Schell of a Man

Shengdan Kauila (Merry Christmas) everyone!

It was just Christmas time in Shaoxing, and did we ever have a hootenanny of a time. On Christmas Eve, Bryan and I traveled to Shangyu (a town about forty minutes away where Bryan teaches three days a week), to have dinner at the home of one of his fellow teachers. We arrived in Shangyu in mid-afternoon and took the opportunity to do a little clothes shopping. Unfortunately all the clothes here are too small for me. I tried on a couple XXXL jackets and the sleeves didn't even come close to my wrists. I am just the wrong body size for Asia. After shopping, we met up with two other teachers, Dewey and Eida, and we went to have our hair washed. The salon in Shangyu was even better than in Shaoxing. Besides the hair wash, we also got longer massages and a face wash. The only bad part was the way they styled my hair after it was washed. You can probably see for yourself from the photo. I look like I stuck my head in a wind tunnel.

After trying to fix my hair, we picked up some fruit and flowers and headed to Ms. Foo's (our hostess) house. You may remember that it was Dewey and Ms. Foo who took us out for some sightseeing and lunch earlier in the semester (See Lounging at Lanting). She invited us and about eight other people over for supper. It was, as usual, a fantastic meal with more food than we could possibly eat (and as usual we were encouraged to try and finish it). We had the basics: chicken, pork, duck, beef, as well as turtle, shrimp and crab. There were probably a total of about twenty dishes served. It is amazing how they can cook so much food at the same time, especially considering that most kitchens only have two gas burners and no oven.

After dinner, Mr. Foo (actually his name isn’t Mr. Foo. He is Ms. Foo’s husband, but women keep their surnames after marriage. So he would have a different last name, but I don’t know it. Anyways, Mr. Foo) broke out the microphones and it was time for Christmas songs and Chinese opera. Bryan and I tried to sing a few Christmas favorites but neither of us are very good singers, and together we are even worse. So no one was too impressed. Following the singing, it was time for ballroom dancing. Waltzing is huge here for some reason. A few weeks ago, Bryan and I stumbled into a dark little ballroom hidden on a Shaoxing side street, and we found probably two hundred people waltzing in a great circle around the dance floor. It was pretty surprising, especially considering it was 2 o’clock on a Monday afternoon. Anyways, the night ended shortly after 10 pm, and Ms. Foo drove us the thirty minutes back to Shaoxing.

When we got home, I got a text message (that’s right, I finally got a cell phone) from some students who were at the Soho Club (our cowboy bar). They asked us to join them, so we caught a cab over. We spent the next two hours dancing like fools with them. It was a good time and fun to get to know them better. They are not our students but older ones who have assisted us in various tasks. At 12:30 am, the students went back to their dorms and Bryan and I went to our favorite bar to meet up with the few other foreigners celebrating Christmas here. The night was a good mix of East and West.

The next morning, Christmas morning, I had a marathon phone conversation with the family (about two hours), then Bryan and I went to a Christmas lunch put on by one of the other foreign teachers here, Georgina (an Aussie). Unfortunately, I think the turtle I ate the night before wasn’t agreeing with me so I went home and slept for a few hours.

In the evening, Bryan and I joined our downstairs neighbors, Uffe and Camilla Most (from Denmark) for dinner. The dinner party included their two little girls as well as two students who are friends of the family. We had the best Western meal in China so far that night. We ate beef tenderloin, which Uffe had cut and aged himself, along with a butter garlic sauce with onions and mushrooms. I ate two and half. The main course was followed by Danish pancakes (kind of like crepes) and ginger crisps, as well as German Christmas cake. It was an amazing meal.

Afterwards, Uffe and Camilla played a few Christmas carols for us. Uffe is a music professor and Camilla teaches music (piano and violin) to children. It finally felt like Christmas when I listened to “Silent Night” (my favorite) performed live on the piano (Uffe) and violin (Camilla). It was a wonderful night and nice to spend it with some children as well. They always make Christmas seem more special. I went to bed early that night because the next morning I began giving final exams.

