Volunteer's Story: David and Kristl, United States  

Webmaster's Note: David kept a detailed blog of their experiences in China and graciously allowed us to extract the portions shown below. David's story is fascinating because the school they volunteered at was founded by his grandfather!

  Arrived on Friday, May 6th... It is hot and humid in Shanghai.

  First night, we went toward the Bund, the old financial center of Shanghai. They made dramatic improvements to the area in preparation for the World Expo which happened recently. It was beautiful to walk along the river. We stopped by the Peace Hotel, a grand old hotel that has been renovated. I suspect (my) Mom has been there and enjoyed the delights of the hotel either having tea or dancing. We befriended one of the employees of the NGO as she and I were born the same year. She led us to the Bund and took us to a local restaurant and we had noodles. Not a restaurant I would have selected, but it definitely was a local experience. Saturday, we went around Shanghai. We stopped at Xintiandi, an upscale area which has modern shopping malls along with a renovated old Shanghai section with high end restaurants and shops. We ate at ye Shanghai which had dim sum for 95 RMB for all you can eat. It did not compare with Mom's cooking but pretty good. Ordered the green onion cake which is the benchmark against my Mom's cooking... no comparison. As we walked to the metro, we passed our house in the French concession. Surprisingly, it has been renovated quite significantly. It is a high end clothes boutique with a bar in the front courtyard.

  May 8, 2011 Day 2 in Shanghai:   Woke up early in hopes to beat the heat. Went to Starbucks to get on the Internet. I am surprised on how limited English is in China. Really been difficult to navigate through some elements of daily life that one is not familiar with. Could not get an explanation on how to get onto the Internet using the particular password configuration set up at Starbucks. I was at the Starbucks at Xintiandi which is a primary hangout for foreigners, mostly Americans. Several of them expressed to me that they had tried and were not able to get on. I would have expected that this question of logging on would be a frequent question asked of the employees. Oh well, I figured it out.... Visited Yu Garden in search of a backpack. Aisles were so narrow and full of people, I cannot imagine how anyone would be able to get out in a fire. Quite a negotiation to buy the backpack; back and forth.. what a drama! Later, we went Din Tai Fung, a restaurant recommended by a friend who travels China regularly.... China continues to astound me. Each time I visit, so much has changed. Although, it is still a developing country, you can see and feel the change. Clearly there is now a visible upper class... there are some pretty affluent centers which would equal to New York or Paris. There is much less of a lower class; although, I would not say there is a dominate middle class, I can really see the growing prosperity. The rest of the afternoon, we spent preparing for the classroom.
  May 9, 2011 Chong Ming Day 1:   As with all starts, the day was pretty mundane.. coordination and preparation to move from Shanghai to Chongming... We went through the orientation of the NGO pretty quickly since most of the do's and don'ts were oriented toward the younger volunteers; outlining behaviors that must have occurred which caused embarrassments, such as too much partying or not showing up to assignments. We said our good byes by taking the staff to lunch and then we got on a 90 minute public bus ride to Chongming. Chongming is now connected by a beautiful bridge; prior we got to island via ferry. Instead of 4 hours ferry ride, it is now only a 90 minute bus ride.. it costs only 15 yuan which is about $2 USA dollars. Obviously, mass transit is subsidized. When we crossed over to Chongming, I was surprised on how Chongming has prospered. The wide boulevards and new residences are a far different picture than 3 years ago. Previously, it was an agricultural area with dirty streets and pretty run down retail area. 3 years ago, it was farm country.. now it appears to be the weekend getaway from the rich residents of Shanghai. I did not have an opportunity to take pictures since we were pretty burdened down with our luggage, so I cannot post pictures on the bridge or the improved areas. The headmaster picked us up at the bus stop and took us to Buzhen Primary School. He showed us the school and the music room which houses the bust of my grandfather. They have 12 English teachers and one of them was imposed on to be our interpreter for the night (probably for the remaining of the stay). The building that is the music room was the original one that was built by my grandfather. All the remaining buildings were added. The school holds 800 students from 1st to 5th grades... They invited us to dinner at the hotel. Food was local delicacies so at times some of the dishes were hard to fathom. I do not know how many salutes were made with the beer and wine, but I drank a lot!! My cousin (my father’s first cousin) and her daughter joined the gathering. A retired government official who is a good friend of the headmaster joined us as well. By the end of the dinner, both of them were pretty well oiled. Our teacher-interpreter was probably the only one that did not enjoy herself since she had to have two language conversations throughout the night. In Shanghai, I was really surprised and proud regarding how well I was understanding the Chinese. Boy, in Chongming, I am really lost. They either are speaking much too fast or the accent is throwing me off. Tomorrow, we start our first teaching venture at noon. It appears that they are arranging the program as we go along, so we will be flexible. It was heartwarming to listen to the headmaster speak about my grandfather and the respect they have for his contributions to the education of Chongming's children; as well as the scholarship program established by my mother and father was highly regarded.

