Stephen

Ramblings of a seriously bored person in Hainan, China

Life as of late

Hello... Stephen here..

I'm not sure if I said this before or not, I would check if our internet isn't moving at a snails pace. No, snails pace gives it too much justice, it took me 10 minutes to open this page alone. (And they call this DSL?!!) Anyhow, back to the subject, I'm teaching my little kindergardeners again for this whole semester. Their English surely has gotten better, the first day I walked in, one of the kids walked up to me, "What's up Stephen?" and shyly ran away. HA!  In my second class, as Jade, my helper calls it, 'the stupider class', the students can not seem to pronounce my name. No matter how I tried to tell them how to pronounce it, it didn't work, until I put I told them 'xi yi fen' (chinese for clothes detergent - tide or something) .. they're saying my name better now when they WANT to, but most of the time i'm still xi yi fen. I guess I walked right into that one.

I just don't understand tropical weather. Yesterday it was 91 degrees outside.. burning, scalding hot weather, dry as a bone. Today, I wake up, look outside.. and it's raining. but that's not all, in one nights time it somehow manages to go from 91 degrees, to 65! from shorts and a T .. to jeans and sweater.. in one day. I just don't get it.

Besides that, it's still the regular old days. Still have to go to Chinese class at EIGHT in the morning.. AAAHHHH!!.. I hate writing Chinese, it's just a little too hard. There's no logical explanation to the way they write. It's all memorization...

Oooh.. I think we're going out to eat right a bout now.. I guess it would be good to go and get ready, so i'll write more later. ta-ta-

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 12:19 | link | comments |

Success....I can Super Size It!

 Mista "P"

That's right people - Success!

Yes....I can now Super Size my McDonald's or KFC order so get your mind out of the gutter okay. I'm talking food man, give me more fries and a Big Coke.

And I figured this out all by little ole self. Why I never asked homie or anyone else, I don't know but finally took the time to read the little sign above the counter which says, "jia da" or 加 大 which means, I suppose, "increase big or larger"!

I placed my order and then said those two magical words and shaazaam!!!!!!!! More food and more to drink.

I feel like I conquered the world!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:28 | link | comments (2) |

Another English Episode Part Two

 Mista "P"

Another one of the questions I had asked my students was, "Is it okay to tell a lie?"

I got the idea from another blog and I thought it might generate some interesting discussions with the students. I was right! Now we've all done it...tell a lie that is and we do it for for a variety of reasons. Some times we tell a lie so as not to hurt someone's feelings. For example, if your wife/girlfriend asks you if this pair of pants makes her look fat, I suppose most of us will say no or something along those lines. Not Yes dear those pants make you look like a bloated whale!

So I asked the question and got some pretty good feedback. What was interesting is not the fact that some of the students admitted that telling a white lie is okay, but what you call a lie under these kinds of circumstances - not wanting to embarrass or hurt another person's feelings..It's also called a "beautiful lie"! That is a new one.

I've heard "white lie" all of my life and I have to admit, I've done my share of telling this kind of lie. But I've never heard it called a "beautiful lie"....interesting.

To follow up on that, I gave the above example about my wife asking me if her pants made her look fat. If I say yes, which is okay, that is a beautiful or white lie. So... to make it a little more interesting, I said, "If I tell my wife that and she goes shopping and people tell her that she looks fat in those pants, shouldn't I have told her the truth?"

Silence

posted by: stephenthegreat at 23:01 | link | comments |

Another English Episode

 Mista "P"

My real goal in teaching this year's Oral English class is to get the students to use what they know. How? Talk! Man is that simple or what! The concept is simple enough. but getting them to feel comfortable enough to at least try and speak is another story. It's hard, especially when you have to deal with several attitudes such as: shyness, losing face, the feeling of not thinking I know enough are just a few.

Now I can understand some of these feelings as I too am a student of a foreign language; Mandarin. My biggest fear though is using the wrong tone for a word or word phrase that is a derrogatory remark. And yes, I've done it but thankfully the person involved was very kind and forgiving as this person knew I meant no harm.

Anyway, what seems to be working thus far in getting the students to speak, is simply asking questions. This gets them speaking, trying to use what they know, me trying to rid them of being shy and reinforcing their  efforts with praise. It also helps me help them some of the vocabulary. Plus there ia an added benefit:  I learn some things from their responses.

For example I asked the question, "Would you marry a foreigner?" I was a little surprised but they all said No.

"Would you marry someone 10 years older or younger than you?"
What I learned from this question is that it is unacceptable for a woman to do either. For a man, older is not good and younger is frowned upon. A couple years either way is okay.

It was a pretty good day in class. More are speaking than the first day probably due to, I hope, feeling more comfortable with me. I explained that my sincere desire was to help them all speak better English. As time goes by, I'll get a little more challenging with them to try and get more out of them. But for now, question and answers for one more class.

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:13 | link | comments (4) |

Back to School

 Mista "P"

Last week I started back to class; learning Chinese and teaching one Oral English Class. In the English class, I did my usual introduction ; my name, country of origin, and a few other details. Then I opened the class for questions. None! Nope, not one. OK. So I began asking them about their hometowns. If I remember correctly, out of 30 students, only 5 repsonded. Ok. Then I asked if any of them were married. Pay dirt! Now they began to talk. The general consensus was to wait until they reached their mid to late 20's before getting married. I then asked the girls what kind of man they wanted. Here's what they said (really no surprises but one)

1. Rich
2. Has a good job
3. Owns a big house
4. He must have E.Q.
5. Handsome

Number 4, E.Q., is something that I've never heard of. So in following up with this, I asked them what it was.

1. Only Chinese specialists know this. It was discovered here.
2. It has something to do with sentiment.

Ok! So what is E.Q?

posted by: stephenthegreat at 17:46 | link | comments (6) |

Life these days..

Hello there, Stephen writing.

Our school is back and kickin' again with it's 8000 students all back on campus. I forgot how extremely annoying the school broadcast is every day, when they give you the English news that you can't even understand, play 80's soft rock and backstreet boys every day.. ... why can't they just turn the freakin' thing off?!?! (oh and no ross, we don't live on haida, this is 'haikou college of economics and vocational technology, located off of haifu road, where all the government buildings in Haikou are.)

I started teaching at my kindergarden again the other day. That's still fun and challenging as usual, mostly a battle to see who can yell louder, 20 kids, or me.. but they're still fun to teach, and we get our dailiy doses of laughter.. Yesterday in class one of my students was trying to teach me hainan language.. that didn't work out very well.. which is sad because I've lived on this island for 12 years and i can say a whopping 3 sentences of the hainan dialect.. irony?

Yo Mr. P.. Same thing happened to me yesterday on my way to the kindergarden, and it was on the bus, some lady wanting me to take a picture with her kid... it was quite funny.. it was quite a crowded bus too, so she manages to get this like ancient camera out of her bag, just to realize that she didn't have film.. her poor kid was so embarrassed.. haha.. everybody was chuckling, I was trying my best not to laugh.. it was terrible..

well.. my supper is getting cold.. I think i'll go eat it.. adios.

--stephen

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:08 | link | comments |