Posted 10:07 AM by Gobbler
Hello Sir!

An email popped up in my inbox today. I'd thought I'd banished all porn and penis enlargement mails to my trash box but with the email 'yffffbeÿfffffd ÿffffd1ÿffffee ' it looked as tho the porn moguls had found a way in. I checked to make sure.

Here is the first line to the mail:

'I am a chinese girl.I am is 17 years old.'

Hmm. Definitely suspicious. How could they know i was in china? But then

'I am so happy that you can teach our English.
Welcome to our country,our city,our shool and our class.
I hoppy we will be good friends!'

Thinking back, i did give out my email address to one of my two classes that i'll be teaching for '4 weeks'. not porn then, just a sucking up exercise.

have yet to find out whar is happening with these 'temporary' classes. one things for sure, they dont want us to leave in two weeks and theyre trying every trick they know to get us to stay. Either that or miss wong really is incapable of stopping talking to Caroline about inanely boring topics and really does want to be her best friend, and mr english director really does just enjoy putting his arm over my shoulder at every conceivable opportunity...

Got some ciee punters coming over from nanjing tomorrow, and later theres another of these celebrated 'foreigners nights' at banana disco. dot dot dot.

sorry the blog hasnt been as exciting as it should be of late. Uninteresting elements of my mind shall be purged with beer. if that doesnt work i shall attempt the knitting needle method as detailed in Teaching Chinese Students, Volume One, Chapter 7: 'For heavens sake speak up boy', Section five. On that subject i managed to get make a girl cry today when she had to shout 'I'm a tiger!'. Sensitive flower, its the same one that cried when she had to say her name in the first week.

talk backs next time...

Posted 10:33 AM by Gobbler
"I'm A Tiger!!!" Teaching Chinese Students, Volume One, Chapter 7: 'For heavens sake speak up boy', Section three. By Foreign Expert Goulden, serial number 62673725.756.2.

Some of your students may have confidence issues as regards their spoken word. It is important to build their confidence, to nurture it carefully. While the cattle prod method, as explained in section two, produces immediate and rewarding results, it is ultimately preferable to have your students speak clearly without the threat of recourse to torture. In addition to this the batteries are expensive and, with even restrained use, have to be changed regularly.

An alternative method to the above mentioned cattle prod method and the previously detailed (in section 1) Chalk assault theory is the "I'm a Tiger!!!" doctrine. This is a very simple concept yet used at the right moment it can have rewarding results. Firstly, write on the board in big red letters "I'm a Tiger!!!" The shout quite loudly "I'm a Tiger!" to the class, and jump around a bit. Then get each class member in turn, all 45 of them, to stand up individually and shout the words. Keep making them repeat it until a suitable volume is achieved, and then move on to the next student. While some students may quiver in fear at the idea of saying this, and some may need to change their drawers after class, the fact that everyone is in the same boat will produce a sense of comradeship and thus pleasing results. It works particularly well in the 18-22 bracket.

However, the "I'm a Tiger!!!" doctrine can backfire, and there have been recorded instances of this. Try it with 13 and 14 year olds and you may find that the hyperactive little turds do not shut up for the rest of the lesson. If such proves the case it may be necessary to recourse to sections 1 and 2, above.

Unfortunately my batteries were flat today and i disapprove of throwing chalk as i consider it a waste of teaching resources.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gobbler
"Believe me Mr. Bond I could shoot you from Stuttgart und still create ze proper effect" - Dr. Kauffman, Tomorrow Never Dies

I brought a gun into class today. i did shoot someone but as its a cap gun the results were non fatal. idea was to get students to say what it was. 'Toy!' they shouted. "no," i said, "that's the girl sitting in the corner."

Posted 8:13 AM by Gobbler
“I love you America.” – Forest Gump

Friday Night. Chris and Caroline had been contacted by a mysterious Chinese guy called Jack who was looking for a previous foreign teacher called Michael. They informed him that michael had left and that they were the new teachers at that address and number. Jack said “oh well, in that case you can come to my party. There is a meeting of foreign teachers tonight. You will come along.”

So it was that the CIEE contingent met in the Tai Ji bar at seven o’clock. This is the same bar that we were taken to in error in our first week when we were looking for Jill’s Bar, when they all claimed that the Tai Ji bar was indeed Jill’s Bar when it wasn’t. They may not have been the cheeky so and so’s in making that claim as the word ‘Jiu’ or however its spelt sounds a bit ‘jill’ and means alcohol. Thus ‘Jiu Bar’ means alcohol bar i.e. drinking establishment. We had been advised to arrive at seven, and we duly did. It looked like the sort of joint that housed foreigners of an evening and things were promising. However, when we got inside the bar there was no sign of any waigoren, foreigners. We got a beer and sat down. Half past seven Jon turned up, but still no sign of any foreigners. I suggested two theories. 1) this jack fellow was in the employ of the bar and had put in a spoof call about non-existent foreigners to draw us there to drink their beer. Or 2) this jack fellow was actually the front man of a gang who, now that they had got chris and caroline out of their apartment, were ransacking the place. The second theory did not go down too well with C&C, and they looked quite disturbed after I mentioned it. There was further debate about whether these other foreign teachers actually existed.