   May 10, 2011 Chong Ming Day 2:    We began the day early.. I do not know what is with the hard bed, but it is tough to sleep through the whole night; anyway we were up at dawn to walk the streets. Chongming has big wide boulevards and clearly is making headway to becoming a modern town instead of the agricultural village I remembered. We went to the school at 7:15am and saw a bustle of activities. We fortunately ran into the headmaster on the street, otherwise, we probably would have gotten lost. We found the school with a number of early activities. All the athletic teams were there practicing. The track and field team is the best in Chongming and the ping pong team is the best in Shanghai. I was fascinated with the ping pong drills and the coaches. These 8 year old kids were being drilled by a very skilled but stern coach. The balls were flying across the net. This brings back fond memory of watching Dad played ping pong. Now I know why he played so well and loved it so much. Our teacher-interpreter friend helped us resolve the long distance calling via mobile. China has a lot of controls. We had to go to China Mobile to show my identification and then get it configured to allow for international calls. Things we take for granted are controlled in other countries...

   First Teaching Assignment:  We are assigned for a noon English Corner assignment. We have a place in the yard (fortunately in the shade) so kids can visit us to speak English. At 3pm, I will be presenting English to a large group of kids so I am frantically preparing a lesson plan.... We crashed and burned!! Pam/Terry: we needed more lessons! Within minutes we were overwhelmed by the barrage of questions. We found out later the kids' morning English lessons were a series of questions such as "How old are you?" "Where are from?" "What is your American name?" etc... so when we had our English Corner, the kids in mass fired the questions at us. You can say we were literally cornered. I had kids in front of me, behind me, to the side yelling the same series of questions, but all at different but yet the same time.. Aaah!! (No pictures, too violent for PG rated blog) It was decided that the afternoon classroom session would be canceled. The headmaster thought it would not be effective for the 2nd grade classes to work with us. As he explained, their English are too limited. He obviously was trying to be kind to us. We dragged our tails back to the hotel and regrouped by falling asleep in exhaustion. Aside from the traumatizing experience with the kids, it is 95 degrees and humid. I feel like I am moving in slow motion. Tonight, we are by ourselves. We walked around trying to find a restaurant we felt marginally comfortable to eat at. It took us a good hour. We did find the street market. The conditions were pretty challenging from a western world perspective. Tough day; with renewed hopes, we are immersed in our lesson plans for tomorrow. We are hoping and praying we will have a better day. Buzhen town main street

   May 11, 2011 Chong Ming Day 3:   The day opened with a cooling rain. Much relief from the prior days’ heat and humidity. We attended an English class and watched a very skilled teacher give an English lesson. The curriculum was demanding and the kids were very focused and disciplined throughout the 40 minutes. Boy, there is no horsing around when class starts. All the kids were on the same page; focused on the lesson plan. It was rapid and continuous throughout the class. Every hour, the music rings throughout the school advising the student of recess. For 10 minutes, the kids are playing in a frenzy, using up all the energy they have. Once the music rings, they switched gears and head to class. I was observing a well structured school system in action. You can sense that education is a priority with 80 teachers for a school of 800 students. Children were purposeful in class and playful during their breaks. Teachers were respected in a relaxed atmosphere. Actually, I was surprised on how well the students read and write English. Their oral skills were more rigid or robotic; may be a more descriptive phrase. My assessment was that for a second language, their knowledge of English is impressive. The impressions that I had in the States were that the teaching was more by rote and there was lack of creativity; we better wake up. A large segment of these kids are very bright and can take the repetitive style of teaching to the next level. Spoke to several kids during our English Corner and you realized that a significant few have really taken their knowledge of what was taught in class beyond the rigid and repetitive framework. They understood the pieces and were a delight to work with. Today's English corner was a lot of fun. Kristl and I are getting into the groove or at least did not look like deer staring at headlights. We play: "Who am I; What am I or Where am I".. to encourage the kids to speak. We asked all kids to repeat the question asked and help correct their pronunciation. We spent several hours in the English teachers lounge. ….All of them quickly realized our roots in Chongming when they saw pictures of Buzhen Primary School and grandfather's home in Chongming in the cookbook. The music teacher was asked to play a Chinese instrument which I can best described as a clarinet. Then had a quick lunch in the school cafeteria. At 3pm, I had a PowerPoint presentation telling the students about my family and me. It was a shock when I was told 20 minutes before the presentation that I was the only presenter and I had 40 minutes on stage. Kristl put it succinctly: "You better wing it!" It was all damage control. The audience was 150 3rd graders. They were extremely hard to keep their attention and talking for 40 minutes in a language they barely understood.. Aah!! you can imagine.. it was the longest 40 minutes of my life and theirs. The only life lessons I extracted from this experience was that I was happy I did not choose teaching as a career. The minute by minute uncertainty would be impossible for me.. lucky for me and for the kids. We ended the day walking back in a light cool rain...disguising the sweat that was pouring down my face.

