Tuesday, August 25

You know I’ve been having daily massages to relieve the tension in my neck and shoulders--long-standing discomfort, caused by years of computer-gazing, scrunching my shoulders up in a perpetual “Who knows?” gesture, not going to yoga classes, casting teachers’ dirty looks, and a general unwillingness to let go of anything. Dr. Wang (#0001 says his number tag--people don’t wear nametags here in China) said it would take seven days to work out all the bunches of contracted nerve tissue. Well, in an hour I get #7 and I don’t think there’s going to be a new, serene, pliable me. Dammit. Just the same old me with somewhat fewer knots in my neck.

I thrilled myself, Dr. Wang, and the receptionist last night because when I signed out, I didn’t sign Chris Howe as I have been, but, * Hao Si Ting, my Chinese name. I showed my students this morning that I can write it, and they all cheered. I am in total sympathy with all 3, 4, & 5 year olds who are learning to print their names and who recognize word or two on street signs. Like them, as we drive along, I point and call out the words I know, no matter who’s talking or where we might be in a conversation. “Jong” (middle), I’ll cry, or “Da” (big) or “Tian!” (Heaven). My friends are very patient with me and I get many indulgent smiles and murmurs of encouragement. Makes me very happy. Of course, I am particularly gleeful when I see anything having to do with “Hao Si Ting,” but that is very rare (except for “si”, silk, which does appear on many shop signs!)

My new (last) class. This will give you an idea of how dear they are: the students in Session 2, last week--all 64 of them--scored between 120 and 130 out of 150 on the English Entrance Exam. The kids this week all scored between 30 & 40. The class actually started while I was still teaching Session 2, so another teacher began the class. When I met with him the day before I took over, all he said (rapidly, in a growly-voiced Australian accent) was “Low, very, very low.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have found with every one of the four classes so far that the kids do not want to speak English at first. They are used to being called on, not volunteering, so they never raise their hands. They do not want to make a mistake in front of anyone. Some of them do absolutely nothing, but I’m used to that! (Yesterday we were talking about school, and my question had been, “What subject did you like the best in high school?” One wiseass kid said, “I disliked every subject.” He even expanded on his idea: “I did not enjoy any class.” When I asked the kids to draw cartoons and write a two-line dialog underneath it, he left his blank. He has been late, but hasn’t missed a class. (I think I’ve had him as a student before, in the States...)

So very slowly, these “low, very, very low” kids are talking in more complete sentences, they are repeating “th” and “th” and “z-z-z” with me, and they have learned all the words to “This Land is Your Land.” I do feel as if I’m doing a lame one-woman comedy routine in front of an insensate audience at times, but that’s not a new feeling, either. Some of the kids are very pleasant (I can’t believe their scores were really as low as I’m told they were, and I think of all the kids I know who just test poorly.) Today’s movie was “Good Will Hunting,” which they really loved. One young man and I had a pleasant conversation about it--he told me he feels the movie helped him think clearly about what is important in life. That’s a pretty good comment from anyone, not only from a new English-language learner.

Last Friday Duo didn’t pick me up. His parents had visited him the night before and inadvertently locked his door on the outside when they left. Apparently he couldn’t unlock it from the inside, and so he couldn’t get to me. Ying got mad at him for failing to report to work on time (I had to take a cab across Beijing and was a little late for my first class with this group) and she told me I couldn’t call him all weekend, until he saw the errors of his ways and took his job more seriously. I obeyed her orders, but I must say, when he picked me up again, I was delighted! I missed him and his wry sense of humor!

Skype is amazing. If you haven’t used it yet, you really should try it--even with someone in your own town. You download a free program and then you can video conference with anybody, anywhere, who also has Skype. I have frequent visits with my daughters and grandchildren, and one of the highlights for Lila, Ben, and Sam seems to be visiting with my fish. The kids (I mean, the fish) always love it when the kids (I mean, the grandchildren) visit, for it means an extra sprinkle or two of food and lots of attention. They wiggle their little fishy bodies over to my tipped-over MacBook camera and open their little mouths, talking with the (human) kids. You can tell it is seriously time for me to get home to my cats, can’t you?

Oh, just a quick word about Saturday’s performance of the Peking Opera. I saw two scenes--one was a story of a Princess trying to get to her lover, rowed across a river by a trickster old man. It as full of the fabulous costumes and squeals and yowls and loud banging music that I associate with Chinese Opera. The second scene was from a Monkey King tale--this time the clever little beast fought off all 18 of Buddha’s guardians, so there was lots of swordplay and forward rolls and running and leaping and jumping. Most enjoyable. Truth to tell, I could easily go to many more of these performances. I love everything about them! Amelia was, as always, great company and afterwards she brought me to a great little Chinese dumpling (jiaozi) restaurant where we ate three different kinds of dumplings and drank Beijing fresh plum juice! What a great time!

Yikes, it’s time to go. Thanks so much for reading.

Love,
Chris