I’ve joined the China Blog Network, and you’ll see a widget linking to it in the right sidebar. One blog I’ve been spending time reading is Wok With Me, Baby, a cooking blog written by an ex-pat in Shanghai who cooks Western-style food with mostly locally available ingredients. Her chili recipe looks good.

I found a cool world map widget that shows visitors’ locations. I saw it at Respectful Insolence, a medical blog by the sharp-tongued skeptical Orac. Although I already have a Clustrmap, the spinning globe was too cool to pass up.

The Status Update plug-in doesn’t seem to be updating my Facebook status, but I’m not going to sweat it until Nov. 22, when FB shuts off RSS feeds to FB Notes. I’ve already discovered that tweets can be fed to FB status lines.

We had our first English Corner of the new school year today. A big crowd of mostly freshmen, who for some reason seem younger (several 17-year-olds among my students) and more geographically diverse than before. I’ve met several students from Xinjiang, in the far west of China, and the dining hall is now serving some halal food to accommodate the Muslims among them.

One of my seniors has been accepted to the University of Sheffield, and I expect other unis will send her offers. She applied to nearly 20 schools in the UK. I told her it was overkill, but what are you going to do?

The Chronicle of Higher Education Global edition has an interesting article, The China Conundrum, which describes the problems Chinese students and their American universities face as more and more Chinese come to the States for undergraduate study. The largest demographic among foreign students now is mainland Chinese, some of whom have fabricated their qualifications — especially their spoken English skills — to garner places in US universities.

I have discovered how to watch American TV shows on the Internet, so for the last several weeks I’ve been catching up the last four seasons of CSI. I know it’s too late to say it, but Laurence Fishburne did a great job in that show. Ted Danson is a surprising and welcome addition, though. I missed having an eccentric genius like William Petersen on board.

All for now.

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.

Old campus is home to the Preparatory College, a transition year for students who scored poorly on the college entrance examination, but who want to attend university. Most of the prep students are 18 to 20 years old, come from Jishou or nearby areas, and for the most part have never spoken English with a foreigner. Through the intra-campus student word-of-mouth network, the prep students invited David and me to a special English Corner at the medical campus yesterday.

David instead accompanied a group of frosh to Dehang, so I was the sole foreign expert on this excursion. Julie and Layla, two of the officers, met me at the north gate at 1:30 pm for the taxi ride to Shijiachong. On arrival, about an hour ahead of schedule, there were few students present. We met a small group of class representatives so busy practicing some recitations that they did not spend much time talking to us. I realized later that they were rehearsing the short remarks they would later say during the Corner’s opening ceremonies. [No, I am not kidding.]

New campus has an English Corner of long-standing, and thus has a well-worn casual feel to it. Despite our officers’ attempts to structure it with games and pre-selected topics, it usually devolves into a few clusters of 8 to 12 students who chat in English with each other, or with me and David. It’s a great time to exchange QQ and phone numbers, and meet English speakers from other colleges on campus.

By contrast, the activity yesterday was a well-publicized extravaganza. The prep college has several classes of 30 or so students each; each class has one or two officers, and one or two representatives to the English Corner. Using a portable public-address system, each of these officers said a few remarks before the activity started. [Introductory remarks by officials are part of the standard operating procedure before any Chinese program begins, even before concerts. Fortunately, these students were not as long-winded as their elders.]

After these introductions, the classes were given the topic, “How can we become confident?”, to discuss among themselves. I was asked to visit each class group in turn, to give them a chance to talk to me. Afterwards, there was a show, as each class had picked one or two members to sing an English song. That was the official program, anyway.

The unofficial program was organized mayhem, like my first English Corner experience in the fall. Excited students wanted to know where I was from, what cities had I visited, did I speak Chinese, did I like Chinese food, did I like Chinese girls (a subject that could fill a book!), did I like the NBA, who was my favorite player/team — questions I got to answer not once each, but many times. Then, there were the obligatory photo ops. I shook a lot of hands, like a politician on a campaign stump, and willingly agreed to hug two female students. [Ah! The perks of celebrity status!]

