"Is it ten yet?"

During our vacation Susi and I travelled frequently by train because it was incredibly cheap. The downside of this is that it was also incredibly slow. We endured several train rides that lasted over 10 hours and 3 that lasted over 24 hours. During these train rides we passed the time sleeping, eating, studying Chinese, or just talking. The only point at which one of these train rides became entirely too long was on the train ride from Xi’an to Kunming. This was a mind numbing 36 hour train ride. We boarded the train at 9:00 P.M. on Monday and we arrived at 9 A.M. on Wednesday. Essentially this means that we spent two nights and an entire day in a small sleeping cabin with four random strangers. We filled a lot of this time snacking. However, we neglected to bring any real meals for this train ride and we soon discovered that 36 hours in which you eat only snacks is not exactly ideal. We also filled some of the time with studying Chinese. However, this got awkward very quickly because unlike us, everyone else on the train spoke Chinese, and could understand the simple phrases that we were mutilating in practice. By six o’clock at night on Tuesday we had exhausted all of our regular train activities, and we decided that 10 o’clock was the earliest time that we could go to sleep. This resulted in about four hours of Susi and I starring at each other, rarely saying anything other than “What can we do?” or “Is it ten yet?”

When we arrived in Kunming on Wednesday morning we felt a strange mixture of being exhausted from 36 hours in an uncomfortable train, and being filled with energy from doing essentially nothing for 36 hours. A few days later in Kunming we met a couple that was about to leave for a 90+ hour train ride to Lhasa, and I can only hope that they managed to escape somewhat sane.

A Sea of Dancing Uniforms

While living in Yumen I have developed a few habits that are very firmly in place. For instance, every morning I leave my apartment about 15 minutes before class, buy a coke and a mahua (a twisted breadstick) at the stores on the bottom floor of my building, and make my way out of Number 3 middle school, where I live, to Number 1 Middle School, where I work. While the anticipation of a day full of teaching is enough to make each walk a pleasure, my walks are particularly joyous on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On these days my classes do not start until 10:25, so I leave my apartment at 10:10, just in time to be met by a never ending expanse of students line dancing to Chinese techno music.

Every morning at 10:05 Number 3 Middle School Engages in the morning exercise. It begins with each of the 3000 students standing in designated spots around the school’s athletic fields and parking lots and entranceways dancing in unison to Chinese techno music. A few minutes in the techno music develops into a rap, at which point the synchronized movements of the students speed up. To add to the sensation that I am walking through a swarm of possessed children, the students are required to wear identical blue and white jumpsuits over their normal clothes. They become essentially indistinguishable in this swaying mass of black haired, jumpsuit laden children. This  daily exercise is simultaneously one of the most alarming things I have ever seen and one of the most humorous school activities I have ever been witness to. 

When I finally manage to find my way out of the maze of dancing middle school children I make my way to the gate of my school, only to be met by a less enthusiastic show at Number One Middle School. While enthusiastic dancing to techno and rap manages to work in at Number Three Middle School, where the students range from eleven to fifteen, it simply will not work in Number One Middle School, where the students range from fifteen to nineteen. I cannot say that I am entirely surprised by this, because I cannot imagine that a daily, school-wide techno dance would have succeeded at any of the three high schools I attended. In lieu of energetic dancing to strange techno music, the students of my school are forced to awkwardly move their arms and legs in certain directions as a recording of a man saying “YI ER SAN SI WU LIU QI BA, ER ER SAN SI WU LIU QI BA…” (“ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT, TWO TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT…”) is played.

When I return home this is something that I will truly miss. I have come to appreciate the sense of unity that this ritual creates. Mostly though, I have enjoyed being able to watch it for a long time ever since I managed to stifle the inevitable laughter that the sea of dancing children inspires.

We’re at the Top of the World

While planning our vacation there was a brief moment in which Susi and I considered not going to Tibet. To enter Tibet we would have to get special visas and a private tour guide for our group. This, when added to the train tickets to and from, and the cost of saying in youth hostels, was making this part of our journey far too expensive. Eventually, we bit the bullet and decided to join four of our friends, Paul, Wido, Georg and Magnus on the trip to Tibet.

