Shell in China

If Oprah were a TEFL volunteer in Peace Corps, what would she do? Start a book club, of course! And I figure, if it is good enough for the Queen of Talk, it is good enough for me. (I think the only difference between my book club and hers is that mine meant the purchase of eight books and hers guarantees the author a top spot on all of the national best-sellers lists!!)

The book club is one of my secondary projects this term. I selected eight students (all girls, but considering that 80% of my students are female, it does make some sense) to join and gave them each a copy of the book The Shadow Within by Jenine Wilson. We made a plan to meet every Thursday afternoon to get together and talk about the book. If the weather was cold we would meet in my sixth-floor apartment and when it was warm we would meet under a canopy of wisteria that grows near my place. Before the first meeting I was worried that it would turn into just a vocabulary session, where the girls asked questions about words they didn’t understand and I explained them. BORING!! My fears were quickly assuaged when the first get-together rapidly went from questions about words to questions about divorce in America. This is exactly what I was hoping for- to use the book as a conversation starter about the similarities and differences between our two cultures.

Over the course of the next five weeks, our conversations ranged from what high school is like in the States (the girls particularly liked to talk about dating and the institution that is senior prom) to whether they believe in ghosts or an afterlife. I loved sitting back and listening to the girls discuss these topics with each other and put their questions to me. Thursday afternoons quickly became something to which I looked forward!

All good things must come to an end though, including our book. This last Thursday we had one last meeting under the canopy of wisteria to wrap up our talks about the book. Then, to celebrate the completion of their first novel in English (quite an accomplishment for the girls!) Thad and I took them out to hotpot for dinner. Hotpot is a wonderful meal that is eaten around a large round table. In the middle of the table is a giant cauldron filled with a spicy soup (or if you are super wimpy like I am, a split pot that is half spicy and half mild). Under the table, a propane tank is used to fuel the heater that boils the soup. Once a boil is reached, plates of raw food are brought to the table and it is time to dig in! Using the soup in the center of the table to cook the food, everyone fills up on mutton, beef, shrimp, crab, lotus root, tofu, potatoes, etc. The list could go on forever!!

Dinner was great and I think the girls loved it. On the walk home from town they each came and individually thanked me for taking them to dinner and then the next day I also got emails from each of them thanking me again for the dinner and the weekly meetings. Most Peace Corps Volunteers are idealistic and join thinking that they are going to change the world. I know I did. On days where it feels like I am not making the difference I had hoped to, it is nice to have memories like Thursday’s to fall back on. I may not be saving the world, but I am having an impact on some students in rural Gansu, China. And that is why Thad and I teach both in America and in China- we know we make a difference. It might just be a young adult novel and a dinner, but the impact creates a ripple effect that will make a difference, hopefully, for generations to come.

“Those who can, do; those who can do magic, teach.” That is why Thad and I are proud Peace Corps China Volunteers!

Okay, so with the help of Rachel and Tomas, we now have a weekly movie night on campus. Our film club consists of six student leaders who will choose the films to show, as well as be in charge of set-up before and clean-up after the movie. The movie starts at 7:30, but students have been crowding into the hallway starting about an hour before the movie starts. While we love this interest, it has caused a bit of a problem.

When Thad and I got to the room last Saturday night, we noticed that the door was off the hinges. I jokingly asked what happened to the door, only to be told that the students had broken it when they stampeded into the room to get seats for the movie! After having a small conference, the student leaders came to us and said that they though the movie for that night should be canceled as a consequence. We said that we totally agreed with that decision and that it was fair. Before sending the students away, the leaders did give them quite a haranguing in Chinese. The gist of it was that they had embarrassed themselves in front of the foreign teachers and that they need to be more respectful. The poor student leaders felt really bad about what happened and apologized to us several times for the classmates and countrymen! (At first I thought this was odd, but the more I think about it, it makes sense. When we go somewhere like Xi’An and there are loud, annoying Americans there, I also feel the need to apologize for them! It is the same thing…)

Tomorrow evening we are going to meet with the students who are the leaders to talk about crowd control, as well as give them our DVD stacks from which to choose movies. Thad and Tomas have been doing most of the work on this one…I just come and hang out!

