Tīng bù dǒng
So we ride along from the university to the train station in two rented buses, and right as we are about to get off at the train station, our director gives us some very important instructions about taking the train. But of course tīng bù dǒng: I hear, cannot understand. I say those three words more than I care to admit. Whatever, I'll just follow the crowd.
We wait for an hour in the train station (I already told you about this) and then gate opens and everybody crowds the gate, needing to be the first one on. My roommate, in a very non-Chinese moment, says we already have our assigned bunks, no need to crowd the gate. So we didn't crowd the gate! We didn't even get in line! We just waited until everyone else had pushed on, and then got on the train. Amazing.
Being bovine
The sleeper car train is composted of separate compartments each containing six bunks, stacked three high on the left, and three high on the right. It seemed impossibly cramped to us, but we made ourselves at home as soon as we noticed the landscape starting to glide by our windows. The attendant came by and replaced all our paper tickets with plastic chips. Don't ask me what the hell for.
On the train, my group wanted to rehearse our skit. So we all got together, and then... and then people lost focus, started chit chatting. So I left and sat on my bunk. Then we all got together again and then... and then people lost focus. So I went to sit on my bunk. Then they gathered be back and said, we're going to the dining car! So fine, I follow them, but in the next car, B is in a compartment with all the teachers and she DOESN'T WANT TO LEAVE. OH CRAP. So then the teachers all say, "Just practice here!" no no no no nonononononono....... Arrgh! I sit down with all the teachers. Bad bad stupid idea.
So then we struggle through our skit, not because we don't remember, but because we have the teachers interrupting us every three words to correct our tones. It takes an hour, and it's NOT REHEARSAL. Also it's NOT HELPFUL.
NOTE: INSTANTANEOUS INTERRUPTING PRONUNCIATION CORRECTION DOES NOT IMPROVE ANYONE'S PRONUNCIATION.
Never in my career as a language teacher have I ever interrupted someone to correct their pronunciation. Communication trumps form, always. Correct pronunciation in the context of the conversation.... I have to repeat this stuff to myself so that I don't forget it. No wonder everyone here is afraid to speak the English they all studied for 10 or more years, nobody ever listens to what they're saying! All they care about is HOW they say it....
So after the teacher torture, we all walked back to our bunks, talked about how much that sucked and was a waste of everyone's time. And then, and THEN they found me again, and said we were going to rehearse one more time. Really? I asked? Really rehearse? Yes, come on!
So we find a small space and start with scene one. I don't have any lines until scene two. People keep interrupting us, asking B for wine, whatever. Finally we get to scene two to my part, and then G puts her head on B's shoulder and says she's sleepy and doesn't want to practice anymore. I haven't practiced a single line.
So I said, ok, I'm going to bed. And they all looked at me like I was crazy, how could I do this to them? Bu yao, I said! and I spelled out S-C-R-E-W I-T, which some people in the train heard and though I was really mad. I was only half mad, but seriously, I had wasted hours already on not rehearsing.
For some reason, twenty year olds really make an effort to stay up as late as possible, even when they run out of things to talk about. Our car was loud and crazy with people getting drunk and trying to come up with reasons to stay awake, but when I started getting tired they all left my compartment. I drifted off to sleep, and the next thing I knew I was lying in bed and it was quiet. I woke up around 5 am and ate my breakfast of peanut butter on bread, watching the landscape roll by. We were following a river, in a valley with pointy hills on either side. There were small fields of rice and other crops, people in their underwear carrying buckets, groups of ducks minding their own business, an ox here and there just being bovine.
If I had had my camera out, I would have taken pictures of some quarry barges that looked like they had been designed for the set of a Road Warrior movie, looking ancient, improvised, exotic, and industrial all at once.
As we started passing villages, we noticed the old people out and about, some of them doing tai chi. We rolled into Wenzhou around 5:30 in the morning and got on buses to go to the ferry dock.
Arr!
At the ferry dock there was a lot of instructions... tīng bù dǒng... but I did understand that I could leave my gear on the bus. So I left it, and just took a little man purse. My murse. I had my camera, my PDA, my cell phone, a hat, a bottle of water, my wallet, a toothbrush and some floss, not a lot. Once we were off the bus, I noticed people around me were confirming that there would be swimming at the beach. Whoops, didn't bring my towel or my swim trunks, guess I'm not going swimming.
