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JISHOU, HUNAN — I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work these last two weeks, so I haven’t had time to post anything. Even this one will be short.
This term I had only three subjects to teach, Oral English, British Literature and Academic Writing, but the last two upped my workload significantly. The juniors in Business English take those courses, and altogether there are 90 students. Their term project for the writing class was to read a novel by a British author, and write an analytical paper of 1,000 to 2,000 words about it.
Given the average length was about 1,400 words, my ambitious assignment required me to read 126,000 words between the due date, June 16, and my self-imposed deadline of Friday (yesterday here). Most of that I did once classes ended a week ago. Meanwhile, I had already agreed to help out one of my Chinese teacher friends with her English school, so in the mornings I was teaching middle schoolers and the afternoons and evenings I was reading essays.
Phew.
As for the quality of the essays, they fit the standard distribution pretty closely: a few superb ones, a few truly awful ones, and the rest in the middle. Considering none of these students had ever done such a paper before, the results were better than I expected. As for the low end, some were bad because the students’ English skills are poor, or because they hadn’t actually read the book. A few were cribbed from the Internet, and I gave them zeroes as a result. The re-writes are due July 12, for a non-zero but substantially diminished passing grade.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — An inept Photoshopping of some local Chinese officials inspecting a new road has generated a flurry of more creative versions of the same image among Chinese netizens.
A photographer took two photos of three officials out in the countryside, and decided to doctor them into a more appealing image for the county government website. Here’s the original images:
And here’s the ‘shopped version, as it appeared on the website.
You will note, I hope, that the three gentleman appear to be hovering over the roadway. The image was promptly removed from the website and the photographer reprimanded, after parodies of the doctored image went viral. Here are a few examples.
In President Barack Obama’s briefing room:
On the Moon:
On a movie set:
On the soccer field:
On Cristo Redentor, Rio:
More examples are here and here.
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 Presenting the class of 2011 JISHOU, HUNAN — The students pictured above are the third group I’ve seen graduate from Jishou University, and the graduates I have spent the most time with. So, it’s with a little sadness that I will see them leave here in a few days.
They were among the first students I taught at JiDa. I taught them for two years, and of course have known all of them for three. Several are among my best friends here. You may recognize some faces from my Picasaweb and Facebook albums, since we’ve shared a lot of good times together.
Their major is English education (a three-year, non-baccalaureate program), and many have already found work teaching in schools or training centers in Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhejiang and Fujian. A few will continue their studies to get a full bachelor’s degree in another two years. Others have found work outside education. And, of course, a few are still looking for jobs.
You may remember my saying that teaching at a Chinese university is a bit like teaching in an American high school. The students above represent two groups, Z1 and Z2, who are like class sections in the US. In other words, Z1 students (and similarly Z2 students) have attended all their classes together as a group for the last three years. They have also had roommates from their own groups, or at least from the same college. So, this constant contact builds a strong sense of solidarity and camaraderie.
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ZHANGJIAJIE, HUNAN — This week I learned that colleges in China have the same problem as colleges in the USA. They need to pull students in to stay viable.
Students in China choose their majors before entering university. So, each college in a uni (we call them “departments” in the States) would like to maximize the chances of getting sufficient enrollment. It’s not feasible to visit all the high schools in western Hunan on recruiting drives, but relatively easy to visit the preparatory college here in Zhangjiajie to attract some candidates.
That’s what ten of us teachers and students from Jishou U did. We did two hours of marketing to about 200 students midway between high school and university: first our vice dean, then me (with student interpreter), then a sophomore from our college, then a Q&A. There were also two Powerpoint presentations, one by Vice Dean Song Jie and the other by sophomore Helen Xiao.
Our greatest hits: our graduates’ 98% employment rate, the foreign teacher who can speak a little Chinese, the sophomore girl who has broadcast the weather on municipal TV, the dean who has met President Hu Jintao.
To be honest, I was surprised and just a little pleased to be asked to come along on this junket. Apparently, I am considered to be a big draw for the college. Besides, I could visit my friend and former colleague, Connie Hu, who was mostly responsible for me being here in the first place.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — So, here’s a more detailed travelogue to follow up on the post I sent from my cell phone last week.  Yalong Haijiao in Sanya, Hainan As I mentioned, students here in their next-to-last year take a class trip, so four groups of students were planning trips to Hainan 海南, a tropical island in the South China Sea, Beihai 北海, a tropical seaside southern resort city, Guilin 桂林, a picturesque city nestled among mountains and rivers in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 广西, and Fenghuang 凤凰, the ancient city about two hours from Jishou 吉首. All four groups asked me to join them.
Oy, decisions, decisions!
The Beihai group asked first, but their trip was only four days long. With a half-day on the train each way, they really only had two days in Beihai. The Hainan group asked me, too. Their trip was seven days, with almost four spent in Hainan. The Guilin group asked, but later canceled their trip — some joined the Beihai tour, and the rest went to Fenghuang.
In all, about 100 students went to Fenghuang, primarily because it was much cheaper than the other trips, and required less bus travel. (I’ve noticed that a relatively higher number of Chinese than American students have motion sickness problems, at least from anecdotal evidence. This discourages a lot of them from traveling.)
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SANYA, HAINAN — University students here take a class trip — “practical experience” in local educationese — in their penultimate year. So here I am vacationing — facilitating their practical experience — with 23 juniors, and two other faculty.
So far, our practical experience has including visiting a botanical garden and three beaches, swimming, eating so-so food, and sitting through sales pitches (more about that later).
My own personal practical experience was to take my first scuba lesson. More about that later, too.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — The BBC reports that Chinese authorities have confirmed they picked up dissident artist Ai WeiWei and are holding him for “economic crimes,” without providing any other details.
Ai, the co-designer of the Olympic Bird’s Nest stadium, has had several run-ins with Chinese authorities in the past, who don’t like his persistent questioning of the status quo. They reportedly arrested him Sunday at the Hong Kong airport, where he was planning to take a flight abroad. An exhibit of Ai’s work is at the Tate modern gallery in London.
Foreign governments have protested the arrest and detention, but Beijing has basically said, as it always has, “MYOB.” Here’s a quote from the BBC report, so you can see what I mean.
“China is a country ruled by law and will act according to law. We hope that the countries concerned will respect China’s decision,” [foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei] said.
Since I know nothing about Ai’s supposed “economic crimes,” (a bogus charge, in my view) I can’t say if he broke any applicable laws. As for his dissidence, Ai has apparently been very careful to follow the strict letter of the law, as spelled out in the Chinese Constitution. He told a reporter for The New Yorker once that he wanted to test the “system” to see how committed the government is to its own laws.
Only when it suits them, it seems.
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