Xing Nian Kuaile! Happy New Years!

This past Saturday, New Year’s Eve, Bryan and I, accompanied by our friend Shirley (who is another teacher at Shangyu) went to Hangzhou for the day. We left at 8 am and spent more than 12 hours trekking around the city, never letting the rain and cold slow us down for a minute. The trip started out with a stop at the silk market to pick up a few essential textiles then we went to eat. I’m sorry to say it, Mom, but I may have developed an MSG addiction here. It’s in all the food and if I don’t get some by noon I start to get a little shaky and a little irritable. I also think I am addicted to rice. I have to have it at least once every couple of days.

After brunch, we headed for a five-story tall electronics market, where I was able to get a new memory card for my camera. Then it was a cold, wet walk to Shirley’s old college where we met up with her cousin and her former classmate. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but we ended up at a Math Department End-of-the-Year party at the student union, and I wound up singing “Take me to your heart” (a really bad English song that is super popular here) for them. It was not good, and Bryan can attest that it was just as painful to watch.

From the college, we caught a cab to Carrefours, a supermarket with a great “International” aisle. This is where we go to buy oven-baked (instead of steamed) bread, as well as a few essentials like olives and cheese (“Land O Lakes” from Minnesota even!). Loaded with all our treasures we made the twenty-five minute walk to the train station where we purchased tickets on the earliest possible train, which unfortunately wasn’t until 8:30 pm, two and a half hours later.

Undaunted, we caught a cab to a touristy part of town where we knew of a good Irish pub that served great club sandwiches. (Hangzhou is much more international than Shaoxing). Sadly, when we arrived we found that the restaurant had moved to another location. This may have fazed me a couple of months ago, but not now. Everything here is always changing. Stores are always opening or closing or renovating. And if they are not doing one of these things, then they rearrange their layout and inventory, making it impossible to find anything. I think it all comes from their Buddhist history and a belief that all things are impermanent. So as a reminder they constantly change everything. Honestly buildings go up and come down in a matter of days here, and trees appear mysteriously at night. I really can’t explain it.

Anyways, we went to a nice Chinese restaurant that Shirley suggested and she ordered a wonderful meal for us. However, after all the walking through wet streets I nearly fell asleep when we finally found a warm place to sit. After dinner, we went back to the train station and caught our train home. We arrived around 10 pm (because our train was about thirty minutes late), and said goodbye to Shirley who was continuing on to Shangyu.

After a brief stop at home to drop off our loot, we headed out to the foreigner’s hangout on bar street to ring in the New Year with a couple of other people who also don’t belong here. The rest of the details of this night are inconsequential, suffice it to say I had a good time and made many new friends.

I hope you also enjoyed the holidays. I miss you all and wish you the best in the New Year.

At the beginning of all of my oral classes, I have a section called "What's New" where students must stand up and tell me something new that is happening--either with themselves or in the world. For the past month every student has begun their presentation with the phrase "the weather is getting colder and colder..." (as in "The weather is getting colder and colder. Last week the WTO conference began in Hong Kong..."). So I thought it is a good enough way to begin this post. It has been an action packed week and a half. I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess I will start with tonight [Thursday] and move backwards. [The photo above is of my favorite class]

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas...Oh wait
Tonight I attended the large Yuanpei College English Christmas Party. I was one of the V.I.P. guests, of course. It's gotten so bad that I won't go anywhere unless I'm assured V.I.P. treatment. This means a front row seat with fresh fruit and candy. But with preveilge also comes responsibilty. My entertainment skills were called upon several times. First I was a contestant in a dance competition (which I won with the help of my fellow foreign teacher, Wendy). Next I did a drawing for a raffle, then I played a game where I stomped on a balloon and got a prize. Finally, what party (or any type of gathering, for that matter) would be complete with a song or two from the resident "lao wai" (foreigner)? So I graced the crowd with my pop-folk-fusion rendition of "Santa Claus is coming to town" as well as an indie-rock-meets-John-Tesh version of "Have yourself a merry little Christmas." Finally I ended with a straight forward version of "Deck the halls" with the crowd singing the "Fa-la-la's" (or the "Fa-ra-ra's" I should say). Overall, I think it was a hit. There were probably about four or five hundred people there and at least a quarter of them were my students so it was a lot of fun. I had a huge cheering section, with about fifty girls from my classes all cramming in to sit right behind me. It was like my high school dream come true.