When we got to the dock we all got on a ferry boat, walked straight through it and, to my surprise, onto a second ferry boat, which was docked right beside it. Hmph, I don't think you would do that in America. Anyway, we all got on this speed ferry headed for Nanji Island. The director handed out sea-sick pills for anyone that wanted them. Apparently, someone projectile vomited on a past mid-term excursion, and nobody wanted that to happen again.
The ride was smoother than the train, which is to say, pretty smooth. It was an hour out to the island, and we didn't have much room to entertain ourselves. I gave E my red bandana, which was to be his prop for our skit. He put it on his head. Then I got out an orange bandana and put it on my head, and then all the Chinese people took out their cameras to take pictures of me and E with bandanas on our heads. We changed way we tied the bandanas every few minutes, trying to get creative, to the delight of our Chinese paparazzi. After a while, I realized we were just playing "accesorize" so I tied it on pirate-style and left it at that. When we took pictures, we counted in Chinese: yi, er, san.... but as pirates, of course, we only count: yi, ARRRRRR!
Sunshade Drama
Once we got to the island, it was onto vans that took us up and around the island to the beach. The roads in the hills were paved with bumpy stones, and were nothing but curves and chickens, but finally we got to the beach hotel, where we rented a conference room where we could leave our gear while at the beach. Then we were off. Some people stopped for lunch first; X and I went down to the beach. He got changed and went into the water; I parked under a sunshade with some others and sat.
The beach was at the end of a rectangular bay, and the waves broke gently, less than a foot high, all at once. There were dark green hills all around us, and blue sky above us. It was hot. I went down to the water to wade in a couple times, it was refreshing.
Meanwhile, back at the sunshades, the administrator of the sunshade department kicked us out from under the sunshades, saying we didn't pay, and we couldn't use the shades, not even if we sit on the ground. The teachers argued with him, and we ended up having to move our stuff onto the sand in front of the sunshades, shaded by the sunbrellas that all the girls carry around. I went back down to the water, and by the time I came back, we had rented two sunshades as a group, and had a total of six chairs. I parked in one of them for the afternoon.
RIGHT NOW.
Around lunchtime we tried to get people moving, but some people have an incredible instinct to do exactly the opposite of what I want them to do. Let's go to lunch! No, let's wait five minutes for this person, five minutes becomes 20 minutes, and then it's "let's see if so-and-so wants to come with us." I would ditch and eat by myself, but since Chinese food is family style, it's hard to order for one person. Finally we started moving, and they asked me, "what do you want to eat?" and I said " I want to eat NOW" and they said, no not when, but what do you want to eat. And my answer is, "I understand your question. I want to eat RIGHT NOW."
Once we got to restaurant row, three owners came to beg for our patronage, we finally picked a restaurant, and everyone sat down. Everyone but me, as I looked at all the live seafood in the tubs, maybe 30 tubs of different seafood. The waitress went to the table and explained to them that they had to get up and point, so then everyone got up to look at the seafood and be indecisive. I ordered white clams, oysters, and encouraged the others not to be shy about ordering octopus and seaweed. We also ended up ordering rice cakes and vegetables.
We were halfway through the oysters when someone realized they were raw. I was like, you didn't know? After that, the oysters were all mine. I may have eaten a dozen small oysters. Not bad, and only about $3.
I didn't go back to the beach after lunch, I just hung out at the hotel. There were some soldiers from the People's Army there, some with green shoulder tassles, some with red. I decided that the green ones were superior officers, based on the quality of their shoes, and then assigned them as boyfriends to some of the teachers, who apparently have never played "your boyfriend" before.
Homophobic Territory Cough
Finally, the vans came back to take us back to the ferry dock. The ride this time was smooth and short, and I gathered that there is only one road on the island, and it's one way, and the beach really isn't that far from the ferry dock, it's just that it's the long way around the one-way road. Once we got to the dock people bought dried fish snacks. There were all kinds of dried fish, and I wish I could have taken a picture for my family to see, but my battery light was flashing. I didn't buy any, because I don't need any more salt in my diet. I settled for a melon flavored ice cream bar and a bottle of frozen water.
