Related posts:

1. Transformers Special – Part 1
2. Transformers Special – Part 2
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

Related posts:

1. Transformers Special – Part 3
2. Transformers Special – Part 1
3. CP15: Mongolia and TCM

Related posts:

1. Transformers Special – Part 3
2. Transformers Special – Part 2
3. CP15: Mongolia and TCM

Related posts:

1. CP12: Funemployment
2. CP14: Reward Sytems
3. CP4: Graduation Day

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP13: Welcome To Beijing, Miles and Ji Tan
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

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1. CP14: Reward Sytems
2. CP15: Mongolia and TCM
3. CP12: Funemployment

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1. CP11: Jayden and Artists
2. CP10: Cultural Criticisms
3. CP5: Usher and Ethan

Related posts:

1. CP12: Funemployment
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP10: Cultural Criticisms

Related posts:

1. CP11: Jayden and Artists
2. CP12: Funemployment
3. CP14: Reward Sytems

Here are some of my favorites:

Sigh, hope it wasn’t just pieced together! [is real, not just a fake/ruse] — 腾讯合肥市网友

Does the country/government’s strength and power have anything to do with us? — 红玛瑙

The more advanced the PLA’s weapons are, just means the more people that can be suppressed on Changan Avenue. — 織田信長

No wonder everyone says it is easy to be a [government] leader. I’d rather see the price of cabbage fall 5 mao. — 红玛瑙

Is the poster speaking for the Party, or for the people? — 朱雀

[If the country has] become more powerful, does it have anything to do with me? I only know that our wages are N times lower than abroad, and prices are so much higher than abroad that they are unrecognizable. I won’t even talk about housing prices. This thing you’ve created, what does it have to do with the lowly common people? — 租车超人

Slaves cheering the slave-master for researching and developing an even more powerful killing machine? What kind of reasoning is this? — 正宗张江男

If there is hope, it lies in the netizens?

Related posts:

1. Google, No Flowers For You
2. “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”
3. Uncensored Google Results!

Sources:
China consider passing law which forces youngsters to look after elderly parents… or face jail
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP5: Usher and Ethan

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

We left off my work situation with me growing increasingly unhappy at my school. The headmaster, the Chinese teachers, the treatment of the children, and the general environment was all becoming too much.

When I started my job, I promised myself that I would put up with everything negative for as long as I could. I would help the kids in whatever way possible, and just deal with the stress for as long as possible, but not longer.

I didn’t want it to change me or affect me too much; I didn’t want to become one of those miserable, pessimistic teachers that — whether or not he intends to — ends up passing on that despair to the students.

I was at that point with my old school.

My original class that I started with in February had left for primary school. I had new students that didn’t know me at all, which essentially reset all of my progress with new teaching methods back to zero. And I had taken over a former teacher’s class, with new students and a small-minded, fearful assistant. (See Episode 7).

I told my agency (we’re technically employees of hiring agencies, not the actual schools) and asked what they could do about it. The short version is this: they basically told me to go back to work, shut up, and finish my contract.

I’m going to skip a lot of the struggle I had to go through with my agency, but I’ll likely cover it later in an audio post. It’s a perfect example of Chinese business culture, and their culture in general, but in the interest of time I’m going to skip the details.

Since my agency wouldn’t move me to another school, I tried to quit.

What do I mean by “tried?” I told them I had offers at other schools and was considering them. They told me they would — in more words — fuck me six ways from Sunday.

They would keep my most recent paycheck ($1000), my airfare bonus ($1000), my TEFL certification, and cancel my working visa.

Some of that I agreed to lose if I broke the contract (paycheck, airfare bonus) but still, withholding those things is at the company’s discretion. And it was very clear that they were choosing to enforce those parts of the contract out of spite. Many people leave the agency on “bad terms” (disappearing after payday, for example) and suffer little to no consequences. I had been dealing with them up front and honestly my entire time in China, even when it came to conflicts we had.

And it was more than just losing some money, they were going to cancel my working visa, which according to most people can cause you some serious problems.

McCoy and I came to China, and worked for several months, with a business visa. There are many, many foreigners that do this. A lot have been here for years, just continually renewing their business visas. But after a few months our agency offered us working visas.

We went with them, assuming that being as legal as possible would only benefit us. Wrong.

When you quit a company while working on a business visa, there are essentially no consequences. You go your separate ways. But with a working visa it’s different. Your legal status in the country is tied to a company, and if that company is willing to put in the legwork, they can dissolve that status.

Couldn’t I just apply for a new visa and be fine? Maybe.

Here’s why it’s hard to know:

1. The visa laws are a huge bureaucratic mess. And nobody — even the middle-man companies whose service is navigating the bureaucracy — seems to have a clear answer. One visa company told me that once I lost my working visa I would be unable to reapply for anything other than a tourist visa. Meaning: I’d have to leave the country. Another visa company told me that if I flew to Hong Kong and reapplied for a business visa, I would be fine, but I’d still have complications with getting another working visa. And I’d heard stories about people who broke a contract, lost their working visa, reapplied for a business visa, and still got deported.
2. Foreigners have almost no legal recourse in China. Maybe a well-connected company, but just a random guy like me would have nobody to go to. And even if I did, the outcome would be determined by who was willing to spend the most money on lawyers or arbitration. And in the end, it would still be a foreigner versus a Chinese company. The odds are not in my favor.
3. Even if the law somehow was on my side, everything is subject to the rule of bureaucratic guanxi. That should probably be capitalized: The Rule of Bureaucratic Guanxi. Whoever has the most political pull or influential connections will find a way to win, no matter what the specifics of the law might be.

Because of this, I was stuck. I spent weeks trying to figure out a way to get out of my contract, but nothing that was certain, or even close to certain.

In the meantime, I had to force the agency to move me to a new school. I had no luck convincing them, so I had to resort to more indirect methods.

I called in sick until my headmaster was furious and demanded I be fired. I don’t like doing things like that, becoming a “bad” employee, but I didn’t have much choice.

My agency caved and moved me through two new more schools — each with the same bad things as my original school, if not worse. Similar tactics kept me from staying at either permanently.

Part of me kept saying “just stick it out for three more months and be done with it.” But the rest of me couldn’t take it. I was burned out, exhausted, miserable from having to witness kids being treated like crap, and angry at how my agency was treating me.

Finally, though, I was moved to a school that wasn’t a terrible, Chinese, crush-the-souls-of-children institution. And that’s where I started my first day today.

The school is a training center, not a kindergarten. And my job is pretty simple: Parents stop by the school with their kids and I perform a thirty-minute demonstration of the classes available. If the kids enjoy it, the parents sign up and bring them back for regular classes once a week.

It’s easy and simple and the kids are treated great. The people who run the training center aren’t like typical Chinese headmasters and all of the assistants are happy and gentle.

It’s not the best school I could be at — I missed out on some opportunities at Montessori schools because I couldn’t get out of my contract — but it’s a great place to wait out the remaining months of my contract.

So that’s where I’m at. Once my contract is over in February I’ll have to make some more decisions, but for now at least, I’m pretty comfortable.

Related posts:

1. You’ve Been To China You Know How Things Work
2. Letter From A High School Teacher
3. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?

I just got scammed out of a hundred US dollars. And it’s my own idiot, iPhone-loving fault.

It’s a long story…

I was getting off the subway at Yonganli and some weird crackhead Chinese guy kept trying to get me to buy an iPhone. Whatever, though, Yonganli is full of people trying to sell you shit. I ignored him for a little but then I realized it was a real iPhone, so I got a little intrigued. He said 2000 kuai and shoved it into my hand. It was definitely real (retina display!). This shit must be stolen, there’s no way he’d sell it for 2000RMB. I walk away again and he keeps saying “need money need money” and sniffing and looking all crackhead. So I stop and say, “500 kuai.” He says no and walks away, but then turns around to follow me again. He offers me it for 600 kuai and puts it in my hand again.

Now at this point, a couple things are going through my head. 1. How the fuck is this guy selling me a real iPhone 4 for 600 kuai. I have to take that deal. 2. This is definitely stolen, whats the proper moral stance on buying a stolen iPhone from a cracked out Chinese dude? 3. Will, Will, this is too good to be true. Go home.

Now, 3 obviously wasn’t helping. So let’s just ignore that voice. 2 raises some good points. I decided if I bought it, I would call one of the contacts (I already checked, there were 36 in the phone) and try to return it. Surely, the real owner would reimburse me the hundred bucks for returning his phone. And if it didn’t have a real owner, than number 1 was right and I just got a sweet deal on an iPhone.

So we go to an ATM to get the money (we were still in Yongangli with like a bajillion people around, I wasn’t in some dark alley) and this guy is really cracking out bad. He keeps taking the phone out and putting it away and taking it out and playing with it. And creepily looking around him and talking fast in Chinese. He’s freaking me out basically. And right as I’m going to put in my pin he shoves the phone into my hand and points at my pocket. I put the phone in my pocket, get the money from the ATM, hand it to him and start walking away.

Then he calls his friend over to see if I want to buy an iPhone 3Gs. This guy is even more aggressive than the first and keeps trying to get me to buy it until finally I tell him to get lost and duck into a Starbucks. (I wasn’t being cliche by taking my new iPhone to Starbucks, I was headed there already.)

I sit down and try to come down off my adrenaline high and reach into my pocket. This is going to be so sweet. I’m going to call Brett and be like ‘Dude guess who is calling you from his new iPhone.’ It’s going to be hilarious.

I grab the phone but its suspiciously light. “Oh no no no no no.” Calm down, calm down. It’s just you being all excited.

But as soon as I look at the phone I know something is wrong. It’s all cheap and fake and OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!

Then I remember him repeatedly putting it in his pocket and taking it out, and him shoving it into my hands right as I was distracted at the ATM.

FUCK ME. No. This can’t be.

I run out into the street to look for him. Of course they are gone.

I went back into Starbucks, and resentfully glared at all the people on their iPhones, and typed the above status update.

So basically, today I failed China. Big time.

There you have it. Let his 600 kuai be a lesson to you all.

Related posts:

1. Houhai Lake
2. Chinese Night Life – St. Patrick’s Day

Related posts:

1. Quick Update
2. A Quick Story on Why Democracy Sucks and Introduction to a New Series
3. Shanghai Photos

The video shows a Chinese kindergarten teacher repeatedly pushing, pulling, and hitting a little girl. The girl’s mother got the recording from the school and posted it online.

The story, according to ChinaSmack’s translation of the mother’s post, is this:

I am already almost at my wit’s end, but I just want to get some justice for my child!!

My daughter is only two and a half years old, and attends Xuzhou City children’s art school [nursery/kindergarten]. On the morning of September 1st, she had a quarrel with another child in her class over a small stool. Allegedly, my daughter scratched that child’s hand. That child’s mother just so happens to be a teacher at the nursery, and when she heard what happened, she rushed over to vent anger for her daughter. That child’s mother, Teacher Chen, then not only shoved but also hit my daughter for 10 minutes, and throughout all of this, all of the other teachers uniformly stood by and did nothing, not a single person going forth to intervene.

After my daughter was hit, the kindergarten teacher even called me and said that my daughter hit bit the other child, and wanted me to take the child that was bitten to go get a rabies vaccination!

After rushing to the school, I had a quarrel with that child’s mother, and only after I had requested during the quarrel to watch the video footage did I learn how my daughter was hit. I no longer want to remember that heartbreaking scene, but I forcefully copied the video recording from the kindergarten, am posting it here, hoping to ask everyone to help me, using legal channels to safeguard our personal rights!

I know this is something nobody wants to see, but here is the video:

It’s obviously vile and terrible. And it’s shocking to actually see it being done.

But I have to point out that although this is a worse-than-normal case, it is by no means uncommon. This type of treatment is very common. It’s usually not this intense, but it can be at times. I’ve witnessed it. And so have many other foreign teachers.

And as for the exposure this video is getting, I doubt much will come of it. Maybe, maybe the teacher will be fired. Besides that, this will just be ignored.

There are probably government officials who are just happy this wasn’t another kindergarten stabbing.

Related posts:

1. Letter From A High School Teacher
2. You Look Down But Far From Out
3. G-Day Plus 1

Note: Just a heads up, at one point I drop the F-bomb about ten times. I also sing. Just letting you know in case you find that (the singing) offensive.

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP8: Subtle Abuse

Update: I realized I mentioned “scantily clad Chinese girls” in my podcast and I failed to deliver any visual representations of those aforementioned subjects. So in the interest of good journalism, here are some photos from the festival:



Is it me, or is she a little bit cross-eyed? She looks like a Chinese Cheri Oteri.

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1. CP11: Jayden and Artists
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP4: Graduation Day

This weekend I’m heading to Qingdao for their international beer festival. So expect a post about that when I get back, hopefully with a lot of photos.

Then next week the company that hired me is bringing in about 90 new foreign English teachers and they asked me to help train them. I’m hoping to meet some cool new people and I’m sure I’ll have some thoughts about the experience, which you’ll get to hear in a tangent-filled podcast.

And then the following weekend, I’ll be studying and taking a test to receive my TEFL certification.

I’m going to be pretty busy so if you don’t get any updates for the next week or so, that’s why. But once it calms down I’ll have a bunch of good stuff to post.

And by the way, it’s Friday the 13th! I don’t really remember what’s supposed to happen on Friday the 13th…you have to be careful or there’s bad luck or something something superstition? Whatever it is, watch out.

And one more thing, remember to visit www.chinarchy.com/helpout and you can enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card. Do it…

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1. Hello From McCoy

Here’s an excerpt:

Shanghai has a cosmopolitan, big-city feel but there is also something quite unique about it. The architecture is simply fascinating – check out some of the photos below to see the stunning skyline. There are some buildings that look like they came straight out of a sci-fi movie, while others have clearly not been renovated in many years.

As cool as it was to see the futuristic element of Shanghai, my favorite part of the time we spent there was wandering through back alleys and random neighborhoods, seeing how average people lived. It was shocking in some ways – for such a developed city, people were living in sparse and often dilapidated apartments. In one area, I noticed that the sewage system was an exposed pipe near the front door.

We did have one sobering encounter with a little boy, which I still struggle with when I think about it.

We were leaving the Jade Buddha Temple (which is really just a huge, ridiculous farce that I will cover in another blog post) and heading to lunch when a little boy, about 10 years old, started walking beside us. His face was filthy and his shirt was covered in dirt and he was giving us the saddest look I’ve ever seen.

The boy clearly wanted money, and was clearly experienced at begging for it. Even after being told no, he kept pace with us, repeating the same phrases in Chinese over and over again. At one point, he stuck a finger down his throat, I assume to indicate that he was hungry. I could feel my stomach starting to turn.

It’s not that I’ve never encountered a beggar before. I’ve lived in New York City and Washington, D.C., so I’ve met my fair share of homeless, desperate people, some more heartbreaking than others. But this was the first time I’d been approached by a begging child. It was horrible.

To read the rest, head over to IASISK.

Related posts:

1. Shanghai Photos
2. “The Most Frustrating Thing About Teaching: Parents”

August 8, 2009 I was sitting in my apartment and thinking about the possibility of going to China and came up with the idea for this website. It would be another 6 months before I actually ended up in Beijing and began writing (which I guess would be considered Chinarchy’s birthday).

In order to celebrate this glorious day of conception I’m giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to whoever helps me introduce the most new people to the blog. To find out more head over to http://www.chinarchy.com/helpout/.

And also, I just want to thank everybody who has been reading for the past six months. If it wasn’t for you guys I would have quit this blog a long time ago. Thank you.

Update: I figured I’d throw in some nerd proof. “Record created on 2009-08-09 21:40:06.”

Related posts:

1. Friday the 13th
2. A Quick Story on Why Democracy Sucks and Introduction to a New Series
3. Would You Listen To An Audio Post?

In three short videos he covers the basics of living in China, including the economy, standard of living, working, dealing with the state, and the people and culture.

He’s about ten thousand times more succinct and on point than I manage to be, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy that.

My favorite video is the third, “People and Culture Shock.” Pretty much everything he says is right on target. I would qualify his observations by saying that they are less true in the major cities, Beijing and Shanghai, than for the other parts of China, although they still apply.

Anyway, enjoy.

Related posts:

1. IASISK – Shanghai
2. China Puts The “Jew” In Juice
3. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl

Note: It’s forty-eight minutes long. Forty-eight minutes of baller. Don’t hate.

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1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP11: Jayden and Artists

The jade factory was interesting, but it was mostly focused on selling you jade jewelry. We saw about 10% factory and 90% shopping area. Still, a lot of the stuff was pretty cool. A couple of us managed to get some raw jade from one of the workers, so we got a nice souvenir without having to buy some of the overpriced jewelry.

Check out the photos below.

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1. Shanghai Photos
2. Dogs of Chende
3. Artsy Photographs From Xingcheng

Below is the gallery of the Shanghai photos; I’ll post the Great Wall photos shortly. Also, I’m hoping to have another podcast recorded tonight, so wish me luck motivating myself to do that.

As far as these photos go, I skipped the normal method of describing each one. Because I took so many I just have them in gallery form, so click each one and you’ll get a short description of what it is.

The only thing that warrants explanation is the creepy psychedelic tunnel photos. They are from a gondola lift ride that goes underneath the Huangpu River. It was so weird.

I’ll talk more about what Shanghai was like in the podcast, but for now, just check out the photos.

Related posts:

1. IASISK – Shanghai
2. Jade Factory and Badaling
3. Quick Update

Thanks to everybody to pointed this out. You can see it here.

Also, I still swear that we will award a winner for the best caption at some point in our lives.

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1. China Puts The “Jew” In Juice
2. Caption Contest: Ass Hair Salon
3. What’s Been Going On…

Before I explain that further, I just wanted to thank everyone and anyone who listened to the initial podcast and offered me advice or support. It really, really meant a lot to me. Thank you.

Okay, so I did what I thought was most risky, but also had the greatest chance of getting Cathy fired. I called a parent behind the headmaster’s back.

I talked to one of the parents I trusted and told her about what happened. If the headmaster ever found out, I would be immediately fired. She would be extremely embarrassed — it would be a huge loss of face — and she’d feel completely betrayed. But I thought it was my best shot.

Anyway, the parent told me that her daughter, and other children, had complained about Cathy, and other parents knew she wasn’t a good teacher.

Until my phone call, they thought she was just a mean person. I explained that it was much worse than that: she is a violent, terrible person.

We talked for almost twenty minutes, and the parent was very sympathetic and understanding and sounded very concerned. But she didn’t want to call and demand that Cathy be fired. She told me she would pass along the info to the other parents (without my name) and maybe they would decide to do something. But, she said, probably the best thing to do was just wait and see what happened over the next few weeks.

Yeah. Part of me is hopeful that the rest of the parents will decide to take action. But most of me just feels frustrated and defeated. If I can’t even get foreigner parents to take a hard stance on this, what can I do? It’s depressing.

After we talked, the parent sent me an email saying that it might be better that Cathy didn’t get fired. Now she’ll be watched closer and won’t just transfer to another school and do the same things. It just sounded like she was trying to justify her inaction to herself. I didn’t bother replying.

So Cathy is back in the classroom. And the general climate in the school is pretty cold right now.

It’s not all bad. I heard from one assistant that not all of the other teachers are angry about what I did. Some of them know Cathy is terrible but felt like they couldn’t speak out against her. The pressure to protect other teachers is too strong. But they are glad that I did something.

Still, it’s not a victory. It’s a not-fully-crushing defeat. But I guess I’ll have to take it…

Cathy is still here. But so am I.

Related posts:

1. G-Day Plus 1
2. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl
3. Anderson’s First Day

I spoke to the headmaster in the morning about the events on Graduation Day. She seemed genuinely upset. Now, the headmaster has a reputation for being a bit of an actress. She can put on a nice little show to look enthusiastic or shocked or excited or touched or whatever, especially in front of parents and foreigners. So I was a little skeptical at first, but by the end of the conversation I believed she was actually very upset.

Of course, she might just be upset because of the position it puts the school in, but I’m fine with that, as long as she does what I want. And what I want is for her to drop the ban hammer on Cathy. I want her fired and I want every other teacher to know why.

I didn’t make any threats or suggestions during the conversation. Bill, Charlotte, and Casey commented that I should make the it’s-in-the-school’s-best-interest-to-fire-Cathy case, rather than any kind of ultimatums. I think that was sound advice. But for the first conversation I wanted to play it very slow and gauge the headmaster’s response.

When the conversation ended, the headmaster thanked me for telling her and said she was going to speak with the other teachers who were in the room. In fact, she asked a lot about the other teachers and what they did in reaction to Cathy’s behavior. Maybe she just wants to know how they reacted so that she can corroborate my story. But I got the distinct sense that she was angry with them.

Now, I understand being angry at the other teachers. I’m a little angry with them. I wish they would’ve stood up next to me instead of retreating in shock (or pretending nothing happened.) But really, punishing them or being angry at them seems like such a secondary concern. Cathy is the one who needs the attention here, not my assistant and the other teacher. Cathy needs to have her shit kicked out of the goddamn door immediately. Then there will be time for being angry at the others.

In the afternoon the headmaster left the school for a doctor’s appointment, so I went to my assistant to get the scoop on what happened. The headmaster still hadn’t spoken with my assistant or the other teachers in my class and she still hadn’t spoken with Cathy.

What she did do, was tell one of the other administrators to reprimand Cathy during a meeting. And apparently this was the same administrator that I told on Friday. And she did the same thing on Friday: reprimand Cathy in a meeting.

So for two meetings in a row, Cathy has been singled out and bitched at in front of the rest of the teachers in the school.

This is not what I want.

In fact, I was pretty angry to hear this. The only thing it does is humiliate Cathy in front of the other teachers. There is a part of me that says “well at least that’s something.” But it really isn’t. It does nothing to stop the problem. And it just makes the other teachers feel sympathy for her.

My assistant confirmed it; the other teachers felt bad for Cathy. My assistant even said “Maybe if I was helping her organize the children this never would have happened and she wouldn’t be in trouble.” No. Stop.

Oh, and of course the administrator announced who it was that reported what Cathy did.

Poor Cathy. She was stressed out and was getting no help and just made one mistake. But the foreigner has to run around reporting her and making a big deal out of it.

As of right now, this problem is the exact opposite of solved.

Does anyone feel for the little girl? No. Not enough to actually protect her.

Is Cathy viewed as the bad guy? Nope. Anderson is the trouble maker here.

Are the kids any better off? Maybe, but criticizing and shaming abusive people doesn’t tend to make them less abusive. Cathy will just try harder not to get caught, which will make it even harder to protect the children.

What am I planning to do? I haven’t decided yet. The headmaster is here all day today so I’m hoping she does something (even if it’s just talking to those involved) that will help me decide. I won’t threaten to quit or tell parents. Not yet.

I’m probably going to try making the case that she should be fired.

I also have another option. I could skip dealing with the administrators entirely and just go straight to a parent. If a parent called in and said something like “my daughter told me one of your teachers pushed a little girl on Friday…” it would probably help to get Cathy fired more than anything I can do.

That’s a dangerous game though. If the parent told the headmaster she was calling because of me, I would probably be fired too.

I need to be careful with whatever I decide. And I’ll keep everyone updated.

And before I finish this post, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented. It really meant a lot to have your support and to read your advice. This would be infinitely harder if there weren’t people here and at home who had my back. Thank you.

Related posts:

1. You Look Down But Far From Out
2. Anderson’s First Day
3. My New School (and What’s Been Up The Past Past Couple Months)

Note: It’s a bit rambly, just so you know going in.

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2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP7: I Don’t Give A Figgity Figgity Figgity What?

Yesterday afternoon around 3 o’clock, while this journalist drove towards the North Street and Xihuamen intersection, suddenly appeared ahead a middle-aged woman around 40-years-old walking amongst traffic, “collecting toll” from all of the cars passing through this street, skillfully knocking on the driver’s side windows of every car, then demanding fees from the driver, and the drivers all helplessly and more or less paying the toll.

Perhaps it was because yesterday’s temperature was too high (note: at the time, this journalist’s in-car thermometer showed 45 degrees Celsius), this female toll collector had a towel on her head and her upper body indeed was only wearing a white bra.

No related posts.

The feel of the city was very third-world so I decided to shoot some photos and make them black and white for your artsy-fartsy enjoyment. Remember, click on the image for a bigger version.
This guy was selling turtles on the street. I have no idea who would buy a turtle as a pet from this guy. Unless he’s selling them to be eaten, which makes me feel bad for the little guys. I wish they could find some ooze and become the heroes they were destined to be.
This was just a cute moment of a mother and daughter riding through the old area of town. The picture didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.
This was my second favorite photo. These three guys were on break from doing some kind of work, just chilling out and smoking cigs against one of the old city walls.
This was my favorite. This old lady was so old lady it was too much for words. So I took a picture. And now it’s art. Whee!

Related posts:

1. IASISK – Shanghai
2. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl
3. Houhai Lake

As always, leave your comments or email me.

Related posts:

1. CP5: Usher and Ethan
2. CP4: Graduation Day
3. CP8: Subtle Abuse

Note 1: yes, I know it’s pronounced “in-ter-rog-a-tive.” I’m living in China, just be happy I can form any real sentences.

Note 2: I didn’t mean “only 15 episodes” sarcastically. I realized it sounded that way upon re-listening. That wasn’t my intent. I’m genuinely impressed at how quickly Brett Veinotte started addressing family issues in the School Sucks Podcast.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

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1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

Nearly one in ten young Chinese under the age of 17 have some sort of mental disorders, a recent survey suggests.

The Beijing Anding Hospital and the Chinese Medical Association hosted an international conference about the mental health of young people on Sunday.

At the meeting, Chinese scholars said that at least 30 million minors in China are plagued with mental disorders or behavior problems.

By the year 2007, China had 341 million minors, accounting for 26 percent of the country’s total population.

“The number 30 million is based on regional researches in recent years. Since the mental health of children must have worsened over time, the real number could be even higher,” said Cui Yonghua, a child psychiatrist with the Beijing Anding Hospital.

“Child patients have been increasing sharply over the past years. Now we do not have enough beds for them,” said psychiatrist Cui.

This is tragic, truly. But I’m going to make a maybe somewhat controversial statement that this is a good thing. In fact, I’m sure every generation prior to this one has had a higher percentage of mental disorder. These kids acting out and receiving actual psychological attention (and media attention) means that things may get better for them and for future generations.

Still, this is a powerful and sad indicator of the terrible treatment of children.

Reader Will also juxtaposed the mental disorder story with this one from the day before. I think it speaks for itself.

Related posts:

1. CP3: Treatment of Children
2. “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”
3. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl

You can subscribe using this feed. You can subscribe in iTunes here.

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP11: Jayden and Artists

Enjoy. Feel free to caption in the comments.

(Also, I swear to god we will award a prize for the Ass Hair Salon Caption Contest at some point in my life.)

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1. We’re FAIL Blog Approved
2. Caption Contest: Ass Hair Salon
3. What’s Been Going On…

There is a couple of reasons why I’ve been thinking about this.

For one, writing a post — especially if it’s one of the longer, article-type posts — takes a long time. I usually spend a week or two thinking about it and working it out in my head. Then I break it down into sections and finally write it. And even after doing that I still go back and reread them to find them sloppier or less coherent than I intended.

I’m always struggling with that balance between formality and structure and spontaneity in my writing.

When I’m speaking, I typically feel much more comfortable. I am better at keeping that balance between “serious/intelligent” and “funny/personal.” Plus, in an audio post I would be okay with rambling or not having fully formed thoughts; it’d be more conversational.

Basically, I think I’m better at speaking than writing. But what matters is what you guys would prefer, so let me know in the comments.

Thanks!

Also as a preview, here is a short list of posts I’ve been working on:

• From Childhood to Statism: Superhuman Authority
• Against Group Learning
• China’s Culture of Lies
• From Childhood to Statism: Passing the Buck

Related posts:

1. Two-Month Recap
2. A Quick Story on Why Democracy Sucks and Introduction to a New Series
3. Happy Conception Day!

But I have been here for over 3 months, so I want to try. Remember, I’m just going off what I’ve experienced and extending it with a little reason. If I’m totally off-base and you think everything I’m saying is nonsense, please let me know.

Okay, enough qualifying. Here’s what I’m going to say about Chinese people: They lacky the passion.

Among almost all the Chinese people I have met and talked with, I find a total absence of passion.

In order to understand what I mean when I talk about passion, we’re going to have to use the West (specifically America) as a comparison. Which means I’m going to have to paint another culture with a broad brush.

Genuine Passion

When I think about passion in the West I usually break it down into two categories. The first is genuine passion.

Genuine passion is a deep love and enthusiasm and drive for something. It’s easy to associate this with artists. People who truly and deeply care about painting, or music, or cinema, or literature. But it could be about anything.

I consider Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan some of the most passionate authors I’ve read. It’s science and reason and truth that they are passionate about, and you can feel their enthusiasm in almost everything they write.

I think you can have that same enthusiasm and joy toward anything and everything, from stamp collecting to webdesign to philosophy to psychology to baking to chemistry to life itself. And I think most passionate people are passionate about everything they do, not just their main interests.

It’s sometimes hard to quantify, but you just know. You can tell by the way the person talks and by their body language. You can sense their excitement or awe or enthusiasm.

I’m sure you’ve probably experienced both sides of this. You’ve been able to tell when someone you’re talking to really cares about the subject, when it excites them and energizes them. And you know what it’s like to talk about something you really love. (At least I hope you know what it’s like.)

This type of passion — genuine passion — I also associate with a few other traits.

One of them is a level of disregard for what other people think. Passionate people pursue the things they love, despite what anyone else (friends, family, society) thinks about them. It’s part of that drive that a passionate person has. They are individuals, not conformists. Social norms aren’t going to stop them.

Another set of traits I find in most passionate people is honesty, openness, and curiosity. They don’t hide or hedge or minimize the things they believe and value. They are open about how they feel and what they think. And at the same time they are often curious and willing — in fact happy — to listen to other people’s thoughts and opinions. Passionate people are excited by others who want to engage them on the things they care about.

(I would say this is true even for passionate religious people. In my experience, people who are really passionate about religion are often the ones willing to listen to my (very opposing) ideas. It is your average my-parents-were-religious-so-now-I-am religious people that get defensive or evasive about their beliefs.)

(Oh, and I would also like to clarify that I don’t count zealotry and fanaticism as being passionate. I see that more as an unhealthy obsession. So, just like I wouldn’t call a heroin addict “a person who is passionate about heroin,” I don’t consider a fanatic “just a really passionate person.”)

Bandwagon Passion

I see genuine passion here and there in the West, but overall it’s pretty rare. What I see a lot more of is a watered-down version of passion, something I’ll call bandwagon passion.

This pseudo-passion copies the enthusiasm of real passion, but little else. It leaves out the true dedication, and joy, and individualism, and curiosity found in genuine passion. And it’s easy. It’s so easy.

This is embodied in almost every popular issue or movement in America. From environmentalism to health-care reform to supporting the troops to helping the poor to protecting small business owners to blah blah blah. Just pick an easy issue and jump on board.

Listen to celebrities talk about environmentalism as they fly around in their Gulfstreams. Or the conservative politicians talk about family values as they cheat on their wives. Or the college kid who thinks it’s so important to stop war as he supports a president sending 10,000 more young men to die in the desert. Yes, psuedo-passion almost always comes with a healthy helping of hypocrisy.

I do realize that some of the people who care about these issues are genuinely passionate and not hypocritical. But they are the rare ones. Most are just followers who are defensive when challenged and always ready to jump on the next up-and-coming topic.

Raise a flag for some trendy social issue and watch these slithering bandwagon passionistas gather round.

Wasn’t This Supposed To Be About China?

Yes. There was a reason for those tangents. And here it is: I see none of that in China.

The genuine passion, already a rare thing, is unsurprisingly absent. But so is the bandwagon passion.

Most young Chinese people I talk to — not all, but most — are totally devoid of either form of passion. I met an American girl in a bar and one of the first things she talked about was how she is “really into human rights.” Whether it’s genuine or bandwagon passion, this doesn’t happen when you talk to Chinese people.

I ask Chinese people what they care about and what they are really interested in and I usually get the most mundane answers: hanging out with friends, going shopping, going to the movies with friends. I mentioned this to my Chinese assistant and she said “Chinese girls do care about things. They care about shopping and shopping and make-up.” She was being funny, but there was some truth to it.

And it isn’t just the content of the interests. It’s also the way they talk about them. That spark of enthusiasm and excitement I talked about before, I don’t see that. They sound bored with their own interests. They sound bored that you even asked them a question about their interests.

Again, there are exceptions.

I was talking with a 26-year-old Chinese girl the other day who was extremely passionate about everything she brought up, even her job. I was so surprised that I actually said something to her.

“You know, I really think it’s cool how passionate you are. Most people I talk to here aren’t really excited about anything. You’re pretty enthusiastic about everything.”

She looked at me and smiled, “I love life. Being pretty will fade when I get old, but I hope I always keep my passion.”

Ballin’.

As cool as that was, it was only shocking because it’s so counter to my normal experiences with Chinese people.

Show Me The Passion

Obviously, I don’t want Chinese people to fix this problem by following Americans and jumping on every trendy bandwagon. But at least that Western pseudo-passion reveals an underlying desire to be enthusiastic and excited about something. A desire I’m having real trouble finding in China.

I have some ideas about why there is this lack of passion. Most of them have to do with parenting and the treatment of children. It’s also part of the culture in general. It’s a topic that needs a lot more thought and investigation.

I can say this: The biggest exception to everything I’ve been describing is children. Children are absolutely not like this. My students are passionate and enthusiastic and excited every day, about all kinds of things. I can’t even count the number of times a day one of my 5-year-olds runs up to me and breathlessly explains something they are excited about. And when I respond with enthusiasm, they get even more passionate.

So don’t think I’m describing some genetic problem or anything like that. This is a result of nurture, not nature. The kids in China start out just as passionate as all children. It’s ground out of them by the usual suspects: parents, teachers, and politicians.

How in particular is something I’m not sure about. And why it is different than in the West. Why isn’t there at least bandwagon passion here?

In the comments let me know what you think of this. Am I right or wrong? What do you think the causes are? And tell me your thoughts on why I’ve found China to be a passionless desert.

Related posts:

1. McCoy’s First Day
2. 30 Million Children With Mental Disorders
3. CP5: Usher and Ethan

The dog market wasn’t really a “market,” it was just a bunch of tables and cages set up around a big parking lot. I snapped some photos of the dogs and you can see them below.

Now, I fully recognize that being sold as pets is probably the best fate a dog can have. These dogs weren’t being bred for food, or fighting, or to be vicious attack dogs. They were being sold to tourists — Chinese and foreign — visiting Chende. And I also realize that there are children in China living in worse conditions than these dogs.

But, despite all that, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. Check out the pictures below and let me know what you think.

Related posts:

1. Chinese Furniture Market
2. Houhai Lake

You can check it out here.

Note: If you have a slow connection, give the site a minute to load. It uses some hella big images.

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1. The Great Wall Failed…

In the past few weeks there have been multiple stabbings in Chinese kindergartens.

Last Thursday, a man in Taixing city injured at least 28 four-year-olds when he entered the kindergarten and started attacking people with a knife. Two other attacks had happened before that and schools are terrified of more attacks. McCoy’s school, and many others around Beijing, have had guards posted in the mornings and are under lock-down during the day. No visitors are allowed to come or go.

There have been a lot of articles speculating why this keeps happening and why people are targeting schools. I’ve seen a bunch of different explanations ranging from “romantic issues” to “mental illness” to “frustration over the increasing economic disparity.” But I want to focus on one article by a Chinese blogger Han Han.

Han Han is a novelist and one of China’s most famous bloggers. He’s also a racecar driver. (Before you say something like “that doesn’t make sense,” I’m going to have to remind you that this is China.)

Anyway, his article is full of criticism for how the Chinese government has been handling the attacks. You can read the full thing here. And below are some highlights:

Aside from Yang Jia, nearly all killers choose to begin by killing the weak. If they feel there’s no way out in society, then killing those even weaker than themselves becomes their only way out. I recommend that all the police guarding the doors of local officials nationwide be transferred to guard kindergartens. A government that can’t even protect children doesn’t need so many people protecting it.

…

After the Taizhou kindergarten murder incident, the media was controlled. These children were born at the wrong time [i.e., unlucky] and they died at an even worse time. In this jubilant atmosphere [of the opening of the Shanghai Expo], this incident is just noise to the relevant government departments. All we know is that according to the government, 32 people were injured and no one died, but on the streets there are rumors that many children were killed. So who should I believe? If the government is telling the truth, then why are they not letting parents see their children? They’ve also blocked off the hospital and shut off the news, and there are no photographs or video of children. Moreover, a murderer chops up thirty two people with a knife and no one dies? Was he really committing murder or performing surgery?

…

I was very astonished. The Taizhou government has successfully sealed information, closed the hospital, controlled the media, forbidden visitors, and diverted public attention, but now they have successfully taken the people’s anger at the killer and directed it at themselves, and for what?

…

It’s their usual process: eat, drink and be merry all night until something happens, then hide, isolate, remove the media, make prohibitions, send press releases, make compensations, cremate the bodies — then go back to eating and drinking. Their way of dealing with things isn’t much more noble than a murderer’s. No wonder I saw online a kindergarten hanging a banner: “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”

…

I don’t want to delve into the social reasons for the killing, I just want to tell everyone here that a man rushing into a kindergarten and stabbing children can’t even make the news.

Ready for his powerful final paragraph? If you don’t love Han Han already, you will after this:

Perhaps in the eyes of those old men, you children are just spoiling their fun.

Wretched children, it is you who are poisoned by milk powder, harmed by vaccines, crushed by earthquakes, and burnt in fires. Even if there’s a problem with rules in the adult world, you are the ones adults stab in retaliation. I truly hope it is as the Taizhou government says, and you’re all just injured and no one has died. We elders have failed in our duties. I hope that when you grow up, you will not only protect your own children but build a society that protects everyone’s children.

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1. Chinese Tests Black Eagle
2. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl
3. Google, No Flowers For You

While I’m waiting to receive a lesson plan
Vicky: Hey Anderson, I am so sorry. my computer in trouble and I repair it now .maybe I will email to you about 8:30 tonight.

Me: Haha, that’s okay. I hope your computer gets out of trouble. Goodluck!

Vicky: thank you. oh my god.

After I asked if we can use class time to practice a performance
Vicky: k ,no problem.haha .sorry ,my English is so bad .I want to cry .later may be I will email next week’s lesson plan to you .please correct .thanks.

Random email
Vickey: Hi, Are you watching TV now ? I want to tell you that tomorrow our English lesson may by cancel ,because Chinese teacher want to practise her lesson ,in order to through testing on friday. Are you clear?

Me: I’m clear. No I’m not watching TV. Are you?

Vicky: haha ,I have finished my work .i am watching TV now.tomorrow I need to print something ,If the teacher classroom can not work ,perhaps I will call you,is it ok? sorry,tomorrow I can bring laptop to school too ,because my boyfriends need it ,very very need it .

After sending her a lesson plan written by the administrators
Vicky: I will be mad ,why next week we have two activities every day .because next week english in the afternoon.are you clear?

Me: Because [the administrator] is a retard.

Vicky: haha I do not know “retard”.but I think it is not a good word.

After I asked her to clarify part of a lesson (note: I had previously called Vicky gay the day before)
Vicky: h ,that is a dialogue between teacher and children. Chelsea let me told you next monday English lesson in the afternoon.only monday.because that day some teacheres will come to test.Do you understand? just now ,I have look into “gay” from the dictionary .

Random email containing a lesson plan
Vicky: Hi handsome boy. I can not open my eyes right now ,I must go to sleep right now . sorry ,my english is so bad so that waste your so much time. see you.

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1. My Day
2. Timeline Of My Work Day
3. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl

McCoy and I posted a lot during the first week about some of the crazy stuff going on, but I don’t think it painted a very clear picture, so let’s begin there.

The First Week

The first night we arrived at the airport and were greeted by our contact here. She would later become McCoy’s girlfriend — yes, it was literally the first girl he met in China, go ahead and settle those bets now. We had a 30 minute ride from the airport into the city, and it was pretty uneventful.

The highway seemed a little crazy with everyone speeding and swerving, but it wasn’t too jarring. And as we approached the city is looked like every other city: a lot of bright lights and buildings.

Our contact checked us into a hotel — where we would stay for the next 5 days — and pointed us in the direction of an ATM, a restaurant, and the subway. She told us another employee would meet us at a hospital the next day and asked if we needed help navigating the subway. We told her we didn’t, we hoped we didn’t.

After that we took out some yuan and had our first Chinese meal. We pretty much just pointed at pictures (while the waitress laughed at us) and hoped for the best. It wasn’t bad but we did end up getting some duck feet which McCoy ate. After that we succumbed to the jet-lag and 13 hour time difference and passed out.

In the morning we made our trip to the hospital. The subway ride spawned this post.

There wasn’t much cultural shock happening. Beijing was crowded and nobody really spoke English. But besides that it seemed fine. For sure, Chinese culture is different in many ways than Western culture and I’ll explore that more in later posts.

In any case, we weren’t really given much time to be shocked. From the first day we were being rushed around different places for our jobs. First the hospital, then the main office, then to different schools. By our third day there I had already visited 3 schools and been offered a job by one of them.

Do you know the feeling of starting a new job? You’re starting right in the middle of things and there’s so much going on, you just have to try to learn as fast as possible and get up to speed. It’s stressful but exciting. So imagine that, and then add in being in a new city with a language you don’t speak and 13 million people.

Some of the other teachers didn’t like it so much. One girl quit after being in China for only one day. And most others were stressed and nervous wrecks.

I like to tell myself that I’m really great in those types of situations. The kind where you’re under a lot of pressure but you still keep your head clear and just roll with the punches. It doesn’t matter how fast things are happening and how little explanations I’m getting, I can handle it. Right?

It was definitely easier having someone you can trust with you, but even with that, it was a pretty unsettling few days. I remember having problems effectively accessing and sorting my thoughts and emotions for the first two or three weeks after being here. And I’m sure it was because those first few days drove me into a “survival mode” where I couldn’t really feel relaxed and comfortable. It wasn’t until I started journaling again frequently that I really felt like I was back to normal.

So the first week of being shuffled around ended with us being placed at schools and finding an apartment. Over the next couple weeks we found a third roommate, bought furniture and kitchen stuff, and settled into our routines.

The Routine

The routine since then has pretty much been teaching during the week and hanging out with the other teachers on the weekend. We haven’t been able to see many touristy sites outside of Beijing because the weekends are too short for any real traveling.

And since the first week, the stress has found a new source: teaching. I won’t go to too much into it here, but constantly dealing with aggressive assistants, overbearing administrators, and great kids that you want to protect from everything really leaves me ragged by the end of the day.

Of course, teaching isn’t all bad. It’s actually really great and I love it. But I love it because of the kids and hate it because of pretty much everything else.

Besides working, we did meet a lot of other people that were cool. And a lot that weren’t that great.

I had this misconception before we left. I thought that most foreigners we met in China would be awesome. Just think about it, these are people who have left everything they knew behind to travel to the other side of the world. They must be adventurous and individualistic. They bailed on their countries and cultures and all of that other bullshit to go experience something totally new and to teach kids while they’re doing it. They must be awesome.

Wrong. For sure, there are some really cool people we’ve met. Those are the ones I continue to hang out with. But besides that, you pretty much have the same spectrum you have anywhere. The range from socially awkward and creepy types to annoying douchebag types. It’s inescapable.

So What’s Next?

Not sure. McCoy has a relationship developing. Hopefully he’ll post about that at some point.

And I’m just hanging out. I teach, I blog, I do self-work, I design shit, and I socialize on the weekends. It’s actually pretty fantastic and I really like living here. My Chinese still sucks, but I’m not working on it too much, I just absorb things here and there.

I promised myself I wouldn’t think about what to do after China until I had been here at least 6 months, and I’m sticking to that rule.

As for this website, I’m not sure. I still haven’t figured out the balance between touristy stuff with pictures and humorous anecdotes, the (sometimes heavy) teaching stuff, and the philosophical and psychological ideas and thoughts. It’s something that I’m constantly thinking about and trying to improve. All three are really important to me, and they are related in different ways. If you have feedback on this subject please let me know.

I know I’m going to keep posting a lot of teaching stuff, I have a few more From Childhood To Statism posts planned. And eventually I’ll be motivated to get into some straight philosophy. I also have posts about Chinese culture, including one called “The Cult of the Chairman”, in the works.

If you’re looking for some more picture posts get excited, I am visiting the Great Wall this weekend and will (hopefully) get some great shots.

For the rest I’m just being patient and working on things as they come up.

Alright, I think that’s pretty much it. I hope you enjoyed your stay in Ramble City and some of this was interesting. If not, I’m sure my next post will have some really bad and immature jokes. Everything will be right with the world!

Until then…

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2. 150 Fans on Facebook!
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You can see it on the Google Map below.

View Larger Map

It’s a nice area and I took a few photos, so here they are:
This is the south side of the lake. There’s a lot of people just hanging out playing hacky sack and walking around. The lake is surrounded by restaurants and bars — most relatively new, from around 2003. If you look at the left side of the second photo, you can see a Starbucks.

Here is a close up: In the far right window (under the glare, sorry) you can see the standard logo. Starbucks is pretty much the same price in China, maybe a buck cheaper, which really sucks because I have a serious caffeine addiction and I pass one every day on my way to work. It’s so tempting, especially the green tea lattes which are amazing. They taste like the green tea ice cream you get at sushi places in America.

Here is a shot from the western side of the lake: It’s kind of pretty, but not the kind you think of when you imagine lakes. It’s not serene, at all. China doesn’t do serene.

For example, here is one of the alleyways leading away from the lake: Oh look, it’s a crowd of people.

Speaking of crowds, I saw a bunch of people gathering around a little bird so I went to check it out. He was the most amazing little guy ever. He would take money from people and drop it in a little birdie bank.

And while we’re on the subject of cute animals. Look at how fluffy and goddamn cute this Chow is: Hey guys, there’s a reason Chinese dogs are called chow. I’m kidding! Well, not really. But I’m pretty sure nobody ate this dog.

Let’s change the subject. I found a little shack along the lakeside selling propaganda posters. A lot of children were depicted in the posters, not really surprising.

I think this set was my favorite: I love the farmer holding the Little Red Book aloft, which is hilarious to me. Look how happy he is to be starving to death! Maybe he’s just happy he found his copy, otherwise Red Guards would be beating him. Next to that we have the red fist smashing some guys, I’m not sure who. If you can figure it out let me know, otherwise I’m just going to assume they are capitalist pigs or members of the liberal bourgeoisie. And finally, a smoking ad! Of course.

Alright, I’m going to wrap this post up on a good capitalist note:

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I was always perplexed by these responses. They were part straw-man — suggesting that anarchists naively believed in a conflict free world — and part invalid deduction — asserting that if there was conflict then it was necessary for an authority figure to resolve it.

The first part wasn’t hard to understand. Straw-man arguments are a dime a dozen. But the second part seemed so illogical; how could anyone reach such a conclusion?

Why would so many people automatically associate the resolution of conflict with the necessity of authority?

Now I know at least part of the answer.

Everyday in school I see my students being taught two lessons that lead directly to the acceptance of statism:

Lesson 1: Conflict Is Bad

This is the first and less obvious lesson that is being reinforced constantly.

Conflict is a bad thing. It’s bad when it happens. It should be avoided at all costs. Conflict is the worst possible outcome of any interaction.

That’s what kids learn.

Teachers and assistants hover over children during every activity. And at the first sign of a disagreement they swoop down to “break it up.” The result of their interference is often that somebody gets in trouble.

These situations occur dozens of times every day. Two kids will argue over who gets to play with a toy or who gets to be first in line for their snack. They get into conflicts over taking each others’ crayons or books or whatever. They fight over who holds the jump rope they’re using to tie up their teacher and tickle him (I always get them back).

Almost every time something like this happens a teacher or assistant is waiting to step in and stop the disagreement — and sometimes to punish the student “responsible.”

This sends one message: conflict is bad.

Conflict Is Natural

Conflict isn’t bad. And it isn’t good either. I wouldn’t use any moral labels when defining conflict. Conflict is neutral.

Conflict is the natural result of interacting with other human beings. Every person has their own values, desires, and needs and everyone has different ways of satisfying those needs. In any relationship or community or society it is absolutely NORMAL that these different and competing interests result in conflict. It’s not a bad thing. How could it be?

What I would apply terms like “good” and “bad” to are the ways of handling conflict. For instance, violence is a pretty bad way of handling conflict (I’m looking at you, statists). Peaceful negotiation, on the other hand, is generally a pretty good way of handling conflict.

When a conflict is handled poorly the consequences can be devastating, as surely all of us have experienced. But a when a conflict is handled well, it can be a great thing and actually improve the relationship.

It is the bad ways of handling conflicts that causes teachers and assistants to interfere. They want to prevent the children from hitting or fighting or name calling. It’s well-intentioned. But by constantly interfering they don’t teach children real conflict resolution skills, they just teach them that conflict is a bad thing.

It also teaches them the second lesson, that when there is a conflict, the best thing to do is appeal to authority.

Lesson 2: Authority Resolves Conflicts

This is the second lesson. It’s more overt but it is also more dangerous.

The consequence of training kids that conflict is bad and that an authority will always be there to intervene imprints this programming onto them: when there is a conflict, an authority figure will resolve it.

On my first day of class — no exaggeration, my very first day — a student I had never spoken to before came up to me and said, “Arthur took my pen, will you give him a frowny face?”

I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, but it went something like this:

“No sorry, Eric, I don’t think I’m going to give him a frowny face.”

“He took my pencil!”

“He didn’t take my pencil, though, why should I give him a frowny face?”

Cue the blank stare I’ve seen hundreds of times by now. “But…but…you’re the teacher!”

“Want me to go talk to Arthur with you?”

“No, I want you to go beat him up and get my pencil back.”

The point of that dialogue is to show you just how much children are trained that authority is the ultimate conflict resolver. Whenever there is a disagreement, if you handle it on your own, an authority will intervene anyway and you’ll get in trouble. But if you appeal immediately to authority you might just get your way.

Authority is there to resolve your conflicts, whether or not you want it.

Conclusion

The connections to statism should be blatantly obvious.

Instead of teaching children infinitely valuable conflict resolution skills so that they can learn to handle disagreements peacefully and efficiently, they are taught to fear and avoid conflict. And in the case conflict does arise, they are trained to run immediately to the nearest authority figure and plead their case, otherwise there will be punishment.

This is what most children are exposed to for 12 years of school — and probably longer in their homes.

Is it any surprise that they become adults and can’t imagine a world where conflict is resolved without authority?

Related posts:

1. From Childhood To Statism: Introduction
2. 3 Things Wrong With The Rewards System
3. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?

I want to show some of the ways that schools, teachers, and parents train children to become statists.

In this introductory post I want to set up and explain what this series will cover.

For starters, this is not a complete analysis of the origins of statism in childhood. I will use the examples that I have seen first-hand. It will be based on my experiences.

Secondly, it is not about the origin of statism as an intellectual theory. I don’t want to examine where the idea of statism came from, but rather where the psychological acceptance of that idea comes from.

In order to explain the difference, we should start with some definitions.

Statism

Statism is the ideology that proposes and supports the use of states — or governments — to organize human society.

A state, if we go by the standard political science definition provided by Max Weber, is an entity which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. This is actually a pretty good definition, considering it’s widely accepted by academics.

Let’s break down a little bit more, just so we can be really clear on what we’re talking about when we say “statism.”

The word entity is of course meant very loosely in the definition. There is not a physical thing that exists called The State. There is a group of people. They may be fixed or they may be a rotating group of people but they are just people. They are the bureaucrats, politicians, policemen (and so on and so on) that fill offices and buildings and barracks. This aggregation of people is what we call the state.

And this group of people “claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.” What does that mean? It means they claim that in a given area, only the people making up the state are allowed to use violence and it is moral for them to do so but immoral for anyone else to do so.

This is starting to sound a little bit like “I’m allowed to hit you, but you’re not allowed to hit me.” And it should, because at its basic and truest form that’s the idea of statism. One group of people is allowed to use violence against the rest.

As Leo Tolstoy famously put it: “Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

Acceptance of Statism

Despite the endless justifications for statism (“voting this” and “social contract that”) the core premise is completely…retarded and insane.

The idea that you can solve complex social problems like education or health care or poverty by allowing one small group of people threaten and coerce everybody else is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. And one reasonable people would never accept. But almost everyone does…maybe even you.

I’m not here to convince you that statism is evil and supporting it is immoral — maybe I’ll do that in another post. So before you start writing me emails saying, “But Anderson, if one group of people didn’t have a monopoly on violence who would build the roads?” I want to remind you that my purpose in this series is to identify why people accept such a clearly retarded and wrong idea.

Because, although the idea may be wrong, it’s only dangerous when people buy into it.

If I had the idea that every human being should drink bleach, well, without widespread acceptance it’s just a stupid idea. But imagine if everyone starting believing in it and supporting it? That’s where the real danger lies.

The same analogy can be made with slavery. The idea that one person should be able to own another is an evil idea — and an idea not unrelated to statism — but it was only truly vile because people accepted it.

That is why I’m not interested in the origin of the theories that promote and support statism, but rather the origin of the acceptance of statism.

It is the acceptance of statism that has allowed it to become a plague on this planet. In the 20th century alone states have murdered over 260 million people — I’m talking about unarmed, innocent people, not soldiers in war. Faced with this pile of bodies, most people still never question whether or not statism is a good idea.

And as I said in the first section, I believe it is because we are trained to accept it as children.

So, over the next few posts I want to talk about some of the “lessons” I see that lead directly to this unquestioning acceptance.

Check back soon…

Related posts:

1. From Childhood To Statism: Conflict Resolution
2. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?
3. CP3: Treatment of Children

She describes some of the horrible circumstances that parents have put both her and their own children in. Here’s an excerpt:

His mother told the co-teacher that her son really likes me, but that she’s worried because he sees me as his friend, not his teacher. She also said that he has an older brother at home and that they play very rough together and fight, so she is worried that he is too wild for me and that I can’t handle him.

Then she said that she wants me to “scare” him into listening because he doesn’t behave and needs discipline.

I was furious. Of course I flat out refused to do that. Scare him? How can this woman even be serious? This is her son she’s talking about. Why would you ever want anyone, let alone his teacher, who is still practically a stranger, to deliberately threaten and scare him? Why would anyone want to do that to a five-year-old child? (Of course, I do know the potential answers to that but it still seems incomprehensible to me.)

You guys should definitely check out the complete post and leave a comment telling her what a great job she is doing in such a terrible situation.

As far as my own commentary on this goes, I haven’t actually experienced it first hand with my own students’ parents. The maltreatment I see usually comes from the Chinese assistants.

I do know my kids well enough to be able to guess what kind of parents they have. Being extremely over-protective is one of the traits I suspect is most common, which is preferrable to asking a stranger to scare and discipline your child. Jesus Christ.

I have a theory that the over-protectiveness when it comes to Chinese parents is not out of true genuine concern for their children but rather a side-effect of the one-child policy. That is a mere opinion though and I can’t back it up with any empirical verification.

Anyway, head over to It’s Always Sunny In South Korea and give Casey some support.

Related posts:

1. IASISK – Shanghai
2. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl
3. You Look Down But Far From Out

No related posts.

Due to my constant jokes about Mao’s ghost and tenacious anarchist views the benevolent and loving Party has decided to deport us.

McCoy thinks he might be able to stay since he married his Chinese girlfriend over the weekend. (Surprise everyone!) But I’m definitely fucked.

I have 24 hours to leave the country otherwise I’ll be put in a work camp and forced to sew the bindings of Little Red Books for the next 30 years.

I’m actually considering that option since I’ve seen Batman Begins. Bruce Wayne went from American kid to Chinese prisoner to ninja badass to super hero. Pretty sure I can take the same route.

Oh, and if you didn’t already realize…

No related posts.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with a lot of different games and teaching activities. Sometimes they are spontaneous ideas created during class — like turning a ball throwing game into Hot Potato — and other times I plan them out.

The game I’ve put the most work into has been my version of Jeopardy. Jeopardy totally got the administration off my back today when they saw it in action. I had been getting critiqued all week and the senior consultant wasn’t happy with my experimental lessons. Today I whipped out my trusty Jeopardy and blew her balls off. So this post is dedicated to Jeopardy, how I developed it and why it’s awesome.

Originally it was a spur of the moment decision. About ten minutes before class started I decided that I would draw a grid on the white board, fill it with different point values (first row 100, second row 200, etc.), and divide the class into two teams. Each team got a turn — no buzzing in — to pick one of the spots on the grid.

I would ask them to repeat an English word, phrase, or sentence and they would have to answer all together at first and then one-by-one. I told them that everyone on the team had to say their English correctly in order to get points, but in reality I gave them the points no matter what.

I scaled the difficulty of the phrase or sentence based on how many points they stood to gain, and I always included the key words they needed to learn for that week.

And I used the rule that only the team answering can talk. This is a great way to keep the classroom relatively quiet. I’m planning another post about rules, rewards, and punishments and the contexts that I’m starting to find them both useful and appropriate, so more on that later.

This set up worked pretty well for about ten minutes. Pretty quickly the kids realized that since it was just going back and forth and nobody ever lost points it wasn’t really a competition at all. They kept playing, but I could sense that the interest wouldn’t last long.

I toyed with the idea of removing the turn based system and figuring out a way to let them buzz in. Maybe I could give each team leader a bell to ring. At least there would be competition over who could ring first. But in Jeopardy you buzz in when you know the correct response to a clue, in my game all you have to do is say an English phrase, so they would be ringing their bells constantly. Oh, also they are five-year-olds. Giving bells to five-year-olds is like giving crack to five-year-olds.

So I tried another modifications. I attempted to be strict with the scoring. Both my Chinese assistant and I explained to them that it was just a game and it was okay to lose points but that I was going to be judging more harshly. There were nods of understanding. This actually might work. They know it’s a game, they don’t actually care about points.

The first round of the game one of the girls refused to say her English phrase. “That’s okay,” I said, “but I’m only going to be able to give the team 400 points instead of 500.” The team leader instantly burst into tears. Right, terrible idea Anderson. Better luck next time.

I introduced different category columns in the grid. I wanted this to provide an incentive other than point value. The kids would have to balance how comfortable they were with certain topics with how many points were available. This helped, a little — it made the game more interesting. But since they still knew they were going to be getting full points anyway, it didn’t really motivate them to act that differently.

Right now, the game still has column categories. But it has a huge point bonus if one team clears an entire column. It also has Daily Doubles (but no wagering, you just get twice the point value of that question.)

The introduction of these things has taken a little time — since they all increased the game’s complexity — but it has made it so much more fun and engaging.

It scales really well now. Some of the kids don’t really care about anything other than saying the phrases and knowing they got points awarded. Others are really into the strategy of going after a whole column versus just going after the highest point values.

Today during snack-time I found the two team leaders sitting together discussing the different strategies. (One them informed me that four Daily Doubles would be more fair than just three.) It reminded me of staying up all night playing Unreal Tournament with my friends from home. We would spend the time either playing or just sitting around talking about strategy while eating Doritos. It was fun, and I was glad my students were so into the game that they were doing the same thing.

And it has some randomness now — the Daily Doubles — which really keeps the game interesting and actually makes it more competitive. Obviously, too much randomness makes a game pointless, but a certain amount makes it more fun, more competitive, and more interesting to keep playing.

Too much randomness and you have a slot machine, no randomness and you have chess. A good balance of randomness and you get poker. (Not sure if gameplay theory is an interesting topic for you guys, but I could on forever about it.)

As it is right now Jeopardy is definitely my best teaching tool. It engages the kids of all skill levels, it has both strategy and randomness, it has an internal reward and rule system, it’s competitive, it has variety, and it lets them practice English individually.

I’m sure as we keep playing I’ll have to adapt the game more and more, so if you have any ideas about how to make it even more effective let me know. Also feel free to steal this and use it, I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.

Related posts:

1. 5 Reasons To Love The Lava Bridge Game
2. My Day
3. My Kids’ Day (Or At Least How I Imagine Their Day Is)

The Yonghe Temple , also known as the “Palace of Peace and Harmony Lama Temple”, the “Yonghe Lamasery”, or – popularly – the “Lama Temple” is a temple and monastery of the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism located in the northeastern part of Beijing, China. It is one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world. The building and the artworks of the temple combine Han Chinese and Tibetan styles.

I was going to write more about the history and beliefs and all of that stuff associated with this temple, but let’s be honest, it’s all bullshit anyway. And you guys just care about the pictures, so here they are.

The neighborhood around the Llama Temple is pretty cool and has similar architecture, so I took a few photos of the area outside the temple.

The entrance to the temple is a long walkway with trees on both sides. It doesn’t look at cool here as it would in the summer when the trees are green, but it is still pretty sweet.

Inside the courtyard you can see the first temple building. When I took the banner picture Jupiter was in retrograde and the moon was full so the courtyard was magically empty. It normally looks like this:

In the courtyard there is a big bell that a couple kids were ringing. It was kind of endearing.

There were also stone lions outside of the first building. You can see them all over China, usually at gates and entrances. Below is a picture of the female lion with a cub under her paw.

All around the temple there were people praying and burning incense. I’m not really sure what the deal is with incense — I thought it was just something hippies really enjoyed. Apparently it also serves as a sacrifice to certain gods. And it’s used to brand monks heads when they become ordained. I’m sure there’s a reason somewhere, but since this is religion we’re talking about I’m also sure it’s made up nonsense.

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the actual temple buildings, but I did manage to sneak one of Buddha and some other god.

Sorry Christians, but if I have to pick an imaginary friend I’m pretty sure I’d pick Buddha over Jesus any day. Buddha looks like a party animal; Jesus is all weepy and sad. (And he gets blood on everything he picks up. Clean up those holes, dude.)

Most of the people weren’t actually inside the temple buildings. They congregated in the areas between buildings around incense and weird spinning luck machines.

Okay, time for the last two pictures. Tell me they don’t say something about Chinese culture. I’m not exactly sure what they are saying, but it seems profound. I’m sure it has something to do with how tradition spans generations and keeps the Chinese connected no matter how different they are. Or, it’s that Chinese people really dig beads and incense.

Related posts:

1. IASISK – Shanghai
2. Snow In Beijing
3. Jade Factory and Badaling

“First of all, I don’t believe you are causing any harm to your students. If you are caring and truly concerned in their learning, it can never hurt them. Be sure it is the students you are really focused on and not your own needs and desires. This is hard to differentiate sometimes. Kids pick up on sincerity and embrace you. Otherwise, you are just tolerated or discounted. You must think solely for the kids and what it is they need. These are extremely young; my experiences have only been as low as a second grade level, but I have worked with some of these wee ones too along the way. Give them what they need to blossom and grow. Each student is different, so their needs differ. You can’t teach them as a whole.

I understand you are having difficulty in the participation concept as far as building a classroom code. I have attended workshops on that and utilized it in my classrooms the past 3-4 years. It works on some levels, but not others. On the level it did work, it would apply too to the younger grades.

With obstacles of culture and language it would be difficult but not impossible. The best means to get this across to such a young age group would be to ask questions that lead them to creating the concept. Go towards your goal by breaking it down into steps forward. Just jumping into a discussion about rules or determining class conduct is too broad and abstract for that age group. For instance, simply ask: “How do you think I should be treated as a teacher?” You could simplify it even further if needed. Break it down to “How do you talk to a teacher? How do you act in class? What do you do when you have never played that game?” They of course will answer the standards–with respect, with attention, behaving well…

You can then ask other leading questions to get to the areas you want…Ask- -How about joining in my activities? How about asking questions when you don’t understand me? How about trying something new even if you are worried about it…and so on. Starting with the teacher focus would probably be easiest. Then you do the same to draw them into how they want to be treated by you. Ask: “How do you want me to act towards you?” If they don’t respond, ask other leading questions: Do you want me to talk to you away from your classmates? Do you want me to listen to your ideas? Do you want me to let you come up with some topics to study?” You get the idea. Bring in too how they want their classmates to treat them in the same way. You have to be really fundamental with them. Just start simply with one basic question. Grow from there.

Maybe you could just do one each day for a bit. What I did, you could do too. I would place a large piece of paper on the front board and responses were written on it. You can simplify it with just 1-2 words. If you did one a day, you could put your heading on it and put it aside, then at the end you could put them all together and post them. You can also use symbols (stick figures, images) to promote your ideas. For example teacher stick figure with a really big ear for listening to you or bunches of little stick figures holding hands and playing with the big teacher face smiling. Something like that might break through the language problems. Think Charades in images.

That level is quite young to get this philosophy across. It may be too young. I think you could start a framework for it, though. You know the students better than I, so you will know if it is possible or not. Maybe you could just choose one concept to address for a while and focus all your attention to that. Try talking to some Chinese non-teaching acquaintances for their input on the matter too. They may have some good ideas for you. I found many teachers in opposition to this concept. I had to present it at a faculty meeting. Talk about not speaking the same language…oh boy! Change is a dirty word to most, no matter what arena. My students also were weirded out by it too, at first. Be patient. It all takes time. You build up to what you want. Just do it from the heart, not the head. You’ll get across to them. Let me know how this progresses for you. It will be interesting.”

Related posts:

1. Chinese Teacher Repeatedly Hits 2-Year-Old Little Girl
2. My New School (and What’s Been Up The Past Past Couple Months)
3. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?

The China Digital Times picked up a set of media rules issued by the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party. It went out on Tuesday and was leaked onto Chinese social media sites. (By the way, Central Propaganda Department is the actual name. I wasn’t making that up. Their nickname, of course, is the Ministry of Truth.)

Here are the “guidelines” that the state handed down to media outlets:

All chief editors and managers:

Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens’ discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period:

A. News Section

1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources
2. Reposting must not change title
3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites
4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting;
5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.
6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.

B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections:

1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic
2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top
3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event.
4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy
5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions
6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.

We ask the Monitoring and Control Group to immediately follow up monitoring and control actions along the above directions; once any problems are discovered, please communicate with respected sessions in a timely manner.

Addition guidelines:

- Do not participate in and report Google’s information/press releases
- Do not report about Google exerting pressure on our country via people or events
- Related reports need to put [our story/perspective/information] in the center, do not provide materials for Google to attack relavent policies of our country
- Use talking points about Google withdrawing from China published by relevant departments

There are some real gems in there, but I think my favorite is rule B-4, which I highlighted for its awesomeness.

*Editor hands out guidelines to reporters* “Here you go guys, the standard stuff, no supporting Google, no going against the official party line. Just make sure you follow these rules and you’ll be fine. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Oh, and one more thing, NO FUCKING FLOWERS FOR GOOGLE. DO YOU HEAR ME?! IF I HEAR ABOUT ANYONE GIVING GOOGLE A FLOWER I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL SEND ALL OF YOU ‘JOURNALISTS’ STRAIGHT TO AMERICA. You want that? You wanna go work in American media? You want to be the temp that lubes up Glenn Beck’s tear ducts every night? How about MSNBC? You can go be Keith Olbermann’s assistant, getting his pants dry cleaned every time he creams himself after an Obama speech. I swear on the ghost of Mao if I hear one story about Google getting flowers you will all be on Olberman jizz duty.”

*Reporters shudder* “No please, chief, anything but that. Send us to the work camps instead.”

Anyway, what was I saying?

Update: One way or another Google always gets their flowers.

Related posts:

1. Uncensored Google Results!
2. “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”
3. Chinese Tests Black Eagle

I want to try to describe their music but it’s really hard. There is definitely some rock or punk rock in there. There is also an Old West folksy feel. You can hear a lot of Asian melody with intense Mongolian throat singing. But there is also a weird American Indian vibe to their songs. I’ve never heard anything like it before.

Wikipedia says:

The members of Hanggai Band come from extremely diverse backgrounds with singer Ilchi having once been the front man of punk band T9.

These eclectic experiences have come together to give Hanggai Band a particularly unique sound blending Mongolian folk music with more popular forms such as punk.

In an interview with Spinner, Ilchi stated that amongst the group’s many influences, Western artists such as, “Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Secret Machines, Electralane and Neil Diamond…” have played a large role in shaping the band’s music.

I’ve included a couple videos that I uploaded to Facebook so you can get a feel for how they sound. These were parts of their less rock-sounding songs.

Related posts:

1. The Great Wall
2. Chinese Night Life – Part 1

Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. … We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.

I checked about ten minutes ago and it looked like the results were still uncensored. I did a search for ‘Tiananmen square’ and got the same results as I did when using Google.com over VPN. So for now, people in China actually have access to unfiltered Google results.

I can’t see this lasting more than a day or two (or maybe only a few hours) until the Chinese government steps back in to prevent the poor common folk from catching truthitis.

You can monitor the state of Google’s services in China here.

Also, if you missed Bill Gates’ comment from back in January (when Google first announced they would stop filtering results) here it is: “You’ve got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you are in, or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there.” Spoken like a true bitch.

Related posts:

1. Google, No Flowers For You
2. Chinese Tests Black Eagle
3. “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”

After buying some extra furniture and making a few runs to Carrefour our apartment is finally — what I would call — settled. There were some interesting moments of communication failure with the delivery people. They never showed up at the times we previously agreed to, sometimes not even at the right place.

One truck dropped off our new coffee table at my school instead of the apartment. I had to convince a taxi driver to let me shove the huge glass table into his back seat and take it to our place. I finally got it there and with the help of some strangers managed to get it into my building.

We’ve also settled into the routines at our jobs. Between teaching and lessoning planning and dealing with the politics of working in a school the weeks have gone by super fast. And the weekends go even faster.

Most weekends we have spent hanging out with other teachers and usually the main focus is go out eating and drinking and don’t think about how soon Monday will come. We’re making a few good Chinese friends too, in addition to the crowd of Western teachers. I’ll let McCoy talk more about that in his next post.

(Oh by the way, one of our Chinese friends got me a free VIP haircut at Toni & Guy. So yes, I’m officially gay now. Just kidding radies! *flexes muscles* *applies eyeliner*)

My biggest regret is that I still haven’t seen a lot of the tourist sites around Beijing. I keep telling myself, “This weekend you will go to Tiananmen Square and take pictures and then make a great post on Chinarchy that includes jokes about Mao’s ghost.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet. But I do have a whole year. And once we get paid (our first real paycheck is April 15) it’ll be a lot easier to see the sites.

I promise that posts about Tiananmen and the Great Wall and all of that stuff will happen eventually. And I’ll try to include a lot of pretty pictures so you don’t have to read a Great Wall of Text. [Groan. The jokes won't ever improve.]

Besides the touristy stuff, we also have a lot of posts planned about cultural stuff. We’re not sure how to dig into it yet, but we know the differences and similarities between Chinese culture and Western culture would make for interesting stories. We just have to figure out the best way to handle that stuff. [Did I really say 'stuff' three times in that paragraph?]

And, as always, I have a queue of maybe six or seven posts related to teaching. I just need the time to flesh them out.

Alright, well that’s it. Expect more in the next few days. Oh, and we’ll announce the winner of the caption contest soon too, so if you haven’t posted go do it now.

And to everyone reading and commenting and following us on Facebook and Twitter, we love you!

Related posts:

1. Two-Month Recap
2. 5 Reasons You Should Read Chinarchy

Beijing has been shrouded in orange dust as a strong sandstorm blew hundreds of miles from drought-struck northern China to the nation’s capital.

The authorities have issued a level-five pollution warning and urged people to stay indoors. In Tiananmen Square, clouds of dust obscured monuments and visitors wore masks to avoid the dust and soil.

The storm has already caused havoc in Xinjiang, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei regions and is heading to South Korea.

It would have been awesome to go out and take some photos and really experience the sandstorm first hand. I probably would’ve written a very descriptive (but hilarious) post about what it really feels like to be in the middle of a sandstorm. Unfortunately, I totally slept through it. But I’m pretty sure this video captures the total experience.

No related posts.

I’m getting a lot of “advice” about disciplining my students from the administration and the Chinese assistants. For the first few days it would just be things like:

• “The students don’t respect you enough.”
• “You are too nice to them.”
• “You let them do whatever they want.”

One even said to me, “The students, they don’t fear you.” To which I responded, “Correct.”

The assistants aren’t saying it to criticize me, they like me and are trying to help me manage the classroom. They are also afraid of the headmaster. She has a reputation of popping into classrooms and being very unhappy if they children are “out of control.” However I run the classroom also affects them and their jobs, which they obviously don’t want to lose.

Most of the time I just nod my head and listen to what they say. Now and then I make comments back that try to explain my position. “They are not military. They are five.” When I say something like that the assistants usually looked defeated, or annoyed, or both.

A few days ago, though, my main assistant actually made a point that gave me pause. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She told me that Chinese primary schools were very strict and the teachers could be very mean. “If the children don’t learn to sit quietly and listen to the teacher now, they will have many problems in primary school.”

That was an interesting argument to me. What if I was actually going to cause them to be attacked and abused even more?

I’m here teaching English, but one of my main goals is actually just to show these kids that they deserve respect and equal treatment. I want to give them an example of an adult that treats them like they are real people, not the typical slave treatment that most kids — especially in China — get from adults.

The more I’m successful the more these kids will view authority based on power as being illegitimate. They’ll see that just because someone is an “authority figure” doesn’t mean they have the right to bully you or coerce you or treat you badly.

The more that becomes a conscious thought the more you resist bullying, controls, force, and authority.

And what happens when these children go to primary school and are faced with authoritarian teachers? If I have been successful, they’ll have less respect for their new teachers. And what will that result in? The likely outcome is that even more bullying, coercion, and brutalization will be spewed in their direction.

This problem reminds me of an issue that many people from bad families face when they have younger siblings. Should they tell the younger siblings the truth about their parents? Should they explain to them the nature of the conflicts in their family? Giving the younger brother or sister a better awareness of their situation might make their home life absolute hell. Some argue that it is better to let the sibling build up defenses until they are able to leave the home. Others argue that they deserve to know the truth no matter what, and waiting until they are out of the house might be too late.

I don’t think there is a clear answer, but you can see the similarities between that situation and mine.

Is it better for these kids just to build up defenses and get through school? Will becoming aware of how badly they are going to be treated make things any better?

Obviously, me being more strict or authoritarian is not a possible solution. And I refuse to accept that these children would have better lives if they never met me. But I also can’t deny that they may have a harder childhood in school because of me.

So, what does it mean? Is it possible that I’m making it worse for my students?

Like I said, I’m not looking for an answer or a solution. But it’s a question that I’ve been thinking a lot about and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Let me know what you think: leave a comment or email me.

Related posts:

1. From Childhood To Statism: Conflict Resolution
2. Anderson’s First Day
3. Letter From A High School Teacher

As soon as we got there it was obvious that no Chinese people knew what was up. The bar was packed with Westerners. It was seriously all white people. It totally killed the novelty of seeing another Westerner in Beijing. These people are everywhere now! I think it made me a tiny bit racist. [Reverse racist. Technically. Something I learned in college.]

Anyway, the white people weren’t the only problem. It was also the Jews. Kidding. Jeesh. The other problem was paying 55 kuai for a Guinness that tasted like shit. So we packed up and moved to a bar called Smugglers — which I love.

At Smuggler’s I got six Tsingtao’s for 60 kuai. I think we did what any real Irish person would’ve done. (Except a real Irish person would have bitched about having to drink this “cheap Chinamen piss water,” but done it anyway.)

[Pretty sure this post is the most racist thing I've ever written.]

Related posts:

1. Chinese Night Life – Part 1
2. Me Scam You Long Time
3. Check Out My Sweet Ride

I try a lot of different games with my students. Sometimes they are part of English lessons — I created a flash card baseball game today, it was awesome — and sometimes they are just for fun during free time.

This week I taught the kids a game I learned during an orientation weekend for a scholarship I won. I don’t remember the official name of the game, but I call it Lava Bridge.

Here’s how it works: The students have to get from point A to point B. Between whatever you choose for A and B there is lava.

The students have to cross the lava and you provide them some objects to use that are safe — we used hula hoops. As long as they kids are standing in a hula hoop they can’t be burned, but if they touch the ground outside of a hula hoop they are out.

There aren’t enough hula hoops to just lay straight across from A to B. Instead, the kids have to lay them down and walk across them then pick ones up from behind and put them in front. Repeating this relay motion until they are all across.

But you can only pick up a hula hoop and move it to the front if it is empty. (You aren’t allowed to move it if someone is in it, including sliding it.) The students are forced to fit on all but one hoop so that they can keep moving. Depending on the number of players and hoops this can get pretty difficult.

I had about twelve kids today making their way across with three hoops. Which means every time they needed to pick one up to move it, they had to all squeeze onto the remaining two hoops. Fitting six kids in one hula hoop is not easy. But it is hilarious and fun.

So that’s how it works. You have this pack of kids laying down hoops, then squeezing onto the front few so that they can pick up the last one and move it to the front. Rinse and repeat until they make it across.

I know it sounds a little complicated. If you have no idea what I’m talking about let me know in the comments and I’ll try to come up with a better explanation.

Anyway, like I was saying this is the most popular game with my kids. I spent some time trying to figure out why and I came up with the following reasons.

1. Everyone Who Plays, Participates

I’m sure that sounds a little redundant, so let me explain. There are a lot of games that everyone will play in, but not actually get a chance to participate in.

I organized a soccer game last Friday and a lot of the kids wanted to play. Once the game started, though, only a few kids were actually participating. The kids who were better or more confident when it came to soccer were the most involved.

Even when I play flash card games, there is always a tendency for the kids who speak the best English to dominate and they end up participating way more than the kids who actually need the flash card practice.

There isn’t anything wrong with the best kids at a certain game being the most involved. It’s perfectly normal. But it is nice to have a game where you don’t have to worry about that happening.

In Lava Bridge, every single kid who wants to play is very included and involved. They are all holding onto each other on a tiny hoop trying not to fall into the molten hot lava, there is no way not to be involved. Which leads us to number two…

2. It Is An Amazing Teamwork Game

Everyone has to work together moving from hoop to hoop. And then picking up the last hoop and handing it to the person in the front. All this while they are trying to keep their balance and make sure nobody else falls. There is a lot of working together both physically and with verbal communication.

It really is a great teamwork game, which is why it is used as a team building exercise even for adults.

And — like any good teamwork scenario — it allows certain students to take the leadership roles. They can be the ones to come up with ideas of how to move next, or who should be in the back or the front, or any of the other stuff that needs to be worked out. Any student confident enough can attempt to take on a leadership position and try to communicate and organize the rest of the team.

3. You Can Scale The Difficulty

At any time during the game you can do things to affect the difficulty.

You can add new rules limiting how far apart hoops can be, or how many students per hoop, or create certain obstacles they have to go around. The rule that they must start over if anybody falls off makes it really difficult.

You can add or remove hoops to make it easier or harder on the fly.

You can also add a second team and make it a race scenario. Or make them gather certain items at point B and then make it back to point A. Which means they have to do the same thing they just did, but now while carrying something.

There are so many possible rules and variations that the game can stay fresh and fun forever. And by the way, it is fun.

4. The Game Is Really Fun

It is such a blast to play the game. Especially if you have it set up so it’s just challenging enough to be rewarding, but not so hard that it frustrates the kids.

Every single time my kids laid down the final hoop and made it the last little bit to point B, they cheered so loud. All the reasons I just named give the students a great sense of accomplishment.

And it is pretty fun to watch too.

5. It Has Lava

Kids love lava. Seriously, how many times did you play some game growing up involving lava?

We used to jump from pieces of furniture pretending the floor was lava. And I remember only walking on certain tiles in elementary school because we’d all decided the rest of the color tiles were lava.

Even in China, the kids know, love, and respect the power of lava.

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Until that day comes I’ll just have to post pictures here and ask: Does anyone know what the hell this fruit is?

It looks like some kind of alien pod. I was scared to get closer because of my life-long fear of facehuggers.

Update: Apparently it’s a Durian. But even after reading that Wikipedia page I’m still not convinced it won’t kill me.

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In this post I’m only going to talk about bars. There are three main types — as far as I can tell — so let’s go through them one by one.

1. The Chinese Bars

Also known as the “weird bars” these are the bars try to appeal to foreigners, but are really only full of Chinese people. For the record, I haven’t actually been inside of these bars. All I can go on is my impression from walking by, which is enough to deter me from actually going in.

There is one main strip (that I’ve been to) that is full of these bars. And they actually look really cool and fun as you approach. The whole street is lit up with all kinds of lights. The trees along the street are decorated with Christmas-style lights and the bar windows are flashing. As you look down the sidewalk you see a lot of people. “Hey, this is the happening place,” you say in an old-person-trying-to-sound-cool voice.

But as you walk down the street things begin to change. A lot of people on the sidewalk are weird guys hired by the bars to reel you in. “Happy hour special, just for you.” Happy hour? It’s 11 PM. And just for us? Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a lie at all.

“Two for one special. Good deal!” Bu Yao buddy. Do not want.

In addition to the Chinese bar salesman [Get it? Bar salesman? Like car salesman. They act like car salesman but they are trying to get you into a bar. It's funny guys. Never mind.] there are also the street peddlers. They have little tables and stands set up and you walk past they encourage you to buy some cheap cigarettes and abnormally huge lighters.

And while all this is going on, you’re trying to get glimpses inside these bars. They are dark but have very bright lights shining on stages. Stages where someone is singing terribly. Really, not good singing. And they are full of Chinese people.

Seeing no foreigners in a place doesn’t automatically make it bad, but it does make you think twice. For some reason no other Westerner in the whole city is at this bar. Why?

“Cheap beer! Ladies get special deal.” Okay. You’ve had enough of these guys. And, if you’re like me, you decide that one day you’ll try out one of these places. But not now. You’re far too sober for it now. One day when you’re good and drunk. That’s the only way you’ll be able to handle this situation. So, you move on.

2. The Night Clubs

These are essentially the same as the American night clubs I’ve been to, but bigger. I’ve been to two big clubs and they are both in the same place: Vics and Mics. Yeah, I don’t understand why they are named that. But I know that I hated Mics and I found Vics tolerable. Tolerable is about the most a night club could ever get out of me.

I’m not really a club person, so for someone else these bars might be the best thing in China. I’ll go if that’s what the rest of the group wants to do, but I’m never really excited for a club.

So anyway, I’ll get to the narration. You walk into the club. There is free coat check. Nice. But there is also a cover. Goddammit. Don’t worry though. Covers are negotiable. We got in for free at Vics — maybe that’s why I liked it more. And at a different club-like bar I was able to haggle a two-for-one deal on the covers. And I convinced the girls to pay. (“Chivalry is dead in China.” Didn’t Mao say something like that? Or was it “chivalry is dead in bed.” I read it on a fortune cookie.)

Alright so you’re past the cover line and you walk into the club proper. (“Proper” is how I like to describe the big dance floor where everyone is grinding their ass on everyone else.) The place is huge; it’s a giant room. And there’s a balcony running around the top of it. Up there are tables for bottle service and private parties. That’s where the rich look down on the silly peasants forced to buy their vodka redbulls from a bartender.

Since this is a night club the music is super loud and you can feel the bass in your chest. I don’t actually mind this that much, until I wake up the next day and not only do I have a hangover but my ears are ringing from the music. Hangover plus ringing ears is a recipe for grouchiness. What? It is.

Like I said, I hated Mics but I loved Vics. I’m not really sure why. Vics, despite the crowd and the overpriced drinks, felt like a fun place. I had fun there. Mics was the most boring night club I’ve ever been to. It was just not fun. I can’t really put my finger on what about the atmosphere was different, but it was.

I realize none of this is giving a picture of what a Chinese night club looks like. It’s crowded and loud and dark but with lots of flashing lights. Not really any different from a night club somewhere else. But here, I found this video of some people at Vics:

It’s a night club. What did you expect? The only really positive thing I can say about the club scene is that it’s where you will find the most attractive Chinese girls. If you’re into that sort of thing, pervert.

3. The Foreigner Bars

These are my favorite places.

A lot of these bars are located in one area too. And there are the familiar street peddlers, but this time they are selling food. There’s food every where along this street. Which is perfect because you can leave a bar at any time and go have a snack.

Also, the street and bars are packed with Westerners. I’ve seen more Westerners in these types of bars than anywhere else in the city. Not just Americans. A lot of Euros. In fact, the inside of the bars remind me of Czech bars. They have a very hole-in-the-wall feel. And those are my favorite types of bars.

There’s a good range of selection. Some of these bars have music and areas to dance. Some are quieter and have a lot of places to sit around. I enjoyed them all. (Some a little too much. McCoy and I ended up dancing on the bar in the middle of one of these places. We made a lot of friends that night.)

Another huge selling point for these bars: They are cheap. We were getting most drinks for under 20 kuai — which is awesome compared to the tiny, 40 kuai drinks I’ve gotten other places. And I was able to go out in this area on Saturday night and spend absolutely no money on alcohol. Now that is a feat.

For me, there is really no contest here. The foreigner bars have a good mix of Chinese and Westerners. They are cheap. The music is decent but not loud enough to make speech impossible. There’s a lot of different sizes and shapes and different rooms to hang out in, depending on your mood. They are like the perfect bars.

Am I Biased?

Yeah, probably a little. If any of you readers come visit I will take you out to all three and you can decide for yourself. And if you’re better at describing settings, I’ll let you rewrite this post.

Alright so that’s it. Were my descriptions terrible? Do you love clubs? Is fortune cookie humor the lowest of the low? If you answer yes to all three then congratulations, I hate you. Just kidding.

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I’m pretty sure it only snows the Chinese government makes it. They blow a huge horn and the ghost of Mao appears and if they sacrificed enough virgin rice paddy peasant girls to please the ethereal chairman he grants them 3 weather related wishes.

Just kidding, that would be stupid. Really they just pass a law demanding that the weather obey them. It works!

Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took. As usual, click them to get a bigger version.

Here is some random Beijing lady who was shoveling snow. She didn’t really seem like she knew what she was doing.

Here is a snowy road leading away from our apartment. I don’t have any jokes to make about this one or the next couple. So I’ll just post them without comments and you guys pretend I said something really funny.

I don’t know if this is a good picture or not, but I was trying to show how the fat snow flakes were just sort of hanging in the air around the apartment and falling really slowly.

The courtyard outside our building looked really cool with the snow all swirling around.

Guards like this are all over the city. We can’t tell if they are like real government guards or the housing communities hire them. Normally they are much more menacing. But not this guy. He is just enjoying the snow.

These girls didn’t really seem to be enjoying the snow so much. But the next girl that walked by was loving it. Look below.

Look at how happy she is! I never actually saw her face but I’m definitely in love with her. She’s such a free spirit. Maybe we could star in a romantic comedy together. I’ll be all stuffy and upright and well-mannered and she’ll be the free spirited hippie girl who teaches me to enjoy the simple things. That hasn’t been done before, right? I bet her name is Dharma. (For the record, I prefer Simon and Kaylee as my stereotypical-uptight-guy-with-free-spirit-girl couple.)

Alright so that’s what snow looks like in Beijing. Any questions or should I keep making jokes about Mao’s ghost? Fine, I was leaving anyway.

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Let us know what types of posts you want to see. More photo posts? More stories about China being crazy? More teaching stories? We haven’t even started on psych and philosophy stuff but we can do that too, especially with reference to the culture over here.

So tell us what you find most interesting and we’ll try to oblige.

And if you feel like it, please suggest others to become a fan or follow us on Twitter.

Thanks so much,

- Anderson and McCoy

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Every week I alternate between teaching in the morning or the afternoon. Whatever period I don’t teach during I usually spend doing paper work, lesson planning, important Facebook procrastination, writing articles, or just going to play with the kids anyway.

So for those of you that care here is a timeline of my day (during a week when I work mornings.)

6:30 AM: Wake up tired, snooze the alarm a few times, hate the whole world, burn off my first 3 layers of skin in a hot shower

7:30 AM: Ride my bike for about 15 minutes (through a crowded maze of lunatics) to get to school, then hang out and eat breakfast

8:30 AM: Go to the classroom and hang out with the kids while they play and get situated

9:00 AM: Begin my English lesson. This usually involves getting all the kids to sit around in a circle and doing some introductory sentence practice (“Hello, my name is Roxy and I’m from Australia”) and then singing a song or playing a game and then some flash cards to help them learn new vocabulary words. Occasionally, I have them do English work books.

10:00 AM: The kids have a short snack and then go outside to exercise and play.

11:00 AM: Kids have about 20 minutes of free time, eat lunch then nap. I’m there assisting and organizing.

12:00 PM: My lunch starts and I have until about 2:30

2:30 PM: The kids morning schedule basically repeats but with a Chinese lesson, outside, inside free time, then parents pick them up. I usually join them unless I have some work to do.

5:00 PM: Ride my bike back to the apartment, crash on couch exhausted

I know it doesn’t sound too rough, and it isn’t as bad as McCoys schedule, but it is still pretty tiring. Even though I only teach for an hour I spend all day with them and I constantly have to organize activities and games or break up arguments or fights. It goes really fast, but at the end you feel totally drained. After a few weeks though I bet I will be adjusted and it’ll be easier. Still, it’s nothing to complain about; it’s a pretty amazing job.

So there you have it. That’s my day.

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This process can be initiated by teachers at the beginning of the term to establish rules that the whole classroom finds fair and are willing to follow. Students are more likely to keep to their end of the bargain when using No-Lose Conflict Resolution and participative rule setting because of a simple bit of common sense called The Principle of Participation.

Simply stated, the principle holds that people who are invited to participate in making decisions or setting up rules that affect them somehow are more willing to abide by them or keep to their part of an agreement. We all like feeling that our views are being represented.

Sounds great. But it isn’t easy to do. Yesterday’s class didn’t go well. I’ll explain some of the reasons I think I failed.

I Don’t Speak Chinese

This is a pretty obvious one but I think it’s important to understand how hard it is to communicate with children that don’t speak the same language.

There are some native English speakers and a few kids who are semi-fluent. But for most our interactions involve very basic, merely functional English communication. It is simple stuff like hello, how are you, go outside, go to the bathroom, who wants to play and whatever phrases we’re learning that day.

Oh yeah, there is also upside down. (This is a frequent request from the girls who want me to pick them up and carry them around upside down. It’s like some kind of drug; they get high on having blood rush to their brain. Anyway, I love the game too so I’m not complaining.)

The rest of the communication is nonverbal. This shouldn’t be underestimated. I know 100% that the kids can tell from my body language, the way I smile or laugh, how I pick them up, and everything else that I’m different from the Chinese assistants.

But when it comes to communicating an idea it gets much harder. I said to the whole class “I know this classroom has a lot of rules and I know that you guys don’t like some of them. I was hoping that we could spend ten or fifteen minutes and talk about the rules and see if we can come up with some that everybody agrees on.” The English speaking kids understood this sentence (partially at least, more on that later) but the Chinese kids had no clue. And how could they? I tried to simplify what I wanted but it isn’t easy to do. And it just confused them more. This led to the second problem.

The Chinese Translators

In my classroom there are a couple Chinese teachers who are there to help. One of them is my assistant and part of her job is to translate for me.

Usually, this isn’t a problem. She’s the nicest of the Chinese assistants and treats the kids very well. Unfortunately, this whole Principle of Participation thing wasn’t something she was even remotely familiar with. So when I said “I know you guys hate the no-talking-during-lunch rule” she translated it to “no talking during lunch.”

She wasn’t doing it maliciously or anything. When I told her I wanted to talk about the rules, she probably just assumed that it meant we were going to recite the rules. What else could it mean?

Either way, her translations essentially came out the exact opposite of what I wanted. She turned it from a participative rule setting session into a reminder about all the rules currently imposed. Fail.

This Idea Is More Foreign Than A Second Language

This is the issue that even had the English speakers confused.

Children in schools are not used to getting a say in the rules. Even if they have great parents that practice these techniques (and there is probably a 1-in-2-billion chance of that being the case) there are even fewer schools that do. Kids are used to being ordered, prodded, pushed, commanded, controlled, subjected, restrained, adjusted, confined, directed, punished, silenced, and finally questioned. They’re like terror suspects minus the water-boarding (or not).

I’m some foreigner, that they’ve only known for a week, sitting them down and essentially saying “we’re going to do things the exact opposite of every thing you’ve previously experienced.” They had no idea what I was getting at. It was kind of like when I first told them we weren’t going to do rewards and punishments back on day one and they all just looked at me like confused puppies. Only then it was cute and funny. This time it was sad.

So What Do I Do?

I think I’ve laid out the biggest three issues. I can’t speak Chinese, my translators don’t know what the fuck is going on, and my kids aren’t used to this sort of thing at all.

So how can I make this work? I don’t know actually. I’m going to keep trying. But short of learning Chinese myself or hiring my own excellent translator I’m not sure what to do. I can’t go back in time and make their parents start them on this system. And I can’t change the way the entire school works.

This is why I’m writing this post. I want your ideas. I know there are some extremely intelligent people who visit this blog and I’m sure you are one of them. Help me.

Leave a comment or email me. Or, if you have no ideas, maybe you could pass this post on to a friend. Thank you!

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Inside the furniture market looks like this:

Room after room just packed to the walls with whatever you might need. They even have the kitchen sink (har har okay I’ll stop).

If you’re interested in a shower that can also travel through time, you’ve come to the right place.

If you’re not so into the luxury of using space technology to shower, don’t worry, they have alternatives.

Who is using these things? My theory is that someone used the time travel shower to bring these things back from around 400 A.D. But what do I know? I’m just a guy who takes pictures of bathtubs.

This isn’t really related to furniture but one of the vendors had it on her desk for good luck. It’s pretty ridiculous.

It’s a golden frog surrounded by a bunch of coins. I’m assuming all of this nonsense is used to increase luck. With a high enough luck rating the vendor will receive +3 to their Ripping Off Foreigners skill.

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Anyway, after having them tighten up all the bolts, I rode it right out of the store and back home. By the way, the store I bought it from is called Carrefour (spelling?). I don’t know if they are in other countries or not. I would describe it as a store trying to be the way the Chinese imagine an American supermarket.

It’s laid out like a western store, so it seems very familiar. The biggest difference is that it’s like a combination of every store ever. The top floor is massive grocery store with tons of fresh fruit and vegetables and all kinds of weirdo meat. It also has all of the standard food like cereal and soda and cookies and snacks. But then you take the escalator downstairs and thats where you can find pretty much everything in the world. It has furniture, bedding, toiletries, motorized scooters, bikes, electronics, clothing, jewelry, school supplies, like really, everything. I could keep listing forever.

