July 28, 2018

Before you get started reading the blog post, I wanted to let you know that it is long. It's a bit over 3000 words, encroaching upon 4000, and while I can be verbose at times, it's hard to sum up such a vast experience in few words: 12 days in a new place, with new people, undertaking a completely new portion of service ... that's about 300 words per day - and I hope you enjoy every single one of them as much as I did. But, to help you out a little, I've portioned this blog post into sections - so feel free to read at your leisure!

The Start of It All

Two weeks in Jingchuan – two weeks that I think are probably a perfect microcosm of the entire Peace Corps experience … days that seem extremely long, and tiring, but weeks that fly by in the blink of an eye. These weeks, too, seem to have brought us all full circle: it was this exact week last year where we were each teaching our first students in China during Training practicum (local high school students), followed by two semesters teaching at site, and now finally teaching teachers many of the same activities and pieces of information that we learned just a year ago during Pre-Service Training (PST).

If I compare this Summer Project to the range of experiences I’ve encountered during my service so far in China, it’s certainly been a unique experience – teaching teachers is in some senses different than teaching our college students, and in some senses exactly the same; Jingchuan and Wuwei have many differences, yet share common aspects of Chinese life; and living in your own apartment by yourself for months bares little similarity staying in a hotel with 17 other Americans for two weeks.

One of the first things to remain the same: taking the train. Though, of course, a 16-hour train ride from Wuwei to Jingchuan wouldn’t be simple; I’d forgotten to account for the thousands of people filling the station, crowding (and heating) up in the waiting halls, and otherwise accumulating as everyone waits for trains to return home from school, begin summer travels, or otherwise wait for trains, all of which were delayed for heavy rains and floods that have been make train travel a bit less punctual than usual.

But, of course, a train is just a train once you’ve spent over 350 hours on a train in less than a year, and after sleeping of most of the time on the train, we arrived in Jingchuan, and were met by many of the local partners, teachers and organizers of our project, who cheerfully greeted us, shuttled us to the hotel and let us check in, unpack a bit, and shower after two long days of sweaty travel to the project site.

The hotel was also a first for me, in many ways: plastic wrapped mattresses underneath the sheets that crinkled a bit like a cellophane bag of decorations when you sat down, a desktop computer in the room (though navigating webpages/browsers in Chinese is a bit past my level), and windows that didn’t quite close fully, allowing us to share our room with many hungry mosquitoes, moths, tiny green bugs and slightly larger black bugs.

The first look at Jingchuan ...

Local coordinators were excited to meet us .. and we were excited to be in Jingchuan!

Home sweet home for the next two weeks!

平凉泾川县

Jingchuan Country, Pingliang

(Yes, it kind of reads like a travel site review ...)

Jingchuan is a small county within the larger city of Pingliang, so it has both the small-town feel, and the convenience of easy access to larger city life. The area around the hotel had few restaurants, and featured many of the same dishes: noodles, noodles, and noodles. To eat anything besides noodles, you must actively hunt for other options. As one of the organizers told us when asked about local specialties, “Anything you can eat in Lanzhou, you can eat here.” In case you don't realize it while sampling the fare in Jingchuan, Lanzhou does have a lot of noodles. Fortunately, the hotel was extremely close to what we eventually just referred to as “the market street,” a street that seemed to have just been taken over by fruit, vegetable, cold noodles and a few fried bread vendors; though, I think we might have given them all the impression that foreigners love love love bananas.

Noodles galore! Stir-fried noodles, soupy vegetable-broth based noodles...

... cold noodles and spicy broth thin noodles..

... buckwheat noodles and cold fish shaped noodles made from a gelatinous bean powder!

Yet, the thing that surprised me most was how curious, friendly and excited many of the locals were to see us – during a dinner on our first night, the director of the education bureau in the area, the highest ranking Chinese official in charge of organizing our project, told us that he had originally ordered security for our hotel, because he was concerned that the small-town life might lead to complications borne of excessive curiosity – if anything, there was a lot curiosity, but the consequences were the opposite, and I felt more comfortable in Jingchuan that I did in Wuwei … though, perhaps 18 foreigners arriving at once spreads the curiosity burden out a bit when compared to being the only foreigner in a city.