  May 12, 2011 Chong Ming Day 4:   Temperature is returning to seasonal normal: hot and humid. We discovered the "Chongming Beach" diet plan and are having far more success. It is tough to get your appetite when one is more accustomed to a different level of sanitation. Navigating to food that will not get us sick narrows the frequency of eating. We eat breakfast at the hotel which is simply porridge with pickled vegetables along with noodles and fried rice. Later we eat at the school cafeteria. Otherwise, the restaurants or street food vendors just are not that appetizing so we skip dinner. English Corner today was a lot of fun. The number of children spending time with us dropped to those interested in learning English. The first couple of days, we were a curiosity item so we were barraged with kids. We each have our own separate corners under the canopy. We both reflected how well the students interacted with us. The one common thread is that the children in Chongming are just like the kids in California. Curious, energetic, friendly and a lot of fun. We noticed a large group of parents coming into the school at noon. Discovered they were the 1st grade parents. Apparently, the child has not adjusted to eating outside the house so those parents bring the lunch. My presentation was with 4th graders. They had a higher level of understanding of English, plus they were a year more in maturity. This presentation went a lot quicker than the 3rd grade session. The 3rd graders had a tough time keeping to their seats and it became pretty chaotic. They pretty much did not understand at all what I was presenting and had to sit through 40 minutes. You can imagine what it was like for me and them. Did not understand why the headmaster wanted me to start with the 3rd graders..oh well, life goes on. The 4th graders understood and asked a lot of questions. You can tell they were curious. They were amazed when I presented the picture of my grandfather and told them I was the grandson of the founder of their school. They laughed when I showed the picture of Devin and I with our faces painted in black and white when we attended a Raiders game. It was good! In the afternoon, I watched the table tennis team practice. It brought back memories of watching my dad play ping pong. He was a excellent player and would have enjoyed knowing that the Chongming's team was one of the top programs in Shanghai. For elementary school, the coach droved the players like they were in high school. I had the opportunity to play with the best 4th grade girl player. I spent most of the time during the game picking up balls since I missed most of them. For my part, I thought we were having a friendly practice round... she was pounding the ball at me.. of course when I did get the ball back to her side, it was set up for her to do a slam!! Ouch, I did not know a ping pong ball could be so painful. It was all fun. I did succeed to embarrass myself. (the coach in the background was laughing up a storm...no mercy). In the evening, my aunt and her daughter came to visit at the hotel. We had a two hour family conversation and I understood most of it. After which, although still early in the evening, I crawled into bed. I was so exhausted from focusing on listening to the Chinese dialog, I had to crash.

   May 14, 2011 Weekend in HangZhou:   It was a 3 hour trip from Chongming to catch the high speed train in Shanghai to Hangzhou. We left at 4pm from Chongming for a 90 minute ride to the metro connection in Shanghai. Amazingly, the bus ride costs us only 17 yuan which is about $2 US. The subway to the train station was another hour. We finally arrived at the high speed train station. It was modern and massive. It housed 28 train tracks going in all directions from Shanghai. We caught the high speed train which reached 350 km per hour. The train interior looks like the inside of a modern airplane. Clean, sleek and modern. Comfortable seats. China is a contradiction. Part of China is more modern than other parts of the world. Buildings in Shanghai would compare with those in New York, Paris or any major cities. I do not believe there is anywhere in the world that has a more modern rail system when it comes to the high speed trains. The bridge to Chongming is a structural marvel; a multi lane bridge that is breathtaking and the latest in structural design. But, yet, a few blocks away from these 21st century infrastructures, China has all the elements of a developing country. We arrived in Hangzhou at about 9pm. Smoothest train ride I have been on. Outside the train station was a beehive of buses, taxis, and other semi-legitimate transportation options. We attempted to catch a taxi, but for some reason, they were not taking passengers. Obviously, we were missing something, because there were plenty of taxis, but none would take us. A motorized pedi-cab offered to take us to the hotel. It barely fit the two of us so we had to hang our baggage to the side. At times, we almost lost the bag. This ride was definite one of the highlights of our adventure. Riding on the wrong side of the road, on the sidewalk, across red lights and other violation of traffic rules at about 25 miles per hour (without vehicle lights) was the most excitement I had since going to Disneyland with the kids. I have no idea why all the bicycles and motor bikes drive around China without lights. They have them, but they do not turn them on for reasons that escape me. Saturday morning, we had a private tour of Hangzhou which is famous for a lake call "West Lake". This is a manmade lake which has for centuries been known for its beauty and serenity. Hangzhou is also famous for its Dragon Well tea. It is the life style to spend early evenings or weekends to visit a tea house and enjoy the moment with tea. We visited several Buddha sites (temple and grotto); silk museum, another museum and the tea plantation. Above, left is a fabulous white jade carving in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. In person, this an extraordinary piece to view. For the evening, we went to a dance show on the lake.. literally on the lake. There is a platform that lies about 3 inches below the water line. We had seating along the shore of the lake. The stage was about football size area. The show was a dance play with the actors skimming along the water. With the lights, music and props, it was spectacular. This is a must see show.

