China

Now that I am into the third week of classes for this term things are settling into place. I think I have started to learn and maybe understand.

First an admission: When I arrived in China I was overwhelmed. I did not realize it then but, in December I realized that a lot of my reactions to things around me were aggressive. I think I used aggression to combat the feeling of not being in control AND not understanding what was happening. Don't get me wrong, I still think things here are not normal but that is based on my perception of normalcy (and my friends know I am not normal.)

Now I am starting to see some structure to the madness. I still have not figured out why most things are completely backwards from the western world (e.g. light switches are backward, up is off and down is on, meat at markets is left in the open air for hours and straight men walk intertwined) but, I am starting to go with the flow.

The following is from a book I am reading and it applies to China, where there are no secrets.

"..he explained the concept of space... and how it differed from that in the States. Space is shared, not protected. Tables are shared, the arid evidently is shared because smoking bothers no one. Cars, houses, buses, apartments, cafes-so many import aspects of life are smaller, thus more cramped, thus more willingly shared. It's not offe4nsice to do nose to nose with an acquaintance during routine conversation because no space is violated." Even though this country is huge, the cities are cramped and families live together for many years.

The concept of children being raised to leave and be self sufficient is unknown here. Parents keep their children home and under their control until 25 or 26 years of age. If the parents have the money they buy their kids their first home (the male that is because the girls have to find a husband). In return the children bring their parents into their home when they get old and care for them. The children are very devoted to and beholding to their parents. the college students do not choose their course of study, the parents decide what will be best for them.

In colleges here in Jiangxi province, students are required to live on campus (there are a few exceptions) and have the same dorm mates for all three years. They act like they are great friends but, on more than one occasion I have been told that dorm mates are just "common friends." Another thing is that the dorm mates show no compassion each other. An 18 year old freshman was in a singing competition and bombed. He called me and we talked for a while, he wanted to never try again. The next day I sent him a text asking how he felt. He called me almost crying saying no one had ever asked him how he was doing after a traumatic experience before.

I am teaching 32.5 hours a week this term so I do not think I will not be updating this often.

Write to me, I need to hear from the States more often.

TTYL

Terry

NEW TERM

Hey,

Seems I can post when I am at a different campus of my school.

Things have changed here. Christal left and a new teacher arrived. If you recall, Christal is my friend that I spent a lot of time with last term (that is her in the picture at the bottom of this page).

Winter is over and school has started. I am teaching 32.5 hours this term, that is actual classroom time. I am lucky that all but one of my classes this term are oral English. My school is paying me big (Chinese) money to teach oral English because the seniors in the International Education Program told them they did not want any more foreign teachers. Of course the school said ok. Now I only teach two senior classes, the rest are freshman.

I am also teaching a Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics. That school is a real state university, it has much better equipment and the students are not all from farming and/or small rural communities. At my main school a bell rings to end and start classes: At JUFE they serenade you with music.

Now that the holidays are over, those people from out of town that have never seen a black man before have returned home. That means the people around town are used to seeing me now, for the most part, some do still stare. And, I am so used to being here now when I see another foreigner I do not know I don't bother to say hello, it is just another foreigner.

Adam, the new teacher Jack and I rode our bikes in Nan Chang a week ago. While we were in a store a guy came running up to us and, in Chinese, told us someone was stealing our bikes. Jack, being new, did not react quickly but Adam and I ran out the door in the direction the guy was pointing. This was at 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday and the streets were jammed with cars. Without thinking I ran in a traffic lane while Adam was on the sidewalk about 20 feet in front of me. He ran past a rack of bikes and a guy looked up and started to run. I chased him then stopped to look at what he had been doing and there was my bike. He had the locked almost completely cutoff when Adam and I got to his location. However, Jack's bike got away. Seems the guy had a key to his U-lock. Bike thefts have been in the news a lot lately. Something like a million are stolen monthly. Bikes are still a primary means of transport.

This is getting long and I don't have a lot of interesting things to say. Well, this is interesting, I think. Prostitution is against the law but brothels operate in the open. While looking for Jack's bike down side streets and alleys we found a whole lot of them. They do not beckon you from doorways like in Germany but scantily clad women sit behind large glass windows and smile and wink. Spas have upper floors where happy endings occur. All in the open.

Well that is it for now.

When my laptop is up and running again I will post some pictures.

TTYL
Terry