Once we got on the boat, everyone fell asleep. For a while, everyone was asleep but me, and a very loud family in front of me. The first chapter of our textbook was all about how Chinese people like to be loud, and let me tell you, these people were yelling at each other across the boat the entire way. The rest of the boat was dead asleep. Their baby (not cute) would scream in delight, and then they would all scream in delight. At no point did they every become quiet.
Next to me, I could see that E was falling asleep, and having trouble keeping his head up. Oh great, I thought, he's going to end up with his head on my shoulder, and I'm going to have to do the homophobic territory cough to wake him up, poor kid.... and then I fell asleep. I think I slept for a long time. And as soon as I woke up, I realized he had just taken his head off my shoulder. Hey Chinese people, did you get a picture of a dude sleeping on my shoulder? As if I cared.
The ferry pulled into Wenzhou and took FOREVER to "dock" aside the other boat. Once again, we walked through an empty boat to get to where we were going; this time, we saw a mechanic in his underwear yelling down through the access hole in the deck. The director wanted a picture, but I didn't want to stop. Bus to the hotel, where we were given rooms with our roommates. Our room was awesome in every way, except that it was on a smoking floor. Twenty three floors in the hotel, and only the one through five are non smoking. Oh well, it wasn't that smokey. We were given an hour to have dinner in the revolving restaurant cafe and get ready for our skit presentations.
Every single person in my group came up to me to slowly explain to me in our pidgin Chinese that we were meeting at 7:45 to rehearse. The first time, E yelled through the bathroom door as I was taking a shower. I yelled back, yah, yah, and then when I got out I asked my roommate what the heck E was saying. When I got to the buffet, starving of course, B comes up and I interrupt her and say "I know, I know!" and then we're both relieved. Back to the food; finally, dinner, right? Not quite! As I get back to the table, G intercepts me and starts....
Just a second, I say. I realize the swim goggles that E had given me to hold on to and revolved around the restaurant, and were now two tables down. Whoops. (There's a story of my Nanang Paula leaving her umbrella on the window sill in the Space Needle, and it coming back around an hour later... in 1975. It was nice to remember Nanang Paula).
So back to my table, G is about to repeat the plan to me; it will be the third time I've had to hear it. "I know, I know, 7:45!" I say, before she gets too far into it, and then she goes away relieved. Talking Chinese is a chore.
to be continued...
So we ride along from the university to the train station in two rented buses, and right as we are about to get off at the train station, our director gives us some very important instructions about taking the train. But of course tīng bù dǒng: I hear, cannot understand. I say those three words more than I care to admit. Whatever, I'll just follow the crowd.
We wait for an hour in the train station (I already told you about this) and then gate opens and everybody crowds the gate, needing to be the first one on. My roommate, in a very non-Chinese moment, says we already have our assigned bunks, no need to crowd the gate. So we didn't crowd the gate! We didn't even get in line! We just waited until everyone else had pushed on, and then got on the train. Amazing.
Being bovine
The sleeper car train is composted of separate compartments each containing six bunks, stacked three high on the left, and three high on the right. It seemed impossibly cramped to us, but we made ourselves at home as soon as we noticed the landscape starting to glide by our windows. The attendant came by and replaced all our paper tickets with plastic chips. Don't ask me what the hell for.
On the train, my group wanted to rehearse our skit. So we all got together, and then... and then people lost focus, started chit chatting. So I left and sat on my bunk. Then we all got together again and then... and then people lost focus. So I went to sit on my bunk. Then they gathered be back and said, we're going to the dining car! So fine, I follow them, but in the next car, B is in a compartment with all the teachers and she DOESN'T WANT TO LEAVE. OH CRAP. So then the teachers all say, "Just practice here!" no no no no nonononononono....... Arrgh! I sit down with all the teachers. Bad bad stupid idea.
So then we struggle through our skit, not because we don't remember, but because we have the teachers interrupting us every three words to correct our tones. It takes an hour, and it's NOT REHEARSAL. Also it's NOT HELPFUL.
NOTE: INSTANTANEOUS INTERRUPTING PRONUNCIATION CORRECTION DOES NOT IMPROVE ANYONE'S PRONUNCIATION.
Never in my career as a language teacher have I ever interrupted someone to correct their pronunciation. Communication trumps form, always. Correct pronunciation in the context of the conversation.... I have to repeat this stuff to myself so that I don't forget it. No wonder everyone here is afraid to speak the English they all studied for 10 or more years, nobody ever listens to what they're saying! All they care about is HOW they say it....
