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Dec 26 2005
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teaching, 中国

no one needs to keep an eye on me

Good times in Newspaper Reading this afternoon when they weren’t being pricks and chattering the whole time I spoke.

We were talking about how incomplete our views of the world are if we only read news from one place. And I was getting people to list important places in China that everyone in North America had heard of. And we had a list of cities provinces etc.

So I was talking about how every reporter from Western media is in Beijing Shanghai or Hong Kong. When they’re reporting on bird flu in Hunan they ain’t in Hunan, they’re in BJ SH or HK. I was saying something like “Really, for most North Americans China is those three cities.” (Yes I probably hyperbolize but not by that much.)

“Plus,” I continued, “there’s Tibet and Taiwan which show up in the news sometimes . . . you know, when people . . . say . . . stuff.”

“And that’s all I’m going to say about that.” Hearty laughter all around.

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Nov 17 2005
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teaching, winnipeg, 中国

paying down debts

I just did a guest lecture in Leon’s Broadcasting class. Have I talked about Leon before? Why yes I have: She’s the horribly awkward to deal with new teacher who likes to practice her English with me. I got roped into this last week while setting out to procure tacopizzas for sleeping Nanchongren. She was with some of her students and I couldn’t disappoint them in their cuteness. I did whittle it down to just one 40 minute period, which I figured wouldn’t be too bad.

And it wasn’t too bad. I just kind of randomly talked about stuff, from the funding of the CBC to the pitfalls of the 24 hour news cycle to Jon Stewart’s Crossfire appearance. With ten minutes left at the end for questions. They asked about the future of news and I secretly delighted in telling them it was all about blogs, baby (cue Samira and Tait and any number of other people tearing out their hair). I got to talk about how North Americans don’t read. I even talked about Winnipeg’s sudden onset of winter.

You know, this has been the fourth Winnipeg winter in a row whose beginning I’ve missed. fakeLondon’s winter wasn’t that dramatic an onset and the lack of snow and real cold here makes me realize how much I don’t miss Winnipeg winters. I don’t even know what I’d do with a more severe shifting of the seasons anymore. Probably whimper.

But it’s funny how saying Winnipeg was -5 degrees Celsius gets a shocked “Whaaa?” Then the “but it went down to the -20s” just shorts out their brains. There’s no conception of a temperature beyond “cold enough for snow;” it’s all just ridiculous mythical numbers.

Anyway, the shitty thing about this lecture was the forty-five goddamned minutes we spent afterwards taking pictures. In all sorts of locations around the campus. I went along with it all building up a buffer of goodwill that will allow me to completely ignore Leon for the rest of the term.

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Nov 11 2005
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teaching, 中国

no one i knew got killed in south central today

My plan to get books from my fellow [organization redacted]ers looks like it is going well. A few have already landed here in town and hopefully more will be showing up tomorrow.

I had my class this morning excellently interrupted by Holly and Phil showing up and slipping into the back of the room. All nonchalant and inconspicuous. All conversation ground to a halt and Gina asked me very quietly, but with everyone listening, “Is that your mom and dad?”

So then I realized nothing else was going to happen and put the two of them on stage for the last five minutes for them to field questions.

We lazed about, ate tacopizzas and played some Soul Calibur 3 (while Holly marked papers) and had a ridiculously populous dinner when the rest of the Nanchongren and Chongqingers got here.

A delicious no-bake Oreo dessert was the crowning thing for the evening that we made and ate while watching The Royal Tenenbaums.

Does it sound like a good day?

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Jun 21 2005
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food, teaching, 中国

“what a pity!”

I’ve marked my last homework of the year (by which I mean academic year unless I decide to be really slack next semester). I asked my students to write about what they thought of Wanzhou’s new McDonald’s.

Most talked about the unhealthiness (which is cool because it gives me an excuse to talk about Supersize Me) and the expensiveness of eating there, which explained why they hadn’t done it yet. Some said it was cheap, but I think they were conflating my mentions of how it is in America with its role here. At least three students talked about how it was a good location for a romantic meal. Which made me laugh. And of course some people just made stuff up involving pizza and chicken legs. The drumsticks may actually exist, but I wouldn’t know since my last McD’s trip was back in Hong Kong.

I’d thought I’d be going for sundaes and stuff once it opened, but like a lot of things, I can’t get jazzed about going to McDonald’s by myself. I know I don’t need to go to McDonald’s and if it’s not with someone then there’s not even that social aspect in there. It always seems like a good idea to go get some ice cream when I’m in Nanchong with my friends but by myself the idea just sort of gets shy and wilts.

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Apr 20 2005
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teaching, 中国

and may i ask why are you purchasing these articles of clothing?

Today I bought a couple of shirts purely out of spite.

People who get my quasi-weekly emails (and if you want to, just give me your email address in the comments) might remember me mentioning how much I hate the shirts that exist here in Wanzhou. They’re all pastel crap with big stripes and are just ugly.

This past Saturday I was talking with one of my students and he mentioned that they’d had some class meetings to do teacher evaluation kinds of things. He told me that all people said about me was that I should get some new clothes.