The West Lake Friendship Award
Well it's about time! After all the weeks of hard work, my contribution to this country has finally been recognized by the People's government. On Tuesday, I went to Hangzhou (the provincial capital) to recieve the West Lake Friendship Award, which is given to outstanding foreign teachers for their contribution to Zhejing province. Actually, the award wasn't for me, it was being given to another professor at our university. However, that professor had already gone back the US, and they figured one American is as good as another. So they sent me into an awards ceremony with no more instructions than "Your name is P.S. Corbett." Let me paint you a picture: P.S. Corbett (as I found out later) is a fifty-seven year old professor of math and science. Furthermore, I wasn't told anything about the event until I arrived. All of the other fourteen award-winners were (1. a lot older than me, and 2.) wearing suits and ties. There I was in a pear of jeans, an untucked button-down and my SJU zip-up. I had to sit for five hours in a freezing auditorium making small talk with a bunch of other professors who were amazed that I already had my Ph.D and was teaching here. Thank goodness for the year at CSB/SJU that taught me how to B.S. with Ph.D's.

This ain't no Great Clips
Bryan and I often refer to life here as a roller coaster, hitting many high's and low's, often hitting both several times a day. But I would have to say that the highest point in my time here was last Friday. After cocktails and the Chinese version of the McLeher Newshour, Bryan and I headed out for the evening. We first went to Winner's Pizza, where we've recently discovered they have an "American Special" which is a peperoni and mozzarella cheese pizza--mmm, just like mom used to make. During dinner we discussed going to the bar afterwards but instead made an infinitely better choice: we decided to go get our hair washed. It was about 10:30 pm when we entered a posh little hair salon near campus. For the next half-hour we not only had our hair washed, but had our scaples, necks, backs, and arms massaged. Then we had our hair styled by a guy who, I must admit, really knew what he was doing. We left feeling like a million bucks, though the whole thing only cost 30 RMB ($3.75).

Judge not, lest ye want to sing as well
One week ago, last Thursday, I had to judge a competition between the members of different dormitories. The competition included English speeches, songs, plays, dances, and some other miscellanous events. All in all, it wasn't too bad, though sitting for three and a half hours in a freezing student center wasn't my first choice of activities for the night. I didn't even mind singing for them, again ("We Wish You a Merry Christmas"). The only rough part of the night was the portion of the evening where all six teams put on short plays...in Chinese. Now I was one of only three judges and I was supposed to score each team on things like content and creativity. I was completely lost. So I did what I normally do here, and just faked it. I probably threw off the whole competition and ruined some poor girl's dream of having the best dorm room on campus. But those are the life and death situations you have do deal with every day when you're a foreign teacher in China... [This photo is actually from another singing competition I judged with Bryan back around Thanksgiving]

Give 'em something to talk about
Going back two days more, that is Tuesday of last week, I was a special guest on "The Talk Show on Western Culture." This was a interview-based program put on by the Foreign Language Department. I was there representing the United States. There was also the dean of the English department who had spent a year in England, as well as a French teacher and a German teacher. The show was half in English and half in Chinese. I spoke about the differences in college life between China and the US. I also talked about Christmas traditions in the US. And of course, what talk show would be complete without the white guy singing "Jingle Bells"? I tried to do a duet with the dean of the English departhment but it didn't turn out so well. I guess I will just have to stick to my solo career.