I can now say without a doubt that Tibet was worth every cent. Never have I fallen in love with any place as quickly or as deeply as I fell in love with Lhasa. The city is surrounded with astonishing mountains. Making my way through the bustling market that surround Barkour street was a challenge unlike any I had previously experienced. No intersection was perpendicular. No street was strait. There was never a stretch longer than three feet that was devoid of a booth selling shoes, prayer flags, jewelry, yak butter, meditation devices, or clothes. Within ten minutes I could tell that this city was constantly in utter chaos. In these ten minutes I was captivated. My elation was so intense that I briefly entertained the idea of asking our tour guide Sonam for his hand in marriage so that I would be able to live forever in that marvelous city. 

One might expect that after a few days in Lhasa the magic would fade. I would get used to the commotion, or perhaps I would get annoyed with how touristy Tibet was. However, throughout my weeklong stay in Tibet my elation grew exponentially. While I was initially enthralled by the juxtaposition of the commotion in the streets and the serenity of the scenery, in the end, I was most impressed by the authenticity of Tibet. 

If you ever plan to visit Tibet I heavily suggest you visit in the winter. While it may be warmer and more comfortable in the summer, I am certain that you will find the monasteries filled with other tourists. Potala Palace will be abuzz with Americans, Germans, French, and Chinese people observing monuments. However, in the winter you will be surrounded by pilgrims, on their yearly journey to worship in the holiest sites of Buddhism. When I visited Lhasa the market streets were filled not with tourists, looking to buy souvenirs, but with pilgrims, buying jewelry and fruit to sacrifice in the monasteries. When someone bumped against me in the streets it was not a rushed American hurrying to his next sight. It was a Tibetan woman doing her prayer rituals through the streets. 

Here I was able to see a culture and a lifestyle unlike anything I had ever seen before, and I fear unlike anything I will ever see again. 

The pilgrims were unbelievably devoted and kind, and they seemed truly at peace in their religion. The most striking examples I saw of this devotion were in Potala Palace. This is the former home of the Dali Lama, and according to our guide Sonam, its name means levels of mercy. It is the central site of Lhasa, and also one of the most holy places for those living in Tibet. The Buddhists living in Lhasa make the two hour journey through the palace daily. Many of them are too old and fragile to make it up and down the massive staircases without a great deal of help. However, they do not seem to let this stop them. In contrast, there are many pilgrims in palace who only make the journey once a year, if that often. To me these two groups were indistinguishable, because everyone was totally immersed in reciting prayers and mantra to their gods. 

As I walked through the palace which was filled with impressive statues, tombs, and monuments, I truly felt like I was witnessing something real and holy. In fact, in SARA monastery, one of the most holy sites in Buddhism, the sensation of Authenticity was so strong that I actually became uncomfortable. Those surrounding me were immersed in worship, and I felt like an intruder. I was merely a disruption to the otherwise concentrated and holy atmosphere. 

After one week in Tibet I was left with a deep respect for Buddhism, as well as a longing to truly understand the beliefs and devotion of it.

The Problem in Which I Have Far Too Many Students to Possibly Remember Them

     Previous to the winter holidays I thought I had a lot of students. I had sixteen different (each of about 50 or 60 people) that I taught once every week. Having more than 800 students was tough, especially when I only saw each student for 40 minutes a week. In the last weeks before vacation I was finally beginning to recognize almost all of my students. I was helped by the fact that my school has an incredibly unattractive school uniform that many of my students wear during school and when they are around town. However, I still found myself smiling at random people in the off chance that they were my students, and mixing up which students were in which classes. Little did I know that after vacation my situation was bound to get exponentially more challenging. While before I taught a mere 800 or more students, I now teach upwards of 1700 students. 

     I am continuing to teach the grade 10 students that I began teaching last semester, however now I only teach them every other week. During the weeks that I am not teaching grade ten I teach seventeen classes of grade eleven. Essentially, I am now attempting to familiarize myself with over 900 new students that I see for only 40 minutes every two weeks, while managing to still remember the original 800 students who I also see only once a week. It would be entirely accurate to say that I am a bit overwhelmed by my sheer number of students.