I’m used to people taking my picture and being unaware of why I am in such small cities in China – but, in Jingchuan word seemed to have spread already about our presence here: when I ran into a few locals in a noodle shop one night, they asked where I was from, and after explaining, I asked, “Have you seen a lot of foreigners here lately?” to which he spoke the words already on the tip of my tongue. “Yeah! I heard you are all helping our teachers in one of the middle schools here.” Older children, on break from school, would work in their family’s noodle restaurant, be amazed when we managed enough Chinese to order food we wanted (at least, we got it right about half the time), and then ask us to take a picture with them outside the shop before we left. Others, particularly children, might have known, too, but were content to just give us a friendly wave, a smile, or run alongside us laughing as we exchanged simple English and Chinese greetings for a block or two. There was even a nightly smile as an older gentleman who I suspect only knew “hello” would sit on the steps of the bank on the road to our hotel every night after class, smiling, waving, and saying “hello” to all of us as we walked back home.

A look at the Opening Ceremony for the Summer Project and the school where we will teach for two weeks...

... not far from the school there's a beautiful mountain/hill area nearby with many historic sites and hiking trails ..

... while the streets have the small-town feel I'm used to, but it's hot enough that the sidewalks are multi-purpose ...

... drying out vegetables, fruits, peppers, corn, cucumbers, you name it ...

... or you can hang it (in this case, gourd peelings) from ropes strung between two trees!

Teaching Teachers

I’ve already written a lot in this blog post, but haven’t even mentioned the reason we are all here in Pingliang: teaching English to English teachers, though not necessarily with the aim of improving their English, but rather, sharing a few of our active, communication-based teaching methods, styles and ideas with them as a way to augment the standard textbook and memorization style of English common in the Chinese English education system.

The teachers we taught were all really fun, and made teaching for 5 hours a day, 6 days a week really enjoyable – their English levels were much better than any students I’ve taught before, and many were engaged, lively, and excited to not only meet and use English with native speakers for the first time in their life, but were extremely motivated to use what we taught and take it all back to their own classrooms. With students like them, teaching is easy.

Each PCV paired up with another PCV to teach classes every day, one focusing on cultural topics, common mistakes and active warm-up activities, with the other focusing on methodology topics such as writing, speaking, listening, group work and related topics. There were 9 teams of PCVs, and 9 classes of primary, middle and high school teachers, so each day we taught a new class of teachers, totaling over 250 teachers by the end of Summer Project.

My partner Sam taught classes on sports and world Englishes, and loved to take ‘action photos’ of me teaching, so I’ll share a few of these pictures below!

A look at our classrooms for the next two weeks ...

... filled with great students ...

... and fun teaching moments which will remain with me as memories for a long time!

I taught a methodology topic on Vocabulary, and you can take a look at the PowerPoint I’ve loaded here to see kind of what was taught: mostly, I focused on a few activities and demonstrations that highlighted both new note-taking and communicative language-based strategies for learning and working with vocabulary, and allowed each class of teachers to work together and determine how best to adapt and implement the ideas in their own classrooms – and each class of teachers brought unique ideas.

What's the impact of our teaching? Finish reading to the end to read about "My Most Rewarding Moment," but for now, consider this: in these two weeks we will teach over 250 teachers, who will teach over 12,500 students in the next year - and 12,500 every year after - making the impact of this work impressively sustainable and ensuring that it will outlast my time here in China.

The PowerPoints I made for my lesson on Vocabulary - the left one is for the primary school teachers, the right one for the middle school and high school teachers; they are the same except for the third activity I introduced based upon English level.

International Basketball Surprise

Other moments in Jingchuan illustrated the impact of having 18 foreigners descend upon a small city that has perhaps never seen so many total foreigners before. One in particular sticks out: a ‘pick-up’ basketball game after classes one night.

One of the local organizers was a teacher at the high school just down the road, and invited us to play basketball with some of the other teachers at that school after classes one night. I agreed to play under the assumption that it would be a low-key affair, with perhaps a bit of passing the ball around, shooting together, and chatting a bit about our lives and cultures.

Well, I was wrong.