   May 15, 2011 Sunday in HangZhou:   We visited the Imperial street of the Song Dynasty which now has a variety of retail shops and food vendors. They improved the street to be similar to Xintiandi in Shanghai, with the architecture in keeping with the ancient times. It is Sunday morning and the street mall is crowded with families. We found a food street where there were food vendors on each side and a row of tables down the middle of the street. The variety of dishes that were being prepared was fascinating. Crowds, crowds and more crowds. I am absolutely amazed on how China deals with the population and keep progressing. In daily life there is a constant flow of masses of people. How China handles all the needs in supporting the masses from garbage, transportation, water and all the elements of daily life astounds me. We left Hangzhou early at about 1pm so we can return to Chongming before dark. Although, we were able to catch all the connections, it still took us 5 hours. Although, English is taught through elementary school to high school, it is very difficult to find anyone that speaks English. It is a chore to navigate through the day from selecting food to eat, to changing your train tickets to an earlier time. I am re-living the experience when I was young in the US. I remembered when I spoke English, people would give me this unexpected look. In China, when I spoke either in Chinese or English, there is the unexpected puzzle look as well. Most of them are expecting me to speak Chinese and are perplexed when I cannot communicate. Many are helpful, but some have the impatient or disapproving comments. (They do not realize that I can understand their comments)

   May 16, 2011 Flying Solo:   We were told our assignments this morning. We learned that after our noon English Corner, we individually would be teaching a class. For me it would be one of the 5th grade classes and for Kristl a 4th grade class. We were taken back by this notification since we really thought it was a possibility that we would be teacher's aides in one or some of the classes. Fortunately, on Sunday night we had written a short script of our weekend travels which we used to develop a lesson plan. Our schedule for the rest of the week will match today's. We will have our noon English corner, then at 1pm we have a class to teach for 35 minutes (5th and 4th grade respectively between the two of us). At 3pm, for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I will have another 35 minutes with all the classes of that grade together (160 kids). Tuesday: 3rd grade; Wednesday: 4th grade; Thursday: 5th grade. The noon English Corner was fun for both Kristl and I. She led her group in a game of charades and I created a game entitled "Take a picture.." I had the kids tell me in English what object(s) they wanted me to take a picture. Most imitated others like "Take a picture of: me or my friends." The schedule for Monday appears to be different than other days so both of us only had 2nd graders. Last week, we had mostly 4th and 5th graders who crowded out the other kids. Kristl had the 4th grade class She led her class in songs. The kids knew the song, but did not know the English words. Kristl led them through the English words. She stated that the kids were very quick in learning the song in English. I led my class through reciting our script of our weekend adventure to Hangzhou. The kids were able to recite what I wrote without any prepping from me. I had the kids recite what I had written, then I would recite it. After which we recite and correct through several passes. For both of us, it worked out well, at least that is what the teachers said to each of us afterwards. I caution you they have been trying to be kind and not let us lose 'face'. We are now discussing and preparing for tomorrow's lesson plans. This teaching business is a lot of work. I had naively thought after classes, we would have the afternoon and evenings free. No way!! We are writing, reviewing and updating our lesson plans.