     Another new challenge of teaching this semester is that the students in grade eleven are actually quite old. The youngest of them is probably about sixteen years old, but I believe that I have at least a few students that are nineteen. On the one hand these students are really cool. Their English is good enough to actually hold a decent conversation, and I believe that I will be able to make decent friends with them. In my best grade eleven classes I truly have fun teaching. However, on the other hand, in the classes that are less focused and less interested in English it is nearly impossible to discipline them. I am too close to them in age and I understand far too well the boredom that comes after several years of going to school every day and doing the same mind numbing work every day. 

     I think I am simply giving up on the possibility that I will be able to know all of my students faces, or names (because I find Chinese names impossible to remember). As for my grade eleven, my primary strategy is just to become their friend so that they can feel comfortable speaking English with me. Also,  they are cool, and I like having cool friends.

Lily

     A few days ago I said goodbye to one of the most inspiring individuals that I have ever met. Like me, Lily was an Oral English teacher at Yi Zhong. She had been teaching at Yi Zhong for nine months, and in this time I truly believe that she made a profound impact on her students’ lives.

     Lily is a 50 year old Singaporean woman who has spent the past twenty years teaching in marginalized areas. She is very active in her church in Singapore, and for the five years previous to her stay in YUmen, she worked with her church in East Timone. There she helped establish a school for children to learn English. I am not entirely sure what she did in the years previous to this, but I am sure that it was substantial.

     The amazing thing about Lily is that I truly believe that she has spent her life trying to improve the lives of others. She taught English with the intent of improving her students’ grammar and pronunciation. However, she also tried to use her lessons as a tool to build the self esteem and the morale of her students. I once asked a boy if Lily was his teacher, and he responded, "Yes, she is my teacher, but she is also my friend!" For many of her students, Lily was not just a teacher, nor was she just a friend. She was a role model, and one of the people that helped them most in their quests to make something of their lives. This was especially evident in Lily's last hour on Yi Zhong's campus. A large crowd of students gathered around her to say goodbye. They sang songs, took pictures, and a few students even started to cry. It was not until this moment that I realized how much Lily's absence from Yumen will be noticed. Lily made a profound impact on the lives of her students. While I do not believe that I will be able to make such an impact, I do look to Lily as a role model for how I should teach, and how I should relate to my students.

     Now, Lily is home in Singapore, where she will spend the next few months. She is not sure where she will go next, but she hopes to go to somewhere in Latin America. Whatever town that she lands in next will surely be blessed.

Take a Sad Song and Make it Better

     Every week I teach sixteen different classes. Every week I think that I have figured out which classes are good, which classes are bad, which classes are slow, and which classes are shy. Every week I realize that I was completely wrong. 

     In one particular class, I had an incredibly pleasant surprise a few weeks ago. In previous weeks I found myself very frustrated with this class. It is a special class for students who focus on sports. As a result, the students in this class tended to be very rambunctious, and they did not appear to care much about learning English. This bothered me partly because I really like the students in the class as much or more than any of the students in my other classes, but teaching them was painful and fruitless. For this week, I had prepared a lesson in which I taught my students to sing Hey Jude. I picked Hey Jude because it was slow enough for my students to understand, but enough of a rock song not to bore them. Most importantly, Hey Jude can be found at many of the KTV places in Yumen. Most of my classes were very good that week, only one was bad, but the sports class was by far the best class I had ever taught. They listened intently, they sang loudly, they pronounced the words well, and they answered questions when necessary. If, like me, you are a fan of this song, you will know that at one point he sings "better better better better better better BOW" in very cool way. If you do not know the song very well, I suggest you listen to it right now. Then, you can fully appreciate the thought of 40 students, who previously seemed uninterested in English, belting this song in excellently pronounced English. 

There have been many times in which I have left classes, reflecting on how much I enjoyed teaching them. However, this was the first class that I left completely astonished at how much I had enjoyed it, and at how well the students had done.

Updates!

To all of Maggie's faithful readers (Momma Armstrong),
Maggie wants you all to know that she's sorry for the lack of posts. China has kept her busy. But, there's good news! She's been writing. Get ready for a blog EXPLOSION. Every day for the next five days. Get excited.


-Paula Gordon (Maggie's official blog updater)