Stephen

Ramblings of a seriously bored person in Hainan, China

Ring Around the Goose Neck!

Mista "P" writing:

In a couple of days, China will celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. People have already begun delivering 'moon cakes' to their friends. Moon Cakes or "yue bing" is a pastry or pastries sold in a fancy box. The prices are amazing; some as much as 200 (roughly $25) RMB and up. Fairly expensive for pastries. Some are pretty tasty and yes...some are tasteless, like the ones with egg in the center...YUCK! The boxes are cool though!

At our apartment complex, management held their early celebration of the festival. They had a few games like darts, shoot the hoop (basketball), spin the wheel and the best...ring a goose neck! Yep...win a goose dinner by throwing 4 small hoop's at the goose neck. Actually this was a lot of fun watching.

Now most of the games are children oriented but what it is most enjoyable is watching the adults play. Man....they are vicious and competitive; in a good way. Now the prizes are coupons that the security guards handout and then you go over to the office to collect your prize. Nothing expensive and again, it's kid stuff. So I watched several adults beg and plead with the guards to give them a coupon even though they didn't play. The ones that did play and didn't win would do the same thing, yet a little more aggressively. Trying to convince someone that you should get a prize even though you didn't win is a skill in itself. Maybe the guard gave the coupons based on how convincing they were. Not a bad idea, sort of like the game "liars poker". Some would succed..some would not!

Pretty cool for management to do this - good public relations and a good spirit of celebration. after all, when you live in one of these complex's, it's like living in a small town..like Cheers...everybody knows your name...and which apt. you live in especially if you're the only foreigner in "town".

posted by: stephenthegreat at 21:54 | link | comments (3) |

Hmm.

Well.. it's stephen writing..

I"ve noticed that there aren't that many exciting things that happen on a day-to-day basis for me to write about.. everything.. everyday.. same stuff..

I have a new record.. yesterday 9 people asked me to teach them English... all 9 within 2 hours.. each one thinking they were the first one to ask me.. when i told them i didn't have time.. the sad looks that came on their faces.. they just don't seem to understand if i told every chinese who wanted to learn english in hainan that i would teach 'em.. woah.. that's a lot of people.

They had a soccer game here at our university last night.  I heard it ended up 13-0 .. slight upset? heh..

Well. that's all i can think of right now.. and that's all the time i have for now.. so i'll try to write more later or something.. toodles.

posted by: stephenthegreat at 17:30 | link | comments (3) |

Nice Surprise!

Mista "P" writing:

Two weeks ago my wife left her umbrella on one of the city buses. Today I went down to our apartment store to buy a few things. On my way out, one of the employees walks over to the Pepsi drink box, reaches around to the side of it and low and behold, he hands me the umbrella.

Man, what a surprise even if it was just a low cost umbrella! Mighty nice of the bus driver and or the ticket lady to find someone who lives in this complex to pass it along to us (unless one of them walked over here and gave it to the store). I tried to ask the store clerk who gave it to them but no luck.

Faith in humanity once again restored. 

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 20:07 | link | comments (4) |

Me...a Chinese Accent!

Mista "P" writing:

Just got back from getting my quarterly haircut. While I was there, I tried, once again, to talk a little Chinese to the folks working there. "My hair is too long, Cut short, no wash". Real simple stuff because I usually dig a hole for myself if I do more than that.

One thing though, for the last 4 times, they have been trying really hard to get me to dye my hair! Yeah a little gray is starting crop up! Wisdom...man....wisdom. This time I told the guy that if I dye my hair, my wife will beat me. They got a good laugh. Then the I heard the guy who normally cuts my hiar say something to the effect that I talk like I'm from Guang Dong Province (a southern province in China). I heard him say, "ta shou gaung dong hua".

Me..a Chinese accent..and it's Cantonese at that! So maybe I have a chance in Hong Kong. I knew watching those Hong Kong movies would pay off some day! Or maybe my ears like that Southern talk, since I lived Alabama for over 30 years.

Huummm....is Guang Dong Hua the same as Alabama Hua in the States! Man I hope so...helps me feel more at home everyday, especially if the accent IS true and I really DO sound like that when I try to speak.

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 14:48 | link | comments (4) |

Whatta Class Full!

Mista "P" writing:

A neighbor friend of mine, also a wai guo ren (foreigner), started teaching English at a near by school. She came by for lunch and being the "I wanna know" kinda guy, I asked her about the size of her classes and how many classes she had to teach every week. She teaches 4 days a week and has 17 classes.

15 of the classes have 66 students and 2 of her classes, get this now, has 210 students!

Can you imagine trying to teach Oral English to 210 kids that are around 15 yrs. old.

How do you teach a class of that size?

posted by: stephenthegreat at 19:49 | link | comments (3) |

Catchin Up

Mista "P" writing:

A few weeks ago I returned to Sanya for a few days. I just had to have that fun in the sun and get wet in clean sea water before starting back to school on the 1st of this month. 2 days great weather - 2 days rain. Still it was nice to get out. On one of the nice days, they wouldn't allow us to swim in the ocean. I guess it was because there were waves, maybe 5 - 6 footers. I walked around in the water about waist deep then dove in doing a little body surfing. An employee of the hotel politely yells at me to get out. No swimming, only walking. Oh well, safety first...I suppose. I'm beginning to think I would like to live down there. Small town, nice beach, clean water...just a thought!

Back in chinese class. I got a different teacher this term. Mighty nice of Mr. M to do this for me. I just couldn't keep up with the younger crowd in the class. Man I was losing it at times from being so frustrated, no matter how hard I studied. I just can't seem to hear it when spoken fast, process it and then understand it. My brain is just too old I guess, since I'm pushing 50. My new teacher speaks slow and she speaks English so that really seems to be helping. I guess time will tell.

One thing about the schools here in China - the students go through about two weeks of military training. Standing - marching, saluting, etc. Can see schools in the States doing this! Yeah, teacher I'll march - this up on your head...salute this*****! Maybe that would or could change some things - I don't know!

Sept. 18th - Correction! I should have said "schools here in Hainan" not "here in China". I realize you can't base everything on what happens in one place to an entire country. So I apologize.

posted by: stephenthegreat at 20:00 | link | comments (12) |

Crazy week...

Well... I am among the living, and I had a little bit of time on my hands right now... so I decided to write a post. :P

By the way.. this is Stephen.. we've moved this past month.. we moved from a nice house by the beach.. to a decently nice house on the campus of the university that my dad has his organization with. Everything is basically done.. we just got internet at our house.. (thank goodness).. we've got everything moved.. so we're good to go with that.

Today I went with a friend to a gym near this university.. my friend wanted to work out on the first floor of this building.. (there is a huge weight room) and wanted to know how much a membership card was.. Well we go in.. and they tell us that they can't give out membership cards.. so we go back to the building.. talk to the security gaurds.. and they say they can't do anything either! These security gaurds tell me that this gym is owned by a school.. the name of this gym is "hainan provincial sports center" .. so I found it hard to believe it was owned by a school. So i go to the sports school down the road that supposedly owns this gym, and ask the principal how exactly this building belongs to them. He tells me that in the morning, it is the goverment's property.. in the afternoon it is school property.. and at night it is once again government property. I ask him if I can get a membership card to this place for the weight room.. finally after a while he says he can.. but only from 12:00 - 3:00 so we finally get everything sorted out..

Isn't China complicated? aaaah...

Well that's about all that's happening.. and that's about all the time i have .. so i'll be done for now. pickles!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:00 | link | comments (2) |