   May 18, 2011 We Have a Take Off!!   We now have several days of both small classes (40 kids) and auditorium size (160 kids) teaching. Each day, we are getting more comfortable and find improvements that make it more exciting for the kids and a relief for us. We decided to focus more on the pronunciation rather than vocabulary or sentence structure. We are understanding their curriculum and adjusting our lesson plans to be more complementary. For English Corner, Kristl is attracting the crowd of kids through her mesmerizing games. As she continues with her game, more and more kids are attracted to participate. As this point, we have less kids passing through for the novelty saying hello to an American. The kids we are with have a strong interest in English. There are about 5 or 6 kids out of the group of twenty that we see every day. The English Corner is during the lunch recess so most of the kids in school are running around playing at their high energy level. Our corner is between the school buildings and the playground area, so there is a constant ebb and flow of children. Instead of two separate corners, Kristl and I started to work as a team. Mostly due to the reason that when she starts her games or songs, there are no kids in my corner. They have all gone over to hers. Another possibility is that I start my songs, the kids are struggling with my singing. :). As a team, Kristl is the master of ceremony playing or singing with most of the kids. I support her by interacting with those kids that are removed but are either curious or interested and need encouragement to participate. We have a video of Kristl in action. I must be missing some part of the Chinese cultural upbringing. As we were taking the moments to honor my grandfather, the headmaster was on his cell phone speaking at the top of his lung. The driver was on the other side of us yelling at him. A similar thing happened at the West Lake dance show. Right in the middle of the musical, someone's cell phone rang and he picked it up and with no attempt to be quiet, he had his cell phone conversation. No one seemed to mind nor did the person felt awkward about taking the phone call. I am missing something.. This cultural submersion is a matter of adjusting... I have taken up spitting and hacking and...(we will skip the details) A ex-government official who we meet the first night and somehow has become a fast friend is taking us to tour Chongming Island on Friday. Since this government official does not speak a word of English and I did not understand a bit of his Chinese due to his local dialect, I suspect our friendship was derived from all the "bottoms up" we did with the wine and beer. We are now preparing for next week’s lesson plans. Our general theme is presenting aspects of America. This week’s subject matter was Disneyland which delighted the kids. Next week, we were thinking of the cities of America.

   May 19, 2011 Failure to Launch   Difficult teaching day today. From the noon English Corner to the auditorium Grade 5 presentation, everyone seemed to be out of sorts. I suspect the heat and humid weather brought everyone to a lethargic pace. Kristl and I noticed at our English Corner that the number of kids were down. I noticed that there were far less kids running around our arbor area. We then noticed that most of the kids were inside the classrooms staying away from the sun and heat of the day... smart!! By the 3pm auditorium lesson, the auditorium was stifling. The kids and I were sweltering. Even though all the windows were opened, it was just hot! It was laborious for the kids to sit through my lesson. You can see it in their faces that all they wanted to do is put their heads down and take a nap. We need to reset our lesson plans. The kids are really having difficulties with the context of the vocabulary we are using. Each lesson is a learning point for us. After class, I played ping pong with a third grader and found a level that I would be competitive. The fifth and fourth graders were merciless. I do not recall winning a point with any of the fifth or fourth graders. At least with the third grader, I won 5 points out of 15. Next week, I plan to challenge a 2nd or 1st grader and seek victory. I hope Dad is not looking down and watching!

   May 20, 2011, Friday:   We spent the day with officials from the Overseas Chinese Relations Division. There were four of them from different departments in what role I could not distinguish. We went to several locations in Chongming: the largest fresh water lake in the area, then to Qianwei ecological village and last to the Dongping forest. Both the lake and the forest were pretty artificial from our perspective but very significant in the eyes of the local officials. As we were driven around the lake and forest in electric carts, we were diligent to express our awe and amazement of the natural setting. Of course we were driving along a paved road with children’s playgrounds and other manmade structures. For the American perspective, it was more of a park in the middle of the city as compared to Yosemite. We ate lunch at the ecological village which had traditional "farmer's" food. We had a feast. There were over 20 dishes ranging from lamb, fish to pork and others. Some of the dishes were familiar as they are cooked by my mother. Others are new dishes to our palette. There were multiple salutes to each and every one of us in different combinations. By the end of lunch, out of the four us that were drinking, we managed to consume 4 bottles of wine. The interesting consequence of this interaction was that my Chinese improved dramatically. By the third bottle, I did not need the interpreter and by the fourth bottle, I was having direct conversations with all the Chinese officials. It was amazing. I did need Kristl’s assistance to get to the car, but my conversational Chinese stayed fluent. Tomorrow, we are going with the primary school team to watch them play ping pong at Shanghai High School. We are catching a ride on the team bus. I am total fascinated with watching them play.