So that's the news from Shaoxing for now. I hope you all have a merry Christmas.

This post may have to be short and sweet as the temperature in the apartment is floating somewhere between the high 30's and low 40's. The temperature dropped sharply here a couple of weeks ago, and due to the poor heating in the apartment we have been forced to abandon a large portion of it. There are only two rooms with heating in them, my bedroom and Bryan's. Since Bryan's room was formerly the study and is much larger than mine, we opted to move the TV along with the couch and a chair into it. So now we have a place to hang out in the apartment that doesn't require us to wrap ourselves in blankets. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room in there for the computer so it is still out in the main (unheated) part of the flat. Due to this, my time spent on the computer has been greatly reduced, especially since I can't type fast enough to keep my fingers warm. (This isn't really what I wanted to write about, I just thought you should know in case you've emailed me and I haven't responded. So anyways, on with the story).

I've recently made friends with one of my fellow English teacher. Her name is Cathy and she is originally from Shaoxing. (A side note on her name: Chinese speakers have trouble pronouncing "th", they say it more the an "s", so when Cathy told me her name I thought she said “Cassie,” which I called her for about three weeks. She told me that she chose the name from her favorite book, Wuthering Heights. She recently gave me a copy of the book to read and I noticed that none of the characters were named “Cassie,” but there were in fact two “Cathy's.” So I have causally switched over from “Cassie” to “Cathy” and she hasn't said anything about it. She may have never even noticed the difference). Cathy just graduated from college a year ago and this is her first teaching job as well. We got to know each other through our mutual interest in the other's native language. Once a week we would get together, I helped her with her English and she helped me with my Chinese. In this way we became good friends.

A couple of weeks ago I went with her to Hangzhou (a bigger city about an hour away). We had lunch together at (what I considered) a posh restaurant, and then I accompanied Cathy to a Mary Kay Cosmetics party being thrown at a hotel in town. One of Cathy's friends was "beauty consultant" and was being promoted (trading in a red jacket for a pink one, as best I could tell). Needless to say, I was one of only a few men there, and differently the only foreigner. The party was a long ceremony with a bunch of speeches and clapping. And not surprisingly, I had no idea what was being said. I guess at one point Cathy's friend was speaking and mentioned us and everyone tried to find the foreigner in the room. Otherwise, the event was pretty low key (in it’s super-excited Mary Kay way).

Following the party I was invited to have dinner with Cathy and her parents at their home. It was a great evening, and I really enjoyed meeting her parents, even though neither of them spoke any English. I've discovered that in any culture when you are at a dinner party and you can't speak the language the best thing to do is smile and laugh a lot, as well as eat as much as you can. So that's what I did. They taught me how to say the name of each dish in Chinese and I taught them how to say it in English. Cathy's father also got me a bit drunk by toasting me every couple of minutes. I drank a couple cans of stout beer as well as a fair amount of Shaoxing wine. It was a wonderful time and Cathy promised to invite me back again.

True to her word, Bryan and I (along with Wendy and Janet-two other foreign teachers) were invited to Cathy's house again last night. We met them at the school gates at five in the evening and were driven to house on the other side of town. Since there was so many of us, Bryan and I went in the first car and Cathy followed with the others in the second. However, we arrived about ten minutes before them so we spent the time in the house with her father who just smiled and laughed. (He also offered us bananas and even peeled them for us, which is another cultural first for me).

Along with the four foreigners, the diner party included a few other people: Cathy's dad's coworkers (and one of their daughters), as well as her mom and cousin. Only one other person besides Cathy could speak both English and Chinese, but it did not seem to cause much trouble. We had a wonderful meal with more dishes than could fit on the table. Just to highlight a few of them: Turtle soup; smoked, fried, and steamed fish; duck; cold beef; prawn; pressed tofu; a myriad of vegetable dishes; and New Year's cake (which is made from gluttonous rice). As usual, I ate more than I thought was possible (and advisable), and also drank more than I should have. We were given three different types of beer, heated Shaoxing wine, and a sweet apricot wine. I didn't realize how drunk I was until I stood up to leave. Bryan told me today that I was hitting on Cathy's mom, but I don't remember it.