Not only did I not have any exercise clothes, so I showed up to play in my least-restricting outfit (t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts), but when we arrived, the other teachers already had uniforms on and were already warming up and practicing. That was the first sign that things were not going to go as expected.

The second sign was when the scoreboard came out. The third sign was when the referee showed up with a whistle and a stop-watch for time out four regular quarters of play. The fourth sign was when 40+ Chinese locals (families, teachers, kids) showed up to watch the American team take on the Chinese team, bringing with them a big 24 pack of water bottles for us to rehydrate as we played a regulation game of basketball.

Of course, this meant that it wasn’t a half-court game, either, but a game of running up and down the court on a hot and humid evening ... but it was a lot of fun, and my first time playing this kind of basketball since at least the sixth grade. I was probably a lot better back then, too.

The final sign that this wasn’t an ordinary game of basketball came after the third quarter, when the directors of the local education bureau and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) showed up to watch the game and even substitute in and take a few shots themselves. Luckily, I didn’t embarrass myself too much, and our team ended up winning 63-53 … though, if the game had lasted 5 minutes longer we certainly would have lost. We were exhausted, and after taking a few pictures with our new friends, it was time for the 25 minute walk back to the hotel, a quick dinner and shower, and an early bedtime… It was a short night, but the memories (and sore legs) will definitely last a long time.

It's not a party. It's not KTV. It's PTV.

After a week’s worth of classes, and with half of the training yet to be completed, it was time for a short break – my last class of middle school teachers for the week invited me to join them and a few other PCVs that taught them over the week for a dinner of hot pot.

We arrived at the restaurant ... Surprise! It wasn’t hot pot, after all, but upon arrival there were another eight teachers and some of their family members already preparing the night of “PTV.” Now, you might be familiar with KTV (karaoke rooms), but PTV is simply “Party TV,” or really, just a combination of KTV and a restaurant. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t sing … or dance … or, at least not well, but that didn’t matter too much on this night, or really ever in China for that matter.

It’s an interesting facet of Chinese culture that I’ve noticed: people who are reserved in public, don’t show much emotion, or don’t talk much/loudly will suddenly transform entirely, belting out song after song in the KTV room … no matter how much singing ability they possess. So, naturally, I had to join in, singing a few songs with some of my classmates (Sam Smith, Adele, Train, Toto, Michael Buble, John Legend [majority of the KTV selections for foreign songs/artists here in Jingchuan], along with a few easy Chinese songs I learned that evening), dancing to others, and otherwise just having a good time and laughing a lot – despite being unable to sing or dance well, it beats sitting in the corner silent wondering when the night will end (usually at least 5 hours later).

Most of the fun that night, though, came from interacting, talking and sharing stories and culture with the teachers in a new setting, and meeting some of their family members, particularly their children who were the touching mixture of nervous and excited for their first opportunity to meet and talk with not just one, but seven foreigners! Even the waiters at the PTV were excited: stopping me in the hall to practice English for a few seconds, or asking to take a picture with all of us as we ended the night of food, singing, and dancing.

Oh, and I almost forgot: the food was really quite delicious – take a look at a few memories of the night!

PTV starts with friends and music (and lyrics for those of us who don't sing often!) ...

... continues with new friends in a new place under some 'party' lights ...

... a large spread of food keeps everyone full ...

... with light starters: 'thousand year' gelatinized eggs and watermelon ...

... and many many dishes: little pumpkin breads, spicy homestyle tofu ...

... eggs and tomatoes, and delicious sauteed eggplant, just to name a few ...

... but the most important thing is being together and having fun!

R&R? Our Saturday "Free" Day

After the long night of Karaoke and food, it was off to bed … but we could sleep in a bit since Saturday was our “free day for rest,” though as it turned out, it wasn't quite a free day. As another PCV (my roommate for these two weeks) described it when asked “volunteer; advertisement,” though I might describe it more as a “touring advertisement:”

1. The local education bureau organized a day-long tour of Jingchuan for us, a chance to advertise all of the sights and tourist locales that our host county has to offer.

2. It was an advertisement for us to visit Jingchuan again, and to share pictures, stories and memories with other PCVs and with people back home, in hopes that more people would come and visit.