   May 22, 2011 Nice Break:   We started Saturday by catching a ride with the ping pong team to their tournament in Shanghai. We watched the morning tournament events and cheered on the Buzhen Primary School team. It was funny watching some of the players imitate the professionals in their celebration as they win a point. Recently, I read in NY Times that China had all the world ranked players, or most of them. Watching the tournament, I suspect China will continue to dominate; their pipeline of players has to be unbelievable. Rain came on Sunday. Big relief from the heat. There were no English tours to the water towns running on Sunday so we decided to stay in Shanghai. It made for an incredible venture of searching through Shanghai. First, we returned to the Shanghai Museum. I always enjoyed the coin and jade exhibit. We went down a street that sells different pets. We found the cricket shop which is popular in China. I believe the symbol of a cricket represents good fortune... of course many symbols in China represent good something: good health, good fortune, good luck so it impossible for me to be wrong by referencing "good". We went to a goldfish shop to buy goldfish food for the pond at a hostel down the street. Goldfish are symbols of Gold and Abundance. We went to the goldfish pond and had an abundance of NBA playoff. Since it was an International hostel, they had the Mavericks and Thunder playoffs on TV. Give me a moment of America. The best part was the "bao" restaurant. We got a lost for awhile but we found what is called the best bao in China. It was easy to find because of the line outside waiting to buy the bao. There were two versions: on opposite sides of this small street. One is steamed and the other is fried. We had the fried bao (bun with meat inside). We returned to the hotel to rest before the Chinese Opera. I had never seen a Chinese Opera nor will I ever go to one again, but we happened upon the Grand Theatre next the Museum. The cheap seats for the Chinese Opera were 40 yuan ($7 US), so we decided to expose ourselves to deep Chinese culture... heavy!!

   May 23, 2011 Stable and Ongoing   Now, life has become routine. We have our teaching program defined and the challenges of teaching are fluid and perplexing for us teaching novices. Kristl is attracting most if not all the students by singing songs and telling stories. My job is to go out onto the playground and recruit more kids to join. It started to rain late last night and has continued today. We returned back from Shanghai early this morning with plenty of time to hold our English corner and our respective English classes. Instead of trying to get back to Chongming Sunday night, we have decided we will stay in Shanghai and catch the morning bus back. The Chongming hotel is pretty bare and not a place we are too excited about. In Shanghai, I can access CNN and some TV English speaking channels; and get to a Starbucks. We are grateful for the rain. The heat last week was draining and we did not look forward to a stretch of hot weather. We were about to abandon our cold weather clothes so to save room. Fortunately, we did not get to it. Tonight we ventured out and found a new restaurant to eat. We tried two dishes: Nian Gau and Shaolung bao .. rice noodles and steamed dumpling. Nian Gau was ok, my mom makes it better. So far, I have not found a dish that I am familiar with where my mom does not make it better. Since life has become more routine, I will be updating this blog by the week. This teaching venture is best described as perplexing but as the same time, I am finding great personal fulfillment. Talk to you next week.

   May 25, 2011:   Our English Corner has narrowed down to kids that are interested in English. You can tell that some of the kids that are good in English; they are the ones who will interpret in Chinese for the rest of the kids. Now, life has become routine. We have our teaching program defined and the challenges of teaching are fluid and perplexing for us teaching novices. Today, one of kids brought an apple to both Kristl and I. That act of appreciation really strung our hearts. A lot more parents are hanging around our English Corner making sure that their kids are attending. Kristl is singing the song "eensy weensy spider" with the kids. All the kids will say hello to us in the hallway or playground. It is a bit unusual for them since the culture has them being more respectful and reserved to elders. I am having a great time greeting the kids. At times they will run across the playground or up the stairs to say hello. It is quite a delightful exchange. In class, the kids are very precise in repeating our words. On their own, they really struggle with the English. Kristl and I are puzzled on how to create a lesson plan which pushes them to speak. This reminds me when I took French. When the teacher said the words, I could repeat it but on my own I struggled to put the sentence together orally. Once there was a word in the sentence that stumped me, I struggled and had to have the teacher assist me in finishing. No difference here. Second languages are tough. We continued to explore the streets of Chongming. You have to admire the persistence of the food vendors, retail stalls and pedicab drivers. They start the day at sunrise and continue way into the night. My observations are that life is a grind. For all the numbers of food vendors, retail stalls or pedicab drivers, there are few customers in any given moment. Day goes by with few activities for them. You can see many in throughout the day sleeping in their shops or cab. Tough life, but they keep it together. I just noticed that the vast majority of the scooters are electric. Three years ago when we visited China, the noise of the scooters was a constant drum of gas motor noises. I have been bothered by the habit as a pedestrian to look behind to make sure you are not in the way of a scooter or bicycle. I have been puzzled how come I do not hear them coming. Today, it struck me that they were electric. Amazing, in three years, China has moved from 2 stroke gas engines to electrical scooters. Am I quick, it only took me 3 weeks to figure this out!

