling asleep. This typically takes up the whole first class and then the second class we start picking away at the material. It’s no surprise that the freshmen students are much more interested in this presentation than the sophomores.
I wrote a couple weeks back that some changes have taken place since I left. Well, another one just took place: they ripped out an old office in the guesthouse (where I’m staying) and are now putting in a gym. Now I have no excuse. Hopefully they don’t lock it down at 10 pm or something silly like that because sometimes the only time I have is at night. This should be interesting. They’re also upgrading the internet service so we should have faster cruising speeds by the end of the month. Hopefully my VPN can connect faster, too.
Some of my former students who have gone overseas have been trying to add me on Facebook, something I really didn’t think about too much. I give them full access to my WeChat Moments in China but I’m a little more wary about adding them to Facebook. Granted, many of them only signed up for Facebook to see what it’s all about and will probably drop away after a few months or simply not use it altogether. Many of them don’t understand that the rest of the world does not use WeChat and instead each uses its own regional social media. Facebook for North America and much of Europe; Vkontakt in eastern Europe; QQ in Asia (China); and something else in South America.
And as China: Year 3 begins, I hope to increase my Chinese-speaking abilities and (hopefully) maintain or even drop a few pounds by cutting down on beer and heading to the gym a bit more often (I honestly shouldn’t even write that as I’m setting myself up for failure). In regard to Chinese, I’ve purchased a new textbook recommended to me by my Chinese teacher that focuses on Chinese listening skills and so far I’ve gone through the first four chapters or so. I never realized how bad my tones were. Seriously, whenever the book asks me to write in the pinyin tone marks I pretty much get them all wrong. So that will be a priority for me this year.
On a side note, I’ve sometimes heard from a few people, particularly young Western students, who think that it’d be easier and more lucrative to come to China to teach English AND study Chinese rather than simply come here to study Chinese. I can tell you from my experience that the majority of the people who speak Chinese fluently had previously studied in China for a number of years before moving here to work. Honestly, thinking that teaching English is a great method to move overseas to learn a new language is a terrible idea and I recommend you pick one or the other: teach and make money or focus on developing your target language in your host country. I’m not saying learning Chinese while teaching CAN’T be done (because that’s what I’m doing), but your progress will be much quicker if you focus only on one.
Finally, today is 中秋节, that is, the Mid-Autumn Festival when the moon is full and winter is still supposed to be a few months away. The main thing I know about this holiday is that you are supposed to eat moon cakes (pictured below). A former student gave me two of them but didn’t tell me what was inside them. I thought they were all the same. Apparently not. One was made with mixed nuts and was very good, the second had Guangzhou red egg inside, a taste that was rather surprising and, well, difficult to swallow without water. That aside, I’ve often wondered why no one has put chocolate inside one of these things. Nutella, maybe?
And so the new semester begins. China: Year 3 begins. Should be interesting to see what the year brings now that China has officially become the only other country I’ve lived in for a “long time”, that is, other than Canada, I’ve never stayed this long in one particular country. It’s so weird coming back to the same “home” and still having all of your stuff there. Anyway, I guess I should also get those Japanese posts up because I know you’re all itching to read what I thought about that country. And with that, 中秋快乐！