Other than hosting supremely popular movie nights for the students, we have been keeping busy with tutoring, classes and everything else. We are both super excited for Justin to come at the end of the month. Justin will be our first visitor (other than PCVs), so he gets to be the guinea pig! Lucky him!! We would love to have anyone else from home come and visit in the next year or so. When we are in school, we can’t travel a whole lot, but if it is China that you want to see, we have lots of that around Chengxian and would love to show you around. Anyone wanting to come is welcome to stay with us for as long as you would like! So this is my call out to anyone wanting to visit! Please come and see us!

One more side note:

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I have been selected to write a weekly "journal entry" for the Peace Corps homepage. I, along with four other PCVs, submit our weekly updates. Sometimes those writing will be similar or the same to what is here, but sometimes it will be different, so feel free to check that out as well. :) The web address is: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whatlike.voljournal

Exciting news on the "Book Nook" front! We have been told that we can have a room in the library building after the May holiday!! I am so excited I can barely contain it. Rachel found out last week and scurried across campus and up the seven flights of stairs to where I teach in the science building, but I didn’t have class, so I wasn’t there. But, that just goes to show how thrilled we are about this new development!

Now, we are waiting on books. She has some coming from her church in the States and I have some coming from a group that donates books, but we are still in need of more resources. We are looking for donations of young adult books (both fiction and non-fiction), as well as magazine subscriptions.

If you can help by even subscribing to a -single magazine for just twelve or twenty-four months, that would be fabulous! Or send an M-bag (see your local post office for details) to China with books in it. Anything that you can do to help us would make my day, but it would make the lifetime of some of my students!

Thanks again to everyone at home who is helping with this creation. If you have any questions (including a mailing address!) or ideas, please email me at shellinchina@yahoo.com

Last Saturday was a busy, fun-filled day. It all started on Tuesday when Ruth, one of my braver students, asked me if I would like to climb a mountain with her and her dorm mates this weekend. I told her I thought that it sounded like fun and I gave her my phone number and told her to call me if they made plans. (Partially I thought this was a good idea because I have been in China long enough to know that when my students say they are going to “climb a mountain” they really mean they are going for a hike. It doesn’t matter how many times I pantomime climbing a mountain and explain how that is different from hiking, each Monday they still tell me about their weekend mountain climbing! )

Sure enough, on Friday night I got a call asking if Thad and I wanted to go. I said we would love to and we would meet them at the school gate at 8AM. (The school gate is the meeting point for EVERYTHING that goes on around here.)

Spring has sprung here in rural Gansu and the farmers are hard at work in their fields. Everything was bursting with color. The peach trees were in blossom with vibrant pink flowers; the pear trees were blooming an innocent white and the all through the fields the green sprouts of various veggies were starting to show through the dirt. It was a nice walk out of town and back. Not only did a get to see a bit of new countryside, but it was a great opportunity to talk and interact with the students outside of the classroom. I think doing these kinds of outings with the students is the best way for them to improve their spoken English. It gives them real situations in which to use what we learn in the classroom!

Saturday night was another adventure in and of itself. The five foreign teachers here at Longnan Shizhuan all got together and invited our tutors out to hotpot. The group of ten (five foreigners and five Chinese department students) met where else but the school gate! We walked into town and had hotpot at our favorite hotpot restaurant. The hotpot tables are made for eight, but we squished together and put all ten of us at one table. It was cozy, but good for chatting. The evening was a lot of fun and more than a little confusing at times, as the conversation was a mix of those of us learning Chinese and those who were learning English. I think that more than once our waitress was baffled, but we held a decent conversation throughout the meal and had a good time. CHINGLISH was definitely the name of the game on Saturday night!