3. And of course, we became a ‘touring advertisement’ ourselves, with a banner rolled out at each stop, and all of us lined up for a group picture that will probably be used to promote tourism in Jingchuan for many years to come, not to mention all of the ‘action’ pictures that were taken of us, either unknowingly as we walked around these places, or staged as our hosts instructed people to stand a certain way, look a certain direction, or otherwise provide photo opportunities.

I think that many of us recognized this day for what it would be just moments into the tour – whether it was the banner, the staged photos, or the 200 other photos that were taken in the first 10 minutes, I’m not sure – and while it became increasingly frustrating as the day wore on and the feelings of being ‘animals in a zoo’ became more and more pronounced, there were many moments throughout the day that made it a valuable experience.

We saw some of the oldest pieces of Jingchuan history, dating back to periods of matriarchal societies that existed years past and culminated in huge temples on the top of mountainous hills dedicated the ‘mother’ figure that essentially transformed into a deity. We saw acres upon acres of vineyards situated beautifully in front of some of these same mountains, enjoying watermelon, homemade wine and delicious local ‘village fare style’ lunch options in the quiet seclusion of this farm area located kilometers outside of the city. We saw ancient tools and animal fossils in a museum located in an up-and-coming tourist area nestled in the mountains, with a walk through the forested area at the base of the mountain that was ten degrees cooler than the rest of the day and one hundred degrees more reminiscent of the nature around my home than any place I’ve encountered in China thus far.

Jingchuan might be a small county, but it's loaded with history!

The temple and monument dedicated to the 'mother' figure-turned-deity of the matriarchal society centuries ago.

Sometimes it felt like we were animals in a zoo, corralled for pictures, planned, unplanned ...

Or even directed to pose certain ways for 'action shots.'

But the places we were able to see were incredible, including a secluded vineyard area ...

... or a peaceful walk through green woods reminiscent of home.

If nothing else, this day shared an honest glimpse into the relationship system upon which China flourishes: it’s a give and take, that, while not particularly subtle, is integrated into many, if not all, aspects of life. In the US, I’ve found that a lot depends upon who you know; the same holds true for China, but you're also expected to provide something in return. Our trip was organized and hosted by the highest-ranking local officials in the education bureau, which led to a trip in which we were well accommodated: air-conditioned busses stocked with water, no tickets needed at any attraction, tour guides and a translator lined up at each stop, delicious food provided in excess for lunch and dinner, the local mayors of each small town or village on hand to treat and honor us at the meals, introductions to participate in local culture/traditions (such as drinking wine and shattering the bowl afterwards), and over ¥1500 in the delicious homemade wine to collectively take home and enjoy at the end of the day. We knew the ‘right people’ to make this happen, but we also knew that the cost of the ‘free’ trip was our presence, our smiles, our pictures, and the capturing of our foreign presence in a city seeking to promote its tourism industry in a region of China that is becoming both increasingly tourist-friendly and increasingly full of tourist destinations seeking to differentiate themselves.

It was an enlightening day, it was a paradoxically relaxing and stressful day, it was an exhausting day, it was a rewarding day … it was essentially a normal Saturday here in Peace Corps China.

Learning Together

I’m sure that if we look at the Summer Project from the Peace Corps China perspective of the Project Plan Framework, these two weeks would be viewed mainly in the light of accomplishing Goal 2: Professional Development of Chinese Teachers … but, I think that as PCVs we learned almost as much as the teacher trainees.

In all of our conversations and classes, I’d always learn something new – whether that is about the Chinese educational system, Chinese life and culture, teaching Chinese students, or simply local cuisine and tips on how to cook Chinese food!

I taught a lesson on Vocabulary these two weeks, and taught a few techniques/activities that can be used to help students engage and utilize vocabulary words beyond pure memorization in order to build understanding and better learn English. My activities were new to the teachers, but the concept wasn’t – many teachers had their own preferred ways of learning and teaching English vocabulary, but most focused on memorizing and remembering the spelling of words. I thought the ideas were quite creative, even if I didn’t fully understand them and they wouldn’t work for me. I thought I’d share some of their methods:

1. Add letters to words – spelling based: ear à hear àheart … or ear à pear à spear

2. The word ‘tall’ has two L’s which are very tall, so that is how you can remember tall means tall.

3. Eye: has two e’s, one for each eye, and they form a “Y” with your nose on your face, so eye is spelled e-y-e … try this one in the mirror!