So after the teacher torture, we all walked back to our bunks, talked about how much that sucked and was a waste of everyone's time. And then, and THEN they found me again, and said we were going to rehearse one more time. Really? I asked? Really rehearse? Yes, come on!
So we find a small space and start with scene one. I don't have any lines until scene two. People keep interrupting us, asking B for wine, whatever. Finally we get to scene two to my part, and then G puts her head on B's shoulder and says she's sleepy and doesn't want to practice anymore. I haven't practiced a single line.
So I said, ok, I'm going to bed. And they all looked at me like I was crazy, how could I do this to them? Bu yao, I said! and I spelled out S-C-R-E-W I-T, which some people in the train heard and though I was really mad. I was only half mad, but seriously, I had wasted hours already on not rehearsing.
For some reason, twenty year olds really make an effort to stay up as late as possible, even when they run out of things to talk about. Our car was loud and crazy with people getting drunk and trying to come up with reasons to stay awake, but when I started getting tired they all left my compartment. I drifted off to sleep, and the next thing I knew I was lying in bed and it was quiet. I woke up around 5 am and ate my breakfast of peanut butter on bread, watching the landscape roll by. We were following a river, in a valley with pointy hills on either side. There were small fields of rice and other crops, people in their underwear carrying buckets, groups of ducks minding their own business, an ox here and there just being bovine.
If I had had my camera out, I would have taken pictures of some quarry barges that looked like they had been designed for the set of a Road Warrior movie, looking ancient, improvised, exotic, and industrial all at once.
As we started passing villages, we noticed the old people out and about, some of them doing tai chi. We rolled into Wenzhou around 5:30 in the morning and got on buses to go to the ferry dock.
Arr!
At the ferry dock there was a lot of instructions... tīng bù dǒng... but I did understand that I could leave my gear on the bus. So I left it, and just took a little man purse. My murse. I had my camera, my PDA, my cell phone, a hat, a bottle of water, my wallet, a toothbrush and some floss, not a lot. Once we were off the bus, I noticed people around me were confirming that there would be swimming at the beach. Whoops, didn't bring my towel or my swim trunks, guess I'm not going swimming.
When we got to the dock we all got on a ferry boat, walked straight through it and, to my surprise, onto a second ferry boat, which was docked right beside it. Hmph, I don't think you would do that in America. Anyway, we all got on this speed ferry headed for Nanji Island. The director handed out sea-sick pills for anyone that wanted them. Apparently, someone projectile vomited on a past mid-term excursion, and nobody wanted that to happen again.
The ride was smoother than the train, which is to say, pretty smooth. It was an hour out to the island, and we didn't have much room to entertain ourselves. I gave E my red bandana, which was to be his prop for our skit. He put it on his head. Then I got out an orange bandana and put it on my head, and then all the Chinese people took out their cameras to take pictures of me and E with bandanas on our heads. We changed way we tied the bandanas every few minutes, trying to get creative, to the delight of our Chinese paparazzi. After a while, I realized we were just playing "accesorize" so I tied it on pirate-style and left it at that. When we took pictures, we counted in Chinese: yi, er, san.... but as pirates, of course, we only count: yi, ARRRRRR!
Sunshade Drama
Once we got to the island, it was onto vans that took us up and around the island to the beach. The roads in the hills were paved with bumpy stones, and were nothing but curves and chickens, but finally we got to the beach hotel, where we rented a conference room where we could leave our gear while at the beach. Then we were off. Some people stopped for lunch first; X and I went down to the beach. He got changed and went into the water; I parked under a sunshade with some others and sat.
The beach was at the end of a rectangular bay, and the waves broke gently, less than a foot high, all at once. There were dark green hills all around us, and blue sky above us. It was hot. I went down to the water to wade in a couple times, it was refreshing.
Meanwhile, back at the sunshades, the administrator of the sunshade department kicked us out from under the sunshades, saying we didn't pay, and we couldn't use the shades, not even if we sit on the ground. The teachers argued with him, and we ended up having to move our stuff onto the sand in front of the sunshades, shaded by the sunbrellas that all the girls carry around. I went back down to the water, and by the time I came back, we had rented two sunshades as a group, and had a total of six chairs. I parked in one of them for the afternoon.
RIGHT NOW.