   June 1, 2011 Children's Day:   June 1st is Children's Day for China’s elementary school students. It is a day of play at the school for the children. They start out with a ceremony at 8am to graduate the fifth graders to middle school. There is also a ceremony where the second graders receive a red scarf from the 5th graders signifying their promotion from 2nd to 3rd grade. Quite a delight for the kids. One of the kids asked me to meet him and other kids at 6:30am to play basketball. Teaching 4th graders basketball was really a challenge. For my part it was a lot of fun teaching the kids the basics of basketball. It is a great ego booster when these kids oohs and aahs your every shots and dribble. After an hour, I felt like Michael Jordan. I was surprised how many kids were at the school at 6:30am. It appears to be standard routine because the PE office was open so the kids could check out the equipment. Just before the 8am ceremony, the 5th graders had their class graduation pictures. Each 5th grade class, which there are four, had their pictures taken with their teachers. Delightfully, we were invited to be in the teachers’ row. One of the teachers convinced the headmaster that since we have been their English teachers for the last five weeks, we needed to be in the pictures. We were really embarrassed and honored when we were pulled in to be part of it. All the teachers were having a good laugh. It was great. One of my fondest moments are when the kids see us from all areas of the school. They would yell to us "Hello". They and we get a big kick out of greeting each other. We had our normal English Corner. We were mobbed by kids. The modified schedule for Children's Day had more kids free at noon. We had a blast with them.

   Reflections:   We have a week to go before we return back to the U.S. Our class schedules are pretty light since the 5th graders are preparing for their proficiency test. I reviewed my goals noted on my first blog and was pleased to see that I have accomplished what I have set out to do.

	I found my grandfather's grave...tomorrow morning, I am going to borrow a bike so I can see if I can plot it to Google Earth
	My Chinese has improved dramatically. I have conversations strictly in Chinese, although the other person may not have found the conversation enjoyable.
	Got a feel for the life of my father and his father.

Some passing thoughts about China which I will add to my blog as they come to me...

	The most pleasant is that most of the people are my height.. for some reason, I enjoy being in the metro and having a line of sight... I know that is a strange observation.
	I think it is a mis-understanding by the outside world that the Chinese people are rigid and instructed by higher ups. You only need to stand at the corner of a major intersection to realize there is a complete mis-understanding of governance; there are no rules, just guidelines which the individual stays within but everything else happens by individual decisions. There are bikes, cars and people going every which way; against traffic, cars driving on sidewalks, people walking in the middle of the street (against, with, and parallel to traffic). No one really goes fast or makes sudden moves or loses their cool. But in the final conclusion, at lot of people move by car, walking, bike or motor bike through this maze without people getting hurt ... using US rules and protocol, it would be absolute gridlock.
	Lots of preserved food.. I surmise it is due to lack of refrigeration capacity. Although refrigeration is available, not to the capacity that is in U.S.. meat is cut and sold the same day.. I suspect energy and its cost is the limiting factor.
	Lots of food is wasted.. a major shock for me... in my early years, the memory by my parents of the images of starvation in China had us eating every grain of rice in our bowl.. not so in modern China.
	One child rule has some unforeseen consequences. In Shanghai, there are 7 males for every 3 females. With one child, the parent wants a male. A woman coming of age has her pick. One, of course, would ask the question how they managed to get more boys than girls.. ??
	Back in the States there is a sense that China is too autocratic, in particular in regards to individual rights such as one child policy. As I end this trip, I can only wonder how we (in the States) would approach our national policy if we had 6 times the number of people to handle.
	After watching Chinese TV for 4 weeks, my observations are: there are a lot of war movies with Chinese fighting Japanese. There is also a lot of Chinese Audie Murphys charging up machine gun fires and taking it for the rest of their fellow Chinese soldiers; and the Japanese are bad at least every 5 minutes... in fact I have not seen a scene where one Japanese did a nice thing. Reminds me of movies in the U.S. on WWII between Americans and Germans.

   June 8, 2011 End of my Teaching Career:   All things must come to an end. Today will be our last day at Buzhen Primary School. It has been a very fulfilling experience. Spent just the right amount of time. China's education system is strong in the basics: reading, writing and math. Not much time is spent on world cultures or histories. Kids were fascinated seeing Chinese who do not speak Chinese or from China. Showing them areas of the US was really strange to them. Although inexperienced as teachers, we did well. We know what rock stars feel like. Yesterday at our English Corner, several of the kids asked for our signatures in their workbooks. It started with just a few kids so we went through the teaching process of requiring them to request for our signature in English. We were writing notes such as "congratulation or have a good summer". Unbeknown to us, the buzz went around to the kids and pretty soon we had a mob. There must have been 20 or so kids surrounding each of us, pushing for a signature. It was a mob scene. After 40 minutes of signing our name, we were exhausted and had to head toward our teaching class. It was crazy. Yesterday morning, I borrowed a bike and rode out to the farm field where my grandfather's grave is located. I wanted to get the direction details from the primary school and using the bike gave me a good view for me to draw up on Google Maps. Hopefully, I can be successful for future visits by the family. I left the hotel at 6:30am thinking no one is going to be on the road. It was rush hour; surprised because students are heading to school. Education starts early and ends late here in China. I had my head on a swivel trying to avoid hitting or being hit by someone. Tonight, I have arranged for a good bye dinner. My auntie and her daughter will join. They have absolutely been gracious and supportive. Nothing like family to feel pampered.