At about 8 o’clock they rolled in. at least one of them did. It was not the 5 americans, 2 aussies and one brit that we had been promised. An interesting older american chap from Atlanta Georgia with a classic accent. - Oh balls now its time for dinner. - Hes called mike, with his own no doubt intriguing and as yet unravelled story. We were joined later on by the english guy and three american girls also from georgia. Two undergrads and a postgrad. Mikes a postgrad also and the two of them, the two postgrads, mike and oh whatshername, lets call her jemima, spent a few days in shanghai together before coming down to yangzhou. They both confided that they didn’t get on a whole lot. Jemimas 27 and mikes I guess mid-late 50’s and the gap was too much. Jemima got on better with the two girls, Beth and I think Mary-Jane or perhaps Tulip or Blossom or Kebab King. Oh no that’s a kebab joint. When mike showed up he declared that the girls would be late and may not be able to join the party because they were listening to the new Britney Spears CD. The New Britney Spears CD? “Pardon Mike, what was that?” “Oh yah, me-u-heh. The new Britney Spears CDee-u-ey. You got that right meu-heh. You can guess that we don’t get on too weh-u-ell.” “Holy Blimey. How old are they?” “I think that two of em’s twenny-tew-u-ew and the other ones twenty-seven. Its hard to believe aint it? But there y’arr. Me-u-huh. You-all don’t tell’em I told you tho. They’d be even more unheppy with mey. See, we don’t get along too well. Different generation. Meuheh.”

Now this seemed unlikely. Granted, it is legal to buy Britney Spears CD’s in most if not all countries of the world, and millions of the worlds populace do. Usually I hope and imagine most of those millions are concentrated in the teenage and pre-teen bracket, with a little overflow into the 20+ bracket. The new album might be fantastic, I may buy it myself. I don’t want to rule these things out. But staying in on a Friday night for the purpose of listening to the thing? That strikes me as early teen pyjama party antics to me. Given that there was a professed element of uncomradely feeling on mikes side, I couldn’t help feeling that he might be exaggerating a tad. This was college students we were talking about, and adventurous go-get-china types as well.

They rolled up some time later, as already described. English guy I think called Joel also put in an appearance along with another yank bloke. We all got on well as far as I can tell. The american girls confirmed that all was not happy in the camp vis a vis mike and they didn’t spend a whole lot of time together. It didn’t sound too serious. At a certain point in the evening I cracked. I just had to ask them about the Britney Spears CD. “Oh YAH! Shes great we love her. Great album. Sorry we were late ‘n’all tho.” Okaly dokaly. Gonna have to get my pinkies on that album I gueeess.

There was another question I had to ask at some stage. Politics. The vast majority of americans I know or have met are democrats and it strikes me as peculiar to win an election when nobody likes you or votes for you. One exception and the only I can think of is some bloke I met at a table in Las Vegas from Wisconsin who voted Republican and supported George W. because, to paraphrase “He’s Republican and he’s a strong leader.” He struck me more as the hard gamblin’ hard smokin’ hard drinkin’ hard workin’ wife beatin’ mans man material than the political commentator, and was not up for debate on the subject. And the Blackjack table is hardly the place. Mike’s a democrat but gives off a vibe of being lost somewhere in the 60’s, or wishing he still was, and thought that his views were not popular with the new generation. What did the girls think? I asked.

Mary Jane I never got an answer out of but the indication was from the other two that she was republican. As with Beth and Gemima. How marvellous. Finally, Republican college students. I was intrigued, I resolved to pick their brains. If the girls didn’t mind discussing it, (I didn’t want to upset anyone) why were they Republican. Beth was quick with an answer: “I don’t want to discuss it. Im a Republican. Always have been. Always will be. That’s it.” She turned away. Gemima was a little more forthcoming, though I felt she felt on the defensive. She figured that clinton was all well and good but he never actually did anything except talk a lot. George W. is a man of action. He gets things done. Things need to be done. “Do you think that what he has done was right?” “He’s solving problems. Somethings got to be done.” “Iraq for example?” “We had to go in there. We had to sort it out. Nobody else was going to, it was up to us. Don’t you think the worlds a better place without Saddam? We, America, and you guys, we werent safe with him in power. It took a man like George W. to do that. The Democrats like Clinton were all talk.”

It’s a point of view.

And there was more substance to it than that. I tried my best not to argue. She did her best to be polite and accommodate my questions but she wasn’t in it for the long haul or the debate. Any pro-bush Republicans who are? I’ll find one one day. After they had left I chatted to Mike about it. “We-yell that’sthe way most of em are nowadays. Now my generation are, are largely Democrat meu-heh. If y’ask me I don’t think she [Gemima] is doin her masters for any real academic purpose, meu-heh. I really think she just wants to marry rich and be a kept woman. Course that’s just my opinion right now. I don’t really know, meu-heuh.” It was toward the back end of the night. A few beers had been had, and I was slightly disappointed about the girls’ lack of spunk on the republican debating front, especially Gemima who was surely old and wise at 27, and I found myself agreeing with Mike. Sorry Heath.

The night ended when Rubrick and I squeezed through the locked hotel door again. One of the padlocked door handles, fixed to the glass door at two points, broke from one of its fixings. The campus security guard saw us, bugger. He lifted a finger to his lips, smiling, made a ‘shhh’ sound and we, thanking him, scuttled upstairs. What a good lad. About four when I climbed into the sack, 300 kwai (20 quid) the poorer. Such evenings cannot be repeated. Always puts one off such things when you spend almost 10% of your earnings in a single night. Next day we got up at eight to go to nanjing for a little sightseeing. Which may or may not make up next times feature. Now it is time for another sack visit.