Around lunchtime we tried to get people moving, but some people have an incredible instinct to do exactly the opposite of what I want them to do. Let's go to lunch! No, let's wait five minutes for this person, five minutes becomes 20 minutes, and then it's "let's see if so-and-so wants to come with us." I would ditch and eat by myself, but since Chinese food is family style, it's hard to order for one person. Finally we started moving, and they asked me, "what do you want to eat?" and I said " I want to eat NOW" and they said, no not when, but what do you want to eat. And my answer is, "I understand your question. I want to eat RIGHT NOW."
Once we got to restaurant row, three owners came to beg for our patronage, we finally picked a restaurant, and everyone sat down. Everyone but me, as I looked at all the live seafood in the tubs, maybe 30 tubs of different seafood. The waitress went to the table and explained to them that they had to get up and point, so then everyone got up to look at the seafood and be indecisive. I ordered white clams, oysters, and encouraged the others not to be shy about ordering octopus and seaweed. We also ended up ordering rice cakes and vegetables.
We were halfway through the oysters when someone realized they were raw. I was like, you didn't know? After that, the oysters were all mine. I may have eaten a dozen small oysters. Not bad, and only about $3.
I didn't go back to the beach after lunch, I just hung out at the hotel. There were some soldiers from the People's Army there, some with green shoulder tassles, some with red. I decided that the green ones were superior officers, based on the quality of their shoes, and then assigned them as boyfriends to some of the teachers, who apparently have never played "your boyfriend" before.
Homophobic Territory Cough
Finally, the vans came back to take us back to the ferry dock. The ride this time was smooth and short, and I gathered that there is only one road on the island, and it's one way, and the beach really isn't that far from the ferry dock, it's just that it's the long way around the one-way road. Once we got to the dock people bought dried fish snacks. There were all kinds of dried fish, and I wish I could have taken a picture for my family to see, but my battery light was flashing. I didn't buy any, because I don't need any more salt in my diet. I settled for a melon flavored ice cream bar and a bottle of frozen water.
Once we got on the boat, everyone fell asleep. For a while, everyone was asleep but me, and a very loud family in front of me. The first chapter of our textbook was all about how Chinese people like to be loud, and let me tell you, these people were yelling at each other across the boat the entire way. The rest of the boat was dead asleep. Their baby (not cute) would scream in delight, and then they would all scream in delight. At no point did they every become quiet.
Next to me, I could see that E was falling asleep, and having trouble keeping his head up. Oh great, I thought, he's going to end up with his head on my shoulder, and I'm going to have to do the homophobic territory cough to wake him up, poor kid.... and then I fell asleep. I think I slept for a long time. And as soon as I woke up, I realized he had just taken his head off my shoulder. Hey Chinese people, did you get a picture of a dude sleeping on my shoulder? As if I cared.
The ferry pulled into Wenzhou and took FOREVER to "dock" aside the other boat. Once again, we walked through an empty boat to get to where we were going; this time, we saw a mechanic in his underwear yelling down through the access hole in the deck. The director wanted a picture, but I didn't want to stop. Bus to the hotel, where we were given rooms with our roommates. Our room was awesome in every way, except that it was on a smoking floor. Twenty three floors in the hotel, and only the one through five are non smoking. Oh well, it wasn't that smokey. We were given an hour to have dinner in the revolving restaurant cafe and get ready for our skit presentations.
Every single person in my group came up to me to slowly explain to me in our pidgin Chinese that we were meeting at 7:45 to rehearse. The first time, E yelled through the bathroom door as I was taking a shower. I yelled back, yah, yah, and then when I got out I asked my roommate what the heck E was saying. When I got to the buffet, starving of course, B comes up and I interrupt her and say "I know, I know!" and then we're both relieved. Back to the food; finally, dinner, right? Not quite! As I get back to the table, G intercepts me and starts....
Just a second, I say. I realize the swim goggles that E had given me to hold on to and revolved around the restaurant, and were now two tables down. Whoops. (There's a story of my Nanang Paula leaving her umbrella on the window sill in the Space Needle, and it coming back around an hour later... in 1975. It was nice to remember Nanang Paula).
So back to my table, G is about to repeat the plan to me; it will be the third time I've had to hear it. "I know, I know, 7:45!" I say, before she gets too far into it, and then she goes away relieved. Talking Chinese is a chore.
to be continued...
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