After we had eaten for a good hour and a half, it was time for songs. Bryan led the foreigners in a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells" and I sang "Amazing Grace." Cathy sang "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (quite well). Two of the other guests sang as well. One sang a little bit of Shaoxing Opera and the other sang an amazing Korean song. I have now heard a couple of different Korean songs and they have all been very cool. Perhaps it is an area that needs more exploration.

At the end of the night, we were dropped off at the main gates of the school and had to stumble across campus to our apartment, where we fell asleep while watching Sparticus. I have spent most of today recovering. It serves me right, I guess. As I was once told by a little Irish man, "At my age, I should have known better than to mix me grape and me grain." I suppose it's even more true when you throw rice and apricot alcohol in there too.

So if the whole teaching thing doesn't work out for me here, I could always fall back my most valuable assets, that's right, my looks. I could always become a model. Wednesday night only confirmed this suspicion for me.

On Tuesday we, Bryan and I, were asked to appear in a commercial for a new bar that just opened here in Shaoxing, it's name is the “Soho International Elite (Entertainment) Club.” It's an upscale bar/club that is trying to attract high-class clientele. So of course they would want us there. On Wednesday afternoon I met with the manager of the bar, Mr. Tong, who could speak no English, to arrange the details of the evening. Mr. Tong was more than excited to see me. Apparently the bar was going to have a cowboy theme and he had been hoping to find a couple of American-looking men to dress up like cowpokes. His excitement increased when Kevin, our translator/booking agent, told him that I was from "the middle of America, where all the cowboys are." I, of course, confirmed this and said that it would be nice to change back into a pair of chaps and boots since I had left mine back in the US.

We arranged to be picked up that night in front of our apartment and to be accompanied by a student, Celina, who would act as our translator. The plan was to wear jeans and any cowboy-looking clothes we had and they would furnish the hats and bandanas. We would simply hangout in the bar in our costumes and at some point they would come take pictures of us. The kicker: anything we ordered that night would be on the house, as well as any other time we wished to come back.

We arrived at the nearly empty bar around 8:30 that night, where we were shown to our table in the middle of the bar and given the night's attire: black hats and red bandanas. We ordered a couple of beers and a fruit plate (actually we didn't order the fruit plate it was just sent to us) and sat for while. We were pretty much ignored for the first half hour, with the exception of the usual pointing and laughing from the bar staff. So we decided we would explore the rest of the establishment to see how the other half lives.

The bar was three stories tall with the top two floors divided up into different size private rooms, which were quite nice. They were all decked out with couches, coffee tables and three to five televisions (I think so you can watch different programs on the small ones and sing karaoke on the big one). Everyone that we passed turned and stared at us. To see real Americans wearing real cowboy outfits, just imagine! I suppose it didn't help the stereotype that I was strutting around bow-legged, tipping my hat to everyone and giving the pistol fingers.

We returned to our table as more people started to enter. We sat for a little while before we were asked to go up on a little raised platform in the center of the circular bar and dance, which of course we were more than happy to do. This was the only point of the night when anyone took pictures of us. After the dancing we returned to our table and played dice. After a while we moved to a more comfortable and secluded part of the bar. Around 10 pm Celina, our translator, had to leave but we decide to stay and do some more people watching. We also grabbed a menu and ordered a little late-night Indonesian fried rice. We finally left around 11 pm, a little confused about whether we had fulfilled our contractual obligations.

I think the general idea is that Mr. Tong would like us to occasionally go to his bar simply to be seen and add a level of sophistication to his bar. So it will be interesting when we go back to see what kind of treatment we receive, or if they even remember us. Anyways, if you want to come visit, now you know it will be high-class all the way and drinks are on me. (You may just have to wear a cowboy hat).