English Corner marathon afternoon
JISHOU, HUNAN — I spent all afternoon yesterday talking.
As I have mentioned before, a standard feature of any Chinese university (or high school, too, I reckon) is the English Corner, an extracurricular, student-led activity to practice spoken English. My responsibilities here include participation in the English Corner, for obvious reasons.
I live and work at the new campus. Our English Corner is held (weather permitting) every Sunday at 5 pm on a green across from the athletic facilities. I have already chronicled my first visit to English Corner lo! these many months ago. After that initial mob of visitors, attendance settled down in the following weeks to a more manageable number of regulars and the occasional newcomer.
Jishou University (JiDa in local parlance) has, at my last count, four distinct campuses: new campus, old campus, the medical campus in Shijiachong, and the affiliated teacher’s college across the river, where Princeton-in-Jishou fellows Juliann and Stephanie teach. A few students from the old campus have come to the new campus corner, but only those dedicated enough to travel the 3 km to do it.
Last weekend, my fellow foreign expert, David, and I were invited to an English Corner at the old campus. Many students attended, but the crowd was not a mob as it was during my first experience last fall. Once the initial novelty of seeing Westerners in the flesh faded, we all settled down to relatively calm chatting on the green.
Picture a group of about 40 or 50 (I was always lousy at estimating crowd sizes, even as a reporter) standing on a green waiting for my arrival. Then, picture these folks encircling me, three or four deep, asking questions about all sorts of things.