While I was answering questions from one class, a small boy in his school uniform walked over to me, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hello, how are you?” He came later to repeat the process, this time with his more bashful buddy in tow, who also shook my hand.

It turned out that the boys were faculty children, a group of whom just happened to be passing by our noisy activity. At some point in the middle of the singers’ performances, these kids got the idea to ask me for my autograph while I was trying to politely listen to the singers. Then, someone allowed them to have some of the balloons the college students had put up as decorations. The first boy brought a balloon to me to autograph. On the spur of the moment, I drew a cartoon face on the balloon with a mustache and a beard to accompany my name.

You can predict what happened. I got to repeat this exercise easily 20 times more, as one child after another brought another handful of balloons to be signed. And of course we posed for photos.

An hour and a half later, this English Corner ended, and my own students, Angela and Sunny, accompanied me to our English Corner at new campus. As new organizers, they had devised a (fortunately simpler) program for our activity, with a word game and a topic, but we eventually just settled into our usual sit-on-the-grass-and-chat behavior.

Describing a few of the members in my circle will give you an idea of the diversity of students at our English Corner. Three, Corinna, Janet and Mary, were my spoken English students. Ailsa, a sophomore politics major, is my new neighbor. Another girl, a junior marketing student, reported proudly she had just passed her business English certification exam. A newcomer, to whom we gave the English name Janina, is a sophomore in the Resource and Environmental Science College. Another newcomer, a junior in the physics department, also asked me for an English name. She proposed two, “Simple” and “Easy.” I demurred, explaining that “simple” implied she was stupid and “easy” implied something even less complimentary (I whispered the meaning in her ear, to avoid her embarrassment). Instead, we settled on “Jasmine,” one of her favorite flowers. There was also Nick, a medical student from the old campus, and his girlfriend, Nina, both newcomers.

All of these students speak English quite well, though Janina and Jasmine said they had never spoken to a foreigner before. Jasmine, in particular, said she regretted not meeting me sooner, as she wants to be an interpreter and has to pass the TEM8 exam next year to make that goal a possibility. I pointed out that she has a nearly a year to prepare, so the few months of lost time talking to me was not tragic.

These experiences were yet more demonstrations of the hunger some Chinese students have for learning English, which for better or for worse has become the benchmark for success in education and the job market. Some hope to work in international business, others to study abroad. Some just want to be able to understand English-language entertainment media better. All recognize that doing well on their English proficiency exams, no matter what level, will enable them to pursue whatever goal they have.

As a foreign expert, the native English speaker is at once a celebrity (and a novelty, especially in this province), a teacher and a stepping stone to success. If you can patiently withstand the repetitive questions about your origins and the like, you will grow to appreciate the important role you play in the lives of a significant number of students. Sure, it’s cool to pose for photos with pretty girls and handsome boys, to get small gifts of their appreciation, and to wallow in their palpable excitement at your presence, but even cooler to know you are opening a door to a new world for the few students to whom you become a friend and/or mentor.

I was drained by the end of the afternoon, even after a (quiet) dinner with three of the students in my circle, but the effort was worth it. I suppose only a lifelong teacher would have found the afternoon fun, but I’m crazy like that.

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.

Like I said, impressive.

English Corner is an informal club gathering, where Chinese university students go to practice English. While I attended willingly, it’s actually part of my contract to participate in these kinds of things.

Some of those present were my students. (A lot of freshmen … good job, guys!) Many were not. I recognized a couple from the English-speaking contests I helped judge recently, but for the most part they were students (and a few non-students) I had never met.

They were all intensely curious about the US, the circumstances of my arrival, my views of China and the Chinese people, favorite sports and movies, Christmas, and whether I had seen any other parts of China and whether I like Chinese food.

From the kind of questions they had, I could tell that some students have formed their opinions of the US from (gods help us!) TV and movies. One girl asked me if it was normal for college students to wear pajamas to class, and for teachers to conduct class while sitting and eating! She also asked if teachers wear pajamas to class, too.

I hope I convinced her that picture was unrealistic. I know pajama bottoms were de rigeur for awhile among young women, but I’m not too sure full pajama regalia ever became popular, especially among guys … or teachers.