   June 11, 2011 Farewell to the Primary School:   It was a cheerful good bye to the kids. We had the afternoon group English class with the 5th graders so we said our good byes at the close of the lessons. The lesson covered key landmarks of America. One of the landmarks we showed was Hawaii so Kristl closed the lesson by showing them how to do the hula. The kids got a big kick out of that one.. wish we took a video of that lesson!! We went to the 4th grade classes and disturbed the classroom by sticking our heads and waving our good bye. We gave good bye gifts to the English teachers who in turn had bought a Chinese blouse and shirt for us. I was too fat for mine they had to go back to the tailor and make some modifications, twice. When I wore the shirt the first time, the person who bought it apologized for choosing the wrong size (in English) while in the background, another teacher exclaim in Chinese.."boy, he is big"...actual translation was "he is fat". Sometimes understanding a language, where others think you do not understand, is not a positive! For memories, I went around and took pictures of individuals at the school we interacted with but really did not spend time with.. such as the cooks who had a good laugh as we tried to identify the dishes we would like for lunch. Lucky us, it happened to be the hottest day of the time we spent in Chongming and we were leaving. It was hot!! 35 degrees C with the humidity you could cut a knife with. (below) English teacher who bought our gift shirts and had the tailor adjust the buttons.. twice. Kristl and I took everyone to dinner to say our thank you. We invited the headmaster and the assistant headmaster, our two interpreters, Auntie and her daughter, the high school headmaster, the village elder, the ex-top county official and the present one, the person who is charge of overseas Chinese relations and school calligraphy teacher. In China, relationships and/or business are done with exchanging of cigarettes and toasting. Since, I do not smoke, I made sure I toasted a lot during the dinner, in particular to the village elder who I want to cement the understanding of allowing my grandfather’s plaque to be placed. There were a lot of bottoms up which apparently is a show of a higher order of friendship. I made sure everybody was my buddy by the end of the night. Standing was a problem, but we were all friends.

   For those who plan to visit China:

	Shanghai: use the metro. Cheap and convenient. Metro was 6 RMB vs. the taxi at 12-25 RMB.
	First thing: get a metro card in Shanghai. It is basically a smart card that you fill us with money and you can use it for all the transportation links; metro, taxi or bus. Really quick to get in and out without finding the right change.
	If you go to the airport, do not take the metro all the way to the airport-- cut over to the maglev. The Maglev is 50 RMB, but it is only 8 minutes while the metro has so many stops that it takes 40 minutes to cover the same distance.
	When you check into the hotel, grab their business card. When you need to return, you simply give the taxi driver the card and it has the address in Chinese. Ask me, I still have the business card; never took the taxi.
	When visiting the natural wonders of China, be prepared to walk. There are a lot of trams, shuttles and buses, but you still had to walk. Up and down and up and down...
	For volunteer teachers: One thing to take to your China school assignment – a jump (USB) drive to transport your Power Point lesson into the classroom. Also have accessible the downloaded photographs or visuals that you want to use in your lessons.
	Several things I will not miss leaving China: a. tour guides with the electronic megaphone yelling to their clients at the top of the volume. At times, your ear can inadvertently be right next to one of the megaphones...ouch. b. the hacking...not the spitting. In fact you are happy when the person finally spits... it is the clearing of the throat.. the first time, the sound alerts you he is going to spit; the second time, you realize it is going to be a good one...the third time, you are saying to yourself...come on spit it out..

   Kristl and I have had the experience what we had hoped this sabbatical to be. At least, this is better than our first choice: Pyramids of Egypt and the ancient sites of Syria... now that would have been the experience of a life time...maybe a life ending experience. Kristl and I are now sitting at the airport lounge reflecting on the last 10 weeks. The trip has met all our expectations. We explored China beyond the typical tour group show and tell; we got to be comfortable with the language (ok..all those Chinese lessons before the trip did not help Kristl once); teaching the kids was absolutely a kick; understanding grandfather's contributions to the community was very enlightening and satisfying; being with family in Chongming and Beijing was very heartwarming. Truly the best trip we have experienced.

The End!!