Well, my interested readers, I suppose this will be the only update this week. Let's see how well I can remember all the fascinating happenings in Chengdu.
Monday Rick, Sam and I went to an outdoor souvenir market, it was pretty crap. I did manage to buy a second towel, which is really a necessity. Then we went to the PSB, I got my visa, it all went smoothly. Then we went to Web English School for me to do an interview, which really just ended up being me scheduling a demo class. Then we went to their friend Dodo's shop across the street. It had all the typical American-style hippie acoutrements: rasta t-shirts, pins, floppy hats, bowls, posters, cds, Bob Marley everything, etc. It was a pretty funny sight in China. Then we got some fish for the piranhas and came home. Later that night we went over to Oz and Callum's for poker, I didn't do as well as last week and Rick was the big winner.
Tuesday Rick and I played dou di zhu with Lorna at Middle Bar, I enjoyed a great iced coffee and we took the bus to soccer. We walked all the way across Sichuan University, probably like a 20 minute walk. We passed some lotuses in full growth, towering a good seven or eight feet out of the pool, flanking a massive old-style building likely from the late 19th century. It was very scenic and the weather here continues to cool off, which is very nice. We crushed the Chinese opposition this week and I didn't have to slide-tackle once. After football we grabbed a cab to the Bookworm for trivia, our team came in second place yet again. I had a great dinner of penne pasta there. Sam went out with a couple Chinese girls and then called me to come out with them, we hung out for about 30 minutes at Cotton Club, then they had to leave, so we caught a ride to Cafe Paname, which was dead, then went over to Dave's Oasis. Andy, one of the owner's and my football teammate, was there, as well as Heather (a Canadian on our trivia team) and Jeff (an Aussie also on our trivia team). They are 3 of the six new owners. We sat around and drank beers and played trivial pursuit. It was very reminiscent of some Grinnell memories of mine.
I've been sleeping a lot recently and Wednesday was no exception. Maybe it's the whole 1-time-zone thing. Who knows. Wednesday I got up, ate lunch with Rick and Sam, went to teach my demo class at Web. Essentially, they said, try to get 25-30 students to talk for an hour about a subject. I decided to do mine on relationships, so I gave a quick intro on myself, where I was from, and drew a map of the United States to show them the different places I've lived in. Then I had them name different types of relationships and then we wrote down the roles within those relationships. I then had them describe the personality qualities that they liked and didn't like about those roles (teachers, mothers, fathers, etc.). I also found out that only 2 of the students had siblings. The students were aged 15-25, generally spoke quite well but it was a bit of a challenge to get the quieter ones to speak up, so I called on their table and tried to encourage them that way. I had them split up into groups to do an activity where they describe someone, how and when they met them, if the relationship changed over time, etc. I went from table to table and at the last one looked at the clock and 5 minutes had flown by. So it went very well and I will start teaching there part-time next week.
I walked a while, as it is impossible to find a cab at 515, crossed over the river and then finally caught one. I had my longest conversation with a taxi driver, maybe a total of a dozen or so sentences we both understood. It was starting to rain and I was glad to be home. We played some dou di zhu then went out for dinner with Andrew, a kiwi, for some Hui food. Hui people are Chinese Muslims, unlike the Uighurs, who are essentially a Turkic people living in NW China (Xinjiang). We had a great meal of skewered lamb, chicken curry and beef and potatoes. We walked to Dave's Oasis and threw Sam a going-away/birthday party and split a bottle of Jameson. I got the bright idea to go to the Leg and Whistle to watch the late Liverpool Champions League qualifier, which ended nil-nil at 90 minutes. At that point I decided it was time to go home.
Today I slept in, then got up and went to meet a new contact about dubbing a Tibetan documentary on horse racing. There were some technical issues and after about an hour I got a ride back home. But I met a good contact, Ken, from Chongqing, who runs a translation firm. So he gave me his card and I'll do the narration for the movie next week after I get back. It would be pretty sweet to get into the entertainment industry, and this would be a hilarious way to get started. Anyways, I'm sitting in the AC waiting for some Western food, later we'll go to Sweetlicks for dinner and tomorrow Rick and I go up north, into the mountains, trying for the fourth time to make it to Wanglang. More exciting news to come.
Oh and if you wanted to, ya know, send me a letter or something, here's my address:
Reid Wyatt
sichuan sheng
cheng du shi
bai yu xiang
5 lou 10 hao
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment