Posted 2:15 AM by Gobbler
Remarkable Fact of the Day: The United States of America imported 20,000 sheep from China last year. 20,000 plastic sheep that is. 20,000 inflatable plastic sheep. Oh yes. And what can you say to that? Bugger! Thats all i can say.

The most unproductive lesson i have had

I had been given what i thought was a pretty good idea. Word bingo. write 30 words on the board, get the students to write down sixteen at random, and then read them out. Now, I was 7 minutes late for the class, which is a very poor show i must admit, but it still left 33 minutes of classtime. And would you believe it, at the end of those 33 minutes 3 or 4 kids at the back of the class still had not even written down 16 words. It was a combination of them not understanding, not listening and not caring. Right at the end i had crouched down by two boys looking mean and hard at the back, proudly sporting bum fluff on their upper lips. I went through it for the 12th time. Or 15th time, or 20th time. Write-down-16-words. they didnt look back dumbly, they looked back with dedicated obstruction, determined not to cooperate. Then the bell went. "HA!" went the bumfluff model i had been talking to, a look of triumph on his face. Irritating.

And whats worse is the 35 other kids in the class who had all done it within two minutes of asking and then sat there for the rest of the class twiddling their thumbs waiting for me to ignore the students at the back or for them to cooperate, neither of which happened. at the end of the class two girls came up to me. "Teacher, are you angry?" I could have spouted "I would like to f***ing kill a couple of your f***ing classmates", it would have vented a little spleen and they would not have understood anyway. I looked at their concerned and upset looks. "Not with you. Not with you."

My other five classes with middle school are fine, but the thing that always gets me when i do have a bad moment is that i didnt actually apply to teach these kids. a quick glance at my contract will reveal that i applied for university students, 18-22 and not 13-14 year old pubescent brats who dont actually want to learn anything from me. but i will not just skip the class or refuse to teach them because of the 35 odd in there who do want to learn something. rrrrrerererererrrr

It is a private school.

Posted 3:38 AM by Gobbler
To Blog with it

Friday night involved meeting up with two new foreigners in yangzhou, quite an event given the usual excitements of Yangzhou. The night was highlighted by one of them (both from the us) telling me that as far as he knew the Falkland Islands were populated almost exclusively by argentinians and it was thus a little unfair that Britain controlled. The poor deceived fellow. How do these falacies get spread about? He didnt even know where he had heard it from, he had just heard it. Thats just one example of the wider world wide picture where clever and educated people believe in things that are wholly wrong. Im not talking theoretical or religious issues here, i am talking factual issues. It would be a foolish man indeed who tried to argue that people from the falklands are almost exclusively of Argentinian origin, as most of them, with dedication, trace their origins back to britain. It is probable then that noone who actually knows anything about the origins of the islanders would ever claim that they came from argentina. Where, then, did the idea come from? Someone must have said it sometime or other, or perhaps andy just dreamt it all up himself. But either way it is a little worrying that people can believe such untruths. Because sometimes believing such untruths might have important ramifications. Just a thought.

Saturday night saw another party in another city. At the bus station a taxi driver tried to offer me a ride their. For 250 kwai, when the bus cost 38. It seems that when a chinaman sees a foreigner he assumes that he is a) extremely rich and b) very stupid and that c)the combination of a & b mean that he and his money can easily be parted. Probably true more often than we wouild like to think.

Arriving in the rain by bus i hopped on a motorbike to get to the party. "Ha haa!" the numerous bystanders chuckled, "Lao wai [foreigner] on motorbike! Ha ha haaa!" HIGHLY AMUSING. Actually i did chuckle to myself the whole way. Bike rides in the drizzle are refreshingly marvellous. As long as it doesnt rain too hard.

Having a conversation with a chinese english teacher at the party who spoke excellent english, talking on a range of topics, and moving onto the government. It was she who began it and i found myself almost defending the old CCP. Its something thats hard to appreciate, even if youve been here for a while. They are not free. If they dont complain about the government it may be because they are happy with it, and it may be that they dont care. BUt it may equally well be that they dont like the government one bit but know that they are entirely impotent to do anything about it and that if they open their mouths beyond benign murmurings they will get into trouble. So they just muscle on, try not to worry, and hope everything will be alright.

Sunday: having a burger. A ten ounce burger in a bun designed for a 2 ounce burger. The burger had to be so thick so as not to stick out of the bun too much it more resembled a ball. It was at least two inches thick not counting the bun, salad etc. It had to be eaten in carefully planned stages. Luckily i am a careful planner and a keen burgerer. I did once eat 5 burger king triple melts which for those not in the know means 15 burgers. And then i went home and had a roast. Thats right people, my girth is famous. I was a big burger bad boy. I used to eat them for breakfast. In fact i still do. this mouth stretcher was easy as pie. Yessir, easy as pie. I like pie too.