To be fair, I don’t have a huge wardrobe here. I have three teaching shirts that I cycle through each week. So yeah, they’ve seen those three shirts a lot. But come on! Evaluating your teacher based on his shirt? That’s low. So I decided to start wearing a blazer and jeans (I kid!).

How this comes down to my delicious spite shirts is that I bought two shirts today, finally finding ones with non-awful colours (although the blue on one of them is pretty pale) AND I WILL NEVER WEAR THEM TO CLASS. Hahaha!

I’ll mention I bought new shirts to build up their anticipation. “A Justin in other shirts exists” they will murmur electrically, but they won’t get to see him. When students come over I will quickly change out of them. I’ll wear other shirts on top of them until I am outside the school gates. Once in a while I’ll be wearing one the spite shirts downtown and a student will see me and the legend will grow, until they are begging to see these mythical shirts that haven’t burned into their retinas.

Of course the other reason for me not to buy any more Chinese shirts is that they don’t fit.

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Mar 01 2005
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teaching, 中国

for the sake of the children

It’s vaguely Christmassy in my apartment tonight. And all through the simple expedient of mixing processed fake orange juice with Sprite. Like so many half assed festive punches I have drunk in my younger years.

On an unrelated note baijiu sucks as a vodka substitute when you are making Christmas punch.

It’s funny how much smarter better at English the first-years in my Reading class are than my American culture kids. I also realized that I’ll have to teach them (the first-years) something real, since the rest of their studies could be affected by how well they learn to be good readers. Which is something approaching pressure.

Last semester the seniors were practically done anyway and nothing would try to build on reading newspapers. And no one cares what crap I tell the Culture kids. It’s kind of weird. Now I actually have to get good at this.

And if anyone cares, Nanchongren just means person from Nanchong (literally Nanchong-person).

Listening to: Baby Gonna Leave Me from the album Real Gone
by Tom Waits

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Jan 06 2005
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teaching, 中国

12 hours of marking

It was a crappy day, but it’s done. Tomorrow I just have to bring the marks down to the office and fill out a few more forms. And then go find a ticket to Tibet. I really hope that isn’t as difficult as it could be. Supposedly I’ll be able to get a ticket here in Wanzhou. I hope that’s true.

But no one has been available to help me go buy some ticket. Going and blundering through will be gobs of fun I’m sure.

Listening to: Stoned from the album The Point (Bryn Mawr PA) – 11 August
by Dan Bern

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Dec 26 2004
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teaching, 中国

professional vagabond

I have to teach my newspaper classes again this week. I can’t remember how I do those classes. Especially since there are only two or three of them to get them prepared for the exam. My expectations for them have been lowered a lot by the second-years, which I don’t think is fair to these students. I have to figure out what we’re going to do in these classes.

But it means in two weeks I’ll be done my first semester as a teacher and can leave for Tibet. There I’ll follow my true calling of wandering around someplace new. After I get my January paycheque.

Listening to: My Heart Would Know from the album Hanky Panky
by The The

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Aug 28 2004
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books, teaching, 中国

sunday should be called lopezday

Yesterday was really quite good. 90% of its goodness came from not teaching, but through conversations with a bunch of my students I think I’m getting on track. See, it’s weird, I’m teaching 4 classes of seniors. This is their fourth year of being trained as teachers, while I’ve never done this before. They’re patient and I know a bit more what they want out of the classes now, which will let me do a bit more autopiloting.

In the afternoon I took the bus downtown with Alex, who isn’t my student and “despises” all the English department students for being so arrogant. He’s in the tourism department. He showed me around a bit. We also went down to the river. I like the Yangtze (or Chang Jiang). In the morning I finished a book called The River at the Centre of the World, which was all about this river. It’s muddy here, and wide, and I can’t tell where the water will eventually rise to when the dam goes fully online.

A few students came over last night and we talked about the Olympics and I showed them pictures from (Reyn’s and) my trip. So many of these students would like to travel, I feel kind of bad telling them about all the places I’ve been. All that white middle-class guilt. But then I put on my iPod and forget all about it!

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Aug 21 2004
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teaching, 中国

moving in

Well here I am in Wanzhou. The college that I’m teaching at is small and on the side of a “mountain.” The quotes are on that for everyone who thinks that the Rockies mark the minimum size for mountainness. The Yangtze river is across the street (which takes a bit of walking to get to) and it’s all pretty good.

Today I’m going out to buy some supplies to give my kitchen and bathroom a good cleaning. They said I couldn’t move in when I got here yesterday because they were busy cleaning, but it sure as hell wasn’t either of those rooms.

I also found out that rather than lazing about getting used to the place for a few weeks, I start teaching Newspapers and Magazines on Monday. I’ll also be teaching some murkily understood British survey course. I don’t know if it’s culture or literature or what. Hopefully I’ll find out soon.

*Update* It’s a course on British history, geography, the whole shebang (next term I do the same thing for the States). You know, all that stuff you don’t learn in Canadian high school. But it seems like I will be able to toss in some Douglas Adams and the Beatles, so I’m happy.

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