They were very curious about my perceptions of Chinese students. I explained that I find my students to be either very shy or very reluctant to speak in class, even when I invite questions. For an American teacher used to constant give-and-take between teacher and students (some of it actually planned!), the overly quiet classes are worrisome. I said in those circumstances I am unsure if my class has understood me and whether my lesson is failing.

Several explained that Chinese teachers, by and large, so all the talking in class, and expect students to sit and be quiet. Language classes are a notable exception, but students in those typically speak in unison. So I am confronting years of training to sit and be quiet. Some of this I already knew, but tonight I got a much clearer picture of what I’m up against.

As time passed, the crowd thinned. English Corner meets Sundays at 5:30, so some left for dinner and the freshmen left for class(!). By 7, I was talking to a group of about 10, who for the most part were older students or younger faculty.

With the smaller circle of participants, discussions veered toward American politics and culture. One engineering student named Seven was curious about my political party affiliation and what I thought about Barack Obama. He was fairly well informed about the racial bias against Obama in some parts of the US, so we talked about how widespread that feeling is among the population at large. (I hope the US voters corroborate my opinions. I’m expecting Obama not only to do well, but to win the race, regardless of the bigotry in some corners of the States.)

We talked about native Americans, sexism, family sizes, the independence of grown American children from their parents, comparative costs of living here and there, and probably a few other topics I’ve forgotten in the last three hours.

As the evening wound down, one man floored me briefly by asking if I wanted to go to church with him. It surprised me, because China is officially a secular state. There are officially sanctioned churches, but they are very low key, so I had no idea Jishou even had a church! Until this evening, the subject of religion had not come up in any conversation with anyone, and I have been reluctant to broach the subject in class. (There are many unofficial “house churches,” which are illegal, so the Chinese who attend these churches would be very nervous talking about religion.)

Seven (the engineering student) asked the churchgoer if he was Christian and why he was Christian. His reply was that he felt guilty and felt attending church would help him overcome his guilt. (No comment.)

I begged off going, saying I had not yet had dinner and was pretty hungry. To be honest, being away from the almost oppressive religiosity in the US — well, in Kentuckiana, actually — is actually refreshing. Your religion in the US now seems like something you need to wear on your sleeve, and non-observers are social pariahs. My own “religion” has always been more of the spiritual kind, which is what drew me to the Quakers some 30 years ago. Attending “normal” church services just isn’t my scene.

Even so, we exchanged phone numbers and I said I would still be interested in attending some other evening. Curiosity will probably induce me to go sometime.

ShaoDi (I hope I have her name spelled right), the organizer of English Corner, thanked me for my patience and willingness to sit on the grass for almost two hours, and gave me the bamboo wall hanging pictured above.

The night before, I was part of a smaller English corner, when I met Juliann and Stephanie, the Princeton-in-Asia fellows at Jishou Normal College, for dinner with two of their friends. One was Juliann’s friend, an English teacher in Beijing, and the other, a North Korean friend with an inexhaustible knowledge of American cinema. We met at one of Stephanie’s favorite places (“Spicy Grandma”), which serves hot pot meals.

Hot pot, known as Mongolian hot pot in some parts of the US and in China, is a large container of boiling broth into which you dip uncooked meat, mushrooms, tofu and veggies. The tables have a hole in the middle under which sits a burner. Our pot had one side with chicken broth and the other a peppery broth (this being Hunan, and all). You drop your food into the broth with your chopsticks, wait for it to be cooked, then fish it out. As the meal progresses, the broth acquires all the flavors of the cooked food and cooks down at the same time, intensifying the flavors.

There can be no better way to eat spinach, let me tell you.

Last night also marked my first solo journey here in a taxicab, since every other time I have been squired by a student. Juliann gave me the name of a suitable landmark near “Spicy Grandma” to tell the cabbie, and already I knew what to say for the return trip (“Jishou da xue,” Jishou University). Though next time, I think I will specify “new campus,” since he took me to the old campus first! No biggie. I still knew where I was.

Now I really have to read some student journals, so I’ll end this post right here.