4. Level: this word has a plane of symmetry down the center, bisecting the v, so each side is level with the other!

5. School: this one I don’t understand, but it has a story made by the teacher to help students remember the spelling. The ‘s’ stands for a girl (perhaps because “she” starts with an ‘s’); the ‘ch’ stands for the Chinese sound ‘ch’ which is the same sound as the Chinese word 吃 (chi) which means ‘eat;’ the two ‘o’ each stand for an egg; and the ‘l’ is 油条 (you tiao) or a long fried bread often eaten for breakfast. So the story goes: the girl (s) eats (ch) two eggs (oo) and one you tiao (l).

It truly was a wonderful two weeks to be together, learning together ...

... inside and outside the classroom ...

... with new friendships for each of us.

My Most Rewarding Moment

One of my favorite moments each class was teaching the activity/idea of an “Input Narrative Chart,” which is essentially the idea of using a picture as you tell a story to help prompt/remember vocabulary and facilitate creative language use in English.

I started each class with a demonstration, reading a fairly detailed story I wrote about a dog living in Jingchuan, with numerous specific details about the weather, people and places. After I finished reading it, I asked the teachers how much they could remember and repeat back to me – I noticed many embarrassed and crestfallen looks as teachers admitted they could maybe only repeat 25% of story back to me. Then, I’d ask my partner Sam, another American native English-speaking Volunteer, how much he could repeat back to me: 50%, maybe. And the students were shocked.

I’d then repeat the story one more time, and this time, I’d draw the “Input Narrative Chart” as I told the story, adding a small piece of information for each sentence. After I finished, the teachers were all excited and smiling, confident that they could now repeat at least 75% of the story to me.

Now, why is this my favorite moment of my classes during training?

I know that almost every teacher left this activity changed a little bit.

It’s the power of stories. It’s the power of pictures. It’s the power of proof that the ‘problem’ isn’t their language abilities, but rather the limitations of memory. It’s the power of confidence.

And so, if I've learned a single thing during my two weeks in Jingchuan, it's this: teaching these teachers is equal parts sharing new teaching methodologies/activities and building confidence in their own English ability. It's hard to gauge how much their own English proficiency improved over the course of two weeks taking classes in English with us, because I suspect that the majority of the 'improvement' we might have noticed over the two weeks is the result of improved confidence in their own ability to actually use the English they know.

On the last day of classes, a group of teachers invited me and a few other Volunteers to eat hot pot with them - these teachers were exceedingly kind to us over the ten days in Jingchuan, and were some of the most motivated students I taught, and I hope they will continue to be my friends for awhile to come. In the middle of the lunch, I asked them, "Do you think your English has improved during these two weeks?" and the teacher answered, "Of course! But the most important thing is our confidence. We now believe we know English."

This stopped me in my tracks, and made me realize that before meeting us, many of these teachers who've been teaching English in high school for years might not believe they know enough English to teach their students. It seems implausible, but in an area of China with little foreign exposure, these teachers have spent their whole educational life learning English from textbooks and other Chinese teachers, never having had a single opportunity to actually use English in a real-life situation, much less with a native speaker ... never having that opportunity to receive proof that years of study has resulted in anything beyond a score on a written test. And so, two weeks chatting in English with foreigners, taking classes only in English, and sharing stories/culture in English has provided this proof, not only for these teachers, but for countless other teachers in our training, who wrote the following in their post-project surveys, and can summarize the end of this blog post, and the end of these two weeks far better than I can:

• "The ten days’ training makes a real difference to my English learning, to my teaching and to my attitude towards life."
• "I learnt a lot, and I'm more confident, l dare to speak English in front of the class."
• "The training gives me more inspiration and motivation to improve my teaching."
• "Overall, I like this training course very much, I have learned a lot of interesting teaching methods, many useful games and activities that I can use in my class. It makes my mind open. I learn more about American Culture and life. My oral english and listening are improved a lot, I also make many new friends. I hope I can have more chances to attend such training course."
• "It is the most useful training in my career. hope we can have this training once two year."