Maybe I’ll go back and take some pictures. I also need to take some pictures of the traffic that I’ll be riding in. Until then just trust me that Chinese traffic is such a retarded clusterfuck it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. There’s 13 million people living in this city and none of them can walk, ride, or drive without getting in each other’s way.

I have a friend who would love it though because he could ride over pedestrians on his bike and nobody would give a shit. Pedestrians have 0% right of way. Buses and cars are king. Bikers are like wiley jesters switching from highway to sidewalk swerving in and out of cars and running down pedestrians. And that’s what I’ll be now.

Update: Apparently Carrefour is a pretty huge and well-known hypermarket chain run by the French. I probably should have just Googled it. But anyway, it’s still an amazing store.

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Anyway, I figure this is as good a piece of Engrish as any to use for a caption contest.

Submit your captions for the above photo in the comments. McCoy and I will select our favorite and we’ll find some Chinese knickknack to give you as a prize.

Here are some good terrible examples to get your started:

• “Ass Hair Salon: The closest shave from top to bottom.”
• “Finally you can show them your best side.”
• “Proper grooming is important for any lady.”

Okay, okay. You can all stop groaning now and come up with some funny ones.

No purchase necessary to win. Multiple entries permitted. Contest eligibility may vary. Prizes subject to nonexistence.

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Monday was supposed to be the day we got everything set up and that pretty much happened except for the internet. Hopefully tonight we will finally get it working and McCoy and I can start pumping out some new posts.

Just as a side note, we went from Friday night to Monday night without a real shower. It was torture to try to take cold showers. The water was like freezing sheets of ice rain. And what made it even worse was that we had a perfectly working water cooler that could give us boiling hot water for tea and coffee. It just taunted us.

I actually tried filling up a Nalgene bottle with the near-boiling water and taking it into the shower. So I was in there like jumping under the ice water and then jumping back and splashing myself with scalding water. I also tried mixing them in little glass drinking cups and lining them up on my shower shelves and pouring them over my head one at a time.

Anyway, this is what becomes of you when you lose some basic amenities. Just so you know…

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Before I talk about some of things wrong with this system, let me first say that it is way better than a strict “do as the authority figure says or get punished” method. It actually tries to establish a consistent set of rules for what constitutes good behavior and leans much more on the rewards side as an incentive. Compared to a system that essentially treats kids like slaves to be yelled at and bullied into behaving, the rewards and incentives approach is a great leap forward (China pun, har har).

The rewards system is to strict authority what democracy is to dictatorship. Sure, democracy is better than dictatorship, but it’s still a piece of shit. Here are three things that are wrong with the rewards system:

1. It Only Teaches One Thing: Obedience

The reward system is supposed to incentivize good behavior but what it really does is teach children that being “good” means following the authority figures’ rules. Now it doesn’t really matter what the teacher defines as good behavior. It might be not talking during class or always raising your hand before asking a question. Sometimes it’s just a reward for the correct answer — which sends a terrible message to the kids that don’t know the correct answer: you’re not good.

This is especially bad when you have a big old heap of arbitrary classroom rules. For example, my Chinese assistants don’t want the kids to talk during their meals. They have a good reason for it: there is only limited time to eat and once the kids start talking they almost always ignore their food. Then lunch will end and won’t be finished and they’ll be hungry the rest of the day. But if you combine this with the rewards system you end rewarding the kids that sit quietly during their meal and punishing (with frowny faces or loss of playtime) the kids that chat while eating.

I don’t know about you guys, but punishing a kid for talking while he’s eating seems like a pretty asshole thing to do. And it certainly isn’t going to teach them anything about morality. The only lesson they will get is do what you’re told and you’ll be rewarded.

What if the rules are rational and fair? Well that certainly would be better, but I’ve just never seen it. Sure there are classroom rules about hitting and fighting — I would consider those “rational” — but there are plenty more that are about things like sitting quietly, listening to the assistants, sharing toys, not speaking out of turn, lining up before going outside, washing hands before food, etc. Again, rewarding a kid for lining up before going outside just teaches them to obey authority, nothing more.

Even if you could establish a set of rational rules, I think the message would be the same. The authority you were learning to obey would be less random and make more sense, but you’d still be learning to obey. Consistent and reasonable authority is absolutely better than random and arbitrary authority, for sure, but the lesson is unchanged.

2. It Punishes The Wrong Person

Wait, what? I’ll explain. If I’m teaching a lesson and my students aren’t listening, if they are talking amongst themselves, or staring bored out the window how is that their fault? I’m the one who is being paid to teach them. It’s my job to make my lessons and engaging and interesting. If the kids are finding my lessons boring or uninteresting I’m pretty sure that it’s my fault, not theirs.

Instead of giving them frowny faces for not listening or stars for paying attention maybe I should just focus on being a better teacher. My students don’t owe me anything, and rewarding them for paying attention to my boring ass flashcard game is just a lazy excuse for being a shitty teacher.

It applies for almost every classroom rule that you might enforce using the rewards system. You can’t settle disputes between children without the threat of a frowny face? Fail. You can’t get the students to wash their hands before eating unless you give them stickers? Fail.

I’m not saying that it’s easy to do. It’s hard as hell. I know. I’m struggling to do it. But I refuse to switch to a system that punishes or rewards the students because of my shortcomings.

3. It Establishes Artificial Consequences

When it comes to kids you hear a lot of talk about having to teach them the “consequences” of their actions. This is always done by making up some bullshit fake consequence and then imposing it on them. This is often the excuse you hear for spanking kids. Besides it being just plain wrong to hit a kid, the excuse of “it teachers them consequences” is so retarded I hate even having to address it.

Guess what everybody? In the “real world” as “mature adults” you don’t get spanked for not behaving. Excluding the one violent relationship we are all forced to participate in with our benevolent political masters, nobody is allowed to use force against you when you “don’t behave.”

What are the types of consequences we do have to face? Well, there are the outright cause and effect ones. For example, if you don’t eat, you die. These are pretty straight forward and no child needs to be taught cause and effect through punishments and rewards. Kids learn cause and effect just by interacting with the world.

There are other types of consequences too, like how your actions affect others emotionally. These aren’t learned as easily as the physical cause and effect consequences, but you don’t need a rewards system to teach them. In fact a rewards system can’t teach these types of consequences. The only way you grow to understand the emotional effects of your actions is through empathy. You have empathy for yourself and understand how others effect you and then you have empathy for others and understand how you effect them. How do you encourage this in kids? That’s probably a topic for another post, but I think you start by showing them empathy.

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Keep checking back!

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1. Quick Update
2. What’s Been Going On…
3. A Quick Story on Why Democracy Sucks and Introduction to a New Series

The Worst Parts

Pretty much any time I was dealing with adults. Like McCoy explained in his last couple posts, trying to get things done (in an honest and legitimate way) is like pulling teeth in China. I spent all of my “adult interaction” time trying to figure out if I was keeping my job, if McCoy was getting one, where we were going to live, and why no one would just deal plainly with us.

But that wasn’t so bad. The absolute worst part — and will continue to be the worst parts of all my days — was seeing the poor treatment of children. It’s mostly a lot of little things that show how little respect adults have for children. The worst incident happened during the students’ lunchtime.

I was in my classroom sitting with my students when a Chinese assistant stormed into the room with a student of a different class. She was pulling him along with one hand and had his plate of food in the other. The assistant forced him into a seat at a far table and slammed the food down in front of him. She yelled at him angrily. Then, she pulled him out of his seat and dragged him toward our table while pointing and yelling. It was in Chinese but I guessed it was something like “Look at how well behaved they are!” She put him back into his seat, hard, and then walked out of the room.

My kids were just staring at me, trying to read my reaction. I got up and walked over the boy who had just been yelled at and sat down in front of him. He was sitting silently, staring at his plate of food, and brooding. After a few seconds of me sitting there he looked up.

“My name is Anderson. What’s your name?”

“My name is Derek…” And he burst into tears.

Jesus Christ, I hate this. “What’s wrong?”

He mumbled some words in Chinese and English. It sounded like “I don’t like this food. I don’t want to eat it.”

Suddenly the Chinese assistant appeared back in the room and came stalking over to our table. She slowed down when she saw me sitting there and sat down without saying anything. I asked her what the problem was. Her response was in Chinese, angry, and directed at Derek.

“He doesn’t like the food?” I asked.

The assistant nodded but gave Derek a look like You’re such a bad kid for not wanting to eat this.

“Can’t he just eat something else?”

She looked at me. Angrily at first, but then her face sort of… calmed. She picked up the plate of food and led Derek out of the room, presumably to find him something else to eat.

This was a small incident, especially in the grand scheme of how children are treated around the world. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a perfect example of adults not treating kids like they’re human beings.

I talked to the other teachers about it later and they agreed that it was terrible, but also warned me that I would see a lot of more it. “This is just how things are here. You can try to report the assistant, but since she didn’t hit the kid no one would do anything. Hitting isn’t even a big deal in China, let alone yelling. And if you do try to get the assistants in trouble it will just hurt you more. They are the headmaster’s eyes and ears and if you get on their bad side you won’t be here long.” Great. I’m going to see this happening over and over and every time I will have to walk the thin line of trying to help and protect the kids without pissing off the assistants. Because truly going after the aggressive assistants would mean losing any chance of helping the kids.

But this is the shit you have to deal with when you’re trying to do decent things in a world full of terrible things. What other choice is there besides giving up and accepting that the world will always be full of terrible things? That’s something I would be more inclined to accept if it wasn’t for what’s next…

The Best Parts

Easy, the kids. Spending the day playing with 5 and 6 year olds. How could that not be the best part? And the hundreds of moments of them learning and playing and laughing and just enjoying themselves that I got to witness and be part of.

I’m going to do a post describing my kids, but for now trust me that they are totally awesome. There are so many conversations and interactions that I want to explain, but I’ll just give you my favorite.

I was beginning my English lesson that was all about introductions. Every student is supposed to say something like “Hello everybody, my name is [whatever]. I’m five years old and I’m from [wherever].” So the Chinese assistants wheeled over a big whiteboard for me and I started writing out the introductory phrase.

“Excuse me, excuse me!” called Roxy. “But the last teacher used to write down all of our names and if we behaved we would get a star next to our name. And we got three stars then we’d get a sticker.”

Obviously, I was not going to do the whole rewards and punishments thing. “Hmm, well, what if we just forget about that whole star and sticker thing and you guys just behave on your own?”

I watched seven heads tilt like confused puppies. “Um, okay, I guess…”

So that was definitely my favorite moment. I just laughed and we moved on. It worked and the kids all behaved. It probably won’t always work. But the kids can’t ever really misbehave anyway. They want to do certain things and I want to do certain things. It’s not “misbehaving” just because I don’t want them to do it. The challenge is finding ways to work together so we can both get what we want. It’s definitely much harder than just “I’m the authority figure so do what I say.” But so what? The price for treating someone like they are a real human being and not a slave to be ordered around is never too high.

Anyway, this is a pretty long post so I should wrap it up. There are more sad moments that I could recount, but many more happy ones. I think I’ll save both for my next 360 days.

Related posts:

1. Am I Making It Worse For My Students?
2. 3 Things Wrong With The Rewards System
3. My Kids’ Day (Or At Least How I Imagine Their Day Is)

Anyway, hopefully these pictures will help explain. (Click on them for a bigger version.)

This is a group of people lining up to get on a subway train. Notice how there are infinite of them.

Being on the subway is like an endless hall of mirrors. Except everyone is way too close and people are giving me dirty looks for taking pictures.

This is a packed wall-to-wall food court. Oh, by the way, below is an amazingly cheap and delicious meal that I bought in said food court.

This cost me 2 US dollars. Yup.

Speaking of food, there are so many street vendors (like the one above) that serve pretty legit food. I had one of those burrito-style wrap things. It was full of duck and veggies and really good. But not all street meat is legit.

This guy is cooking meat on top of a bucket. I passed at least a dozen other people doing the same thing. What the fuck? To his credit the meat smelled pretty good. (Also, I’m not sure why his face looks like that. Maybe he’s some sort of vampire shape-shifting meat cooker. I know it’s not because I fucked up the photo.)

One last thing. When we were at the hospital to take some medical exams we had to wait in line forever — which is typical — but for some reason the lines are labelled so strangely.

Why are there IP addresses labeling these lines? And why are they scrolling past on a stock ticker screen? Honestly, someone explain this to me.

Related posts:

1. Check Out My Sweet Ride
2. Snow In Beijing
3. Jade Factory and Badaling

5. How Else Are You Going to Find Out What Is Going On Over There

China is a long, long way away and you’re not going there. But we are. And we’re going to let you know exactly what type of crazy shit is happening there. Where else are you going to get that kind of information from, the news? The only thing you’re going to find out by watching the news is what celebrities tweeted about Tiger’s apology.

4. We Have No Idea What We’re Doing

Two guys who speak no Chinese, currently have no place to live, and know next to nothing about Chinese culture and customs. Some ridiculous things are going to happen to us and you know you want to read about it.

3. There Will Be Pictures

I’m going to be using my terribly amateur photography skills to bring you the finest second hand experience of things like the Great Wall and Mao’s Tomb. (I’m attaching a special lens so we can see if Mao’s ghost is wandering around holding hands with Zombie Hitler.)

2. You’re Our Friends So You’re Obligated To

We’re going to be calling you making sure you’re reading. Consider yourself warned.

1. There Will Be A Lot Of Really Awful Jokes

You’re going to realize that real quick, but then I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. Probably.

Related posts:

1. 5 Reasons To Love The Lava Bridge Game